It’s Sunday, and I am not open for business today. That is not to say that the automated part of my business won’t continue to take orders, but the flesh and blood part of my business, ME, takes a break from the hustle of trying to make a buck, and I just do what I want to do.
What I usually do is: get up when I feel like it, go to the gym, come home and get Cindi up for church, make us breakfast, go to church, go to lunch, come home and take a nap. Then we play it by ear after that. Tonight, we have a pot luck dinner at a friend’s house.
I mention these things because having a life that is enjoyable is very important to people who are self-employed. When you have a job, it is easy to just go home after you have clocked out and deal with your life without distractions. After all, it is someone else’s job to make sure you have work, make sure your taxes get paid, keep your workplace maintained, safe, and supplied with what you need. But when you are self-employed, you do all of those things. And without giving yourself solid boundaries, you will worry about your business all the time. You will never be off the clock. It will eat you alive.
The first 8 years I was in business, I had no vacation. I worked whenever I could and wherever I could. It lead to 80 hour work weeks and covering 7 counties. It nearly cost me my family. After a very near miss with divorce, I had a lot of time to consider where I had gone wrong. I was a hard-working believer who loved the Lord and avoided evil. (God knows I didn’t have time for any.) But I was violating some of the principles that I thought I was following.
“You cannot be a slave of two masters; you will hate one and love the other; you will be loyal to one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.
“This is why I tell you: do not be worried about the food and drink you need in order to stay alive, or about clothes for your body. After all, isn’t life worth more than food? And isn’t the body worth more than clothes? Look at the birds: they do not plant seeds, gather a harvest and put it in barns; yet your Father in heaven takes care of them! Aren’t you worth much more than birds? Can any of you live a bit longer by worrying about it?
“And why worry about clothes? Look how the wild flowers grow: they do not work or make clothes for themselves. But I tell you that not even King Solomon with all his wealth had clothes as beautiful as one of these flowers. It is God who clothes the wild grass—grass that is here today and gone tomorrow, burned up in the oven. Won’t he be all the more sure to clothe you? What little faith you have!
“So do not start worrying: ‘Where will my food come from? or my drink? or my clothes?’ (These are the things the pagans are always concerned about.) Your Father in heaven knows that you need all these things. Instead, be concerned above everything else with the Kingdom of God and with what he requires of you, and he will provide you with all these other things.”
-Jesus, Matthew 6:24-33
I was so consumed with making sure we had enough to pay the bills that I lost perspective. I had sown the seed, but I also thought I had to make it grow. This is God’s business, not mine.
Today, I don’t sweat it if I have no work for Monday. I do not spend Sunday scrambling to get something going. I just let it go and let God work out the details. I make a lot more money than I did back when I was working 80 hour weeks. And I enjoy the time I am not at work a lot more than bef0re.
Do not try to bear the burden of making all the details work out. You cannot possibly make them work anyway. And give God room to be God and surprise you. If you try to be God, you will be sorry, because he might let you!
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