Aligning Work with Divine Design

A senior vice president sat across from me in his corner office overlooking the harbor, with a resume impressive by any standard. Two decades of advancing in the corporate world. Multiple successful acquisitions. A reputation as a turnaround expert. Yet, his opening question revealed a tension familiar to many evangelical leaders: “I’ve been successful in my career, but how do I know if I’m actually doing what God designed me to do?”

This hypothetical question reveals a significant gap in how many Christian leaders understand their calling. We’ve been taught that spiritual gifts are important for church ministry, but we find it hard to connect Sunday’s theology with Monday’s work in the boardroom. We aim for career success while quietly wondering if we’re missing God’s best. We hit professional milestones while feeling a persistent sense that our work should have a deeper meaning.

The answer isn’t to abandon your career for “full-time ministry,” but to discover how God has uniquely designed you for Kingdom impact right where you are, where the Lord has placed you.

The Confusion Between Spiritual Gifts and Giftedness

Before we can align our work with divine design, we first need to clarify a vital distinction that many Christian leaders overlook: the difference between spiritual gifts and giftedness.

Spiritual gifts are supernatural abilities given by the Holy Spirit at the time of conversion to build up the body of Christ. Paul describes these in 1 Corinthians 12:4-7: “Now there are varieties of gifts (charismata), but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of service (diakoniōn, where we get Deacon), but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities (energēmatōn), but it is the same God who empowers them all in everyone. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.”

The Greek term charisma (gift) shares its root with charis (grace), highlighting that these are unearned, gracious endowments. Paul lists specific gifts in Romans 12:6-8, 1 Corinthians 12:8-10, and Ephesians 4:11, including prophecy, teaching, administration, mercy, and others. These gifts are sovereignly given by the Spirit (1 Corinthians 12:11) specifically for ministry within the local church body by the grace of God.

Giftedness, however, refers to the unique set of motivations, abilities, and personality traits embedded in you before change. This is what Bill Hendricks and The Giftedness Center describe as your “motivated abilities pattern”: the recurring themes in what energizes you, how you naturally approach problems, and what circumstances draw out your best work.

This distinction is very important. Spiritual gifts are given at conversion; giftedness exists before conversion. Spiritual gifts mainly operate within church settings; giftedness functions everywhere, including your workplace. Spiritual gifts may evolve or change over time; your fundamental giftedness pattern remains largely stable throughout your life.

The theological foundation for giftedness appears in Ephesians 2:10: “For we are his workmanship (poiēma), created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” The term poiēma (from which we derive “poem”) means a crafted work of art. You are God’s masterpiece, intentionally designed with specific capacities for specific purposes. This design happened “beforehand” (proētoimasen), indicating that God’s preparations preceded your conversion.

David understood this reality when he wrote in Psalm 139:13-16: “For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made… Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them.” God’s creative work started well before the moment of salvation.

This explains why Paul, even as an unbeliever persecuting the church, showed remarkable zeal, strategic thinking, and persuasive communication skills. These same traits, once redirected through his conversion, fueled his apostolic ministry. His innate giftedness remained consistent; the Holy Spirit guided it toward Kingdom purposes and complemented it with spiritual gifts for church building.

Understanding this distinction frees you from career guilt. Your analytical mind, your strategic capabilities, your operational excellence; these aren’t secular qualities you must apologize for or abandon. They are part of how God designed you “beforehand” for good works in every sphere of life, including your workplace.

The Biblical Foundation for Workplace Calling

Many Christian executives operate with an implicit hierarchy of callings: full-time ministry ranks highest, while marketplace work serves merely as a means of financial support or a platform for evangelism. This framework creates perpetual tension. You sense God’s gifting in your leadership abilities, yet wonder if you should be doing something “more spiritual.”

Scripture offers a radically different perspective.

When God created humanity in Genesis 1:26-28, the first mandate was not worship or evangelism but work: “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” The Hebrew word kabash (subdue) implies bringing order out of chaos, developing potential, and exercising wise stewardship. This cultural mandate—to develop creation’s potential for human flourishing—predates the fall and remains valid today.

Work itself is pre-fall, part of God’s good design. Adam was placed in the garden “to work it and keep it” (Genesis 2:15) before sin entered the world. The curse didn’t introduce work; it introduced toil and frustration into work (Genesis 3:17-19). Redemption doesn’t call us away from work but restores work to its original dignity and purpose.

Paul reinforces this in Colossians 3:23-24: “Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ.” The phrase “whatever you do” (pan ho ean) encompasses all legitimate work, not merely church activities. Your spreadsheet analysis, your strategic planning, your team leadership—when done “as for the Lord”—constitutes genuine service to Christ.

This theological framework elevates marketplace work from a necessary evil to a sacred calling. You’re not merely earning a paycheck until you can do “real ministry” on weekends. You’re exercising dominion, stewarding resources, serving others, and displaying God’s character through excellence and integrity in your organizational leadership. Remember, the Lord has already sent you where you are placed, as Isaiah was sent to his own people, not somewhere halfway around the world.

The question shifts from “Should I leave my career for ministry?” to “How has God designed me to bring Kingdom impact through my career?”

Discovering Your Divine Design

Giftedness discovery is not narcissistic navel-gazing. It’s stewardship. Jesus’ parable of the talents (Matthew 25:14-30) makes clear that we’re accountable for developing and deploying what the Master has entrusted to us. The servant who buried his talent wasn’t condemned for poor ROI but for failing even to attempt deployment. He was coasting out of fear. We honor God by discovering what He’s placed within us and investing it for Kingdom returns.

Your giftedness pattern includes several key components:

Motivated Abilities: These are activities that energize rather than drain you. When you engage in your gifts, you enter a flow state where time seems to disappear and work feels effortless despite its challenges. You might feel energized by strategic analysis, building systems, developing people, or pioneering new initiatives. Focus on what leaves you feeling energized at the end of a workday instead of drained. Patrick Lencioni discusses this idea in his book, The 6 Types of Working Genius.

Subject Matter: Your giftedness often expresses itself through particular content areas. You might be drawn to financial systems, operational processes, organizational culture, technology infrastructure, or market strategy. These recurring themes reveal where God has planted deep curiosity and sustained interest.

Circumstances: Your best work emerges under certain conditions. Some leaders thrive in crisis situations, others in long-term development projects. Some excel in ambiguous and complex environments, while others thrive in structured settings. Understanding your optimal circumstances helps you position yourself for maximum impact.

Relationships: How do you naturally connect with people? Are you a behind-the-scenes strategist or a front-stage communicator? Do you energize groups or focus deeply on individuals? Your relational style is part of your divine design, not just a preference to overcome.

The formal giftedness assessment process involves reviewing your entire life story – long before you saw yourself as a Christian leader – to identify recurring patterns. What elementary school projects inspired you? What volunteer experiences felt meaningful? What work assignments produced outsized results? These patterns reveal the stable core of how God designed you.

Bill Hendricks describes giftedness as “the way you’re hardwired.” Just as David’s years as a shepherd prepared him for kingship (his courage facing lions and bears translated to facing Goliath), your seemingly unrelated experiences have been preparing you for Kingdom impact in organizational leadership. The skills you developed in that early-career turnaround project, the lessons from that failed initiative, and the capabilities you built through that industry crisis—all of these are part of God’s “beforehand” preparation.

From Discovery to Deployment

Discovering your giftedness pattern has immediate implications for how you lead and where you invest your energy.

Strategic Alignment: When you understand your divine design, you can evaluate opportunities from a new perspective. That promotion to a position requiring skills outside your giftedness pattern may be a detour rather than progress. A lateral move into a department that aligns perfectly with your motivated abilities might be God’s way of leading to greater Kingdom impact, even if it doesn’t improve your title.

I’ve mentored individuals who realized their exhaustion came not from working too hard but from working against their natural strengths. One operations leader discovered his giftedness was in developing people and cultivating culture, yet his role was mostly focused on process optimization. Once he recognized this misalignment, he restructured his responsibilities, delegated technical tasks, and invested more in leadership development. His energy was restored, his impact increased, and his team thrived.

Witness Transformation: Understanding giftedness transforms how you witness at work. Instead of using your job as a stage for forced evangelism, you see your excellence and integrity as the main way to show Kingdom values. Your unique problem-solving, distinctive leadership, and personal way of serving clients become clear signs of how God created you. Colleagues notice when your work reflects something deeper than just career ambitions.

Peter instructs believers to “always be prepared to give a defense (apologia) to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you” (1 Peter 3:15). But notice the sequence: first, there must be observable hope that prompts questions. Your giftedness, deployed with excellence and joy, creates that observable difference that opens conversations about what drives you.

Team Development: Leaders who recognize their own gifts become much more effective at helping others grow. You stop expecting team members to approach problems the way you do. Instead, you begin to see and use the different gift patterns on your team. The analytical introvert and the relational extrovert aren’t better or worse; they’re just differently gifted for complementary roles.

Romans 12:4-8 establishes this principle: “For as in one body we have many members, and the members do not all have the same function, so we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another. Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them.” Paul first applies this to spiritual gifts in the church, but the principle extends to giftedness in all areas. Teams perform best when leaders honor instead of homogenize their members’ diverse talents.

The Tension Between Giftedness and Spiritual Gifts

Some Christian leaders worry that emphasizing giftedness downplays spiritual gifts. This misunderstand how God operates through both.

Your giftedness provides the foundation; spiritual gifts add supernatural power and specific church-related applications. A leader gifted with strategic analysis who receives the spiritual gift of wisdom will excel at helping the church navigate complex decisions. An executive whose giftedness includes developing people and who receives the spiritual gift of teaching will be especially effective in discipleship settings.

They work together, not in competition. Your workplace functions mainly through your giftedness, reflecting God’s common grace. Your church ministry operates through both your giftedness and spiritual gifts, reflecting God’s special grace. Both settings matter for Kingdom impact.

Paul exemplifies this integration. His pre-conversion talents—deep passion, strategic thinking, and cross-cultural communication skills—laid the groundwork. The Holy Spirit bestowed spiritual gifts of apostleship and teaching, empowering supernatural impact in church planting and theological teaching. Even his tentmaking work (Acts 18:3) utilized his natural talents for marketplace support and building relationships.

You don’t have to give up your gifts to be spiritual. You should faithfully steward your gifts and also develop your spiritual abilities to build up the church. Whether you create a strategic business plan or lead Bible studies with Spirit-led insight, both honor God when they fit with your design.

Moving from Career Guilt to Confidence

Many evangelical executives I coach feel a subtle guilt about their career success. Shouldn’t you be doing something more directly evangelistic? Isn’t your business leadership somehow less valuable than church work? Doesn’t your financial success pose spiritual risks?

This guilt often comes from a false sacred-secular divide that Scripture does not support. When you realize that God created you “beforehand” with specific abilities and intentionally placed you in leadership roles, guilt about your career turns into confidence in your stewardship.

You’re not randomly skilled at strategic planning or operational excellence. God intentionally embedded these abilities in you as part of His sovereign design. Your marketplace position isn’t a concession to worldliness but a calling to Kingdom influence. Your professional skills aren’t merely secular tools you use until you can engage in “real ministry”; they’re God-given talents for bringing His wisdom, justice, and flourishing into organizational systems.

This confidence doesn’t lead to arrogance. Instead, it fosters humility: recognizing that your abilities are gifts, not accomplishments. It promotes gratitude: thanking God for creating you with specific talents. It shapes purpose: using these gifts for Kingdom impact rather than personal gain.

Paul expresses this idea in 1 Corinthians 4:7: “What do you have that you did not receive? If then you received it, why do you boast as if you did not receive it?” Your strategic thinking, leadership presence, and ability to build consensus are gifts you have received, not personal accomplishments. Properly managing them honors the Giver.

The Giftedness Assessment: Your Next Step

Learning about giftedness fosters understanding; formal assessment leads to transformation. The process of discovering giftedness involves:

1. Life Story Review: Working with a certified coach to examine your entire life for recurring patterns of motivated behavior. What activities brought you alive as a child? What volunteer work felt meaningful? What professional projects generated energy rather than draining it?
2. Pattern Identification: Analyzing your stories to identify consistent themes in your motivated abilities, preferred subject matter, optimal circumstances, and relational style. These patterns reveal your unique design.
3. Design Statement: Articulating your giftedness pattern in a clear statement that captures how God wired you. This becomes a strategic tool for evaluating opportunities and making decisions.
4. Application Planning: Identifying specific changes in how you structure your work, develop your team, and pursue Kingdom impact based on your discovered design.

The assessment usually takes 8-12 hours over several weeks. It’s an investment of time and resources, but personally worth it.

Conclusion: Stewarding Your Design for Kingdom Impact

Your career success isn’t a barrier to Kingdom impact; it’s evidence of divine design. The question isn’t whether you should leave your marketplace calling for “real ministry,” but whether you’re stewarding your God-given abilities for the greatest Kingdom return on investment.

When you identify your giftedness pattern, several changes happen:

• Clarity replaces confusion: You understand why certain roles energize you while others drain you, even when both appear successful from the outside.
• Confidence replaces guilt: You recognize your professional capacities as God-given stewardship opportunities rather than compromises with worldliness.
• Purpose replaces performance: Your metrics shift from external validation to faithful deployment of your unique design.
• Freedom replaces frustration: You stop trying to lead like someone else and embrace how God uniquely wired you.

Maybe you relate to that executive’s question: “How do I know if I’m actually doing what God designed me to do?” The answer begins with discovering your divine gifts. Until you understand your design from God, you’ll keep judging your career by external things like titles, pay, or reputation rather than how well you are stewarding your gifts. You might keep thinking about quitting your job to do “real ministry” instead of viewing your workplace as a true area where God’s kingdom can work through you.

When career success aligns with divine purpose, transformation occurs: your workplace becomes a space of Kingdom influence, your leadership demonstrates stewardship, and your professional skills become tools for redemptive impact. However, this alignment requires intentional discovery, not hopeful guessing.

The question isn’t whether God designed you for Kingdom impact. Ephesians 2:10 settles that: He created you as His poiēma, preparing good works “beforehand” for you to walk in. The question is whether you’ll take the time to discover that design and have the courage to align your leadership with it.

Your next step is clear: get a formal giftedness assessment. Stop working on autopilot. Stop wondering if you’re missing God’s best. Find out how He really designed you, and take care of your work accordingly.

The impact you want from the Kingdom doesn’t mean quitting your job. It means discovering and using your God-given design right where you are.

Series Overview:

• Article 1: Why Talented Executives Still Burn Out: The Giftedness Gap
  Exploring the disconnect between what you can do and what you were created to do, and why competence without alignment leads to depletion.
• Article 2: From Career Success to Kingdom Impact: Aligning Work with Divine Design
  How giftedness discovery reveals not just what you can do, but what you were created to do—transforming both satisfaction and witness.
• Article 3: Building Teams That Flourish: The Giftedness Approach to Leadership
  When you understand your team’s giftedness, you stop forcing square pegs into round holes and start creating environments where people naturally excel.

Let this series help you discover how God designed you to lead, so your work reflects faithful stewardship, your witness becomes organic, and your kingdom impact amplifies through alignment with divine purpose.