Only His Business Failed
Theme of the Week: Delivering the Goods
Stephen Caldwell
Wednesday, February 4, 2004
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Key Bible Verse: Being held in high esteem is better than having silver or gold (Proverbs 22:1). Bonus Reading:Psalm 25: 1–5, 21
Real estate developer Jake Thorn went to his banker with a man-bites-dog proposition. He owed the bank "tens of millions of dollars" after the 1980s real estate crash in the Southwest, and was having trouble with the payments. But he had other assets. The bank might want to put a lien on one of those assets, he suggested, until he could pay off the loan.
"If you're not going to run now," the banker responded, "you're not going to run later." Thorn's reputation during the good times earned him the trust of his creditors during the bad times.
"If I signed my name to a note and promised to pay it," Thorn [not his real name] said, "then I needed to keep my promise. It was more important to be able to look these people in the eye and to pass on a good name to my children than it was to preserve my financial assets."
Thorn paid all his debt back over about three years. "Essentially I gave back millions of dollars I made in the good times to satisfy my obligations in the bad times," Thorn said. "I sold my last major asset–my interest in a warehouse–to pay off my last bank loan. It matched out, almost to the dollar."
–Stephen Caldwell in Life@Work
My Response: Do my workplace associates know I'm good for my commitments?
Thought to Apply: If you get a reputation for being honest, you have 95 percent of the competition already beat.
–John Kenneth Galbraith (economist)
Adapted from Life@Work by permission.
Copyright © 2004 Christianity Today. Click
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I thank You, Father, that You are a promise-keeping God. Give me the backbone to reflect Your character.
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