📚Bible Study Notes on Proverbs 11:1, 24-26 and James 4:7
Hard times can harden our hearts. 🖤Everyone is suffering in business one way or another because of the COVID pandemic and the government's lacking response to help businesses. These conditions can make business owners not only cut costs but also cut corners to survive.
For any business owners reading this, have you been tempted to do this? Let me warn you that if you fall into the trap of cutting corners to stay alive, it will not be worth it in the end because you could end up losing trust and credibility with your clients and suppliers.
And when you do it once, here's what happens to your heart:
1. It becomes hardened because deep inside you will feel guilty for cutting corners at your customers' expense. And if no one calls you out on it, you'll think you've gotten away with it and your heart hardens just a little more.
2. Eventually, you will be a business person who may be successful financially, but deep down you are guilty of cheating others. The guilt you try to bury will eat away at your soul. And that is a sad predicament.
✨So don't let these hard economic times harden your heart.
I was encouraged by Proverbs 11 verse 1 and verses 24-26 the other day. I was reminded that while I am in this worldly economy, as a Christ-follower, I am also in God's economy. These ancient words of wisdom remind me that when I am generous even when it's hard to give, it can also be the most fulfilling I can do. When the act of giving costs you something, it is true sacrificial giving.
It's an act of trust and expression of faith - trusting that my God can provide for me when I give to others who really need it. I think that at the core, being grateful for more than the material things that we have allows us to be in a heart position to give either with grace or financial help to those who really need it. When we are reminded that there are a lot of people doing worse off than us, we cancel our own pity party and start to looking outward at ways we can practically help others.
I have my own personal testimonies of how God has come through when I give even when it's hard, not just when business is slow, but when suppliers or customers take advantage or outrightly cheat. Lots of lessons and experiences revealing my own heart through it all. It would have been very easy for me to harden my heart and be cynical over the years. Doing business is challenging in any season, but it's been a tough couple of years, hasn't it! It's been a long tough season, but I continue to see His goodness through it all.
