A city worker once commented to me: 'It's hell out there and I just want to get through it.' Do you know the feeling? Has faith at work become a matter of survival, not triumph?

When the prophet Haggai addressed the returned exiles in Judah, he was speaking to a discouraged people, who had started to rebuild the temple but had stopped in the face of opposition. They had themselves to blame, not their opponents, but God used Haggai to exhort them to keep going. God encouraged them to keep building, not just a physical temple (with all its symbolic significance for the people), but a true dwelling-place for the Lord of Lords.

This is exactly what I want my life to be, but I sense that we too have become discouraged. We may have stopped trying to make a difference, to build the dwelling-place of God in the marketplace.

God exhorted those in Haggai's day: 'Now be strong ... and work.' But how? And why? 'For I am with you' (Hag 2:1-4). Like them, we are to get on with it. We are to work in it, through it.

But if we are honest, are we always sure He is with us? David Prior, with whom I was a Trustee for many years at Midweek in Mayfair, points out what is happening:

Despite our personal and corporate efforts to lead a spiritual life, we do not sense the presence of God in our work. The problem is that we have developed a spirituality that is based on an experience of God elsewhere - in our withdrawal from the marketplace rather than in it.

So, we feel close to God in our quiet time at home, in corporate worship, on retreat, in the Eucharist - but not at work. What is needed is an "on-the-run-spirituality", a rhythm of work that keeps us alert to God in our work.

We can learn to practice His presence by forming new habits, but they will remain no more than techniques unless we absorb three things.

The promise of God’s presence
In Haggai 2:4 God says, 'I am with you.' There is no situation that he is not interested in. He is concerned with our big issues and our indifferent ones, for they are not indifferent to him. He is with us when we get shafted in a deal; when we are cut down by our boss; or humiliated by a colleague; or ignored by a client. Or when we are made redundant. The words, 'We have to let you go' will not come out of God's mouth. He says: 'I will never leave you or forsake you' (Joshua 1:5). This goes for those moments of wonder, too - when we excel at doing what we were wired up for.

The power of God's presence
I am not going to survive the marketplace too well, let alone make a difference, in my own strength. That's the real mission impossible. But John writes to encourage us: 'The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us' (Jn 1:14). Jesus came as a man and continues to enter into all our experiences, to share them and to feel them. He knows our life and work, with its achievements, frustrations, gossiping and character assassinations. He knows the exhilaration of succeeding, what presses our buttons and what tempts us.

He is also with us as God, making all that he is available to us and in our weakness is our strength (2 Cor 12:9). In Christ, we have the resources of God; in him, we have been blessed with all spiritual blessings (Eph 1:3). We can be assured that God meets our needs at work. He is strong when we are weak; he is a comfort when we are distressed; his Spirit is at work in us to produce the fruits of patience, gentleness, self-control and kindness; he helps us clothe ourselves with the new self, repudiating jealousy, anger and bitterness. Yet as David Adam, Vicar of Holy Island, wrote in Power Lines (Triangle/SPCK,1992):

Great resources are made available to us at all times and we tend to choose to remain like paupers. The light is offered and we have elected to stay in the dark.

Being the people of the presence
As believers, we are a distinctive people. That is partly what we assert about ourselves when we come together in fellowship. Yet we are not just God's distinctive people corporately; we are also distinctive individually. This does not change when we go back to our office alone among non-believers.

Moses was told to lead the people to the promised land, but he wanted assurance that he was not going it alone - rather like we do. God showed Moses that His presence, embodied in the cloud by day and the fiery pillar by night, was more important than their travel itinerary. In fact, it was to mark them out as who (and whose) they were.

We inherit, as believers, that mark of distinction. We can know and demonstrate the presence of God in our marketplace. But how are we to live as the people of the presence when we are on our own at work?

Practicing the presence of God
The Bible gives us very practical approaches to this. I will focus on two: a pattern of rests; and a range of reminders.

Rests
God's pattern was to work and rest, seen most vividly in his institution of the Sabbath-day rest after six days of creative work. This pattern took on a weekly dynamic but can also be followed daily by cherishing brief interludes of peace.

Brother Lawrence, author of The Practice of the Presence of God (Ed: EM Blaiklok, Hodder & Stoughton, 1981), spent much of his seventeenth-­century life as lay brother in the kitchen of a monastery in Burgundy. He did not enjoy his work and was not particularly suited to it (he was awkward and broke everything), but he gradually developed an attitude to his daily life in which the presence of God became as real in work as in the monastery's structured times of prayer. He says to us:

We must, during all our labour and in all else we do... pause for some short moment, as often indeed as we can, to worship God in the depth of our heart, to savour Him, though it be in passing, and as it were by stealth.

The space between meetings is a great time to turn to God, as is a break between tasks. For me it has been about developing a habit that provides me with more opportunities to savour Him and worship Him, where we are and no matter how busy we are.

If you look closely, the day can throw up unexpected pauses: For example, cancelled lunches - I have often used this opportunity to leave the office and use the time to pray in a church or a park. Taxi rides, which are a common feature of business life in central London - I sometimes use them, when alone, to read from a pocket New Testament. Coffee or tea breaks, especially if one can leave one's station for a few minutes, are another pause that can be used even for the briefest reflection; as is waiting at the printer, water cooler or copier. Then, before that crisis meeting, there is always the loo [American readers: restroom] as a place to pray!

Reminders
In Deuteronomy, God instructed Moses:

These commandments that l give you today are to be impressed on your children. Talk about them... write them on your doorframes of your houses and on your gates. (Deut 6:6-9).

Hence, the Judaic practice of fixing a mezuzah to the doorframe developed. It is a constant reminder.

Human nature hasn't changed - we too need everyday, practical prompts to God's precepts, something that acts as a constant reminder. Here are a few suggestions:

Computers - what most of us have in front of us for much of the day - provide some of the most effective reminders. I have come to be prompted by the progress bars that come up when it takes a few moments for it to do something (load a web page etc). I ask God, 'Fill me up with your Holy Spirit'. It just takes a second. Adapting this method, one person I know prays, 'Fill me up with your strength'. Some look at the icons and see a whole new application - the kingdom of God. Others will use a discreet screensaver - a small scripture verse (perhaps 'in the beginning was the Word'); some will have JESUS SAVES!! in large letters (but not many!).

A desk calendar is also something that I use, which has a proverb a day. I don't use it every single day, but it is there. Some people wear a WWJD bracelet or a lapel badge. Telephone rings - some people I know use the second or third ring to remind them that Jesus is with them in that call. I have also found doorways helpful - that as I go through the opening, into a meeting, I use the frame as a reminder that Jesus is with me, and I commit the encounter to him. This has been particularly helpful when a difficult situation or hostile meeting has to be faced, when I might otherwise have felt painfully alone. Windows, if you have one nearby (some of us do!), can be used to act as a prompt, a kind of reflection of the face of Christ, like a mirror. Instead of gazing out, we can look into His face.

It doesn't have to be hell out there, but it may take some new habits to re-establish our awareness of the presence of God at work to make it a bit more like the heaven we long for. The God of the Israelites, of Moses' and Haggai's days, is our God in Christ. Matthew closed his gospel with these words:

And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age. (Matt 28:20)

John Parmiter is Planning Director of Ash Mill Services, U.K.  Used by permission of the London Institute of Contemporary Christianity.   Licc.org.uk    All rights reserved.   Content distributed by WorkLife.org > Used for non-profit educational purposes only.