Sitting down to write this post feels like going back to the gym after taking a 6-month hiatus. There are muscles that haven’t been exercised in a while that can already feel how sore they will be tomorrow. There is a little bit of intimidation to show up, the lingering thought of – everyone is going to wonder where I have been. Yet, we jump back in. We jump back in and remember that we are more capable than we thought but also that things take work.
I am showing up today. Showing up to this blank page because even as I sit here now, on the heels of publishing my first book, I believe and I know there is more in me. Not because of anything of my own accord but because we never arrive. The process of sanctification is ever unfolding and as He keeps teaching me, He also keeps reminding me that He has wired me to communicate. I know with everything in me that the message the book holds was breathed by Him. But, I also know that there was not a final bow taken and the curtain drawn on my duty as a writer when my book was published. Instead, a new stage was set. It is time for a new play to start. It is time to write again.
I am finally living in the days of a finished product. For those of you who have been journeying with me for a while now, you are fully aware of the gruesome process it has been to get this book to move from product to production. At times, I doubted I would ever make it. Yet, I knew it was something worth fighting for. My book has been out for a little over three weeks now and I still have moments where it doesn’t feel real. To see these pages bounded together and land in the hands of so many different people is unlike anything I can describe. There have been countless God stories of how this book had ended up with people through the craziest ways. I have seen time after time how God is getting it to the exact people He intended it to get to.
However, I want to be honest. There are two sides to the emotions I have felt. While there are some moments where I feel like I am living in a dream, there are other moments when I have had to confess disappointment. Let me explain.
For the last year and a ½, I had a book that was finished. All 50,000 words of it sat on a document on my computer while I was told no over and over again. I was told how my platform wasn’t enough and publishers wouldn’t be interested. I was told that although my writing was good that my follower count needed to increase. I could go on and on about how much I hate the way our society works now when it comes to determining influence but that’s for another day.
I left a job where I was doing what was right up my alley – writing content and planning events for young girls. I left because I knew the Lord was telling me that my time was up there. I left only to find myself heading back into the babysitting world because nothing else was on the table. From there, I found myself taking a full-time job that could not be the furthest thing from something I ever thought I would be doing. All the while, a finished book sat on my computer.
I was confused. Why would God have me write down all these words and then lead me down a path that felt like I was getting further and further away from what I believe I am gifted in?
I buckled up though. I dug my heels in and asked God for the faith to show up where He had me and to do it well. Looking back though, one of the only reasons I did this was because tucked in the back of my brain was this thought – He is just saying, “not yet.” I told myself I could stick out this season because for some reason God was telling it wasn’t time for me to step into who I think I am called to do.
Not yet.
Here is the thing though – I published the book. People posted about it like crazy. I had a launch party with my closest family and friends. Then the next morning I went to work. Someone asked me recently how much my life has changed since becoming a published author. To which I answered, “honestly not much.” Other than the fact that I am driving around with a box of books in my car that have my name on them, my weeks look identical to what they did before.
People are not knocking down my door asking me to come and speak. I haven’t sold a million copies and made so much money that I could quit my current job. It was never about selling a ton of books and it was surely never about making a ton of money. But, it would be dishonest of me to not say that a part of me had this plan in my head that the book coming out was going to be the moment God would tell me I had permission to move out of the “not yet.”
I think we are living in a time where the terms gifting and callings are being used more than ever before. I think sometimes we believe there is a calling on our lives but also have this mentality of, “God is saying not yet.” I do not believe when it comes to our gifting that God ever intended us to shelf them. I think it is less of “not yet” and more of “not that.” We get a layout in our head of exactly what we think the unfolding will look like. When it doesn’t happen that way we stamp the catchphrase “season of waiting” over it. I believe there are too many Christians with clear callings and clear giftings on their life who are sitting back waiting for permission to do what they already know they are supposed to do.
I am included in this.
I scribbled down frustrations in my journal these past couple weeks. Things like, “there has got to be more” and “what I am good at isn’t being put to use.” I know the Lord has gifted me in communicating and it is what my heart longs to do. What I realized is that God never told me I wasn’t allowed to do that now. The problem was that the way I wanted to communicate was in a specific way. I am called to teach but I was mad that nobody has contacted me for a speaking engagement. I am called to write but I am annoyed that I can’t think of an idea for a second book. I was so deeply convicted that I wasn’t giving it all I had every single day to let His name be on my lips. It is rightfully so that I am not stepping into any new places or having any big new ideas. The urgency wasn’t there. It was circumstantial. The desire to do what I know He has made me to do should never change based on the setup. I should be longing so deeply to communicate the truth of who God is that I do whatever it takes to make it happen wherever I am.
Don’t hear me say that there are not times when God asks us to be patient and might tell us, “not yet.” Patience is one of the fruit of the Spirit. There are times when we wait. However, a part of me is coming to realize that when it comes to walking out in our callings/gifting that there is a massive lie that my generation has been believing.
God does not tell us not yet. He tells us not that.
He did not tell me that I couldn’t write. He did not tell me that I couldn’t teach. He did not tell me that I could walk out fully in the calling I think He has on my life. He has never once told me I wasn’t allowed to do that. He has just been wanting me to see that right now it might now be in the way I had imagined it.
It might not be stages and another book being started. It might not be full-time vocational ministry. It might not be getting to plan events. It might not be writing content. It might not be bible studies and church events. Right now it is not that. Oh but thank you Jesus that the time to do what you made to do is not in some far off future. It is now.
If you feel called to create – create.
If you feel called to write – write.
If you feel called to lead – lead.
If you feel called to teach – teach.
If you feel called to sing – sing.
What if we all showed up to wherever it is we had to be today and asked the Lord to show us how to maximize what we believe we are gifted in?
Personally, over the last week, everywhere I have gone I started asking the Lord – How can I teach today? How can I communicate for the sake of your name today? Let me tell you – it shifted everything in me because I was no longer showing up anywhere thinking that where I was only a temporary stop on where God ultimately wants me to end up. No, it made me realize that where I am right now holds just as much opportunity to walk out in my calling as anywhere else.
We are told to go and make disciples. We are told to go and feed His sheep. We have to be careful to not decided that we are going to do that in a specific way and in a specific place.
In all of this, I have been thinking about David. There was a gift of leading on David. You read about his life and you see that to be true. David never decided when he was going to use that or not use it.
As a shepherd – He led sheep.
As a warrior – He led armies.
As a king – He led nations
I hope one day when people recount my life they see how in every season I was maximizing on what was in me.
Friends, it is okay to have desires in your heart to take new ground and to be put in new places. At the end of it all, I still desire to write another book and I still desire to speak at different places. However, I become more useful and beneficial to the work of Christ when I stop asking Him for specific ways to walk out in my calling and instead ask Him to show me how to do wherever I am right now.
Stop waiting. You already have permission to be all that He created you to be
Do not be discouraged by it not happening the way you thought it would. Be encouraged that God tells us there are other ways.
Go do the thing you were made to do and do it wherever you are right now.
