Faith4Business

Relationships in business can mean many things.  From the relationship you have with peers, superiors and subordinates to the relationship you have with the company itself.  The thought today is how do we apply our faith to these relationships. Given that more than half of our waking hours are spent at our work.  How then after leaving church on Sunday morning do we apply Jesus's second commandment to these business relationships, "Love your neighbor as yourself."  

This is a tough one for many reasons. This is mostly because of the competitive nature inherent within business and corporate careers.  In most cases as a company we come together as a team to compete against other companies selling products or services. We also compete within our respective companies to show our value of helping the team achieve its goals.  These environments are not conducive to selflessness and building lasting relationships here can be a challenge.  Many have heard the phrase "Nice guys finish last" and that can be true in the short-term. After years of witnessing the behaviors of people in the workplace I can say that the concept of serving others at a cost to us separates the men from the boys.  It requires a long-term vision of how all things work to the benefit of all involved when the greater good is served.  It is delayed gratification, which is too frequently a foreign concept in our modern world dedicated to having it now. Christ said a lot about relationships because it was obviously important to him to give us guidance.  And, ultimately he was guiding us to a relationship with God our Father.  He told us how to love our spouses and treat our neighbors because he knew that it was and is human nature to perceive the world as a place of limited resources, a place where we would compete for the same resources with a "Me" mentality.  In reality when we can see how serving others ultimately serves us and all involved then we can begin to see the world as not a place of limited resources but one of abundance and plenty.  But believing in things yet unseen takes Faith.