A Business Owners Cry
Job 7:1
New International Version (NIV)
“Do not mortals have hard service on earth?
Are not their days like those of hired laborers?
Like a slave longing for the evening shadows,
or a hired laborer waiting to be paid.
Ever owned a business, or created something out of nothing?
Whether a business, a farm, a ministry, or any organization, you step out from the comfort, the security of a steady paycheck, and a job, unto the great aching void of nothingness, with the future as bright as the promises of God, but with nothing but Jesus, and your dream to move you forward.
Remember this old Indiana Jones video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YC3q0upAeVc
These verses will come alive to you, at that point, because the idea of time clocks, and another man’s schedule are now gone. You will work for your dream, harder than for any other things you have ever worked for, and you will walk it out by faith, and discover that God really is with you, and has made a way for you.
How well, we understand the ‘paycheck to paycheck’ mentality. The comfort of payday, when that check comes into your hands, and you run to the bank, to rest from your period of toil…temporary satisfaction.
Even a slave finds darkness a place to rest, eat, huddle down for the night, perhaps around a warm fire…
Yet, to those of us movers, shakers, dreamers and visionaries, there is still territory to be conquered, and we are at the other end of the stick, fighting sometimes, long into the night, to make sure that there is money in the bank so that our employees get paid. Fighting for contracts, aggressively building, planting, managing scarce resources, in order to keep the machine running, a responsibility and weariness, our employees never see, or in many cases, understand.
I remember one day, in speaking with another contractor, the particular pain, of not being paid for a job completed. He made the comment: ‘It’s worse than slavery, because at least a slave didn’t have to buy his own tools, pay his own gas, buy his own materials, and pay for his house, to work long, long hours, to not get paid…’
Wicked people, with fancy attorneys, that deliberately steal from hard working people, not nickels and dimes, but, in the stroke of a pen, obtain unrighteous judgments, carefully, with predatory zeal, manipulating the legal system, causing truth to fall in the streets, as they prey upon those unable to defend themselves, often hard working business people….
Yet, you must see that there is more going on here, than mere business, betrayal, and hard work.
There is a God, a very living, loving, heavenly Father, who knows, who cares, who sees…
1Pe 4:1 Forasmuch then as Christ hath suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves likewise with the same mind: for he that hath suffered in the flesh hath ceased from sin;
Sometimes, the suffering goes on for some time. Job’s particular trial lasted nine months, Bible scholars teach us.
So what do we do in our place of pain?
Isa 12:6 Cry out and shout, thou inhabitant of Zion: for great is the Holy One of Israel in the midst of thee.
CRY OUT TO GOD!
Job did:
Job 7:11 “Therefore I will not keep silent;
I will speak out in the anguish of my spirit,
I will complain in the bitterness of my soul
To you, you forgive, and He heals, and He works eternal character into our hearts, the longsuffering love of Jesus, making us holy…
Rom 8:29 ¶ For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.
To those who appear to be getting away with theft, embezzlement, fraud, He also sees, He loves, and He judges….
Ro 12:19 Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.
In the meantime, stand upon His promises, and know that your particular stand of faith is working in you, Php 2:13 For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.
As His process works in you, Holy Spirit is working through you, as your stand of faith makes headlines in heaven, and He writes the eternal testimony upon the parchment of time…
Crying out to God for understanding, pressing into Him in prayer and His Word, are your only options…because like Job, at the end of any particular stand of faith, the object of your faith will appear, Jesus, the fourth man in the fire.
It may seem like you are overwhelmed, and perhaps you are, but God is growing you, and your capacity for responsibility, and trust in Him…
1Co 10:13 There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it.
There is a way out, you are going to make it through…
Let’s Pray:
‘Father, I cry out to you, asking You for understanding, strength, healing, provision, direction, the way of escape you promise in Your word. I ask, knowing that I am heard and answered, for I ask in Your precious name Lord Jesus, Amen.’