“You can either have Faith or you can have Control, but you can’t have both.”
- Kenneth Lock II
This statement so accurately summarizes one of the major lessons I’ve learned in business and a few other areas of my life over the past year or so. As children of God we know that He has amazing things planned for us. He desires to do so much in, for, and through us if we’ll allow Him to. Many times, He will even give us glimpses of how some of that may look by way of dreams and visions, exposure, prophetic words of knowledge, and even speaking directly to us. As a dreamer, many of the glimpses have come long before what He showed me even made sense. Some may call that a teaser. In my case, it was God’s way of giving me a hope for a future yet to come. God saw further into the script of my life and knew there would come a time that I would need something solid to hold on to when everything about my present began to look as though my existence lacked meaning and purpose. It was those glimpses that prevented me from letting go and coasting for too long when life started life-ing, burnout and some of my poor decisions started to catch up with me. But when I woke up from those dreams and exited a season full of divine encounters with more words of knowledge and confirmation than I knew what to do with, I walked away full of hope and an eager expectation that “it” would happen for me. I was beyond hype and so I did what many immature Christians do when this happens … I hit the ground running. My hustle was on a thousand. I’m talking 16+ hour days, five and sometimes six days a week. I pushed myself to the limit loading up my schedule with as many clients as would fit within a sixteen hour time frame. I sacrificed rest and proper nutrition, time with family and friends, and did everything I knew and felt was right to do all in an effort to make what I saw in those glimpses a reality.
I worked like that for over half of my now eleven year career, never realizing or even caring about the toll it was taking on my mind, body, and soul. I had tunnel vision, and it was all gas no breaks towards the vision God gave me for my life. On paper, I was killing it! I mean I went from being a “college dropout” to building a business that within eight years would’ve made me the highest paid person in my family full of scholars. I was exhausted but I had the salon business, a line of hair extensions, a hair product line, and had begun teaching other stylists how to do what I was doing. Year after year I was seeing exponential growth in my numbers so you’d think I was floating on cloud nine, feeling happy and fulfilled but the truth of the matter was I was miserable and starting to resent the gift God gave me. Why? Because even with all the effort, sacrifice, and time I was putting in to do what I firmly believed God had called me to do, all that I had achieved still did not look like what He showed me. Many of the attempts I made to step into what He showed me years before had failed. At the time, I wasn’t going to be satisfied until my present looked like what He showed me, so I kept striving and trying. Striving and trying and ultimately running into God’s “No.” at every turn.
I meant well and believed that my intentions were pure, but in hindsight, I was taking the responsibility of fulfilling a divine plan out of God’s hands and leaning on my own logic, experience, know-how, and God-given ability to make it happen. I did that all based on a small glimpse into much bigger picture that God chose not to allow me to see. Not because He was being cruel but because He needed me to fully trust Him and His path to bring it to fruition. How many times have we done that though? God allows us to see and begin to experience what is really the tip of a massive iceberg of a blessing and we get excited and try to tackle the rest on our own as if our limited knowledge and experience is enough to navigate the complexity of His ultimate plan. How arrogant of us!? Inevitably we begin to sink because instead of walking away from those divine encounters seeking God about His timing, what’s next and what’s now, we go full steam ahead without Him and eventually begin to fizzle out. Many of us will then begin to blame other people and even get upset with God when things are not happening like He showed it to us. We become resentful towards the very thing He intends to use to bless us and others. And for the really stubborn ones, * slowly raises hand * we continue moving forward anyway, all the while pretending to be further along than we really are. Eventually, we reach burnout and that was never in God’s plan for us. All God wants is for us to receive the hope He gives us, believe that we will see “it” happen, seek Him for instruction, obey and continue to trust Him to bring it to fruition. That’s it.
In God, we don’t have to strive for success like we do when we go at things alone. Am I suggesting that as a Christian we will not have to work hard at some things? Absolutely not. What I am saying is that when we partner with God and allow Holy Spirit to guide us along the way, He enlarges our capacity, we experience longevity, and can avoid burning out of fuel before reaching the destination. As someone who has the tendency to be destination focused, getting to the finish line is important to me, sometimes more than the journey itself. When we partner with God, it creates a safe space where He can address the character flaws and insecurities that are often at the heart of our drive. Insecurities that if left unhealed have the potential to expose us and destroy the very things God is trying to get us to.
Earlier I mentioned being a college dropout. I’ve alluded to the backstory in previous posts, but for years that haunted me and was a major source of insecurity and shame. Although God had given me several glimpses of some of what He had planned for me, and it was good, insecurity and shame could not come with me into this next place. And because He loves me so much, He wanted to take the journey with me to heal those broken places and make me whole before allowing me to step into those things. At the time, I was too hurt and full of pride to see that at the root of my why was a deep desire to prove to myself and others that I didn’t need a college degree to become successful, relevant, and worthy of love and acceptance. In my subconscious mind, if I could just make these things happen in my business it would prove that I, all by myself, was enough. So instead of choosing to have faith in God to fulfill His promise to me, I decided to take control and pursue it on my own, for all the wrong reasons. I took my focus off of Him, made “it” an idol, and in turn found myself going in circles on the scenic route to the finish line. Truth be told, it was never supposed to take as long as it has. God knew that if He allowed me to step into those things before He could reveal and fully heal my broken soul, it would get ugly and ultimately lead to my destruction. Sure, I still may have gotten the buildings, the school, the product line in major store chains, the money and notoriety. (After all, God gave me the gift of being able to create wealth with my hands and it worked for nearly a decade before I decided to partner with Him.) But if He allowed me to step into all that prematurely, I may have missed out on the divine encounters that led to finally embracing His truth about me.
Imagine the impact of that revelation! Whew, the weeping that took place, lol!
Now imagine the relief I felt as I began to slow down and shift my focus back to God. Imagine the grief of losing many of the things I grew to love so dearly. Imagine the freedom I experienced when I began to realize that I didn’t need those things to be enough. Imagine what it was like learning to trust God with my life and obeying even when He told me to do things that seemed to be counter to what He showed me. Imagine the rest I was able to get when I placed control over my life back into the hands of my Father. Listen… sleep refreshes your body, but rest restores the soul. After years of running around like a chicken with my head cut off, draining myself and missing out on life doing the absolute most I needed to lay down in green pastures and have my soul restored. And I’m doing just that. Interestingly enough, I didn’t have to stop working my gift while I rested. Although I did start over in a new state, when I partnered with God, I didn’t have to work nearly as hard as I had in those first eight years. If that wasn’t enough, in two years time, I was doing numbers that took me eight years to see before! I don’t share that to brag. I share that as a testament to God’s faithfulness to do just what He says He will do. This part of my story is still being written but from now until the end of time, I’m choosing Faith!