Part 1: Steering by the Sacred - Cultivating the Inner Life
Leaders don’t just act—they develop the person behind the action
As we kick off this series on Steering by the Sacred, there are few people in history who come to mind who are quite as prolific, widely accomplished, and intentional as Benjamin Franklin. In the field of business, he began his first entrepreneurial endeavor at age 23 when he purchased the Pennsylvania Gazette. Within three years, he launched Poor Richard’s Almanack, which was a best-seller for several decades, second only to the Bible. Through publishing and franchising, he retired at age 42 and turned his attention to other endeavors.
In the field of academia, he helped found the University of Pennsylvania. In the field of science, he discovered that lightning is electricity, invented bifocals, and mapped the Gulf Stream. In the field of politics, he helped draft the Declaration of Independence, the Treaty of Paris, and the U.S. Constitution. As Postmaster General, he even did the unthinkable: he made the Post Office profitable!
Accomplishments Don’t Happen by Accident
One might look at a life like Benjamin Franklin’s and assume he was simply born with unattainable, superhuman abilities—that some people are just put on this planet with gifts, talents, and opportunities that make them larger than life. While every person is created uniquely, the real story of Ben Franklin shouldn’t be reduced to just being the right person in the right place at the right time. Those who look more closely discover that what he accomplished in public was a product of who he strove to become while in private.
For example, at age 20, Ben Franklin created a list of 13 virtues that he believed would lead to a virtuous life. Every week, he privately focused on one virtue, and he would cycle through his list four times per year. Here is his list:
TEMPERANCE. Eat not to dullness; drink not to elevation.
SILENCE. Speak not but what may benefit others or yourself; avoid trifling conversation.
ORDER. Let all your things have their places; let each part of your business have its time.
RESOLUTION. Resolve to perform what you ought; perform without fail what you resolve.
FRUGALITY. Make no expense but to do good to others or yourself; i.e., waste nothing.
INDUSTRY. Lose no time; be always employ’d in something useful; cut off all unnecessary actions.
SINCERITY. Use no hurtful deceit; think innocently and justly, and, if you speak, speak accordingly.
JUSTICE. Wrong none by doing injuries or omitting the benefits that are your duty.
MODERATION. Avoid extremes; forbear resenting injuries so much as you think they deserve.
CLEANLINESS. Tolerate no uncleanliness in body, cloths, or habitation.
TRANQUILLITY. Be not disturbed at trifles, or at accidents common or unavoidable.
CHASTITY. Rarely use venery but for health or offspring, never to dullness, weakness, or the injury of your own or another’s peace or reputation.
HUMILITY. Imitate Jesus and Socrates.
In addition, he developed one of the first known habit trackers. I’ve recently discovered habit trackers myself. This Substack is a direct result of the accountability they provide. I’ve personally been using the Bullet Journal. The purpose of Franklin’s Habit Tracker was simply to chart his personal progress in keeping his thirteen virtues.
Franklin was also deeply intentional about living a life of purpose and meaning.. At the beginning of every day, he asked himself in his journal: “What good shall I do this day?” At the end of every day, he asked: “What good have I done this day?” He also would take time to schedule his day, making time for work, reading, study, reflection, and rest.
Four Ways to Cultivate Your Inner Life
What Franklin discovered as a rational deist, God the Creator had already revealed long ago, more deeply and with far greater purpose. Consider these words from Proverbs 4:23-27, given to Solomon by God around 3000 years ago:
23 Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.
Guard your heart. In the busyness and chaos of life, it is very easy to focus on results and outcomes. The regular demand placed on business leaders and parents can be overwhelming. Perhaps it should be no surprise that nearly 50% of American adults suffer from hypertension. Given the pace of life, many of our actions are actually reactions - and how we react is an overflow of our hearts. In fact, Solomon says ‘everything we do’ flows from the heart. The heart, as Solomon would have meant it, includes not only our emotions and desires, but our intellect, thoughts, and will. In other words, the entirety of our inner selves. Steering by the Sacred involves the diligent and continuous effort of filtering what enters the heart and training what comes out from it.
24 Keep your mouth free of perversity; keep corrupt talk far from your lips.
Guard your tongue. What we say might seem like an odd fit in a discussion on the inner life, but God’s Word reveals a direct correlation. It was Jesus who said, “For out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks” (Luke 6:45)—either for good or for evil. James, the half-brother of Jesus, went further, describing the tongue as a bit in the mouth of an animal, the rudder of a ship, and a fire capable of corrupting “the whole body” (cf. James 3:1–12). In other words, what we say reflects who we are, but also, who we are is formed by what we say. Being wise with our words at all times is an effective way to cultivate our inner life.
25 Let your eyes look straight ahead; fix your gaze directly before you.
Fix your eyes. It’s hard to get anywhere in life if you don’t know where you’re going. Years ago, I was trying to meet up with a friend who was hiking on a local section of the Appalachian Trail. I hiked and hiked and hiked, but never found him. I never found him because he had passed the trailhead heading south, and I entered the trailhead and headed north.
That said, there are many who did know where they were going, only to arrive and find the destination less fulfilling than they anticipated. I’ve heard this from friends who had their eyes set on a particular title, net worth, home, or a particular experience. I’ve heard it from those had their sights set on marriage, or children, or retirement. As God exhorts us through Solomon to keep our eyes looking straight ahead, as we will see in a moment, the destination he had in mind was not tangible and temporary, but intangible and immortal.
26 Give careful thought to the paths for your feet and be steadfast in all your ways.
Strive for intentionality. If you are still reading this article, why? Do you remember why you opened it in the first place? What was it that caused you to give up the last few minutes of your life, minutes which will never return to you, and spend them reading to this point. We do most of what we do without considering why, but God calls us to something higher. To be fair, giving equally careful thought to every word and every action would paralyze us. That isn’t what is meant here.
What God is calling us to is to consider whether the path we are on is still heading towards where we have committed to fix our eyes. In the example above, if I had known where my friend was on the trail, but constantly distracted and delayed by my surroundings, I still would not have found him. Once our eyes have been fixed on a worthy destination, God calls us to be unwavering, to seek after it with intentionality and steadfastness.
A Better Destination
27 Do not turn to the right or the left; keep your foot from evil.
While much of what has been discussed above could be applied to lead a life of meaning and impact, God wants something more for us. As far as we know, Ben Franklin tracked his progress towards his personal list of virtues for his entire life, because he never arrived at a point of perfection. Regardless of your religion, whether you are a rational deist like Ben Franklin, or Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, or something else - the inner perfection we desire remains out of reach for all. Solomon’s call to us is clear: “keep your foot from evil.” Clear, worthy, even glorious, but unattainable… apart from Jesus Christ.
Ben Franklin was likely in the top 0.001% of humanity in his pursuit of living a virtuous life, but still fell short. Not only did Jesus live a virtuous life, he lived a perfect one (1 Peter 2:22).
We can strive with all of our might to guard our heart and be careful with our speech, but because of sin in the heart, we will eventually find we are fighting an uphill battle (Jeremiah 17:9, Mark 7:20-23). Not only was Jesus sinless in his heart, His words were perfectly pure as well (1 Peter 2:22).
We can fix our eyes on good things, even great things, and go after them with intentionality over the course of years and decades, but still arrive at the end of our lives with the feeling that in spite of all of our good deeds and accomplishments, our lives are still but a fleeting mist (James 4:14).
There is another way.
Through faith in the God-man Jesus Christ, rather than striving and failing to cultivate our inner life on our own power, we can receive a transformed inner life through His power (Psalm 51:10, 2 Corinthians 5:17). It is out of this new life that He promises we can strive by the power of His Spirit (Phil 2:13). In Him, our destination can be transformed from Maybe Better-than-Average to Christlike (Phil 1:6). In this new reality we do continue to strive, not by seeking temporal achievements, public accolades, or behavior modification, and not by revisiting a checklist of virtues day after day after day, but by “fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfector of our faith.” (Hebrews 12:2).
Through intentionally cultivating his inner life with his eyes fixed on living virtuously, Ben Franklin lived a life that may be remembered for the rest of human history. By intentionally cultivating an inner life with our eyes fixed on Jesus, we can live a life that will be remembered with joy for eternity.