I was giving my testimony to some guys the other day and I told them about a decision that I faced several years ago regarding selling one of my businesses. I had offers that far exceeded my financial desires in life and I truly desired to accept the best of them, and retire to the Florida Keys and live a life of leisure with emphasis on fishing offshore every day that the weather would cooperate.
But after literally months of prayer and meditation, I couldn’t find peace with the decision. Finally I came to the conclusion that God didn’t want me to sell and/or retire at that particular time. Immediately I felt tremendous peace with my decision, where before I had known nothing but misery.
I surrendered my will to God’s and poured myself back into my business and worked even harder than ever. At the time I was first wrestling with the decision, I could have sold my business for $30 million, but I worked hard for two more years and ended up selling it for $75 million.
One of the guys in attendance asked, “What if after making your decision, instead of selling your company for $75 million, the economy would have gotten worse, your business would have tanked, and you would have had to end up taking bankruptcy; would you still have felt that it was God that had influenced you not to take the $30 million when you had the chance?”
I thought that was an interesting and fair question. I didn’t hesitate with my answer though: “Yes, because regardless of the outcome, I still knew dead certain that it was God’s will for me to make that decision.”
I could find no peace when I was contemplating selling it; however when I finally did decide not to retire and instead keep working and build the company to the next level, it was like a heavy burden had been lifted from my shoulders and I immediately felt warm peace blanket me. At that moment I knew for sure that I was doing what God wanted me to do.
I said the other day that when I am within the will of God it is easy for me to detect. Similar to the ocean undercurrents, I cannot see them or hear them, but when I get in one, I can sure “feel their pull”. So it is with God’s will for my life; when I am within it, I know it; and I can feel His powerful spiritual pull in my life.
Okay but if the business would have failed instead of thrived would my answer still have been the same?
Good grief…YES!
What I would be doing is not questioning whether or not my decision was what God had wanted me to do, rather earnestly looking for whatever hard lesson God was trying to teach me from it. If course I would NOT have liked having to go through and endure that dark period of my life, but I would know without question that it was entirely necessary, or God would not have allowed it.
I have tremendous faith in God and without it I could not have such an attitude.
Such was not always the case. One time I went through a very dark period of my early business career whereby several employees nearly stole me out of business and I was on the verge of bankruptcy. I was miserable for seven years as I fought my way through it with angry creditors calling me a lowdown scum every day of my life and demanding payment. It was all I could do to keep the doors open and it was a miserable time of my life.
While it was happening I questioned why God would punish me so long and so sadistically. As it turns out God was giving me an education of a lifetime and I should have been thanking Him instead of shaking my fist at Him. I learned how to budget and run a business with discipline instead of reckless abandon and today I know without question that God allowed this to happen in my life to teach me these hard lessons. I got my PHD in business because of it and I am exceedingly glad that I went through those difficult days.
I think tough things in life always happen for a definite reason. Sometimes it will be revealed as was the case with the employee embezzlement fiasco, and others we might never know the answer and God will keep it hidden from us.
It is important to remember that through it all God remains firmly in control.
Whether it remains a mystery as to why we are enduring hard times, or it is revealed to us, invariably our character is defined by the toughest of times. Like refining silver, the impurities in our life are stripped out as God the “Master Silversmith” works towards purifying and perfecting us.
Like pure silver when His image is seen in us, we have arrived.
I’ve learned that to question hard times is sheer folly and it doesn’t change a darned thing. I’ve learned to expect them and I’m never surprised when they arrive. Life is analogous to a ping pong game to me; one minute we are gracefully soaring through the air, and then BANG! We have a hard landing spinning wildly and then WHAP! We are viciously slammed hard with a sand paper laced paddle. But then we gracefully soar through the air again with great acceleration and exhilaration.
Life is a cycle of good times and bad, valleys and peaks, and that is how God set it up for whatever His reasons.
We know that His reasons are good reasons however; and the Bible teaches that all things turn out for good to those who love the Lord. I believe that verse with all of my heart and so should you. I think we should earnestly seek God’s will in our lives and accept both good/hard times unconditionally. It is called surrender.
Frankly it has been next to impossible for this rebellious hellion to surrender my will to anyone’s including God, but I’m only happy when I bend my will to His.
How do I do it? The Bible teaches I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. Without His strength I couldn’t do it and I must draw close to Him if I hope to succeed with it…
James 5:11
We give great honor to those who endure under suffering. For instance, you know about Job, a man of great endurance. You can see how the Lord was kind to him at the end, for the Lord is full of tenderness and mercy.