Imitating Christ at Work
We who work for a living can learn important lessons, especially from good people doing good work.
This week we remind ourselves that Our Lord lived a fully human life. As an adult, like all of us, He worked. Before he began his public life, he worked with his foster father, St Joseph, a carpenter, who taught Our Lord this trade. Our Lord's days were spent working, just as we work.
Knowing this, we might consider how He worked. And if we could understand this, we might consider imitating Him in our own work. What better example could we have to imitate?
Can we hope to understand just how he worked, how he thought, how he spoke, how he acted? Father George Zimpfer helps us here:
Have you ever been pressed by a deadline, maybe even multiple deadlines. You're pressed to get work done, and the work can't be sloppy. Has you ever become impatient, even short-tempered in these circumstances?
For example, I run a small business. We were recently putting together reports for a client. My assistant sought my guidance. I became impatient. My voice communicated this. I somehow expected this person to know something they simply didn't know, nor was there any reason to expect them to know it. My short-tempered, terse responses were not only unproductive, but unfair.
Can you imagine Our Lord responding in a short-tempered, terse manner in such a situation? Neither can I. So this time, after my initial responses (and I'm guessing by God's sending me some actual grace), "something" reminded me that Our Lord would surely not be impatient with this person, who asked perfectly reasonable questions, who was, in fact, trying to do a good job. "Something" (again, actual grace?) came over me and stopped me in my tracks. I looked up from my laptop and spent what amounted to only a few minutes listening, answering some questions, and provided the needed guidance. When the job was completed, it was indeed excellent work, and I acknowledged it.
It all could have gone differently. I could have responded as I have many times in the past: impatiently. I might have even spoken harsh words that I would later regret, and for which I would need to apologize.
Can you imagine Our Lord ever having to apologize for His words?
Next time we'll look more at imitating Christ at work...
This week we remind ourselves that Our Lord lived a fully human life. As an adult, like all of us, He worked. Before he began his public life, he worked with his foster father, St Joseph, a carpenter, who taught Our Lord this trade. Our Lord's days were spent working, just as we work.
Knowing this, we might consider how He worked. And if we could understand this, we might consider imitating Him in our own work. What better example could we have to imitate?
Can we hope to understand just how he worked, how he thought, how he spoke, how he acted? Father George Zimpfer helps us here:
Imitation of Christ does not mean that we must seek an exact parallel of incidents in our lives and that of Jesus. It means that we must strive to think and act according to His Spirit, as we should judge He would speak and act or think in any given circumstances. The hundreds of expressions of our spirituality are our own, just as the events of our Lord’s life were peculiarly His own. His day was not as our day; His circumstances of life were not as ours. Yet he lived, and he asks us to live in like manner. It is an ideal, of course, and we strive to approximate it. We must look beneath the outward circumstances, the mere activities of Christ’s life, and try to discover the deep moral truths and principles which guided them. Most of our Lord’s life was unexceptional, if viewed only in these circumstances. He was not always working miracles, but he lived among men and women graciously. What made Him a Light among men, a Light that shone with ever increasing brilliance until today His figures stands as the greatest in human history, was His inner life. His spirit. He came not only as the Son of God; He came to us also as the Son of Man. He not only died for us, but He lived for us as well, to show us how to live.Father Zimpfer will have more to say about how we can imitate Christ next time. For now, let's see how we might apply what we've learned to our work today.
Have you ever been pressed by a deadline, maybe even multiple deadlines. You're pressed to get work done, and the work can't be sloppy. Has you ever become impatient, even short-tempered in these circumstances?
For example, I run a small business. We were recently putting together reports for a client. My assistant sought my guidance. I became impatient. My voice communicated this. I somehow expected this person to know something they simply didn't know, nor was there any reason to expect them to know it. My short-tempered, terse responses were not only unproductive, but unfair.
Can you imagine Our Lord responding in a short-tempered, terse manner in such a situation? Neither can I. So this time, after my initial responses (and I'm guessing by God's sending me some actual grace), "something" reminded me that Our Lord would surely not be impatient with this person, who asked perfectly reasonable questions, who was, in fact, trying to do a good job. "Something" (again, actual grace?) came over me and stopped me in my tracks. I looked up from my laptop and spent what amounted to only a few minutes listening, answering some questions, and provided the needed guidance. When the job was completed, it was indeed excellent work, and I acknowledged it.
It all could have gone differently. I could have responded as I have many times in the past: impatiently. I might have even spoken harsh words that I would later regret, and for which I would need to apologize.
Can you imagine Our Lord ever having to apologize for His words?
Next time we'll look more at imitating Christ at work...
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