105. Faith-Fueled Entrepreneurship: Embracing Divine Decision Making

In this episode of the podcast, the host, Lemon, explores the intersection of faith and entrepreneurship, focusing on making wise and God-guided decisions.

Lemon shares her personal journey of stepping into financial freedom and leadership growth, navigating the challenges and decisions that come with being a Christian entrepreneur.

She discusses the concept of divine versus daring decisions, using her story of moving to Savannah, Georgia, as a case study of trusting in God’s guidance while taking calculated risks in business endeavors.

Lemon encourages listeners to balance their faith with their entrepreneurial skill set, seek confirmation from God for their decisions, and be bold yet humble in pursuing their God-given purpose.

The episode aims to inspire listeners to step into their own land of 'milk and honey' by making decisions that align with their faith and entrepreneurial goals.

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:05

Hey friend, welcome to Milk and Honey with Lemon. The Bible says in Numbers 14-8, and if the Lord is pleased with us, he will bring us safely into that land and give it to us. It is a rich land flowing with milk and honey. On this podcast, we talk about stepping into that overflow that God has for us by becoming those ultimate Proverbs 31 women. Hey, I'm Lemon. I am just like you, sister Friend. I knew God had something more in store for me, but I couldn't see a way out of the laundry piles and, frankly, I resented that. Proverbs 31 woman. How was I going to live up to the hype? That is until I found out how to really step into becoming this Proverbs 31 woman through leadership development. In this podcast you're going to find financial freedom, leadership, growth and motivation so you'll be able to do all the things God has called you to do with ease and really step into that land of milk and honey.

Speaker 1: 0:59

Welcome back to the Milk and Honey podcast. I'm your host, lemon Price, and I am really excited today because this topic actually feels deeply personal to me. I want to talk about decision making as a Christian entrepreneur. How do we make good, wise decisions that are what the Lord wants from us, because I think sometimes it can be really scary when you're making these decisions, when God has placed something in front of you and you're like is this me God, or is it you, is it me? Where are we going with this direction? I want to talk about the difference between a divine decision and a daring decision. I want to tell you a little bit of my own story. It's a little crazy, I feel like when people hear it they're like how did all of that happen? It's because I know that it was both divine and daring. When you think about divine decisions, these are decisions that are guided completely by faith and obedience. This is you taking concepts to the Lord in prayer or having business meetings with God. That's the thing you can do, aligning your actions with biblical principles, with God's character, divine decision making. Faith is your guiding principle in that. Then there are daring decisions.

Speaker 1: 2:17

When I think about a daring decision as an entrepreneur, that is some risk taking. There's innovation, there's calculated risk in that, if I invest let's say you're talking about girl power lines, maybe that's the thing you're thinking about investing in If I invest, it's a risk. It's 450 US dollars to join girl power lines and become an ambassador. I'm also trusting that this is a calculated risk. I know Ruby talked about that a few weeks ago, but it is a calculated risk. I know that if I invest this 450 dollars, I'm going to make my money back right away. I knew that I'm actually going to surpass this investment. That's what it was for me. It was a calculated risk that I made. That risk paid off very well for me. There's boldness, there's innovation, there is this knowing from business acumen that you have brought in. Then there's this little tension where you've got to balance being faithful, your entrepreneurial skill set. That's what I want to talk about today is how do we balance the boat?

Speaker 1: 3:26

I want to tell you a little bit about my own story, because my own story, I think, is a really good marriage between balancing my faith with the business skills that I have acquired. So back in 2018, very beginning of 2018, I was leaving my first husband for a whole lot of reasons. Trust me, there is a whole lot that I've worked through with a counselor around that and there was a lot of issues around that first marriage and leaving that and the shame and the things that I felt. But I knew that God wanted. I knew, like without a shadow of a doubt. God was like you've gotta get out of this situation. There was a lot of confirmation that was the right decision for me, and it was also at that time, though, I knew I was supposed to move back to the South. That was something God told me before I was ever a believer, when I was 10 years old that I was gonna move to the South. I would meet my husband in church All these things I had this vision, and the fact that I can detail this vision for you still at almost 34 is how I knew this was a God vision. It's been almost 25 years since I had this, and my life has subsequently played out exactly the way that that vision was given to me at 10. And so definitely a God thing.

Speaker 1: 4:45

And so, before I met my first husband, I was looking at jobs down South in the area I actually ended up in a few years later and had been offered jobs and all of these things, and I turned them down to pursue a relationship with my first husband, which was wildly the wrong one, and that is the kindest way I think I can talk about that relationship. And so I was in this relationship. I just started getting into business like 2015, 2016, really working for myself. And by the end of 2017, when we were celebrating our wedding anniversary or third wedding anniversary and I knew we weren't gonna make it to a fourth I knew it was over. I knew this relationship had run its course for again a whole lot of reasons, and so I left my first husband and I went back to New Jersey, stayed with my grandparents for two months while I figured out what I was gonna do and filing divorce paperwork and dividing assets all of those kind of like gross things you have to do when you're getting divorced and at the same time, I was working remotely as the chief marketing officer of a tech company, and I guess I was in person. And then, because of my impending divorce, they were like it's fine if you only come to the office like once a week, and then some things happened and then it was like I don't have to come to the office at all anymore, and so I stopped going into the office altogether, and so that gave me a lot of time freedom, because my job actually didn't. I was only working part-time hours as a CMO. That's all the company could afford, and so I had a lot of free time and so I started this business and my first few months were not great. I was making $500 a month.

Speaker 1: 6:31

And it's so funny we're recording this episode now, because this is exactly when this whole kind of thing transpired six years ago. I've been in Georgia now for six years and I remember it was snowing Easter Sunday in New Jersey six years ago and I was at church with my neighbor. We were driving home and she looked at me and she said what's next? You've been home for two months now back in New Jersey. You're getting divorced Like you're doing the side hustle business thing. What are you gonna do? And I looked at my neighbor and I said I'm moving to Savannah, georgia. And she said you are. I said I am and she said okay, why? And I was like I don't know. I just feel like that's where God's telling me to go. And so I went. I got home from church, I booked a flight and flew out to Savannah a few days later, ended up finding an apartment, got approved for that apartment same day, like within the hour. It was great. I'm gonna have all of my ducks in a row, which was beautiful.

Speaker 1: 7:33

I'd already done enough work, separating our finances with my ex-husband and all these things it was easy for me to make the move, and so I made this move that I wasn't sure about. I knew this is where God was leading me to go, but I didn't know why. I didn't know a single solitary person in Savannah Georgia. They were really on paper. This did not make sense. That is what I would call a divine decision. That and everything happened so smoothly, so smoothly. It was like God opened up these floodgates and everything just fell into place so insanely quickly and I was like okay, god, I guess this is where you really truly want me.

Speaker 1: 8:17

And so I moved to Savannah very fast. I spent about six months by myself down here. Now I had a couple of my neighbors or my friends. We hung up at the pool, we grabbed dinner sometime, but it wasn't like I made friends necessarily yet. So really I had a six full months of time alone with the Lord and time to work on my business, and my business thrived.

Speaker 1: 8:43

So I made this decision to move to Savannah Georgia with a business that was making $500 a month at the time and I had no real friends. There was no rhyme and reason to me moving here. And so I moved here and business as well. Business actually does great. I started traveling more. I'd booked some really cool clients, I'd met some really amazing people. I started over completely fresh, with a divine decision and a daring decision. I took some calculated risks. I hired business mentors, I invested in myself and I said, okay, I'm going to take this money that I've made so far and I'm going to trust that I can develop the skills that I need to sustain myself. And I did. I was doing really well. I still do well. I still do well for myself. I've had to make some pivot over the last couple of years after I met my husband and all these things.

Speaker 1: 9:44

But I do want to say I think where there's a real success here is when there is divine decision paired with a daring one. Like I when I think about this on paper should not have worked. My moving to Georgia with a business I made $500 a month actually doesn't make sense. I should have had a job lined up, I should have had something ready and waiting for me down here, and I didn't. And so when I moved here, I just had, I took the biggest leap I could. It was like I jumped out of a plane or jumped off of a cliff and just trusted that God would open the parachute in time. That's really what I had to do and that to me, I think, has really helped set me up for this place where I will take really daring and bold. I will make big, daring, bold decision, but then I also I trust like that the Lord is going to guide my steps. If he doesn't want me to do something he's going to make it really clear, does the.

Speaker 1: 10:48

And sometimes I think this is where your discernment comes into and your personal relationship with the Lord, because I know for a fact the enemy also doesn't want you to do big, bold things for the Lord. He doesn't want you to do big things for the kingdom, and so he's wanting you to doubt your business skills. He wants you to doubt your ability to make investments back. He wants you to doubt that you'll ever be successful. He wants you to worry about showing up on camera or starting a podcast or investing in that business opportunity or whatever it is. He wants you to doubt it. But he also wants you to doubt that God's got your back. He wants you to doubt that God is not going to equip you. He wants you to doubt your creator, to doubt a loving heavenly father who has your back all the time, and so I've had to look at certain obstacles, and this happens every single time. Every single time that I step into and now it's the same with my husband. Every time we step into a new level of leadership, we take a new course, we learn a new skill, we develop in some way shape or form, especially in a big, bold way.

Speaker 1: 11:57

I almost expect the enemy to show up. I expect something to happen. I expect us to get bad news in a situation that we're dealing with. I expect that I don't know. The other day, I was getting ready to do something and, don't you know, somebody hacked my debit card and was trying to buy plane tickets in Spain, and so I had to get a new debit card, which means I had to rearrange everything, and it was like a mad dash scramble to fix things. I had stuff auto-drafting for that day that were important and had to be paid, and so I'm like the enemy would do that. The enemy would come and attack me with these plane tickets in Spain and really just my bank account being hacked in general when I'm trying to do something big for the kingdom, when I'm trying to step up in some way, shape or form, and that's what I think is important about this episode.

Speaker 1: 12:54

This is where I think the big thing is that I want you to be able to discern when is a God shutting a door, when is he opening a door and when is the enemy angry about what it is that you're doing? And can you trust the skills that you have as an entrepreneur? Can you trust your skills as a mother, as a leader? Can you trust the skills that you have developed? Can you trust the work that you're going to put in? Because my friend Michelle Schaefer she always says God, I'll do the work, you handle the results, and so, while I can't necessarily predict what the results are gonna be, what I can tell you is that when God is behind it, I have never had a bad result.

Speaker 1: 13:32

Now have I had things that have happened that I don't necessarily love 100%, but I also know that is not the end for me. I know that there is something bigger God is doing and I just have to trust it, something my husband says all the time when he's praying, and I love this about him he's thanks God for good times and perceived bad, and so it has really been carrying me through the last six years. Whenever something happens, whenever the enemy comes at me, I'm like, okay, this is just a perceived bad, god is going to use this, because I am the daughter of a kink and I know that God works all things out for his good and his glory, and so, therefore, I actually don't have to worry about this perceived bad thing. It's fine if it looks like the enemy is winning in a certain area of my life, because I know without a shadow of a doubt that he is not. It may look like it to the world and maybe the other people involved in the circumstances maybe they feel like they are winning, they feel like they've got a leg up and maybe that's why they don't have a relationship with the Lord, because they feel like I don't serve God and guess what? I'm getting everything I want. But I know that is not true. I know, without a shadow of a doubt, god is doing something bigger and better than we could ever imagine, and I invested in Girl Power Alliance, which again was a big risk for me.

Speaker 1: 14:58

As somebody who hated the entire industry, I didn't think this was something I wanted to be a part of and I'll be really honest when I joined Girl Power Alliance, we did not have the money for it. We have been battling something that has been costly for us and we didn't have the money. I'd given up my agency, so there went all of my study income and I was back to taking small gigs and freelancing. So we didn't have extra money just lying around and I shifted some things around and I just I trusted the process. I said, all right, god, like I know that I have done enough work in this area and if this is where you want me, it's gonna be successful. And guess what? It has been successful beyond my wildest dreams. It has come through in just incredible ways. We've done incredible things. Literally, it's Sunday night when I'm recording this.

Speaker 1: 15:49

I don't usually record this late before an episode drops, but we've just been so blessed because of the income that I made on that initial investment to Girl Power Alliance, like we caught up on some things that we were like, hey, I just want to, I want to get ahead on some bills. So we got ahead on some bills. We caught up in a way that makes us feel better and there was enough that we were like, hey, you know what Things have been a little stressful because he's doing my husband's doing a Radiant Leadership Academy right now. We're both getting ready to do the Kingdom Speaker Academy, which, by the way, is still open if you want to talk about it. But we're both stepping into this thing and so, of course, the enemy's coming. He doesn't like it, he doesn't like it. And so we said you know what? I think we deserve a little one-on-one time. And so we did.

Speaker 1: 16:35

We took Friday, we went down to Orlando, which is not that far from us, the four hours from us, but we just took a day and a half to go, sit in the sun and enjoy each other and hang out, and we laughed and we joked the whole way down and the whole way back, and it was so needed. And again, it's because of that divine and daring decision that I made. It was a scary decision for me. It was one that I wasn't totally confident in, but the Lord was, and I think that's the big thing too. I don't have to know A through Z, and I think if we knew A through Z, I don't know that we would do it.

Speaker 1: 17:10

I think that I had this conversation with my husband the other day. There's something him and I are walking through. It's very intense, and he said to me. He said, if you knew, at the very beginning and when we first met, before we ever started dating, it was like, hi, I'm Glenn, and when you shook my hand or whatever, you had a full vision A to Z of everything we were going to walk through and how difficult some moments of our life would be. Would you still have pursued a relationship? And I'm like I don't think I would have. I don't think I would have. And I say that I love my husband, I love his children, like I love my family more than anything in the world, and I can't imagine a world where I don't have them. But before I had the attachment to them, if I had known the things we were going to walk through, I don't know that I would have.

Speaker 1: 17:56

And I think that's why God doesn't give us A to Z. I think that's why it's called faith, because if we knew that the way God was going to have to refine us and mold us and shape us, and things we would have to walk through to get to where he's calling us to be, we wouldn't want to do it. But he gives us a little at a time. He makes us stronger a little bit at a time. He shows us we can trust him even a little bit more at a time. He develops our skills a little bit more at a time.

Speaker 1: 18:23

And that's where I think this beautiful intersection of divine decision making and daring decision making come together, because I think that as, especially as entrepreneurs, we have to be bold, we have to be daring, we have to be able to calculate the ROI, we have to calculate the risk, we have to figure that out, we have to calculate a debt. There's a thing that's good debt versus bad debt. Are you taking on good debt? How are you making those decisions? And then all just going to come from you and your skillset and your development as an entrepreneur. But then also, what is your relationship with the Lord like? How is he directing you and guiding you and steering you? What is the plan he has for you? And that's where I think those two things come together.

Speaker 1: 19:04

And so I want to encourage you if there's a decision you've been putting off making, have a business decision, have a business conversation with the Lord, take it ahead. Say here's what? Here's the skills that I think I've acquired. Here's where I think you want me to go. Can you just give me a confirmation and I say a confirmation, because God does not need to give you 422 confirmations that this is the thing you're supposed to do. You don't need them. If he's confirmed it once, then that is enough. Are you bold enough to take one step in the direction that he's calling you to go into, and are you humble enough that, if it doesn't work out and God shuts that door after you've been walking in that direction? Are you humble enough to shift direction? Are you okay shifting directions if that's where God has you going? What I want to leave you with today is what decision have you been putting off with, something you've felt called to do but you haven't fully stepped into yet? I want to encourage you to take that to the Lord and then make that decision today, make that step today, invest in that thing today, because I promise God will reward obedient. It may not always look the way that we envision it looking, but I promise he will reward the obedient. So I hope you have a great rest of the week.

Speaker 1: 20:22

I have a really fun episode coming up for you. Later this week my friend Michelle Tupperd is going to be on here and she is just going to be pouring out in such a beautiful way. So stay tuned for Wednesday's episode and I will see you next time. Bye friend. Hey friend, what a joy it has been to share today's journey with you.

Speaker 1: 20:43

If you found a spark of inspiration or a nugget of wisdom that resonated, would you bless someone else by sharing this episode with them? It could be the encouragement they need to step into their purpose and calling. Also, if you could spare a moment to leave a review, it would mean the world to me. I really appreciate your feedback and it really helps our community grow. Remember, the road to discovering God's call for you isn't one you have to walk alone. So join me again next Monday for another episode where we'll continue to explore the depths of leadership and the heights of our heavenly calling. Until then, keep seeking, keep growing and keep trusting in His plan. God bless you and I'll catch you on the flip side. Bye friend.