The Shopping Cart Junkie

I watched a movie last night, which reminded me of a few things which I tend to forget sometimes.

Before I get into the movie, I’d like to ask you something.

What is your reason for being in business? What is your overriding goal?

For me, the answer can vary from day to day. Some days my reason is to make enough money to support my family. Some days my reason is to serve other people, some days it’s simply because it’s warmer and drier than the back deck of a fishing boat.

In the move “Facing the Giants”, the football coach at a Christian high school deals with the frustration of coaching a perpetually losing team. Parents, players and fellow coaches begin to point a finger in his direction, citing his poor coaching as the cause of the losses.

In fear, and in frustration, the coach turns to The Lord. After a period of soul searching, the coach calls the team together, and asks them what they think the purpose of the football team is. One of the players suggests that winning football games is the purpose of the team. The coach explains that the real purpose of the team is to honor Jesus. The coaches and players were to honor Jesus by giving him their all, and leave the results up to Him. If they won, they would praise God, if they lost, they would also praise God. What was most important was to honor God in their effort.

This movie was a good reminder to me, that evry day needs to be about honoring and serving God. I can’t concern myself with the wins and losses, but must praise Him in either. The win isn’t nearly so important as the way I serve Him and my fellows.

Over two thousand years ago, Jesus told us to seek first the Kingdom of God, and that all of our needs would be taken care of.

That, is a really incredible promise, and flies in the face of conventional business wisdom.

However, most businesses fail within the first five years, so some unconventional wisdom might be just the ticket.

Incidentally, the coach in the movie ended up taking his team to the state championships that year.

Here’s to facing the giants!

This entry was posted on Monday, February 18th, 2008 at 8:52 am and is filed under Business. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.