Episode 118: How Do You Find God’s Favor in Life?

I’m sure you have heard the saying that when it rains it pours. There have been several times in my life where I literally felt like there were storm clouds following my every move. No matter what route I chose to take to escape the rain, it was inevitable that I was going to get wet. Life boxed me in a no-win situation without an umbrella in sight.

I was reviewing some of the stormy periods in my life, I noticed one recurring theme…there wasn’t a single sign of insight that let me know that I was on the right path. During this stormy season in my life, I felt like I was in one of those “Choose Your Own Adventure books”, but I couldn’t cheat and look ahead to see which road would end in my victory.

In this case, my decision would have to be made without having all the pieces to the puzzle. Despite this fact, my life turned out great. The interesting thing is that the only way I ended up where I am now is through prayer, faith, and my mom yelling, did I say yelling,  I mean very forcefully persuading me in the right direction. Those of you who know my mom, know how she is…😂

I literally shudder when I stop and think about how my life would be if I made a different decision. Honestly, in every instance, if I gave up or made a different choice because I didn’t have a physical sign telling me I was on the right path, my life would be lousy. I would NEVER have had the energy to push through the storms so that I could achieve the goals buried in my heart.

The reason why so many people live a complacent, settled for life is because we fall prey to Satan lies. Satan takes away or distorts our physical indicators that inform us that we’re on the right road. I’m pretty observant and I’m always on the lookout for situations or someone to give a sign or some sort of indication that I’m on the right path. Sadly, in life we do not always get these crystal clear signs telling us which path to take.

I do understand why many people give up looking for success because they can’t find the right street signs to lead them there. What we fail to realize is that Satan purposely takes away the street signs to make us feel like we lost God’s favor (aka blessings) in our life. Wherever we take ownership of Satan’s lies, we need to learn the concept of turning our focus to God. In doing so we will receive the guidance, strength, wisdom and whatever else we need to push us in the right direction.

Since our mind dictates our actions, everything Satan does to us physically is done so that we will internalize his negative acts. When we allow ourselves to give in to the barriers/obstacles that Satan places in our (soul) it destroys us from the inside out. Whenever Satan can get you to accept his negative thoughts, he then can control the physical aspect of your life.

This is why I’m really big on keeping a journal. It allows you the ability to see how far you’ve come and easily identify what mistakes not to repeat. This is why we are not to allow anyone or anything to derail our blessing, goals, or desires.

Satan cannot enter your mind (soul) and delete the blessing(s) God gave you, so he puts up physical barriers in your life hoping you will give up and quit. For example, I graduated college with good grades, but yet, I’m a horrible test taker. I don’t know what it is. It’s like my mind goes blank because I focus on the fact that I only have a short period of time to get the right answer. I’m always second guessing myself or worse I come down with a case of analysis paralysis. 

My professors knew I knew what I was doing because it showed on the homework. However, that knowledge was often not reflected when it came to the exam. When I took exams, I never scored nearly as high as I did on the homework or even worse…I failed.  Even though this ended up happening, I found the classes to be very beneficial because I understood the material. I just couldn’t regurgitate it back exactly the way they wanted me to do so within the specified time frame. Mainly due to the unnecessary pressure I was inadvertently putting on myself.

Guess what? Even though getting the perfect exam score eluded me, I’ve got the knowledge I need to do my job. Gaining this knowledge enables me to have confidence. I can use this knowledge not just on my current job, but anywhere I choose to work. 

This demonstrates that the class was beneficial even though Satan put physical barriers, like poorly performing on tests in my way. I didn’t allow this to stop me. Every job I ended up kept getting better and better. It’s really hard for me to take compliments, but I’m going to attempt to give myself one right now. I worked really hard to get to where I am right now  and I feel like I do a pretty darn good job in my role. 

Again, Satan CANNOT take away your God-given blessing. However, Satan can put physical barriers in your way to cause you to think that God is NOT with you; which causes you to give up and quit pursuing the blessing God gave you.

The bottom line is to always view the situations you encounter in life from a spiritual perspective. If all you see is what you see, then you’re not seeing all there is to be seen. Do NOT focus on the physical obstacles that Satan put in your way. Using physical obstacles and barriers is how Satan steals, kills, and destroys your blessings, goals, dreams, and joy. These physical barriers are given so that you can turn them into spiritual obstacles to cause you to fail. 

Allowing Satan to control your mind with his obstacles will make you feel like God is not with you. This defeated mindset will cause you to doubt the talents and gifts God’s given to you. That doubt will cause you to give up and quit your pursuit of the blessings God put in your path.

Worst of all, allowing Satan to control your mind with his barriers and obstacles destroys your faith. Your lack of faith then pushes God away from you. Separating you from Christ is the real reason why Satan puts physical obstacles or barriers in your way.

Satan’s goals for putting physical barriers (people, things or situations, etc.) in your life is to steal, kill, and destroy your blessings. He wants to deter you from finding and developing your God-given purpose. Satan wants you to buy into the lie that God abandoned you.

Never allow anything or anyone to derail your blessings, goals, and desires. I cannot stress despite all of the chaos currently happening in the world how happy I am. I wake up happy and ready to tackle the day. I learned a long time ago never to tie my happiness to my circumstances. Flipping through my journal made me realize that it is possible to make it through life’s storms without an umbrella or a map. 

It is possible to reduce the time it takes for you to finally arrive at success, you just have to be humble enough to admit that you’re lost so you can stop and ask God for directions.

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