The Temptation to Detach

There are times in life when simple questions just hit different.

For me right now, that question is, “how was your day at work?” After spending nearly 12 years building a marketing agency, The Grit Group, I’m closing that business down without a full plan for what comes next.

For the better part of those 12 years, I dreamt of the day I’d celebrate Grit’s finale. The reality looks a bit different. No big wins. No team celebrations. Just quiet days in the office, with fewer meetings, and questions about what comes next.

So when I get home and my oldest son, Luke, asks, “how was your day?”, I’ve had to start being honest and reply, “it was tough”.

Disillusionment is staring me in the face, and the temptation is real to detach myself from Grit and the dreams I had for it.

The temptation to shut off the pain of ending my company is frustrating, because I know that isn’t what God asks of me. I know that God meets us in our darkness, but even though God promises to be there, nobody wants the darkness.

As I quoted before, John Piper said, “our job is faithfulness, God’s job is fruitfulness”.

The thing is, like me, you probably first thought about Piper’s “fruitfulness” as success and accomplishment. Meanwhile God says “the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control” (Galatians 5:22-23).

You see, while the fruit of the Spirit sounds amazing, if I’m honest, I wanted worldly success, not the intimacy we find with the Lord when we reach the end of our ropes. My heart wants fruitfulness that looks more like comfort, money, and happiness.

But this shouldn’t surprise me, as scripture also says, “The heart is deceitful above all things.” (Jeremiah 17:9)

So as friends and family members continue to ask the very normal question, “how was your day?”, every fiber of me wants to run from it, and nothing would make the Evil One more happy than for me to detach.

We all face this fight or flight response to our work. Daily, weekly, monthly, it doesn’t end. The voice of dissent makes it sound easier to not care, to not get hurt, and to play it safe.

I love how C.S. Lewis lays out the difference between “safe” and “good” in his book The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe. Mr. Beaver famously explains that Aslan (who represents Jesus) is "not a tame lion". When the children ask if Aslan is safe, Mr. Beaver replies: "Safe? Who said anything about safe? Course he isn't safe. But he's good. He's the King, I tell you".

I believe we all need Mr. Beaver’s reminder more often. As believers it can be so tempting to detach from our work.

God never meant for our work to be safe. He never meant for it to be easy. But he gave us work to do, so that we could contribute to his creation and grow in his likeness.

Read that again.

He gave us work to do, so that we can contribute to his creation and, say it with me, grow in his likeness. What a gift.

So, this week, I invite you to press in when self-preservation may be tempting you to run the other way. If you do, God promises to meet you there, and I can’t hear what he teaches you. Know you are in good company, as I press in to a painful time in my own work.

When you press in this week, remember to call a friend and share what you are working on. Ask them what THEY think God might be up to in YOUR life. And then pray about it and ask God directly.

Next week we will round out this halfhearted series talking about “drift”, the wandering state we find ourselves in when we aren’t attached to the Vine.

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