 The thing about work is, one is to see it as drudgery, as drudgery, as our lot after the fall of humankind. Work is something that we have to do because we are fallen. That is one aspect of work, or one way of understanding work. Another way of understanding work is to see it as something as the only and the most important thing in the world. And just to live and die for work and with our work only. It seems to me that both of these understandings of work are mistaken. From a Christian perspective, work is something that God has given us and actually it is God's first commandment to human beings. And actually I feel that a lot of problems in Nagaland, a lot of problems would be solved if only we obeyed God's first commandment to human beings, which is to be fruitful, to multiply, to take care of the garden, what God has given us. And because we have not obeyed God's first commandment to Adam and Eve in Nagaland or a lot of us Nathas, a lot of problems have arisen. But at the same time, there is a certain drudgery about work. It is difficult. We don't get up on Monday morning saying, yay, thank God it's Monday. We struggle with that. And rightly so. There is something painful about work. Now how do we approach work? What I want to share with you and then we will open it up for discussion. What I want to share with you is I will use the word tips in approaching work. First, and I will just use for ease of remembrance, I will use the letter C in each tip. First, approach work as a calling. That will help you in your work. When you approach work as a calling, now what is a calling? Calling is some, it is the old word is vocation, as a vocation by God. Many of us, I want to ask you this morning, how many of you you are teaching here, how many of you can really say that what you are doing is you see it as a calling? Can you honestly say that? If you know what your calling is, then it will make a lot of difference. Or if you realize that what you are doing here is really your calling, it will make a world of difference in the way you approach work. You know, in the medieval times, people understood calling in a very truncated and mistaken way. In medieval times, only the monks and the priests, those who were in so-called full-time Christian work or Christian ministry, were understood as those who were called by God. But when the Reformation took place, the reformers they came in and they said, no, everyone is called by God. It is not just the priests or the evangelists or the pastor or someone, a missionary who is called by God. An administrator, a magistrate, a soldier, a businessman can be called by God. And it was the Reformation that kind of democratized this idea of calling. And historians will today say that out of the five slogans of the Reformation, the Reformation work was based on five slogans, five solas. One, sola scriptura, scripture alone. Two, sola gracia, grace alone, God's grace alone. Three, sola fide, faith alone will save us. Four, solus christus, Christ alone is the same. And the fifth one is solideo gloria, to the glory of God alone. That was the fifth pillar of the Reformation. And historians today will say that it was the Reformation. Whether they are your Christian or not, you will have to concede that it was the Reformation that gave rise to the modern world, that produced the modern world. And how is this so? And how did this happen? This happened because when people went out into the world, as business people, they said, this is my calling. This is what God has called me to do. Business is my calling. Politicians went out into the world and said, this is God's calling upon my life. And I want to do it faithfully unto God. Koran deo, the Latin phrase is Koran deo. It is before the face of God, doing everything as unto the Lord, as called by God. Many of us, we think religious work, or spiritual work is the kind of work, or sacred work, is the kind of work that we do in church, or that religious, the typical religious work. Christianity actually says no. You know, with every other worldview, even among a lot of Christians, the more a spiritual, the more spiritual a person is, the less this worldly he or she becomes. But Christian spirituality is quite the reverse. At the heart, at the heart of the Christian faith is the claim that the word, the immaterial, became flesh, became material. So this world is spiritual. It is sacred. So my work as a pastor, or my work as an evangelist, or my work as something in religious work, is no more sacred than the work of a farmer, no more sacred than the work of a housewife. And I think this is something that we need to recapture if there has to be dynamism in our work, seeing our work as calling. One of the best books that I can recommend on calling is, maybe some of you have even come across this, is the book by Os Guinness, one of our senior colleagues in ours that I am. And he defines calling in this way. Calling is the truth that God has called us so decisively to himself that everything we are, everything we do, and everything we have, is invested with a special devotion and dynamism and lived as a response to God and His summons. Think about it. Everything that we have, everything that we are, everything that we do is unto God. We need to break down this false dichotomy and false compartmentalization between the sacred and the secular. The opposite of sacred is not secular. The opposite of sacred is sin. It is not secular. So your work, you must see this work, your work here. If it is, God's call upon you, you must see it as your calling. And you must live it as unto the Lord. Abraham Kuiper, one of the great Christian leaders of the 19th century. He was a statesman. He was a poet. He was a publisher, a theologian, even a politician, and he went on to become the prime minister of Holland. He was the one who founded the Free University of Amsterdam, which is one of the leading universities in Europe today, Free University. Abraham Kuiper, he said, there is not a single square inch in the whole of human existence over which Christ does not claim mine. So everything he says belongs to Christ. And your work is a call by God in Christ. So understanding your work as calling. But the question still is, how do I know what my calling is? It's not easy. For some people, they know it early on. Most people will know it in the middle of their lives. Some people will know it at the end of their lives. They look back and they say, ah, you know, this was how my life banned out. And that was my calling. And there's no strict formula as such about finding our calling. But calling is basically doing what you are. What is it that makes you, you when are you most alive? When are you most you? What makes you think? What makes you think? And some years back I had the privilege of hearing this famous pastor, Rick Warren. And I I think I've even read this in one of his books, but I definitely heard him say this. And he was talking about Moses, about how Moses found his found the call of God or heard the call of God. When God called Moses to lead the Israelites out of Egypt and Moses was negotiating with God, trying to refuse God, trying to decline the call. And God tells Moses, Moses, what is in your hand? And Moses says, a staff. I have a staff. God tells Moses, throw down the staff. Throws it down. It turns into a snake. Pick it up again. And he picks it up again and becomes a staff again. And Rick Warren, this famous pastor, he said, what did that staff of Moses represent? What did that stick represent? He said it represented three things. One, it represented his identity. Identity. Identity. It said who Moses was. Who was he? He was a shepherd. His identity. Number two, it represented his income. How did he earn his living? He earned his living by being a shepherd by looking after she, his income. Number three, it represented his influence. What did he influence? Or the field of his influence. Identity, income, influence. And God says, lay down your identity, your income, your influence. And he lays it down. Pick it up again. And then he picks it up, laying it down before God. And then picking up, picking it up again. And it's very interesting. Until that episode, that staff is called the staff of Moses. But after that episode, Moses starts performing miracles with that staff, great things with that staff. He hits the rock and water gushes out. He hits the sea, the sea parks. And it is also, it is no longer called the staff of Moses after that. It is called the rod of God. And Rick Warren asked us, and this applies to all of us. Or in fact, he told us, you know, when you talk to this NBA great all star NBA basketball players, who would ask them, what is in your hand? A basketball? That's your identity, your income and your influence. And in the same way, maybe I can ask you today, what is in your hand? And you will say, a pen. That's your identity. That's your income. That's your influence. Maybe that's your calling. So calling number one, calling number two is what I would call collaboration, approaching your work as collaborating with God and with other people. You know, one of the things that you'd notice. And again, please do pardon me. I'm a theologian. So I try to approach things basically from a theological and a Christian perspective. One thing in the Bible, again and again, that you notice is whenever God has something to do in this world, he always uses human beings. And I don't know why, but it is always human beings. God created the world. Someone had to tend it. He creates Adam and Eve. The world goes wrong. In order to solve the problem of the world, he calls who? Abraham. The people of Israel, there in Israel and there in slavery, they cry out to God. And it's very interesting in the book of Exodus, God says, I have heard the cry of my people. I have seen the misery of my people. I am coming down to help them. Very interesting. God says, I am coming down to help them. And then what does he do? He says, Moses, come over here. I'll send you again and again. It is always human beings. Do the point that ultimately he himself comes down in person. How? Again, as a human being in Jesus of Nazareth, according to Christian belief. And somehow, somehow it is very mysterious. God wants to collaborate with us. Everything that is done in this world is done by God, but through human agents. Never in my life has an angel come down and made my bed, except maybe, but yeah, in some ways, my wife qualifies as an angel, but never. God is not going to come down and clean that garbage. We have to do it. This building, we have to build it. And when you are building it, when you are building this infrastructure or whatever, when you are building students, when you see that as collaborating with God, it will make a world of difference. And one of the things is, in the end, in the end, the things that we humans do will also last. It's very interesting. The Bible begins in a garden and then it moves, moves in Genesis 1 and 2 towards the end, Revelation 21 and 22. Where does it end? It ends in a city, but it is not just a city. It is a garden city. Garden is the work of God. City is the work of human beings. And in the end, we have a garden city, a coming together, an integration of the work of God and the work of man. And I don't know how it will be, but the work that you are doing, as a teacher, it may sound, it may be boring. There may be times where you are frustrated. There will be times when you doubt your calling and your work. But whatever it is, when you believe that you are collaborating with God and that it has eternal significance, it will help you. It will switch on something. That mindset will switch you on. Collaboration. Collaboration with God. Collaborating with other people also. Third, is consistency. Excellence in work. Consistency. We just can't do it without consistency. My wife Ono and I, we have this inside joke, which has now passed on to our eldest son also. We don't want to look down or mock anyone, but when we open a shop, the names of our shops, they sound very exotic. They usually are very exotic. And the boards that we put up are also very impressive. The font, everything is well designed. And the names are also Latin or Spanish or whatever. Very well done. But our friends from the mainland, it will be Papu Medical or MS, Pancho or whatever. The name will be just simply written. Now, when we start, we start very well. But we somehow like this basic, consistent work every day manning the shop. And our inside joke is usually, you try and observe it. When the board is very impressive, the name of the shop is very impressive. Usually, it'll be upstairs. Downstairs will be taken by the non locals because the rent is higher. The upstairs, the rent is a little lower, so it will be taken. And then the shutters will always be done. Almost always be done. And one of our biggest problems is inconsistency. Insistency. Whatever it is, in far too many areas, we are inconsistent. And I think this is something that we really, really need to learn. Nothing worthwhile is achieved without consistent perseverance. I will really recommend this book that I just read very recently. It just completely came out a long time back. I don't know how I missed it all these years. Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell. How many of you have read that? You must have read it, yeah. Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell. And in that book, Malcolm Gladwell, and he's a beautiful writer, he has a chapter called, 10,000 hour rule. 10,000 hour rule. And basically, you can find it on YouTube, but read it, it's better if you read it. The 10,000 hour rule basically says, and he brings together all this research that researchers have done. And he says that today, researchers have kind of zeroed in or centered on the number of hours that you need to put in in order to become a world level expert. If you want to become a world level expert in anything or something, you will need to put in 10,000 hours of practice, which is roughly about 10 years of three hours or so. You do the math. So you need to be, if you just put in that consistent work, then you go. The problem with us is many times we just want that immediate breakthrough, but life, life isn't like that. Life isn't like that. My sons, they do Taekwondo, and it's, you know, watching them do, it's just a drill, the basic drill of king. But slowly, slowly, they develop. One of them has become a black belt. Even the other two are also catching up. Or you do music, even music. It has to be consistent practice. So whatever it is that you are doing, whether it is your research, your teaching, and I know some of you have done PhDs, some of you have done research, MFILs, some of you are in the process of doing your PhDs. It is the most, you know, for me, it was the heaviest load I ever carried in my life. But you need to, you need to produce that big, ugly, fat, black book at the end of it. And how do you write it? You can't write it overnight. You have to produce something every, every day. You know, one man during my PhD research, something that I read that really helped me was what a writer suggested about writing. He said, write 500 words a day. 500, if you write 500 words consistently every day. That's enough. That's more than enough. And this guy, he followed his own advice and he ended up writing 25 books in his lifetime. Just writing 500 words consistently. If only we could follow that. I'm also trying to write something consistently, but you know, I fail more and more often than not, but consistency. So third is consistency. Fourth, related to that is also commitment. It is related to consistency, but approaching work as part of your commitment to God. And I say this because it's very interesting that in, in, in the Bible, when the Apostle Paul, he advised this servants who work in other people's homes, when he gave instructions to the servants, he did not tell the servants to tell their masters about God, to talk about God, to do all of this, you know, religious work or to evangelize or to missionize or proselytize these people or to convert their masters. His advice to them in Colossians, for example, Colossians chapter three was do your work sincerely as a servant, as a slave, as unto the Lord. Not just as eye pleasers before your masters, but do it as a commitment unto the Lord. Knowing that you have a master in heaven, who will reward you? That God will reward you for sweeping the floor. Now, what's the connection? I don't know. But there's this book and I would recommend this book. I read this again about three weeks back. And it'll take you only about two hours to read through that whole book. It's called Practicing the Presence of God. You might want to pick it up. I read this many years, more than 20 years ago, but I did not really appreciate it then. Just three weeks back, I reread it and boom, this book hit me. This book is about a monk in the 17th century. His name was Brother Lawrence. He was an awkward, ungainly person, very clumsy person. But he gave his life to be a monk and he went and lived in the monastery to come closer to God. But he found out that in the monastery, he struggled with distractions. He struggled with his prayer life. He did not find God in the monastery. He thought he would find God. And for the first 15 years of his life in the monastery, his job was to work in the kitchen. 15 years this monk had to work in the kitchen. But then something clicked and Brother Lawrence, what he did was he said, whatever I do, I will do it as unto the Lord, in the presence of God, for the love of God, or as a sign of my commitment. And then he started practicing that. To the point, he says, I would even pick up a straw while he's cleaning. I would even pick up a straw unto God. And when he did that, his perspective changed. Not just his perspective, his whole demeanor changed. His life changed. So much so that the other people in the monastery, they started asking him, Brother Lawrence, what has happened to you? There's something different about you. What is it that you are doing differently? What has happened to you? We want that secret. And Brother Lawrence would say, there's no secret. No, no, no, there's a secret. What is it? And he said, well, I do everything unto the Lord. I clean the, sweep the floor unto the Lord. I peel and dice the potato unto the Lord. And the others were also influenced. Then other people outside the monastery, they heard, started hearing about Brother Lawrence. They started coming to the monastery to learn from Brother Lawrence. And so there's no secret. It's simply this, unto the Lord. People started writing to him and he wrote back and someone kind of compiled his letters. And that is how we have the book, Practicing the Presence of God. If only you can, whatever that you are doing, take it as unto the Lord. That will really change your perspective. Four, approach your work with a conscience. Having a conscience. Or is it the fifth one here? Conscience. And I think this is something that is desperately needed all over the world. And especially in London. We are at a point, we are at a ridiculous point right now. Where everything has broken down. Well, what the BAC has been doing. I mean, the irony of it all. You must have heard of the Public Action Committee, comprising volunteers from different tribes, going and manning these check gates all around Dimabu. And suddenly the price of potatoes has come, has halved. And it is, you know, the public have to go and check this, not just the different political groups, but the government agencies. Yes, we have a lot of systemic problems, but at the root of it is a problem of conscience. Somehow we have lost our conscience. And we need to regain that conscience. And it begins with you. It begins with me. Having a conscience before God. Saying, No, I cannot. I can't. I was just speaking to someone I know who is highly placed in the government. And this person was telling me someone trying to, you know, get a bill done and said you will also get your cut. And this person said, Just told me on my way back, I was speaking to this person. And this person said, I will not do it. I get my salary. I will not take it. I don't want that extra cut. And whether you are in the private sector, whether you are in multinational companies, whether you are in the government sector or in a college like this, there will be many times when you will have to draw your lines in terms of your conscience. Learn to draw your lines. Learn to say, No, this I cannot do. The story is told of a young man who was an upright man. And for his first job, he was working for a very rich businessman, very rich, very powerful man. And he was very sincere in his work. All he had to do was to be this man's receptionist or his beyond, as it were. One day a phone call came and the other guy on the other end said, Is your boss in? I want to speak to him. And this young man said, Yes, he's in. I'll give the phone to him. And he told his boss, Sir, such and such is on the line. He wants to speak to you. This boss said, No, no, no, no. Tell him I'm not here. I don't want to talk to him. Tell him I'm not here. And he told his boss, This young man said, No, sir, I cannot lie. You are here. I will not lie. Boss was really meant, picked up the phone, spoke to him, banged the phone, turned to this young man and said, You are fired. But before I fire you, you must know whatever I say you do, I'm your boss. You are fired. Young man said, Sir, that's fine. But before I leave, can I tell you something? Boss said, Go ahead. So I did not lie for you today. Because if I lie for you today, I will lie to you tomorrow. If I lie for you today, I will lie to you tomorrow. And a lot of our problems, honestly, a lot of our problems would be solved if only we do truth seriously. If we simply care to be, you know, I did a, sometimes I did a small kind of a research, not even a research, a Google thing about yes and no. Jesus said, let your yes be yes, let your no be no. Very simple. If it's yes, say yes. If it's no, say no. Very simple. And I checked the words for yes and no in the various languages of the world. And in almost all the languages of the world, or in most languages of the world, both yes and no are monosyllable. Just one-one syllable. Yes, no. In my language, it's oom mo. Yes, no. And the thought that occurs to me is, if only we can get these first two monosyllables right in our lives, a lot of things would be smoother. Approach your work with a conscience. And finally, I end with this. Approach your work also in communion with God. Communion. Learn to pray about your work. Learn to be in touch with God in your work. And it will make a lot of difference. In 2004, I had the privilege of being one of the praise and worship leaders in the Baptist World Alliance Centenary Congress 2004. The Baptist World Alliance was founded in 1904. And the first conference was in 1904. So 2004 was the Centenary Congress. And I was invited, I don't know why, but I was invited also to be one of the praise and worship leaders. And it was a conference, you know, with thousands of people in a huge arena. And every night, every morning, every night, we led the singing. One evening, one evening, the speaker was President Jimmy Carter, who's also a Baptist, the former president of United States. And he was the speaker. And we were on stage. And, you know, the delegates were all seated, people all around this arena. Jimmy Carter was in the front row with all the other dignitaries and other Christian leaders and other leaders. Jimmy Carter was to come up to speak. We had led the worship and singing. We sat down. Someone had come up to pray before President Jimmy Carter came up to speak. And from the stage, you know, everyone had their highest clothes. I was on stage. You know, I kind of opened my eyes and I just peeped through my fingers. And I saw Jimmy Carter. President Jimmy Carter seated and what impressed me so much, it was his body. But of all the people in that arena, Jimmy Carter was the one whose head was bowed the lowest. You know, he was like this. He was an old man. He was bowed like this in prayer. And that really made an impression by any account. He was the most important man there. But he was also the man who was bowing the lowest before God in. A few years back, I was in a conference in Singapore. It was a small conference. And one of the speakers, he gave his talk. And what he said in this talk impressed me so much. So I met him after the talk. I got to know him. And then later came back, I wrote to him an email and I said, your talk impressed me so much. Can you send me the talk that you gave? And he emailed me. And this is what he wrote. He said this, prayer is fundamental to the Christian way of life. I came to know Christ in 1976 when I was going to university. Initially, I prayed earnestly about everything. However, gradually as I gained ascendancy in the government hierarchy, I began to rely more and more on my own efforts and intelligence. I would say that I did this for about half my public service career. I still went to church. I still prayed. But in day to day life, I tried to solve problems on my own. Life still worked, but it was more hard going. This carried on until one day in 2004. A senior pastor of a church encouraged me to form a prayer group among the leaders in the government. And I did so with some other people. This became a tremendous blessing. Basically, I relearned the centrality of prayer in the Christian life. The Lord answered all our prayers. Sometimes, perhaps not according to our preferences, but always the Lord provided an answer, a solution, and a way out. It doesn't sound too remarkable until you hear who this man is. This man was the former chief secretary of Hong Kong. The top civil servant in Hong Kong. And Hong Kong is not a... I think per capita it has most number of billionaires in the world. And he was a chief secretary. And he resigned his post and then he also became a teacher. But as a chief secretary, as a civil servant, he's talking about the importance of prayer. If someone like Jimmy Carter, someone like the chief secretary is talking about the importance of prayer in the world life, how much more people like us. So I leave these five or six things with you. Calling, collaboration with God, consistency, commitment, conscience, and communion. I hope, you know, even if you did not get too much out of it, maybe something here or there, a crump will fall off the table and you know it will benefit you. Thank you so much. Yeah, maybe we'll open there for discussion. Thank you.