Pressure and recognition
MANY people feel that they're under too much pressure at work and receive too little recognition for their efforts. And present economic conditions have led some professions and industries to trim their staffs. This has left an increased work load for those remaining, and this extra effort has not necessarily been recognized with better salaries. Such circumstances can result in mounting frustration. Having felt frustrated more than once in my own profession as a teacher, I decided some time ago that I must apply more of what I was learning in Christian Science about the true nature of God and of man as His spiritual offspring. It was not enough to feel uplifted for an hour or so before I left for work, and then later to feel resentment for others' failure to recognize what I had to cope with. What I was learning had to be lived. I had to expect good and be grateful for it, because God is good itself, and He is never absent. As I tried to adopt this fresh approach, I began to see a relationship between a right sense of recognition and the lifting of pressure.
It gradually dawned on me that it was not so important to gain recognition asto practice it -- to recognize the presence and activity of God, good, right there in my place of work and in the efforts of those around me. How much was I recognizing God's harmonious control of His creation? The Bible tells us, ``In him we live, and move, and have our being.''1 I needed to acknowledge this spiritual reality to be reality by giving God the credit for every evidence of good and by expecting to see more good every hour. Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, writes, ``Hold thought steadfastly to the enduring, the good, and the true, and you will bring these into your experience proportionably to their occupancy of your thoughts.''2
Approaching each day with the expectancy of good and recognizing God as the source of all ability and progress -- mine and everyone else's -- I have felt a distinct release from pressure at work. Incidents of bad behavior among pupils have diminished, and I've found more intelligent, less time-consuming ways of coping with the workload. Refusing inwardly to claim personal credit for whatever was being accomplished, I have been freed from a burdensome sense of responsibility for any shortcomings in the pupils or those around me. Fear of discord and of being unable to cope have vanished.
No one could have more to cope with than did Christ Jesus. In constant demand by those seeking healing, and faced with not only a lack of recognition but outright hatred, he still could say, ``Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.''3
Why didn't Jesus give way to a sense of burden or pressure? Because he claimed no credit or power for himself. Giving his heavenly Father full recognition for the good that he expressed so completely, Jesus said, ``I can of mine own self do nothing.''4 Seeking only his Father's glory, never his own, he made it clear that his work was to bear witness to the truth, not to bring about good through personal effort.
When we recognize the activity and power of God as all that can really take place, despite appearances to the contrary, we can begin to live aboveany sense of pressure in our work, and our experience will become joyous and progressive.
1Acts 17:28. 2Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 261. 3Matthew 11:28. 4John 5:30.
You can find more articles like this one in the Christian Science Sentinel, a weekly magazine. DAILY BIBLE VERSE:It is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure. Philippians 2:13