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PROGRAM D-6920
The Bible has a great deal to say about how employees should treat their managers and how managers should treat their employees, and 1 Peter 2:18-25 is a classic passage.
“Servants, be submissive to your masters with all respect, not only to those who are good and gentle, but also to those who are unreasonable. For this finds favor, if for the sake of conscience toward God a man bears up under sorrows when suffering unjustly. For what credit is there if, when you sin and are harshly treated, you endure it with patience? But if when you do what is right and suffer for it you patiently endure it, this finds favor with God. For you have been called for this purpose, since Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example for you to follow in His steps.”
This passage gives us some basic principles to guide us in dealing with impossible bosses:
First, we are to submit to our bosses with respect, and not just to the nice ones but also to those who are unreasonable.
Second, we must make sure we are doing our job and doing it well. If part of the problem is that you’re not doing your work well or you’re not motivated as highly as you should be, then what credit is it, Peter says, if you endure harsh treatment? You’re simply enduring what you deserve. But if indeed you’re doing your duty, and you still must bear patiently with a difficult and impossible boss, you are doing something very worthwhile in God’s sight.
Can you trust your difficult work situation to God, even though it seems entirely wrong to you? When you do, the sting goes out of the situation. Your boss may continue to be impossible, but with an eternal viewpoint, it won’t get to you like it used to. I’m not saying you’ll like it, nor am I saying you should endure any kind of bad treatment endlessly. But it may be that God wants you to endure for a while. You probably can’t imagine what good could come from it, but God may have some great surprises for you.
I know it’s not easy to accept that difficult boss; it takes a day by day leaning on God, on his Word and looking to him for strength throughout your days. But can you see how that may be God’s way of teaching you and growing you, and it may be the way God reaches that boss or someone else who is watching. Don’t miss the blessing that God has for you in this situation. It’s there, if you’ll look at it through Forever Eyes.