Strategy as Control
Why am I reading this? Deep in the latest Seth Godin book, This Is Strategy, I felt my perspective shifting just a bit. Looking down at myself poring over a book about systems change, product adoption, and business success, I realized something felt off balance. I’ve accepted a call to bear witness, to claim the story of a Mennonite missionary kid on a First Nations reservation in Canada, and here I am, reading books on business strategy. Hmm.
I’m reading because I want to be useful—to improve the workplace, to be seen as valuable, to feel validated. I want joy, fulfillment, financial independence, and status. And I want to get these from my work.
I’ve rejected the normal path, but I keep trying to walk it again.
Nothing is wasted. Strategy books will help me in my work. But my reasons for reading them are misplaced. I want the results that God promises through obedience, but I expect to get them from my clever approach to the daily grind. Part of that obedience is to show up to work every day, but the rest? To stop expecting from my own effort what only God can give.
I cannot earn through strategic thinking what is only a gift of grace. If I ever truly love my daily work, it will be the result of something God does in me, not something I engineer.
But I can’t help myself. I want to skip over the messy middle, the place where we take the next step, trusting there will be an outcome worth the struggle.
Perhaps this is true of everyone who decides to follow God. We must decide to take the next step in the direction He has pointed.
Jesus called fishermen. They were practical, simple guys. They had financial needs and family relationships to consider, and I’m sure they feared the cost. In my case, the immediate cost is small. I just need to show up and tell the truth about what it’s like for me to walk by faith. That comes first.
Since nothing is wasted, I expect what I’ve learned about strategy will help me love my work, bear witness more effectively, and maybe help others succeed. But that has nothing to do with the small obedience for which I am accountable.
Take up your pen and write. It need not be elegant or powerful. Only true.
