Christian Business Builder

“… and he shall direct thy paths.” (Proverbs 3:6b)

The fourth step to successful business is to allow God to direct your paths. Sounds simple doesn’t it? Yet, if truth be told this is the most difficult step of all.

Remember a guy named Adam? He had it made! He was the unique creation of Holy God who was the first of the entire human race. He was given a pristine world to keep, a wife to love, a garden to tend, a God who walked with him every day, and only one thing he could not do. Pretty sweet set up don’t you think?

I don’t really know how long it lasted, but even in these truly perfect conditions, Adam found a way to mess things up. The reason? He wanted to direct his own path! Eve had taken of the fruit and now Adam was left with a choice. Follow God and see how he would deal with Eve or follow Eve and turn from God’s direct command on his life. We all know which choice Adam made and what his choice cost him, his family, and his God.

Now, in our modern culture, we are constantly bombarded by the voices of the experts who want to be your guiding light in every phase of life and business. These voices tend to uplift man while quietly (and sometimes not so quietly) diminishing God’s role in your day to day choices. Subtly we hear that God wants us to be happy and that real success is always about money and possessions and that for three easy payments of $39.99 plus shipping and handling they are willing to share with us all that we need to be healthy, happy, and RICH! (And before you swamp me with a whole list of the verses about God wanting us to be rich, I will get to that later in this series.) When all is said and done they are rich, we are wandering in the wilderness, and only Satan is really happy.

All this because we didn’t let God direct our paths!

Why should we surrender our life (including our business) to the direction of God?

1. No one knows better what is best for us than God. He is the very giver of our life and he never gives life without purpose. (Psalm 71:6)
2. No one can empower us to succeed better than God. God’s word says that the one who lives in us (the Holy Spirit) is greater than the one who lives in this world (Satan). (1 John 4:4)
3. No one can guarantee success like God. (Psalm 1)

You see, God never works to our detriment. He always works to give us place to worship him and bring glory to his name. It is the same in life and business. That being said, we need to allow him to direct all of our life’s path!

Talk more later ….

You know I think that being actively Christian in this society is as difficult as I have ever known it to be in my 30+ years as a Christian. The reasons for this are numerous; Christianity has been rejected by the vast majority of the population, schools have taken an almost anti-Christian stance in educating students, and business leaders have embraced a quasi-Christian philosophy that values human effort over the wisdom of God.

With this backdrop it is difficult for we who are dedicated to the truth of God and his word to find place in our chosen professions. There is often lots of “God talk” without much “God seeking.” In this series of articles I am trying to reverse this trend. It is time for we “Christ followers” to look to him and his word for the answers to our business life as well as our personal relationship with God.

We have been examining the passage in Proverbs 3:5-10 to see where we might seek the Lord more directly in the building and operation of our businesses. This article will cover the third thought seen here:

“In all thy ways acknowledge him,”

For more than a century, we have been taught in school and in life that if we are going to be successful in life that we need to “pick ourselves up by our bootstraps” and “never quit.” We have been told that we can achieve anything as long as we stay focused and keep at it. We have been told to find something we love and do that thing. It is all up us and we are the only one who can make or break our success story.

Now, while the scriptures do surly speak to the subject of industry and hard work, they also speak to the subject of God’s direction and leadership in making directional choices in life.

I for one can tell you that listening to the voice of the Lord in making the right choices with regard to direction isn’t as simple as it sounds. There are so many voices in the world today with so much advice and so many options. How is someone supposed to make right choices in the midst of all that is out there in the world?

The answer to this question rests in this simple phrase from Proverbs 3, “In all thy ways acknowledge him …” Only when we acknowledge the Lord throughout the whole of our lives activities will he provide us with the wisdom to make the right choices at the right times in our lives. What is also so amazing about God is that even if we have made wrong choices, he is always willing to help us return to the right path by simply seeking his forgiveness and acknowledging him from this point on!

The little word “way” is the key to understanding this portion of scripture. According to Strong’s Concordance, “Way” means a course of life, mode of action. In other words our acknowledgment of God needs to be throughout our entire course of life and mode of actions, not just those we find easy, but also those we don’t want to release to anyone.

Only as you release more and more of your life and business to God will you have the power to know and understand the level of success God has in store for you. The only caveat that I need to make here is that God’s view of success may be quite different from yours. However, you will never find yourself in a better place as a Christian business owner than the place that God has called you to Think about it!

Talk more later …

Over the past couple months, I have been much in prayer about God’s leadership in the development of my business. It has been a very interesting time with the Lord as he has clarified many things to me. While the details of God’s direction are not really important as they pertain to the specific needs of my business growth, the principles can apply to everyone considering God’s will in their business.

God led me to a passage in Proverbs 30 to teach me two key principles about the development of my business:

“Two things have I required of thee; deny me them not before I die: Remove far from me vanity and lies: give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with food convenient for me: Lest I be full, and deny thee, and say, Who is the LORD? or lest I be poor, and steal, and take the name of my God in vain.”  (Proverbs 30:7-9)

The first thing I came to was that my business was to be operated with transparency and integrity. No business can operate successfully for long based in “vanity and lies.” While I understand that you must be seen as an “expert” in your field for people to consider you, your business, or your advice, to take self-promotion to the extreme heights seen in business today smacks of vanity.

God’s word tells us conversely, “Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time: Casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you.” (1 Peter 5:6-7)

When we work hard at what we do with transparency and integrity, God will put us in the right position at the right time for our business to be as He wills it to be.

The second key principle in these verses deals with the question, “How much is enough?” The writer here asks God for something that seems a bit out of step for our modern western culture. He asks to be neither poor nor rich, to be fed with food convenient (an appointment of quantity) for him.

The idea here was that people who are “poor” and hungry will steal to get their food, thus declaring God of no value to them while the “rich” will gorge themselves with every delight, thus declaring God unnecessary in their lives. What the writer is then saying is that he wanted to have all that should be appointed to him while not forgetting his reliance on God.

Too much emphasis is place on “how much” money is made these days while too little emphasis is placed on who we depend on to make it. Along with this, people are often overcome by the opportunities that wealth brings while forgetting its responsibilities.

Andrew Carnegie once said “You should spend the first half of your life making money and the second half of your life giving it away.” While most of us don’t have this luxury, it does remind us that those who have been given much, of them shall much be required.

Talk more later ….