Security....

Today was my first day as a salaried employee of a company in about 7 years. I can remember when Kathy and I were talking about starting our own business, we talked a lot about security. Security is an interesting thing. The typical viewpoint is, if you work for a large organization, you are secure, if you work for a small company you are less secure, if you work for yourself, you have no security at all. According to that line of thinking, I have more security today than yesterday.

I don't really believe that to be true. I learned over the last 7 years, that the security you feel from working for a large organization is really a false sense of security. Here's an example: during the late nineties computer programmers were in high demand. Everyone needed all the people that they could find to prepare for Y2K. Do you remember that? Well, about 6 months after that, the layoffs started. Everyone had spent all of their budgets on Y2K concerns and their was no money to spend on anything else. I talk to friends now that were out of work for months, some up to a year. I had just started my business at that time and was working on a contract with a large insurance company. I had all the work I could do. I look back at that now and I know it wasn't because of my abilities, it was the work of God.

When I was preparing to start my business, I read the Sermon on the Mount every day for about a month. There were several verses that jumped out at my while I was preparing for the leap into self-employment.


No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money.

Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?

See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these.

Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened.

Which of you, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!


So, is my family more secure today than yesterday? I don't think so. Security does not come from a company, it comes from God. I know this to be true.

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Update: I read another article about God's Security from RZIM.org (more on these folks later...)
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