"The liberal person shall be enriched, and he who waters shall himself be watered. The people curse him who holds back grain [when the public needs it], but a blessing [from God and man] is upon the head of him who sells it." - Proverbs
When you have something of value (a gift, idea, dream or vision, etc.) that people need, you have a divine right and privilege to release (or sell) it.
The New York Times recently reported: "Plenty of other laid-off workers across the country, burned out by a merciless job market, are building business plans instead of sending out résumés. For these people, recession has become the mother of invention. Economists say that when the economy takes a dive, it is common for people to turn to their inner entrepreneur to try to make their own work. But they say that it takes months for that mentality to sink in, and that this is about the time in the economic cycle when it really starts to happen - when the formerly employed realize that traditional job searches are not working, and that they are running out of time and money. Mark V. Cannice, executive director of the entrepreneurship program at the University of San Francisco, calls the phenomenon "forced entrepreneurship."
It is inherent in human nature not to rise to our greatest potential until our backs are against the wall.
What are you holding back from your family, marriage, workplace, dream, city and/or league?
What area of your life have you failed to sow into, so others can reap in love, knowledge, skill, wisdom, proficiency, talent, faith, success and achievement?
It is no longer good enough just to seek an income.
Your dream requires you to be profitable or you will live month to month, from paycheck to paycheck (unable to sow into it) for the rest of your life.
Proficiency increases profitability.
To be proficient means: to consummate skill and command. It is to be adept, competent, experienced, accomplished, able and refined. To consistently advance to the next level; To make progress, a profit and be marked by an advanced degree of competence acquired through training.
When you become proficient and enrich (or water) the lives of others, God has promised to stream rivers out of you.
Solomon wrote: "The liberal person shall be enriched, and he who waters shall himself be watered."
Liberal in this sense characterizes:
- A person that is generous and willing to give in large amounts.
- One that gives freely or abundantly, who is charitable, openhanded and lavish.
- A person who gives to others something of value.
- A person free from meanness or smallness of mind or character.
- One that is fertile and prolific.
You must dream, work and give liberally.
Don't hold anything back. Family stresses, financial duties, insecurities, barriers and fears prevent us from dreaming creatively (without limits) and doing something radical to change our life and destiny.
What would you do to advance your dream and the Kingdom of God if time and money was no object? (WE WANT TO KNOW)
Nehemiah records a great story of the opposition his Kingdom builders faced:
"BUT WHEN Sanballat heard that we were building the wall, he was angry and in a great rage, and he ridiculed the Jews. And he said before his brethren and the army of Samaria, What are these feeble Jews doing? Will they restore things [at will and by themselves]? Will they [try to bribe their God] with sacrifices? Will they finish up in a day? Will they revive the stones out of the heaps of rubbish, seeing they are burned?" (Neh. 4:1-2)
Herein lies a great truth; sometimes we must revive our dreams out of rubbish:
- Waste or rejected matter (things and ideas)
- Worthless talk
- Foolish conversation and nonsense
- Trash; fragments of what you started to build and failed to finish
- Fallen building projects, endeavors, dreams; ruins.
I DECLARE, that YES, YOU CAN rebuild after a season of loss, destruction and failed expectations despite the taunts from your past. The power to restore and become what you should have been is in His (and your) hands.
Realize the enemy will always be angry and ridicule your dream. He will never cooperate with you; so, stop waiting for things to be perfect before you start doing what is truly in your heart.
When you have a heart and mind to WORK and see the vision come to pass, God will vindicate you.
"But when Sanballat, Tobiah, the Arabians, Ammonites, and Ashdodites heard that the walls of Jerusalem were going up and that the breaches were being closed, they were very angry. And they all plotted together to come and fight against Jerusalem, to injure and cause confusion and failure in it. But because of them we made our prayer to our God and set a watch against them day and night." (Verses 7-9)
If the enemy would have stopped the work in Nehemiah's day, the people would have been unemployed.
Years later, the enemy is still trying to put God's people out of work.
Your dreams, prayers, and mindset to work are a weapon against that.
Today, this is your 911 call; your unemployment check. Make a decision to set a daily watch and guard over your life, goals, business and ministry. Your dreams have been unemployed long enough. Don't just wait for the economic crisis to unemploy you and your staff. Put weapons (talents) in the hands of your people to ruin the plans of the opposition.
Give them something to fight with.
In Steve Sample's book, "The Contrarian's Guide to Leadership" he writes:
"The leader whose thinking is constrained within well-worn ruts, who is completely governed by his established passions and prejudices, who is incapable of thinking either gray or free and who can't even appropriate the creative imagination and fresh ideas of those around him, is as anachronistic and ineffective as the dinosaur. He may by dint of circumstances remain in power, but his followers would almost certainly be better off without him."
Your employer and employees want to go somewhere.
Help them get there.
