Day 1
Philippians 4
12 I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want
If you really are somebody who is experiencing contentment, integrity will be very easy for you because when you are contented, what can tempt you to steal or tell a lie? Most of the times you are tempted not to have integrity in your life, if you check, there is a great possibility you have a desire that is actually not met and you are struggling to fulfill it. That’s why you are tempted.
May be you are not satisfied with your wife, and that’s only the first step towards lack of integrity in your marriage-infidelity. I am not saying you must have infidelity if you are not satisfied with your wife, but you are opening up yourself for that possibility . So , if you really want fidelity and faithfulness in your marriage, you have to work on your marriage to facilitate marital contentment. And if you are contented with your marriage , it doesn’t matter how the tempters dress, what they do, you will never get yourself into infidelity.
The same thing with financial temptations. If you are so happy, not because you have all the money, but because when you look at what you have , you feel contented and wonder say,’ if it were not for God, what would I be’. You look at your life and you are grateful.
The trouble with us, is we never compare ourselves with somebody who doesn’t have much. We always compare ourselves with the person who has more, isn’t it? So when you have no job, you will compare yourself with people with jobs. Now that you are in working , your normal comparison is somebody in a Bank, and you say, aah he is earning more and yet I used to beat him in class. It leads you to discontentment .The fact that God has provided you a job never brings you contentment because you are comparing with those earning more. This is something that will keep you in frustration.
In your heart you sincerely desire to be a man or woman of integrity, but because of that lack of contentment, it will be a struggle all your life to keep off short cuts .
If you really are interested in the subject of integrity we have been covering, I would say, read through my book, The Secret Of Contentment, and ask yourself, ‘have I discovered that secret?’ My argument in the book is that it can only be a secret otherwise how come so few people live a life of contentment? It is because the thing is not the top fruit on the tree where you can see it and pick it. It is something you have to struggle to find. And my prayer is that all of us will experience it and start enjoying it which will keep us away from lack of integrity. That is true success.
Obviously there is a flip side to it. You can be complacent and mistake it for contentment. Complacency is where you are not ambitious at all. You don’t try to have better than what you have to day. Contentment does not mean you are not working hard.Complacency is what I call lazy people. Contented hard working people have one compartment type of living. In other words, if you are in a bedsitter, you enjoy it thoroughly, not because you don’t want a one-bedroomed house, but you are grateful for what you have for now. You used to stay with an uncle, now you are on your own,and you feel very grateful. But you pray God, I also know one day you will give me a one-bed roomed house.
What is a bedsitter?A bedsitter is where you cannot invite your mother if you are a boy because the bedroom is the kitchen, and also the sitting room.When you move from staying with somebody to a bedsitter, you feel very, very happy. So what I call one compartment living is enjoying your current compartment until you go to the next.It does not mean you are not ambitious to be better, but you do what you do aware when God wants you to go to the next stage, he will bless the work of your hands and you will go to the next stage. So in the meanwhile you are able to enjoy the current position.When you work to the glory of God, you give your very, very best to the work and the normal result is, even if you are not fighting for a promotion, it will come. Somehow God does that in his own way,and at his time and you are happy with Him.
I must say am not an example of financial success yet am contented. I was in oil industry for many years and I always tried my best to to progress.The danger is in the desire to progress, you start being ungrateful for the current position you are in and as soon as you do that you lose contentment and become a candidate for short cuts.
Day 2
Philippians 3
17 Not that I desire your gifts; what I desire is that more be credited to your account. 18 I have received full payment and have more than enough. I am amply supplied, now that I have received from Epaphroditus the gifts you sent. They are a fragrant offering, an acceptable sacrifice, pleasing to God
Do you know the secret of contentment? If in contentment ,every night , look at your own life and say, waah isn’t the Lord good? Look where I have come from! I know I am going places but I am grateful that I am where I am today. I am grateful that the Lord has put me here’.
But every time you have the spirit of dissatisfaction, you are saying, ‘aah I have not done very well’. You are likely to be feeling, ‘waah God doesn’t love me. How come He is blessing so and so and is not blessing me?’That must be a feeling from the devil, he is the one putting ideas such in you and soon will justify shortcuts
Remember ,we are currently says success is a commitment to have an individual life that is ethical and that has integrity. We are looking at our own personal lives and asking ,’do we live a life that has integrity?’ We are looking at individual issues that touch on what the individual, not the corporate, can commit to action plan, in order to reflect the Christian ethical values in your place of work or business, and thereby positively influence others.
We have seen successful people must be truthful in speech. Then must also be faithful in your family relations. But in addition truly successful people must abhor selfish ambitions.
Abhor selfish ambition means:
- Playing fair
- Not making excessive/exploitative profits
- Avoid abuse of office/position
- Avoid abuse of position in the family
It is true you cannot be a Christian and not be ambitious. Desire to do the best to please the Lord will make you ambitious.There is absolutely nothing wrong with being ambitious. I have written a book on the life of King David, who as a young man of ambition, to accomplish great things. He sees adults fearing Goliath, and he says, ‘don’t they know they have a great God on their side? Surely that young boy was an ambitious boy. This is because He trusted a great God .God was going to back him. He was not satisfied with little. He wanted to go for the total prize.
So there is absolutely nothing wrong if you are ambitious. Actually there is something suspiciously wrong if you are not an ambitious person. When you trust that God wants you to reach high heights you aim high.
But there is something called selfish ambition. What is selfish ambition? Selfish ambition is where I want to progress by making you go down. In other words I must step on you to force you down for me to go up. That is selfish ambition. And it comes from something called scarcity mentality. Scarcity mentality is where you have a worldview, where you believe this world does not have enough. And so if we are two of us, and there are ten items, if I get six, you can only get four. If you get six I can only get four. That’s scarcity mentality. And there are people in their way of life who deal with issues from such an assumption leading them to selfishness. They believe that if that person gets promoted, it must be at my expense. Not knowing that the organization could grow to such a level that ten of you could be promoted at the same time.
I have seen organizations get to that level. Why do you think yours would not grow? scarcity mentality is the one that leads to selfish ambition. Where you hear somebody commenting about the good performance of so and so who went to Tanzania and the way they did things .The report is such that when you hear the boss talking so proudly of this worker, and you imagine , very well, the promotion that is likely to come is either her or me. You say, waah it is true, they are doing very well in Tanzania. Waah, they are doing well but you see Malawi is a little better. What are you planting in the boss’ mind? That I am also available. You need to understand that all that is being done because of selfish ambition.
That’s why I am telling you this book of Contentment is a solution to almost anything you think about when disatisfied. When you have a great confidence that you have a God who knows your life, knows where you are going then you accept that your responsibility in that deal is to do your very best, then it will not matter what happens to the other person, you know very well that you are going to go wherever God wants you to go.
I still remember a time when we were two heads of departments with another gentleman, and we happen to be about the same age, we were in the university the same time. We went different direction but later met in one employer. I don’t know what entered the person to want to spoil my name. Since we had a common boss, I can guess why. When you look at a Christian and to you he is not a fighter, you feel like there is room for your progress. And him and the director we were dealing with happened to have been in the same school. I think the director was a little older than us, just a little older. And in the process one day the boss comes and says, John don’t you think instead of being Distribution Manager, you can do some other job? I said, wait a minute! What did you say? Because the job they were trying to give me did not require my level of competency. It needs people of lower competence.
I said I have no interest. I could see the two have sat and thought I am a fool. That can be the only explanation. That I can’t see that obviously I will move over with my job group, which means I will be overpaid because I am doing a lower job for more money. That if I do that, it will mean that people will assume that’s my level of competence. My salary is high, my job is low,and so a candidate for redundancy. So I said, I am not interested. Obviously the reason why they needed me to say yes is because if the matter went to the boardroom, everybody would ask questions, John, wants to do such a job? Yes, that’s what he said. You see, once he has put words in your mouth, he will quote you, isn’t it? And since he knows I am a Christian, if I am approached, I can’t contradict myself. So I just told him I can’t. And it went on like that for a while. We were sharing a secretary as two departmental managers. And there was real trouble. There was real trouble as we went on in some struggle.
But do you know, one day, they wanted to get our boss to be an expatriate in other country, and he resisted and actually finally resigned. And who came? A white man came to be our boss. Of course the dynamics have changed. I knew very well that all I needed is to do my job well with additional disadvantage of old school issues. But I actually sympathized with him because the two jobs were clearly different. We were not doing same things although we were reporting to the same person. But you know sometimes he would go for me. I was Distribution Manager, he goes to the depot for something else, and the next thing I hear, he is talking about something going wrong in the depot. I say, wait a minute! Were you not going on another matter? Why report me rather check with me what am doing on any use. The idea is to give information even to the new mzungu boss that will reflect wrongly about me.
But later one thing led to the other, and I don’t know how they collided with the boss. I don’t know, may be those tricks, other things went back fired. One day my boss just called me and told me about this person who believes that he is much better than me and that I shouldn’t be going places, do I think I can train him? I told the mzungu, you are not joking. It would be too frustrating for him to ask him to report to me. He said, no, no, no. He really hasn’t got much exposure. Just put him in one of your depots as a depot manager and then help him grow his competence .
I felt pain for him, not for me but for him because if already he thinks he is better in a certain way, if you put him under me, isn’t that like killing him emotionally? I tried to decline but the boss got so annoyed and said, are you refusing your job? Just tell me you are also resigning. I said, that’s not the subject. But can’t you look even for an expatriate place, let him run a depot in another country, and so still gain the exposure. But to put him under me , the whole climate isn’t right for him. He says, tell me you are not doing your job? You must train him.
So the next thing is, he was one of my depot managers. And when we were to read the first appraisal report,it was sensitive. You know in our system there is management objectives, you have your targets, the end of the year you have to evaluate they were achieved. You can see the guy is dying inside.
Iam telling you all that story to tell you selfish ambition is not for anybody but especially for a Christian. If you trust yourself fully into God’s hands, it will never be that your success must be somebody else’s downfall. Because irrespective of who you are fighting with, it is not worth the fight.Don’t fight with them, God is able to sort them out in their own way.
That’s what God can do.
Day 3
Philippians 2
21 For everyone looks out for their own interests, not those of Jesus Christ. 22 But you know that Timothy has proved himself, because as a son with his father he has served with me in the work of the gospel
So what I am saying? Do not start thinking that you can only succeed if somebody else goes down. Dynamics change so quickly you cannot be aware. For example, the cabinet in Kenya the other day was stable. Next they are writing about a mini reshuffle. So people thought, the final reshuffles have been done. But it is in God’s hands you should trust. Somebody somewhere is now looking to become a cabinet minister, who had given up earlier. What I am trying to get you to see is that God is able to reorganize anything to get you wherever He chooses to take you. And the fact you haven’t been promoted is not so and so to blame. God can reorganize to get you there.
Sometimes management team does not want you to get a promotion but the person they are pointing to just resigns and goes somewhere else. And they look around and say, nobody is as good as you now. Of course you are only good because the other went, but nobody is as good as the person who left. At that time they are also pleading with you, please don’t go. Because they fear now if you go, the organization will come to its knees.
I am not saying you are praying for anybody to go, I am saying that if the Lord wants you to go places, you do not have to fight other people. Don’t have selfish ambition. Not only should you not have selfish ambition, you should abhor it. And abhorrence is a very strong word for dislike, isn’t it? So you should feel, no, I am not fighting with you. I am okay with or without the promotion. I can go places with or without you.
I compete for contracts as a consultant , and I am absolutely sure that as I tender for a business, I don’t have to get it. Because sometimes If I get that business, it will block me from a better business. But because the better business has not yet come, me I am applying for this not aware God has a bigger picture. So as I am applying for that contract, the contract is closed and I wonder, haiya, the one who gets is not even better than me!
The reason it is being blocked is because two weeks later another opportunity will come which I could not have quoted if I had already committed myself here. So with that, if you truly believe you are the apple of God’s eye, then please not only should you not have selfish ambition, you should abhor it.
Believe that you are so important to God, that God is taking care of you. That your responsibility is to work hard, listen to his voice, but the rest of it God is going to handle. That’s what we are talking about. So once that is should be your attitude. Is it difficult to play fair? No. You will not play games with others, even interdepartmental games, where you are trying your department to be better and the other one is not as good. Those issues will not happen. You will play fair with people. If another department is your internal customer, you will do very best to help them to shine because you know you can go places even if they shine.
Success also is obviously not making excessive, exploitative profits. You will not try to go exploiting other people. And I am not suggesting you don’t make money. I am saying, if you are dealing with somebody, at a personal level now, you will not do that. You will avoid abuse of office or position.
Do not be these bosses who, where they have certain responsibilities but in addition to that they make you their tea girl, that is misuse of position. We are saying, your position gives you certain authorities, certain duties. Don’t go beyond your duties and responsibilities and authorities. So, just because I am your boss if no right to misuse you .That is not a sign of success.
You know there are people who, because I am your boss, when you come to the matatu you stand up, I sit down. If you are working with me , it does not include our matatu journey home. So when you find me seated in a matatu , leave me seated. So if there no seat..stand.So that’s what we are talking about.
Avoid abuse of your office or position. That is selfish, you are being selfish to think that because you are the one who determines my promotion, even in church, I am still your junior because we go to the same church. You must understand the circumstances that the authority is only within your employment.
But let me tell you, this selfishness is not just the thing in the office, it can be at home. I am saying avoid abuse of position even in the family. Because you are the husband, you are the father, you are the leader, everybody else is your slave. Are there men like that? And we are saying, you cannot claim to be success that way.Remember we are describing a successful man as one of integrity or a woman of integrity. If in your place you are treated like a god, you are acting like everybody else is a slave, then chances are you are going far. And by the way it is not just men. Even some mothers are like that, isn’t it? There is nothing they can do, the children must do everything, there is no spirit of service from the mother, and the children feel totally slaves of their mother.When you are a mother, there are certain responsibilities, certain duties, certain authorities. Don’t go beyond that.
You know there is also the example of Mrs. wesley.. who was the founder of the Methodist Church? John Wesley. You know the wife of John Wesley? He married late, he married at forty something, very late. Because he would spend his time on horseback, preaching all over UK. One day he met an old girl. I think the woman was older than him. And he decided to marry her. But as they are married he is still preaching. But that lady became not a wife, but a boss to John Wesley. I read the other day a book that says in all the history of marriages, there has never been found a woman as bad as Mrs. Wesley. Remember Wesley is a famous man, known all over England, and actually even in the US. So he goes preaching, she wants to know, who were you with? Why was she with you? What happened? One day, she is quoted, when he was far away. She got into a horseback and ran, ran, ran because she suspected if he is preaching in that village, so and so and so must be with him. She went and found people in church. And since he has already made up her mind that the guy is with the wrong people, she went straight for the pulpit, took him by his wazungus long hair, put him down, boxed him and boxed him, beating him up, with the congregation watching. The man did not do anything, he allowed himself to be beaten. When she was totally satisfied, she got back to the horseback and went home. John Wesley is said in the story, woke up, brushed himself, went back to the pulpit and said, like we were saying… And he continued with the sermon like nothing happened. And they say, that day, more people got saved than the previous times. They now realized his sermon was not a theory, it was actually real. It just changed his ministry. Hence he got an A for having humility and integrity, the wife gets an E, isn’t it? You need to understand as a wife, you can start misusing your position as a wife and call your self a success, isn’t it? You find your husband is a pastor, you go there, he is counseling somebody, you say, eeh wait a minute! Woman Move. I am the wife! I agree you are the wife but not here. You are the wife at home, not in the office. It is important to start understanding that, that position has to be even at home. In your relationship, you have to be careful. So abhor selfish ambition and misuse of poistion.
You must have a clear job description for everybody. If you are really not having selfishness, the possibility of working without job description is so that force her to accept any job is right for the girl.. And by the way that’s not only in houses. Like one of the things called Asian mentality, I don’t know whether they are blamed wrongly, is that you get employed, there is no letter of appointment, there is no job description. That means even as a manager he can send you to collect his wife, and you can’t say no because you had no clear job description that told you, you are not to collect his wife when he needs to collect the wife.
Day 4
Philippians 2
25 But I think it is necessary to send back to you Epaphroditus, my brother, co-worker and fellow soldier, who is also your messenger, whom you sent to take care of my needs. 26 For he longs for all of you and is distressed because you heard he was ill.
So here what we are saying is that if you are not to misuse your position, have clarity between you and your subordinates. What is it that he is supposed to do, what are his authorities, up to what authority level does he have so that he knows on such a matter he doesn’t have to ask you, he can make those kind of decisions.
And I think it is the same with the housegirl. Unfortunately most housegirls have no idea what they are supposed to do. And every time they do something you say, can’t you think? Now, in your places of work, are you told, can’t you think. You are given a job description. And nobody tells you, don’t you think. They tell you, did you do your job? So I think, some of us, no, no, a few of us are likely to want to have that gray job description of a housegirl because first of all very few people become housegirls by choice. It is from lack of other jobs.
So by the time the person comes they are so desperate. So you need to understand that a lot of people who go to it, they go out of desperation. And anybody who comes to you in desperation, it is very tempting to misuse him. But remember we are not talking about not the average man or woman, we are talking about a man or woman of integrity. If you are a person of integrity, please have clear job descriptions. Like you can agree the requirement has somebody has at least one day off per week. Now, you must agree, when is that day off. And on that day off you must look for alternatives because the person can’t be available. And it is illegal for somebody to work seven days non-stop. They also need at least one month leave per year.
Again, when they go on leave, you must look for alternatives. And remember when they go on leave, you still pay them because you see once you have employed somebody on the longer term, it means you will pay for their leave. When you say you give somebody leave, it is not that you give permission to go home, it is that you pay for their rest. So they must earn a full salary when they are on leave.
But a lot of us without integrity just fire them so that they don’t ask for leave money. Housegirls are also professional workers doing a job that they need to do. But I think those issues of misuse of your position are even at work.Those issues can happen even at work, where misuse of position is real. There is no clarity as to what your job is, so you are always told you have not done your job, but you are not even aware it was your job.
Successful people of integrity also look out to the interest of others. This one, the earlier one was simply that you are looked at all interests but not necessarily hurting others. This one goes a step further. It says you have a commitment to help others. Look out to the interests of others. In other words, a man of integrity, not only doesn’t hurt others, he even helps them beyond the expectations . We are saying, do not look only at your own interests in life pursuits, be other centered other than egocentric.
And I think now go a step further. Do you actually sit there and ask yourself clearly, but the fact that we work with so and so, how have I helped him to be a better person? I think I shared with you before how I had, this same mzungu boss, I just referred to earlier, every time we had a problem with a staff in my department he always said, fire him. He only knew one solution to anybody’s problem at work. It was called fire him. So I asked him, surely, that’s not my understanding of management.
The work of a manager is to develop staff. So if somebody is not good, it doesn’t mean you fire them, it means you help them improve. The only person who may not be helped is a thief because really you don’t want to give him opportunity to steal a second one after he has stolen the first one. But if somebody is simply unable to do his job, you should certainly be helping them to do better. And we kept colliding with my boss on that issue. Of course I still had to inform him what is happening in my department. John he used to ask do you have so much time to waste? You are too busy. Your job is too busy. Of course he knows my job description.
If you have people like those as bosses , how will you ever perform? I said, wait a minute! My understanding of a manager is to pick a useless guy and after three years find every department fighting for him because of what you have done in him. That means as a manager you are showing interest of others. And of my pride as I retired is the number of people who went through my hands and ended up better than me. In other words, somebody I recruit is working in London, he is working in the US, earning may be double my salary. I am the one who recruited him, I am the one who helped me. I think that to me is the biggest pride.Looking out for the interest of others.
What I am trying to tell you is, if you develop people, beyond the salary you earn, it will be your fodder for retirement enjoyment as you see them do well. But you see, since that’s not an easy matter, we are saying only men and women of integrity can do that. You see somebody who is a messenger working with you, and you look at them, and see they could do higher jobs.I did argue with a number of our messengers . I said, you are a messenger, yes. Where did you go to school? I got a third division. And then? I have done nothing beyond that . I say, do you know as a messenger can start doing the accounts, below CPA, what is it called? KATC. And he starts doing it. Within no time he actually says now I am Stage One. I tell him, now apply for a clerical job. And I actually gave him a job. He continues doing it. Once you start that clerical thing, within four, five years, you obtain full CPA.
Obviously I did not do the study for him myself, he is the one who did. But since it began as as we held the discussions with my messengers, cleaning my office, don’t they feel nice? You feel, waah, God thank you for the little part you allowed me to play on his life.
And that’s really what we are talking about referring to successful people . That you should feel like your job is not to evangelize and tell them to get saved during working hours but how can you help them in their life to be better people because you met them? And remember the people you meet, you will meet them because they are working under you, working over you or working across you. It doesn’t quite matter,where they are working. But they are with you, isn’t it? How are you helping them?
Day 5
Philippians 2
3 Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, 4 not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.
Having interest in others includes your boss.You can have a boss, who is just a hopeless boss. I was told by my daughter that’s a wrong word to use, but what I mean by hopeless is that you have tried to help the person, it doesn’t seem like they can improve. That’s why I mean hopeless. Hopeless means there looks like there is no hope for improving a person. That’s my meaning. So if the meaning in your mind is different, that’s my meaning now.
So we are talking about a hopeless boss . Do you know you can commit yourself to help him to see that what he is doing is backfiring? Of course you are taking a risk, he could fire you instead. But after having taken the risk, once he realizes you don’t mean evil, do you know he is likely to be asking for help and feedback.What do you think? Did I approach this thing right? And by giving them honest feedback, do you know those people could improve and as their subordinate you also benefit? Yes when they improve, you are going to benefit, since you are still under them, but everybody else also is going to benefit.
More important they themselves will have been developed and the team will have better success. Can you see yourself investing in a bad boss to help the bad boss for the sake for team success?
When we say look out to the interest of others, it means instead of being egocentric, just thinking about self, think of others good.
When I am talking about worldview and why you behave the way you do I say wrong world view will affect your success and that of your team.Question yourself, why do I behave the way I do? And you could help your boss to completely change by changing that worldview that they have.
So you can see clearly what we are describing is not an easy matter. Would you agree with me? So that even me who is telling you this, I am struggling with it myself.The usual is to just think of your interest only. In other words it is not a matter I am telling, waah I have arrived, come and join me. No. I am telling you, let us try together.
Ever heard somebody’s definition of evangelism? What is evangelism? Evangelism is one beggar telling another beggar where they can find bread. So, that’s what I am saying of being other centred.Even I myself, this standard of operation is not something I have always reached… especially if you are the one hurting me. The temptation is always to revenge, utaniona. To think I will help you is not an easy matter, especially to help somebody who hurts you. And that’s what really we are saying. Becoming other centered does not mean you help those who help you only. It means you help anybody with need. And some of the people in need are not good to you.
By the way they may never even thank you. You know, one of the things I have discovered along my path, and I am still not old, is that many of the people we help do not want to see us after that. When they become big, they no longer want anybody to ever even suspect they ever needed help. And every time they see you it reminds them of the days they needed help. So what do you become? An enemy. They see you here, they pass another place.
Day 6
But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked
You know there is a time we were living in Nairobi South B. There was a time my wife was passing through the shopping centre and she saw a girl sick and poor near a lodging in the shopping centre. She said, what’s wrong with the girl? They said, she has cancer and she is having chemotherapy. And so because she comes from Western Kenya, the parents have put her in the lodging for it is cheaper than hospital..Every time she goes for her chemo she comes back she is physically depleted. Those of you who have known how cancer is treated, you understand what I am talking about. That every chemo, you are worn out. So the parents just pay some money to the lodging.
My wife says, isn’t that a risk? Even without asking for my permission, Rebecca just said she will take her to our home. So the next thing I knew we had a sick visitor in our house, totally helpless. I told her, do you know she can die in our house? That’s a secondary issue, we are helping. So now we take her to chemotherapy, she comes back to our home. Do you know finally she got well? Because after finishing them, she started growing strong, stayed with us. I think she was a student in a University. Then she said, now I am strong enough I can go home. That must have been early 1990s. We have never heard of her from that day. One day I think my wife met the brother and said, what happened? Oh she got well. She got married to a mzungu, went out of the country. So we have no idea where she is. You can see my guess is that not an experience she wants to remember.?
So the best way to get rid of that memory is to make the one who helped you as an enemy. So you need to be aware, do not help people imagining that one day they will remember you. You are going to be very sorry my brother if you are thinking you are investing for returns at a later age. No. You need to leave yourself fully in God’s hands and help people for the glory of God. That way you are other centred.
I always argue, the people who helped me, I have never been able to return anything to them. So I pay forwards.So the people I help don’t have to give me anything because even myself I was helped. So you that don’t help because of anything you will get from them. That’s why I am telling you these standards we are describing is not an easy standard. All these are biblical principles. You will not be able to call yourself a man of integrity otherwise.
Can you see this attitude will lead to great success in your life overall?
Another issue how you that junior team members . Pay workers fairly. We are now talking about you not your client or employer. We said, compensate in line with relevant industry standards . Pay should be commensurate with the service. Don’t fire your house girl who is coming to look after your baby, then afterwards you get another one ,and another ,and another one, underpaying them and you simply do not recognize the work have increased.
That’s why HR has something they call job evaluation, isn’t it? So what we are saying is, whatever it is you are paying somebody should be commensurate with the service and in line with your ability to pay. In other words, if you can pay more, why are you paying less? So I am not saying you look at one only, it is commensurate with the industry, it is commensurate with the service, but it must also be in your ability to pay. That means you can pay more than industry is asking because you know what the person is doing and God has given you. Then we are saying compensation should express worth and dignity.
In other words it is a way of saying, I value you. So what you are paying somebody should be, waah I value you. That’s why the bonus system exists as it gives employers a chance to say, I recognize what you did, I value you. And I think that’s an important thing. Treat others with fairness and justice in your daily interactions. What we are saying is, uphold human worth and dignity knowing you have one master.
Day 7
Look! The wages you failed to pay the workers who mowed your fields are crying out against you. The cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord Almighty.
Now we are not talking about salary only, it is the way you treat other people. Do you show them they are important? Or you see them as , you are just a messenger. Move! If you do that, you are trying to imply like you are more valuable than the messenger. We were discussing this issue of human dignity and what it actually means.
There are ways, how you treat others can tell them whether you hold them as people with worth or people without worth. And we are saying if you are a person of integrity, one of the questions he was asking, do I matter to him.I bought a youth lunch in a wazungu hotel.The Dutch reformed church supported apathy. You know the history. They go through the bible and say, the bible supports that Africans are not quite human. They are a level below human. And so in South Africa, even in church, a black man never enter a white man’s church or hotel because they are not quite the same race. It is like monkeys going to the church. Obviously monkeys are valuable but with their lower value and human beings are valuable with their higher value.
Now, that’s not scripture. We are all created in the image of God. We may speak in different languages, but we are all equally valuable. So when you start treating people badly because they are not from your tribe you are a loser.
I was given the topic ethnicity by Jomo Kenyatta University, and so I had to struggle with the topic last week as I struggled, what do we mean by ethnicity? But when you treat the other person as if they are from a tribe of less value than your tribe, then you are not a Christian. You are just a tribalist. Because if you are a Christian, you know the Maasai and the Luo are equally valuable. Their traditions will differ, there is nothing wrong with it. So their traditions are not less or worse, they are simply different. Don’t use a wrong attitude. What the Kikuyus do, what the Luos do are different, but one is not better than the other because God created both.
And I was telling Jomo Kenyatta University students, every time you look at the girl from the other tribe, you are not looking down on the other tribe, you are looking down on God because God is the one who made the other tribe. What are you telling God? God, you must have been asleep when you were creating Luos. You need to understand that when you do that, you don’t have a quarrel with Luos, you have a quarrel with their creator who is God.
So treating others as people of worth is something any man of integrity will do. And you need consistency in that both at work and at home, in private and public. Not that you don’t find people valuable in church. You meet the ones in church you really value them, but when you meet the ones in the office, you do not value them.
We are saying a man of integrity does not have integrity in one place and lack integrity in other place. He is able to keep to it at every point.
Of course people who will be success do not need corruption to make it. So , shun bribery personally and in organization. Actively be involved in creating a corruption free society. Do not take or give bribes. We are talking about you personally. Do not give bribes. Create systems that hinder bribery. In other words, you must create systems around you, even if the organization doesn’t have them, that helps you keep off bribes.
Like if you are departmental head, even if you don’t have the freedom to create systems for the whole organization, you must create accountability systems that will help a person who is being tempted not to be fall. To realize if he does it, there will be consequences. That’s why we want feedback system from clients, and the feedback that allows them to give feedback without passing through someone else. You know the government system is very tough, where when I want to report Mwangi to his boss, I must write through him. Surely, chances that he will pass the letter reporting him, must be very slim, isn’t it? So you need systems that allow me to talk about Mwangi without Mwangi interfering with my report… I shouldn’t be asked to first write it through him.
So that’s what we are suggesting,you do in your own department. You can create systems so that the people you are dealing with have the freedom to talk. But of course also because you are fair, you must not assume the accusations are necessarily right because some of the accusations are simply somebody doesn’t like your staff. Or if you don’t accept a bribe and you fear the person will report you, you now go and say he takes bribes, but he has not taken any.
So I am not suggesting that be simplistic …. but you need to create systems… that will hinder bribery. Thus you need to encourage whistle blowing and seek advice on gray areas. Remember there are certain areas you are not sure as to whether ; is that bribery, not bribery? Instead of you becoming the decision maker, why don’t you bring the matter to somebody you value, somebody you believe is biblically minded, and say, this is a gray area. Somebody is giving me a dress, and she has come with a dress that I have always wanted to wear. And she says she is not bribing me, she is just saying she went to Japan and found the dress and knew I like it. Is this a bribe or not a bribe?
So you don’t make the decision alone especially when you love the dress. Go to somebody else who doesn’t love the dress and say, what do you think I should do? Look for accountability partner. Be accountable to somebody else who will help.That is the route to success
We are quite aware that these things are not easy to practice yet we know we need them for success in life . We pray that God will help us in our own way to make a commitment that with God’s help, this is the way we shall live.