Transcription
When God tells you to do something, you do it without excuse, without complaint, because safety is found in obedience. You have to follow the Peace of the Lord. If there is no peace, you need to take a step back, get quiet and still before Him, and allow Him to show you where you need to pivot.
Welcome back on this episode of "How Do I Know God Told Me to Move?" We're going to get into the nitty-gritty of enduring after you make that decision to obey. We move in faith, we step out there, we do what it is God is telling us to do. Then it comes with opposition. Then it comes with endurance, being here on this side of the promise, not feeling comfortable.
When it came to my job, feeling this desire and this shifting for more, I realized that peace was found in my ability to remain planted and not to uproot. Uprooting, giving up, running away—that's easy. We get so caught up in what is happening around us that we neglect what it is God has told us to do.
When God told me to move to Texas by faith, He orchestrated every step. I had the promise of the husband once I obeyed, but my first focus was to keep my eyes on God. It was to be a good steward of the job that He got me supernaturally at this law firm and lean into now being in that place of obedience. Law school was just the vehicle God used to get me to Texas.
Once I got here, He made it very clear that law school is not what He had for me. I had to sit with Him and realize going to law school would be a way to show people, "Like, I did it. I accomplished something," because it's normal, it's comfortable. Being a business owner and entrepreneur, walking by faith, saying, "I'm here in this state solely because God told me to," that's uncomfortable. When you tell people what the Lord has told you, you look real crazy. It's crazy until it happens.
Moving to Texas post-pandemic, there were a lot of God wins, down to even the couch. I got a prophetic word about how God had a custom-made couch for me, and everything was backordered. I remember stumbling into this local shop, and they had discounted this couch, lifetime warranty, beautiful couch. I was able to get it delivered immediately. Leaning into those prophetic words being assurance because the enduring in between the word and a couple of God's promises.
When you're in the waiting, you have to lean on the things that God has already done and the things God has said. I had these prophetic words as hope. I had the Word of God as hope. I meditated on His scripture. I got still. I played worship music. I allowed my community to hold me up in this moment of vulnerability.
When you move in faith, when all odds are against you, when even those closest to you, like your family, are not in agreement, you have no choice but to lean on God and to guard your gates. When you step out in faith, you have to silence all the distractions. You have to put your face like flint before the Lord. Put on that helmet of salvation, put on the full armor: the belt of truth, the breastplate of righteousness, the shoes of the gospel of peace. Pick up the shield of faith to swing with the sword of the Spirit. Keep that armor on deck. You don't waver, you don't shrink back.
And give yourself grace. You're going to have moments of weakness. You're going to grieve the idea of who you thought you were as you step out into the deep. You'll find yourself back at this starting point where you felt like you processed through. Sometimes it takes several trips around the mountain before you muster up enough courage to climb again. Breaking the cycle, it's pushing past that barrier of complacency, pushing past that barrier of doubt and fear. It's doing something that's uncommon to your nature. Where we may be comfortable with making excuses and doubting and being fearful, it's saying, "What does the Word of God say? What is God saying to me?" and standing on it.
Journaling has been my bestie through it all because I can look back at what God has spoken to me in moments and apply it when there is uncertainty. I am stewarding the voice of the Lord through documenting everything. I have an account of what He is doing and what He has done. When I'm in this waiting, I know that God is faithful to complete what He started because that's what His Word says. That's the proof, the tangible history that I have with Him. God is not a man that should lie, and His words will not return to Him void.
When I moved to Texas, it was vulnerable. I had to start over. I had to grow in community. I had to introduce myself, and I was not received well when I first moved here. What happens when you come into a new community and you are secure in who you are, you're authentic in who God has called you to be? That ruffles the feathers of the environment that you are called to shift and to bring your uniqueness into. Where people are comfortable in their complacency, they're comfortable in their lukewarmness, you're on fire. Your radicalness, your obedience stirs the waters.
We look at the story of Joseph, where God used the junk in his brothers' hearts to catapult him into the future so that he could save his bloodline. The Lord will allow the junk in people's hearts to push us into the future. God will close the eyes of those who have our best intentions at heart and allow them to be opposition, so we have no choice but to step out into our destiny. I wonder if Moses's mother knew that her putting him in the basket would land him in the house of the one who is killing. If she would have did it, but God. God didn't allow her to see it, allowed her to obey so that He could save a generation.
When you're called to do something that's unconventional, it is nerve-wracking, scary, frustrating. You feel exposed. You don't have all of this support that you thought you did. Sometimes the people that were with you in the beginning can't go with you through, because "through" is between you and God. "Through" is you learning how to hear God's voice in a new way. It's one thing to study the Word and to know the Word. It's another thing to apply the Word and to live it out.
This life is all about denying who we think we are to be who God has called us to be. This life, this walk, this Christian journey is one of self-denial and laying your life down so God can get the glory. All things work together for the goodness of those that love Him and are called according to His purpose. We are to count it all joy when we are faced with trials of various kinds because it will create in us an endurance, a character that is perfect and complete and lacking nothing.
When I look back over my life, I see the signs of fortitude. When you look back over your life, what is that area that has been under attack that God has actually given you authority in? Where I have struggled with fear and anxiety, on the flip side, God has really given me a dominance in faith to believe that He is who He says He is, even when it doesn't make sense. When He's got the fear, anxiety under control, I can now use the vehicles that He puts in my path to grow me in maturity, to go into the territories that He's called me to occupy. And the same is for you.
Where in your life do you see opposition, especially when you move and do what it is God is telling you to do? I need you to divorce this idea that it's going to be great and everything's going to be lovely. There are going to be days where you are isolated, frustrated, annoyed, and sad that you can't even get out of the bed. It doesn't mean you have backslidden. It just means that this is where the character is being developed. This is where fortitude is birthed. This is the characteristics that are needed for you to stand on the front lines, to be this remnant that will arise as God uses your life to advance His kingdom.
God told you to move, and you moved. Now what? You're in the thick of it. You're in the moment where you obeyed, and now you're waiting on God to continue to show Himself faithful. He is faithful to complete what He started in us. He says, "Greater is He that's in us than he that is in this world." We can rest on the fact that to be absent from this body means to be present with the Lord. We can rest on the fact that when Jesus died on the cross and rose on the third day, we are being inherited and engrafted into a kingdom that is everlasting, that far outweighs the temporary struggles on this Earth. What does it profit a man to gain this world but lose his soul?
When you make a decision to obey and do what God is telling you to do, after you said yes, after you followed peace, after you put the steps in place, and after you acted on those steps, when you get to this point where you made the decision and you did it, you have to endure to continue to gather the pieces that make up the larger picture. You have to pursue peace and find peace in your decision and peace in the knowing that what you go through is for the fortifying and the edifying and the building of your character.
It looks crazy when the Lord has people pray against counterfeits. That counterfeits arise, and you have dreams that are warning dreams. You have to disassociate from friends who are no longer able to go where you were going, and maybe you'll be able to reach back and pull them forward. You have to be honest with yourself about yourself and keep yourself protected in the most vulnerable of states. You cannot let everybody speak into your life, nor can you listen to everything. You have to check your heart.
When the algorithm is pushing all of this content about you and your husband, what is God saying for you about you right now? Not to the internet prophets, what is God saying to you? Get in your Word. Come to know Him for who He is, and allow Him to be your first point of authority. Submit yourself under integral, Bible-believing authority, and allow this wise counsel to also be a sounding board for your obedience.
I will be the first to testify that when you get to this place and you make the decision to go forth, God is going to continue to throw curveballs that may not align with what you thought. I thought I would be a lawyer by now by the time I moved here. God said, "That is not the plan that I have for you." The husband did come five months into me being here, but those five months, you best believe I fought for my life. Even when I got to the place of courtship, I fought for my life. I fought for my life to get to the altar. I'll talk about that in the next series of "What They Don't Tell You When You Get Married," about how it's a sanctification process. And if you're looking for somebody to tell you who you are instead of who God says you are, you will settle for what you think is best instead of settling for what God has best for you.
When you know who you are, you won't settle for less. When you know who you are, you can spot the counterfeits and say, "No, thank you." When you know who you are, you will guard your gates and not allow anything to tamper with what God has told you.
It's okay to pivot. It's okay to admit when you get it wrong. As an arrow is sent back, it goes back through. I thought because the pullback was in a city in North Carolina that the Lord was telling me to move there before going to Texas. I was there for maybe a week before I came back home. It was too much. In that moment, the Lord taught me, "It's okay to think I told you something and it not be, because safety is still found in your obedience." I moved in faith thinking that's what God told me to do, and there was safety in the fact that I could go back home. You can always go back home. We can never be so prideful or shameful that we allow ourselves to wallow in despair. We have to know that there are people that God has planted in our path to help us when we fall.
I see this image of Moses when he had to stand before the people, and Aaron and Hur had to hold his arms up so he wouldn't get tired. There are people in position to hold your arms up so that you don't get tired. But it comes with growing your gift of discernment of spirits, to not let everybody in, to walk in privacy and share with whom God tells you to share with.
When you get to this place of obedience, after you make the decision to move in faith, you have to also make a decision to remain, despite what it looks like, what it feels like, or the lessons that you will have to learn on the way to the promise. God dealt with me on my business. I had to sit it down for those two years that I moved here. At the beginning of 2023, He had me do little things to transfer my business here to Texas, dissolve my LLC in North Carolina. When we move in faith and God tells us the things that He wants us to focus on, it's not always a right now. It's sometimes a slow progression towards it.
It makes me wonder because I'm ready to transition from design in the capacity in which I'm doing. I am sure that there are people, great men and women of faith, who don't necessarily want to do what they need to do right now. Design brings in the money. I will design until God allows that revenue to be something completely different. You will endure and remain in what God is telling you to do until He provides another way. If you're supposed to be in a 9-to-5, put your hand to the plow and be in that 9-to-5. If you're supposed to own a business, put your hand to the plow and own that business. But do not let social media convince you of a life God never called you to live. Let God be the author and the finisher of your faith, telling you what you're supposed to do, and keep your eyes on Him.
At the beginning of 2023, as I'm preparing for marriage, the Lord had me do subtle things to transition my business because He knew that my job would end two days before my wedding. He knew it would end. He knew I would meet my husband five months after moving here by way of a dating app. Being obedient to go back home to get on that dating app. Girl, repetition. More than three people told me about dating apps, and I leaned in. Had to obey. Cutting off communication with some of the people that popped up in the midst of my walking towards the promise. It was all for my character development. It taught me what I wanted and what I did not want. It showed me what would deter me from what it is God is calling me to do.
That's the point. The point is to look more like Christ. How dare we ask to be used by God, then complain with how He does it? We can't. Double-mindedness is unstable. When you're double-minded, you can't receive what you ask. That's in James, James 1. You want to stand sure-footed on the fact that no matter what it looks like, no matter what it feels like, you will obey the first time. You will walk this path out, even if God uses things that you think are part of the promise as just vehicles to continue your journey.
Makes me think of the Rich Young Ruler. Who would he have become? Who would the Rich Young Ruler have become had he given up his riches? Because we know based off of his life, he had the ability to get wealth, and nothing is wasted in the kingdom of God. That's somewhere along the way that skill would have probably been put to use. When we can't release, we also can't receive. We can't be made more like Christ when we are so focused on it looking a certain way. Expectations have to die. Logic cannot go where God has plans on taking us. We have to make a decision to go where God plans on taking us. We have to be okay with whatever it looks like, as long as we are making decisions from the place of relationship with God.
And look back over your life and see what God has done. Keep a record of everything He's doing. Don't allow pride and arrogance to have a seat at the table. It's going to be difficult. There is going to be opposition, and that is where your character is developed. Coming into the newness of this state, finding favor in the sight of my pastors here, being allowed to teach during team preach, being told I'm able to be my radical self. It worked out. The community aspect worked out. I have some of the most amazing friends from this season and from my past season. Favor was found here despite the challenges that came with it. There is hope.
What happens when you obey and endure? You get to the promise. In return, you gather so much more. When the Lord told me to go back home before the three-year journey to getting to Texas, my brother, the influence I could make on his life, was the promise. Everything else—the publishing of my books, my podcast, creating my journals, my showcases that featured worship and poetry, faith-godly friends and community, the business that I was able to sustain for the two years—that was an addition to my yes.
When I moved to Texas, the husband was the promise, and everything else was an addition to my yes. Now that I am on the other side of the promise, we're merging our life together. We're getting vision for our family, and it means we both have to be selfless. I don't know what this journey and process is going to look like. There isn't a goal to be obtained right now. My only instruction is to be the best version of myself today and take steps in the direction that I think God is leading me. And as I walk, He gives me the next piece. Sometimes you have the promise and the vision, sometimes you don't. Will you still obey?
Be encouraged. You're walking by faith. You're learning God's voice in the newness of this season. You're a little more mature than when you first made the decision to obey. This whole journey is about sanctification and being made more like Christ. Whether you're single or married, say yes to God and be decided. And say yes to God when you're in the middle, waiting to get to what it is you think He has for you, because what He has for you, no eyes have seen or ears have heard, is exceedingly and abundantly more than you can think or ask. And it still may not look like what you think it will look like.
Next up, we're going to go into this series around marriage. When you get married, before you get married, the grieving, the challenging aspect of marriage. Not from me trying to tell you what to do, because baby, I'm still in it. I want to share what I have learned and what nobody told me. Even if they told me, there are some things that you just have to experience for yourself. That is a part of your process.
For those of you who are new here, my name is Jan Carly. My goal is to help you grow in life, faith, and business. Go ahead and hit the subscribe button, and I'll see you next week. Holla.