4 Paradigms of Doing, and How to Shift to the Healthy One

How do you do “doing”? Doing stuff is important. Nobody wants to spend their whole life on the couch watching TV while their brain turns to mush. Although we are not what we do, it’s important to do stuff.

Unfortunately, many of us do not have a healthy relationship with “doing.” Here are 4 common paradigms of doing. The first 3 are unhealthy, and for each one I’ll show you how to shift into the healthy 4th paradigm.

(1) Autopilot Doing

The busyness of life in the West tends to put us on autopilot.

Anyone with school-aged children knows this. Every other minute you find yourself shuttling some kid somewhere to some activity. And that’s not bad. We’re investing in our children. Kudos. But has it drowned out you? Are you just John’s mom or Amy’s dad?

Adults, young and old, are barraged by constant notifications from our devices. Someone emailed! Or posted! Or shared a TikTok! Look! Now!

Don’t get me wrong; I love my iPhone and being connected. But have the devices that were supposed to save us time hijacked our time instead?

I can speak from experience that men can live their whole life on autopilot. I did for a long time, before I broke out of it. Providing for your family. Doing the job. Then, after 40+ years in the workforce, retire in the veiled frustration of unfulfilled monotony, and die in front of the TV. How tragic.

Too many of us never discover the exciting calling God created us for. Living on autopilot starved our heart’s passion to death long ago. Autopilot stinks.

Silence is the Antidote to Autopilot.

The good news is, our God raises the dead. It’s in the silent spaces, the quiet moments of our lives, that the Holy Spirit whispers life to our distracted hearts.

But it takes intention on our part. Here are some examples:

Schedule regular white space on your calendar. Turn off the phone, put away the computer, and any other distractions. Spend even just a few moments alone with a journal. Light a candle. Declare this time as yours. Listen for the Holy Spirit reminding you of your heart’s passion. He put it there in the first place.

Can you dare to remember? Would that change everything?

(2) Wounded Doing

One of the enemy’s foundational strategies is to bury the calling of God on our lives under a mountain of wounding.

Wounding can lead us to self-medicating with addictions. Anything to drown out the pain for a little while.

Addictions can be self-destructive:

• Sex
• Alcohol
• Drugs
• Porn
• Codependency (addiction to other people’s problems)

But we can also be addicted to good things that we’ve let get out-of-balance because they take away the pain:

• Entertainment
• Shopping
• Eating
• Social Media
• Relationships

Our addictions can even look really great on the outside, and be praised by the people around us:

• Work
• Church
• Activism

Doing self-destructive things is obviously an addiction. But how do we know when the good things we’re doing are actually an addiction, medicating pain in our lives? By answering one question: Are we getting our value from it?

If this is you, there is something in your life God wants to heal. But to receive God’s healing, you have to be willing to go into the pain. Not to get re-traumatized, but to let God open the wound just enough so Surgeon Jesus can bring his healing.

(3) Desperation Doing

The world is not a safe place. Being an adult can be outright scary. We feel like we’re dancing on the highwire without a net.

• “This business venture better work or we’re out on the street.”
• “My spouse’s chemo has to beat the cancer. I can’t stand another loss in my life.”
• “I can’t believe I’m having to deal with this!” (Fill in the blank for you.)

When something important and out of our control hangs in the balance, it’s easy to get into desperation. It’s even natural. It’s human nature to try and control what we can.

And again, doing things is good. But doing things in desperation is not. And the cure is to make a paradigm shift into paradigm number 3.

(4) Partnership Doing

We may end up doing the exact same things we were doing in desperation. But when we’re doing them in tangible partnership with God, our heart’s posture in doing them is different.

Ok, what do I mean by tangible partnership with God? Granted, God’s Spirit in us is intangible. We don’t physically experience him like we do other humans. (Usually, there are those moments…) But our experience of him can be just as real.

It is possible to walk out your life in a tangible partnership with God. Here’s what that looks like:

• You’ve done the work of hearing God for the calling on your life.
• You’ve clearly defined what you’re responsible for doing.
• You’ve clearly defined what God’s responsible for. Usually, bringing the results. Making it work.
• You’ve made an overt decision that even if God doesn’t bring the results you expected, your heart will still testify that he is good.
• Rinse and repeat. When it doesn’t work (or when it does), you go back to God and refine his calling on your life, the actions you’re responsible for, and what he’s responsible for.

For example, I tangibly partner with God for my time in doing this website, which I do mostly during my lunch break at my day job. My lunch break varies in length depending on when I arrive at work in the morning.

I don’t set an alarm. God’s responsible for waking me up early enough to hit the gym and arrive at work with enough website time at lunch.

I always wake up at different times, within an hour or two. Even accounting for unpredictable traffic, I can’t count how many times my lunch break has been just long enough, to the minute, to accomplish what I needed to do that day. God’s in this.

I’m responsible for going to bed at a reasonable hour. And I’m responsible for using the time he gives me efficiently (e.g., not scrolling social!).

So he gives me the time, and I do the things. You’re reading the results. My partnership with him works. Yours will too.

Your Turn

Do you see yourself in any of these “doing” paradigms? Is this post an eye opener? Share your story with this community in the comments.

If this hit home and you want to talk with me about hearing God’s calling on your life (practically and for real!), and partnering with God in it, email me at dave@IdentityInWholeness.com. I’d love to talk with you.

And please share this post to bless others.