By Jim Hargis

A story in Larry Crabb’s book Inside Out recently grabbed my attention. A married couple, newly won to Christ, determined to seek out the very best for their daughter. After much counsel, prayer, thought, and research, they enrolled her in a Christian school. Their joy, however, ended when she became severely hooked-after being introduced to drugs through a teacher at the Christian school!

What does a person say to such parents? Didn’t they pray, want only God’s best, and seek wisdom? What else could they have done? How does one understand life, Crabb asks, when a child of good Christian parents goes wrong, while young missionaries and upstanding citizen’s spring from broken, alcoholic, abusive homes? Where is the sense in all this?

These questions caused me to reflect on a parallel in the business world. Many of us know godly Christian business people who started new businesses only to have their plans fall down around their ears.

Often these people had already had success in their fields. Yet they sought God’s will about opening their own offices or expanding existing businesses. They prayed about it, asked for advice and counsel from godly Christian business people and other wise individuals, developed plans, and so on. Why does this happen-especially when there are many successful, immoral people whose businesses corrupt our society and drag it down? Through understanding “why” is certainly beyond our finite minds, there are several biblical truths that are comforting when facing these things:

1. We live in a fallen world. Regardless of what the positive-confession preachers, the positive thinkers, and the New Agers say in their sermons and tapes, bad things do happen: plans go awry; people disappoint; our bodies age and die
   (Gen.3; Rom. 8:19-22).
   
   
2. Neither the Christian life, nor business life can be reduced to a formula-otherwise, we wouldn’t need God. Life is a mystery in many respects, and God’s ways are often beyond our misunderstanding. He is the Sovereign Lord of history; He raises up and He pulls down.
   (See Exod. 10:20, 27: Prov. 21:1; Ecc. 3:11,22; Isa. 40:6-8, 55:8-9; Rom. 9:11:33.)
   
   
3. Having some problems or failures in life makes us more human, more real, more compassionate, and more able to minister to others
   (Cor. 1:4).
   
   
4. God deserves and expects the glory for our achievements and business successes because everything we have He has either given us or allowed us to acquire. Usually, when things go well, most of us are apt to take a lot of the credit. But when things go wrong we tend to blame circumstances, other people, or sometimes, ourselves. Perhaps all these responses are wrong. It may be that God is simply using these situations to remind us that we are dependent creatures whom He loves.
   (See Job 1:21; James 4:13-15.)

Every one of these truths illustrates both our limited natures as humans and God’s unlimited power. Whether in the midst of family struggles or business reversals, we can realize afresh our finiteness and cherish again God’s infinite power and matchless love. Business success may come and go; circumstances are constantly changing, but Christ is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow.