New Year, New Grace

What would you want to accomplish at work this year if there were nothing to hold you back or stop you from doing it?

I don’t know about you, but the turning of the calendar year has gotten more important to me over the years. For my work, the calendar year definitely has a tone of seasonality for me. Lamentations 3:23 is one verse I know by heart because I am a walking example of God’s graces being new every morning (some of you know my story, and you know how big of a deal that is for me); but for work, I really feel like that flip of the calendar year is a way of saying God’s graces are new even in my work every year!

And when I am able to tap into His grace, then I am able to experience the freedom that He offers me. That is huge for me concerning the workplace, because just like IRL (as the kids say these days), my brokenness (sins) limits my ability to tap into God’s grace and hence, the freedom He offers.

I don’t know about you, but the sinful nature I repent from is the same sinful nature at home as it is at work. People-pleasing. Perfection. Judgment. While I am not immune to any sin at any time, especially my top three, I can safely say that it is people-pleasing and perfectionism that rears its ugly head in the workplace for me. Ironically, as you might guess, it is my people-pleasing and perfectionism that make me a great addition to my work team; but like with all sins, when it gets bad or I start seeing myself through those blurry lenses, it can start affecting me negatively, not only while at work, but while at home. Combine that with the general busyness and stress that comes with work, and you can see how I need God’s new graces every morning!

But, with the flip of the calendar, I really can feel His intentions for me in the workplace. I feel like I can breathe again. I feel hope for the future. I feel like anything is possible… That sounds like freedom to me!

I think this is the promise of God expressed so beautifully in Lamentations – that with His grace, we get to experience freedom. So – here is to living in the field of God’s graces in 2023 and not from our sinful nature. Here is to us breaking free of our brokenness and approaching not only what we do at work, but also inside our daily lives, without limits.

I will ask this one more time: What would you want to accomplish at work this year if there was nothing to hold you back or stop you from doing it? What would it feel like to live in God’s gift of freedom every day?

Matt Kellogg is VP of Sales & Business Development at SoundStack, which simplifies audio through the development of platform-agnostic technology for creators and advertisers.
matt@soundstack.com