The Ultimate Business Guidance Principle

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The Ultimate Business Guidance Principle
Not slothful in business; fervent in spirit; serving the Lord;
Romans 12 v 11
The ultimate business guidance principle is contained in this uni-verse: one should not be slothful or negligent in whatever one is doing. Do it as one would if he is serving the Lord, not with an eye on the “moolah”, not as a worshipper of Mammon but full of the spirit of the Lord. An attitude of serving God through serving man should pervade our professions. We should be thoughtful, zealous, diligent, meticulous and filled with an unflagging enthusiasm and undying optimism as well as tireless in energy as we apply ourselves to the work or vocation the Lord has given us. We should add fizz to our “buzziness.” Those who are slothful spend the best part of their days and lives daydreaming. Their faculties are sleeping and not awakened to their full potential. The Lord wants all our faculties of spirit, mind and body to be wakeful and alert, to be fully engaged and stretched. He wants us to spend a little time dreaming and a lot of time working our plans and realizing our dreams. When the sun is down, we should plan and when the sun is up we should plant.

Wealth, position, qualifications, influence, power and resources are not goals but tools to attain the goal of serving God. Only a fool will treat tools as goals. Imagine a person collecting all types of tools all his life and not being able to use it for the purpose it is meant for. The book of Proverbs exhorts us to learn from the ants that keep busy all summer collecting particles of food. We will never find one ant struggling with another ant for the same piece of food but we would find them cooperating with each other to carry a much larger dead insect or piece of food. The ant does not have any common leader or chosen king. It is guided and led from within by an internal business guidance principle. We need to be self motivated, internally driven and God-led people.

Scripture says, “ the soul of the diligent shall be made fat” implying that the diligent will have their desires fulfilled in due time or God’s own time as long as they are using their talents, time and resources to the fullest on a consistent basis. They keep their minds and limbs busy and endeavour to keep their tongues idle except to speak an useful word to guide or motivate those who they can influence. Scripture says that the diligent will find themselves in the company of royalty. The one who is slothful is destructive while the one who is diligent is creative. The diligent understand that life is a window of opportunity to dream big and act in small scheduled steps to dissect the big dream into tiny parts that can be achieved bit by bit even as ants carry tiny particles to make a big mound. Faith divides the mountains of life into tiny bits and re-assembles the mountains where it is best to locate- no longer a barrier but an achievement of the impossible and improbable. The attitude of reverence for God keeps them humble and on the curve of improvement with a goal of giving of their best. The conceited think that they know it all and end up complacent. But those who are rational and diligent are always humble and learning from all they can, whatever they can.
Prateep V Philip