Overcoming Anxiety in Business Part 1 – God Leads the Way
Updated: Jan 20, 2021
In my next series of teachings, I want to talk about overcoming anxiety in business.
So many times in our businesses we are faced with an incredible circumstance: a big contract up for negotiation, hiring a key position, pulling the trigger on a big expense, letting someone go. Think back to a day when you were waiting with great anticipation and excitement. Think back when you were waiting anxiously on a decision, nervous.
Depending on the nature of that day’s decision, it was either excitement or anxiety.
And even when you’re faced with winning a big contract, the anxiety of figuring out how you’re even going to fulfill on that contract starts to eat at you.
Business life is like that. Often, with our hopes at their highest, there are accompanying challenges and problems that we face at the very same time.
What I’ve come to discover is that this is a great opportunity to come face-to-face with God’s ultimate purpose in our business lives: depending on Him.
You see, more often than not, especially for self-made Godpreneurs, is that we are facing problems that we cannot solve: this customer I must sell, that person I must hire, this business debt I must pay, those clients I must endure, that habit I must break out of an employee, this vendor relationship I must salvage.
But that is business life we live in today. Along with our hopes and joys in growing our businesses, there are always problems for which we simply have neither the strength nor the wisdom to meet the challenge. We need strength from above. The battle is really God’s and this is what this next series is about for Godpreneurs: Overcoming Business Barriers.
This is where the children of Israel find themselves before crossing the River Jordan into the promised land. God told the people of Israel to wait three days at shores of the Jordan River (Joshua 1:11). All that time, the people of Israel saw a rushing river, swollen with spring rains laying in front of them. They must have asked, “How can we ever cross this river?”
At a moment like this, all the awesome talk about living in the Promised Land can go out the window. There’s a huge obstacle blocking the way – how will God pull this one off?
I have 3 Keys that entrepreneurs need to remember when facing, for example, times of business expansion that can be both exiting and nerve racking.
Today I’m going to share Key #1, and in the next 2 posts I’ll share the 2nd and 3rd keys.
Key #1: God Leads the Way
The first key to overcoming anxiety in business is God leading the way.
My business has recently been going through a period of rapid expansion. I feel God leading us across our own River Jordan into the Promised Land. In the agency world, this is called “making an agency run”. Essentially, we’re building big agency.
There are many ways to expand your business, but most likely it will come with adding on new people.
Hiring and firing are not my favorite friends in business. We’ve had a….rough past. I’ve gotten into IRS problems with not paying employee taxes, I’ve had a series of bad hires, and I’m horrible at letting people go.
In fact, one time I had one of my employees let go of another employee because I couldn’t face the music. Yeah, that’s how much I coward away from the subject.
But this time I’m doing things differently. I’ve discovered that the key to my business growth is focusing on God’s presence and resting in Him.
We entrepreneurs all have times of big decisions, especially when you’re on a mission to grow.
And if we would admit, we all have that weak spot that makes us nervous about the growth. Mine was hiring the right talent.
We’ve come so far, we feel the time is right, but there’s an obstacle threatening to kill the entire plan.
Joshua 3:3-5 says
And they commanded the people, saying, “When you see the ark of the covenant of the LORD your God, and the priests, the Levites, bearing it, then you shall set out from your place and go after it. Yet there shall be a space between you and it, about two thousand cubits by measure. Do not come near it, that you may know the way by which you must go, for you have not passed this way before.”
If you notice, God didn’t just yell ‘CHARGE’ and everyone rushed over the river.
Instead, Joshua send the priests who carried the ark of the covenant, which was the visible representation of God’s presence with the people. Joshua knew that he was facing a spiritual problem. Israel was only going to overcome this great barrier if they set their eyes on God’s presence, and followed only after His presence.
You may be trying to overcome barriers on your own. God wants you to know that as you traverse new waters, God wants to lead the way!
We entrepreneurs have a natural instinct to do things on our own. But Godpreneurs understand that, like Joshua, we have a God that owns our business and goes before us to overcome barriers so we can enter into our Promised Land of business.
Overcoming Anxiety in Business
A 3-Day Business Bible Study to Throw Off the Shackles of Anxiety and Live in Freedom
Heard of the Godpreneur Academy?
Grow Your Business, God’s Way!
Bible-Based Video Courses for Entrepreneurs Putting God First In their Businesses