Hey there friend, we are back this week with another episode of the God Empowered podcast. So here's the thing. I've been having a lot of thoughts lately. And what's so interesting, at least what I'm becoming more aware of, is that these thoughts are triggered by this new transition that I am currently going through, where I feel like God is calling me into a new version of myself, a new version. That is more aligned to his word, a version that is more aligned to who God is calling me to be as a woman. As a future wife, as an entrepreneur, as a friend, there's so much that I feel like he is stripping off of me. So many bad habits that I was once used to, that I once thought was so normal, but in actuality, it was so bad. Contradictory to who God was calling me to be and what God was calling me to do. And I'm in this beautiful season of my life where I am just now waking up to that. Now, my guess. Is that because you clicked on this podcast episode to listen to my guess is that you are maybe in a similar season of your life where you feel like there is this new version of yourself that is calling your name and the reason why you feel like it is calling your name is because God is talking to you. He's calling you to new heights. He's calling you to new standards. He's calling you to this new level of beautiful leadership that he knows that you are capable of walking in. But in order to walk in that, we have to strip off old ways of doing things. And that brings me to why I wanted to talk about today's topic on living a convenient, comfortable lifestyle and how, even though it feels good, it feels right, it feels easy. Many times it can actually contradict you or restrict you from actually being the man or the woman of God that he is calling you to be and to walk in where he wants you to go. So I want to talk about that because one of the thoughts that I personally had, hence the whole reason for this podcast episode in the first place, I just had this realization where I was like, you know what? As I go through this transition in my life in reaching the newest version of myself, I am tired of living a life that is based on convenience. Living a life where I don't have to put in as much effort because I'm seeking convenience. I'm seeking easy. I'm seeking simplified in a lot of areas in my life. or in my business. Now, I want to make this very, very clear before we dive into the depths of what I mean in regards to living this convenient, comfortable lifestyle and how it can be, at times, contradictory. Let me be clear. Convenience, a lot of times, is great. There are many areas where convenience I am grateful for, I am proud to have that area of my life or business be more convenient because of the world that we're living in today. I am blessed by it. You are blessed by it. For example, if you have a car, cars, you could say are convenient because it gets you somewhere much more quickly. Rather than walking or taking the bus or the train. It's convenient. That's a good level of convenience. We are blessed to have people that were wise enough to build cars for us to drive in the first place to get from point A to B. Even when we talk about things like time management tools. There's so many project management apps and different content tools and just things that you're you might be using for your business or Things that make going about your daily tasks easier. I am grateful to God for those things. Okay, because they help me in my time management and praise God for people creating those apps and creating those tools. Same thing could be said for, I don't know, things in the kitchen, like having an air fryer. That is convenient. It cooks food much quicker and it is safe. Many times healthier than cooking it on the stove or frying it, right? So these are just examples for me to make a point that I'm not saying that everything that's convenient is bad or Contradictory to who God is calling you to be or where he wants you to go That is not what I'm saying What I am saying is that there are certain areas of your life where you have to be careful in where you're trying to make It more convenient, but you end up Borderline Crossing over to straight up laziness, and that's where we need to be careful. That's what I want to talk about. Okay. So first off let's set the tone here to make sure we're all on the same page. What is the definition of convenience? Now, we all probably know the basic definition of what that is, but I legitimately wanted to look up the actual Google definition of what this means. And when I came across the definition, I just had so many thoughts and I was like, you know what, I'm going to talk about it in this podcast episode with you because I think that this is something important for you to think about when it comes to your relationship with God, when it comes to your health and when it comes to the success of your business, your endeavors, your creative ambitions. So let's talk about that definition. By definition. Convenience means proceeding with something with a little effort or difficulty. Now, again, There are some parts of our lives, our businesses, our everyday home, where things being convenient, man, it's awesome. Praise Jesus for that. But there are other things where it's like, hmm, where am I trying to live a convenient life that actually isn't good for ME? And that's where we need to separate the two. There are things in your life or your business or your career or your family or yourself, whatever it is, where convenience is a good thing, right? It makes it a little bit easier on your plate. However, there are things in your life, your business, your family, yourself, whatever it is, where convenience is a bad thing. Now, how do we recognize it as bad? And when can we really bring that to the forefront? And create a solution around it. Okay, now stick with me here. Some of you might be treading along with me, but if you're listening to this and you're like, Angel, I don't know what you're talking about. I want all the convenience I can get. Stick with me if you can, because it's my hope that you're going to feel uplifted by what I have to say. Okay? So, here's the thing, I believe that convenience can be bad or misleading or contradictory or even restricting you away from who you're supposed to be or what God is calling you to do if that convenience is jeopardizing your health or jeopardizing your productivity. When trying to chase after convenience starts jeopardizing either your health or your productivity, that is when you start crossing the line. of laziness. And that is another area within yourself that has to be worked on. Because this isn't a moment to finger point and say, Hey, you're being lazy. That's not what I'm doing at all. This is me helping to wake you up to areas of your life where you might be crossing over to laziness because you just want everything to be convenient. And that laziness can be triggered or can cause. depression, anxiety. It can cause you to step further away from you knowing and being confident in the fact that you were made on purpose for a purpose. There is beautiful work for you to do in this world that God called you to. And laziness can restrict us from taking the necessary steps to go about that work effectively. That's why I'm talking about convenience and being so careful with that. So let me go back to the definition of convenience. The definition was proceeding with something with a little effort or difficulty. I want to focus on that first word, little effort, not very much effort. This reminded me of a beautiful verse in the Bible that says the exact opposite. Instead of it saying, a little effort, the Bible in the specific scripture says, make every effort. Let me bring up what that scripture specifically is just so that we can all walk through this together. In 2 Peter chapter 1 verse 5, it says, for this reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with goodness, goodness with knowledge, knowledge with self control, self control with endurance, endurance with godliness, godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection. with love. There's a couple of things I want to point out in this beautiful verse right here. First off, the very beginning says make every effort versus the definition of convenience literally says little effort. having the ability to put little effort toward something or not as much effort as we would have if that something wasn't invented or created, like the examples I used earlier, time management tools or air fryers or cars. Again, those things aren't necessarily jeopardizing your health or your productivity in that sense, right? Surface level but when we think about other areas of our lives, little effort. What about God saying, make every effort? Why does God say that? Now I am currently reading a book called the purpose driven life by Rick Warren. If you have never read this book or heard of it, I highly recommend it, especially if you're struggling with your purpose in this world or in your business. It is life changing. But one of the chapters in this book, Rick is specifically highlighting why God talks about making every effort. Why does God want you to do that? And the reason why is because he knows how easy it is to fall off, to stray. To feel influenced or convinced by the world, by people's opinions, by the enemy's voice, by our own thoughts. God knows how easy it is as human beings to stray, to fall away, to dig ourselves a deep dark rabbit hole. So in order to climb our way out of that hole, in order to remain on top, in order to stand on a solid foundation, and not stray, not fall off. We have to make every effort, not little effort, every effort so that our spirit overpowers our flesh to the point where we are not consumed by our own thoughts or the enemy's thoughts or people's opinions or the world's noise. We're only consumed by the spirit. We're consumed by God's peace and God's joy because we put in every effort to attach ourselves to that. Another thing that I really want to point out about this verse is that everything that Peter is specifically talking about here is action oriented. When we look at words like knowledge, self control, goodness, endurance, affection, love, in order to achieve these words, in order to implement these words into your life, there is action that you have to take and that action. Many times is not convenient action. It is action that's going to cause you to put in every effort consistently. It might feel difficult and because it feels difficult, it's not necessarily convenient or comfortable. This is what I'm referring to here. There are certain action steps we need to take that are not going to be convenient. And if you are, maybe you're not even aware of the fact that you are unintentionally searching, looking for convenience in every area of your life, I just want you to pause. And I want you to realize the fact that God did not create you or he did not give you that business idea for you to live a convenient, comfortable lifestyle. He created you, he gave you that business idea for you to walk in purpose, for you to put effort behind it so that you can be molded into the person he needs you to be, into the calling he needs you to walk in. To the point where you are stable, you are confident, you are standing on a firm foundation, you are unwavering because you put in every effort, because you accepted the fact that you are not chasing a convenient, comfortable lifestyle. No, you're chasing what God wants for you. And that's not to say that there's not going to be any sense of convenience or comfortability in what God has for you. It's just that you're not leading with that intentionality. You're leading with God. You're leading with putting an effort in different areas of your life, your business, your spiritual wellness, your health, all the things. So just going back to why I wanted to talk about this topic today, I had mentioned earlier, I had this thought where I was like, you know what? I don't want to strive after convenience in my life anymore because convenience is causing me to not put in every effort. Convenience sometimes can jeopardize my health or my productivity to the point where I am borderline lazy. And that is not. Who I want to be. That is not who God calls me to. That is not who God calls you to. So I had to think about that for myself. And in my mind, I just started working through the areas of my life, my home, my business, myself, where I want to cut out the shortcuts. I want to cut out the convenience. I want to cut out the little effort. And it was a wide variety of things, from like basic home stuff to big business stuff. I'm going to give you a few examples, okay, a few examples. I realized that I didn't want to live a life based off of convenience a lot of times when it came to food, what I put in my body. Think about it. Convenient food is quick. Little effort. We're talking fast food. We're talking frozen meals. I found myself in a habit in the past where I was eating just straight up unhealthy because everything was about convenience for me. I just needed it fast. I didn't want to put effort into cooking. But then I realized that I was doing myself a disservice. I was treating my body in a very unhealthy way, and that was contradictory to how God would want me to treat my body. The Bible says your body is a temple. Treat your body well. Treat your body well by what you do with it, what you feed into it. That's extremely essential. So why live my life when it came to food off of convenience and unintentionally end up eating unhealthy and that unhealthy food causing me to feel less energized to the point where I didn't have as much focus or brain power throughout the day to do what God was calling me to do in my business, in my life, anything like that. It was a very unhealthy domino effect. So I told myself, I'm like, you know what? I want to start making more homemade meals. Homemade snacks. And protein bars that don't have sugar in them. Taking time. And being okay with the time that I'm taking to make these things. Because I'm no longer living my life off of convenience. I want To put in more effort to treat my body better. That's one example. Another example. I was like, you know what? I no longer want to live my life off of convenience when it comes to purchasing kitchen and bathroom cleaners that are filled with nothing but chemicals. When you look at some of the household cleaners at the store, and you just, you think nothing of it. Sometimes you just pick it out and you're like, Hey, I'm just going to use this. Yeah. I had this moment at the grocery store where I was reading the back of a specific household cleaner and I was like, bruh what is in this? I don't know, 70 percent of the words that are on the back of this bottle right now. Filled with chemicals. Filled with so much stuff that we don't even know what it is that could be harmful to our home. Why? Why would I do that? Why would I pick something that's just convenient? Oh, let me just pick it up and a household cleaner is already made. I don't have to make it. Why do that? When I could go in the kitchen right now and spend a few minutes putting together a homemade cleaner of baking soda lemon and vinegar boom, that's it chemical free pesticide free A whole bunch of crap in it for free. It's just healthy stuff. Things like that. I just started to think about. And then another thing. One more example just so I can give you like my random thoughts of okay, where can I stop living my life based off of convenience? Another one was my content consistency. So in the past. I was only producing two episodes a month of the God Empowered podcast. Now, at the time, I claim that it is because that's all I had the capacity for. And I still agree with that. On top of that, though, There was this layer of convenience. It was just more convenient for me and my lifestyle to only produce episodes twice a month, rather than producing episodes four times a month, AKA every week. So for me personally, I had to sit with that and I had to think about that. And I knew that because God was calling me to this new level of leadership in showing up. better, showing up more consistently. I needed to stop being in the headspace of convenience when it came to my content production and step more into the headspace of sustainable effort. Sustainable good effort in content production so that I could fulfill more of what I felt that God was calling me and is calling me to do. So again, these are my examples, my random thoughts of like, What area of my life am I chasing after convenience that is actually harming my health or is harming my productivity? Which one is it? What is it? I want you to think about that, my friend, like genuinely. Again, not every area of your life where convenience comes into play is bad. You want to think about what area of your life or your business or yourself where what you're doing, what you're implementing, your habits, what seems natural to you, where that level of convenience is jeopardizing your health. Could be jeopardizing your spiritual wellness, your relationship with Jesus, or could be jeopardizing your productivity and what God is calling you to do. God does not call us to make a little effort. God does not call us to be lazy. Yes, he calls us to have restful moments. He calls us to peace, but that does not mean laziness. That does not mean little effort. There is a possible future for you, a possible present for you to put in every effort to be consistent and yet still have rest and peace. Peace as you go about that. And the only way you're going to learn how to do that is to simply start with the question of what area of my life, myself, my business, my family, am I chasing after convenience in a way that jeopardizes my health or my productivity towards God's calling in my life? And how can I fix it? How can I make time? Because God is that important. If it has to do with God's calling for your life, make the time. That's the most important thing When you decide to base your life not on convenience, yes, it might feel uncomfortable when you start putting in more effort. It might feel difficult, but that uncomfortability and that difficulty leads to you having no choice but to grow. You have to grow. You become disciplined. You step more into a leader. You, you generate these new advanced skills that are a part of this new version of yourself that God has been calling you to for a long time. But you, my friend are just now waking up more to it. And hopefully by listening to this podcast episode, you feel inspired to make a change by it. I hope this was helpful for you today. I hope it just gave you a boost of inspiration, motivation, even if it's something just to think about. That's all these podcast episodes are for, to help you, to give you something to think about, to ensure that you are not alone. When it comes to being an entrepreneur, a creator, even if you're just career driven, but at the same time you care about your mental health and you love Jesus, there's a way to go about life. in a way that honors all of that. Jesus first, of course. Now, if you are looking for more guidance and upliftment and motivation and just overall help from me, I would love to be your mentor this very year. We actually opened up a community and coaching hub called the Burnout Free Biz. And this is just a beautiful space of other Christian entrepreneurs that are building businesses that honor both God and their mental health. You get courses, you get workshops, you get Q& A's with me, you get prayer calls, tons of resources. It's so good. And believe me, I am the kind of hands on mentor in that hub space that is answering questions. I'm there with you. I want to help you, even if it means one on one. And I'm just the kind of mentor in the hub that will literally be in this life in this business growth journey with you. So if you're interested in that, we are offering a seven day free trial of that coaching and community experience that you can get at the link down below in the podcast show notes, or if you're watching this on YouTube in the YouTube description down below, feel free to check it out. And with that, my friend, we'll see you next week for another episode. Talk soon.