Evil, despair, hope and redemption at work

San Diego Deputy District Attorney Keith Watanabe

Our Faith and Work Ministry recently interviewed Keith Watanabe, a Deputy District Attorney with the San Diego County District Attorney’s Office. He works in a specialized unit that prosecutes domestic violence and child abuse crimes. I hope you find his insights into issues of faith as incredible as I did!

How do you integrate your faith with your work?

What helps me is that I have a correct biblical understanding of the things that I see so I can properly process and understand it in light of what God has told us about the world. For example, I see the effects of sin. I see the state of human misery in which this world finds itself. This world is imperfect – it is a fallen and broken world in which people commit crimes. People hurt each other and they do so for their own pleasure, self-interest, and greed. They hurt and exploit children for their own desires.

So people ask me how I do what I do – go to work every day and see the horrible things that I see. The reason why I can is because I know the Bible has an answer for all of the things that I see. The Bible says that we live in a sinful world. It says we have a doctrine in Christianity of total depravity – man is not good, people are not generally good. Because I understand the place of redemption in this world, I have a real sense of fulfillment and pleasure in being a part of that and making sure we have a safer society to live in. So in that sense, I provide a place for Christians and non-Christians alike to enjoy this world so that they can go throughout their daily life safely. Many of the cases that I work involve crimes that are cyclical and generational. The role of the prosecutor is to stop this cycle of violence and abuse so that we can have future generations of people who don’t grow up thinking that it’s okay to abuse women or children.

How does being a Christian help you resolve conflict at work?

I see conflicts at all different levels. For example, I see the conflicts of victims’ families who are displeased with the outcome or resolution of a case. Sometimes, I have to make decisions about plea bargains that they disagree with. I need to resolve that conflict with them. Some of the most sensitive types of situations I found myself in with victims and their families are homicide cases. Their families want justice – they want to see a certain resolution reached. Seeing the defendant put away for life is not going to make everything better. The only way they are going to come to closure is to gain a right understanding of the situation, so I try to spend time talking with them and listening to how they feel and giving them feedback.

The other types of things I see are conflicts between two different families on each side of the case – the victim’s family and the defendant’s family. I try to give the families a proper perspective of the role of the criminal justice system. In that sense, I feel that having a criminal justice system makes certain people feel better because they understand the role of our system and its limits.

How does being a Christian influence your leadership style?

Understanding the Gospel and realizing what it means to be a Christian is to sacrifice for other people. Christ came not to be served, but to serve and give his life as a ransom to many. We have a perfect God, the ultimate leader, who chose to show his leadership by coming down when he didn’t have to and dying for us. So what it means for me to be a Christian and a leader is to be able to sacrifice myself for others. I need to constantly remind myself that being a Christian is to take the lesser role. Jesus was greater than us because he is God, but he became lesser on our behalf. At work, I realize that I need to serve my co-workers and work together as a team using the Gospel as a model for leadership.

There is a verse that talks about this (Philippians 2:5-8):

5Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus

6Who, being in very nature[a] God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped,

7but made himself nothing, taking the very nature[b] of a servant, being made in human likeness.

8And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death— even death on a cross!

To me, that is the ultimate model of true leadership – our savior gave up the glory of heaven to come down and serve as a sacrifice for us.

Do you think that being a Christian has influenced not only your choice to become a lawyer, but also the type of law you practice?

I chose my career based on my skill set, talents, and gifts. As I became older and looked into being a prosecutor, my faith did influence my decision because I understood that God is a God of order. He created the world out of chaos. To be in the field of law enforcement means to bring order and chaos just like God did with creation. I realized that to be able to fight crime would be to make a better society and that’s something as Christians, we participate in. The word that sticks in my mind from Genesis is the word ‘Tohoovavohoo’, which is the word for ‘formless and void’. When the world existed as it did in Genesis, it says that the world was formless and void. But God spoke and created out of that order so he’s a God that creates order out of chaos.

How do you relate to non-Christians?

One of the most important things to keep in mind in dealing with non-Christians is to understand that we are all sinners. Sometimes people are very difficult to deal with, but I need to remember what it means to be a Christian – it is to be a sinner saved by grace. If God could love and forgive me, how can I not love the difficult people that I encounter at my workplace who are non-Christians? Additionally, when I’m out in the field investigating a case, I see many of the most sinful non-Christians in society. Most of people who witness crimes are criminals themselves. I end up talking with those people and see all of their sins -they are caught up in the throes of a horrible life. I have compassion for them because I realize how much they need Christ. I see that they aren’t different from other non-Christians who maybe don’t engage in such outward sin. We’re all sinners and we all need a savior.

Are there any passages in the Bible that influence your work ethic?

The most instructive passage for me in understanding my work is seeing that there was work in the Bible before the Fall of Man. When I read Genesis 1 and 2, I see God created Adam and Eve and gave them work to do. God told Adam to rule over the Earth’s creatures and serve as a steward of the earth. He was to be a gardener, caretaker of the animals, and God saw that all of this was good. This tells me that work in and of itself is good and is part of God’s plan.

We tend to view work as drudgery, something that you have to do in order to make ends meet. Having a biblical understanding of work and creation in Genesis reminds me that I was created to work. Even when I die and go to heaven, I’m going to continue to work. All Christians in heaven will. We’ll have jobs because that’s part of God’s pleasure. God is a working God who created things and it’s no surprise that his people would do work. To be a Christian is to do work whether you are paid, working at home caring for your children, cleaning the house, making things, or working in the garage. It’s all a part of what God desires for us.

Work is not about having enough money to enjoy the weekend or a large 401K so I can retire; work is a something that God has given me because he wants to do something good in this world – before and after retirement.

Can you describe a spiritual struggle at work?

Probably the most common spiritual struggle that I face at work is seeking the approval of coworkers, the media, even from myself. I realize that all of these things are idols that I hold. These are things that take the place of God and make me feel better about myself.

I’ve been fortunate to be successful in what I do. When I put this in an improper perspective and I put it in place of God, it becomes a very sinful thing. It’s one thing to win a case because I have this role of restoring order in society, but it’s another thing to win a case because I want to look good. I want to win; I want the praise of the media and the personal advancement. I struggle with these things. Another way of looking at it is that it’s arrogance, pride – really a form of idolatry – putting my own stature and sense of self on my work accomplishments instead of God.

Recently, I struggled with these things on a case I’m working with another prosecutor. Working with someone else is not typical for me; I am usually the sole prosecutor on my cases and not used to sharing the responsibilities or the spotlight with anyone else. I found myself concentrating on gaining approval and achieving a personal sense of accomplishment instead of focusing on my role of restoring order in society.

I had to come home to my wife and share with her that I realized my sinfulness and it was good that God put me in this position because I never would have seen it otherwise. If I go through my career always being the center of attention, I’ll never realize how split my motives are and how sinful I really am, but this was a great opportunity to share with my wife and have her remind me of what we learned in our Gospel Transformation class and to say that I need to put Christ as the center of my life and look to him to receive ultimate approval. After talking with my wife, I told myself that I was accepted and approved for what Christ has done for me. God loves me and accepts me for what I am.

I need to keep reminding myself of the Gospel and preach it to myself that I’m accepted because of Christ and nothing can change that.

Any similarities between what you do for work and what you know about Jesus and his disciples?

Jesus set out on a mission to heal the world and bring peace, and he did so by serving and dying on the cross. My role as a prosecutor is along the same lines because I seek to prevent crime and make this world a peaceful place by reining in the outward effects of sin.

If Jesus’ resurrection is the first fruits of a renewed planet, then what do you think it means for you to work towards that resurrection and renewal of all things at work?

Christ’s resurrection means that our world is going to be redeemed, renewed, and restored to order and glory. Preventing crime, holding people accountable for crimes, and redressing wrong is a part of this process.

I see the worst things you can imagine – child molestation, child pornography, rape, domestic violence, child abuse, and murder. So many people ask me, how can you stand seeing all that you see? The answer is that I know that the world is headed toward redemption and I’m a part of this plan.

One thing that I can say about myself is that people at work always comment that I have such a joyful, happy disposition all the time in all circumstances. I truly think that comes from being raised as a Christian and having a right understanding of things in life. When good things happen, I’m excited and happy, but when bad things happen, I also have a sense of joy; I don’t let those things get me so far down that I reach a point of despair. I have a good balanced perspective of life and I think that comes from being a Christian. I know that I’m a sinner saved by grace and because of that, I can go to work and have an attitude of joy in anything that comes my way. It’s truly amazing that I am the recipient of God’s favor and grace.

When bad things happen to me, I don’t need to despair because God has a plan and a purpose in it. Bad things are really a blessing and not a curse because the curse that should have been mine has already been poured out on Jesus at the cross. Therefore, God has no curse left for me; he has nothing but blessings for me. Sometimes those blessings come in the form of disguise. As I look back on some of the hardest things in my life, from problems I’ve had in my marriage to my father’s death, I realize that God was faithful to me as a Christian – he has a plan for me in all of those things. If he hadn’t placed all those terrible things in my life, I wouldn’t have learned the lessons that I know now. I wouldn’t have seen the things that he wanted to teach me. He made me more like himself because of those things. He brought out the idolatry in my life and showed me how much I needed him. I wouldn’t have realized this unless those bad things happened.

The Keys to Success: Performance, Image, Exposure

 Take a moment and ask yourself what matters most to your career advancement. What percentage value would you place on each part of the P.I.E. – performance, image, and exposure. When I did this activity at a recent conference, I said that for me personally, 60% was performance, 30% image, and 10% exposure. This is what has been true of my career advancement thus far. I have worked really hard and a few people have taken notice. I have been aware of my image, always dressing for the job I want, not the one I have. Admittedly, I’ve been a bit oblivious to the exposure factor.

The speaker at the conference challenged the audience to think of what matters most in pretty much the exact opposite manner. She said that 60% should be exposure, 30% image, and 10% performance. Essentially, the performance part is assumed. The rest is what matters most. I can 100% see that this is how the work world operates. In fact, I went out the next weekend and bought some more suits and scheduled a lunch with a mover and shaker.

But doesn’t the Bible say to work as unto the Lord – to work with the strength that God supplies (clearly valuing the performance part). Don’t we learn that whoever exalts himself will be abased. Aren’t we to humble ourselves in sight of the Lord and He will lift us up?

I know that we are not meant to be doormats in the workplace. I get that. But the idea of self promotion seems suspicious. Won’t the Lord ‘cut off the tongue that speaks proud things.’ Or is it not self-promotion if someone else is doing the promoting for us?

I get that the P.I.E. thing is reality. We need a good image; we need to be in front of the right people. We need people who will advocate for us. And I don’t see that this is unbiblical. I guess I’m struggling with how we get there in a biblical way. What are some of the integrity-leaching pitfalls to be avoided? Is career advancement the wrong goal? I doubt it. We are designed to have a vision and passions that mean that we will grow in our careers. Am I over thinking this and it just is what it is?

Any thoughts out there in the blogosphere?

I hate my dream job

It’s easy to get sucked down a career path without thinking intentionally about what is happening to you. It’s especially difficult if you have dreamed most of your life about a particular job and even gone to school for years to accomplish specific goals.

What do you do when you find yourself stuck, disillusioned, and even a bit depressed about a long line of life choices?

Let me introduce you to my dear friend, Charise. Picture the most driven person in your circle of friends – the one who chose the chemistry lab over the beach in college. The one who knew without a doubt what God had called her to do and be. The one who did her med school residency at Harvard. The one everyone admired for having her life together.

Charise knew early on that she was meant to be a doctor, and she never looked back. The problem was that not long after she earned the title of MD, she was stricken by the fact that she could not in good conscience be a part of the traditional medical system.   

This summer, at an annual girls weekend with my close friends from college, Charise found herself in tears. She was at a crossroads. There was no joy working in a bureaucratic medical system that did not consider the whole person. There were quality of life issues more than ever before now that she had a baby girl. Her personal values were being challenged on several fronts. And then there was the med school debt, so she couldn’t just quit!

She was at a loss for what to do next. She was angry at herself for landing in this place, angry at God for leading her there. How could this happen when she sought her entire life to do everything right?  

Over the next months, I learned a lot from watching Charise go from despair to hope. I want to share some lessons that I think will help anyone feeling stuck in a job that they worked so hard to achieve only to realize they are not where they are supposed to be.

Let your values guide you. Over and over, Charise said that she was just not willing to compromise. Sure, she could get a job in a hospital or clinic and just do her job. It’s not like she was doing anything illegal. In fact, many would call it laudable. But her integrity was a priority. Her values of holistic health and genuine relationships with patients guided her so strongly that she could not shake it.

Another critical value related to her family life. Charise is a mother, and she was not willing to work 60-hour weeks and never see her daughter or husband. This was non-negotiable.

It’s easy to lose sight of our values in the marketplace. We see the values within our environment, and we become like a fish that does not know it’s swimming in water. What’s normal is normal, right?  It’s so critical to know what you stand for so that when you are faced with a decision, you know what you know to be right.

Pay attention to your strengths. During our weekend together, the girls all took the StrengthsFinder assessment that I’m always hustling. Charise went away with renewed energy that weekend after she was finally able to put a name to what she knew of herself all along. She had discovered the strength of “connectedness.” Read more about this incredible strength here. 

As knowledge about this strength sunk in, I could see the synapses firing in Charise’s brain. This is why food, health and faith are so integrated with each other in her mind. This is why she cares deeply about how her actions affect a stranger on the other side of the world.

Knowing her strengths made it possible for Charise to reframe her own role in her profession. And she was able to pinpoint what she needed out of her work environment.

 You don’t have to jump ship completely. So at this point you may think that Charise just needs to find a new job. The thing is that in most professions there is lots of wiggle room if we are creative. Several years ago, Charise discovered a niche called “functional medicine.” It’s not something you learn about in med school, so Charise has been taking extra classes for a while learning a lot about food and nutrition as it relates to major chronic health issues. The problem is that it’s tough to incorporate this knowledge into the mainstream profession.

Finding a framework for medicine that is in line with Charise’s values and strengths gave her renewed energy and optimism. Finding a viable way to practice it was still a challenge.   

Have hope. I admire Charise so much for how she connects her faith and her work even though she may not even realize she’s doing it. She has been so prayerful about what to do next. She has wrestled with God. She has laid her brokenness at the foot of the cross in her despair. She has yearned for God’s desire for her life and His desire for all of humanity.

There is a gap between our current experience on Earth and what we will experience when Jesus returns. In the meantime, God is bringing Heaven to Earth through people like Charise – people who see the possibility for restoration and redemption within broken systems. Charise has not let go of what “could be”  to settle for what is the current reality. It is through the power of the Gospel that we can have hope, and Charise has not forgotten this.

Be open to the possibilities. Charise and her husband, Josh, believed they had settled in for the long haul when they bought the house in the neighborhood where they were born and raised – the neighborhood where family and friends still live. They figured all of the traveling adventures were done for a long time as they settled in to their church and community.

As hard as it was, they realized that they would have to be open to change. They struggled with what it would mean to leave the loving grandparents of their daughter and the church they absolutely loved, but they knew that they had to be open to what God might have in store for them.

They clung to the knowledge that, “All things work together for the good of those that love the Lord and are called according to his purpose” (Romans 8:28).

How does the story end?

Well, the story ends at the beginning of a new adventure. In the next few weeks, Charise and Josh (who happens to have the strength of Adaptablility!) will be packing up and moving from California to Massachusetts, where Charise will be working for a medical practice that is in line with her values and strengths. While it’s really hard to leave family and friends, and it’s scary for lots of reasons to pack up and move across country, they feel peace for the first time in a long time.

Strippers Need Health Insurance, Too

In an effort to get creative in her new business selling Aflac supplemental health insurance, a friend of mine, Kirsti, decided to approach the local strip club. Hey, why not! Strippers need health insurance, too, right? It was tough to get past the black curtain (I’m picturing a black curtain, but I don’t really know), but Kirsti is tenacious and was able to convince the manager that this was a good thing for her girls.

Before she left for her night at the strip club, she prayed with her husband – prayed that God would protect her, that she would be a servant and a light. If you were to guess where Kirsti would end up in her career, strip club would not be on your short list. On her resume, you will find that she worked for a medical missions non-profit and was dean of women at a conservative, private Christian college. But here she was – at the strip club.

Kirsit left me a voicemail on my work line the next day (I always listen to my messages on speaker, and this one said, “Call me, I have to tell you about my first night at the strip club.”). I hope my staff was not listening too closely!

When I called Kirsti back, she said she just had to tell me what happened. She knew I would appreciate it with my whole faith and work obsession.

I’d like to report that the ladies were at least scantily clad back stage, but I’m afraid they weren’t clad at all. “Was it awkward?” I asked. Kirsti responded matter of factly, “Not at all. I just looked them in the eyes and treated them with respect.”

I know it seems unconventional, but think about it. What Christian who wants to be a light in the darkness would ever get an all access pass to the back room of a dingy strip club!

Kirsti was excited to report to me that as she manned her little table, a young woman approached her and asked her how she got into her career. A little informational interview happened on the spot. The woman wanted to get out of her current profession. To Kirsti, if nothing else happened that night to further her business, she was honored to make this connection. Subsequently, she was able to help this woman get an interview with Aflac.

Fortunately, Kirsti is a Christian who understands that her work matters to God. She knows that God created her with special strengths – one of which is the ability to push beyond surface connections with people. She is a relator – she values deep relationships. It was this strength that enabled her to quickly make a connection in this circumstance.

People sometimes seem perplexed about why I am so passionate about marketplace ministries. Aren’t there more important eternal issues to worry about! The reality is that our work gives us the opportunity to work out our faith.. to be people of integrity… to be a light… to help redeem corrupt systems.

It was through Kirsti’s work that she was able to serve another human being. Kirsti could have avoided the strip club completely because it was a den of iniquity. Or she could have gone into that joint and just done her job. But her faith compelled her to treat those women with dignity – to look them in the eyes.

So what surprising opportunities do you have in your workplace to serve others and bring the hope of redemption and renewal? If Kirsti can be a servant in the back room of a strip club, I’m sure you can find ways to be a little creative in your sphere of influence.

Working with our hands

I have some guys at my house today working on new flooring. It’s incredible to see the steps that go into removing a toilet! Watching the transformation of my place in this mini-remodel really has me thinking about how all of our work is a reflection of the nature of God – he creates, he maintains, he restores. Through our work, we do the same. Watching the old floors get ripped out and new paint go up on the walls, I am witnessing creation and restoration right in front of me.

As I have been pondering issues of faith and work lately, I have noticed people more – literally. I can sometimes be inside my own head as I walk through life. I get so lost in thought that people can startle me by just saying hi as they walk by. But lately I have been noticing all the people around me in an amazing variety of professions and being so thankful for their work, work that helps me and the rest of society to function.

It sucks how some work gets valued as more prestigious than other types of work, how we push people to climb the ladder right into work that is no longer fun for them. I often ask my staff members where they see themselves in 5 year. I’m embarrassed to admit that I expect them to say they want to be managing a team or overseeing bigger projects. On more than one occasion, the response has been that they love what they are doing and that they would never want my management job (that I happen to love).

The frustrating part is that some of my staff may become more and more expert at what they do, but it’s hard to “promote” them unless they do something different. And there is an expectation many times that that different thing is management – which is just so far off from their chosen crafts. I suspect that people in a variety of trades run into this same issue. Sometimes doing what we love and are designed to do is not enough in this society. And that is not cool.

An incredible article was recently written by Matthew Crawford entitled, “The case for working with your hands.”  I highly recommend taking time to read it.

A short excerpt to whet your appetite:

“High-school shop-class programs were widely dismantled in the 1990s as educators prepared students to become “knowledge workers.” The imperative of the last 20 years to round up every warm body and send it to college, then to the cubicle, was tied to a vision of the future in which we somehow take leave of material reality and glide about in a pure information economy. This has not come to pass. To begin with, such work often feels more enervating than gliding. More fundamentally, now as ever, somebody has to actually do things: fix our cars, unclog our toilets, build our houses.

When we praise people who do work that is straightforwardly useful, the praise often betrays an assumption that they had no other options. We idealize them as the salt of the earth and emphasize the sacrifice for others their work may entail. Such sacrifice does indeed occur — the hazards faced by a lineman restoring power during a storm come to mind. But what if such work answers as well to a basic human need of the one who does it? I take this to be the suggestion of Marge Piercy’s poem “To Be of Use,” which concludes with the lines “the pitcher longs for water to carry/and a person for work that is real.” Beneath our gratitude for the lineman may rest envy.”

Are You a Secret Agent Christian?

I’m in a study called “Your Work Matters to God.” We are reading a book with the same title by Doug Sherman and William Hendricks. While discussing what it means to be a Christian in the workplace, it came out that several people in the group avoid letting anyone at work know that they are Christians. One person coined the term “Secret Agent Christian.”

I’m guessing this is not uncommon. Why are so many Christians under cover at work? Could it be that the many Christians who have come before us have given us a bad reputation. We are either overbearing, seen as simple minded, or behave no differently than anyone else. In fact, a study conducted back in the 1980s (and I doubt much has changed in 25 years) measured moral and ethical behaviors like calling in sick when not, cheating on income taxes, and pilfering supplies at work. The study found no real difference between the churched and unchurched. No wonder people don’t tend to take Christians seriously!

I know that when I “came out” at work several years ago (not that I had really been purposefully hiding anything before), many of my coworkers were shocked that I was a Christian. At the time, I was a little confused, thinking that maybe I had not been behaving in a Christlike way. Now that I think about it, I’m realizing it was probably because they thought I was ’smarter than that.’

I also remember coming out in grad school. You would have thought that I had dropped a bomb. How could I be so naive to believe in that craziness? However, it honestly never bothered me that people thought I was an idiot. I didn’t even waver when one professor told me to F*%# my God. I saw it as an opportunity to rock their worlds. To be something they were not expecting – a thoughtful, hard-working, servant-hearted colleague.

I’m just confused as to why this rocked their worlds. Why were they so surprised when I turned out to not be as crazy as they expected? It disheartens me that some of the Christians who are working with integrity and doing their work with excellence don’t want to be associated with Christians. 

Last week, one of the small group members announced that she came out of the closet on LinkedIn. She did it in a very professional and appropriate manner. We all applauded. Maybe we need more support groups for the secret agent Christians out there.