day 1191: Shifting Sand

"And so, Lord, where do I put my hope? My only hope is in you."

I sit on a number of corporate Boards and am asked to work with management teams and to speak on how to navigate and manage through uncertain times, shaky ground and what can feel like standing on shifting sand. In these sessions or talks I tend to spend a fair amount of time trying to address what has to be a conscious disconnection of self-worth and one’s job. It is too easy to have the two be tangled together. We get used to describing ourselves and what we do by our job, title and company. And when, for any reason, that rug is pulled out from under us; we have a hard time finding our self-worth and ego footing.  Yesterday, I heard from someone about how after almost ten years of success, his company decided to change strategic direction and are eliminating his division. He's okay, but many people just can’t accept the unpredicted and fearful change. They go into denial, anger and sometimes hiding. There is a reason that people will go an indefinite time before they tell their family that they have lost their jobs. In today’s world it is reality that we are all standing on shifting sand. Industries and products, etc. that were stable and always there before  are now gone and jobs that when lost become hard, if not what feels impossible, to replace. And so we find that we can’t put our hope of our future with the company we love, the boss we respect and want to work for forever, or the paycheck that we are counting on for the fueling of our financial future.

It is in times like these that we must remember that we cannot put our hope anywhere but with our Heavenly Father. David cried out in his Psalm as he tried to figure out where to put his hope. He says, "And so, Lord, where do I put my hope?”. He then answers himself with, “My only hope is in you." I was taught by my father to never put my faith in people, as people will always let you down. He was right. We should also not allow our hope in people or companies or jobs. We should continue to challenge ourselves to set our hope on solid rock so that when the sand shifts and we lose our balance or fall that we can pick ourselves back up with the hope that comes from our Lord. Today would be a good day to ask yourself where your hope lies. Are you putting hope in the right or the wrong place? The right place will deliver that sure and solid footing. The rest, in all brutal honesty is just shifting sanding.

Reference: Psalms 39:7 (New Living Translation)