All right, so, I don't have any notes today. Normally, on these episodes, I come ready with notes and tips, and it's all very structured, and I love it that way because I'm an organized person and I know that it helps your brain Absorb what it is that I'm teaching in these episodes so that you can easily implement it into your life, your business, your creative ambitions, yada, yada, yada, yada, yada. Today, I ain't got no notes, okay? And the reason why is because I want to speak from the heart. I want to speak from a very relatable, very resonating, very real time emotion that I have struggled with and still do. And you just might be struggling with as well. I'm assuming you do because you clicked play on this podcast episode. So what is that thing that I'm talking about? Confidence. Not just. any kind of confidence, but specifically confidence in your calling, being confident in what God is calling you to do. Why is it so difficult for us to be confident, consistently confident to do what God is calling us to do creatively in this world, ambitiously in this world? Why is that so difficult? And How can we not make it so difficult? I've been in this journey a lot recently of thinking that I've been confident, thinking that I had all the confidence that I needed when in actuality, I was really struggling. And I was just doing the things that I felt like were safe, that I felt like were convenient, that I felt like people wanted me to do, rather than doing things that God was calling me to do. And maybe what God was calling me to do, what God is calling you to do, doesn't feel as safe. It doesn't feel as convenient. It doesn't feel like it would please specific people. So, let me just start off by saying, the only thing that matters is pleasing God. If you are in alignment with God's word, if you are in alignment with what God is calling you to do, and you know that He specifically is calling you to do that, not the enemy, not your own self, not the people around you, no, God. If He is calling you to that. That's all that matters. That should be enough for you to walk confidently in that calling. Now, why isn't it enough? Why is it scary? And why does it terrify us sometimes to the point where we just play it safe and we end up kind of taking a few steps back and not really walking where God is calling us to walk in, but rather just playing it safe and relying on things that feel convenient or stable or people pleasing? well, the reason why is because we don't know the future of what God is calling us to. We don't know how things will turn out. We don't know the circumstances we might face, the roadblocks that we'll bump into. We get so scared about the future unknown of things that it causes us to not walk in God's calling over our lives, ever. Let me just give some examples of this to help you shape a better idea as to what this podcast episode could specifically mean for you in your current life or your current creative endeavors right now. For example, what if God is calling you to leave your nine to five job and to go full time in your own business that he is calling you to build? What if God is calling you to let go of that one client that you're holding on so tightly to because it feels safe and secure? What if he's telling you to let that client go so that you can make space for a new one that he soon has for you? What if God is calling you to completely tear down that project that you worked so hard to build so that you can rebuild up another one that is more in alignment with God's purpose over your life. What if God is calling you to write that book, despite the little time you feel that you have left in your day to day? What if God is calling you to a completely different career change in a completely different field of work? What if? These are questions that matter to you based off of what you're currently facing in life that have to do with what God could be calling you to right here, right now. The difficult question is, are you actually going to move? If God is calling you to these things, how or when are you going to move to go after it? Even when it doesn't make sense, even when you feel like you don't have enough time, even when you're scared, when you feel that you are going to lose your security, your convenience, your stability, what feels comfortable. Despite all of that, how do you move? So that's what I'm talking about today, because the only way that you're able to really move and to keep the pace of moving, rather than taking a few steps back when things get hard, is to just be confident in who God is and who he created you to be in the first place. I have personally found that when I am not confident, I will not move. Or, I might move even though I'm not confident, but I'm not actually consistently moving. I move a little bit and then I take a few steps back and then I take one step forward and then I take five steps back out of simple fear. I think that's normal. Every human is going to stumble. Every human is going to take a few steps back out of fear or what it is that we're currently facing in life. But what matters is often do we get back up to keep moving forward, to get back on track, to get confident again. Because let me say this, God God cannot work in your comfort. What feels comfortable to you, what feels safe and secure and stable to you, God cannot work in that because your safety, your security, your comfortability, your stability relies on other things outside of God. You should be able to find. and to feel that it's good enough to have safety, security, comfort, and stability in God alone. Not a job, not finances, not a home, not family, not your hobbies, not your creative ambitions, none of that. Yes, does it bring you comfort and security and stability? Of course, but you should be getting that. from the number one source, which is God. Everything else is a resource. God is the source. And when you make that mindset change in finding God as the source of your comfort, your stability, your security, All that, you have much more peace and confidence to walk where he's calling you to walk, to move how he's calling you to move, to make a change in your life where he has been calling you to make a change for, for a very long time. Okay, now I'm preaching here and that's all great, but at the end of the day this is difficult. This is very difficult. It is hard to get confident to move towards something that you don't see. You don't know the results of. It doesn't feel safe or secure or comfortable. You just can't see it. It's hard to be confident in that. Because of that, it takes additional work. To get confident and to stay confident, to keep moving forward, to do the thing, to start the thing, or to let go of the thing in the first place that God is calling you to start, do, or let go of, and to move consistently. Okay, so what does that hard work involve? What kind of work do we need to put in in order to get competent to move and to stay moving? I want to read from the roadmap, the ultimate solution of your life, which is the Bible. Now I want to read this verse first, and then I'm going to read verses that came before it next, but I want to start with the latter verse first, and I'll explain why later. Okay. So I'm reading from. 2 Peter chapter 1 verse 10. It says, Therefore, my brothers and sisters, make every effort to confirm your calling and election. For if you do these things, you will never stumble. Let's talk about this. Peter. Is telling us to make every effort. To what? Make every effort to confirm your calling and your election. If you do, you will never stumble. He is literally advising us that we need to make every effort, not no effort, not little effort. We need to put in every effort. We need to put in hard work to confirm our calling. In other words, to get confident in our calling. That word confirm, what does that mean? When someone confirms something in you, they are reassuring you. You are positive in that thing. It is officially a for sure thing. That's confidence. You are confident in that thing. You know of that thing. You are sure of that thing. You gotta make every effort to get there, and when you do, you don't stumble. So I want to focus on the action that Peter is advising us to take, which is to make every effort. If we want to get confident in our calling and fully move, to fully start, to fully go, to fully let go, whatever it is that God is calling you to right now, if we want to get confident, we need to make every effort. Okay, well, what kind of effort? Let's go back a few verses. Peter says a few verses back, make every effort to add to your faith goodness and to goodness knowledge and to knowledge self control and to self control perseverance and to perseverance godliness and to godliness mutual affection and to mutual affection love for if you possess these qualities in increasing measure they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. This is the kind of effort that Peter is talking about. If you want to finally get confident, To do what God is calling you to do in your life and in your creative ambitions right now. It starts by you making every effort when it comes to you growing in your faith, your goodness, your knowledge, your self control, your perseverance, your godliness, your mutual affection, and your love. You have to focus on growing in all of those areas. And here's the beautiful part when I was reading this recently and I was breaking this down I had so much admiration for the sequential order that Peter writes this in. He specifically writes this, not just out of randomness, but in a specific order. Literally giving us step by step what to focus on first and then next, and then after that. Because if we focus on this thing first, it will produce the next, which will then help us produce the next after that. For example, he first starts by saying, make every effort to add to your faith. Faith is the first thing you need to work on. Oh, this is so powerful. If you want to grow in confidence to do what God is calling you to do, faith is your first step. You need to activate faith in your life. Then, as you do, faith will produce goodness in yourself and in the life around you. So at that point, you continue working on your goodness. Then, your knowledge, as the goodness within you is working and growing, you'll be able to see that by how you act, how you respond, how you think, that kind of goodness that exists within you, you then produce this knowledge of knowing how to do those things. You work on growing your knowledge, your knowledge in Jesus Christ, your knowledge in this road map in the Bible that God gives us, your knowledge in knowing how to mature in your goodness, in how you think, in how you act, in how you respond to things. And as that produces knowledge in you and the desire to become more knowledgeable, that then produces self control within you. So self control is being produced. You're working on that. And as you're working on that, perseverance is produced. You are seeing things through. You keep pushing. You keep trying. And as you work on perseverance. Godliness is produced. This literally goes on and on. This is why I love the Bible so much, because it's deeper than just reading the verses. Understanding it, understanding the context, understanding the history, understanding the sequential order, and understanding how exactly God might be speaking to you and into your life through the verse that you are reading on this very day, at this very time. That is the power of the Bible. I get so many people that say, Oh, I try to read and it's just boring. Or I try to read and I'm just not, my heart isn't really capturing it. Or I'm having a hard time implementing it in my life. I understand, you're not wrong for feeling those things. But, in order for your spirit to rise up in you, it starts by you opening the Bible and reading beyond just reading. Meaning, you meditate on it, you research the history of it, you understand the context of it, you pray within that verse and ask God to give you this divine understanding when it comes to how this verse applies to your life today. This is how you get confident to move, to go where God is calling you to go. This verse that I just read, that's just one example. To continue growing in your confidence and to continue growing in how you make every effort to the qualities that we talked about, faith, goodness, knowledge, self control, all that stuff, you have to consistently open up the word. See God's promises. Understand how you can have faith and trust in God's promises, again. Because when you do, not only does that produce the right kinds of qualities in you that will get you confident to move, but it produces this consistency in you to keep moving. Do not give up. And when you fall short, when you take a few steps back, when you get tired, when you get scared, when you get sad, depressed, insecure, you know how to pick yourself back up. You know how to reach for God's hand, which is right there waiting for you to grab it every single time. It's time to get confident, my friend. Your calling is sitting on the shelf collecting dust, just waiting for you to grab it, waiting for you to take it off the shelf and to put it to use. It is time. I want you to think about what that calling is for you in this current season of your life right now. What has God been calling you to do for a long time? What step of faith? What act of trust? And can you do that? Before this year ends, can you make that a goal for your spirit to rise up and to take action on it? And let me say this. Your calling is not just for you. A lot of times when we feel called to something and we just want to walk in it and we're just ready to go, we think about how it benefits us in our lives. Yeah, it could benefit you in your life. But you know what God is working on? You know what God is doing? He's thinking about how you taking the act of faith of walking and moving in your calling, how it's going to affect specific people along that path that need you, that need that act of faith that you are about to take. And you would be amazed at what you find along that path. A conversation, a life saved. Someone feeling inspired and uplifted for once in their life. Someone getting the help that they need. Someone getting that door opened. Someone seeing and realizing Jesus for the first time. Someone finally getting hopeful after being depressed for so long. Someone learning to also take an act of faith because they saw you do it. This is what happens in God's big picture, in God's big plan for you when you take the time to answer the call and move. It's not just for your benefit. It's not just for you to get all the results. There are people along that path that are waiting for you. People that you haven't even met yet. It's all a part of God's bigger picture will you get confident to move? To do the thing? To start the thing? To stop the thing? Whatever it is that God is calling you to right now, will you? Work on your confidence. Will you make every effort to get confident, to confirm, to walk in, to move the calling that God is calling you to? question is for you, my friend. And I want you to sit with that after listening to this podcast episode. Sit with that. Marinate on it. Pray to God about it, and it is my hope for you, it is my prayer for you, that before the end of this year, you move. It's time. Sending you so much love and light, my friend. And if you enjoyed this episode, feel free to leave us a review. We'd absolutely love to hear from you. Also, share this podcast episode out with people who need it. People that you know who are struggling in their insecurity or who have this big dream, this big calling. They've been talking about it for a while, but they're struggling and taking just one step. Share this episode with them. And it's my hope that it gives them the encouragement that they need today. Love you friend, and we'll see you next week.