Strategy Sunday: Bring Your Best and Let God Do the Rest

Yesterday afternoon, I was exhausted. All week I'd been working with my new agency client to get acclimated to the two accounts I would be handling for him, putting together blog posts and new designs for Project FED, helping someone else coordinate an event, helping yet another person with the edits to a manuscript that we're co-writing, and working on a web design project so that the rent could get paid on time (it did).

I'd done so much work that day, and I still had a lot that didn't even get touched. I was discouraged. I was feeling frustrated with my inability to get everything done that I wanted to do. I sat down to pray and I asked God for a new strategy. One that would ensure I got everything done without draining my batteries so completely.

To my surprise, God didn't drop a strategy into my lap. He just told me to get up and go listen to some music. This isn't something I normally do. I usually work in the quiet so that I can focus and concentrate. I did what He asked me to do, though. I took a break from everything and I spent 45 minutes listening to music. 

The first song broke me open. I knew EXACTLY what God was telling me. My feeling of being overwhelmed and exhausted was because I was trying to do everything on my own power. I was trying to go it all alone. And by myself, I was getting defeated by problems that were much too big for me to handle on my own.

Today, I woke up looking for the strategy to offer for today. I was told to listen to Him. To listen to His word and I would find the answer there that I needed.

Boy, did I. Today's Mass readings started with 2 Kings 42-44. A man came and brought his best offering - 20 barley loaves made from his firstfruits, and fresh grain in the ear. That was the best he could offer to Elisha.

There were 100 people to feed, but Elisha wasn't worried. He trusted God to make up the difference. He told his servants, "Give it to the people to eat."

His servants didn't understand. They were busy doing the math and the math told them it was not possible for 100 people to be fed out of 20 loaves. 

Elisha tells them, "For thus says the Lord, 'They shall eat and there shall be some left over.'"

And sure enough, when they gave the people those loaves to eat, there was some left over. 

The Responsorial Psalm was a reinforcement of that first message, being taken from Psalms 145: 10-18.

"The hand of the Lord feeds us, He answers all our needs." 

And if I still wasn't getting it, there was the Gospel message pulled from John 6:1-15. This is the passage where Jesus is being followed by 5,000 men - a small village's worth of people - and he tells the disciples to feed them.

Now, all the disciples have is 5 barley loaves and 2 fish taken from a boy that was in the crowd. That's it. That's all they can come up with and Philip says to Jesus, "What good is this for so many?"

But Jesus isn't deterred. He just tells the disciples to give Him what they've got. By the time He's done not only has every man had his fill of both the bread and the fish, there are 12 wicker baskets worth of leftovers. 

The message was coming through loud and clear. All that God needs me to do is bring my best and HE will do the rest. Whatever the gap is between what I have and what is needed, HE will supply if I will just give Him everything I've got.

That is this week's strategy lesson: Bring your best and let God do the rest.

For tomorrow's Marketing Monday, we'll be going over how to listen to your prospects so you can find out what they need and want from you.