“It Is Good”: A 5280 Fellows Experience

I’m currently going through the nine-month 5280 Fellowship, studying the intersection of work and faith.

I think a lot of people, including myself, struggle with the question of what intrinsic value our work brings to the world. As a sales professional, how I can be of value outside of just strictly driving profits to the bottom line? Is our work goal simply to make a bunch of money so we can retire and travel the globe?

The beginning of the program has been thought-provoking in many ways but nothing quite as impactful as studying the creation story in the first part of Genesis. Setting aside the literal scientific questions we all have when we read a seven-day creation story, there are many parallels behind God’s work ethic and things we can model in our own work.

There were four key things that stood out to me when reading Genesis Chapter 1 that I had not considered before. These key elements apply to our work as people and our approach to business.

If you were God and all powerful, wouldn’t you just create planet Earth and every single thing in it in one day? I think about it related to my own work and how I try to wrap up as much as I possibly can in the shortest amount of time. If we have a proposal due, the faster we can get the thing done and out the door the better. Yet God himself took six full days to build creation. In business I’m always talking about the importance of a plan and strategic approach to everything that we do. Even my own athletic goals have a very strategic and staged approach to training. If we look at how God spaced out his creation efforts, we can learn that this is also how we need to approach projects in our every day lives.

The next observation really struck me. You know how I mentioned trying to get through projects as quickly as we can and get them out the door? Well, In Genesis, God paused each day paused to evaluate His work. He doesn’t wait until the end of the project but he evaluates his work at every step of the way. To take time to reflect on work product and evaluate its goodness is something that’s in God’s nature. It’s something that I need to take more time to do.

In addition to evaluating work product at every step of the way, God also takes the time to celebrate his work. “It is good”. He blesses each day’s work and moves to the next step. This is something I find extremely hard to do when drafts of proposals and deliverables aren’t complete. To pause and celebrate work when it’s not yet completed is something that I plan to work on over the next year.

Last but certainly not least is taking the time to rest. How often do we rest after we complete a task? I definitely don’t have that gift! I finish one thing and move to the next as quick as I can. Rarely do I take the time to rest after a project is done. With rest built into the seventh day of the creation story, it is apparent that God built into us the need to recuperate and recover after goals have been met. Whether it’s a race that I have just completed or a project that I just got out the door, I need to take the personal time to rest and hit the “reset button” and recover for the next job.

I’m excited for the revelations that I received so far. Looking forward to this next nine month journey through the fellowship program and how it can improve me as a professional and help me reflect more of him in everything I do.

And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day." -Genesis 1:3