Hello and welcome to this week's episode of the God Empowered Entrepreneur Podcast. Today we are diving into something that some of you might be thinking, oh yeah, angel, I'm there. I need this episode. Others of you might be thinking, I'm not quite there yet. Angel, here's the thing. I think in some shape, form capacity that no matter what stage of life you are in, no matter what you are carrying within this current season of your life, I think that this episode topic can not only apply to you, but that it can help you. Now, the reason why I'm saying this is because this specific episode topic was crafted. Out of stress, not me feeling stressed when I was writing out the details of this episode and bringing it your way today. But using the very recent stress that I went through to pull inspiration from in order to bring this episode to you today. And when it comes to stress, we all deal with it. We all struggle. We all get overwhelmed. We all feel burdened no matter what it is in our life, in our business, in our goals, in our day to day, whatever it is. Stress, unfortunately, is a part of the human experience. Now I could create an episode on how to manage stress better or how to navigate stress in your life better. Yes, and maybe that's an episode for another time, but in this week's episode, my friend, I wanna talk about why the stress happens and it's something that you might have not thought about before because the stress clouds your mind too much in order to even think about. What I'm gonna say, hear me out. What if the stress or what you perceive as stress right now in your life or in your business is God's way of challenging you to handle more? Just sit with that for a second. Marinate in it. What if. God sees as your reaction to him trusting you to handle more in your life. Now that more that I'm talking about could mean anything. It could mean the good type of more meaning, more opportunity. You have more customers, more clients, more blessings, and maybe you feel stressed out at the weight of all of those blessings. It could mean that good type of more that I'm referring to, or maybe it's not so good. Maybe the more that comes to your mind right now. Is more problems, more frustration, more. Oh my gosh. I need to pause this podcast episode for a second because if you are watching this episode in the video version right now, I am just now noticing this gorgeous light behind me in the window. It is just shining through so beautifully. The minute I saw it in the camera, all I thought about was wow. Thank you Jesus, for being here. Thank you for being present in today's episode. Wow. Wow, wow. Okay. I just had to highlight that and I wanted to keep that in this episode rather than editing it out, because God can show up anywhere. He's literally right there in different ways, different shapes, different forms. Man, what a beautiful God that we have. Alright. Continuing with what I'm saying. Maybe you're going through the bad kind of more, more problems, more frustration, more of, oh my goodness, can I just catch a break? That type of more. What's interesting is no matter the kind of more that you are currently dealing with in the season of your life, both of them could be God's way of. Challenging you to be able to handle that more, and no matter which more it is, whether it's the good, more or the bad, more. Both types of mores can cause stress. They can cause us to feel overwhelmed. They can cause us to feel like we just can't handle it. Why? Because it feels burdensome, because our humanness can only take so much. We get burnt out. We sometimes just want to throw in the towel. That's a normal reaction to the kind of more that we might be carrying, whether it's good or bad. And I notice that when I am faced with stress in life, whether it's the good more or the bad more, I tend to focus on that stress. And how much it's negatively impacting my life, rather than focusing on God and how much he could be using that to positively impact my life over time. It's a change of perspective, but it's tough. It's dang near impossible to change your perspective when you are just going through it. No matter if it's good or if it's bad at the end of the day when things feel too much, when they feel heavy, when they feel like a huge weight of responsibilities. Our human brain will focus on those problems rather than focusing on the fact that maybe God is actually seeing this as a solution for you, for your life, for who he's calling you to be and what he's calling you to do. So I wanna talk about that. I want to help. I wanna challenge, I wanna encourage you to change your perspective by first understanding why God could be challenging you to handle more right now in the season of your life, whether it's good or bad. Because when we understand the why, when we understand the root of things. It helps us to change our perspective. It helps us to see God and be powerful. All mighty light that he will forever exist in. And we start to tune out of our emotions, our burdensome feelings, all the negative things, and we start to tune into the spirit the truth. The positive because we trust God in what he has us currently dealing with or handling in this season of our lives. Now, let me be very clear. Sometimes we're not gonna understand the why. Sometimes us digging to get the full clarity, the full picture, knowing all the reasons. Sometimes you will not get that until you're with your father in heaven, and then you start to see the why and as far as what God chooses to reveal to you and to help you understand and the whys that you are able to see versus the whys that you will not see until you get to heaven. That is a mystery. That is something that God knows and we can rest in the fact that one day we will know. But on the other hand, I do believe that if we would just tune in, if we would just take the time to change our perspective, if we would just study and meditate and allow our spirits to rise up over our human emotions when we're going through frustrating or heavy things or responsibilities, we can better understand the why. We are going through these things can change our perspective, change our attitudes about it, change our actions behind it, and move forward just in a better way to be able to get through it in a better way. So let's dive into that. The first reason why God could be challenging you to handle more in your life right now that you see is causing you stress. It could be because he is testing you. God is testing you to see how you carry it. He wants to see if after all of the things that he's previously brought you through, your past, your experiences, every open and every closed door., your uprise in faith, making your relationship stronger with him leading up to this point. He is testing you to see just how strong your relationship with him, your trust in him really is. It's one thing. To say that we trust God. It's another thing to show that we trust God when things in our life are going well, when we feel good, when we're at peace, when we're just happy, it's easy to show that we trust God in those happy moments. What's hard is showing that we trust God. In the tough moments, in the overwhelming moments, in the stressful moments, in the moments where we literally feel like we're about to break from everything that we are carrying in this season of our lives, whether it's good stuff or bad stuff, at the end of the day, it's just overwhelming. It's overbearing. God could be testing you. He could be testing you in seeing if you will perceive him as a bigger than what you are going through. You see him as the ultimate solution., if you will show that he is bigger than that, by continuing to prioritize him, no matter what you're going through, no matter how much that stress is causing you to be busy and your brain is nonstop, he is testing you to see if you will not only still prioritize him, but also. If your actions will remain Christ-like, because let's be real. You know what? I will be real with you. When I am stressed. When I am frustrated, there are moments, okay, where my actions are not Christ-like. What do I mean by that? I am angry. I am acting out in emotional immaturity. When I'm stressed, I don't respond well to my fiance. Sometimes I snap and I need to work on that. Now let me be clear. It's okay to have a moment where you just are sad and you just need to cry. It is okay to have a moment where you're like, Hey, I need to step away. I can't have a conversation right now. I just need moments of solitude. That's still Christlike. Jesus had moments where he cried. Jesus had moments where he had to step away. What I'm referring to is when you take. These moments and you unintentionally start to allow your human emotions to surpass your Christ-likeness, meaning now your emotional immaturity could be coming out, your anger is coming out, your anxiety is running rampant. That is what I'm referring to. God could be testing you and sometimes it takes him testing you in order to show the truth behind where your faith and your trust in him is really at. It will reveal all. It will challenge you to remain close to him. It will challenge you to refocus on him. It will strengthen what might feel weak to you into something that is unbreakable. Sometimes God just needs to test you and that test, even if it's hard. You overcoming that test, you succeeding in that test and I know that you can shapes you more into the person that God needs you to be and what he's calling you to do. And in order to be who he needs you to be and do what he needs you to do, he needs you to strengthen. And sometimes it takes a test for him to be able to strengthen you. That brings me to my next point. God could be challenging you to handle more in your life right now to grow you. God wants to grow you. Growth is necessary to make space for the more that you desire. Now, let me do a quick comparison here. The more that I was talking about previously is the unexpected more. The more that happened from efforts, and therefore you have more opportunities and more blessings in your life, and you're just carrying a lot of tasks and responsibilities and it's all good, but it's overwhelming. And then you have the bad, unexpected more that I was talking about earlier, the stresses, the problems, the frustrations, the roadblocks, the finances, things that are just weighing you down in a negative way, but. Every human being has their own idea of the more that they desire. And these are all naturally going to be positive mores. We want more money, we want more peace, we want more time freedom. We want more. Opportunity to travel. We want a bigger house. More of this in our family and more of this in our health, and we wanna look this way and feel this way. There is this natural human desire of more, and it's why we have goals. Think about it in the sense of entrepreneurship. Every person who desires to be an entrepreneur, desires to take their creativity, put it out there into the world, and make impact and make income from it. Every entrepreneur is looking to make more money, make more impact, make more growth, have more here, more of this. It's natural not just for entrepreneurs, but for humans. To desire these positive mores, these goals that we're trying to get to, right? But here's the thing, if you've prayed on those mores and you know that it aligns with God's word, that he could very well give you that more that you desire. Then that means that God knows what needs to be done in your life right now in order to create capacity in you to be able to handle the more in the future that you desire. Now, think about that. You want more money in the future, guess what? God can bless you with that more. If you put in effort and faith and go about it his way, absolutely he can bless you with that more. But he knows you. He knows what he needs to do in your life right now in order to teach you and in order to create capacity within you to be able to handle the more money that you want. For example, he is going to potentially put challenges in your life right now that are going to force you to manage your money better now. He could be giving you ideas to work through that are gonna take logistical thinking and creative methods, lots of prayer, biblical principles to grow your money now so that you can handle the more money that will come from it in the future. He might challenge your heart. In certain moments to be generous with your money. Now, even though you want more money for yourself in the future, this is how amazing God is. He knows you better than you know yourself. So you might be sitting there thinking, yeah, I want more money in the future. I want more of this in the future. I wanna reach that goal in the future. And you might think that that goal is something you should have now. You should be able to accomplish it right now, today. You want the more money, you want, the bigger house. You want this now today, but God is like, Hmm, I know you better than you know yourself and in order for me, if it is in my will for you to give you the more that you desire in order for me to do that, then I need you. To grow. I need you to build capacity. I need you to learn. I need to teach you. So you, my friend, have the challenge of being receptive to whatever that teaching might be. Whatever you're going through right now. How can you use this as an opportunity to change your perspective and say, wow, God could be teaching me right now. God could be growing me right now. I'm gonna give you an example. Last week I went through a lot of stress. And it was a mix of good and bad. The good more because I had lots of projects and clients and students that I was trying to pour into. That's good. But also I had the bad more where I was going through some family things and really struggling with my anxiety at the time. Both mores caused me to feel overwhelmed. On top of that. I'm trying to take care of my dogs. I'm trying to manage a home. I am planning a wedding. I am preparing for marriage with my fiance. I'm trying to keep my relationship with God strong. I'm trying to prioritize my workouts and my mental health, but also work on this project and this real estate goal over here and this and that. So many things where I was just straight up stressed out. Now I can look at all of these stressors and say, this is too overwhelming, and. Obviously take action to help my overwhelm, taking time away, letting something go that week so that I could focus on what matters most. All the things, yes. But it also brought about the thought for me of if I am stressed out at my life right now, how in the world is it gonna be when I have kids? Genuine thought, serious question. How can I expect? To raise, to handle, to prioritize bringing up kids in this world as a mother, if I cannot handle my life right now, that is not something for me to freak out about instead. It's something for me to genuinely think about. What if God is using all of the things that are going on in my life right now in this current season? What if he's using that to grow me, to teach me what it's like to create capacity, to make room, to balance these things in a healthy way so that when it comes time. For me to have a family to raise children, I am more ready. I'm more mentally prepared. I am stronger to be able to handle that. Now let me be clear, okay? I believe that you are never gonna feel 100% ready for everything, but you can be intentional in getting prepared. Simply by changing your perspective and what God could be doing right now to help grow you to create capacity for what could be next. Think about that in your situation. How could God be trying to grow you right now? Last thing that I'll say in why God could be challenging you. With the more that you're dealing with right now is because he wants you to steward it well, will you handle this season of your life with Christ-like maturity? And that ties back to what I was saying earlier. Will you handle it well? Will you manage it well? That is what stewardship means, your beautiful ability. To be able to manage things well to the point where stress is less likely to happen because you manage your time well, because you manage these projects, these clients, these students that business, the tasks with it, you manage it well. You manage your home well, you manage your health well. You have certain plans to help you manage things well. You are leaning consistently on resources to help you manage things well, whether it's books, the Bible, which is the ultimate roadmap to success in everything in your life, internally and externally, by the way, people and community around you, so that you're not just going through this by yourself. Are you leaning on these things? Are you stewarding these things? Well, sometimes God wants to challenge you to simply become a better steward. I truly believe that becoming a better steward opens up the door for unbreakable peace, because when you steward things well naturally, peace is there. Anxiety. Is much more difficult to come by. You have more peace, you have more balance. Your soul feels more rested even in busy seasons or busy days because you're simply being a good steward. You're learning what it's like to not be all over the place where your mind is chaotic. Everything is everywhere, all at once. No, you're learning to put the pieces together. You're learning for things to feel or to be more balanced because you are prioritizing what it's like to simply be a better steward. And stewardship, my friend, good stewardship unlocks the door. For where God could be bringing you next. Because if he sees that you can steward well the season of your life that you're in now, whether it's the good, more or the bad, more. If he sees that you are doing your best, you're putting in the effort and the faith to steward it well, then he can trust you with what he might want you to steward in the future. Maybe you are going through a season of your life of all the bad moors, or maybe it's just some of the bad moors. Maybe you're struggling financially. Maybe you feel like you've had back to back rejections from people or opportunities, and you just can't catch a break. Maybe you're going through family stuff that's weighing you down. How can you steward these things better? What does it look like to steward your mental health better in these situations, but also steward your actions behind these situations to navigate your way through? What does that look like from a mindset standpoint and from an action standpoint? As you navigate through, as you pray over. A way out and letting God guide you as you put in that effort in a Christ-like way. Think about that. Think about that. I hope you enjoyed this week's episode. I know you're probably deep in thought right now, or at least I hope you are, because something I always say is that it's one thing to listen to these episodes, whole nother thing to take action on what you are listening to, and that is my hope for you today. Take the time to think about why God has you going through what you're going through right now in the season of your life, good, bad, the in between both, whatever it is. Think about that and then. Work on changing your perspective from feeling and being so stressed about it, to thinking, how could God be using this to test me, me, to grow me, and to help me be a better steward? Thanks so much for watching now if you love episodes like these, I would love to hear from you. We are always taking topic requests. Feel free to text the number that's located in the podcast show notes or in the YouTube description below where you're watching this episode. Text us a podcast topic request. We would love to consider it, talk about it, and continue on this journey together. Thanks for tuning in, and I'll see you next week for another episode.