day 734: Onward and upward

"So humble yourselves under the mighty power of God, and at the right time he will lift you up in honor."

I've always said that if a business is not growing, it is dying. While that may not be obvious, it is dying from the inside out if it is not growing. The best people won't stay, the best deals won't be secured, the next big idea won't come to a business where others smell stagnation. This is why, even if incremental, moving upward and onward is important. Sometimes these moves can be scary and risky. Just check out what Netflix did this week with spinning out their DVD business as a legacy business so they can focus on the area of the business they believe will grow. This was about as gutsy as it gets and it certainly burns the ships behind them as they case themselves away from warehouses, envelopes, plastic and the U.S. Postal Service (which is having their own growth challenges). In CEO, Reed Hasting's letter to all subscribers he wrote to us humbly of his misstep and then laid out a growth plan for the company. It takes courage to stay growing and more businesses should be humble and honest enough with themselves to make the changes necessary to keep their growth alive.

We must also grow and we must also be humble. What we have is a promise from God that if we do humble ourselves under His power and we wait on Him that He will lift us up and we will experience our own upward and onward growth. But here is the amazing thing, while we are waiting, we are also growing because if we are humbling ourselves to Him, we are spending time in his Word, in prayer and in fellowship with others. Let's ask ourselves today, are we in an onward and upward pattern right now? And if we are not, then what do we need to do to put ourselves in the position where we can wait on God to lift us up?

Reference: 1 Peter 5:6 (New Living Testament)