In his book, Halftime, author and successful businessman Bob Buford comments on the purpose of money in the following manner:
Mike Kiami is a strategic planning consultant. He is brilliant. He is intuitive. He is demanding. He slices through all the pretense and posturing, and hones in on the core. He does not believe in God but I can testify that – at least in my life – God worked unmistakably through Mike Kiami.
I went to Mike because I wanted him to do for my life what he does so well for business: Draw up a strategic plan. I needed him to show me how to live so I was not plagued by a growing sense that I was missing out. I was not sure what I was missing, and I wanted him to tell me.
I went to Mike with tons of questions: What should I do with my life? How could I be more useful? Where should I invest my time, talents and treasures? What is the overarching vision that shapes me? Who am I? Where am I? Where am I going? How do I get there?
In this blizzard of wonderment, Mike asked me a simple, penetrating question: “What’s in the box?” This from a high paid strategic planner?I didn’t have a clue as to what he was getting at and asked him to fill me in.
“I can’t put together an honest plan for your life until I identify the mainspring. I’ve been listening to you for a couple of hours, trying to figure out what’s in your box. It’s either money or Jesus Christ. If you can tell me which one it is, I can tell you the strategic planning implications of that choice. If you can’t tell me, your going to bounce between those two values and be confused.”
No one had ever put such a significant question to me so directly. And he was right. I was highly motivated to serve Jesus, but I also was driven to be financially successful. I believed the two went hand in hand and in a way they do. But the reason I had such an unsettled feeling deep within was that I had tried to put two things in my box.
