"God’s Preparation For Promotion!" - Part 1

Greetings, my friends.

When I started out, getting promoted often felt mysterious until I learned to look deeper. In this post, we’ll explore how integrating faith—specifically, insights from Psalm 18—can shape your approach to career growth and leadership. Here’s a tough truth: pride might get you ahead quickly, but it can also lead to setbacks. Humility, grounded in faith, helps you stay open to guidance and support when new opportunities come. If you’re facing a job change, a new role, or a leadership challenge that feels overwhelming, I believe  this message offers clarity by showing how faith can inform your decisions and bring you peace.

Let me share a personal story from March 22, 1998, that illustrates this faith-based approach in action. After finishing a big project, I was offered a new promotion, but I still felt unsure. Through prayer and reflecting on Psalm 18, I found a turning point. God “lights my lamp” and “enlightens my darkness,” and I drew courage from the words, “By You I can run against a troop… I can leap over a wall.” Talking with a trusted friend helped confirm that moving into a sales role was the right step. This experience showed me how Scripture, wise advice, and your own strengths can work together to guide your choices.

Building on that experience, the second step is being equipped. God often strengthens us through situations we wouldn’t pick for ourselves, clears the path ahead, and gets us ready for greater things before we reach them. The image of a hind scaling the side of a cliff reminds us that we’re given what we need to move forward without fear. It’s also a reminder that challenges can come when you’re following God’s purpose. 

Also, watch my YouTube Short on the SELDI-faith YouTube channel for inspirational moments walking with God that will encourage you.

https://www.youtube.com/@SELDIFAITH/shorts

If this message encouraged you, please subscribe, share it with a friend who could use some courage, and let me know your biggest takeaway.

https://www.seldicompany.com/

Transcript

Welcome And The Promise Of Promotion

Tony 0:00

Greetings, my friends. Tony Williams here. Welcome to Celdi Summit Evergreen Leader Development Insights. Thank you so much for listening. I'm so excited about this message. God's preparation for promotion. Wherever you are, whenever you listen to this message, number one and foremost, God wants to promote you. Regardless of your age or circumstance, God desires to promote you. And there's a way, there is a process He takes us through to do it. And I want to share with you the process He took me through and enlightened me to share with

God Engages Through Psalm 18

Tony 0:36

you. Here's first and foremost: God engages us. God engages us. It was 1998. I the Lord had blessed me tremendously. I just finished a worldwide project assignment that took me all around the world with tremendous success. And now I'm ready to be promoted. And I have this opportunity for a new assignment. But I'm not quite sure it's what God wants me to do. So I would meditate and ask God to show me what to do. And He gave me this passage that I remember from 1998. As a matter of fact, I have the date. March 22nd, 1998. And it says in Psalm the 18th chapter, verse 27 and 28. For you will save the humble people, but you bring down haughty looks. God had shown me in the earlier stages of my career that pride goes before destruction and a haughty spirit before the fall. I had attempted to get to success using the world's way, what I saw other people doing. I would manipulate, I would maneuver, I would network, I would do this and do this with the goal of getting to the top. That's the world's way. And many people get to the top using that method. But it often ends in disillusionment, despair, and destruction. So God's way is a proven way, a supernatural way, and this is why I believe God wants me to share it with you. So I knew from past experience I had tried it my way, and it ended with a fall because I became prideful, haughty. God doesn't like pride or haughtiness. They go before destruction and before the big fall. But this is what he does for those who humble themselves. In verse number 28 of chapter 18 of Psalm, for you light my lamp. The Lord my God will enlighten my darkness. Think about this. God lights your lamp. That's saying the Spirit of God within me illumines who I am, first and foremost, that God is in me because I've asked Jesus to be my Savior and my Lord, and God has given me the ability to do great and mighty things. So first and foremost, He awakens me. The Lord lights my lamp. I'm awakened. And he enlightens my darkness. I didn't know which way to go. Is this the assignment that God wants me for me? Is this the promotion that God says? I want you to have this. Well, listen what happens next. I'm at

Saying Yes To The Next Assignment

Tony 3:20

my friend's Rob's house and I read this passage. For by you I can run against a troop. By my God, I can leap over a wall. Psalm 18, verse 29. My friends, when I read that scripture, it was like the Holy Spirit in me just exploded. It ignited me. I said, Rob, my best friend, godly man that I knew for decades. Rob, listen to this verse. And I read it out loud. For by you I can run against a troop, saying, By God, by my God, I can leap over a wall. That seems supernatural and powerful. And Rob said to me, Tony, you've always done well in sales. When he said that, I knew that this new assignment, which was in sales, was what God wanted me to do. So you see how God used that passage to engage me, first and foremost, to bolster my confidence that he was going to be with me. Secondly, to awaken me to who I was with Jesus living on the inside of me and that I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. So with that confidence, I said yes to the new assignment. And oh, how God promoted me. And so first and foremost, he will engage you. Expect God to get your attention. Maybe it's He's using this message right now to engage you, to awaken you that God wants to promote you. You have to see yourself the way God sees you, and you have to say yes to what He wants for you. So it starts with that. So engaging, number

God Equips Through Hard Circumstances

Tony 4:52

one. The second thing God does is equip us. God doesn't give us an assignment that He doesn't equip us to accomplish. And this is what I learned along the way, starting on March the 22nd, 1998. But I'd really learned it up until that time that the assignments that God had given me, he was supernaturally equipping me to accomplish significant things in those assignments. And so now I had that understanding that it was God working for me, going ahead of me and preparing the way. And this is what he's going to do for you, my friend. He will go before you and he will prepare the way. First, he engages and he equips. Equipping, he takes us through circumstances. Some of the circumstances we may say, why am I going through this? Why am I doing this? God uses those circumstances to strengthen us. He uses those circumstances to show us that through him we can do all things. And that's why he says, For by you I can run against a troop. By my God, I can leap over a wall. Because once God gives you that victory over that situation, my friend, you gain confidence, you gain conviction, and you gain courage to take the next step, to receive the next victory, and to embrace all that God wants to accomplish in and through your life. Next step, equip. God will equip you. How does He equip you? Well, in Psalm 18, verse 32 through 33, this is what God says: it is God who arms me with strength and makes my way perfect. He makes my feet like the feet of deer and sets me on my high places. He teaches my hands to war, to make war, so that my arms can bend a bow of bronze. You see, in this process, the process of equipping, God says that He strengthens you. God gives you the strength and He makes your way perfect. You see, in the old way, the way I tried before, I was trying to make my way. In this way, God's way of promotion, He was making the way. He provided the new opportunity based on the success he gave me in the former assignment. And that's what He will do for you. So God makes my way perfect and God gives me

Hind Feet And High Places

Tony 7:13

strength. But this is what got my attention. I was on a vacation to visit my brother-in-law who has a farm and he has goats. I'm doing a YouTube short on it, by the way. God's promotion. Maybe look it up if you can. It's under Celdi Faith. Sell the Faith. S-E-L-D-I-Faith. I'll publish it sometime this week, I believe. But listen to what God says in Psalm 18, verse 32, 33. He makes my feet like the feet of deer. Another version says hind, H-I-N-D, and sets me on my high places. If you ever look at a video, a YouTube video of a hind, H-I-N-D, maybe look it up. A hind is a a goat that has special feet that God has created that enables them to scale cliffs that seem to be vertical in nature. High places. God has placed in them a desire for the salt that's located in those cliffs. And when you watch a YouTube video of them, they simply seem to go right up vertically on this mountain. But God has equipped them with special feet that enable them to go upon their high places. They never have a fear of falling because God has equipped them with everything that they need. And they seemingly defy gravity, but they have supernaturally been given the ability to scale high. And that's what God gives you and me. And he sets me on my high places. God sets you in the high place, my friend. When God promotes, God will keep you where he promotes you because you're doing it God's way. So allow God to teach you. And that's what he says next.

Spiritual Warfare And Next Week’s Focus

Tony 8:56

He teaches my hands to make war. We're at war. Satan wants to keep you from being promoted by God. Satan wants to make you turn back from accomplishing great and mighty things from God. But God says, He teaches my hands to make war, so that my arms can bend a bow of bronze. Woo! Your arms will bend the bow of bronze, a bow, bow and arrow. Bronze, my arms. He strengthens you. You see how God equips you, my friend? We don't have time in this podcast to give you how he empowers you. We're going to do that next week. So far, we've talked about God engages, God equips, and by the grace of God, next week we'll talk about how God empowers and he keeps us there. Father, I thank you for my brothers and my sisters and my friends that will listen. You want to promote them and enable this truth to sink deep into them. Enable them to apply what you've given us in Psalm 18 through 30, verse 32 through 33. In Jesus' name. Amen.