Image: Pixabay.com

So my writing business has kind of got me in a certain mode recently. For the sake of illustration, let’s abbreviate this and call it OS mode, opportunistic mode (OM syndrome, if you like).

See, all “non-medical” practitioners would agree with my pedestrian term. OM syndrome is a heart condition that attacks all humans who have long forgotten to look unto the Lord from whom their help comes, and settled for delighting in the legs of man, the strength of their arm.

The psalmist understands this condition as building a house and forgetting that unless the Lord builds it, the builders build in vain.

Another ancient prophet, with similar insight into the human condition once wrote, cursed is he who trusts in men, the psalmist would later come back to back his idea, some trust in chariots, some trust in horses, but we trust in the name of the Lord.

Friends, the saddest bit is that I have found this soul sickness in me lately. For the love of networking in my business for example, I have often found myself deferring with the great, and (way later) remembering God’s instructions to his covenant people not to.

I have often found myself grading people, and “sizing them up” according to their looks and status, people made in the image of God.

You haven’t seen me, have you?

You haven’t seen me calculate my words as I prepare to deliver them before men, rather than examine my heart as it appears before God who looks on the inside.

Yes, you haven’t watched me live like I deserve the opportunities I have, yet every good and perfect gift comes from my father, in whom there is no shadow of turning..

When you think about me, pray for me as I seek to do and maintain business like a Christian, and maybe pray for yourself too, as someone who is probably not immune to this soul disease, common among the ambitious.

I will volunteer to start, with a short prayer

Lord, thank you for creating a good world. I now see why you called everything good in the beginning, yet it seems like my first parents, Adam and Eve, appreciated that for only the first 2 chapters, before everything came tumbling down. Now because of that Eden ensnaring, I tend to live just like everyone under the sun.

Remind me that more than doing a mere man-centred life, my life is hidden with Christ in God, rescue me from the tyranny of people pleasing, opportunism, ingratiation, self promotion, angling, and the like. Remind me of yourself who did not come to be served, but to serve.

Help me look at everyone I meet as most needy of your love and mine, help me see them as more than potential personal connections. Remind me that networking is more about building a kingdom or professional community towards value addition and love of neighbour, rather than people-pleasing my way up the career and prestige ladder.

In Jesus name I pray.