Why God Never Intended for You to Hustle
Dear One, God is bigger than a hustle. I see a lot of talk from Christian women about “hustle” and it grieves me because it grieves God, our Heavenly Father.
God never intended for us to hustle but to work diligently at the things He’s called us to do, knowing that He will bless the works of our hands.
All you have to do is spend time in His presence, ask Him what He’s called you to do, and obey what you hear Him telling you. This is the type of work (not hustle) that depends not on self but on God. It’s the work of faith, and it takes more spiritual energy than hustling because you have to come into a deeper relationship God which means being vulnerable when you may be used to your independence. You have to spend time in God’s presence to learn to know His voice. This takes time, faith, and patience. But when God tells you to do something, you will have all heaven backing you as you take each step of faith He speaks to you. It could be the littlest thing but God will take the little you do in obedience and multiple it into great blessings.
When you have a hustle mindset and your depending on how much you can do and not what God can do through a willing and obedient heart, you will never find the rest your heart truly craves. I know because I’ve been there, even though I never called it hustle. I am a recovering Martha. There was a time when I was busy doing many things, which made me troubled and anxious about many things.
My hustling heart blocked the flow of God’s presence and His blessings.
When we are so busy doing even the good, we want to do instead of focusing on the God-things He calls us to, we may become great but not in God’s eyes. We may achieve success as defined by the world but it’s the good success that comes from God’s blessing on our obedience. We may gain the world but lose our soul or our relationship with God and the process.
Sure we can pretend for people but God knows when our hearts have gone astray, even after the good we think is God.
Sure we can pretend for people but God knows when our hearts have gone astray, even after the good we think is God.
How does this happen you might ask. The answer is: by not spending time in His presence, hearing His words. All Jesus wants is for us to sit at His feet and hear His words (see Luke 10:36-42).
Only at His feet, in His presence will we find the rest our hearts craves and the answers our souls are looking for.
Isaiah 55:1-3 says,
Wait and listen, everyone who is thirsty! Come to the waters; and he who has no money, come, buy and eat! Yes, come, buy [priceless, spiritual] wine and milk without money and without price [simply for the self-surrender that accepts the blessing]. Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your earnings for what does not satisfy? Hearken diligently to Me, and eat what is good, and let your soul delight itself in fatness [the profuseness of spiritual joy]. Incline your ear [submit and consent to the divine will] and come to Me; hear, and your soul will revive; and I will make an everlasting covenant or league with you, even the sure mercy (kindness, goodwill, and compassion) promised to David.
If you’ve been using the word “hustle” to describe what you do because it’s trendy word and catchphrase, have you ever stopped to ask yourself what the word actually means.
Here are some definitions I found:
hustle (noun): busy movement and activity: “the hustle and bustle of the big cities” a fraud or swindle.
(verb): force (someone) to move hurriedly or unceremoniously in a specified direction: “they hustled him into the back of a horse-drawn wagon” push roughly; jostle: “they were hissed and hustled as they went in” hurry; bustle: “he had to retag second base and hustle back to first” obtain by forceful action or persuasion: “the brothers headed to New York to try and hustle a record deal”
coerce or pressure someone into doing or choosing something: “don’t be hustled into anything” sell aggressively: “he hustled his company’s oil around the country” obtain by illicit action; swindle; cheat: “Linda hustled money from men she met” to engage in prostitution.
(verb): force (someone) to move hurriedly or unceremoniously in a specified direction: “they hustled him into the back of a horse-drawn wagon” push roughly; jostle: “they were hissed and hustled as they went in” hurry; bustle: “he had to retag second base and hustle back to first” obtain by forceful action or persuasion: “the brothers headed to New York to try and hustle a record deal”
coerce or pressure someone into doing or choosing something: “don’t be hustled into anything” sell aggressively: “he hustled his company’s oil around the country” obtain by illicit action; swindle; cheat: “Linda hustled money from men she met” to engage in prostitution.
Can you see how hustling wasn’t intended for God’s children, and how it can block the flow of God’s blessings?
Here are some definitions of the word “work”:
work (noun): activity involving mental or physical effort done in order to achieve a purpose or result. something produced by the exercise of creative talent or expenditure of creative effort: artistic production “an early work by a major writer” something produced or accomplished by effort, exertion, or exercise of skill “this book is the work of many hands”
(verb): the labor, task, or duty that is one’s accustomed means of livelihood: a specific task, duty, function, or assignment often being a part or phase of some larger activity.
Beloved, after reading these many definitions of both hustle and work, how would you describe what you believe it is the Lord called you to do?