If you’ve read this blog or listened to my Hustle with H.E.A.R.T. podcast for any length of time, you know my platform is all about bridging faith and business, equipping entrepreneurs to pursue success God’s way. So imagine my joy when I found a 10-day reading plan on my YouVersion Bible app called Holy Hustle! I mean, come on now…can’t you just see God’s hands all over that?
The gist of it, and my Hustle with Heart ministry if I could call it that is discerning His place in our business and breaking the habits of our driving, striving and need for control. For me those are like 20′ high x 20′ deep fortress walls built from a lifetime of focus on achievement – and most days I feel like the Israelites walking around the walls of Jericho 6 times and trusting God that the 7th time (plus my loud praising) is the charm to bring down that wall (Joshua 6 for those that don’t know about that miracle).
I like to think that through my hard work and hustle, I can make things happen…and when I achieve that goal or those results, I can stand in the spotlight and say “look what I did!” There’s a popular saying – She believed she could, so she did. But a friend of mine turned that to the Lord and says “she believed she couldn’t so God did.” Whew, that’s a hard pill to swallow, right? I mean we’re not supposed to believe we can’t do something, right? But what if by us doing and doing more we’re actually not leaving room for God’s strength and power?
Making that shift – from relying on our own strength to relying on His -is, well, hard for us Type A people. Because we assume it is all up to us to make everything work and make sure it all succeeds. To make sure I don’t look like a failure or a fool. To make sure people see my hard work and give me the credit. Big ouch! Sometimes that shift causes us to retreat, or even have a toddler-sized tantrum about giving up control. But isn’t that shift what He wants as He chisels away at our walls, breaking down the strongholds we’ve built through pride, idolatry, and self-reliance, to allow us to be broken for Him and allow Jesus’ light to shine through? Only then can the Holy Spirit work in and through us – when we stop striving and start pursuing our relationship with Him, trusting that He is bringing a new thing because He created us with for a predestined purpose.
But what about when our head is on swivel, looking left and right, seeing other people succeeding, moving and shaking? When the roar of the bossy world is telling us the only way is working harder and relying on our strength and power, yet we are discerning God’s voice calling us to do it differently? We dig into the Word, leaning into His character and patterns, observe what we know He’s done for those He equipped to do His work in seemingly impossible situations. This helps us hear Him over the world’s roar. It empowers us to say yes to the work He’s prepared for us and follow the path He’s gone out ahead of us to create. Making the shift to hustle with heart (or a “holy hustle) gives us freedom, peace, and joy. It allows us to recognize the difference between the work that propels us toward the work that makes a difference in God’s kingdom, vs. the work that drains us or the work that is not ours to do in this season (even if we see others doing it and succeeding).
As Isaiah 43:18-19 says, “Remember not the former things, nor consider the things of old. Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.” Let’s put aside the old way of hustle and see how He’s doing new things as we hustle with heart.
