Dependency upon parents to care for their children is common and good but learning to be depend upon God as an adult results in great benefits.
By Gary Shotton #000461

Click Here to download in audio (.mp3 format); right click on link and select “save as”

Click Here to download in video (.mp4 format); right click on link and select “save as”

http://www.ibbtalks.org/share/audio/

http://www.ibbtalks.org/share/videos/

Dependency

By Gary Shotton

This text is in Extreme Rough draft and will be edited in the near future.

Hello my name is Gary Shotton, and I’m here as a part of “Inspiring Better Business”, IBBTalks, and today I want to talk about the word “Dependency”, and especially in relationship to our dependency on God or a substitute for God. Like money security career so I would have had three major times I can just summarize in the brief period we have here of periods of time and our decisions I had to show that I could depend upon God in my life. Number one, I had worked nine and a half years for a big oil company I had a good paying job, I had insurance a vehicle, and I felt God nudging me to go and give that up and coat to go to Bible school, we loaded up went to Bible school. It’s a long story, I can just summarize but when I got to my new town, I was expecting a great job because I had credentials 10 years experience, and there was no job, I had to depend upon God for what was going to happen next. I had a chance to call my parents and I could have said, Dad, I didn’t work out like I planned. I was thinking I’d have a good income. I have a little bit of money but could you support me for a couple years, I opted out and didn’t do that I wanted to learn to be dependent upon God. Number two, I was at the end of my Bible school, and I had determined that my partial part making part time income, I was moving furniture, it was a tough job. It was a physical job I had wasn’t afraid of the physical part of it. And so then I had a choice. I had a choice. Shall I go and abandon this idea of owning my business, and go back and secure an engineering job where I could go to work for somebody and I could be depended upon a paycheck, and there’s nothing wrong with a paycheck, but I just learned how to walk in faith walking in faith, and I wanted to be dependent upon God, Not on my paycheck. Number three, at the end of some 20 years I was 17 years honing that Moving and Storage business and actually six years, it decided God was leading me to start, and buy an existing company, and I’m thinking, Oh, I looked at the numbers, it looks really good. I took a huge risk. I knew always depended upon God I had a little spare cash and each one of these cases, and each one of these cases I had some cash reserve, but all my goodness I owned it for two years, and then our little over two years and then in 2009 the economy just totally tanked it totally dropped. I couldn’t imagine how quick it could change, no jobs I had to layoff 41 I’ve employees I had, I had was that 65 employees, and I quickly reduced down to 24, employees, and now I had my back against the wall. I’m determined to make it through, and I did turn to my dependency upon God. I was made it clear that I’m depending upon him, and the business skills that God had given me through these years. So my point is, is not to follow me and not to brag about me but we’re always going to have this chance to shift our dependency to something or other. I have noticed that the issue of dependency actually starts when we’re children. I can only be brief again here but as a small child, I was very thankful that my parents, even when I was 14 I was expected to go get a loan at the bank for some cattle. When I was younger than that when I was seven and eight, we went a week long to Bible school, where that kind of weaned us off of our parents in a good way, which obviously we didn’t leave our parents but it was just a week away from mom and dad. Later on, after, after I went as I say when I went to Bible school, or got married, I was able to separate myself from my parents and not be dependent in a negative way, a good way, but an unhealthy way for my parents to supply for me.

Now, the object here is how do we become dependent upon God, that’s the issue, how do we become dependent upon God and trust in Him. This is a fine line because I’m going to talk about having a cash reserve, I’m not talking about just lowering the, the reserve to zero, but we have to be honest, no matter what is reserve we have, we’re going to have to quickly have some kind of income financially if things work out different than we expected. I could kind of group the listeners into several groups and make some suggestions, some of you listening may be on employed no job, or are significantly underemployed, Well, what should you do how do you shift your dependency upon God, when you’re in that situation. Obviously you could have family and children, you could be a single that could be, make a little difference but learn to work for someone else if you can, that’s just fine because if you can get a job, then that’s a great opportunity to develop some skills to build and develop your work habits, your work ethics and God created work never believe that God’s just gonna send you money from Heaven somehow without work I believe God designed workforce. And so no, while you’re working for someone though you might be expected to choose to do something unethical immoral or inappropriate in some way. And now’s a good time to say no that’s the line, I’m working for someone else. My dependency is upon God, I’m not going to lower my godly standards and keep this job, you might have to take some difficult stand in this but I suggest that when you take that stand for God, and you would be either at a dead end street with your job, or asked to do something inappropriate, God will show up, and there’s an example of you being dependent upon God in a difficult, difficult situation.

Let’s say you’re working and you do have a job. Well, this is a sign shining example of God in the workplace can you be that shining example, can you not be perfect, but can you demonstrate the goodness of God to your fellow workers. This was part of my life for almost 10 years, nine and a half years, I was working for someone else, and man that built some character in me because I had to submit myself and also balance out. What I drink when I was a social drinking or what I costs are our say bad words or listened to bad jokes when I’m working in the work world all this comes about, you can control you, you can’t control everybody else around you, and you might when you’re in this situation, create some side income, a second job a side job, and that could create a business, an enterprise not a job for someone else and start developing your business skills and move your dependency from that workplace to a something that God could bless you with. Well then what about ownership. Well, you’re gonna always heard this over and over again, start small grow step by step, become dependent upon God and be sure that you’re here now. This is a time that you can build some cash reserve at each one of these levels. When you’re working for someone build a little cash reserve, when you’re working. Are all the time build some cash reserve, I want to talk about cash reserve because some people have conveyed to me that maybe I wasn’t in faith because I had a cash reserve. Well, I disagree with that. I believe that stages in life and situations in life, that that you’re responsible to make it through the seasons and cycles of business, it’s not always the same if you set your benchmark on on your finances when when everything’s going really good, what are you going to do when it drops off so I suggest that you set your expenditures down below the level of income and set some money aside, it’s not ungodly to have some reserve, but if I’m trusting in my reserve, which is hard to do because you’re never going to be able to, in, in a logical situation, create such a huge reserve that you never would need to trust God so have a reserve have some cash flow has some extra create a margin, and that’s going to let make the day go a lot better for you and your spouse and your family, and that’s going to change, if you have a whole bunch of a number of small children, you probably do need to be more conservative, you need to have more of a cash reserve, you need to have be a little more cautious with these decisions you’re making. Be a giver, at all levels if you want God’s involvement in your life, you’re going to have to decide, I’m not saying send me money. I’m just saying decide how God would let you give as a portion of your money. The strong suggestion and word of God talks about tide, as its own subject I have been at either of my personal household income for more than 48 years. I’m not bragging, I’m just saying that’s part of God’s plan for my life. And God has designed us to work, don’t be afraid of work. Don’t be afraid of that being a part of God’s plan. Well, I just trust that this could be helpful on being dependent upon God is a part of your future and I believe you’ll succeed if you’ll do that. Thanks for your time and thanks for being a part of Inspiring Better Business.