When your Business Becomes your Idol

God has been so faithful and as I enter into what feels like a season of answered prayers in my entrepreneurship journey, I've been reflecting a lot on the things that have shaped the entrepreneur that I am today. One of these things was the defining period when I realized that my business had become an idol in my life.

If you had asked me 6 months ago to describe my entrepreneurship journey, I would have told you that it feels like being on a hamster wheel going in circles.

There were days, weeks even, where I would feel like I was making huge strides in the right direction and then somehow, I would find myself right back where I started more lost than ever.

My frustration with the process got so bad that I started praying for God to get me off the hamster wheel. I was so tired of going in circles that I didn't even want to continue going anymore; I just wanted to be off the freaking hamster wheel.

One day as I was praying and sharing my frustrations with my journey to God, and once more asking Him to get me off the hamster wheel, He told me to simply... get off.

I was confused at first because deep down I wasn't expecting that to be the answer, and I knew getting off the hamster wheel meant giving it all up. And yet, in that moment, I felt so much peace in letting go that it didn't matter. I was too happy to have found a little bit of peace after years of frustrations that I embraced it and told God that I was dropping it all and not picking it back up until He told me to.

The days that followed felt weird because I had been so accustomed to the stressful nature of being an entrepreneur that this new peace and calmness around and within me was weird. I started to realize that my entrepreneurship journey had been consuming so much of my mind and my life that it had become an idol in my life. This was a hard truth to accept because I started to see all the ways in which it came first in my life, sometimes even before my relationship with God.

Suddenly... (oooh I love that we serve a God of suddenly's) as this realization started to set in and I started being more intentional about putting God first in my life, a shift started happening. I started getting more and more revelations on what my true purpose was, how I was called to shake things up in my industries and serve others, and most importantly how my testimony would serve to show God's glory when our focus as entrepreneurs is rooted in leading God-centered lives and not business-centered lives.

Getting off the hamster wheel felt like an ending at first, but I later realized that it was really the beginning of my journey of running a God-centered business. I gained so much clarity and revelation during that time that I wouldn't have been able to perceive through the dark cloud of anxiety and frustration that I had been engulfed in for the past 3 years. And more importantly during this time, God took his rightful place as the top priority in my life.

I'm sharing this in case you have been feeling like you're on a hamster wheel going in circles too, so that this may serve as a sign that maybe it's time to get off the hamster wheel and truly give it all to God, let Him take over, surrender the "how" to Him and let Him guide your steps in your business.

Unfortunately, it's easy for us as entrepreneurs to become so passionate about what we do and be so dedicated to our purpose that we allow it to become an idol in our lives without even realizing it.

For me what it looked like in my life was having everything I did revolve around my business, I woke up thinking about it, went to sleep thinking about it, ate thinking about it, everything was about and for my business. And while this may seem like me simply being passionate about what I'm doing or a normal side effect of entrepreneurship, I had to be honest with myself and realize that I didn't have that same devotion when it came to my relationship with God.

If this convicts you in any way, I encourage you to start paying attention to the priority you have given the things you are passionate about in your life and your heart over your relationship with God.

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