Had You Asked Me, I Would Have Told You | Beyond the Book: The Kingdom C-Suite

There is a sentence my father said to me twenty years ago that I did not fully understand at the time, but today I hear it very differently: “Had you asked me, I would have told you no.”

I was in my twenties and had been living in the United States for about two years. At the time, I was still pursuing the path I had envisioned for myself before moving here. I wanted to continue in law, eventually work in international human rights, and I was preparing for the next step, which meant getting ready for the LSAT.

I wanted to take a preparation course, but it was expensive, somewhere around $2,500, and I did not have the money. I did not want to ask my father because, in my mind, he had already done enough. He had helped me come to the United States, supported me in so many ways, and I simply did not want to ask for more.

So I asked my uncle instead. He agreed to help me and gave me part of the money. I was grateful, and afterward I went to tell my father what had happened because I did not want him to hear from someone else that his brother had given me money.

I still remember his expression changing when I told him. He asked me why I had gone to my uncle, and I explained that I thought it would be easier. I did not want to bother him or put another demand on him.

That is when he said, “Had you asked me, I would have told you no.”

At the time, I did not fully understand why that mattered so much. I thought I had simply found another solution to a problem. I had a legitimate need, someone had the ability to help, they were willing, and from where I stood, everything made sense.

Years later, I began to understand that moment very differently, and it has become one of the clearest ways I think about Spiritual Intelligence and decision-making today.

Sometimes something can make perfect sense and still not be the direction God has for us.

The opportunity may be available. The numbers may work. The person may be willing. The strategy may be sound. Everything we can see may suggest that we should move forward, and yet God may know something we do not know.

That is one of the reasons I am so passionate about Spiritual Intelligence, especially in business and leadership. We have become very skilled at evaluating what we can see. We study the market, analyze the numbers, review the data, seek counsel, assess risk, compare options, and now we have access to technology and artificial intelligence that can help us process more information than ever before.

All of those things have value. But what happens when the information you need cannot be found in the data? What happens when the real question is not simply, Can I do this? but, Should I? What happens when an opportunity is profitable but not authorized, or when something appears to be a closed door while God is actually saying yes?

This is where I believe many of us, often without realizing it, have made God the consultant to our business instead of King over it.

We pray. We ask Him to bless the business. We tithe, give, serve people well, and genuinely desire for our work to honor Him. Yet when it comes to the actual operations of the business, the decisions, the hiring, the partnerships, the offers, the goals, the systems, the marketing, the money, we can still function as though we are ultimately the ones in charge.

I know because that is what God had to show me in my own business.

In 2022, I kept sensing Him asking me to dedicate my business to Him, and honestly, I did not understand. I thought I already had. I knew He had called me to it. I prayed about it. I gave. I wanted to honor Him with it. So I kept wondering, What more do You mean when You say dedicate the business to You?

What He began to show me was that doing something for Him was not the same thing as doing it with Him.

That distinction changed everything for me.

I realized that I could genuinely love God, genuinely want to serve Him through my work, and still functionally lead alone. I could pray in the morning and then spend the rest of the day making decisions without ever really asking what He thought about them. I could seek Him for the major things, the moments when I was stuck or when the decision felt too big for me, while assuming that the smaller things were mine to handle.

But He wanted to be present in those too. He wanted access to the agenda, the strategy, the operations, the marketing, the finances, the people, the products, and the details. He was not asking me for another spiritual activity to add to my morning. He was teaching me how to recognize Him as Lord in the actual work.

That journey eventually became The Kingdom C-Suite, but long before it became a book, it became a way of learning how to lead differently.

And this is why that sentence from my father still speaks so deeply to me today.

Had you asked me, I would have told you.

Not always no.

Sometimes God may say yes to the very thing we are afraid to pursue. Sometimes He may tell us to move when every visible indicator suggests we should stay. Sometimes He may redirect us altogether.

The point is not that His answer will always be what we expect. The point is that we asked.

There is another thing the Lord impressed upon me years ago that I have never forgotten: everything in life is about trade.

Since then, I have learned to look beyond the immediate price of a decision and ask a deeper question: What am I trading for this?

Because I can know the price of something and still not understand its cost.

A partnership can produce revenue and still cost peace. An opportunity can increase visibility while moving us away from the assignment. A decision can solve an immediate problem while creating consequences we could not see when we made it.

And the opposite can also be true. Obedience may appear costly in the moment while protecting something far more valuable in the future.

This is why discernment matters.

It is not about becoming suspicious of everything around us, rejecting wise counsel, or ignoring strategy, data, expertise, technology, or even AI. I believe all of those can be useful tools. The issue is whether we have allowed any of them to occupy a seat that belongs to God.

They can inform us. They cannot be King.

And perhaps that is the question I want to leave with you this week as you consider whatever is in front of you right now, whether it is a business decision, a partnership, a hire, an investment, a launch, a move, a new opportunity, or something that seems so small that you would normally decide without giving it much thought.

Have you asked Him?

Not simply, God, bless what I am about to do.

But, God, what do You see that I cannot see? What is Your perspective? What are You saying about this?

If you would like to hear me share the fuller story behind The Kingdom C-Suite, including how this journey began and why I believe inviting God into the day-to-day decisions of our businesses matters so deeply, I recently shared it during my Beyond the Book virtual conversation.

You can watch the full recording here: