A Personal Note From Eddie
It’s spring fever…. You don’t quite know what it is you DO want, but it just fairly makes your heart ache, you want it so! -Mark Twain
Mark Twain’s quote made the idiom “Spring Fever” popular. It’s a metaphor linked to the inspirations of “New Beginning” and “Fresh Start” and seems to respond not only to the psychological, but also to the physical, highs and lows of the coming spring season. This year, I have had an extremely bad case (or good case depending on how you look a it) of spring fever. Especially after an uncommonly harsh winter, for me, it’s like coming out of hibernation and feeling energized, ready to tackle the world again.
Here are 4 Steps to Help Your Business or Profession Blossom:
1. Spring Cleaning – Get out a dust rag, broom, and put on your cleaning clothes. Now is the time to give your business or profession a thorough spring cleaning! Your customers and clients will appreciate it. Of course I mean this metaphorically… but some of us need to do this literally. Take a look at your sales and marketing materials… do they need freshened up? What about your sales process, are you using “old wine skins”? While we are on the cleaning subject… some of us need to clean up our act. Maybe we need to eat better, get more exercise, spend more time with family, break a bad habit, etc. There is no better time than the present to clean things up.
2. Trim the Dead Limbs – Just before things bloom in the spring it’s always best to trim off the dead limbs or the weak ones that are sucking vital nutrients from the root system. Trimming back the tree allows the tree to flourish. We need to take a hard look at the 20% of work that’s giving 80% of the results. Allegorically, trim the rest back and you’ll be astounded by the fruit you’ll bare. You can organize your work by the 4 “D”s. Do Now- These are important, urgent items only you can do. Deferred- for another time, Delegate – move item to someone else. Delete – take it off your list because it doesn’t further your goals. Just by delegating and deleting you can get rid of a lot of dead limbs.
3.) Pull the Weeds – Weeds in a garden grow up, choke and overtake the good plants you want to grow. The analogy to us is we need to look at our garden and see if we have weeds stunting our growth.
This could be employees, customers, business partners or even friends. Right or wrong, we tend to judge a man/women by the company they keep. Does your acquaintances edify you (build you up)? Maybe some plucking is in order, so you can grow new vital relationships.
4. Plant and nurture – Just as a garden needs nurturing, your business needs water and fertilizer in order to grow (and no… B.S. is NOT good fertilizer).
I have planted, Apollos watered; but God gave the increase. So then neither is he that planteth any thing, neither he that watereth; but God that giveth the increase. Now he that planteth and he that watereth are one: and every man shall receive his own reward according to his own labour. I Corinthians 3:6-8
God is bluntly telling us here that it’s going to take work to get fruit, but the good news is that all we have to do is to plant and water… it is God that will give the increase! So keep planting seeds and watering and sales will come, you get rewards according to your labor, so plant and water as many seeds as you can. God promises he will do his part and soon you will have a flourishing garden full of ripe fruit!
The Law of the Farm
What would you think about a farmer who forgot to prepare the soil
for planting, who gathered and sowed no seed in the spring, flaked off all summer then tried to sow, grow, and harvest a nice yield on his crop in the last part of fall? You would think he’s ludicrous! It can’t be done! Yet, we allow similar things to happen in our own lives. God’s law of the farm governs in horticulture… it also governs in all other areas of life.
We all know that if it seems too good to be true… well, it’s too good to be true. But I still see friends and acquaintances falling for the latest flavor of the month, get rich quick scam.
A faithful man shall abound with blessings: 
but he that maketh haste to be rich shall not be innocent.
Proverb 28:20
We all have been persuaded by shortcuts. Pop-A-Pill Diet, 3½ minute abs, osmosis speed reading, super duper, easy push button magic money making machine…etc.
Modern technology has come a long way and it has never been easier in the history of the world to produce homogenized, pasteurized, fortified, processed and regurgitated fruit. However, the quality, value, integrity and longevity of that fruit is very much in question. (Of course we are still talking metaphorically… stay with me here.)
Whether it’s diets, getting in shape, academic learning or making money, there is always a path that absolutely guarantees success, but it’s never quick and it always requires effort on our part. Most of us have started down the right path only to be quickly misguided by an obstacle or persuaded by an enticing mirage of a shortcut. Once that fails, we give up. We never truly get to enjoy the fruit of our labor because we keep starting over down a new path with new shortcuts.
All true growth and legitimate organic fruit comes from sowing the best seeds, planting in fertile soil, eliminating suffocating weeds, consistent nurturing and cultivation, then and only then comes the awesome harvest. There is no way to cram on the farm or in life. We must pay the price, and when we do, the harvest is plenteous and the fruit is oh so sweet!
Testimony of a Prosperous Christian
Mary Riesberg
Q: How did you find God?
A: I always knew who God was, so it
wasn’t a revelation. I grew up knowing
who God was in a sense that there is
a Heavenly Father God. When I was
about eleven, I sat up close to the alter
because I was intrigued by the ceremony.
I was really deep in prayer. At the time I really didn’t know what deep prayer meant. I was praying and talking with God, all of a sudden I could just feel this swelling up in my body… a burning flame right in the center where my heart is. It’s at that moment I understood the entirety of who God could be in my life. Something different happened at that moment, I was being filled with the Holy Spirit. That’s when I found God.. and He found me.
Q: Tell us a rags to riches story where God has prospered you.
A: Hurricane Dennis totally destroyed our office. The entire roof collapsed in on our office. My Husband is an ear nose and throat physician. You could see the light through the ceiling. There was nothing left, except by the grace of God a few key pieces of equipment that cost around $40,000 each. Everything else was gone, patient charts, waiting area, telephones, some computers. On top of all that we had no place to work. Our business was shut down and we had no place to go. I went out there trying to find us a place to open our business. But it just wasn’t out there. Nothing feasible existed in Pensacola. I spent all day this one day looking for a place to no avail. It was so overwhelming. That night we went out to dinner with a couple of friends. A friend saw me at the restaurant and came over and said “Mary, you look like you have the world on your shoulders… what happen to you?” I explained what happened.” “I’ll tell you what I’m going to do… I have some office space, I can re-shift my staff and you can take the entire bottom floor, 3200 sq ft.” The rooms were already set up. It had a waiting room, exam rooms we even had our own office and bathroom which was great! Going from nothing to being able to start our practice again. God sending the right person to us at the right time. Because he was an absolute godsend to us. That was a miracle.
Q: How is God prospering you today?
A: By really helping us define the strengths he has given to us. What I have found is that you can have your own business or job, you can make it what you want it to be if you work hard enough… but it will not be blessed and prosper until you are working into what God wants it to be. You are working into the strengths that He has given you. Once we release our agenda and let God have His agenda… prosperity flows in abundance… way above and beyond anything we could have expected it to be!
Q: How do you get motivated?
A: Before my pillow comes up from the bed.. I thank God I’m alive! I praise Him for what He has in store for me today. I love Romans 12:2 daily renewal of your mind so that you keep focused on Christ.
And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what [is] that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God. Romans 12:2
