Addressing our Drift

The release of Toy Story 5 sent me on fun trip down memory lane. It was a great excuse to watch the other four with my kids.

The deep dive meant we also stumbled into the spin off Disney released in 2022 called Lightyear. As you near the big finale of the movie, you discover that Hawthorne, one of Buzz’s young Space Ranger proteges, is actually deathly afraid of space.

The irony wasn’t lost on anyone, but her rationale hit me hard as she described the fear of getting pushed out into deep space and having no way to get back. You simply “drift” into the abyss. Makes me a bit unsettled even just writing about it.

Naturally, in order to save the day, she has to face that fear. As she prepared to make a jump between spaceships, her sidekick Sox (a robot cat), tries to encourage her and delivers a line that I think we all need to hear.

Sox: “Once you push off, that is the direction you will go”

Hawthorne: “What if I miss?”

Sox: “Don’t Miss”

Here’s the good news 👍

Relationship with our God doesn’t work like outer space, in fact, it is quite the opposite. No matter how far off we drift, we cannot escape his love and saving grace.

"But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ." (Ephesians 2:13)

Here’s the bad news 👎

We missed.

We pushed off in the wrong direction when it comes to our work.

But that isn’t the scary part, the scary part is that we don’t care.

Drift is so much worse than Disillusionment and Detachment. Drift is when we simply settle for halfhearted work, and over time, we forget to care at all.

We open our computers or drive to the office and never think to ask God what he’s up to in our work.

We sit down at the dinner table and the thought never crosses our mind to share with our friends or family about how God met you in your work that day.

Over time, these little habits take root in our hearts. The same hearts that God calls us to protect! “Keep our hearts with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life." (Proverbs 4:23).

We haven’t kept our hearts. We’ve let them drift.

And to me, that is a heck of a lot scarier to me than Hawthorne’s space jump.

I hope this shook you up a bit this morning. It shook me a bit when my faithful editor, Carolyn, came down yesterday and said, you aren’t making this sound scary enough.

But I’m glad she was bold enough to say it straight, because she was right, drift is so much worse, and we must fight against it.

Which brings us back to the Good News.

As we take on this challenge, remember what Jesus said in John 16:33, "I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world."

So when you realize you’ve gone a week, a month, or a year without asking God what he’s up in your work, try preaching the following truths to yourself.

But above all of those, remind yourself of the truth that God wants a personal relationship with YOU. Not just the at home version of you. He wants a relationship with all of you, including the you at work.

Over the years, I’ve found that being curious is often the first step to meeting the Lord in my work. Like a loving parent, God loves when we are curious about what he is up to in our lives.

Here are few curious questions I’ve found helpful and encourage you to try on for yourself this week:

As always, please respond to this email if you’d like to chat and discuss anything from this or other posts! I can’t wait to hear what “drift” stirred up for you. And if you have any friends who you think might derive value from exploring Wholehearted Work - I’d love for you to share it with them.

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With Heart,

Alex