Linchpin
I found Seth Godin’s Linchpin to be a stimulating read. This is an important book for how you think about your work in today’s economy and culture.
You are not a faceless cog in the machinery of capitalism (anymore). You now have a choice. This book outlines two paths available to each of us, and teaches you about why you might be resisting the less-traveled (but better) choice.
Close to Quitting
Here’s a very helpful post by John Piper:
Are you so discouraged you don’t know what to do next? I want to help you get through this. Maybe this will help.
The following quote is from my journal dated November 6, 1986. I had been at Bethlehem 6 years. If you have ever felt like this, remember this is 24 years ago and I am still here.
The point is: Beware of giving up too soon. Our emotions are not reliable guides.
Am I under attack by Satan to abandon my post at Bethlehem? Or is this the stirring of God to cause me to consider another ministry? Or is this God’s way of answering so many prayers recently that we must go a different way at BBC than building? I simply loathe the thought of leading the church through a building program. For two years I have met for hundreds of hours on committees. I have never written a poem about it. It is deadening to my soul. I am a thinker. A writer. A preacher. A poet and songwriter. At least these are the avenues of love and service where my heart flourishes. . . .
Can I be the pastor of a church moving through a building program? Yes, by dint of massive will power and some clear indications from God that this is the path of greatest joy in him long term. But now I feel very much without those indications. The last two years (the long range planning committee was started in August 1984) have left me feeling very empty.
The church is looking for a vision for the future—and I do not have it. The one vision that the staff zeroed in on during our retreat Monday and Tuesday of this week (namely, building a sanctuary) is so unattractive to me today that I do not see how I could provide the leadership and inspiration for it.
Does this mean that my time at BBC is over? Does it mean that there is a radical alternative unforeseen? Does it mean that I am simply in the pits today and unable to feel the beauty and power and joy and fruitfulness of an expanded facility and ministry?
O Lord, have mercy on me. I am so discouraged. I am so blank. I feel like there are opponents on every hand, even when I know that most of my people are for me. I am so blind to the future of the church. O Father, am I blind because it is not my future? Perhaps I shall not even live out the year, and you are sparing the church the added burden of a future I had made and could not complete? I do not doubt for a moment your goodness of power or omnipotence in my life or in the life of the church. I confess that the problem is mine. The weakness is in me. The blindness is in my eyes. The sin—O reveal to me my hidden faults!—is mine and mine the blame. Have mercy, Father. Have mercy on me. I must preach on Sunday, and I can scarcely lift my head.
Discerning Your Vocation
Poet W.H. Auden reminds us that discerning your vocation is simpler than you think. Chase what gives you “that eye-on-the-object look.”
You need not see what someone is doing
to know if it is his vocation,you have only to watch his eyes:
a cook mixing a sauce, a surgeonmaking a primary incision,
a clerk completing a bill of lading,wear the same rapt expression,
forgetting themselves in a function.How beautiful it is,
that eye-on-the-object look.
HT: Dan Pink, Drive
How to Get Ready for What’s Next
What God may hereafter require of you, you must not give yourself the least trouble about. Everything He gives you to do, you must do as well as ever you can, and that is the best possible preparation for what He may want you to do next. If people would but do what they have to do, they would always find themselves ready for what came next.
-George MacDonald
Free to Work and Free from Work
I’m preaching on work from Genesis 2 this Sunday. For the past year I’ve found myself thinking about this statement from Charles Drew about work. I don’t think the quote is going to make it in the sermon, so I thought I’d post it here.
People who understand that their creativity is a gift of God, rather than putting it in the place of God himself, discover a paradoxical freedom. They are both free to work and free from work. Motivated by love and gratitude (powerful motivators) they are free to work very hard, giving their best back to God. At the same time, because they know neither they nor their work is God, they are free from the burden of taking themselves or their work too seriously—as if their giftedness mandated perfection.
The God Who Wired Us
God’s design…makes us mysterious. We are ‘fearfully and wonderfully made,’ and the God who ‘wired’ us initially continues his work, molding us through the complexity of life experience…Both nature and nurture are in his hands. Dare we believe that this Craftsman’s work might be less subtle or marvelous than Michelangelo’s? Dare we expect to figure ourselves out by the time we reach college, or at midlife, or even on our death beds?
-Charles Drew, A Journey Worth Taking: Finding Your Purpose in This World p. 40
A Good Lay Off
Your recent lay off might be a good thing.
Here in Silicon Valley, the recession has a different face than in Manhattan or Detroit. Our panic is more genteel, softened by balmy California weather, a laid-back attitude, and, OK, the fact that we haven’t had a local industry completely implode. Nonetheless, the meltdown is quite real.
Personal bankruptcies and foreclosures are as high here as in the rest of the country, and established companies are cutting way back on hiring. The Valley lost nearly 10,000 tech jobs in the past year, according to the state’s Employment Development Department, and the trend is expected to continue. If you work in the Valley today, you’re likely as fearful of losing your job as anyone else.
But you need to get over that. In fact, getting fired just might be a good thing.
Here’s why: Valley culture has an unwritten rule that if you don’t like a job, or if you think your company isn’t going anywhere, you leave. Instead of hanging around the office whining, you walk out the door and find something better and cooler to do. Because skilled tech workers are hard to find and interesting companies abound, employees, not employers, call the shots. This was true at Apple in 1984, and it’s still true at Facebook today.
Read the whole thing: Wired Magazine, Paul Boutin, Laid Off? It’s Good for You and Good for the Tech Industry
Unwillingness to Respond to the Knowledge We Have
I’ve been greatly helped and greatly convicted lately by the reality that most of my problems are not lack of knowledge problems, as I often assume:
We do not, therefore, need to fret when we have to make big decisions about the future, worrying about the terrifying possibility that we might miss God’s will for our lives. We simply need to do what we already know in the present. God has been clear where clarity is most needed. The choices we make everyday–to love a spouse after an argument, to treat an unkind coworker with respect, to serve food at a soup kitchen, to pray for God’s help when we do not feel much need for it–determine whether or not we are doing the will of God. If we have a problem, it is not lack of knowledge; rather, it is our unwillingness to respond to the knowledge we have.
Gerald Sittser, The Will of God as a Way of Life, p. 19
Kevin DeYoung, Just Do Something. Interview & Book Giveaway
For me, the best book I’ve read so far in 2009 is Kevin DeYoung’s Just Do Something: A Liberating Approach To Finding God’s Will. I recently interviewed Kevin about Just Do Something, and I’ve been given 4 free copies of the book to give away.
In a paragraph, how would you summarize the message of Just Do Something?
The message of the book is 1 Thessalonians 4:3. This is the will of God: your sanctification. God wants us to be holy. He expects us to obey his Word, love Jesus and love others. That’s it. We should stop thinking passivity and inactivity are signs of spirituality. God’s will is not a maze or a magic 8-ball. He simply wants us to be obedient.
Though it’s a helpful book for all Christians, Just Do Something is especially directed towards twentysomethings. Why is this?
In my personal experience and in my interactions with plenty of college students and twentysomethings, I’ve found that most younger Christians wrestle with trying to find God’s will. We have so many choices and opportunities that we don’t know what to do. So we end up flailing after God’s will. Choices are hard enough without thinking God has a hidden right answer for us.
Say a twenty-one year old recent college graduate catches this interview and decides to buy and read your book. What practical impact do you hope Just Do Something would make on such a person’s life?
I hope this book is freeing for young people. We are focused on houses and careers and cars and spouses instead of focusing on holiness, purity, integrity, and maturity. Following God’s moral will is harder to do, but also a lot simpler. If we seek first his kingdom and righteousness we will be in the middle of God’s will. I want young people to start making a difference now, start growing up now, instead of thinking they need an all-clear sign from God before taking a job or making a weighty decision.
What connection does the gospel have to the message of Just Do Something?
I see several connections to the gospel: 1) Christ died for our sins so we don’t have to live in fearful anxiety that we might screw up. 2) Christ has conquered death and the devil. God has won. So let’s go take some risks for God. The worst that can happen is we get to meet Jesus sooner. 3) The gospel fulfilled God’s plan, demonstrating God’s providential reign over all things. We don’t need to know the future, because know the One who holds it in his hand.
Did you grow up with this liberating understanding God’s will and decision making, or did this discovery come later for you?
I’m not sure where it came from, but I definitely had the traditional understanding of God’s will when I was younger. I remember at seminary hearing a sermon on a Sunday evening, with about 45 other people there, about how God didn’t expect us to divine his will by our impressions. This was a new concept for me, but made sense biblically, and sounded freeing. Since then I started reading some good books on the subject and have been happy to live with more of a ‘just do something’ attitude.
Or, if you’re among the first 4 people to get in touch with me and give me your contact information, I’ll send you a free copy.
Act on the Faith God Gives You
“…you need to act on the faith God gives you. When some people hear how much God does to change people, they wrongly believe that they contribute nothing to their own lives. This is almost as dangerous as thinking you don’t need Christ at all! Living passively saps your will and cripples your belief that you can accomplish what God calls you to do. Living faithfully means that you actively respond to the faith God gives you.”
