let's talk about idols. We know we're not supposed to have them. We shall not idolize anything but God himself. We shall not serve any other God but God himself. And that includes not just idolizing famous people or idolizing other gods from other religions. This also means idolizing things in your day-to-day life that you might not even realize, like idolizing money. Or idolizing perfectionism, uh, idolizing other people that you see who have this status that you desire. Idolizing your phone. Even idolizing your business idea, your dreams. That can also be an idol. Anything that you are worshiping or that you are spending way too much time on to the point where it takes precedence over God himself, that my friend is an idol that can pop up intentionally or unintentionally in our day-to-day lives. But there is one other idol that I think we miss something that we don't realize we're idolizing because it feels so normal, something that we don't see as bad because we live in this world and it feels like something that we should do because there's other people that are doing it and we have to care about what we got going on. That hidden idol that I wanna talk about today is idolizing yourself. Now. Listen, I am not talking about the natural things that are probably coming to your mind right now. Things like you're selfish, so you idolize yourself, or you are greedy, which means you idolize yourself, or you care so much about your status in this world, which means there's a part of you that idolizes yourself. Yes, those two. But I wanna focus on something that's even more deeply hidden that a lot of us don't realize, that my friend is idolizing yourself by believing that you are the solution to your problem. now let me be very clear because I know what you might be thinking. A lot of the problems we face, yes, we have the control to fix. We have the ability to be a part of resolving whatever that problem is, and it's just a matter of us trusting God or us getting out of the funk that we're in so that we can pursue the solution to that problem. That's not what I'm talking about here, so let me just clarify and make it clear as day. You can be a part of the solution to fixing your problems. To fixing your issues to fixing your mental health, to fixing your perfectionism, to fixing your business that seems to be stuck, or your creativity where you don't know what's next. You can be a part of that solution just by you simply getting up and taking action. That's not what I'm talking about though. When I say you idolize yourself, when you start seeing yourself as a solution, what I am talking about. Is when you take God out of the equation of that solution, you just see yourself in that equation. You just see the factors in your life or the things that you can control as part of the equation, and you unintentionally completely take God out of it. And when God is out of it. He is no longer in the solution, which means he's no longer in the destination. He's no longer in the process. He's no longer in the progress. He, my friend, is no longer apart of your life in the way that you think he is because you've chosen to set that distance by deciding that he is not in the equation of your solution. Just sit with that for a minute. Okay? Because you might be like, dang, that just hit me hard. But you also might be like, I don't know what this girl is talking about. Angel. I believe that God is a part of the equation of my solution. I believe that. Okay. Okay. Hear me out. If you struggle with control issues, then you are unintentionally taking God out of the equation of producing the solution. If you are a natural fixer. You just want to fix everything and you're so proactive fixing things in your life around your life, in your business, in other people. You just want to fix things to the point where you're maybe a little too obsessed with fixing things. You, my friend, are unintentionally taking God out of the equation. In producing the solution. If you don't like conflict, don't like hardship. I mean, who does? So I'm really speaking to all of us. If you don't like these things and you find yourself in an unhealthy space. Of allowing whatever that conflict or hardship is to bring you so low to the point where things feel dark, things feel lonely, things feel depressed, and you're just kind of accepting that as reality. You're just kind of sitting in there. No faith, no trust, no action to get out of it. Then you, my friend, have unintentionally taken God out of the equation in producing the solution. These are very real realities that a lot of us find each other in either right now in the past or maybe a specific moment is popping up for you right now where you're like, dang. Yeah, I took God outta the equation and I didn't mean to do that. I wanna say this to you my friend. You are not the solution. God is the solution. He has always been the ultimate solution. He is always there as the ultimate solution, but you have to decide to take yourself off of the pedestal of being the solution to everything in your life, everything in your business, everything around you, and allowing God to take lead again. Allow him to sit in the driver's seat, allow him to become the throne of your life. That is the type of perception I'm talking about. When you see God, you believe God, you trust in God as your ultimate solution, not yourself. Now. Let me also be clear on that because that doesn't mean you don't have a part to play in it, okay? I am not talking about God is a solution, and you just sit back and chill and do nothing. Do I believe that there are moments of silence, of stillness, of you waiting on God? Yes, but that is between you and him. This is not an excuse for you to be lazy, all right? I'm gonna be straight up with you. I'm not telling you to see God as a solution so that you can just sit back and be lazy and not do what God is calling you to do. Because you know what you would then be doing at that point. Idolizing, laziness, unintentionally. Yep. You would be doing that. You still have a part to play. I always say in these podcast episodes and just in my content in general, that. Life is a partnership with God. That includes your business, that includes your book, that includes your creative project, that includes what God is calling you to do. It is a partnership with God. He calls you to put in faith, he calls you to put in effort. And being able to do that consistently, God's part is the outcome. What is produced by that? The fruits that come out of that, that is up to God's discretion. So you still have a part to play in it, but let God be the solution. As a whole. The reason why I am talking about this this week is because I was checked on this, okay? This was a few weeks ago. I was extremely exhausted. I was starting to reach burnout, and anytime I start to reach burnout, it is an extra motivation for me. To fix it, to make sure that I'm not reaching that because it's something that I live by wholeheartedly. I don't believe in burning yourself out. I do not believe that that is sustainable and that is something that I talk about a lot in my content. But I was reaching burnout and I was reminded, okay, I gotta pull back'cause this isn't it, i'm starting to get overwhelmed. I'm feeling extremely exhausted. There's so much going on, and I started to reflect on all that was going on in my business, in my relationships, the world, in my life, in my mind, and I felt this overwhelming peace where this phrase came to my mind that said. I am so tired because I'm trying to be the solution to all the things that are going on in my life right now. Why am I trying to be the solution to everything? I don't need to be the solution to everything. I don't need to be the solution when it comes to fixing every problem or everything that feels wrong or everything that feels off. I don't need to be in the forefront on a pedestal playing the hero. I don't need to do that. I want you to ask yourself. Have you been playing the hero lately? And I'm not talking about in a way where you feel good about it. You feel steady with it. You feel peaceful with it. That's different. I'm talking about the type of hero where you're tired, you're playing the hero, you're doing all the things you're trying to fix, all the things. You're trying to control, all the things. You are the hero, my friend. It is not your. Responsibility to be the hero because when you are the hero, you are looking at yourself as the solution to things. Let God be the solution to those things instead. There are three areas that came to mind for me as I was preparing for this podcast, episode Three areas where I feel like as general human beings. We struggle in these specific three areas in playing the hero in trying to be the solution and unintentionally completely taking God outta the equation. So let's talk about that. The first area money. I had a feeling you knew that was coming because it was probably in your mind while you were listening to this episode. If money is a problem for you, if money is a struggle, if money is stressing you out, I want you to think about. How much you are doing right now that is trying to control your financial situation in a way where God is out of the equation. You're not necessarily thinking about God when it comes to your finances. You're not partnering with the Holy Spirit when it comes to your finances, and I'm not talking about just praying over your finances. That's great. If you're sending a prayer up to Jesus about your finances and believing him for that, great. But you know what? I want to encourage you to fight harder. Partner with the Holy Spirit. What do I mean by that? Start studying what the Bible has to say about money. What does it say about growing your money, about stewarding your money, about tithing and being generous with your money? Managing your money? What does it say about money so that you can partner with the Holy Spirit in that way? In doing money God's way. When you do that, you're putting in faith and effort. But not seeing yourself as a solution because God has that position. God is a solution. You know that he is a solution to your money problems. He can provide financially more than you could ever think or imagine. Your job, faith and effort. Doing money God's way, partnering with the Holy Spirit, God's way. You need to fight for that. Don't just send up a little prayer. That's great. I'm talking about fight for it. Be consistent in it. Stop stressing yourself out, trying to be the solution to your money problems, to your money growth, to your money management. If it is causing you so much stress and overwhelm. I need you to ask yourself. Have I unintentionally taken God out of the equation when it comes to finding the solution to my money problems? Because if you have, that's okay. I've been there before too. But now that you're aware, you can put God back in that equation where he should be taking precedence because he's the ultimate solution to what you're facing right now. Second area relationships. Your relationship with your husband, your relationship with your boyfriend, your fiance, but also not just romantically. I'm talking about relationships with your family members, your friends, your work, your colleagues, people in your network. Any relationship where you feel like. You are trying to overly fix, overly control, overly maneuver certain things so that you can make it your way or make it look okay so that you feel good and this over here is good and oh my goodness, this is a problem. So it has to be fixed. If that is you, when it comes to one or some of the relationships in your life. Then my friend, you gotta put God back in that equation. He is the solution. Relationships have to do with people, right? We need to understand our position when it comes to. How we interact, how we show up for how we communicate with people. What does God say about that? I always think about the fruits of the spirit in this regard. We are meant, we are taught, we should be learning to be loving, to be patient, to be peaceful, to be generous, to be kind, to have self-control. To have goodness, to have faithfulness, and to have gentleness. Nine fruits of the spirit. When you think about how you show up in relationships, these fruits of the spirit should be coming out of you and shown in those relationships, especially because people can irk us, okay? People can get on our nerves, people can make us angry. A lot of times we have a hard time understanding how someone is the way that they are or why they did that, or why they act that way and you just don't understand them and you gotta fix it because it's a problem. We get so caught up in that rather than remembering that that's not our job. It's not our job to sit there and condemn people, whether it's your husband, your boyfriend, your fiance, family, friends, coworker, whatever it is, it is not your job to condemn them based off of their actions. Kindly nudge in the right direction. Yes, condemning harsh judgment. No. Again, we have to understand our position. Let God be the solution for that person. Only God can fix somebody. Only God can produce real everlasting healing in someone's life. Only God can do that. You have to let him. You do your beautiful job. Of showing up with the fruits of the spirit in that relationship, being gentle, being kind, having self-control, being peaceful, all of those nine fruits of the spirit that I mentioned earlier. You do a beautiful job at that. Let God handle everything else. I am gonna give you an example. I have been practicing this so much when it comes to arguments. Arguments with my fiance, arguments with, uh, my family member. I've said this before on episodes because I, I'm just honest with y'all, I struggle with emotional management because I'm so sensitive. A lot of the arguments that take place. I respond to them with my emotions and a lot of times that can come out, uh, in offense, in anger, things like that, and something that I have just been so at peace about. Is to stop fighting in this argument with my emotions and start fighting in this argument by showing up with the fruits of the spirit, being kind, being gentle, having self-control with my tongue and what I say, being at peace and reflecting that light in conversations that are starting to get into a heated argument. I started practicing that because that is what God wants us to do. Because when I start acting out in emotions and when I start finger pointing, and when I start blaming and when I start pointing out wrongdoings in an unhealthy manner, I am trying to be the solution by trying to get them to see their issues. I'm the solution because I'm telling you what you need to do in order for this to be fixed. So therefore I'm the solution. No, God is. God will work on that person. God will fix that person. God will heal like never before if you just let'em, if you stop trying to control it. I'm not saying don't voice your thoughts or feelings. Those are valid. It's okay to voice those at the same time. You have to be careful because are you voicing them in a way that takes precedence over God himself and what his word says? Are you voicing them in a way where you are pointing out what's wrong with that person rather than reflecting on yourself and where you could do better? The Bible literally tells us that there are times when our emotions can be extremely misleading because they're fleeting. A lot of times they're in the heat of the moment. This is where self-control comes into play. Learning to let God get control back of that family member of that coworker of your romantic relationship. Let God work through that person. You focus on your position, and let me also say this when I say relationships, let's also talk about the relationship to yourself and going back to the fruits of the spirit. Are you kind to yourself? Are you gentle to yourself or are you harsh to your own self? Are you really hard? On you and what you're not doing and who you're not, and saying all these negative things about yourself because when you're doing that, you are not shining the fruits of the spirit within you. I think this is especially difficult for entrepreneurs and creatives because we have dreams, we have ambitions, and we just wanna chase after these things. But we question. We get frustrated when we can't get past our procrastination. When we are facing fear, when we don't have clarity, we just get so frustrated, and that can cause us to say all this negative things about us, to the point where now we're stuck in insecurity. Now we're stuck in doubt. Now we think so badly about ourselves. That confidence feels so far away. Let God be the solution by remembering what he says about you developing the fruits of the spirit. You are beautifully and wonderfully made. He has plans to prosper you, not to harm you. Plans to give you hope and a future. He has chosen every single hair on your head. He knew you before you were even in your mother's womb. You are a conqueror. You. You are a princess and Prince of God, our king Christ, our king. You have authority when you allow Christ to live in you and work through you, which means that anything that sets itself up against God, including your thoughts, you have the power to hold it captive and to make it obedient to Christ. These are all things that are in the Bible, which means that it's truth, my friend. We just have to believe it. Have to believe it. Last area that I'll talk about where we tend to take God outta the equation when it comes to the solution. Old habits. Oh, let's talk about this one. It is really hard. To break off old habits extremely hard if you have broken off old habits before, I applaud you for that because I know that was not easy, but maybe there's still some old habits that you're trying to break off and you're just having a really difficult time. I, I am believing that one of the reasons why we just can't seem to break off that old habit is because we have unintentionally taken God out of the equation. We're trying to control it. We're trying to be the solution for that habit ending because it does take our effort, right? It takes a lot of mental effort, a lot of physical effort, a lot of spiritual effort, emotional effort, whatever it is to break off that old habit. So because it takes our effort, we feel like we are the solution. To this problem being no more. But what does it look like to continue that effort while no longer seeing yourself as a solution, but allowing God to work in and through you enough, strengthening you enough to the point where he is a solution that that old habit finally breaks off of you. This is something that you have to individually think about because habits is a very broad term. Everyone has a different habit or habits that they are struggling with letting go of for good. I want you to think about what those habits might be for you, and I want you to ask yourself. How can I continue putting in effort in breaking this off, but making sure that God is back on the pedestal in this problem, that God is taking lead in helping me break this off, that God is the solution to this being no more. How can I specifically do that with this specific habit? I want you to sit with that and think about that. What can you do more of or even less of That simply involves God more. He is in the equation now more than ever. Reflect on that. Oh, I know we talked about some deep stuff today as you know on these episodes, we like to talk about the real stuff that we go through as creatives, as entrepreneurs, as people who feel called to something specific. You hear so much and you see so much about. How to go about things and strategy and success, and that's great. We will talk about that sometimes on these episodes. But what I really want to talk about in addition to that is the real hardship, the mental warfare, the spiritual battles, the emotional struggles, because they are real. And if you don't know how to fight the right fight with God by your side to get through it, then it's gonna be extremely difficult to sustain the calling that God is calling you to. It's gonna be a constant. Uphill battle. When you're aware of these things and you take action in resolving these things God's way, then success, my friend. Can be your reality. And I'm not just talking about money. I'm not just talking about financial success. I'm talking about mental success. This mental freedom, spiritual freedom, emotional freedom. You can get there. You can get there. Thanks for tuning into this week's episode. I pray that it encourages you today and into the rest of this week. And hey, if there is someone that you think needs to hear this episode, feel free to share it their way. I would love for this to be an encouraging note for them, a beautiful, uplifting reminder for them this very week. I'll see you next week, my friend.