KNOW - BE - DO

This morning I saw an interview with a pastor from Allen, TX. His daughter was in the mall where a crazy man killed 8 people recently, where she works. Luckily, she was not injured. Just imagine how worried he had to be knowing that his daughter works there, where another mass shooting took place. I noticed that he was wearing a T-Shirt with the words: Know, Be, Do, which made me think. I like certain words and feel compelled, at times, to reflect on their meaning. I read online that there’s a principle called the “Know-Be-Do Principle.” It seems that a Dr. Howard Hendricks (a longtime professor at Dallas Theological Seminary) expounded on a passage from the Bible: Ezra 7:10, which says, “For Ezra had set his heart to study the law of the Lord, and to practice it, and to teach His statutes and ordinances in all Israel.” Ezra was a Jewish scribe and priest (the Book of Ezra is a book of the Hebrew Bible). I’m not a Bible reader, I admit, but I hear at times beautiful passages from the Bible in Mass, gatherings and retreats that are meaningful and positive. I try to concentrate on those positive inspirational messages; there’s enough negativity in our world to focus only in teachings written by men (not God). Bible passages have been translated into many languages from the many biblical languages of Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek to present-day languages (as of September 2022 the Bible has been translated into 724 languages and just the New Testament into 1,616 languages. A lot gets lost in translations. Besides, we have to consider the times when things were written. When we know better, like Maya Angelou used to say, we do better. We have evolved, we have learned that what matters is to love others (even the Beatles taught us this, “Love is the Answer”­ and “All you need is Love” — simple and beautiful messages). We need to learn to harness the power and energy of love. Teilhard de Chardin wrote, “Someday, after mastering the winds, the waves, the tides and gravity, we shall harness for God the energies of love, and then, for a second time in the history of the world, man will have discovered fire.”

Let’s think now about these three words, know, be and do. KNOW… to know (and learn) what is right. We know when someone is lying, we are smart! We know when people deceive us for their own gain, we know the truth, we know their intentions — even when we don’t want to admit it because to believe “the lies” serves a purpose. We know when someone doesn’t do things for us out of love (with unconditional love in their minds). When someone only cares about himself or herself; when someone has selfish motives, when they cannot see beyond themselves. We KNOW… Let us open our minds and see.

Einstein wrote in a letter (given to the Hebrew University):

“There is an extremely powerful force that includes and governs all others and is even behind any phenomenon operating in the universe. This universal force is LOVE. This force explains everything and gives meaning to life, and each individual carries within them a small but powerful generator of love whose energy is waiting to be released. When we give and receive this universal energy, we will have affirmed that love conquers all, is able to transcend everything and anything, because love is the quintessence of life.”

Let us KNOW love… truth… and peace.

BE: Let us be the best that we can be. Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel wrote, “Just to be is a blessing. Just to live is holy.” Simple and powerful words. Let us embrace these words and try our best to be a person of character and integrity, an honest, loving, kind and peaceful person. This is what we are meant to be…

DO: Let us do the best too. Do what we know is the right thing to do. Being a healing loving presence to others. We have the power to encourage and inspire others. We will feel better when we do good! Let us just do GOOD!

Let us KNOW, BE and DO with all our hearts.

Also check: https://medium.com/@annikajiajia/the-be-know-do-model-of-leadership (The Be, Know, Do Model of Leadership - Interesting!)