Work and Pray

By Maria Boccia, PhD
Professor of Pastoral Counseling and Psychology
Director of Graduate Programs in Counseling Charlotte campus

“. . . work out your salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure.” (NASB Php 2:12b–13)

Does having a business plan, using marketing strategies, or taking lessons on how to raise funds for a mission on ministry mean that we are not living in faith and trusting God? Several times in the last month, I have heard Christians indirectly talking about this question. I know people who land on both the positive and the negative side of the answer to this question. A new missionary wants to practice his “spiel” on me to see how it flows and if it will be effective in getting financial commitments. We have a discussion among faculty, and one faculty member asserts that marketing strategies demonstrate a lack of faith that we are engaged in God’s ministry and that he will provide. What are we to believe about this?

When I was a brand-new Christian, before I had read this passage in Philippians, my spiritual mentor encouraged me to “work as if everything depended on me and pray as if everything depended on God.” When I read Philippians, I had an aha! moment. I can work as if everything depended on me because God is working in me, both giving me the desire to fulfill his will and enabling me to do the work to accomplish his good pleasure.

So many times, Christians argue about whether the ultimate is one thing or another (for example, God’s sovereignty versus human responsibility, or here, works versus faith). When I read scripture, it becomes clear to me why it’s so difficult for us to reduce it to one ultimate thing. It is because the Bible teaches both. God is sovereign and we are responsible. Our salvation is by faith and we must do works as evidence of and response to that faith and salvation provided by God. We must resist the temptation to seek a single ultimate, bottom line assertion.

This verse is a great comfort to me because it assures me that I can step out in faith and use all of the gifts, resources, skills, and education that God has given me to plan, strategize, and execute these plans and strategies, knowing that it is a God at work in me, giving me these gifts, resources, skills, and education so that I may follow the desires he has implanted in me to accomplish his good pleasure. Of course, one of the gifts we must always exercise is discernment. I believe God guides us into what he would have us do, but also when and how and with whom. But as I plan and move forward, I pray and I trust God that I am moving forward in his plan.

When Dr. Sid Bradley, former dean at Charlotte and founder of the counseling program of which I’m the director, talked about utilizing psychology as a Christian counselor, he talked about the Exodus, and how the Israelites when they left Egypt, at God’s command, “plundered the Egyptians.” When we learn strategies and approaches from the world (compatible with biblical principles of living), we are plundering the Egyptians. We are taking the gold, silver, and precious jewels of the world and utilizing them for Kingdom work. So may I also encourage you to “work is if everything depends on you and pray as if everything depends on God.”

“Do not be afraid”

By Maria Boccia, PhD
Professor of Pastoral Counseling and Psychology and
Director of Graduate Programs in Counseling at the Charlotte campus

Recently, I started attending a Bible study on the book of Esther. We were studying Chapter 4, where Esther responds to Mordecai’s request that she approach the king by telling him that if anyone approaches the king without being summoned, they will be killed. The discussion in the group turned towards the idea that Esther was probably afraid to approach the King. Someone said that the most frequent command given in Scripture is "do not be afraid." That certainly seems to be the case in the Gospel narratives of Jesus birth: when the angel approaches Zechariah, the angel says. "Do not be afraid" (Luke 1:13). When the angel approached Mary, he said the same thing, "do not be afraid" (Luke 1:30). When the angel appeared to the shepherds, Luke says they were terribly frightened and the angel said to them. "Do not be afraid" (Luke 2:10).

As I sat in the Bible study and heard this comment about the command to not be afraid, the psychotherapist in me sat up and took notice. We do not choose our emotions. Emotions are responses to our interpretations of events and experiences. "Emotions just are; it's what we do with them that matters" is something I say frequently to clients. Because Jesus commands us to love, I conclude that love is not just a feeling, but rather something we can choose. We can choose to put someone else's needs ahead of our own, to work for the benefit of another, for the welfare of another. So what does it mean that the most frequent command in Scripture is to not be afraid?

There must be a sense in which "do not be afraid." refers to something more than emotion. One of the other women in the Bible study commented that we are also told to fear the Lord, which led to a discussion about how fear in this context is reverence or awe, or to make God be the reference point, the most important person in our lives. So perhaps, we are commanded to not be afraid of anything but God because God wants us to see him as the center, and him only.

In the Gospel narratives of Jesus birth, the angels were bringing “good news of a great joy” to each person to whom they appeared: that God was coming in the flesh to redeem his people. The incarnation is an awesome thing: Divinity, the infinite almighty eternal God, took on our finite, limited human nature. "Vastness confined in the womb of a maid." If this God is for us, we need never be afraid of anything again.