It Has To Be Enough

In this episode, Margaret shares a powerful moment from her quiet time when the Holy Spirit challenged her to stop measuring her life by accomplishments, recognition, or visible results and instead settle her heart in a simple truth:

Listening to God's voice has to be enough. Following God's voice has to be enough. Being obedient to God has to be enough.

A conversation about surrender, identity, trust, and finding your worth in Christ alone.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:14

Hey y'all, welcome to this episode of Girl Live Love Be. I am Margaret Smith Williams, your creator and your host. And it is here where I think we are all on this journey to just live right, love right, and be right. I don't think this episode is gonna be that long, um, but I'm just gonna go ahead and start. I believe that the Lord has some things that He wants for us to marinate on, and so we're just gonna get in here and get out. The other day during my devotion, I was writing in my journal and just putting down some concerns that were on my heart. I was praying about all the things, girl, like home, school, kids, marriage, money, jobs. Like I was praying about homeschool academy options for my son, um summer camp things for him, my daughter going into her senior school, senior year of high school, and all the things that go in along with that. I was praying about the next career move the Lord wants me to take. I was praying over the summer budget, and then I was just talking about like God and some of my random dreams. And then the Holy Spirit said to me something out of the blue, or at least to me, I thought it was out the blue. Because it wasn't a direct response to all of the prayer requests that I had above. He said to me, You don't have to prove anything to anyone. And I was like, sir, we wasn't even talking about this. Like, I was asking you about the next step of my career, um, what I should be doing. I was also telling you about how I want to have a she shed in my backyard and the Pinterest inspiration boards to follow up with, and the Audi A7 Premium Plus with the brown leather interior that I want, and if I should get braids or sewing, put back on a wig, or how I don't know if I have the patience to be a straight natural or how a perms they call in my name every week. Like, what you mean, Lord? What do you mean by proving stuff? Because we weren't even talking about that. Like, I don't get the connection. And of course, the Holy Spirit ignored my extraness and continued. And he said, Settle in your heart that you don't have to prove anything to anyone, that your worth and your abilities are rooted in Christ, that you are grounded in God's eternal love for you, that your focus, your gaze, and your desire is to be obedient to Christ and Christ alone. He continued, Settle it in your heart today, Margaret, like settle it today. Because if you can't settle it, it will always be a crack in your foundation, and that crack will be an entryway for the enemy. Okay, so now I'm like, hold up, hold up, hold up, hold up, Lord, hold up. What you talk about, Willis? Like, what? The Holy Spirit ignored my extraness and dramatics again and continued. Your life doesn't have to look like others, it never has. Your life doesn't even have to look like what you envisioned it to be for your life to be what and where God wants it to be. Listening to God's voice has to be enough for you. Following God's voice has to be enough. Being obedient to God has to be enough. Okay, now. By this time I felt like the Holy Spirit was coming in like a little hot for 7:30 a.m. It was too early to be coming in with all of that like hot air. Like I was, I felt like I was under the dryer at the hair salon for the second time because I got thick, force hair and it's never dry on the first go round. Like he was coming in too hot and it was too early. And I still had eye burgers in my eyes and lines on my face, and he was just blowing me up early in the morning. The Holy Spirit continued and repeated, and he said, like, listening to God's voice has to be enough for you. Following God's voice has to be enough. Being obedient to God has to be enough. It has to mean more than all the things, has to mean more than the accolades and being noticed, the recognition or the credit. It has to mean more than being included, has to mean more than the material things, the dream house, the dream car. It has to mean more than the acknowledgement of humans or the pats on the backs or the hearing I'm proud of you. It has to mean more than if no one ever says you did the right thing or made the right decision. It has to mean more than if you ever see the fruit of your obedience in the way that you desire. Then he asked me this question Can you be content with knowing that you followed God's voice and that be enough? Yeah. That I'm still scratching the back of my neck about this. Wait a minute, wait a minute, so God wasn't saying that He didn't want to give me the desires in my heart. What he was saying was that my life's worth, my value, my gaze can't be wrapped up in all those things. This world and this culture has a way of making us feel like if you don't own a house, you're not accomplished, or you're beneath someone who does. If you're not an entrepreneur and you don't own your own business, you're not successful at your career as someone else who does. If you're not married or you don't have kids or even don't even want kids, that you are less than a woman or that your life is missing something. If you bottle feed instead of breastfeed, somebody got something to say that you're less than a mother. If you work full-time and you are not a stay-at-home mom, that you can't be as present or as connected as a stay-at-home mom. That if you walk away from a long-term friendship, that if you're divorced, that if you're 45 and you don't know what to do with your life, that if you quit medical school or law school, that if you sell all your positions or travel the world, if you quit a steady job to follow a God-given dream, or if you picked up your family and moved halfway across the country or even across the world, that something is not right. Or if you choose rest over being productive, that if you say no instead of saying yes, or vice versa, if you say yes when the math says you should say no, that something is wrong. What I'm saying is that, and I believe that what God was saying to me is that knowing that you are in the will of God, that you are being obedient to God, that you are in the hands of God has to be enough for us. Because it is in this, out of the seeking God or listening for his voice, out of the surrender to his plans and following his directions, out of our obedience to him, that is where our intimacy with God is built. That is where our trust is strengthened. This is where our faith is stretched and our self-reliance is broken. In the place of obedience is where our identity in Christ is secured, and the attachments to our fleshly desires, like the things of this world and culture and values, are broken. And if we truly want to be disciples of Christ, and I mean a disciple, not a Christian, because being a Christian is simple. Being a Christian is confessing with your mouth and believing in your heart in the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Anybody can do that. A lot of people have done that. But being a disciple is where a follower is when you're a follower of Christ. When you're a follower of Christ in word, in deed and action, in your heart posture, in the renewing of your mind and of your soul. Being a disciple of Christ is surrendering your will, your desires, your need to be right or prove anything, and humbling it and placing it into God's care, trusting that his way is better. Being a disciple is being obedient to God at all cost. It's in our obedience to God, this is where the holy work is done. This is where the intimate work is done. This is where the groundwork matters, where your allegiance is tested, where our loyalty is revealed, and where the motives of our hearts are exposed. Philippians 2, 6 through 9 speaks about the choice that Jesus made to be obedient to his Father at all cost. And Jesus was God. Verse 6 says, He existed in the form of God, yet he gave no thought to seizing equality with God as his supreme prize. Instead, he emptied himself of his outward glory by reducing himself to the form of a lowly servant. He became human, he humbled himself and became vulnerable, choosing to be revealed as a man and was obedient. He was a perfect example, even in death, a criminal's death by crucifixion. Verse 9. Because of that obedience, God exalted himself and multiplied his greatness. He has now been given the greatest of all names. If anybody had questions about obeying God, I'm sure it was Jesus. Like the Father was asking him to come to earth, like leave the glory of heaven, to come to this dusty ghetto earth, die a criminal's death by crucifixion that he didn't even deserve, all on a chance that we were going to accept God's love one day. Y'all ever think about that? Like, there is no guarantee. There was no guarantee that we would even believe in Jesus. Believe that he died, believe that he rose again, believe that he is in heaven and he came to earth so that we could experience the love of God and be reconnected back to the Father. Like there was no guarantee. As a matter of fact, everyone's not gonna do it. Yet and still, his father gave a command, and Jesus, like the Jesus, not some random person, like the Jesus, King of Kings, Lord of Lords, Jesus the Christ, obey. I believe that no matter where you are listening from today, God has asked you to do some things. And I'm not just talking about the big things like pack up your family and move across the country like we did. Obedience to God is obedience. Big things, small things, it's obedience. There is no obedience measure with God. That's what we do as humans. We compare what's a big thing versus a little thing. God's not like that. Me moving my family across the country at his direction is the same as you taking a different route to work at his direction. It's not about an earthly measure of how big or how small a task is to God. It is about our ability to be in place and to be in a heart posture of closeness and connection and surrender so that we can answer God immediately when he calls us, so that we can obey him immediately when he asks us to do something. Maybe God has asked you to do something and you're like second-guessing. Like you're considering the opinions of others, you're reviewing your five-year plan and thinking God's instructions really don't make sense and don't line up with it. You are looking at your bank account and it's in a negative, like you are replaying your past or your history of how things are going, and you're like, God, I don't think so. Or you are looking at like your future plans and you're thinking, like, God, this, what you're asking me to do, or what you want me to do, or how you want me to pivot, doesn't line up with what I'm thinking, what I have in my heart and what I have in my mind. Or you're standing in your present, trying to figure out how anything that God is asking you to do now applies to where you are now. You are considering your qualifications, your degrees, your appearance, like your surroundings, your family, your credit score, your marital status, your trauma, your mistakes, how much work you put in or how much you sacrifice. You're thinking about your self-doubt, your insecurity, your hopes, your dreams, your self-reliance, and they are becoming your God, your idols, the things that you make higher or consider first than your obedient to God. Or maybe you have been obedient to God and you're like, okay, God, I followed you, I did what you asked me to do. Now what? What you doing? Like, where's the reward of my obedience, God? Where's the fruit? Not the earth, not the heavenly fruit, not the crowns I'ma get. Where is the earthly fruit? Where's the tangible earthly evidence of my obedience? The display that I did what you told me to do. Like I planted the seed, I spoke the word, I made the big move, I walked away, I prayed the prayers, I went high when I should have went, coulda, shoulda, went low. I forgave, I granted grace, I chose peace over war. I stayed quiet when I wanted to go off. I sacrificed it all, and it seems like I have nothing to show for it. And God is saying to you, like he said to me at 7:30 a.m. Settle in your heart that you don't have to prove anything to anyone, that your worth and your abilities are rooted in Jesus Christ, that you are grounded in God's eternal love for you, that your focus, that your gaze, your desire is to be obedient to Christ and Christ alone. Settle in your heart that listening to God's voice has to be enough for you. Following God's voice has to be enough. Being obedient to God has to be enough. Let's pray. Father, I don't know why you drop this in my heart. Well, I do know why you drop it in my heart because of some things that I needed to settle in my heart. But I don't know why you did this at 7.30 in the morning when I was just pouring out my heart about all the things that have nothing to do with this. And I just want to say, here I am, God. Here I am. Or here we are, God, here we are. There are some things about this walk. There are some requests, there are some desires, there are some commands that you have of us that are sometimes really hard and sometimes we don't understand, and sometimes they don't make sense to what we are experiencing in this earthly body, in this world. And the coordinates just don't line up to where we think we should be going or what we should be doing or or where life seems to want to take us. And God, we have questions some days, and some days we are disobedient, and some days we drag our feet, and some days we listen to our flesh, we listen to our thoughts, we listen to our experiences, we listen to culture, we listen to the things of this world, and we don't choose to obey you. And so, God, in this moment, we ask that you forgive us. We say that we're sorry. We ask that you would renew our minds and cleanse our hearts and align our motives with you and your word and your heart for us. We're sorry, God. We drag our feet sometimes. We ignore you when we know that you're calling us and asking us to do things. We want things to be logical, God. Forgive us for relying on our own intellect, our own will, our own strength, our own power, our own abilities, God. Re-center us so that we are truly reliant on you. Re-center us so that you are the center of everything. Re-center us so that we are truly dependent upon you. That when you speak, we follow. We don't question, we follow. That when you give us a command, when your word says to do one thing, that we follow it at all costs. Help our hearts to be secure enough to know that we are safe with you, that when you give us instructions, that when you ask us to do things, that we are safe with you. That we don't have to wonder if it makes sense, that we don't have to wonder if it's gonna work out because you've already worked it out, that your track record is secure, that you've never failed us, you've never left us, that we are safe in your hands. Father, I pray for us, those of us who have followed your voice and we're like, now what, God, now what? God help us to be settled in the fact that following you is enough, obeying you is enough, listening to your voice is enough, that we don't have to prove anything, that we don't have to see anything else, that we don't have to have a reward reward, that we don't have to have our name in lights, that we don't have to be celebrated, that we don't have to be pat on the back, but just knowing that we following you, that we have followed you is enough. Settle that in our hearts today, God. Settle that in our minds today, God. All of the idols that we have placed above, just being obedient to you, God, we ask that you tear them down, that you reveal them and you dismantle them, God. So that you would be the only thing that we lift up, that you would be the only thing that we look to, that you would be the only thing that we lift high in our lives. God, I thank you for this work that you're doing in my life. I thank you that it's a hard work. I thank you that it's a work that breaks me sometimes, but I thank you that it's only to build me up and to make me strong and to make me into what you are calling me to be. I thank you for the groundwork that you're doing in my sisters' lives that are listening in this moment. I thank you that it is not in vain. I thank you that they surrender, that they just let you have your way, God. And I thank you, Father God, that you, Holy Spirit, will continue to walk with them and talk with them and transform them and mold them and reaffirm them and remind them of your love and the security that they have in you. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen and amen. Thank you guys for tuning in to this episode of Girl Live Love Be. You know, like, subscribe, subscribe, share, all the things. You can even email me at girllivebe at gmail.com. Until next time, my prayer is that we'll live right, we'll love right, and we'll be right.