Are You Burying Your Talent? The Cost of Spiritual Fear in Business
A wake-up call for Christian founders to stop hiding behind caution and steward their gifts with courageous multiplication.
Published February 19, 2025 • Total Freedom Life
In our previous conversation we reframed profit as the power station that energizes your Kingdom assignment. Yet, for many founders, that station sits idle. The lines are built, the equipment shines, but the switch is still off. Not because of greed—but because of fear dressed up as spirituality.
The Parable of the Talents in Matthew 25 exposes the lie. The servant who buried what was entrusted to him was not rebuked for greed but for fear. When we mistake timidity for holiness, we quietly begin to bury the very ideas, skills, and resources God invited us to multiply.
How Modern Founders Bury Their Talent
You do not need a shovel to hide your talent in the ground. Today it looks far more polished and even pious.
- Playing it small: Calling caution “humility” while avoiding expansion God already invited you to pursue.
- Analysis paralysis: Spending months perfecting spreadsheets in the name of “seeking wisdom” while never taking action.
- Hoarding resources: Stockpiling cash “just in case” instead of investing in people, systems, and growth.
- Ignoring innovation: Clinging to old processes because they feel safe even when they strangle capacity.
- Fear-based pricing: Discounting your value to avoid being labeled greedy, effectively devaluing the gift God placed in you.
Each of these responses sounds prudent, but Jesus called the buried-talent servant “wicked and lazy.” Fear-based maintenance is still disobedience.
Naming the Fears Behind the Mask
Spiritual language often hides very human anxieties. When we drag those fears into the light, they lose their grip.
- Fear of failure: “If this doesn’t work, does it mean God was never in it? Will I lose credibility with my church or family?”
- Fear of risk: “This is God’s money—better to protect it than to invest in a campaign that might not work.”
- Fear of worldliness: “If we scale, will I become the rich young ruler?”
- Fear of success: “Who am I to steward something that big? Surely God meant this vision for someone else.”
The antidote is not recklessness—it is right-sized confidence that God is responsible for the results while we are responsible for obedience.
The Hidden Cost of “Safe” Stewardship
The servant believed returning the original sum would be enough. Instead, he lost everything. Playing it safe carries a steep Kingdom price.
- Stagnation: A venture that never innovates slowly withers in today’s marketplace.
- Lost impact: The roles you never filled and clients you never served stay in the dark because the “power station” remained offline.
- Muted witness: A thriving, ethical enterprise proclaims a bold God; a timid one whispers unbelief.
- Missed multiplication: The master was looking for increase. Every buried talent forfeits exponential Kingdom influence.
Five Ways to Unbury Your Talent
- Redefine stewardship: Stewardship includes protection, but it culminates in multiplication. You are called to cultivate, not conserve.
- Reframe risk as faith: The faithful servants invested. Prayerful, researched, Spirit-led risk is obedience.
- Separate identity from outcomes: Your value is anchored in Christ, not in a balance sheet. That freedom unlocks bold action.
- Practice prudent boldness: Seek counsel, build a plan, then step. Make the hire. Launch the offer. Put your talent to work.
- Keep the grid in view: Remember who waits on the other end—families, communities, ministries. Your courage powers their breakthrough.
The Master entrusted you with skills, relationships, and resources. He is not asking you to sit on them. He is inviting you to multiply them so that His Kingdom can ripple outward.
Pick Up the Shovel
Look at the ideas, capital, and influence God placed in your hands. What has you buried? This is your invitation to dig it up, plug it in, and let the current of bold stewardship flow through every part of your business.
Ready to Unbury Your Talent?
Total Freedom Life walks alongside founders who refuse to let fear dictate their future. Together we architect strategies that honor God and multiply the resources He entrusted to you.
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