Venture capitalist, businessman and Shark Tank judge Kevin O'Leary was asked by a guy - my fiancee has delivered me an ultimatum - choose me or your crazy hours in your startup business. What do I do? O'Leary first observed that the guy had built a very promising company, with millions in revenue. He then noted that major sacrifices are needed to build a successful business - family dinners, weekend soccer games, time, energy and attention. And O'Leary ended up asking the guy to consider - which is harder to replace - the business or your fiancee?
Indra Nooyi, former Pepsico CEO and Chairperson, observed a similar thing, famously observing "I don't think you can have it all. We pretend we have it all. We pretend we can have it all.". Oprah Winfrey put it even more elegantly. "You can have it all. Just not all at once."
I'm not sure that the right question is "Which is harder to replace?" My instinct is that the better question is "Which is more important to you?" And the two questions are clearly not the same. There are lots of things that would be hard to replace in my life. I would imagine, for example, that it would not be easy to for me to replace my job, with all the relationships and technical experience I've acquired over the years.
Conversely, there are things that would be relatively easier to replace. For example, my wife and I have been distributing bread and doing community outreach at a particular block of flats for several years. I think it would not be difficult to replace this by simply switching to another block, or some other form of charity work. Thankfully I'm currently not compelled to make a choice between my job and this work! Yet if I really had to, it's actually easier for me to imagine choosing the latter over the former.
We are not always faced with such stark "either/or" choices. But sometimes, we do have to make a choice, simply because it's not possible to have it all at the same time. And often it's not possible to choose to have it all sequentially. We're only 30 years old once. Our children are only going to be toddlers once. Sometimes it does feel like we'll only have that big career opportunity once. And so on.
We can't order the world to act in our desired sequence. And when a stark choice needs to be made, making the call based on which one is easier to replace, is based on the false assumption that people and opportunities are things that can be "replaced". Most times, they're not.
To be clear, this is not some choose-to-smell-the-roses exhortation. Of course, it can often be the right decision to choose family over work for example - the weekend dates, the kindergarten graduations, and the piano recitals. But it can be the other way round too. The apostle Paul made a decision and chose his work. It was work for God, but it was still work. He said, no wife or prestigious teaching positions (he was in training as a rabbi) for me. I need to travel, and I need to put my whole life into it. Look what he accomplished with it - transforming the world for millenia afterwards. The missionary Jim Elliot chose the same - leaving behind his fiancee to go and work among the Ecuadorian tribes. He famously wrote "He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose."
The point is that decisions should made based on what's important, not what's replaceable. Jim Elliot could have said - lots of unreached people groups, they're not going anywhere, totally replaceable. But my fiancee, she's clearly not replaceable. So let me get married first, raise my family, and see what transpires later. Instead, he decided - going to Ecuador is more important, because God has called me there.
It's the same for us. Some of us really are called to work. God wants us to be excellent in the workplace so that we can testify of His work in our lives to the millions who are also in the workplace. The problem for many of us in the workplace is that we forget why we choose to work, and get caught up in our work and our workplace and our rewards, rather than acknowledging that it is all God's purpose in His workplace and His gifts. On the other hand, some of us are called to surrender our work, with its attendant ego-boosters and monetary rewards, so that we can spend that once-in-a-lifetime irreplaceable moment with our loved ones.
As I start 2021, I pray that we will make good choices. Let us hear God clearly. Let our hearts be humble. Let our minds not be distracted by the gaudiness of life. Let our hands and feet be swift to move in obedience. One life. One 2021. One God. We're unready, but He is ready. One big step forward now, here we go!
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