Join Dr. James Dobson as he sits down with Doug Spada, a distinguished voice on integrating Christian faith into the workplace. In this episode, they discuss how work can be transformed from a mundane routine to a profound act of worship, exploring biblical truths and practical steps that help believers stay spiritually grounded throughout the workweek. Discover how your work, be it in an office or at home nurturing a family, can be an empowered avenue for spreading God’s love and fulfilling His purpose.
Welcome everyone to Family Talk. It’s a ministry of the James Dobson Family Institute supported by listeners just like you. I’m Dr. James Dobson and I’m thrilled that you’ve joined us.
SPEAKER 01 :
Well, welcome to Family Talk with your host, psychologist and bestselling author, Dr. James Dobson. I’m Roger Marsh, and you know the weekend will soon be upon us. But if you’ve ever had that Monday morning feeling, you know, dreading the workday ahead, or maybe you’ve convinced yourself that your job is just a paycheck, completely separate from your faith life, if either of those rings true, you’ll want to stay tuned. Because for everyone who has such an uplifting experience on Sunday morning and then dreads going back to work the next day, Our guest, Doug Spada, has some great biblical insights to share. He’s the author of the book called Monday Morning Atheist, Why We Switch God Off at Work. He’ll challenge us to see our jobs through a whole new lens, one that reveals God’s greater purpose for our work lives. On our last edition of Family Talk, we heard Doug’s personal story of losing a million dollars in business, but seeing God’s redemption through that experience. Today, Doug will share how work itself can be a form of worship designed by God even before the fall of man. Let’s join that conversation right now on today’s edition of Family Talk.
SPEAKER 02 :
How did you recover from this Monday morning atheist syndrome? You never questioned God. He was always a reality in your life, but you didn’t serve Him with great enthusiasm for a period of time, either at work or at home. How did you start to get that together? Because we’re talking to a lot of people who are right now where you were.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yes. First of all, I want to make the statement that I haven’t fully recovered. And what I mean by that is that I often tell people that I’m a recovering Monday morning atheist. And all I mean by that is that we all know it. I mean, we can love God, but there’s just areas that we have to keep working on. We all have different sin propensities or sometimes different environments. You can walk into your workplace and have a new supervisor or something in a different department and say, And not get along with them. So you’re grappling with another element of that.
SPEAKER 02 :
Marital infidelity often begins right there in the workplace, too. You not only aren’t working for the Lord or serving Him, but you’re really flirting with disaster.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yes, and a high percent of improper entanglements. actually start where? Work. So, see, that’s another – there’s so many of these things that actually kind of affect our families. You know, it’s very important to actually get our head around this because you’re right. Those are very critical. But, yeah, I still recover. I still have to – I think all of us have to stay on our game, you know, so we all – we have to keep growing.
SPEAKER 02 :
How is it manifested now? Do I want to answer this on the radio? Yeah.
SPEAKER 03 :
I knew that one was going to make you squirm. Sometimes discouragement and disillusionment. Sometimes, you know, you’re trying to accomplish a mission. You know what this is like, right? And you’re not seeing progress fast enough or, you know, the people you’re trying to reach aren’t, you know, maybe getting it or you’re having to kind of readjust it and stuff. So sometimes I catch myself not trusting God. I’m just using one little example. Maybe not trusting God with my work.
SPEAKER 02 :
Somebody said it best, I think. Life is so daily.
SPEAKER 03 :
You know, it’s on and on and on and on. I don’t think you’ve ever arrived. And I think, I don’t know, you could probably tell us a lot about this, Dr. Dollar. It seems like the closer you get to Jesus, the more you see your junk. Yeah. I thought about this scripture in Acts 17. And Paul was on his second missionary journey. And he just left Berea, and he got stoned. They were throwing stones, and he was hightailing it out of Berea. And in Acts 17, it says that he was coming into the city of Athens, and it says that he saw that the city was given over to idols. Do you remember that part of Scripture? And this is an interesting part. It says, so, that means in the Bible he took action, right? So he went into the synagogues. with the Jew and the Gentile worshipers, and it says he was in the marketplace daily. And then in verse 17 or 18, it says he was preaching Jesus and the resurrection. So I thought it was interesting that Paul actually modeled this. Paul was a tent maker, right? So yes, he was in the church and the synagogue with the Jew and Gentile worshipers, but it says he was in the marketplace daily.
SPEAKER 02 :
And the Lord sent him there to minister there. Yes. And put him in contact with people and allowed him to spread the good news of the gospel.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, he was even using those idols, remember, to actually, you know, to preach and actually to the unknown God, right? I’m going to tell you about this idol of the unknown God.
SPEAKER 02 :
Let me tell you who that unknown God is.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yes, exactly. So that was exciting. So, yeah, this is a very critical topic. thing for the body of Christ. And I think that the main reason is because people are positioned in culture. How are we supposed to reach culture? I mean, we can’t just, you know, stay in our houses, man. God sent us out. I mean, he sent us out, you know, so we’re out there all over the place in culture. And if we can’t understand God’s purpose for why we’re there, then we’re just going to do time. And that’s not fun. Everybody knows what that feels like, just doing time.
SPEAKER 02 :
The cover of your book, Monday Morning Atheist, has a switch. It looks like a light switch.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yes, it is.
SPEAKER 02 :
And the implication is that that’s pretty easy. You just go over and hit the switch, and suddenly you’re flooded with light.
SPEAKER 03 :
Truth of the matter is a lot of hard work, isn’t it? It is. It’s hard work. And that switch kind of came from my engineering background. I just thought I was thinking about, wow, this is interesting. If you’ve ever played with a light switch, you have a ground terminal on there. And then you have two power terminals on the other side. So in order to fight Monday morning atheism, you have to stay grounded to the truth. Connected to the power, and you have to keep your heart switched on out there where God has called you.
SPEAKER 02 :
The analogy that you make is that you go to church perhaps on a Sunday morning, and then you go into the workplace, and that’s where you kind of put everything on hold until it’s time to go back to church. The truth of the matter is the church is really designed to equip you to leave that place of worship and go into the byways and highways and encountering people. And there’s where you do the work of the church. And we’re all ministers in that regard, right?
SPEAKER 03 :
Yes, it is. Dr. Dobson, sometimes we don’t define ministry in the right context, right? I mean, if you say ministry to people, what do they generally think? Pastor. Pastor, or they think going on mission trips or working at the soup kitchen, something like that, right? So when you get into the Bible, and we’ll get into that in a little bit, is you’ll actually see that actually, you know, God uses words for work throughout the Bible, that work is ministry, and ministry is work. So they’re not separated. And so I think back to the church. I think… Sometimes we think that that is where it happens. That’s the epicenter. But game time really starts on Monday, right? So that’s why we’re focused on Monday. And we’ve got to get in the game and stay switched on.
SPEAKER 02 :
God not only honors work. God worked. He did the work of creation for six days. So he’s very familiar with work, and he wants us to take it seriously. That’s right.
SPEAKER 03 :
Quote Genesis 2. Yeah, Genesis 2.15 is the verse where it says, God placed man in the garden to actually tend it, or to work, right? He put him to work. Yeah, he put him to work. And that preceded sin. That preceded the fall. So a lot of times Christians think that That Adam and Eve sinned. God got ticked off. So he cursed them with work. And we’re all just kind of having to work the rest of our life until we go off. He cursed the ground, didn’t he? He cursed the ground, right? So work is hard. Obviously, everybody knows that. Work is hard, but it’s a holy calling. So if you look at that word in Genesis 2.15 for work, it’s actually the Hebrew word avodah, A-V-O-D-A-H. And so that’s the same word that God uses throughout the Old Testament for the word worship. So work and worship are the same in God’s eyes. So when you’re singing at church or, you know, just however you worship God and stuff, God’s looking at that as the same as when you are actually doing your job well with excellence and all the things you just got done describing.
SPEAKER 02 :
Hmm. You made the point, Doug, that Jesus lived for 33 years, and for 30 of that, he was in the workforce. He was a carpenter. That’s right.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah. I think some weird things sometimes, Dr. Dobson, but sometimes I think about Jesus in that carpenter’s shop. So he was fully God and fully man. Did he ever hit his finger, man, with a hammer or something?
SPEAKER 01 :
What came out of his mouth?
SPEAKER 03 :
I was like – Oh, it couldn’t have been sin. But, yeah, so your point, though, is, I mean, he worked for 30 years. And you often ask, why did our Heavenly Father have his son, Jesus, you know, work for 30 years, cutting things, taking orders, doing customer service?
SPEAKER 02 :
Yeah, he should have been in seminary. Something, practicing miracles or snapping his fingers and making, yeah.
SPEAKER 03 :
Learning to speak or something. You know, and one time I thought, man, you know, We know his heavenly father, and it says in Scripture that Jesus never did anything unless he saw his father working, right? I mean, it’s just amazing the way that, you know, Jesus modeled this. And the things we’re talking about, he sure wouldn’t have had Jesus work for 30 years if he didn’t honor and think that work was a high calling. That just makes no sense.
SPEAKER 02 :
You know, God’s economy is very different from ours. That’s right. And it’s strange. I think of David being chosen to be king. I mean, what an assignment. That’s right. The Lord himself said, this is my man. This is the one that will lead Israel. Yes. And what happens for the next 14 years? Yes. He’s out on the mountaintops trying to stay alive with Saul chasing him. 14 years. Couldn’t he have spent that time getting ready to be king? Yes. Learning what it means to be king? Yes.
SPEAKER 03 :
Or Moses out in the wilderness 40 years. It’s like, whoa.
SPEAKER 02 :
Yeah. What a waste.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah.
SPEAKER 02 :
And yet God’s economy is different. Maybe this doesn’t fit, but we’ve just come through fall here in Colorado, which is so beautiful. And the aspen trees become like gold for a period of time, very short period of time. I remember one tree in particular. Huge aspen tree that was so beautiful in the morning sun that there is not an artist in the world, not an artist anywhere who could reproduce it. It would just be leaves of gold. And we took pictures of it and stood there. The amazing thing, as beautiful as that is, is that three days later, all those beautiful golden leaves are gone. And there’s just sticks there. What a waste. And yet in God’s economy, nothing goes to waste.
SPEAKER 03 :
You know, you brought up David just a minute ago. I was thinking about David and his work. So you remember when David, where the… Philistines and the Israelites, they camped out against each other in the Valley of Elah. And remember David came on the battle scene. And I was thinking, you know, David spent all those years with that slingshot. That was an element of his work, right? He became obviously very good. I think it said he killed lion, bear, whatever.
SPEAKER 01 :
Yeah.
SPEAKER 03 :
He practiced that. So listen to this. Everybody was cowering down, you know, and Goliath and stuff. And David, you know, had this courage. Right. And you remember when David was with Saul and Saul tried to give him his armor and everything. Right. And you could see David. It was really small. It didn’t fit. He’s like, basically, listen. This is not my vocation. This is not me. He goes down to the brook and he gets five smooth stones. God used his work to actually slay the giant. Do you see what I’m saying? I sure do. It’s a very interesting kind of thought that God uses our vocation. He uses our skills, our talents to actually accomplish what it is that – That he’s called us for. I mean, that’s a very, very interesting kind of think about that.
SPEAKER 02 :
You and I were talking once before about Cyrus, the Persian king who defeated Nebuchadnezzar. He was not a godly man. He was not a man that would have had the characteristics that we would look to for leadership, and yet God used him to release the Jews and send them back to their homeland into Jerusalem. I think of that in the context of of the recent election here in the United States where Donald Trump obviously had the favor of the Lord or he would not have been successful. And yet he was and is a flawed vessel. Aren’t we all? But some Christians overlooked him because they said he’s not good enough. He’s not perfect enough. He’s done sinful things, evil things. I said that about him. I opposed him in the beginning because he was a kingpin of the gambling enterprise and had three families. And there were reasons why I would not have chosen him. But God chose him apparently. We have to assume that. That’s right. And so you don’t know who God is going to use or how.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, I think if the Apostle Paul would be here, we probably would have rejected him with all his background. Yeah, you guys can’t – isn’t there someone else? Yeah. Or even David. I mean, like you mentioned before, why – you know, David had so much sin and so much, I mean – The murderer, the adulterer.
SPEAKER 02 :
Yeah. And yet Nathan, the prophet – came and ministered to David. That’s right. Maybe, maybe there’s some Davids around us that we need to reach out to. That’s right.
SPEAKER 03 :
How many pastors or priests did Jesus call to be his disciples? None. They were workers, doctor, tax collector, fishermen. They were workers. Jesus called workers to be his disciples. It’s very interesting. He put Jesus in a carpenter’s, just a blue-collar kind of family. That’s an interesting point.
SPEAKER 02 :
So the point of all this is that the workplace is a place of assignment. It is where God sends you to do not the work of the company or the employer or whatever it is, but to do God’s work in that assignment.
SPEAKER 03 :
That’s right. And we need the defined workplace. I like to call it – that’s why it’s called work life. Everybody has a work life, okay? So let’s not get so focused on the place that we do the work, right? Because then that takes the family away. Like all of a sudden, that’s not work or something. So the collage of where people do work in today’s economy is just fascinating. I mean, people are in cars, working in their home. I mean, they’re all over the place. So we need to focus on the work itself. But you’re right. It’s an assignment from God. And it’s a holy calling. My pastor one time, he got up and he asked the congregation, he says, so how many of you are in full-time Christian ministry? And I think one or two people raised. And he just got done preaching. And he says, you didn’t hear anything I just got done saying. I’m going to give you one more chance. How many of you are in full-time Christian ministry? And then the whole place kind of, you know. But he says, hey, how would you like it if I came up here to preach? And I hadn’t prepared, prayed, all the things. A lot of you are just getting up and just going to work and treating it with disrespect like it’s not a holy calling from God.
SPEAKER 02 :
I don’t know if this is a bunny trail or not, but I’ve been at what I call ministry here. It’s not classical ministry. I’m not a minister. But there’s no question about the fact that the Lord has put me in this role for 39 years. And looking back over all that time, there’s some things I did well. There’s some things I’d like to have done over. There are some moments that I’m not proud of, and there are also some messages that I think were divinely ordered. And one of them goes back to the beginning of my ministry when the Women’s Liberation Movement, as it was then called, was telling women that raising children was a waste of time, that that couldn’t have been significant, and that they really needed to find some kind of place to park their kids so they could get into the real world and do important things. And I took all that on. And I became one of the passionate spokespersons for the woman at home, the woman who was raising children, the woman who was a wife to her husband, the woman who was doing God’s calling in that situation. And I’ve had a lot of women tell me that they were out there. And they were being influenced by the culture, and they were wounded by it. And that a voice of somebody saying, this is important. That’s right. Yeah. I get tears in my eyes right now after all these years saying that was God’s message for that time. That’s right.
SPEAKER 03 :
And it still is. It is. That’s synonymous with what we’re talking about, that every person – has value in God’s eyes, right? And so I do think that what you just described, you know, is a very important point because I think that those mothers sometimes feel left out from, because working for God has nothing to do with the economic benefit that comes. That’s right. So that’s a very important point. So sometimes people think if I make this amount or I make… That has nothing to do with God’s… Now, is that a part of work and raising a family? Yes, but we should not take our value from that. And I think that a lot of times… you know, mothers or people that choose to actually serve. There’s a lot of different scenarios, and it’s not just mothers. There’s men doing it now. There’s different situations and things. So, yeah, I think we can’t take our lead off of kind of the economic benefit.
SPEAKER 02 :
I’m not sure how much Jesus was making of that. Imagine the privilege of taking a new little life bringing him or her into the world and his brothers and sisters, and pouring your life into those children and giving everything you’ve got to them, not only protecting them and feeding them and medicating and take care of them, but teaching them to serve God, to know Him, and to understand, to comprehend who they are as children of God. And to teach the scriptures to them and to make honorable men and women, especially in this context from my book, Bringing Up Boys, teaching boys what it means to lead a family and to be God’s man and to be honorable and honest. and disciplined and not getting into addictions that would undermine everything they’re trying to do. You have an opportunity to do that. And then those children grow up and they pass that along to their children. I’m telling you, there’s no assignment. There’s no work at all. can compete with that in my view.
SPEAKER 03 :
No, no. And I don’t know if you’ve ever seen the figures of what it would take to replace a mother’s work and what you would have to hire out and all that. It’s astronomical. I mean, it actually really like drops your jaw like, oh, my goodness, we couldn’t hire all this in. It’s an amazing kind of calling and privilege.
SPEAKER 02 :
Well, let me personalize it. To the woman out there that’s listening to us today, and you have felt disrespected by the culture, the other women that you know around you in your neighborhood and in your church are doing exciting things. They may be in medicine. They may be teaching. Who knows what they’re doing? And you’ve begun to feel like your life doesn’t count and that you’re either stupid or you’re exploited or both. Don’t you believe it. That is a divine assignment that God has given you. And we honor you here today. Yes, we do. That’s awesome. Well, our guest has been Doug Spada, and he’s the author or co-author of a book called Monday Morning Atheists, Why We Switch God Off at Work and How You Can Fix It, all about the workplace and the frustrations that are there and what God wants us to do. Doug, this is interesting stuff. This is unique information. I don’t think we’ve ever talked about anything quite like this before. I don’t want to be a Monday morning atheist. And I’m sure there are millions of people out there who feel the same way about it. And yet they’ve had a bad attitude toward Monday morning. Thanks for coming all the way from Atlanta and being with us. Yes, thank you. I should say, in conclusion, you’re CEO of Work Life Incorporated, right? Yes, CEO of Work Life. You can find it at worklife.org. God’s blessings to you and your family.
SPEAKER 03 :
Thank you, Dr. Dobson.
SPEAKER 01 :
And that concludes part two of Dr. James Dobson’s inspiring conversation with Doug Spada here on Family Talk. They discussed discovering God’s purpose for your life in the workplace. I trust that today’s conversation has given you fresh perspective on how to approach your daily work with renewed spiritual focus. Now remember, if you missed any part of today’s broadcast or you know someone who would benefit from hearing it, visit drjamesdobson.org forward slash family talk. There you’ll find the complete program along with the link for Doug’s book, Monday Morning Atheist. And for more content from Dr. Dobson and the James Dobson Family Institute, make sure you download the official JDFI app. available both for Apple and for Android. Well, I’m Roger Marsh. For Dr. Dobson and all of us here at Family Talk, thanks so much for listening. May God continue to richly bless you and your family as you grow deeper in your relationship with him. And be sure to join us again next time right here for another edition of Dr. James Dobson’s Family Talk, the voice you trust for the family you love. This has been a presentation of the Dr. James Dobson Family Institute.
