You’ve laid your business down at the throne, and that is no small act of faith. So many hands are wrung with worry, yet never folded for prayer. But you have brought your ledger, your daily cares, the very hours you spend behind the counter or at the desk, and you’ve spread them before the Lord as Hezekiah spread the threatening letter in the temple. That is a good beginning.
Think of it this way: a ship looks far safer when it rides in shallow water where you can spy the sandy bottom, but the vessel that has heavy cargo needs deep water, and the captain who knows his business seeks it gladly. If your business were too easily managed, if every venture turned gold overnight, you might be tempted to forget the Harbor-Master altogether. But deep water, the kind where your feet cannot touch and the currents are strong, that sends a man to the chart room, and that sends you to your knees. So the very weight of the matter may be a sign that you are carrying something worth carrying, and that the Lord is teaching you to trust His hand upon the helm.
Do you know what it is to catch yourself reckoning up the losses and gains of a day and forgetting the greatest asset of all? There is a quiet sum every believer must do, and Paul did it: he counted his old religious advantages, his status, his blameless record, and then he set them down as loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ. I do not say your business is loss, far from it, but I do say that the best-kept books are those in which Christ Himself is entered as the chief treasure. A man may have a small shop and a large Savior, and be richer than the merchant whose warehouses bulge with silks. So when the takings are lean, or the custom slow, you may still add up a profit on the side of grace. That is not a fiction; it is the arithmetic of heaven.
And remember whose business it is, after all. You did not choose your trade of yourself, not finally. The Lord who patterns the snowflake also orders the steps of His children. He guided David from the sheepfolds to the throne, and He guided Joseph from the pit to the palace via the prison, and He can guide you through this quarter, this contract, this uncertain season. The shepherd’s crook is not only for pulling us out of brambles; it is for steering us into green pastures. So when you rise early to attend to the day’s duties, you need not carry the weight as if everything depended on your cleverness. Yours is to put your hand to the task, to deal honestly with all men, to serve with a willing spirit, and then to leave the outcome with the Father. Even Christ in the carpenter’s shop was about His Father’s business. So are you. The plane and the hammer, the pen and the ledger, are as truly vessels of worship as the organ and the hymn-book when they are handled with dependence on God.
You will find that prayer for your business is not an empty ceremony. It is a real transaction with the living God. The instinct to ask for help did not spring from an aimless whim; it came because there is a corresponding blessing laid up for you. The Lord never gave the thirst without providing water, nor the hunger without baking bread. So the very ache in your soul over your present need is a hint that He intends to meet it. He has a love-letter for you, though it may come in a black-edged envelope, and the contents will be sweet when you break the seal in faith.
I would not have you idle or careless, but I do urge you to seek a holy quiet of heart. The farmer sows the seed and then sleeps, knowing that the earth brings forth fruit of itself, by a power that is not his own. You are permitted to sow, to labor, to watch, but the increase is the Lord’s secret. Let your conversation be without covetousness, and be content with such things as you have, for He Himself has said, “I will never leave thee nor forsake thee.” That promise is a fortune, my friend. It makes the man who has only a crust as truly a prince as the one who sits at a laden table. A staff is helpful, but a dozen canes would be a burden; God knows exactly what you can bear, and what you need to lean upon. Your sufficiency is not in a bursting warehouse, but in Him.
When the accounts are hard to balance and the way ahead looks dark, do not look down into the churning waves; look up to the motionless stars. Lift your eyes to the hills, from whence your help comes. Remember the goodness the Lord has already laid up for you, the mercies you have not yet tasted, the answers that are already on the way, lined up like a wall of stone to protect you. You have only seen the fringe of His garment, only sipped the foam of the cup. The full draught is yet to come. David sat down at last, after all his wanderings and wars, and said, “Thou shalt guide me with thy counsel, and afterward receive me to glory.” The afterward is as sure as the present trial. The glory will swallow up the grief. And even now, the guidance is happening, the unseen hand is moving the pieces on the board, and you will look back on these days and see the print of His fingers everywhere.
So go your way, then. Open the shutters tomorrow morning with a heart lifted up. Serve each customer as though you served Christ. Trust the Lord with the portion you cannot control. Your business is a thread held in a pierced hand; it cannot be snapped, and it cannot be lost.
O Lord, you who are the true Merchant who bought us with blood, look tenderly on this your servant. Give wisdom where the eye is dim, peace where the brow is furrowed, and daily bread where the table seems bare. Let this business be a field where your name is hallowed, where integrity blooms, and where dependence on you is learned afresh. Guide with your counsel now, and in the end bring us all to that city whose streets are gold, where we shall traffic in eternal joy and need no ledger but the Lamb’s book of life. Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.