Heart Work Hard Work

Okay, okay I get it. The online space has become the ‘anti-hustle’ brigade and everyone is suddenly talking about how everything should be easy and the work you do should only be the work you want to do.

Agreed.

Here’s what that doesn’t mean though. You sitting on a beach sipping margaritas the whole time.

I know that’s the lifestyle people portray on the internet a lot of the time. Because let’s face it, who wouldn’t want to show themselves off being surrounded by paradise and palm trees. But it’s not the whole thing. So if you’re aspiring for that ‘laptop lifestyle’ in the hopes that all you’ll do is order room service for the rest of your life, you’re missing the point.

I think hard work makes sense. When I say ‘hard work’ though, I don’t mean difficult, affecting your family, ruining other areas of your life hard.

I mean your purpose-driven push.

I’m talking about making the hard work you’re doing, your heart work.

The work which lights you up. The work which you’d do for free if you could (and let’s face it, some of the time you do.) That doesn’t mean you’re lying on a beach somewhere the whole time though. It means you ARE showing up and writing the words, recording the videos and everything else in between because you LOVE it.

So I DO say hustle. But make your hustle heart centred.

Do the work which you love. The work which makes you wonder if it really is ‘work’.

It is, by the way.

We’ve been SO conditioned to believe that if we’re not slogging it out in a cubicle, in front a class or in a retail store somewhere for 40-60 hours a week, we’re not ‘really working’.

But who said that? Like where did it even come from? I have a vague idea, a Biblical idea even. But it’s not the whole story.

Here’s what it says in Genesis 3:19 – “By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”

This is God speaking to Adam post-fall. Sin had entered the world and yes, work was ‘cursed’ if you like. (Perhaps how some of you feel on a Monday morning!) However, like I said, that’s not the whole story. Check out what Genesis 2:15 says…

“The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it.”

THIS is us pre-fall. Before work was cursed.

This means that there was a time where work was not only necessary. But was also a part of a perfect world.

And so my question for you today is where does your work fit amidst all of that?

Does your work feel like purpose-driven passion?

If not, why not?         

It sounds simplistic but it’s honestly not. If you’ve got gifts, skills and talents which you’re under using and a dream inside of you which you’re not pursuing, something’s got to change there.

What’s the work God is CALLING you to do? And what’s stopped you from going after it thus far? I could take a guess because I’ve been there.

You’re wondering if it’s possible. No one’s done it ‘like this’ before. You’re not sure you could make a living from this. You’re telling yourself you need to get a ‘real job’.

But here’s the thing…

Our God is a God of the MIRACULOUS, of the IMMESURABULY MORE, of EXCEEDINGLY AND ABUNDANTLY BEYOND ALL THAT WE CAN ASK, THINK AND IMAGINE.

I mean, He called Moses through a bush which was on fire and yet not burned. He called Gideon while he was hiding and He called Mary, who was a teenage girl, to be the mother of Jesus Christ.

So what makes you so special?

What is it that makes you think that the work God’s calling you to is impossible? It’s time to change that because remember…

The world is waiting for your work.

I also shared a live video on this topic over on Facebook. Click below to check it out.