Funerals are always times I reflect on life, particularly the time that has flown by. Eulogies are told and memories of days-gone-by with lifelong family and friends run through my mind. It’s a time when I realize the inescapable finiteness of my human existence. I’m in one of those “seasons of funerals” that tend to come, more often, as I grow older. Besides the corpus in the casket, many of the mourners are aging and/or terminally ill or have someone dear to them in those situations. The reality of mortality weighs heavy in the church. I believe it’s how God prepares us for our own ending—through the experience of the death of others.
Those are moments when everyone in the room deals with the question: “Do I really believe what I say I believe—that I will be swept into the arms of the Lord when I, too, face that threshold?” It’s difficult to let go of who we know and love even though we believe in the eternal presence of God. The pastor’s role as spiritual leader is to remind us of that truth.
If you pause to think, our lives are filled with moments of dying and grieving, and those experiences train our spirit to accept death and move through it to resurrection. It’s the letting go of the familiar--what we know and love—what we can see and touch—with the assurance of a better outcome.
So, it is with our businesses. What we know and love can be projects, employees, processes, assets, or clients that we well know are beyond their useful life. Yet we protest, we cling to memories of vitality, and refuse to let things go.
In his excellent book, “Necessary Endings,” Dr. Henry Cloud explains that endings are necessary for growth—some things die and some must be “killed.” He distinguishes between real and false hope; false hope is when more effort will not bring about different results.
As a Christian business owner, you are the spiritual leader and steward of the company whose role is to navigate through these decisions of life and death to ensure the legacy of the organization.
At Convene, we help by bringing perspective, wise counsel, and encouragement around those decisions—the decisions that can be so hard to let go, even though we know there’s a better place on the other side.