Welcome, welcome, welcome, listeners! This is Faithful on the Clock, the Christian podcast for professionals where every salmon swims upstream to get your faith and work aligned. I’m your host, Wanda Thibodeaux, and if you’ve ever felt like other people take advantage of you as a follower of Jesus, or if you’re afraid that they might, stick around. My whole show today shares the traits people are most likely to abuse and how to protect yourself while still serving well. I’ll be offering some of my personal experiences along the way. Let’s get started!

I just wanna begin by saying, all of the traits we’re gonna talk about, your characteristics as a Christian, they set you apart. And I wanna just encourage you here — do not ever be ashamed of that, OK? Don’t ever be ashamed that you are different for God. And I say that because when people see you as a target for not being like everybody else, I know it doesn’t feel very good. Fact is, it can feel pretty raw and lonely sometimes. But God knows what you’re trying to do on His behalf, OK? And if you just remember that you serve Him above everybody else and that He’s not gonna shortchange you, finishing this good race you’re called to run is gonna be a whole lot easier.

But there’s a whole laundry list of positive characteristics we can have. And today I’m gonna narrow the show down to just a couple, because let’s be honest — I know you have other things to do and places to be. So, I’m just gonna run through these traits really quickly with some examples of what the abuse can look like in each case. But in my experience, the overall theme with this in the workplace is that it all gets gaslit into this idea of being a team player. You’ll have people who essentially give you the message that if you’re really a team player, you’ll essentially just tolerate being mistreated. And I’m here to tell you, mistreatment is not OK. That doesn’t mean you start retaliating and taking an eye for an eye. But it does mean that you can speak up and be clear about what’s right and wrong and that you can trust God to keep a fair score. And if you want a verse to kind of keep you oriented about the fact it’s not OK when people take advantage of you, you can have Leviticus 25:17. That very bluntly says, “Do not take advantage of each other, but fear your God. I am the Lord your God.”

So, first out of the gate, we’ve got generosity. People might always come to you looking to donate to fundraisers. Or maybe they convince you to turn down the pay raise you need and deserve telling you people need to sacrifice to keep the company going. Or maybe it’s not money they ask you to be generous with. Maybe it’s time, and you’re always asked to stay late or cover shifts or mentor or train other people. I was working for a company one time. It was maybe half a dozen years back now. Not a bad company or anything. But I got a reputation there as being really dependable. And people trusted the quality of what I was doing with my writing. It’s not the first place where things have been like that. But I had one particular editor, they always asked me to step in when they had a rewrite or draft that needed a fast turnaround. And finally I was just getting overwhelmed and I had to tell the editor I just didn’t have any more bandwidth. And the editor actually got upset with me. And they said to me, “I’d expect a Christian like you to give a little more.” I’m like, really? Really? It was pretty awkward. But it did tip me off that I needed to have better boundaries, which we’ll talk about in a second. And I had to kind of shift how I took projects to keep that under control. But this issue of generosity, people also could ask you to share your resources, including the information you’ve gathered on your own on or off the clock. That happens, too.

Then we’ve got forgiveness. That whole idea of turning the other cheek, right? And so this is where, you know, maybe somebody throws you under the bus in the meeting and later on they’re just like, “Come on, let’s just move forward. Let it go.” Or maybe the boss does something just completely out of line. Maybe there’s sexual harassment or embezzlement or that kind of stuff, and people put pressure on you to give the boss another shot, and they tell you not to drag HR into it because the boss has learned their lesson.

Or patience. Now, on the one hand, this gets into patience with time, like, OK, the boss has said you’d be up for promotion way back five years ago and you’ve still got nothin’. Or people tell you don’t complain, that’s just how the process goes, you’re gonna be at this for a few weeks or months before you can move forward. And they’ll play on the general idea of faith here, too — they’ll tell you that you’ve just gotta trust them even without data, or they’ll say that everything’s gonna work out if you just believe in yourself and the team enough. There was another company I was at where one of the supervisors, they’d let me know every once in a while that the company was going to be hiring, and they’d kind of put the bug in my ear that I should apply for one of the new higher-level positions. And this went on for months. And I finally said, you know, what’s going on with these jobs? And the supervisor, they’re like, it’s still up in the air, but you know, God provides, and if He wants things to open up, they’ll open up. And when I left, they still hadn’t hired any people. But you know, when we talk about abusing patience, this can be patience in the sense of self-control, too. So, when somebody sits there giving you all these little digs about your work, the unspoken expectation is that you don’t just lose it on them. You’re gonna just give it to God and bite your tongue.

Then we’ve got compassion. And this is the one in my opinion where people can be the most intentionally manipulative. And they’ll essentially play you the world’s smallest violin and play the victim so you feel sorry for them and cave to give them what they want, whether that’s you not holding them accountable when they make mistakes, letting them out of learning skills, getting time off, whatever it is. But they confuse you and make you think that you’re not loving if you dole out discipline or consider your own needs and goals. And it completely hijacks this idea of sacrifice to the point where you lose the ability to stand up for yourself or go after what you want.

Next, we’ve got integrity. You might not think people could abuse this trait, but sometimes what I’ve seen happen is, they use it as an excuse to exclude you. They’ll act like, “Well, we’re not gonna invite the Christian because they’re just gonna look down on us and find fault.” That happened to me in college especially. Because you know, on campus, you’ve got a lot of student workers, and of course they want to go out drinking and partying or whatever, and I wasn’t about that. There was this one time I was out with some people from work after this event, and we ran into some other people. And one of my coworkers knew who these other people were, but I hadn’t met any of them. And so my coworker’s introducing the people from our work team to this other group, and my coworker gets to introducing me and she says, “That’s Wanda, but she’s a Bible person.” And the people in the other group, like, you could just feel their whole attitude shift. And suddenly, like, the people in the other group, they just immediately tried to put their attention on some of the other people there. So, it made the whole encounter just kinda icky. But then another example of integrity abuse is that, sometimes, when there are shady things going on, people will either ask you to take the fall or they’ll just set it up so you get blamed. And sometimes that’s because people honestly resent you. They flat out resent the fact you’re squeaky clean and want to take you down a peg or two. But sometimes, again, it’s this team thing going on, where people wanna see how far you’ll go to prove you belong. Or in some cases, they just want a way to make sure nothing really changes. Because if you’ve had great integrity, the boss might take that into account when they’re dishing out discipline. They might be more lenient because of your record and just give you a slap on the wrist, and then the people who really ought to be disciplined, they’re still free to do whatever they want.

And then the last trait that some people abuse is humility. And the way this one usually shows up is, they’ll emphasize the fact you’re supposed to be humble as a manipulative, competitive tactic to keep you from bragging or taking proper credit. The whole goal is to keep you quiet and stop you from making noise so that people hear them as they crow. They push you out of the way so they can be heard and get the attention. And unfortunately, that can have some pretty serious ramifications for the way you advance and how fast.

So, how do you protect yourself from all this stuff? By far your best defense is gonna be setting and holding good boundaries. Because boundaries are what teach other people what you will and will not tolerate. They set expectations. And if you don’t set good boundaries up, people are gonna just take all of their presumptions around Christianity to set the line.

Now, this ties to the second thing, which is clear communication. As you set your boundaries, you can’t be wishy-washy in what you say. You have to be direct in a kind way, not only about what you’re looking for, but also in what the next steps are if they violate the boundary you have. And you have to make sure you are communicating to the right people at the right time. If someone throws you under the bus in a meeting, you don’t complain about it to a buddy from a different department. You don’t wait a month and then bring it up. No, you immediately talk to that individual. And if they brush you off, you document everything and go straight to HR. But communication also includes taking time to talk to other people about your faith, letting them get to know you, saying, this is what God says compassion is, this is what’s in the Bible about forgiveness. Because if you don’t have honest conversations with them about what you believe or how you interpret the scriptures, again, they’re just gonna make a bunch of presumptions. And I think you might be surprised at how incorrect some of those presumptions are or how people misunderstand who God is and why you follow Him the way you do. So, it just helps you gain this level of relatability that can resolve a lot of tension and conflict.

The next thing, I might get a little pushback on, because I think as Christians, our tendency is to try to see the best in people. We wanna recognize everybody as a child of God with potential, because that’s what they are, right? But we also have to be realistic and understand that people are sinful. And so there’s some sense in being on guard for that and knowing that a lot of people can be really lost. So, even as you do your best to preach and share the Good News, even as you know that redemption can be a long game, take some proper heed of 1 Corinthians 15:33. That says, “Do not be misled: “Bad company corrupts good character.” There might very well be some abusive people who will not hear you. And the Bible warns us that not everyone is going to believe in Jesus or do the right thing. So, if they’ve rejected you and the gospel, that’s when you just have to give them to God and keep your distance. And the temptation in the work context typically is to keep company with them because they’re the ones with the authority or connections that can help you advance. But I’m telling you, there is no job or promotion that is worth your character, OK? Maybe you can find a way to be assigned to projects they’re not on or something like that. It doesn’t automatically mean you have to leave your company. But if you have to skip an opportunity and look for a way forward somewhere else to make sure you don’t get corrupted, you do it. That’s a big reason why God had angels lead Lot out of Sodom, and why Jesus points back to that scene in Matthew 10:14-16, where he tells his disciples to shake the dust from their feet when a city or household won’t accept their message. Not only do you not want to get corrupted, but there’s also an urgency to reach the other people who will hear and be saved.

The final thing I’m gonna recommend is some good ol’ self-care. Now, I’m not just telling you to meditate for five minutes or that stuff. What I’m recommending is, do whatever activities help you remember the value you have as a servant and child of God. So, it’s not just, what activities help you cope. It’s, what activities help you feel free and in awe of who God is. What activities help you remember that you are a temple for the Most High God? Because when you approach self-care like that, when you find the activities that energize you toward the gifts and calling He has for you, then all of a sudden, you start to behave with a whole different kind of confidence and consistency. You don’t quit or take it as hard when people try to mess with you. And there’s something about that that people will notice right away. And instead of seeing you as a target, they sense that there’s a strength in you, a light they’re not gonna turn off very easily. And so that becomes a defense for you. But in the best case scenario, it also ends up attracting people to you. People are gonna get curious and say, “I want the confidence and consistency you’ve got. Where in the world are you getting those things from?” And that’s where the opening for a really deep, authentic conversation about your faith and God is.

So, with those thoughts, I’d like to close out as usual with a prayer.

God, You are a God of truth. And Your Son, Jesus, was honest when He said people who followed Your Son would suffer. But He was also honest when He said we would be blessed for it. And so, Lord, if people abuse us, if they take advantage, just refocus our attention. Keep our eyes on the fact that no matter what they do, we’ve got good things coming. Don’t let the bad experiences we have stop us from praying and holding out hope that even those who persecute us in different ways would come to You in the end. In Jesus’ name, I pray. Amen.

That’s the end of it all, listeners. Thanks for sticking with me today and hearing it all out — if you’ve been dealing with this problem, or if the tips I’ve covered today help you out, let me know by shooting me an email and wandathibodeaux@faithfulontheclock.com. Next time, I’m gonna be talking about polymaths. Do you really need to be one to succeed in modern business? The story of the building of the tabernacle has some clues. I’ll see you in two weeks, everybody. Be blessed.