You've Got to Start Somewhere!

Overcoming Fears 

For those of you who know me, it is no secret that I have dreamed of starting a business that inspired others to dream big and follow those dreams. Well, it’s hard to inspire others to do something you are too afraid to do yourself. If someone had told me years ago that I was afraid of success, I would have laughed. After the last year of healing and soul searching, I was definitely fearful of many things.

I have started chasing my dreams so many times. Things would start well and then something would happen and I would use that as my excuse to say, “the timing just isn’t right.” You see, I believe God gave me a vision many years ago. It was a BIG vision; one where I would be creating beautiful things and sharing my story with others. That’s why I started Mandi’s Market in the first place. The funds from the market allow me to spread the word of God and answer the call to help others. Sharing my story would mean sharing how God was the light in my darkest moments. The truth is this dream is big and scary because it would require me to be vulnerable and to share parts of me that I honestly hoped would stay hidden.

This morning I prayed to God asking specifically for sales: lots of sales, big sales, successful sales. I’m a single mother and I make my living off of commission. With the current state of our economy, sales are down and so is my income. Honestly, I cringe writing this because I never ask God for material things. It always felt like a wasted prayer. How can I pray for God to give me sales or more money when there are much deeper, darker problems in the world?

Recently, I have found myself wanting to go after this dream simply to obey God. In the past, I feel like my desire to chase this dream was for the materialistic things that would come along with it. Now, I just want to tell everyone about THE ONE who saved me from feeling like no one. I know without a doubt He’s called me to do this and I want to obey Him. I want to give my gifts and talents to Him so that He may use them for His glory. Today, a little after lunch, God told me, “You’ve got to start somewhere!” I remember someone telling me that they prayed to God asking to win the lottery and someone asked, “have you played the lottery?’ You can’t win the lottery if you don’t play.

Aligning My Desires with God

 Most people have heard of James 4:3 in The Bible as saying, “You have not because you ask not.” What it actually says is, “when you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives.” God wants us to live a prosperous life, but we are called to do the work of The Lord here on Earth. Psalm 37:4 says, “Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart.” I think we often get confused by these verses. We often think God will give us riches or fame, maybe good looks or big houses. What I think we miss is that we need to align ourselves with God by setting our heart on him and checking our motives accordingly. 

Walking with God changes our hearts. Taking time out of your day to sit with him, reading The Bible, asking God for clarity and understanding of how his word relates with where you are in life, and applying the things you learn are some of the ways you can begin building a relationship with God. The more time you spend with him the better you will get to know the character of God. You will learn his voice and how he leads.  Slowly, the desires of the flesh are replaced by the true desires of God. The more that we walk with God in his word, the more we will desire surrender, peace, obedience, love and joy. This is how we know we are aligning with the word of God. As we mature he will change the desires of our heart from worldly things to Godly things. This blew my mind!

The Power of Obedience

Tonight, I came home, logged into my website and started writing this post. I thought, I’ve got to start somewhere. I haven’t had a sale on my site in over a year – not one click in months. But I haven’t posted it anywhere. I haven’t shared it or even updated my site, so I didn’t expect anything different. To my surprise, when I logged in, there was 1 person active on my site. I thought that was kind of weird, but I brushed it off thinking that it must be tracking me. Then… I MADE A SALE! I got a notification that a complete stranger, several states away, placed an order. This may not seem like a big deal to anyone else, but I KNOW this was God’s way of saying JUST DO IT ALREADY. 

How can God bless something I haven’t even started?

So here’s to a new beginning and I can’t wait to see what God does through me!