I went to the marketplace with a product I loved and a brand I believed in. I had a name, a logo, a table, and a story. What I did not have was any real evidence that the gap I thought I was filling was what anyone actually needed. I had not asked. I had not looked. I had moved on instinct, anointed it with prayer, and called it faith.
Not only that, but I never fully considered my capacity to make it sustainable. In my head, I thought I would figure things out along the way. For eight years, I tried to fit the square peg of my business into the round hole of the market and my life — and I never once stopped to ask why it did not fit.
That is not a failure of effort. I had plenty of effort. That is a failure of assessment. I never surveyed the land.
The Man Who Went Out at Night
The book of Nehemiah is one of my favorites, especially for business owners. Everything he did was intentional. Nothing was hasty. Every move was well thought out, led, and confirmed by God. He didn't move on instinct — he regularly conferred with God to ensure he was on the right path.
When Nehemiah arrived in Jerusalem, he didn't call a town hall. He did not gather the elders and cast the vision. He did not post about what God had put on his heart. He went out at night, with a small group of men, and he looked at the broken walls himself.
"I went out by night by the Valley Gate to the Dragon Spring and to the Dung Gate, and I inspected the walls of Jerusalem that were broken down and its gates that had been destroyed by fire."
He saw the rubble. He measured the damage. He assessed what was actually broken before he opened his mouth about what could be rebuilt.Verse 16 tells us that the officials did not know where he had gone or what he was doing — because he had not yet told them. He was gathering truth before he gathered people.
That is not timidity. That is wisdom. And it is one of the most overlooked forms of strategy in the entire Bible.
Nehemiah's survey of the wall was not preparation for the vision. God gave him the vision before he even got to town. The assessment was the strategy.
He turned the spiritual plan into a practical plan.We Announce Before We Assess
God places something on our hearts. We feel the weight of it, the rightness of it, the urgency of it. And before we have surveyed the landscape or audited our own capacity, we tell everyone about it. We post. We pitch. We share the vision in its rawest, most unexamined form.
He knew the calling — God had already told him. But knowing the calling and understanding the landscape you are walking into are two entirely different things. One is given. The other is earned through the quiet, unglamorous, unsexy work of assessment.
We confused announcement with assignment. The announcement makes it feel real. It makes us believe we are moving in faith. If God said it, that settles it. In theory, that is true. In execution, accepting what God said does not mean you need to tell the whole world.
A survey at the beginning would have saved me years. The calling was genuine. The construction was wrong.
Confirmation Is Not a Reaction to Your Announcement
Every genuine calling comes with confirmation. That is a promise, not a suggestion. But the confirmation does not come because you shared the plan. It comes because God has already been working in the hearts and minds of the people He has positioned around you.
You are not looking for people to validate the vision. You are looking for people who have already seen what God showed you — before you said a word. That is a different kind of conversation. It is not a pitch meeting. It is a revelatory moment.
Nehemiah eventually shared the vision — but only after he had assessed the walls, received the king's blessing, and gathered what he needed. When he finally spoke, he spoke from a place of preparation, not impulse. His people did not just hear a dream. They heard a plan. And the plan was credible because the work had already been done in private.
Three Practices for a Prayerful Survey
Before you share the vision, do the work Nehemiah did. Here is what that looks like in practice.
Before you assess the marketplace, assess yourself. What do you actually have right now — in time, energy, skill, finances, and season of life? Not what you plan to have. Not what you are believing God for. What is present and available today?
A calling is real even when your capacity is limited. But a strategy built on a capacity you do not yet have will collapse under its own weight. Nehemiah assessed the walls — but he had already assessed himself in Susa before he ever asked the king for permission to go. You must be willing to be honest about where you lack; that is what leaves room for God to show up and be God.
The need you feel called to fill, and the need that actually exists in the marketplace, are not always the same thing — and the distance between them is where many good businesses quietly fail. Before you build the offer, research the problem. Talk to the people you believe you are called to serve — not to pitch them, but to listen. Read what they are writing. Observe what they are asking for. Look at what currently exists and what is still missing.
Your vision should survive the scrutiny of research. If it doesn't, that is your sign to check back in with God.
There is no person in the Bible who carried their vision alone. Moses had Aaron, Elijah had Elisha, and Jesus had a whole squad. If the King of Kings had a support system, why shouldn't you? Your trusted advisors need to be people you can be vulnerable with, who are willing to tell you the truth even when it is hard, and who know God intimately enough to talk to and hear from Him on their own.
One word of caution: don't automatically go for the people with whom you feel most comfortable. Those closest to you may not be able to see or appreciate the vision. Be prayerful about who to allow into this sacred space. God will reveal them to you if you ask.
Survey the Wall Before You Lay a Stone
If you are carrying a vision right now — something God has shown you, something you feel the urgency of, something that keeps you up at night — I want to invite you to do one thing before you announce it, launch it, or build it.
Go out at night. Quietly. And look at the walls.
Assess the gap you are actually called to fill. Audit the capacity you actually have. Find your trusted advisors — not to pitch them, but to listen to what God has already shown them. And let the silence between the calling and the announcement be the place where the strategy is formed.
Nehemiah did not rush to rebuild because the walls were broken. He surveyed first. And when he finally did speak, he spoke with the authority of a man who had seen the damage himself and already counted the cost. That kind of authority is not given. It is built — in the quiet, in the dark, one honest assessment at a time.
Questions for Your
Trusted Advisors
This week, take some time to complete the exercise linked below. It is a set of questions designed for your trusted advisors — to test the vision and receive confirmation without the bias of an announcement.
Be warned: this is an exercise in vulnerability and humility. This isn't the time to defend yourself, but an opportunity to hear and see what you could not on your own.
Access the Trusted Advisors Exercise →Lord, give me the discipline of Nehemiah. The kind that goes quietly before it goes public. The kind that looks honestly at what is broken before it promises to rebuild. Forgive me for the times I have announced what I had not yet assessed, and for the seasons I built on assumptions I never tested.
Today, I ask for the courage to survey before I speak. To audit my capacity honestly — not in fear, but in wisdom. To choose my advisors carefully and to hear them fully. And when confirmation comes — let me recognize it not as agreement with my plan, but as evidence that You have been preparing the ground long before I arrived.
I want to build what You actually called me to build, not the version of it I invented before I looked at the walls. Guide my assessment. Steady my silence. And when it is time to speak, let what I say be worth the weight of what I have seen. In Jesus' name. Amen.
"Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much."
Matthew 25:23
Have you ever announced a vision before you assessed it? Drop a comment below. Complete the Trusted Advisors exercise this week — the link is in the post. Wednesday's entry goes deeper into what a faithful assessment actually produces.
With Love,
LaKeisha
P.S. — The Trusted Advisors exercise is live at lentsuah.com/your-trusted-advisors. Do it before you share the vision with anyone else.