hello my name is Gary Shotton and I’m proud to be a part of Inspiring Better Business and I hope you’re enjoying these lessons and teachings and I hope you were benefit from the amount I hope you would give us some feedback if you would buy notes to the bottom of the page there on our website well today we’re going to talk about difficulties oh I didn’t want to talk about that I hope I didn’t have any difficulties well well come to the real world there’s gonna be some difficulties in owning and operating a business and I’m gonna cover five reasons you go through difficult difficulties and not it’s not a subject most people really want to talk about that much but I think it’s very beneficial and I’ve got to give credit where credit’s due here the five points that I’m giving come word-for-word from a book that was written by my friend mr. Tim Walter Bach and the title of the book is finished the vision and this is chapter 4 but Tim won’t mind this and I hope he’ll do a teaching on the same thing and I will use these in regards to any place that we we want to share business principles because we think we’re sharing business principles that are consistent with the Word of God and we’re consistent with any principle we share would be valid anywhere in the world in any culture in any language and any time period that since time began until time ends we’re looking for foundational truth and we hope this is a part of it and I will guarantee you that there’s no such thing as owning a business or running a business or being gainfully employed without difficulties and you need to look past those difficulties and see why are we having them and the benefit consequently I think you can rejoice through the tests or the difficulties and see the other side well according to Tim Walter Bach here we go now one difficulties give us an opportunity to show the world the trusted love we have for God Wow you know the rain will rain on the just and the unjust it’s not whether we get the rain or the snow or the Sun or the wind it’s how we respond to that that is a testimony gives us opportunity to show who God is and as we face these difficulties come through that that is probably much much more important than a sermon well I go to a sermon yeah and hear the word of God to build me up but to learn and apply something when I see somebody else go through a difficulty a tough time and come through it those are the people that I want to be around Wow do I want to be around those people so it gives us a chance to show the world that we trust God number two it purifies our motives you know when we enter into business ownership there’s all kinds of motives for being an ownership position maybe it’s prestige maybe it’s the illusion of being wealthy maybe it’s the the lack of willingness to report to work to somebody else you know but these we need some pure motives for serving God in our businesses and doing that is really important because if we’re not careful we’ll get off-track that’s why somebody that starts in in in whatever they have in life and they started down a good path and they weren’t solid in their motives of integrity and and and being a testimony to others and to be truthful with your words and and things are just personal personal qualities of a person those blend over into your business you cannot separate those things if you’re not faithful to your wife you’re not going to be faithful to others in business I’ve had reason to talk with somebody at one point and I heard by a rumor that they were maybe I’ll just say messing around and they were a part of a key sales force that I had and I called him in I said listen what you do on your personal time is your business but if this is true let me know and our straighten it up because you told me I can’t not trust you if you’re going to deceive your spouse you’re going to deceive me and it’s only a matter of time well to my knowledge it got straightened up pure motives how are you going to serve in your business number three it it gives you perseverance that demonstrates faith and encourages other to not trust in dead works but in the Living God you know I love teaching and talking about James chapter 1 verse 1 2 3 and 4 and it says there the testing of your faith first produces patience and patience then produces endurance and endurance is what you’re going to look for when you’re serving God and it ends up faith you know that the the flash-in-the-pan just hot again one day cold the next day not serving God on a regular long-term basis you know that’s not what we’re looking for and that’s not what God’s looking for and so we don’t want to have dead works that’s burnt up we want to serve God openly with things that last for into eternity and people are a little surprised how long I’ve been in different parts of my life nine and a half years working for the big company the big corporation seventeen plus years having a moving and storage here a company where I owned and operated a trucking company six years where I was between business ownerships and I had rental property and then I’m twelve and a half years into this business right now you know those things are perseverance demonstrates and encourages others well number four it curbs are very strong desire for respect acceptance God’s best does not come without deep humility Wow that’s something that humility is a virtue that not needs to be sought after not not a fake humility not a lip service humility I’ve experienced this when I was a high paid corporate executive in the engineering department you know that was kind of nice job and then I came basically CLE to move dirty ugly old furniture out of one house and put it in a truck and drive it to another location and it was called the Moving & Storage company and why was that humbling I had to swallow hard and say God whatever you want me to do I’m gonna do because I’m learning a lot here I don’t really like it but I’m gonna learn from this humility is something that’s going to be a part of your willingness to succeed and the ability to see didn’t Succeed in Business and then number five certainly not least not last but least causes us to grow in faith we’ve already covered that a little bit but you know these there’s no such thing as a testimony without a test and so unless you David had the test of killing Goliath well first came some of his sheep well he was tending his dad’s sheep and he had to pass the test of retrieving and protecting those little sheep from a bear and then from a lion that qualified him for the level of faith he’s listed as a man of faith because he went through those steps to learn faith and you gonna grow in faith every single time don’t shy away from the test don’t shy away from the difficulties I mean don’t go looking for them but we’re supposed to rejoice in the midst of the difficulties because the difficulties do produce something in our life and that’s ultimately faith well I could tell you a little bit about my personal walk you might have heard it over and over again depending on how long you’ve listened but you know I can say that I’ve gone through many of these steps I’ve cried in the middle of my quiet time just crying out for God because things were not going well it I I was had difficult times I had payroll that I could barely squeak out enough money to pay all my workers and I couldn’t pay myself I wrote myself a check but I put it in the drawer and couldn’t cash in for weeks later I’ve had trucks break down when it was a worse time it possibly could I’ve had difficulties at every step of my business career but you know with God’s help I was able to see through those and to become out on the other side of some degree of successful and that’s what I want to see you do nobody said it’s going to be easy nobody said it’s going to be a walk in the park I’m just telling you that what you want is to be able to deal with difficulties and come through them with a degree of success that you can hold your head high and be honored and honorable thank you for being a part of this thank you for being a part of Inspiring Better Business