A Productive Employee (Part 2)

A Productive Employee (Part 2)
In the first part of this article, I said one way to be productive as an employee is to erase or block every negative comment(s) or thought(s) about ones boss or employee from your mind. It is a very good way of maintaining ones focus that is if the individual does have a focus.

In this second article, I intend to share another secret to productivity which is important for every employee. It is revealed in the same passage as the first article. Every employee who wants to be productive must not see or think failure but must see and think of increase and multiplication. In the passage, Matthew 25:25, the servant said ‘and I was afraid, and went and hid thy talent in the earth: lo, there thou hast that is thine.’ (KJV). This servant, because he has a mindset that his boss was a wicked man, only thought of preserving what was given to him. He only made sure he still had what was committed to his care. That sounds like a lot of workers who only will do what they are told and do no more not less. No form of innovation or creativity is shown or demonstrated. Proverbs 22:13 says ‘the slothful man saith, there is a lion without, I shall be slain in the streets’. It is a form of intellectual slothfulness or laziness to only want to remain in the familiar territory or to no want to do a little extra.

The master of the servant said in Matthew 25:27 ‘thou oughtest therefore to have put my money to the exchangers, and then at my coming I should have received mine own with usury’. That is to say you should have thought of a way at least to increase what I gave to you if not multiply just increase it a little bit. The point is as an employee you do not just think of failure (if I do this or that I might fail or might loss) but think of increase. Find a way to add a little more value to what you are doing or to what was committed to your care and after some time the little value added here and a little value added there will become more and before you know it you will have multiplied what you were given.
So think increase and multiplication, not failure.

A Productive Employee (Part 1)

The word ‘productive’ is one that every serious minded employer or superior officer is interested in. No man wants to give an assignment to someone who will only attempt the job, expending time and resources without getting the desired result. Hence it behooves every employee to give 100% productivity especially in this time and age when the jobs are not just there.
In a bid to be productive or to avoid being unproductive, an employee must put a number of things in place, one of which is to erase or block off every negative comment or thought about ones boss or employer. This truth is vividly expressed in the parable of Jesus in Matthew 25:24 and it reads “Then the man who had received the one talent came.’Master,' he said, 'I knew that you are a hard man, harvesting where you have not sown and gathering where you have not scattered seed”(NIV). He started his defense by saying what he thought of his employer- a hard man- and that informed his decision to just make sure the man gets exactly what he gave him.
To be truthful some of our employers or superior officers are hard men but it is not in our place to call them so and I have discovered that it is not also to our advantage that we think of them or treat them as such (except one is ready to quit the job), because once we allow that thought or impression to be created in our mind we start to act in that light. We should even be weary of office gossips in that can lead us down this road; else we will be tempted to hold back, which is being less productive in the discharge of our duties. When that happens:
1- We become an unfaithful employee
2- We may be shutting the door to future opportunities
3- Even God is not on our side
So how can one work without falling into this trap, even if the employer or the superior officer is a hard man. The following should help:
a- Do your work as unto the Lord
b- Do not just work to impress your boss
c- Do not just work for money
d- Do not emulate people around you who have fallen into that trap
e- Look unto God for you rewarder.

Let me give you a practical example, I gave an assignment to a consultant to do for my organization, to which he agreed and he was paid to do the job. In the course of time he came across someone who gave a negative comment about my employer, and because of what he (the consultant) heard, he lost interest and concentration and so he did not do the job as he ought to and did not complete the job in time, hence we cannot give him any other job (I am not say my employer is a saint); All because he heard a negative comment about my employer.

Therefore to be productive do you job like it’s your job

TABERNACLE IN THE WIILDERNESS

I have always wondered why God could not wait for the Israelites to get to the Promised Land before asking them to build a tabernacle of worship. I mean God was going to add to their burden by asking them to make a tabernacle- a bundle of objects they were going to carry along the way. But I have since seen three reasons why God asked them to build the tabernacle, namely:
1- The journey was more about worship than it was about getting to the Promised Land. It was clear from the outset that God was interested in their worship for two reasons namely:
a- The Call to Moses at the burning bush was to lead the Israelites out of Egypt to the Mountain of God so that they may worship (Exo 3:12)
b- The ground on which the children of Israel were to be released by Pharaoh was that they may go into the wilderness to worship God (Exo 5:1-4)
It is therefore obvious to me and keen observers of the scriptures that as a child of God going to Canaan, that Canaan is not the utmost for God but that I get the concept of worship straight before I hit the Promised Land. So the number of day or years it take for me to get to the promised land is not what matters but how much of God I am able to get while on the way.
2- They have been in Egypt where they had seen so many gods and they were going to Canaan where so many other gods are worshipped, hence it became imperative that they met the one and the true God and got acquainted with Him before they went in.
3- It was not just about meeting God but that He be in their midst and that they carried his presence along for not by their own sword did they win the land, nor did their own arm save them,
but your right hand and your arm, and the light of your face, for you delighted in them (Ps 44: 1-4)
Beloved, on your way to the Promised Land you need to get the concept of God and your worship of Him right for what you have seen in Egypt where you have been is not the true picture of God. The Promised Land is not going to be of much help to you either but if while you are in transit you treasure Him and you devotion to him, then you will get to the Promised Land with His help.
One way to know that you have gotten it right, is that your fellowship with God becomes more important to you than the Promised Land (that car, house, job, contract, child etc) that is, you are not bothered or worried about getting in or getting it but that you have God in you, with you and for you. The book of Hebrews 11: 39 said it more succinctly, “And all these, though commended through their faith, did not receive what was promised”.