I know how to live on almost nothing or with everything. I have learned the secret of living in every situation, whether it is with a full stomach or empty, with plenty or little. For I can do everything through Christ, who gives me strength.
Philippians 4:12-13
In our 10+ years of business journey, we have been through many highs and lows.
We have gone bankrupt from time to time.
We faced failure after failure, loss after loss.
Despite our best efforts, we have accumulated debt that we cannot pay off.
Occasionally, we have questioned our calling for business.
The way business is done in Africa differs slightly from the way it is done in the West.
A highly corrupted business system, war, inflation, and economic and political instability must be dealt with.
As Christians, we suffer a lot more than other business owners in the process of making our ways clean before our God.
Frequently our business and personal bills pile up. Our pockets contain far less than the money we need to cover our bills.
With all this, we have learned to trust God with our finances.
I Know How To Live On Almost Nothing.
Regardless of our empty bank accounts or living on a tight budget for many years, God always provides for our needs.
He didn’t seem to be worried about inflation, war, or the economic and political crises we were experiencing. Despite all these circumstances, he never failed to take care of us.
He may not come in the ways we expected him to come. He had his own ways to provide for our needs.
We have acquired the wisdom of living on almost nothing.
We learned how to cut our costs and live on tight budgets.
Instead of worrying about how we are going to give solutions for everything, we learned to hand over all our financial quests to him through prayer. It is crystal clear to us that God is our only provider.
Instead of looking for something that makes profits in a short period of time with less effort, we learned to work on projects for years and grow them bit by bit as the Bible teaches us.
Dishonest money dwindles away,
Proverbs 13:11
but whoever gathers money little by little makes it grow.
We learned to wait for his right timing to answer our prayers.
We learned to follow his guidance to fulfill all our financial needs, even if, sometimes it doesn’t seem right and comfortable in front of our eyes.
Our faith and our relationship with him grow abundantly.
I Know How To Live On……. With Everything
We have witnessed God rewarding us for the hard work we labored with no one watching and giving recognition.
We labored for several years tirelessly in different projects being paid way under our sweat. In fact, some business projects were complete losses.
But, God was counting all our sweat and had his own ways to pay for it all.
We learned that there is a time for everything. There is time to sweat and time to get the reward.
In living with everything, we learned nothing is ours.
God only decides on our finances.
Everything we have is his property. Whatever he says upon it will be done.
He may guide us to give a hand to somebody in need while we have many other needs on the table.
We learned to put his will ahead of ours, to be free from being controlled by money or our desires.
Through all these years we have learned a very important lesson;
Whenever we are empty, we are full through him.
Whenever we are in abundance, we own nothing.
For from him and through him and for him are all things.
Romans 11:36
To him be the glory forever! Amen.
