We can be a blessing to others in business by helping them grow. As leaders, our #1 job is to develop our people, but we can’t give others what we don’t have. If we are called to leadership, we must lead in a worthy manner and first develop ourselves as leaders.
Mass Readings Audio: http://ccc.usccb.org/cccradio/NABPodcasts/18_07_29.mp3
Welcome to the eighteenth episode of By Your Life. Thank you for joining me. If you haven’t already, please subscribe on the right side of the page so I can send you notifications when each new episode is posted. And please forward to a friend you think would benefit from By Your Life.
My goal is to inspire, empower, support, challenge, and encourage you to connect Sunday, with Monday-Friday, in a secular, business world. It is my desire to help you live our Catholic faith in the marketplace, and to trust that it is good for business. I hope to offer you practical ways to go forth and glorify the Lord by your life.
In this edition, we will reflect on the readings for the Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time. The first reading and the Gospel are familiar stories of God’s providence—the feeding of the multitude of people with only a few loaves and some fish. The feeding of the 5,000 is the only miracle that is found in all four Gospels. But Matthew and Mark also share the miracle of the feeding of 4,000. It wasn’t that long ago that I realized for the first time that there were two separate events, two different miracles. As I frequently say, “If it is important, God tells me twice.”
If it is important, God tells me twice!The story of this miracle is very important to me. Almost 10 years ago, I had an inspiration to write a book. This wasn’t one of those “I think I’ll write a book” thoughts or “One of these days, I’d like to write a book” ideas. This was an out-of-the-blue thought that came to me so clearly it was audible. The voice said, “You are going to write a book about companies that are successful because they live their core values and you are going to use case studies to write this book.” Immediately, I was filled with a passion and certainly that I would write this book, in spite of the fact that I had no desire to write a book before that moment. I knew nothing about writing and publishing a book. Heck, I didn’t even like writing my newsletter! Nonetheless, at that moment, I knew that I could and would write this book.
Filled with this inspiration, I began to ask people who they knew who ran companies that were successful because they lived their core values. I called the CEOs who were recommended to me and I conducted dozens of interviews. After about four months, I had over twenty transcribed interviews and no idea what to do next. The zeal with which I embarked on this project was dwindling and I longed to get it back.
You see, up until this point, my approach was “Thanks God for the inspiration. I’ve got it, now let me run with it.” And I did run with it until I had no idea where to go next.
So, I began to pray and pray and pray. For three months, I heard nothing back. “Lord, I don’t know what I’m supposed to do with this. I’m not a writer. I don’t know how to write a book.” Nothing.
Then one morning, I was driving to an appointment and listening to the CD of Jeff Cavin’s study of the Gospel according to Matthew. He was talking about the feeding of the 5,000. The details vary a little from John’s version that we heard on Sunday, but the story is essentially the same. In Matthew’s Gospel, the disciples approached Jesus and said, “This is a deserted place and it is already late; dismiss the crowds so that they can go to the villages and buy food for themselves.” Jesus said to them, “There is no need for them to go away; give them some food yourselves.”
Jeff Cavins said, (I’m paraphrasing.) “Imagine being one of the disciples when Jesus said, ‘give them some food yourselves.’ How do you think they felt?” He went on, “Jesus instructed them to tell the people to recline in groups of 50 or 100. So, they went out and gathered the people in groups, and then went back to Jesus. ‘Now what?’ Jesus blessed the bread and fish and gave them some and told them to give it to the people. And so, with a couple of pieces of bread in their hands, they turned and looked at the hungry crowd, took what they had, went out to the people in the front row and gave it to them, and then went back to Jesus. And, Jesus gave them some more which they took, gave to the next row and then went back to Jesus. He gave them some more, and they distributed it and went back to Jesus, until everyone had their fill and there were twelve wicker baskets filled with the leftover fragments.”
By this point, I was turning onto 75 north toward my client’s office and tears are welling up. I was getting the message. I’d been trying to write this book on my own and I couldn’t do it. It was bigger than me, but all I had to do was keep coming back to Jesus. Then I remembered the copy of Sports Illustrated that was sitting on our coffee table. On the cover was a picture of Tim Tebow with Phil 4:13 written in his grease paint. Being a good Catholic, I don’t recognize most scripture by chapter and verse, but I recognized this one. “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” Now, I was crying.
Jeff Cavins continued. “Mother Teresa didn’t say to Jesus, ‘I don’t have a Master’s in Social Work. I can’t go into the slums of Calcutta to help these poor people.’ She just went and offered herself and kept coming back to Jesus. If Jesus can take this woman, who was not even 5’ tall, and through her found the Missionaries of Charity (which by 2015 included over 5,500 sisters, brothers, priests and countless laity) who today help the sick and poor in over 140 countries, if Jesus can feed 5,000 people with five loaves of bread and two fish, imagine the miracles he can do with you and your life, if you just turn it over to him.” Now, I was sobbing.
If Jesus can feed 5,000 people with five loaves of bread and two fish, imagine the miracles he can do with you and your life, if you just turn it over to him.I continued up the interstate, gathering my composure so I could see to drive, and I noticed a white van in the lane next to me. As I began to pass it, I saw that there was something written on the back window. When I got close enough, I could see that it said, “Phil 4:13 I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”
If it is important, God tells me twice, in case I missed it the first time.
What are you trying to do on your own that you need to turn over to Jesus? Are you like me and do you like to take control, only going to Jesus when you’ve exhausted your own capabilities?
God puts people in our lives to help us. God put us in other people’s lives to help them. Those young boys, the one in both the first reading and the one in the Gospel, were very important players in God’s miracles. Imagine being one of those boys. Are you willing to turn over everything you have to the Lord? How about after the miracle? I can just hear the boy saying, “Hey, that was pretty cool! I’m glad I had those loaves and fish on me.”
We never know what God has planned. Jeff Cavins had no clue how his CD was going to impact me that morning, but, God did. We never know how something we say or do can bless others, but God does.
God presented people to me to help me navigate the book writing and publishing process. Every day I sat down to work on it, I would begin with a prayer “God, I don’t know who will read this book, but you do. If no one is going to read it and if writing it is only for my benefit, then let it glorify you.” My book, The Value of Core Values, was finally written and published. I was blessed by it and others tell me all the time that they have been too. Thanks be to God.
We have the opportunity to be a blessing to others all the time. One of the ways we are called to “feed the people” in business is by helping them grow. As a leader’s, your #1 job is to develop your people, but you can’t give others what you don’t have. You can’t expect your team to become better at their work if you don’t work at becoming better as a leader. You can’t teach what you don’t know. St. Paul, in his Letter to the Ephesians, encourages us “to live in a manner worthy of the call you have received.” So, if we are called to leadership, we must lead in a worthy manner. If we are to lead in a worthy manner, we must first develop ourselves as leaders.
Dr. Stephen R. Covey, author of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change, says “You must never be too busy sawing to take time to sharpen the saw.” Sharpen the Saw means preserving and enhancing yourself by having a balanced program for self-renewal. He says, “Renewal is the principle—and the process—that empowers us to move on an upward spiral of growth and change, of continuous improvement.”
When was the last time you read a great leadership book? More importantly, when was the last time you made focused effort to make changes in yourself and your leadership style because you read a great leadership book? (Let us know in the comments what books have transformed you.) If you don’t know where to start, St. Paul continues with suggestions for where we might focus our self-development efforts. He writes, live “with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another through love.”
“Live with all humility.” In episode 004 of By Your Life, I talked about Level 5 Leaders as defined by Jim Collins in his book Good to Great. Level 5 Leaders are people who have a unique combination of fierce resolve and humility. They are humble and know that success is not about them, so they surround themselves with the right people who have skills they don’t have so that the organization can succeed.
In defining humility, St. Thomas Aquinas put it more succinctly. He said, “Humilitas Veritas,” or humility is truth. What he means is, when you are humble, you are in touch with reality. You can’t surround yourself with people whose talents complement yours if you aren’t aware of and willing to admit the reality of your limitations.
Humility is truth. ~ St. Thomas AquinasMost of us suffer from blind spots. We are unable to see the truth about ourselves. The book, Leadership and Self-Deception by The Arbinger Institute, exposes how we blind ourselves to our true motivations and justify our shortcomings. When we justify our shortcomings, we are projecting our limitations onto another, making them the bad guy in the situation. The authors offer not just a conceptual, but a practical understanding of the problem of self-deception and its solution. I encourage you to read it. You just might sharpen your saw.
I’ve already mentioned that if it is important, God tells me twice. This week, the message was about how God surprises us. I was given this message not just twice, but three times, so I figured it was important to share with you too. How does God surprise us? He exceeds our expectations. Imagine you were another boy in the crowd with a stash of bread and fish. What might you expect would happen if you turned it over to the Lord? Let him surprise you with whatever you have going on. Trust him even—no especially—when things are falling apart. If he can satisfy 5,000 hungry souls, I’m certain he can handle whatever you’ve got for him.
Let us ask the Holy Spirit to give us the grace to allow him to work through us for the benefit of others and may we be amazed at the miracles he performs with our lives.
May God bless you abundantly and may you glorify the Lord by your life. Amen
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Many thanks to Fr. Stan Fortuna for his musical gifts, especially the traditional and contemporary versions of Come Holy Ghost (Come Holy Spirit) that you hear in this podcast. You can find more from Fr. Stan http://www.francescoproductions.com/ or on Facebook.
