 Listen To This Message By Audio - 9 minutes - Be Sure To Turn Your Speakers Up! Are You Hiding the Talents God Has Given You Because Of Fear? June 2010
Do you realize that every success principle known to man can be found in the bible? Lately I've been studying with teachers such as Joyce Meyer, Laurie Beth Jones, Mark Gorman and recently have come back to study with Dani Johnson. What really opened my eyes and made me realize how I have been hiding the talents God has given me lately was by reading Dani's book 'Spirit Driven Success'. I first met Dani back in 2003 at one of her very first 'First Steps To Success' live events. There were about 190 people in that hotel room up in Dallas Texas. I had driven about 5 hours by myself from an hour south of Houston to attend this event. After the event I waited in line for over an hour to have Dani and her partner pray over me and will never forget that experience! Dani said she saw an ?army'. I had no idea what that meant and drove back to Lake Jackson that night with no fear whatsoever of driving all alone. Actually I wasn't alone because I listened to Dani's CD's all the way home. :) That next year I attended another of her live events again in Dallas where there were over 1000 people in the room. I attended her conference calls and listened to all of her cd's and in fact, gave them away to team members. These past six years I had not been following Dani's teachings until recently when I was a guest speaker on The Real WAHM's radio show and a few weeks later received a notice that they were having Dani on one of their Wednesday calls. So I hoped on that call and recorded it. Wow what a flashback! After the call every week they give away a book to one winner. The first person to hit the #1 key wins. Well they had their winner and on this particular week when I was on the call they decided to do it twice so I thought what the heck and hit the #1 and actually won! When called out my phone number I was in shock! I really had no idea what I had even won. It was just exciting to win! Well a few weeks went by and nothing showed up in the mail so I sent Kimber a message through Facebook to remind her of my address and she had gotten tied up and had not mailed it out yet and promised to mail it that day. A week later Dani Johnson's books showed up in my mail! I opened up ?Spirit Driven Success' and read this message and it spoke to me!
The answer is yes! The feeling lately is that I'm standing at a crossroads in my life and have been hiding my talents because of fear! Fear of failure, fear of what people will say, fear of what people will do, fear of making the wrong choice. I had been sitting and waiting for God to do something. Like the dirt sits and waits for someone to put something into it! Instead of being like the farmer and making something happen, I've been waiting like the dirt because of fear. The farmer goes out and borrows the money to buy seed, plants the seed, waters the seed, cultivates the seed and harvest the seed. Then the farmer takes that harvest and buys new seed to plant and multiply the harvest again and again. The farmer duplicates the talents that God gives. Recently I've been given some talents and decided to just sit and wait. That is until I started studying the word more seriously and then reading Dani's book tipped the iceberg and opened my eyes to the truth. The truth that God wants to prosper me with his plan and a good future as read in Jeremiah 29:11. I had been listening to lies and hiding my talents instead of taking advantage of the blessing that was provided. That meant I was not trusting Him and instead allowing fear to keep me from sharing and duplicating the blessings/talents given. I truly believe that I was meant to be a speaker on that call and then learn about Dani Johnson being on a few weeks later and it was meant to win that particular book to stir up a fire in me to realize how important it is to stop wasting my talents and to reach out to others and most importantly bring the kingdom into the market place like Dani talks about in her book. Then this last weekend I listened to another training call with Robby Fender who I've known for over ten years. In fact, I attended that second 'First Steps To Success' event in Dallas with him and several others. Robby's message was one of hope and encouragement and it was a call to action. The call to action means stop wasting your talents and reach for the stars and never give up on yourself or your dreams. Stop hiding your lite under a bush because God wants you to shine! It's not easy dealing sometimes with what we face everyday in this day and age and Dani talks about this more in her book. Sometimes we allow life to just beat us down and we don't have to anymore because we have someone to deal for us and through us because He has dealt with it all! Our job is to take the talents we are given and use them for good. We must be willing to spread the good news and take the kingdom into the market place to bless other people. Seven years later it's time to build the 'army' that Danni prophesied years ago over me in Dallas Texas. Will you build it with us or decide to hide your talents out of fear? God wants to bless you. Will you accept that blessing and be willing to bless others too?
Galatians 6:9 says "Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will REAP a harvest if we do not give up!" PS .. We've suffered some hard times over the last few years with health challenges, family uprooting with my husband having to work in Houston and commute here to Austin every weekend, his business income loss and job in jeopardy and we had really stopped dreaming for the first time I can ever remember! You see, my mom was the one who always taught me to dream all my life and keep on working to become the person to accomplish those dreams!
I realize that God gave me the talents and now it's up to me to put them to good use and bless others at the same time by giving back what I learn from experiences. For the first time in quite some time this past weekend my husband drove us around some subdivisions near the lake which are not too far from where we live at Lake Travis and I started dreaming again! We drove by a house which was right on the lake (my dream house); you could walk down to the lake and jump right in! It was so awesome! Just the natural style that we love with a big front porch, back deck, all open and big windows everywhere! It's the house in my vision! It sits on 6 acres with horses and a boat dock. Ok have to admit horses have never been in my vision. They may be in yours though! It was absolutely beautiful there and if God wants us to have horses ok we'll have them! We are more likely to have Australian Shepherds though! hmmm, it does say in Deuteronomy that God will give you prosperity in the land and bless you with numerous herds and flocks! (Deut 28: 11) Ok a herd of Australian Shepherds for us on the lake! We didn't have the camera that day so planning to go back to snap a few photos to keep out in front to remind us that all dreams are possible with God! (Matthew 19-26) May you continue to believe, trust, prosper and live your life to the fullest with God's blessings and talents! Sue Seward |
