Giving Your Best Life

Episode 123: What Happens When You Trust God?

• Stephanie L. Jones, Giving Gal • Episode 123

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This episode emphasizes the journey of faith amid fear and obedience challenges. The conversation highlights personal anecdotes, biblical insights, and a fresh call to action for listeners seeking renewal and connection to God.

• Reflecting on the need to apologize less and embrace confidence 
• Understanding the lessons from Hebrews 11 on faith and obedience 
• Exploring the importance of intentional prayer in decision-making 
• Discussing the challenges of planning a retreat and overcoming overwhelm 
• Encouraging listeners to take actionable steps toward their God-given call 

Don’t miss out on the upcoming Giving Your Best Life retreat. Register by March 29, 2025, for an opportunity to rejuvenate and explore your faith. 

Register here: www.givingyourbestlife.com/retreat

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Bible Verse: Hebrews 11

Giving Challenge: Reach out and encourage a friend





Connect with Stephanie:

Get a free resource The 4G Method Journal here.
Shop Stephanie's books here.
Follow me on IG: @Giving_Gal or FB/GivingGal


Speaker 1:

Hey friends, it's Stephanie here with episode 123 of Giving your Best Life podcast, and friends, I man, I really wanted to be consistent with my podcast and I just haven't. I'm recording this on February 28th 2025, and it's been since October since I recorded and, honestly, I want to apologize, but I really try not to apologize for things that don't need to be apologized for. Women are so bad at this for apologizing for everything, and I really try. I had a boss I've probably talked about this on previous episodes where that was the only thing in my review was. She told me to stop saying I'm sorry, stop apologizing for everything, and so that was like probably over a decade ago. I still catch myself wanting to do that, and I'm really, though, trying to help other women stop apologizing. So I want to apologize, but I don't think I have anything to apologize for. I will say it does bother me, as someone who runs her own business, of the lack of consistency that I have with my podcast. Being very transparent, being vulnerable. I do not know why I cannot get my act together with this vulnerable. I do not know why I cannot get my act together with this, but it is what it is, but, trust me, it has been hanging over my head and on my list to record a podcast because one I just miss being able to put out a positive, encouraging message. Two, and most importantly is I have people that's been asking for a new podcast since October when I put out the last one, and then three.

Speaker 1:

The other day I was in my friend Sammy's boutique, ella James, in Valparaiso, indiana. If you're in town, if you live around here, if you visit, go check her out. I love her, she's one of my good friends and we kind of jokingly were talking about our podcast and she said if I started mine back up, she would start hers back up. So a little friendly challenge between entrepreneurs and friends. So I wanted to jump on here today and talk about the power of faith and I actually had opened my Bible to look for another verse on obedience, because that's what I thought I was going to talk to.

Speaker 1:

But then I opened my Bible up to Hebrews 11. And this is one of my favorite chapters in the Bible because it lays out nicely for us of examples of faith throughout the entire Bible and Hebrews 11 starts out saying faith shows the reality of what we hope for. It is the evidence of things we cannot see. Through their faith, the people in the days of old earned a good reputation. And I have a little comment in my Bible and I apologize, I don't know who said it, maybe it was me, maybe it was me. Usually I try to do a pretty good job. If I write somebody else's quote, that I write their name in there, so if I ever say it, I know who. But I have a note here that says we live out our faith anytime we choose to trust God, despite of our fears, and I just love that because I am working on something right now that requires a lot of faith and I'm going to share that.

Speaker 1:

But I want to challenge you to open your Bible and go read chapter 11 of Hebrews, because I mean, here's just there, are it just highlights every like, almost every verse, or every couple of verses. It was like it was by faith that Abraham obeyed when God called him to leave home and go to another land. Um it verse 21, which is kind of interesting. Um, I did not like read these before and say I was going to read that one, but I told you I was going to talk about obeying, so maybe, maybe I will do that, since I just read this one Um, but you know it. It says um 22,. It was by faith that Joseph, when he was about to die, said confidently that the people of Israel would leave Egypt. Um, verse 23,. It was by faith that Moses's parents hid him for three months. When he was born, they saw that God had given them an unusual child and they were not afraid to disobey the king's command. Interesting, I had not read that before. So we talk about disobeying and obeying, so I'm just going to go into that and have that be the subject today of faith trusting, fear, obey, disobey.

Speaker 1:

So last year I attended the Great Banquet and it was actually something that people had asked me for years, maybe even over a decade, to go. I just kept saying no, no, no, no, no. Finally, I prayed about it because, friends, I am really trying to. I don't even want to say get in the habit, because it's not a habit, but, like before I do things, go to God in prayer, let God lead, you know me where I'm supposed to go, instead of me just making the decision of no, I don't want to do that, I'm not going to do that. Where God might have something for us. God might not want us to say no, or God might want us to say no. So anyways, this time, when a friend asked me last year, instead of saying no I said I will pray about it and I'm not kidding you. It was like I feel like within minutes God gave me a verse and I was like, oh my gosh, I am supposed to go.

Speaker 1:

So in May I go to the Great Banquet and it's on this beautiful property, valparaiso, 160 acres. And if you know anything about me, I just love being in nature, I love walking trails, I love being around water, I just love where there are rolling green hills and I can sit outside. Unfortunately, that weekend is it was a pretty packed schedule and I didn't get to enjoy the natures, I didn't get to set a foot on the trails or anything. And I can remember walking up one of the hills and thinking like if I had my own retreat, there are some things I would do differently, and the biggest was things I would do differently. And the biggest was, you know, lots of time to kind of roam on those acres. And I want to kind of go back a little farther than that, to February of 2024.

Speaker 1:

My friend Amy and I did the Giving your Best Life conference, which is a one-day conference, and God just showed up in so many ways. That was a huge step of faith for both of us. But after that conference, people kept saying are you going to do another event, are you going to do another event? And I did not have an answer for them At the time. I had not felt like God had called me to do another event, and that's the other thing that I'm really trying to do is not get ahead of God. It's really working on my patience because, you know, old Stephanie just likes to make decisions and jump and go and do, and you know, when we let God lead, a lot of times it's like, oh, I want to do something, but I don't know if that's what I'm supposed to do. So I sat around for quite a while and then, after that great banquet in May it was probably June or July I would have to go back through my prayer journal where one morning I was praying and it was just like I felt like God gave me everything I needed to. You know, take that step of faith and not just do a conference, but do a retreat. I went and met with one of the caretakers out at the event location, went out. There was like out at the event location, went out. There was like, oh my gosh, I love this. But then I'll be honest, that was in August of 2024.

Speaker 1:

I started getting very overwhelmed. And I don't know about you, but when you take on something that is very big this is why I think a lot of people don't follow through with big things that God has called them to do and me included in that in the past is because it can get overwhelming. All the details, all the. You start questioning everything and that's how. And then I don't know about you, but for me is, when that happens, I just shut down. So that's what I did. I totally shut down. I was like I cannot do this. You know again me trying to rely upon myself and not just going to the Lord in prayer and saying hey God, I feel like this is what you're calling me to do, but I need help. I am overwhelmed. What's the next step? I think back as if, as I coach women, especially women who are trying to do big things in life, it's not looking at everything, it's looking at okay, what's the goal? Let's make a plan, let's get everything on paper. But then what's the next step? And if you just focus on the next step, is our goals, especially big goals, become a lot easier to tackle. So fast forward to.

Speaker 1:

I think it was January and I was listening to a sermon and it was talking about rebellion against God and friends. It just sucker punched me in the gut because basically the gist of it was if you know God has called you to do something which I knew God had called me, to have this retreat and you do not do it, you disobey, then you are telling God that, hey, god, guess what I trust myself and my decisions and what I think is best versus you and what you think and what you know is best. And so that really got my butt in gear of, okay, you're doing this, and I had never told the location that I wasn't doing it. So I was still on their calendar and that's exactly what I did is started making a plan, started working on this and on April 4th through the 6th in Valparaiso so the evening of the 4th till about noon on the 6th I am hosting a Giving your Best Life rest and retreat rest and renewal retreat here in Valparaiso, indiana, and really it's focused on if you are burned out, if you are busy, if you are weary and you need a getaway to slow down, rest and spend time with God.

Speaker 1:

You will have an opportunity to do that. You can go to givingyourbestlifecom backslash retreat. You can see the whole agenda, but you will notice that we are not starting on Saturday and Sunday till 10 o'clock. There's lots of time to explore, to roam, to take a nap, to soak in nature, to do really whatever you want with that time.

Speaker 1:

We have great speakers my friend, whitney Lane Ward, who, since I met her back in 2018 or 19 at a writer's retreat, she's also an author. She has one of, if not the most amazing stories I've ever heard. I joke up every time I talk about her just because the true walking miracle that she is, and I wanted her at this retreat because I just think that we can learn. We, as women, can learn so much from her, her story and how she lives life. I also am having Sarah Vesely, who is a young girl young lady, I should say, she's 19, who I helped her write her first book and she published her first book in high school and I learned so much from her, and even somebody that I know was like you're having a 19 year old at your women's retreat. You know like it seems a little off and it was like no, you know, like she has taught me so much. I have gifted her book to women in their fifties and their sixties and they have told me they have gotten so much from her book called Jesus, it's you. So Sarah Vesely will be speaking, I will be speaking, pastor John Nita from Calvary church here in Valparaiso. We'll be closing this out on Sunday and then I am bringing in from Nashville, tennessee, a duo worship leaders, jenna and Zoe. So it's going to be a fabulous time, great food and, yeah, all included. Price $2.99 per ticket and registration by March 29th 2025. So I hope to see you there.

Speaker 1:

But I just want to wrap up and say is you know, as soon as I switched my mindset of like, okay, god, I trust you and I constantly say I don't have to have it all figured out and I can pray about the challenges that pop up and there have been quite a few. But it's like you either trust God or you don't. There's no wavering in the middle, and I wrote down this quote the other day. I heard it somewhere Again. I should have written it down where I heard it or who said it, but it was something to the effect of worry is the worship of the enemy, and I was like, oh my gosh. And so every time something about this retreat starts to worry me, it's just like no, why am I worried? God's already walked this path, god has got this. God is, he is in every detail and he will work everything out.

Speaker 1:

I've also tried to relinquish control of the things that I cannot control, and it's like okay, lord, you are in control of X, y and Z, because I cannot control who signs up, who registers. I cannot control the weather, like I cannot control. You know, there's just things like that that I cannot control. So why? Why spend my time and energy worrying about it? So I really one. I would love to see you at this retreat.

Speaker 1:

I think God is going to do amazing things. Not think I know, because it is he who is orchestrating it. This is all about Him. I want to get to the end of the thing and not see me or the speakers or anything, and women just walk away and go wow, only God, only God. The other thing, too, is I just want to challenge you is, if God has called you to do something something that is scary, something that is afraid, something you're like Stephanie, I don't know how to do any of this is, I really challenge you to pray and then do a brain dump you know everything, all the details and then to take that next step, go what is my next step and take that next step and then, once you do that next step, take the next step. Friend, and hopefully this episode is just giving you a little bit of encouragement about what faith looks like, what trust looks like, what obedience looks like and also what disobedience looks like.

Speaker 1:

And you know me, I love to talk about giving and gratitude and I want to say today is I, um, I had gotten a book order for um six of, actually, my children's Christmas books to go to a preschool in New York and I was just so grateful for that order. As an author, when people order direct from me on my website quick plug, givingyourbestlifecom there's a shop there but I was just so grateful when that order came through and I thought about all the little kiddos that are going to get to learn about giving and encouragement and friendship and teamwork, so I was just very grateful for that order. And then, if I think about giving is I've had a friend, or I would say, well, I'm going to say she's a friend now, but just going through some difficult times and I've just been trying to make sure that I'm touching base with her, I'm encouraging her, I'm praying for her, but also let her know that I am doing that. And so I just really challenge you is to pick, you know, one or a couple of people in your life, especially if you're not doing this, and just say, hey, I'm going to, I'm going to sewing to text them, I'm going to encourage them, I'm going to be praying for them daily and I'm going to let them know. It's such a powerful gift that we can give our friends, our acquaintances and sometimes even strangers.

Speaker 1:

Just stopping, I've got a cool story. I wasn't going to share this, but I just thought about it is I was in a coffee shop with a friend. Again, this is disobedience and obedience, what it looks like. I was in a coffee shop with a friend and there was just this girl I kept noticing. I don't know if she was looking at me, but I felt like every time I looked up, she was just like there and um, as we wrapped up now mind you, this was a busy coffee shop, like almost every seat is taken I really felt like the Lord saying go pray for that girl. And I was like, ah, you know, like praying in public, you know, going up and asking somebody it's even scary, just asking what if they say no? These are all the thoughts like is this weird? But I just, overwhelmingly, I just kept felt like God saying you got to go pray for that girl. So I wrap up coffee with my friends, I walk over there and basically just ask this gal if I can pray for her and she says yes, and there I stood and prayed for her in a coffee shop.

Speaker 1:

So I really want to challenge you again. That's what obedience looks like. I want to challenge you that if you feel called to pray for somebody in person, you know, go do it. Don't worry about what the world is thinking of you, people around you, don't worry about if you're going to get rejected. Just go. Okay, I feel like God's calling me to do this. And that goes the same for giving. You know, on my giving journey there were so many times that I just knew God was calling me to give a gift and being obedient in that and not that I was perfect. I missed so many opportunities, but you know it's the ones you miss that make you realize the next time when the opportunity comes is like oh, don't miss that opportunity. So, friends, I hope today's episode just gave you a couple of good nuggets of how you can get to giving your best life.