For more than thirty-five years, I have been fascinated by systems.

As a PhD systems engineer, business executive, and adjunct professor, I have spent my career helping organizations improve planning, forecasting, scheduling, and decision-making. Whether in manufacturing, pharmaceuticals, or higher education, the challenge has always been remarkably similar: helping people understand not just the individual parts, but how those parts work together as a whole.

Over the years, I learned that systems rarely fail because every part is defective. More often, they fail because the relationships among the parts are misunderstood.

At least, I thought I understood that.

Then a small silver rod taught me a lesson that none of my formal education ever had.

A Simple Repair

Some time ago, a belt in my tractor mower broke. I decided to experiment and replace it myself. I had never done it before, and so I searched YouTube. Fortunately, I found and watched many videos that people had shared who had similar problems. So, I ordered a new belt, found a day, disassembled the mower, laid the parts on the garage floor, and waited for the new belt to arrive. 

The day the new belt came, I eagerly went to the garage and started reassembling the parts. Soon I got excited and thought I had succeeded in this experiment. Then out of the corner of my eye, I noticed a silver rod in a shadow on the floor. However hard I tried, I couldn’t remember where and how to fit in this rod. Desperate, I went back in the house to rewatch the videos and recheck the manuals. Still, I could not find any clear clues where it fits. 

It was a small silver rod.

At first, I dismissed it. Perhaps it was an extra part. Perhaps it wasn't even necessary. I was hoping that maybe the mower could still function normally without this silver rod. So, I took the mower out to test drive it. The engine spurted when I turned the key. Things started up and got noisy. It seemed like a good sign until I engaged the gears, and the mower got very noisy and moved, but seconds later, it jerked and stopped abruptly.

So, I did what I should have done earlier.

I stopped assuming. Instead, I began observing. I expanded my search to watch more YouTube videos related to other types of repairs near the area where the silver rod may be when properly connected. Each video filmed the mower from different angles, but in most of them the silver rod was hidden from view. Then finally, I found a video that gave a glimpse of the silver rod in the background from a different angle. Luckily for me, that angle revealed just enough information about how the silver rod needed to be connected in the mower. I ran to the garage and fitted in the rod as I had seen in the video. And it worked!

The silver rod was not broken.

The silver rod was not defective.

It simply wasn't connected to the whole system.

The mower had never been the real problem.

Neither was the silver rod.

The real problem was my inability to see the relationship.

A Lesson Bigger Than a Lawn Mower

That little experience stayed with me. The more I reflected on it, the more I realized it wasn't really about lawn mowers at all.

It was about how easily we focus on parts while overlooking the whole.

We naturally pay attention to what we can see immediately. We solve today's problem. We fix today's task. We improve today's process. Yet in doing so, we often fail to ask a more important question:

What whole does this part belong to?

Without the whole, even a perfectly good part can appear useless.

A talented employee may seem ineffective simply because he or she is serving in the wrong role.

A well-designed process can create unexpected problems because it improves one department while harming another.

Even in our personal lives, we sometimes work harder when what we really need is greater clarity.

The issue is often not effort.

The issue is alignment.

 Learning to See the Whole

One lesson I learned from that silver rod is that understanding the whole requires patience.

One camera angle was not enough.

One quick observation was not enough.

One assumption was not enough.

I had to slow down. I had to look again. I had to see the same system from multiple perspectives before the missing relationship finally became obvious.

Notice how differently I understood that little silver rod when it was lying on the garage floor compared to when I finally saw it connected within the mower. The part itself had not changed. What changed was my ability to see its relationships. That experience taught me something I have never forgotten:

We understand parts best when
we see them within the whole to which they belong.

Ever since then, whether I am reading Scripture, teaching, or solving business problems, I find myself asking two questions:

What whole am I missing?

Have I seen the whole from enough perspectives?

I've come to believe that many of the frustrations we experience in both faith and work are not caused by missing information. They are caused by missing relationships.

 God's Integrated Restful Whole

The opening chapters of Genesis present a remarkable picture of creation. God did not create random pieces and hope they would somehow work together. He created an ordered, purposeful, integrated whole.

Light and darkness.

Heaven and earth.

Land and sea.

Plants.

Animals.

Humanity.

Each day built upon the previous one until the work was complete. Then something profound happened.

God rested.

His rest was not the result of exhaustion. It was the result of completion. His work was finished. Yet, when God rested, the planets didn’t stop orbiting.

Rest doesn’t equate to cessation.

That simple observation has changed the way I think about both faith and work.

Perhaps God's design was never that we would spend our lives trying to create meaning, purpose, or completeness through our own efforts. Perhaps we were always meant to discover our place within the integrated, restful whole He had already completed.

That possibility has shaped the journey I have been on for many years.

It has influenced how I read the Bible.

It has transformed how I think about work.

And it has become the foundation for what I now call Restful Work Again Lab (RWA Lab).

The purpose of RWA Lab is not simply to help us work better.

Nor is it simply to help us study the Bible better.

It is to help us recover God's integrated restful Whole - so that our WALK with Him and our WORK in the world become beautifully aligned.

Much more will be said about that in the months ahead.

For now, I simply leave you with the lesson of a small silver rod.

The part was never the problem.

The missing relationship was.

And perhaps many of the struggles we face today are inviting us to ask the same questions:

What whole have I not yet learned to see?

Have I seen the whole from enough perspectives?

Next Article: Solve@Source

If missing the whole is often the problem, why do we so naturally look in the wrong places for solutions?

In the next article, I'll share another personal story that taught me a second foundational lesson: before we solve a problem, we must first be certain we've found its true source because solving at the source may be simpler than solving somewhere downstream.

Sometimes what appears to be the problem is only a symptom.

And solving symptoms has a way of keeping us from discovering what really needs to be healed.

I hope you'll join me as we continue this journey together.