The Who behind the What
In business there’s a lot of talk about knowing the Why: “Why do we do the things that we do?”
This morning I want to ask if you know the Who (and I don’t mean the rock band even though autocorrect tried to capitalize The because even the AI behind this program thinks that the Who is actually The Who): “Who are you doing what you’re doing for?”
The What demands a Who. If we forget that there are people on the other side of the process, we’ll quickly find ourselves burning out.
The Who fuels the What. Show me a nerdy kid who loves to geek out on experiments and who just lost a parent to cancer, and I’ll show you a future scientist giving her life away in a laboratory searching for possible cures for cancer. Why? Because the Who she lost drives her to find a way to make sure other people don’t lose other significant Whos the way she did.
Paul understood this. He wrote a pretty harsh letter to a group of believers in Galatia who had suddenly become very What focused. They were working hard to observe every special day and felt pretty good about all the things they were doing for God. They were the people who loved award days in school because they got medals and stars for all their work.
To that overworked and driven crowd, Paul wrote a whole section on how they should keep doing good, but he reminded them Who they were doing good for.
“Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.” Galatians 6:9 NIV
Don’t miss this: the first Who was God because God is the one who gives the harvest. Paul reminded them that they were planting for Him and that He would ensure that they reaped what they had sown (see verse 7).
The second Who was everyone else. In the very next verse, Paul reminds them to take every opportunity to do good “to all people.” Sometimes we just do good things but forget who we’re doing good things for. Remembering the Who is the difference between being temporarily worn out and permanently burned out.
[Tweet “Remembering the Who is the difference between being temporarily worn out and permanently burned out.”]Answering the question of Who is behind your What helps us find the fuel we need to keep going.
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