I met with a lady from Garden and Guns magazine and she was very complimentary of Honey Lake Resort. I told her that when I bought it that it was little more than a tree farm with one single bedroom cottage and a couple of barns.
She exclaimed that it must give me tremendous satisfaction to look at it today. Then she asked if I achieved everything that I wanted with it. I thought about it and then remarked, “Yes, I think it turned out nice”.
As I thought about it I remembered when I decided to build the resort. Every afternoon I would drive my truck up on top of a red clay hill dodging pine trees and stumps and I would park and look down below. I sat up there and thought and planned and drove back and forth trying to pick out the best places to locate different buildings.
Sometimes I would sit up there for an hour or two and just stare. My plantation workers would look at me like I was crazy and snicker and laugh at what they believed to be eccentric behavior on my part. Two and a half years later the resort was finished with ponds connected by a river, spa, fitness center, pool, lakeside pavilion, cottages, game room, lodges, cottages, stables, fenced pastures, boat dock, sport shooting complex, magnificent Gathering Hall, my home, and best of all a drop dead gorgeous church.
As we were standing up on a hill looking down on all that had been accomplished an employee who had laughed at me for sitting in my truck and staring told me one day, “You know we used to laugh at you sitting up on that hill for hours at a time; we thought you were crazy. Now we know what you were looking at and we aren’t laughing anymore.
The same was true of every company that I ever started. All were initially met with naysayers and those who laughed at me and said I was crazy. Now that the Jesus Alliance Project has begun in earnest, I’m experiencing the same thing. The boo birds, naysayers and critics have been lining up and telling me I’m crazy and it will never pan out. I’ve heard every excuse in the book not to launch this effort and predictions of failure are the norm. Guess what? I’m laughing now. They are blind, but I can see around the corner and I see success. We have a good plan and God is with us.
Don’t let anyone dissuade you from accomplishing your dreams. My accountant told me one time to quit trying to be an entrepreneur and just get a job. He told me I was plenty smart and I could easily earn $50K or even more a year. Ten years after he said that I was making six times that amount per week.
I don’t say that in a boastful way, but as encouragement, because you see most people don’t want to see someone else’s dreams and vision become reality, even if they are of God. If you are a dreamer don’t listen to them. Listen to your God, have faith, and work your butt off and success will be yours.
Failure is for those too timid to try anything but a sure thing. Don’t worry about those who don’t believe in you or your dreams and vision. You are in good company; it even happened to Jesus. They mocked Him, “Is not this the carpenter’s son?” He refused to bless them because of their unbelief. Listen to God and not the naysayers – If God asks you to do something – DO IT!
Matt. 13:58
And he did not do many miracles there because of their lack of faith.
March 21, 2016 – Click here to listen