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My question for you is what are you hesitating in right now? What is holding you back? What is the bigger picture of what will be accomplished when you move in more freedom and to not be held back in hesitation. What story are you telling yourself that simply isn’t true because your brain is wired to keep you safe? 

Hesitation is a spirit and it has a powerful way of holding us back from more and more fruit in our lives. It's exactly where the enemy desires us to be and I am calling him out and saying not today. Today the victory belongs to the Lord for me and it can be for you too. 

So when we look at our friends list and see we have 1000 friends and only 3 people liked or loved a social media update - we place value on our lives based off what we see as “not happening” or happening as a validation  that we are on the right path. We focus on the 997 people who didn’t validate us! 

We are also programmed to pull the plug on what we put our hands to in life when what we are doing seems like it's not rendering fruit or benefit right?

I don’t know anyone who wants to be known as the person who continued to pursue something that wasn’t working because it makes us look stupid, inferior and unintelligent. Like who does that? Who pursues something that doesn’t appear to be rendering a positive result?

We are similar to a tree. We can have things in life happen that disappoint us, discourage us, sadden us and when we allow these things to deteriorate us, we erode on the inside. On the outside we are still living breathing normal appearing human beings but on the inside we are not even close to structurally sound. We are either sound or we are compromised.

It's ok to have less than desirable things happen in our life but we can’t let them erode us. God didn’t give us a spirit of defeat and if you are experiencing defeat its a choice. We choose to rise or we choose to erode. 

These choices impact our ability to stand tall and walk in confidence in who we are created to be.

We will always have many areas we can put our hands to - in fact, its pretty much limitless what we could say yes to each and every day. 

Sometimes though we say no to awkward, uncomfortable and challenging and tell ourselves a story that we don’t need to be in that kind of chaos and the truth is, we are already equipped to walk through the fire and have the ability to come out not smelling like smoke

What are you saying no to right now because you fear it will be a reflection of your lack of self trust? 

You my friend are worthy of being trusted and you don’t need to compromise your ability to have impact

Trust that God will equip you every step of the way for what is already laid before you. 

When you trust what is before you, you will be a great steward because we are a whole number - we are complete with God as our best power partner. When we are stewarding what is before us, we can multiply, expand and have joy and peace in the process.

What I see as injustice - something that breaks my heart is where I see people who are alive but are not living. Who have become master negotiators. They negotiate away the more meaningful things because they lack belief and hope for what is possible through them. We move in belief or we move in disbelief. Yes we can move in disbelief -its called putting our time and energy to things that don’t matter most. Being alive vs living.

Living is knowing what God has put you here on this earth to do and doing it.

If you acknowledge to him - by writing it out - he will provide the opportunities for you to do those things.

I do value what other people receive from me. But I should not be concerned or worried about how it is perceived. I cannot change people's perceptions because people see others based on a reflection of self. We don’t want to feel poorly about ourselves, so we will see other people in a way that justifies and protects who we are. We begin seeing things like a limited wardrobe as a way to help us feel better about ourselves. 

You cannot compete with me sister or brother, I want you to be successful too. 

We have the opportunity every day - every hour - to see our struggles that we face as opportunities to trust God, to step into the victory he has already laid out for us and to declare our ability to win even before the battle takes place. We don’t have to wrestle. When we are wrestling we are ultimately struggling with a mindset that hasn’t been declared victorious 

So my friends. I have a question for you. In the key areas of your life. 

Marriage, family, ministry, work, 

Is there any area where you are shrinking back? Where you are not showing up? Where have you have disappeared because you are hurt, angry, frustrated? 

Are you willing to work through and seek forgiveness from anyone you many have hurt? Can you extend forgiveness to anyone who has hurt you and choose to move in more peace and freedom? 

These are all choices we make. I am choosing to not allow those around me who don’t know who there were created to be (yet) dictate how I operate in who I am created to be. 

So many people are surviving life waiting for the time, waiting for the resources, waiting to get better at things before they start something impactful and that is a lie. We already have everything we need. Stop getting ready to get ready. The only thing standing between you and what you are called to do is you. And, I am a BIG believer in choice. We choose what we put our hands to and we choose what holds us back. 

Time - is a commodity. We either invest it or we spend it. When we invest our time in meaningful things, those yield a return. Some will yield an earthly return where we get to see the fruit of it here and now and in our days here on earth ahead. Some will be things that will matter for all of eternity. Doing those things that matter most to God - like loving others and being in relationship with our creator.