F/U — Two Unlikely Letters Standing Between You and Your Purpose
Recorded live from a soundproof booth at the Nashville Delta Lounge following a keynote at the 10X conference, this message tackles a phrase that typically offends—F/U.
When translated through the lens of Kingdom stewardship, these two letters represent the exact strategic framework standing between where you are and the purpose you were built to fulfill.
Whether you are building a multi-million dollar corporate vehicle or launching a marketplace ministry, the enemy wants you to panic, forfeit your endurance, and hide your gifts in the dirt. Real execution requires three specific "F/Us" you can take straight to work on Monday morning.
1. Follow Up
In Luke 18:1–8, Jesus tells the parable of the persistent widow and the unrighteous judge. The widow needed legal protection, but the judge neither feared God nor respected man. She did not possess institutional authority, wealth, or structural leverage. What she had was relentless, unwavering follow-up.
Eventually, the judge granted her justice simply because her persistent presence threatened to wear him out completely. Jesus concludes this parable with a staggering question: "When the Son of Man comes, will He find faith on the earth?"
Jesus explicitly ties faith to unrelenting follow-up. In the business world, data reveals that 93% of all converted sales leads are reached by the sixth attempt, yet over half of all leads never receive a second attempt. Most builders do not fail because their vision is flawed; they fail because they abandon the follow-up the moment friction appears.
2. Faith University
James 1:3–4 states that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow, leading to a state where you are perfect, complete, and needing nothing.
Every test you encounter in business—lost contracts, economic downturns, or delayed cash flows—is an enrollment in Faith University.
In 2007, during the peak of the housing and job crisis, I was three months into my first semester of Bible college after leaving a high-performance automotive mechanics track. The surf shop where I worked let me go, and an unpaid tuition bill arrived simultaneously. Instead of quitting, I told the dean, "I know God called me to be here, so I am going to keep showing up to class until someone physically kicks me out."
I showed up every single day. By graduation, anonymous donors had stepped in to cover three full semesters, and I secured a job two weeks later to pay off the remaining balance. You cannot remove the supernatural partnership of God from your operating equation. Tests build the muscular endurance required to handle large-scale authority.
3. Finish Until
In Luke 19, a nobleman hands ten servants one mina each and delivers a direct command: "Do business with this until I come back."
When he returns as king, the servant who turned one mina into ten is rewarded with authority over ten cities. The servant who preserved his mina out of fear—burying it in the dirt to avoid risk—has his resource stripped away and handed to the top producer.
Stewardship is not about passive risk mitigation; it is about building until the assignment is complete.
Stop Chasing Revenue First: Chase the people you were assigned to reach, and capital will naturally follow.
Stop Hedging with Plan B: Paul endured 195 lashes, three rod beatings, a stoning, three shipwrecks, and open-ocean survival (2 Corinthians 11:24–27) because he knew God would finish what He started (Philippians 1:6).
Execute with Your Current Assets: You have been given specific gifts and an unrevealed allotment of time. Burying your capability out of fear is an insult to the Master who trusted you with the capital.
Vision is not permission to rush; it is an invitation to trust. Stop running from the test, post your guards, and commit to building until the job is done.
