I Hate My Job: A 7-Day Devotional Guide for Christian Working WomenPrimjer

Matthew 5: 43-48 - You have heard that it was said, "Love your neighbor" and hate your enemy. But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you so that you may be children of your Father in heaven. For He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. For if you love those who love you, what reward will you have? Don't even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers and sisters, what are you doing out of the ordinary? Don't even the Gentiles do the same? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

Application: I do not often feel as uncomfortable as when Jesus cuts to the chase. I'm not sure there's a way around this: we must love our enemies. If you're like me, you may think, "Well, I don't really have enemies. There's no one out there who wants to hurt me and no one I have a desire to hurt." Is that true, though? What about someone who gets to work late and leaves early with no consequence? What about the manager who might as well move into your cube to watch and judge your every move since she already has opinions about most of them? What about the customer who seems never to read your emails and then gets angry when the deliverable isn't right? While we may never wish harm on them, we may harbor resentment toward them. They cross our protective boundary of who we believe ourselves to be, and we want to punish them. It is up to us to examine these people through the lens of our eternally helpful Holy Spirit and see these people like Jesus sees them--broken, sad, frustrated with the mediocrity of their lives, just like us.

Prayer Suggestion: Spend some time meditating on what Jesus asks of us in these verses. Write down who in your workplace you find easy to love, who is hard to love, and why. Pray over those reasons and ask the Holy Spirit to help guide your future interactions with those who challenge your heart.