John N N Ng’ang’a Meditation Of 20th May 2024 Preparing For Old Age-Old people influencing the marketplace.
Day 1
No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.
I am addressing myself to old people. My main message is that as old people you can be involved in business, be professionals, and continue to make dents into the kingdom of the evil one. The impactful olds are the champions that will help to change the business world, become leaders in the marketplace, and become leaders who are going to introduce values that will help transform society. This is by mentoring the youths.
You know in Acts 13:36 we read,
now, when David had served God’s purpose in his generation, he fell asleep. He was buried with his ancestors and the body decayed.
David was an old man finally. It is important to understand that David, the old man, started ministry as a youth. Do you understand him as when he was taken out of his father’s flock? He initially made a difference and an influence in the palace as a singer. But everywhere he went, David was always influenced. But of course, we see him do this right throughout his life. The book of first and second Samuel, most of them are about David. We see him as a young boy, and then we see him as an old man just before he died.
Can’t you see then that is why the writer of the book of Acts uses him as an example of somebody who served the Lord from the impactful youth right up to the end? As we read the verse put your name, now when Mary, had served God’s purpose. Learn that as an old person, your life is not to be used just for personal gain. You do not live for yourself, you live to fulfil God’s purpose. He is your creator. He created you to meet a purpose. And that purpose will not be met only in old age. It has to be met throughout your life.
When David had fulfilled God’s purpose: please note it is not his purpose, it is not his interest, it is not even his father’s interest, it is God’s purpose he was fulfilling. So as an old person, or early in life, find out, how God expects you to serve him as a professional.
We have a few suggestions. Number one, it is your generation you impact. God will not hold you accountable for people who left the earth earlier or people who came later after you. During your lifetime, your generation must get to know about God. They are as old as you are at any one time.
Next note: you must fulfil God’s purpose for your generation before you fall asleep. That means you die. You know, there are many challenges in Africa of doing business. And that is where we need old and young people to bring a change, to be missionaries in the professional business area. And there are many problems we can talk about. For example, strong competition from outside Africa, either from the East especially on price or from the West. We are having our businesses collapsing. It is old people’s lessons in life that will come and help us out of this.
But sometimes our problem is out of security threats. And it is old people who will think of ways of ensuring that our continent is more secure. We are having difficulties with infrastructure limitations. And it is you who can think of better ways of creating better infrastructure at a lower cost.
What about product quality: it is also the whole issue of most of our products do not make it in the international market because of the unit cost of the product you are producing. We are not able to compete with the products of the world. Why? We do not seem to know how to make products that are high quality, yet low cost. It is old people that have to come to the marketplace and lead this transformation.
What about the issue of bureaucracy? A big problem in Africa. Many layers of supervisionandnobody is trusted. You have somebody supervising, then you have somebody supervising the supervisor, then you have somebody supervising the supervisor of the supervisor. Now, this bureaucracy is adding cost and slowing the process of production. It is old people who will come up with ideas of how you can use technology or methods that will ensure we do not have a lot of bureaucracy.
Day 2
Know then in your heart that as a man disciplines his son, so the Lord your God disciplines you.
What about the issue of counterfeiting, where you produce a good, then somebody else is already trying to copy it and sell it at a cheaper price? Now, we need to understand that old people will come and help us to do ways that will discourage or even stop counterfeiting. Choose a business you can transform. You have invested heavily, only for somebody else to come and sell the products and you have nothing in return. We must deal with it.
But generally, the biggest one we should be talking about that the old people need to help us is dealing with corruption. The levels of corruption are so high. According to Transparency International, the corruption index of all countries in Africa is on a higher level. A Country like Kenya or Nigeria are the top from the wrong side in terms of lack of transparency and therefore the corruption index. It is the old generation we are looking for that will be missionary to the marketplace, to bring a change in values. They have suffered enough from it. And that will be a very important thing for Africa. And my prayer is that we will see change before our death.
God calls some people into the marketplace, not the church. God calls some people into specific areas of the marketplace. And if you are going to have influence, you must go to an area where you can do a good job, you must go to an area where you have a gift, you must go to an area where you are skilled because it is that skill that will open the doors for you to have influence and so change that market place, and help witness to them to become Christians.
It will be important that you understand that God calls us to market place the same way He calls people to mission work, or calls people to become Pastors. You need to listen to him to hear which particular place in the marketplace is He helping you in. You know, if you have clarity of vision, it will help you know the area to influence. What is a vision that every old person who is going to be a missionary to the marketplace has to be involved in? It is his dream. A vision is a dream, and it is inclusive of both you and your family. How do you see yourself in the future? Sometimes the reason why you do not do well in the marketplace is because of your spouse. You need to understand that if you are going to make a good impression in the marketplace, you need to be together with your spouse, in the things you are doing. Your work will sometimes not be as paying as it should be because you are selecting where to work because of the influence it will give you. You are selecting where you are to work because of seeking to evangelize the area. So, you need the support of your spouse.
But ask yourself, is your dream broad enough? Does your dream include what I call the triple bottom line? Number one, is it in an area where you can bring glory to God? Number two, is it a place where you can add value to humans? Because you see, serving God means doing something for humans, meeting a need, not a want, but a need for humans. And number three, is it likely to give you an income? It has still to meet your cost because you are not a Pastor, so you are not expecting to get support from the church. So, as you think about where in the marketplace to be involved, it must answer all three questions. Is it going to bring glory to God, how can I use it to attract people to the kingdom, to lift Jesus so that He can draw men to himself?
Number two, how is it going to help people? Is it the kind of thing I would do even free of charge because I know I am benefitting humankind? It does not mean you are preaching to them, but you are meeting a need, a genuine need that they have.
And then finally, can you help humans, and yet it gives you an income? That is something that will be important if you are going to influence in the marketplace. So do not just go because of one of the three. It must fulfil all three issues if you want to be somebody who will be effective in the marketplace as an old person.
Day 3
24 Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize.
The Need for Self-discipline
Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize.
What I am saying so far is that you must be proactive. Do not go and then discover you have to leave the sector. Survey before you go in. If you are going through a Country, these days Google has enough information about the place. Find out, what kind of job? Can your product sell? We call it a business plan. Do you have a business plan that shows that you can do good business in that area? That is the whole issue about becoming proactive. A proactive person is a person who does a dry run before the real run. You have such details of what you want to do in the future that you know what can go wrong, and what can go well. Even if you go into it and fail, you will not be shocked because you knew you could fail but you felt there was a big chance of success. Do not go there and then you fail, and you are in shock, you are in depression.
To be a proactive person you think through anything before doing it. He answers the question. What are the chances of success? He answers the question; what can go wrong? He answers the question; what can I do to reduce the chances of it going wrong? Number four, if it went wrong, what is my emergency response plan? How can I react to what has gone wrong so that the impact will not be that high? That is what we mean by becoming a proactive person. And if you want to make an impression that is going to help people to become Christians in the marketplace, help people to add value in the marketplace. You need to help them in some ways.
Of course, there are other alternative ways of approaching life. One of them is called being reactive. Instead of being proactive, you become reactive. What does it mean to be reactive? You first of all burn your fingers then learn for it. That is not as good as proactive. Proactive already can see what can go wrong. It will prevent you from burning your finger. And that is why, if you are going for example to a dangerous Country, to be a tentmaker there, you will need to think through and that way you do not have a lot of chances of making mistakes. So, you reduce your mistakes by not becoming reactive; one who reacts to failure. No. You prevent the failure from happening as much as you can.
But of course, there is a worse way of facing a life that is called unchanging. Unchanging people are people who do not learn, anything from history. You make a mistake but you do not learn from it. You will keep repeating mistakes. You will not be a success in the marketplace and you will not be an influence in the marketplace that way.
So, you must know you are called to meet your generation’s needs. You must have a three-point bottom line, and you must be proactive.
But next, you must be a person who is disciplined. There is no way you will influence the marketplace such that you can lead people to God’s kingdom, if in the area you are working in, in the technical area of whatever job you are doing, you do not do a good job of it. How do you expect to influence the students in your class if you as a teacher cannot be a good teacher? Once the students like you as a good teacher, it will be much easier to tell them about your Jesus.
Thus, it will be important that you are disciplined, to do a good job. If you are the designer of certain things, if you are doing mediocre work, how do you expect that people will come to you? You know, you are doing shoddy work, and then you tell them, become a Christian? To become shoddy like you? It is important to understand that if you want to influence the marketplace, you will need to be good at whatever you do.
Day 4
For though I am absent from you in body, I am present with you in spirit and delight to see how disciplined you are and how firm your faith in Christ is.
And the third keyword I am using here is you need to be disciplined. After all, as a Christian, you are a disciple. The root of the word disciple and the root of the word discipline are the same because a disciple is somebody disciplined enough to follow the master. So, you should never call yourself a Christian if you are somebody not disciplined. You know when you talk about discipline, the dictionary says you are showing self-control in your actions. You cannot be called disciplined if you do not have self-control in your actions.
Many important qualities can help in the marketplace to achieve and to have an influence. But there is only one that begets sustainable long-term success in all aspects of the marketplace, and that is self-discipline. Instead of waiting to be supervised, you need to be the type of person every manager or client wants to work with because you do not require supervision. You do not do any better when the customer or supervisor is there than when he is not there, because you are self-disciplined. You work in whichever way to honour God who sees you all the time. And because God is your supervisor; your human supervisor has to keep off because he knows you are okay on your own. You have self-control.
Do not say, you know, me I am not self-disciplined. I do not like keeping time. I am not that type. I think it is important to understand clearly that if you truly are going to be a person who is going to make things happen, you need to learn to be disciplined even if you are not disciplined naturally. You need to learn the discipline of self-control.
According to a 2013 study by Wilhem Cofman, people with high self-control are happier than those without. So that way you live a happy life that can influence others if you are self-disciplined. The self-disciplined do not allow their choices to be dictated by impulses or feelings. That is one of the signs that you are self-disciplined, you do not work on impulse. That does not mean you do not have impulses, but you do not work according to them, you are not dictated by impulses and feelings.
These days they talk about, how you have emotional intelligence. They make informed rational decisions, not emotional decisions. And they do that daily without feeling overly stressed or upset. You know, when you become upset, your thinking is slower. So, you will put more effort in what you are doing. If you are at peace all the time because every decision is well thought out, you do not live in regret. You will become the kind of a person who is going to attract people to yourself so that you can witness to them.
But I want to repeat to you, even if you have not been self-disciplined, note that self-discipline is a learned behaviour, you can learn it. It requires practice and repetition in your day-to-day life until your practice makes it nearly natural. So, if you are so emotional and short-tempered, learn to lengthen your temper, not allow it to be short. And within no time you will discover that the temper is becoming longer and longer and longer, and you have learned self-control.
But you must remove temptations to lack self-discipline. Self-control is often easiest when abiding by the old saying, out of sight, out of mind. Removing all temptations and distractions from your environment is a crucial, first step when working to improve your self-discipline. If for example, instead of working you are looking at websites, you know, sites on the computer that are not useful to you, the best thing may be to block yourself from the sites. This is what we mean by removing the tempting situation so that you can become disciplined.
If you are unable to wake up on time, do not trust yourself to it. Use a clock to remind you, to wake you up, and you can use it throughout the day. Every time you say, I will do this for one hour, time it so that at the right time you start And when you learn to do that continuously, you will start organizing your time so that you are somebody who keeps time and yet does quality work.
Day 5
Whoever disregards discipline comes to poverty and shame, but whoever heeds correction is honoured.
So, if you want to learn self-discipline, remove temptations, and manage them. Number two, I am told by those who know better than me, that even eating regularly and eating healthily will help you in controlling your emotions. Studies have shown that low blood sugar often weakens your resolve. So, you wanted to stop this but because your emotions are raw, you are hungry or your sugar level has gone down, you discover you are not controlled, and instead of influencing the marketplace, you will even be fired because you are an emotional rollercoaster.
The other thing is, to learn to do what is right even if it does not feel right, because you know it is right. This idea of relying on your feelings will make you unpredictable. Improving your self-discipline meanschanging up your normal routine which can be uncomfortable and awkward, but do not wait until it is right. Analyse and find out whether it is the right thing to do. Once you now know factually it is the right thing to do, do it even if you do not feel like doing it. That is what it means to be disciplined. A disciplined person is not somebody who does something they enjoy doing only. A disciplined person is a person who does what is right, even when they do not feel like doing it.
The other thing that will help you in your disciplined life is learning to put breaks, treats, and rewards to yourself, whenever you achieve something, you are working on. Self-discipline does not mean your new regime needs to be entirely cold turkey, hardcore, or drilled-like execution. No, no, no. Giving yourself zero room for error often results in failing to do the new behaviour or disappointment of reverting to your old ways. So initially do not become too strict on yourself, become stricter with time. So, create breaks and reward yourself whenever you succeed.
That is what I am describing as the process of changing your irresponsible, indiscipline behaviour. What about if you still fail? Learn to forgive yourself, rather than, condemn. How could I do it? Learn to forgive yourself, and then move forward from there. That is called Failing forwards. A new way of thinking would not always go according to plan. You will have ups and downs, successes and flat failures. The key is to keep moving forward. Do not stay where you have fallen. Keep moving forward.
The next thing that helps people in the marketplace is learning to live within your means. The beneficiary never influences the benefactor. Anybody who has to keep begging, borrowing, anybody who does not have enough petrol for his car because he used it all before the end of the month, will not influence the marketplace. You will start begging. And you know, whoever pays the piper determines the tune.
Day 6
Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as his children. For what children are not disciplined by their father?
So, if you are the kind of a person who is getting help from non-Christians, you can’t go to preach to them effectively. You know you do not want to annoy them when you owe them money. So, you must learn, whether your salary is big or small it is good to learn to live within your means and that will give you freedom in the workplace, to be an influence to other people because you are not dependent on them. And that will be very, very important to know. Living within your means is powerful. And you know, living within your means does not mean that you will not eat right, because you can eat right. If it is transport, you can drive a car at a fraction of the cost of the car that is next to you on the road, both at the purchase price and also the cost of running that car. So, you still have a normal life, a healthy diet, everything working okay, and yet you are not using a lot of money. Of course, as God gives you more money you can drive a bigger car. As God gives you the money you can start changing your protein type. But if you want to be somebody of influence in the marketplace, it will be of necessity, very, very important that you learn to live within your means.
Next, my old friends, if you truly want to influence the marketplace, you must learn to do regular reviews of how well you are doing using what I told you at the beginning, the triple bottom line.
Look at the year, look at the month, and say, in which way did I bring glory to God? In which way did I influence the marketplace for Christ? If I did well, what did I do to achieve that? If I did badly, what can I do to stop doing badly? And you ask yourself, in which way was I useful to my clients? In which way was I not useful to my client? What can I do to become more useful to my clients? What can I do to stop what was annoying my clients? How do I add value even better to my clients in the future?
Final question: is this paying back my investment in time and money? Am I getting net income out of it? And I think that will be an important issue for you to mention and deal with.
So doing regular reviews will help you. Do not just go on feeling, I am not doing well. You might be doing well but you are not aware. Do proper review, not necessarily with anybody; you are doing it on yourself. Has your life contributed to your organization? If you are employed, did you pull your weight to ensure that the shareholders got a better bottom line? Did you do anything that helped to make more people more competent? Those are questions you will have to answer.
I think it will be important that you learn very well that you need to tackle things that discourage you from sharing the gospel in the marketplace. One of them is what I call the double life. In my book, The Christian Professional Leading in the Marketplace, I have a chapter discussing this issue of double life Secular and spiritual. You need to understand that you are a missionary in the marketplace. That means the marketplace is not a secular place; it is a spiritual place. You must ask God for wisdom on how you can combine your job with your seeking to influence the marketplace for Christ.
Do not agree to have a double life, that when I am in church, I am spiritual, when I am at work, I am secular. Christians are never secular. They are spiritual a hundred percent of the time, because even when they are engineers, making a road, that road you are making the road to honour God.
Day 7
For the Spirit God gave us does not make us timid, but gives us power, love, and self-discipline.
Number two, do not believe that only church work needs God’s calling. Do not go to the market marketplace where you do not sense God is calling you there because if you go on your own, then you feel the freedom to work the way others are working. But if you know God called you to be a Civil Engineer, then you will be a civil engineer in a way that brings glory to God.
Thirdly, do not ever believe that you are serving the Lord part-time. If you serve the Lord part-time, it will mean that you are serving the devil the other time. All Christians serve the Lord full-time. All the time. And it will be important to understand that if you are serving the Lord full time, you must work in your place of work according to Colossians 3:17, whatever you do, including what you are doing in your place of work, do it to the glory of God.
So, there is nothing spiritual and nothing secular for a Christian. All things are spiritual. God wants you to do your normal job, talking to your normal clients who are non-Christians in a way that brings glory to him. And you must understand that you do not have to have a title reverend. Remove those Pastor titles and leave them out of the marketplace. In the marketplace, you are just like all other people. That will help you to deal with it. If you carry titles of reverend in the marketplace, they will become a hindrance to your witness.
Also, you must not believe that you can fulfil your witnessing through tithing. A lot of professionals make money and then tithe. Some do not even tithe only, they tithe, they give twenty percent of their income. Let me remind you; no amount of money can save a soul. It is important you not only tithe, but you also use your time in the marketplace to win people to Christ.
And then finally, do not believe the lie that people will know you are a Christian by what you do. It is important that you live right, but it is also important that you verbalize your witness. The Bible tells us faith comes by hearing and hearing the Word of God. Why didn’t the Bible say faith comes by seeing? No. They must both see, and they must also hear. Of course, if you are doing the wrong thing and saying the right thing, it will contradict. Your life and your words must be congruent so that you can win people for Jesus Christ.
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