I will offer, for your consideration, the notion that there are calling dependencies in the Christian life. These dependences form the foundation of our leadership in business and are visceral to our life. I will submit that these dependencies look like this (bottom to top):
- Call to Service
- Call to Faithfulness
- Call to Dependence
- Call to His Presence
- Call to Covenant
God’s call on our lives is first to have a covenant relationship with him. We find forgiveness and faithfulness in this relationship as we pledge our lives to him and his lordship.
Second, he calls us to his presence. We spend time with him, love him, and know him. Then, a visceral dependence on him will come out of deep times of prayer and enjoying his presence. Once developed, our dependence on him will lead to an unbending faithfulness, which will be reflected in our service to him.
Just like faith, hope and love are the greatest spiritual gifts given to all Christians (1 Corinthians 13), so the call to enjoy God’s presence within our covenant relationship is the most important call God gives to every person who has entered a relationship with him. But many want to start at the top, not realizing they are missing the foundation of being with God. They view His call in terms of actions and functions.
It seems that missing the presence of God while trying to do more and more for God is usually the cause of people have questions about God’s will for their lives. People will search diligently for signs or advice, but they won’t slow down to learn to hear God’s voice and understand his heart. Those who spend large amounts of time with God usually don’t have these questions about God’s will for their lives.
In addition, it seems that those who also focus on accomplishing great things in his name are the essence of that troubling passage in Matthew 7.21-23 (LEB):
21 “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter into the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. 22 On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and expel demons in your name, and perform many miracles in your name?’ 23 And then I will say to them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Depart from me, you who practice lawlessness!’
When we spend our energies and cycles doing for God before being with God, our work product is described as “lawlessness.”[1] Skye Jenthani adds to our understanding of being called into the presence of God as the core of our lives on this earth:
The LIFE WITH GOD posture is predicated on the view that relationship is at the core of the cosmos: God the Father with God the Son with God the Holy Spirit. And so we should not be surprised to discover that when God desired to restore his broken relationship with people, he sent his Son to dwell with us. His plan to restore his creation was not to send a list of rules and rituals to follow (LIFE UNDER GOD), nor was it the implementation of useful principles (LIFE OVER GOD). He did not send a genie to grant us our desires (LIFE FROM GOD), nor did he give us a task to accomplish (LIFE FOR GOD). Instead God himself came to be with us—to walk with us once again as he had done in Eden in the beginning. Jesus entered into our dark existence to share our broken world and to illuminate a different way forward.[2]
Daniel’s resolve to not defile himself (Daniel 1.8) came from the time he spent with God. He was faithful to spend time with God (Daniel 6.10), so he was faithful in not making small compromises. His resolve wasn’t grounded in some type of human stubbornness; it was grounded in his love for God and his relationship with him.
Many Christian leaders miss the connection between a life lived in service to God and a life lived first with God. Some might think there is little difference between the two. But the difference is profound. The former is born in the belief that doing is at the core of why God saved us. The latter is born in the vibrance of intimacy with God.
Many of us chase happiness and satisfaction by doing more for God. But those who take time to be with God learn that true happiness and satisfaction is found in spending quality time with God—hearing his voice, engaging in real-time dialog with him, having the spirit teach us as we read his word—becoming undistracted with the seemingly important things of this world.
Our gifting to lead in business must be understood in the context of enjoying God’s presence and living with him. At the center of the hurricane is a calmness that is nearly unexplainable. We see this in Daniel over and over. No matter how uncertain or hectic the situation, Daniel always seemed to be the most calm, the most mature in that situation. When we encounter the storms of business, we stay in the center of the hurricane because that is where we find our rest in God. We find his presence there. We learn to set aside the distractions and the voices coming from the windy swirl, and we take quality time to be with God. Then, we can go back into the swirl of life with renewed confidence, focus, and energy because we are inwardly tethered to his presence, which grounds us and keeps us focused on the larger promise of an eternity spend enjoying his presence. What we find in the center of the hurricane is our future. The rest is temporal and will soon be forgotten.
When we spend time with God, we learn the sound of his voice and we learn to listen to his voice – the right voice – and reject the messages of other voices. When conflicts arise between the voices in our lives, we instinctually know which voice is the Lord’s because we have heard it over and over in the quietness of our time with him.
Daniel knew how to connect with God. Here are two examples:
I thank and praise you, God of my ancestors: You have given me wisdom and power, you have made known to me what we asked of you, you have made known to us the dream of the King. (Daniel 2.23 NIV; emphasis added)
10 When Daniel knew that the document had been signed, he went to his house where he had windows in his upper chamber open toward Jerusalem. He got down on his knees three times a day and prayed and gave thanks before his God, as he had done previously. (Daniel 6.10 ESV)
In these and other situations, Daniel could not have been effective had he not spent quality time with God in prayer and meditation. He is an apt illustration of Christ’s words from John 15:
4 Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. 5 I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. 6 If anyone does not abide in me he is thrown away like a branch and withers; and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned. 7 If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. (John 15.4-7 ESV)
Daniel abided in God through prayer and time spent with God. His gift of interpreting dreams would not have been as effective had he not prioritized time with God.
Like Daniel, we will be at our best in business and life if we build our lives on time spent with God in prayer. To make our lives focused first on what we’re doing for God is to get the cart before the horse. And we open ourselves to Satan’s temptations to always be doing more and more as time with God becomes more and more crowded out by our activities. May we respond fully to God’s call on our lives to enjoy his presence and learn to spend quality time with him.
[1] “you who practice lawlessness”: οἱ ἐργαζόμενοι τὴν ἀνομίαν. You workers of lawlessness, ESV; you evildoers NIV; ye that work iniquity ASV, KJV; you lawbreakers CSB; you who practice lawlessness NASB, LEB.
[2] Jethani, Skye. With: Reimagining the Way You Relate to God (p. 101). Thomas Nelson. Kindle Edition.
