“Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.” —Mark 11:24 (ESV)

I ran breathlessly into the meeting room, quickly scanning for an empty chair. I was late…again. “Sorry, sorry,” I said…again.

I don’t try to be late for meetings. Really! I check my calendar first thing every morning, so I know what is on the day’s agenda. I lay out folders and other necessary papers in advance, so they’re easy to find. I even have a reminder that pops up on my computer and on my phone fifteen minutes before an appointment.

So what’s the problem? I also have this little habit of trying to squeeze in one more e-mail response or one more phone call or a few more paragraphs of that report in those last fifteen minutes. But then “one more” becomes “two more” or what I’m doing takes more time than I thought it would, and I’m scrambling.

Thank goodness I have a colleague who’s given me a way to finally beat my late-to-meeting habit. “Do exactly what you’re doing now, but when that fifteen-minute alarm goes off, stop what you’re doing and close your laptop.”

“But what a waste of fifteen minutes,” I said. “That’s when I do an e-mail or three!”

“Waste of time?” he responded. “Unless you use those minutes instead to pray for the work you are about to do, the people doing it, and those it will affect.”

What an idea! Now I not only get to meetings on time, I get there with less stress and better prepared both mentally and spiritually. I hope this work devotional and prayer will inspire you in your workday.

Grant me the wisdom, God, to steward Your gift of time in faithful and fruitful ways.

Digging Deeper: 2 Chronicles 6:12–42, Psalm 28

Excerpted from Daily Guideposts 2017.

READ MORE WORK DEVOTIONALS TO REDUCE STRESS:

• 14 Motivational Devotions for Success
  
• God’s Word at Work
• Put Faith Behind Your Goals
• 7 Ways To Start a Daily Devotional Habit

The post A Daily Prayer Tip to Beat Work Stress and Anxiety appeared first on Guideposts.

I picked up the flyer that had been slipped under our front door and groaned. “They want us to recycle our kitchen garbage,” I said to my wife. We were already sorting our plastic, glass, cans, and paper; now a new citywide program was encouraging us to throw our food scraps into a special bin for composting.

“It’s all about making something useful out of what we throw out,” Carol explained.

Over the next few weeks we got into the habit of throwing food scraps in a bag in the freezer, which I’d take down to the bin in the basement every four days. I’d see lemon rinds, apple cores, coffee grounds, potato peels, carrot stubs, cauliflower stems, artichoke peels, broccoli trunks, tea bags. It’d be amazing if something could be made of my own personal garbage, I thought. My pigheadedness, selfishness, anger, jealousy.

The city picked up the composting once a week, and the recycling became a habit. One day I was walking through the park on my way to work and saw a city truck dumping a dark, moist pile of fertilizer next to a clump of trees. Is that what came of our garbage? I wondered. I walked closer to inspect. It had that satisfying loamy feel to it; it didn’t even smell. Whatever had happened, it had been transformed.

I headed toward the subway where I would settle into my prayer time. Maybe I needed to think of it as a sort of spiritual composting, turning my garbage over to God, trusting in His forgiveness and mercy and powers of transformation.

Lord, thank You for the fragrance of forgiveness You leave in Your wake. Forgive me for all the wrongs I’ve done. 

Digging Deeper: 2 Corinthians 5:17

Excerpted from Daily Guideposts 2017.

The post Spiritual Composting: Turn Your Personal Scraps Over to God appeared first on Guideposts.