Lights in the World

Yesterday I attended Bible Study, and one of the verses we discussed was Philippians 2:14. It goes like this:

Do all things without grumbling or disputing, that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world, holding fast to the word of life…

Is it Really that Easy?

When I was little, I was always skeptical of this verse. How can not grumbling and arguing be this important? Surely it’s not that out of the ordinary for someone to not complain all the time – how can there possibly be this great of a contrast? I dismissed it as an exaggeration.

Then I graduated and joined the workforce.

“Is it really that easy to stand out by not complaining?” asked one of the officers in the study who hadn’t been on a ship yet.

“It’s the easiest thing in the world and the hardest thing in the world,” we told him.

The Easiest and the Hardest Thing

It’s the hardest thing in the world, because when you’re surrounded by a culture of negativity, where complaining is a form of bragging, a genre of jokes, and a way of life; when everyone around you is talking about how unfair things are, and you’re not terribly happy with them yourself; when everyone responds to orders with grudging passive-aggression – it’s the hardest thing in the world not to get sucked into that negativity.

Half the time you don’t even realize you’re doing it until you catch yourself halfway through a complaint, or realize that 80% of the things coming out of your mouth are criticisms, or find that you’re still fuming about something that happened over an hour ago. It takes constant vigilance and God’s grace to escape from a pervasive culture of negativity, and there are some dark places out there.

The flip side, though, is that if you can manage to break away from that, if you make a conscious effort to do a good job – not even a stellar job, just a good job – without grumbling or arguing; if you encourage others rather than joining them in complaining; if you seek to solve the problem rather than snarkily pointing it out – it really does shine. It’s like a breath of fresh air to the people you’re with. It doesn’t matter if they’re superiors, subordinates, or coworkers; everyone wants to be around you. And you never know how much of a difference you can make in someone’s life just by being there at the right time and really caring.

I’m Sending You

I won’t say my first two years in the Navy were the happiest years of my life. There is one thing the workforce gave me, though, that college didn’t, and that was the chance to heavily impact people’s lives. It was that thought that got me up every morning. I’m not proud of all the things I did during my first tour of duty, but I can easily tell you the moments I’m most proud of. It’s the moments I took the time to stop ‘doing my job’ and really saw the person next to me, saw he was hurting, took him aside and just let him know I saw him and I was on his side. It’s hard to oversell the feeling you get when he comes back and tells you he’ll never forget that moment.

I don’t know where you work. I do know what you post on Facebook about your work. And I know that according to Gallup, only about one in three Americans is excited about his job. Given that, I suspect my experience with negativity is not out of the ordinary. And I would encourage you to shine.

I used to pray every day when I woke up, “God, I don’t want to go out there. It’s full of darkness and depression.”

He always answered the same way.

“I know. That’s why I’m sending you.”

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