Within a company or a work team there is a distribution of attitudes regarding work and rewards. When I write rewards I mean not only financial rewards but also the rewards that are many times more important, like recognition and responsibility. This distribution of attitudes ranges from those who work hard, keep their head down, ask and need little to nothing in the way of recognition or attention, to those who test the bottom threshold of their performance and then expect the company to reward and recognize them above others. This latter group is the hard group to deal with as they not only are hard to manage but their attitude can drag down others and unfortunately, influence others who will fall into their way of thinking and acting. I once had a peer who was like this and while the rest of us were giving it our all and more, he would not pull his weight but he was the first one to be asking for a raise or promotion. Fortunately, our manager was smart enough to see through this employee’s M.O. and it finally caught up with my peer. No one was sorry to see him go, but everyone felt sorry for him as he had such potential but he just used his energy to cover is tracks too much instead of just working like the rest of us. It’s very easy to understand how rewards should be doled out. God tells us how He does it in Jeremiah 17:10; “I give people their due rewards, according to what their actions deserve.” If this is good enough for God, then the same can hold for us as we think through how we should work and what we should expect. If our actions deserve reward, then we will get them. If our actions are not worth of reward, then we shouldn’t expect to receive anything. If we fall into the trap of expecting something we didn’t earn, then we will find ourselves unhappy, frustrated and always searching for something that isn’t there and isn’t really yours.

Reference: Jeremiah 17:10 (New Living Testament)