Many of us find security in our success, or find failure in our lack of it (found in the frustration/impatience of not being able to get moving).

For example -

· You start to make it/have made it financially and that success becomes a barrier that keeps you away from what is really going on in your life, because, as we all know, with financial success comes comfort which begets apathy, or:

· You are like me, starting off and things are slow, and the battle to try and get ahead gets you down, leaving you to question what it is you are actually called to and if you don’t make money, are you even fulfilling God’s plan?

I have had many conversations with peers who feel called to business but who, because business can seem so results-based, see it as a massive burden that weighs them down, rather than an opportunity.

This can cause striving and trying to make decisions in your own time, not in God’s, which may ultimately mean missing out on the best.

Some people get jobs as doctors, teachers, policemen, physio therapists etc, and have two very visible components to their roles. They are paid to do a job, but equally, they are touching people’s lives and making this world “a better place” and this objective is clearly defined as part of the role.

Conversely, in many business-related roles, including mine, it can seem like we don’t have that clear cut black and white distinction showing where it is more than just about money and the success we have in moving up the ladder.

We are taught that we need to fight our way to the top, and when we don’t see the progression or it takes longer than expected, often we can feel as though we are not achieving anything. I think this is because we don’t see the second, larger opportunity right in front of us… to BE an impact in our place of business.

Our security will never come from our success in climbing the ladder. The business workplace is the most powerful, yet darkest place in the city. It needs to be touched and we are not just there to climb the ladder while stressing ourselves out.

The most important thing for us is just to be there. Consider the journey, not the destination. Just hang out on the ladder. Don’t keep looking up. The ladder doesn’t end. The city needs to be touched and this is our ministry.

James Spence

They say if you do what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you’ve always got. I don’t want more of the same. I don’t want the same fears, the same worries, the same limited understanding of the things of God. I want to truly transition from a slave to a Son, from darkness to light, from labour to rest, from lack to abundance, from keeping to giving. In other words, I want to change Kingdoms. Completely.

I’ve got the tickets to move – Jesus paid for those. It’s time to take up residence. No longer looking over the fence, having a foot in both camps, wondering, knowing about the other way. I’m tired of spying out the land. I want to be the spy that entered in. I want to be the person who lives in the land, overcoming giants and eating the fruit of the land, embracing the culture of the Kingdom. Living thinking, speaking, hoping differently. Then returning back and giving those who are living with tickets in their bag a great report. I want to be a Joshua, strong, very courageous, serving with a whole heart. I’m making a change – want to make a group booking?

Barry Thom

Vidal Sassoon, the man who invented modern hairdressing, says the only place where success comes before work is in the dictionary.

Thomas Edison agrees: “Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration.”

Speaking of perspiration, the year before last, inspired by Ultramarathon Man by Dean Karnazes, I decided to do the London marathon. For about 6 months, I became a badged up member of the endurance running community. It was an education into an intense, (bordering on irrational), new culture which I discovered to be strangely consuming.

Interestingly, all the experts repeatedly promote rest in training… almost to a “when in doubt, rest” degree. Apparently there is a much greater problem with over-doing it than under-doing it in endurance running. It might be weird for most of us to hear that resting is a difficult task for marathon runners, but the reality is that the very drivenness that fuels their desire for and capability in such a sport, is also their greatest challenge when it comes to equally important recovery time. In the words of one world-class marathoner: “I hate resting.”

There are interesting parallels between the mind of an endurance runner and the mind of a business person. There is a wonderful tenacity found in successful business people that almost seems to thrive on hard work. And we certainly live in an increasingly competitive working culture that encourages us to DO more, do it harder and for longer.

Newton’s first law of motion states that a body at rest remains at rest and a body in linear motion remains in motion with constant velocity until and unless an external force is applied on it. Kind of like us really. You know that saying, “if you want something done, give it to a busy person.”

Experienced marathon runners build rest periods into their training schedule with as much discipline as any other aspect of their training.
What about us? How do we rest? What does God think about it?

In Exodus 34:21, God said “Six days you shall labour, but on the seventh day you shall rest, even during the plowing season and harvest you must rest.” Rest in this context literally meant to cease. And work was interpreted pretty widely since there were about 39 basic types of work that were prohibited (including cooking and lighting fires).

I guess the modern day version would say “STOP! Even when things are crazy busy or deadlines are looming or you have a presentation coming up, or you’re down on staff, or you’re about to launch, or when it’s totally in your interests and energy levels to keep going… stop.” Stop thinking, stop planning, stop worrying, just STOP.

Now of course we’re no longer under the law in that no one’s going to check up on us or boot us out of the camp for making toast, but it’s a challenge to our entrepreneurial minds to think about how important rest obviously is to God.

Rest was linked with consecration. Keep the sabbath day holy… combine your rest with intentional inclusion of me. I think God knows that we will only really truly get to know him when we rest. Be still, and know that I am God (Psalm 46v10).

On top of his Sabbath rest, Jesus certainly did a lot of further intentional resting; a lot of stopping, withdrawing. He did his work from this place of rest. And he spoke directly to business people like us when he said in Matthew 11:28 “Come to me, all you who labour and are heavy-laden and overburdened, and I will cause you to rest. I will ease and relieve and refresh your souls.” Rest in this context again means to cease from any movement or labour in order to recover and collect strength, to give one’s self rest, to keep quiet - of calm and patient expectation. Sound familiar?

If you’re feeling tired, overburdened, just can’t find any time in any day, or even if the concept of rest is fairly foreign… it might be good to have a conversation with God about where rest fits in your own life. The outcome might surprise you.

Jessie Bloore

Confidence is a vital part of the successful initiation, pursuit and completion of difficult tasks. Lack of confidence then, could be one of the primary reasons for many good ideas not making it to the implementation stage. If we delve into the etymology of the word ‘confidence,’ we find that the prefix, ‘con,’ is Latin, meaning ‘with’ or ‘together.’ The root, ‘fido,’ translates into ‘trust,’ ‘believe,’ ‘confide in.’ The word was thus intended to convey that other people were an integral part of an individual’s development in the area of trust.

For me, confidence doesn’t mean being so sure of myself that I don’t need to ask for help, but more that asking for help isn’t an issue. So how can we be sure of ourselves despite our shortcomings?

Knowing that you’re perfectly formed by a perfect God for the fulfillment of a perfect purpose within a perfect time frame is a good place to start. You see, God has already equipped you to fulfill His calling for your life, whatever that may be. In order for you to accomplish the tasks He has set out for you, He has given you gifts and talents you know deep down you have. So in essence, it’s your calling that defines which of your gifts you should use and develop, not the other way around. Taking hold of this concept is just the start of a journey to fulfill your particular calling.

Going further, not only does this free you up to apply your craft everyday, it allows you to release others to take their respective places around you. Confidence literally means to trust or believe together with others in an interdependent community.

These thoughts are foundational if you’re leading a team or spearheading a business. You need to be able to recognise your calling, the gifts that you have to meet that calling, and the people that you need to get amongst you to fill in the gaps.

Being a creative individual, I know how hard it can be to “put yourself out there” when you express yourself creatively. We tend to associate ourselves with what we produce – our output. We hang onto every word and criticism about our work, and if our source of identity is derived from our task/output, we come off feeling less than ideal.

My point is not that our output isn’t important – cos it is, but rather that we should be placing more emphasis on our input. God says that we are fearfully and wonderfully made, carefully knitted together in our mothers’ wombs. Psalm 139:13-16 is a good indication of how much care our Creator took in putting us together. If He took placed that much importance on designing and crafting us, there is no doubt that we’re meant to fulfill a specific purpose. Now there’s something to have confidence in!

Rohan Adarkar

For those of us for whom business is a calling from God, the difficulty is that while we are often gifted visionaries and/or strategists, God’s specialty class in Faith Building 101 almost inevitably involves a journey down a dark and/or unfamiliar path.

How do we reconcile being strategic people with allowing God to direct our steps into a future as clear as pea soup?

Abraham is known as the father of our faith, because he pioneered this faith development course for the rest of us. I also think he was quite an entrepreneur, as Genesis 13 tells us he was wealthy in livestock, silver and gold… so successful in fact that the land couldn’t handle both his and Lot’s possessions.

By the time we catch up with him in Genesis 22, he’s already uprooted his entire life to go somewhere God hasn’t told him about yet (Genesis 12), he’s believed a vision of infinite descendants despite his best strategic contributions amounting to naught since he and Sarah were ancient (Genesis 15), and he’s about to sacrifice the miraculous provision of Isaac – the only option for realising the vision (not to mention the delight of his life).

Genesis 22v 13-14: Abraham looked up and there in a thicket he saw a ram caught by its horns. He went over and took the ram and sacrificed it as a burnt offering instead of his son. So Abraham called that place The LORD Will Provide. And to this day it is said, “On the mountain of the LORD it will be provided.”

Jehovah Jireh literally means the God who sees and is seen. Our word “provide” is from the Latin “to see.”

God sees what we see

Often, as business owners or managers, we carry countless perspectives that only we see. Have you ever found yourself awake at night with a traffic jam of thoughts that, if not driven and parked somewhere safe, will continue to cause havoc in the streets of our minds and businesses? We often feel alone and overwhelmed by the responsibility.

God sees THAT stuff. In his classic sermon on the topic of God’s provision, Charles Spurgeon reminds us that for God to see IS to provide. When He sees a need, He supplies for that need.

Next time you are in that position, include God in the picture. Acknowledge that He sees what you see, and that, for Him to see is to provide. The provision might still involve you, but you’re releasing the responsibility into His hands.

God sees what we don’t see

So back to the dark and unknown paths.

Part of the stress of being responsible for the success of our businesses is anticipating the future and planning responsibly for all possibilities. But when we’re on these paths, we can’t see. There was a lot Abraham didn’t see. In those cases, his strategic plan actually became: “Whatever I don’t see… God will see to it.”
I am a strategic person, but recently went through a protracted season of darkness. God had given me a dream but it was of the incomprehensible variety (the grain sheaves bowing down type – i.e. not really translatable into conversation without getting weird looks and fewer invitations to dinner)… and when I say darkness, I’m talking can’t-see-my-hands dark. People would talk about their plans for the next year, I was struggling to make plans for the next day. Not fun.

But what I learned was that when I sit in darkness, the Lord is my light (Micah 7:8). Sometimes all we can see is Him. And He sees. And again, provides. I have countless of stories of miraculous provision.

Psalm 121 starts off by stating that our help comes from the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth. In the 6 brief remaining verses, the Psalmist declares 5 times that the Lord will watch over you. When God repeats Himself like that, we can be assured that He really wants us to know something. And that something is that He sees. And for God, to see, is to provide.

Jessie Bloore

This is a conscious daily moment by moment decision.

The level of intensity of the current crisis will continue to insist that we make decisions between faith and fear. The world’s opinion versus God’s prompting. The Kingdom of Darkness versus the Kingdom of Light.

I’m interested that the start of 1 Kings 18 indicates that Jezebel had made it her mission to kill off the prophets. It seems in the current season, the prophetic has all but gone.

The current economic climate is forcing change, those who don’t know Christ will respond out of fear in worldly ways – the wisdom of this world however is not the wisdom of our God.

I’m challenged to respond as a son of God – that my heart remains open before Him, and that like Caleb, I function with a whole heart and a different Spirit (Num 14:24).

Currently, the Holy Spirit is helping me understand that this is a season of refining – that now, for a little while we may have to suffer grief and all kinds of trials for the purpose of proving our faith which is of greater worth than gold which perishes, though refined by fire.

Let’s buy the gold described in Revelation 3:18

I am the man described; wretched, poor, blind and naked. This is our opportunity to respond as God’s people in the market in the only way we should, the way the Israelites did when they saw the fire fall in response to Elijah’s simple prayer – they fell prostrate before God. In recognition that God is God their hearts melted, they fell on their faces. Their response was to worship.

As their heart changed – God moved. The Heavens opened. The drought broke.

Let’s encourage each other to see beyond the obvious – to see and hear with spiritual eyes and ears. To encourage each other to endure the refiners fire if needs be and come out of this as overcomers and demonstrators to an unbelieving world of the fact that His Kingdom can come and that as His will is done by people in the market place like us we will prove to influence an unbelieving world that He lives and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.

Barry Thom

This was the beginning of a journey for me. This word spoke of hope, the small cloud being the first indication of things changing. That had an incredibly stabilising effect on me. Our business circumstances were tight – our market place difficult, but the word completely changed the way I looked at things. I changed my expectations. Subconsciously I began thinking and seeing the future differently. I began speaking hope and expectation - the glass half full - into my situation. This was the Holy Spirit. Things didn’t immediately change for us, but the environment around me changed. As I intentionally spoke faith, God responded, meeting us at the point of our need.

I began to look to the heavens in a new way for signs.

Equally, like Elijah, I spent a lot of time ‘bent to the ground with my face between my knees’ (1 Kings 18:42). God responds to a heart cry. He moves as we move. As an adjunct to this, I was particularly impacted by verse 41 which talks of the sound of a heavy rain. Rain speaks of the anointing. I am moved and expectant that a fresh anointing is over us. A fresh move that will be ushered by a new sound –as those with musical gifting are set free from constraints to usher in the presence of God, they will function with freedom, they will ignite dance, art and other creative expressions and with it the prophetic word will emerge.

I have not been able to shake this passage from that day I first woke to it.

The second part of the revelation was the challenge issued by Elijah to the Israelites. Tired of their double mindedness, he asks in verse 21 “How long will you waiver between two opinions?” The Message translation says, “how long will you sit on the fence?”. If the Lord is God follow Him. If Baal is God follow Him.

For me, this is the essential question of the current economic climate.

In the midst of the Prophets of Baal (otherwise known as the media, and various commentators and talking heads making predictions of who knows what), God is asking His people – what are you listening to? Where does your help come from? Which God do you serve?

I have found this question challenging and at the same time refining.

Our responses are determining our direction and our destiny, not just for our business and families now, but for eternity.

Choose this day whom you will serve.

Barry Thom

Depending on your world view, each will come to their own conclusions. People who do not have a relationship with God will have a view based on how the media portrays things and a basic opinion formed from their own observation of the rhythms of life. Their response is essentially that of a victim. “Hey, it’s happened – we just have to ride it out, make adjustments and live through the bad until it gets good.” Some decisions will be made on ‘expert’ advice. This is not unreasonable – wisdom, the bible says, comes from the multitude of counsel.

The more pressing question for us who are in God is; if God is the author and the finisher, is it also possible he is the author of this current financial drought? Haggai suggests that drought is a God response to mankind’s obsession with their own wealth and focus on their own house (Haggai 1).

1 Kings 18 also gives us the story of a drought inflicted on a people in order to create in them a change of heart. Makes sense really. How else can God get our attention except through circumstance? A lack of supply is always an attention grabber!

So the question is, what is the right response for a man of God? What is the Kingdom response? What is the Kingdom directive? Our desire and need must surely be to hear what God says. It’s at these times we must find the men and women in the Kingdom, who like the men of Issachar ‘understand the times and the seasons’. If ever there was a need for the prophetic, it is now. The story of the drought in 1 Kings 18 is overlaid with Jezebel’s agenda to kill all the prophets of God. Elijah stood as a lone voice.

I can’t help but wonder if as a body we are not in a similar state today. Facing drought without a prophetic voice of direction, giving clear understanding of the season. After all, the spiritual man is able to judge all things. 1 Cor 2:16 says, we have the mind of Christ.

It has been with this in mind that I have sought the Lord in a new way for His direction since June 2008. I write this post simply to record His faithfulness, and to encourage those of us in the market looking for a lamp for our feet to share what the Holy Spirit is saying, and in so doing, bring a Kingdom response to the market place. It is my hope this response will prove to be a sign and wonder and a testimony that God is God, and that there is a way of life available that is counter culture, called the Kingdom of God.