Try Something New

I’ve done a lot of things I’m not proud of in life.

I’ve gotten speeding tickets, crashed cars, broken hearts, the whole nine. But very few things top one particular moment.

My wife and I moved a few years ago, and she, of course, needed every outlet in our home to go from off-white to white. Guys, let me tell you, it’s a big deal. I go to Home Depot and buy a ridiculous amount of white outlets and outlet covers to install. One Saturday, I’m unscrewing the outlet and going to grab the wire and release the lock on the back. To my surprise, I got a little shock. I adjusted my grip, grabbed the tool, and tried a different approach… another shock. By this point I’m irritated and decide that I should take a YouTube class on installing new wall outlets. Two commercial skips later I hear a voice say…

“Once you have turned off the breaker to the outlet you wish to change…”

Yeah… You probably guessed it before I finished the story. What a concept! Turn off the live electricity running through the hot wire that I am placing my bare hands on!

I love this story because it reminds me of something I do daily. I chose a path, decided it’s the right way to do it, and don’t think twice when I face any form of opposition in my way.

I don’t think to adapt, try something new, or adjust.

I just plow on with nothing but stubborn force and high hopes. Some people call it grit, and sometimes it is. But more often than not in my case, it’s just simply stupidity.

The Go First curriculum challenges us to live out our vocation on purpose!

We are called to be fully alive employees, fathers, mothers, students, co-workers, that are living on purpose and by design.

Isaiah 43 says…

Forget the former things: do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing!  Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.

- Isaiah 43:18-19

Isaiah is telling Israel that while remembering what God has done is beautiful, He doesn’t promise to repeat Himself! God will always provide, but it will always be in a new way for a new season.

If we are living our lives, jobs, and vocation in a way that simply approaches every day with the expectation of repetition, how can we have any purpose behind it?

If you want to live your vocation with purpose, start by changing something up today. Have you considered taking a new route to work? Maybe have something different for breakfast. When you choose to instill a new habit or action in your day, you have suddenly thrown off your entire rhythm and created space for a new wind to blow through the dusty halls of your routine. I’m not saying that routine is bad; however, if our life begins to default to memory and never experience imagination, is it a life worth living at all?

The Lord says “I am making a stream in the wasteland”...

Is there an area in your work that feels like a wasteland? Do you need a stream of living water to flow through your vocation to experience purpose? Make one change to your routine today, and read Isaiah 43 again before tomorrow.

Purpose doesn’t just happen, it’s chosen. Choose to live your vocation by design, not by default today.

DJ Brennan