On today's episode, we're going to talk about what are you believing about yourself and what do you believe about the desires that you have as well?

Hi, welcome to Faithfield Woman.

This is your host, Kristen, and I can't wait to share today's episode with you.

Welcome to Faithfield Woman, a podcast designed for Christian women eager to deepen their faith and shine God's light in every aspect of their lives.

Each week we'll delve into practical strategies, inspiring stories and biblical wisdom to equip you with the tools you need to navigate life's challenges and grow deeper in your faith.

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Hi, I'm your host, Kristen.

I'm an encourager, a faith led entrepreneur, a mom and a wife.

Let's be encouraged in our everyday lives as we let our faith guide us, fuel us, and fill us with God's incredible peace, wisdom and joy in our lives.

Okay.

I'm so glad you joined me today.

I.

This topic or these topics, they're so relevant, they're so important because I don't know if you can relate to this, but how many of you have felt like you're a.

You're not living up to the expectations in your life?

You're not.

Maybe you feel like, oh, I'm not a good enough mom.

I feel selfish sometimes.

I'm not as good of a wife as I want to be.

I can't always show up and feel like I'm on right in my work.

Or maybe you feel like you're not always the best friend or sister or daughter.

I think many of us can relate to this.

I know that I can.

So many times I feel like, gosh, I did okay over here, but man, I really bombed in this other area.

Or maybe I said something that I regretted or I lost my patience or I just feel like I can't get ahead of something right?

Like I can't get the house cleaned in every room and do the laundry and make the dinner and, and, and, and right.

It just feels like it's this mountain that I can't get to the top of and that makes me sometimes feel like I'm failing.

Or maybe if I'm in between the work I'm doing right, or I've changed the type of career or jobs I've had and, or work I've stepped into, but I can start feeling like failure.

I can feel like, oh, I'm not where I want to be or Everything is happening too slow.

So I don't know if you can relate to these things, but today's episode's all about how do we.

How do we get the equal sign of how we feel and who we are to equal who God says we are?

How do we get that to balance?

And then also how do we start understanding that the things that we desire, in most cases, they are things that God's put on our hearts, especially if you, you know, look at it against scripture.

But if they're good things, right.

They're not just selfish, driven things, then often it's God prompting us, like something that we want.

Deep down, we want.

So that could be one time with our family.

It can be.

We want to do more meaningful work.

Right.

Most of our desires go beyond.

We want more money.

What do we want?

We want to feel safe or we want to feel that we can do more expansive things.

So there's always things behind, maybe the first thing we think of when we think of a desire or a dream.

Okay, so we're going to dig in this, into this today.

I was reading several devotionals this morning, but one of them is the Proverbs 31, first five.

And today they were sharing Genesis 15:6, which says, and he believed the Lord, and he counted it to him as righteousness.

But basically that part of Genesis is talking about God making a covenant with Abram.

And he promised him that he.

It says, so shall your offspring be.

And he said, no for certain.

And basically, Abram, at this time, he's married.

And his.

He and his wife are quite older.

They're.

I think he's 85 or somewhere around there.

And so God tells him he will keep his promise to have offspring as of that point, when they.

When he heard from God, they did not have children.

So of course Abram is wondering, you know, how is God going to do this?

And he.

He wants.

He's going to believe him for it.

Obviously, he might have wondered, how will God fulfill this promise?

And we might wonder that same thing.

How is God going to fulfill the promise that he tells us that he will?

And in today's.

In today's reading, that devotional, this is what the author.

Sorry, I'm just trying to find where I wrote her name, Joy A.

Williams.

She said, yet God met them from their longing, and he meets us in our desires too.

In other words, their desire.

Abram and his wife's desire was to have children.

But that dream, that desire never had come true, even into their 80s.

And so when God makes the promise that there will, they will have offspring.

That's a desire, a dream that's been on his heart, on their hearts, a longing that they've wanted for so long.

And so I love how Joy Williams says this, that yet God met them in their longing and he meets us in our desires too.

How good is that?

Okay, so the first thing is our desires are not frivolous.

Our desires are on our heart for a reason.

Now we don't always know, and I think I talked about this in the last episode or two.

We don't, we don't always know when he'll fulfill his promises.

And in, in some cases it may not be in our lifetime.

And obviously the offspring would have to be in his lifetime.

But I'm saying sometimes the promises make might be for our children or our grandchildren or some legacy.

And in other cases we may just not see the promise being fulfilled because it happens in a different way than we expected.

Okay, so Roy A.

Williams also says when our desires feel distant and we are discouraged, we too may wonder how God will make things right in our circumstances.

But God most wants us to be right with him through faith.

But by having faith, right, by believing God for who he is, who he says he is, and believing that he will fulfill his promises, he'll keep his promises.

Then that is the faithfulness he wants to see.

That is us being righteous.

And through that at some point his promise that he's spoken to us that, that are in the Bible, right?

They're in scripture that we can circle.

They will come to fruition.

It's point.

Now when or how long it'll take.

We do not know the answer to that.

Okay, so that's what I want to share about promises is that I truly think that God made each one of us unique.

Every single human being has unique fingerprint.

I think we also have a unique, is it I an eye print like our eye.

But we have all these unique things.

There's literally not a duplicate in the entire world.

God did not have to make us so every one of us had a different imprint, but he did.

Because each one of us is uniquely made.

And not only are we children of the Most High, but once again he didn't.

He did not accidentally give us desires of our hearts, our gifts, our talents and our interests.

Now that doesn't mean we always stay on the path of what he's put there.

Right?

Those can get off course.

We can sometimes become selfish.

We can sometimes, you know, go the wrong direction and maybe then start dabbling or stepping into not True desires, but maybe something that feels like we're, we're fulfilling ourselves.

In my interview I had yesterday, actually, my guest in that episode will be shared soon.

But my guest said, let me see what she said here.

He said she kept seeking.

She was thirsty for something and she kept adding more things, looking for external validation.

She explained it like this.

It was like I was going to buffet and I kept going back for something else.

Trying to satiate herself, in other words.

But none of it was working.

And in the process, she just felt, kept, kept feeling more worn out.

She was chasing shiny objects.

But what she started to realize is she was going through the motion.

But what she really needed was to get back to God, right?

To get back to God's word.

And then she said, you know, I now see where I, I did get off track with God.

But the thing is, is the only way we fill, when we feel like we're seeking, when we feel empty, the only way we're going to fill ourselves back up, the only way we're going to get back on track is to seek God.

But when we seek him, we'll be reminded that our desires and our dreams are from him.

Or at least they'll be clear on how to discern that.

Or more clear.

Okay.

And so that's so important.

And so that's the first thing I just want to remind you.

Our desires are there for a reason.

And if God has promised it, I think it says just in the New Testament, there are 37 promises in the Bible.

And you know, those are not just for then, they're also for us and for today.

So I want to remind you of that and just, I mean, what great news is that?

And then I want to talk a little bit about who are we really?

Who are we telling ourselves that we actually are?

And is that true?

So in the book Dream Big by Bob Goff, and yes, I have been sharing some of his words recently, but it's because I just started one of his new books and I have written, I've read many of his books.

And so I just have some of these, these ideas and this, his thoughts written down.

So let's see.

He says, just go back here.

So just do this.

He says, say who you are, where you are and what you want.

Start with acknowledging that deeper longing within you.

I had to take a guess.

That's why you're here.

You can feel it.

I don't even have to define what it is.

You know exactly what I'm talking about.

It is that something more to life.

Rumbling around in your gut, that hug crawling you toward a scary, audacious dream.

And he goes on to say, we look each other in the eye through these pages and say no more.

Doing what merely occupies, entertains and numbs us.

It's time to go after your dreams, your faith and your ambitions with gusto.

It's simply time.

You know it, I know it, the people who love us know it.

But stop deferring, ignoring and screwing around, distracting ourselves with things that won't really matter next week, much like less in our next life.

Let's instead throw our efforts and emotional weight into the ambitions which will outlast us and leave all the rest behind.

And this is the best part of what I want to share today from him.

Did the person you used to adore get buried in the responsibilities of a growing career?

Folding laundry or waiting in the school pickup line?

Is your past shouting so loud you can't hear the future calling your name?

Have you spent so much time and energy trying to meet others expectations of you that you forget what you really want for yourself?

Or maybe you've never taken the time and space you need to meet your real self for the first time.

Who are you?

Oh, gives me goosebumps.

Seriously.

So once again, is that you?

Do you feel that right now?

Did who you were get buried in life?

Or have you not even taken the time to know who you are?

To not know what you want, what you need and what you long for?

You not taking the time to even allow yourself to know what dream has been put on your heart by God.

See, I see this as sacred work.

This isn't all what we want in the sense of something selfish.

This is that God made us with these desires, with our own gifts and talents and skills.

But if we bury it with busyness will never get to the most important work we'll never step into.

As Bob Goff says of pursuing our biggest ambitions and leaving the distractions behind.

And so to me, I think people sometimes hear us talking about desires or dreams or passion and they think it's frivolous.

They think it's, you know, being selfish.

It's being about ourselves.

But I actually think that's wrong if we're doing it from a Christ center perspective, if we're doing it trying to align it with how we were made and what we long for and what we are interested in.

When we start putting those things together, there's an intersection.

And that's where divine magic, if you will, happens.

That's where God can step in and use us in amazing ways.

He can use us in the smallest daily moments, in conversations and opportunities, in blessing people and being a prayer answer to people.

But he can also do it in big dreams that we might so I hope as you step into the rest of this year, as we move into February, in the March, April and beyond, I hope that you will keep remembering that God will meet us in our longing and he is trying to help us understand what desires are from him and that he actually wants us to circle those desires and circle his promises for our life and also remember who he's made you to be.

And so I hope you'll take this with you and have a great week.

Until next time.

And I just want to remind you again, if you haven't already joined us for the 10 day email challenge to reignite your passion and rediscover yourself, head on over to my website.

Or it's the easier thing is just to click on the show notes the link for the reignite your passion challenge.

But it is 10 days.

It only takes a couple minutes each day.

It's a free challenge, but that's a great starting point.

So check that out and I'll love to hear at the end what you've taken away from that.

Thanks again for listening to the show and if you enjoyed today's episod, we would love it if you could take a minute to leave a rating and review on Apple Podcast because it helps our show get discovered by more people.

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