When You Seek God’s Direction and He Says Nothing

But this darkness reached a blackness worse than a nightmare when I lost my company to bankruptcy–a company which just months before could have been valued at $50 million. Even after going bankrupt, a few angry clients sued me and I could not afford to fight the lawsuits. So then I had to file personal bankruptcy. 

I had no car, did not own any home, at one point was selling furniture out of the garage to pay for groceries, and if that was not enough, our sewer exploded, our bathroom floors flooding with poop water. 

But what I found deeply painful was not the loss of so much wealth…but the questioning of my purpose.

What does this mean about me? Am I a failure? Is there something wrong with me? 

Like my business, my soul felt bankrupt.

A friend who had handled bankruptcies for four decades called me and said, “Seth, this does not define you.” 

“Why do you say that?” I asked him. 

He replied, “Because people have committed suicide over much less.” 

Nothing shakes a man’s soul more than struggling with his purpose. His sense of worth. 

In my despair, I turned to Psalm 37:4. This passage presented an amazing promise. David wrote, “Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart.” 

So that's how you do it? Okay, delight in God and God will show me what to do with the rest of my life. 

So I set out to delight myself in God. 

Things seemed to be going well for the first couple months. I was listening for God's voice, meditating on the word, sharing my faith…

But something was off. I wasn’t getting the answer I hoped for. In fact, my soul felt more bankrupt than when I had started. 

Why? David promised that if I delight myself in the Lord, God will give me what my heart desires. 

Funny thing, Satan sometimes uses Scripture too. After Jesus had gone 40 days without a bit of food, weak and starving, Satan tempted him using Scripture (Matt 4:5-7). I’m embarrassed to admit that I had done something similar. My heart was so set on finding my purpose, I had turned Scripture into a recipe for getting what I wanted instead of truly seeking what God wanted for me. 

Ironically, even if the Santa Clause version was an accurate interpretation of Psalm 37:4, half the time we don’t even know what we really want. We think we want that car, bonus, woman, or business. 

Because man If I get that, my heart would be satisfied! 

But David did not treat God like a spiritual Santa Clause: “Be a good boy and you’ll get a nice toy!” 

Look closely at Psalm 37:4…

Where does David tell us to find our delight? In the Lord.

In whom does David tell us to find our delight? In the Lord. 

How does David tell us to find our delight? In the Lord! 

The goal is not to get what we think we want. The goal is to find our delight in the person of God Himself! 

And here is a promise you can count on: If you seek God with all your heart, your heart will find what it longs for.

Moses knew this. In Psalm 90:14 he prays to God, “O satisfy us in the morning with Your lovingkindness, that we may sing for joy and be glad all our days.”

But I was not pursuing God Himself, but pursuing God SO THAT I could figure out what to do with the rest of my life. 

We often come to God with our predetermined ideas of what we need in order to be happy. But since God is waayyyy smarter than us, and since He knew us before we were conceived in our mother’s womb, and since He knows the beginning and the end of everything from the tiniest atom to the greatest galaxy, should we doubt for a single second that if we find our purpose in HIM, He’s going to give us anything short of the very best? 

One of the disciples of Jesus was named Thomas. Thomas was a very practical man. “Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe” (John 20:25). On the night of His betrayal, Jesus told His disciples that He’s going back to the Father. And Thomas said, “Show me the way” (John 14:5). 

How is Jesus supposed to respond to that? “Hey Thomas, let me pin drop you the location and then you can Google map your way there.” 

Thomas was too practical for his own good. If he lived today his love language would be spreadsheets. 

But Jesus did something phenomenal. It’s simple yet so wise I cannot do it justice. He said, “I am the way.” 

“Wait, so Jesus doesn’t care about practical details?”

No. He cares. But he’s saying that if you set your heart on following Jesus above all things…you will know what to do when the time comes. 

When Jesus is the center, everything else falls into place. 

Jesus is the nucleus to the atom of life. 

Jesus is the sun of the solar system. 

Jesus is the keystone in an arch. If you remove that keystone, everything else collapses. 

If you follow Him, you will find the way. Kind of like, seek first His kingdom and his righteousness and all your needs will be taken care of (Matt 6:33). 

“So, just pray, fast, and meditate all day and God rains tacos from heaven?” 

No. He still has work for you to do on this earth. But let Jesus be the center of your life. Submit your whole heart to Him. And then everything else will fall into place. 

Why did Jesus tell the Samaritan woman that He can give her living water and that she would never thirst again (John 4:13-14)? 

Why did Jesus tell the Jews, “I am the bread of life” (John 6:35)? 

Why did Jesus tell Martha, “I am the resurrection and the life” (John 11:25)? 

Because Jesus is not a means to getting what we want. He IS what our heart longs for. 

Instead of seeking happiness, seek Christ. And as you seek Christ, your heart will find happiness. 

What about finding my purpose? I’m supposed to find purpose in God, but I still need to know what to do practically to make money, serve people, raise a family, take care of my body. 

I love this question. It was my question too. I really struggled to reconcile seeking God with what I was supposed to do with my life practically. 

The answer is so simple yet profound: He will show you. 

He showed me. And in the most unexpected way. 

When filling out the forms for personal bankruptcy, the form asked me to, “Enter amount of cash on hand.” 

I did not have any cash on hand. My wallet was empty. I was about to write $0 and then my eyes fell on a dime sitting on my desk. 

So I wrote “ten cents.” 

I was back to just one dime. With all my finances, businesses, real estate and investments being reduced back to a single dime, I realized something. 

I can start over. And suddenly I knew exactly what I was supposed to do: Use all of my experiences from my greatest wins to most embarrassing failures, to teach men of God how to build wealth while helping people.

That was it! 

Do you want to know what’s amazing? Had I never gone through the pain of losing everything, I would not have made this discovery. 

This was one of the most fulfilling moments of my life. 

Multiple companies on Linked in reached out to me with attractive job offers. I turned them down. 

A businessman who had enjoyed two 7 figure exits, invited me to build a startup with him so we could later sell it for millions. I turned him down. 

Because I knew what my new mission was: teach men of God how to build wealth while helping people.

The company would be called Craftsmen, in honor of the ultimate Carpenter.

Craftsmen solves a very real problem: Every man of faith I have ever met wants to build wealth and help people. Both noble missions. 

Make money and do ministry. But today’s culture does not offer a path for this. Because today’s culture treats money the way a lot of people treat sex, as gross or as God.  In fact, the religious treats money as gross, and the materialist treats money as God. And that leaves you with two options. 

1) you can be rich and greedy, or 2) you can be poor and godly

But every time I read the Bible, I see something very different. I see passages like Proverbs 21:20 that says, “There is precious treasure and oil in the dwelling of the wise, but a foolish man swallows it up.” 

And I find extremely wealthy people like Job, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Solomon, Nicodemus, Joseph of Arimathea and Lydia of Thyatira who were men and women of God. 

How did they do this? They considered themselves stewards of God’s resources. 

Manage your money like it belongs to someone else–and that someone else is God. And then grow it. 

The same God who calls us to steward our spiritual gifts, also calls us to steward our finances. What kind of Christian are we if we spend our entire life busy with ministry but on judgment day show up with the same talent Jesus gave us at the beginning of our journey? 

 You have been given at least one spiritual gift, maybe many. 

You have been given resources. 

You have been given a network. 

You have been given intelligence. 

You have been given creativity. 

You have been given wealth (whether much or little).

It is not just your privilege, but your responsibility to cultivate and grow everything God has entrusted to you, from something as material as a dime, to something as immaterial as the gift of teaching.

 And when you do it from that perspective, it lasts forever. 

This is why I started Craftsmen. 

What if your business was your ministry? 

What if you could build a lot of wealth and help a lot of people? 

What if instead of living this horrible split between making money and helping people, you got to do both at the same time? 

Why is this so powerful? 

Allow me to illustrate. When I help men of faith turn their knowledge on a specific topic into a coaching program, and they sell that coaching program for only $1,000, if just 1,000 people buy their program, they just made a million dollars. 

And if in that process of making money, they are helping the people they coach, they just experienced something beyond fulfilling. 

If you want to learn more about how to do this for yourself and your family, go here.

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