Living Under a Green Light

Let’s say you want a Spirit-led company – meaning you want to seek the Holy Spirit’s guidance as you lead your company and you want a culture where this is true for your team as well? At the same time, you may have a lot of anxiety about how unconventional this is, how it will actually look and how much pushback you’ll get from some team members who may not see it as a practical way to run a business.

This could be a scary decision even though you feel the Lord calling you to this. The thoughts below may not make your decision any easier, but they may help you understand why and how to proceed.

The Why

The goal of our salvation, and ultimately of our companies, is to fully express the Holy Spirit each day and to represent him accurately before the world so that all people (employees, customers, suppliers etc.) will be drawn to him through us. That is a remarkable mandate, but God expects that from us, and he also expects us to do it more perfectly every year (Matthew 5:48)?

The How

What if we get it wrong or it doesn’t work? For instance, how do we deal with decisions and opportunities when we haven’t learned what the Bible says about them or if the Bible speaks of them at all? Should we always seek out someone who knows the Bible better to tell us what to do? That doesn’t seem very practical.

Just as a parent would not criticize or punish their toddler for making mistakes while learning to walk and talk, God is exceedingly patient with us when we are learning these same basic Christian skills. He will instead encourage us to keep going and knowing that with each mistake we will get better at living up to our potential for expressing him and representing him. He will even protect from the consequences of bad decisions when we make them in good faith.

I refer to the Christian life as living under a green light. I used to live under a red light meaning I was often paralyzed from making decisions that I thought might not align with God’s will for me. That belief stunted my growth for decades.

I have learned that Christians are to live under a green light where we speak and act as we sense the Lord is leading us in the moment and we’re looking for yellow lights that would cause us to slow down and think a little more about our path or red lights where we know for certain we are out of our depth and we need to stop and wait for his direction, which is often found in godly counsel from others.