We Work Hard with Excellence
By Brandon Jones, All Nations Cape Town member
I have always loved the creation story. It's the beginning of our story and what we know of God. One of the most powerful verses to step back and consider is that "God created humankind in his image,..." You, me and everyone we see bears the image of God in our lives. Said another way, we were designed to mirror our creator! This has significant implications in the way we live our lives and I want you to consider one aspect of that here.
In All Nations, one of our core values is that “We work hard with excellence.” In large part, this is because we bear God’s image. God sets the stage in modeling working hard with excellence from the very beginning. In the very first verse of the Bible God creates out of nothing. And He does this with intentionality. Each step of the way God stops and examines the work. And at each step, “...God saw that [it] was good...” The act of creating out of nothing models what I would consider to be hard work (the hardest, truthfully!).
God takes this a step further by examining it and seeing its goodness. This models to us all the value of working hard with excellence.
Now God models work in different ways and different stories in the Bible. I am particularly drawn to Genesis 1 though for two reasons. For one, I think the type of work God models is analogous to what we strive to do in All Nations. In creating out of nothing, God pioneers into our universe. It is that pioneering spirit that I believe we try so hard to capture in the work that we do. It's not creating out of nothing in the same way that God does it but it is striving with all that we are to see God’s kingdom come where it is not-yet. That’s our vision at All Nations.
The other reason I am drawn to Genesis 1 is because we see God model excellence in different ways. I mentioned previously how God examines His creating work each step of the way but there is also another incredibly important way that God models excellence in this passage. Genesis 1 ends with God viewing everything created and determining that it is “very good.”
Genesis 2 then begins by recognizing that, as the work is finished, it is time to rest. God takes the time to rest! Imagine that! Resting should be a part of working hard with excellence. I think this is something that many people, particularly those engaged in pioneering work, could learn from. We give it our all and then continue to give it our all and then continue some more without taking the time to sit back and rest. In doing this the work itself becomes the virtue. God models the necessary and healthy balance that rest provides.
Excellence is not just working ourselves to burnout or worse; it’s also finding balance and taking the appropriate time to rest and be healthy people. God works six days and rests on the seventh; we have to find our balance as well. In All Nations, we strive to be people that find this balance and work hard with excellence following the example that God sets before us. That is the hope at least!