Know Your Why

by Ken Costa

  God stretches our faith in order to prepare us to receive his promises. That often requires painful rewiring. We need updating, just as an old house may need rewiring. The old electrical wires might be out of date and dangerous, so change is necessary. No one likes going through this process of spiritual reorientation, but that is how we grow. I know of no one who has wanted to find a true identity in Christ and build a growing trust in the Lord who has not gone through a painful readjustment, perhaps many times, so motives, actions, ambitions, desires, and aspirations are radically pointed and repointed to Jesus. There must be radical abandonment of confidence in ourselves and an equally progressive growth in dependence on Christ.

  So often, in the rough-and-tumble of the world, we drift away from intimacy with Christ. We act out of anger, resentment, or frustration. We assimilate too closely to the world. He needs to bring us back to our core identity in him so that we can hear his voice as he moves us on. Only when we have the comfort of our relationship with God can we confidently confront the callings that God has placed on our lives.

  Orientating ourselves to hear God is the best thing we can do. We put ourselves in that place when we are obedient, open, and willing to learn. That is our part of preparing for his calling. It is proximity that matters. Our whole object of living is to take up his promise: “Draw near to [me], and [I] will draw near to you” (James 4:8 ESV). The rest is up to him. But we need to take those steps that lead us to stand under his grace, ready to receive his promises, his calling.

  There is a penetrating question in Jeremiah 30:21: “Who is he who will devote himself to be close to me?”

  I hope as you continue to read, you will answer, “I am.”

  TWO

  CALLED TO ENGAGE

  I HAVE SPENT THE APPRECIABLE PART OF ADULTHOOD LIVING in what appears to many to be two separate worlds. The first is the financial and business world, and the other is the church-based preaching and teaching world. You might assume that these worlds inevitably collide—after all, it can be so easy to disconnect our spiritual and religious lives from the wider working world of business and finance. The cutthroat world of commercial competition can be difficult to reconcile with the collective life of a Christian community. And yet Paul reminds us in his letter to the Colossians that “in [Christ] all things hold together” (Colossians 1:17).

  I have come back to this verse again and again throughout my career, in humble recognition that there is only one Lord. The Lord of mercy is the Lord of the money markets. The Lord of prayer is the Lord of profit. The Lord of compassion is the Lord of competition. There really is only one sphere of influence: the kingdom of God. There Christ Jesus operates as Lord in our lives and in the world. Christ himself is the cornerstone and crossover point. By his Spirit he enables us to take the truths that are recorded for us in the Bible and translate them into day-to-day practical realities. He is our anchor as he aligns our wills to his. We must take hold of this truth in order to find our callings.

  It is often said that we are in but not of the world. And while it is true that we are called to exemplify a different way of living, an overemphasis on this idea can leave the impression that we have no real connection with secular society. Very often, wrong teaching has persuaded people that a kind of emigration from real life, in all its brokenness, is what is needed in order to live out a Christian calling. This idea results in an unrealistic gathering of like-minded (but angular) people who wish to remove themselves from reality, believing it to be a source of wickedness and not wishing to be tainted by association. Yet, in all the letters to the churches in the book of Revelation, God never called his people to leave their churches, even though those churches did some horrendous things. The call was to stay and to bring change. And the same is true when it comes to our engagement with the world. After all, we should never forget John 3:16: “For God so loved the world . . .”

  This call to engagement can be difficult for a Christian. After all, this is a place that has decided to try to run its economies, societies, and structures without reference to the God who created and sustains it. We are called to do no less than our part, with God, to straighten what Immanuel Kant called the “crooked timber of humanity.”1 And we can only do so through the power of Jesus Christ.

  There have been many occasions when I have felt the desire to leave the harsh competitiveness of the business world. It’s tough; one feels the heat daily. And it seems so at odds with anything that could remotely be thought of as Christian. The nonprofit sector seems so attractive by comparison and, above all, appears to have an inherent purpose that I could only dream of.

  I remember a time when one of these bouts was upon me. We were in the midst of a major transaction, advising one of the world’s largest resource companies on its future strategy. It was harsh, the hours were long, and the client was demanding. I was tempted to throw in the towel and walk away from it all. I know we all have these moments when life just doesn’t seem to make sense—and not only on Monday mornings. At times it is a passing thought: Why am I doing this? At other times, it is the deep frustration of purposelessness. The grass of the nonprofit sector—or any other business—seems so much greener than the occasional tufts of green that mark the rough ground of the financial world.

  In these times, I have formed a habit of turning to God to give me perspective on the frustration I am facing.

  I cannot say I have ever heard the audible voice of God, but in the midst of this difficult time, I sensed a word of encouragement. And one phrase in particular made a great impression. There was weight to it, as if it were being cemented into me. A profound sense of calling, the very opposite of what I had been going though, lifted my spirit; and I had an overwhelming impression of Christ intervening in my life.

  I sensed him saying, “I am strengthening you in the world, for the world.”

  In an instant I could see a purpose to what I had been going through. The grimness didn’t just disappear, but somehow the knowledge that the unrelenting stress had a deeper value brought me out of that black hole. I learned a lesson then. The demands of the world are tough, but I developed a pattern of trying to coax myself through each of these attacks in the knowledge that God had called me to that place and would provide the strength that I would need for it.

  I believe that this phrase was meant for me at that specific time, but it is also of much wider application to all of us who are at work in the world. Above all, it means accepting a full calling in the workplace to fulfill God-given plans for the workplace.

  I don’t have to tell you what it’s like to work under the pressure of daily professional demands. The challenges of the competitive market economy take their toll on all of us. This is as true for an accountant as it is for a teacher facing exacting performance targets. No one is exempt. Deadlines need to be met and are set to maximize performance in a short time period. Relationships are strained, and temptations abound to cut corners or blame others or be a little greedy.

  We must keep in mind that it is precisely this world that we are called to engage with. Jesus could not have been clearer in John 17 when he asked God not to take his disciples out of the world but to remain with them in the world: “My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one” (v. 15). It is Christ’s desire for us to be made strong so that we remain in the world as salt and light (Matthew 5:13–16). His instrument for strengthening us is Scripture (John 17:14, 17).

  STRENGTHEN THE CORE

  The instrument by which Christ strengthens us is the Holy Spirit. As Paul wrote to the Ephesians: “I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his spirit in your inner being” (Ephesians 3:16). It is the Spirit who comes alongside us to increase the tenacity of our weak human frames. He is the one who motivates us to live each day for Christ, working where we have been called with vigor and passion.

  Our calling to engage with the world can be felt in all areas of our liv
es—our family lives, our social lives, our leisure time. But one of the most important areas where we are likely to feel the gentle (and sometimes not-so-gentle) pull of the Spirit is in our work lives.

  And yet the idea that God might call us into the humdrum and daily grind of the workplace is a fairly novel one to many people. There’s often a perception among Christians that our callings should have a distinctly religious flavor. Being called to full-time pastoral ministry, or evangelism, or missionary work with a charity—that fits with what people expect. But when I say that I felt called to investment banking, people often raise an eyebrow or two!

  The NBA superstar LeBron James once posted on social media, “I was born with a God given talent, but I PROMISE you when the bright lights go down I am grinding it out and working my tail off to get better.”2 God doesn’t just call us into the bright lights and moments of euphoria. He calls us to the daily toil of the workplace as well.

  This view that God and grind don’t mix has led to many Christians suffering inferiority complexes regarding their vocations. I remember talking to one young student who dreamed of becoming a lawyer, but all around him his Christian friends were thinking about full-time Christian work. Despite his dreams, he couldn’t help but feel that he was letting God down by not doing the same.

  How sad it is that someone with such a God-given passion would feel guilty about following it!

  As we pursue our callings, what matters is that we make Jesus’ name known in the world, that we live in light of the great story of God’s love and the great hope of the Christian faith. Larry Page, the CEO of Google’s parent company Alphabet, Inc., once observed that most of the big companies that fail do so because they “missed the future”—they did not see where the world was going.3 While Christians might not know what is right around the corner, we do know where the world is going. We know that at the end of all things, God will make all things new. We know that Christ’s death has overcome the darkness, and through his life-giving resurrection we wait patiently for his return.

  The world tries to atomize society, but we are called to draw together the spiritual, ethical, and vocational aspects of life. Above all, we are to live as if these aspects of life were in fact one. In this way we become motivated and strengthened, not only to pursue our individual callings but to reach out to the hurting world around us; not only to pursue justice but to bring reconciliation to a divided world.

  But we cannot be strengthened in a vacuum. A couple of hours a week in church may focus attention and even reorder priorities, but it is in the daily life of the workplace where we need to “practice the presence of God.” We all need to take time out to rest and respect Sunday. But the workplace should be a continuation of our worship and love of God, not an interruption of God’s work from Sunday to Sunday. In perhaps the most famous verse in John’s gospel, we read that “God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16). But I often wish the next verse were as famous: “For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him” (v. 17).

  Often we need reminders that work is good. It is an activity in which we can experience joy. It is not just a grim grind, a necessary evil, or a heavy-hearted means to pay the bills. From the beginning of Genesis, we learn that work is service. It is for the common good, and it retains this intrinsic value, albeit tarnished. God is interested in our work, he loves us for sticking at it, and he rewards us (although not necessarily financially) when it is done well. Work is the place chosen by Christ himself where we spend the majority of our time on earth.

  Yet I have spoken to many people whose energy levels and desires to achieve a fixed purpose are frequently at odds with the often-boring nature of what the workplace offers. Quite a lot of work is humdrum, administrative, and tedious. How do we cope?

  Michael works as a manager on a farming estate. He loves the countryside but struggles with the day-to-day repetitive nature of his work. “It’s not my dream job, Ken,” he told me, “but does that mean it’s not right for me?”

  My advice is simple: strengthen the core and the chores will become bearable. At the core of each of us is an identity secure in Christ, which leads to an ongoing, unbroken relationship with him. Out of that relationship we are convicted, not once but daily, that we have the talent to fulfill our God-given callings. This is why and how we do what we do. Relationship is what holds us together.

  Some people wake up each day knowing that there is nothing else they would rather do than go to work. They absolutely love their jobs. I knew an architect who used to get increasingly excited as the weekend progressed, until he was almost on a high on Sunday evenings knowing he would be back in the office on Monday morning.

  Others are more ambivalent; sometimes we’re in a good season and sometimes not. This is when we need to remind ourselves that we enjoy the essence of what we are doing but struggle with the menial tasks, the prevalent bureaucracy, the high stress levels, and the stagnant downtime. Again, it is the clarity of our callings that carries us through the chores.

  One of the great fallacies we face is that every day should be a peak of fulfilled activity. The world seldom works that way. It’s an unreal and unsustainable view. So we need to develop an understanding of the rhythm of our work and begin to let God, through his Spirit, enable us to work well even when there appears to be little action around and the days lengthen with frustrating chores. Perseverance is part of life!

  I once heard a story of a famous rock star who was struggling to adjust to the dull monotony of normal life, as he was so used to the adrenaline rush of the stage. He went through every day expecting to experience the moments of euphoria that he felt when performing to thousands at a concert, and he found himself feeling empty and unfulfilled when those moments didn’t appear. So he went to see his counselor, expecting some clear, quick, and helpful advice. To his annoyance, the counselor simply said, “When you wake up each morning, make your own bed, polish your shoes [this was some time ago!], and make your own cup of tea. Come back and let me know how you get on.”

  Despite his skepticism, the rock star came back the next week having learned a great lesson. The little acts of normality had helped him see that all of us have to get through chores and can’t expect every second of the day to be pumped. Depression and low feelings are often fueled by unrealistic expectations. We need to take ownership of and embrace the little acts that make up such a huge part of our lives. If we are constantly searching for the next euphoric experience, we’ll enter into a dangerous cycle.

  Not only are we to be strengthened at the workplace for our own sake, but also our purpose is “for” the world. I love the line in the Lord’s Prayer: “your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” (Matthew 6:10). As translated, the order is hugely significant. Earth comes first. Unlike most other religions, Christianity encourages us to be agents of change and, through the power of God, to restore this world to wholeness.

  MAKE AN IMPRINT

  The Nelson Mandela Foundation once ran a campaign asking people to make an imprint. Mandela himself, and other charities and initiatives, proposed making his birthday an annual celebration of his ideals and vision. He hoped that “Mandela Day,” which he described as “not . . . a holiday, but a day devoted to service,” would be a global call to action to show that each individual has the power to influence the world.4 The image for the campaign was an impression of Mandela’s hand on a beach. One could see clearly the displacement of the sand and the appearance of the hand and the fingers. That is what an imprint does; it leaves a mark. It shifts other things out of the way.

  Imprinting the Spirit of God in our lives is critical. And as we are imprinted, so we are called to imprint the world. Like the hand-print on the beach, we are called to imprint the Spirit of God onto the world. This imprint is the love of Christ, which allows for the flourishing of humanity. There can be no greater i
mpact than lives that demonstrate such an imprint, such a stamp of love on our communities and commercial activities.

  We learn a great deal about making an imprint from Caleb in the Old Testament. He was an extraordinary man. Five times it is said that Caleb “served the LORD wholeheartedly” and that he had a “different spirit.”

  In Numbers 13–14, we read that twelve people, including Caleb, were called to go on a journey to discover what the land of Canaan was like. This was no different from many of our tasks today. Consultants are asked to undertake “scoping exercises” or feasibility studies for complex business projects, or to conduct risk analyses to determine whether a project is financially viable. And anyone who has been to one of these “report back” meetings, PowerPoint at the ready, understands the opposition faced by Caleb and Joshua.

  Twelve men visited the same site, met the same people, learned the same facts, saw the same topography, and heard the same reports. On their return, ten of them said, effectively, “You must be joking. We can’t go there. The people are giants. The cities are fortified. We’ll never make it.” (“The costs will overrun, the terrain is impossible, the technical feasibility is negative,” and so on.)

  Yet Caleb, who followed the Lord wholeheartedly, agreed with Joshua and said, “The land we passed through and explored is exceedingly good. If the LORD is pleased with us, he will lead us into that land, a land flowing with milk and honey, and will give it to us. . . . The LORD is with us. Do not be afraid” (Numbers 14:7–9). Caleb trusted God. He saw the world through the lens of God’s character.