Personal Values Excerpts

Introduction

If a man cannot be a Christian where he is, he cannot be a Christian anywhere.
— Henry Ward Beecher

Being a Christian is difficult: it requires obedience without full understanding and faith without full knowledge; one foot in the temporal world with the other dangling in eternity; self-sacrifice for the greater good; standing tall to the temptations of the world; humbleness in the midst of success; quiet strength in the face of ridicule; and the search for justice in an unjust world.

Living in the twenty-first century is also difficult. Paradoxically, we live in a time of abundance, but never feel we have enough. We enjoy all the modern necessities of life but die far too young of such stress-related diseases as heart attacks, strokes, and cancer. We have virtually all of the world’s information at our fingertips, but don’t know how to apply these megabytes of data to enhance our personal lives. We desire close familial relationships but have a hard time tolerating those we say we love. We want to serve others but cannot get beyond our sinful self-centeredness. We feel an unfulfilled, intense spiritual hunger but treat our involvement in the church as just another civic affiliation, social gathering, or family tradition. We long to live a life of significance but choose monetary rewards over purposeful callings. We say we want to follow in Jesus’s path, but our actions don’t always match our intentions.

Living a twenty-first century Christian life is difficult. During the past decade, economic circumstances have shaken our collective faith in humanity and its capacity to act with integrity to its core. On a corporate level we have seen that organizations like Enron, WorldCom, the Roman Catholic Church, Arthur Andersen, and Tyco have failed to provide moral leadership and have caused untold suffering to millions. On a political level we witness a president lie about his affair with a young intern, and countless politicians sell out the public for personal gain. Both within and beyond our borders we witness horrific acts of brutality through suicide bombings, weapons of mass destruction, and the inevitable tit-for-tat retaliation. Closer to home, we see broken families, drug and alcohol abuse, and children who seem distant. At work, we watch others get ahead by acting unethically; at times we even cut corners ourselves, justifying our actions by telling ourselves, “Everyone else is doing it, why shouldn’t I?” Personally, we watch with dismay as our children fail to adopt the values we tell them are important, but fail to demonstrate ourselves.

Sadly, many self-professed Christians don’t act like Christians. This has far-reaching tragic societal and personal consequences. Although we cannot judge the souls of others, Rev. Billy Graham states that, “[M]illions of professing Christians are only ‘professing.’ They do not enjoy a genuine relationship with Christ. They live lives characterized by the flesh, and will go into eternity thinking they are saved by virtue of their membership in a congregation.” ¹Strong words for each of us to wrestle with.

Our stress-filled, frantic pace has overtaken our brief search for understanding. Being a Christian then becomes one of many items we cross off our “to do” list; we quickly forget about it on Monday as we move on to the next task. Our churches often promote this compartmentalization when they make it easy for us to fulfill our “duty” without being horribly inconvenienced. Taken to the extreme, some even offer streaming-video services so we can watch our pastor “live” from our bed on Sunday morning. What results is a lifestyle that allows us to fulfill our Christian obligation without realizing that it is our faith that provides us with a key to unlocking a life of meaning. What results are individuals such as Erin Polzin, a twenty-year-old college student who listens to worship on the radio, confesses online, and tithes via PayPal, an online payment service. Her comments may well reflect the sentiments of many: “I don’t like getting up early on Sundays. This is like going to church without really having to.”²

Being a Christian is difficult, and I am not immune. I was once a player in this crowd—a fairly regular attendee of church on Sunday, but with little else to show the other six days of the week. Oh, I could fake it well when it was in my interest to do so, but it wasn’t genuine. I never found playing this role particularly fulfilling. It was little more than an insurance policy in case heaven did, in fact, exist; it was nice to have in my back pocket on the day of my death, but didn’t play the leading role in my life. That spot was reserved for my other roles: attorney, athlete, partygoer, political animal, administrator, writer, and overachiever. Although I did obtain earthly success, deep down I knew something was missing. I knew that in order to be truly happy, I had to change my game plan. I still play most of those other roles, but the new and only leading role in my earthly production is that of being a Christian—one who lives through and for God.

Having been trained as an attorney and as a social scientist, I have a brain wired to assess life analytically and empirically. At times, this has hindered my relationship with God. I have difficulty measuring my faith. I cannot touch or see it. Although I sometimes can “feel” it, I wonder if my mind is playing a trick on my emotions. I cannot point to a specific date when I was “born again.” In my faith tradition, that happened at my baptism. Since then, my growth in faith has been a gradual process. Over the past forty-four years the Holy Spirit has used literally hundreds of people from all walks of life to bring me to where I am today—at peace with God and myself, and leading a life of significance, health, and balance.

Looking back, I realize how the Holy Spirit has worked through my own efforts to incorporate my faith into all aspects of my life, bringing both intended and unintended consequences. Following what I call God’s Game Plan for Life has brought me closer to God, strengthened my family relationships, and, in a small way, added value to my community, my nation, and the world in which I live. I have also become healthier—physically, mentally, and spiritually. It has allowed me to separate the important from the trivial, which has added balance and significance to my life.

I am a man of God. I am also still hard-wired as an attorney and social scientist, akin to Dragnet’s Sergeant Friday who said, “Just the facts, Ma’am.” In order to satisfy my need for the facts, I began searching for causal relationships and data that would provide evidence of the connection between incorporating my faith into all aspects of my life and feeling more significant and happier. What has resulted from this journey is Personal Values: God’s Game Plan for Life. It is my prayer that what has worked in my life—and in the lives of countless others—will also be a resource in creating your own personal Game Plan for Life.

The idea of putting my findings in writing first came to me after I had written Executive Values: A Christian Approach to Organizational Leadership.³ In Executive Values I demonstrate empirically a cause-and-effect relationship between adhering to one’s values and organizational success; how, by following the golden rule of leadership, one can do well by doing good; and that biblically based values enable us to succeed.

As I traveled throughout the country talking about Executive Values, I had an opportunity to listen to the personal stories of many whom I met along the way. These stories can be broadly divided into two common themes. The first involved people who were utterly discouraged and were losing faith in what it meant to live out their Christian principles in a post-modern world. Time after time they observed self-professed “Christians” acting unethically when they were “away from church.” Christian Harrison spent twenty-two years of his professional life as an attorney—most of that time as a state and federal prosecutor. As a U.S. attorney, he prosecuted some 150 public officials in East Texas, including judges, sheriffs, county commissioners, and other law enforcement officials. Their crimes included racketeering, arson, and murder. They enriched themselves by taking kickbacks and running protective monopolies for drug and liquor rings, gambling establishments, and houses of prostitution. As a prosecutor, Harrison wasn’t surprised that people gave in to the temptations of greed and selfish pride. What shook his faith was a discovery that he made in reviewing the pre-sentencing reports prepared by the Federal Probation Office. The reports revealed that, almost to a person, the defendants were elders and deacons in their churches. They showed up in church every Sunday, but the rest of the week lived in a way that had no connection to the values they were taught there.⁴

Another group of conversations revolved around whether or not the framework laid out in Executive Values could be incorporated into our daily living. Those with whom I spoke were Christians who, like myself, struggled over how to live out their faith 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. What I found fascinating were the three common threads that emerged: how to navigate today’s ethical minefields and incorporate our faith into our daily life in order to live a God-pleasing life of significance; how to maintain our health in order to lead a long, vigorous, and enjoyable life; and how to balance our life in order to serve properly our family, church, community, and work.

These conversations were with people of all walks of life and ages—business executives, high school and college students, professionals, homemakers, hourly employees, and retirees. They were rich and poor, old and young, male and female. All desired to live a God-pleasing life of significance, health, and balance, but had a gnawing feeling that they weren’t quite getting it right. They were attempting to strengthen their faith, but struggled over how life in the twenty-first century fit into their admittedly
weak relationship with God. Many (including myself, at times) were frenzied, stressed, and barely in control. I began this journey some twenty years ago to seek answers about the meaning of life. I was living in Paris at the time—a place conducive to reading important books and thinking great thoughts at street-side cafes. On my mind were such questions as: What is my role here on earth? What does God want me to do with my life? How do I incorporate five-thousand-year-old biblical principles into postmodern life? Why, despite my best intentions, do I keep screwing up? Why is it so hard not to be self-centered? How can I lead a life of significance, health, and balance? Is there, in fact, a God and a Savior who died for my sins?

It would be a mistake to think that I am an expert on personal values. (Although, if it is true that you learn from your mistakes, then indeed maybe I am.) I am all too well aware that I am no better—and probably not even as good—a person as you. I am not a theologian. I am merely a humble, broken Christian trying faithfully to serve God in a sinful world. Having now made full, although vague, disclosure, I am convinced that this book can be of great benefit to you, because I possess firsthand knowledge of how implementing God’s Game Plan for Life has had on my life, as well as on the lives of others who adhere to it.

Personal Values doesn’t attempt to tell you what specific decisions you must make in order to lead a God-pleasing life. You must make those decisions for yourself. I cannot tell you whether or not it is ethical to drive an SUV, if you should tithe, that you must be a Republican or Democrat, if it’s okay to own a second home at the beach, whether you should take a more prestigious job that will mean more time away from your family, whether you should agree to serve on yet another church committee, whether it is ethical to hunt animals for sport, if it’s okay to invest in tobacco stocks or gamble at casinos, whether to leave an abusive spouse, or whether it’s okay to go eight miles above the speed limit. Rather, Personal Values provides a biblically based, empirically proven framework that will help you find significance in your daily work, balance in your family life, and improved physical, mental, and spiritual health. This book will also provide you with a framework to better serve your family, neighbors, coworkers, congregation, community, nation, and world. Personal Values is unique in that it incorporates these findings into the larger story of who we are and why we are placed on this earth at this particular time. It provides the context and reason for living.

What the Bible tells us, and what research demonstrates, is that by serving others, we become healthier. The more we care for others, the more we take care of ourselves.

Personal Values is written from a Christian perspective because that is who I am. You do not, however, have to be a Christian to benefit from this framework. The connection articulated here applies equally to believers and nonbelievers. It is my belief, however, that our faith enables us to take this Game Plan for Life to an even higher plane. On this plane where we enjoy a relationship with God that—despite our frailties and failures—assures us that we live in grace now and into eternity. This assurance is what gives inner peace.

I began this introspective journey by devouring the wide array of religious and secular self-help literature currently on the market. I was dizzied by the titles promising you can lose weight, look good, live forever, dress for success, find your dream job, locate your inner being and spiritual side, simplify your life, and meditate your way to peace. Along the way, I also met some new literary friends and personal heroes. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Francis of Assisi, Derrick Bell, Rick Wa r ren, J. Heinrich Arnold, Henri Nouwen, C. S. Lewis, and Parker Palmer come to mind. Most importantly, I went back to the original source, the Bible, to refresh my memory of what God has to say about living out our earthly lives. I also examined the scientific research to find out what the medical community had to say about the correlation between adhering to one’s values and leading a life of significance, health, and balance.

To my surprise, I found a wealth of empirical data that substantiates the biblical instructions of how to live a life of significance. Just as the empirical data provided in Executive Values demonstrates that our biblically based values allow us to do well organizationally, Personal Values describes how such data confirms my belief that adhering to our personal values will lead us to a life of significance. In addition to sharing my story, I share the stories of others—many of whom have implemented the Game Plan for Life far better than I. These are, in most cases, simple, ordinary people like you and me. They all make mistakes, some have debilitating and life-shortening diseases. On closer inspection, however, each possesses an inner peace and sense of worth for which movie stars, politicians, and wealthy CEOs would trade all their earthly gains. Personal Values lays out a blueprint for these true heroes and heroines of our world—those that have come to enjoy that higher plane.

The evidence clearly supports that the game plan laid out in these pages will make you physically, mentally, and spiritually healthier, and allow you to lead a life of significance—the life that God intended you to live. Following God’s road map won’t necessarily make your life easier or your bank account bigger. There will be times when this framework will lead you to choose a fork in the road of life that will demand self-sacrifice. So it is with those who have been called by God to follow Jesus’s footsteps. In the words of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, “To endure the cross is not a tragedy; it is the suffering which is the fruit of an exclusive allegiance to Jesus Christ.”⁶ If your goal is to add lasting real value to your life, both on this earth and beyond, I urge you to read on.

The Bible provides us with a values system and a way to integrate those values that enable us to serve our coworkers, our neighbors, and our family and, in so doing, serve ourselves. The outcome of living according to these principles is that—by word and deed—we witness to those around us about the life of significance we have in Christ. In other words, we become enabled to fulfill the Great Commission: “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age” (Matt. 28:19-20).

Robert Bellah and his colleagues, in their landmark book, Habits of the Heart, proposed that Americans do not have a moral framework to make sense of life. They demonstrate how, through our shared vocabulary of individualism, it is difficult to find meaning and a desire to serve others, if you, like most Americans, believe that “in the end you’re really alone, and you only have to answer to yourself.”⁷ We as a society have forgotten the reason why it is in our interests as well as our responsibility to serve our community. Since 1985, when Habits of the Heart was published, we have witnessed many changes—primarily our increasing dependence on computers, the Internet, cell phones, instant messaging, video conferencing, just-in-time manufacturing, and twenty-four-hour-a-day markets, all of which have forced us to live life at warp speed in order to survive. Combining such culturally based hyperindividualism with a never-before-imagined frenetic pace has the potential to kill us—physically and spiritually. As Wayne Muller accurately describes:

The time has come to return to a life that God has intended for us. Personal Values demonstrates that, by emulating and sharing this framework with others, we will be living out the Christian values Jesus taught and that serve our communities and ourselves. By living out of the framework of God’s Game Plan for Life, we will be able to take back our life and reconnect with our families and our God. And, along the way, we will
rediscover ourselves.

Rabbi Zusya once told his students, “In the next life, I shall not be asked, ‘Why were you not Moses or Isaac or Jacob?’ I shall be asked: ‘Why were you not Zusya?’”⁹ God has a plan for each of us. God told the prophet Jeremiah, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations” (Jer. 1:5). Likewise, God has also set you and me apart and has a unique plan for each of our lives. Personal Values will help each of us be the person God intended us to be, to live the life God intended us to live. It is a game plan to integrate biblical principles into our post-modern lives that will allow us to live a God-pleasing life of significance. It is my prayer that God will not one day have to ask you, “Why were you not who I intended you to be?”

Remember the television commercial in which Victor Kiam, the CEO of Remington electric shavers, tells us that “he liked the product so much that he bought the company.” Similarly, I like this game plan so much I had to write the book. I did not intend to write such a personal story, but once I discovered how the journey led me back to a genuine faith—the “hidden secret” of my life—I simply had no choice but to share it with others. For now, this is my calling.

Personal Values—A Journal to Create Your Own Personal Game Plan
The questions at the end of each chapter are designed to help you create your own personal Game Plan for Life. Various quotes and passages are used to stimulate inquiry, discussion, and self-reflection.

I also invite you to share your insights or observations with others by sending them to values@SenskeValues.com. Many of the insights will be posted on www.SenskeValues.com so that others may also benefit from your journey. Please let us know if you would like the response to be confidential, or if we are allowed to use your name. This will allow each of us an opportunity to serve each other, as well as incorporate the knowledge gained from their journey into our own personal journey.

“The Christian life comes not by gritting our teeth but by falling in love.”
— Richard Foster

What does this statement mean to you in terms of your relationship with God? How this has influenced the way you live? Have there been times when you haven’t felt this way? What were the consequences?

“All That You Have Is Your Soul”
— Tracy Chapman song title

What implications does this statement have in terms of how we are to live our lives?

“Faith is not belief. Belief is passive. Faith is active.”
— Edith Hamilton

Do you agree with this statement? How does your own personal
faith play out in your daily life?

“When you live in light of eternity, your values change.”
— Rick Warren

What does this statement mean? How has your personal faith changed your values? Is there a correlation between the strength of our relationship with God and our ability to live out our values?