#6 Trusting God in Times of Change

Launching a business is a journey filled with unexpected twists, especially when your supplier vanishes with $20,000! Tune in as I recount my personal adventure of starting an e-commerce store selling wireless headphones. This episode isn't just about a business fiasco; it's a heartfelt exploration of faith, patience, and divine timing. My story unfolds with the trials and triumphs of navigating uncertainty, underscoring the transformative power of prayer and waiting for guidance from above. Discover how embracing faith during turbulent times can illuminate your path, leading to unforeseen joys and clarity.

What role does pride play in challenging times? It can be a formidable obstacle, as I learned while grappling with the need for help to save my business. By humbling myself and seeking support from my parents, I uncovered valuable lessons in humility and integrity. This conversation dives deep into the essence of doing the right thing, even when pride tempts us otherwise. Join me as I share insights on gracefully managing life's twists and turns, and find encouragement to confront your own challenges with humility and trust in a higher power.

Eric's Podcast. 

Chapters

• 0:34 Trusting God Through Life's Changes
• 9:24 Overcoming Pride, Doing the Right Thing

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:34

Welcome back to another episode of the Eric's Podcast. I'm your host, eric. Today, we're going to be talking about trusting God in times of change, and what does that mean? You know, finding reasons to celebrate and live joyfully amidst life's difficulties. What is that? How do we do that? Well, let me actually just tell you some ways that I do it so well. Actually, let me tell you a story, a true story.

Speaker 1: 1:08

Some time ago, back after, before COVID, I started. I launched a e-commerce store. That was that we sold wireless headphones and it was great headphone, great quality. Well, the second version was better quality than the first version, anyway, so I launched it and got it up and running, got it going, and it was very hard. During that time, we were living with my parents because we were in the middle of thinking about maybe going to Europe because we didn't have kids and this would be our chance to go. So we've sold all of our stuff. We didn't renew our lease and we moved back into my old room. That was challenging enough, as it is actually just FYI. It is actually just FYI, but yeah.

Speaker 1: 2:23

So during all this time in transition, the one thing that I would say that I always do is pray and I get on my knees and I pray, wait and I listen, and sometimes I don't get an answer or I don't get a direction right away. And that's okay, you know, it's okay to well, you know we want a direction right then and there, because we think that we need to do something right now because there's a time limit. But in reality, if you truly trust God and if you truly trust his direction for your life, then you should be able to trust him in the waiting, in the waiting period of that changing, and wait for him to open that door for you to go through. And because the thing is is if you just barge through and go through and choose a door, you might delay the blessing that the Lord was creating and making for you at that time of waiting, and it might take a lot, much longer than if you had just waited. So so, yeah, so what I do is I pray and I get on my knees and I ask the Lord and then I wait and I try not to make any big decisions or make any life-changing things around, whatever the thing is that I'm waiting for. But yeah, we all go through our trials and we all go through those times of where things are changing. You maybe get fired from a job or you lose a client, or somebody runs off with 25 grand and then you don't know what to do with the rest of your customers that you have to fill orders with, which was the story that I was going to tell you.

Speaker 1: 4:34

So, going back to my e-commerce store, I was running this e-commerce store and my wife and I went on vacation over to San Francisco. It was a great time in the sense of being able to spend and having as much money to put up with the style of living that I wanted to live, and so, yeah, so we were in San Francisco and this guy who was the manufacturer and the well, we called him the supplier, and what happened was we Wired him 20 grand and he was supposed to ship out and fulfill all of the orders with, you know, our headphones, our branded headphones, because he was our contact in China, where and he would talk to the manufacturer and everything and make sure that everything went well. And what happened was is that he had been for a couple weeks sending out just random electronics to our customers, marking them as fulfilled and then requesting more money. And so we gave him more money and then later, and then he just stopped sending out all the orders altogether and completely ran off with our 20 grand and there wasn't anything we could do about it. And so I'm left there, I'm on vacation, first of all, so I'm like we have to get back home.

Speaker 1: 6:21

So we went back home and I am this whole time trying to figure out how am I going to get enough money put together to, basically, and I have to find a new supplier and I have to go directly to the manufacturer and I have to figure out all of these logistics to fulfill the orders for all my customers, or else this whole, everything is going to, you know, fall, everything is going down, it's all going to fall apart, it's all crumbling apart and, um, yeah, so I, I from praying and asking the Lord, I'm turning to, uh, you know, trying to get a loan from people trying to and no one's going to give me a loan tried to do it off of the store sales, but the store doesn't have any sales because the payment processor had frozen the account, because people were saying that they were fraudulent orders, because they were getting this random, you know random electronic, but it wasn't even the headphones they bought and all this stuff all going on. And then I had the idea well, I, but I'm like in my pridefulness, I said, no, I don't want to do that. That's, this is my thing, this is. You know, I don't want to, I'm going to.

Speaker 1: 8:01

So I went and searched every other place and I prayed and I felt like the Lord's, like you, told me you're going to let your pride stand in the way of doing what is right and that was the direction right there. But that was a time of turmoil, but it was also a time of coming back and going back to the Lord and asking what am I supposed to do? And this is the thing, guys when the Lord tells you to do something and you really feel like that's the direction you're supposed to go, it's usually good for you, always actually, I would say Always for your good. And we at times let things like pride stand in the way of doing what is right, and that's not good. So what did I do? I swallowed my pride, I went and I pitched it to my parents. They gave me the loan, I fulfilled all the orders and that's the end of that story. And we kept going on.

Speaker 1: 9:24

That's not the end of the whole story, because there was still a lot of turmoil and a lot of logistical things and other things that went on, and there's an even bigger story on the store itself that we can do in another episode. But basically, that's the real thing. That's the real thing. That's the real thing to take from this. Do not let your pride keep you from doing what is the right thing to do. And that's it for today's episode. I hope you enjoyed it. See you, guys, in the next one.