What do you worship in your family business?
Judges 2:11-12
Last week’s reflection focused on how Israel was becoming separated from God by forgetting God’s expectations, lessons, and values. We see the detachment deepen in the next verse, as Israel begins to worship other gods:
And the people of Israel did what was evil in the sight of the Lord and served the Baals. And they abandoned the Lord, the God of their fathers, who had brought them out of the land of Egypt. They went after other gods, from among the gods of the peoples who were around them, and bowed down to them. And they provoked the Lord to anger. (Judges 2:11-12)
In addition to forgetting their history and covenant with God, they began to worship gods idolized by the current culture, the people the Israelites were around daily.
What “other gods” might members of a family business worship? Growth or money or more material assets? A successful image, their status in the community, or a position in the industry or among peers? Do we even, at times, worship our family members, or ourselves, in ways that are unhealthy? Perhaps a more difficult task is to differentiate between the pursuit of a good goal for the business, versus an unhealthy worship of an outcome or status. And, all of this is before considering advertising, social media, sports, and politics, where we are inundated with temptations to worship something other than God.
The late author David Foster Wallace, in a 2005 commencement address at Kenyon college, said this about worship:
“There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And the compelling reason for maybe choosing some sort of god or spiritual-type thing to worship…is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive. If you worship money and things, if they are where you tap real meaning in life, then you will never have enough, never feel you have enough.”
What are the secular, material, or societal priorities you tend to focus on, either personally or in your family business? How do you determine if those business or personal goals enhance, or diminish, your relationship with God?