Beware the “Either/Or” Game
September 18th, 2007 | Michael Q. Pink
Should you manage by the numbers and utilize formulas or should you listen to God and build your business through relationships? If you chose either of those answers, you have fallen for the “right/wrong”, “either/or” game. It’s both. And there’s more.
If we rely only on numbers or formulas and we leave God out of the equation, or minimize relationships, then we error indeed. If we leave all the diligence and hard work up to God and just seek Him, expecting Him to deliver the big result, then we also error. It is both. We need to strike a balance.
The old adage, “work like it all depends on you and pray like it all depends on God” has some merit. God rewards diligence. One man plants, another waters, but God gives the increase. It is our job to plant and water and if we plant sparingly, we will reap sparingly. Furthermore, God does have formulas He uses all the time to produce consistent results. Just look at science, which is merely the discovery of the ways of God. It is full of formulas and precise measurements. There’s an important place for that in business.
Formulas are not found in nature and business to replace God, but rather to reveal Him and the greatness of His incalculable wisdom and thus draw us closer to Him! Ask God to reveal His formulas to you. Ask Him to explain ratios and how we should allocate resources in business. Let Him teach you how to profit (Is 48) and lead you in the way you should go. He is faithful!
Digg This Share ThisP.S. The ChristianBusinessDaily.com teleseminar series continues tonight with Justin DeStoppelaire & David G. Johnson discussing “Mindsets Affecting Your Business Performance.” This event is free for Gold & Platinum members of the CBD Insiders Program. Check out the details for tonight’s event here.
September 18th, 2007 at 10:21 am
Michael,
Thank you very much for saying what needs to be said. All too often we accept such a small, tiny version of God. We wind up seeing him merely as a coach on the side lines to whom we visit occassionally to get what we need. We see him as a wisdom dispensor…but who ever stops to ask what the wisdom is for or what gives us the right to treat Him so?
Most would say “the wisdom” is so I can do such and such better. If we’re really religious we’ll say, “I need God’s wisdom so I can do things ‘to His glory.’” But since when does God NEED us to DO anything. Since when is his glory lacking? What is it that He needs? Does God have a NEED? Like a creature? Wisdom from God, be it formulaic or relational or even non-categorical, is only ever, ever a context for deeper relationship with Him, greater consciousness of Him and unity with each other. If we think that God’s gift of some measure of wisdom to us is so that something can “get done” we are totally missing the point. Like you said - wisdom, natural law, sociological law, planetary motion, quantum mechanics, medicine, etc. to the degree they reflect God are NOT for the utilitarian purpose of some human accomplishment in God’s name. They are solely road signs, maps, reflections, hints that guide us into greater relationship/consciousness with God.
If we miss that God’s intention is relationship, we can and habitually DO get so busy doing things “in his name” that we wind up “never knowing Him.” In this way of living we are trapped again to a life of slavery, willing slavery.
Either/or thinking, the law of non-contradiction, and other logical axioms are important. BUT those tools are totally inadequate to appropriate the mind of Christ. They may, at times, crudely reflect God, but have we forgotten what “through a glass DARKLY” means? Hazzy, blurry, unclear, distorted…
It means that our ability to conceive, categorize, rationally parse, or intellectualize God via our human language based thoughts at ANY level is severly limited. Severly limited. Can the English language contain any comprehensive definition of God? Of course not - it can’t even adequately explain love or fear or identity - much less The Creator.
So what gives us the right to expect that our little language and our symbolic logic or our “common sense” would be enough to place us on a vantage point high enough to escape the “dark glass”? The answer is simple: the same reason that Adam ate the apple, the same reason that the tower of Babel was built, the same reason that we think that true freedom (no fear, no guilt, no insecurity, complete forgiveness) can be found in “doing right things”. . . this is simply the replacement of God, who cannot be contained by any creature level intellect, with our THOUHTS ABOUT HIM. We have swapped God for our minds.
Mainly we worship our tiny constucts of God - and desparately, frenetically grasp for “either/or’s” and “right/wrong’s” to placate our loathing for the unknown. We are not really afraid of God. We are afraid of not-knowing. And we often demand that God remove our not-knowing by giving us wisdom so we can do what we think.
Maybe there’s more to the “mind of Christ” than just understanding how price elasticity works?
September 18th, 2007 at 10:29 am
WOW!
September 18th, 2007 at 10:34 am
Michael,
Outstanding comment. I thank God for the widom He has download to your spirit and for your accuracy and well articulated way of expresing God´s thoughts!!
Blessings
September 18th, 2007 at 11:11 am
Eric;
Please tell me how you really feel! (lol) Thank you for such an awesome comment. I will be chewing on it the rest of the day (week). Blessings.
September 18th, 2007 at 11:14 am
Michael,
When we use “error” when we mean “to err”, we have also made an error.
(An) Error is a noun, (to) err is a verb.
Unless you are into verbizing your nouns, that is.
“Either/or” thinking is applicable when there only discrete choices. God frequently (usually?) gives us a spectrum of choices, not a simple two. If only life were that simple. He has also given us the power of reason and freedom of choice. So long as our choice is not contrary to His word, I think we are “in His will”, suboptimal though that choice may be.
Mike
September 18th, 2007 at 1:44 pm
Darren I totally agree ‘WOW’ Mike what you have described, I can picture the visit of the Queen of Sheba at the temple of Solomon. Sheba came to validate or expose the wisdom of Solomon. She was looking for a verbal expression but instead she was confronted with a visual manifestation of the wisdom that Solomon possessed. It wasn’t in what he said but how it was delivered. The temple of Solomon is the end picture that we strive for in our own business and lifestyle, a cultivated and articulated environment bourne from the preparations of God in Solomons’ life.
The either/or’s are not part of the equation as everything that we do someone has prepared for us to fulfill. The only thing that prevents us from achieving the building of our temple is our lack of sight and understanding. Mike this message along with those that have been and are to come are like the rocks/stones in the wall of the temple, they are helping to shape our destiny in our personal lives and also in God.
Thank you Father for the sight that you give all that are drawn to this media.
September 18th, 2007 at 8:45 pm
Michael,
I appreciate your site and what you are doing. I’ve been in sales for over 7 years and have always had a disconnect between “doing” sales and being a Christian, which seemed to be at odds. After listening to one of your messages that you offer on your site, I actually was looking at my job as a ministry and looking forward to doing what’s best for my customers as well as praying for them before I go in to see them. What a concept - including God in what we do everyday. Helping people! Living my Christianity at work! And being able to be successful because it’s God’s promise! No longer is there a sacred/secular divide. This is my Father’s world!!
Blessings to you,
Dennis
September 18th, 2007 at 8:53 pm
One other point. As many have probably had, I’ve been through several sales trainings. Some of which say some good stuff, some which teach you how to be a better weasel than someone else and how to outsmart the customer so you can get your hand in their wallet. I’ve seen others be very successful in being sly and not telling truth, and honestly have tried to emulate at some points because I thought that’s what you had to do to win. All at odds with what God wants. This gives me hope again in God’s Word and truth, that what He says will work. This is exciting stuff, and more importantly, a sure path to come back to again and again until it becomes the way I always do business. Very cool!!
Dennis