Last week I spent a few days with a group of people that have become important in my life the past two years. I’m a member of a peer group of great people that own or run IT businesses like the one I work at. We’ve been meeting for two years now. Hard to believe how time flies! We get together every three months and talk about challenges and successes in our lives and business. The meetings are a regular quarterly check in with what is basically a “board of directors” that for no reason other than friendship care about me my business. They say the hard things in love and I try and reciprocate.
During this last meeting in Vancouver one thought kept going through my mind. Shifting sand. The business side of our meetings are generally the same. We talk about how our industry/vendors/customers expectations are changing and what are we going to do to keep up? It’s a constant. Our industry changes fast. The pace is hectic. I can’t think of any industries that change as quickly as ours. It’s shifting sand. Always trying to keep our balance. Constantly looking for where the sand will shift to next.
A lot of life seems that way. What a spouse or loved one is looking for shifts. What friend and co-workers are looking for shifts. Some of what society yesterday said was OK, normal and acceptable somehow shifts over time to not OK, not normal and unacceptable. The way my mind works that wears me out. I’m a giving, pleasing kind of person. I want to make people happy. All this shifting means I have to think even longer and harder to stay ahead. The shifting is coming faster which makes it that much more frantic to keep up.
It’s plain as day to me when I sit back and think about it but I get caught up in it as well. Worry, anxiety, pressure. What am I doing this for? How can a person build a business on this? It’s always changing!!!
That’s the business side. The side that – to me – really doesn’t matter. After two years of meeting with these great friends I see the work that God is doing. I see marriages restored. I see comfort and mourning when loved ones die. I see friendships created and words that are shared that bring people’s focus back on where it belongs – Him. Through all of this talking about what to do about the shifting sand there is a bedrock of Christ holding us up. Our business is not to be building something on the sand. It’s to be building on the rock.
Jesus said this:
Matthew 7:21-27 (NASB95)
21 “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter. 22 “Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?’ 23 “And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness.’ 24 “Therefore everyone who hears these words of Mine and acts on them, may be compared to a wise man who built his house on the rock. 25 “And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and slammed against that house; and yet it did not fall, for it had been founded on the rock. 26 “Everyone who hears these words of Mine and does not act on them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. 27 “The rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and slammed against that house; and it fell—and great was its fall.”
A wise man builds upon the rock. Christ makes Himself clearly known to everyone. All of creation screams out His glory. He is right here, right now. Looking over my shoulder as I type this. He is with my friend who just lost his wife and now may lose his kids. He is with you as you worry about your spouse and kids and want the best for them. He want the best for them. He wants the best for you. He wants the best for me.
Paul said this:
Acts 17:24-27 (NASB95)
24 “The God who made the world and all things in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands; 25 nor is He served by human hands, as though He needed anything, since He Himself gives to all people life and breath and all things; 26 and He made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined their appointed times and the boundaries of their habitation, 27 that they would seek God, if perhaps they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us;
Through the two years I’ve known these people the only thing that really matters that has come out of our meetings is what was built on Him. Period. It is a priveledge and honor to work side by side with this great group of people on our businesses and our lives. The relationships and building them on Him are all that matter – the rest will get buried and destroyed under the shifting sand. If you’re in the group – thanks for a great two years!
Posted by bschow 