“She sees that her trading is profitable, and her lamp does not go out at night.” (Proverbs 31:18)
Today’s blog post brings to mind one of the most notable characters in the Bible. His name was Moses.
God spoke to Moses and gave him a task. It was no small task I must add. He went through obstacle after obstacle with the Lord.
When it seemed that God had helped him overcome every foreseeable challenge, he finally says to the Lord, “Please send someone else.” (Exodus 4)
As we reflect on the profitability of our ventures as women who are desirous to be transformed in our character, we cannot escape the risk factor when considering what God has called us to do.
I have shared 4 ways of ensuring your venture is profitable from God’s perspective in this blog post here, also based on this verse.
Another helpful read, based on this verse too, is how you can know your mission, an instrumental part of your life that will underscore your risk-taking as you seek to do what God has called you to do. You can find it here.
Doing the will of God will involve taking risks. It is about having clarity concerning his leading, and then going by faith as you walk towards making the venture a reality.
Because we are focusing on profitability in light of the work of our hands, I want to believe that God wants to help us experience profitability in the work of our hands.
God wants to help us meet our needs and the needs of our families through our profitable ventures as women, as we model our lives after his Word.
Because we are called to walk by faith, these ventures will require us to go by faith.
Will we, like Moses, shrink back at the magnitude of the task, or the riskiness of the venture, and tell the Lord to use someone else?
Will we forfeit the blessedness of walking this journey as he leads and works in us?
When I see a venture ahead of me, and I can tell that it lies squarely within my calling and mission, I can tell that it is not compromising critical relationships in my life, and I can tell this is what God wants me to do, let me share 5 points you need to consider as you reflect on the venture ahead of you that God might have laid on your heart.
- This Venture will Need Boldness and Courage to Execute
What God lays on our hearts to do will often be a big venture, at least from our perspective. It will most likely be overwhelming and seemingly impossible.
A lot of what God leads us to do will require us to trust him so that when he has done it through us, we will glorify him.
Without faith, and without boldness and courage to accomplish what he has laid on our hearts to do, we will forfeit the blessedness of seeing him accomplish what only he can do, to fulfill what he has purposed.
The Bible abounds with examples of men and women who had to walk by faith to accomplish what he had called them to do. Think of Nehemiah, in building the wall, and the apostles, in preaching Christ in unknown lands.
Think of women like Damaris and Dorcas, who became disciples and God used them to be a blessing to the church in very real and tangible ways.
This courage applies to every area of your life, such as a profitable venture as we’re learning from the Proverbs 31 woman.
Might you be reading this and God has laid a venture or business idea on your heart as a woman? Are you holding yourself back in fear, unable to do what you know you should?
Let me give you a 3-word piece of advice that transformed my thinking when I heard one woman say it. “Do it afraid.”
That statement ended up birthing several ventures related to what God had called me to do: Beginning this website, beginning online platforms on various social media platforms that are blessing God’s people, and starting a course based on Proverbs 31 that’s also been well received so far.
Go afraid. God will strengthen you and help you. He will uphold you with his righteous right hand, (Isaiah 41:10) enabling you to undertake that venture.
- Consistency
Whether we are talking about profit at the spiritual or physical level, consistency will be key if we want to see fruit in the long run.
Let me reiterate that calling and mission, and clarity of God’s will concerning what you are doing must come first when considering a given venture.
This clarity might just be the “fuel” as it were, that you will need even when the going gets tough; when you get discouraged, and when you are experiencing failure and loss instead of the profit you anticipated.
Think of that missionary, who is in the mission field. What keeps her going year after year when she won’t see even one soul come to the Lord Jesus in salvation?
What will keep that young mama at her small business venture at home, which doesn’t seem to be having prospects of profitability, including a lack of exposure to the right customers who need her products?
The challenges you are facing may be unique to you. Whatever the challenge though, giving up too early shouldn’t be an option.
You want to trust God to keep at what you are doing, knowing that most ventures will take time. Consistency will be key.
Giving yourself a timeframe with which to work with, will be helpful so that you can evaluate, with the help of a friend, mentor, or coach, whether the venture is still a worthy one to pursue.
You agree with me that 3 to 6 months may be too short a timeframe to do a major evaluation. Give yourself a timeframe that will allow for an appraisal that can be impactful in helping you know what to work on or where to improve, or whether to abandon the venture altogether.
- Hard Work
The Proverbs 31 woman was a hard worker.
We are living in a time and generation where most of our younger people, and hence younger women are getting encouraged to work smart, not hard.
Hard work is being looked down upon, especially with the technological advancements we are witnessing across the globe.
We can easily miss lots of opportunities to experience profitability in our ventures simply because we are limiting ourselves to what we feel will cause us not to work hard.
I recently had a young woman tell me how her relatives on a certain media platform were going to the extent of lying to go viral on this platform.
You know what going viral means. It means making easy money without “working hard.”
I have talked about diligence as a character quality exhibited by the Proverbs 31 woman. Hard work is part and parcel of the character quality of diligence. Rather than talk about it in this post again, you can read that blog post here.
I love this quote I recently heard:
Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work. (Thomas Edison)
I’m not suggesting that we don’t work smart. I believe God has allowed innovation so we could save on resources, including time, so we could accomplish more for his glory.
Working smart, however, has to be in the context of working hard. Any venture God will lead you to do will involve hard work. It may not necessarily be physical. It could be mental and spiritual.
The scriptures abound with verses warning us against laziness, the opposite of hard work. To engage in a venture that will yield profitability, be ready to embrace the virtue of hard work as a woman.
- Acquiring Skill
Huge technological advancements at such a time as this leaves us with no excuse. You can learn any skill, literally, under the sun, together with sharing the one you have that hasn’t already been shared.
When God leads you to execute that venture that he has put on your heart, you might need a skill that will catapult you toward making the profit you will need.
Earlier in my baking journey, a friend challenged me to make her wedding cake. The package included a Bible cake. To a baker, this is easy peasy lemon squeezy! It was not so for me.
Well, YouTube came to the rescue! I made her wedding cake. Included was the requested Bible cake as the centerpiece!
My skill acquisition, in recent times, has included website design and editing videos. These are skills I’m having to learn as I go, skills I never thought I’d need to learn in my lifetime.
Are you trusting God, dear sis, to start that venture that is in your heart? Are you wondering how to engage a professional to help you in a particular field, and with your limited resources? God might just be challenging you to acquire that particular skill instead.
You can then go ahead and trust him, learning as you go, putting the skill you are learning, to good use.
- Profitability takes Time
The Proverbs 31 woman got to a point where she saw that her trading was profitable.
Profitability takes time, as those who are making a profit in their ventures will attest. Those who give up too early, as we observed earlier, miss the opportunity of experiencing profitability.
Stories of successful men and women reveal seasons, and sometimes years of keeping at what they started until they saw their trading become profitable.
They didn’t let their “lamps” go out at night, figuratively speaking. They kept at it, knowing that they are in this for the long haul.
Do you want to give up, seeing no fruit out of your faithful laboring? Keep in mind that profitability takes time. The Bible even assures us that,
“Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.” (Gal.6:9)
This is a principle that applies across the board as we reflect on what God has called us to do.
Whatever venture the lord has called you and me to undertake; whether a business venture, whether it’s in missions, whether it’s in raising our children to become godly offspring he’s making them to be, profitability will take time.
Let’s never measure our profitability in an instant of time, imagining that we should experience profitability now, or in a few days or months.
Let’s think about the future and what God is accomplishing as he takes us through the process of becoming profitable for his glory.