God Doesn’t Owe You Success
Sin affects our work and ministry, too.
I stopped praying for healing.
Now I stood in the back corner of the classroom, my whole body in too much pain to sit beside my classmates. I wondered when the buds on the trees outside the window would open to the fullness of spring and I hoped God would understand that I had to use any energy I had left just to keep clinging to Him. I couldn’t go on begging for a miracle.
My systematic theology professor was flashing some pictures up on the projector screen, so I turned away from the trees. The first image was of Jesus, crown of thorns on his head, nailed to a cross suspended between the far sides of a yawning chasm. Across his shoulders a string of people strode from darkness to a glowing city, the horizontal beam serving as a bridge. The second image showed Jesus standing beside a 50’s era convertible, pointing out directions to the family inside.
“Jesus isn’t the means to our salvation,” my professor said with an edge of exasperation in his voice. “He is our salvation!”
I’ve noticed with delight that many Christians have moved away from this kind of transactional view of a God whose saving grace somehow guarantees other gifts and benefits. We are rightly beginning to embrace the biblical truth that Jesus does not just save us from sin but also saves us for Himself. By choosing not to spend so much of my prayer time begging for physical healing I had already begun to practice what my professor was describing. I was learning to desire Jesus, not just what He could give me.
But there’s one significant area where we still struggle to apply this truth: the arena of “calling.”
When we believe that God has “called” us to a certain task or career we find ourselves surprised when every obstacle does not miraculously drop away. When we consider our work to be a form of “ministry” we don’t just expect success, we demand it. And when failure knocks at our door we begin to doubt our purpose.
But what if obstacles to our work are not evidence that we have misheard God’s “call” or that we have strayed from the center of His will? What if they are more often simply the marks of living in a broken world? What if the results of our work and ministry are not entirely dependent on our own effort?
We accept that infertility does not mean that God has not blessed a couple, that He is withholding children as some punishment for sin. If a baby never comes, God can use their union to produce life in any other number of ways. We know that a man or woman’s unmet desire for a spouse does not mean they are spiritually immature and have not yet earned the gift of marriage. If marriage never happens, God can reveal many other gifts to and through them.
The brokenness that affects our health and relationships also affects our work and ministries.
You may feel compelled and called by God to write, to teach, to work as a chef or a lawyer. But publishers are businesses and they require platforms as indicators of future sales. And social media is also a business and its algorithms are calibrated against your efforts to build that platform with integrity. The culinary industry is dominated by men, and if you are a faithful woman you will likely find yourself swimming upstream in pursuit of your vocation. In most careers games are played and integrity is compromised to scale the ladders of success.
Keep going, we are told. If God has called you to be an author or an actor or an astronomer, it will happen! Nothing can stand in your way! But God does not remove every obstacle to our pursuit of good things. He does not always miraculously bend the algorithm in your favor. He will not necessarily shield you from the misogyny that has infected whole spheres of life and work. He will probably not use evil people to reward your integrity.
And yet, He calls us to be faithful. Not in return for His strong arm to deliver us from the brokenness, but in expectation that sanctification will come to us--and perhaps salvation will come to some few others--when we continue to point to Him in these twisted and perverse generations. And if God never gives us what we have hoped and prayed for? He can live through your work and work in your life in so many more ways than you can yet imagine.
So, pray for the Spirit’s fruit of faithfulness. Ask for a heart that desires the Giver more than His gifts. Write your words with integrity. Teach with winsomeness. Pour love and grace into every dish you cook. Prepare for every case and write every legal opinion as if working for the Lord and not for men. Shake the dust from your feet and trust that your ultimate calling to become more like Jesus has not changed.
How have you seen sin and brokenness affect your work or ministry? Is it tempting to believe the outcome is dependent mostly on your efforts and intentions?
In pursuit of Beauty,
Loved reading this <3