Latest / Prayer Before Work / Everyone Left at 4:30 and I Was Still There - Prayer Before Work
Transcript
- Sean Graver: By four thirty in the afternoon, half of your team has cleared out. Coats are on, laptops are closed, gone. And you're still there. Not because your boss is watching, but because you can't seem to make yourself leave. There's always one more thing. Hey, welcome back to Prayer Before Work. My name is Sean. You know, and even when you finally go do go home, your your brain Doesn't. You're replaying the meeting. You're maybe you're rehearsing tomorrow. maybe you're tweaking a a sentence in an email you already sent. Well the Psalmist writes something surprisingly direct about this in Psalm one twenty-seven verse two. It reads In vain you rise early and stay up late, toiling for food to eat, for he grants sleep To those he loves. The word vain is strong. It's not saying hard work is bad. It's saying that work built on constant striving, work that steals your rest, it produces less than you think it does. Remember, sleep isn't a reward that you earn after you've proven yourself, or you've maybe exhausted yourself enough. It's something that God gives to people he loves, which means resting isn't lazy. It's an act of trust. And staying late every night doesn't make you more valuable. Half the time, it just means you're doing tomorrow's war reading tonight on top of today's work. So leaving it a decent hour takes practice, not willpower alone. And it might mean setting a hard stop on your calendar and treating it the same way you would treat an important meeting that you couldn't skip. It might mean writing tomorrow's first task down before you close your laptop. So your brain has somewhere to put the thought instead of chewing on it all night long. And you're allowed to trust that the work will still be there tomorrow. You're allowed to believe that rest isn't something you have to justify. So let's pray. God, help us let go of the belief that staying later at work. Always means we care more. Teach us to trust you with the things we didn't finish today so we can actually rest tonight. And thank you for being a God who gives rest to the people he loves. Help us actually receive that gift instead of working around it. In Jesus' name, amen. Go make today count. Hey, a quick note before you go. A lot of these scenarios lately have come from stories other people have shared with me, not just my own experiences. If something's weighing on you at work and you'd like it prayed over or featured on the show, there's a link in the show notes where you can send it my way. Anonymously if you'd rather. See you next time.