What does it mean to live out your faith in your business? What is God’s heart for business?
As believers, we know we are all different parts of a larger body. I believe this is God’s design for our businesses too – for us each to serve one another at our highest capacity. Because when we do, everyone wins!
Serving at your highest level shows up in three different ways in your business: your purpose, your people, and your profits.
I often hear people say, “I don’t know my purpose; I don’t understand my purpose. I want to find my purpose.”
Let me just clear that up for you once and for all.
I believe our purpose is to know God and make Him known. It’s the Great Commission, easy as that.
Where people get lost is in ‘how’ they live it out in daily life. Do I do this or that? Should I be this kind of person or that? Should I take this job or that? How do I know that I am doing the right thing? It can become muddled and confusing. I get it. And the beauty of it is….as long as you’re fulfilling the Great Commission, it doesn’t matter where you do it. It doesn’t matter what you call yourself. THAT is freedom!
So, who do you want to be? Who do you want to serve? What do you want your days to be filled with? What lights you up?
No matter what you choose, if you’re doing it with the attitude of serving God, you’re on the right path.
If you feel like God is calling you into business, here’s one of the ways we can start to acknowledge or have the heart of God in our business. Are you ready… choose to do business differently than it is modeled in the secular world. A business that is done for a different purpose than to purely make a profit. When you have the heart of God in your business, you use the profit you make to benefit others around you in bigger and bigger ways.
The foundation is always about the heart. What is your heart for your business, and what is the good you want to do in the world?
Another way to discern the heart of God for your business is to take your business to God in prayer.
Do you spend time praying for your business? For your clients, your profits, the vision, and the mission that you’re on? Just simply spending time praying about your business and the things in and out of your business will help align your business with the heart of God. You know, then, that you’re moving in tandem with God.
Who knows more about how to get your business off the ground than the one who called you to it in the first place? Or how to make your business profitable, expand your reach, and help more people than the Creator Himself. When you connect with your Source, He will guide you and give you the steps. He will show you the direction he will put the people and places, and resources in your sphere of influence that you need to keep you moving forward and keep you on the path that he’s called you to.
How cool is that? Right?
So let’s talk about the people. You know, people are absolutely amazing. People are wonderful! People are intriguing, and occasionally, people can be challenging. We all know it’s true. And sometimes, we’re the challenging ones.
How do we reflect God’s heart in our businesses when things get challenging?
Any challenge we face can be overcome by following six steps. By doing so, we can meet it head-on and resolve it in a way that honors God and benefits both parties.
- Separate the situation from how we feel about it.
Imagine two people that you know from the community who are having a squabble about something, and they come to you for advice. You’ll listen to both sides and be more objective because you’re not emotionally involved.
Right? Right.
You must be able to do the same thing when in a challenging situation. Be able to separate your emotion from what’s going on so that you can be objective.
- Connect with your source.
He knows all and has all the resources. He has all the tools and all the answers. Connect with your source, and ask for guidance and wisdom.
- Start to brainstorm the solutions. What are possible solutions to this problem?
- Study the results.
After we have possible solutions, we will start to implement some of those solutions and study the results. Discover what worked, what didn’t, and what needs improvement. Which one do we need to tweak to get a better result next time?
- Solidify, stabilize, or shift.
Once we’ve studied the results, if we had a positive and good outcome, then stabilize that situation to ensure we don’t lose ground. We don’t want to operate on shaky ground. We want to reinforce that so that it becomes stable.
What if we didn’t have a favorable outcome? Maybe things didn’t end up so well. What do we need to shift to change that? What can we do differently? How can we act differently? What can we change about the situation that might lead to a more favorable outcome?
- Celebrate success.
We’re celebrating success because we’ve either had a favorable outcome, or we’ve learned a really great lesson. Both are worth celebrating. Both are important. And it’s crucial that we set that mindset for success.
It’s important that we set that mindset for looking forward. What did we learn from this? What did we accomplish? What did we achieve? Otherwise, we have a tendency to get sucked down into the negative results, and that doesn’t help anyone.
I want to encourage you to start embracing a mindset for success that, even if you get a less-than-favorable outcome, you are searching for…
- The new result…
- A new feeling…
- Or simply learned not to react to your feelings…
- A new idea that’s worth celebrating…
- Or maybe you discovered a new way of being…
Because when you do, when you commit to partnering with God, seeking His direction for your business and His heart for your impact, things will begin to shift, and at the end of your life, you will hear those cherished words that we all want to hear, “well done, my good and faithful servant.”
If you are struggling in any way, if you don’t have the income that you want, if you don’t have the influence that you want, if you’re not in front of your ideal clients and cannot figure out why it’s not working, then you need to be at the Spark Your Success event.
