Are You Mr Incredible?

Greg Shepherd

New Community Church, London, UK

In the children’s film ‘The Incredibles’ Bob Parr is an unhappy office worker, ground down by the dreariness of his job and the rest of his mundane existence. Yet he has a secret: he is really ‘Mr Incredible’, a man with extraordinary strength.

The problem is that society doesn’t accept superheroes. Parr is forced by the pressures of his world to hide who he really is and live the same dull
‘9-to-5’ existence as everyone else. He feels torn between conforming to the world around him and his desire to display and exercise his powerful gifting.

Some Christians are ‘Bob Parrs’. Becoming a Christian is a life-changing experience. We are transformed by God’s power, brought from darkness into light, into an awareness of the supernatural and God’s great plan – for all the earth to hear the gospel and for millions to be similarly transformed. God has given each of us gifts and we long to serve Him each and every day.

Yet we can find ourselves like Bob Parr. We seem to be stuck in a dreary day job and our co-workers don’t seem to be particularly interested in our Great Commission. Their philosophy, goals and aims are completely different from, even opposed to, ours. We do not seem to be able to express the gifting that we know God has put within us in a workplace in which we feel like aliens and strangers. It seems that we can be ourselves only in church meetings.

Bob Parr’s situation is resolved one day by a phone call. A mysterious caller recruits him on a mission in an exotic location in which he can, again, be who he really is, ‘Mr Incredible’. The transformation in him is instant and remarkable. He goes from being tired of life, overweight and frustrated to spending his free time enthusiastically getting back into shape. The mission revitalises him.

Some Christians spend their lives waiting for a ‘call’ but the fact is we’ve already received one. Our mission is right here, in the office we work, in the college where we study or at the school gate where we pick up our children. We are called to live for God and to demonstrate how He transforms lives. If we do this we really will be ‘The Incredibles’! Like Bob Parr, we will be revitalised if we grasp a sense of mission.
As we search the Scriptures for guidance on godliness in the workplace, one man’s life shines out as an example to us, Daniel. He was a role model of how we can work for the Lord in an ungodly environment, act with complete integrity, model a Christian lifestyle and witness effectively to unbelievers.

A Godly man in an ungodly world

Daniel was abducted from Jerusalem into exile in Babylon. Serving the Babylonian government, he had to work in a culture that was completely different from the city of God in which he had grown up. It was not really where he wanted to be. Yet, instead of being on the defensive in that foreign and alien environment, he exerted a hugely positive influence within the Babylonian government.

Many of us will be in jobs that we do not particular want to do, and often the culture of the organisation we work for is very different from our ‘Jerusalem’, the church. This could lead us to conform to the ways of the ‘Babylon’ around us or else become very defensive in our outlook. By contrast, Daniel demonstrates that the people of God have much to offer those around them.

A better way of life

In Daniel 1:8, Daniel resolves not to ‘defile himself with the royal food and wine’. Commentators are divided over the reason for his refusal, but what we do know is that he did not just say ‘no’ to the food of the Babylonians, he also demonstrated that his way of life was better. ‘At the end of the ten days they (Daniel and his friends) looked healthier and better nourished than any of the young men who ate the royal food’
(Dan. 1:15).

As Christians, there will be many times in the workplace where we have to say ‘no’ to behaviour that our colleagues indulge in. But more than this, we have a great opportunity, like Daniel, to demonstrate that living God’s way is better than anything that ‘Babylon’ can offer. We have peace with God. We are free from guilt and condemnation. We have purpose and meaning in our lives. We have hope, both for this life and for all eternity. We are part of a loving community, the church, that supports us and gives us friendship and security. Who else in ‘Babylon’ can say this?

It is great to share the gospel with people we meet, yet we cannot demonstrate in a brief conversation that knowing God really does change our lives. But in the workplace, where your colleagues see you every day, at your best and at your worst, they will know whether your faith is really genuine. The recent Celebrity Big Brother programme on television demonstrated to the world that people’s public personae can be very different from what they are really like in unguarded moments! As we live out the Christian life our colleagues, like the guard in Daniel’s story, will see that our faith is not an act or just a philosophy; our lives have been changed and given fulfilment and joy.

Glorifying God with our work

We are familiar with Daniel as a man of courage, fearlessly defying the king by publicly praying and being miraculously rescued from the lion’s den. We remember him bringing prophecies of great significance, foretelling of empires rising and falling. What we may be less aware of is that he was an outstanding worker, someone who gave himself 100% to working within a secular, godly environment. We read, ‘Daniel so distinguished himself among the administrators and the satraps by his exceptional qualities that the king planned to set him over the whole kingdom’ (Dan. 6:3).

It is easy to suggest that Daniel stood out because of his gifting as both a prophet and an administrator, but this alone would not have been sufficient to cope with the immense workload of a senior government official. He worked very hard and must have demonstrated to the king that he governed with wisdom and justice, otherwise the king would not have identified him for promotion.

Paul writes, ‘We are … Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making His appeal through us’ (2 Cor. 5:20). This verse does not solely relate to speaking evangelistic messages, but to every part of our lives. Our calling is to glorify God in everything we do, be it our lifestyles or the diligence we bring to our work. Every phone call you make, every email you send, every work meeting you attend is an opportunity to glorify God by being a ‘Daniel’, giving your utmost as God’s representative, His ambassador.

Later we read that ‘the administrators and the satraps tried to find grounds for charges against Daniel in his conduct of government affairs, but they were unable to do so. They could find no corruption in him, because he was trustworthy and neither corrupt nor negligent. Finally these men said, “We will never find any basis for charges against this man Daniel unless it has something to do with the law of his God”’ (Dan. 6:4–5).

When the English Football Association were searching for a new manager in the summer of 2006, one obstacle to anyone taking the job was the amount of media scrutiny on the lives of prospective candidates. Would there be anyone who didn’t have any ‘dirt’ in their lives – some sexual, financial or other indiscretion that would be dug up and splashed across the front pages of the tabloid newspapers? Daniel’s life and work would have stood up to such scrutiny. Even under close investigation there was nothing he had neglected; there was no corruption, no compromise. God challenges us to live to the same standard.

Daniel brought a supernatural dimension into the workplace

At the end of chapter 1, Daniel faces a crisis in his workplace. There were about to be massive redundancies in the ‘Department of Wise Men’. The phrase ‘termination of employment’ took on a whole new meaning when your boss was Nebuchadnezzar! But Daniel sought the Lord, the One who is the answer to every problem, whether in the church or in the office. The book of Daniel demonstrates that we are to seek God’s face for every situation we face, not just those in ‘Jerusalem’, the church, but also in the ‘Babylon’ of the workplace.

Daniel reached someone in the workplace

Daniel’s civil service job meant that he had worked with someone whom he would never have had any contact with otherwise, Nebuchadnezzar. The king was of a different race, religion and social ranking from Daniel, yet the Lord wanted Daniel to speak to him about the true God.

Our workplaces, schools and colleges provide amazing mission fields for us to have day-to-day contact with people whom we would never otherwise meet – those of different races, religions and social groupings from our own. God’s desire is that, like Daniel, we will see this interaction as an opportunity for God to impact our colleagues.
 
Nebuchadnezzar was never going to come to the synagogue, but the government office provided an opportunity for Daniel to meet him, win his respect through his hard work and his lifestyle, and then, when the opportunity presented itself, to speak about the living God.
Unlike Bob Parr, most of us will not get a call to go to an exotic island. But, like Daniel, we can be ‘Mr Incredible’ where we already are!

Material for this article is taken from Working with God by Greg Shepherd, published by Kevin Mayhew Ltd in July 2007. Retail price £9.99.

For further details and to order please refer to www.kevinmayhew.com or telephone +44(0)1449 737 978