Before God convicted me, which was a direct follow-on of statement and therefore decree that I would be convicted, and I praise the Lord every day for redeeming me, I spent my whole life waiting to really feel alive.
I spoke about pressing play! And taking massive action! And following soul, alignment, and truth. All things which I did, and which were true. And all things I now so clearly see as being a way I sought to BE true through the limited lens I had chosen for myself.
The truth is that even at the time, the entire time, by which I mean not only my years in business and leadership, but my entire life, I felt uneasy.
I was aware that there was something missing. And what I felt most of all, what that lingering pull within wouldn’t stop bringing me back to?
This is not it.
This is not LIFE.
YOU ARE DERAILED.
I would write about and warn of creating a shadow business and a shadow life, but I myself was fighting continually to find TRUE certainty in my own path and destiny. And sure –
I was about as ‘on track’ as a human doing life through a not-God-first life can be. I believe God blessed me and those I reached through my work during that time to the level that He COULD in response to the level of my faith and submission to Him. I also understand now that my spiritual and supernatural giftings were always able to be deployed whether or not I did so through and for His glory, and thus … they worked. To a point. In a way.
The thing is, I was never NOT for God. I brought Him continually into the conversation. But that is a big big difference to knowing that He IS the conversation. And that everything everything EVERYTHING is for and through Him. It is, quite literally, an eternity impacting difference, and if you’re called to leadership and ministry … which in some way is ALL Christians … then not just for you.
So as I created, and sought my own with a dash-of-God-on-the-side path of alignment, and did my human best to be the leader, preacher, woman I came here to be, and applied myself to characteristics like discipline, resilience, tenacity, willingness to just do or say what was needed regardless of the outcome, and saw my business produce millions upon millions of dollars and become KNOWN for being a place which activated leaders into THEIR truth and millions, through it all, yes through ALL of it –
I felt like I was waiting to live.
I felt like I was wrestling on the inside ALWAYS.
I felt a continual pulsing beat which just would NOT stop, and what it said was THIS AIN’T IT. You write about the shadow life and you are LIVING it! Clinging to the things you don’t want to let go of. Terrified to truly humble yourself and submit. Listening to the devil’s lies about your worth and the ways in which you’ve already screwed up too much. And STUBBORNLY SLIDING YOUR WAY FORWARD WITH OH-SO-QUESTIONABLE SALVATION AT BEST and a definite FAILING to bring the true message you came here to share.
It was like being in some sort of decades long waiting room, limbo space, void, a wilderness I surely knew I could leave at anytime and yet chose not to, and why?
Because I believed the lies that I didn’t know how.
Because I made it about me to know that how.
Because I refused to consider letting go of habits and addictions I knew were not God’s best, or law.
Because because because … and maybe this is the greatest and scariest of all truths … because I just didn’t.
And I delusionally, like so many before me, so many around me, so many walking this earth now who are called to GREATNESS in His Kingdom and yet who risk destroying their LIVES, here and in eternity, and FAILING TO FULFIL THEIR MISSION ENTIRELY –
I bought into the idea that somehow,
magically,
I was still okay.
I was doing okay.
I was making a difference.
I was helping people.
And besides, I was born for it! Everybody knew it! So therefore … therefore … therefore … I was GOOD, right, with God?
Anybody? Bueller?
THE TRUTH IS I KNEW THE LIES I WAS LIVING, AND I REFUSED TO LISTEN. I could talk for a million years and shed a million tears about how and why this happened and what most trapped or bound or sucked me in but all that matters right now is THAT I REPEATEDLY AND FOR DECADES JUST DIDN’T DECIDE TO FULLY SUBMIT TO GOD AND WHO HE SENT ME HERE TO BE, AND THEN?
I just did.
No I didn’t feel it.
No I didn’t know how.
No a dove didn’t come down from heaven and tell me it was time.
I just decided.
And I said CONVICTED would be my word for 2023, and that I would, no matter what, put God first. And then I applied for DISCIPLINE and HABIT to do that at first. Still not feeling it! But simply – following through.
And God heard my prayers.
He listened to my cry.
He saw my changed heart and my baby steps to truly learn and know Him.
He sent me the right people and words and books.
He blessed me with greater courage, and wisdom, discernment, and strength.
And the more I drew near to Him,
the more He drew near to me.
And the more I showed my true willingness to KNOW Him which is to OBEY Him, SURRENDER to Him, acknowledge it ALL in Him,
the more He revealed to me.
And within weeks
maybe days
certainly minutes,
in the end
I just
fell in
If I could tell you of the freedom …
If I could tell you of the certainty …
If I could tell you of the FINDING of yourself …
If I could tell you of the joy …
If I could tell you of the DISCERNMENT, the wisdom, the assuredness of the path …
If I could tell you the ways in which you will begin to be repulsed at what repulses Him, and to delight in what delights Him …
and how this results, as you are ever more overflowing with and saying yes to and ASKING of His Holy Spirit in you, in it becoming NATURAL for you to truly change,
to let go
to loosen
to BECOME
THEN I WOULD AND WILL SPEND ALL MY DAYS TELLING YOU.
But for now let me tell you this
I know for some of you out there
you’ve been waiting to feel alive
for your whole entire life
you’ve been pressing forward valiantly
dutifully
as best as you can ALIGNEDLY
and you’re doing GOOD my sister
you’re doing so GOOD my brother
you are making a DIFFERENCE
but you’re not
doing GOD
and for some of you
that is ALL THERE EVER WILL BE TO SAY ABOUT THAT
because you CAME here to lead
you CAME here to prophecy
you CAME here to preach
you CAME here for ministry
you CAME HERE NOT JUST TO IMPACT BUT TO SAVE SOULS
and every day
in which you ignore the pulse
the beat
the pull
inside
is another one in which you FAIL to press play
and bit by bit
carve out the wrong path
and ultimately
a lost destiny
the GOOD NEWS THE ONLY TRUE GOOD NEWS is that at any moment you can decide and then?
I JUST DID.
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