0You have to do what you are assigned for eight hours a day. You may like your job (or do you loth it?) But you are under the instructions of your employer.

It’s not actually 8 hours a day; it’s more like 9 hours daily.

You get an hour for lunch, but you can do nothing with it except eat your lunch, maybe read a book; yes, I am that old, or watch YouTube, Netflix, or Hulu before returning to work.

But it’s more than 9 hours, there is the travel to and from work, what?

Another hour, 10 hours working.

Then there is getting ready for work, and now we are at 11 hours a day. You get home at night, and the rest of the day is shot. It’s taken up with what you need to do, have to do, kids, cleaning, preparing, eating.

By this time, your work day is 14 hours long, and that is due to having to work for money. You’ve got two more hours in the day if you want to get a good night’s sleep.

Finally, you have some time for you. That is unless your spouse wants some of that time, or your too tired, or you just want to blob.

This is what working for money looks like. You are not your own; you have been bought with a price, and I am not talking about Jesus, the cross, or the resurrection.

This is losing your autonomy.

I’ve been self-employed for 25 years, which has disadvantages.

• When I’m sick, I don’t get paid.
• A public holiday is another unpaid day.
• I have to save for vacations, not just the vacations, but also the wage that is not coming in because I am not at work.

If this is all I have for being self-employed then i’m not very good at being self-employed.

However….

I have autonomy.

I do have to attend to taxes, VAT, GST, bank payments, various interest payments, insurance, and professional fees.

But I have Autonomy.

Unlike an employee who only works in a business. I get to work on my business,even as a YWAMer.

• I do get to choose my course.
• I do get to choose my hours.
• I do get to choose where in my future I want to go.
• I get to choose how I do what I do.
• I get to plan with God.
• I get to become good at what I do.
• I get to know why I do what I do.
• I get to own my mistakes.
• I get to find out why they happened.
• I get to learn how not to repeat them.

This is the power of being self-employed, even in YWAM.

Working for money is a sure way to become a slave to that money, to fall into a love-hate relationship with it. This is the love (need) of money (even the hate of money) that is the root of all sorts of evil.

If you know how to work with money, something like embezzlement becomes ridiculous. Employee embezzlement is an issue, this is not just money, but time, resources, industrial secrets. If employees have been empowered with autonomy, mastery and purpose, why steal coins when you work at a gold mine, and get to share in its capacity? If you work from autonomy, mastery, and purpose, money is merely one of many tools at your disposal, and as a tool money is low down on the list.

Money is low on the tool list? Why?

It is a trap to think money will solve your problems, be it to get ahead in life (employment) or to get a job done (mastery). Even an employer knows that money is only so useful to advance his business.

As a self-employed YWAMer, church worker, and follower of Jesus who is employed, these are some of the tools that put money low down on the list.

• acquiring skills in collaboration,
• teamwork (even if you prefer to work by yourself),
• promotion of the other person,
• encouragement of the other,
• empowerment of the other,
• of helping to grow the pie bigger such that even as your slice gets smaller, you have more pie, and more people have pie,
• that you can advance so that all you do is win-win,
• that even if they win better, that you win.

An attitude of working with money instead of for money opens up a different paradigm; all the tools above become yours because money also becomes only a tool.

Another aspect that becomes yours when you gain autonomy and see money as a mere tool is luck.

People who merely work for money see other people’s success as them having luck that they do not have.