Because I Said So...

We never know why God asks or instructs us to do certain things and I am learning (sometimes the hard way) that in many cases we are better off not knowing what’s waiting around the corner. If we did know, how likely would our answer be “yes”? That’s why we must learn to be obedient in the little things so that we have the faith and the courage to complete the big things.

I am learning how it is all connected in a very personal and profound way. I haven’t published a blog post in a few months. To be honest, I wrote something in August but didn’t post it because let’s just say that I have been feeling terribly uninspired. However, I mentioned in my last post that I was stuck and needed to get back to completing the sequel of my screenplay. I believed I had run out of stuff to say, so I felt there was no harm in “taking a break” until I got re-inspired (if ever). Why waste my time and energy writing something that will never be seen? I questioned if I had actually heard from God on this matter, wondering if I never should have written it in the first place. Why get invested in a dream like this anyway? I’m a nobody! It's just going to lead to another disappointment. As a matter of fact, I don’t need to have any dreams, I’m getting old and my life is pretty good so I’m going to just do what I’m told TODAY and see how it goes because I can’t control what God’s going to do anyway!

This rant sounded much better in my head over these past few months than it does right now, but you see where I’m going with this… I still hadn’t felt like I had gotten a concrete answer from God on whether to complete the assignment until I woke up one morning last week, practically panting from an intense dream. Before I share the dream, I need to share two significant things that occurred in the past week that is driving this revelation.

First, our ministry group is studying the book of Esther. It’s a short book and I highly recommend studying it, but the cliff notes version is this…

The Book of Esther is a story of how God used a Jewish maiden named Esther to save His people from destruction. Esther was chosen to be the replacement queen of the Persian King Ahasuerus after demoting Queen Vashti for being disobedient and rebellious, but he didn’t know her true identity. When Haman, the king’s advisor, plotted to kill all the Jews in the empire because of a generational family grudge, Esther, and her older cousin Mordecai (he raised her when she became an orphan) exposed his evil plan and persuaded the king to protect the Jews. This book shows God's faithfulness and sovereignty in all circumstances but at the end of the day, she was raised up in that position for “such a time as this”. Wisdom, obedience, and boldness not only saved her life in a pickle, but also the lives of countless Jews by winning the favor and respect of the King.

In the commentary of this study, the author pointed out that the situation they found themselves in with Esther wouldn’t have been necessary, had Paul been obedient the generation prior, stating there are always unintended consequences to “Partial Obedience”. OUCH!

God showed me that my inconsistency in writing these blog posts is being partially obedient. He said I will never know who needs to be encouraged by what He gives me to share and when it’s necessary for them to read it. So, I learned that my feeling that God wasn’t speaking to me, providing the ah ha moments that I hope to share in these blog posts is the direct result of me stopping my daily routine of journaling, which was a big part of my pillow talk time with God.

If you can connect the dots here, not journaling led to no blog content, which contributes to my “writer’s block” on the screenplay. All of which started by waking up one morning, simply deciding to skip the journal and sleep a few extra minutes, likely after staying up late binge watching a show on Neftlix. It felt completely harmless in the moment, but over time it went downhill fast.

Second, on Monday we had communication training at work, and we did an exercise about active listening. The activity itself was fun and very telling, but the bottom line was that we forget half of what we hear/learn within the first hour; 70% is forgotten after eight hours and so forth, but we retain 94% of “what we write down”. Sheesh, okay I get it…

So now the dream…

I was at a popular ministry conference event and somehow, I ended up backstage in the presence of the main speaker’s wife. We were having a great conversations when her husband entered, and I witnessed an exchange that disturbed my spirit. After he left, I felt an obligation to encourage her to get a job, sensing that she would need the means to escape a potentially dangerous situation, but while we were talking, he overheard me, and things got REAL, and it was LOUD.

He verbally attacked me for what I said to his wife but in that exchange, I saw the Jezebel spirit manifest in him. I had to choose in the moment, whether to confront it or run from it. I suddenly felt a heavy force field surround me, like something you’d see in a Star Wars movie. Although it was a struggle to physically expel the sound required to speak the words, I commanded that spirit to leave him and I pleaded God’s protection from being afflicted by that spirit yet again. Sidebar: For those that don’t know, the Jezebel spirit is a spirit of control and manipulation of which I received freedom from in August of 2016.

Anyway, my obedience to intervene in that moment, despite my fear, ushered in his deliverance that very night and unbeknownst to me, event staff witnessed everything, recorded it on their phones and it ended up on TMZ. The next morning at the final session of the event, I was approached by security and escorted to the front of the venue. This speaker happened to be a well-known pastor and he said that because of his desire to be open and transparent, he played the video to the entire auditorium. I watched it there for the first time and saw myself in a new way. As I listened to him publicly thank me for my obedience to intercede, he called me up on the stage and introduced me to the world. I was completely overwhelmed with emotion.

As I left the building, I was approached by a media rep, who asked to meet with me. Ya’ll, I know this was a dream, but you just can’t make this stuff up… he offered me a movie deal. This deal included having someone else write the script for me, BUT I told him that I had already written a script and I was currently working on the sequel. In that moment God woke me up and said, “I told you; you need to be ready because you will never know the day or time that I will call you out of the shadows for “such a time as this”! Sooo, that’s all I have to say about that!

Starting right now, I have a LOT of work to do and my “Yes” can no longer be dependent on how I’m feeling in the moment. Is there something that you have been partially obedient on? Let’s get back on the horse together!

Until next time…