I’m feeling old as I start writing this, because evidently the well-known YouTube video, “It’s not about the nail” came out 13 years ago! The video went viral amongst couples who could relate to the tendency guys have to want to fix things, while often women simply want to be heard.
Male and female stereotypes aside, it was a seriously clever (and effective) depiction of a dynamic most of us have experienced from one or both sides of the conversation.
Here’s what I find interesting about this dynamic in the context of work.
We all walk around with hammers at work, and we all seem to be okay with that. Heck, if our boss feels like we are really crushing it, we might even get upgraded to a nail gun so we can get some serious work done.
Our hammer happy culture praises each strike in the name of efficiency. Yet, we believe in a God who chose to reveal himself to us using 66 books and a whopping 750,000+ words that form the Bible.
Furthermore, when you look at the prominent biblical figures, especially in the Old Testament, God speaks to long, long periods of transformation in their lives:
Abraham waited 25 years between God's promise and its fulfillment, learning to trust in God's timing rather than his own.
Moses spent 40 years in obscurity tending sheep before God called him to lead, using long, lonely years to prepare him for public purpose.
David was anointed king as a boy but spent over a decade fleeing and hiding before taking the throne, forged through hardship long before he held power.
But yet, here we are, walking into work ready to hammer out some issues and get stuff done.
Rethinking How to Unlock Top Performance
Let’s abstract the “It’s not about the nail” video for a moment. What do you think God wants us to do with the nail He himself thoughtfully chose to place in our work’s forehead?
Here’s where I’m going with this.
I believe our best work, our most effective work, is bestowed upon those who take the time to uncover the long arc story that God is writing in their lives as a whole.
Well what the heck does that mean?
It means that our God today, is the same God who walked alongside Abraham, Moses, David, and countless other biblical figures who experienced long arcing transformation, before God gave them their most important missions.
I promised that we were going to take a few weeks to work on sitting with a quote or a passage, and quieting our minds enough to hear God’s voice. So let’s do it!
This week, I want to encourage you to enter that reflection with a particular curiosity about the long arc story God has already started in your life.
Reflecting on the Life of Moses
“At this time Moses was born; and he was beautiful in God’s sight … And Moses was instructed in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and he was mighty in his words and deeds. When he was forty years old, it came into his heart to visit his brothers, the children of Israel. And seeing one of them being wronged, he defended the oppressed man and avenged him by striking down the Egyptian. He supposed that his brothers would understand that God was giving them salvation by his hand, but they did not understand … so Moses fled and became an exile in the land of Midian, where he became the father of two sons. Now when forty years had passed, an angel appeared to him in the wilderness of Mount Sinai, in a flame of fire in a bush. When Moses saw it, he was amazed at the sight, and as he drew near to look, there came the voice of the Lord: ‘I am the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham and of Isaac and of Jacob.’ And Moses trembled and did not dare to look. Then the Lord said to him … I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt, and have heard their groaning, and I have come down to deliver them. And now come, I will send you to Egypt.’”
A few questions to consider:
What parts of the story stood out to you?
Where do you see yourself in the story?
Is the Lord stirring anything in your heart?
If you have the time, I’d encourage you to come back to this and read it again later this week. Ask the same questions and see what else the Lord reveals.
Wrap Up
To end with a bit of irony, here’s the main point I want to hammer home. As you try this out this week, be like Ted Lasso while you explore your own story.
As always, please respond to this email if you’d like to chat and discuss anything from this or other posts! 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
