22/02/2024
[MY TESTIMONY – KNOWING WHEN IT’S TIME TO STOP]
How do you deal with knowing there’s a specific call on your life, having spent years trying to make it work and realising that, despite your best efforts, it’s just not working?
That can be a very hard-to-make admission. This is my story of knowing when to stop.
I hope and pray that my story and testimony will speak to you and that God would show you how you can deal with your situation…
For the past 4 years, I have been trying to discover + pursue God’s specific call on my life. For the second time. In fact, this is what I have been doing more or less full-time since 2010.
18 months ago, I launched Kingdom Purpose Coaching as a service + business. Since then, I have poured my heart and soul into this venture.
It seemed like it was going well for a while. Until it wasn’t.
The last 6 months of my life have been incredibly tough.
On the one hand, I’ve never had more clients and have never seen God do more in my client’s lives.
On the other hand, my financial situation has been very challenging and client acquisition has been extremely hard-going.
My immediate response was to “take responsibility” by looking at the nuts + bolts of my business. I finetuned my offer, branding, public presentation, niche, content creation strategy, marketing strategy, etc. countless times. Always pouring in more effort.
While constantly being confronted with the truth that it just wasn’t working.
I wanted to be open and honest. I wanted to speak it out. But I couldn't.
Because speaking it out would have been unbelief.
Because speaking it out loud and admitting that things weren’t working would have been an admission of failure.
Because admitting that it wasn’t working wouldn’t have been “walking in faith”.
And that’s the big problem – it wasn’t really about faith, it was about me and what I was doing. It wasn’t about trusting Father – it was about me “walking in faith”.
Whenever you feel like you can’t be open and honest about what’s really going on and how you are feeling, that’s not God. That’s not faith, that’s unbelief.
Faith is not meant to be hard work. If you’re “faith” is constantly bringing you to the point of despair and exhaustion, there’s a deep-seated problem.
Biblically, faith given by God always produces fruit. It might not come immediately and it may not be the fruit / result you were looking for but there will be fruit eventually and the faith itself will energise you to keep going while you wait.
The reason why I couldn’t stop, why I couldn’t admit “it’s not working”, why I always had to keep going… was because it was about me and my performance.
The Bible actually speaks about these cycles in Isaiah 57:10:
"You were wearied with the length of your way [in trying to find rest and satisfaction in alliances apart from the true God], yet you did not say, There is no result or profit. You found quickened strength; therefore you were not faint or heartsick [or penitent]."
So many of us keep believing that we “have to persevere in faith” out of a deep-seated unbelief that is holding us captive. We keep trying and trying and trying and although it never works, we don’t get to that point of saying “there’s no result or profit – (my way) is not working”.
Now, there are times to persevere and push through.
There ARE times to pick yourself back up, have a quick rest, and get back at it.
But that’s not always the case. And we have to learn the difference.
I have worked out consistently for the last 20 years. With the odd exception, my only training interruptions have been due to injuries / surgeries.
Last year, I was pushing hard to get better and grow stronger. I was doing really well until I reached a plateau.
Then, my performance started declining.
My initial response was to push through.
This time, however, it didn’t work. My entire system went on strike.
In late 2023, I had to call it.
I stopped training for almost 2 months. I was completely done and exhausted.
I had to realise that my way wasn’t working.
The point is this: prior to that moment, I had seen performance declines as indications that I needed to work + push harder.
This time, I was wise enough through God to recognise that there were some underlying reasons and that my physical weakness and exhaustion were trying to teach me something.
I needed REST. Hard.
So I rested. Hard. And my body actually began to build.
Now, I’ve been back to training for 2 months and I am training smarter and more effectively. And I’m growing. There’s fruit.
But I had to abandon my rigid 4-5 day / week training regime. It had become religious. Now, I am down to 2 days / week.
But it’s working. And that’s the point.
Let me ask you this – could God be telling you that now is your time to stop? Your holy moment of giving up? To be still and know that HE is God? That He will deliver what He promised?
Don’t let the enemy keep you from your REAL breakthrough moment by lying to you that you have to be tough, push through, persevere, and keep going. If you feel you need to stop, STOP!
Here’s what Father has been showing me recently.
It’s from Revelation 2 where Jesus is addressing the church at Ephesus. It’s a powerful, personal word of Fatherly correction to many of us in the Church:
2 I know your industry and activities, laborious toil and trouble, and your patient endurance, and how you cannot tolerate wicked [men] and have tested and critically appraised those who call [themselves] apostles (special messengers of Christ) and yet are not, and have found them to be impostors and liars.
3 I know you are enduring patiently and are bearing up for My name’s sake, and you have not fainted or become exhausted or grown weary.
4 But I have this [one charge to make] against you: that you have left (abandoned) the love that you had at first [you have deserted Me, your first love].
5 Remember then from what heights you have fallen. Repent (change the inner man to meet God’s will) and do the works you did previously [when first you knew the Lord], or else I will visit you and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you change your mind and repent.
God convicted me that I have been prioritising purpose, calling, mission + assignment over First Love. I had left that place where I first knew the LORD. I had not been living in my First Love. I was too busy being “faithful” and “on mission” and “all about the Kingdom”.
As a result, I wasn’t living in my First Passion – that passion to love + serve others as a unique vessel of Father’s love. To be a James-shaped expression of Father’s love, rooted in my personal experience + testimony of Jesus’ finished work. I wasn’t doing First Works.
Although I was genuinely pure - i.e. SINGLE-MINDED - in my intentions, I wasn’t pursuing my First Love. I was pursuing purpose.
And that’s idolatry which leads to death. And God can’t + won’t bless me there. Because He is no enabler.
In my attempt to serve people, I had things backward. I conflated “Kingdom” and “Kingdom business” with my real purpose – Jesus Himself.
I never wanted this but this is what happened:
Money came before ministry. The sale came before serving.
Was what I was doing in my coaching wrong? No, not at all. It was and is God-inspired. I was seeking God in it all. But I was coming at my coaching business from the wrong motive.
And I was neglecting my First Love and my First Passion for people. And that’s why I was dying.
Maybe some of what I wrote spoke to you. Maybe you’re in a similar spot. Maybe you’ve come to realise that this is your holy moment of stopping and giving up. Father’s invitation to rest and live again. To throw of tiredness, frustration, and weariness. To find your fruitful place.
If you would like, I would love to help you walk through this alignment. I would love to help you come home to your First Love and First Passion. To see you return to your First Works and your life’s purpose + mission. And to see how we can align what you are currently doing with the overall work Jesus sent you into this world to do.
Send me a message or drop me a comment if you’d like that and we’ll talk.
