Devotion 7.13.15

One aspect of corporate being is a simple one yet complex:  to get the organization to serve a greater good or purpose.  This simple fact is reinforced in research and in quality leadership.  Corporations don't get involved in community activities simply because it is a nice thing to do (sure, it makes the corporation appear more human which in today's world helps sustain it), but because the organization serves a purpose beyond itself, it gives it a corporate spirit (not in the existential essence of today's modern mantra - I seek spirituality dude).

Mike Matheny, baseball manager, says it this way in his book on coaching, baseball, and life:  Rule # 3 - Teamwork - Don't Think Less of Yourself, Think of Yourself Less (Mike Matheny, The Matheny Manifesto, 2015).  Matheny poses this question in this chapter as he uses the "two most storied franchises in baseball history, in my opinion, are the Yankees and the Cardinals.... If the formula for success is so easy, why doesn't everyone follow it?  The short answer is it goes against human nature." (p. 131)

I think in my own life of the struggle between David, the individual, and David the spouse and parent.  Give of myself for someone else?  Really?  Give of my time to go do what?  Watch your students' school play?  Watch our kids _______ for the 100th time?  As Matheny says in so many words, it ain't about me (did that just run fingernails down the mental chalkboard for you English majors?).

A church should certainly understand this, shouldn't it?  Serving Christ as he commanded and taught and showed us by example?  Take our love to others, regardless of sin, and preach the truth in love.  Pray for others.  Help others.  So, what is our batting average (if I may use a pun on a devotion drawn from a baseball manager)?  How do we seem to do in a world full of need in reaching out beyond ourselves?

Christ speaks in uncompromising terms on this:  "Truly I say to you, as you did not do it to the least of these, you did not do it to me." (Matthew 25:45)  Pray we seek those opportunities to "think of ourselves less" and take time to think of others and act on their behalf in the name of Christ.

Hope Men's Ministry