The Grasshopper Mentality Can Rob Your Business

Success is often determined by your enthusiasm about and confidence in what you are doing. If you, yourself, are not sold on your business, how could you ever convince anyone else to believe in what you are marketing? It is important to have confidence in your business. Over the years I have discovered when training associates that they start out believing in the business and are even excited about it, believing they have heard from God to work in our company. However, before they even give things a chance, they are gone.  It’s great they are excited about the business, but they still must walk it out. I cannot tell you how many people have told me that they knew what they were supposed to do and how they knew they had heard the Holy Spirit speak to them about their future… but then it wouldn’t be long before they quit. I call this the “grasshopper syndrome”.  

When God led Israel out of Egypt and offered them freedom and a land flowing with milk and honey, they were thrilled. Being slaves with no future, they were a people of hopelessness. They saw no way out. But the Bible says that the cries of God’s people were heard by God, and He sent Moses to lead them out. In the same way, you may have been asking God to help you overcome your debt or to give you a new career with freedom. God’s answer always comes through an open door of opportunity. The generation that was given the promise never did get to enter the Promised Land. God did His part; He made a way and offered it to them, but they refused to go in.  They saw the Red Sea part, the fire by night, and the cloud by day. They ate manna from the very hand of God, but they never made it because of the fear of man!

Numbers 13:31
But the men who had gone up with him said, “We can’t attack those people; they are stronger than we are.” And they spread among the Israelites a bad report about the land they had explored. They said, “The land we explored devours those living in it. All the people we saw there are of great size. We saw the Nephilim there (the descendants of Anak come from the Nephilim). WE SEEMED LIKE GRASSHOPPERS IN OUR OWN EYES, AND WE LOOKED THE SAME TO THEM.”

These people had grasshopper thinking (small thinking)! They were slaves, and their parents before them were slaves. As far back as they saw, their families had been slaves. No dreams, no hopes. The only thing they could be sure of was the slavery and fear that had overshadowed their people for generations. When God made a way for them out of Egypt, He brought them to the border of the Promised Land. There they sent in spies to find the best way through the land and to verify that it was a good land. When the spies came back, they did in fact declare that it was a good land, flowing with good things. But instead of focusing on the potential of what God had said was theirs, they focused on the defeat they felt was surely theirs if they tried to go in. They focused their attention on who they were in their own eyes (grasshoppers) instead of who they were in God’s eyes. They gave up hope, and the Bible says that God’s wrath burned against them because of their unbelief.

You may say that this is a nice little story about people who lived long ago, but I believe it is a story about human nature.  People seem to have a misconception about God and the plans of God. They think that if it is God’s will then it will be easy. WRONG! Nothing is further from the truth! With God, the victory is assured; but because of Satan and our own weaknesses, a struggle is also assured. I’m not talking about a struggle in the mind and emotions - for there is a rest that is obtained by faith - but a struggle to be faithful, to persevere, and to put the hand to the plow and work the plan God has given us.

REMEMBER: TO HAVE THE SUCCESS YOU WANT BUT DO NOT CURRENTLY HAVE IN YOUR LIFE, SOMETHING MUST CHANGE.
THAT SOMETHING IS YOU!

 In the parable of the talents, Jesus talked of this change that will take place in our lives as we are faithful.

Matt. 25:14
Again, it will be like a man going on a journey, who called his servants and entrusted his property to them. To one he gave five talents of money, to another two talents, and to another one talent, each according to his ability.

At the end of this story the one who had five talents had made it into ten, and the one who had two now had four. Although God gave them responsibility according to their ability, we see that their ability changed. The five talent man became a ten talent man. He grew in his ability because the Bible says he went to work with what he had. This is the principle you must learn: God will open a door for you to walk through, but you must do the walking. Once you hear from God, do not quit; stay on course. Distractions and sometimes discouragement will come, but if you will keep your eyes on the vision and call, your enthusiasm will remain strong. If you allow the business to overwhelm you, and you find yourself thinking on “why you can’t” instead of the rewards “once you do,” then you faint, lose heart, and quit the race. Remember this scripture:

Philippians 4:13
I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.