Faith is the Opposite of Fear

At the end of every podcast, we like to ask our guests to share what God has been teaching them in this season of life. This week’s guest is Nathan Sheets , CEO of Nature Nate’s Honey, as well as one of the driving forces behind the global “I Am Second” media campaign that highlights stories of hundreds of lives transformed through the grace of Jesus Christ.

1 Chronicles 29:18-19

Lord, the God of our fathers Abraham, Isaac and Israel, keep these desires and thoughts in the hearts of your people forever, and keep their hearts loyal to you. And give my son Solomon the wholehearted devotion to keep your commands, statutes and decrees and to do everything to build the palatial structure for which I have provided.

We recently had a downturn in the honey company. We grew too fast and were kind of investing into the future, built a second plant in Georgia. And then we had one of our retail partners, one of the large clubs that we were in, came back and want a price reduction and we didn't have the staff to really understand what the impact of that would be. And so as we made our price reductions and having that extra capacity that we were carrying, everything changed. So we lost a lot of money in 2017. 

And so through that, we began to go to the market and look at either selling or bringing on a financial partner. And so we've been continuing to work through that process. And so we're kind of nearing the end of that. But obviously, that creates a tremendous amount of fear and anxiety as an entrepreneur, you know, there's just the whole emotional side of getting kind of tied up and wrapped up in your business.

But it is interesting. We're reading the Bible in a year as part of our Friday morning group. And we’re in Chronicles, a while back where David had just done the fundraising campaign for the temple where everybody had made a contribution. And so David was praying kind of this prayer of dedication for the resources that have been raised. But he also had this prayer of dedication for Solomon.

Essentially, in part of David's prayer, he prayed that Solomon would not operate in fear. You know, when I read that, I thought, well, that's interesting. And I wondered if he prayed because David struggled with operating in fear himself.

As I thought about that, just recognizing, you know, that fear is obviously the opposite of faith and if you can come in and make us fearful and not walk in faith, then we are not walking in the right circles. As you said, the goal is to have somebody be able to do even greater things than I. Because of the one I'm sending. 

We saw this also in the book of Esther. You've got Haman, who is posturing and positioning himself inside the kingdom to look great. And you’ve got Mordechai, who is there and actually Mordechai had discovered a potential assassination attempt on the king, which he divulges and the king isn't killed.

But everyone knows the story. Haman decides to try to route Jews. And so he gives his declaration that the Jews are going to be killed on a certain date. And Esther has this call to prayer with Haman in the background, as he’s about to get Mordechai killed because Mordechai will not pay respect to him.

And so he actually puts a big pole up next to his house where he plans to get Xerxes to allow him to impale Mordechai on that. And so the night before that, he's going to go and petition King Xerxes to allow him to impale Mordechai, but Xerxes can't sleep. So he calls in the historian to read the chronicles of his kingdom. Then, the historian tells the story of how Mordechai had discovered this assassination attempt. 

Xerxes says we should reward him for that. So the next day Haman comes in. And he's asking him if I wanted to, you know, honor somebody on my team and what should I do? And so Haman thinks, “Oh, he’s talking about me.” So he lays out this big plan of how he would be honored and Xerxes goes, okay great, go do that for Mordechai.

It completely ruins Haman’s plan and ultimately ends with Haman being impaled on that burning spear that he intended for Mordechai. And so as I read that, it was just so interesting to me that here is, you know, you had this total manipulator, Haman, who's sitting there and trying to get this set up. And you've got this guy who is trying to honor God and the Jewish people in Mordechai. Yet he goes, we got to pray about this, you know, and it was through that prayer that ultimately God, apart from everybody else, couldn't allow the king to sleep.

So he has a historian come in and God uses that to bring this whole thing to fruition where everything gets turned on its ear. And so for me, in the midst of my challenge here inside the business, my challenge even in my personal life, is just to recognize the absolute sovereignty of God, of how God uses anything to accomplish his will.

So now one of my daily prayers is Romans 12:1-2t that says, therefore brethren to offer yourself up like a living sacrifices as your spiritual act of worship and do not be conformed to the world, be transformed by the renewing of your mind so you can go and test God's good and perfect will.

So it just allows me to be able to step back and recognize in the midst of the trials and tribulations that the sovereignty of God, the God who created the universe, the same God that created me and you and Jesus.

And even in the midst of our simple decisions that merciful and loving God is going to take us and allow us to walk through those things, and he's going to pick us up and dust us off like the father in the story of the prodigal son. And he's going to ultimately use us to accomplish what he wants to accomplish.

If faith is important to your entrepreneurial journey, you’ll want to dive deeper in one of our business groups in Dallas and other major metropolitan areas across the globe. Look into our Foundation Groups and see if they would be a good fit for you.