Showing Up

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Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might, for in the grave,
where you are going, there is neither working nor planning nor knowledge nor
wisdom.

Ecclesiastes 9:10, NIV

The key to success at work is showing up. And at the various businesses of Belay Enterprises, we teach individuals rebuilding lives from addiction or felony conviction that showing up is more than just occupying space at work. It’s deciding to be fully present at work and applying your best effort towards your tasks. Rising stars in different jobs are those people who know how to show up on a daily basis even when they don’t feel like it. And the reality is that we will all not feel like it at times. On those days when I don’t feel like giving my best, I find it helpful to find some space to thank God for the ways he has blessed me and then ask for some direction on the most important tasks that I should focus on that day. A time of refocusing and recommitting helps me to show up.

Ecclesiastes 9:10 reminds us to work hard at our jobs because some day in the future there will be no more working because of death. We are all created in God’s image. As image bearers, humans are imprinted with the ability to create and work. It’s part of our nature. We are fully human when we find opportunities to create and work…but we only have a limited time frame. Death temporarily brings an end to our creative selves until God recreates the world. Those with faith in Jesus will join him forever in the new world…and I believe that there will be a creative aspect to our future existence in partnership with God…only now we will create without the sin and suffering which corrodes our present world.

So as we enter a new year, I encourage all of us to strive to show up…to really show up as we work in partnership with God to create a better world in our individual jobs.

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