We recently discussed with Prince Sabena matters Unemployment, Church Life and Christian employees. We pick it up this time to explore Christians starting businesses, Fragile marriages and counseling.

1. Good to do this again Prince, a few things are as exciting as starting a business, how do you cultivate godliness in a world of ambition and self-sufficiency? 

You are right, starting a business is an adventure, anything that involves risk is, yet with that excitement often comes a lack of judgment. And it usually comes down to motivation, if you are motivated by monetary gain, If your excitement is based on the first contract, the first client, I can’t wait to make money, this easily leads to bad decisions, and balancing means going back to a godly motivation as the primary thing, it tempers you. Not that financial motivation is wrong, but it shouldn’t be primary.

Eddie, you know I have had an opportunity to start a business, and fulfilling legal requirements necessary for starting one in a broken system like ours can become something, so the temptation is usually to stick to your ambition no matter what, at every cost, but then an incident to bribe shows up, my! That’s the system; you can say well, I will pay the bribe, for me, I just want to start my business. But when we want to please God, we will fight, and suffer long, we will try, try to, for example, find a lawyer with the same values, we will attempt. 

Today, for example, they will ask you for business experience, the temptations to lie lurk everywhere, lie to get business, we inflate invoices, tax evasions. By the way, I am not exempt, in fact, I am I have been guilty of some of these vices, but I’ve had to go back and make things right and make retribution where necessary and all those are issues that Christians in a world of ambition ought to remember in the middle of possibilities, to honor God. 

Many are trying to start businesses, in fact just last week I was helping somebody start one, but I realize many people starting businesses primarily for monetary reasons, when we get preoccupied with the need to monetize, we often lose sight of those we are trying to serve, so our products become inferior, the services lack excellence, yet all that is part of godliness, substandard things de-value God because remember, we are meeting not our interests first, but those we are trying to serve, so meet the need before seeking financial gain. I think that’s how you also balance ambition guided by godly motives. Seeking to serve first.

2. As a husband and father of two daughters, what has God consistently taught you about both roles? 

Actually my mum asked me this question on Father’s Day last Sunday, first I have learnt humility, I underestimated what it means to become a good husband. I underestimated what it takes to sustain a marriage, it really takes humility.

You see when you are a man, you think what makes you one is authority, but in a godly marriage, you realize that it’s not position, power, but the ability to tuck away your interests, opinions, desires, in order to serve your wife, children. Those are what mean something, and they mean so through listening and seeking forgiveness, apologizing, and failure. So I think humility is a huge thing I have learned here.

Marriage exposes your weaknesses to levels you didn’t know. And yet it is the same thing God uses to build your faith. Then you realize this is the only way I can parent and love my wife. So basically, putting others’ interests above yours, e.g. when your wife wants to rest and you don’t, in deciding how money is spent, you need humility across.

Then discipline; the other word for this is self-control, raising children in the way of the Lord takes discipline, because they draw emotions from us we didn’t know existed, they are fragile, and because of that fragility, you can lose judgment. “Raising them in the Lord” means saying I am going to raise my children not in the way I feel about them, but in what God requires, and that calls for self-control. You see kids doing all sorts of things and say, they will grow out if it, yet God doesn’t say that, he says “train them up (Prov. 22:6) ”, so as a parent, you become unrelenting and restless, you don’t give them a break, that journey takes discipline. 

3. Solomon talks about little foxes spoiling the vine, (Songs 2:15) which areas are young couples prone to ignore in marriage? 

I see this tied from to an earlier question. Even in marriage, without self-control, it’s easy to let things slide, and then we can begin to ignore certain areas because of, again, lack of discipline. It’s the mundane, repetitive things, by the way, open communication, it’s easy to lose that, when we’d just got married, we talked about everything, not just movies, but about fighting sin, regularly. It’s easy for couples to get busy and look the other way, and when there is already no culture of conversation in marriage, when that is substituted by movies, social media, children, even sermons, cracks show up,  kids are supposed to be raised together. So prioritizing regular conversation is an area we couples are prone to ignore as life gets busy.

Then, acknowledging our wrong, we are always sinning by wronging each other, so it’s easy to get weary admitting our wrongs, and when a new sin happens, you don’t admit your part because, well, they didn’t too, last time. Or you may just “agree to disagree” which only makes everything worse. The point in not “bringing stuff up” shouldn’t be “settling dust,” but honoring God.  And for me, it helps, but even when it doesn’t, i do it because it pleases God, that’s what scripture calls “walking in the light. (1 John 1:5-7) “

You know what I am a talkative guy but I think those two things stand out, “communication” and “walking in the light. ” Even when we’ve missed date nights for example, we don’t often feel so pressured, because we’ve had regular communication already happening at home, sometimes you go to a restaurant on a date with your wife and  then you notice she makes better food than what you will be served, let alone you have already talked about what you want to talk about, because that’s your practice already, see?

4. What must we never forget in counseling fellow believers? 

We are more like them than we are like God, we are not better than them, they are broken just like we are,  I always need to understand I am a broken person helping another broken person, this approach helps us have compassion, that except for grace, you would be in the same place, it helps you empathize without condoning, Jesus was so empathetic to the foolish young man. Weeks ago, we were studying that and you notice in the  dialogue that Jesus is both empathetic with him but not soft either, the Bible says Jesus “saw him and loved him” (Mark 10:21),” not cynicism, not superiority, just counseling.

Two, good counseling starts with the understanding that we are not good people, those we are helping need to start there too, Christians are redeemed but sin still holds sway within us in many ways, and this could be a lifelong battle, when you know how broken you are, It’s then that you are in a position to help well, counselors don’t make assumptions that people are good, but its best to know they are more likely to fail than to succeed, making those assumptions help you understand a counselee more.

It is then that they can also express themselves more transparently, they grow in their confidence if they know they know how fallen their counselor is too. They become free to express their vulnerability under God alone, primarily, but they won’t open up unless they know you are won’t be surprised to know the extent of their brokenness.

Three, God’s standard, God has set a high standard, extremely high, we have lately accepted spiritual mediocrity in our churches, and we remain spiritual babies, counseling is about raising that standard and showing believers it is attainable, not because we can on our own, but because God has the resources sufficient in that conversation, without raising the standard, we set counselees up for failure, so compassion and empathy, yes, but never to lower the standard!

Then, how we raise the standard with empathy and compassion becomes the question, counseling aims to show, that everything is attainable by the grace of God. You need to take them to the word of God and allow them to taste how liberating it is. 

Explore previous conversations here and here.

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