Seven-Day Practical Faith Blog: Faithful to Our Design

One of the issues in focusing on living a seven-day practical faith is that we can get caught up in what we produce.

It seems like our output matters most. If we're not producing great results, then we're inadequately doing. If we're not successful, then we're not faithful. These thoughts can run through our head and cause us to panic a little.

Recent Practical Faith Academy podcast guest Tanya Prince experienced that feeling. She followed all the rules to be successful in career, family, and faith, but at forty years old, she found herself separated from her faith and her life crashing around her.

In rebuilding her life as well as her faith, Tanya realized that she had been too focused on output. She said something on the podcast that has stuck with me:

“The Lord made me in this way. He made me to be driven, made me to be high capacity. But that’s not where my value comes from doing those things. It’s part of who I am. So how can I embrace who I am and who he’s designed me to be and anchor to that instead of these things that come out of that?”

Such a subtle but profound difference. Instead of focusing on results, Tanya started focusing on process and personality. She identified that working according to God's design is the goal.

I've had the occasional wandering thought when looking at an insect if it is being the best insect it can be. If it is working according to God's design, then it's a perfect insect, in a sense. It's been said that a pen that writes is perfect, because that is its function. A bridge you can safely cross is perfect.

I'm not saying that I can become perfect in this life, but I can certainly work according to God's design. When I work in ministry, when I volunteer, when I listen to someone in need, when I'm taking care of my wife, when I connect to my children or my ailing father, when I juggle a lot of simultaneous tasks, I believe I am working according to the way God designed me.

Then - and this is the important part - I can take satisfaction in the process rather than in the result. I may not sell a million books. I may not save a soul on my own. I may screw up conversations and opportunities. I may unintentionally step on someone's toe, literally or figuratively. But if I am working in God's design for me, then I'm doing the best I can, and I can leave the results in the hands of the Holy Spirit to complete whatever I tried to start.

So, our perspective on our seven-day practical faith can change. We're not called to be successful. We're called to be faithful to our design.

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