Master of One: Find and Focus on the Work You Were Created to Do

by Jordan Raynor

One of my favorite descriptions of Jesus comes from Mark 7:37: “People were overwhelmed with amazement. ‘He [Jesus] has done everything well.’ ” As followers of Christ we are to seek to imitate Jesus in every way imaginable. Can we honestly say we are doing everything well? Can we say we are doing anything masterfully well?

But we are addicted to something else that leads to mediocrity: the idea of more. For too long we have believed the lie that more activity, more roles, and more responsibility equals greater effectiveness.

Except for God’s Word, perhaps no book has influenced this one more than Greg McKeown’s Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less. In it, McKeown said, “When individuals are involved in too many disparate activities—even good activities—they can fail to achieve their essential mission.”11

Jesus had the mind-set of an essentialist on his way to fulfilling the one thing the Father called him to do, and here he is teaching Mary and Martha to do the same.

In that moment the one essential thing was not cooking another dish or cleaning up the house—it was sitting at the feet of Jesus.

Mary] decided what was important, and she did not let the day-to-day get her away from that. As a result, she was drawn into a greatness we don’t even dream of. Because we are more like Martha...

Instead of scattering our gifts and energy in a million different directions, let us seek the one vocational thing we believe the Father has given us to do and then master that work for his glory and the good of others.

The path to doing our most exceptional work is the path of less but better.

It is precisely because we are called to be excellent in all things that we can’t commit to being excellent at many things.

“Whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.”

But it’s also dangerous because, sadly, it’s not true. I can’t be anything I want to be, no matter how hard I work or how much I believe in myself. All I can be is me.

all throughout Scripture, the biblical authors use beautiful language to portray God as an intentional craftsman, putting time and great care into the design of each unique human being.

If we choose work that is out of line with the gifts God has given us, we may be temporarily satisfied, but we won’t be on the path to mastery, with the potential to become the very best versions of ourselves for the sake of God’s glory and the good of others.

We are called to be the most excellent versions of who God has created us to be.

“Our job isn’t to fit into some mold or prove something to the world; it’s to unlock who God’s made us to be, and then go be it.”

For this reason, the biblical authors call for us to carefully consider our lives and to think intentionally about how we are utilizing the time

“multitasking”

These shifts in attention don’t make us more productive. In fact, they are terribly detrimental to our pursuit of excellence. One study in particular reports that multitasking

When we say yes to everything, we say yes to nothing, including the unique work the Father has put us on this earth to do.

the Bible says the exact opposite. The Christian life is one characterized primarily by service, pouring our lives out as living sacrifices for the sake of God’s glory and the good of others

But, as we will see throughout this book, the way we find the greatest happiness in our work is by prioritizing the joy of God and others above our own, of viewing our work primarily as a means of glorifying God and serving our neighbors rather than ourselves.

We reflect his greatness and character to the world. As we’ve seen, one of his most obvious characteristics is that of excellence.

How then are we to respond to the excellent character of our heavenly Father? In short, we respond by imitating his excellence in everything we do,

God’s redeemed children, we are to strive to be like God. This, it appears, includes striving for excellence…. Our creation in God’s image, therefore, primarily relates to the fact that God placed humanity on the earth to rule it as his representatives. How can we best fulfill this role? It stands to reason that as beings created in God’s image, creatures who are called to exercise representative rule over his creation, we must do so with excellence….The world desperately needs to see a display of what God is like. This extends to everything we are and do—our own personal lives, our marriages and families, our moral and ethical

standards, and the pursuit of our calling…. Since excellence, then, is an all-encompassing attribute of God, and since we are exhorted in Scripture to imitate God, having been made in his likeness, excellence should mark our lives as his children, extending both to who we are (our character and our relationships) and what we do (our work or vocation)…. Excellence is in fact a divine mandate that applies to every aspect of our lives, for God himself is characterized by excellence. Mediocrity, sloppy workmanship, and a half-hearted effort do not bring glory to God or advance his kingdom.

Nowhere in Scripture does God command success or certain levels of performance. Because of the work of Jesus on our behalf, we don’t need to use our work in some misguided attempt to save ourselves

We are valuable and worthy because Christ loves us, not because of any level of success we may attain in our careers.

“Love your neighbor as yourself” was a complete sentence. Simply loving our neighbor is good and God-honoring in and of itself and is the foundational purpose for focused, masterful work,

Excellence in our work is actually a form of generosity and love, and poor quality is a form of stinginess and selfishness. Shoddy work is not just shoddy work; it’s a failure of love.

One of the best forms of generosity in our work is excellence. Excellence matters not only because it is right and exciting in itself, but even more significantly because it is a way of serving people.

We are called to mastery, striving for excellence in all things, and it is through the ministry of excellence that we best love our neighbors through our work.

God made the world, not to get something from us, but rather as a gift for us to enjoy and play in and make something of. In the same way, when we live and work, not to get what we can from others, but rather to love and serve them, we’re harmonizing with the heart of God himself. And one of the best possible ways we can love and serve people is to show up for work every day. And to do our work, not to get ahead, or make more money, or become famous, but to love and serve God and neighbor. And when we do that, we start to reclaim our humanness.

as Christians we live out the Greatest Commandments through our vocations when we do our work with focus and excellence.

What am I passionate about? What gifts has God given me?

Where do I have the best opportunity to glorify God and serve others?

In other words, our one thing ought to be where our passions and gifts collide with the greatest opportunity to love and serve others through masterful work.

Specific Goals

Intense Focus

practice of deep work is the single most important practice in my day-to-day pursuit of mastery.

Rapid Feedback

Frequent Discomfort

KEY #3: DISCIPLINE OVER T

Duckworth said that “repeatedly swapping out one career ambition for another is unfulfilling” and that while “being a ‘promising beginner’ is fun…being an actual expert is infinitely more gratifying.”

“There are no shortcuts to excellence.

mastery requires humility, purposeful practice, and tremendous discipline and perseverance over time.

There are three keys to mastering your one thing. The first is a direct or indirect apprenticeship. The second is what scientists call “purposeful practice,” which distinguishes itself from “naive practice” in that it requires specific goals, intense focus, rapid feedback, and frequent discomfort. The third and final key to mastery is having the discipline to stick with your one thing over a long enough period of time to become truly masterful at it.