God-Esteem, Holy Week Devotion, Tuesday

It is helpful if you read Monday's Devotion first to have the background for today.



In 1990 I was 27 years old and sales manager of the largest ready-mix concrete company in St. Louis. We had 26 competitors but contolled roughly half the market. I had an expense account that included golf several times per week, lunches with customers daily, sporting events in box seats and luxury boxes. I was flying high.

And then the bubble burst. Our company was purchased by a national company which was purchased by a French company, which was purchased by a Swiss company which is the largest construction materials company in the world. The current CEO is let go and a new President of Operations is brought in from Ireland. Without even meeting me he decides that 27 is too young to be sales manager and demotes me. To say I was devastated would be an understatement. I had come to appreciate my status with the company and what it meant to have reached the level I had in my short number of years.

It didn't take me long to figure out what you already know; companies, employers, businesses and stock holders have no heart. I'm not referring to the people themselves. Most people who work in a business envioronment are fine upstanding individuals. Many of them are church goers and some of those actually try to make sure that all of their decisions are influenced by their faith. However, it's not the individuals that are the problem. The problem lies with the corporate group of individuals.

Corporate are a group of people who gather each work day with a common goal; to produce, complete, resource, outsource, combine, buy, sell, or whatever they do and to do it in accordance with the corporation's mission statement. Those mission statements are usually rather high-minded and say something about how they are going to increase the well being of all of humanity. In the end, the mission of all corporations is very simple... to increase the wealth of shareholders. Sound cynical? I challenge you to point out a corporation over 20 years old (even younger today as things change so fast) that hasn't done one of the following; (a) change the marketing strategy of their product line to maximize sales, (b) increase the product line to increase market share (thus edging out competition), downsize to decrease the cost of production and therefore increase the profit margin.

Corporations, and other business, have no heart really. They are motivated by profitability and the security of those at the highest level of employment. So I was demoted based upon a decision of an individual who hadn't met me, didn't know my skills, had not spent a moment in the St. Louis construction market, but who assumed that I wasn't the right person for the job. Ouch... that was heartless. Not that he was heartless (though future decisions of his left that question on the table) but that he was acting on behalf of the heartless corporation whose mission we've already established.

So why is it that we (me included) attach so much significance to that which is heartless (meaning the organization that is not motivated by a primary sense of love but rather motivated by the bottom line?) The only thing that I know of that has a primary motivation of pure love is the God that is made known in Jesus Christ. If I allow the company that demotes, lays off, fires, or burns through my retirement account, to be the deciding factor on my sense of self-worth, I have put my heart in the hands of the heartless. However, if I decide to put my life in the hands of one who has my best interest at heart, the Lord and only the Lord, then my identity is one that is worth billions, even trillions, more than all the shareholder wealth the Dow Jones can muster.

Once again, why don't you pray that prayer from St. Patrick found here?

God-Esteem, Holy Week Devotion, Monday

We find ourselves involved in so many activities, interests and requirements in life. We have our jobs, our families, our hobbies. We have parents and children to take care of, bills to pay, leafs to rake, and soon we will once again have lawns to cut. Each one of these is its own little sphere that we find ourselves in.
We live in a variety of spheres all at the same time. From 9 to 5 we are in our work sphere. We head home for the family sphere. Maybe after supper we go to a kids ball game, or to bowling league, or just camp out in front of the television. Each of these areas of our lives I call "spheres."
When children are small they have only one sphere. Within it are mom, dad, and other immediate family with whom they have regular and constant contact. Sometimes, say on a Sunday at church, we drop our children at their Sunday school class or in the nursery care, and we find our children are not quite as excited about being left alone. In essence, we are forcing them out of that sphere that brings them identity, comfort, and sense of security. "Seperation anxiety" is the proper term for that they experience. It is a subset of a larger pychological category known as "Attachment disorder." We expect that to happen to our children, "disorder" relates more to adults.
What happens to us when the things we have used to identify ourselves dissolve, disappear, or morph into something unexpected? If I decide I'll vote for a political candidate because of their stance on things I believe deeply in; what happens when they get into office and don't enact legislation I was expecting? How do I feel? Am I still a supporter?
That's what happens to a group of people on Palm Sunday. Jesus rides into town on a donkey and they're expecting him to boot the Romans out of Jerusalem. Instead he preaches a gospel they weren't ready for or expecting to hear. They had attached themselves to an expectation of Christ and were disappointed when the Messiah was one of a different sort. Their anger is so great from the detachment they've experienced that they take Jesus and nail him to a cross.
It is our nature to attach ourselves to those things that give us significance. This is how we develop our self-esteem. I am a husband, father, pastor, runner, fisherman.... etc. These are the things I have attached myself to. My self-esteem is on the increase if I experience a healthy marriage, well reared children, a responsive congregation, a personal best run, and a boat full of fish. It is on the decline if the opposite is true.
So what happens when I experience traumatic detachment from any one of these. If I don't run fast or don't catch fish... there's always tomorrow. But what happens when my marriage is on the rocks, or divorce is on the table? What happens if a child wanders down a dangerous path of drugs, or considers suicide as an alternative to life? What happens if my congregation rejects my ministry? Will my waning self-esteem lead me to the same sort of inappropriate behaviors that led Christ to the cross? These attachments are rocky, temporary, and out of our control. In fact, the really do control us if they are our identity center.
The term "God-Esteem" is not my own. Googling the term reveals over 3000 links. (I especially like this link of scripture references, though I'm not sold on the rest of the site.) Yet it's a very apt thought. God-esteem is deciding that we will be identified by and through our relationship with Jesus Christ. It is attaching ourselves to who we are as a child of God, a brother or sister of Christ, a part of what God is doing in the world. God-esteem is deciding through that attachment, that our other spheres of life will be our minsitry and not our identity. God-esteem is attaching ourselves to Christ the way St. Patrick illustrates in this prayer. I recommend praying this prayer every day this week and let it become your identity.

Tomorrow we will begin to look at the five most common spheres of our lives that tend to suck us in to the temptation to be identifed and esteemed by them, rather than by our life in Christ.

May God bless your Holy Week journey with Christ.

Pastor Dave