My Devotionals

There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit distributes them. There are different kinds of service, but the same Lord. There are different kinds of working, but in all of them and in everyone it is the same God at work. (1 Corinthians 12:4-6)

Over the last three weeks, we have looked at a number of Scriptures that can help us respond well to jobs we don’t love. But all of these responses have assumed staying in your current job. Today, we turn to our final biblical response to work we don’t love: changing your job entirely.

Now, I have saved this response for last because I am afraid it is often the first and only response we consider when we feel stuck in a job we don’t love. But the fact is that there are situations in which making a career move is the most God-honoring thing you can do. This is especially true if it is clear that you are in a job that doesn’t match your skill-sets and you see no path to achieving mastery of your current craft....

Slaves, obey your earthly masters in everything; and do it, not only when their eye is on you and to curry their favor, but with sincerity of heart and reverence for the Lord. Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving. (Colossians 3:22-24)

Last week, we saw how Scripture instructs us to honor and respect our employers, even when we hate our jobs. One of the ways we do that is by obeying the biblical command to work hard and with excellence. In Colossians 3:23, Paul says, “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters.”

Here, Paul is reminding us that even when we are dissatisfied with our jobs, bosses, or employers, we are to work with everything we’ve got. Why? Because ultimately, we aren’t working for our “human...

Let all who are under a yoke as bondservants regard their own masters as worthy of all honor, so that the name of God and the teaching may not be reviled. (1 Timothy 6:1)

The dominant wisdom the world offers people who don’t love our jobs is to simply quit and move on to a better opportunity. As we will see later in this devotional series, changing your job is a biblical response to work you don’t love, but it is far from the only God-honoring course of action. But regardless of whether you stay or leave your current position, all Christians should be troubled by the tone in which worldly career gurus encourage us to quit our jobs. The overriding tone of this advice has a very “stick it to the man” ring to it. By casting bad bosses and unhealthy corporate cultures as the villains, many talking heads would have you believe that you are doing a heroic thing by disrespecting your employer before, during, and after your departure from the...

To Adam he said, “Because you listened to your wife and ate fruit from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You must not eat from it,’ “Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat food from it all the days of your life. 18 It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. 19 By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return.” (Genesis 3:17-19)

When you’re in a job you don’t love, it can be easy to forget that work was a part of God’s perfect design for us. As Genesis 1 and 2 make clear, work existed prior to sin, with God inviting Adam and Eve to co-create with Him, “filling the earth” with the work of their hands. But as soon as sin entered the picture, work became difficult and painful—a reality we still experience today.

According to a 2017...