“When I got into a new job, there was someone who was very condescending to me,” says Ryan Howard.
And he knows he’s not alone in this experience, Howard, a global manufacturing expert, tells Dr. Steve Greene on a recent episode of Greenelines on the Charisma Podcast Network. His ministry and podcast, both titled Your Faith at Work, exist to address issues just like this.
“And I think this is what’s so important is because many people, they hear that ‘Your Faith at Work,’ and they think, OK, great. My work is meaningful. It matters to God; He cares about it. OK, great. … And they kind of go on to the next thing,” Howard says.
However, he adds, applying real faith to real work involves much more than that: “That difficult boss that you have, or that difficult relationship, or that thing you messed up or that thing you forgot to do, or … these sort of other crises of faith that may come up.”
And Howard has applied this attitude multiple times, he says. In the situation with the condescending co-worker, he says, “Normally, I wouldn’t let that go. But I was new to the department. And some time went by, and I finally woke up to that.”
After the condescension happened in view of others, Howard says, he spent time researching online about how to deal with it and found no answers—until he decided to consult God.
“Something just kind of floated to the top, and I got what I felt God was saying: ‘You need to say this,'” he says. “And so I said, ‘OK, give me the open door. And I’ll say it.'”
The next morning, Howard says, he went into the office at 6 a.m., only to encounter the person with whom he had the issue. The two talked, and “We just completely unraveled this whole thing that 10 hours of counseling discussion couldn’t have done,” he says.
Howard says it’s critical that we go to God about specific work issues and recognize that “He wants to use it. He may be shaping you for something; He may be honing you.”
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