Oftentimes when we start thinking about stepping up into this place of spiritual leadership, taking responsibility for the vision and direction of our home, the priority shift we feel called to make is to finally start putting our family first. My wife, we say—I haven’t been loving her well, or listening to her well, or appreciating her like I should. My kids—I haven’t been spending enough time with them, haven’t been paying them enough attention, haven’t been making sure they know how much I love them, how proud I am of them. And sure, all of that is key to moving in the right direction. If you’re like most people, there’s a good chance you can do a lot of improving in those areas. I think I hear an amen from just about everybody who’s reading this—and probably from everybody who knows you’re reading this (and who’s hoping you’re getting it!)
But the primary change that’s needed in pursuing a more focused kind of leadership at home is not, as you might think, putting your family first. Family, as odd as the following statement may sound, is just as capable of becoming an idol in your life as any of the other idols you’ve created, whether from work, from money, from television, from deer hunting season, even from specific sin areas—anything to which you yield your supreme loyalty and allegiance. You may need to put family higher on that priority list. That’d probably be a good move. But putting them first? No.
Only God comes first.
I believe I was working for Coca-Cola at the time—I’m not sure—but I remember a Christian friend of mine drawing a little diagram for me that fundamentally changed how I thought about my job, my family, my life, my everything. On a piece of paper, he sketched two identical grids containing four blank, horizontal lines, each in descending order, then he asked me a series of fairly simple questions.
“Who’s the owner of your company?” Coca-Cola.
“Who your employer? Who do you answer to? The CEO.
“Who’s the employee?” Me. I am.
“Who’s your customer?” Uh, people who buy Coke?
No.
Leaving that marked-up grid alone, he moved on to the next one. But he gave me a new starting point for building this one out. “Secular company, sacred company, it doesn’t really matter,” he said. “The way for a Christian to view the hierarchy of any organization is to see that God, in reality, is the owner of it. He’s the one who occupies that top spot.” Cross out Coca-Cola. Write God’s name in there instead.
My friend went on: “All right. And yet even with God as the owner of the company, you still answer to the same person, the same employer, right? And you, of course, are still the employee. But think—who’s your customer?” Hmm. The answer, I realized now, was probably not everybody on the planet who drank Coca-Cola products. That was more of a task than God, as the owner, would give to any one person. Nowhere in any kind of board meeting or morale-building exercise—if God was the company owner—would He imply that my job was to get the whole world drinking Coke. I can’t do that. But as is wisely said in certain business circles, “It’s always about the people; it’s never about the shingle.” And the people, in my case, on whom I could exert the most direct influence were the national account sales reps who answered to me. They were my real customer. Invest in them, pour into them, and guess what—I’d be part of creating an environment where more people could drink more Coke in more places around the world. I’d be doing my job. By putting God first. And by knowing my customer.
But I can’t serve my customer well by just doing whatever they want me to do, by playing whatever role they want me to play. By putting them first. They’re not in charge of framing policy and driving the ship. Their whims are not my commands. They’re important to me, yes—vitally important. Invaluably important. I care deeply about them and would do anything in the world for them. But what they mostly need from me is to be guided wisely with specific strategies and information that’s coming down to me from above me, from leadership, from ownership. Because if everything is starting with the Owner and His priorities, being shared with me as I spend time listening to Him and learning from Him, and then flowing through me from His sufficiency, equipping me to guide and direct and communicate and motivate my family by my faith in the One who’s guiding and directing me—then I can hardly say I’m on my own to figure out what to do and how to do it. The One who is most invested in this enterprise—God, the owner—will always make sure that I, the mere steward of this task, am well equipped with taking care of His (and my) customer, so that He can carry out His larger kingdom work through all of us.
We’re in good hands, people. This Owner of ours is the ultimate example of one whose company is “too big to fail.” And He’s said that “nothing will be impossible” for employees like us, whose faith may only be the size of a Grape Nut, but it’s sufficient—through His sufficiency—to accomplish what He wants to see happening.
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