Handling Corporate Careersናሙና

I recently lost two of my dear friends to stress. Both were exactly 39 years old. One of them just finished his dinner and at about 4:00 a.m. had a massive heart attack and dropped dead. The other just finished playing basketball with his friends at 7:00 a.m. and was about to get into his car when he collapsed. Both were hardworking professionals who were in the best of their health but clearly over-stressed!

Maybe you are not at that fatal stage yet, but you feel you are getting one step closer each day to giving up under the enormous stress and pressure of the corporate world. Work load, deadlines, office politics, inadequacies of your bosses and inefficiencies of the corporate system are drowning your joy and sapping your energy each day! 

But be of good cheer, God did not ordain a life of stress for us. You see, in the Garden of Eden, God did not give stressful jobs to Adam and Eve! They were to be fruitful and multiply! The “sweat and toil” came after the fall (Gen 3:19). The Good News is that Jesus, when he conquered death on the cross, restored us back to the Garden of Eden pre-fall! What does that mean? It means that God will not let us go through anything that we cannot handle (1 Cor 10:13)! He is only allowing us to go through whatever will make us stronger! 

A few years ago, my team and I were going through a period of intense stress in my office. Many of my team members were contemplating quitting the company just because they couldn’t handle external client stress. I wanted to encourage and motivate my team. I went to the local store and picked up a few pieces of coal. At the team meeting that day, I showed my team those pieces of coal and said, “Today we have 2 choices before us…to either decay like coal OR to take in the stress positively and know that this is meant to convert us into diamonds!"

You see, if you remember your chemistry class, you know that from a pure chemical or molecular composition perspective, the ONLY difference between coal and diamond is “pressure” or stress! If you can take in stress positively, knowing that God will only allow that which you can handle, and know that He has a “reason for this stressful season,” then you will not just survive the work stress, but you will soon thrive and be celebrated as a dazzling diamond in your corporate offices! 

So hang in there. Be faithful. Let His Peace that passes all understanding guide you, while you cast ALL your cares upon Him for He cares for you (1 Pet 5:7)!