When I think of the summertime, my thoughts are filled with light and fun activities like vacations, cookouts, holidays and family.  What’s been striking to me this year, as we move into July, is that the workplace is not enjoying much of a festive summer “vibe” at all. Instead, I’m sensing a high level of tension.  As a business consultant, I get regular exposure to dozens of different organizations and industries, and this gives me a broad-based perspective that’s almost a “snapshot” of current conditions.

My clients, Christian and non-Christian alike, are feeling “squeezed” and “stressed” by inflation, AI, tariffs, etc. etc. etc.  All of us in the workplace need to be concerned with variables like these, but there’s a big difference between concern and worry.  The Phillips translation of the Bible renders 1 Peter 5:7 . . . “You can throw the whole weight of your anxieties upon Him, for you are his personal concern.”  We never disappear from God’s “radar screen”, but He can disappear from ours!

As Christians in the workplace, both for ourselves and for the pre-believers who are watching our example, we must remember to find and declare encouragement from scripture passages like these:

• “Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them.  Are you not much more valuable than they?” – Matthew 6:26

• “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.  Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.  For my yoke is easy and my burden is light” –Matthew 11:28-30

• “Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever!  Amen.” – Ephesians 3:20-21

How’s your stress level at work this summer?  Is there any “extra weight” you should be “throwing away”?