Are You Listening?

I remember asking God to speak to me and reveal my purpose. I wanted to know who I was and who I was destined to be. I wanted to be financially stable, whole, and healed. However, I had no clue where to start. Every time I talked to God; I began feeling as if it was in vain. I remember feeling like I was having a monologue with Christ versus a conversation. I felt like I was the only one speaking and I was not getting a response.

I was completely wrong. God was speaking the entire time; I just was not listening. I learned how to tune him out. If God was telling me something that I did not want to hear, I ignored it and convinced myself that my way was better. Plus, when I did listen to God, I felt like he took too long. There were certain things that I wanted that I did not want to wait for. My desperation for a relationship was a prime example. I was tired of feeling alone and I felt like I needed someone to comfort and support me. Little did I know, God was trying to do that for me all along.

The pressures of my family and society triggered my impatience. I always felt like I was on some sort of timeline and I did not feel like God's timing aligned with mine. I wanted to be married by twenty-five and have my own school by thirty. Not saying that cannot happen, but it will not if I continue to do things my way. Honestly, I have been aimlessly trying things my way for the past twenty-two years and the result of that has been heartache, heartbreak, and pure depression. Overall, my life has been good because I have always had God's favor, but I could not even recognize it because the only thing I focused on were the things I did not have.

Despite my impatience and blatant neglect, God still had his hand on me and still does. I remember feeling alone, but unbeknownst to me at the time I was never alone. Sometimes it feels crazy believing in a God you cannot see. However, I learned that just because he is not physically tangible does not mean he is not available. Plus, Jesus is the visible image of my invisible God (Colossians 1:15). When I think about some of my darkest moments, God was the only person that knew ALL my flaws and loved me anyway. I intentionally tuned out family members and friends, but God was not having that. I became a master at hiding my pain and feelings from people. The church taught me how to put on a mask and make it look as natural as a beat frontal, but God knew my heart.

I decided to leave the church when I was seventeen because I was tired of pretending and "playing church". At that point, I felt like that mask was literally suffocating me as if it were plastic. My way of removing the mask was to go into my room, cry and smoke until the pain temporarily went away. Believe it or not, God was still there. Eventually, I got tired of living that way and I decided to go back to church. I just remember desperately needing something different. I remember people falling out at church and running around like track stars. I was not trying to go that far, but I thought I would understand the church better as an adult. I was ready to lift my hands in "worship" while simultaneously peeping the single men in the church. That was my motive when I walked in, but my intentions went out of the window when I fell into the spirit. While not even recognizing what it was, I just remember feeling a higher power over me. After feeling the spirit, I was no longer distracted by other people or what they were doing. I entered a place where there were no masks, it was just me and God and it honestly took me twenty-two years to experience him in that way.

Now, I realize that God was revealing a lot to me during that time, apparently, he was trying to remove my mask all along. God showed me that I doubted him and did not believe in the promises that he showed me because of my insecurities. Insecurities I did not even realize existed. If you asked me, I was perfectly fine. I finished school and had my dream job (teaching). Yeah, I cried from time to time and shut myself out from people, but to me that was normal. When God started showing me my true potential and purpose, I literally pretended to not hear him. Like a child, I heard what I wanted to hear. If it sounded feasible, I did it. If not, I procrastinated and made all kind of excuses. My favorite was, "I don't have enough time." That was false because COVID gave me all the time in the world and I still managed to make more excuses.

It is interesting how we can pray for something repetitively and receive the same answer and still not be satisfied with God's response. I realized that I had my own plans and if God's way did not align with mine, I was not having it. I did not want anything to disrupt my plans (as if God's plans were not greater). Being a teacher was the only plan that I had that aligned with God's. God told me to write a book over a year ago, he gave me the title in a dream. I laughed because who was I to tell someone else anything (my latest excuse). The last thing I wanted to be was a hypocrite, but God told me that there were enough of those in the world. God knew that I was not going to tell anyone anything without being transparent and vulnerable and clearly that is what he was looking for.

However, I could not tell anyone anything until I started learning more about myself and I could not do that until I learned more about God. That required me to read God's word for myself! I could no longer rely on a pastor or prophet. God was trying to tell me some very specific things and he had his own message for me. I was so broken by relationships and experiences that happened in my past to the point where being broken was normal for me. I did not even view it as a problem, I just suppressed all the pain and kept it trucking. God began to speak, and he revealed that I was allowing the fear of repeating my past to force me into doing just that. I was not allowing God to free me from what was hindering me from my purpose because I was convinced that I had it all under control.

I was my greatest enemy because I was the only person stopping me from being financially stable, whole, and healed. It was easier to blame God and pretend he was not responding to me versus taking responsibility for my actions. So, to answer the question, "Are you listening?". I was not, but now I am, and God has been releasing me from myself and revealing my destiny and purpose ever since. Part of that is starting this blog and finishing that book.

Advice: Instead of asking if God is speaking, ask yourself, "Am I listening?".

#insecurity #bondage #areyoulistening #listenup #keepingthefaith #faith #tellingmystory #lettinggo #release #tellit #healing #vulnerability #transparency #nojudgement