35. Have You Lost Hope

Oh the distraction of trying to read other people's minds. What do they think of me? Did I just say that? I should've done better with this? I forgot to say hi....you know what I'm talking about.Living our life to seek other's approval of us can be a huge distraction from who we are called to be. The truth is, if you are listening to God and what He is asking you to do, not everyone is going to get it AND not everyone is going to approve of it. Receiving approval isn't the end goal. Following God's call on your life is.

Last week, we talked about distractions. This week, we are discussing fear. Not only fear itself, but how fear can be one of our biggest distractions from living the life God has called us to live.Ask yourself, how much does fear affect you in your everyday life?

I feel like we are living in a time where we are loaded with distractions. Social media, our phones, games, streaming services, etc. At any moment, we can find a way to "entertain," or distract ourselves from our problems and our life. If we are distracted from what God is doing in our lives, our harvest will not produce grain. We will choke the seeds. So let's get focused...

Without hope, we won't produce a harvest. I would categorize a lack of hope as the rocks in the soil, as mentioned in the parable. We can choose hope. When things are hard, when things didn't go as expected, when something didn't work out, we can still choose hope.

"I see a girl that didn't understand what it was going to be like to build meaningful things. I see a girl who didn't understand that having five kids, which ended up being six kids, would happen over years, not months. I also see someone who at times didn't consider the struggle that her partner was going through when I was so determined for my goal, that I didn't take into account that it was really hard for him."

What happens when we allow our feelings to be our guide? In this episode, we are talking about the importance of clearing the noise of our feelings. They can confuse us and should not be followed on a whim. We should learn to understand them, to acknowledge them AND say no to them when we need to.

Let's talk about your core beliefs, priorities and gaining wisdom.I would like to invite you to take a moment and do some digging into what your core beliefs are. The true foundation of your beliefs. Today, we are covering how our priorities and wisdom can help us stay on track with our core beliefs and have good soil to produce a harvest from them.

Where are my planners at? The people who like to think every step of every experience through and have it all figured out before you ever get there?It's me. I am one that likes to know and have a plan. But I have learned that if we open ourselves to see the plan outside of our own, we can have greater experiences than we could have imagined for ourselves. Are you willing to open yourself up to God's plan?

What kind of fruit are you seeing in your life? Do you feel like you aren't receiving the fruit that you believed you were harvesting?In this episode, I share a journey I experienced in my life where I constantly desired approval, but at the same time, I was walking an intense season with God and wondered why I wasn't experiencing fruit that I thought I deserved. Listen in for the story and what God showed me during that intense and challenging season.

Transformation is not easy. To think so would be lying to yourself.We have to dig deep, get quiet, make mistakes, give ourselves grace and listen to what God is calling us to do.