‘Cowboy Logic’ About Calves – And People
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To present Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord to business and professional men and to develop Christian business and professional men to carry out the Great Commission.
Ecclesiastes 12.13 concludes, having heard everything, I have reached this conclusion: Fear God and keep his commandments, because this is the whole duty of man.
The Bible’s version of the wisest man in the world summarizes his study of the human condition with these words from Ecclesiastes. To summarize Solomon, the chief purpose of humanity is to fear God and obey His commands. Not very sexy. Not very exciting. Not really about me and my wants, needs or desires. Why might this be true regardless of how it makes me feel?
If the Bible is true, that we are made by God, and will return to God, to give an account of how we lived for God, we should fear God and obey His commands. Let me summarize, since God made us and because God will judge us we ought to fear God and obey His commands. Simple to understand really.
The purpose for fearing God is because we must stand in judgement before God. There is something fearful at being called in before the principal, the boss, the judge, not to mention God. Most of us detest accountability. God promises to hold us all accountable for how we lived our lives. This should cause us to fear Him for He will measure us by His standard and reward or condemn us based upon that standard. As God, He has all power to decide our fate and all capability to carry out that fate.
Fear is healthy when we lack other motives for doing what is right. God is good and God is loving so He has told us what we must do to please Him. Pleasing God means getting through the accountability portion of judgement in order to enter into the reward portion. Reward is always better than punishment. The obedient are rewarded and the disobedient condemned.
We have the same system here. Obey the laws and the government is pretty unobtrusive to our lives. Disobey the laws and the government is a constant thorn in our side increasingly removing freedom from our lives. While most of the man-made gods are tough and demanding, the One True God is humble and gentle and so has chosen not to burden us with a yoke He Himself is not willing to pull along side of us.
God has summarized His commands to loving Him with all of our heart, soul, mind and strength and to love our neighbor as our-self. Simple really, not too complicated nor too difficult if we are humble. It is not hard to love Him Who is love and Who is good. Yet if we don’t trust that He knows what is best for us as the Creator of us, then we will question His rules and ways and limit our love for Him to a feeling rather than the love He requires which is obedience.
Loving God is submitting ourselves to the Word of God so that we can do the will of God. Obedience is God’s yardstick for measuring love. We do the same thing really. We interpret our spouse and children’s actions of ‘obedience’ as love for us. People who intentionally do what displeases us we immediately interpret as having a non loving attitude toward us. God is not a lot different and neither should we expect that His accountability of us will be measured much differently.
Life then can be summarized as a journey of knowing God so we can love God by doing what God commands. When we live this way we will find our lives work best, have the most meaning and are increasingly filled with hope as we look forward to that day when we will finally see our greatest love face to face.
His Opportunities
- Michigan Prayer Breakfast May 18th at the Lansing Center. CBMC has a table. Tickets are $30 each. Breakfast is 7.30-9am. Email if you would like to attend. Norm Miller, Chairman of Interstate Battery will be the speaker.
- Next CBMC Special Luncheon is June 8th. Eagle Eye GC. Brig Sorber, Executive Chairman of Two Men & A Truck International will be our speaker.
- CBMC needs your help to continue its ministry to men in the marketplace. Please support CBMC today. DONATE
MONDAY MANNA
A service to the business community
A Publication of CBMC International
May 1, 2017
Success and Self-Control
by Ken Korkow
Even though I have spent many years in the business world, some of my greatest, most profound lessons about life – and work – have come from my time as a “cowboy,” spent on a family ranch in South Dakota, U.S.A. For instance, I have learned a lot about relationships with people while working with young cows – and observing other people working with them. Experience have taught me that in working calves, there are three places to be:
1. When working with calves, most people not familiar with them do not want to get to close. So they stick a hand out and try to make the calf do what they want from an arm’s distance away. But the calf kicks and often, at the apex of the kick, strikes the person in the leg. Bottom line: minimum accomplished, and maximum pain.
2. A few people actually charge the calf. They get one hand on the ear, and the other hand on the tail. They put their clean blue jeans up close and personal to the calf’s unclean hind end. Bottom line: the calf still kicks, but they are so close it does not hurt. And usually they can get the calf to go where they want it to go.
3. The other alternative to do is stay out of the pen and away from the calves entirely. Bottom line: The person does not get hurt, and their clean jeans do not get dirty. But no work is accomplished.
My cowboy experience has also shown me how working with people is a lot like working with calves. If you are not willing to get very close and personal, you might as well stay out of the relationship.
We often become frustrated with what people do. We wonder why are they doing this – or that? Without being willing to go deeper in relationships with them, getting below the surface to uncover the relevant issues, we will never get the answers. This is why, if we desire to build meaningful relationships with people, approaches #1 and #3 will not work. We must get close – and must risk getting dirty. This applies to employers and their employees; business and professional people engaging with their colleagues at work, and even in interactions with customers and suppliers.
We see in the life of Jesus Christ that He made the decision not to focus on large crowds or confine His attention to people with influence and affluence. Instead, He went extremely deep – the equivalent of a 3½ -year camping trip – with a handful of unlikely individuals, men He chose to become His disciples. No staying an arm’s length away; no hiding out. Neither was an option. Everything in their relationship was open and transparent.
But we cannot go deep with everyone. We have neither the time nor the energy. And we cannot invest in every good opportunity that presents itself. We must follow God’s leading, starting with our relationship with God. In Mark 12:30, Jesus said, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.” This is the foundation for all other relationships.
In the next verse, Mark 12:31, Jesus cited the next relationship priority: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” This includes our spouse, family, people where we work, friends, even people who live in our neighborhood. The order of priority Jesus gave is important, because we cannot truly love our “neighbor” – whoever that might be – without first loving God as fully and deeply as we can.
Then, even in the workplace, we can carry out the final instructions Jesus gave His followers in His last moments on earth. We can “make disciples of all nations…teaching them to observe everything I have commanded you” (Matthew 28:19-20). We can only do this if we’re willing to get close, and risk getting dirty.
Ken Korkow lives in Omaha, Nebraska, U.S.A., where he serves as an area director for CBMC. This is adapted from his “Fax of Life” column. Used with permission.
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