15-A-Step-Of-Faith-Start-With-What-You-Have

The episode discusses the importance of starting with what you have instead of waiting for funding or resources. It shares a story of someone who gave money to their sister for a business, but she used it for personal expenses. The lesson is to value and use whatever we have and not to be dependent on external resources. The story of David and Goliath is used as an example, showing how David used his shepherd's staff and sling to defeat Goliath instead of relying on traditional military weapons. The message is to have faith in God and use what you have to start any project. Hello and welcome to join this chariot for a 5-minute Bible study. This 15th episode on A Step of Faith is titled Start With What You Have. My name is Greg Alabi and I'm inviting you to come let us study the Bible together. Often times people reach out to me with bright ideas about what they want to do. Great initiatives, wonderful plans, well laid out, very promising and next thing they request for funding. Money for start-off. Sounds familiar? Ask them much later how things are going. More often than not you will hear a long list or be told about one expensive thing that they need for take-off. A friend of mine who is also a successful businessman told me how on four separate occasions he had given out huge amount of money as venture capital to his own elder sister to start off a small scale business. Her wonderful business proposal did not turn out well. She gave several reasons, from spending the money on feeding, paying house rent, paying school fees for the children, buying medication and paying for hospital bills. At the end of the day, after the fourth attempt to help his elder sister, my friend gave up. Sometimes our problem is not the lack of resources, it could be our attitude, our indiscipline, our priorities or even highfalutin ideas that we have. My point, to take a step of it, start with what you yourself have, then grow it, it will easily attract people to come and support you or invest into it after they see how far you have come. The concern is if the money will not be diverted into your immediate and personal needs. My advice, despise not the days of small beginning. Have you heard of Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, he started in his own car garage in his house. Today, the company holds a valuation of approximately $1.7 trillion. Some other people with noble ideas will have on their top priority list a need for huge amount of money to rent a big space for startup. My point, to take a step of it, let's value and use whatever we have. Now, let's learn some valuable lessons from 1 Samuel 17, the story of David and Goliath. King Saul, the king of Israel, described Goliath in verse 33. The message translation says, David, you cannot go to fight this Philistine. You are too young and inexperienced. He, Goliath, has been at this fighting business, the King James Version says, he is a man of war. He has been at this fighting business since before you were born. Now, to assist and equip David, verse 33 in the Good News Bible says, King Saul gave his own personal armor to David for him to wear, a bronze helmet on his head and a coat of arm like a modern-day bulletproof jacket, with his sword to fight, verse 39. David tried to walk wearing those things. He could not because he was not used to wearing them, the lesson. If people give you what they have, you may not be able to appropriately use them. And when we do not know how to properly use anything, abuse is inevitable. For example, if we lack the discipline to use money for the specific set purposes, we may divert it into other inevitable needs, leading us to later go to other people to start asking for financial help. So what did David do, verse 40, as a shepherd boy, he took his shepherd's staff, selected five smooth stones, and put them in his shepherd's bag, which he had, go and read that verse again. He took his shepherd's staff, which he had, and his sling, and went to Goliath, the lesson. Use what you have. David could have said none of those things were of any military weapons to fight a war. Shepherd's staff, shepherd's bag, pebbles, and his sling, who goes to war with that, my point? Instead of drafting a long list of appropriate equipment that you need to defeat your own use whatever we have to start up any gigantic project before us. Let's remember the faith in God and the God factor. He has promised in Psalm 1, verse 3, that whatsoever we lay our hands to do shall prosper. I pray the Lord to show us what we work so that we can use it in Jesus' name. Amen. You may request for subsequent copies by sending an email to gregalabee at gmail.com. Please visit our website, gregalabee.com. You will be blessed. God bless you.