My husband and I have just retired from running our own business for nearly 30 years. It was all-consuming, as self-employment can so often be, but the Lord carried us from one day to the next, from one project to another. His leading was like daylight every day of our business. He led us into it in the first place, even dropping the name of our business into our minds, and in our mind’s eye He sat at the desk with us every day as our Senior Partner. When we didn’t know what to do or there was an apparent freeze on any business coming in, we would go in prayer to the Lord, our Senior Partner, and ask him to seek out new business for us.
Our first 16 years or so was like boot camp. We ‘trained’ hard which meant we got used to living on a very tight budget and would sometimes go weeks or months with no income. Sometimes we’d have success only for it to come to nothing at the eleventh hour. In those years, we might not have had what we wanted, but we always had what we needed. There was never one day when we overdrew on our account.
Do you know what they say about training hard? You fight easy.
The last eleven years was a time of poured out anointing on us both and on the business, such as we had never seen or could have imagined. Those last years of self-employment proved to be our most profitable as everything we touched turned to gold. But none of that came from us – it was all the blessing and the gift of God. He was and is and always will be our provider because He is faithful to his Word (Isaiah 55:8-12).
If you are reading this and are at the end of all hope, remember that the Lord hears your cry and He will answer you. Bring him into your business, into your job, into your family and let Him take the seat as your Senior Partner, and He will do for you what He has promised.
The Lord is a refuge for the oppressed, a stronghold in times of trouble.
Those who know your name will trust in you,
For you, Lord, have never forsaken those who seek you.
(Psalm 9:9)
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