Introduction

Over the years I have become more in love with who Jesus is and how He loves people. Not surprisingly, I want to love others in the same way. Beyond that, I want my business to be a tool for Him to use as He wants tom but what does that look like? In the next few paragraphs, I am going to share some practical ways to connect faith to your business and make sure that you have not missed out on the most important one of all.

The one thing you’re missing

If you want to create a business that thrives but you are lacking, I have some advice for you: 1. Your business can have a presence in heaven. When you honor Jesus’ name you are proclaiming that you serve Him. Even better, when you honor the name of Jesus you are declaring that you love God and want to follow Him. This kind of love is not always easy, but in our conversations with God, we learn to love Him through service to others. 2. You are on a mission. Jesus told us to preach the gospel. Every business person should be engaged in spreading the gospel of Christ, which is simply a Gospel of God’s love. Most people connect their faith to the Bible but there is a greater potential for a business owners to impact their workplace through their daily interactions. 3. However, if you ever forget who you are, you’ve lost even before you begin.

There is so much wrapped into being rather than doing. We are alive in Christ, dead to sin, seated at the right hand of the Father and so much more. I covered much of this in my book Grace Walk. We need to make sure we are not looking for a formula in order to be successful in business, but instead, focus on just being in a relationship with Jesus.

God gave me a dream a while back that hit home for me. In the dream, I was coming in out of the wilderness, and to my surprise, I saw that I was going to be performing at Willy’s Restaurant. All over town, there were posters and signs on power line poles. When I found Willy’s Restaurant, I was relieved to find out I was not the headliner just back-up to Jesus. It was a small venue, like a coffee shop and then the dream ended.

I used all the dream interpretation stuff I could find and in the end, I found myself saying “OK God, I’m clueless, What’s the dream about?” Immediately I heard, “It’s not about the performance but Willy’s Restaurant.” Bang, right between the eyes, it is not about performance, never has been although I keep wanting to go there. But what was it about Willy’s Restaurant? As He often does with me it was a play on words. Willy’s Restaurant – His Will is Rest. Resting in the relationship with Him. If we miss that, we have missed the most important thing.

Prayer

Prayer is like my spiritual cell phone; I can hear God all the time when I allow it to be. Yet I often have a hard time paying attention to that sound. I try to multitask and run my errands instead of allowing that voice to do its job. I worry that if I don’t care enough I will forget the awesome thing I heard. Do you know what my voice told me the other day when I was trying to choose my car stereo? “I (Jesus) wants you to be an owner-operator trucker.” I immediately got in touch with Him. As we talked I told Him about how my heart longed to be a smaller, more focused, more efficient business that He could do big things through. Instantly I found myself thanking Him for His great love, for loving the details, and not giving up on me when I got it wrong. Over the next weeks, a strategy to grow my business started to take shape.

What are you doing?

As an entrepreneur, we like to think we are the experts of our business. We hire talented people and then we just do. We want to do everything ourselves and control the results. Our own little heaven on earth. I am here to tell you that you are not the expert. Jesus is the expert. At some point, He said: “You are My co-laborer.” This means that if you do something, you are also doing it with the partner of superior, supernatural ability, and power. In this partnership, we get to learn how Jesus sees people and He opens our eyes to see opportunities that we might have missed otherwise.

Who you serve

The first thing I like to remember is I own an online business. People come to shop because they have a need that we can fill. They are not coming to be preached at or ministered to, in fact, they may not be a spiritual person at all. So how do I serve them, meet their needs, and yet be myself without compromising my faith? First, I provide service and products that are the best possible. For many, we may never interact directly but they want to have an experience that is secure without fear. Second, I have a statement on my site that lets people know I am a believer and that my business supports Christian ministries. Finally, in any customer service interactions, I do have, I strive to make sure the person feels valued at the end of our interaction. The point is there is always a way to love and serve people that doesn’t involve a product or a service.

Be intentional

An important part of connecting faith to your business is by setting intentional goals, to begin with. If you do not define what you want to accomplish, then how can you ever know where to look? The reason why so many people do not connect faith to their business is that they have no goals or direction, to begin with. A good business owner knows that you need to have a vision for your business or else it will fall apart. If you do not have a vision, then it is impossible to create the desired outcome. It is only by defining your purpose that you can begin to understand what is needed to achieve it. It is critical to ask what is most important to you. What do you love most about your life? How do you feel most fulfilled and alive? What do you like doing the most? What things can you do to share this passion with others such that they seek you out to find out what is different here? We should not be just another business, we should look and act differently than the rest of the world.

Conclusion

I love that with the ever-changing climate in our world, God allows for some of the strangest and unexpected changes at the exact time they are needed. I love that this happened at the exact time that I needed it and I don’t think I am alone. May you be inspired by the ways that God moves to bring about His purpose. May you learn to listen to Him for when the time is right for Him to use you to accomplish what He has called you to. May you also learn that by connecting your faith to your business, you will more fully connect with others and bring about joy in their lives.