As a baby grows in a mother’s womb, you will find parents talking to the child. The baby can hear the parent, even when the parent can’t hear the child. When the baby is born, there is a connection that is already built because of the communication that happened in the womb.
God has been speaking to us our whole lives. Before we knew God, God knew us. In the joy we experienced as children. In the innocence we perceived the world. We didn’t know His voice, and yet He spoke, because one day, we would come to the place where that communication would help build our connection with Him.
When you come to the place where you learn how God speaks to you, you are able to surrender your life to Him in a way where you really let go of control. He leads, He speaks, and you follow.
In 2013 I had moved back to Austin and was working for my church’s children center. God and I had developed our relationship and connection so much that I knew the season I was in was a preparation season that would launch me into a purpose greater than I imagined. But I needed to be prepared. There were lessons I still needed to learn.
Then I got the honor of becoming the assistant youth pastor of the church. And while my circumstances had changed, God’s directive hadn’t. He was still preparing me for something big. I knew that, so I was able to operate in clarity.
But I got attached to my circumstance. I loved the youth I was ministering to, I loved the vision of the ministry, I loved the community that came with being where I was. So I began believing that maybe this is where God was taking me. Everything felt right, and it was flourishing. Surely it couldn’t get better than this.
So I began holding tighter to things. I begin ignoring everything else in my life, my family, friends, responsibilities, health, all to make sure the ministry excelled. I closed myself off from God’s voice. I took my eyes off of his vision.
I learned, even in ministry, you can be disobedient to God. If you are not focused on Him, then you are not obeying God, no matter how much good you are doing.
He saw this. He saw that my focus was on this blessing and this circumstance. So everything crumbled because my God loves me and wants my relationship with Him to be my focus. At the time, it hurt. My entire world crumbled down. My job, my ministry, my church family, my friends. Everything ended.
Except God’s love. He never left. So Him and I began to rebuild. He loved me in my mess and slowly showed me where I had messed up. Beautiful things come out of the ugliest places, and I was able to build deep relationship with those that stayed around me. I was able to truly understand that God wants the best for His children and not just something good.
When I began being healed, God began blessing my life. My mother bought her first home, so I had a place to have real roots now, I was chosen for a wonderful job working for two amazing, intelligent women, I began a relationship with a wonderful man that pushed me to believe all that God had been teaching me, I had a real community of close friends that loved me for me, I was able to serve in the church again and hear testimonies of what me staying did for them. Everything was going right.
And then I got accepted to this crazy adventure called the World Race and I had a choice to make. Do I focus on the blessings or the one who blessed me? Do I trust God in His timing or do I stay where things are nice? Do I hold on to everything I’ve been given with closed hands or do I hold them with open hands, knowing that God gave them to me?
I didn’t make the same mistake again. I said yes to the World Race. Because I learned my lesson. Blessings and good things are wonderful. God wants to spoil His children with the desires in our hearts. But He wants a relationship with us over everything. He wants our time and love and relationship.
I knew that everything in my life came from God and was His to begin with. And I stepped into the next part of my life, letting the blessing not control me but propel me into the next chapter of my life. And that was the lesson. That was the preparation He was teaching me. He knew I could follow Him in the worst circumstances. He needed me to learn to follow Him in the best circumstances, when I had everything I wanted.
You cannot follow blessings. You have to listen and follow only God. Listen to His voice, because He is always speaking. There is a life better than anything you could imagine, but it comes when your eyes are focused solely on Him.
