By Ankunda Sheba

When I’d just started working in an office setting, interacting with different people, I found it difficult to cope, let alone with my boss.

I will save you the details, but my first reaction was always “avoidance,” until I remembered to pray.

I don’t think I had ever estimated the need for prayer at work, yet here I was, in a complex environment, with only God to turn to. I found myself praying for my teammates, their work, and clients, as God changed my own heart too.

Yet before I lifted difficult workmates in prayer (I confess, sometimes with such difficulty), I needed to know them; how was I to pray for them if I barely knew their cares? So I started with the low-hanging fruit. I thanked God for them, the image of God in them, for the tasks they accomplished, and for the good they all brought to business. I had been deeply stirred by something I read about leading in prayer that stated,

“If you’re stuck for a way to pray for your coworkers, thank God for anything that is honorable, just, pure, pleasing, commendable, excellent, or praiseworthy in them (Philippians 4:7). It may take a while to come up with a list, but it’s worth the effort. Focusing on what’s positive in someone else changes your heart and allows God to work in your working relationship.”

Eventually, it seemed to me that praying for my colleagues is what helped bring about the transformation only God could have brought about, first in my heart, then theirs.

With time, some conversations got better, and even when some aspects between us remained difficult, my heart was marinated in God through prayer to almost cope with anything, to endure, and to press on. After all, work was the place I spent most time, so it also seemed fitting that I reflected a healthy God-dependence there, through my prayer life.  

Honestly, becoming a restorative presence at work, which I understand as the supernatural work of God to bring about renewal in the places he has planted us, meant intentionally going to God, sometimes in light of fellow sinners I work with, in a way that threatened to change everything, including the way I responded to them.

I learned that Jesus’s invitation for his disciples to “…pray so that they may not fall into temptation” also had implications on how my own heart responded amidst difficult workmates, let alone a difficult me too, saved by grace alone.

The author is a lawyer working for Odongo and Company Advocates; she is also part of the Gulu Faith and Work Cohort.