What If Your Desert Season Is Actually Preparation?

Have you ever made a decision you felt God was leading you toward, only to find yourself questioning everything when the path didn't unfold as expected? That's exactly where I found myself after five years of entrepreneurship, facing the humbling reality of taking a job at a fast-food restaurant to make ends meet.

The question that kept haunting me was simple yet profound: "Did I really hear God correctly?" After leaving my stable career in December 2019 to pursue speaking, coaching, and mentorship full-time, I never imagined I'd be wiping tables and mopping floors in year six of my journey. Yet this unexpected turn revealed a powerful truth about what trust actually means.

Trust isn't about understanding God's timeline or having everything work out according to our plans. It's about total reliance on spiritual timing and recognizing that what appears to be a detour might actually be divine direction. Through this experience, God opened doors to minister to young people I might never have reached otherwise, deepened my spiritual intimacy through necessity, and revealed areas in my heart that needed refinement. The daily dying to self became preparation for something greater.

Whatever unexpected path you find yourself walking today, remember that nothing God does or allows is wasted. Your current circumstances are merely a dot in your journey, not your destination. If you're struggling with trusting God through a difficult season, I encourage you to ask: "What lesson is He teaching me? How is He preparing me for what's next?" When we can't trace His hand, we must trust His heart. Join me in this vulnerable conversation about finding purpose in unexpected places, and discover how God works in the desert seasons of our lives.

May this episode encourage you to trust God in the waiting process.

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction: Returning and Trusting
• 3:09 Questioning God's Direction
• 6:19 Taking On A New Job
• 10:02 Learning Through Detours
• 13:06 Finding God In Desert Places
• 17:05 Prayer and Closing Encouragement

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:06

Hi my friends and welcome back to another episode of Position for Professor's Conversations with Colette Marie. I'm your host, Colette Marie. Yes, I've been old for a while, and I'm so glad to be back today. I received a message from a good listener who is also a friend, and she's saying, What's happening with the episodes? And I said, Don't worry, I'll be back this week. You know, life has its challenges, and sometimes we just have to take a break to regroup and to return. On today's episode, I want to talk to us about trust. Trust. And in pausing, I realized and I felt this nudge that it's something that I actually can talk about in terms of making a decision to do something and wondering if this is really the right move that you've made. I don't know if you've been there before when you've made a decision and feel that the Lord is telling you to go on a particular path, and then the path is not looking the way how you expected it to look. And just start doubting and start wondering: is this what God wanted me to do? Is this what He is saying? And how do I move in this particular area? So we know that Proverbs 3:5 to 6 says, 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. Now I know sometimes when we're going through challenges and we hear this scripture and we may be saying, But I'm trusting God, I'm I'm trying not to lean my own understanding. I believe I'm submitting to him, yet still the way does not seem as clear as I wanted it to be. What is happening? And can I share you out of the background story? So I would have been talking about this in my previous episodes about my journey into entrepreneurship, wanting to walk by faith and doing what I believe that God has called me to do. So as a consequence of that, I started doing the John Maxwell training. I wrote some books, I did life coaching, I did I do speaking and um and I do mentorship as well. And you know, in anything that we do, we have to pause and take a stock when things seem as if it's not going the way how we want it to do, and we start to view success to say, am I being successful in this thing? Our lives being impacted, how am I seeing the impact? And I know we can view success in terms of the finances, and I honestly that's also a part of it. The bigger part for me is impact. Am I seeing impact in what I am doing? So recently I had to take on a part-time job. So if you knew me, you know that in December of 2019, I felt the Lord was calling me out of the regular 95 job to do something that I've never done before, and hence why I did the John Maxwell training and just honing my skills as a speaker, as a coach and mentor. And so this time when I had to now be looking at getting back into full into a full-time job, honestly, it made me pause to ask myself, did I really hear God correctly? Did I hear him correctly? Did I really trust what he is saying? That yes, I feel like he was saying it's time to come out of full-time and to do something else. And I've done that for five years, and now that I'm approaching the sixth year, I am now having to go and do something else because the finances aren't in place, bills have to be paid, you know, mortgage, all of that is due. How do I survive? How do I manage? And I know I don't know if you may be struggling in that area too, that you have left your full-time job or you're contemplating it and wondering, uh, if you've left it, you're saying things are not looking out the way how I expected them to do, what do I do in this moment? How do I navigate the challenges that come with this decision that I have made? And if you've not yet made the decision and you're thinking, I've heard other persons gone through this and it has not worked out well for them. What do I do in this moment? My encouragement to you is to still trust God, is to ask Him, What do you want me to do? Do you want me to take on full-time entrepreneurship, or are you saying, do this part-time while you navigate? While you navigate everything else, just trust what I am doing, and so remember that I jumped all in, I went all in, and for five years I've seen the goodness of God, and I'm not telling you that there aren't struggles or there weren't struggles, or there weren't days when I wondering, Colette, what did you really do? Did you really hear God speaking? Did you really? No, come on, right? And as I read this devotion this morning, a part that stood out to me and it said, What lesson do you think God is trying to teach you about patience, spiritual intimacy, and preparation? Where do I feel stuck? And that's where I got stuck. What is God teaching me in this moment? And what lessons have I learned? Have I been patient? And when I look at it, I said, to a point I have been patient, but maybe not enough. Not really just settling down and say, Lord, I understand that how I thought that things should have happened, it has not happened that way. I want to believe that you have the best for me and you want the best for me. What do I do now? And can I tell you even now as I think about what do I do now, in light of the fact that I took on a job that I've never done before. So if you don't know, already know. Well, I don't think I've spoken about it. I'm working at a fast food restaurant and hats off to persons who work in the fast food industry or the retail industry. It really is a lot. It really is a lot that I didn't bargain for. But what are the lessons that I'm learning as I am embracing something that is new? I've realized that it has given me an opportunity. Oh my god, I never even saw it as an opportunity. It gave me an opportunity to share my wisdom with some others because they are young people, there are other persons there, and I'm able to talk to them about some stuff, and I'm saying, God, this is the set of people that I've actually wanted to outside of ministering to women, always with the youth, and no, you've provided an opportunity for me to do this. And can I tell you, I'm not sure if that's how I would have wanted that opportunity, but yes, and even now, as I'm thinking about it, my yes to that opportunity has opened another opportunity for me because these persons would not know my desire to speak with a youth, these persons would not know that I have taken on this job and this is the outcome of it. I received an invitation to speak to some youth at an event in October. And I want to give God thanks for that. I don't know if that's what the outcome that I was looking for, but you know, as I'm recording this and these things are coming back to mind, it's a reminder that nothing that God does or allows is wasted, nothing at all. And so, even though it seemed that I've taken a detour, even though it seems as if God is not in the details, he actually is. And so while I am there, I'm asking him, it's like a daily thing, Lord, what are you teaching me in this moment? What are you showing me? And I can tell you is open my eyes to some things in my heart that I believe God wants to pull out. So even just going there daily is a daily dying to self and is a daily seeing Christ and not spiritualizing or over-spiritualizing anything. The reality is that at my age, I have to be and and and Christian maturity, I have to be able to look at where I am and say, Lord, what do you want me to learn? Because it's a lesson that I need to learn, and I'm going to be the better for it. And it's because of God's grace and it's because of his love for me, why he's allowing me to see this. The things that he's showing me about me and the opportunities that he's opening, so I can't take the good and despise the other things that's in my heart that needs to come out. So, my question to you is if you have to make a pivot, if you have to make what you think is a detour, what is God saying to you in it? What is lessons are you learning from that? As it talks about spiritual maturity and in spiritual intimacy, and I'm gonna add maturity as to that as well. I realize that in this season I have grown because I've had to spend more time with God, more time praying, more time reading his word, and just hearing him talking to me in a season that has been so hard, so challenging. I could hear God's voice clear because when you're in trouble, God is the only one that can, and you know God is the only one that can deliver you. You have no choice but to run into his presence and hear what he is saying to you, and that's what I've had to do, and so because of that spiritual intimacy, I have been growing and maturing in my faith with Almighty God, and so today, what is it? What am I saying to you? Don't take what seems to be a detour as just a detour, and there is nothing for you to learn from it. There is a lesson where you have to be open to say, God, what are you teaching me in this season? What do you want me to learn? Because it's all about the next, it's all about the next, where he is taking you to, and that's where we come to preparation. Because if we don't know the lessons that we are learning, where we are going to, how will we apply what we have learned? How can we tell someone else about where we have been, about what God has done, what he is showing us, so that they will not fall into the same, I don't want to say Pete, into the same scenario that we found ourselves in. What are we learning? Because preparation means we're going somewhere. We are going somewhere, we are going somewhere, and so I hope that in this matter of trusting God, and here how they define the trust, they said it's a total reliance upon spiritual timing, a total reliance upon spiritual timing, and so that is where I am now, as total reliance upon God's spiritual timing, because where I'm at is not where I will be for the rest of my days, it's just a dot in the journey, and the journey continues, it's still positioned for purpose. Can I tell you? It's where I am and where God has always been. So every day when I go to that job, when I wipe those tables, when I mop those floors, when I clean those bathrooms, when I ask the guests, how may I serve you today, when I when I take their trash and you know have conversations with them. It is preparation for the next. Because if God can trust me in the small areas, surely He will trust me with the bigger things. I met a friend there and then he saw me, and you know, he said, I want you to know that where you are now is not where you will stay. And he just spoke some life into me, and I want to give God thanks for him, because he spoke some words of encouragement about how to show up where I was, how to be the vessel that God has called me to be, in a place where I didn't think that I would be. And I and I give God thanks for him because why sometimes we need a reminder when we look at where we are and can't see God in the midst of it. We need a reminder that God is with us, that he is ordering our steps, that he is with us every step of the journey. I don't know where you have been, my sister. I don't know what your story is, but I can tell you to trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not lean to your own understanding, but in all your ways, acknowledge him and he will direct your path. He is God all by himself, he is the same God who is walking alongside me right now as I walk through the desert places. He is a God who is watering me during that during this season, he's walking alongside me, he's giving me favor. He's reminding me that he has not gone off and left me. So your season right now, baby, looking hard and you're wondering what does it truly mean to trust God. It's giving him everything, even when you don't understand your journey, if though you don't understand what God is expecting of you, is to trust him anyway because he wants the absolute best for you and I, the absolute best. No good thing will he withhold from them who walk uprightly before him. So that's what our aim is today. Our aim is to trust God, is to know that he is well able, and I want to give the credit to the author. It is Believing Bigger by Marshawn Evans Daniels, and so the path that I took is the thing that spoke to me is trusting God. What does it truly mean? And am I truly trusting him? Wherever you are today, may I pray with you, Lord? I know that the seasons are challenging. Where we are right now, maybe not places where we expect to be Almighty God, but you are already there. I pray for my friend Lord Jesus. I pray that you'll strengthen her, I pray that you'll encourage her, Lord God, as she is leaning into you, Lord God, as she's seeing some challenging situations before her, and she does not know what to do in the next. But I thank you that you are already there for her, Almighty God, and that you are walking alongside her in this journey. Spirit of the living God, encourage her today to hold on to you. Almighty God, I pray that your spirit, Almighty God, and your word will come alive in her. That Almighty God, that you who have started a good work in her is faithful to complete it until the day of Jesus Christ. I trust you, Almighty God, and I yield, Almighty God, my will, my emotions, my everything over to you as I ask you, Lord God, to minister to your sister, to your daughter, to my sister today, Lord. And may your will, your plans, and your purposes for our life be accomplished. Lord, we love you today. We honor you and we exalt you, Almighty God. Even in the hardest of places, we will trust you because we know that you are there. Have your way, Almighty God. I pray in the name of Jesus and let your will be done. In Jesus' name, I pray with thanksgiving. Amen and amen. Remember to trust Almighty God. Even in the darkest of moments, even the decisions that you have to make where you don't know why and you don't understand where God is taking you. Trust, trust him that he will light your path up. See you next time on another episode of Positioned for Purpose Conversations with Colette Marie. If this podcast hasn't been a blessing, I pray that you will share it with someone else. Blessings.