A Course in Miracles: The Power of ‘You Can’t Make This Up Stories’

It dawned on me as we were packing up from a recent on-location filming that the passion I see in business owners and ministry leaders is due to their own face-to-face experience with God. The power of this experience emboldens them to surrender control to the Lord in their business and fundamentally transforms the purpose of all their activities. This experience is exceptionally personal and cannot be transferred completely.

A Course In Miracles: Second Generations Are Book Smart

As we get to know more and more leaders that have a heart for God in their business, I become more aware of the challenge presented when passing the business to future generations. These second - third or fourth generations don't have the advantage of experience the God-sized "aha moment" that set them on the new path. They only have the anecdotal stories to reinforce why they do what they do.

The real challenge in this process is to invigorate the new leader with the past leaders special sauce. However, that special sauce is called 'special' for a reason. The special sauce is a personal conviction of hearing from the Lord of your life about what He has called you to do individually & corporately. In the future generations - the only thing left for the subsequent leaders to hold onto is the corporate charge. Unless...

A Course In Miracles: Don't Borrow the Experience of Others

Our God is powerful enough to give each of us a chance to hear specifically what He wants us to do for Him. With that said - as a future generational leader - we have the opportunity and responsibility to be struck by lightening and react to the vision we're provided.

To those future leaders - what I mean to say is that God has provided a corporate vision that was spurred into being through an individual experience. We need to have our own individual experience that will embolden us to do more than our predecessor. If we allow God to influence us and allow Him to impact us the way He impacted those that came before us - we have a real opportunity to see His glory beyond measure. However, if we are complacent to mimic the passion and hijack the story of others - we will continue to fall short.

A Course In Miracles: The Power of 'You Can't Make This Up Stories'

From a practical standpoint, we need to be looking at our current circumstances and ask for God to grow us & His business & His ministries beyond our own capabilities. And, dare I say it, beyond the capabilities of the patriarch. We are to build upon the solid foundation of what God did through others before we got there - correct the mistake they made in the process - listen clearly what God would have us do & be obedient. This can be accomplished a number of way - but the first is to silence to white noise of the to-do lists, the chatter of the board room & the overwhelming distraction of the chaos of the day. In this silence, we need to ask God to tell us where to go and the courage to go there. It is often in those scary out-of-control moments that God shows up with His miracle for each of us individually.

Once we have or own 'You Can't Make This Up Story' - then we're ready to do God's work from a place of passion rather than simply checking the boxes of obligation. Only then, do we really understand what it means to be a slave of Christ.