I seem to be on a physics kick lately, which is funny considering how much I disliked it in college and how much I struggled to comprehend it. My brain just isn't wired that way, but for some reason, God has been using physics to teach me more about himself, particularly grace.
If you've ever taken Physics 101, the first thing you learn are vectors and kinematics - describing how things behave when they move. One subset of kinematics is projectile motion, which looks at what happens when you're tossing a ball, dropping quarters from the Empire State Building, slinging Angry Birds at pigs...you get the idea.
When you describe projectile motion, you break down the vector in question (eg, the bird is launched at 10 m/s at a 40-degree angle) into an x and a y component because the forces acting in the horizontal and vertical components are independent - gravity will never make you fly sideways.
As I thought about the independence of vector components, I realized that my workaholic tendencies stem from having false expectations of what my effort will actually accomplish. If x represents what I am responsible for and y represents what God's responsible for, I think I'm pouring all my energy and efforts into my work and achievements, expecting them to give me significance.
It's like pulling the slingshot in a completely horizontal position (maximizing Vx) in order to get them to fly higher (somehow to have an effect in Vy), and when that doesn't work, I try it again with a stronger elastic or replace the slingshot with a canon instead of aiming higher. It's absurd, and it won't work.
On a more practical level, the independence of vector components helped me to realize that as I'm developing a team of ministry partners (raising support), I am responsible for making phone calls, sending emails, meeting with people to share about my ministry, etc. However, God is the one who puts it on peoples' hearts to partner with me, and no amount of emailing on my end will change that.
Instead of working myself to exhaustion, I need to trust in God's faithfulness and in his provision that will come in his time -- which is not to say that I can just kick back, relax, and wait for God to drop people in my lap because then I wouldn't be faithful to my responsibilities. How then, am I to live somewhere in the middle?
Have you ever been a workaholic? If so, what has helped you in your journey of developing a more healthy relationship with work?
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