The old slogan for the Nike company was Just Do It. It was a phrase that embodied the spirit of sports. The idea behind this slogan was that you don’t have to be great at something to start it. Just do it and by doing it you’ll learn more about yourself and the sport you’re trying to learn. It was a great idea for sports, but in life I think it falls short. It leaves something to be desired when we just do something.
The church body within which I’m a pastor has a teaching on vocation. The idea of a vocation is more than just a job. It’s not just the trash collectors and lawyers and power line repair crews. Vocation is the stations you find yourself in through your life. Things like mom or dad, husband or wife are also parts of this vocational idea. So it pretty much sums up everything we do in life.
I’ve heard a lot of people talk about this idea of vocation with the idea of do everything you do to the best of your ability. Now this is a good practice to be sure! After all who wants to be mediocre in life? But just doing something good isn’t the point of life.
So then we deepen things a little bit by teaching that we’re supposed to do everything for the glory of God. We say things like do everything as if you were doing it for God. The idea is that when we make God the audience of all we do we’re bringing him glory by using our gifts, talents and abilities.
And again just like doing your best at everything you do this is a good practice as well. Seeing God as the one who gets the glory for what you do is a great way to stay humble and keep you from being too terribly arrogant. But I think we can take one more step to really make our actions even more meaningful and intentional.
Don’t just do things for the glory of God also do everything for the mission of God.
You see when we do things for the glory of God we make him an observer. It’s like we put him in the auditorium of our life and have him watch us. When we do things merely for his glory we make him a silent bystander which is not the role he should be playing as I see it.
If we do everything for his glory and to achieve the mission of God, then we start to put things in a more healthy alignment scenario. The point of doing things for God’s glory and according to his mission is that not only are we doing things with God in mind but we’re also doing them for the purpose that he established.
Could you imagine what life would look like for you if in your daily routine as a mom, dad, son, daughter, student, teacher, trash collector, banker, lawyer, retiree, whatever the role if you did that function for the purpose of bringing a greater love for Jesus into that arena of your life?
If we stopped just doing it and started doing it with purpose and intention with the goal of loving people in real and tangible ways in the name of Jesus, we’d be less stressed people! We could find a happiness that was contagious. We could live in a peaceful scenario that we could only dream of otherwise.
So today, whatever your vocation – stop just doing it and start doing it for God’s glory and to achieve His mission. You’ll thank me for it later.
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