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Spy Games

Ok, I'll come clean. I love spy shows. After years of being satisfied with a good mystery, I'm intrigued by the heftier mix of intellectual and psychological challenges...a mental P90X!
Perhaps you have a similar indulgence?

As a friend was relating some workplace drama to me yesterday at church, my mind could not help spinning out a scenario much like the intrigues and deceptions played out my favorite spy show. It's not a far-fetched analogy -- the lengths to which women will go -- and to the depths to which they will descend -- to ensure they are secure in their little hierarchies! You have your assassinations---of character, your fight scenes--mostly verbal, and, most of all, an array of characters who seek your trust, but do not deserve it. Watch your back.

In an arena filled with such treachery, it's easy to feel lonely, insecure, and robbed of all peace. What's supposed to be home base--a safe place--can flip into enemy territory in a heartbeat; the line blurs between friends and enemies, and the stellar images of the people you look up the most are often shattered, revealing characters without character.

Remember--they don't define you. And they don't define your mission. Your purpose is to do the best job you can, regardless of what everyone else is doing, and to rise to success by doing the right thing, not by doing everyone in, so to speak. While the world around you chooses every kind of ungodly and inhumane strategies to climb to the top of the corporate ladder, if you play the same games, you'll be a ruthless shell of a woman when you get there. That's not what God intended for you to gain from these challenges.

So, how do you rise to the task at hand, without getting caught up in the spy story? Remember who the real enemy is here. The mean girl at work? The bullying boss? The two-faced peer? They are just pawns, intended to trip you up and derail your mission.  Don't try to understand them--where there is no godliness, there is little logic.

Have you seen the movie, "Mean Girls?" The main message is this: if you play the mean girl games, whether it's for revenge, survival, or gain, you will become a mean girl, too.

Stop focusing on the games and the traps, trying to play the games by their rules; focus on your mission, your purpose, and your identity. It is found in Christ, through HIS righteousness and grace, not our pitiful attempts at being good. Delve into God's Word, so deep that you can almost physically absorb it. It's the best defense you have, and the most effective way to rise above it all. I challenge you to train heavily, daily, whole-heartedly for your mission, equipping yourself with scriptures to give you the mental stamina to come out stronger, better, wiser---and a winner!

And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. 
-- Romans 12:2

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