More income won’t solve this

At every gathering of women over wine or appetizers or dinner, there always seems to be one person bringing up the need for a promotion, desire for more income and wishful thinking about the future plans they have to be living a different life when their next career advancement hits.

Maybe this is just common with my friends who are all executives, commissions high level sales people or business owners. Is this common for you too?

Because there’s great benefit to having goals and striving for more, and nothing wrong with hoping and working towards a promotion, it’s not a bad conversation or something taboo. At the same time, there’s also different ways to think about things that are more strategic and less ‘relying on your promotion’ or ‘placing your future in your boss’s hands’ attitude. This is what I remind friends of often.

Just for some background, the areas where faith and money intersect in our lives is my absolute favourite one to be privy to. As a Christian business owner who also loves God and is in leadership at my local church, you’re stepping into my personal world with what’s coming next.

I’ve taken time to consider a few areas of money and faith that often need our attention. And mostly, these are areas that we all have to deal with at one point or another that touch more on heart posture and less on practical tips to help you succeed. But what if your heart posture was the key to success? I would bet that it’s more likely going to determine your future finances than striving for more income. More income won’t solve the heart posture change that we may need to level up and break thru to the next realm of all God has in store for us as his daughters, his girls, his most loved.

A few things to pray for that cross my mind while writing this article:

Establishment

We often long for establishment, to climb the corporate ladder to a place that says… You Have Made It. But what have you made if you haven’t had God at the center the whole way? Here’s a prayer prompt to refocus your heart in this area. Here’s a prayer prompt to consider for this area of your money and business:

God, you know the desires of my heart. Direct my steps in accordance with my plans. In your word it says, In their hearts humans plan their course, but the Lord establishes their steps in Proverbs 16:9, and I’m relying on your voice to prompt me to establish my steps and show me where to go. I’m listening and I will follow. Forgive me for striving to establish my own steps or stepping out of your path for me in the past. Bring me a leader who has gone where I’m going that will hold me accountable to your voice and we walk this out together. Amen.

Promotion

We often put a lot of weight on promotion, choosing only jobs that have ‘high level of upward mobility’ and ‘room to grow’ or we deemphasize options that don’t have these things. What if we changed our perspectives on how we were being promoted? This can also be at work in any driven professional but often I do see this in corporate team members and executives. If we’re putting a lot of weight on promotion for our lives to start, for our family to take a much needed vacation, to slow down the pace of working 95 hrs a week when we never see our kids, we need to refocus who the real promotion comes from. Here’s a prayer prompt to consider for this area of your money and business:

God, I know promotion comes from you. In your word, it says… For promotion cometh neither from the east, nor from the west, nor from the south. But God is the judge: he putteth down one, and setteth up another Psalm 75:6-7 KJV… forgive me for when I relied on or trusted earthly promotion over yours. Show me in dreams and visions and speak to me directly and thru others about where you want me to be refined so that I can be promoted by you so that I can be set up according to your will. Amen.

Trust

We often do everything ourselves and sometimes, i’ll admit, it leads me to bitterness, stress and overwhelm. As God stands by, watching us stressed and dealing with insomnia about the next product launch or profitability numbers or our team, I can imagine Him just looking down hoping we will ask for help. But we can rely so easily on money to get us thru, to pay the mortgage, to keep things going that slowly what we do at work and in our businesses takes a front seat to who God is and how He wants to be in relationship with us. This may look like compromising your ethics and morals at work to make more money, charging an elderly client more who will never know the difference, teaching something that you know is rooted in a religious practice that’s not Christian to others because you feel you need the paycheque and this is your only option and I could name so many more. God has more for us than to participate in activities to make money that don’t honor Him. Here’s a prayer prompt to consider for this area of your money and business:

God, I have really struggled with relying too much on money and not enough on you as my provider, as God, as my Father. In your word, it says… For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs. 1 Timothy 3:10… And I have been too eager for money and done things or said things that did not honor you so that I could make money. I repent of my ways and am committed to leaving those in the past. Show me where the love of money has come between my relationship with you, show me in pictures and visions and dreams and speak to me with your voice and thru people about where this has happened so that I can repent and change my ways. Give me a pure heart towards loving you more than money because I don’t want to live like this anymore. Help me develop a more healthy approach to finances and work that is rooted in trust in you. Amen.

Once you have the promotion, managing the new title, new role, new financial blessing and new work load is a whole other thing that we need to rely on God for.

Which one of these spoke to you?