Help! My Business Sufferings Are Just Too Much To Handle
Updated: Dec 13, 2021
I once got into a business venture that ended with my partner borrowing over $130,000 from my credit cards with no ability to pay me back before the payments were due.
Imagine owing that much money to credit card companies, and you can't make the minimum payment.
The situation nearly destroyed me. I couldn't sleep at night. I was angry and bitter. I had no idea how I was going to get out of this mess. My partner also didn't have a way to repay me. It was a dark time in my entrepreneurial journey.
Now here's the weird part about all of this: while I was going through this terrible external situation, I was still growing in my walk with God. I read my Bible, wrote my blog posts for Daily Godpreneur, and put out my YouVersion devotionals. Nobody would have ever guessed that I was going through such a bad business situation as I was in.
But if I could sum up all of my feelings into one statement, it would be this: the inner peace that Christ promises doesn't feel like very much when everything is chaos around the business.
Can I get an 'AMEN' from my Christian entrepreneurs? The struggle is REAL!
Entrepreneurship in the spirit, and the inner peace it brings, is a nice thing to have, but when our outer business situation is terrible, inner peace might not feel like it's worth very much.
However, does accepting the present automatically lead to a passive way of running our business in which we are not mindful of or willing to change anything that troubles us?
We both know the answer to this question is a resounding 'NO.'
The Bible says
You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them, because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world. (1 John 4:4 NIV)
John is reminding the reader that the power of Christ, who lives in the believer, is greater than the power of the world. The Holy Spirit living in the Christian is far stronger than any attack by the Devil. This encouragement should empower believers to trust the Lord and obey His commands rather than fear Satan and external factors. By doing so, believers can walk with boldness in business and overcome the powers of darkness.
Doing business in the present is an internal process of communing with your Holy Spirit through feelings and insight. It doesn’t entail you having to develop a passive external behavior of giving into circumstances. That's what the enemy wants you to do!
For example, if you’re late paying a credit card bill, you don’t simply tell yourself that you always wanted to fall into credit delinquency. Instead, you try, without panicking, to generate sales to at least make a minimum payment.
Walking your daily entrepreneurial journey in the present can even provide you with new resources and new ways to solve problems. God can work through your Spirit to inspire new thoughts. The word inspiration has the word "spirit" because it's God's communication line to us.
As Godpreneurs, we should not waste our inner Spirit resources creating problems. Instead, entrepreneurship in present tune with the spirit can bring us new forms of strength and determination. In fact, by operating in the present, you see what God sees: no problems – only individual, manageable situations that you can solve, one by one. This makes you a much more effective business leader.
Operating in the spirit and accepting the present does not mean we commit to a passive business life or choose not to try to change things for the better. Instead, exercising the use of our God-given Holy Spirit and focusing on the present, while starving the enemy by not feeding into past or future thoughts, we are more able to see clearly whatever it is that’s wrong at any given moment, and the Spirit gives us the strength to change those things for the better.