Month: August 2024

Discover Your Why: Fulfillment in Work and Life

Discover Your Why: Fulfillment in Work and Life

Well the Labour Day weekend is upon us and for many, it marks the end of a season and shifts students back into the school year and those at work into a busy fall. Mark Twain helps me see

“The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why.”

Mark Twain

Finding your why is truly what makes your work significant. I have heard it said that your job is what an employer pays you to do; your work is what you were born to do. I’m convinced that when you discover your why, you truly live out your calling in life.

Ken Boa in his book, Conformed to His Image says:

“Our primary calling is to know and love God. Our secondary calling is to express this relationship in everything we do and with everyone we encounter.”

As a teenager, I felt a “call” on my life and the best way I could interpret it at the time was to become a pastor. However, the majority of my career has been in the financial services industry, providing insurance and investment advice. My perspective was that my work as a financial advisor was my job (secular) and I believed my “calling” to ministry was my true work (sacred). As the years passed, I questioned if I had “missed my calling” or did I choose the wrong profession?

My problem was that my secondary calling (my work as a financial advisor) was somehow disconnected from my primary calling (to know and love God). Ken Boa explains it this way:

“If the secondary is not related to the primary, we slip into the error of dichotomizing the “spiritual” and the “secular” when they should really be integrated. When this happens, our relationship with the Lord is disconnected from the everyday activities of our lives.”

I certainly felt I was serving the Lord in my business, but somehow the everyday activities of my work became disconnected from my calling. My focus as an advisor was on growing my business, developing relationships and serving clients. While that ethic was typical of this industry, my secondary calling lacked the perspective that only comes by incorporating my primary calling. My work as an advisor (secondary) needed to be an expression of my primary calling. Dr. Ken Boa explains it this way:

“Secular work becomes spiritual when done to the glory of God. Spiritual work becomes secular when done to please and impress men.”

My level of fulfillment through my work reached new heights when the secular and the sacred were merged. This seems so simple now as I reflect, but it required a shift in my perspective. Recognizing the opportunity to love and bring glory to God (primary calling) through my practice (secondary calling), transformed my work life and brought a fresh perspective. In essence, I was transformed into the person I was born to be and now Labour Day becomes important – not the day I was born, but a better understanding of “why” I was born. Dr. Ken Boa sums this up perfectly:

“When we keep our primary calling first and seek to express it in and through our secondary calling, we become more holistic in our thinking and practice.”

Our Relationships Don’t Belong to Us!

Our Relationships Don’t Belong to Us!

I read this statement in a devotional recently and was challenged with the thought. Paul David Tripp writes that:

Fellowship is God caring enough to put people in your life to encourage, rebuke and comfort you.

New Morning Mercies, Paul David Tripp (Aug. 19)

I’ve been in relationship with some people for many years now, which begs the question: “Why are these people (or this person) in my life?”

Tripp explains it this way:

“We cannot allow ourselves to have an owner’s view of our relationships, as if they exist for the sole purpose of our happiness. Our relationships don’t belong to us – They belong to God for his use, for his purpose.”

This changes our perspective – if we don’t own these relationships and they are not “about us” solely, there must be a reason, a deeper purpose. The unseen part of relationship is how they came to be and also why they came to exist.

If we take the “owner’s view” it means either we or the person we are in relationship with took the initiative to establish contact. This easily excludes God’s part in this relationship and means we can miss seeing his purpose.

My wife and I met while we were attending the same college. We take for granted our chance meeting at an airport in late April 1985 and then meeting again the following weekend in her hometown. This was the only weekend she was home because she was between semesters while attending university. That chance weekend meeting clinched my decision to attend the same university that summer where our relationship began to develop. The rest, as they say, is history.

Was this simply a series of coincidences, where each of us initiated our relationship to spend time together? Or was God more involved than we often give Him credit for?

I choose to believe that my relationships are an example of God caring enough to infuse people into my life for His use and His divine purpose.

One of the other life-changing experiences for me was joining the community of Christian financial professionals, known as Kingdom Advisors. It was a game-changer when it became clear that I didn’t have to separate my faith from my work as a financial advisor.

Here’s the advice from Kingdom Advisors:

“Don’t spend another day feeling divided between your faith and your career. Get certified by Kingdom Advisors and fully integrate your faith into your financial practice.”

I’m looking forward to connecting with advisors in a cohort this fall (meeting weekly starting Sept. 4th) to walk with advisors through 20 Modules of Core Training. This journey together will be a key to fully integrate your faith into your financial practice and continue to build God-ordained relationships.

When You Don’t Run Alone: 1924 & 2024

When You Don’t Run Alone: 1924 & 2024

I did have opportunity to watch some of the Olympics that just concluded and one of my highlights was Canada running in the men’s 4×100 Relay race. This was quite a surprise as the announcer shared: “They got the baton around the track faster than anybody else! With four men who didn’t have the individual clock speed here at these games. What a reversal of fortune for these men here tonight.” They did not medal in the individual races they ran, yet had the best time when they ran the relay.

You can watch the video here: https://www.cbc.ca/player/play/video/9.6476926

The key to their success is how they worked together as a team and were able to win the gold medal, which they were unable to accomplish when running alone.

This reminded me of the Olympics 100 years earlier – 1924, long before I was born, but I have read and previously written about Eric Liddell. He was a devout Christian and missionary to China, who felt it a priority to run in the Olympic games. His sister felt that his training for the 1924 Olympics deterred him from returning to China as a missionary. I’m confident she saw his calling and work in life was being a missionary, not running. However, Liddell said, “I believe God made me for a purpose, but he also made me fast! And when I run I feel His pleasure.”

But when the timetable for the Games was released, the 100m heats were on a Sunday and Eric Liddell dropped a stunning revelation. The Christian Sabbath was the Lord’s Day and there was nothing in this world that could persuade him to run.
Liddell’s decision meant he had to give up on his strongest event and switch his focus to the 400m. Instead of a straight dash to the finish line, this event required the stamina to maintain the pace around a full lap of the track, described at the time as the quarter-mile race.

https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20240705-olympics-hero-eric-liddell-and-the-real-story-behind-chariots-of-fire

Fellow Scottish athlete Tom Riddell said this longer distance exposed Liddell’s idiosyncrasies, but he could still rely upon that electrifying pace. Riddell told the BBC he had asked Liddell about his tactical approach: “In his own words he said, ‘Well, when the gun goes, I go as fast as I can, and I trust to God that I’ll have the strength to do the second half.’ And I think he really did.”

The truth is Liddell was running an individual race but he was not running alone!

We usually would not class running or involvement in a sporting activity as spiritual, or for God, but simply a physical activity. For Liddell, running wasn’t just a fun activity but a God honouring one.

The mistake we often make is in categorizing our activities, whether it’s exercising or working as a non-spiritual activity. We view our walking, running, or cycling as a physical activity and our work as secular. In doing so, we separate it from what is sacred, rather than sensing the pleasure of God in that activity.

Here is a great piece of advice: Whatever you do, do it enthusiastically, as something done for the Lord … (Col 3:23). The reality is that when we serve others (in our work), we are actually serving the Lord, not just men (Eph. 6:7). If we can say when we walk or work that “we feel His pleasure,” God is truly walking and working with us and through us. This adds a brand new energy to our efforts. When you work, you are not working alone.

It’s not original to me but here’s a great question and the best advice:

Don’t you realize that in a race everyone runs, but only one person gets the prize? So run to win!

The Apostle Paul – 1 Corinthians 9:24 NLT