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When God brings clarity to the path

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In September I wrote a post titled An Update of Sorts & A Possible Answer To Your Prayers. It’s where I shared the three months that transpired after the Lord handed me a new assignment for a new season He was leading me into.

Years before God gave me a dream where He was telling me He was giving birth to something new in my life. I’ve loosely held that dream with curious wonder for all these years.

It’s been 10 months since I’ve updated you, so today’s post will be a bit of a catch up. I always trust when we share our personal stories, others will see their own stories tucked inside. So while today’s post doesn’t have an intentional lesson, I believe in the power of a story.

Unless you start with the previous post, today will make little sense to you.

When God prompts

When God continued prompting me to lead others on their own journey towards whole health, I saw a fraction of His purpose. I struggled against my pride, my desires, and my limitations in this pursuit.

For the last year I’ve been praying for God to show me if I am to release something, to let go of anything He doesn’t have in this season.

I’ve thought about discontinuing my blog, closing my shop, changing home school direction. I can’t possibly do it all I found myself crying out to the Lord.

Do people even read these blogs? Does anything come from me being present on social media? Does the world need another online shop? You get the picture.

But why God?

I’ve stayed in a state of asking God why He was leading me down a path of building a team and a business of helping people take control of their health and also how they can build their own business doing the same if they choose. Each time I’d ask, God would bring me a person who shared the darkness they found themselves in because of their health. Or someone who had run out of hope and needed someone to come alongside and hold their hand. Or simply a mom like me, tired of living tired, sick of feeling sick, worn down by feelings of anxiety and worry.

The company I’m a part of held its annual convention, which I didn’t see a need in attending. But I prayed, God opened the way, I felt His little nudge again, and I went.

God answers when we are prepared to receive

Over those 3 days in Las Vegas, everything changed. God showed me the magnitude of what He’d been inviting me into for the last year. The thing I kept wanting to figure out and understand.

God showed me the culture of the company firsthand. I listened to person after person proclaim Jesus boldly from the stage. I heard stories that left me in tears. God restoring health and life. God moving families into financial freedom so they could live radically generous lives and change the world. Dads retiring, coming home, and leading the family. Adoptions taking place. Homes created to rehabilitate rescued girls from sex trafficking. Some stories were jaw-dropping.

God was at the center of this company and this movement, and in His kindness, He invited me all the way to Las Vegas so I could see for myself a piece of the picture He knew I needed to see.

God gave me a vision for my future with this company that week.

He gave me everything I needed to come back and offer to everyone in my life the same thing I’d been invited into that is changing my life day by day.

I looked back on the last 13 years of my life and saw all the pieces God had been building all along in preparation for this.

  • How He’s been teaching me to listen to Him and follow even when I don’t understand.
  • Every season I’ve walked in has served a purpose.
  • Starting and closing an Etsy shop 9 years ago
  • leading a large team of entrepreneurs (failing miserably in the leadership department) 13 years ago
  • leading women’s ministry
  • growing a blog
  • learning new skills through technology
  • learning to develop myself and focus on personal growth and mindset.

All of these have been pieces that together make sense for where I am with this company.

I’ve learned

  • to listen and trust Him better than before.
  • even when He leads, it can appear like failure to my human eyes, but it serves a vital purpose.
  • to never stop growing and learning.
  • to tell fear I won’t let it stop me.
  • being scared is ok when doing something new, it’s only a problem if being scared prevents me from doing the thing.

I’ve learned that when God leads me, it might not make sense to anyone else. And that is ok.

Others may not understand

When I started I had people advise me to stop. They told me I would ruin my ministry if I changed course, particularly if I made money while doing it. All of the advice was driven by fear. I’ve learned God doesn’t use fear to speak to us. But the enemy sure does.

Money Mindset

I want to share one more piece of this story with you. Money and ministry is something I’ve struggled with until this year. When I wrote Seeking Christmas a friend told me they’d be supportive if I donated all my profits to charity. As if profiting at all would be wrong. Though if I were a “real” full-time writer, writing about something other than God, it would be ok to be paid for my time and talents. If I’m honest, deep down I’ve felt that way too.

When I started my blog I refused to monetize it. Deep down I held to this belief that money was wrong. Again, if I worked outside the home, being paid for my time and skills would be perfectly legitimate. As long as it didn’t mix with faith.

When I led women’s ministry, I accepted the position free of pay. Though others in ministry were paid for their time and talents. Somehow I continued holding onto the devaluing of the ministry if money were involved.

I went through a season of extreme guilt when we experienced financial growth or wins.

And then one day, I felt God whispering to simply thank Him. To release the guilt, thank Him, and live generously free.

I believe all of my misplaced money views played a role in my inability to simply yet boldly share this business opportunity with others the Lord invited me into.

Seeing the generosity of this company and the people who represent it, changed everything for me. People are changing the world. Kingdom work is happening. And God was inviting me to participate with Him.

Money can be used for evil and kingdom work. I was reminded of this yesterday at church. A leader spoke to the congregation regarding a season our church is in called All In. We are building a building, but it’s more than a building. And each person who stepped in faith is seeing the blessing of going All In with God, giving uncomfortably, and watching God do miracles.

This leader used a $5 bill with the example of how in the wrong hands it can be used towards evil of all kinds. But in the hands of a believer, it can be used to change the world.

And that is exactly what God showed me at the convention. We are vessels. We are here on this Earth for a very short time. If we live and move with God with open hands, He can funnel blessings through our lives we could never imagine.

So why do I share all this with you? Well, partly, because many of you feel like family to me. This blog was the beginning of this journey. Also, I’m fatigued of feeling like my life is compartmentalized. As if this space here is solely for devotional type sharings. Sometimes I simply miss the blogging days of sharing a day in the life or a season in the life. It’s all God’s.

Here’s the other reason, spend a little time looking back at your own life when you question where you are going. Has God been putting pieces together all along that felt so fragmented? Maybe they are more cohesive than you realized.

I love you, friends. As always, thank you for taking the journey with me.

If you want to take a look at this company that God is using to bless so many lives, send me a message. I’d love to share it with you.

 

Can You Follow When You Don’t Know Where You Are Going?

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We piled in the car after church and the questions began. “Where are we going? Are we going out to lunch? Where? What are we doing after lunch?” We wanted to take them to lunch, but we didn’t want to tell them where we were going. I kept wondering why they had to know. They knew we would feed them. They knew we wouldn’t choose something they despised. Why couldn’t they sit back and go along for the ride?

I imagine God wonders that about me. I imagine He wishes I would sit back and go along for the ride, simply following Him.

Sometimes following is hard when we don’t know where we are going. Sometimes He just asks us to follow. We don’t need to know where we are going. We just need to follow Him.

God’s doing something in me. I don’t know what it is. He has ignited something but hasn’t revealed what it is. There is a stirring, a pulling, a leading. God is doing something in Steve. He doesn’t know what it is. He just feels a leading.

I love putting pieces together. I love figuring out mysteries. I love for things to click and make perfect sense. I love to say, “This happened because of this.” Here’s the thing, following God, we rarely will see how all the pieces fit. We will never see the whole picture while we are here on this Earth. When we follow we have to surrender our desire to know where we are going. Hands up high, crying out, “God I will go, though I don’t know where I go.”

That is where I am right now. The further I go into the world of writing and speaking, the more frustrated I become because I don’t know where I’m going most of the time. I’m about to be brutally honest here. If you have followed me for awhile, this will come as no surprise. I likely share way too much information. Here goes anyway.

There is a rebel inside me. I’ve alluded to that before. Deep inside me is this little rebellious spirit that loves to push back. Not against God (though I have many times), not against doing what I know is right. My rebellion is always against following what appears to be the way of the “in” crowd. Something in me always rebels against following the way of the popular.

After I posted my letter to my boys, I saw something that disturbed me. Why did I care how many views it got? Why did I check my stats (the stats that I didn’t even know existed prior to that post)? Why did I care how many times it was shared?

I began praying, “Lord, let me not care so much for the attention that I lose the heart of the intention.”

That is where God has landed me. The way of the world says that to make Him known, we have to build a platform to stand upon so we can be heard above the noise. Something inside me rebels against this.

I write because I love you. I genuinely love you. I don’t want to build a platform. I want to make Him known. And this passion inside of me is growing stronger to the point I feel like something is about to explode right out of me.

After my viral blog post, I was contacted by one of the top agencies in the country. An agency I never in a million years would have submitted to for representation. It made no sense to me they would want to represent me and my itty bitty platform. But I moved forward. I didn’t sign a contract, I simply followed the steps they told me to follow.

Fast forward to a run I took with one of my best friends this week. I began pouring my heart out about God doing something and I needed a break from writing, but I’m scared I’m running away from a responsibility God has given me. She encouraged me to take a break to listen to God. I got home and received an email from the agency that the agent I was working with had moved on and they were deeply sorry for the position it left me in.

While it might seem disappointing, I felt freedom wash over me. I don’t know what God is doing in me. But I know that above anything He wants me to do, He desires I love Him so passionately that everything I do will bring honor and glory to Him. I don’t know where I’m going. All I know is that I write. I don’t have a clear plan.

Building a platform and making my name known seems to be the very opposite of what He wants me to do. The rebel in me wants to come out. But I can’t stop writing because if I stop writing I fear I won’t understand myself. It’s how life makes sense to me.

I’m opening my eyes to a new path. One where I will not ask where we are going.

Where is God leading you today? Is there a rebel that lives inside of you too? Is that rebel desiring to be used for God’s kingdom. To go against the popular and make Him known?

Would you share what your rebel is saying to you. Right here in this little blog space? I receive so many emails privately from readers, and I want to encourage the little rebel in you to leave a comment here. Why? Because you have no idea how much your thoughts can encourage someone else who needs to know they aren’t alone.

Matthew 16:24 Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.”

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