Ask HN: What place do you have for God in your life as a hacker?
A substantial one, really. I&#x27;d go so far as to say my &quot;life as a hacker&quot; (or, well, software developer) has a &quot;place&quot; in my life with God, rather than vice-versa.<p>Full disclosure: the rest of this post is going to be me talking about how Christianity in particular has a positive impact on my life. It got a bit longer than I expected it to, so it probably looks like a screed, but at least it&#x27;s a positive one. :)<p>My relationship with Jesus influences how I treat others; because he showed me the most profoundly self-sacrifical mercy ever, I am both motivated and reminded to show grace to others in how I treat them and interact with them. As it says in Ephesians 4: &quot;Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.&quot;<p>This surfaces itself in emails, meetings, chat messages, code reviews...basically everywhere I interact with someone else. I don&#x27;t always succeed, sure, but I know when I fail that there is both need for forgiveness (from the other person), available forgiveness (from God), and opportunity to learn and grow from it.<p>My confidence in God&#x27;s unfailing love and omnipotence help me to handle stress better (or at least, better than my anxious mind would without such assurances). Because I know that my future is guaranteed by God (Romans 8:18 -- &quot;For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us&quot;), I am able to endure (or at least endure <i>better</i> than otherwise) in stressful or painful situations and to &quot;count it all joy...when [I] meet trials of various kinds...[knowing] that the testing of [my] faith produces steadfastness&quot;, and to &quot;let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.&quot; (James 1:2-4)<p>This surfaces all <i>over</i> the place, when I do so successfully -- it&#x27;s the area where I most often fail, personally. Tight deadlines, seemingly-doomed projects, team conflicts, bad management...all of those, if handled well, are growth opportunities. I&#x27;d sure like to be &quot;perfect and complete, lacking in nothing&quot; with regards to my faith. The reward is worth the price there. This obviously also shows up outside of work, probably more often than it surfaces <i>at</i> work.<p>In part, my drive to learn is fueled by fascination at the levels of ingenuity possible in the world we live in, and my belief that learning about that world is learning about facets of my own maker&#x27;s skill and apparently-infinite ingenuity. &quot;The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork&quot;, as David put it in Psalm 19. The circuits that guide the electricity powering the laptop I type this on, the logical foundations on which they&#x27;re designed, and the chemical reactions in the laptop battery that provides the power to them are the result of studied observation into the systems and properties of the universe God made -- and we&#x27;re nowhere near complete in our knowledge of that universe. And all of that apparent infinity just highlights how much larger the infinity of God&#x27;s creativity and &quot;engineering skill&quot; are. &quot;His invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made.&quot; (Romans 1:20)<p>It&#x27;s also fueled by a desire to improve so that I can be skillful in my reflection of that creativity, and use that skill in diligent work that I enjoy, while balancing that work with a &quot;longer-term&quot; perspective on its priority. While I&#x27;m here, I should do my best and enjoy the my labor and its fruits, but I also know that said labor or wages aren&#x27;t my &quot;everything&quot;. Solomon had a <i>lot</i> to say about this in Ecclesiastes, but in particular in chapter 2: &quot;There is nothing better for a person than that he should eat and drink and find enjoyment in his toil. This also, I saw, is from the hand of God, for apart from him who can eat or who can have enjoyment? For to the one who pleases him God has given wisdom and knowledge and joy, but to the sinner he has given the business of gathering and collecting, only to give to one who pleases God. This also is vanity and a striving after wind.&quot;<p>This helps me to balance my priorities, while still encouraging diligence. It is a great thing to be able to enjoy the work I do (and I count myself blessed that I usually do enjoy it!), and it&#x27;s a great thing to be able to enjoy what I&#x27;m paid for that work, but neither the work nor its profits are the point of my existence, nor are they my ultimate reward. In a way, it&#x27;s like a camping trip: I&#x27;m not going to be staying in my campsite forever (or even for long, comparatively), but I should still take care of it, and enjoy it while I&#x27;m there.<p>Entire books have been written on this subject (since the subject of &quot;how does your religion affect your working life&quot; is a pretty big one), but I think those few points are pretty relevant to this post in particular.<p>I say all this not to say that I&#x27;m the best, or to try to shout out anyone with a different system of beliefs, or to advocate for some kind of religious hegemony among developers. I just thought it&#x27;d be helpful to express what I think is a not-often-heard viewpoint on HN: that Christianity <i>can</i> have substantial benefits for the life of software developers, at least based on how it&#x27;s had substantial benefits for the life of this particular software developer.