Interview with Ramesh Richard

BMC: Dr. Richard, you're a busy man.  You help lead two international organizations; teach at Dallas Theological Seminary and travel frequently, ministering in over seventy countries. Most guys are home considerably more than you are and yet have a hard time trying to balance work and family demands.  What are the habits you've developed to keep a proper balance between the demands of ministry and the needs of your family?

RR: Habits, none; but values and priorities, yes. I find that values control priorities which influence decisions.  We are not what we say we believe; we do what we value. I need to place values on the spheres of life: personal, family, and work. Next, I use the word "balancing" (reflecting process) rather than mere "balance" (an abstract, and some what unattainable noun). We will have total balance in heaven. In the meanwhile, we pursue the balancing of life between the demands of the spheres. I have suggested some practical strategies which have helped me in Soul Vision, Book 3 of the Intentional Life trilogy. Then, I'd suggest customized disciplined living--a regular devotional life; a blessed and growing marriage; able peers and assistants; a dependable scheduling system; rigorous maintenance of a to-do list; the ability to delegate but not abdicate; understanding and using gifts; awareness of limitations and weaknesses; living by faith toward God, the ultimate controller of circumstance for real-time adjustments; and most importantly an understanding of God's role and assignments for our life.

BMC:  In this balancing process, you've cautioned, in your writings, that a byproduct of being too-family oriented, always putting family first, is that children can develop into selfish and purposeless adults because they become accustomed to the attention they receive from their parents.  What are some of the indicators that this is taking place in a family and what advice would you give a man in such a situation?

RR: While we can't compartmentalize life; we can prioritize life. However you want to define that priority, family is not first. God is! In personal love and worship toward the One who deserves nothing but all that we have. But family IS second, with every thing else third. Your children notice what is first in our lives and if they gain that first-priority foothold, they unintentionally take advantage of it. Once they demand your best attention, your unconditional love for them draws you deeper into showing them attention, with almost no energy, time, and resources left for your Ultimate Commitment. The indicators are simple--evaluate your daytimer, your checkbook, your energy-levels and ask where you have spent your resources. If they are spent on family--a laudable thing in-it-self, because God created the family and commands love of wife and neighbor--they are in competition with personal devotion to the Lord who deserves that kind of extreme love.  A man doesn't need to be afraid of loving his family too much if he loves God correctly. Indeed, he wouldn't have resources to love them as they need (not want) to be loved, unless he loves God rightly. If he messes up on his love for God, he will love everybody else, everything else wrongly.

BMC: In your book Soul Passion, you write, "The first constituent of the intentional life, of the supreme purpose, is passion, for one chooses the ultimate object of his love."  From your perspective as a speaker at Promise Keepers conferences and from meeting with men around the world, why do you suppose many men live what appear to be rather passionless lives?

RR: We are victimized by random busyness in life--all matters seem equally important; content with less than the best by clamoring for more of the same; laziness in discernment--we fall asleep while thinking!    For example, our definition of success is defined by the herd and we fail to realize, most of all, how little it really takes to draw near to the God who draws near to us.

BMC:  How do you counsel a man who feels like he's stuck and really doesn't know what his passion in life is?

RR:  It's easy to find one's passion in life. Whatever arouses a man is his passion in life! I like to say that the American male experiences three passions: "cars, girls, and back to cars again!" But "over emotion" is not the meaning of the word, "passion." Originally, "passion" was an existential synonym for suffering (remember , The Passion of the Christ). "What do you love so much that you are willing to suffer for it?" So, the reason a man is stuck is not because he doesn't know his passion in life. In fact, he is stuck in his many passions. The reason he is stuck is that he doesn't experience the passion of his life. That's exactly what the Lord Jesus was offering in the statement of the first commandment--Himself! You can have many passions in life, but you can have only one passion of life. Both Scriptures and theologians across evangelical spectrums and history have maintained that whatever you love controls you. So, any thing less that God Himself as your passion is going to get you stuck, and you can't bootstrap your way out in salvation or in sanctification.

BMC: Tell us a little bit about your mentors.  What are some best questions your mentors have asked you about how you were investing your time and energy?

RR: A Ghanaian proverb goes, "The one who is making the road doesn't know when it is going crooked." I need mentors in making uncharted roads and crossing unknown rivers. I am blessed with men and women who have pretty much seen everything! I find my mentors are not prescriptive in their advice-giving. They love to teach by stories, or by asking questions or by making distinctions, and think I am bright enough to come to conclusions. For example, Fred Smith Sr. loves to ask if a need is an opportunity, and if the opportunity is a mandate. Think about that distinction and question. That helps me in deciding where I should invest my resources of time and energy.