Principles for prosperity

Stephen Covey, in his phenomenally successful book, the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, explained what it takes to be successful. Covey's habit number 1 states, "You are responsible for your life. Decide what you should do and get on with it." Long before Covey's book hit the stands, there is a little known verse written

Now let's remember that this book was written by King Solomon, the wisest and richest man on earth at that time. So he certainly has the credentials to provide financial advice, and this verse is about one thing: diversification. Seven or eight what? Many christian financial advisors apply this verse within the financial arena advocating a diversified financial portfolio. While that is not wrong, there should be many other ways to "divide your portion". Financial investment is just one.

Back in those days, "portion" would probably refer to something agricultural. In this modern day and age, you can apply this verse contemporarily to mean multiple sources of income. In other words, have or develop seven or eight different sources of income. Your job is a source of income. But if you lose that only source of income, then you and your family are in big trouble. So what other sources of income can you come up with? Besides financial investments, it's not difficult in a highly computerised world to actually come up with a business idea for an internet venture. There are many helpful tools out there that can help you develop a successful internet business. All you need to do is figure out what product or service you want to market.

Another source of income could come from your very own backyard. Americans love big houses. If you have a large property, you can downsize to a smaller house and use the extra cash to purchase an apartment and rent it out. Others may include buying and selling on eBay, writing a book, royalties, etc. Whatever it is, use what you do best.

As you may already have figured out, this strategy is a long-term plan. It's not something you can do overnight. For many, once the economy picks up, they'll forget about planning against "misfortunes". But if you want to take the advice of Solomon, you should apply that wisdom and start planning for seven or eight "portions". Once you get started on planning and setting out to reach those goals, you are well on your way to producing a recession-proof strategy.

Today's Bottom Line

Plan and develop multiple sources of income. The basic point of this verse is that if one or a few sources of income fail, you have others to rely on.

The Bible does show many ways to overcome any financial crisis. Many of these principles are laid out in our successful course, the Scriptural Financial Freedom series. To learn more, you can download the Small Groups kit from our estore.

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