More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
We are overcommitted, overwhelmed, and overstressed, spending way too much time focused on minutiae rather than the work we believe God created us to do.
The path to doing our best work for God’s glory and the good of others is the path of “less but better.”9
As Christians, God has called us to be excellent in all things, not just in our chosen vocation.
But if our mandate is “excellence in all things and all things for God’s glory,” we would be wise to understand how God has created us and choose work that aligns with his design, ensuring that we make our greatest possible contribution to the world.
We are called to be the most excellent versions of who God has created us to be.
happiness follows service.
The point of work isn’t primarily to make us happy. The point of work is the point of life, summarized by Jesus in Matthew 22: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind….Love your neighbor as yourself” (verses 37, 39).
When we work with excellence, we have the great privilege of being able to glorify God and proclaim his excellencies to the world around us.
If we say our Father is so good, loving, and excellent, our actions as his children ought to reflect his character. We are the physical representations of God in this world, which is precisely why God has called us to work with excellence, doing everything for his glory.
Mediocrity, sloppy workmanship, and a half-hearted effort do not bring glory to God or advance his kingdom.
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.
Any time we look exclusively inward to discern our calling, we are doomed to self-doubt and disappointment because this is simply not how God designed us to work.
It is only when we find work that we can do exceptionally well in service of others that we will find deep happiness and passion that is sustainable over the course of our careers—the type of passion that leads to grit and mastery.
Calling—or, in the language of this book, our one thing—is discovered by taking inventory of our interests and applying them in the real world where our work comes in contact with those we are called to serve.
As with everything, so with mistakes: make excellent mistakes. Make mistakes of forward motion, not mistakes of sloth. Try things, be bold, and see what happens.
Blessed are the single hearted: (for that is the real meaning of the word we translate “the pure in heart”). If your heart is not wholly in the work, the work will not be good—and work that is not good serves neither God nor the community; it only serves mammon. DOROTHY SAYERS
When it comes to our work, the proper response to the gospel is not to seek out the work that will earn us the most fame and fortune. The goal should be to find the work we can do most exceptionally well in service of God and others.
“Enthusiasm is common. Endurance is rare,”
Cultural change is always a by-product, not the main goal. The main goal is always loving service. If we love and serve our neighbors, city, and Lord, it will definitely mean social changes, but Christians must not seek to take over and control society as an end in itself. If we truly seek to serve, we will be gladly given a certain measure of influence by those around us.
In other words, our desire to find vocational happiness and work that we love is a good, God-honoring thing.
As we’ve seen throughout this book, when we prioritize our own happiness in our work over service to others, we typically get neither. But when we focus on doing masterful work primarily for God’s glory and the good of our neighbor, we bring joy to our Master, who graciously invites us to share in that happiness with him.
We feel God’s pleasure when we know we are doing the work he created us to do. We feel his pleasure when we do that work masterfully well. We feel his pleasure when we prioritize his happiness and his agenda over our own, committing ourselves to exceptional work for the glory of God and the good of others.
