“You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power for You created all things and by Your will they were created and have their existence.”
Revelation 4:11
Prior to the start of War Horse, I sought advice from those who had gone before me. I prayed about who to solicit and what questions to ask, before leaving the nest. I had several transparently give good advice and others purposely leave out the ravenous uncertainty that laid in ambush. The gory details of the customers who didn’t pay, the difficulty in finding good help, six figure insurance, endless taxes and client conflicts were omitted from the cliff notes.
What I’ve learned is that just about anybody can manage a business when times are good. Just about anybody can designate dollars to a good cause and pay people correctly when the business flows over the beam like a waterfall. It’s when times get tight, the numbers don’t make sense and people talk behind your back that the real business owner is refined.
The Bible is full of stories concerning people in immense situations of duress. Daniel facing the Lions and Jeremiah facing ridicule are just a few that come to mind. One of my favorites is found in the 4th book of Esther, seeing an orphaned child forced to live under a decree that would attempt to exterminate the Jews. She approaches the Persian king uninvited, in an effort to save her people from genocide. Her confidence, “if I perish, I perish” remains one of the firmest stances in the Old Testament. God divinely places her in a royal position “for such a time as this”, and He divinely delivers those she is fighting to protect, reminding this lost daughter of just how found she really is.
I find it quite ironic at how close the white towel sits for me when times of difficulty arise in my own life. As needs mount up, problems arise, invoices become due, and another customer extends their terms, the feeling of conceding looms just over the break. My aspirations to be a faithful servant and a good manager of the vineyard may look correct on paper, but I do my best work when I approach the throne room like a child understanding win or lose, I’m protected because my Daddy goes before me.
God Jehovah is the Creator of all things, incessant of their management, having the power to make it rain for 40 days and then pressing the pause button on 7 years of famine. He is the one that provides the ground, the seed and the laborers to work it and then ever so lovingly, gives the approval for the very yield, or lack thereof, that comes from it. It is in this removal of self that I do my best work and it is here that I can stand firm with “if I perish, I perish” completely knowing and believing my God to deliver and protect the fields, their harvest and the mouths they feed, in one way or another, when the math doesn’t compute. Any lesser faith is dead and will be discarded as chaff, removed from the threshing floor and burned.
