Who?

They donated a million dollars to Joe’s political campaign, with promises of more to come.

When they said Joe seemed to be “just our kind of guy,” he didn’t think too much about it. He thought they were referring to his stand on various social justice issues and his involvement in starting up the area’s first comprehensive homeless shelter program.

Joe became suspicious when he received a call one Monday morning. The caller was brief – and to the point.

“So,” the unidentified voice said, “heard you got a boatload of money from those developers, guess we know how you’ll be voting if you get elected.”

Joe assured the caller that he planned nothing of the kind. When Joe said his style was to research and ask questions before he voted on anything, the caller laughed, said, “Good luck with that,” and quickly hung up.

Just an hour later, the president of the company that had donated to his congressional campaign came calling.

Walking straight through his outer office, he stood over Joe’s desk. “Who do you think you are?” he asked, adding ominously, “You’ll never win without us. We’ve got the money you need, and you have a vote we need. Thought we had an understanding, Joe.”

Joe stood to face his visitor. “Who do you think I am?” he asked.

The development company president laughed. “You’re the guy we gave a million bucks to, that’s who you are. You’re our investment. We didn’t get this far in business without expecting good returns on our investments. Hope I’m clear here. You do understand, right, Joe?”

“Oh, I think I get it quite clearly now. I’ll have a check ready for you in the morning. Thing is, you helped me more than you realize. You helped me to be rock-solid sure of who I’m not. My apologies for wasting your time, and for anything I did or said that made you think I’d be ‘your kind of guy.’ No way, no how. Not happening. Would you like to pick that check up, or do you want me to mail it?”

As Joe stood to show him out, the man’s shocked, then angry expression did not escape his attention. As they passed back through the outer office, he turned on Joe. “You know you’ll never win without our help, right? Winning takes money, and you just threw away the best money you’re gonna get.” With that, the man walked out, slamming the office door behind him.

Dave, Joe’s secretary, had seen and heard it all as he sat at his desk in the outer office. Dave said something, but Joe didn’t catch it. “Sorry Dave, I didn’t hear what you said.” “Well, sir, what I said was, good thing you know who you are, and what winning really is.”

Joe returned the campaign contribution, and he did not win the election. As his secretary Dave affirmed, Joe demonstrated who he was (and who he was not). He also clearly understood that “winning” is much bigger than an election.

Joe shared his morning’s events with our small business “leads” group at lunch that day.

At one point he took a deep breath, looked at each of us around the table, and said, “I have kids. They trust me and I try my best to show them how to live, how to face challenges and temptations. Frankly, I trust Jesus. He’s my example of how to live, and I can’t recall one instance of His being bought by anyone. Who’s He? He’s my Savior, the leader of my life. Who am I? I’m His disciple. Here’s the thing: If I’m already sold on Him, I can’t be bought by anything, or anyone else.”

Scripture reminds us, “Through him we received both the generous gift of his life and the urgent task of passing it on to others who receive it by entering into obedient trust in Jesus. You are who you are through this gift and call of Jesus Christ.”

Joe’s sharing challenged all of us to be continually aware of who (and whose) we are. If, as he said, you are already “sold on Christ,” you truly cannot be bought by anyone or anything else.

You’re already a “winner” in everything that truly, eternally matters, and no earthly, temporary thing can ever take that away from you. Ever.