Vice President of Sales and Marketing
What Drives Your Life?
Everyone’s life is driven by something. Most dictionaries define the verb drive as to “guide, to control, or to direct." Whether you’re driving a car, a nail, or a golf ball, you are guiding, controlling, and directing it at that moment. What is the driving force in your life? Only recently I found it myself.
Right now you may be driven by a problem, a pressure, or a deadline. You may be driven by a painful memory, a haunting fear, or an unconscious belief. There are hundreds of circumstances, values, and emotions that can drive your life. You can be driven by guilt. Guilt-driven people are manipulated by memories. They allow their past to control their future.
They unconsciously sabotage their own success. They wonder through life without a purpose. We are products of our past, but we don’t have to be prisoners of it. God specializes in giving people a fresh start. Some people are driven by resentment and anger. They hold on to hurts and never get over them. Instead of releasing their pain through forgiveness, they rehearse it over and over in their minds. Many people are driven by fear.
Fear is self-imposed prison that will keep you from becoming what God intends for you to be. Other people are driven by materialism. The desire to acquire becomes the whole goal of their life. Many people are driven by the need for approval. They allow the expectations of parents or spouses or children or teachers or friends to control their lives. I don’t know all the keys to success, but one key to failure is to try to please everyone. All of these forces that can drive your life all lead to a dead-end: unused potential, unnecessary, and an unfulfilled life.
Living with a purpose is the only way to really live. Everything else is just existing. Most people, struggle with three basic issues in life. The first is “identity”: Who am I? The second is importance: Do I matter? The third is “impact:” What is my place in life?” I can recall when I had the wrong things driving my life and clearly existing with no real purpose. The Holy Spirit connected me with Brian Millard. Brian and I worked closely together for a few years with a very successful chemical company. We developed a close friendship. We were driven by sales achievements and financial rewards that followed. We worked hard and partied harder. We never realized we were simply lost souls. We were driven but we were going the wrong way real fast.
By now, I trust you’ve read Brian’s life history. When Brian started his ministry I was truly blessed to have stayed in contact with Brian even after he left the company I still work for. The Holy Spirit made sure we remained close. God's revelation to Brian that he was a lost soul and seeing the transformation Jesus Christ made in his life had a significant impact on me. Actually, I was the one who took him to Hilton Head Hospital when the Lord confronted Brian and called him at Hilton Head National Golf Club.
Although I was a “church going” and believer in Jesus Christ as my Savior, there was clearly a void that remained. With the Holy Spirit continuing to connect us, I realized more changes were needed on my part. I still had fears-all kinds of them as a matter of fact. I finally realized the Bible was the best business plan I’ve ever read! All the goals, objectives, strategies and day-to-day action plans are contained within. With the Holy Spirit coaching me, I decided to incorporate the Bible into the business plan of the company in various ways.
As Vice President of Sales and Marketing I had the opportunity to influence others. An example to share with you relates to encouraging individuals reporting to me. They now include spiritual objectives into the business. Each employee is asked to work on 4-5 individual objectives that relates to personal growth (education) over and above their day-to-day activities in each quarter. Individuals are monetarily rewarded for their efforts by achieving measurable objectives.
This might entail reading a book or taking a computer course, writing a training session or hosting a training session for others. The objective of the program is to encourage personal growth. Consequently, I decided to implement spiritual development into the program. This provides the mechanism for company employees to focus on spiritual objectives, which can be recognized and rewarded as part of making an impact on the business.
One of my first spiritual objectives was to read “Wild at Heart” by John Eldredge and develop a power point presentation to share with others. This initiative is now recognized as a company objective when conducting corporate training. This has a positive impact on the business, yet it’s the spiritual power and the spread of God’s word that is the underlying force worth talking about. I would encourage you to find opportunities in your workplace to incorporate spiritual development. Most businesses today foster some sort of in-house training. It doesn’t take much to include spiritual development with personal growth initiatives that are corporately supported.
In God’s eyes, the greatest heroes of faith are not those who achieve prosperity, success, and power in this life, but those who treat this life as temporary assignment and serve faithfully, expecting their promised reward in eternity. When life gets tough, when you’re overwhelmed with doubt, or when you wonder if living for Christ is worth the effort, remember that you are not home yet. At death you won’t leave home-you’ll go home. This is worth driving for.
Plan of Salvation