Good Ideas vs God Ideas - How to tell the difference & why it matters in your life and business

Is there a difference between good ideas and God ideas? If so, does it really matter which one we follow? How do we discern the difference and what does Scripture say about the two differences?

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

How do I know the difference between good ideas versus god ideas? And why is this important to implement in my life, in being a mom, in our business, and things like that? Welcome to the Entrepreneur's Wife podcast. I am your host, Carly Raines. This is a podcast where we talk about finding purpose as the helper to our small business owner in this feminist obsessed world. We're gonna take biblical values and we're going to apply them to a lot of concepts that we embark on in our daily lives as moms, as women, as co-business owners. And we're gonna have these deep conversations on how we can actually bring practical biblical authority into our life. And so today I really want to hit on good ideas versus god ideas. And the reason I want to hit on this is number one, I think when you're married to a business owner, you experience a lot of ideas. You experience a lot of, hey, what about this? Hey, you know, just constant creativity, constant um innovation. And it can be very overwhelming, especially when you're trying to raise a family and balance everything else that goes on in life. Um, and God is just really showing me in this season of life that rest and maintaining a peaceful status as you work is something that He has called us to do. He has not called us to be chaotic or to be so busy that we miss serving other people, or we even miss the people closest to us, like our kids and our husband. And so I think it's really important to discern good ideas versus god ideas, because I think the result of what we're wanting, the fruit, the labor of what we're wanting, will be tremendously affected by if we're pouring in and investing in good ideas versus god ideas. And I'm gonna share some testimonies with y'all today, and I'm also gonna share some scriptures, and I'm gonna start by saying that this is a learning curve that Briston and I are currently in. So this episode is gonna be a lot of kind of explaining what we're experiencing and what we're kind of going through with learning good ideas versus god ideas. And the first example that I want to give was last night we went to dinner with one of a potential employee who applied for a position that we're hiring for. We do this with everyone that we consider to interview. Um, we have dinner with them and their spouse if they're married, and Briston brings me along. Um, he interviews them before this. This is kind of like the second or third interview, if you will. And we just kind of get to know them on a personal level. Um, Dave Ramsey really does recommend this because number one, your spouse, so us as the wife, we can see things that maybe our husbands can't. And I really was talking to Briston on the way home last night, and I was really telling him, like, you're so optimistic about every applicant who applies, and I feel like I'm more of like a realistic um person. I just and maybe it's our gifts and our strengths, but um, he lets me look at everyone who applies, they have to send in a video of why they think they're good for the job, even before he interviews them, and um he will catch one good quality about them, and he will go to the moon about it, and it's great. Um, he is overly optimistic, and uh that confidence and that mindset has really carried us with the business. So I do think that that's important, however, I also think having a realistic mindset, um, whether that's from a friend or a spouse, is also very important because you might be blinded or you might miss things um that you need to consider, and it's always good to get an outside perspective. So he likes um bringing me along and listening to the person, getting to know them, and then usually on our way home, and after that we talk about what did you think? And something that he's really been tapping into and leaning into is um just the intuition that usually us women have. Usually us women have pretty good intuition about a person. Um, you know, if we don't feel good about it, you know, usually it's right, um, there's a reason why we're feeling that way. And so Briston's just heard from other successful business owners, you really need to lean into your wife's intuition. And so that's been really cool to see him ask questions and really consider what I have to say about the person. And something that we experienced last night was this was a great candidate. This was a great person. Um, this was a hard worker, but what we've run into in the past is we meet a great candidate, we meet a great person. However, the position that they're applying for does not mean that they are fit for that position. They can be a great person, but does their personality fit? Does their strengths fit? Like, can they actually accomplish that job well? And I was telling Briston last night, that is my only concern, is that I don't know if this person is really fit for the job that they're applying for. And I went back to whenever I was working for our university, the job I had um right after college, I loved, guys. I loved. It was event planning, you were building a program. It was just so much creativity, so much of a lot of strengths and a lot of things that I enjoyed doing. And so I loved it. I would come to work, I would stay late, like I was just all in. And they offered a promotion to be the assistant director, and that was really a management position. And I had to leave. Well, if I took the job, I was gonna leave the position that I was in to be the assistant, and it sounded appealing, and that's the thing, you know, when you're applying for a job and when you have these applicants who are applying for your business, like it sounds appealing, but you don't know the full picture, which is why it's so important as the business owner to really consider like what you're hearing them say or not say in their personality, because you typically know like what that position is going to entail. And even if they're a great candidate, you really got to ask yourself like, is this person based on their personality and their strengths really fit for that position? Um, and when I stepped into the assistant and director position, it was completely different than what I had previously done, which is fine. However, it was not something that I enjoyed, and it was not something that I was passionate about. So it was really hard to give 100% every single day and go all in every single day because I was doing something that honestly I don't think was a strength of mine. And looking back, I had a lot of learning experience, but I kept telling Breston, like, we need to make sure we're not putting people in that position because we've done that before. We've hired three people who were great as people, and so we thought, okay, yeah, like come work for us. But the position we put them in wasn't actually a strength for them, and so what it does is it causes tension between you and us. So it'll cause tension between you and Briston because you have these goals and you have these milestones that you're trying to hit. And I will say, if you own a small business, you understand this, it's a lot of growing, like it's so different than just a corporate job. Like you're building something, you're trying to build something, you're trying to put systems in place. And so it really does take like a certain type of people to work for small businesses when they're trying to grow. Um, not everyone is fit for that, and that's fine, but it's it's again finding the right people for the right position. So we were just talking about this, and I was just voicing his concerns. And this idea of a good idea versus a god idea, I think is important because this was a good candidate. But personally, you know, I told Bristen, if you were to ask me, should we hire this person? No, I don't think we should hire them. Even though they're a Christian, they have the same values as us, he works really hard. I don't think this is the Lord's will. Like, I don't I don't think this is a good avenue to go down. And um we've we've learned this from trial and error. And another example is when we opened up the production side of our business, and the biggest reason why we opened up production, making medals, making our own shirts, all of that was to save money because we had you know, we were paying outsourcing it, and it was costing more than if we were to do it ourselves. And so Briston had the idea of okay, let's invest in machines, let's actually hire someone to do this, and we will save money over time to do this. Well, that's a great idea, like in the idea brainstorming process, it was a great idea. But then when we started doing it, we realized, okay, this is a lot different than what we expected. Um, it was a lot of stress on Briston, mainly because we didn't put the right person over it. Um, so they were a hard worker, but they just didn't understand how to grow it and how to adapt to change. And I would say that's also another thing to consider is are your people in your small business like adapting and willing to adapt to change? Because as a small business, one week you can say one thing, and then two weeks later you're doing something different, and you have to have people who are willing to go with the flow on that because you're a small business and you're figuring things out. Um, and so we just didn't put the right person in place, it caused a lot of stress on our part, and I will say this too: when you do a good idea, um, it sounds good initially, and it you know looks great, like maybe on paper, like financially for us to do production, it looked great, and you mean well, like it's it's like okay, we have good intentions, all that, but then you execute it, and it actually causes more stress on you, um, than if you wouldn't have done it. And we just found this out with production, and we're actually like kind of closing our production side of our business because um we've just ran into so many potholes and so many walls and so many obstacles with this side of our business. It's like our events are thriving and they're growing and they're working out. This side of the business is not, and we keep running into problem after problem after problem. And I think you need to listen to that. Like, I really think you need to listen to okay, we thought this was a good idea, but clearly the Lord's hand is not on it because no matter how hard we try to make it work, we keep running into the brick wall, like we keep stumbling, and it it's like we take one step forward to take two steps back, and it leaning on a God idea requires a lot of humility, like especially if you're a creative person who gets a lot of ideas, like wristing gets a ton of ideas, we get a ton of ideas, and again, it sounds good, and it's like, yeah, we should do this, but it takes humility to be like, Okay, God, but you know the future, you know the plans you have for us. Like, should we actually invest in this? And um, that's hard too to actually humble yourself and say, but is this a God idea, even though it looks good? And a lot of times, guys, God ideas initially are kind of like I don't want to say they don't look good, but they're very random, and just what from what we've experienced, they don't always make sense in the moment, and so it's like for instance, us moving to Texas, me quitting my job, us living on this small business, that in the moment seemed like the dumbest idea ever. I mean, you could ask anyone who knew that we were doing that, it sounded pretty like, what the heck are y'all doing? I had a very secure job, I had benefits, like we had we had it set, if you will. And yet we felt called that God was calling us to move to Texas and depend on the business. And it just did not seem like a good idea, but it was a God idea. And because we obeyed, God has blessed that decision, and his hand has been on it every step of the way. And I look at the employees that I believe were God ideas. I look at Haley, I look at Asher, I even look at our newest higher Sam. And it's so funny because those people came to us, like, like, yes, they applied, and yes, we went through the process, but a lot of times I believe that God presents opportunities to you. You don't have to go out and force them or figure it out yourself. And the book called The Power of Who actually talks about this. It's it's a book from a Christian business owner, and he talks about networking and he talks about like getting where you want to get and how God actually like puts people in your life to get you where he wants you to go. And that is a God idea. And a lot of times I think we think we have to like force it or figure it out ourselves, and just from what we're experiencing, it's like no, God ideas are ideas that are presented to you. Um, you don't have to force them to happen. And so with our production side, it's funny because a few months ago, this was a while ago, Briston actually had a dream about production, and he had a dream that, like, in this dream, we had the warehouse, and in the dream, the warehouse was completely bulldozed over just to the foundation, like just to the concrete, and then it was rebuilt. And so that I feel like was God prophetically telling him, Hey, you need to completely stop this, like completely stop doing it yourself, bulldoze it all over, start over, if you will, and then we're gonna build something new, and it's not gonna look like what it used to look like. Now we're actually like obeying that, and we're actually like putting things in place to do that, but for a while it was like we still were trying to figure out based on our good ideas how to do both. Like, okay, I have this dream, but how can I also still continue what I think is a good idea? And um, you know, we're now realizing like we should have listened to that dream the moment we got it. Um, but it's a learning process, it is a learning process, and so um just from hiring people who weren't fit for the position, they were great candidates, but they just weren't made for that position at this time, and then also with what we've experienced with production, I just really think that it's important for you, for your sanity, for your peace, um, to always lean on God ideas. And again, God ideas aren't always gonna make sense. Um, they're they're sometimes they're out of the blue. I mean, if when we moved into a camper in January, that was very random, you know. Um, our lease was ending and we decided to move into a camper. Um, that was a definite God idea. On the outside, I'm sure that didn't look like a good idea. Like I'm sure that again looked pretty crazy, but it allowed us to save a lot and to figure out exactly, it was just such a blessing. Um, Briston working as a teacher for a year and a coach at uh at a public school, very random. That was a god idea. That was not necessarily to us a good idea, but that was a god idea, and it provided insurance for Briley, our daughter. It also provided opportunities for him to meet people because he coached cross-country and tracks. So he actually got involved with FCA, he got which is Fellowship of Christian Athletes, he made some great connections there, he met other coaches, he met some homeschooling people who do cross-country, like he he made some great connections, so you can't say like that was all for nothing. No, that was a god idea. Um, even you know, personally, my involvement with realm makers and the writing conference, that was a definite God idea, and I'm getting opportunities to do that. It's just it's so funny because again, I look back and I'm like, a lot of God ideas were just these very random things that at the time in your flesh don't make sense, and I want to point to some people in the Bible who like literally don't make sense to be in the lineage of Christ, they don't make sense to to be that, they don't seem like good ideas, but they're actually God ideas, and there's three women that I want to point out. Um, Ruth is the first one. So Ruth is this foreigner who marries um uh one of God's people, and she ends up traveling. There's a whole book of Ruth, it's very small, and she ends up traveling with her mother-in-law because all of all of their men die. Like her father-in-law dies, her husband dies, her brother-in-law dies, and so she ends up traveling with her mother-in-law back to Israel, back to God's um promised land, and she ends up working in a field and really serving her mother-in-law, and I'm sure from her parents' perspective, because they were in this foreign land, and once your husband dies, you typically would back in those days, you'd either marry the brother or you would go back to your father's home and be reassigned a new marriage. So that her traveling with her mother-in-law, staying single in a time where women could not really make it on their own, like they were poor if they didn't get married, um, did not sound like a good idea. Like it was, it probably sounded terrible. Like, you're gonna go with your mother-in-law and you're gonna go to this land and you're gonna work in a field, and I'm sure her family was like, You're crazy, you're insane, you're gonna die. Like, there's no way you're gonna make it. But it was a God idea, and she ends up working in this field, and the guy who owns the field, she ends up marrying, and so she literally goes from this peasant to like this great position um with this guy named Boaz. And I know in the Christian sphere we talk about the love story between Ruth and Boaz, but I also want to talk about the status of her, like she literally went from like the lowest of the low to one of the highest positions um in that like family in that region because he owned all of these fields, which probably means he was pretty wealthy, and so but the process of doing that did not look like a good idea, but that was a god idea, okay? So she's the first one, um, and it talks about like her being redeemed, like that's a theme, is like Boaz is her redeemer, and it points to Christ, and um, it's a pretty cool story. The second one is Mary, like it's pretty obvious that Mary's pregnancy did not seem like a good idea. Like, what do you mean you're pregnant by the Holy Spirit? I'm sure people literally thought she was crazy, and um, but that was a God idea. I mean, that was clearly God, and he sends the angel to both Mary and Joseph to just reassure them that it's his idea and it's confirmation, and that's what brings Jesus, and that was literally what brought our salvation. And in the moment, I'm sure Mary is like, This is the most craziest thing I've ever done, and this is not a good idea. Um, but it was a god idea, and she is a great example of that, probably one of the most greatest examples of that. Okay, Tamar. Uh y'all, Tamar's story is crazy. I just gotta say, Tamar, like her rewards in heaven right now better be great because what she went through, I just feel so bad. Um, Tamar is a short story in Genesis, and Jacob um is her. I think no, wait, maybe it's is it Jacob? Okay, her she's in the lineage of Christ. Yeah, I think it's no, Jacob had 12 sons. It it Judah. I'm pretty sure it's Judah. Yeah. Because Judah is the lineage of Christ. Okay, so Judah is one of the sons of Jacob. Jacob had 12 sons. So Judah is one of those sons. And Judah ends up leaving, going to a foreign land. I'm pretty sure it's Judah. Yeah, it's Judah. Judah ends up going to a foreign land. He marries a foreign woman and he has three sons. Okay. So um his three sons are very prideful. I will say this. Um, his wife believes in a different religion, and um he ends up finding Tamar and uh like paying for her to marry. That's how that's how they would do it. It was like the bride price. He paid the father for the woman to marry his son. So she marries his firstborn son, and he's terrible, y'all. He is so prideful, so arrogant. Just go read the story. Well, the Lord ends up killing him, like he stops breathing and he ends up dying, and he beats Tamar. I mean, it's just terrible. And she um, so the what the custom was back then for her to go to the brother, because again, women could not make it without being married, so she ends up going to the secondborn son, and the secondborn son is also very prideful, but what the custom was back then was if her husband, so her the firstborn son died, the child from her and the second son would the firstborn son from their intercourse would not be his child. Technically, to keep the lineage, to keep the name of his older brother, keep to keep it going, his first son would actually be his brothers, and this secondborn son was so prideful that he did not want, he loved Tamar, he was like obsessed with her. Um, so it wasn't that he wasn't attracted to her, he was very attracted to her, but he did not want to pass the lineage for his brother, and the Lord did not like that either, and so the Lord ends up, he ends up dying and and being killed, and um then everyone thinks that it's Tamar's fault, like she's doing some crazy something to kill all these sons, and so Judah sends her back home, and this was a very hard thing for her because she um she she just like when if if you were ever sent back home, um you were not looked at as a daughter anymore, you were considered a servant because you were basically worthless. Um, so her father ends up like treating her as a servant, and she does this crazy thing, y'all. Like, crazy thing. Um, she ends up pretending. So another custom back then, crazy customs back then, was if you're if your son died and you didn't have any more sons, the father of the son would take the wife. So he would take his daughter-in-law and sleep and marry and sleep with her in order for her to have children that would provide for her. It was just very different back then, very interesting. Um, and so technically she was supposed to go to the thirdborn son, but he didn't do that. So her only option, other option, um, for creating a life is to sleep with Judah. She ends up like faking being a prostitute, crazy story, y'all. And um, she ends up sleeping, his wife dies, and he's traveling, and she ends up sleeping with her father-in-law, and she ends up having twins, which is a coincidence because both of his sons died, and um they are like the so Judah is the lineage of Christ, so her twins, I forget their names, what she named them, but anyways, it just all fell into the lineage of Christ, but it's a crazy story, okay. So just that um there's a lot of wrong and a lot of sin in that, but just her enduring, like her endurance to never give up, um, is crazy. I mean, she was just she just has a crazy story, okay. So the twins and just all of that, it's just it's just is wild. Um, none of it seemed like a good idea, and we would argue that it was not a good idea. Um, but yet God still worked in her favor, and I think God really saw her brokenness and her hurting, and just like everything that she went through, and just at the end blessed her, um, despite of what she went through. And then the last thing is you look at the Proverbs 31 woman, and we talk about this woman a lot, like when we're talking about being an entrepreneur's wife, and one of the things that it says is that her husband actually trusts her, and he will lack no, like he will, he won't lack anything. Um, and I think that that's very important because I want to say that your voice matters. Like, used to when Bristol would ask me for my opinion about a candidate that we were potentially hiring, I was so hesitant to give my honest thoughts because I just I didn't want to be wrong and I don't know, I just was so hesitant about it, and I've learned from our mistakes that again, just being a Proverbs 31 woman means that like when your husband asks for your opinion, like don't shy away from that because the Lord could be showing you something that your husband doesn't see because again, we talk about how you're really like in bird's eye view of the business, like your husband's so much in it in the nitty-gritty everyday little tasks that sometimes he misses things that are concerning or good qualities or red flags or whatever, and with you having the outside perspective, you can give insight to something that he might not be able to see. And so I've just learned over time, like when there's a way to voice your opinion, you don't need to go in it saying, Hey, you should do this, or you know, like dominating, but I think like when your husband asks, like, hey, what do you think about this person? Or I don't know, what do you think about this idea, or yada yada yada, like really voice like what you think and your intuition, and um something that I always try to do, like when Briston asks about a person or an idea that he has, I really try to like be like, okay, God, like how am I supposed to answer this? Like, don't let me answer based on Carly, like he's asking for advice. Like, what do you want me to tell him based on what I'm seeing and the insight you're giving me? And I really try to lean on that. Um, so I just I just want to encourage you to lean on your strengths. Um, I'm like getting more confident in my spiritual strengths than I used to, um, because I've seen the fruit and the faithfulness of God when I do lean on those strengths because he's given you it for a reason. For instance, like discernment. Um, if you're discerning someone's motive or discerning something that isn't good or is good, it's important to voice that. Like it's important to lean on those strengths, and it's a learning process, it's a trial and error. But like, I just want to encourage you to find what your strengths are, like what strengths has the Lord given you? And when your husband asks for your advice, lean on those. Like, for me personally, it's like okay, I pretty much have really good intuition from the Lord. Like, if I get a vibe about somebody or discernment, nine times out of ten, it seems to be somewhat accurate, even if I don't understand what I'm sensing or why I'm sensing it. But I've learned to lean on that and like actually tap into that to help us with discerning is this a good idea or is this a god idea? And for you, it's the same way. God's given you spiritual gifts and he's given you the fruits of the spirit, and you have the Holy Spirit if you're a Christian, and so lean into that and be like, okay, God. And I also want to say, it's okay to say, I don't know. And it's okay to say, hey, let's sit on this, like, let's not make a decision right now. Um, like let's pray about it, let's sit on it, and then let's figure it out and let's come back together and see what one another says. That's something that's been really cool, is like when we have an idea or something, we're if we both aren't on board with it, it's kind of a sign to be like, okay, we need to pray about this because clearly we're not aligned. Um, and it's cool for us to go our separate ways and to take time to like seek the Lord about it, and then we come back together, and it's like, oh, okay, like the Lord's shown us some things, and then we talk about it. Um, so that's my advice for you guys to really lean on good ideas or sorry, to really lean on God ideas and not good ideas. And uh I did an episode yesterday about the three common mistakes, and I I want you to go listen to that because that episode actually talks about things that keep us from the life and the business that we truly desire. And if we do not overcome and deal with those things, we will probably not act on God ideas. We probably will continue to be obedient with good ideas because of those three common mistakes. So I want you to go listen to that um so that you understand, like, yes, God ideas are scary, but I need to overcome my flesh in order to obey God ideas, and the only way I do that is by really overcoming these three mistakes um and leaning on the Holy Spirit. So I hope you guys enjoyed this episode. Um, I will see y'all on the next one.