Before Jesus went to the Cross, He separated Himself from the disciples and spent time alone with God. He was facing something hard and knew the place to strengthen Himself was in God’s presence.

Sometimes when we are “working on something” – which is what Leland and I call it when we are believing God for something pretty big – we separate ourselves from the world influence and others.

Why? Because it is not wrong to say that when you decide to believe God for something, the enemy will send along people to discourage you.  It is also not unusual for the things of this world to distract you.

I’m not talking about evil things. Oftentimes it is ordinary things that will derail you.

You make up your mind to spend time in the Word of God the first thing in the morning along with prayer time.  You set your alarm and even manage to get up early. You go get your cup of coffee and head to the living room to sit in comfort and privacy.

But… you have a thought. It’s a simple one and might seem to be a good one. You think, “I’ll go check my email and read a devotional online real quickly, then go to the living room.” It seems good but once you get to your computer (or cell or tablet) and check your email, you decide to answer a couple of emails then zip over and check Fa**book and before you know it, two hours have passed. Your “spend time first thing in the morning with God” time has gone by the wayside.

Hmmm. What happened? You got sidetracked.

Leland often tells me, “I’m working on something and I can’t afford to talk about that” – or “think about that” or “do that”.  Why? Because what he is working on, by faith with God, requires focus and time with God.

Right now, we have several big (to us, not God) faith-projects in the works. These are things that require mega Word and mega focus. We can’t afford to be around people who don’t believe. We can’t afford to be around people who believe wrong things. We can’t afford to be around any unbelief or lack of faith.

We are not judging these people for what they do or don’t believe. We do judge that any talk that is not faith talk will sink a dream and vision. We know that it is important to surround ourselves with faith.

We do judge ourselves and what it will take to stay on track with God. Take me – I am easily distracted by reading mystery novels or researching online (which can suck hours out of my day).

These are not evil things – but if I need to be reading faith-based books to sustain my faith level, then mystery novels are not going to cut it. If I get online and get caught up in FB, I lose valuable time I could have been building up my faith – renewing my mind – working WITH God and not against Him.

There will be times when you need to believe God for something big, to you. It may be to become debt-free. It may be to believe for healing when everything else says “You are SICK. You have DISEASE. You’re gonna DIE.” It may be you need a job or vehicle or something like that.

You can’t afford to allow the things and people of this world to distract you. Trust me, people will come along to poo-poo your vision. “Oh that sounds good but aren’t you a little OLD (as in, too late) for that?” “You? Make a music CD? Hahahahaha. Oh, you were serious?” “You want to do what??? Don’t you think you need to have a little wisdom about that?” Or worse, “God’s not into that” when you KNOW He told you to do something.

SEPARATE YOURSELF. You really may have to cut some people out of your life. They aren’t evil – but if it affects your faith, they have to go. Spend less time with them. Slowly pull away. Remember, if someone who calls themselves a friend does not believe in or suppost the call of God on your life – in your dream – they are not qualified to be in your life-space. They need to be set aside. Ask God how to do this – He is expert at helping us grow in Him!

PUT IT AWAY. You may also have to set aside some things, for now or forever. You may have to deactivate that FB account. Or take me. I used to have an addiction to e*ay. I got amazing deals for my goody boxes – but I was spending too much time looking for these deals and not enough time with God. You know, if I’d put Him first, He would have helped me find those good deals, spend less money AND have more time to do useful, worthwhile things with my time.

Only you can decide what is more important – your dream and calling or people’s opinion. If you are working on something and going somewhere – if you want to believe God for BIG things AND receive them – consider that you will have to put away and separate.

Is it worth it?  Oh yeah!

You have His Word on it!

Sharing the goodness of God

 

I am going to begin a short series on what truly successful people do to achieve that success. Leland and I have been studying the habits of successful people, both past and present. I see a lot of the same success keys from way back before Internet (and electricity!) on into this current timeframe.  God is into success.