Marriage, Relationships and Careers

​Every week, our staff and leaders receive and pray over your prayer requests. You can share a prayer request - day and night, at www.oslc.com/contact.

One of my spiritual habits is to pray over them, every day before I start my work. I need the constant reminder that God is God and I am not (I can't control any of this) and that seeing God work the lives of people - both near and far from Him, is why I get up everyday to do the things I do and what I go to be to dream about at night.

Over the last 50 days, I’ve noticed many of our prayers surround marriages, relationships, and careers of all shapes and sizes. If you're like me, you think about and pray for your marriage, relationships, and career quite a bit. And rightfully so. I mean, they're super important.

So, I thought I would share five reflections I had during my prayer time this past week surrounding these topics. My prayer for you is that you'd be encouraged and supported.

1. Be proactive - not reactive. Whether it's with our jobs, our relationships, or our spouses, partners, or significant others, we tend to react to what is happening around us rather than making time to be present, available, and attentive. Honoring people around us - our bosses, co-worker, spouses, and friends both in public and in private is one way to proactively invest in your relationships. Jesus honors us by His presence, access through prayer at all times, and attentiveness to both your darkest and light-filled moments so that we can honor others with our presence, availability, and attentiveness.
2. Build on Jesus as the foundation of your career. I recently heard that the average professional football player's career is 2.5 years. That's a lot of change and transition. Our lives are filled with just as much change (albeit, perhaps not specifically in your career, but life, in general). Ephesians 2:20-21 says, "Jesus Christ Himself is the chief cornerstone in whom the entire building, being fitted together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord." If we find our identity in who Jesus has declared us to be, we will still experience change, transition, and hard times - but our lives will be build on the One who holds it all together.
3. Just be kind... always. Everything you do has an opportunity to demonstrate the presence and power of Jesus to people in your life. From your social media feeds to your conversations and from your grocery check-out line conversations to the smile you share with the person who just cut you off on 112th and Canyon... you have the presence and power of Jesus in you. In all your relationships, you may find it's hard to be angry, bitter or hold a grudge when you are kind to them. Want to learn more what I'm talking about? Check out Romans 12. 
4. Starve your doubts by feeding your faith. It's kind of cliche. You can find similar sayings on Pintrest, quoted by a variety of authors, and even used by leadership gurus like John Maxwell. But just because it's cliche doesn't mean it's powerful. The world, the evil one, and our own selves want to tear us down, beat us up, and make us feel like losers. Whether it's not being an adequate mate, parent, friend, or worker - we doubt ourselves, which means we also doubt God's promises to us, for us, and over us. Find one of God's promises in His Word and starve out your own self-talk and self-thinking and feed your faith. Need a place to begin? Check out this List of 50+ Promises from God.
5. Winning isn't everything. Well... it all depends on what we define as winning. I don't believe winning means owning everything you want. I don't believe winning means creating our own kingdoms or dynasties like an ultimate fantasy football team or Play Station game. If you play team sports, winning is being faithful to who you are - even when nobody is looking. Staying on your assignment. Sticking with the game plan. Executing to the best of your ability. Owning your mistakes. In this sense, winning doesn't really matter when it comes to profit lines, promotions, cars, houses, activities, retirement funds... whatever else we may compete with at work or at home. No doubt, these things are important... but, the only thing that counts in the end is when you win at living a life of integrity in your marriage, career, family, and other relationships.

So, we want to help you win at life. Here are three incredible resources that continue to help Beth and me win at life. We are far from perfect. . .  seriously far from it. But, we are always learning, growing, and praying that Jesus continues to teach us how to do life better. Check out these resources:

• Parent Cue - Helping you win at home as a parent
• Faith and Work - Helping you win at your career
• Married People - Helping you win at your significant relationships and marriage (a great site for singles, too!)

Know you're being prayed for and if you ever want to talk about winning at life, send a note to me or anyone on our fantastic ministry team. Truly, we are here to help you win at life as well as your faith.

Don’t forget that we kick-off our Simply Jesus message series, this Sunday. Our creative team is working hard to help us not just learn, but experience what Simply Jesus is all about. Bring the entire family, your Bible, and some friends. See you there!

Love you more than you know.
Pastor Tim