Kingdom Mindset · Beyond FMF towards a Kingdom Mindset
"Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind." (Romans 12:2, NIV)
For years I lived in what I call FMF: Feed My Family, entrepreneurship that exists only to cover the household's survival. It is honest, and it is not enough. You earn more on paper and stay fragile in the till and in the heart. Moving beyond it took me ten kilometres on foot.
How I got there
After we had a clear ten-year growth strategy for Ebenezer, I set out to raise the money to fund it. For months we negotiated with banks. We had hit what development finance calls the missing middle: too big for microfinance, too small or too risky for traditional bank lending.
The banks wanted the five Cs of lending: character, capacity, capital, collateral and conditions. Our capacity was strong; the cash flows could carry the repayments. Our collateral was weak. Every bank offered only a fraction of what we needed, at a rate just shy of 20%. We paid upwards of Shs 5 million for valuation reports, from valuers on the bank's own approved list.
A bank serves its shareholders. There is no shame in that, but it means the bank is not necessarily serving the customer across the desk. I had been through an MBA. It had given me a critical mind, and I did not use it in that room. The bank's story (too risky, not bankable, come back when you have more land) had quietly become my story.
Two days before the walk, a staff member from that same bank, who had appraised me, told me I did not need that loan. I did not believe him. Yet that night I said no to the bank in my head.
The walk
I set out at six in the morning. I walked two rounds of Jubilee, Main and Bufunda streets in Ibanda, then took the Ibanda–Kazo road, stopping as I did every morning at Bubaare Catholic Church for prayers.
I was carrying one question. I was reading Charles Duhigg's The Power of Habit, where Paul O'Neill takes over Alcoa and talks to investors about worker safety, not margins. Safety was his keystone, the one thing that, honoured first, pulls everything else with it. What was mine?
When Katongole came into view I had walked ten kilometres, and I was exhausted. And the no I had said in my head became a decision. If I did not stop chasing that loan, I would stay in the rat race for ever. The answer to O'Neill's question came with it: get free of the bank, and protect our keystone, which is diagnosis.
The New Testament has two words for time. Chronos is clock time. Kairos is the decisive moment. Chronos was the months of negotiating. Kairos was that morning at Katongole.
That night I wrote the email to the bank. I was afraid. We had invested so much to get that far. But it was the right thing to do for the business.
Why I call it Kingdom Mindset
The pattern I had conformed to was the waiting room: wait for the bank's blessing, the perfect grant, the rescue that never quite arrives. That is a survival mind. It asks only how to get through this month.
Jesus gives another order: "But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well" (Matthew 6:33, NIV). Moses reminded Israel that it is the Lord "who gives you the ability to produce wealth" (Deuteronomy 8:18, NIV). The ability, not the rescue.
A Kingdom Mindset is a builder's mind. It stops waiting for relief and digs with what God has already put in our hands. It builds for more than one surname. And it is patient enough to let small things grow underground for years.
What is your keystone? And which master is the story in your head serving?
The full story, including what we built instead of the loan, is in Principle 5 of my book, Beyond the Stethoscope, available from 10 November 2026. To think through your own business with me, book a coaching session in our app: ebenezerclinic.org/coaching-booking.