The Object Of Your Faith Determines Destiny
Image Credit: Bruno van der Kraan
You will know the
truth, and the truth will set you free.
-John 8:32
Communication is complicated. Just uttering words in a person's native language is insufficient for understanding.
Communication barriers include bias, emotions that cloud the message, political spin, close-mindedness, unreasonable stubbornness, poor interpretation of past and current events, lack of interest in a subject, ignorance, arrogance, pride, hurt feelings, or how we were raised.
You have a clearer picture of everything you must address to make honest communication possible after thinking through what can cloud communication.
Depending on the topic, sifting through the communication sand to find gold nuggets of truth is hard, laborious work.
My greatest strength in my professional career was going the extra mile to conduct detailed and sometimes mind-numbing research into life's tough questions, which was honed during my youth and well before my professional career, mainly through the lessons of working extremely hard in my running career.
My career included being a CEO of approximately a 40 million dollar organization, an Executive team member of what’s now a 70 billion dollar pension system, a private school superintendent, working with the legislature as a member of the Governor's Cabinet in a non-partisan role, being the first of its kind sports agent, a CIO of technology, including leading the creation of brand new large scale systems from scratch.
My goal in all these professions was to sift through the hype and noise to find the best practices to help my organization succeed.
I spent a lifetime trying to find the truth and best practices in these professions.
If I were to summarize the focus of my professional career in a short sentence, the number one thing I focused on in my jobs was to search for the truth, cutting through the media noise and propaganda by doing my best to find best practice strategies that served our customers well.
Did I always get it right? Of course not. We all mess up at times.
However, as each year passed, I have learned from my mistakes, took responsibility for my errors, and then changed to serve those around me better.
What I've Found In The Journey
Everything in life boils down to Faith and its cousins, belief, and trust in something or someone. Even running to your God-given potential requires dedication, Faith, and trust in something or someone.
Everyone believes, has Faith, and trusts in something or someone to some degree. The object (s) of our Faith, what or who we place our Faith in, and the source of our Faith determines our destiny on so many levels in life.
You can have Faith in God, Faith in drugs, Faith in alcohol, Faith in the media, Faith in particular politicians, Faith in certain foods, Faith in what college professors tell you, Faith in your spouse, or Faith in the latest fads and trends or just about anything else in life good, or bad.
I'll repeat it. What and who you place your Faith and belief in determines your destiny.
Choose wisely and carefully, and search hard for the gold nuggets of truth in all mission critical areas of life.
My Take On Belief
The value of belief resides in the one who is believed in or the source you believe is true, whatever the circumstances.
Said a different way, it does not matter how much Faith you have, but who or what is the object of your Faith that determines your destiny now and into eternity.
It is best to choose with extreme wisdom and discernment who, what, and where we place our Faith daily.
Your sources, the objects of your Faith in anything, matter in the ultimate outcomes of whatever you hear, read, or learn from.
The sources you trust determine what you believe in and how you live life, whether the sources are accurate or inaccurate.
Be Meticulous When Selecting Your Sources
Just because you read anything or hear it on the Internet, Google, Instagram, Twitter, a magazine, the newspaper, in a college class, or Facebook, or it has the word "science" behind it, does not make it automatically accurate or true.
Separating political spin (another phrase for lying) from truth is sometimes a full-time job if you want to uncover the truth in any area of life.
As a side note, the number of media outlets and the quality of media sources have changed dramatically during my lifetime.
Finding the truth is more difficult now, but learning the truth is still the land of champions and championship teams. There is just a lot more hype and spin to sift through now.
Reaching the top of the media mountain, where you can see clearly through the fog of hype or outright lies, sometimes requires the effort of running ultra-marathons.
Discerning the truth from myth, hype, spin, and propaganda is the challenge of our day.
Search The Original Sources
Intelligent Faith is a deep, well-placed, well-researched, and well-grounded Faith in what is essential in life.
The object (s) of your Faith matters now as you go after your God-given potential in life and as millions, perhaps even billions of us believe, into eternity.
It's essential to select the sources or objects of Faith concisely and carefully and without bias as much as possible to reach not only your God-given potential during your time on earth but, much more importantly, your eternal destiny.
Going back to the sources of our belief in something is helpful, and so is the chain of custody, how information was accurately or inaccurately transferred to each person in the information chain over a period of time.
In a follow-up post, I will discuss specific ways I sifted through the sources I used in my career.
I have no interest in wasting what is left of my life reading or using financial, media, or especially spiritual or political fiction sources.
Well-placed Faith is an intelligent faith that helps people reach their God-given potential in various aspects of life now and into eternity.
In my next posts, I’ll share specific ways I researched and do research in areas of personal interest.
Blessings,
Coach Weber
Philippians 4:13
