Have you ever experienced a spiritual growth spurt? The kind where the Spirit of God gives you deeper revelations than you ever knew existed? Well, I had a bit of a spiritual growth spurt recently and it feels right to share about it.
Truth be told, this spiritual growth episode almost didn’t happen. But, as time got closer for me to actually record it, I got in my head about it.
During a team meeting with my assistant I told her I was thinking about changing this episode to something else–something that wasn’t focused on me is what I really was thinking. I honestly didn’t think anyone would be interested in what I learned during my 33rd year of life, but when I expressed this thought to my assistant, she asked me a question.
Now, I don’t remember the question exactly, but it was something along the lines of, “How have you grown or changed since turning 30?” Basically, she wanted me to give an account of the lessons I learned during the three years of my life from when I turned 30 through my 33rd year.
In response to her question, I ended up rattling off a few things and we laughed because I eventually came to the conclusion that I probably should just go ahead and record the episode. So, here we are. I’m not going to talk about everything but I will hit the high points of my spiritual growth and how I have changed.
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Accepting Less
In this stage of my spiritual growth. I no longer accept less. I don’t accept less from myself nor do I accept it from others.
- Relationships. The first example of where I stopped accepting less is in my romantic relationships. When I was younger, I used to feel like I was hard on men sometimes, but the truth was just that I didn’t have time for games, so I wouldn’t budge on certain things. And it worked in my favor. I haven’t had any drama with men. No baby mama drama, no cheating drama, no toxic masculinity. My relationships have been great. 99% of them ended amicably.
- Myself. The other area I’m no longer accepting less in is from myself. I’ve always been a type A, worker bee, who strives for excellence, so I’m not talking about less in that regard. I’m more so speaking of less as in shrinking.
I know that my decision to no longer accept less played a role in my spiritual growth.
Spiritual Growth
The next area I experienced a lot of growth is in spiritually. I want to preface this by saying I’m not talking about spirituality outside of the context of theology and truth. Spirituality without the truth of God is witchcraft, and that’s not what I’m talking about.
Now that we got that out of the way, I want to break down the areas where I experienced the most growth spiritually and that was in my understanding of the authority I have through the Holy Spirit or if you grew up Pentecostal like I did, then you might say the Holy Ghost lol.
The church in general—when I say the church in this context, I’m speaking about the body of Christ—is supposed to operate with and through the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is a source of power for us and His presence helps us to walk in kingdom authority.
I grew up hearing this, but I guess I didn’t understand that it actually applied to me. I think what it really was, is that I felt like power through the Holy Spirit and hearing from God was for ministers and pastors. That’s likely because that’s who I would mostly hear talking about this and that’s who I would see living it.
Even if I did know that it applied to me, I didn’t know how to tap into it.
But at some point between when I was 30 and when I turned 33, I learned just how this applies to me. My pastor did a great job of explaining this to me in a way that I could understand and he basically showed me how not only is the Holy Spirit God, but that the Holy Spirit lives within me and has ever since I accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior..
Now that I know this, I no longer act on my own strength. I now consider God’s abilities and His resources, which are much better suited to fulfill my needs and the needs of those I am helping.
Risk
My last area of growth that I’ll discuss in this episode of how I’ve changed since turning 30 is that I make riskier moves. Well, from the outside looking in, I make riskier moves, and honestly to the intellectual part of myself, I make riskier decisions.
I put myself out there more, and I have invested more money into the vision God gave me than I have ever spent on things.
I am not the same.
The thing is though, these moves aren’t risky at all. They just feel risky because I wouldn’t do them on my own prompting. I’m doing them because God told me to do them or God told me to do something and the moves I make are in furtherance of that.
So the question becomes, is it really a risk if God told me to do it? The way that I see it is that it isn’t a risk at all. In fact, it’s the only sure thing. If God told me to do it, then it cannot fail. No matter what the perceived results are, I will always win in the end.
During year 32 after God revealed my purpose to me, I felt led to start this podcast. From the outside looking in, this is a risky move. I was devoting a lot of resources to it with no plan to directly monetize it via ads or sponsorships to cover the costs associated with the show. Basically, I was signing up to spend money to provide free information and I had no idea if people would listen, but guess what?
Y’all listen lol. Every week you all listen to the episodes I release. And you don’t just listen, you take action on the things you learn from the show and you see results. Bishop TD Jakes preached a sermon the other week called It’ll Work If You Work It, and honey yall work it. You literally take the principles and nuggets you learn on the show and apply it to your lives.
That’s the outcome I pray for.
I mentioned earlier that these past 3 years were a growth spurt for me. Growth spurts are periods of intense growth. I recently read Carmelo Anthony’s book. It’s called, “Where Tomorrows Aren’t Promised,” and there was a section where he gave a pretty detailed account of a period in his life, shortly after he got really good at basketball.
During this period he experienced excruciating pain that would last for a long time—sore back, his arms and knees would be throbbing and burning. It got so bad that one day he woke up screaming and told his mother that he couldn’t move because his legs and knees were hurting so bad. There were days where he felt paralyzed due to his body aching all day and night. He would wake up on some days in tears. This went on for months.
Once the pain sort of subsided, he lacked coordination and walked with a limp. Eventually, the pain and lack of coordination was replaced with confidence and he not only learned how to play basketball again, but he began to dominate on the court and beat players who were much older and more experienced than he was.
He was a beast.
I went through a growth spurt between 30-33. There were some rough patches and now I’m learning how to walk with my new legs. All I have to say now is, watch out, because sometime in the near future I’m about to be knocking the ball out of the park, or since I was referencing basketball, I’m about to be dunking the ball through the hoop with one hand. Mark my words.
I am not the same.
Want More?
If you enjoyed this episode, then you may also enjoy the episode of the show about how to overcome fear and pursue purpose or this episode detailing how to overcome distractions to your purpose.
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