From Hal                                                              Home

I believe there are a number of considerations a Christian needs to think about in a bidding (or work) situation.

    1.  Since we are created in the image of God, we have a certain worth in this life that is measured by the time and talent he has given us.  It is assumed that the Christian contractor bid the job fairly taking into consideration his cost, overhead and profit.  To re-bid the job diminishes his Godly worth.  If anything, the bid should be resubmitted at the original price.

    2.  It is assumed the contractor requires help in completing the contract.  Thus, those people and their families are also entitled to a fair wage for their efforts in completing the job according to the contract.  So, he owes it to his hired help to re-submit the bid.

    3.  If the contractor has a family, they are entitled to benefit from the work the provider engages in.  The bid price enables his family to enjoy a certain standard of living.  It is God who determines our standard of living in this life and He has given us the talent and wherewithal to do that.  God has promised us an abundant life and that, in part, means to be fairly compensated for the work we engage in.

    4.  Was the contractor attacked by the devil?  If he has had problems with other bids, it needs to be determined if those problems were correctable.  It is possible he is in the wrong business, but maybe he needs to be pro-active and try to see if there are any commonality in the bad experiences and do something about them.

    5.  As for suing, it serves no purpose in the kingdom of God.   It is the taxpayer who pays the tab and there is something the community loses when its citizens sue one another.

    6.. The job is not lost until the contract is awarded to another individual.  If it is yours to have, God will get it to you.  Perhaps it is an issue of faith and the contractor needs to trust God for his needs.  After all, God is a better plumber than the contractor ever will be and maybe it is time to bring God into his daily life on a full time basis.  Very few Christians believe Jesus is able to do as good as or an even better job at whatever they are doing.  Now may be a good time for the contractor to find out just what it is that Jesus can do in his life.

    7.  If the contractor "throws in the towel", he loses the opportunity that this situation has to develop his character.  The work we engage in plays the biggest part of the transformation of our character to the person we were called to be.  It is no accident that work is the essential aspect of the Creation Mandate.  We are told to "rule and take dominion" which can be done in one of two ways:  with God or without.  God uses our work to glorify Him which really means being the person in Christ we were called to be.  Thus, God is then glorified.

This is an endless subject for me but I think you have the gist of where I am going with it.  I hope there is something here you can use.

YIC, Hal