Just be obedient

Can anyone agree with me when I say obedience can sometimes be hard? I think alot of people try to make God conventional. But God is soooo unconventional. God always sees the bigger picture. Last Wednesday at church, Dr. Bradley was speaking on obedience. I love when a pastor is all is your business lol The Word can cut you for sure. But it's the sharp Word that shapes you into who you're meant to be.

He went on to say he once was offered a job making a whole bunch of money. So he was going to accept it. He had never made that kind of money in his life. He spoke with his pastor at the time and his pastor told him to pray. He had his mind set on it already but after prayer, God told him not to take the job. He had the choice to be disobedient but he chose to listen to God and a few months later the company folded. #Bummer

He said once he decided not to take the job, people were calling him crazy. They couldn't understand why he would walk away from such an amazing opportunity. It's important to hear God's voice for yourself. Those people would've messed him up had he listened to them. But that story is evidence that God can see the things that we so often can't see. Even when it doesn't make sense, God's instructions are there to guide us to our ultimate place in Him. He had no idea that God has called him to pastor at that point. If he had gone along with what he wanted or what "made sense" to others, he would've jeopardized the future of himself, his wife, his kids, and the growing congregation that God was leading him to.

One thing I've experienced in my own life is that disobedience can cause God to be silent. And that's honestly one of the worst feelings. "God tell me what to do. Tell me what to do." And we don't realize that God has already spoken. He's just waiting on us to be obedient. I can say, that there is true freedom in our obedience. I've been experiencing a freshness with God, a new freedom that I've been waiting for for quite some time.

Growth is produced out of obedience. Once we're obedient to the small instructions, God can begin to reveal to us the bigger instructions. I pray God is pleased with my many leaps of faith recently. I've been feeling a pull to go visit a certain area for a while now. I've been talking about it for months. Recently I got this urge to pack up and just go. It was very weird and pretty abnormal. But all I said was "um..I don't know about this..But God is this you?" lol

I believe God has something for me on this mini vaca I'm about to take. I have a cousin and a couple friends that have moved to that area who I will probably visit for a bit but I feel like this trip is for ME. It's a whole new level of independence as I've never traveled alone. But if these last couple of months are an indicator of what God is going to show me, I'm excited! I do believe there is definitely something I'm going to find. Maybe more of God, maybe more of myself, maybe both. Whatever it is, obedience is taking me to it!

Tuning!

On Wednesday night my Bishop was talking about how he had to earn respect from his wife, my copastor. He had to show her that she could trust him and one of the things he had to do was be consistent in his ability to hear from God. I've heard alot of people say "God said this and God said that." But I sometimes wonder if everything they hear is from God or if their own desires and thoughts take over.

Bishop went on to say that it wasn't every now and then that he got it right but he had to consistently hear the voice of God. If this is what you believe God said then this is what should happen, right? Well I started to take a look at myself and evaluate my own ability of hearing God's voice.

I've started to write down the things that God has spoken to me and also when those things have been confirmed. In December, God sent me to sow ALOT of monetary seeds into family members, friends, and even strangers. I felt Him leading me to sow this and then that and then over there and over here. I was just like "Ok God." And I've already begun to see the harvest of those seeds.

One person inparticular is someone I've known for a while. She's one of the sweetest people I know and her testimony is so amazing. I was getting ready to go to church one Sunday and I felt God tell me to find her at church and sow a seed. So I stopped at the bank, found her at church, and sowed it. Two days later on a Tuesday, someone had stolen her ATM card. She didn't notice it until she pulled over at a gas station with her tank almost on empty. The only money she had in her purse was the money I gave her. Wow! Her telling me that boosted my faith and confirms once again that I can truly hear from God. (That's only one testimony.)

As I was about to walk out of the house the other day, this topic of hearing from God was on my mind. And this thought came up, "You know you hear from God when you not only hear the good but you also hear the bad.You know you hear from God when you not only hear the things you want to do but the things you don't want to do." Hmm that made me think. It's possible to have selective hearing when God speaks to you or even to confuse your own desires with the voice of God. If God ALWAYS answers the way you want Him to then................................................................................................................................................lol

To be honest, God jacks me up sometimes. He tells me things that I don't always want to hear but because I have faith in Him, I'll go ahead and follow Him even when I don't understand. It always seemed like some people's conversations with God were always so pleasant. It seemed like He always instructed them and/or confirmed for them to do things they wanted and desired to do and I didn't think it was fair lol I even prayed about that once but realized that as long as I'm doing what He told me to do, I can't worry about what other people believe that He's said to them.

God placed on my heart to join two new ministries at my church not too long ago. I had been waiting for the confirmation what seemed like forever. I felt pushed to join this ministry or that ministry and I honestly got extremely CONFUSED at one point. And I was so worried that the opinions of others were going to block God's voice. It was so draining because although I hadn't heard God, I was worried that He was speaking to me but was being tuned out causing me to be disobedient unintentionally. So for me the confusion made me just step back for a moment and reevaluate everything. I couldn't move until I knew for sure where He wanted me to go. So when He finally spoke, there couldn't be any procrastination. I was so desperate for His confirmation that I think I tuned into Him more than ever, exactly what He wanted. And once He spoke, Helps Ministry app was "signed, sealed, delivered, I'm YOURS!" lol

I say all that because I've learned the importance of truly hearing His voice, not just when it's convenient or when He says things I want to hear but in my everyday life. The world will always voice their opinions and there will be no definite direction if we always yield to opinions in place of God's direction.

So as my Bishop was saying, it's not just about hearing Him right every once in a while but really being consistent with His directions. If you're trying to get to a certain destination, skipping one of the directions is going to cause you to be lost. You have to follow the directions step by step to get to where you're trying to go.

Sometimes God answers right away and sometimes He doesn't. Sometimes He says yes and sometimes He says no. Sometimes His answer is what you wanted to hear and sometimes it's the last thing you wanted to hear. But I want 100% accuracy with Him. Hearing RIGHT is the difference between obedience and disobedience. And God usually instructs us with a whisper. So tune your ears!