What does it look like to partner with God in business? Not just to be a “good christian businessman or woman”, not to reduce God’s involvement in our business or box up christian business outcomes to only equate to honesty, integrity and the golden rule. What would it look like to truly partner with God in every aspect of life and business. Well, for starters I think the possibilities are endless. I truly believe God is desiring to show up and show off in ways that we could never predict, but I would like to share one thing God showed me recently while attending a Kingdom at Work event. Shifting our hearts and minds from aiming to honor or please God in our business to viewing ourselves as partners with God in His business as a bit like leaving Egypt and heading to the promise land. Read this declaration God gave his people in the following passage.
Deuteronomy 11:10-12
10 The land you are entering to take over is not like the land of Egypt, from which you have come, where you planted your seed and irrigated it by foot as in a vegetable garden. 11 But the land you are crossing the Jordan to take possession of is a land of mountains and valleys that drinks rain from heaven. 12 It is a land the Lord your God cares for; the eyes of the Lord your God are continually on it from the beginning of the year to its end.
There is a lot of depth that can be pulled from this, but I want to offer a singular perspective today. God is wanting to move me and women in business from Egypt to the promise land and here is what I mean.
This passage describes how while in Egypt God’s people had to plant seed for crop and irrigate it by foot. Meaning they had to do all the work of caring and cultivating, but God tells them that in verse 11&12 they are headed into a land that God cares for, that he continually sees. A land that drinks rain from heaven. These are two of the major shifts that happen when we truly shift to partnering with God.
1) Rain from heaven.
God has supernatural wisdom, insight, provision, ideas etc. that He wants to rain down from heaven to his business partners. I have story after story of people who are living this out and there are countless examples in the word of God that elude to that fact that God wants to lead us in this way. Last week I was speaking to a man who recounted God telling him in 2004 he had 3 years left in his real estate business. He was a pretty large residential developer at that time and didn’t know what God meant, but he listened to the voice of God and said yes Lord. In 2007 God reminded him what he had spoken 3 years earlier so he sold and liquidated his business, completely escaping the turmoil of the 2008-2009 real estate bubble breaking. Heavens insight and wisdom saved this man millions!
James 1:5Proverbs 2:6Ecclesiastes 2:26 A few biblical examples.
2) God cares for the land.
The land (your assignment, authority and/or influence) that God is calling you into is sustained by him. This is not for the sake of control, but rather so He can expand and increase what He has assigned and proportioned to you. Some of us are convinced that there are people who can and will do more for us than God will. When we get a Kingdom perspective we see that everything is God’s, he is allowing us to steward what is his, but he desires that we do it through a partnership with him… He cares for His business and brings increase.
So what does all this mean? God is inviting each of us into a deeper working relationship with Him and He wants to lead us into the fullness of what that means. I encourage you to stop today and ask God to reveal to you what this looks like, relinquish control and engage our God as a Partner in the business he has given you to lead!
-Tyler