humbled.

pride is a hard topic to tackle. but a necessary one to talk about none the less. i think it is accurate to say that it is so easy to be prideful - thinking that we are better than someone else or that we deserve something because of who we are or what we did. these feelings can corrupt our hearts so easily. 

the other day i received some news that was good + bad at the same time. do you ever receive news or something happens to you and its both good and bad at the same time. hard to explain but makes sense if it has happened to you. 

so our business has been waiting on an inspection of our manufacturing plant that has to take place prior to importing + selling product. no im not a drug dealer. but anyway we have been waiting for this inspection to be scheduled for almost a year now. 

i finally had enough of just “waiting” or being “patient” and i inquired to the inspection agency to better understand why it was taking so long. 

the response was quite ridiculous. i sat for what felt like an hour just staring at the screen after reading what they had told me. 

pretty much one of our associates had made a clerical error. the inspection agency informed me that almost 5 months ago they had emailed the contact listed on our application and just had not received a response back. i investigated a tad further because neither i nor any of my colleagues had received any email about the inspection. turns out the clerical error our associate had made was simply writing down the wrong email. he had added the letter ‘c’ to the beginning of the email therefore creating the situation of the email being sent to absolutely nobody. 

i was angry. happy. disappointed. and slightly annoyed. all at once. 

we had been “patiently waiting” for nothing essentially. the email to schedule the inspection was sent to nobody and they were waiting on us while we thought we were waiting on them. 

so this happened. it was good and bad news. good that we finally were getting to schedule the inspection but bad that we had been waiting on nothing. 

i share this story to say that regardless of the outcome of the situation we always must remember that we are nothing without God. we have to remember that he is in control and we must trust him. 

my pride easily crept in. i thought and expressed to those around me my disappointment in the associate who made the clerical error. i went on and on about how dumb and irresponsible this mistake was. how if it were me, i would of never made such a mistake. 

i put myself above everyone around me. i determined that we deserved to already be done with this inspection. that we should be selling our product already. that this associate was going to pay for his mistake because i deserved better. 

now lets break this down. 

i deserve absolutely nothing. i have faith in my God who makes it clear that we are all sinners. we deserve nothing but through His forgiveness and mercy we can be saved.

i have found it easy to separate business + money from God. placing business in one sphere and God in another. it is easy to focus on business and your career without placing God anywhere near it. it is almost as if we treat God as a little kid on the sideline while we are the adult going out into the world to generate wealth and opportunity. 

the culture around us pushes us to go get our bags. to get what we deserve. to fight for wealth. to be a dog. essentially to let pride take over that aspect of life and ignore God. 

this little story i shared is the story of life. we do things expecting a result that we create in our minds. when the result ends up being something different we blame everyone and everything around us. 

what if we did things in business and our careers with God at the center. before any decision or any move we should be on our knees praying for Gods guidance, for his wisdom, for things to happen according to his plan and not our own. 

i believe our mindset would shift from what we could get, how far we could go, how much we will make to how is he going to use me to further his kingdom, how is this blessing of wealth going to allow me to do more for him. 

i am still learning how to do this. how to be a better man of faith. how to put God first before everything in all aspects of my life. God makes it very clear and quite simple though. all of the confusion and distraction can be placed on the world around us. 

i say that to say if you are ever wondering or confused - then open the Bible. God has laid it out very clear for us to understand. the constant bombardment of the media and bad apples around us make is ever so easy to justify worldly mindsets and actions. 

we are all children of God. we must seek him first. open the word and let it transform you. you, me, God, your mom, your cousin. we will all be happy you did.