What's up and welcome back to another episode of the God Empowered Entrepreneur Podcast. Today we are diving into a little struggle of mine, something that has been hard for me. I would say not even over the past week or the past month, but honestly since the start of the year now. Obviously the start of the year is new year, new goals. We're all feeling really ambitious in a specific area of our lives, and as I was pursuing my specific ambitions this year, I started to feel like I had moments where I was super close to God as I was pursuing those ambitions, but then I had moments where I was unintentionally not as close. When I was trying to reflect on why exactly that was, I realized that it was because I was prioritizing what God was calling me to do over God himself. The business ideas, the goals, the focuses, the specific tasks. It was good that I was being obedient in those things. I'm really proud of that. I am passionate about it and ultimately I just wanna make an impact with it. But I noticed that because I am going harder than I ever did before when it comes to my business. I believed that because I was being obedient and doing what God was calling me to do, that kept him and I close. And although it can to an extent, I started to see that the relationship just wasn't as strong or as fulfilling as I know that it could be. And that's not because of God. God is never the one who moves away from you. There might be seasons where maybe he's a little bit more quiet than you would like in regards to telling you your exact next steps, but that doesn't mean he moved away from you. God never moves away from you. He's always right there waiting for you to come to him, waiting for you to take that step, to grow in closer relationship with him so that you can build trust with him and see him as your provider, your comforter, your savior, all the things. So in reality, what happens is we are the ones who move. We are the ones who fall back. We are the ones who get distracted. We are the ones who don't realize when we are prioritizing other things, including the calling that God has placed over your life. We are the ones putting all that stuff first before God himself, and that my friend is where we need to be. Careful. Notice how, I'm not saying you need to be careful. I'm saying we need to be careful myself included, this has been such a big struggle for me and I wanted to come on this week's episode to talk about it because I think that it's something that a lot of us struggle with. Or if you're not. You're bound to at some point be challenged with it if you are stepping towards what God is calling you to do and doing that consistently. the thing about the average human being, and you know what? Let me specify the average American human being in today's society. We normalize hustle culture. We have this really strong desire to reach a certain level of success, to reach a certain status to feel fulfilled in that, to accomplish. It's not that these habits or our desire to accomplish something specific is necessarily bad, it's that we unintentionally idolize it. And when something becomes an idol, it takes priority even over God himself. And I think it starts to feel tricky, not just when you're prioritizing certain things over God himself, but when you think that you're prioritizing God because you're doing what he's calling you to do in business, in your creativity, and because you're obedient to that, you think that you're not prioritizing your business or your creativity over God when in actuality you very well could be. How do I know that? Because I've caught myself in that and still do from time to time, and man, am I working on it? Now, let me be very clear. It is admirable. It is amazing that you are obeying or that you want to obey what God is calling you to do. It is incredible that you are putting in effort and faith and taking steps to build that thing, to start that thing to accomplish in that thing because you know that God has been calling you to this. It is a beautiful thing to want to honor God with your business, with your creativity, but you should not be solely honoring God just with that. There are so many components to honoring God that have to do with you being in close relationship with him and keeping him first in your overall life. And as an entrepreneur, that effort in honoring God should not just be in your business. Honoring God also means putting him first in your overall life. Taking intentional time to spend time with him. Simply just allowing yourself to be with him rather than do all the things all the time. Taking genuine time to study and dive into the word and become more knowledgeable in it because you know that it is the roadmap to living a successful, peaceful life in all regard. But sometimes it's just extremely hard to do that when so many tasks are calling at your name, especially when those tasks that to-do list has to do with your business and therefore you accomplishing to set out what God has called you to do, you wanting to achieve that, you wanting to be consistent in it, you wanting to reach those specific goals. Again, that's good. But where we need to be careful is if all of those things supersede our time with God, our relationship with God, without us even realizing it. So let me take a second to share a few factual reminders with you. That can help you understand why this is important, because it's pretty self-explanatory, right? Oh, you should prioritize God over everything. Yes, that's self-explanatory. But sometimes we're not actually doing that or taking action towards that if we don't fully understand the depths as to why we need to do that, especially when it comes to entrepreneurship. The first reminder that I wanna say to all of my current entrepreneurs and aspiring entrepreneurs when it comes to this, you will not be successful if you do not prioritize God over your calling. And when I say successful, I am not just talking about monetary success, financial freedom, that's not what I'm talking about. I am also talking about internal success, feeling this steadiness, this contentment, the sustainable peace and joy, even through hardship. It is extremely hard. To be or to feel successful holistically when God is not put first. So if you want that level of success, if you want to accomplish, if you wanna reach specific goals and you are really ambitious towards that, then the missing piece that you absolutely need. That's completely non-negotiable, is to put God first before all of those goals. Your calling, your business, your steps, your tasks, God has got to come first. The second factual reminder that I want to give you, if God is not being prioritized over your calling, you'll burn out much more often, much more quickly. When God is not being put first, you are not taking intentional time to pour into your spirit in the way that you need to. Pouring into your spirit is necessary in order for your spirit to feel fulfilled. And when your spirit feels fulfilled, you can literally feel the effects of that. You feel more at peace, you feel more steady, you feel more prepared to take on responsibilities, tasks, to set out the next day on what God is wanting you to do. You need to pour into yourself in order to sustain your journey. And I don't just mean self-care, getting massages, going for peaceful walks, all of that is great. What I'm also talking about is that spiritual fulfillment, allowing the Holy Spirit to fill you back up. Because as humans, we get tired, we get exhausted, we get burnt out, we get confused. We get conflicted. We get depressed, we get all the things and in order to overcome that, we have got to fill ourselves back up. So if you want to be consistent. And steady in doing what God is calling you to do, then it is non-negotiable for you to allow the Holy Spirit to help you do that. Third factual reminder in why. Why you need to prioritize God over your calling. If you don't, you will unintentionally stray away from God. Why? Because you are idolizing your calling over him. And a lot of times we don't realize when we're doing that. How do I know that? Because that was me. That is me sometimes, and I'm working on that. As Christians, when we're chasing after something, we get confused in thinking that we're prioritizing God because we're obeying and doing what he's calling us to do, when in actuality we're not, there's a disconnect there. We have to get back connected and instead of straying from God, because we're so focused, we're so distracted on the calling itself, we need to run towards him. Because we know that will not only catapult us deeper, more beautifully into the calling that God is calling us to, but it will connect us with him that much more deeply, one-on-one, A beautiful relationship, a true partnership in everything you do in life. Now, all of those factual reminders are great, right? But let me tell you where I struggle. I don't just struggle in implementing certain things in order to keep God first before my calling. I struggle in the desire to make the time to implement those things, not just making the time, but having the desire to make the time. Sometimes I lack motivation in that because I'm so dedicated to the calling, I'm so dedicated to consistency and reaching goals. And when I'm dedicated to that, I have more of a desire to do those things versus having more of a desire to pause, to slow down, and to make sure that I'm prioritizing my one-on-one relationship with God over the calling that he has called me to. And you might feel the same. You might struggle with that. You might have no motivation to do that. Because you're busy or because you're focused or you're distracted, whatever it is, I wanna talk about how both you and I can fix it. How can we fix that loss of motivation, that non desire that we have to ensure that God is being prioritized over our calling? The first thing that I'll say, and by the way, these tips I'm about to give you are things that I am personally trying, that are helping, and that I wanna be more consistent in implementing in my life. So if I know that they're helpful for me, I'm confident that they can help you too. All right. First up, bring God into your day with you. I don't know why it's such a norm to feel like those are separate our time with God and then we go about our day. We need to normalize combining those. If you spend time with God in the morning or in the evening, or in the car on your way to work, or you say prayers here and there, that's great, but they should never be considered a separate or apart from your day-to-day tasks. And that's something I'm working on. I don't just want to bring God into my day during my dedicated solo time with him. I wanna bring him into my full day. And this is where we can get really fun and creative with it. I've talked about this in previous podcast episodes, but I'm gonna highlight some examples again regarding what I mean when I say bringing God into your day with you. This could mean not just spending time with him in the morning or whenever your solo time with him is, but maybe during your workout, you are listening to a sermon instead of workout music. Maybe while you're doing the dishes or you're meal prepping, you are playing worship music instead of having the TV on. Maybe if you are going on walks with your family or you're playing with your kids at the park or walking your dogs, whatever it might be, you're taking that time to pray to God like he's your best friend. Maybe whatever bible verse that you read that morning, you are being intentional in memorizing that verse and repeating it to yourself sporadically throughout your day. Maybe in the middle of the day you take two minutes to open up the Bible app on your phone to read the verse of the day. Maybe before the meetings you have that day, you send up a prayer and you just ask God to sit in those meetings with you. This is what I mean by getting really creative with how God can be a part of your day. What does that look like and how can you stop separating your time with God? Versus your time in your day and just combine the two. What does that look like? The second thing that I'll say is recall how you felt when you were closest to God. I think we've all had one moment or moments in our life where we just felt so close to God. I want you to reflect on when that moment or moments was, what did your life look like? What did your week look like? What habits did you have? Seriously use yourself. Use your past as a case study just by leaning on moments where you felt closest to God. When you do that, this can help motivate you to get back to that place and understand what needs to happen, what habits need to be implemented to help you get back to that place. For example, when I was doing this, I recall that when I felt closest to God was when I was super consistent in going to church every week and going to my Bible study group every week as well. There is a shift in me doing that since we moved from Atlanta where our church was to LA where we currently live now, and it took a while to find a church. It took a while to find a community, and I'm just now getting back into that, and that feels really good. But I'm motivated to get more deeper into that because I remember how I felt when I was deeply into that. I also remember a point in time where my time with God was spent outside of the house because I used to struggle where in the house. I was just super distracted to be on my phone or to get things done in the house. Things like that. So I would spend maybe every other day intentionally spending my mornings outside, not just going for a walk, but bringing a blanket, bringing my iced coffee, laying that blanket down in a grassy area somewhere beautiful that I would drive to or walk to. I'd have my Bible with me and I would just pray and read and reflect. And I felt so good. So if I recall me feeling closest to God in those moments, then that means that could be a habit that I implement more often today, this year. Think about that for you. Reflect on that. Use your past as a case study regarding when you felt closest to God to help motivate you to get back into that again. If you wanna feel good, if you wanna feel fulfilled, if you wanna know that God is being prioritized over everything in life, including your business, including your calling, think back to when you were the closest to him and implement that again. Now the last thing that I'll say, and this is a tough one, force yourself without pressure to rebuild the desire in making time to prioritize God over your own calling. Many times you need to force yourself. Without pressure. Now what do I mean by this? Sometimes we just need to make ourselves do it when you know you wanna go to the gym more often and just feel more healthy. Many times you don't wanna go to the gym. You have no motivation to go to the gym, but sometimes you have to make yourself go anyway because you know the future you that you're trying to get to. Whether it's a healthier system, more toned body, whatever that goal is to get to that future you that you see for yourself, you have to make yourself get to the gym or make yourself do that thing so that you can get to that point. Spiritually, when we force ourselves or when we make ourselves do necessary things or implement habits to better prioritize God, when you do that, the more you're in that moment, your spirit starts to supersede. Your inability to feel motivated, and as your spirit supersedes that and grows in you, you naturally supernaturally start to feel motivated to continue. For example, a lot of times it's hard to read the Bible. Let's be honest. Reading the Bible is incredible. It's the roadmap to our lives. But I have so many moments where I don't want to read the Bible. Sometimes I am bored. Sometimes I fall asleep when I read. Sometimes I just straight up don't want to because my mind is elsewhere. But if I know that a Bible is not just a tool, but is the ultimate solution to everything in life. Especially when it comes to learning to prioritize God, then what does it look like for me to force myself to read it anyway, but without pressure? Meaning I don't need to set expectations to read a whole chapter. What does it look like to force myself to just open the Bible even when I do not want to? And to just focus on a few sentences in scripture, reading it over and over again, allowing myself to marinate in that moment so that my spirit can start to supersede my distractions. It can start to supersede my inability to feel motivated, to the point where now supernaturally, I am motivated. I do feel. Joyful and at peace and more connected to God himself. This is what I mean when I say force yourself. Push yourself, make yourself, but without pressure, without these super high expectations. And as you start doing that step by step, day by day more consistently, you widen your capacity to take on more reading, more of the Bible. Taking more of that action when it comes to prioritizing God. Why? Because your spirit has now superseded your distractions, and now you have motivation. You have a desire to spend time with God longer, to be more consistent in it. At the end of the day, my friend, listen, I know that sometimes it is hard to prioritize God. Sometimes you have so much going on in your life and in your business, and you're busy and you're just sitting there trying to figure out how in the world can you do it all. I just want you to remember, the absolute non-negotiable has got to be God being prioritized over all of that because when he is your life, your business, your busyness, your tasks, they all start to feel more steady. Peace and joy are much more attainable. In everything that you do because you chose for God to be first before anything else. And if this is something that I'm working on and I know the effects of it, when I do work on it, then I know the same exact results are available for you too, my friend. I hope that this episode touched your heart in more ways than one. And hey, if you enjoyed today's episode, I would love to hear from you. Go ahead and leave a review wherever you're watching this episode, apple Podcast, Spotify, wherever there's a place to leave a review. I would absolutely love to hear from you. Thanks so much for tuning in, and I'll see you next week for another episode of the God Empowered Entrepreneur Podcast.