Anchor Point # 31 Obvious Results

Make the Results Obvious

Imagine Steph Curry walks up to the free throw line and shoots a free throw. He does his routine, takes the shot, and makes it. Would anyone be shocked? Of course not.

That result is obvious because he is one of the best shooters to ever play the game and has put up so many shots over his lifetime that making a vast majority of his free throws is simply expected. In his NBA career alone he has attempted around 5,450 free throws and made 4,960, shooting 91.0% from the line. For fun, I asked AI how many free throws he has likely shot in his lifetime across practice and games, and it estimated somewhere between 300,000 and 600,000. Insane numbers.

This is an extreme outlier, but a simple one to understand. When we apply this concept to our own lives, it removes the ambiguity, luck, and randomness from the results we are or aren't achieving. There is also an inverse side to this.

If Steph Curry were placed in a UFC octagon to fight Khamzat Chimaev, an undefeated fighter known for elite wrestling and dominant performances at 185 lbs, no one would be shocked when he lost.

It's a ridiculous analogy, but it clarifies something important. We tend to feel frustrated when we aren't getting promotions, when we aren't reaching physical goals, when our relationships are suffering, when we just feel off. But before we chalk it up to bad luck, it's worth looking at the inputs.

Once we develop the mindset of owning our results and making them predictable, we can begin adjusting our habits and systems effectively.

I used to think a lot of results in my life were by chance and largely out of my control. Fitness, intelligence, job opportunities, success rates in anything. But the reality in 99% of situations is straightforward: input determines output.

Someone who paints every day will eventually get good at painting. Someone who refuses to quit on a business will eventually find a way to make it work. Someone who creates videos every single day will get good at making videos. And inversely, if you are frustrated with the results in your life but not changing any of the inputs, you are setting yourself up for unnecessary suffering. If you hate your job but aren't looking for other opportunities or building skills to qualify for better ones, don't be surprised when nothing changes.

There is a quote often attributed to W. Edwards Deming: "Every system is perfectly designed to get the results it gets." When you start looking at your life as a system of inputs and outputs, you can begin to take real control of the outcomes.

Yes, chance and risk are always factors, and results are never fully guaranteed. But the most obvious results tend to be the most overlooked. Frustration with jobs, relationships, fitness, mental state, most of these are controllable outcomes, not the result of bad luck. Owning that reality makes the results we actually want far more achievable.

But what results are obvious in our faith?

A Biblical Perspective

When I think about God, a few things seem obvious to me.

Everything you can see, touch, or interact with has been created and has a purpose. Drywall, phones, clothes, trees, grass. For something to have purpose, it must have a creator. The person who invented the laptop I am writing on right now gave it the exact purpose I am using it for. Trees are perfectly designed to produce oxygen through photosynthesis. The result matches the design. Humans appear to share that same creation story.

When I look at humanity, it also seems obvious that we are broken and tend toward selfishness and sin. A toddler grabbing another kid's toy. A five-year-old lying about candy. Adults acting out of greed and jealousy. People causing serious harm to others for entirely selfish reasons. It is not hard to agree that no one is perfect. That brokenness feels less like a behavioral quirk and more like an inherent condition. This is what the Bible calls sin. It is living in a perfect garden with God, with only one rule, and still breaking it.

A perfect heaven could not be filled with imperfect people. No one could work their way to perfection. There would have to be a sacrifice, an atonement, on our behalf to enter into anything truly perfect.

My own life had a lot of chaos and internal suffering before I began following Jesus. Afterward, through faith in Jesus by grace alone, I have a firsthand, tangible account of how the Spirit of God transforms a person's life. I have no other explanation for the peace and joy I now carry. That firsthand experience lines up precisely with what the Bible describes.

The Bible portrays a loving God who relentlessly pursues humanity despite humanity's consistent rebellion. God is always one decision away. No more, no less. He invites us to follow him but never forces us. Forcing obedience would not be love. A simple analogy: imagine bringing home a golden retriever puppy but keeping it locked in a kennel around the clock because it might chew something or make a mess. That is not love, it is control. Ironically, God giving us the freedom to rebel is itself one of the clearest signs of his loving nature.

The obvious result in my own life is this: when I stopped rebelling and started being obedient, the Spirit began producing more peace and joy in me. That is an obvious result because I, the creation, began living in the purpose my creator designed me for. Think of trying to use a shovel to cut down a tree. It was not made for that. When the creation lives as the creator intended, the outcomes are better.

I do not typically write with this much research, but I find it genuinely fascinating that when we live the life God designed us for, things tend to work better. The data below compares faith-active families living in alignment with Scripture against divorced or fatherless homes and environments marked by abuse and neglect. The contrast is striking, and the researchers who produced these findings are often the first to admit they cannot fully explain them.

What the Research Actually Shows

Note* This is not a critique on anyones family structure. I believe divorce is warranted at times. There are infinitive variables to the research below. This is just to show a meta analysis of faithfully structured homes versus homes that are not. This is not meant to be judgmental or condemning in anyway. I still firmly believe that God uses all of this below for His glory and will craft something beautiful that we cant comprehend. I assure you that my list of sins go much longer than divorce. I believe the data below shows that there is a parallel with God’s design for the family.

The research on faith-active families is consistent and significant. Couples who attend church together are notably happier in their marriages, with about 79 to 80 percent rating their marriage as "very happy," compared to 70 percent of couples who do not attend church, according to the Wilcox Institute for Family Studies. Add regular prayer and Bible reading at home, and marital satisfaction climbs even higher.

Harvard tracked over 66,000 women for 14 years and found that those who attended church regularly had a 50 percent lower risk of divorce than those who never attended. That is not a minor finding. It is one of the strongest protective factors for marriage identified in modern research.

On mental health, the pattern holds. Regular church attendance is associated with a 43 percent lower risk of developing mood disorders, a 22 percent lower risk of depression, and a 26 percent lower risk of early death overall. A Harvard study published in JAMA Psychiatry found that regular churchgoers were at significantly reduced risk for suicide, drug overdose, and alcohol-related death, what researchers call "deaths of despair."

Even Bible reading alone shows measurable effects. A Baylor University study found that structured Scripture engagement produced significant reductions in PTSD, depression, anxiety, and suicidal thinking, even among people with serious trauma histories.

The contrast with broken family environments is one of the most consistent findings in all of social science.

Divorce raises a child's risk of depression by 29 percent, suicidal ideation by 48 percent, and alcohol abuse by 43 percent, according to a 2019 meta-analysis of tens of thousands of participants. Children of divorced parents are also 55 percent more likely to divorce themselves, meaning the cycle tends to repeat without intervention.

Fatherlessness is a national crisis hiding in plain sight. Roughly 40 percent of American children are growing up without their biological father. The consequences show up everywhere: 63 percent of youth suicides come from fatherless homes, 75 percent of adolescent mental health patients come from fatherless homes, and 85 percent of children with behavior disorders come from fatherless homes.

Child abuse compounds all of this. The landmark ACE Study, tracking 17,337 adults, found that people with seven or more adverse childhood experiences had 31 times higher odds of attempting suicide compared to those with none. Nearly 80 percent of childhood sexual abuse survivors meet the criteria for at least one lifetime psychiatric disorder. Five children die every day in America from abuse and neglect.

At a Glance: How the Environments Compare

Sources: Pew Research Center · Harvard Human Flourishing Program · VanderWeele et al. · Wilcox / Institute for Family Studies · Journal of Psychiatric Research · National Fatherhood Initiative · ACE Study (Felitti & Anda) · National Comorbidity Survey · Baylor University · U.S. Census Bureau · American SPCC

What This Tells Us

The same secular researchers who produce these findings are often the first to note they cannot fully explain them. But they keep finding the same thing: the family structure and lifestyle described in Scripture, a father and mother committed to each other and to God, raising children together in prayer, worship, community, and service, produces measurably healthier and more stable human beings.

Lower divorce. Less depression. Less suicide. Less addiction. More purpose. More happiness.

The Bible never promises that following God means life will be easy. But it does promise that his ways lead to life.

It turns out the data agrees.

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