Divine Work
This is a very touchy subject for me. And to understand why we’re going to have to take it back. And I mean way back.
Back to the cafeteria halls of Monterey Elementary school. It was a dog-eat-dog world. And your girl had to do what she had to do to survive these 5th-grade streets. Whether it was that white, purple, green- whatever you needed I had it. And if you wanted it laced with your initials, it was done.
My gimp inventory was immaculate. Yes, gimp! What did you think I was talking about? You remember gimp, right?
Image Source: artcreativity.com
Gimp necklaces, gimp bracelets, gimp keychains. I did it all! And I was so good at it that these girls would pay top dollar. Lunchtime was push time for me, and it paid off very well. $100 plus to be exact. And boy did my eyes light up every time I’d put another dollar in my piggy bank.
I’d always been an entrepreneur. Forging my own destiny. Making my own rules. From the age of 13, it sounded so perfect. That is… until I reached 28, had bills to pay, and an achiever’s complex to “uphold”.
Have you ever been so good at something? And I mean everyone tells you that you’re going to make it doing that thing! Then you walk out into the world thinking others will see it too, but it ends up not being enough for them. I’m a multifaceted creative with a head full of ideas. There are a lot of things creatively I can do pretty well. Even with all of that and 2 degrees backing me up, I’ve yet to land what seems to be the simplest of needs: a secure job. So I turn back to charting my own path through entrepreneurship every now and then, until I discover that it takes money to make money 🥴. Man… this isn’t how 13-year-old me imagined this at all.
Fast forward to now, I find myself on Tuesday and Thursday nights classes preparing for my Scrum Master certification. I bet you’re wondering how I got here of all places. Honestly- surrender. Though exhausting to hold on to at times, I’ve never let go of my dreams. But I often doubted. The weight of countless “no’s” and closed doors burdened my faith in the area of my career. I secretly started to believe that I was going to struggle in this area forever.
But I also had this reckless belief that the God who promised “eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those who love Him” (1 Corinthians 2:9) would see it through in my life. So I do what the righteous do- get back up and try again! (Proverbs 24:16)
Surrendering often feels like I’m back at square one (which if you know me you know I despise having to start over and repeat things). But that’s not true really- because the foundation I’m rebuilding on now is different. That’s the nature of something being restored, isn’t it? Though it must be formed again it’s never the same as it once was.
Throughout numerous events in history, the bible recounts experiences that show us how God was constantly working to restore His creation back to perfection. That’s because the disobedience of Adam and Eve brought sin into the world separating mankind from the divine being of God and replacing perfection (in which God made all things) with a curse (Genesis 3).
But through the finished work of Christ on the cross, that curse has been broken (Galatians 3:13). The good news of the gospel is not only that we are forgiven for our sins but also that, by accepting Christ as our savior, we have access to the restoration of everything that was once divine.
If you don’t take anything else from this blog just remember this: from our money to our mindset to our careers- God’s desire is to restore it all back to us in wholeness and perfection as He originally created it.
Lately, I’ve been relating this a lot to divine restoration of my career (since it’s the area of breakthrough I’ve been believing for). In my pursuit of God for clarity, I messed around and picked up 3 encouraging promises characterizing this thing I call “divine work”. In less poetic language, think of it as the characteristics of purpose-filled work is in its perfected/divine state. And since you’ve read all the way down this long intro, it only makes sense to share them with you too, right? 😄.
PROMISE 1: IN HIS CREATION, YOUR PLACE HAS BEEN PREPARED.
I used to love painting, but I remember as a young artist avidly avoiding oil paint. It just had way more steps to deal with than acrylic paint. But if I’m honest, oil paints are kind of superior because the benefits are just better. Due to how it’s made, oil paints can give an artist more time to complete their work (since it doesn’t dry as quickly as acrylic) and it blends together much easier too. But, baby prepping your canvas for an oil painting is work!
Before any painting, you should always prep for it. Most paintings are prepped with primers and painters do this for a couple of reasons. 1) Because raw canvases often have uneven surfaces, priming it gives a smoother surface that’s easier for painters to work on. 2) Priming prevents the canvas from sucking up all that expensive paint! Canvas is a fabric made from cotton or linen and paint, as you know, is a liquid. If not primed, you risk your canvas turning into the “quilted quicker picker-upper”.
Priming a canvas acts as a foundation for the masterpiece you’ve set your eyes on to paint. Genesis 2 shows us that before God put His masterpiece on the earth, He also set a foundation. He primed creation when He put chaos into order, separated day from night, and defined land from sea (Genesis 1). Then God created the Garden of Eden- a safe haven that was equipped with everything needed for His masterpiece to thrive.
When God placed His masterpiece, Adam (meaning “human” in Hebrew), in the Garden of Eden He placed him in a perfect workspace that was primed for him in advance. Adam didn’t have to sweat for it at all. How do we know this was a workspace? Well because in the verse that follows we see why God put man in the garden: “to cultivate (meaning work) and keep it.” But before Adam's work could begin God’s work had to be finished so that a perfect and faultless foundation would be laid for Adam to build upon.
What happens when you build on the wrong foundation, or on no foundation at all? Say you’re looking at two stunning oil paintings, one that’s foundation has been sealed with primer and another that hasn’t. It’s not like you’d notice which one has been primed anyway because of what’s been painted on top. And that’s where the true beauty lies, right? So why does a primer even matter? Oh, but come back and look at those same paintings years from now. You’ll see that one is rotting and the other is unharmed. Oil-based paintings without a primer will cause the chemicals in the paint to eat out the canvas over time.
Here’s the promise of divine work- you don’t have to work for it. I’ve tried so many things I thought would level my problems. Benefiting off of pride, escaping through sex, exploiting people-pleasing... In the end, all those things ever did was waste my time, deplete my resources, and eat at my canvas. They all failed me.
But there is a foundation that will never fail us and it’s one we didn’t have to work to lay down because Christ did it for us already. “The punishment [of sin] that brought us peace was on [Jesus], and by his wounds we are healed” (Isaiah 53:5).
Now, all things are made new by God’s grace and not by our works (Ephesians 2:8-9). Jesus’ finished work of salvation presents us with the opportunity to build anew and on a foundation that ensures life in abundance. All we have to do is to make the choice of which foundation we will build on- our own or our God’s.
PROMISE 2: ON HIS FOUNDATION, YOUR WORK IS SETTLED.
Of course, that decision is crucial because the foundation we choose to lay down affects everything. Pastor Stephen shared that exact point in a recent series called Built Different, and for some reason, it reminded me of the time my family and played Jenga. Playing with them was so entertaining because everyone had their own strategy. Dad would peck repeatedly at the blocks until they fell out onto the other side. Mom would shimmy shake her blocks through. And my brother… well, he’d just ruthlessly snatch whichever piece he thought would work out. But even with the boldness of each player, not one of us had the guts to mess with the 3 tiers at the bottom of the tower.
Image Source: Freepik
Those 3 tiers acted as the foundation of our tower. We’d learned from previous rounds that poking holes anywhere in that area could risk the entire tower falling on our turn. Regardless, some players (i.e my brother) would take that risk every now and then in hopes that the tower would fall on their opponent's turn. But the more gaps there were in the foundation, the harder it was for everyone to settle any blocks on top and continue building.
Genesis 2:15 says God “settled” Adam in the Garden. Settled. Settled. Settled. I kept asking myself what does it mean to be settled and what does it look like? It definitely didn’t look like my career history that’s for sure! Going from one job to the next like a traveling nomad, constantly pivoting my business because of shifty conditions. I didn’t realize that nothing I built could settle because I was building on an unstable foundation.
Let me tell you something, fear is not a stable foundation to build on. Neither is anxiety, unforgiveness, pride, a mindset of lack, or a motive of “by any means necessary.” Yet, I wanted God to do something big in my career that my self-made foundation would not have been able to hold.
See, this is why God is a good and loving Father. We may not like it, but He’d rather hold what we desire from us so we don’t end up like the wicked witch of the west under that house- just crushed. Instead, He’ll put a pause on all building until we finally give Him the opportunity to lay down His foundation- one that has no flaws.
Why is the foundation Christ laid the better choice? Because it is the only foundation stable enough for you to settle on. For “everyone then who hears [His] words… and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock.” The promise of divine work is that it is settled because the foundation of Christ is strong enough and dependable enough.
Because which one of us wants to spend our entire lives building something that will end up being destroyed?! That’s what King Solomon realized, and he was the richest king in all history! When he realized that everything he worked to acquire and to build could be destroyed within the next rein (Ecclesiastes 2:18-19), he counted it all meaningless because it had not been built on God therefore it would not last.
God is the rock of ages who never changes. Whatever is settled and built on the foundation of Christ is protected by Him. It cannot be broken, it cannot be shaken, and it cannot be taken. Divine work is settled.
PROMISE 3: IN HIS PURPOSE, YOUR WORK IS FULFILLING
What defines fulfilling work? Work that makes you feel like you’ve made an impact, right? Work that you’re happy doing.
Have you ever been scared that if you gave Christ control of your life, He’d do the complete opposite? Like He’d give you a job you would not be happy doing- maybe even send you off to the desert villages of North Cameroon to spend your days preaching to gospel and eating locus 😭. And no shade to those called to that ministry because it IS blessing so many people! It’s just not my cup of tea.
When God settled Adam in the garden, He gave him the job of cultivating and keeping the land, but He didn’t ask Adam if that was the job he wanted. And how did Adam know if he himself would even like it? Yet, he took the job running. You know how I know that? Because he named all the animals in creation. You know how many animals God created?! To this day, we’re still discovering new ones and yet Adam named them all. You know how much you have to love your job to do that?!
Psalm 37:4 tells us to “delight [ourselves] in the LORD and he will give you the desires of your heart.” For Him to give us the desires of our hearts He has to be able to know them too, right? I believe Adam accepted the job with no questions asked because He trusted that His creator knew what was best for him.
Can we say the same about ourselves? That we can trust He has our best interest at heart even if it doesn’t look like it and even though we don’t know all the answers?
I wish my response was as holy as Adams but it, sure enough, was not 😅. I only got into Scrum because it was the opportunity I had left to try. When I started my classes, man I throw some fits! My heart scoffed at God like, ”do you even know what you’re doing?” “You’d rather me broke doing the things I love but rich doing the things I have no passion in?” “Who wants to live like that?!” “Dawg, I don’t even like I.T!”
At some point (and that point being Catalyst) I had to stop thinking that God wants me to suffer all the time- that only things I’m passionless about would be my portion because “o, that’s the suffering of a believer I must endure!”
No. Not when Christ came so that I may live life abundantly (John 10:10).
I had to put on the garment of sonship and remind myself that I am not abandoned. I am not alone. I am cared for, and I am deeply loved because I am a child of God. And He is the best Father I could ever ask for.
God didn’t just give Adam work, but fulfilling work. You know God could’ve created the land to be self-sustaining and have no need to be cultivated or kept? But then there would be no need for Adam. So God intentionally created the land to be dependent (to need to be cultivated and to need to be kept) so that Adam could fill that need.
Ephesians 2:10 tells us that “we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do”. God has good works for us to do and He knows the work that will fulfill us. So don’t worry, trust His process. Your divine work will be work that fulfills you and that you enjoy.
You all know #itsbambooseason, right? And as I’m finishing up this blog I’m realizing that maybe this reflection is a visual of what awaits us in our promise land. In the bible, before God would bring His people into a promise, He’d show them a visual first of what they could expect. For example, when God called Abraham to look over all the land that He promised to him and his descendants (Genesis 13:17) or when God asked Moses to sent spies into the land and bring back evidence of it (Numbers 13). In this season, my promise land deals with my career breakthrough. For you, it may be something else. Whatever area of breakthrough you’re believing for, I pray that this gives you hope for what you can expect God is doing in your life.
Y'all, it’s closer than we think. I can feel it. Be encouraged. Until next time!
Much Love,
Nyorh
