Faith
How to unite faith and work in a crisis?
Faith gives strength; work gives shape. Ask for wisdom, understanding and courage, then do your part with discipline, one day at a time.
bairogonzalez.com team, drawing on Bairo's story · Published
In a crisis, some people say "just have faith" and others say "faith doesn't pay the bills." Both sentences hold a piece of truth. For many people who have been through the worst, faith was what kept them standing, and work was what got them moving.
What to do now
- Ask, and then act. If you pray, ask for clarity, strength and courage. Then turn the request into a task: faith that asks for wisdom needs someone willing to study; faith that asks for a door needs someone willing to knock.
- Create a routine that unites the two. A time of prayer, meditation or silence in the morning; then the day's work with small, clear goals. Routine gives shape to hope.
- Do your part with discipline. Discipline is faith in the form of habit: showing up every day, even when the result hasn't come yet.
- Use your faith community as a network. Religious communities often have people willing to point you to work, help with the basics and simply listen. Ask.
- Keep faith apart from financial promises. No serious faith requires you to hand over the family's money in exchange for blessings or to invest in "opportunities" sold in God's name. Be wary.
- Respect those who believe differently. In a crisis, you'll work alongside people with other beliefs or none. The faith that builds is the faith that welcomes.
- Don't mistake faith for an excuse to skip care. Seeing a doctor, psychologist, lawyer or the Public Defender is not a lack of faith. If the anguish tightens, CVV at 188.
When it happened to Bairo
Bairo Leandro Gonzalez Martinez says that, after finding faith again, he came away with an image of his best self and no map. He knew where he wanted to arrive; he didn't know how. He didn't know how to code, or anything like it.
So he did what the congregation had taught him: he asked. He asked for wisdom, understanding and courage to remember how to get there. And then he went to work. He sat down in front of a computer and spent six months without leaving the house, developing, coding, writing. He describes those months as something even he can't explain. Anyone looking from outside sees something else, just as rare: discipline.
Out of those six months came the foundation of the platform and the artificial intelligence of CEASA Bank, focused on agribusiness.
The path
For Bairo, faith didn't replace work; it gave it meaning. Faith is trusting in something you cannot see, he says. And work is what slowly brings into view what couldn't be seen before. If you believe, unite the two. If you don't, the lesson remains: trust in what doesn't exist yet, plus daily effort, is what turns an image into reality.
A simple practice helps bring the two together: at the end of each day, write down three pieces of work you did and one thing you're grateful for. The work shows what you built; the gratitude reminds you of what you received. Over time, that list becomes a record that the crossing is happening, even on days when it seems nothing has changed.