In my work around the world, I have noticed that the people I love and serve that are not flourishing spiritually are also not flourishing physically. They often suffer from poor air quality, water stress (both quantity and quality) and the impact of degraded soils. I cannot stand idly by watching them suffer. So my colleagues and I have introduced two initiatives, one of them being the Environmental Technology Initiative (ETI). ETI...

Devotions for a Busy Business Person, no. 320 – Mind the Gap View this in your browser Recently my activities in London took me all over the city on the Underground and the train.  At every station, a familiar announcement reminded passengers: “Mind the gap”, the space between the platform and the train as one disembarks. The gap may appear small, but if we fail to notice it, we can stumble, fall, or injure ourselves....

Devotions for a Busy Business Person, no. 319 – When Fields Need Fallowing I am working on our Seed Farm in north Kyrgyzstan as I write this. We have just acquired the land, and some of it is in rough shape. Before we received it, the land had been worked hard, plowed deep, and never given much opportunity to rest. The soil has been worn to the bone. Then I visited one of the nearby facilities we support. I saw something very...

Devotions for a Busy Business Person, no. 318 – Deep Soil I was in my happy place twice this week. “But the seed on good soil stands for those with a noble and good heart, who hear the word, retain it, and by persevering produce a crop.”— Luke 8:15 On Tuesday, I was taking soil samples from metre-deep pits. I love profiling soils, seeing the history in the different layers, analyzing the texture, looking for contamination, and...

Devotions for a Busy Business Person, no. 317 – Eating the Darkness You have to eat the darkness. It is a hard phrase, I know. I do not remember reading it anywhere exactly that way. I think it came to me through a synthesis of Scripture, personal experience, the writings of Martin Shaw and kindred voices, and the music and reflections of Nick Cave. “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome...

Devotions for a Busy Business Person, no. 316 – The Compass That Is Christ I’m a biologist, comfortable working in the bush. One of my key tools, long before the advent of smart phones, was my compass. I would adjust it for magnetic north, depending on where I was in the world, and once that was done, I knew where North was. No matter how dense the forest was, no matter how limited my field of vision, with my compass and map or air...

Devotions for a Busy Business Person, no. 315 – Correcting our Aim Every business needs regular re-evaluation. In Scripture, this kind of re-evaluation is not merely strategic. It is spiritual. The biblical word for sin carries, among other meanings, the idea of “missing the mark.” Sin is not only doing obviously wrong things. It is also the gradual bending of our aim away from God. We may still be busy, productive, and outwardly...

Devotions for a Busy Business Person, no. 314 – The Healing Discipline Most of us do not like discipline. In business, discipline can sound like punishment. A missed target. A reprimand. A painful correction. A hard conversation. A budget cut. A failed plan that forces us back to first principles.  “God disciplines us for our good, in order that we may share in his holiness. No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful....

Devotions for a Busy Business Person, no. 313 – S()R – A Sacred Space The demands never stop. A client sends an urgent email. A project runs behind schedule. A staff member needs guidance. A new opportunity appears on the horizon. “Better one handful with tranquillity than two handfuls with toil and chasing after the wind.” — Ecclesiastes 4:6 In my workaholism, stimulus and response often collapsed into one...

The hard work of radical discipleship leads to great hope.  Isaiah does not describe a thin hope, or a hope built on sentiment. He describes a hope that rises when God’s people spend themselves on behalf of the hungry, satisfy the needs of the oppressed, and allow His light to break into dark places. “Your people will rebuild the ancient ruinsand will raise up the age-old foundations;you will be called Repairer of...

Devotions for a Busy Business Person, no. 311 – Being Radical Oswald Chambers is characteristically direct when he writes that surrender is not primarily about giving up the external things of life, but about surrendering the will. In My Utmost for His Highest, he says that once the will is surrendered, “all is done,” and the rest of life becomes living out that surrender. He also warns us not to mistake surrender for a religious...