You're not supposed to be struggling.
"For my yoke is easy and my burden is light."
- Matthew 11:30 (New International Version)
Are you in a spot where you're trying to figure out whether what you're doing right now is the thing God wants you to do? Or are you in a place where you feel like you have to do something else before you can fully start doing whatever He actually told you to do? If you find yourself somewhere along this spectrum, God has shown me a clear way for us to gauge where we are on the "obedience scale" from now on:
Check your ease levels.
What I mean by that is, how naturally are things flowing for you right now? Are things you've typically done with ease suddenly now a struggle? If your answer is yes, it might be time to change directions.
I learned this the hard way in my own experience. When I started Big Idea Food, everything related to the business was flowing. New followers & email subscribers joined daily, podcast interview requests stayed hitting my inbox & the financial provision I needed was always there. It felt easy. Even though I was working hard & even experienced opposition at times, there was still an ease to it; a flow.
But, when I left my 9-5 and shifted my energy from building Big Idea Food to figuring out how to provide for myself, everything. dried. up. I'm talking new subscribers dry, inbox dry, Bank account dry, everything DRY! I mean, if you've been looking for a sign of whether you're going the right way or not, I've now learned that stuff being dried up is definitely a clear one!
And I say that because as SOON as I physically changed directions back toward what God wanted me to do, it was like a switch got turned back on and literally, everything that had dried up started flowing in abundance again. I'm chuckling as I'm writing this because God can be clear as day when He wants to be 😂 And for me, God used ease as a sign that I was back on the right track. That taught me a powerful lesson:
There's supposed to be an ease to doing what God told you to do.
Now I'm not saying it's all supposed to be a cakewalk but I mean there should at least be some WD-40 sprankled on that thang! 😂 That's what I sense Jesus was telling us in this week's scripture. His will may look like a yoke or burden on the surface but if we'd just trust Him and do what He says, He promises it'll be easier and lighter than it looks. You ever pick up something you thought was going to be heavier than it was? That's what God's will is like. After all the grace He supplies to help you carry it, it's going to be way easier than you thought it would be.
So if you're feeling weary from toiling and struggling to make something happen, you might be on the wrong side of the obedience scale. But that's ok! All you need to do now is regroup, find out what God wants you to do & get busy doing it asap. The ease & simplicity Jesus promises us in this scripture belongs to us as followers of Christ. Take hold of that. Powerful things happen when we take God at His word and, with full presence of mind, accept it as true, even when it doesn't seem to be.
Is clarity about what God wants you to do something you've been struggling with lately? Read & study the rest of our series from this month to help //
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Jan 7: God doesn't need your help.
Still hungry? Eat more //
1 Kings 17:1-9 → God used dried up provision as a sign for one of His old testament prophets to move on to the next thing He had for him to do.
Numbers 9:17-23 → This is a really great picture of how we are to follow God. If the "cloud" isn't in something we're doing, we need to get to where the cloud is flowing.
This is also a great sermon about how the Holy Spirit gives us ease in our situations. Remember you're not alone, you have a Helper who's always there to guide you.