Dr Chris Shinn

While mowing the lawn this week I began to mull over some of the things that God had done in my career.  It seems appropriate to share a few of those experiences on the church website.

In 1988 God put me into a job in a large organisation of approx. 10,000 staff. He did this in a rather miraculous way, but that is another story.  The purpose of the role was, as a doctor, to establish a health unit to provide care and support to the workforce. Part of the role was to help manage absence attributable to ill-health within the workplace.

I was very soon joined by another doctor who was also a Christian.  As both doctors and Christians truth, honesty and integrity were key to everything we did.  This did not always sit well with the managers who sometimes wanted things manipulated in their favour.

This is a story of how God works when things do not always work as we Christians anticipate.

The organisation decided that I should stop being the manager and appointed someone to do that part of the role.  It, fortunately, was possible to ensure that the appointment was made with due integrity.  They didn’t get the person they wanted!  The person appointed had significant sympathy to Christianity and certainly understood integrity.

Time passed and they replaced that manager with one of there own choosing. The original manager was taken back into the Human Resources Department where they were able to share the importance of integrity.  The new manager quickly realised the importance of our values and insisted that they be adhered to.  Around this time, I was taken away from all significant Senior Management meetings as my presence was deemed a bit of a nuisance.  This meant I could spend more time with middle managers teaching them how the job needed to be done, with integrity.  They decided again to replace this manager with another of their own choosing who would really kick us into shape.  Guess what?  He understood integrity better than his predecessors.  Again, the manager that had been replaced was moved back into the Human Resources function where he became a champion of integrity.  It turned out that we were all able to work in an interlinked way, saving the organisation several millions of pounds. 

Really tough times were to follow when an attempt was made to sack three of us.  God overruled.

It was at this time that I was able to cling on to my faith.  The song, “In the garden” helped me to do so.  The chorus is, “He walks with me and He talks with me, and He tells me I am His own”. What a wonderful living Saviour He is. (Youtube)

This a story about how God’s light shines and how men love darkness.  But the darkness could not overcome the Light.

Hope this encourages someone.

Chris

Bethel FamilyPaul Nel2 Comments