January 18; All Leaders Have Hope in the Future
MANAGEMENT BY THE BOOK:
365 Daily Bible Verse &
One-Minute Management Lessons For The Busy Faithful

18 January

For I know the plans I have for you,”

declares the LORD,

“plans to prosper you and not to harm you,

plans to give you hope and a future.

Jeremiah 29:11

Hopeful

The man took the podium dressed in the white robes peculiar to his office and gazed at the representatives of the member-nations. The General Assembly auditorium of the United Nations is a soaring cathedral-like space that seats 1,800.

Pope John Paul II was addressing his international audience in a secular arena not always a friend to the Faithful. He said, “We must not be afraid of the future…” His was a message of hope and not merely the emotion of optimism. The Pope was affectionately known as JPII.

He was, as George Weigel entitled his biography of John Paul II a “Witness to Hope.”

Hope is a virtue forged by a deep faith in a message. For the disciple of Jesus Christ, this hope has an earthly benefit with an eternal reward. Jeremiah 29:11 tells us For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.

The Pope gave us a message but also a template for the CEO and aspiring manager that we are all working for something larger than ourselves for a vision of the future. That our work can make a difference and can have eternal value, even if we cannot yet see it.

JPII concluded his message to the assembled world leaders with a clarion call, filled with the transcendence of hope. “We can build in the next century … a civilization worthy of the human person,” he said, “a true culture of freedom.”

Weigel writes,

To be human is to be a moral agent. That, in turn, meant that we live in a human universe the very structure of which is dramatic.

And the great drama of any life is the struggle to surrender the “person-I-am” to the “person-I-ought-to-be”… because at the center of the human drama is Christ, whose entry into the human condition and whose conquest of death meant that hope was neither a vain illusion nor a defensive fantasy constructed against the fear at the heart of modern darkness.

Karol Wojty?a [John Paul II] believed that Christ-centered hope to be the truth of the world. (Weigel 2009)

Our work does not have to be in a cathedral to bring joy and to make the world a better place. The best leaders have a vision that inspires our work for today, for a result in the future.

Each leader can be a positive witness to hope.

###

Weigel, George (2009-10-13). Witness to Hope (pp. 8-9). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.