Three Things Jesus Taught Me Last Year
I’m going to be honest, it was hard for me to come up with these things because maybe I wasn’t as observant or in relationship with Jesus as I should have been. Towards the end of the year, I felt a shift that I wanted to hear the voice of God more and I was figuring out how to do it. I needed to be in the word like my life depended on it. Cause * news flash * it does. And prayer. And discerning the difference between the devil’s lies, my own thoughts, and God. Still working on it because sometimes I’m like, “Is that me or you?! DROP A SIGN.” But a sign may come and I am still like, “Was that it?!” I just want to know and not second guess. Anyways, here’s what I’ve gathered after I asked Jesus, “Uhh.. what did I learn?” Embarrassing I know. Since I’ve had many conversations on these specific topics over the course of last year, here’s what I’ve concluded.
Jesus will provide in my finances.
I do not need to keep revisiting my past.
God pleasing is better than people pleasing.
I expand further below. I have so many thoughts that I tried to be coherent. I did my best to explain but hopefully it’s relatable and encouraging to anyone who may be in similar struggles.
God will provide financially
I started Poshmark shortly after I quit my teaching job and became a stay at home mom. I wasn’t sure what it would be like to live with one income and I was scared. Were we going to have enough money to do anything fun? What if I wanted to buy something that was a little extra? Were we going to have to become penny pinchers?! Here’s where fear and scarcity entered. The sneaky thing is, I didn’t even know it at the time. I love to thrift and I wanted to make some side cash for spending and Poshmark was perfect. I spent the money I earned on new things to sell and whatever else I wanted. It was my hobby/fun money and it didn’t take away from our single income. Seemed like a win. But my demise came in 2020 when Covid hit and I started to dabble in reselling home goods (womp, womp). My sales dropped significantly and it sucked so bad. Then the post office rarely picked up my scheduled porch pick up packages and I’d have to drive to the post office with two tiny kiddos almost every day. It became annoying real quick. Poshmark was unraveling and becoming a huge burden. When the lack of sales made me so distraught that’s when I started to realize something was not right. I started to ask myself questions like, “Why am I getting so upset over this?” “Why do I want Poshmark to work out so badly?” “Why am I refreshing my feed every 8 seconds?” Turns out my answer was that I was afraid of not having enough money to do what I wanted. I had a selfish and scarcity mindset.
So, how did I get out of it?
Over the course of the year, I finally saw how God provided for us financially. He’d been doing it the whole time but I was too crazed 🤡 from the high of reselling to notice. Matthew 6:24 says, no one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.
I was committed to the sales and I was using the money for myself. I had been thrifting once a week and I spent countless hours cleaning items, photographing, listing items, re-listing items, packaging, and driving to the post office. While it started out as a good time, it ended up being a huge burden. I have a closet of clothes that I need to get rid of. Packaging has become… annoying. I’m tired of going to the post office. I’m over it. Now I am in the process of shutting down my Poshmark closet because I know that God will meet all my needs according to his glorious riches (Philippians 4:19). While it may seem like money and time wasted, it wasn’t because I learned that I do have enough money to do the things I want to do. I’m not trying to be Kim K. and fly around private. I may like the occasional splurge but mostly I just want to buy a fancy coffee or go to the movies. God will provide everything I need including money.
Look forward not backward
Girl, let me tell you about the amount of time I’ve spent re-hashing ex boyfriends, high school, anything I did that was hurtful to other people, the image I portrayed myself as, as a young adult. I was in so much turmoil. I couldn’t stand that there were people out there who might not like me because of something I did decades ago. If I ran into someone from my past, I so badly wanted to redeem myself. I felt like I needed to prove to them I wasn’t still partying with red solo cups. And I actually don’t dislike you because you played on my rival team (high school girls sports anyone?). The list goes on. It’s honestly taken me so long to get passed some of these things, until I finally, FINALLY, had a break through. Here’s what happened.
First, I had a conversation with a long time friend about how it was hard for me to move on from people who clearly didn’t want to reciprocate. It was always an out of sight out of mind experience. Enough time would pass and I’d forget about it, until I saw them somewhere and the cycle started all over again. I’d get mad and hurt that they’d say we should hang out but then never respond when I’d follow up. After listening to my woe is me story for a bit, she asked me, “Do you have a problem with rejection?” My eyes got so big. One thousand percent, yes! I could not move past ex boyfriends and some friendships because I so badly wanted them to work out and for whatever reason, they did not. I took the hit so personal. While I recognize everyone is not going to like me, I still wanted them to like me. I had spent years asking God what was wrong with me? Why did I still care? Why couldn’t I move passed it since these people obviously weren’t think about it? I would analyze what happened and chalk it up to people are just rude. But it still bothered me so it had to be something else. And in one teeny tiny moment, she said the word and I was so relieved. The light bulb went off, and I knew that was the common thread. Now I could accept it and move on with my life. I don’t know why it took Jesus so long to tell me, except maybe I wasn’t really ready to hear it yet. But I felt a weight lifted off my shoulders after I could name it, and I honestly haven’t thought about those situations since.
Here’s another layer, maybe you can relate with this. I so badly wanted to redeem my name to certain people from my past. There are two groups of people I wanted to prove myself—the girls I may not have been the nicest and the ones who thought I sucked. I wanted the opportunity to apologize to some and to the others, show that I’m actually cool so we should be friends now. I had some really uncomfortable situations in my attempts to do so. I’d try to say hi because we clearly recognized each other but I’d get anxiety and it was very awkward. I can’t remember where it says it in the bible but God says he will redeem my name from my enemies and I don’t have to. Once I learned this, I stopped trying to prove myself to people. I don’t go up to the past Becky’s in my life and try to make peace anymore. God forgave me when I chose to be baptized and follow him. He doesn’t even remember what I said and did so why do I have so much guilt and shame? Shame and guilt are not from Jesus. Redemption and forgiveness are.
All right, now the bible straight up says do not look to the past but to what’s in front of you. There is healing in looking to the past but it’s when you dwell there that gets you into trouble. I spent a lot of time dwelling and not really trying to heal from it. In doing that, I think I made myself the victim for a little while. And that made me unable to move forward. I was so paralyzed by what people thought of me and what people from my past might think of me now, I didn’t do anything. It took me a year to start my own business teaching art to early elementary homeschool students. I would literally think, “What if Becky (not a real person I know) from high school sees my flyer and my name?” I guarantee these people don’t give me one second of a thought. And I gave them so much free mental space. We will miss all the goodness of God, when we give the devil and his evil minions a foothold. I try to remember to take every thought captive to Christ and remind myself that I am redeemed, I only need the approval God, and God chose me.
People pleasing is not a godly thing
I do not need to care what other people think of me. Easier said than done. I still struggle with people pleasing but I am trying to remember that I only need the approval of one, God.
Galations 1:10 says, am I now trying to win the approval of human beings, or of God? Or am I trying to please people? If I were still trying to please people, I would not be a servant of Christ. If Paul wanted to keep pleasing man, he would have continued being a Pharisee. Paul didn’t ask a million people if he should follow the revelation he received from God. He went off to be with God and spread the good news.
I used to ask my friends if certain outfits were cute. If they said yes, I’d buy it. If not, I’d try to convince them it could be cute. If I had an idea, I’d run it by so many people to make sure it was actually a really good idea. If they didn’t like my idea, I’d get discouraged. Eventually, I stopped asking people their opinions when it came to trivial things. I started asking myself what I thought. I started to be selective about who I’d share my ideas with. Psalm 4:23 says, above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it. I always thought this verse was talking about dating but it’s also referring to sharing your thoughts and ideas with people. Your ideas and thoughts aren’t meant for everyone to hear. I started to ask God his thoughts on my ideas and whether or not they should be pursued. I am trying to be careful about who I open up to as I can overshare sometimes. Also, I realized that man is not my salvation, my hope, my everlasting life. Jesus who died on the cross is and his approval matters the most.
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Prayer
God I so need my eyes to be opened to what you’re doing and what I need to do and where I need to focus. I can just go about my life doing whatever and being worried about some joe schmoe who yelled at me on the highway because 70 mph in the fast lane is apparently too slow for them or what I said to Ruthie when I was five. Please don’t let me go a year and not fully see where you are at work in my life and the same for anyone who may be reading this post. If you are reading this, I pray the Lord bless you and keep you, may He shine is face upon you and be gracious to you, may He turn his face towards you and give you peace and comfort and security.
