Sometimes we Christians like to see ourselves as disadvantaged in our workday worlds. We can get a bit paranoid about being picked on or isolated or laughed at. But the truth is, as believers we have an immense advantage over non-believers in our work worlds, because we have a secret weapon: prayer.

Our days go better when we start with prayer. Here’s another important benefit prayer affords us.

Advantage: You have a way to deal with crises.

All day long as a believer you can send up prayer to the Lord, silently and quickly. So, when anything unusual arises, when any problem surfaces or something is not going the way it should, you have this ever-present resource for help and guidance. This is one of your greatest benefits as a believer.

When you face a crisis or some great need, you can pray right then and there, and God will guide you and comfort you and rescue you. Have you tried it on the job? Did you think God’s arm was too short to save you in a job-related problem? Never!

When you don’t know the answer to a predicament, pray. When you’re faced with a task that seems too large, pray. When you can’t figure out what you should or should not do, pray. When it looks like things are going down the tubes, pray.

“God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble” (Psalm 46:1).

The Lord is waiting to hear from you and deliver you out of your trouble.

Now, I want to make it clear that prayer is not a magic wand we wave to demand God’s help. Prayer is not a method for persuading God to do what we want him to do. Prayer is the way we get in line with what God wants to do in any given situation. It is the way God changes us. It is the way we relinquish our worries and cares and allow God to be God in our lives.

I have really great news for those who are out there in the workplace every day. If you’re a disciple of Jesus Christ, if you belong to the Family of God, you have an incredible advantage in the workplace. You have a tool to use that guarantees you a leg-up in every situation you face. You have a weapon to fight with that is totally effective against any problem you encounter. Here’s your secret weapon, your great advantage: It is prayer!

Have you been taking advantage of prayer on your job? I find that many believers don’t really pray about their jobs or on their jobs. Do you? I want to point out just some of the advantages you enjoy when you pray about your job.

Advantage: Your day goes better with prayer.

Since your day is won or lost in the morning hours, when you pray before your day begins, you have a great advantage all day long.

 “. . . in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight” (Proverbs 3:6).

So, before your day begins, if you will acknowledge the Lord and seek his guidance for every detail of that day, your path will be straight, no matter what happens.

Those who don’t know the Lord have to try to take care of everything in their own strength. They have to worry about the unknown and the uncontrollable. But for us who know Jesus as Savior, he carries all those burdens for us, so we have an immense advantage.

Do you start your workdays with prayer? If not, you’re depriving yourself of many benefits. I encourage you to begin this discipline right away.

Think through the day ahead. Pray for the people you will be working with and for. Ask God for wisdom in dealing with them, praying for their individual needs as you know them. Think about the schedule you have for the day, your workload. Ask God for strength to get it all done and help in setting appropriate priorities. Pray that your words will be carefully chosen; that you will speak the truth in love.

If you will cover your day in detail with prayer, you will see miracles, big and small. It gives you a marvelous advantage!

You may have noticed the term "first fruits" as you read the Bible. The dictionary definition of "first fruits" tells us that it is the first products or results of anything. It embodies the idea of "cream of the crop," "putting your best foot forward," "giving it your best shot.”

In the Old Testament Moses used the term first fruits when he was establishing the laws relating to sacrifices. God gave the law through Moses to guide the children of Israel, and they were to live by these laws very carefully. When Jesus the Messiah came, he fulfilled the law, and we no longer are required to practice those rituals and sacrificial offerings, which foreshadowed Jesus Christ.

However, we can learn a great deal from those laws and use them as guiding principles in our own lives. And this principle of bringing the first fruits is certainly one that is applicable to us. In Exodus 23 Moses was giving instructions about the three annual festivals which were to be observed each year, and one of those was the Feast of Harvest. This was a festival to celebrate their crops, very similar, I would think, to the original meaning of our Thanksgiving Day celebration.

For this Feast of Harvest, Moses clearly instructed the people to bring the first fruits of their crops, the best of the fruits of their soil. In other words, leftovers were definitely out. They must bring to God their best and keep for themselves what was left over.

Now, you and I don't bring crops to the Lord—at least not many of us do. I can tell you that on my trips to Kenya, I have often been in church meetings where people brought their crops as an offering. But most of us don’t bring crops to God as a thank offering. So, what are the things we bring to God as a thank offering, to give to him for use in his service? The first thing that comes to mind is time. What would it mean to us to bring the first fruits of our time? Well, I think that it means, in part, to start each day by giving God those early moments, those first moments.

The Psalmist wrote: "Satisfy me in the morning with your unfailing love, that I may sing for joy and be glad all day long" (Psalm 90:14). And again, "In the morning, O Lord, you hear my voice; in the morning I lay my requests before you and wait in expectation"(Psalm 5:3). I have those two verses written on the first page of my prayer journal, to remind me of how important it is to spend those first fruit hours with the Lord.

In my Bible study entitled "A Guide on Getting to Know God," I suggest a challenge to give God the first hour of your day. At a time in my life when I desperately needed help to make it through the day, God taught me this principle, which has made a huge difference in my life. That habit of bringing to God the first hour of my day has been life-changing for me.

Tell me, what is your first hour like each day? Wait 'til the last minute to put your feet on the floor, and then rush and dash to get to work on time? The way you start your day sets the pattern for how that day will go, for what you will think about during the day. It is true that your day is won or lost in the morning hours. I want to strongly encourage you to be willing to give God the first fruits of your day, that first bright hour.

Now, I can hear some of you saying to me, "But, Mary, I need my sleep!” And that's absolutely right; you do. So, maybe you have to get to bed a little earlier, huh? Or maybe you're thinking, "An hour is too much. I can't spare an hour.” Well, there's no law that says it has to be an hour, but you can't rush in and out of God's presence with your shopping list, like the local supermarket, and expect that to make any difference in your life. That's not giving God first fruits; when we rush in and out it's another form of leftovers for God. It's been my experience that an hour is a good starting place but if that seems too much, then start with half an hour.

If you don't have an hour for God,

I hope you had a thankful day yesterday. Actually, I hope you have a thankful day every day. You know why? Because thankfulness is powerful!

I've been encouraging you to practice overflowing with thanksgiving, and yesterday I gave you four helpful hints on how to do that. But did you ever think about the power that is released when you become a thankful person? Let me tell you some of the great things that will happen:

People will like you much better. Thankful people are nice to be around. Your relationships will improve. You'll have more friends.

Your energy level will go up. It's true, because when you're thankful, you unleash a lot of good energy that is often wasted on complaining and negativism. You will do more work in less time. And that's going to make you a better employee, which will make your boss happy! I won't go so far as to say you'll get a raise, but then again—who knows?

Your stress will go down. I'm not making this up, folks. When you are being thankful, you are thinking about the good things in your life, and that keeps you from focusing on the negative things. It's like a release valve on a pressure cooker—you will see your stress go down.

Your face will be prettier—or more handsome, whichever you prefer! Think about it: when you are thankful, you're not worried or fretting, and those things cause lines in our faces and age us! You'll look younger!

Your posture will improve. When you're thankful, you stand up straighter. When you're negative, your shoulders tend to stoop and your back curves.

There's power in thankfulness. You have much to gain. But way above and beyond all of these, here's the most important reason to be thankful:

You will honor and glorify Jesus Christ as he deserves. When you overflow with thankfulness, you tell the world what Jesus has done for you, and you are a good ambassador for him. Not to mention, it pleases him to see your thankful heart.

Let's start a campaign to overflow with thankfulness. What a way to live.

This Thanksgiving holiday is a good time to remind us that we are to overflow with thanksgiving, as we read in Colossians 2.

There is great power available to us when we are truly thankful people. But how do we make thankfulness a way of life for us? Here are some practical ways to learn to practice thanksgiving.

Do the thankful alphabet. Start with A and go through Z, naming something starting with each letter for which you are thankful. You can have some fun with this; it's a great game to play in the car with your kids and you'll be teaching them to practice thankfulness.

Make every Tuesday a Thankful Tuesday or each Thursday a Thankful Thursday. You can share this with your family or your co-workers and have some fun with it, but it will teach the joy of practicing thankfulness.

Sing songs of thanksgiving. This week we'll all probably sing some of those traditional Thanksgiving hymns at our churches, like "We gather together to ask the Lord's blessing" and "Come, ye thankful people, come.” But how about all the other weeks of the year? You could sing "Give Thanks with a Grateful Heart.” How about "Count Your Blessings"? The Bible says to sing and make music in your heart to the Lord. Go for it.

Begin every prayer time with thanksgiving. Probably the most famous Psalm—Psalm 100—tells us to enter the gates of the Lord with thanksgiving and enter his courts with praise; give thanks to him and praise his name. Whenever you enter into the presence of God, always enter with thanksgiving. Make the first words out of your mouth words of thankfulness.

I have found that this changes my prayer time. If I begin with all my needs and requests, I am self-focused. If I begin with thanksgiving—reciting some of the many things I have to be thankful for—I am God-focused. What a difference that makes in my time spent with God, and that in turn makes a difference in my day. I begin to truly overflow with thankfulness.

Being thankful is not our natural condition. We have to choose to be thankful and we have to remember to be thankful and we have to work at being thankful.

Many times, I have gone to Africa to conduct meetings there, and every year as I returned home, I was reminded of how much I have and how easy my life is compared to my friends in Africa. I would tell myself that I would never complain about anything again, but you know, after a few weeks if I wasn’t careful, I would fall back into my bad habits of complaining. If I want to be a truly thankful person—and I do—then I have to put disciplines in my life that will cause me to give thanks for everything and in everything.

Here’s one suggestion that helps me to be a thankful person: Turn every complaint into a praise. When you start to complain about something, even if that complaint has already escaped your lips and you’ve just heard yourself utter those negative words, go back and replace them with words of thanksgiving. For example,

You complained about the weather—it’s raining again, and you’ve had three days of rain, and you’re tired of the rain.

As soon as you hear those words of complaint, replace them with thankful words: You know, this rain is good. I’m thinking of some places in Africa that are in a three-year drought. They would love to have this rain. Thank you, Lord, for this rain.

Whether your complaint is just a thought in your mind or words you’ve expressed out loud, you need to replace those complaining words with words of thanksgiving. Of course, it’s better if you can catch yourself before you think or say those negative words, but even if you have already said them, I encourage you to teach yourself to replace them with thankfulness.

You see, the power of thanksgiving is something we have to teach ourselves; it’s a gift we give ourselves, and we do this by becoming aware of every non-thankful thing we think and say and forcing ourselves to replace them with thankfulness. And the more you do that, the more it becomes a good habit which you just naturally do.

Would you like to have some power? I can tell you how to have more power in your life, because there is power in being thankful! And all of us can learn to be thankful. In writing to the new believers in Colosse, Paul said:

“So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live in him, rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness” (Colossians 2:6-7).

Thankfulness is powerful because it transforms our thinking, it keeps us from complaining, and it makes us joyful. Thankfulness unleashes God’s power in our lives; it is the foundation of joy, and the joy of the Lord is our strength. Without joy we are weak. What wipes out our joy? Complaining, feeling sorry for ourselves, focusing on the negative aspects of our lives. But thankfulness replaces all these negatives and restores our joy, which makes us strong and powerful.

Paul said we should overflow with thankfulness. And to the Ephesians he wrote:

“Always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ” (Ephesians 5:20).

When you and I are thankful for everything, we affirm the sovereignty of God in our lives. When you can be thankful for everything—the good and the bad—it means that you believe God is in control, even when bad things happen to you. That kind of thankfulness—giving thanks for everything—is so powerful. It means that the enemy of your soul cannot defeat you, no matter what happens, because you are going to give a sacrifice of thanksgiving even in the tough places.

In addition, when you are thankful, you affirm that you know and believe that God cares for you. Did you know that one of the greatest challenges to your faith is to believe that God doesn’t care? Satan wants you to believe that God doesn’t really care about you because then you will lose your joy and be defeated. Being thankful affirms that you believe God cares for you, which he does.

We will no doubt enjoy the traditions that usually accompany this Thanksgiving holiday—great food, time with family and friends, watching football games—but will we give any thought at all to being thankful?

Did you ever realize that there is great power in thankfulness? Interestingly, there has been a great deal of research into the science of gratitude, and much time and money has been spent to find out what difference it makes in the life of a person who is intentionally thankful. And these studies have discovered that a thankful person is twenty-five percent happier than a non-thankful person!

When I read about these studies, I thought: Why didn’t they ask me? I could have told them that. Or better still: Why didn’t they just go to the Word of God? Time and again it tells us about the power of thankfulness.

In the Old Testament the people of Israel were instructed to bring thank offerings, sacrifices that were presented to God, to give thanks for his goodness.

“Sacrifice thank offerings to God, fulfill your vows to the Most High” (Psalm 50:14).

Now, a sacrifice meant they had to bring something they owned to the altar of God and offer it as a thank offering. Why do you think God instituted the thank offering? Because the people of Israel—like us—were very prone to grumble and complain and they needed to be reminded that they should be thankful people.

The power of thankfulness is the power to change our attitude, to change our thought patterns, to change our focus—and that changes us. You see, thankfulness cannot coexist with griping and complaining. You just can’t complain and give thanks at the same time. So, thankfulness drives out the negative thinking and causes us to be focused on the blessings of our lives.

But like the people of Israel, we need lots of reminders to be thankful people. So, I’m going to remind us all that if we truly are thankful people, not only will we be happier, but more importantly, we’ll be pleasing to the Lord. For today, would you give a thank offering right now? Just say—out loud if possible—one thing you are thankful for.

Mary Lowman and Lauren Stibgen talk about having a heart to serve other female Christian executives. Lauren discusses her journey as a working woman, challenges she has faced, the importance of coming into the office with a servant’s mentality, and how her primary vocation is ultimately to glorify God at work. She also shares how she prays and praises with other women at work and how it makes a difference.

(presented by Lauren Stibgen)

As I sit here, I must admit I have the Sunday Scaries. Those thoughts leading into a new work week, wondering how Monday will launch. Even if you don’t work a traditional Monday-Friday, I am sure you know the feeling. Even if you find yourself in a season where you are between jobs, stress can steal your peace.

The stress we experience as working women is arguably only sometimes about work. Some of us are the main breadwinner, perhaps facing single motherhood, illness of a spouse or loved one, needs for childcare, needs to care for an aging parent, or even mounting household issues. The truth is, we carry all this around, on top of the to do list we face waking up to another Monday.

Jesus knew what we faced in the world. He even acknowledges this in John 14:27, “Peace I leave with you. Not as the world gives, do I give to you.” Not as the world—if our Lord Jesus is telling us the world will not bring peace, we should not expect it but for in seeking him.

The good news is that Jesus tells us to come to him and rest (Matthew 11:28). I have found that one of the best ways to do that is through prayer.

Philippians 4:6-7 tells us:

“Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication, let your requests be known to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.”

Scripture shows us that some many of those closest to the Lord cried out to him in distress. David cries out to the Lord, Job in his distress is in constant prayer, and perhaps our greatest example of crying out to the Lord is Jesus himself. When the mighty didn’t have peace, they cried to the Lord for comfort.