Inter-Varsity Press

CONTENTS

Foreword
1. Introduction – is this your life?
2. Go away, I’m busy
3. Wisdom for the way

PART 1 – LIVING AUTHENTICALLY
4. Who do you think you are?
5. Afraid or authentic?
6. Connected in community
7. Better to belong
8. Exiled at work?
9. In the furnace

PART 2 – MAKING THE RIGHT CHOICES
Accountability
10. The naked truth?
11. Who can I trust?

Money
12. Breaking the power of money
13. Beyond my means?
14. Driven and deceived

Time
15. Got rhythm?
16. High time
17. Sanctuary

Job change
18. Moving on?
19. Finding a fit

Guidance
20. What do you really want?
21. Common sense?
22. Spirited conviction

PART 3 – DEVELOPING PURPOSE
23. Why am I here?
24. Mission possible?
25. Growing up
26. Held up?
27. The good life

1. INTRODUCTION – IS THIS YOUR LIFE?

One year stands out in my memory. I had just begun a very demanding job that required a lot of attention. I was usually working ten hours a day, and that did not include overseas business trips which frequently took me away from home. That same year my brother was diagnosed with a fatal brain tumour and both he and my parents needed support. Our teenage sons were in that phase of their launch into adult life that NASA refers to as ‘maximum aerodynamic stress’. At the same time our church was struggling without a pastor and I was church secretary in pole position for sorting it out. My wife told me I was distant. Even when I was physically present at home, I was emotionally absent. Work-life balance problems? I’ve been there.

Still, my French boss did speak exactly like Inspector Clouseau, which provided occasional light relief. Clouseau usually leaves a trail of destruction and, looking back, I realize I made a mess of the situation in many ways. By God’s grace I came through with my marriage and family intact, but there were long-term health and relationship consequences of being under that kind of sustained pressure. I wish I had not had to learn to ‘get a life’ the hard way.

Most talk about work-life balance focuses on time, but much more is hidden beneath the surface. Nine tenths of the iceberg of work-life pressure is a hidden reality we rarely want to face or talk about.

Tired, trapped and troubled

We are tired – not just because of working hours and travel. We are tired from being electronically connected to an always-on world, tired of people’s expectations, and tired from the slavery of meeting targets. Many of us toil in sleep-deprived, energy-sapping workplaces of continuous intensity. We may not want to admit it, but we are far too tired – and our families and friends often get the dregs of lives worn out by work.

Sometimes we feel trapped: stuck in jobs that may not suit us, doing time in organizations where our development may seem ignored or blocked, and angry inside at the long-hours culture. Financial anxiety is the padlock keeping us there. We may also feel ethically compromised in work relationships and situations where there seems no right way out.

So instead of being at peace, we are troubled. We are unsettled by the different faces we have to present to different people and heavy hearted in some relationships that may not be working out well. Sometimes we wonder if we are really making a difference and feel uncertain about whether we are in God’s will. We feel troubled by the strain on our health and sense of well-being and about what the long-term legacy of our life will be.

This is not another Little Book of Calm for the superficial treatment of these symptoms. Restful sounds of nature being piped over the intercom and screensavers with pictures of South Sea islands didn’t do it for me. I needed more than lavender under the pillow and encouragement from a personal fitness trainer. Coping mechanisms were not enough. I needed help to understand and deal with the deep causes of work-life problems. So I went looking for something.

Identity, purpose and choices

My personal journey included decisions like refusing to relocate for a promotion, working part time as finance director of a large company and changing career – choices that attracted interest and led to mentoring others. Major worklife decisions like these forced me to get to grips with the tension between three key dimensions of my life: who I was, why I was here, and what I should do. These three dimensions are identity, purposes and choices. I could not solve all my problems, but I could try to make choices that were consistent with my values and my purposes.

How much are our choices consistent with our identity and our purposes? This is a deep issue. Are we integrated or fragmented? How much is there a sense of harmony or dissonance in our work and life? As I grappled with these questions and my life choices, I began to realize that identity and purposes were not independent of each other. All three dimensions – identity, purposes and choices – were interrelated. The choices I made would affect my character and who I might become.

Values, principles and beliefs

Finally, I understood that beliefs are at the root of all this, because our beliefs drive our behaviour. To ‘get a life’ requires a belief system – a set of values and principles – that gives coherence. To enjoy an integrated life requires applying those values to our personal work-life world. This book shows how identity, purposes and choices can be better understood and integrated by applying Christian beliefs. You may not be a Christian, but I hope the material and reflection questions will still be interesting and relevant. Biblical principles can help us navigate through the white water of work-life situations and the pressures of our contemporary culture.

Ironically for Christians, church commitments can sometimes make our work-life problems worse – they certainly made mine worse for a while. The need for volunteers sometimes weighs heavily on already over-committed people. Yet belonging to local Christian community also greatly helped me to develop clear values and make the right choices. Also my association with the London Institute for Contemporary Christianity (LICC) gave me opportunities to think through the subject in more depth and to develop and refine my teaching resources.

If improvement were easy, work-life stress would not be the top issue for most working people today. Nevertheless, a better work-life pattern is possible. We do not have to continue wandering around in a desert of uncertainty. Yes, there are tough issues to overcome, like giants in the promised land, but the cause is not hopeless. The journey from inner restlessness to inner peace is a journey open to all, a journey of one choice at a time. The first step is the willingness to think carefully about life in a structured way. This book provides a structure. I hope it helps.