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I’ve spoken about this before, but I want to try and put a different spin on it.
The business we are in, that of sales, marketing, promoting, and prospecting. It’s a business that shares a lot of similarities with agriculture.
We are all farmers.
Farmers do some things that ensure a crop will grow and they’ll have something to sell come harvest time.
They prepare their fields, they plant the seeds, and the nurture the soil and saplings that sprout.
If they do this consistently, methodically, intentionally, and systematically, they will see the fruit of their labor.
But there is one element that is intangible, untouchable, and arguably the most important.
That element is Faith.
Faith is something people talk about but it’s usually an element spoken about with a sense of mystery, uncertainty, and many times unattainability.
We admire faith in people we know, but many of us fail to give ourselves permission to be people who could have faith ourselves.
We think it all depends on us, like we are somehow in control of our ultimate destinies. We believe that faith is a cute addition to a series of unreachable characteristics like love, joy, hope, and other paper doll-like features of an otherwise shallow life. We hold it in our minds as admirable, but not very practical.
Faith is a cute picture frame on the shelf at Cracker Barrel, but not something that could change our life.
Or maybe we just don’t know what faith is.
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Today I want to give you three defining characteristics of what real faith looks like.
1. Faith has to be placed in a capable object. We live by faith every day. we trust that when we put the key in the ignition of our car that it’s going to do what we need to do, namely, get us from one place to the next, hopefully in a safe manner. Your faith needs to be in something that is dependable. That’s why most religious leaders want you to believe in their god. That’s why I have put my faith in Jesus. Not because I want to trump everybody else’s belief systems, but ultimately, because when I look back through human history, and I see all of the options of deities that I could follow, I only see one who came for us, for me. I only see one who died for me. And I only see one who came back to life for me to give that life to me. if that’s not dependability, I don’t know what is.
2. Faith has to be sustained over time. You can’t just put your faith in something when it’s convenient for you. You have to employ a long obedience in the same direction. there has to be a commitment on your part to trust through the good and the bad, the up and the down, the full bank account and empty bank account. Faith needs time to grow.
3. Faith has to hurt at least a little bit. There has to be a sense of risk. Becoming a person who has faith is not for the faint of heart. There has to be a sense in which you could fail. The rewards of a life of faith are greater calm, greater security, greater peace, and greater Hope. if it costs you nothing, then it probably isn’t faith.
I know this was a little heavier blog post today. And I never want to force an opinion on others. what I do want to do is challenge you as a person in the marketplace to see that you are operating in a larger world than what you realize. There are things going on around you that you have no idea are happening.
The challenge before you and me is to understand this, and to step into the greater story that is going on around us. The doorway into that story is Faith.