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To many the term but­ton push­ing holds a neg­a­tive con­na­tion. What if we put a spin on it and con­sid­ered it in a more pos­i­tive light? Imag­ine for a moment the “but­ton” being pushed read: “Work-in-Progress.” Would we be more apt to look at “our stuff” with­out being defensive?

How often have you said or heard some­one say, “I’ve got a lot of work to do in that area”. Most of us are will­ing to acknowl­edge there’s a need to work on our­selves, and the Bible speaks on this subject:

Put to death, there­fore, what­ever belongs to your earthly nature: sex­ual immoral­ity, impu­rity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idol­a­try. Because of these, the wrath of God is com­ing. You used to walk in these ways, in the life you once lived. But now you must rid your­selves of all such things as these: anger, rage, mal­ice, slan­der, and filthy lan­guage from your lips. Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its prac­tices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowl­edge in the image of its Cre­ator. Colos­sians 3:5–10 

Con­sider these scenarios.

The call to work sounds; your spouse keeps inter­rupt­ing you dur­ing a volatile dis­cus­sion over money (for the sake of this sce­nario I’ve cho­sen money, but the topic could be any­thing). Your level of frus­tra­tion con­tin­ues to rise. In the heat of the moment you want to lash out and make your point (at any cost). Do you clock-in for work and ask God to reveal why you are tempted to allow your flesh to rule? Or, do you tear up the time­card and tell your spouse off?

The call to work sounds; you want some­thing, which is in oppo­si­tion to what God wants. Do you rea­son con­vic­tion away to grat­ify the flesh? Announc­ing, “I’m on-vacation. I’ve earned the right to relax with this sin for a while.” Or do you swipe your time card and ask God to give you an hon­est recog­ni­tion of your sin, which can bring about an atti­tude of repen­tance and a will­ing­ness to go in the right direction?

The work call sounds again; this time…you know, that you know, you’re right and you want to ham­mer it home. After all, the per­son is going to ben­e­fit from your wis­dom. In fact, if they weren’t so pride­ful they would real­ize they have two ears and one mouth for a rea­son (of course you already under­stand this and given an oppor­tu­nity would be happy to expound on the sub­ject). What do you do when they don’t “get-it” and seem­ingly choose to stay “stuck”? Do you enter your pin num­ber and hand stamp in any­way, trust­ing God’s the Boss, not you?

Our lives can be dif­fer­ent if we do it dif­fer­ent. Pray to receive God’s trans­form­ing power and never miss another day of work on yourself.