I'm your host, Amy Dardis. And in today's episode, we're continuing our idols in entrepreneurship series. And we are diving into the idol of control. And so just before we get started, quick recap: an idol is an object or a concept that we give a higher priority in our life than God. It's anything we rely on for blessing, our help, our guidance instead of God. It's anything that consumes our heart or our imagination or our devotion more than God. It can be a good thing that we elevate to a position of importance in our life. And so the question always ends up coming back to where is our hope? What is our hope in? Is it in God? Is it in the Holy Spirit? Or in this case, is our hope in our own plan? Is our hope in our ability to control the situation and to be able to call the shots? And as always, like I don't have all this figured out. Unfortunately, I mean, I wish it was that simple. I wish I could learn the lesson and never have to deal with it again, knowing like, okay, I got that figured out. But it's it's something that keeps rearing its ugly head. And but I think it's the as we grow more spiritually mature, as we grow closer with God, hopefully it's something that we end up identifying and addressing and repositioning faster and faster and faster as our faith in him grows and our trust in him grows, and we learn the longer we walk with God that he is faithful and that our hope should be in him and that we want it to be in him and what living that out actually looks like. And in this podcast and in this series, we're talking about how that shows up specifically in business, like specifically as an entrepreneur, because as an entrepreneur, we feel this responsibility to make things happen. We feel the responsibility to have a plan, to call the shots, to see it through, and determine our own destiny. And a lot of times we think that we have more control than we actually do. And I know for me, I was in my early 20s, the first time I feel like God ever gave me a clear vision on what I was supposed to do in my life or how I was supposed to honor him. And it was during this season of struggle and kind of figuring out who I was as an individual and understanding how God had created me. Cause up until that point, I'd never really been very aware of myself or my giftings. I honestly thought I didn't have any. But it was through a very difficult season that God started to pull these things out of me, started to bring this awareness, started to develop me. And in there planted this desire and this passion for wanting to speak, for wanting to share our stories. And so I got super excited about that and was like, okay, I get it. Like I have this dream. I know what to do. And it honestly reminds me of the story of Joseph. So Joseph is young and he's given these prophetic dreams about his brothers and his parents bowing down before him. And in his eagerness and excitement, he goes and is like, hey, guess what? I had this dream, and this is what happened. And it's like he, we don't know a lot about what goes through his mind, but I think there is a sense of pride there. There was a sense of arrogance there, and like, oh, like this is what's gonna happen. And for me, I was like, oh, this is what's gonna happen. Now what do I need to do to make it happen? So it's like I have this vision, and now let me come up with the plan, let me see what I need to do. And so I started to do that. I started to try and steer my own ship. I started to try and open doors. And so I was seeking speaking opportunities. I was I was looking for opportunities to go and speak and to share. I was speaking a lot about a lot of things that I honestly barely understood. I was I was regurgitating information. I wasn't sharing from my own experience or my own knowledge. And in that I always felt like I was a fraud because I was. I mean, I was not sharing what I had lived and learned. I was just sharing things that I had learned. And I was in a season of my life that was honestly a mess. It was, I was struggling in every front, my my marriage, my parenting, my home life, my business. I was a wreck on the inside. I was angry, I was bitter, it was impulsive. I didn't have good habits. And here I was trying to go and share and teach and be an authority on things that I had no business being an authority on. And in my eagerness and pride and vanity, I didn't recognize that at the time. But God didn't open those doors for me. I mean, I think I had speaking opportunities, but it was just because I was trying to make things happen, but there was no fruit from that. People weren't receiving a message, I wasn't sharing anything authentically or worth sharing. And I pursued this path for a while in different avenues. You know, I tried doing videos and I tried blogging and I tried starting an online magazine, and I sought out like stages and was trying to speak at conferences. And honestly, there was one time, there was one moment where honestly, I think this is where the seed was planted, where we went to a business conference at the end of one of the hardest years of our life, of one of the most significant seasons of growing. We had started out the year with a two-year-old and a brand new baby in a deep, deep hole of debt, depression, darkness, hopelessness. It was it was so it was so heartbreaking, it was so devastating. We just we had no idea what we were doing in any area of our life, and that's kind of where we hit rock bottom was at the beginning of I think this was back in 2016, January, February, and it was I mean, we were losing a ton of weight from barely eating, overdrawn accounts, checking and savings, barely being able to afford food, definitely hardly paying our bills, like behind, didn't know how to run the business, didn't know what I was good at, nothing. So this is where we're at in January, February. And the turning point happened in in early that spring, where we we got some help. We started, we started seeing a counselor, we started getting mentorship in our business, we started seeking advice, we stopped struggling in our own isolation. We actually reached out and got help professionally, we got help personally, we got help in our marriage. Like this was the beginning of a slow climb up and out of a very big hole. And by the end of the year, things were doing much better. Like our business was generating income, we were we had recurring revenue, we had clients, we and we had started to step into and identify our own unique strengths. So this is when I had started to realize that I had a passion for connecting with people and building relationships and hearing other people's stories, and I had stepped out from behind the scenes and into more of the front of the business and in a sales and marketing and relationship and networking role, and a lot of fruit had come out of that. And so at the end of the year, we had joined, or at the beginning of the year, we had joined this community of web designers and agencies. And so we had started building relationships, we were getting mentoring and help, we were applying the principles, and so we went to this conference that they held every year. And in that conference, they opened up the floor and asked if anyone had any stories that they wanted to share. And I felt prompted, called to share a story. Like I felt, I felt the Holy Spirit in me. Like I felt just the quickening of my spirit and this pressure, like, oh my gosh, if I don't go up and share this story, I'm gonna regret it. And so I raised my hands and I had written out our notes of what I kind of wanted to share. That was the story of the last year. And I got up there and through tears and shaking and sweaty hands and a shaking voice. This is the first time I'd ever really publicly spoken. And all I did was share our story. All I did was just share the last year and how hard it had been and some of the breakthrough moments. And it it changed the room. Like it changed the whole environment of the room and the community. And I was crying, and my husband was crying, and there were other people in the audience crying because I was sharing about something that had been so real and so hard. But there were other people in the room that had felt those same things, and so it had really resonated on a level. And it was, it was the most authentic sharing I'd ever done. And that is what planted the seed. That is what like set this desire in my heart of like, oh man, I I want to do this. But then I forgot about the authenticity part. I forgot about the the sharing part, and I just I just sought the stage instead of seeking God and allowing Him to open doors, but also I closed myself off again because then I wanted to come across as this like professional and this person who had it all together, and this person who was teaching these concepts instead of just sharing my heart, instead of just sharing what I had learned. And so for the next 10 years after that, it was this struggle, this desire, this dream to want to share authentically, to want to share these stories, but never knowing how. And then the opportunities that I sought ended up, I didn't follow through on that authenticity part. I just reverted back to safe and comfortable and professional and business oriented. And eventually I started to wake up to the fact that I did not have things together, that I was in a season of figuring out my own life. And I started to let this dream go. I started to realize that God was not opening these doors. And I finally realized why, because I was like, wow, I am I am in no place, I am in no condition, my character. I I have nothing meaningful to share. And so why am I doing this? I was like, I need to just focus on figuring out my life and myself and my heart and my faith. And I need to do some deep work and figuring out how to be a better mom and how to be a better wife, and and just not worry about my ambition or my dreams or anything like that. And so I actually started to relinquish that that plan, that control, that trying to make these this dream happen. And I I really ended up burying it. I ended up surrendering it and not even wanting it anymore, just because I was like, I want, I want to know, I want to have peace in my heart about the life that I'm living. I want to know on the inside that it's in a good place, that it's healthy, that it's meaningful, that it's life-giving, that it's bearing good fruit, that I'm living my life the way that God calls me to live my life, that I'm being led by the Spirit. And I can't do that with all the pressure and all the ambition and all the big plans. Like I just have to let that go. I don't have room in my life for that stuff right now. And so over the next probably five years, it was just doing this internal work, it was just focusing on that and really embracing this small life, this life of just simplicity and privacy and just knowing that things at home were good. And during that time, you know, God is shaping me and maturing me and building me up and taking me through things and and just I'm just growing through the process without trying to grow, without trying to make things happen. And that's the thing, is I just I remember I think it was in 2018. I have this document or journal entry, or you know, I typed it up. So, but it was called like my year of letting go. And it was like, I'm letting go of, I'm just letting go of the plan, I'm letting go of the ambition, I'm letting go of the dream, I'm letting go of my need to control. I'm letting go of of my expectations of other people or my expectations of what needs to happen in my life. And I wrote that in January, and it was like a very weird thing. It felt wrong. It felt like I'm just giving up my dreams and my ambition and my motivation, and this is not, this isn't gonna get me anywhere. I'm just being lazy or I'm just settling, and it was more that I was so, so wrapped up with this idea of control, so wrapped up with needing to make things happen that I it was on like this far side of a pendulum, and I needed to fully swing the other way in order to eventually even out in the middle. I couldn't go from being this extreme of wanting control and just going to the middle, I needed to do the opposite, and I've seen this trend different times in my life where I almost have to do a full 180 to completely go in the opposite of whatever patterns and habits that I'm in in order to find a happy medium. And that's worked well for me. And the more I've done that, the more I've kind of embraced this idea. And so at the beginning of 2018, I was just like, I'm I'm laying it all down. Like, God help me to surrender this. And I specifically was praying for these things of just like let my heart just be simple. Like, let me just desire the small things and not not worry about what's next. Because my whole life, I think I had been worried about like what's next? What's the plan? What do we need to do to make it happen? What's the big vision? And as soon as I have a big vision, what do I need to do to make it happen? And here I am just trying to push the agenda. And of course, I look at my life now and I'm like, pretty much everything in my life that is good, that I love, that I'm super grateful for, I actually never planned for. That was all God. It's the things that I planned for and I tried to make happen that didn't last because they were with the wrong heart and they were with the wrong motive. So it felt very just wrong and uncomfortable to let these things go, but I did. And then over the next few years, you know, eventually just slowly coming back to this like happy medium and getting to this place in my life where I'm like, okay, like I am not the same person that I was five years ago or 10 years ago. I'm I'm not perfect, and there's still things that God's working on me through, but man, I've I see the growth. I see the fruit. And unfortunately, it takes years. I mean, I wish it was like, oh yeah, like a couple weeks of doing this, and man, so good. It's usually like more, like a couple months of doing this or a couple years of doing this, and wow, this is so different than it used to be. So here I was like in this good season of my life, and during this time, God opened a door for me to go and work as a full-time employee on a leadership team for an organization who I'd met through being a client. Like they were just, it was just a natural relationship. It wasn't something I was seeking out, I wasn't looking for. But here God opens a door and I walk through it and He takes care of it, and things start to happen, and I'm in that world for a while, and and things are good, and COVID happens, and you know, we're working our way through COVID and figuring all that stuff and launching e-commerce. And and during this time, I'm so busy with my role and with my job that I actually stepped away from entrepreneurship almost completely. I did not have the capacity to do both. I didn't have the bandwidth to do both. And so my husband just ran the business and I barely even thought about it. I didn't think about entrepreneurship or dreams or what came next. I was just like, I'm just I remember thinking, God, I'm here for as long as you want me here. And I'm just help me to learn, help me to just embrace, help me to just be here and be present and and enjoy the journey. And I did. And then I shared a little bit about this before in a previous episode about like God getting ready to to shift me. And so once again, he he started he started to re-str this dream. He started to rester this this desire to speak and to share. And when he re stirred that, it honestly freaked me out because I was like, Oh no, I did not do this well the last time. I don't want to do this. Nope, God, I already I gave this up. I I don't want it. No. And I wrestled with him about it for a while. And I was in a small group at the time, and I shared what was going on, and they're like, I don't think this is you. Like, this is this is God. This is God, not you. You are not having peace about this because you're you're fighting him on obedience, and you need to be willing to be obedient to whatever he's calling you to do. So, what does that look like? And so that's when I was like, all right, I I feel like I've learned all of these things. Like, I look at the past five years, I look at the past 10 years, and I'm like, I am not the same person. I have learned so much about God and and and my my identity and my role and my purpose and my gifting just as an individual. I've learned so much about business, I've learned so much about marriage and parenting, and and even in the professional world, like there were things I was learning at work and things I was observing and inside and outside that I was like, man, I wow, like these things are starting to click together and it's exciting and it's very thrilling, and I I just can't keep it to myself anymore. And so at that time, I sensed God wanted me to start to share what I had learned. So instead of just not not just like information, but experiences, but growth, but authentically, like sharing what I had lived, sharing like my own story. And that was weird because I was like, oh, that's uncomfortable. Like my story is not pretty, like, there's a lot of mistakes and ugliness and brokenness and and just there's a lot of yuck. And if people hear this, they're they're not gonna listen to anything I have to say. And I was afraid, I was afraid to be authentic. I honestly didn't know how to be authentic. I didn't know how to just share what I had lived in all of its ugliness and all of its just kind of the brutal on honest honesty of it. And so that was like a a another learning journey, another thing of like, how do I show up? How do I do this? How do I share what you're asking me to share? And once again, that was that was a battle. That was a lot of wrestling, that was a lot of doing it right sometimes and then reverting back to old ways other times. But through this process, I ended up coming to the f terms with the fact that God was calling me back into entrepreneurship and he was calling me back into this dream. And once again, I was like, okay, I'm gonna I'm gonna play this safe this time. Like I'm gonna I'm gonna do this on the side, I'm gonna take my time, I'm going to work, I'm gonna continue in my role and just build this on the side, and then it's just gonna be one nice smooth transition. So here I am, like still, still trying to call the shots, still trying to be in control of how this works, still saying, like, okay, God, like, I'm gonna obey you, I'm gonna do this, but I'm gonna do it my way. I'm gonna do it safely and logically and predictably, and there's not gonna be any risk involved. And and and that was my plan. And here I'm trying to do both. And I think about the story, and I I'm sorry, I can't remember if it was Elijah or Elisha, but I think it's Elijah calling Elisha, and he comes and he's like pushing the plow with the oxen, and he comes and he puts it, puts his cloak over him and he calls him. And like the the takeaway is like you can't hold the mantle and the plow at the same time, and that's exactly what I was trying to do. Was I was trying to hold the mantle and the plow, and the plow being like this job, this security, this comfort, this everything that I knew. And then here comes the mantle of needing to step out into entrepreneurship and step out into faith and to step out into like trusting God and walking into something completely uncertain with no plan and and to trust him through that. And I I wanted I wanted both. And God was like, no, like you, it's it's my way. And and that's so hard to just to put yourself into a position of complete uncertainty, complete reliance on God, and surrendering that control, surrendering that like that security, that comfort, that ability to call the shots. And God ended up completely uprooting us from everything we knew, from the our family, from our community, from our church, from our town, from our state, and we went to a completely new place with knowing like nothing and no one and having no home, having no vehicle, having no income, having no benefits or health insurance or anything, completely relying on God. And and once again, God's saying, Do you trust me? Do you trust me that I am in control? Do you trust me that I have called you to this? Do you trust me to provide for you? Do you trust me to take care of you, to sustain you, to see you through? Do you trust me? And if you do, this is what it looks like. And man, that is such a scary, uncomfortable place to be, like this this last year of just not knowing, and every day being a fight, and every day being a battle, to just daily lay it down, to daily pick up my cross, to daily say, God, I I don't have what it takes to do this, I don't have what it takes to I want to call the shots, I want to open doors, I want to make this happen faster, I want to run ads to get leads, I want to reach out to people I know, like I want to do all of these things to make this business happen. And God's saying, like, do it my way and do it in my timeline. And the things I'm asking you to do probably go against everything you would normally want to do or feel comfortable doing. And all year it's just like been this wrestling of like my plan, God's plan, my plan, God's plan. And I was reading in first Samuel about the story of Saul and how he gets anointed by Samuel, and you know, the the early. Rise of being a king, and then how he loses that anointing because he chooses control over surrender. He chooses to make things happen for him and for Israel in his own strength and in his own power instead of waiting on God. And so he has he's in a situation where he has his army and they're facing the Philistines, and the Philistines are attacking and day by day, like they're losing numbers and they're losing courage. And you have people's lives on the line. Like in this time and in this context, like battles are that's a big deal. It's not just like, oh, it's this army, and they're gonna lose. It's like, no, people are dying. And here's this king, and he's supposed to wait seven days, and then he's supposed to wait for Samuel to show up and to offer the the the sacrif the burnt sacrifices and the offering in order to like seek God in it. And he doesn't wait because he's freaking out, he's feeling the pressure, he's feeling the circumstances, he's seeing that, you know, his he's losing his army, and the enemy is like coming in, and he's freaking out. He's like, Okay, what do I need to do? What do I need to do to make this happen? And I can't wait any longer, and I need to do something about this. And so he does, and he doesn't wait for Samuel, and he does the burnt offering on his own. And Samuel comes and he's like, Why did you do that? Like you went against God's command, like you didn't trust him, and he loses his anointing. And I I read that and I was like, that that's very convicting. Like that's very convicting because I think about what it's like as an entrepreneur to be like, okay, well, we have to make we have to make these sales and we have to generate these leads so we can have this income, so we can pay our people and pay our bills and and you know, make life happen, you know, like this this need for for security and for income. And when God is like, wait, like, wait for me to do it, wait for me to open doors, wait for me to shape your heart and build your character in the process so that when when the doors open, you're ready, you're who I need you to be, and you can trust that I'm gonna take care of you and provide for you. And that's this battle. And I look pack back over this year and all the things, and I'm like, in the midst of it, I'm wrestling with him daily. In the midst of it, I'm like, you know, praying, like, God, please like make this happen. Please open doors, please, you know, do this and do that. And and now I look back over the last year and I'm like, oh my gosh, I'm so glad you didn't do some of those things because I wasn't ready. And I didn't recognize it at the time. As I'm going through it, I'm it's I'm blind, I'm not aware to all of my shortcomings and what's holding me back. And but but God sees it, you know, his his he sees it all. He knows my heart, he knows what I need to do or how I need to do something. And it's ends up being like it's more about our obedience to him and our willingness to just surrender and trust him to like to be in the desert and to trust him to bring the food and like for the Israelites and the the manna it's like he he only gave him enough for that day. He didn't give him enough to like okay, take all this and like store it for a week. He was like, No, I'm gonna I'm gonna feed you for today. You're gonna only take this much, and whatever you have left over, it's it's gonna rot, it's gonna go bad, and then I'll feed you again tomorrow. Like it's this dependence on God, which is very uncomfortable, it's very risky, it's very like okay, this is not my plan, but how am I gonna live my life? Like, how how am I gonna get through this season? What is that gonna look like? And and it's I like I I don't have the answer to say, like, oh, it's all good. I mean, I believe that it's all good, and I have different times in my life where I can point back and be like, I didn't see it then, but here's what God did from that. And so as I'm in a season of going through that again, all I can do is remember back, okay, how have you seen me through before? You have never failed me until now. The best things in my life I have I didn't even know to ask for. They were things that you opened doors for when I didn't even know to pray for that door to be open. And so, even now, even when it doesn't make sense, I am trusting that this is all in your timing. This is all in your purpose. And, you know, there's there's verses that kind of like encourage us about that, you know, Proverbs 3, 5 through 6, like, trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways, submit to him, and he will make your path straight. So I was like, okay, lean not on my own understanding. And in my own understanding is this plan, this control, this, this is what needs to happen, this is the timeline that it needs to happen in. But I was like, okay, I'm not supposed to do that. I'm supposed to trust in the Lord with all of my heart. Or Proverbs 16, 9 says, like, in their hearts, humans plan their course, but the Lord establishes their steps. And I think about all the steps that God established for me that I didn't plan for. And I'm so thankful for that. And it's just this constant reminder of like, okay, what does the Bible say? And all of these stories in the Bible where where God calls people out of what they know and he puts them in situations where they have to rely on him, like the Israelites and the Red Sea and and Elijah and Paul. And it's like, all right, there's so many stories that I can just be encouraged by and remember. And each day, it's it is one day at a time. It's it's one moment at a time, it is one prayer at a time. And it's this faith that we trust that like God is He's He's gonna come through. He's gonna come through in the way that He chooses to come through. And I want to live my life in His plan. I want to trust His plan for my life and not my own. And it's it's something that I'm like, I'm I will probably always wrestle with this. I will probably always be tempted to make things happen. But my prayer is that just each and every time that that gap, that time is just shorter and shorter and shorter between the doubting and the trying to control, and then the surrendering and the trusting him, and then being able to replay this story a year from now, five years from now, 10 years from now, and say, this is what God did through that. This is this is how he showed up, and and pointing back to him, and because that's what it all comes down to is being able to look at the story and say, This is what God did. I I put myself in a position where I had to rely on him, and this is how he showed up, this is how he made a way, this is how he broke chains, this is how he parted the Red Sea. And I want to live a life where it all points to him, and that like my life tells his story of his goodness, of his grace, of his provision, of his faithfulness. And business is a great way to like to put it all out on the line and say, not my will but yours, God. Like, not my will but yours. So I pray that this encouraged you today and share it with someone else. If if you think of someone that it can encourage them. That's all for today. See you next time.