There he was.

Standing in front of the guy in charge.

God had called him. Called him to this moment. 

He hadn’t arrived at this moment easily.

As a matter of fact, he’d spent some time arguing with God about the whole thing! 

Why me? I’m not good enough. I’m not qualified. Are you sure about this??

But God was sure He’d picked the right person, so… there He was.

His request was made known. He’d done everything God told Him to do and to say. 

He was ready to move forward.

He just knew God was going make a way. This should be pretty straight forward, right? Easy… 

Except, his request was denied. 

That’s right….

After all that, Moses finally stood before Pharaoh and said, “Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, Let my people go… And Pharaoh said, Who is the Lord, that I should obey his voice to let Israel go? I know not the Lord, neither will I let Israel go.”

God did say it might take some convincing… some signs and wonders should do it.

But not only did he continue hearing “No” from Pharaoh, the taskmasters were commanded to be harder on the Israelites and the Israelites weren’t too happy about it.

Maybe it really wasn’t the will of God that the Children of Israel be freed from slavery in Egypt. Half the time, they weren’t even acting like they wanted to be free. 

Well, we all know how the story ends, but what if Moses thought, that’s a no. It must not be the will of God. Pharaoh keeps saying no, and he’s making it harder on the Children of Israel, and they’re blaming me for it!

At one point, Moses does ask God, “O Lord, why have you done evil to this people? Why did you ever send me? For since I came to Pharaoh to speak in your name, he has done evil to this people, and you have not delivered your people at all.”

Today on the podcast, we’re talking about what happens when things don’t go as planned or the way we thought they would. What happens when we hit a wall, or get a no?

What do we do when it’s hard? 

Seven years ago this month, my husband and I packed up our car in Tennessee and hit the road.

God called us to start a church in Seattle early in our relationship, and after about 5 years – we were finally on our way. 

The only thing is… it really wasn’t the best time to pack up and leave. 

We had no money, we’d been struggling to find work and just survive for several years, we had no house or apartment waiting on us in Seattle, and no jobs.

We didn’t even have enough gas money to make the long, cross-country drive. 

But there we were.

We’d sold what we could in a yard sale, packed the rest, and loaded as much as we could fit into our Nissan xTerra, and we set out in pursuit of the calling to start a church in Seattle.

I’m sure most people thought we were crazy – even I think it was a bit crazy!

Talk about bad timing, right?! At least from a human perspective.

Isn’t it wiser to make sure you have enough money to get where you’re going? Maybe land a job before you make the move? And have an apartment waiting on you when you arrive? 

Yes, that does sound like the smarter thing to do… waiting for the perfect conditions before taking the first step. 

But, I don’t know when everything would have finally aligned, or if things ever would have aligned to create that “perfect” moment. 

What I do know, is God called us to go, and we decided to respond – even though it looked like we might not make it even half way on what we had. 

It looked like bad timing in our eyes, but to God – it looked like an opportunity to provide and make a way where there seemed to be no way.

And that’s exactly what He did. 

Today I want ask you, What Are You Waiting For?

And I want to remind you that God’s idea of the perfect conditions or perfect timing usually looks a lot different than ours. 

Let’s get started!

My husband and I are in the process of adopting, and it’s been a much longer journey than I ever expected it to be.

We felt called to adopt in at the end of 2015, and here we are – almost 4 years later, and still no babies. 

I don’t say this so you’ll feel bad for us! I don’t feel bad for us!

I know God’s timing is perfect, and I’m excited to see how our adoption story unfolds. 

I share this because I’ve been learning so much along the way. I’m learning that I can’t maintain control of my life if I’m going to follow Jesus.

I’m learning that just because I accepted His call to adoption, doesn’t mean our adoption story is going to turn out just the way I think it should. 

As a matter of fact, we’ve already changed so much about what we thought it would look like early on, because we’ve realized He has something else in mind – something greater than us completing our perfect little family and living happily ever after.

It’s really not about making us happy, and it’s not about what we’re comfortable with…

In today’s episode, I want talk to you about letting go of control.

In 2016, the marketing agency my husband works for hosted a one-day, online conference to teach entrepreneurs about marketing.

I didn’t know much about it until probably the day before it happened. My husband was up working later than normal to make sure everything was ready and I started asking questions about what they were doing and how they were doing it. 

It sparked an idea.

It’s amazing how one moment or event can set you down a path you didn’t see coming.

I started thinking about all the worship leaders, music directors, musicians, church planters… all the people who make a music ministry work, and may never make it to a music conference.

Confession time… I’ve only been to a major music conference 3 times. And 2 of those conferences I attended because I was asked to teach or work. The other, was because our church at the time paid for me to go. 

For most of my life, I simply couldn’t afford to go to music conference! 

So, I thought, what if I apply this one-day, online conference thing to music ministry? What if I could bring a music conference right into people’s homes, with some of the greatest teachers available, and make it super cheap? So anyone could attend, as long they had internet access.

I started talking to my husband (who’s the techy one in our home) about how we could make it happen, I set a date, and I called my first music ministry guru and asked him if he’d like to be a part.

He said yes!

On September 14, 2019 – I hosted the 4th annual Worship Workshop, an online music conference, and had almost 400 registrants!

Cool right? 

Now, I tell you this story because I want you to know things could have turned out completely different. 

I could have thought… wow! An online music conference would be a great idea! I hope someone does it one day. 

Or, this could be really cool, but there are so many people with more talent and well known names – they would be WAY better at this. WAY more qualified. They would have a MUCH bigger audience to reach and more clout among other music ministers.

I could have done nothing.

But I chose to start something!

And today I want to tell you the reasons why YOU should do something.