What Is It That You Do?

I often times run into an interesting and quite useful application like I did today. I always get curious about the people who create stuff that I thought about that needs to be created and all of a sudden here it is, I found it and it’s doing exactly what I thought it should be doing.

And then all of a sudden, I click on a link to their website and I really can’t understand what they’re saying about what they do.

This seems to be persistent issue across many different fields. So many people seem to just not be able to explain what they do. This has to be one of the most frustrating things in life, to not being able to tell other people what you do.

Imagine a dad, being the breadwinner of the family, and not being able to explain to his children what he does. Imagine going through life and while growing up people ask you what does your dad do, and you can’t even explain to them. “I don’t know,” says the kid and wonders, “what is it that my dad does anyway?”

I remember back in the day when I was deeply involved with ministry how difficult I found it to explain to people what I do. For one, people have preconceived ideas of what it is that a pastor or a minister does. If all the research and polling is true, most minister‘s time is taken up by administration than anything else I think. But people think that minister spends most of his time studying God‘s word and praying. That’s really not the case.

The truth is people have preconceived ideas about what other people do regardless of what field they’re in. Anything beyond a simple job function such as “I’m a baker and I bake bread,” gets complicated.

How does a data scientist explains to their kids that he or she studies data and what that means? Even adults can’t grasp that. The same can be said about a surgeon or so many other profiles in medicine.

And yet it is on us to formulate what we do in the simplest possible terms, most easily understood by most people, to be able to communicate with them the value of what we do.

Likability may be based on personality, but value to others is most frequently based on our contribution to other people‘s lives, or to put it in more simple terms, what we can do for other people.

Through the years, I’ve noticed this trend specifically in Christian circles to get people away from this fundamental truth by proposing that our value is solely based on our relationship with God and how much he loves us, not on what we do and what our contribution is to other people’s lives.

This is not a sound biblical teaching. While it’s true, and extremely important to be rooted in the understanding of God‘s love for us, which is based on who we are not what we do, it’s just as important for us to understand and accept the reality that in this life, there will be a sense of satisfaction within ourselves that will come from what we do, not from who we are.

This is the natural development of a child for example. During its formative years, a child should be loved unconditionally, receiving approval and affirmation from the parents mostly based on their value relationally to the parents and the family.

As a child moves into adolescence, and later on as a young adult and ultimately as an adult, it is the most natural thing to strive to build a productive life and to experience the satisfaction and blessing of being useful to others, contributing value through their skills and abilities.

There is no blessing in becoming a useless, good for nothing person who is only on the receiving end in life. The correct term for such people is parasite and unfortunately, there are plenty of parasites, bouncing around in life, not knowing who they are what they’re capable of.

This has to be one of the saddest aspects of our fallen human condition.

Parents were truly know God and understand the biblical teachings, will strive to raise productive and happy children who will become prosperous and independent, contributing value to others lives, and as a result, experiencing satisfaction and prosperity.