My Mission Statement and My Faith
To love as much as I can, for there is no greater gift you can give. He who loves the most, wins.
To love God with all my heart and to encourage others in their walk, because we all need God’s presence, guidance and love.
To love myself, by keeping a strong balance of mental, physical, spiritual and social in my life, because the stronger I am, the more I can help others.
To succeed, and help others succeed. Success is contagious.
I keep a hand-written copy of My Mission Statement on a note card in my bathroom drawer where I look at it daily. I got the idea from Seven Habits of Extraordinary People.
To love as much as I can, for there is no greater gift you can give. He who loves the most, wins.
I hope I do a good job of loving people as much as I can. It’s what God wants. “Love God with all your heart and love your neighbor as yourself.” It’s also a great way to live – it’s a lot of fun. You find out that people are willing to return the love to you, which makes it even more fun. (As the Beatles said, “and in the end, the love you take, is equal to the love you make.”)
Sometimes I worry that I’m not doing enough for others. I try to be careful about this, because if you spend too much time worrying about it, you get down on yourself, and then you’re not much help to anyone. When I catch myself thinking about this, I try to pray about it and ask God to guide me. As was said in Friday Night Lights, “Clear eyes, pure hearts, can’t lose.” I believe that.
To love God with all my heart and to encourage others in their walk, because we all need God’s presence, guidance and love. (My Faith)
I enjoy talking about my relationship with God, and chatting with Jayme and the kids. I think all of us should consider the questions – Is there a God? Was Jesus the Son of God? Etc. Alex and Lindsey shared with me the book “I Don’t Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist” and I’ve read “The Case for Christ”. Dave Wilson at Kensington Church in Detroit has done some wonderful sermons on the topic. I believe that the evidence for God outweighs the evidence that there isn’t one. I think the choices in “Evidence that Demands a Verdict,” that Jesus was either a liar, Lord or lunatic are the only ones we have to choose from, and that Lord makes the most sense. I think that we humans fail all the time but that’s the beauty of free will. And, as the title of the Sanctified CD states, we are all “Not Perfect, But Forgiven.”
At the Man Up retreat I went to with Alex, a speaker showed this great example of our relationship to God. One person represented God, and stood at one end of the stage with his arms open. The other guy represented us, at the other side of the stage. God’s hope is that we walk across the stage and into his arms. When we do he gives us a big hug. It’s a very secure feeling. At some point, we are able to turn, still in his arms, and face away from God and toward other people with our arms outstretched. This visual represents what I want to share with Jayme and the kids, I have both arms around them, and they feel secure enough that they can wrap their arms around others while still in my arms. I love that.
To love myself, by keeping a strong balance of mental, physical, spiritual and social in my life, because the stronger I am, the more I can help others.
I believe that I must love myself, and take care of myself, in order to help others. If you don’t take care of yourself, it’s hard to help others. In college, I met this great guy who was leading the Campus Crusade for Christ at KU. He did a drawing of a wheel with four spokes, labelled mental, physical, spiritual and social. His point was that if any one of the spokes is too short, or too long in your life, you’re out of balance. For example, spiritual is good, but if you focus on that at the expense of the others, you’re probably not in a good spot. Same as if you focus too much, or too little on physical, mental or social.
To succeed, and help others succeed. Success is contagious.
I believe that success is a good thing. And that as P.J. O’Rouke wrote in Eat the Rich, economics is not a zero sum game. Which means that if we make more money, it doesn’t mean that others make less. I believe the contrary is true – the more success we have, the more we can help others. For one, we now know how to succeed. It’s hard to help others succeed if we haven’t succeeded ourselves. For two, it’s harder to give away a lot of money when you’re broke. So the idea is for all of us to do as well as we can and help others along the way. So I don’t know that a vow of poverty was really what God intended, at least if wouldn’t work very well if we all did it. As my dad once said, “At some point, somebody, somewhere has to sell something.” We all should succeed according to our own merits and good fortune and help as many others along the way as best we can. That, I believe, is what God has in mind.
