Estimated reading time: 5 minutes:-)
Any podcast listeners out there?
Okay so, I listen to this podcast called My First Million. It’s a great podcast about all things Ecommerce, business, copywriting, and investing. I don’t talk about it a ton, but I love business, and since I’m not going to school, this is one way I teach myself how to run a successful business.
I’ve always been sort of entrepreneurial. In 1st grade I made stuffed animals and sold them at school. I even came up with a name for them and had a whole “brand” with different sizes and prices. I would make bows and jewelry and sell them with my mom. And I constantly begged my parents to have garage sales, only to be shot down because being the oldest meant everything I owned would someday be a hand-me-down.
Anyway, in high school that entrepreneur spirit was a little dormant, but now that I’m working for an Ecommerce business and investing time to build my own business, it’s flared alive again.
Except one thing has been burdening my heart.
I couldn’t really put a finger on it. Maybe listening to My First Million (secular podcast), I felt dirty pursuing money with such ambition. Or maybe seizing success for myself seemed wrong.
I found my self wondering: is there a way to be a godly entrepreneur? Is it possible?
I couldn’t identify why I was so unsettled, until a friend of mine reminded me of a Bible story that I hadn’t read in a long time.
I struggle with imposter’s syndrome big-time. If you don’t know what that is, it’s basically feeling like you’re super under qualified for your job. God has blessed me with the opportunity to be a teen author, but so many people assume I got published only because of family connections or money, which makes me feel like I don’t belong calling myself an author.
I feel super young and inexperienced (which I am), and when I’m assigned writing projects that should be easy for me, a mental block whispers that I’m not good enough to even try.
It’s a mentality I battle almost every day. And from a logical perspective, it’s silly. But a lot of the devil’s lies are silly, and we believe them anyway.
Anyway, I constantly struggle between two mindsets: my entrepreneurial one that is super ambitious and excited to take on new projects, and my under qualified-ness that tells me I’m too young, too inexperienced, too stupid to start any of the entrepreneur projects I want to take on. It’s a fun tango;-)
Maybe it was this inner conflict that made my heart feel heavy when I thought about taking the next step as an entrepreneur, but I think God wanted to remind me of something and fix my heart a little before I kept going. And I want to share that revelation with you guys this morning, too.
My friend reminded me of this story a few days ago, and it hit me like a ton of bricks:
We open to the scene of a quiet countryside in the ancient Mediterranean. The sky is blue, a breeze rustles the field grass. A young boy stands in a field, staff in hand, shepherding a flock of sheep. That’s David.
When David was a kid, he acted as a shepherd for his family. Nothing glamorous, nothing magnificently important. But when Samuel came to choose the king, he chose Daniel instead of all his brothers.
And do you know why he chose Daniel to be king, even though he was young and inexperienced and under qualified?
Because he was a man after God’s own heart.
All of David’s brothers were far more qualified for the job. They were stronger, bigger, older, and wiser. They had more life experience. They, logically, should have been chosen.
But God chose David because he was a man after God’s own heart.
My friend said something very wise when he told me this story. I’m paraphrasing, but he said, “If you’re recklessly pursuing something all on your own, you’re probably doing it wrong.”
I think by listening to My First Million and fully emerging myself in the business world, I let this idea slip into my head: in order to be successful, you have to climb the mountain, put in the hard work, grit your teeth, and get it done.
And this is true! Success does take a lot of hard work. But what I forgot was this: if God is not participating in my success, if He is not paramount to my success, if He is not the reason for my success—my success is nothing at all.
Success without God is failure.
Wealth without God is poverty.
Anything without God amounts to nothing.
And I struggle to grasp this. I want to be a super independent person. I want to work hard to gain success. Working my butt off to be successful seems far easier than surrendering my hopes for success to God and trusting Him to guide me.
But I must remind myself: When I make success or wealth my god, no amount of success or wealth will fulfill me. It will never be enough.
I found that this story waged war on both the lies struggling within me.
To the entrepreneurial, seize-the-day part of me, it said: stop striving. Ask God where He wants to take you before moving. David was faithful where he was before he was king. He was a faithful shepherd before he even knew he would be something greater. Be faithful where you are right now.
And to the under qualified part of me, it said: you don’t need to be the best. You don’t need to be the wisest, the strongest, the most qualified. You only need to be a woman after God’s own heart. And if first you are faithful in this, you’ll begin to understand that God is faithful all the time, whether you are wealthy or poor, successful or not. In fact, if success and wealth never grace you, as long as you are a woman after God’s own heart, you’ll be richer than you can imagine. Because He is the greatest treasure.
He is the greatest treasure.
And if I am ever chasing after success or wealth alone, instead of God, I’ll find nothing but bones at the end of that rainbow.
I know God has given me this entrepreneurial fire for a reason. And I know He can use it for His glory! I don’t really know what that looks like, being an entrepreneur after God’s own heart yet, but I do know this:
God is enough right now. Enough for me when I’m not enough alone, and more than enough compared to the treasures of this world.
He is enough. And He is better than all of it.
1 Samuel 16 ~
“When they arrived, Samuel saw Eliab and thought, ‘Surely the Lord’s anointed stands here before the Lord.’
But the Lord said to Samuel, ‘Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The Lord does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.'”