How saying yes changed my life

Saying yes to what God asks of you will lead to a fulfilled life every single time.

Obedience

Today I would like to talk about obedience! What is obedience? Where can it lead us? Why is being obedient to God’s voice important and beneficial?

What obedience means is compliance or agreement with submission to another’s authority. We are acknowledging that God has the ultimate authority and that we must respond to His requests of us as His vessels. The “agreement with submission” aspect suggests that obedience is a choice because it is. Ultimately, God is not a dictator. Nor is He our puppet master. Just like we can choose to listen to our bosses or parents, or not. We have free will to do whatever we please, which is why obedience must be an active decision. A decision to choose to be obedient to our head of authority, God. So, we know what obedience is and we know that it is a choice, but I’d like to talk about why we sometimes run away from it

For me, disobedience usually stemmed from fear. I was too caught up in fear of man. Fear of rejection. Fear of getting it wrong. Fear of hearing God’s voice incorrectly. But also fear of letting God down, which I learned the hard way is striving, which is incorrect do not do that! But today I would like to provide you with encouragement to break off fear and to step into the obedience that the Lord has called you into.

Some of you may know the Circuit Riders but if not, they are a group of young ministers based in California. While they were on tour they stayed in my home for a week and held an event in NYC. I was not going to go because I had already been to multiple events and knew that it would be the same thing again, but they convinced me otherwise, so I went. This was my first step of obedience; to put God before seeing my friends that night.

We went to a place to eat but for some reason I craved salad which, let’s be real who usually craves salad? Not me. Anyways, as I was throwing my garbage out God said to me, “Go talk to the cashier.” I was like come on God I was just about to leave I really don’t want to! He said, “Give her a prophetic word, ask her if she is trying to go back to school right now” I thought to myself, she looks over thirty, that seems like a long shot but “Ugh, okay fine.” So, I ask her, and she said “Yeah, how’d you know that?” I told her God highlighted her to me and that He wanted her to know that “you don’t have to be afraid and that you should go back to school. He will take care of your responsibility.”

At this point she was freaked out she’s like how did you know that, are you a psychic, why are you telling me this? Evidently, the Circuit Rider event ended up being across the street from her work, so I invited her and said, “If you want to know more come to the event.” She declined but said that she would be cool with me praying for her at the event. I was like okay God; I don’t understand why you asked me to speak to her if she was going to shut it down. So, I said, “Give me something more specific so I can catch her attention. God gave me things about her personal life, she freaked out even more, and it convinced her to go to the event where my friend Ian and I prayed for her.

At first my friend we didn’t know if she was feeling anything but then she lifted her head and we saw tears streaming down her face. She said how blessed she was, that she thinks she’ll go back to school, and from there we began talking for the next few weeks about God and the Bible. Not only was her life touched, but it also changed my life. Because of my obedience to go to the event, and then my obedience to give her a word, the Circuit Riders saw my obedience and ended up inviting me to go on tour with them. My entire life changed because of that tour. It increased my gifting’s, my anointing, my fire, my confidence, and gave me divine friendships and connections. You see, imagine what would have happened if I had said no; I probably would not have gone on tour with them, their tour would have looked different, the people I prayed for would not have received my prophetic words, and this girl would not have a seed planted in her that night. We don’t need to be concerned about what will happen because of the obedience, for example the girl I prayed for going back to school or not; we simply need to say yes to God, and He will do the rest.

To see God move, you need to step out in boldness and take the steps that lead to God moving in your life. If I wasn’t obedient to then go on tour, I would not have grown as much as I did in that one week. This was my second yes to God. 2 Timothy 1:7 says “For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power, love, and self-discipline. When you are obedient you will see how God moves. There is always fruit behind your obedience, which we see in Isaiah 1:19 that says” if you are willing and obedient, you shall eat the good of the land.” Sometimes we can’t see the fruit of the obedience right away if ever, but God is always moving behind the scenes. It takes one act of obedience to create a ripple effect.

What obedience comes down to is faith. Without faith there is no obedience and without obedience there is no faith. Faith is risky, but it never fails you. It is the same concept with obedience. The reason you should trust God when He calls you to do something or calls you to something is because He would not tell you to do it and leave you deserted, because that is not My God. I was with the Circuit Riders in Boston and God told me to pray for this lady. I was scared because I didn’t want to pray for her, have nothing happen, and look like a fool, but I chose faith and obedience over fear. The lady struggled with all different issues for ten years, one of them being fibromyalgia, and after my friend Sitinna and I prayed for her, every single issue she had was healed and her faith increased like she couldn’t believe. She went to a pain level of over ten, down to a zero.

Secondly, He would not call you to something and not give you the abilities and qualifications for it. Okay, God told me to write a book. I was not an author, I didn’t even read books, it made no sense to me, but God downloaded every single chapter, word, and thought in me to write it because I said yes.

Lastly, He never calls us to something with no intentions behind it. God is a God of purpose and intentionality. Nothing is a coincidence. I didn’t crave a salad for no reason. I craved a salad because God knew who was making the salad and he knew what she needed to hear.

Think about how you feel when someone sends you a text that was random to you but on the other end of it was someone’s obedience to God. Think about the encouragement you have felt because of others’ obedience. If you want that blessing, then you must be that blessing to others which comes by obeying God.

Obedience is not easy, but it is not meant to be easy because otherwise we would not be able to exercise our faith in this way. There is a discipline that comes with it. It involves knowing how to hear God’s voice and it involves trusting yourself that you did Hear His voice and trusting God enough to jump into the fire, believing you will not be burned. If you are fearful that you did not hear His voice, so you don’t want to be obedient, then start spending even more time with Him. The reason I can spot my mom’s voice and laugh and crazy loud. sneeze in a crowd of 500 people is because I spend every single day talking with her. I know her incredibly well. Spend more time dwelling in His presence throughout the whole day and pay close attention to the way that He could be trying to speak to you. I wasn’t actively listening for God’s voice when I was throwing out my garbage, but I heard a still voice and I picked it up and ran with that.

Another fear I mentioned prior is fear of man. Hebrews 13:6 says, “God is my helper. I will not fear. What can man do to me?” If we lived based on seeking to please man over God, fearing man over God, and holding back because of it, we will never be satisfied and we will have to take the long route to get to where God wants us. If you give a word to someone or you are shot down or are even wrong in what you say it is okay because you are not seeking man’s approval, you should be seeking God’s. You will experience rejection, but rejection and pleasing God is better than disobeying.

When God tells you to do something, it gives you the right to not have to defend yourself or prove yourself. God told me go to California for 3 weeks and I had no clue why. I had almost every single person against me, but I didn’t care because I knew what God said and He is who I respond to. He is my priority. I still don’t know why He told me to go. I met a Grammy music producer and worked on my book but nothing crazy happened. But I know that my obedience was pleasing to God and that is where your focus should be.

Sometimes God will test you. Perhaps the only reason for me to go to California was to see if I would include Him in my process and obey his voice. I told God I don’t want to go unless I have a place to stay. So, He gave me an apartment. I said I’m not going unless I have a car, so he gave me a free car. I knew He wanted me to go, I did not have to have a reason why and or a plan, all I had to do was say yes and God did the rest for me.

We don’t have to understand why God tells us to do certain things. We don’t need to question it either. Sometimes God will tell you to do something crazy, like going to California by yourself as a 22-year-old little girl. But that’s how God works sometimes. He told Abraham to kill his son, he tested him, he wanted to see His faith, and Abraham was obedient, which spared his son. God said stop, and now He was able to trust Abraham who become father of the great nation. The covenant that God made with him was fulfilled because He knew He could trust Abraham.

We must have a servant’s heart in all that we do and one of the best ways to maintain that and exemplify it is by listening to God when He tells us to do something. God will be even more pleased with you and will begin to use you in even more amazing ways because He knows that you will listen no matter how crazy it is.

If we always tell Him no, why would he keep giving us tasks and use you in mighty ways? He must be able to trust you with the small things before He can trust you with the big. So, if you won’t even say yes to talking to that waitress in that restaurant then how is he going to use you in the stadium for 1000s of people. Todd white wouldn’t be wildly known for God using him in healing if he didn’t embarrass the heck out of himself with the first 1,000 people that he prayed for when God told him too. Even his wife was against him, but he brought it back to his authority: God.

So, what do we gain from obedience? We are given righteousness as we see with Abraham and in romans 5:19, we see fruit, we receive a defender in God from our enemies as we see in exodus 23:22, We get His spirit, we get to eat the good food of the land, we get increased faith, we get more tasks for God, we become blessed based on James 1:22-25, and we get to help others by encouraging them as a result of our obedience.” And what do we receive from disobedience? We become sinners. So, trust God and say yes, that’s all you must do, all you must do is move when He says move, open your mouth when He says open your mouth, pray when He says pray, and HE will do everything else. Watch what God does when you give Him your yes!