Why Doing Your Best Is about Obedience Not Results
- Jessica Van Roekel Author of Reframing Rejection
- Published Apr 22, 2020
When we look back to the beginning of our current year, how will we remember it? If we were hoping for a productive first quarter where we rocked our goals and had the results to prove it, then some of us won’t have much to show for it. The world we thought we knew has left us lying like an upended turtle—spinning, legs flailing—wondering how we got like this.
Results drive our society. They’re the proverbial carrot on the end of the stick that we keep chasing, hoping to capture, yet always out of reach. Someone moves the carrot and we scramble to keep up. But measuring success by results only leads us down a dangerous path.
Performance Mentality Fools Our Hearts
This path leads us into a performance and perfection mentality. Performance fools our hearts into thinking its motives are pure. Perfection lures our hearts to the false security of control. A results-prompted perspective doesn’t contain the whole picture. It doesn’t account for the theology of suffering—that which unites us with Christ and forms us to be like him. And it especially doesn’t honestly address the issue of response from others. Results are primarily dependent on responses.
The responses of others are important, but they’re not the only measurement of our best. Our best can be the right thing for the right moment, but circumstances beyond our control skew the results. Right now, we're living through an unprecedented time—a novel virus that has countries, governments, and people frightened and living isolated in the face of an unknown future. It seems like seeing 'results' from our best is a distant memory.
This is why our best needs to be rooted in something other than results. It requires us to shift our perspective internal rather than external. The state of our hearts matters and trusting God with the outcome matters even more. In the book of Isaiah, we read about his answer to God’s call and his subsequent ministry. Isaiah is one of those books where we learn so much of Israel’s history along with God’s promises and heart for people.
Isaiah Did His Best
If we judged Isaiah’s ministry based on results, we would have to say he failed. The people didn’t listen. They didn’t respond to his message. Yet, Isaiah did his best. He offered himself to God’s work, stepped out in obedience, and left the results in God’s hands.
Isaiah had a ministry with a message that Judah refused to receive. But God’s pleasure in Isaiah’s obedience wasn’t measured by how well Judah received this message. It was measured in Isaiah’s willingness to go.
Sometimes the things we do won’t have the response we hope for. People will refuse our messages, assistance, ideas, and influence. But that doesn’t mean we didn’t do our best. Just as Isaiah responded to God’s call, so can we. Our response, efforts, and trust matters.
Just Say Yes
Our best starts with a 'yes.' And the best yes finds its roots in faith. When God called Isaiah, he revealed his holiness, and Isaiah cried out due to his uncleanness. An angel visited Mary. God showed up in a whisper for Elijah at Mount Horeb.
God calls each of us too. At times he tugs our heartstrings, knocks on our heart’s door, whispers to our heart, or shouts with a megaphone. We cannot turn how God reveals himself into a formula. But the one thing that stays the same is our response. Will we say yes?
Saying yes doesn’t mean that others will say yes to what you bring to the table. In fact, your best might not be noticed. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do your best. Isaiah’s focus was about responding to God’s call. He wasn’t assured that the people would respond to his message. At that moment in Isaiah 6, he was overcome with an awareness of a holy God, his own sin, and the need for mercy. This awareness prompted him to answer the call of God, “Whom shall I send?”
Work Hard
Influence is the one thing we all have and desire. However, when having the “best results” motivate us, then disappointment is our result. Not everyone will be influenced. People will turn away from our ideas, words, and help. Although negative results can indicate where we need to pivot, it is possible to do our best and still not receive the prize of first place.
An athlete who is the “best” in his small-town school may find himself outranked at a large university. There’s “best” determined by results and “best” defined by obedience. God calls each of us to a unique purpose. He gives us different talents and skills and then leaves it up to us to develop them. Let’s work hard to develop our best, knowing that we’re bringing God glory. He will take care of the results.
Trust God’s Best
There’s a risk in thinking that God’s pleasure is tied to your results. It pleases God when you say yes to the gifts and talents he’s given you, develop them, and then deploy them for others. If our focus is on positive results, then we put far too much responsibility on others to be God’s voice in our life. We also put far too much pressure on ourselves when we let the results determine whether we’re good, better, or best.
Doing our best is about our obedience more than the results we see. Positive results are wonderful. They can confirm our actions, but they can also feed the idea that those results originate from us. Negative results are terrible because they seem to act like a death blow to our dreams. In actuality, they hide a larger-picture view that sometimes God calls us to our best knowing we won’t get our dreamed-of results.
There’s so much more to this life than accolades and fame.
Your best can look a lot like loving that unlovable family member when they reject you.
Your best can be to embrace your present right where you’re at—even if your sink overflows with dishes.
Sometimes your best looks like inactivity because God has called you to wait.
To the outside eye, it appears that you’ve quit, but the spiritual eye reveals that much is happening in your heart.
Honor Your Best Wherever You Are
Currently, COVID-19 seems to have halted any forward momentum of our best towards best results. For some, this time will be an outwardly productive time. They will rock their fitness and nutrition goals. They will step into at-home-crisis-schooling as if they were born for it. Their families will grow closer together as evidenced by perfect meals and family times, and they will hold on to God in the midst.
But then there are the others who sit reeling from the losses COVID-19 stole from them. The grief will cripple them, it will be hit or miss if their kids complete any distant e-learning, and they will wonder if they even love their families, but they will cling to God in the midst of the crazy.
On the outside, one will look like they’re not doing their best and the other one will...but it’s the heart that matters. It could be that the one who gets it all done is doing just what God wants for them in that moment. And for the other, God could be calling them to rest and be still in him. So often we get busy 'being our best' to have the best results, but there are times when rest is best because God wants us to pause.
Other times busy is best because God wants us to move. Staying in tune with God is key to establishing your best in him rather than in results.
Ecclesiastes 3 reminds us there’s a time for everything and a season for every activity under heaven. These times don’t differentiate from good results to bad results. In fact, focusing on results is what we do to quantify our efforts so we feel good about ourselves. But our self-positivity should stem from the love of God who reveals his holiness to us and we humbly respond with loving obedience. When our best comes from this place, we don’t have to worry about the results.
Lean into God, listen for his call, and point your best in his direction.
Photo Credit: ©GettyImages/Ridofranz
