The Praying CEO

THE PRAYING CEO

A Prayer Journal for the Faith-Driven Woman Whose Business Is Her Ministry

by Linda McKinzie

This is one chapter from The Praying CEO: A Prayer Journal for the Faith-Driven Woman Whose Business Is Her Ministry.

If you've ever watched someone else build what you once dreamed about — this one's for you.

CHAPTER 3

The Ideas I Let Someone Else Live

Matthew 25:25 (NKJV)

“And I was afraid, and went and hid your talent in the ground. Look, there you have what is yours.”

Ecclesiastes 9:10 (NKJV)

“Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might; for there is no work or device or knowledge or wisdom in the grave where you are going.”

I have to be honest with you about something I've never said out loud in a chapter before: I have watched other people build successful businesses off ideas God gave to me first.

Not similar ideas. The same ones.

Back in 2008, God gave me recipes for natural health and beauty products. He gave me makeup application ideas. He gave me t-shirt slogans. I did nothing with any of it. I laid it all down the same way I laid down the manuscript — except this time there was no 2025 heart transformation waiting on the other side to bring me back to it in time to be first. I watched other people pick up the same kind of ideas years later and build thriving businesses with them.

He also gave me a vision for a women's prayer and discussion group in my own home. I laid that down too.

And here is the part I have to confess plainly: I have felt jealous watching other people succeed with what looks like my own download. But jealousy toward them was never the honest emotion. The honest one was grief over my own disobedience. It wasn't their fault they said yes. It was my fault I said not yet, and not yet became never, until it was too late for that particular door.

Here's a pattern I have to expose in myself so it doesn't stay hidden in you. With almost every job I've ever worked, I told myself: this is the last job I will ever work for someone else. And I meant it every time. I would quit, step out, believe I was finally walking in what God gave me — and then, because I felt God was taking too long with the finances, I would go find another job.

Last job. Then another last job. Then another one after that.

The final one ended in 2024. And this time, I mean it in a way I couldn't back then, because I finally understand what those cycles cost me — not just money, but years.

I have to talk to you specifically — the one who has quit before and gone back before, who has said “this is it” more than once and meant it every single time and still ended up back in the same place. You are not disqualified from meaning it now just because you didn't mean it enough the last three times. But you do have to be honest about the pattern instead of pretending this is the first time you've said it.

But God did not let 2024 be the end of me the way it could have been. It became the actual last job — not because I finally had enough willpower, but because I finally stopped waiting on my finances to give me permission to obey. I am developing my measure now. And I will not waver or cower again.

Here's something else I have to name plainly, because it doesn't just apply to business — it's part of the same disobedience. For years, I let people talk me out of what my gift was worth. They wanted my service but didn't respect my price. And because I loved doing what I did, I gave a lot of it away instead of standing on what it actually cost. God eventually told me to stop — and I couldn't get mad at the people who devalued my work, because I was the one who allowed it.

Big brands don't hand out discounts because someone complains the price is too high. Neither should you. Someone will tell you your price is too much, then go pay double for the same thing somewhere else. They were never too poor to pay you. They just didn't want to pay you. Getting in your emotions about a gift you love can cost you the very thing that gift was supposed to provide.

I have an aunt, in her eighties, who called me after my first book was published. She told me she had many manuscripts of her own she had never published — and that she wanted to. That was after 2022. As far as I know, she still hasn't done it.

I don't say that to shame her. I say it because I am 61 years old writing this chapter, and I cannot afford to do what I watched her do. I cannot afford to still be talking about it and not doing it. Procrastination doesn't wait for you to feel ready. It just waits for time to run out on the conversation.

Reflect:

What idea did God give you that someone else is now building successfully? Where have you let someone devalue your gift because you loved it too much to charge what it was worth? What pattern of starting and quitting do you need to name honestly before God?

Declare aloud:

What God gave me is not disqualified just because I delayed it. I will not wait for my finances to give me permission to obey. I know what my gift is worth, and I will not apologize for charging it. Today, I mean it.

Pray:

Father, forgive me for every idea I buried out of fear instead of stewarding out of faith. Forgive me for the cycles of quitting and returning, and for letting people devalue what You entrusted to me because I loved it too much to protect it. I release the jealousy I've felt toward others who said yes to what You gave me first, and I ask You to help me steward what's still mine to build — at what it's actually worth. I don't have time to waste anymore. Give me the courage to move now, not when I feel ready — now. In Jesus' Name. Amen.

To the reader: don't wait any longer. Step out on faith and believe God will lead the way.

What God gave me was never separate from how He planned to provide for me. My hairstyling has been ministry that paid me for nearly thirty years. My writing is ministry that pays me too. The wealth was never outside the calling — it was inside it the whole time. A woman of God once told me my writing was anointed, and that's where my finances would come from. I didn't understand it then the way I understand it now.

But God gave me something else to learn along the way. For years, I let people talk me out of what my gift was worth — my time, my skill, my product — because I loved what I did enough to give it away instead of standing on what it actually cost. Getting in our emotions about a gift we love can make us hand it over for less than God intended, or for nothing at all. That's not generosity. That's undervaluing what He entrusted to you.

This is where my ache started — watching what God gave me sit buried while I leaned on a job, and giving away what I did have out of love instead of wisdom. It's not where it ended. So many women of God are doing the same thing right now: burying what He entrusted them with because of fear, doubt, and stagnation — or handing it away for less than it's worth because someone talked them down. The rest of this journal is how I stopped doing both, and started operating in what He called me to do, at what it's actually worth — because that's where the abundance actually is.

Full journal releasing soon.

Linda McKinzie Ministries

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