Daily Bread
Daily Bread with Dr. Jerrell & Angela Stokley offers inspiring biblical content designed to educate, empower, and engage everyone to seek God's Word as daily bread for the soul and live a life of purpose in Jesus Christ.
Daily Bread
Adjustments PT 5 - Navigating Leaving Familiar for the Unknown
Have you ever felt the unsettling disruption of leaving everything familiar behind? That heart-pounding moment when security dissolves and the unknown stretches before you like an unmarked wilderness?
Major transitions have become our collective reality. Global economic shifts cascade into our personal lives, forcing career changes, relocations, and relationship recalibrations. Doors slam shut while new passages appear, requiring us to venture into unfamiliar territory without a map. During these critical pivot points, Abraham's ancient journey offers timeless wisdom for modern transitions.
When God commanded Abraham to leave his country, family, and father's house for an unspecified destination, He was testing Abraham's trust and obedience. This biblical patriarch faced the same fears we experience: failure, isolation, and uncertainty. Yet through Abraham's story, we discover powerful strategies for navigating our own transitions with confidence and purpose.
Fear tries to anchor us to our past, even when that past wasn't truly secure. The antidote? Massive action in the direction of your fear. As one leadership expert notes, "The greatest remedy to fear is action." Like Queen Esther who risked everything by approaching the king's throne uninvited, your boldest steps often unlock your greatest breakthroughs.
The most profound transition lesson: God reveals our path progressively. Abraham wasn't given GPS coordinates—simply a promise that God would "show him" the land. Similarly, your transition may not come with complete clarity, but with the assurance that the Holy Spirit walks alongside you, revealing each step as you need it. Remember, your current disruption likely connects directly to your destiny and purpose.
Ready to transform your transition from terrifying to transformative? Join our Daily Bread community as we continue exploring biblical wisdom for life's adjustments. Subscribe now, and discover how your journey from the familiar to the unknown might be the very pathway to your greatest purpose.
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Welcome, everybody, welcome. Welcome. Welcome to Daily Bread. This is Dr Jarrell Stokely Jr and I'm excited to have you tuned in to Daily Bread, the podcast that gives you biblical bread to apply to your everyday life. So thank you once again.
Speaker 1:My lovely and eloquent host May tune in with us on today, but if not, I am so glad to be with you in the podcast room and we are dealing with a very important topic on today. Today we are still in a series talking about adjustments. I think we have about two or three more installments in the topic adjustments, and today I want to talk to you about leaving the familiar for the unknown. Let me pray real quick before we get started, but I want you to get your mind set and your heart ready, because there is so much wisdom in learning how to leave the familiar for the unknown Father, we thank you so much in the mighty name of Jesus for this time as we come together. I pray, god, that you bring my heart and mind together in your word, by your spirit, that I may impart something of importance, some strategy, some principle, some skillset that would help your people and my listeners on today transition from the familiar to the unknown in a healthy way, with power and success. I thank you for it in Jesus name, amen. Once again, listen. I want to thank you for tuning in to Daily Bread and do know that we appreciate your prayers. We do appreciate your sponsorship and your partnership. So, of course, you can go to covenantgracechurchorg and you can give into our podcasting services. You can go to jarellstokelycom and you can give there as well. So thank you so much for that in advance.
Speaker 1:Let's jump right in and talk about the climate of transition that we are living in right now. At this very moment, at this very time, whatever time zone you're in and whatever geographical location you exist, you are most definitely experiencing transition. When you look at the plethora, the whole bag of issues and challenges and transition that's happening on the global economical scale, the global political scale, that is trickling its way, all the way down to everybody's house. It has made its way down to everybody's job, everybody's community, everybody's conversation, the way we live. And the reality is doors are shutting, opportunities are being removed are shutting, opportunities are being removed, access is dissipating and disappearing and we are having to make adjustments in order to survive and thrive. We're moving from one city to the next, we're dealing with layoffs, so we have to find a new job.
Speaker 1:Some people are dealing with so much stress and behind everything that's going on in their lives that their marriage is being challenged, their relationship is being challenged and they're leaving something so familiar, a job they've been on for 20 years, a relationship they've been in for 10. Oh my God, processes and a way of life that they've probably been living in for 20, 30, 40 years, 10, 15, 5, 3 years, and now they have to go into the unknown. Well, you know what You're, not by yourself. God didn't forget about you.
Speaker 1:I want to look in the Bible at a patriarch, a man of God named Abraham. We all know him, but if anybody can give us some nuggets from his life to help us understand how to leave the familiar and get to the unknown, it has to be Abraham, because he had to put everything on the line more than once. He was in such a big family, culture, community, lifestyle, you know, kind of like what he did for work you for work on the land that he had before he had to leave it. He had to take his cattle and his stock and his whole family. Abram went through it, but it all was a test and it all was still interconnected for his destiny. Let's jump in this real quick and talk about leaving the familiar for the unknown.
Speaker 1:I want to lay out this sentence and let you really grasp this so that you may possibly some way see yourself in Abraham's picture. God called Abraham to leave his home. Look at how big this is. Imagine having to leave your home. I've done it three times, and I'm not talking about an apartment or a house that I was renting. I'm talking about beautiful homes that my wife and I bought as an investment that we were living in. Two of them were 3,000 square foot homes, very beautiful homes in nice, plush neighborhoods that we had to give up because God called us out of that city and took us out of that state and took us to another location, because it was a part of our destiny and it was something that he was doing in our lives for his glory. Three times we've done it Two times. Beautiful, beautiful, oh my God. We thought we were set, even what we thought was our retirement home. Imagine all that you've accumulated in that house, your special places that you sit or eat, all the memories that you created with family and friends.
Speaker 1:And God challenges you with a test of trust and obedience. Let me stop right there and just say a little bit about trust and obedience. You have to understand when you are leaving the familiar and going to the unknown, and whether you know it's God or not. If you love God and in a relationship with him, you have to put yourself in his hands. Whether you know it's God doing it as an act of destiny or that is happening because God allowed it, because the enemy is attacking or the world is changing, you still have. We cannot get around trusting God. Abram had to trust God, leaving his home, but he also told him leave his family.
Speaker 1:When you talk about leaving family, you're talking about isolation, and when you're going from the unknown, from the familiar, to the unknown, you are going to face so much isolation. Sometimes you can have a lot of people around you but no one is intimately connected with you. Where they speak to your most private place of difficulty or lack of surety. Do you understand what I'm saying? You can change jobs, go from one city to the next and that job can bring you into that city. They can pay for the transitional fees and the relocation fees and they could give you the money for the down payment on the house and they can give you a six-figure income and you can be going to a company where you know a few people there and you can go there and be there that first 30 days and have a couple of social outings and you sit there and you laugh and you look at all those people and it's like, but none of these people really know what I'm going through inside of what I had to leave behind, especially leaving my family.
Speaker 1:College students, you know going off to college for the first time. They know about this. You know, when you leave college and you move to another state for your job, you know about this. When you get a divorce and you leave that community that you raised your children in and you move all the way across town, there's a sense of loneliness when you have to leave family. I'm not going to harp on that.
Speaker 1:He had to leave everything familiar to journey not to a place where he knew he was going. Familiar to journey not to a place where he knew he was going, but to an unknown location. It's almost like losing a job and not knowing and not having one already lined up. It's like you know selling a house, but you weren't sure that you were going to buy another one or that you were going to live in a condo. So you rented an apartment for six months while you made your mind up. You know, it's like he had to leave everything to go to that unknown land and he had to practice a great measure of trust and obedience. And I can kind of sense this right now that you know God has called you to make some major changes in your life. You to make some major changes in your life. You're going through some major transitions with career, with family, in your personal development, in your personal development in you moving from working to starting your own business or shutting down a business and going back to corporate America. And it is important that you grasp on that. These type of unfamiliar, unknown places are still places where you can thrive. Let's go. So let's look at this. In Genesis, chapter one Now, the Lord said to Abram get out of your country. Abram, get out of your country Now.
Speaker 1:I don't know if this sentence is structured like this because of the translators, but when you hear the words get out, it don't necessarily have a friendly tone, but what I hear is a sense of urgency and in learning and having toolkits for dealing with life adjustments, we have to honor that. Sometimes we have to move with urgency. Did you get that? I feel like I'm talking to some folks who may be dealing with this whole idea of procrastination and the reality is you must urgently obey God and urgently trust God to move into what God has in store for your life. I'm sorry, hold on just one second. I got to do this. I got to do this. I'm losing my battery life here. Hold on, let me get this going right. Losing my battery life here. Hold on, let me get this going right. Stay with me there. We go, okay, all right.
Speaker 1:So there's this sense of urgency and if we wait too long, we move that we miss that window of provision that God provides for us when we are transitioning, that protection, that covering that we're going to walk in along the way. So it's important that we understand this sense of urgency. If God is urgent, we have to be urgent. It's important to keep up with the pace of God. Can I say that? Listen, this is daily bread. I want to teach you how to keep up with the pace of God. This is why an intimate relationship built on prayer is important. You have to have your prayer life I'm going to say it, for lack of a better term on 10. Because when your prayer life is on 10, meaning you are leaning into prayer you have a daily prayer life with God and you walk in this spiritual posture where you're praying to God all day long, y'all are talking about stuff and your lips are not moving because it's in your spirit and your soul is crying out. The Bible says my soul thirst after the Lord like the deer panted after the water brook. So does my, my soul long for the old God soul longing for God so that you are in connection with him and intimacy with him, where you are praying and God is answering and you are in this reciprocal place, knowing when it's time to be urgent. Oh my God, this is so good. He told him.
Speaker 1:The Lord said to Abram get out of your country. It is one thing to tell me to move from out of my city, my state, my community, but when you tell me to leave the United States and move to come on where y'all want to go Africa, where y'all want to go Russia, where you want to go China, what this is massive. What this is massive, and we must understand that. There are times when God will speak a massive transition into your ear gates. There are times when God is moving us in destiny and purpose. Sometimes he wants us to lay everything on the line. Here it is. Take big leaps of faith. This is a big leap of faith for Abram, and here it is. The fact that you're hearing this tells me that there are big leaps of faith either now or ahead for you. You must take the big leap of faith Going from one country to another country. You need a passport. You're going to need to have some shots and do some things medically to get you prepared to go to that country so that you're healthy. You're going to need to have some financial resources with you. You are going to need to do your.
Speaker 1:In this case, he couldn't even do his homework on the geography. Abram couldn't even. He didn't know where he was going. Oh, my God. God told him leave your country, leave from your family and from your father's house to a land that I will show you. I will make you a great nation and I will bless you. Oh, this is so heavy. Okay, so let's look at a few things that I want you to understand. God, tell Abram leave your father's house, leave your country, okay, and go to a land that I will show you.
Speaker 1:And when we are leaving the familiar to the unknown, we don't have all the answers. That's why it's called the unknown. It's okay here's my first premise point for you, it's okay not to have all the answers. You, you, there will be occasions when God will give you part of the instructions, part of the plan, and not the whole plan. As a matter of fact, it's common for God to show us the beginning of a thing, but not the end of it. It's common for God to show us one step and then, once we complete that first step, show us the next. So what do we do when we are headed into the unknown without clear vision, without the rest of the instructions and without the confidence Let me take this back, and with a sense of fear of the unknown, I want to start with the latter and move back to the former.
Speaker 1:The first thing that is important for you to do is to oh, how do I say this, lord, I want to make sure you really get this. God did not give us the spirit of fear, but of love, power and a sound mind. I forget what author said this. I read in the book and he said I think it was Brian Tracy and he said in his book the greatest remedy to fear is action. He said when you have fear, move in the direction of the thing that you're afraid of. So, in your toolkit, from leaving the familiar to the unknown, it is important that you have massive action. That is so good. Oh my God, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah. Thank you, holy Ghost, for that.
Speaker 1:It is important that you understand God has not given you a spirit of fear. Fear is an emotion. We are filled with emotions in us. We have fear, we have happiness, we have joy, we have sadness, we have laughter. We have all these different emotions. We have anxiety, we go through stress, sometimes we have depression, sometimes we have exhilaration. We have these emotions, but it's important that the emotions don't have you.
Speaker 1:This is why Paul said whatever state that I get in, I have learned to be content, because the ideal posture in transition is contentment. But it's impossible to get there when you have fear in your heart. Oh, I feel the spirit of the Lord moving right now. In the mighty name of Jesus, oh God, hallelujah, strengthen your people, oh God, I thank you for power, love and a sound mind. Hallelujah, I cast down the spirit of fear. Hallelujah, I thank you, god, that we have no fear. Listen, if you're listening to me, I want you to tap yourself gently on the chest and say I have no fear. Oh my God, this is so good. Thank you, lord, thank you Lord, thank you, lord. I have no fear, I am not afraid. Oh my God, the Bible tells us fret not thyself of evildoers, neither be envious of the workers of iniquity. The Bible says the Lord is my light and my salvation. Whom shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my life. Of whom shall I be afraid?
Speaker 1:God's going to make you stronger in this transition from the familiar to the unknown. We're looking at the life of Abraham and we're talking about those times, moments and seasons when God will call you out of your familiar place and require you to journey and venture into the unknown. And require you to journey and venture into the unknown. And I have already laid out that it is important that you have trust and obedience. Trust God with the unknown and obey him, and in your obedience. We talked about how it appears that God is talking to Abram with urgency Get out of your father's country, get out of your father's country, get out of your father's house, get out away from your family. And there's a sense of urgency here.
Speaker 1:And anytime we're leaving the familiar, going into the unknown, the enemy throws fear at us. He wants us to be afraid that we're going to get hurt, afraid that we're going to fail, afraid that we're going to become a laughingstock, and just simply afraid of the unknown that is in front of us. And in doing so, he tries to anchor us to the past or to the thing that we've left behind. He tries to anchor us to the past or to the thing that we've left behind. Now you see this happening with the children of Israel. When God delivered them and brought them out of the slavery and the brutality and the injustice and the inequality of Egypt under the Pharaoh that did not know Joseph, so he didn't know the favor that the children of Israel had with God, and he punished them and enslaved them and made life brutal for them. And when God set them free and they got out into the unknown, they got out into the wilderness. And because they were not trusting and obedient about the unknown, they became anchored to the past and they wanted to go back and listen.
Speaker 1:Listen to this. It's a normal emotional roller coaster to be in a place where you don't have that sense of stability, you don't have that sense of security and it's driving you to want the former measure of security, even though it wasn't healthy security at all. Okay, so we're talking about combating fear with faith. I have to have faith to move in the direction of the thing that I'm afraid of. And we're talking about massive action. We're talking about big leaps. If you take the first big leap of faith in the direction of the thing that the unknown, the unknown God, is going to give you the next steps, god is going to be with you and he's going to strengthen you for every other step that you have to take. Think about that other step that you have to take. Think about that who else had to take a major, massive action step of faith in a critical time where everything was on the line?
Speaker 1:I am reminded of that great woman of God, esther, and if you don't remember her story, she was the queen that replaced Vashti in the Old Testament, and when she became the queen, mordecai was her uncle and the king needed someone to replace Vashti and he chose Esther. Hallelujah, esther, when she got into the palace and was married to the king, haman, who was a part of the king's court, set up a diabolical plot to kill all the Jews Do you remember that? And then Haman found out about it and sent a word to Esther saying you got to go to the king and tell him what is going on and you got to let him know that you're a Jew and you got to let him know that your people is going to be destroyed because the king has made a decree to kill all the Jews. You've got to go and do something. But the king has said nobody is to come before me for certain. At the time I think it was like 30 days or something. Nobody is to come before the king's throne for 30 days unless he extend the sepulcher. In other words, you would lose your life. In other words, you would lose your life.
Speaker 1:Esther put it all on the line her life, her legacy, her dreams and she burst into the king's court and she marched down toward his throne during that time frame when no one was supposed to be there. Confidence and boldness and humility. She headed towards the king's throne and he saw her and he looked upon her and he said Esther, and he stretched out the sepulcher because he loved her. She laid it all on the line and she moved with massive action in the direction of the thing that she was afraid of because at first she wasn't going to do it. Oh, my God.
Speaker 1:And I want to talk to some people who've been hesitant about what you need to do. This is daily breath. I want to give you this what you've been hesitant about, what you need to do, that you've been afraid of, it's time for your massive action. Listen, I got to move because I talked about a couple of things. So we dealt with the fear, but I talked about when you don't have clarity of vision.
Speaker 1:When you're moving in the familiar, you have visions, you have imagination, you have ideas, you have perspective. Your perspective is good. Hopefully, if you're not being drowned out or tested let me see if you're not being tested with various fiery trials, like the book of James says then you're probably in a position where you're optimistic, it's going okay and you have a great perspective. You are looking through the lens of victory. But when you are leaving out of the lens of victory because you're familiar and you've gotten a pattern and you've gotten security and you've got stability and you're going into the unknown. The unknown doesn't have stability because it's unknown. The unknown doesn't have security because it's unknown. But in the unknown is God. So when you're leaving a place where you have clarity of vision to a place where you do not have vision of the end or what's going to happen, you don't have a vision of how this is going to pan out for you. I was crossed between pan out and play out. How is it going to pan out for you, how it's going to pan out for you, how it's going to play out for you, how it's going to end for you or anything in between.
Speaker 1:You have to know that God will show you. Where did I get that from? Look at what God said to Abraham go to a land that I will show you. That is so good. Jesus told his disciples I will never leave you nor forsake you. We have to adapt to that promise. We have to receive that promise. We have to believe that promise for ourselves that God will never leave us or forsake us, even in the unknown. So we're talking about trusting God for vision. If you wanted something to write down about this second thing, about clarity of vision, trust, god. Oh, that is so good that he will show you the way, oh my God.
Speaker 1:The Bible says Job having gone through all the tragedies that he went through. I believe it was in Job, chapter 42. He said Lord, you know the way that I take, oh my God. And I hear the Psalms saying the steps. Here's what you have to know. The steps of a child of God are already planned out, the steps of a good man, and we're not talking about gender, ie man. We're not talking about gender, ie man. We're not talking about gender, we're talking about humanity.
Speaker 1:The steps of the righteous, the steps of the man or woman or child of God already have security. That is so good. They already have stability, because God doesn't exist in time, he exists in eternity. What am I saying? He's in my past, my present and my future all at the same time. And since he is omnipresent, he's everywhere at the same time. He is where I'm headed, he's already there, his presence is there, his blessings are there for me, his guidance is there for me. And because I have the Holy Spirit on the inside of me, who is the Holy Spirit? In the Greek word paraklete translation one who walks alongside of us, the comforter. Come on. Jesus said the Holy Spirit would come and he would be the revealer of truth who would lead and guide us into all truth. So God will show you. Oh, I feel it. That is so good. You're getting ready to have clarity of vision when you get there. When you get there, god's going to give you clarity of vision that you need. Okay, I got to hurry up and it says this I will make you a great nation.
Speaker 1:You have to understand that oftentimes, when God move you from the familiar to the unknown, it's a destiny move. God wasn't just doing this major move for nothing. With Abraham life, it was a destiny move and I want to give this to you as a gift. I want to speak this into your life. What you're going through is a destiny transition. It's a destiny move and, like with Abraham, I'm going to speak this over you. There's greatness tied to it. And then he says that I will bless you. I want you to know something God won't lead you to anywhere where his blessings are not already there for you. God loves you and nothing can take you out of his hand, and his blessings go with his promises. The Bible says the promises of the Lord make it rich and addeth no sorrow. So I want you to know as I come to a close this 30 minutes. I want you to know something when you're transitioning from the familiar to the unknown trust God, act in obedience, oppose your faith with massive action and know that God will show you, he will give you clarity of vision along the way. This is a destiny move and God has you on his mind.
Speaker 1:I'm Dr Jarrell Stokely Jr. This has been Daily Bread. Thank you for tuning in. Listen. I'll be right back here with you on Daily Bread, biblical bread that you can apply to your daily life. Don't forget to partner, to sponsor with us and go to covenantgracechurchorg. You can give there. Or you can go to jerellstokelycom you can give there as well. And if you're not just the giving type, why don't you go over to officialglorygearcom? That's officialglorygearcom. That's where we sell all type of Christian attire and sweatshirts and hoodies and hats and T-shirts and all kind of great Christian material, biblical material, faith-based material that you can wear and express your message of love and belief in Jesus Christ. And that way, from buying from our sponsor website, officialglorygearcom, you still help us out. Thank you so much for giving partnering and allowing me to spend some time with you here on Daily Bread. God bless you. I love you. I'll see you next time. I'll talk with you next time.
