I finally replied, “Sorry, I just don’t think within such a framework.  Maybe I would say it’s more about influence and impact.”

After this afternoon chat, where we touched upon other topics, I came back to the idea of “success to significance” that evening.  It had been several years since I read Bob Buford’s “Half Time.” It really didn’t speak to me back then and I realized even more so today.  I’ve attended some conferences inspired by “Half Time” which primarily targeted very successful businessmen in their 50s and beyond, and gained a great amount of insight and inspiration.  I was one of the thirty-something attendees blessed enough to attend and learn from those with more experience and wisdom from life.

The concept of “success to significance” does speaks well to successful business owners or Fortune 500 executives in their 50s and beyond, especially those who were consumed by their drive towards their goals of success.  But the yearning question for me since that afternoon chat was, “Why is a successful life bifurcated?”

The big picture concept of “Half Time” is that there is the first half of life where people focus on achieving their successes and the second half where you can refocus (or recommit to God) on being significant in your life mission for God. This would typically translate into more time and commitment to church or some ministry. I don’t believe it was intentionally stated, but this transition lessens the significance of work.

In rereading “Half Time” this past week, I didn’t understand why these concepts couldn’t be applied to those in the “first half” of their lives. This bifurcation of church and work; business and nonprofit work; Sunday and the rest of the week are concepts I previously identified (“Cultural Cocktails: Biblical Faith and Work with a Splash of Eastern and Western Philosophies”) as fruits of dualism from Western philosophies and not a biblical perspective of living our lives.  The idea of “success to significance” seems to be a continuation of dualism that is core to Western culture and which heavily influences the church in the U.S.

If I were to take a cynical viewpoint of this concept, I would say that it’s excusing successful people for placing God second or lower in their lives during their first half.  In reality, I know that it does speak well to many, allows them to recommit their lives to God and creates an impact for God in many areas. But this is not a message or a model for a wider audience.  This is not a concept to behold for future generations.

From the start of a career, people should constantly be seeking and praying for their calling whether a corporate career, tech entrepreneur, restaurant owner, physician, school teacher or missionary.  This calling is a person’s ministry and sphere of influence.  Not a means to a ministry, but how God will use you to reach others.  People should be constantly defining their life’s mission and aligning their goals with God’s goals for their lives.

A few years ago my parents successfully sold their coffee chain, took a year off to travel, and began praying about their next business.  My mother is definitely a person that wants to work until she passes.  Both of them want to stay active, but they were patient about their next business and really wanted God’s hand upon it.  I remember them telling me that they regret not being truly committed to God as they worked hard, stressed out and sold their last business.  They really wanted to commit everything to prayer and rely on God in all matters of their next business idea.  My parents told me not to wait until I was in my fifties to realize this truth, but to really submit to God now and seek out his will.  After hearing their earnestness, I heard and understood the regret in their voices. So it echoes within my heart as I write this and say to myself, “I don’t want to experience a half time in my life or to find significance in my faith after success.  I want my faith to be integrated into the life I lead today.”

If you look at the Scriptures, you will find many principles and tangible examples for making life more personal and relational. Here’s a list of 10 ideas. Feel free to add more in the comments section!

1. Encourage someone. “Encourage one another and build each other up.” (1 Thessalonians 5:11) A friend of mine who is the CEO of a large company in São Paulo keeps a stack of high quality greeting cards in his desk. When he sees one of his employees doing good work, he pulls out a card and writes a note of encouragement to the person. He doesn’t just send an email; he writes the card in his own hand and delivers them personally. On a few occasions, the employee who received the card came to thank my friend with tears of gratitude in their eyes.
2. Put others first. “This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers.” (1 John 3:16) Years ago I knew of two friends who vied for the same newspaper job. One had a pregnant wife and desperately needed the job. The other man called up the newspaper’s managing editor and suggested that the newspaper award the job to his friend. The newspaper gave the job to the soon-to-be father and the other guy sat on the bench with no other leads. Three months later, the newspaper called him and said that they wanted to hire him for a new position. The two friends worked together as reporters for the next several years.

3. Eat together. Read through the New Testament and you’ll be amazed at how often Jesus ate with his disciples. The early church also spent significant times around the table eating together. There’s something about sharing good food and drink that bonds people together in friendship. So instead of using your lunch breaks to get time alone, use the time to share a meal with your colleagues.
4. Wash feet. Jesus, at his last meal with his friends, washed their feet. I don’t recommend that you do this in your office, lest you be sent home for a permanent vacation. But when Jesus washed the feet of his friends, he was only performing a typical, mundane task that no one liked to do but that had to be done. The point isn’t the feet. What’s important is to be aware of the simple needs of those around you. When you see a need—small or large—do something to help and serve. Little acts of service can mean a lot these days.
5. Pursue deep discussions. Most people are a little fearful of intimacy and transparency, but they still long to go beyond small talk. People long for meaningful and rich conversations. Jesus was a master of getting people to open up about what was happening in their hearts. One idea for creating an environment for deeper dialogue is to start a lunch-time or after-work book discussion group. Choose a book they want to read and then ask good questions.
6. Practice Hospitality. The word hospitality, obviously, comes from the word hospital. And there are a lot of broken people out there who need personal care. My wife and I have made it a point over many years to use our home as a makeshift hospital—not for medical attention, but for providing friendship. We’ve served hundreds of meals and washed countless dishes, but it’s remarkable how respected and valued people feel when you invite them into your home.
7. Use Humor. My Dad refused to let the work environment become too serious and stodgy. So he invented ways to keep the office laughing and light. And laughter helped him gain friendships. He was a master prankster. On one occasion, when I was a teen, he advertised a yard sale in the newspaper—at his colleague’s home address. He then rented a moving van and together we filled it with all sorts of junk, everything from manikins to old lawn mowers to a grocery store sunglasses rack. At 2 a.m. on the day of the advertised yard sale, we quietly deposited all the junk on his friend’s lawn. By 8 a.m., crowds of people started showing up and ringing his doorbell. He spent his Sunday selling or giving away the junk. My Dad’s friend got some revenge however, because he made about $300 from the sale.
8. Listen. Many people think that they have to talk a lot to develop a friendship. Not true. Jesus spoke to the crowds from time-to-time, but read through the four Gospels and watch for all the ways that Jesus listened to people. He would ask them significant questions and then listen. (See the story of the Samaritan woman at the well, for example. John 4.) There’s nothing more personal than asking sincere questions about another person and then listening carefully to them.
9. Seek collaboration. I get the impression that Jesus wasn’t much of a classroom teacher. He seemed to enjoy helping people learn through experience. So he went out an invited a bunch of guys to follow him and work with him. Although conflict can emerge, working together toward a common goal and adventure is a great way to build friendship. J.R.R. Tolkien portrays this beautifully in his Lord of the Rings trilogy.
10. Say you’re sorry. One manager I know, at a time of severe stress and pressure at work, lost his temper and blew up in the office. He stood up and railed against a fellow employee, bringing a terrible silence over the entire office. The next day the manager went back to the office and apologized to the person, who accepted the apology but said, “I’ve never had anyone say they were sorry to me. Thank you.” A deeper friendship was born and the manager gained reputation for being a humble person. The moral of the story is that when we are humble and admit our errors, we reduce the pride that causes conflict and tension in workplace relationships.

This is just a short list of ways that you can improve the relational quality of your office. What might you add to this list?

It’s nice to make money, isn’t it?

Now don’t give me that look.

A healthy desire to make money does not necessarily imply greed, or obsession, or that one is dedicating one’s life to serving the dreaded Mammon. All I’m saying is, as a practical matter, having money sure does come in handy. In fact, it is pretty much a requirement these days for getting around in our 21st century Western culture.

When choosing a career, I kept this important little detail in mind as I aspired to earn a decent living, with an equally strong intention towards doing something that I liked and was also good at.

What could possibly be wrong with that?

The problem I encountered as a young Christian man, however, was that I often detected a quiet disapproval coming from the church when it came to having a genuine interest in pursuing a “secular” career. I felt a gnawing sense that any desire to earn a solid income was somehow the antithesis of spirituality, associated instead with selfishness, materialism, worldliness and cutthroat-ism.

Growing up, the evangelical church taught me that the only ambition God was truly pleased with was the passion for making disciples, missions, or leading others to Christ. So if you had a sincere spiritual desire to seek out God’s plan for your life, then by default your primary vocation was going to be a disciple-maker. Just like Jesus (the missionary Jesus, not the working-for-the-family-business carpenter Jesus).

But what if I am not “called” to that? What if my gifts, talents and personality are better suited for business pursuits? I struggled with this for years as I developed a career in management consulting, and then eventually found my way to a corporate executive position.

High Calling Blogger Larry Peabody addresses this and many other sticky issues of integrating our faith with our work in a series called “Religious Ruts in Your Work World”. His recent post (Part 15), talks about this specific question of whether a good Christian can also have a good job. “Scripture makes it clear,” he says, “that God applauds (not just allows) working to earn.”

Well, that’s a relief. Because God help us all if He doesn’t.

Peabody tackles head on the church’s subtle disapproval of making money. He directly addresses the tension between those in ministry who believe God prefers that we “live by faith” (which is French for ”no consistent paycheck”), and those who wake up every morning to a job that brings home the bacon. Earning money, he insists, does not make you materialistic.

Peabody points out four biblical teachings about the uses of money.

1. To meet your own personal need for support
2. To care for the needs of your family
3. To have enough to share with those in need
4. To share with our Christian teachers and gospel workers.

Sure, greed can be dangerous, but as Larry says,

“So can hammers, horses, and hot plates. Any of them can be properly used—or misused. The Bible warns us that wanting to get rich sets us up for a tumble into a snare. And it calls loving money “the root of all kinds of evil.” But with sound teaching and right hearts, believers can live by faith even as they earn their incomes and use the money in God-approved ways

I have also found many places in the New Testament where Jesus uses work analogies to make a point about the kingdom of heaven. These management characters teach lessons about shrewdness, work ethic, generosity, responsibility, and patience. It’s like Jesus was teaching the crowds in parables, but with stories about their work. Something they could relate to. What a concept. At some level, I feel that Jesus was acknowledging the normalcy of business, work and earning a paycheck as part of the very fabric of society.

I mean, somebody’s got to do it.

My take is this: God gives each of us a unique calling to be discovered, an ambition that we must pursue to be whole, to be fully human and fully ourselves. We can not qualify the value of one vocation over another. We are all uniquely distinct, and we must embrace and respect the diversity of interests and ambitions of each person. Ultimately, the output of our vocation should be the revelation of God’s love through our work, through our results, to the fellow employees and customers we interact with, and through the resources we give back to the world.

And, if by God’s grace, we can reach a point in our life where we are well compensated for doing something we like, and something we are also actually good at, then I would suggest that surely God is pleased and we are blessed. And by passing on these gifts to others thus continues a generous circle of His will being done on earth as it is in heaven.

Bradley J. Moore is an executive in a large corporation in the Northeast which shall remain nameless. He posts regularly at shrinkingthecamel.com and every Tuesday at the High Callings Blog. Brad’s writing has also been featured in The Conference Board Review magazine and The Chicago Sun Times.

That’s hopefully a rare occurrence, but nevertheless, around our house in Brazil we hope that no one will need hospital care until the World Cup is over. When the Brazilian national soccer team plays in a World Cup, everything stops—maybe even the IV drips.

Traffic evaporates from busy streets. Businesses release employees from their responsibilities. Banks close. Petrobras stops pumping oil. The shipping ports halt. Combine harvesters sit idle in soybean fields. Schools let kids go home early. It’s almost as if the only people working are the engineers who keep the hydroelectric dams running and bartenders. After all, without the peak performance of those plants, all the TVs would go dark.

Halting the national economy during Brazil’s World Cup matches is not met with resistance either. Who cares if stock market trading pauses when Kaká and Robinho are trying to score goals? According to Bloomberg and Businessweek, trading in Brazil dropped to its lowest level this year during the World Cup. The lowest levels of trading coincided precisely with the days that Brazil played North Korea, Portugal, Chile and then, most recently, the Netherlands.[1] Now that the Netherlands team has eliminated Brazil, economists expect that the Brazilian market will return to a normal pulse soon. In the meantime, I haven’t heard any complaints about lost profits.

All this has generated a serious debate in Brazil. Should passion for a sport justify the complete shut-down of work and commerce? Some Brazilians I know say that putting the nation in neutral is entirely justified. After all, the World Cup is not just a sport—it’s part of the Brazilian soul and culture. The World Cup only happens once every four years, so why not allow people to enjoy the event to the hilt?

But others think that shutting the nation down to watch soccer is ludicrous and irresponsible. It’s only a game, they say. There is no real substance under all the emotional froth that’s whipped up by the media. The fact that soccer has become such an important part of the Brazilian DNA is precisely the problem, they argue. Why base so much of the national identity on something that they deem to be so superficial? These people are generally glad that Brazil has been eliminated; now, they say, everyone can set the beer aside and get back to work!

Frankly, I’m in favor of allowing people to take time off work to watch the games, except for the cardiologists needed to treat women with chest pains. But perhaps both sides of the debate are missing the deeper meaning in this story.

I recently read some writings by scientist and mathematician Blaise Pascal (1623-1662), who is considered to be the grandfather of the computer for inventing a calculating machine. Pascal, who was a Christian, wrote a still-relevant essay in the mid-1600s about the human tendency to pursue busyness as a means of avoiding thoughts about our human condition. The problem, he says, is not taking time off to have fun and enjoy life; the problem arises when we believe that entertaining diversions will actually satisfy our souls.

“If our condition were truly happy we should not need to divert ourselves from it,” he wrote. But because we fail to find true inner joy, “The only good thing for men, therefore, is to be diverted from thinking of what they are, either by some occupation which takes their mind off it, or by some novel and agreeable passion which keeps them busy, like gambling, hunting, some absorbing show, in short by what is called diversion. . . .  Thus men who are naturally conscious of what they are shun nothing so much as rest; they would do anything to be disturbed.”

Pascal recognized the fallacy of such an approach to life, but he did not write judgmentally. “. . . It is wrong then to blame [people]; they are not wrong to want excitement . . . The trouble is that they want it as though, once they had the things they seek, they could not fail to be truly happy.” [2]

What Pascal wrote about 400 years ago still rings true today. We moderns and post-moderns have not changed much. We have invented so many diversions that we need diversions from our diversions. And yet we are still unsettled, discontent, and restless.

Soon after the last whistle blew at the end of Brazil’s match against the Netherlands, a whistle that sealed Brazil’s elimination from the World Cup, there was a deathly silence in my city, as if it had become a ghost town. The bubble of excitement and hope had popped, and there didn’t seem to be much of anything else to sustain the people here. Then, within an hour, the streets filled with cars and motorcycles, and employees returned to their jobs, all trying to press on in life.
I wondered if anyone was finding true satisfaction for their souls. And I thought about Jesus, who said, “I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.” With that kind of life in the storehouse, the World Cup is even more enjoyable—even when Brazil loses.

[1] Alexander Ragir, “Brazil Stock Trading to Climb Following World Cup Elimination,” Bloomberg Businessweek, July 3, 2010. http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-07-03/brazil-stock-trading-to-climb-following-world-cup-elimination.html

[2] Blaise Pascal. From Pensées, reprinted in The Journey: Our Quest for Faith and Meaning, by Os Guiness, (Colorado Springs: NavPress, 2001), p. 46-48.

There is a prayer that is propped up on my office computer that I say just about every day.

It was written by my friend Dr. Stephen Payne of A New Equilibrium. He gave this to me three years ago when he was doing some leadership coaching with me, and it is still as fresh and meaningful to me today as it was when I first started using it.

It goes like this:

God,
I surrender my will and my life to you. By your grace, help me to reveal more of your amazing love as I serve you at work. Show me the pathways that will better glorify you and serve the highest and greatest good of everyone in my organization. I ask this in the name of Jesus Christ.

Amen

It sounds so simple, yet every line of this prayer is packed with spiritual depth and meaning.

I surrender my will and my life to you.

What a way to get me back to spiritual reality! I need to constantly remind myself of this surrendering – both my intentions (my will) and the overall impact of my life.

By your grace, help me to reveal more of your amazing love as I serve you at work.

This part is so revolutionary – to think that I can reveal God’s love by serving Him at my job! I had never, ever considered that God’s love could be displayed in my work up until I started using this prayer.

Show me the pathways that will better glorify you and serve the highest and greatest good of everyone in my organization.

Here’s where the help with our daily challenges comes in. God’s grace is always availablet to reveal the best pathways. Even if it’s not what I expected it to be. And this is worded in such a way that keeps me focused on what is best for everyone in the organization, not just myself. There’s a bigger picture, all the time. But I must remain open to His spirit. This prayer helps with that.

I ask this in the name of Jesus Christ.

Amen

Bradley J. Moore is an executive in a large corporation in the Northeast which shall remain nameless. He posts regularly at shrinkingthecamel.com and every Tuesday at the High Callings Blog. Brad’s writing has also been featured in The Conference Board Review magazine and The Chicago Sun Times.

I’m driving back to a Dallas hotel with my wife and two of our kids after an enjoyable visit with my relatives. It’s past 9 PM, and I hear a comment from the back seat that sounds more like a command.

“Dad, I’m hungry!”

Knowing better than to fight this — despite just having a delicious, expensive, and satisfying dinner — I pull off the toll road toward a shopping center I know on the corner of Royal and Preston. We pull in toward a neon sign that says Pizza by Marco.

And to my surprise, I get an education in how to compete as a little guy in business, and how to achieve small-business greatness.

Another sign by the door announces that this was voted “best pizzeria in Dallas” by D Magazine. But at first glance, it doesn’t appear to be much of a restaurant at all.

The entire dining room — with a maximum capacity of 12 — is no bigger than a Jiffy-Lube waiting room with the same lack of frills and ambience. They take orders through a small window in the wall, and it feels like filling a prescription at the pharmacy. Then you wait for the pizza.

As we wait, I am engrossed in reading all the press that Marco has received and all the awards it has won since it was established in 1956. The place is now in the hands of Marco Jr. It’s customers, or should I say, fans, include pro-football players and other celebrities who still have pizzas shipped to them long after leaving the area.

Here are a few of my observations on how to compete as the little guy:

1. Strive for product greatness.

There’s no doubt from the reviews and awards that Marco has exceptional crust and sauce. You absolutely cannot compete as a small business with mediocre products and services. Our ½ pepperoni, ½ cheese, thin crust surpassed our family taste test!

2. Welcome competition!

They aren’t afraid to put their product on the line in pizza competitions. Don’t cower from the competition. Take them on. It shows a confidence in your product and abilities.

3. Tell your story.

It was fascinating reading about the 50 year history, the family, the location, the invention of the sauce and crust (Mama’s secret), and the fans who order the pizzas from around the country. I could totally relate to the family.

4. Create mystery and capitalize on your uniqueness.

The ingredients in the sauce are only known to Mama and Marco. They will not move out of this quirky location, serving the pizza as they do. They’re open 365 days a year.

5. Create a product signature.

The sauce and the crust remain the same.
It’s what they are known for and what customers crave. And though they may add some other products, they don’t mess around with what they are famous for.

6. Create loyalty.

Yep, you can even buy the t-shirt. Their fans are completely loyal.

7. Capitalize on trends without compromising the secret sauce.

Believe it or not, in spite of the protests of purists, you can get vegan and low carb pizzas.

8. Leverage technology to your advantage.

They have a website, online ordering, and even customers all over the country. I suppose with express delivery you could get a pizza delivered to Bangalore or Beijing. So here’s a little guy with a global presence. That’s fun to think about.

Many of you run small businesses or are contemplating starting one. Let Marco serve as some inspiration that little guys can compete and create businesses that last.

There is a tide in the affairs of men
Which taken a the flood leads on to  fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries.
On such a full sea we are now afloat,
And we must take the current when it serves,
Or loose our ventures. (Julius Caesar, IV, iii)

If you are even a little bewildered about all the economic regulatory changes coming out of Washington these days, here is a seminal work that goes a long way towards making sense out of today’s headlines.  It also touches on a topic that is core to the Biblical worldview of work long espoused here at InsideWork®.

Arthur Brooks is the President of the American Enterprise Institute, a Washington D.C. based think tank dedicated to the ideals of entrepreneurship, private markets, limited government and individual liberty and responsibility.  In his new book, The Battle: How the Fight Between Free Enterprise and Big Government Will Shape America’s Future,  Mr. Brooks clearly lays out the stark and momentous sea change that is engulfing the United States.  It is a culture war over the values of free enterprise that have defined the nation for two hundred years.  Nothing less is at stake, argues Brooks, than America’s future as a unique and distinctive beacon of free enterprise, innovation and individual liberty in the world.

Brooks provides a compelling narrative on how “the land of opportunity” has gotten so far down the path to becoming just another government-controlled society.  He starts with a depiction of the U.S. as a 70 – 30 nation.  That is, 70% of Americans embrace the ideals of entrepreneurship, free markets, low taxes, smaller government (not no government), individual liberty, and personal responsibility; while a 30% minority hold to the idea that America would be better off without entrepreneurship at the core of its economic system.  Instead, their guiding vision is one of equality of income achieved through massive income re-distribution schemes (taxation) orchestrated by a large, intrusive government, which operates as an agent for “fairness” in society.

At the moment the 30% minority is at the helm in national policy matters and is making great strides to remake America in their own image.  How this minority has accomplished as much as it has, Brooks argues, is by being more adroit at spinning the tale:  they have a better narrative, a more convincing story to tell the voting public.

Does the U.S. have a housing and mortgage crisis? The fault lies with greedy Wall Street investment bankers, says the leaders of the 30%, and the government can and should fix the matter by more regulation and government control, plus a trillion dollar bailout program.

Does the U.S. have high unemployment? The government is the solution, by spending its way out of this recession in the form of more billions in economic stimulus programs.

Is the U.S. automobile industry on its knees? A multi-billion dollar federal bail-out will preserve American jobs, and is therefore a political imperative.

While the budget deficit numbers are incomprehensibly high, the Obama-led 30% minority argues that the 2008 elections reflected a huge shift in American popular sentiment away from a culture of entrepreneurship and in favor of government control.  To all the clamors of the conservatives, the liberals give a single answer:  “We won the election.”  Brooks argues that the 2008 election was not so much a shift in political sentiment, but rather a result of one factor alone:  the state of the U.S. economy.  As the economy melted down, so also did the McCain presidential hopes.  As the conservatives have been unable to articulate their vision for the country, the 30% minority has won control of both houses and the executive branch.

The 30% narrative about the financial crisis consists of five key claims (each disputed by Brooks):

• Government was not the cause of the crisis  (It was.)
• Government understands and knows how to fix it (It doesn’t.)
• Main street Americans were just victims of the crisis (They exploited it.)
• Massive government spending is the only way to fix it (Stagflation to follow.)
• The middle class will not have to pay for such deficit spending (Right!)

One by one, Brooks explodes each of these myths, laying bare the flawed assumptions and manipulative vocabulary used to implement the 30% minority’s agenda.

At the heart of the housing crisis, he points out, was an administration trying to social engineer more equality:  everyone should be able to afford a home.  So they directed the two federal home mortgage-buying entities (Fannie Mae And Freddie Mac) to lower their credit standards.  The result was that within 7 years both agencies went bust and needed federal bailouts on a scale unprecedented in U.S. history.  This was at ground zero of the financial catastrophe.  The contagion became global, taking down numerous. banking and investment banking firms along the way.  But at its core, the problem was the government itself.

Each of the other five claims is repudiated in turn, with example after example.

Brooks offers, by way of antidote, a set of principles – a credo – by which to guide personal and national policy debate back to level ground:

• The purpose of free enterprise is human flourishing, not materialism
• Fairness means equality of opportunity, not equality of income
• Government policy should stimulate prosperity, not treat poverty
• America can and should be a gift to the world in its political and economic views
• What matters most is principle, not political power

Obviously, the conservatives in the U.S. have hailed the book as a major contribution on their side.  But his book rises above partisan rock-throwing.  Big spending Republicans and big spending Democrats alike are indicted.  The tendency of big business to get into bed with greedy politicians does not escape his critical notice.  And the fault of the “forgotten man” in the streets in all this – borrowing money they knew they could never pay back to buy wildly overpriced homes on speculation – is not overlooked or excused either.

What Brooks calls for is a return to principle.  And what principles would he advocate?  This is where his narrative becomes less historical and more biblical:  a return to a view of work that creates true happiness.  He argues out that Americans respect work, enjoy the sense of purpose and fulfillment that comes with accomplishing excellent work, that (unlike their European counterparts) they view work as an important part of their sense of meaning, even arguing that people quickly become disenchanted with new-found wealth unless it is accompanied by a sense of having created it for themselves.  Wealth, in and of itself, says Brooks, does not lead to happiness.

He points out that at the heart of things, and despite their rhetoric of fairness, equality, and social conscience, the 30% minority is actually very materialistic in its world view.  They believe that equality of incomes will produce happiness, in other words, that money alone can satisfy.  Brooks argues – from study after study – that happiness for man is a matter of earned happiness – successful accomplishments, and that money (after a basic modicum of needs are met) is merely a kind of score-keeper rather than a true source of human happiness.  It is the 70% advocates of entrepreneurship that recognize the dignity of work and individual satisfaction that comes with controlling our own work lives.

In this last insight, Brooks aligns himself exactly with the Biblical view of work.  After the creation narrative describes God as skillful worker putting together the world, God calls man into being in His own image (as a worker), giving him work to do organizing, categorizing, managing God’s creation:

“Then God said, ‘Let U.S. make man in our own image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move on the earth.’  (Gen 1: 26-27, The New International Version)

Work, seen is this biblical light, is inherent in human nature and was meant to be a source of great personal satisfaction and fulfillment.  (The subject of a biblical view of work is much broader than can be treated here.  Please see the Scriptural Roots of Commerce, particularly Module 5, the Meaning of Work, on our website.)

The battle of these two visions for the future of America is enjoined.  The outcome is very much in doubt.  Brooks has defined the stakes and provided a primer – in clear logic and example – of how to proceed if America’s core economic system is to be privately led or state controlled.

The time to act, Brooks call, is now, before the tide changes and the ideal that was at the heart of the U.S. economic and social venture is swept away with the flood of fear and materialism that the 30% minority is playing to.