In the last year, if you’re like me, your office life might look different. Like many employees throughout the pandemic who were fortunate enough to retain their jobs, my workspace moved from a corporate building to, well, my dining room. We can all agree that some days of work are better than others. If you’re working from home, maybe tensions with kids and their schoolwork or a working spouse who shares your space each day exist, or maybe you work in an office, store, or in manual labor and experience difficulties there. Whatever your job looks like, we can often experience a lack of prayerful engagement about our work, whether in or out of season.
Using Scripture to pray about our work
What most of us don’t realize, though, is the Bible gives us words for the hopes, aches, and frustrations of our daily work lives, whether you’re paid for a nine-to-five job, or work to receive sticky thank yous from toddlers at home. The Psalms are replete with cries for deliverance, joyful praise, and questions about how life makes sense in light of both suffering and beauty. So why wouldn’t they apply to our work? The DuPree Center’s newest resource, 52 Workday Prayers: Learn From the Psalms How to Pray Through Your Work will show readers that the psalms actually do apply to our vocations. “Among other things,” writes Mark Roberts, author of the devotional, “the Psalms teach us to pray about our work. After all, to our work (both paid and unpaid) we devote a vast proportion of our time, thought, energy, and emotion. If work is such a major part of our lives, and if the Psalms teach us to pray in every way and about everything, then surely, they can help us pray about work.”
Psalms that speak
52 Workday Prayers includes 52 meditations on various psalms, ranging from topics like “When You’re Afraid You Might Lose Your Job,” to “Rejoicing When Your Work is Fruitful,” to “When You’re Feeling Burned Out.” Each reflection includes a prayer and further reflection questions or thoughts for deeper engagement and application. If you’re wondering how to pray about your work, the psalms give a voice to the struggles and joys many of us experience on a weekly basis. This new resource will equip you with spiritual tools to engage with God about your work, which reflects his work in the world and in his people. Your faith and work might be more intertwined than you think after reading this book.
