A Glance at a Picture

They say a picture’s worth a thousand words. Well sometimes, a picture leaves you speechless. That was the case this morning when my eyes caught a picture. The picture was not meant to be shown, but for just a few seconds I saw it – sweet, precious, heartbreaking. I think God Himself kept my eyes dry until I was on 79 driving home.

However, the significance of those few seconds was not in the emotion the picture invoked, but in the message God was speaking to me through it. His message was not new, or even shocking. I had been in this place before. God was saying “Raquel, you have lost focus. You’re priorities are all messed up.”

The thing is, I know what Godly priorities are, but for the past three weeks I have not lived it. My life has been absolutely consumed with only two things: work and school.
The issue is not in the hours spent. I rarely work more than 40 hours a week. My homework is insane and it does feel like if I am not working or sleeping I am doing schoolwork – but I am sure that is just how it feels. I mean, my parents stopped by last night for about an hour and I did sit on the couch and chat with them.

But for the last three weeks my brain has had room for only work and school. It seems I only have the mental energy for those two things and if I am not thinking of one of them, my brain is fried like a dead cell phone battery. Ashamedly, I have spent no quality time with the Lord – only quick prayers here and there. As I look at my desk, I see papers from my business management project covering the desk. Way in the back, buried under schoolwork, sits my Bible – untouched in three weeks. The only Scripture I have read has been in the daily devotional that my co-workers husband emails each day. Then I wonder why it takes such effort to engage in worship on Sunday morning. I wonder why the words of the sermon feel like droplets of water on desert ground. It’s because they are.

How did I get like this? Especially when I know better. When I thought about it, the sin nature in me wanted to immediately blame something or someone else. I didn’t have a particular person in mind. I didn’t even think about the company I work for. I thought about society as a whole and I was tempted to place the blame there.

I thought back to 1998 – the year I got my first office job. I went to a temp agency and they placed me at an investment firm called H.L. Zeve Associates. It was a small firm with three owners, an executive assistant, and four “assistant portfolio managers”, including me. I worked there for 5 years. I was a good worker – evidenced by the fact that my leaving salary was $10,000 higher than my starting salary. In that particular company, the hours were 8-4, still with an hour for lunch. Each day, for five years, I came in around 7:45 and left at 4. So did everyone else, including the owners. But what I remember about those days is… my brain did not think about work from 4:05pm until 7:45 am the next day. It was not even on my radar. It was the same for everyone else. The owners did other things. One coached wrestling at a local high school and was required to be at the high school at 4:30 every day. The other owner coached some other sport. Both owners had five kids. They didn’t just put food on their family’s tables, they were physically present with their families to eat it with them each evening. Back then, that was the norm. I know I sound like I am a senior citizen when I say “back then” but it is true. It is even evident in the music of that time period. Remember the song “Nine to Five”? How about “Morning Train’? That song says that the woman’s husband took a morning train, worked from nine to five and took another home to find her waiting for him. There is another song called “Home Fires Burning”. Some male country singer (and I only know because my folks listened to it) sang these lyrics: “the boss tells me I am late again, he can’t stand it when I only grin. He’s got me 8 hours – she’s got me after that. And I can’t wait till quittin time cause she keeps the home fires burning….”

Those days are gone. In my last company, everyone left “when the work was done”. I remember a woman who got hired there at the same time I did. She was returning to the working force now that her youngest daughter was in school full time. Her husband had his own business. He was able to be there when the kids got off the school bus, but he needed his wife home by 6 so that he could meet with his clients. Her husband and children suffered when she couldn’t get home on time. One day she told the boss that it was not working out for her. She said she didn’t mind working late or putting in extra time, but when she left her house in the morning she had to know the exact time she would return. She couldn’t find out at 4 that she could not leave at 5. Long story short – she doesn’t work there anymore. After I had been there several years, they hired a new financial advisor. This guy was awesome. He had been in the World Trade Center on 9/11. He moved away from New York to be able to prioritize his family. He left the office between 5-6 each day, but after a month he told me that even though he was physically at home with his family, he wasn’t mentally with them. Work had taken so much from him mentally that he had nothing to left to give to anything or anyone else. He said all he could do was veg in front of the tv and he was snippy with his wife and kids. This man, who I admire greatly, left the firm and started his own company.

That guy’s story is the norm these days. Even if you only work 40 hours, work seems to zap all your energy. Work gets the best – everything else gets the rest. People will say “well, that is just how it is” or “if that is what it takes to get the work done, then that is what it takes”. They may even kick up how much money one is getting paid. Newsflash folks – the people at my first company made six figures. The non-owners made high five figures. They ran a successful, profitable business that gave impeccable client service – and they did it in a 40 hour week with no mental overload. Those folks are all retired now – and sold the business. I recently spoke with one of those guys. I called Steve to see how he and his now grown children were doing. We talked about society and I asked him how he managed to be a successful business man and a good Christian, husband, and father. He said to me: “Raquel, each business has “busy seasons”. For instance accountants are busy in April and may need some overtime. But if you consistently have to work 50 + hours a week to get the work done, you are either mismanaged, understaffed, or you don’t work efficiently enough or your business unit as a whole is not efficient and does not have good time management skills”. I agree Steve. Many businesses, including churches, will have 2-3 hours meetings to discuss something that could be decided in 10 minutes, and then they wonder why people are still at their desks at 6:30pm.


Let me clarify something. I am not saying that we should never put in extra time at work. When I was about 3 years into my 5 years at my first job, one of my co-workers had a major surgery and was out for two months. I did half of her job and mine which meant 10 hour days and half Saturdays. It was temporary – not a lifestyle. But sometimes when folks hear me talk about society, they think I am advocating being a clock watcher. Like “oops, its 5:02, I can’t be at work”. I have never been that way nor do I feel that it’s right.

But just like in the Garden of Eden, the enemy is a deceiver. He is known for taking a Biblical principle and twisting it slightly or taking it too far. See the Bible says to work as if you are working for God and not for man. (Colossian 3:23). That means when a Christian goes to work, he is supposed to do his absolute best and work as unto the Lord.
Today, we have taken that concept too far and we have gone from working as unto the Lord – to working as if it’s our Lord.

Well – that was a long rant. And not even the point of this blog post. But these are the things I was rehearsing in my head when God told me my priorities are whacked out. I wanted to blame society and say “well that is just the world I live in”. It is the world I live in, but we heard the Scripture today… Romans 12:2 – “Do not conform to the pattern of this world…”

So when that blame game didn’t work, I started to harp on school. School is a source of regret and resentment for me. I regret that I did not go to college after high school and I resent that I have to go now. When I graduate (the day before I enter the nursing home), I will have taken approximately 40 classes – only 8 of them will actually help me in my field. This is nothing but a $70,000 line on my resume. It’s also a blow to my pride because I am unable to make the straight As I made in high school. However, God has shown me time and time again that this is His will for me right now.

Obviously, neither work nor school is my problem. I am my problem. I allow work and school to take all of my mental energy. I get caught in this cycle. When my energy is zapped, I get cranky. When I get cranky, I sleep more. When I sleep more, I don’t spend time with the Lord. When I don’t spend time with the Lord, I starve spiritually which makes me more cranky. It also makes me lose focus.

This morning, that quick glance at a picture caused me to refocus. I remembered a sermon I heard several years ago. The preacher said: “in this life, there are only two things that really matter – your relationship with God, and your relationships with others. Because they are the only things that are eternal.” I realized that every thing that has taken my time, energy and focus in these past few weeks are meaningless in the view of eternity. When I stand before God, He won’t ask me about my business management project. He won’t ask me if my spreadsheets were done on time. He will ask about my relationship with Jesus and my relationships with the people He put in my life.

Needless to say that does not mean I shouldn’t go to work. I still have bills to pay. I can’t call off work tomorrow because I am focusing on relationships. And I still have to go to school and do this project for class. But I can’t allow those things to consume me nor take first priority.

So I began to contemplate how to do this. Its one thing to know I need to do something, it’s another thing to actually do it. I realized that I actually have a wonderful example. I have a coworker on my team who is a Christian. Her husband also works for our company, but in a different division. They have a 1 year old daughter. My co-worker is very good at her job. Very good at it. But if I look at her life this is what I see. She is a Christian, a wife, a mother, and a business analyst – IN THAT ORDER. She gives work her best during work hours, but when the clock says her time belongs to her husband and daughter, that is where her time goes. She will check back in with work when she needs to, like she did with me last Friday, but her priorities are straight and her life more peaceful than mine. The funny thing is… I am not a wife, nor a mother. All I have to do is put the Christian before the business analyst and student. This cannot be that hard. LOL.

So it’s Sunday evening. A new week and a new chance is quickly approaching. My short term goal is to get up early each morning and spend quality time with the Lord. Even if I have to sleep on the couch to ensure I don’t oversleep – I need to put the Lord first each morning. I need to read the Word – even if I am behind in reading my textbook. Then, I want to go through my day with my focus on Him and the people in my life, even if I have to spend in my day in Microsoft Excel. My long term goal is to get back into a small group or the Beth Moore ladies Bible study – even if its means I earn a C in all my college classes. I think I would rather graduate a C student then graduate with high honors at the expense of what is really important.

What’s really important. I’ve known all along, but I lost focus. Thankfully, the Lord got my attention – with a picture worth way more than a thousand words.