4 Pillars of Real Manhood

If you asked the average male on the street what it means to be a real man, you would get a myriad of answers.  Some would say that a real man has to do with the coming of age.  Some would say it has to do with producing a child.  Others might suggest it has to do how much a man has in his billfold, the respect he can command on the ball-field or perhaps even how he performs in the bedroom.  Perhaps a few would even point to the bumper stickers that say “Real Men Love Jesus”.  Over the past decade I’ve read numerous books and studies on authentic Godly manhood.  The best definition I can point to of real manhood is this:  a real man rejects passivity, accepts responsibility, leads courageously and expects God’s greater reward.

This definition of manhood comes from a pastor from Arkansas – the work of Dr. Robert Lewis’ study called “The Quest for Authentic Manhood”.  His study has grown beyond Arkansas and is all over the world, and there’s no wonder why it gained popularity.  For men who understand these principles and apply them, there is real life change.

Here are the 4 pillars explained:

1. Reject Passivity. Most men inherently follow the natural law of physics that states – an object at rest tends to stay at rest.  It’s true.  Most of us, given the opportunity, are not ready to jump up out of our seats and wrestle to the ground the things that we know have to be done.  Perhaps this is what gave birth to the cliché of the age old nagging wife.  Sadly, many women are left to pick up the slack in the family because so many men are passive.  Passivity in manhood leads to all kinds of trouble.  Looking back, I can honestly identify where I was passive for so many years in matters of my marriage and family.  I was a working machine and there was no passivity there, but in the relationships that were the most dear to me, I truly was passive.

2. Accept Responsibility. This principle quite easily states that a real man is ready and willing to accept responsibility for those areas of life that need him and belong to him.  He doesn’t dodge the responsibility, loathe it and attempt to avoid it or pass it along to others.  The world needs men….period.  It needs men who are willing to accept the helm of good and godly action.  Sadly, many men feel that they are either too busy, too inept, or simply afraid to be the one that people are depending upon for the outcome.  Those men will miss out on the great reward of seeing big things come to fruition and the potential for life-change.

3. Lead Courageously. Too often, we men are ready to pass the buck if someone else is ready and willing to lead.  I honestly believe that men were wired for leadership by God.  We can lead in all kinds of ways, big and small.  Do you have a family?  You are a leader.  We have a natural makeup that allows us to face danger and take wise risk more easily than our women.  We generally can be hurt and yet still keep moving.  I’m not suggesting bravado or reckless leadership, but simply the willingness to give yourself away in the service of guiding others towards a good cause.

4. Expect God’s Greater Reward. For the believing man, there is real advantage.  He knows that his eternal future is secure and he believes that there is a God that loves him, fights for him and a savior that has already given his life for him.  This kind of man is not rattled easily by bad news or by the next trial that comes his way.  He is steadfast, trusting in God (Psalm 112: 6-7).  The beneficial outcome of this element of manhood is the avoidance of all kinds of snares and traps and diversions that are harmful.  The man takes his stand and waits patiently and expectantly for God to act.

There are many who would offer a viewpoint contrary to this one about what it takes to be a real man.  The view I’ve proposed above is the one I’ve adopted and take a stand on…mostly because I’ve seen it work.

What is your definition of a real man?  I welcome your thoughts.

Robbie

What Are Your Key Words Guiding You in 2015?

Five weeks into the new year already.  Goals set, good intentions in place, and then life happens and we fall back into our normal habits.  We lose focus.  This is the norm.  This year I am trying something different, and it is working.

After writing down my goals and areas of my life that I want to improve, I then came up with 5 key words to remind me of my goals.  These words are triggers for me so that in the “heat of the moment” the word comes to mind and helps change from my habitual response to then to a moment of reflection and a response or action line with my goals.

I got this idea from sales guru Jeffrey Gitomer.  While I do not follow his advice exactly, I found that identifying my key words, writing a few sentences to remind me of why they are important, and reviewing them daily is helping me improve each day and in each situation.

Here are my key words and the explanation:

Listen
Listening builds rapport and relationships.  I learn more when I listen.  By listening, I will ask more questions, and think before I speak.  I will compliment rather than try to show my knowledge or position of authority.  I do not need to correct or always be right.  I will become a better person because I will listen.  I will read one book and watch TED talks on listening in 2015.

Patience
Allow my children to be children.  Not raise my voice, tell or correct as often.  Allow them to have fun and find more play time with them.  Find time every week with each child.  I will also be more patient when driving, waiting in line and with team members at work.

Fit
I want to maintain and grow a fit body.  I will do this through exercising 4-5 times a week, 3 times during travel weeks.  I will be conscious of my carbohydrates and reduce my refined sugar consumption.  Strive for at least 7 hours of a sleep a night when traveling, and 8 hours when home.

Partner
I need to dress, present and act like a Partner at my company.  Support the company CEO/President and other leaders. Not speak negatively of others, rather engage business partners and team members to build rapport and relationships.  Make an extra effort to develop people within the organization.

Compliment/Positive
It’s not about me.  I make the world a better place by finding things that people are doing well and giving them compliments.  I will let others know I appreciate them.  Build them up.  I believe that this helps them know that God loves them.

I kept the number of words at 5 and will not go above that.  I feel like more is not better but rather confusing or distracting.  Also, these may not be the same words by the end of the year or even in this summer.   I will change the words as needed to help me become the best disciple of Christ, father, husband, friend and co-worker.

The words I chose are not all encompassing, do not reflect all of my improvement areas and even in some cases represent what I am doing well and want to sustain.

If you had to create your own three, four or five words for your life right now, what would they be?

Joel

Eat Together, Be Glad, Give Thanks and Increase Your Faith

I recently invited our pastor to dinner, and during the dinner I asked him what my family can be to increase our faith and more closely follow Christ.  He instructed us to invite our neighbors over for dinner and get to know them.  I thought surely there must be something harder and deeper than this.  Not long after this, I met with a friend whom I consider my spiritual counselor.  I asked him how my family and I could best support two young families in the area.  He said, “Acts 46.”  I nodded, and not wanting to sound dumb said, “Oh, sure of course.”  After our meeting, I looked up the verse, and include it plus verse 47 here.

“Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.” (NIV Acts 2: 46-47)

Both my pastor and spiritual counselor led me to this simple powerful advice on howto strengthen one another and increase the Christian community.  If this is so simple and seems easy, why had I not done it more?  After reading and reflection, I came up with several ideas on how to live this and make it a part of my life.

1. Start with your family and eating as many meals together as you possibly can.  This is not easy in our home with my travel schedule, sporting and music events, and social lives.  Thus, when we are together, we make a priority to eat together and not in front of the TV.
2. Praise God and share with one another. We have a family tradition called “Good Things and Bad Things.”  During the family dinner we assign a moderator who then asks each family member two questions, “What’s your bad thing from today?” and after everyone answers that question, “What’s your good thing?”  The moderator can actually also throw in another question, but always those two.  There really are only two rules:  1) Everyone gets a turn; and 2) And no judgmental comments in return.   These two questions allow us to learn more about one another and also respect each other’s struggles.  The answers to  the “Good Thing” question, allow us to praise God for our many blessings.”
3. Pray before, after and during meals. It is too easy to just recite a memorized prayer quickly at the start of the meal.  I suggest at a minimum slowing down, offer other prayers or petitions.  A prayer can also close a meal.  This keeps everyone at the table.  Our family hasn’t incorporated a closing prayer yet, but a goal this year is to bring a Bible passage once a week to the dinner conversation for reflection and conversation.
4. Coffee and conversation. I love coffee and having conversation with close friends.   I suggest meeting up with friends, neighbors and mentors for morning coffee.  I have several friends I regularly meet for coffee.  By regular, I mean one is twice a year, another once, and a third every other month.  We support one another, listen to each other’s struggles, and share ideas on being a better dad, husband and leader.
5. Invite others over for dinner. Open up your home to others to share a meal and conversation.  Let them see how you live a Christian life.  Engage in fellowship and ideas.
6. Meet new people. It will be easy in step 5 to invite people you know and with whom you are comfortable.  I encourage you to step out of your comfort zone and invite new people or neighbors you only see in passing.

I love to eat, and drink wine and coffee.  Why not involve our brothers and sisters, praise God and give thanks to build the Christian community?

Joel

Your Greatest Responsibility as a Father and Husband

I owe Emangelize blog readers/followers (which outside of my mom are not many) an apology.  The mission of this blog is to evangelize faith and discipleship of Jesus Christ and help men, and really any other readers, be their best selves.   In the mission of evangelization, I failed to identify and write about the greatest responsibility of a husband and father – lead the family and teach children to believe in and follow Jesus Christ.  This really should have been one of the very first posts, however, I did not personally come to this realization until recently

I read a blog post about fathers’ responsibilities to their daughters.  While it had great advice such as creating memories, teaching them to throw a ball, hug them, and more, after I read it, I felt there was something missing, something more important.  After a long day of work, my son Elijah asked me to play chess for about the fifth time in the last few days.  I just did not have the energy or time, nor did Elijah with his homework.  However, we did make time that night to pray with one another.  Later, while feeling guilty for not playing chess with him, I realized I found time for the highest priority, praying with him.  By praying with him, I was teaching him to live a faithful life

As husbands and fathers, God gives us great responsibility to teach and live the Christian faith to our families.  Here 8 simple ideas to do so.

We Have a Great Responsibility to Them & God

1. Be a good role model. Live a life of faith.  Let your children see you read the Bible, pray, forgive or ask for forgiveness, give to the church and more.  In other words, teach through your example first and foremost.
2. Attend church services. We are a community of believers.  We need to support one another.  We cannot go it alone.  If we do not habitually attend church services now, unlikely our children will when they grow up.
3. Encourage them to participate in a youth group. Through youth groups, they learn the Christian faith from their peers and other adults.
4. Help them find opportunities to serve others. Jesus is very clear on this.  If we want to be great in his eyes, we must humble ourselves and serve our fellow brothers and sisters.  Not only help your children find service opportunities, let them see you volunteer and serve those in need.
5. Talk to them about sharing financial treasure and put a plan in action for them to share as well. Show them the importance that our financial treasure comes from God by talking to them about what your family does to give to the Church and charities and ask them to contribute as well.
6. Pray with them every day. Pray before meals, before bed time, or in the car on the way to school.  Find time to pray as family.
7. Talk about struggles. Neither our faith nor our understanding of it is perfect.  I think children need to know that while we strive to deepen our relationship with Jesus Christ, we also have challenges.
8. Start a family Bible study. Pick a Gospel and read a portion each week and then one or more nights a week discuss it at dinner or whenever your family gets together.

How are you following through on your greatest responsibility?

Joel

Make Thanksgiving Day a Part of Every Day

My favorite day of the year, Thanksgiving Day.  A few of my reasons why: short work week, fall weather, today is opening day of the “eating season,” a holiday without the stress of buying gifts, football watching and playing in the back yard, 4 days off in a row, and most importantly, time focused on being grateful.  Author, former CEO and Chairman of Thomas Nelson Publishing, Michael Hyatt wrote a great blog post on how being grateful actually improves one’s life.  Benefits include reduced stress, sustained health, improved relationships and keeping negative emotions in check.  When I travel, the crowded airports, lopsided bed and the 9th meal that week from Chipotle Grill can get me down.  I have found that taking time every morning and evening, the bookends of my day, to journal 3 things for which I am grateful, immediately changes my mood, outlook and well-being.  I completely agree with Michael Hyatt’s post.

Our challenge is to make make Thanksgiving Day part of every day!  Not only will we honor and glorify God with our adoration and gratitude but we will also improve our well being!

As I sit here on Thanksgiving morning, praying and listing out what I am grateful for, I thought I should just write a blog post and share it.

So, my grateful list for Thanksgiving 2014.  I encourage you to take time to make your list and share it with others as well.

1. Faith.  My faith is not my own.  God gave this to me.  His Spirit has filled me. During my youth He surrounded me with people who guided me, allowed me to attend a college that deepened my faith and love for Him, and today continues to provide me guidance through many means to increase my Faith in Him.
2. Family.  Common for most people today, at least I hope.  However, I have learned through others and my own family, that this does not just mean “blood” related.  I am thankful for my family at work, church family, school family where my children attend, and of course my parents, brother, in-laws, spouse, and children.
3. Health and physical abilities.  I am thankful for my ability to play sports with my children, reduce stress with exercise, work a full day or travel without any issues.
4. Friendship.  As I get older, I continue to confirm what the personality tests tell me, I am an introvert.  I recharge my batteries with quiet time and interaction with a few people, or alone.  Thus, I do not have a lot of friends, though have some really good and very important friends.  I enjoy coffee with them on Saturday morning, sitting around a fire telling old Army stories, breakfast before the start of the work day, and discussions on meaningful matters such as what it means to be a man, faith and doubt, and less important ones like how bad the Texas Rangers will be next year.  We don’t talk about the Minnesota Twins because we know they will stink.
5. Learning.  I love to read, learn and apply new ideas both at home and at work.
6. Forgiveness.  How could we grow if we never forgave ourselves, others or asked God to forgive us and help us get better?
7. Talents.  This is not to be boastful, but rather grateful that I am blessed with work where I get to do what I do best every day.
8. Laughter.  Work is mostly serious, but it should not be all the time.  This took time and maturity for me, but I can now laugh at myself and work with a team of people who have a professional sense of humor.
9. Marriage.  This could actually be up there with family but it stands a part for me.  I took a class in college on the Theology of Christian Marriage.  Even if I could recite all of the reasons why Christian Marriage is a vocation to God, I would rather put it in my own terms.  I am constantly asked to give of myself even though I feel that I am always receiving more.  I am balanced with opposing thoughts and views, and supported in so many other ways.  I am better because of Susan and our marriage.  I often hear from others that Marriage takes work, and I know that is true.  I am blessed with a spouse and marriage that doesn’t feel like it takes “work.”
10. Quiet Time.  About 2 years ago, I could no longer just wake up and immediately work out.  I needed to sit there for a bit first.  Then later I also needed a cup of coffee.  Then I started also reading the Bible and spending time in prayer.  I call it Coffee with God now.  I look forward to it more than anything else in my day.

Thank you for reading the Emangelize blog.  You too can evangelize by sharing your gratitude with others.  Happy Thanksgiving.

Joel

What Exercise Taught Me About Prayer

I just returned from Church.  At the end of the service, I sat quietly reading the first few pages of a prayer book set out for parishioners to take home.

“Each 24 hour day has 1,440 minutes.  You’re asked to give six of those 1,440 minutes to prayer for the next 43 days (Number of days in the Catholic Advent Season).  You can give more than six minutes if you wish. But the main thing is to pray every day.”  – The Little Blue Book, Advent and Christmas Seasons 2014-2015.  The book emphasized consistency in prayer life.

This quote on consistency tied together two parts of my life that I have been giving some thought to or noticing, prayer and exercise.

As for prayer, at the start of the year, I dedicated myself to reading the Bible consistently, reading books focused on spiritual development, and setting aside time every morning to prayer.  I also pray at night, making it a bookend to my day, but I spend more time reading, reflecting and praying in the morning.  The last couple of months, I realized not one specific morning prayer session, one book, one Bible verse or entire book of the Bible changed me.  I never once got up in the morning, spent time in prayer, and BOOM, changed!  However, I knew I had changed, and I am changing.  I trust God more; seek Him for advice and counsel more often; speak more confidently and openly about my faith; find more time during the day to praise and thank God and notice his presence; and I am less judgmental of others.  I am not perfect.  I am on a journey, and every moment I dedicate to the Lord, I change.

As I reflected on my prayer life and it’s fruits manifesting over time as a result of consistency, my consistent exercise habits reinforced this idea.  For 18 months I have dedicated myself to barbell training.  Four to six times a week, I push myself physically.  After 18 months, I have lost 7 pounds, can do 10 pull ups without stopping and can bench, squat, deadlift and press more than when I started.  I knew enough when I started this exercise regimen, that after just one day, week or even a month of training, I not would change much.  Though, because of the sum of all that time in the gym (garage for me), lifts, and pull ups, I physically changed and improved.  Funny, how I thought how fast I would change in prayer, and exercise taught me that dedicated and consistent time

I want to point out that I will skip a workout because of fatigue, travel or “just don’t want to,” BUT I am committed to consistently devoting time to my relationship with God.

Here are some tips to being consistent in prayer (I ask Robbie and Pete to weigh in here because they were the ones that set the example for me).

• Start with quiet time.  Just sit and be still.  Quiet your mind and body and notice God’s presence.
• Pick a book of the Bible, read a little every day and reflect on what it means to you and your relationship with God.  I recommend starting with one of the Gospels.
• Find an app that has a Bible verse of the day and use that as the focus of your reflection.
• Journal.  My friend and colleague Pete journal’s most days.  I am not consistent with this though want to be.  I what I like about keeping a journal is the ability to go back and read what I was experiencing at that time and how things are different at this point.

Speaking of consistency, this Emangelize has not been consistent.  Co-contributor Robbie asked me, “What’s up with Emangelize?”  Yes, we have some revamping to do.  Coming soon, consistent 3 to 4 posts a month and a new focus.

Joel

God Made You for a Reason So Let Your Light Shine

Earlier this week, I read in in the Notre Dame Daily Gospel Reflection, “Jesus said to the crowd: ‘No one after lighting a lamp hides it under a vessel, or puts it under a bed, but puts it on a lampstand, so that those who enter may see the light.  For nothing is hidden that will not be disclosed, nor is anything secret that will not become known and come to light.  Then pay attention to how you listen; for to those who have, more will be given; and from those who do not have, even what they seem to have will be taken away.” (Luke 8: 16-18).

The author of the reflection on the Gospel passage quoted a hymn:

“We are the light of the world!
Let our light shine before all
that they may see the good that we do,
and give glory to God.”

The author went on to discuss the many simple we can let our light shine for God such as smiling, saying good morning and thank you, listening, and several other simple gestures that bring “light” to our world.

Our “light” shines in the small actions, and often that is all we have to offer.  Those small actions really can make bright light

Thus, I felt prepared when last night, my daughter, Ella, told me she has been praying asking God to reveal to her the gifts God has given her and how she can use them.  She went to on to say that God has not yet revealed those special gifts to her.  She seemed disappointed.  I think the issue is she is looking for that one BIG gift or revelation of it.  As her father, I can see all of so special gifts she has and how she uses them to light up the world.  I pointed out the several ways just in the past few days that she used her talents to bring God to others:

She is excellent in the kitchen.  She used that gift last night to put together dinner for me and clean up the entire kitchen before mom returned home late from music lessons for the other 3 children.  What a relief I bet it was for mom to walk into the house at 9:00 PM after a long day and have the kitchen clean.

She is pretty fit and strong.  She did a CrossFit workout with me Saturday afternoon.  I loved it and it was joy for me to do something I love with one of my children.

She is a good swimmer.  She helped other swimmers on Friday with their dives, and yesterday with their strokes even though it was during her workout time.

She gives really good unsolicited hugs.  She has always had this ability to have her body just sink into mine even when I held her as a baby.  Those hugs give me loads of energy.

Even though she stopped playing the Cello, she played the Cello for the kindergarten students earlier this week.

She has a sense of empathy and understanding of others.  She sometimes picks up her sister’s room because she is so busy and helps her study for tests.  It is one of the greatest gifts children can give their parents that they are not only siblings but also friends.

God will reveal gifts to us over time and is revealing them to us now.  We need to keep praying asking how we can do His will and pay attention so we do not miss gifts we have and how we can use them because we are looking for that one big gift.

We cannot dismiss the unique gifts we have or compare them to someone else.  God created us for a unique purpose.  We are a part of His divine plan.  His plan may not be for us to be a missionary, minister, teacher, President, CEO or star athlete.  We may just be ordinary by standards of the world, but we are special to Him, and all he asks us of us is to let our light shine.

I close with a quote with from Mother Theresa, “We know only too well that what we are doing is nothing more than a drop in the ocean.  But if the drop were not there, the ocean would be missing something.”

Ella – Your light shines bright.  Keep praying, listening and doing the little things every day.

Joel

Eyes Up!

In a recent blog post, Joel spent time reflecting on Labor Day, his relationship with God and his desire to be more focused on Him.  That was around the same time I was studying Luke 12:13-21, the Parable of the Rich Fool, and though this dovetailed nicely with the previous post.

A man came to Jesus and asked him to tell the man’s brother to split his inheritance with him. We can assume this man’s brother was the first-born, had the inheritance and this guy wanted some of it. The first thing that is interesting is Jesus rhetorically asked, “Who made me the arbiter in this?”  And then Jesus essentially read the man’s heart and said, “Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; a man’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.”  He is going to go on and tell a parable to further explain, but even if he did not go any further, that is explanation enough. WATCH OUT. BE ON YOUR GUARD AGAINST ALL KINDS OF GREED! Why do we need to watch out? Why do we need to be on our guard? Because it is natural to want more – I doubt there is a day that goes by that I don’t think about wanting more. This, of course, goes all the way back to the Original Sin – we naturally want what is best for us first and a lot of it.  As followers of Jesus Christ, our God is telling us that we need to be on the lookout. Pray for God to reveal in your heart the things He wants you to focus on and go in that direction.

Jesus then tells the story of man who had a piece of land that produced a good crop. He thought to himself (as opposed to asking God) what he should do since he did not have a place to store his over-abundance of crops. He came up with the idea to tear down his existing barns and build bigger ones, then he would say to himself, “You have plenty of good things laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat drink and be merry.”  God’s response: “You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?”  Jesus told the crowd that this is how it will be with anyone who stores up things for himself, but is not rich toward God.

Here are some things to contemplate from this text. First, what is God NOT saying? God is not saying you cannot have wealth. You can; but, consider the point of your life – it is to be rich toward God. That means love the Lord with all your heart, soul, mind and strength. That means live for Him and make decisions in light of him. Help others because he helped (saved) you. This life is fleeting – though we do not like to think about it, we are fragile creatures and life could be over tomorrow (or today). We are on this earth 80+ years if we are lucky – we will be in eternity forever. 80 years versus forever. Jesus tells us to store up treasures in Heaven where rust and month will not destroy it (Matthew 6:19-21). The bottom line: be focused on Heaven and on Him. Have your eyes up, looking toward that day. Make more decisions in preparation for that day, not this one.

Lord, please let me do just that, even when the world, my flesh and the Devil want me to do the opposite.

Pete

Labor and Serving the Lord

I intended to write this on Labor Day, though since it was my day off as well I spent the day kayaking with two of my children and relaxing on the beautiful South Llano River.  Therefore, I am late with a few thoughts on our labor and the Lord.

I wrote in my previous blog post that I wish I spent more of my time worried about my relationship with God, pursuing Him and focused on eternal life with Him.  During my quiet time on Labor Day, I reflected on how I spend the majority of my waking hours either working or worried and thinking about work.  I venture we spend about 70% of their waking hours at work, and add another 10% at least thinking about work.  Thus, we cannot separate our labor from our relationship with God.  We cannot check out of our relationship with Him when working and then check back in when we punch out of work at the end of the day.  We are to do His will, ALWAYS and EVERYWHERE. 

We need to ask ourselves some hard questions and be honest with our answers.  Why do we work?  If Jesus was a colleague or a customer and physically with us every day, would we conduct our work differently?  He is with us by the way; we just can’t physically see him.  I venture to guess, if we take some time to reflect on these questions, and answer them truthfully (this is called discernment by the way) we will not like all of the answers, and I dare say maybe the majority of them.

Some common things I find myself working for that are not in line with focus on God’s will:

Money:  Yes, this is not bad in of itself, but if this is the purpose of my work, I am serving this master instead of the true Master.  Money is a tool to use to support and educate my family, share with others and alleviate others pain and suffering.  When my goal becomes money, I am serving a false god.

Prestige:  I want that title, the accolade, power, and authority.  I want people to look up to me, respect and appreciate me.  Yes, I understand that these are natural human feelings, but they should not be the focus of my labors.  I maintain that the root of all evil is not really money but rather is the desire for power, and wanting prestige is like that.  Jesus was a carpenter not a President or Regional Manager.

Goals:  Goals are good; they set direction and provide guidance.  However, misaligned goals with values and all-consuming goals in pursuit at all costs are not what God has in mind for our work.  When we do this, we choose to work towards a goal at the expense of our families, spending quiet time with God, attending Church services and enjoying the other pleasures of life.

What would we do differently if Jesus were working right next to us each day?

Speak more positively of others.  It is so easy in a high pressure environment to get frustrated and then criticize, condemn and complain (thank you Dale Carnegie author of How to Win Friends and Influence People).  I would recognize these other people also have struggles and challenges.  They are my Brothers and Sisters not just frustrating people associated with my work

Honesty.  I am generally an honest person, and in fact too honest sometimes.  At work, there seems to be a lot of opportunities to say things that might be somewhat true but not the whole truth to put ourselves in a better light with the boss or others.  Sometimes we make mistakes and instead of owning up to them, we minimize them and cover them up.

Work hard all of the time.  Again, this is not something I have major issue with, but there are times I want to slack off.  We all do it.  This is different than taking brakes.  When we are at work and we are not giving it our best, we are not honoring our fellow teammates, employer and giving all of our talents back to God.  We are also being paid for that time by our employer.

What we can do differently to bring meaning and God’s will to work:

Give thanks every day for your ability to work and the position and career you have.  We are fortunate in the US to have an economy that provides so many opportunities.  Both here and abroad many people struggle to find work and many others struggle with the wages offered for their work.  We need to give thanks for what we have, pray for those less fortunate and share our wages with them.

Practice the presence of God at work.  I am taking this from The Practice of the Presence of God by Brother Lawrence.  We are so busy and focused at work that we can forget our true purpose.  Now, I don’t know that we all can be like Brother Lawrence, but maybe we can fit a few moments in each day for a short prayer or meditation to center on God.  It can be even just 1 minute.

Take time to discern.  Spend some quiet time each day or as frequently as you can and review your day.  How did you do?  What can you do follow God more closely and his well?  What were you focused on?  Ask God for help in the areas you need to improve.

I am so fortunate to have a career and work that I enjoy and that I am good at (at least I think I am).  I give thanks to God for this opportunity.  When we approach our work with a great attitude, focus on our Brothers and Sisters, serving them and our Lord, using our talents to the best of our ability, we honor Him.

Happy belated Labor Day!

Joel

What Are You Priorities? Money? Material Possessions? Status? Or, Heaven?

What are your priorities?  If you are human, which is a pretty good assumption if you are reading this, my guess is that your priorities get out of order pretty occasionally.  I am basing this on my own experience and problems.  I worry, way too much!  I worry about my retirement plan and if I will have enough money saved.  I worry if my clothes and shoes project the right image.  I worry about what other people think of me.  And it does not end here.  My priorities are not in order. What if I spent as much time focused on my relationship with God as I did worrying about money and calculating my finances?  God calls me back though.  I have this recurring thought that I believe He is putting inside me, “Do you think about Me, our relationship, and My love for you as much as these?”  My reply, unfortunately is, “Often, I do not, though I want to.  Please help me.”  My priorities are misplaced.

This year I have used St. Ignatius Loyola’s example and his exercises to grow in my faith.  My recent exercises have really helped me understand how misaligned my priorities are.  In one of the exercises, I read the story of Adam and Eve and reflected on my own sins.  I realized that Adam and Eve’s sin comes from pride and eating the forbidden fruit so they could have God’s knowledge. I realized that my sins fundamentally come from this pride and focus on my own selfishness.  When I sin, I am essentially placing God below my other priorities, and saying, “I don’t need You.  I can do this on my own.”

St. Ignatius of Loyola

In a subsequent exercise, I used my imagination to create an image of Hell.  I believe there is a Hell because Jesus said so several times.  I did not use other images portrayed in movies, books or even from the Bible.  I thought about what Hell really is for me.  It is the absence of God.  I spent about 15 minutes imagining what that would feel like.  I did not like it.  It was uncomfortable, and scary.  I encourage you to take 5 minutes or longer, close your eyes and imagine either what Hell is like, or your existence absent God the Father, Jesus our Savior and the Holy Spirit.  To me, being alone is Hell.  I do not mean being alone in solitude and quiet, I mean being abandoned, forgotten, no God the Father to talk to, no ability to feel His presence.  Nothing, emptiness.  I believe this is why there are scripture passages that talk about extreme hunger and thirst in Hell.  To me, they don’t mean physical, but rather a spiritual hunger and thirst for God that in Hell can never be satisfied.

These exercises, while not comforting, helped me realize my priority.  I want an everlasting relationship with my Lord, and I want everyone else to have the same.

We are given free will.  We can live a life choosing God, turning away from sin, and following our savior Jesus and giving up ourselves for others and be in union with God.  Or, we can choose sin and remove ourselves from the relationship with God.  Is that what I want?  Is that what you want?  While it may be okay here on earth, I cannot imagine eternity without Him.  Have to get my priorities in order, and live my life accordingly.

Fortunately, we have a loving and forgiving God.  He tells us He will forgive us.  We just need to ask.  We also need to live a life of service helping others, giving of ourselves following the model that Jesus provided us.

Joel