Aligning your Business Idea with your Calling

WEEKLY DEVOTIONAL BY PATRICE TSAGUE

Do you have a clear business idea? Does it align with God’s plan for your life? Does it have a redemptive framework? 

Aligning your Business Idea with your Calling

Most entrepreneurs struggle with connecting or aligning their entrepreneurial pursuits with God’s plan for their life – their divine calling. This alignment between business and calling is key to ensuring that your business will be God-honoring. 

You were created for a purpose, and there are many ways that you can realize God’s purpose for your life. Your business can fulfill God’s purpose, but only if you intentionally align it with your calling. If it only exists to make money for you, then it is not aligned with your calling.  

There are seven steps that will help you to clarify your business idea, and to ensure that it is in line with God’s plan for your life : 

1. Your Motivation:
   What motivated you to start a business?
   
   • Identifying your motivation can help establish a passion for your business and continue to inspire you moving forward. This step is easy because God tells you exactly what your motivation should be. In John 3:16, we read that God so loved the world that He sent His only Son to earth to save humanity. In other words, His motivation was love. Love should also be our motivation to start businesses that help people to live a better life; that meet people’s needs, and/or relieve them from pain.  
     
     “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” – John 3:16 (NIV)

2. Your Purpose: 
   What is your purpose? 
   Why did God place you on this earth?
   
   • Matthew 28:18-20 tells us that God created us to represent Him and to make disciples. This is known as the great commission. Your business must be a tool that God can use to fulfill the great commission.  
     
     “Then Jesus came to them and said, ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.’” – Matthew 28:18-20 (NIV)

3. Your Calling:
   What is God’s unique instruction for your life? 
   
   • Your calling is the way that you carry out your purpose. It is the assignment God has given you to complete during your lifetime. Finding your calling is one of the most important steps in your spiritual growth. It takes time to discern it, but once you have found your calling, you will know it. 
     
     “Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed.
     And in Your book they all were written,
     Aligning your Business Idea with your Calling
     The days fashioned for me,
     When as yet there were none of them.”
     – Psalm 139:16 (NKJV)

4.  Your Gifts, Skills, and Abilities: 
   Do you know the purpose of your gifts, skills, and abilities? 
   Do they match your business ideas?
   
   • Gifts are God’s spiritual blessings, operating through believers by the Holy Spirit, to fulfill a divine purpose.
   • Skills are natural trades, techniques, or special expertise that require the use of the hands, body, and/or mind.
   • Abilities are the power and strength granted by God as a result of our faithfulness and stewardship.
   • God has given each of us a unique and specialized set of gifts, skills, and abilities. Let’s use them to glorify Him! Most people believe that their gifts, skills, and abilities exist for their own benefit, but God has primarily given them to you for the benefit of others. Find ways to express them through your business so you can benefit others while expanding the Kingdom of God.

5.  Your Products and Services: 
   How are you going to serve your customers? 
   What products and services will you provide to them? 
   
   • The best way to produce a God-honoring product or service is to find a way in which you combine your purpose, calling, gifts, skills, and abilities into one great product or service. If you are having difficulty with this, ask God! He will direct you toward the right path. 
     
     “Trust in the Lord with all your heart,
     And lean not on your own understanding;
     In all your ways acknowledge Him,
     And He shall direct your paths.”
     – Proverbs 3:5-6 (NKJV)

6. Your Mission Statement: 
   What is your mission statement?
   
   • A mission statement is an articulation of what your business will do. To help you align your business with your calling, write a mission statement addressing what you are trying to accomplish through your business. 
     
     “Then the Lord answered me and said:‘
     Write the vision and make it plain on tablets,
     That he may run who reads it.’”
     – Habakkuk 2:2 (NKJV)

7. Your Vision Statement:
   
   If your mission is realized, what will your business look like ten to twenty years from now? 
   What impact will it have on the world?
   
   • Lastly, use what we have already learned to create a good and reliable vision statement, that clearly articulates the ways that your business will fulfill your calling. 

Aligning your business idea with your calling brings a redemptive framework to your idea, and enables your business to become an instrument of transformation in the marketplace for the advancement of the Gospel. Anyone can make money, but not everyone can make a difference. If you make money, you may not make a difference, but if you make a difference, you can always make money.  

My prayer for you is that God will give you the grace to discover your calling, and the wisdom to align your business idea with it.