Bad Times/challenges Part 2
During my most challenging year in 2006, in a moment of spiritual epiphany I got on my knees and told God that all I had was His, and if He wanted to take me to bankruptcy I would still love Him and still try my best to serve Him. I said this in all soul-based honesty and looking back it was a key moment in my life. I believe I have a God-given gift to make money, and it was important that I gave this part of my life to God fully and without reservation. It has cemented the fact that all I have belongs to God, and I am happy to be a conduit or a pipeline for God’s money rather than hold reservoirs of money for myself.
While a spiritual breakthrough is wonderful it does not pay the bills. It doesn’t even necessarily give a light at the end of the tunnel. I still had no money or any certainty the situation would change.
Fortunately I had two other positive spiritual encounters. Once when I was praying, I felt God saying to me that He was deliberately holding back the progress I was hoping for. But when the time was right, the dominoes would start to fall one after the other.
The second encounter was when a friend who hears from God in a very clear way prayed for me. I hadn’t seen him for some months, and he had no idea what I had been through. When he prayed, he said I had been through a very difficult time but God was in it all, and the time would come to an end soon.
Of course “soon” was not a time period I could plan with, and I had no idea how the situation would resolve itself. However I did feel more peaceful, and it did feel good to have it confirmed that God was in the situation and not abandoning me to whatever might come along.
After I had a chance to think and pray about it, I felt God was saying to me that I had made a mistake by taking a humanistic view of my financial goals. I had been reading a lot of self-help and motivational books which had caused me to stop thinking about what God would want me to do, but rather what I could achieve on my own. I have now learned that what I need to ask is “Lord, here is my life, what do you want me to achieve for you and your kingdom this year?”
The scripture “Unless the Lord builds the house its builders labour in vain” (Psalm 127 v 1) came to mind many times.
I also believe I was not in a state for God to use me in a significant financial way until I had really deep down inside surrendered my finances to God. I believe that one of my main purposes on earth is to make money to further God’s kingdom. I believe God had to break my humanistic ideas of making money and I had to surrender everything to Him before I was ready to be released into the calling He has for me. Interestingly 2007 and 2008 were by a huge margin the best years I have ever had financially. They would not have been possible without the difficulties of 2006. And I know that with the blessing of God, much greater things are going to happen in the years ahead.
I also know that if God took me down to zero I would be happy and content, and I would love Him just as much as if He decides to use me as a conduit for a billion dollars.