FOUR LEVELS OF PROSPERITY

1. INADEQUACY – Your needs (not even wants) outweigh your supply/income. You seem to always be in need and never seem to have enough. It can get into your head and become a mentality, where scarcity becomes your basic operating assumption. You often borrow or think of doing so. You think giving is for others, and only give when pressured.
2. SUFFICIENCY – You are now making just enough to meet your needs. You’re not in panic mode but neither can you consider any luxuries. Giving is incredibly challenging, as it seems in the natural to push you back to inadequacy. You are still fighting the scarcity mentality, and most of your decisions are controlled by money. Saving? What saving? You run a tight ship!
3. ABUNDANCE – You have shifted gears. You have more than enough. You are no longer worried about your survival. Giving is now a joy and you can see the impact it has in your life and others. You can afford some luxuries and life is good. You are saving and investing and are making financial progress that may impact the next generation. You often entertain ideas that you are rich or wealthy.
4. RIDICULOUS – At this stage, you can’t hide it. You’re so wealthy, with multiple passive income streams because you’ve built systems that solve people’s problems. You view economics not through a personal/family lens but a macro one. You create opportunities for others and have community wide impact. Those who know how you got here love and respect you. The rest either hate or envy you and often come up with interesting stories about how you’ve made it. You take the criticism with grace coz you know it’s not about you.

Moses Mukisa

HONOR BOUND

“So Moses went out to meet his father-in-law, bowed down, and kissed him. And they asked each other about their well-being, and they went into the tent.”
‭‭Exodus‬ ‭18:7‬ ‭NKJV‬‬

Moses had accomplished great feats of historical importance, but he still had the wisdom to honor his FIL, going out to meet him and bowing before him. He then went ahead to take his advice on how to govern Israel. He didn’t sit in his tent and let him go through security and appointments. He went out. He bowed down. He kissed.

May the anointing on your life not destroy you by thinking you have arrived and can treat those you don’t deem to have your level of revelation as not deserving of your honor if honor is due to them.

Reminds me of our younger fiery saved selves and how some treated their parents with contempt because they were not saved! Some were cast out. But wisdom teaches differently!

Mosze

Builders vs Climbers

Every organization, family or community has them both; builders and climbers.

The builders are those with a long term vision for the prosperity of all for generations. They lay down their lives and go to work. They pioneer, they innovate, they course correct, they carry vision; putting the interests of the business, organization or community ahead of theirs.

They build systems that help scale the vision and reduce the organization’s dependency on them. They are building a legacy.

Then there are the climbers. These ones are into self promotion and think they have the divine right to get to the “top” of wherever they find themselves. Theirs is to climb up or through whatever systems others have built, chiefly to their personal advantage.

Anyone who does a good job in an established business, organization or community will be promoted, so that’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about those who cause divisions, wreck havoc and get others to focus on the wrong things as long as it gives them an advantage. They think short term and only through the prism of personal advancement.

Question is, which one are you? In what ways have you been a builder or a climber? What changes do you need to make to shift from climbing to building?

Happy clim… oops, BUILDING!

Mosze

Seven Thoughts on Faithfulness

On Sunday, I spoke about faithfulness at the Business Garage, our business oriented Sunday service. I thought I’d share a bit about what i found out as I prepared.

1. Faithfulness is required. Paul writes in 1 Cor 4:2 that, “Moreover it is required in stewards that one be found faithful.” With the understanding that whatever we own or lead belongs to God and we are simply stewards or managers, faithfulness ceases to be a choice, and becomes a requirement.
2. Faithfulness is an inner work. We are not called to “do faithful”, but rather to BE faithful. This means that faithfulness is not a function of others or determined by who we are dealing with. We are called to be faithful in and of ourselves whether we are dealing with anyone or not. It’s a bit like honor. 2 Tim 2:13 declares that, “If we are faithless, He remains faithful; He cannot deny Himself.” God is faithful, whether we are or not. We also ought to be faithful, whether someone else is being or not.
3. Faithfulness is consistent. How would you respond if your spouse came and told you, “honey, I love you so much. I promise to be faithful to you 98% of the time.” Well, 98% is a very high mark, but you’d probably have steam coming out of your ears, because of the 2%. Faithfulness has to be consistent, 100%. Here’s what God says about Moses, “Not so with My servant Moses; He is faithful in all My house.” Be consistent. The businesses that attain consistency of product or service grow the most.
4. Faithfulness is longterm. You can’t just be faithful for s season and you quit. Then you were faithless. That’s why in marriage we say, “until death us do part”. Jesus taught that “But he who endures to the end shall be saved.” (Matt 24:13). Most people quit before they get into the success zone because they quit too quickly too frequently. Jim Collins in his book, Good To Great talks about the flywheel effect. It’s very hard to take it through one revolution at the start, but eventually as you keep pushing, it gains momentum and starts moving by itself. Apple and Microsoft were started in the 70s, before you were born. How long have you been going?
5. Faithfulness is a promoter. The master who gave different talents to his stewards and came back to see how they had done told those who had multiplied theirs, “Well done, good and faithful servant; you were faithful over a few things, I will make you ruler over many things. Enter into the joy of your lord.” (Matt 25:21). In Luke 10:19, he says, “Well done, good servant; because you were faithful in a very little, have authority over ten cities.” Instead of focusing on self promotion and trying to get everyone’s attention, be faithful with what God has called you to do and get His attention. Don Moen’s first worship project “Worship With Don Moen” was meant to warm up the crowd for Ron Kenoly’s “Lift Him Up” recording. It just happened to have been recorded and when the music went out, everyone responded and Don Moen became the global worship leader we know today. He wasn’t self promoting. He was being faithful, serving Ron and his boss Michael Coleman.
6. Faithfulness is increase. From the same story I quoted in Matthew 25, the guy who kept his one talent intact, to give it back to the master in the same state did not receive good news. The Master said, “And cast the unprofitable servant into the outer darkness. There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” Some people have interpreted maintenance as faithfulness. God doesn’t think that’s faithfulness. Faithfulness is increasing or multiplying whatever you have been given and taking it to new levels.
7. Faithfulness starts with finances. The biggest feller of leaders is financial failure.  The biggest source of marital strife is finances. The biggest killer of friendships is finances. The biggest source of scandal and loss of respect for preachers is finances. What causes businesses to fail is when the numbers are not working. No wonder Jesus taught in Luke 16 and said, “He who is faithful in what is least is faithful also in much; and he who is unjust in what is least is unjust also in much.Therefore if you have not been faithful in the unrighteous mammon, who will commit to your trust the true riches?” If you are going to lead successfully, and be faithful consistently, longterm and up to the end, take care of your finances and your organization’s finances. Otherwise financial failure will unleash all kinds of other failures and the story will be over. 

In closing, whatever is going on, and wherever you are on this journey, remember that God is faithful.

M

Criticism vs Contribution

The deception about adopting criticism as a major operational method is to think or feel that one is now at the level of those you are criticizing.

You only get to appear in the same sentence with those you criticize for as long as the criticism continues. Once it’s all over, you quickly descend back to your world of non achievement, while those you’re criticizing continue with their lives in the world of overachievement. So I’d rather you contribute more than you criticize.

Like they say, if you don’t want to be criticized, do nothing, say nothing, be nothing. But I pity even more those who feel that the only meaningful contribution they can make is criticize. What a pitiful existence!

Keep going. Keep growing. Keep leading.

Allow For Failure

As long as you are working with human beings, and not machines, allow room for failure. Of course that has to start with yourself. If you give enough grace room to yourself to fail, so should you for others. It’s just how life mostly works.

Keep going.

Mosze

Abandon Annually

Rick Warren said, “Divert Daily, Withdraw Weekly, Abandon Annually.”

Most Ugandans try and do this in December somewhere in the week leading up to Christmas into the first week of the New Year. This is highly recommended. The only challenge is we go to the village, where there is a different set of social expectations. So we come back rich socially but tired!

Maybe it’s time for you to figure out a ka get away for yourself and if married with your spouse, just to catch up and connect with yourself and those you love. Life is at a frenetic pace in the city. Get a week and get out there. Remember life and your calling, whatever it is, is a marathon, not a sprint. Abandon Annually!

Keep going. Keep growing. Keep leading.

Mosze

Day Off

In the Bible, God instructed Israel to work six days and rest on the seventh. God had Himself set up this pattern in the creation story. Not only this, He also asked them to rest the land every seven years. In fact we see later that this failure to rest the land was the primary reason they were sent into exile.

This may sound like ancient wisdom and yet it still applies today. We may think that we are making progress by burning both ends of the candle, but that’s deception. The Jews, who still practice this principle are generally on average much wealthier and have made great contributions to science and culture than other people groups by far.

Since I work over the weekend, Monday is my day off; my Sabbath. Even though I’m still growing in this discipline, I’ve made significant progress.

How about you? When do you “switch off for maintenance”? Steve Covey talks about sharpening the saw in The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. Depending on your work schedule, find a day of rest. You can not negotiate yourself out of this principle.

Keep going. Keep growing. Keep leading.

Mosze

Home Early Days

Because I work at a church, in addition to other responsibilities, my evenings can be filled with meetings. This is because the bulk of the work force at churches are volunteers who work elsewhere. So most meetings and appointments during the week end up being in the evenings when people leave work. At some point, I was getting home late almost everyday.

I noticed that this was having a toll on our family. So Ary and I came up with “Home Early Days”. These are days when sunset must find us at home. We have two fixed ones and two flex ones. I won’t tell you the days. But now most weeks I’m home early 4 nights a week. When we have to be out on some of the fixed nights, we take the kids with us.

I don’t know your work situation and what adjustments you need to make to be home early. But if you have a spouse or kids, figure out something. You have more power than you think.

Decide and execute. Fix some days where you see the sunset at home, and then spend the evening with family. Refer to yesterday’s blog about the no phone zone once you’re home early.

Keep going. Keep growing. Keep leading.

Mosze

No Phone Zone

 

I recently started reading a parenting book that has caused me to repent in dust and ashes. Now, my kids will tell you that I’m a good parent and make time for them regardless of schedule, but this book has shaken me because I see the gaps.

One of the things we’ve started doing at home is have dinner together at table on three specific days a week. The kids know them and so there is expectation. We had already been trying this out but not consistently sometimes. But the more important issue is that I have started leaving my phone in my bedroom for that dinner time which runs for about an hour and a half. The result? The kids are TALKING. They are talking so much so that we sometimes have to just stop the kaboozi so we can go to bed.

I’ve been thinking, why weren’t they talking that much and sharing their lives that deeply before when we were at table together? I think that they noticed our preoccupation with our phones even when we were present with them, and they held back. Now that the phones are away in a different room, we get to focus on each other as we talk. The “no phone zone” that is our dinner table is doing wonders for my family. Would you consider doing the same for yours? It’s a small price to pay to be away from your phone for an hour or two to affirm and sow greatness in the next generation.

So, try the no phone zone at your house this week. If you have a hectic schedule with evening meetings, designate some “home early days” and stick to them. When you get there, leave the phone in the bedroom. No one will die because you didn’t pick their call in that one or two hours.

Keep going. Keep growing. Keep leading.

Mosze