Is God Calling Me to Start a Business?Намуна

Having a Great Idea: The Product

It’s pretty easy to read the book of Ecclesiastes and start to feel, well, bummed out. It can feel like there aren’t a whole lot of positives in this book. Most of the writing comes from the perspective of The Teacher—a critic who has an eye for seeing what’s wrong with the world, and specifically what’s wrong with work.

If you’re thinking about starting your own business, chances are you might feel the same as The Teacher. You look at your day job, and you just don’t see the point. The idea of “hating all the things I had toiled for under the sun” sounds about right. 

Entrepreneurship seems like a solution to this problem, right? If you could just find work that isn’t toil, work that matters, work that fits your passion, then maybe it won’t all be meaningless. Maybe you could actually build something that matters.

But how do you know? How do you know that this idea is the one? These are hard questions to answer, but The Teacher gives us a clue—whatever you create will eventually be in the hands of someone else. 

So, the question you have to answer is this: what do you want to leave behind?

Is this venture, this startup, something you will eventually want to pass off to someone else? Is the idea you’re following through on important enough to toil and labor for, even though you know someone else will eventually take over?

One reason entrepreneurship is attractive is because it seems to offer a sense of control. You get to be your own boss, right? You get to set your own schedule, you get to create what you want, and you get to choose who you work with. And those are real perks to this journey. But like any job, it won’t be yours forever. So, if you’re going to take this risk, it might help to answer two questions.

How do you want your idea to add value to the world? And if so, are you willing to put it in the hands of someone else to ensure that it exists?

Further Thought 

• What’s your initial reaction to the idea that no matter what you do, someone else will eventually come after you and take over? Does that frustrate you? 
• Do you think entrepreneurship comes with more or less control over your life and your work? Why or why not?
• Write down your answers to the two questions asked at the end of the devotional. Then, read them again tomorrow. Are they still true?