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Faithful on the Clock is a podcast with the mission of getting your work and faith aligned. We want you to understand Who you're serving and why so you can get more joy and legacy from every minute spent on the clock. Thanks for joining us and taking this step toward a more fulfilling job and relationship with God!

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In this episode...

Jacob, Leah, and Rachel: Laboring for Worth

https://faithfulontheclock.captivate.fm/episode/jacob-leah-and-rachel-laboring-for-worth

Do you attach what you produce to your worth? Episode 136 of Faithful on the Clock uses the story of Jacob, Leah, and Rachel to expose if you might be.

Timestamps:

[00:04] - Intro

[00:48] - Summary of Jacob, Leah, and Rachel’s story

[01:31] - The fact Jacob, Leah, and Rachel didn’t want or plan the kind of life they lived; how we also can be thrown into undesirable circumstances we have to deal with

[02:04] - The sexual dynamics and competition between Leah and Rachel in the context of how important motherhood was

[03:56] - How Leah and Rachel attached worth to output, and how we still do — particularly in Western cultures; the importance of attaching worth to our identity in Christ rather than to what we produce or do

[07:24] - Leah and Rachel’s scarcity mindset; how scarcity mindset influences teams today to be more competitive and self-protective and the role of leaders in conveying that dignity is a given

[08:53] - How culture delivers a sense of where worth comes from

[12:25] - God’s use of the overlooked and his elevation of Leah; identifying what we’re still trying to earn

[14:14] - What we name our work exposes hidden wounds or desires; the importance of naming from faith rather than pain

[16:56] - Prayer

[17:40] - Outro/What’s coming up next

Key takeaways:

• Jacob, Leah, and Rachel didn’t have a relationship they wanted or planned on. Like them, many of us are thrown into work or personal circumstances we didn’t expect and don’t enjoy.
• Jacob was physically intimate with both wives for complex legal and cultural reasons. But when God saw Leah wasn’t loved, he opened her womb. But both sisters were desperate to prove their worth through childbearing — that is, by producing what the culture considered to be of value.
• Many women in the world still use childbearing to gain a sense of internal and community worth. But in the corporate space, many woman also have simply transferred their sense of worth to different modes of production. Instead of building your values based on what you can do, build them based on who you are, because what you can do is not static.
• Workers can have a scarcity mindset around pay, opportunity, etc., just as Leah and Rachel had a scarcity mindset around love. And just as it did for them, a scarcity mindset can lead to conflict. Leaders can step in to stop this undercurrent of fear and...