The Joy of Jumping

The Joy of Jumping

This is the third and final installment of “That Holy Jumping-Off Place.” Promise!

Before I move to today’s subject, I want to take a moment to share a couple of thoughts with you…

·         I’ve been amazed at the response that I’ve gotten from you guys concerning the last two posts. I told you how much trouble I had with Satan and with life in trying to complete the first one. What I didn’t tell you was that I was so unhappy with it that I was going to issue an apology to you the very next day. A good friend chastised me, telling me that I should stop trying to judge the “quality” of my offerings each week. “What may not seem good enough to you may be exactly what someone needs to read that day. Don’t apologize for what God puts in your mind and on your heart, Sam.”

Well, as per her suggestion, I didn’t apologize (even though I wanted to!). Turns out that Sharon was right; many of you told me that “That Holy Jumping-Off Place” was your favorite of all. Go figure.

Which leads me right into my second thought…

·         I’m very flattered and humbled by many of your comments and e-mails, but again, it’s always about the message, and not the messenger. Look, every week I just open my mind and my heart to God, and ask Him for the words; He does the rest.

Now, let’s move on to the topic of the day, The Joy of Jumping.

For the past two weeks I’ve been telling you about the challenges of “making the jump”, as in completely putting your life in God’s hands. I’ll say it again: it won’t be easy! The mere notion of giving up control of your life, even to God, is a scary one. It doesn’t come easily; you will probably have to make that jump more than once.

And, it extends an invitation to Satan to try to wreak havoc in your life; he doesn’t like it at all when another recruit joins the ranks of Christ’s Army! Pastor Chris Hodges once told me, after I had confided that I’d had a particularly challenging day, that “You should be flattered when Satan comes after you. It means that you’re doing good things for God.”

Well, I’m gonna tell you; I love doing good things for God, but I’d just as soon not be flattered by Satan’s attacks one more day! It’s tough sometimes, but all things considered, I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Today I want to tell you a story about what can happen when you do make that jump.

This story began five weeks ago, in the month of January. It also happened to be right in the middle of Twenty-One Days of Prayer and Fasting, which was being held at Church of The Highlands here in Birmingham.

Our hair salon had experienced yet another year of growth in 2009, and we were looking towards 2010 with great anticipation…

Greg, one of our top stylists who had been with us for twenty years, had made the decision to open his own salon. He told us that he expected to be in his new location by the middle of January.

Two days before Greg’s last day with us, we were informed that another of our top stylists, who had been with us for eight years, needed to take a one-year leave of absence for personal reasons.

Two days after Greg’s last day, we learned that yet another member of our team was moving to Pittsburg with her husband. February 4^th was going to be her last day in the salon!

Yet another of our stylists, Carla, was taking maternity leave on January 23^rd, and still another, Erika, is scheduled to begin her maternity leave on March 6^th!

The net result of all of the above meant that we were permanently losing one fourth of our hair stylists, with almost another fourth being reduced to “part-time” due to pregnancy. This translated into roughly a 25% loss in salon revenue!

Oh, and did I mention that we had agreed in principle to add an additional four styling stations, including 600 square feet of leased space, just prior to learning of our “outbound migration” of stylists? I believe that conventional wisdom dictates expansion and growth when a business’ income is on the upswing. In the blink of an eye, our salon was losing a very healthy percentage of its monthly income.

Time to panic, right?

The “old Sam”, the one that didn’t know God, the one that had never “jumped”, would have been absolutely terrified. Loss of appetite, irritability, sleeplessness, skyrocketing blood pressure, and indigestion would have been his constant companions!

I have to interject something at this point…

For the last four years, and especially since I launched The Seed of Hope, my life has been really good. Oh, there have been a lot of challenges and rough spots, but God has blessed me so very, very much. So much so, that I feel that many of you may have wondered what I would do if God tested me. Would I be as “awesome”, and optimistic, and always wearing a smile?

That’s a good question. And I’ll let you in on a secret; it’s one that I’ve asked myself. What would I do…how would I react, if God threw me a curveball? Would my faith be as strong?

So…

For the past month, several people in our salon have questioned, “So, are you doing okay?” And my response has been “I’m awesome! Why?” Or, “Are you alright?” And again, I replied “I’m awesome! Why do you ask??” “Because you’re so calm, even with everything that’s going on in the salon. Are you really that calm, or are you just acting?”

Here’s the thing: I wasn’t acting! The calm was real. The smile was real. The awesome was real. I truly was at peace, even in the eye of the storm.

You see, I never took my eyes off of God. And I never forgot something that I tell you all the time: God is faithful. While He may not give us everything that we want, He will always provide us with what we need…

In the past three weeks we’ve made two additions to our styling team, and have hired a third stylist that will be joining us in a couple of weeks. All three have been in the salon industry for some time, which is a bonus. Better still is that each one of them will fit in nicely with our team.

The best part of all of this, that which means most to me, has nothing to do with money. You see, each of these women is a very strong Christian, and that isn’t by coincidence. I believe that God has set the table for success in our salon, and that He is sending talented individuals to us so that our remarkable story will continue to grow. He also knows that I will always give the credit to Him for that success; without Him, I am nothing.

The bottom line is that despite having lost the personnel that I mentioned, along with the income that they generated last year, our salon had a bigger month this February than last.

I believe with all that is in me is that God knew that when people were walking out the door…when our revenues were shrinking…when we had made a commitment to extend ourselves financially at questionably a terrible time to do so…

When all of this was going on, I never took my eyes off of him. I never doubted His plan for Jackie, myself, and our team. I never doubted Him. My faith never wavered.

God knew it. And God is faithful.

Make the jump. Give control of your life to Him. Life, as you know it, will never be the same.