Wouldn’t be great to stand out at your job at a whole new level? I was reading from Daniel and a verse captured my imagination. “…he (the king) found them ten times better than all the magicians and enchanters in his whole kingdom.” (1:20 bold mine) Wouldn’t that be great?
Now I know that we need to be careful not to make a onetime miracle into a principle, but looking at the rest of the chapter there are some things we can apply to our lives. And wouldn’t you be excited about even being found five times better than your coworkers by your boss. Here are some things to do:
Pray for favor with your immediate supervisor and a few levels up.
The passage says that the official above Daniel had favor and sympathy for him (1:9). You can pray that for yourself every day on the way for work. While you are praying it wouldn’t hurt to pray up the organizational chart as well. This doesn’t exclude you if you are self employed. Pray for favor with the people that you do business with everyday. If you are a stay at home mom you can pray for favor with teachers and other parents that you deal with on a regular basis.
Pray for direction to avoid compromise.
Daniel did not want to compromise in the way that he lived (1:8). Ask God to show you where you should take a stand and where compromise may have snuck into your life. Deal with it quickly. In my Charles Finney book he highlights the importance of looking at both the compromise that you are doing and areas where you should be doing something that you are not.
Pray for ability to learn your job and understanding to excel at it.
Daniel and his friends were blessed by God to understand what they needed to do in their job (1:17). We could all use that. God says we can ask for wisdom with we need it (James 1:5) so we might as well ask that for our jobs. Again this applies even if you are in other areas as well. As I lead this non-profit I pray for wisdom to lead it well. Every parent knows they need wisdom to fulfill their role of parent well!
As you pray these three things and work hard you may be surprised at how your boss will end up thinking you are 10 times better than everyone else!
Tweet This