KINGDOM MINDED ENTREPRENEURSHIP: LIVE BY FAITH, NOT BY SIGHT
“For we live by faith and not by sight.” (2 Corinthians 5:7) Welcome to the life of an entrepreneur. Welcome to the main reason I never wanted to be an entrepreneur’s wife.
Warning: super vulnerable post ahead. To really be a Kingdom Minded Entrepreneur, you have to get comfortable being in a place where all you have is the work God has given you to do, the belief in what you are building, and the faith to trust a God who says He will be your provider. (see Philippians 4:19; 4:6-7). This is not a place I like to be. It puts me in a place where I can be responsible and diligent with the work of my hands, but I cannot control the outcome of how successful I will be or how I will make sure my bills are paid and my family is fed.
I read a story recently about an extraordinarily successful business couple. They were being interviewed about their beginnings in business. The wife was speaking about how her husband loved to build and was phenomenal at construction/real estate. When she married him, her parents worried. There were times the only money they had to live on was cash that was in her husband’s pocket. Her parents would tell him he needed to go get a real job. She would tell him to go after his dreams. Today they have one of the most successful renovation, construction, and design businesses in the world. What if she had been so worried about other people’s opinions, paying their bills, or not having food that she had told her husband to give up on his dreams and go get a real job?
Even as I am writing this, tears are stinging my eyes. Her approach to her husband cuts me to the quick. I am not this woman, and for years I have spent time being so afraid of not having enough or having to honestly rely on God for things, that I have never really supported my husband, his talents, or the businesses he has desired to create.
Oh, I have “allowed” him to work on them. I have helped him do some things for the business hear and there. I have even “given” him money to help him. But, let’s be honest, I have never really just BELIEVED in him. And as I have begun to unravel why this is, I discovered something I never expected. My lack of belief in my husband actually had nothing to do with him. It had everything to do with my lack of belief in God. And that brings me to today.
Today, I am choosing to do this differently. I am choosing to stand up and honor the call of building businesses that God has placed on my husband’s life. I am choosing to walk by faith and not by sight; that no matter what, my God is faithful. I am choosing to believe (and I do) in the work God has brought to us and the call He has placed on our lives; and most of all, I am embracing a life like Paul was talking about in 2 Corinthians. It is not always easy. Sometimes it is extremely hard. This week has been one of those hard times. But at the end of the day, I want to live my life to the glory of the Kingdom. And, if you are going to be called to be an entrepreneur, or an entrepreneurs wife, you have to be willing to take God at His word and walk by faith without seeing exactly how its all going to work out.