Dec 30, 2021
Hey, it's Mike Henry with Follower of One. Today, I'm continuing a story that we started a few days ago, talking a little bit about the past and the origins of Follower of One.
I struggled with trying to figure out how to live my faith at work. And, , I was constantly complaining to God that I felt like I was the only Christian in the place. I felt alone.
I knew that it couldn't be fully true, that I was the only Christian in the place. But I remember thinking that at the time. I felt like I was the only one struggling with all of this, my faith, the fact that the job didn't match my desire for what my future would be. I was struggling and many thoughts went through my head.
Some that we'll address in future episodes. One of those was did Jesus save me, and then leave me in this messed up work situation, and my only job was to stay out of trouble until Sunday? Another one that continually bugged me was if it wasn't just staying out of trouble, what was I supposed to do? I whined to God about being all by myself.
I believe my most common prayer was "Please get me out of here." And many days I probably didn't even say, please. I begged God to get me out of there. I wanted to work with other Christians and do work that I enjoyed with people that I enjoyed. One of the things that blew me away was the idea that the almighty God who created the entire universe needed me to pray.
I struggled with the idea. Why did I have to go ask him for things? It was a real problem for me because I realized he knew everything. So if he knows everything and whatever he does his best, why do I need to pray? I was struggling with that problem, when I found out one day that our FedEx guy was a praying guy.
He stopped by our office twice a day. He dropped off in the morning and then he came back and picked things up in the evening. One day, the coworker who typically interacted with him, wasn't there. And so the driver got me to sign and he asked me where my coworker was. He was praying for that coworker because that coworker had an ill relative.
And he wondered if that coworker was away helping that relative or at the hospital or something, if anything had taken a negative turn. I assured him that everything was okay and that my coworker was just running an errand. But now I also knew that our FedEx guy was a believer. He, and I began sharing prayer requests.
I don't think I prayed very much for my own coworker, but I did pray for the request shared with me by our FedEx guy. I'm blown away by how my reflections on that time seem so checkered, so much of a mix between interacting with this Christian coworker who was stepping into my space twice a day and being miserable about the rest of my day.
I spent most of each day angry about work. And yet God was clearly directing me to pray for the people that I interacted with. And a verse kept coming back to me. I kept thinking about a verse in 1 Thessalonians 5:17. It says "Pray without ceasing." Its one of the easiest memory verses in the Bible.
My friend was praying. He was being a marketplace minister. He lived his faith and he took his high pressure job, to quickly deliver packages, and he still found a way to turn that job into a full-time ministry.
I struggled with my full-time ministry for years. The result is Follower of One. It's this ministry that you see today, God was convicting me because I knew that he provided that FedEx guy to pray for me and to encourage me and to challenge me to be a minister in the workplace.
What can you do today to be a minister in your workplace? And what kind of an example can you leave for others? The result of my struggle, it's Follower of One. I continue to struggle with this, but I want to help you. Will you choose to be a minister today? You can. Just begin praying for the people around you.
Punch in. Like we talked about in a previous episode "Here I am, Lord." That's my first prayer. And then let's ask God how we can pray for the people around us. He will put us to work in the lives of every person that we work with. If you'd like to know more about this, if you'd like to be better at integrating your faith into your daily life, check out our online community.
The web URL is in the notes. It's https://community.followerofone.org. Feel free to join us as we help one another integrate our faith into our daily lives. Thanks very much.
And check us out, check out our community Follower of One. You can learn more about us at https://followerofone.org. Thanks very much.