Christian Business Concepts
Christian Business Concepts
The Silent Season: How Waiting on God Can Transform Your Business
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Harold Milby explores the biblical principle of waiting on God as an essential leadership practice for Christian business leaders seeking true success and wisdom. He distinguishes this active, faith-filled posture from passive patience, demonstrating how it can transform decision-making and business outcomes.
• Waiting on God is not passive inactivity but an active faith posture that aligns decisions with God's divine will
• Biblical foundation includes God's perfect timing (Ecclesiastes 3:1) and the promise of renewed strength (Isaiah 40:31)
• Better clarity in decision-making comes when leaders resist pressure to act quickly and seek God's wisdom
• Avoiding expensive mistakes happens when leaders take time to evaluate risks and seek counsel before making decisions
• Waiting builds resilience, models faith to teams, and aligns business with God's eternal purposes
• Practical steps include prayer and listening, studying Scripture, seeking wise counsel, and practicing patience
• Common challenges include impatience, stakeholder pressure, fear of missing opportunities, and doubt
• The fruit of waiting includes peace, wisdom, and divine provision that leads to sustainable success
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Welcome to the Christian Business Concepts with your host, harold Milby. Christian Business Concepts is dedicated to guiding companies and business owners in becoming effective, efficient and successful through God's Word and godly principles. Now, here's your host, harold Milby.
Speaker 2:Thanks, kelly, and welcome everyone to Christian Business Concepts. And for those of you that are listening for the very first time, let me welcome you to the CBC family. I'm your host, harold Milby, and each week, I discuss biblical principles, especially biblical business principles, that can help you find true true now true and powerful godly success in your career and in your personal life. Each week, it's my hope to encourage you, enlighten you and empower you to apply these principles and for you to grow as a leader and as a person. Now, please be sure to share this podcast with four or five other people and be sure to post the podcast link on your LinkedIn or your Facebook pages. Help us to grow the CBC community. You know God is raising up Christian businesses around the world and he's raising up Christian business leaders as well, and we hope that you'll make Christian business concepts a part of your journey to success. We really do. Now, before we get started, let me give a big shout out to the country of Angola, and we appreciate you, angola, and we appreciate you folks. Thank you so much for downloading so many podcasts, but we just want to recognize you and thank you and thanks to all of you who listen to this podcast on a regular basis. Now in our weekly business spotlight, I'd like to draw your attention to a company called Seven Weeks Coffee. They happen to be here in the United States. They're based in Washington DC. Seven Weeks Coffee started in 2021. So they're just four years old by a man by the name of Anton Kresik, and he moved to DC actually to pursue a political career, but God had other ideas. And you know part of their mission statement says it aims to promote godly values, provide excellent coffee and protect every beating heart. You know it donates 10% of every sale, which equates to about 50% of their profit, to pro-life pregnancy centers. You know, anton was really inspired. He heard Billy Graham preach one time and he was really inspired by Billy Graham as Billy Graham began to call on believers to begin to influence the marketplace. And as of this month now remember they're only four years old, but as of this month they are approaching $1 million in donations to these pregnancy centers. So we applaud them. We appreciate the leadership of this company. What a great company that has such a God-centered vision and mission. I say keep it up, seven Weeks Coffee. We sure are glad that you're in the marketplace and we need more people like you.
Speaker 2:Well, let's get into today's topic. As a Christian business leader, you know you're called to navigate the what I would call the complexities I think of leadership. But as a Christian business leadership, you're called to navigate those complexities with faith, with wisdom and integrity. You know, in a fast-paced, results-driven world that we live in today, the concept, I think, of waiting on God, just waiting on God, may kind of seem counterintuitive, you know. But let me say this Scriptures actually consistently teach that waiting on God is not a passive inactivity.
Speaker 2:I'm not talking about patience. There's a difference between patience and waiting on God. Waiting on God is not a passive activity. It's a very active, faith-filled, I guess we could say posture that aligns your decisions and your timing, your purpose, with God's divine will for your life and for your business. And so today we want to explore why waiting on God is so essential. It's biblical foundation. We're going to look at that and we're also going to look at some practical benefits in business and then we're going to talk about how to cultivate this kind of discipline, as far as waiting on God, into your leadership journey.
Speaker 2:And in the business world, leaders are really faced with constant pressure. You're faced with pressure to perform, to compete, to deliver immediate results, and really waiting on God really provides such a good counterbalance, if I could say it that way. And the way it can do this is by waiting. You know, just waiting on God. It really just helps you to begin to lead with confidence and knowing that your decisions are grounded in faith because you're waiting on God. So what is the biblical foundation? You know, waiting on God is, just like I said, a reoccurring theme in the Bible. Waiting on God is, just like I said, a reoccurring theme in the Bible. It's modeled by a lot of leaders throughout the Word of God and it's also affirmed by a lot of God's promises. So here are some key biblical insights.
Speaker 2:So, first of all, the thing you need to understand God's timing is perfect. He's never late, he's never early, he's always right on time. Ecclesiastes 3.1 says there is a time for everything, anda season, for every activity under the heavens. God operates outside of human constraints of time. God doesn't see time like we do and his plans will unfold according to his wisdom and not have anything to do with our urgency. You know, as a leader, you know trusting God and his timing, it really will kind of protect you from making hasty decisions that can really kind of be counter-production to your business or it can derail your business. And so God's timing, realize, is perfect.
Speaker 2:Next, strength and renewal come through waiting on God. Strength and renewal comes through waiting on the Lord. You know Isaiah 40, 31,. You know. But those who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings like eagles. They shall run and not be weary. They shall walk and not faint. Waiting on God replenishes. It replenishes your emotional, your spiritual and even your physical being, your reserves. It equips you to lead with endurance so that you don't burn out. So that's important. Next, waiting on God demonstrates your trust in his sovereignty, right. So Psalms 27, 14, wait for the Lord, be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord. Be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord.
Speaker 2:Leaders like David, king David. He faced a lot of trials, but he learned that waiting on God was an act of surrender and confidence in his control and not their own. And we see this in so many different characters in the Bible, from Genesis to Revelation. So waiting it aligns your heart with God's purposes when you wait on him. So here's a question for you. Can you recall a time when you rushed a decision and you later regretted it? I know probably everybody that's listening to me today would say, yes, I can remember one, at least. Many of you've had many others, I've had many others. And if we had waited on God, how would it have changed that outcome? In my case, I can think of several good things that would have come out of that if I just waited on God, and so that's important.
Speaker 2:So why does it matter to you as a godly business leader? What does it matter to you? What's important about waiting on God? Because waiting on God is not just a spiritual exercise. It has some very practical implications that can really help you to be more effective. So let's look at them. Number one there's going to be better clarity in your decision making. You know business leaders face a lot of that pressure. I shared that before. A lot of pressure, and it's to act quickly, whether it be like launching a new product or hiring staff or resolving conflicts.
Speaker 2:Waiting on God allows you to seek his wisdom and ensures that your decisions will line up with his will and then your long-term vision rather than short-term pressures. If you look at Abraham, abraham became impatient, refused to wait on God's promise and that led to the birth of Ishmael in Genesis chapter 16. And that caused all kinds of complications. So waiting could have spared him and his family a lot of unnecessary strife, which we don't want. So it really can help you in your clarity and decision-making.
Speaker 2:Number two it'll help you to avoid very expensive mistakes, right so rushing into opportunities without any kind of discernment at all, that can really hurt you financially. It can cause strained relationships, can cause all kinds of ethical problems. You know waiting on God acts as a safeguard. You know it kind of gives you time to evaluate your risk and gives you time to seek counsel. You know Proverbs 19 and 2 says desire without knowledge is not good. How much more will hasty feet miss the way? So it's very important because it'll help us to avoid a lot of bad mistakes. Number three it builds resilience and patience. You know, in the business world as a whole, you know when we look at all the markets and everything, it's very unpredictable. We're dealing with market shifts, employee turnover, economic downturns. All these things tend to test you. It tests your resolve.
Speaker 2:Waiting on God. It really kind of cultivates your patience and trust no-transcript assurance, rather than just being reactive and panicking all the time. So you wait on God for that and I'll be honest, some of the biggest things I've had to wait on in my life, even recently in recent years, I should say I've rated 20, 25 years and we've got things that God's beginning to show us right now that we've been waiting on and waiting on, and waiting on. But you know God has perfect timing. Number four modeling faith to your team. You know your employees, your partners, your customers, your suppliers, you know they all observe how you handle things. If it's uncertainty, they watch, they see it. They can't help but see it. And waiting on God demonstrates a very faith-driven leadership style. And when you have a really strong faith-driven leadership style, it really inspires trust and it fosters a culture of integrity and purpose. All right.
Speaker 2:Number five it helps you to align your business with the eternal purpose that God has for you and your business. You know, as a Christian leader, you know your ultimate goal should go beyond profit because it should be about glorifying God and advancing the kingdom of God. And waiting on God ensures that your business decisions will reflect his values and not just worldly success metrics. What does the world say is successful. Well, some of the things that the world says makes you successful is not necessarily the same as those that God says will make you successful. And I think that you know waiting on God helps us to align our business and our mission, our purpose, with God's eternal purpose. All right. Number six you know fostering ethical integrity when you wait on God it fosters that. It helps to create a lot of ethical integrity. You know prioritizing what is right, in other words, over what is, you know, maybe more expedient, even when it requires patience.
Speaker 2:And then, number seven building resilience. You know we talked about that before. It helps you to build resilience. Number eight it encourages long-term success. You know trusting that God will provide opportunities is a long-term way of looking at things, because God's growth is perfect and his timing's perfect.
Speaker 2:And then, number nine hiring and team building. You know building a strong team is really critical to business success, and waiting on God in this area means that you resist the urge to just go out and fill positions really quick. Rather than hiring the first available person, I would say leaders should pray for the right person and that person should align with both your company's needs and its values. You know trusting God's provision. I mean when you believe that God will bring the right people at the right time. Even if it means that you've got to sit through maybe some short-term gaps, I think you find out that it works out better. For example, there might be a business leader that might delay in hiring for a really key and important role, but he just trusts that God's going to provide that candidate who not only has the skills but also shares the company's vision and their values, and I think just waiting on God is important for that.
Speaker 2:And then number 10, business growth and expansion. You know, in a world that really kind of looks to or even celebrates scaling a business quickly, you know waiting on God encourages you to focus on very sustainable and very ethical growth. So I think that's important. So you need to prioritize integrity over speed. You've got to trust in divine opportunities. You know, as a business owner, maybe you might feel pressure to maybe start franchising quickly. Maybe you might feel pressure to maybe start franchising quickly, but by waiting on God maybe instead you focus on strengthening the core of your operations, the core of your business, and it leads to a lot more stable and more impactful growth later. It also helps you to handle adversity and uncertainty Because, as I said, there's a lot that goes on in the business and market world. So it provides peace to you. You know, it encourages really very slow, methodical responses instead of reactions, and so you don't. You're not so impulsive. So I think that's important. An example would be maybe during a financial crisis, maybe a leader might be tempted to kind of lay off employees right away. But if you wait on God, sometimes you may find very creative solutions that not only preserve the jobs but it also strengthens that team loyalty.
Speaker 2:So how do you wait? How do you wait on God and be effective in it? Well, waiting on God, first of all, let me be clear, it's an active process and it's intentional, and it's not just sitting back, folding our arms and just, you know, kind of tapping our foot, waiting on God to do something. That's not what waiting on God is. It is a very active process. So what are some of the things that we need to do if we're going to be effective in waiting on God? Well, first of all this is very important, we should all know this and that is prayer, and not just prayer, because that's us talking to God.
Speaker 2:But we need to listen. We need to take time out to listen to God. To listen to God, we need to spend time in prayer, not just asking for God to give us direction and guidance and maybe presenting a bunch of requests to him, but then listen for his voice, listen for God's voice and then write down your thoughts. Write down any insights you may think that you're hearing from the Lord as he speaks to you. Philippians 4, 6, and 7 says do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your request to God. It's important that we spend time in prayer and we listen. We listen for God to speak to us when we're learning to be effective in waiting on God.
Speaker 2:The next thing is you need to study the Word of God. You need to study Scripture. You know a lot of times God will speak to you through His Word, and you may have read a passage a hundred times, but for some reason, as God is speaking to you, that scripture jumps out at you and becomes very important direction for you, and so I would encourage you to start studying passages in the Bible about waiting, about waiting on God, like Psalms 37 and 7 and Habakkuk 2 and 3. And that'll really help you in your perspective. And number three is seek wise counsel. You know, surround yourself with godly people who can advise you, who can give you encouragement, who can strengthen you. You know, just take and work from that aspect. You know, work from that aspect. So study the Word of God, study the scriptures and then seek wise counsel.
Speaker 2:Number four practice patience, even in just little things. In little things. Start by waiting on God for minor decisions, maybe a meeting agenda that you've got to create or response for an email, just kind of practice using these small things. But what it does is it really helps to build discipline for you for the larger things. And then this is a big one you have to trust, even when God is silent. You have to trust him even in his silence, you know, because sometimes God's answer is not immediate.
Speaker 2:Like I said, I've spent 20 and 25 years waiting to get direction from God and I'm just now starting to get some of those things I've been praying for and looking for for over 20 years. So silence, god's silence, doesn't mean he's absent. It doesn't mean that he's not there. It's just really, if you want to look at it this way, god's silence sometimes is just an invitation to trust him a lot more deeply. Right so, next number six you want to act in faith. Right so next number six you want to act in faith. You want to act in faith.
Speaker 2:Once you discern God's direction, then you move forward with confidence, knowing that he's prepared the way. You've been waiting for him and he's prepared the way. So make sure that you apply these steps while you're waiting on God because, like I said, it's not something where you do nothing. It's a very active thing when you're waiting on God. I mean, look at Joseph. Joseph waited for years in prison but he rose to become the second in command in Egypt, according to Genesis, chapter 39, through chapters 41. And his faithfulness during this waiting period is what prepared him to really save nations. He literally saved nations and maybe ask yourself, how can you remain faithful in your waiting season?
Speaker 2:So there's going to be some challenges that come up when we're talking about waiting on God, because waiting is not easy, especially if you're a results-oriented person, or maybe your company and the environment in your company is very results-oriented. So it's not that easy and here's a few common obstacles that you're going to have to address. All right, first of all is impatience. You can become impatient. So you've got to remind yourself God's track record in your life. Reflect on the past moments when his timing was proved perfect, that it was much better than your own. So that's a challenge. Another challenge is just pressure from other people. So I think in those times I don't think there's anything wrong with you communicating what your process is. Just tell them look, I'm taking time to pray and consider this real carefully. You know most people will respect that because that's a conviction that you have.
Speaker 2:Another challenge is fear of missing out on something you know. So you're afraid if I don't make a decision quickly, if I don't move quickly, then I'll miss out on something. That's not true. If you want God's very best, then you need to wait on God sometimes. So you have to trust that God's plan won't pass you by. You're not going to miss anything and if it's his will, the opportunity is going to align and it's going to be perfect timing. And then another is doubt. It's just plain doubt. We doubt that anything will come. So why wait? I'm just going to move on.
Speaker 2:No, continue to wait on God. You know, you go back and you look at God's promises in the Word of God and you just pray to God and say, god, help me, renew my faith, renew my faith. So you know, when you wait on God, there's some great fruit to it. There's great fruit when you commit to waiting on God, you're going to experience some tangible, actually tangible benefits in your leadership and in your business. You're going to experience peace, you're going to experience wisdom, you're going to experience provision, because the resources and the opportunities is going to come to you, because they're going to line up with God's plan. You know, I'll give you an example. You know Christian's CEO. He kind of delayed a merger. He had a lot of investors that were pressuring him to merge, but he just didn't have God's peace and he waited. And then months later the other company they found out had a lot of hidden debts that they didn't disclose and it really kind of saved that company from a big disaster. So waiting on God proved to be very protective.
Speaker 2:So you know again some of these misconceptions that we talk about, about waiting on God. Again, it's not passive, it's supposed to be very productive, especially when you're in a results-driven business. So waiting is active, it's not passive. Waiting enhances productivity because as we move forward with God's plan as he begins to share with us, it'll be perfect. And waiting on God builds character. It builds character, it cultivates patience, it cultivates humility and it helps you to become dependent on God more. It really does, and these are qualities, I think, that strengthen leadership it really does, and I think it inspires trust from other people. So, in short, I believe that waiting on God is a very dynamic process and I believe it leads to wiser, more impactful leadership. So we have this opportunity in our community, in our marketplace, to really be more impactful.
Speaker 2:So for Christian business leaders, waiting on God it's not a hindrance to success. It's a pathway to success. By trusting in God's timing, seeking his guidance, aligning your decisions with his will, I believe leaders can navigate all of the complexities that we've talked about in the business world, and you can do it with integrity, wisdom and peace. And it fosters not only spiritual growth but also long-term business success. As you prioritize what is right over what's easy.
Speaker 2:So as you lead your business, remember the promise of Psalms 37 and 7. It says be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him, because it's really in that stillness that you find the strength, the clarity and, a lot of times, the direction that you need to really be effective as a leader and then honor God in everything that you do, because the world really demands speed. I mean, man, we move at the speed of light. Man, in the business world there's so many things that happen so fast, but you've got to be courageous to wait. You know, psalms 130 and 5 says I wait for the Lord, my whole being waits and in his word I put my hope. So this is so, so, very important, lord.
Speaker 2:Thank you for those special people today who've downloaded and listened to this podcast. Father, I ask you to help them understand that waiting on you is an active endeavor, lord. It's active. It's not something we just sit back and wait. There's things we should be doing and, lord, help them to recognize that there are things to do, what those specific things are to do while they're waiting on you, and that patience is different than waiting on you. And, lord, help them to apply these principles that we've talked about today in their lives and in their careers.
Speaker 2:Lord, I ask for favor, I ask for strength for those that are actually right now in a waiting period. Lord, I ask you for strength and favor and, lord, minister them in a special way. Lord, in the name of Jesus, I pray Amen. Well, thanks again for being a part of the Christian Business Concepts family and community, and I hope today's topic has helped you as you learn to wait on God, and I hope that you'll do all that you can in helping us grow. The Christian Business Concepts ministry and podcast Help us to grow and help us to do all that we can to make our mission happen, to make it come into fruition, because our desire is to help people find what true godly success is through applying biblical principles. Well, thanks again. I really appreciate you being a part of the CBC family and community and I hope today's topic has helped you. And I think that's all the time we have for today. So until next time, remember that Jesus is Lord and he wants you blessed.
Speaker 1:Thank you for tuning into this week's Christian Business Concepts podcast. Go to christianbusinessconceptscom for more information and resources. Be sure to check out other podcasts that will help you take your business and your personal life to a whole new level of success.