Latest / The Rooted Woman Podcast / Personal Convictions: How I Wrestled, Obeyed, and Saw the Fruit of Obedience
Transcript
- Courtney Her Mind On Mission: Hello and welcome back to the Mission for More podcast. I'm your host Courtney, the face behind her mind on Mission on social media. And today you are getting an audio only podcast with yours truly. I have some great guests continuing in the lineup, but for now I wanted to have a conversation in a little bit more detail in regards to something that I have been sharing more about on social media and also talking with many of you about in my DMs. So today's topic is giving up coffee, personal convictions, and the fruit of obedience. And no, I'm not telling you to stop drinking coffee. Don't end this episode. I would encourage you to listen all the way through. Okay, I want to start with the backstory here of coffee and my journey with coffee and why I'm talking about it today. This is not about coffee. You know how sometimes the thing that you're talking about is just not the thing that you're talking about? That's what we're talking about today. So while this is in relation to coffee for me, throughout the episode, I want you to ask God what coffee is in your life. What is the coffee that you've got going on? And so for me, I had a season and I shared about this when I was teaching at mom's group several times in the past, just my battle with coffee, where I felt like I was supposed to give it up and then I would feel released to have it again. And I didn't understand this ebb and flow and this pendulum swing with coffee that I was going on. And so I had given it up for a while and I was on vacation, stepped onto the back porch of the lake house that we were staying at. and just recognize like how peaceful it was. And I remember saying, God, I wish I could just have coffee right now. Like I want to sit on the porch and enjoy the coffee. And I really felt the nudge from him, like you can enjoy the coffee. It was just about putting me first. And for so long in my life, I would say that I would put God first, but it was God first after the coffee or with the coffee. It was God first after. the workout. was God first after I got ready for the day. And I'm just on this journey of putting God first before everything else, praying to Him first, worshiping Him first, reading the Bible first. And I don't always get this right. And I think any mom with young children can say that there are days where it's hard, where they wake up before you or you've been up all night. And there is so much grace for that. And the Lord sees us in that. But I kept having this repeating theme of other things competing for my time with the Lord. Coffee wasn't necessarily an idol, but it was just something where I was like, okay, I'm putting God first, cool, can have it again. Okay, my stomach is healed. I can have it again because I've had severe GERD flare up since early 2020. And so I had come to this place where it was an ebb and flow and I felt like it was a constant battle. And I now knew that I needed to give it up. And I want to encourage you the time between me knowing I needed to give it up and me actually giving up coffee was not an overnight thing. It was a several month process. It was fasting and praying and asking God to take away the desire for coffee in my life. And it was a habit that I needed to break. And many times on my social media, I share about habits that we want to form. Sometimes there are habits that we need to break. And I kind of talked about this when we entered into the new year and just talking about goals and things like that. But I haven't really broken this down in a way that can help project us closer to where we want to be and take us closer to the goals that we have for ourselves. And so... This wasn't just a habit that I needed to break. It was the setting free for me of this almost like a hold that coffee had on me. I felt like I needed coffee in the morning to energize me and then I needed coffee in the afternoon to get me through the evening routine with the kids because it was just so hard. Then I was making all these complaints and using coffee as my coping mechanism to get through instead of praying to God, God will you give me energy? God help me to keep up with the kids. God show me what I need to do. And so in some ways, Coffee wasn't necessarily this big idol in my life, but I was still putting it before reaching for the hand of God in my life, reaching for His support, reaching for Holy Spirit wisdom and guidance that would carry me through the rest of the day. And I think so often we do that. We phone a friend, we call our mom, we talk to our husband, we send that quick text, we complain, we... turn on music to drown out the noise of the things that are overwhelming us or overstimulating us. We go on a cleaning rampage. There are so many things that we do when we are stressed that are coping mechanisms. And I'm in a place and in a season where I want God to be my coping mechanism. I want worship to be my weapon and to really say that and live it out. And yes, it comes in seasons and there are times where I'm like on fire and I'm like, first thing I need to do, pray. First thing I need to do, turn on the worship music. And then there are other seasons where I just feel I don't want to call it spiritually lazy, but I feel spiritually exhausted, right? And I've shared that on social media too. Sometimes this thought comes in my head about being lazy, and it's not necessarily laziness. It is more so an exhaustion because I am not creating enough rest time in my week, in my day to be able to surrender these things to the Lord, to be able to allow Him to carry me through what is challenging and what is convicting and what things should look like and where I need to make shifts or... tighten things up a little bit and instead I go to let's just clean everything and I go to okay if I just like get this this and this done I'll feel better or let me text my husband and tell him how hard things are or where I'm overwhelmed and right now I'm in this place where I'm bringing it to the Lord first and then if my husband has probably noticed this new trend that I'm doing or I just come and ask him for a hug I'm like, just need a hug because I don't want to complain out loud. And I want God to be the one that is my actual coping mechanism. And that hug from... my husband, that tangible hug that I can receive from him in that moment, being a reminder of the Lord's hug around me, that he is spiritually surrounding me, that he is with me wherever I go. We've been rehearsing Matthew 28.20 in our home nonstop with some things that have just been going on in the coming and going and shifting of seasons here. And I need that reminder too. And so just making sure that I am not aligning. myself with other things when I say that I want to be aligned with God as my coping mechanism and coffee had a whole lot to play in that role. Coffee also had a role to play in the way that I was responding and reacting to things throughout the day. I was stressed out and I know that my cortisol was high and as I continue to pray for my hormones to be aligned and my stress levels to come down and for me to have this peace again because I was feeling like I was going back into this season of like ⁓ my goodness, things are swirling and I don't know what to give up. The first thing that the Lord had me give up was coffee. That was the first thing. And he made it so clear that this was affecting my hormones. It was affecting my tone. It was affecting my responses. I wasn't necessarily struggling with anxiety, but it would create in me this feeling where my body wanted to go, go, go, but my mind was not fully caught up to that. And so I just felt like I don't even know where to start. And it felt like almost like a tornado. that was about to happen, but it never really fully happened because I've gotten to that place where I can surrender those things to the Lord, but I felt like I was always on the brink of just like teetering back into this place of anxiousness and this place of overwhelm. And I'm like, Lord, I am literally telling other women how to not be in the overwhelm. Yeah, I feel like I am one step from slipping off the edge. What is it? And coffee was highlighted time and time again. So I prayed every single day, God take. away my desire for coffee. I want it to be like gravel in my mouth. If you are telling me to give it up, don't make it sweet like honey anymore. Make it like gravel that I want to spit out. And I'm telling you, 66 days into being coffee free, I can't even stand the smell of it. I don't even think about it. I do not want it. It is crazy to me because it was such a ⁓ sought after thing in my morning and afternoon for so long. And it was a gradual cutting back. I didn't want to completely cut back and feel ⁓ Like these horrible headaches and all of that and so I was like, okay I'll cut back from two a day to one and then I'll cut back from there and there was one day that I woke up and was like no I am NOT doing this anymore. My pastor had said the day prior to that. Why would I want something that I know is bad for me? And it stuck out to me so much and it was like the Lord was flashing all these things in my mind where coffee was no longer the thing for me, where it was not serving my body, where it was not serving me mentally, spiritually, any of that, where it was coming into play with the way that I was responding, with the way that I was perceiving, and even with my gut healing journey, how it was taking me back from being able to fully heal. And since not drinking coffee, I also have only taken my flare up medication one time. ⁓ on one day and was able to take one dose and be done with it. And so just so grateful for that healing that I have seen in my life, but it didn't come without wrestling. And I want to make that clear because again, maybe this isn't about coffee for you. Maybe this is about turning on the TV for your kids for an hour and a half every day just to distract them so that you can feel like you can get yourself together or. maybe it's texting your husband and complaining to him because you feel like that's your coping mechanism right now. Whatever the Lord is highlighting to you, I want you to think about that and understand that when you give that up, it will not come without wrestling, at least in the flesh. And we can ask God to take that wrestle away supernaturally, and He can and He will, just like I mentioned with coffee. But I had to Personally go on the journey of getting there and I think if we just expect God to take it away overnight without being on the journey to get there What testimony do we have to share? What encouragement do we have to to give to others and really? What fight did we have to put? Against our flesh to be able to walk that out so that we can grow spiritually as daughters of the king I think that is so important to take into account and I'm not saying ⁓ You're gonna have the worst rustle of your life giving up this thing that I know that the Lord is stirring in your heart right now but you have to ask yourself some things, okay? Is this thing that's highlighted in my life, is this from the Lord? Is He telling me to give this up? Am I trying to reason my way around not giving it up? Because that right there is usually a sure-tell way to figure out that your flesh wants that thing that God is asking you to no longer have. And then ask yourself too, what fears or resistance is popping up? I ask myself, okay, is this giving up coffee some like... next step legalistic thing that I'm doing with the Lord. No, I don't think so. The fears that came up were, what if I get horrible headaches? What if I have migraines from not having it? You know, what if, what if, what if? And I never had the headaches. I don't think I had one headache from giving up coffee. And I will take a little caffeine supplement, about 50 milligrams of caffeine within. It's a natural little mix in that I put in my electrolytes sometimes. And I love it, but I don't need it. I don't think that I need it. And when I don't have it, I don't have a headache. And so that little fear that came up, I could have gotten a headache, but I walked through that. Okay, so what if I get a headache? I know that headache is not gonna be there every single day because I will walk out of this caffeine coffee addiction in my All that to say, it's okay to wrestle with it and that wrestling will grow you in your walk with Christ if you allow it to. And once we go through the wrestle and we ask those questions and we talk about the what ifs then we get to the place of saying, okay, I'm doing this, there's a choice that we have to make and that choice is obedience. So here's the funny part because again, I talk about holy habits, I talk about all these things, right? And many times we're talking about forming habits and today we're talking about getting rid of a habit. And in both cases, whether we're forming or getting rid of, what do we have to do? We have to choose obedience. When the Lord is asking us to do something and when he is asking us to set something down, it takes obedience just the same and it might be uncomfortable and it might not be our first choice. But when we obey, there are some beautiful things that happen that I will get into in a moment. But I want to talk about that moment that I actually decided to follow through. I am so big on celebrating. the small things. And I think that the Lord smiles down on that because if we don't celebrate the small things, it feels like this big mountain that we will never get over. But when we celebrate those small things, it feels like, okay, I just think about the woman reaching out. Like if I could just touch the hem of his garment, it wasn't this big monumental, if I could have this hour alone with the Lord and he will pray with me and heal me. No, was if I could just touch the hem of his garment. Can we celebrate that small little thing? If I could just go one day without coffee, and then if I could make it two, and then if I could make it three, and I'm celebrating, I celebrated at 11 days, I celebrated at 15 days, I celebrated at 17 days. I've been celebrating along the way because I want to rejoice in all that the Lord has done, and I want to celebrate so that it encourages me to keep taking that step forward. And the more that I celebrate publicly or with my husband or just with myself personally behind closed doors with the Lord, creates accountability with the Lord, with my husband, with anybody who sees me on this journey. And it helps me to continue to choose obedience because my flesh is dying down in that area time and time again. And when we celebrate it, it's like we're telling our brains, I don't need this thing because I'm celebrating this better thing over here. And there are times where we might, like there have been days where I'm like, ⁓ a coffee would be nice right now just because I want to go and get one, just because I want the cute cup, just because I want... the feeling of having it. And so on those days I have now opted for tea. I will make like a chai latte sometimes. I made it from home a few times. We have a cute little coffee shop nearby with friends that own it and I love to support them. So I'll go over there and grab a latte. But even with that. I'm telling myself I cannot have that more than two days in a row. And really I don't even want it more than once a week because I know it will make it much harder to continue to break this habit and to continue to choose obedience. And I did not give up coffee to then add in chai lattes with extra sugar. You know what I'm saying? Because I normally get it with maple. I love the maple chai latte. No vanilla, no cinnamon. It's just so good that way. Iced or hot, delicious. But even still, like that's sugar that I'm not normally having. And I don't want that in my everyday life because I also feel convicted about how much sugar I am having. And this is just this personal walk with me in the Lord right now. But if you are on that walk and the Lord is saying, hey, quit texting your husband when you're feeling overwhelmed and come to me instead. Or hey, when you're feeling this way, I want you to turn on worship music instead of doing X, Y, or Z. Or whatever it is that God's asking you to give up. Maybe it's TV shows and he's like, hey, I know you've watched this every season, but now we're done with it. Set it aside. You don't need it. There are other things that will fulfill you and entertain you in different ways that will be better. Do you trust me? And then you share that with your husband and you share that with your friends and you tell the group of friends that you used to talk about the one show with like, Don't text me this season. Remove me from that group chat because I don't even want to be tempted to tune in. I want to follow what the Lord is asking me to do. And you start celebrating and you start sharing and you're held accountable and it makes choosing obedience easier because obedience is not always this like, yeah, of course I would obey the Lord. And I mean, it's God. I hold a holy reverence for the Lord and so obedience should be easy. Not true. Obedience is not always easy. Sometimes we drag our feet into it. Even me with my coffee journey. I had gone back and forth through this for years because I didn't think that it was like necessarily disobedient, but I also didn't know what it would look like. And sometimes I gave it up and then felt released to have it again. Sometimes I gave it up and then I made the personal choice to have it again. But it wasn't until this season where I really felt like, if you do choose coffee, it's disobedience. And it was a very clear answer to me. And so I just... think that we need to spend that time with the Lord and make sure that we are having that quiet time with him. Make sure we're asking for his leading and guiding and asking for the personal conviction. If you want to grow in Christ, you have to ask those things and they may feel scary at first. ⁓ I don't know if I want to ask this because I feel like what if he asked me to give this thing up and I don't really want to give it up. I don't know if anyone has ever watched The Forge, but I love that because he's looking around his room and all of a sudden his eyes gaze towards the video games and he knows what he needs to do. And he's like, ⁓ come on, really? Is that not our response when the Lord asks us to give something up that we truly are enjoying? ⁓ come on, really? Is this really the Lord or am I making this up? We want to negotiate. want to reason. We want to go through all of that back and forth because we want that thing because it feels like it fulfills us in the moment. It feels like it comforts us. It feels like this coping skill. And then we've told our brain time and time again when we check out and we scroll on our phone when, you know, that in the movie, like when he checked out and played video games, I'm sure that did something right when we check out and have our cup of coffee when we check out and just zone out for the next 30 minutes and are behind now on the laundry that we were supposed to get done, whatever it is, we're telling our brains that that checking out was better than being in the reality of the moment. That thing that we just did became this dopamine hit for our brains. That's why phone addiction is so real, because we are taking ourselves out of that moment where we are supposed to be. floundering through. The Lord gives us these things for the process of sanctification. And I was just sharing with somebody in their messages, they have asked the question on a Facebook story, like, do we think that the Lord gives you more than you can handle? And I had shared in that, I think that He gives us what we can't handle sometimes so that we can rely on Him, so that we can lean on Him in a deeper way, so that we can walk through this process of sanctification. And sometimes it's our own flesh that brings us to a place of not being able to handle the things, but the Lord allows us to walk into a place of desperation because He wants us desperate for Him. And so when we think about our personal convictions, can we be desperate for Him in those convictions? Can we allow that personal conviction to be for us and not feel like we need to then judge people who are doing it? Like I'm not judging moms who still have coffee. I'm not judging my husband when he drinks coffee. But for me personally, it would be disobedient for me to have coffee because it was something that the Lord is refining in my heart and my body and my walk with him. And so just encourage you today to ask the Lord, where do I need that refining? Where do I need to give something up? What does this look like in my life? What is the coffee in my current season? And see where He leads you. And I would love if you shared it with me and I'll hold you accountable through it because I want the fruit for you. And I want to talk about that next. What about the fruit? The fruit on the other side, I've shared a couple of posts about what I have experienced since giving up coffee and the hormonal changes alone are enough for me to be like 10 toes down. I am, I am going to continue on this journey. I'm not saying that I will never have coffee again, but right now this is where I need to be right now. This is the obedience in my life. The obedience test is will I continue to give up coffee? And the fruit of that is healed hormones and the fruit of it is not feeling like I'm trying to catch up with myself while I'm doing the dishes in the kitchen after breakfast or whatever it is because I feel like my body is going faster than where my brain can actually be. I don't feel that way anymore. I don't feel like I am one step away from falling into that place of overwhelm. I don't feel like I am struggling anymore. I don't want coffee and the fruit is truly all of that, that I have a greater dependence on the Lord. throughout my days and that the peace truly does come from him, that I don't need this coffee in hand as a coping skill to be able to get there. ⁓ Obviously the hormone shift is huge for me, especially while I'm on this weight loss journey and stewarding my body well postpartum and really trying to get back to a place where I feel like my health is thriving and I'm not in survival mode anymore and feeling like I'm drowning in that area. It's been able to allow me ⁓ have a greater pause in my responses. with my children. Whereas before I felt like coffee just would give me this rush and then I would rush to respond to them also when things were in the heat of the moment. And I would go on these like 20 minute window stretches of being like, okay, guys, I just need you to blah, blah, blah. And why aren't we doing this? And why is this not happening? And I don't feel like that happens anymore. And I am so much more calm even in my response to them. that wasn't yelling, that wasn't rage, but it was still not where I wanted to be in my responses. Whereas now I'm like, hey, I'm looking for all of you to be on my team and this is what being on my team looks like and that's the way that I've wanted to talk to my kids for so long and I am like living in the fruit of that. It's not a forced experience anymore, it's the natural way that I respond to them and so. what is that thing that you're hearing from the Lord to give up and think about the fruit on the other side? Because sometimes it's like, I don't know if this is even worth it, right? We go and we negotiate that. But if you can envision what the fruit could be, and I even shared that in the summer, like I feel like coffee is not good for me. I'm going to give it up this week and see what happens. And was like I broke my plateau that I was on. But then I stumbled back into drinking coffee regularly after that season. And that's OK. I mean, we stumble sometimes and I'm human too. But just remembering that little bit of fruit that I had seen carried me into the willingness to be obedient because again it's choice to say okay I know that I saw a little bit of fruit from that even from giving up coffee for a week in the summer what fruit will I see if I give it up again and what fruit will there be if I give it up in greater measure and what will the testimony be if I if I set it down. And so here I am, 66 days without coffee, setting it down and seeing the fruit, living in the fruit and encouraging you with that same fruit because I want it for you too. If there's areas in your life where you feel like, why am I not seeing breakthrough here? Why am I not overcoming this plateau? Why am I not responding the way that I want to? Why am I not fill in the blank? I want you to ask if it's in relation to that thing that the Lord is asking you to give up and encourage you to give it up in obedience to Him. Small obedience matters in the kingdom and sometimes we downplay that and say, it's just this little thing. It's just one TV show. It's just this one song. It's just this thing that can lead us into a place of sin. It can lead us into a place of lustful thoughts. It can lead us into a place of gluttony. It can lead us into a place of just complete and utter dismay in our lives because we are not being obedient in one area and all of a sudden now we're not being obedient in three areas. Just as I talk about the domino effect for the kingdom, there's a domino effect on the other side too. And I don't want to be leaning on that side of Satan. If we think about our lives as this little scale where we have coins, right? I'm on God's side. I'm putting in coins here. I'm depositing with my obedience. Uh-oh, here's some sin. Now I'm weighing in on the side of Satan. I don't ever want that scale to tip back. to that place of me being so filled with sin that I'm weighing in on Satan's side and I'm depressed and I'm anxious and I'm crippled by the weight of everything in my life. I want to remain on the side where the scale is so strong and so deep with the Lord that even if I make one mistake, it doesn't throw things off balance. Can you picture that with me? I want to pray for you wherever the Lord is nudging you about the things that you've been brushing off or the places you need to go deeper or the things that you need to give up. I just want to end this episode in prayer. So Heavenly Father, I just thank you. I thank you for Holy Spirit conviction and illumination in the areas where we need to see a little bit deeper, the things that you've highlighted to us today, Lord. And I thank you, God, that it does come with a little bit of a wrestle and sometimes for us a big wrestle because that is the refining fire. And I love that song, like, if it puts me in the fire, I'll rejoice because you're there too, Lord. If it does put us in the fire, if it does cause this refining process for us, I'm rejoicing because you are in it as well. And I know that the fruit on the other side of that is going to be good when we do it for your glory. So Father God, I just pray the way that you took away my desire for coffee, you will take away my sister's desire for whatever it is that you are asking her to give up, that it will be easy because it will be marked by your grace and it will be marked by her obedience and the fruit of what comes from that, Father. And I just ask, Lord, that you will just lead and guide her into what to do instead. many times we need a replacement habit or taking one away. What is that coping mechanism instead? As I mentioned, even a hug from my husband felt like that coping mechanism where I could rely more on you, Lord, where it felt like, okay, your hands were tangibly around me. And that hug was just a reminder instead of. coming to Him and complaining and word vomiting to Him, Lord. So whatever it is that is going to help my sister get through this, I just pray, Lord God, that you will reveal that to her, that she will be able to create better habits while giving these ones up. We can only do so much, God. And I believe that as we continue to give up the things that you're asking us to give up, to set aside the songs that no longer please you, the shows that are not good for our eyes to see, whatever those things are in our lives, Lord, that we are making room for you. I love that song too. I'm just thinking in lyrics today, I guess, but making room for you to do whatever you want to, Lord. I want to be refined by you. I want to grow in my relationship with you. I want to be closer to you in all things. And if these things are barriers in my life, I want them gone. And I pray that same desire over my sisters today. So Heavenly Father, lead us and guide us. Give us wisdom and discernment and help us to have clarity as we continue to sift through exactly where you want us to be. We just praise your mighty name. Amen. Thank you for tuning into the Mission for More podcast. I encourage you to subscribe if you have not already. And as I have mentioned before, we keep this ad free. And the reason for that is because I don't want to disrupt what the Lord is doing with other ads and things of products or whatever it may be, because I really want us to be able to hear from the Lord and to be able to sit down in the quiet moments that we do have or go on that 20 minute walk and tune into the episode and come back feeling refreshed and not have the ads to disrupt that. However, I will be sharing some products that I have from time to time while we're at the end of the podcast. Today, I do wanna talk about the Living in the Overflow course, which is on hermindonmission.com. When you go through that course, you will walk through some of this, some of the surrender, some of the things where maybe we haven't been obedient, and even more. You're going to go through surrender and releasing and just talking about how we can pick up our cross daily and get to that place of everlasting peace, of overwhelming joy, and really living from the overflow instead of living in the constant. place of being overstimulated and overwhelmed. So if you're in that place and this one thing for you feels like even giving up this one thing and talking about this today on the podcast makes me feel like I am going to be tipped over the edge, I encourage you to check out that course. It was made with you in mind and I think that you are going to see fruit from going through it. I'm excited to come back next week with a special guest on the episode, so stay tuned and I will see you then.