2/7/24 - 2028: Abiding and Aligning

Jim: You've tuned into. iWork4Him, the Voice of collaboration for the Faith and Work Movement.

Martha: And we are your host, Jim and Martha Brangenberg. And our mission is to transform the workplace of every Christian into a mission field. What does that look like in your workplace? Let's find out right now.

Jim: Martha, before we get to our guest today, I thought it'd be fun to bring in Krystal Parker from the U.S, Christian Chamber of Commerce to hear a little bit of her story.

Krystal, welcome back to iWork4Him.

Krystal Parker: Thanks guys. Happy to be here.

Jim: Krystal, why do we have a U.S Christian Chamber?

Krystal Parker: Simply put, because we need a place for social capital for people that share a biblical worldview that wanna do business together with people that have the same values.

Martha: I love how she says that so well! Krystal, you know that we love the U.S Christian Chamber, but I want you to tell our listeners who you serve.

Krystal Parker: Yeah, we serve businesses that have God as their CEO. That's who we serve. We serve him first and foremost. And we serve all kinds of different businesses. Businesses that are doing business in the world, and maybe they have a product or service that is not just for Christians, and that is awesome. We love those people because we need to support them too, as they're out in the world, serving others and give them a place where they can learn about what it means to integrate their faith and work and see their business as an opportunity to be a ministry into the world. We also serve Christian businesses.

Jim: So I was just gonna say, what you're really saying is you're serving business people who are in their biznistries, as Chuck Prophet would say, but you're really supporting them out in their mission field, helping 'em be successful? Krystal, the U.S Chamber is a national chamber, but you're working with many local Christian Chambers. How does that work?

Krystal Parker: We want to be a guide, an umbrella for those local Christian Chambers of Commerce. Just like our business owners, we don't want them to feel alone. We don't want our local Christian Chambers to be out there trying to do it alone either. So when we come together, we have the Christian Chamber Coalition for that same reason that we're supporting business owners.

We wanna support these local Christian Chambers so that they can strengthen Christian businesses and transform their local communities.

Martha: So it is awesome to see more and more people get interested in the idea of a Christian chamber. So let's talk a little bit about the upcoming event that is happening in April and tell us all about it.

Krystal Parker: You got it. U.S Christian Business, Expo and Global Conference in Orlando, Florida, April 18th, 19th and 20th. This is just gonna be an incredible event to grow your network, to hear from over 30 different thought leaders in the industry. This conference is foundationally based on first Corinthians 3, a letter that Paul wrote into Corinth.

And at that time, Corinth was an economic epicenter and with a, just diverse beliefs and culture, similar to how it is today. And so we're gonna take this conference and really equip business leaders from all over the world to go out and be that light and salt into the marketplace.

Jim: And where do people go to find out more and to get signed up and register for this event that's only a couple months away?

Krystal Parker: Just a couple of months away. You can find us at USChristianChamber.com. It's uschristianchamber.com. There is a tab on our website that's conference 2024. Click that, you'll get all the details and join us in orlando.

Jim: Krystal Parker from the US Christian Chamber. Thanks for being on iWork4Him. Thanks for giving us a little live commercial about the upcoming event. I've heard you had a, not only do you have 30 great speakers, but also two really good-looking emcees .

 (laughter)

Krystal Parker: We searched high and wide to find these emcees , but we wanted to keep this event lively, fun and we want people to grow and to really come into community.

And that is what these two amazing emcees stand for, is growing community and network. And so we're so proud to allow you guys to be a part, allow you, you've allowed us. And what am I saying? Thank you for allowing us to have your amazing talent for this event as our emcees.

Jim: Krystal Parker, it's great to partner with you and the US Christian Chamber. Thanks for being on today's podcast and we know for the next three weeks we're gonna bring you on to talk more and more about this event. But thank you for being here today, Krystal. Have a great one. Thanks.

Krystal Parker: Thanks so much.

Jim: If you're an entrepreneur, you know the feeling. You're driven by solving a problem. You love to be busy. You love a challenge, and if you don't mind making money at the same time, you're running from the minute you wake up til your head hits the pillow, but you love Jesus too, and you're called to run a business with him at the center.

In fact, you're not an owner at all but a steward and God is your CEO. With that in mind, how do you know what the CEO wants from you? You need to listen. Be quiet and listen. Where does that fit in your schedule? Brad Hawkins is an entrepreneur and the founder of Safernet.com. He has had successes and failures, and Brad now relies on God as his CEO, and he spends time every day with him in an abiding process.

And I'll let him tell you all about it. If we're gonna run a business, there's a right way and a wrong way. Today we're gonna talk about the right way. Brad Hawkins, welcome back to iWork4Him.

Brad Hawkins: Jim. Martha., I love being here. You guys are amazing hosts. I love your podcast and thanks for doing what you do. You have quite an impact in today's world.

Martha: A lot of that is due to the people that we are able to meet along the way. And Brad, you're one of those people. And I would love for you right now, just as a Jesus follower, Jim was referring to the fact that there's a right way and a wrong way to run a business. Is that right? Is that what you believe?

Brad Hawkins: I do believe that, and I've become an expert on how to run it wrong, and I'm working hard on correcting that. But yes, there is definitely a right way and a wrong way to run business. And in my mind, you can be successful in either one. It's just whether or not God's gonna be glorified through your process.

Jim: When you first launched your previous businesses, did you always include God in your planning, your strategy and your day-to-day operations?

Brad Hawkins: That is such a great question and it's a multifaceted question.

Jim: You're going to give us a multifaceted answer then.

Brad Hawkins: So I would say yes. I always had God involved. I always asked him to bless. What it is that my great idea was yes, he was always involved and I would always be either happy or frustrated at the fact that God was blessing or not blessing it. And really that's the key point to me is that, I spent a career building some pretty large and worldwide, meaningful businesses out of my own plan and my own idea and my own vision, asking God to bless everything that I was doing. And I missed completely seeking God's will for what it is that I was supposed to be doing. And that to me is the right and the wrong way, is that I did build some very successful businesses but they weren't necessarily the plan that God had for me.

And that's the interesting part, is that, our God has this amazing plan for each one of us. And my plan was to develop an empire. And I developed an empire. It was an empire unto me. And I kept, just kept asking God to be blessed. And God would do little bits to take care of us, but he was not the focus. Success was the focus.

And when I was able to make those changes, those adjustments to say, wait a minute, , how can you be glorified through this? What is it that I need to do? It wasn't until then that things started really changing.

Martha: So did God really play a role in your business at that time?

Brad Hawkins: God played a role in my life. But I wouldn't necessarily say he played a role in the business. Every time something went wrong I would pray but I wouldn't be asking him what those next steps would be. Truthfully, one of my businesses, we had a financial life coaching company for a while, and there was more people saved in that business than I think in my church, which was really fun and and really meaningful.

So it wasn't that God was not involved and it wasn't that I was not out front with my story of God, but was I doing what God asked me to do? I can't tell you that. He still took every advantage that he could that I gave him, but it wasn't that I was seeking his wisdom and his guidance.

First, I was laying out my plan and saying, okay, God, this is a great idea. Now bless it.

Jim: So I've never done that, so I have no idea. It's so sad that you had that problem.

Martha: I'm thinking that our listeners can relate with that. So let's go to today then. What part does God play in the day to day now?

Brad Hawkins: Multiple years ago I had a pretty life-changing experience. And I did have a lot of business ups and downs. And we've talked about that in another podcast, but the real life changing experience I had was to learn and abide with Christ. Now I, I know, it's interesting because John - we've all heard pastors speak on abiding in Christ.

John 15, and I have written down here, John 15, one through seven I won't read the whole thing, but it says, I am the true vine and my Father is the vinedresser. Now, if you think about that, he is, Jesus is the vine and I'm the branches. And God is the vine dresser. And when you go through that verse, you realize, okay, my job is to stay connected to Jesus, or it's to stay connected to the vine.

So I have this mental image of me grabbing onto that vine and not letting go, and I'm just staring at the vine. And by me staying grafted into that vine, it allows the sap or what we know of as the Holy Spirit. To be able to flow through me and produce fruit behind me. I spent a lifetime trying to develop fruit.

I just work hard at it trying to develop fruit, and it's God's job. My job is to stay connected to the vine. God is the vine dresser. He's pruning my branches. He is picking my fruit, and he is passing them out to whoever might need my fruit. But I'm not even paying attention to the fruit.

I'm paying attention to staying connected with Jesus. And so that's really the image that I have in my life is to say, you know what? My job is to abide in Christ all the time, abide in Jesus all the time, and allow the Holy Spirit to work through my work, my business, my time with friends, or whatever the case is, and produce fruit out of me staying connected to Jesus.

Jim: That's a good word. We're gonna talk more about that abiding process that Brad just described in just a second.

Martha: Yeah. But Jim, I think now is a really good time to tell our listeners why we are customers of Brad's company, which is SaferNet. And that could be found at Safernet.com, but can you quickly tell people how it gives you, specifically because you're the computer guy, peace of mind at home and in our office?

Jim: You know what I love more than anything is the control panel where you could go out there and you set up, not only does it track what it blocked and it tracks what it allowed, but it allows you to block and allow specific sites, because some sites seem creepy because they got, they weren't registered or they, what's the word, Brad?

Some sites are, they get blocked because they're just not...

Brad Hawkins: We block sites for all kinds of reasons. One being they're brand new. Two is that they're listed as something that you don't want, right? And so we let you pick what you want and what you don't want.

Jim: And what's really beautiful is that I have found that certain websites like Facebook, like some of the news sites, they have a salacious programming that leans towards pornography. And I don't want to be slipped into any of that. And so I just block things with SaferNet's control panel so that I don't ever have to worry about going places where I don't want to go.

But what's really cool is that if I get an email from somebody that I think I know, and they've got a link in that email that I think I should click, if I click it and I shouldn't have clicked on it, SaferNet is smarter than me and it'll say, Hey, idiot. You shouldn't click on this link. Go back. It's not what you think.

Martha: That's actually not their wording. That's you. That's how you read the message.

Jim: It should be! So I recommend that all of you get out there. I love the safety and security of SaferNet. Go out there to Safernet.com and get signed up today. It's very reasonably priced and has all kinds of power. Safernet.com.

When I first met you. God just kind of threw you into our lives. You talked a lot to Martha and about abiding, which by the way, we're still working on. What is abiding?

Brad Hawkins: Abiding is a life, a lifestyle. It's a, some of my friends call it a Bible study. I don't call it a Bible study. I call it a lifestyle and it's just basically having a desire to stay connected to my Father, and when I'm staying connected to my Father, I allow him to stay connected with me and speak to me and communicate with me and help me know what it is that is wise for me to do and help me know what is not wise for me to do.

And when I'm not abiding or when I'm not staying connected to my Father I have to make all those decisions on my own. And I am pretty good at making decisions. I'm not really dumb at it, but I'm nothing like my Heavenly Father that sees everything, that knows everything, that understands the entire universe.

I know what's happening three feet in front of me, and that's about it. And I would rather rely on him and his expertise. And abiding is just basically staying connected to him. Spending some time in the morning with him every morning and allowing him to speak through his word. I love learning out of his word.

I love learning what it is that he has to say. And one of the realizations that I had was, God gave me his word that is here with me all the time. Now I just closed my Bible, so I'm not sure where I was last, but he's with me all the time and he wants his word to communicate to me.

Now he can speak to me through my thoughts, he can speak to me through my friends, like you guys. But his word is with me all the time. And the question that I have to ask myself is when I read it, is it real? Do I believe it? And it's interesting because I find sometimes I read it and it says something and maybe he's saying, I wanna bless you abundantly.

My immediate thought is he wants to bless someone else. He wants to bless the person that he might be talking to in the scriptures. He might, he wants to bless whoever it is. And that's the difference between a logos word, which is the word that is written on the paper, communicating back and forth.

But when the Holy Spirit gets involved, he can say, Hey, that's for you. That's a Ramos word. That is a word that says okay, God's plucking this out of the Bible right now to speak this directly to you. And that's when you realize, oh my goodness, the God of all the universe. Yeah, the God of all times cares enough about me to say this to me for this particular situation.

Martha: So I love this whole concept. But I wanna break it down just a little bit for our listeners because it's one thing to say, spending time, but what does that look like? Give us just a glimpse because it, I'm sure it's still gonna look different for everybody, but what does it actually look like for you to abide?

Brad Hawkins: Oh, that's excellent. What I do is I start out my day and typically I commit myself to 15 minutes. Just 15 minutes. That's not a lifetime. It's not shutting off everything. Now realistically it goes longer than that most times. But if I commit myself to 15 minutes, I know I can squeeze that in any calendar.

If I commit myself to 15 minutes, I just pick up where I started reading yesterday. And I don't try to get through the Bible in a year anymore. I don't try to do all these special things. I just read one verse at a time, concentrating on that verse saying, okay, what does that really mean? And there's sometimes when a verse jumps out to me and says, Hey, this is really cool. I didn't ever see this before.

A lot of times that's the Holy Spirit in you saying, Hey, pay attention. This is something important. So what I do is I write that down in my journal. I write out the whole verse, and then I underline the parts that seem like they're really important. And then I do this crazy thing because, most Bibles have references, center references at the bottom, wherever they are.

And I go to the references to say, okay, God said that in this chapter. What other chapters in the Bible did he say something similar? And I go, and I call it bouncing. I bounce to those other scriptures that are related to that. And I feel like, man, that's really cool that I didn't even realize that was there.

And then I write it in my journal and I just keep going. Until I start seeing, my goodness, there's eight different things that all pop out. That, that's pretty meaningful. God's trying to say something to me and I underline that in red so I don't miss it up. And I just keep going through that process to, until I can see, oh gosh, I can see there's a trend or a process that, that God's taken me through to show me something.

What is it that he's trying to show me? So I just go through and keep writing things down and bouncing around to see what he has to say to me.

Jim: So talk about how this applies to your business, because as a Jesus follower, you are running a business. You're a steward of a business that God has given you. It's called SaferNet, and I know you have an event center and some other things that you do. How does this abiding process impact your business world?

Brad Hawkins: Number one in Ephesians, it talks about staying in the spirit, staying connected to him. I make much wiser decisions when I'm at peace, when I am not living out of a world of panic and concern.

And I just walk that out, understanding what God's saying and choose to make my decisions based on that. And that's number one. Number two, sometimes -not all the time, but sometimes when I'm in the middle of making decision, just my morning time of like I said before, my, my term is bouncing. I just bounce through the scriptures to see what the Holy Spirit might have to say in tying scriptures together.

But sometimes he gives me a direct answer that I'm just like, good grief. I didn't even realize that. And it's interesting because I was having a problem with one of my key people. Back a few weeks ago, probably a couple months ago by now. And I was thinking, do I need to demote her? Do I need to move her? What do I need to do?

And he showed me going through scripture what her real problem was. And I went and sat down with her and I told her, I said, I think you're struggling in this area. Tell me more about it. And she just burst into tears and said, this is exactly right. I haven't told anybody. And I had a chance to pray with her.

And just by us walking through that issue, walking through that process, she is completely changed. No, no discipline needed. It was just God showing her love, saying, Hey, there's a struggle here. There's an issue with the husband and now I got her connected to a counselor and she's in so much better shape now.

I could have lost a key employee. I could have ended up in my own way saying, you know what? You're not following all our guidelines. You're no longer welcome here. Hit the road. But God and his compassion kept me in a place where I have a key manager left. I don't have to worry about hiring, training or anything.

And they are more loyal to the business now than they've ever been because of God's gracious mercy and love for her.

Martha: And potentially so much more healthy in the process, because of your obedience and in directing her with that. And I think that's huge for us to hear because it's, this isn't only gonna affect us personally, it's gonna affect the people around us by our steps of obedience in that.

Brad Hawkins: Yeah. And that's God's economy. That's the way he works. He doesn't ever do things just for us. He's working every angle. Every deal all the time. It's just, are we gonna participate in that?

Jim: And I think it's super important for people that are listening, for all of us that are listening, to recognize that's why we're in business. Yes, it's great to make money, but it's people. We are in business for people and our number one ministry while we're in business is to our people and then our customers and vendors. But our people, they've gotta know that they're loved and you show 'em love by actually spending time with them and praying for 'em.

And when they got an issue, talking 'em through it, even if it's confrontation. But you could do that all in love. Brad, I love that. I want to close out the show just asking you a couple of tough questions. Alright. You could have started any business after your businesses had failed and you had fraud perpetrated against you.

Why did you start SaferNet?

Brad Hawkins: If you know me pretty well, you understand my, the day that I live for above all days, if you can even call it a day, is the day that I stand before my Father for the first time and he says, well done. And I look at all the things that I do and I think, okay, what is it that he's going to say well done to, or what is it that he is gonna say you did that on your own?

I, I don't know why you did that, but hey. It wasn't sin, it wasn't anything bad, but it's not part of my plan. And so I looked at that and I said, okay, what is it? Now, interestingly enough, I was invited into SaferNet as a consultant, and I ended up having to take it over and fix it and move forward in it.

And it's wonderful. But I asked God multiple times, do you want me here? And his answer multiple times, even through the struggling years, was absolutely, I want you here. And what I understood from God was that the internet is the greatest tool of all times. Maybe barring the industrial Revolution, I don't know, but it is the greatest tool of all times, and the enemy has every fork of disaster in all angles of the internet.

And the vision that he gave me is how can we participate with believers to say, you can use the internet like you need to, and let SaferNet block the enemy's disastrous plans to drastically change your business or your life. Because of the internet. And our goal is just to keep believers safe as they walk through this plan.

Jim: So we talked about abiding in the middle segment of the show today, and then we're talking about SaferNet again. And I love your explanation, and I'm grateful for SaferNet. How does SaferNet - supporting the business, that we are all stewarding - how does that help us to abide?

Brad Hawkins: How does SaferNet help us abide?

Yeah. Honestly, from my perspective now, in my office I have multiple screens. One screen I use for my, my business work, and I have another screen right here that I use for abiding. I have my Bible and then I do all kinds of work on the screen. It is completely blocked out of any social media, any, anything that would distract my Bible time.

Now, this computer, I'm accessing everything all the time, but I don't want to have any distractions when I'm spending time with the Lord. I don't get any pop-ups. I don't get anything other than the verses or the whatever Bible verses I'm trying to pull up and read and go through.

In my mind, SaferNet is designed to keep you focused on whatever it is that you're supposed to be focusing on. You're never supposed to focus on the devil's plan. Never. But he's always trying to interrupt you, right? In another business that I have SaferNet set up so that all social media is blocked out of my accounting. Because I was having a problem with people not working as hard as they probably should. In my marketing teams, they can use social media because they need to understand who they're trying to sell to. You can design your experience with SaferNet to be whatever it needs to be. When I'm abiding I don't want any distractions. I just want a safe access to the internet.

Martha: And I think one thing that maybe goes without saying, but that could certainly be true, is the fact that if we know that an area of our business is taken care of, that I don't have the expertise in how to protect all of the bad guys from coming in, but if I have something like SaferNet that is doing that for me, I don't have to fill my mind with all that and it, I don't have to be worried about it and I can be focusing on whatever it is that God has before me at the time. And that kind of distraction is gone as well. Are there any final thoughts on abiding that you think our listeners need to hear today as we close up the show?

Brad Hawkins: I believe that God is talking to each and every one of us. Twenty-four, seven. He wants to communicate with us. He wants to lead us down the path that is the healthiest and the best for everything about us. He wants the very best for every single one of us. When I am able to stay connected to him and hear his leading voice, to guide me through my day and say, you know what? Stop and take care of that employee, or stop and take care of that store worker or whatever it is. When I am in that place and I have that peace that he's providing me on a regular basis, that I can't understand where it comes from, I absolutely am blessed beyond my ability, but God is providing that for every single one of us. Twenty-four, seven, all the time.

And anytime we feel like, and believe me, I felt it - anytime we feel like God's abandoned us and walked away from us, he's right there all the time. It is just that we have to stop, set aside whatever it is that's causing us the great distraction, and get back to the place of saying, okay, Father, what do you have for me?

And stay connected to that. That's that old vision of grabbing onto that vine. Stare at the vine. Don't let go of the vine. That vine is our lifeblood that allows the Holy Spirit to flow through us. If we let go of that vine, getting ourselves distracted, we're at the whim of the enemy. We wanna stay that connected.

And he has that for every, there's nothing special about me or you guys . Just that we wanna hang onto that vine. And anybody can hang onto that vine and stay connected to the flow of the Holy Spirit.

Jim: Brad Hawkins, thanks for being and iWork4Him today. Thanks for sharing some of your story. Thanks for talking to us about Abiding today. Appreciate it, Brad.

Brad Hawkins: Absolutely. Thanks for having me.

Jim: You've been listening to, iWork4Him with your host, Jim and Martha. Brangenberg. We're Christ followers our workplace. It's our mission field, but ultimately iWork4Him.