by Rick Boxx for Integrity Resource Center

If you’ve ever experienced having a baby you may remember the feeling. You and/or your spouse expectantly nurture the baby in the womb for nine months, and then finally the big day arrives. The bundle of joy is born!

Then the next hurdle comes. The room fills with family and friends, anxious to see and hold this precious child. Can you do it? Can you let go of your baby, and trust him or her into the hands of someone else? This is a very difficult time for many new parents, especially with the first child.

Struggles for entrepreneurs

I was reminded recently that this is how it often feels for entrepreneurs. On the same day, I had two different business owners say to me, “Let me get this straight; in order for you to help my business, I have to send you sensitive financial data on the business that I started from scratch and nurtured all these years? This is very hard.”

Many times our work and our business can consume us, becoming a mistress of sorts. Turning loose of something precious is a difficult task. But if this is a problem, it is probably healthy to determine why.

Motives

1. Control. It’s good to have healthy skepticism about whom you trust with valuable information, but if the reason for the hesitation is due to control issues, then you may need to look closer at your motives.

Psalm 24:1 tells us, “The earth is the Lord’s and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it.” God owns your business and/or your job, not you! He wants to be in charge. The benefit to you is that this will also give you a freeing feeling, because if God’s in charge, ultimately He will be responsible as well for the results.

2. Fear. If you struggle with being controlling or being fearful of letting others into your private world, ask yourself who’s really in charge?

Rick Boxx is the President of Integrity Resource Center (IRC), a nonprofit ministry providing biblically-based resources, training and counsel to business and ministry leaders. You can learn more about IRC by visiting their website.

Originally posted 3/15/2011.