CEO Kingdom Seekers

Ep. 5- The Other Side of Obedience: Trading Worldly Cages for Kingdom Purpose (Esther 4:17-30)

• Dr. Lee C. Cordell • Season 1 • Episode 5

Share episode

Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.

0:00 | 49:47

Are you feeling confined by the world's expectations of what your leadership should look like? Do you sense a deeper calling but feel trapped in the "uptown part you've gotta play"? 


In this powerful and personal episode, Dr. Lee takes you on a journey of breaking free from the worldly boxes that limit our Kingdom impact.

Dr. Lee shares a raw and recent moment of divine instruction- a call to step away from the hustle of serving clients to intentionally work on her own business, Regulated Roots. This act of obedience led to a profound revelation involving the spiritual gift of praying in tongues, the story of Queen Esther, and an unexpected parallel from the movie The Greatest Showman.

This episode is for the leader who knows they were made for "such a time as this" but is hesitant to break the rules, upset the status quo, or step into the unknown. It's a raw look at what it means to be a divine channel for God, to steward the unique gifts He has given you, and to have the courage to step onto "the other side" of what the world deems acceptable.

In this episode, you will learn:

  • The Importance of "Pray First, Pray Last, and Pray in the Messy Middle": How to center your day and your business on God's will from the very beginning.
  • Practicing What You Preach: The challenge for service-based leaders to pour back into their own God-given ventures.
  • Understanding Manifestation Gifts: A demystification of praying in tongues and how it can be a powerful tool for leaders who can't find the words for their deepest prayers.
  • Your "Esther Anointing": How God may be calling you to step out of your comfort zone to fulfill a purpose you were born for, even when it's terrifying.
  • Breaking Free from the "Cage": Recognizing the restrictive boxes society, and even we ourselves, create and finding the courage to step into the unique, innovative calling God has for you.

If you are ready to trade your golden cage for a life of true Kingdom purpose, this episode is your invitation.

Mentioned in this episode:

  • The Book of Esther (Chapter 4 - NABRE Edition)
  • The movie, The Greatest Showman
  • The book, The Esther Anointing

Connect with us:

Connect with Dr. Lee and the Regulated Roots Community:

Follow on TikTok: @leechelseacordell

Connect on LinkedIn: Dr. Lee Cordell

[00:00:00] So today we're gonna be talking about breaking outta the worldly boxes. And so be, before we get into today's episode, I just wanna take a moment. And I heard at a trust raising training this week for a nonprofit that I am a member of the board on.

I heard pray first, pray Last, and Pray that messy middle, so. I wanna just start off today by centering and seeking God first.

God, thank you so much for bringing us together for this episode today. I am so excited for this new approach that I'm taking, that I'm gonna be talking about today.

In our episode, and I just wanna thank you so much for bringing us all together. I wanna thank you for opening our eyes and opening our ears, our senses, really allowing our brains to take in the information and to consider to incorporate it into the learning and the wisdom that you're already giving us.

I wanna just pray for you to help us to speak. To be divine channels for you and to bring your message [00:01:00] forward. And, whether that's y'all, hearing my voice come forward and hopefully it's going to come forward in a way that God, you really just allow it to, to support whoever's hearing it.

And also for those of you who are then gonna take this message out to the world today and maybe talk about it with other people like God, I just pray that. You help all of us to be able to speak, in accordance with your will and your word open. Our hearts allow us to be compassionate. Allow us to really draw closer to you, to draw near to you, to turn our attention towards you and ask you what it is that you desire for us to know about you today.

I pray that you will give us strong spines, healthy backbones, allow us to stand tall and firm and be able to really support others and steward the resources and the assets that you give us. And then lastly, I pray that you will be our hands and be our feet, be our arms and our legs. Help us to move, help us to do your work in your kingdom.

So in your name I pray, amen.

All [00:02:00] right, so, today we are going to be like I said, talking about breaking out of worldly boxes. And so I mentioned that I had a little bit of a different cadence. For those of you who are newer to the podcast, my husband and I run a business growth agency called Regulated Roots.

And we have several clients that we serve in the backend operational portion of their businesses. And our clients are doing phenomenal, like God led work. They are just bringing so much love and peace and joy and goodness to the world. And so it is such an absolute blessing to get to support them.

And one of the things that we help business owners who work with us with is really spending time on their business and not just in their business.

A lot of the business owners that come to us, like they already have a full client roster, like their days are packed.

They're also parents and their spouses and their children and their volunteers and their board members and their all the things. And so [00:03:00] they're doing a lot with their lives and, in that it can be really tough for them to focus on, like growing their own businesses and focus in on the operational tasks that are part of their business.

And so that's where we really come in and we help provide the strategy that supports their vision. We help provide the management to make sure that projects are getting completed and tasks. Are getting done and like progress is being made, growth is happening. We help with the implementation and the execution.

So my husband and I oftentimes will, will like, do things in our client's businesses. And so, our agency grew relatively fast, which is such a blessing. And what I found from like my own business perspective is that I started actually experiencing the very thing that we were helping clients get out of, which is, it is such a blessing to have a full client roster and have, 30, 40, 50 hours of work a week that you can do foresight clients and at the same time, If

I'm not careful if my [00:04:00] husband and I aren't intentional. It can be really easy for us to just kind of leave our business' growth like over here. And so I realized like, Hey, we've gotta start prioritizing in our own business. Like we gotta practice what we teach more.

And so God was really like calling me to that today because we've had a full week of calls. We've been doing so many cool projects for our clients. And when I was driving home this morning from taking my oldest to school, I heard him say you're gonna take this first hour and like, don't worry about bible study.

Don't worry about journaling. , Don't do any of that. , Here's what I want. I want you to pray and I want you to pray in tongues and I'm gonna talk about that because some of y'all might have just gone like, ah, but I want you to pray in tongues and then I want you to work on your own business for an hour.

And I was like, okay. Alright, let's go. So little backstory- Denominationally, I'm Catholic, we're Catholic and I was raised Methodist. I spent a lot of time in non-denominational church growing up.

My husband was raised Lutheran slash Catholic, kind of like one [00:05:00] parent in each. And then went the Catholic route like personally from an early age. So I share that because like in the Catholic faith, speaking in tongues isn't something we talk about a lot. And so it's been something as I have been developing our spiritual gifts program and I have been working on the books that we're writing and like really working on regulated roots, working on the academy side of our business.

I've been studying a lot about gifts and giftings and so there are different types of gifts in the Bible that get talked about. And a lot of times when I tell people that we're gonna be doing spiritual gift training and people are like, oh, you mean like prophesying or speaking in tongues or visions?

And I'm like, no, actually, because those gifts are, , manifestation gifts. And so when in the Bible where it talks about manifestation gifts, manifestation gifts, are supernatural giftings that God puts on anyone at any point and any time for his good, for his will. And so that's [00:06:00] super important to understand because we all have access to those gifts when God decides that he's gonna give them to us, they are giftings, right? They are things that he places upon us when he decides. And so while some people are more, like inclined, like they have a higher likelihood of experiencing those giftings, those are not the gifts that I'm talking about when we talk about spiritual gifts. I'm actually talking about manifestation gifts. The reason I say that is because a lot of people think that speaking in tongues is a, like you either can or you can't.

And at especially outside of like more Pentecostal or like very specific Protestant churches, there are places where speaking in tongues is like absolutely not something that you would even know how to do or think to do.

And so when I had this explained to me recently, it like really unlocked something for me because I am somebody who has a lot of words. Hi, hello. Doing TikTok lives, like [00:07:00] putting out a podcast, doing YouTube videos. I have a lot of words I like to talk and what I have found is that the more that I connect with God and the more that I start to have a relationship with him, there are times that I cannot put into words my prayers.

There are times that I cannot find the English words for what I am experiencing. There are times that the Holy Spirit within me is moving and calling to me to, take something to God or to have a conversation with God or to pray about something and I just can't find the words and my husband will tell you, I've been having this experience a lot more, which is an odd thing for somebody who has a gift of speaking.

And so, I started learning more about this and I was like, oh, anybody can do this. And by the way, y'all. The first several times I did this, I felt quote unquote, like worldly, crazy. So if this sounds crazy to you, totally see you in that. And you can be like, Lee, I'm never gonna [00:08:00] do this.

That's fine. You never have to. And what this looks like is me, getting on my knees or laying in bed and closing my eyes and first praying the prayer like in my head or out loud in English, like, God, please let the Holy Spirit pray through me to you for what I need. Allow the Holy Spirit to direct my prayer, and then I'll just open my mouth and then start talking.

Except when I talk. It's a language that I, I don't know what it is. I don't know what I'm saying. And sometimes I'll end up like humming. Sometimes I'll end up making some pretty, like deep guttural noises. Sometimes I'll end up crying. And it is an odd experience because as somebody who really likes to understand what I'm saying, as somebody who cares about those words, it's tough to not know.

And so the other part of the prayer that I will pray. At the beginning, before I do this, is God, please allow the Holy Spirit to like communicate to me what it is that you want me to know, like what it is you want me to understand through this [00:09:00] praying in tongues. And so I did that for about minutes this morning, and I had a pretty unique experience because typically I have now read the entire Bible. I've talked about that. I finished reading the entire Bible. Catholic Bible with those extra books in there, late August, early September.

I pretty much know where a lot of verses are now. I know where the books are. I know, I know how things are kind of going when I open it up.

But I'm not at the point that like, I know specific scriptures, so like, I know Philippians four 13, I know John three 16. Like I know a lot of those, the main ones that we learn off the bat.

I know Psalm 23, like I know those things, but I don't know a lot of the more obscure things. And so today God led me into Esther, which is a book that I've been spending a lot of time in. I just finished reading the book, the Esther anointing. And it's also a book that has been randomly showing up In so many places in my life I have heard we are made for [00:10:00] times such as these.

What if you were made? What if you were born for a time such as this? I've heard the different iterations of that, probably 10 times in the last five days.

And so I'm like, okay, God, whenever there's a message that's just like repeating over and over and over, whether it's because I am tuned into that message right now because it's something that's like really affecting me personally, or it's something that God is really wanting me to hear, whether it's one or the other.

That message has been just like front and center.

You know what, if you were born for such a time as this, what if you were like, created for such a time as this?

So that really relates back to what I wanna talk about today, which is like stepping outta the worldly boxes. Because when God gave me this verse in Esther, he said, it's Esther four 17 through 23.

And I was like, I know that is not a common scripture. Like, I know that's not a common scripture, like just off the top of my head, I'm like, those aren't, a book and numbers that like I have heard ever. [00:11:00] And so I was like, okay, well let me go look at that. But really interestingly, simultaneously I heard God say put on the the song The Other Side from The Greatest Showman.

And if you're not familiar with the movie, the Greatest Showman, I highly encourage you to go watch it.

And in that movie, it's not a Christian movie. But the message is so, christian in the sense of us chasing worldly things and being broken humans who are trying to fill the holes that our past painful experiences and our sin, and our pain and our shame have created within us.

And trying to fill those with worldly things and like never being able to get enough and then having like a very humbling moment.

Where God brings you to your knees and is like, Hey everything you're looking for, it's not out there.

It's with me and it's in here and the, and to be Frank, the movie does not talk about God, [00:12:00] but it so fully captured my experience with God.

And so I heard God say, yeah, listen to that song and read Esther. And I was like, okay. Which one? First? I was praying on it. I was like, which one do you want me to do first?

He was like, do both at the same time. And I was like, okay, that's weird, but sure, why not? So I had this song on and just for a little context, the song is happening in the movie where Hugh Jackman is talking to Zach Efron. And Hugh Jackman is like this just scrappy businessman who has had a very traumatic past and who is starting this like new business that he's really called to start and he's doing something very unique and innovative.

That is like bringing love and joy and connection to a community of people who haven't traditionally experienced that AKA circus freaks. And so he goes to Zach Efron, who's like this very posh high society play producer.

And they're in a bar and they're sitting there [00:13:00] talking and Hugh Jackman's basically he says, this line of, don't you wanna get away from this whole, this uptown part you've gotta play because I've got what you need.

So come with me and take a ride to the other side. That's the line. And in this song, Zach Efron is like, no, I'm totally happy in this cage that you say I'm in. I'm totally happy. I don't need a key to break out of this cage. I am totally fine living in this so-called restrictive box that you say that I'm in

and Hugh Jackman's like, are you sure? Are you sure? Because I think I've got something that like I'm gonna put in front of you that will help you escape this life that you really aren't meant to be in.

This is not what you were created to do, and I'm not gonna spoil the movie for you if you haven't seen it, but like Zach Efron's character becoming part of the show is so profoundly important to the success [00:14:00] of Hugh Jackman's Circus that he's creating.

And so I share that because I'm listening to that song. There's a guy standing in front of another guy saying, Hey, this life you're living is not what you're designed for come with me.

Come, come out of this cage, come out of this box. Break the rules. Be willing to make people upset. Be willing to be cast out by society. Be willing to be forsaken by all of these people who think that you're gonna be doing it wrong or bad and come enjoy life with me.

So I'm listening to that right as I am, like opening up my Bible and reading the Prayer of Esther. So that's the section that ends up being Esther, chapter four, verses 17 through 30.

Before I read this, lemme give you a little more context. The story of Esther is really fascinating. Esther is a young, teenage Jewish girl in Persia. So she's outside of her homeland, that her people are enslaved in Persia. And one day someone knocks on her door from the [00:15:00] King's court and says, come with us. You're gonna be part of the King's harem and you're going to if he selects you, you're gonna become queen.

Now imagine you're a young 13-year-old Jewish girl. You're an orphan. Mordecai, Your cousin's raising you and you're being immediately asked to leave everything you know and go be subject to a foreign king. And by the way, his last queen, she disobeyed him and they got rid of her.

Like imagine that right. So she is being like really pulled into this space that she is like, I don't, this isn't where I'm supposed to go. This wasn't my plan. And this is really scary to be over here because I'm now in a space where people might hurt me if they find out that I'm Jewish, if I try to practice my own customs, like I could get in a lot of trouble and even killed.

And so she's in this harem and she's basically being prepared for like months not knowing if the king is going to even approve of her being [00:16:00] there.

Mordecai, comes to her and is like, Hey, there's this plot in the kingdom to get rid of all the Jews. To extinguish all the Jews. Basically there's gonna be this decree that goes out to all of the cities that says that people are able to just kill all of us on our holy day. And so her elder comes to her and is like, I need you to go petition the king.

Now imagine this is a mid-teens girl, and she's like. Okay but I just kind of won his favor. Like, I just kind of got to the point that I'm like comfortable here, like, you want me to go petition the king? You know that's illegal, right? , You know that anybody who does that without his consent, like he can just immediately kill.

And that's when, Mordecai, says to her like, perhaps you were born for such a time as this. Mordecai just before this has been encouraging Esther to go petition the king and to save the Jewish people. [00:17:00] And so Esther it says right before this that she's seized with Mortal Anguish, and I was like, oh my goodness.

Do I understand Mortal anguish?

As somebody who has been in worldly boxes before and who has been in situations where it's like, if I really let people know who I am, if I really let people know what I believe, if I share my faith out loud, if I really take my business in the direction I want to take it, if I really go about this in the way that I feel like God is truly calling me to go about this this is dangerous.

Like I could lose my livelihood. I could lose my reputation. I could lose my nursing license. I could lose the love of like family and friends. I could lose a lot of different things. It was really scary. Really scary.

And so, the verse right before this, it says that she is instead of putting on the normal ointments and beautiful things she uses to make herself smell good and look pretty, she puts on ashes, which is a sign of [00:18:00] mourning.

It says then she prayed to the Lord. Okay? And so right here, right before this verse that God called me to read. She's talking about the fact that "my Lord, you alone are our king. Help me who is alone and has no help but you. For I am taking my life in my hands." And this verse just gave me chills.

I am taking my life in my hands. So when I think about stepping out of these worldly boxes, right? So many of us have these gifts, we have these callings, we have these deep desires. And by the way, the word desire in Latin means of the father. So when we have those deep heart longing desires that are like pure and really feel like they're pulling us towards something good, those are from God.

That is Holy Spirit, leading you towards where you're supposed to be going in accordance with God's will. When we have these callings out of these worldly boxes and the world is telling us like, no, it is so dangerous for you to step [00:19:00] outside of here. It is so dangerous for you to like, leave this container that we have created, that we are telling you that if you leave, you will no longer be protected or safe.

Been there. And when she says, I am taking my life in my hands. What I think is really fascinating about this is that throughout this entire passage, she is talking to God about how he is king, how he is supreme, how he is the ruler, how like he runs everything, how he's in charge of everything.

And so that languaging to me was interesting 'cause what I hear is I am taking responsibility for my life. I am taking responsibility for my role. I am going to step out of this box and step up and into the role and the calling and the vision that you are leading me toward.

So I'm going to enact my free will and choose to follow you and do what you are calling [00:20:00] me to do.

And so, she talks about, like from birth, I've heard among my people, so the Jewish people that you lord chose us from among all nations and our ancestors, from among all their forebearers. And that you fulfilled all your promises to them.

So she's like, I know that you tell the truth. I know that you have chosen me. I know that all the promises that you made to my people before, like you have kept without breaking them. So , I trust you and I have faith in you.

But here's what's really fascinating, and this is the part that God called me to this morning, verse 17.

"But now we have sinned in your sight and you have delivered us into the hands of our enemies because we worshiped their gods. You are just a Lord. But now they, their enemies are not satisfied with our bitter servitude, but have sworn an oath to their idols to do away with the decree that you have pronounced to to [00:21:00] destroy your inheritance, to close the mouths of those who praise you.

To extinguish the glory of your house and your altar. To open the mouths of nations to acclaim. They're worthless gods, and to extol, immortal king forever. Lord, do not relinquish your scepter to those who are nothing. Do not let our foes gloat over our ruin, but turn their own counsel against them and make them an example of the one who began this against us.

Be mindful of us lord, make yourself known in the time of our distress and give me courage, king of gods and ruler of every power, put in my mouth persuasive words in the presence of the lion, and turn his heart to hatred for our enemy."

So I read all of that and as I was reading that, I was like, okay, there's several parts here.

[00:22:00] Right. And again, I'm not a biblical scholar. Like I'm not a pastor, I'm not a priest, I'm not any of those things. So take what I am saying under advisement, run it through your own fact-checking and truth system. Okay.

But what I got from this was Esther is taking responsibility for her people. She's taking responsibility for the decisions that she made, and she's also taking responsibility for the decisions that the people around her made, which is like wild 'cause this is a, a teenage girl. This is a teenage girl. And she is saying, I understand.

I understand the consequences of our actions because when I look back, I can see how we put ourselves in the box. I can see how we, the Jewish people, after you chose us and showed us how faithful you were and showed us [00:23:00] how you kept your promises and showed us that you were true and good.

I can see how we put ourselves in this worldly box because we chose to idolize the world instead of you. We chose to idolize the world instead of you. So I understand why we are where we are. I understand why things are happening the way that they're happening.

And so I am not coming to you asking you like, why, God, why am I in this position? Why am I in this place? Why are things happening like this? I am repenting. I am taking accountability and responsibility for not just my actions, but the actions of the people before me.

And y'all many of you know that I used to run an online trauma institute. I used to teach people about trauma recovery and healing, and I still do that, but way more in the context of God but like when I used to teach on this, this was one of the toughest things for people [00:24:00] to understand. And honestly, without a biblical worldview, I can totally get why this doesn't make sense to most people.

The Bible shows us time and time again that children pay for the sins of their fathers. The Bible shows us time and time again that the consequences of the generation before us fall on the next generation oftentimes, and we are seeing that in today's society.

Like we are seeing that the way in which the one to two generations before us decided to set things up is massively impacting the generations that are now coming up.

I watched a documentary yesterday and they were talking about how schools are future making factories, and I was like, oh, that's fascinating. Future making factories.

And I'm thinking about this 'cause I'm like. Here's this 14, 15-year-old girl who like fully understands this, and I have 15 and 13-year-old [00:25:00] children. And my children, like when people are like, oh, 13 year olds don't get these things. Or like, 15 year olds are so dumb, like, okay, in current mainstream society, we think that 13 and 15 year olds are like babies.

And in ways they are and also they are way more capable of understanding and maturing and making decisions and caring for things and choosing then we give them credit for, because of the way that we raised them.

Because of the way over the last 100 to 200 years, we have taught and raised and nurtured our children around a hundred years ago, school used to end . At eighth grade, if you finished going, and then that's around the 12 to 13, like Jewish culture, your bar and bat mitzvah that happens at age 13 because that's the age of adulthood.

Like in the Christian faith, we get confirmed around eighth grade that's 12 to 13. [00:26:00] In a lot of other cultures, there's things around the quinceanera, right? Like in 15, like there are times that we celebrate and these are the maturing and the coming and the transition into adulthood. And I think that this is so important because like I see people in our generation and I know that there's a lot of people listening on here that manage other people and who are leaders and who are parents.

And I see you're managing, or you have employees who are in their mid twenties who have like no idea what they're doing. And it's because generationally we have created so much abundance and so much wealth and so much education, and we've also really changed the systems and we've changed the way that we educate ourselves, particularly in western society, even more particularly in America.

And so the way in which we view coming of age and maturity and when you start making decisions and when you can be called to do big things. The way that we view that is so different than we viewed it for [00:27:00] thousands and thousands of years , and something that I used to talk about a lot when I taught nursing in my, two or three lives ago, was from an evolutionary standpoint, it takes tens of thousands of years for our nervous systems and our bodies to like truly evolve out of or into a pattern or a habit.

And so I truly believe that this right now is why so many people are so uncomfortable is because the worldly boxes that have been created have been taken out of the context of a lot of this biblical worldview is causing a lot of distress and a lot of dysregulation to our bodies because our bodies and our nervous systems are like, this is not the way that we're designed.

And so, I didn't know I was gonna talk on this, God's taken it where he is taken it.

This is something I've really had to lean into of i'm not a young person anymore. I'm not a young person anymore. Like I'm gonna be 39 in a [00:28:00] little over a month, nearly 40. , So I'm at the point in my life that I am more of an elder than I am a ch a child. I'm at the point of my life where I really need to step in.

If there's 15 and 16 and 17 and 18 year olds who are like stepping in, if we're asking 18 year olds to go fight and die for our freedom in our country. You would think that we would treat that as adulthood and not be having 25, 26, 30-year-old even into thirties and forties.

Like we would be better equipping, better training creating more mentorship and leadership for our tweens and teens and young adults to be able to do things like Esther did.

And her situation was horrible. Like, do not get me wrong, but I love her situation for the example that it provides because her level of maturity shows this is a thing, and it's not an abnormal thing.

Like what she was asked to do was [00:29:00] absolutely beyond what many of us are asked to do. And it was not outside of the realm of her capacity as a teenager. And as a woman, which is another big part. Our society for a long time there was an actual idea of women can't do these things and now our society is really creating some interesting ideas and dynamics around womanhood and what we are and aren't able to do. How we can be called to serve in the kingdom of God and how we aren't.

And so, like coming back to this reading. Esther's basically saying to God as she's praying, like we put ourselves in that worldly box. We put ourselves in that worldly box, and now we're paying for it. And so like I am praying . I am coming to you an intercessory prayer.

So intercession is when you pray on behalf, like when you, when you go on behalf of [00:30:00] someone else.

So I am coming to you in intercessory prayer for my people, for the Jewish people, and I am owning the fact that we put ourselves here and I am asking you, I am begging you really to be just here and to give the people who have are hurting us and harming us, and enslaving us and who are planning to kill us, to extinguish us. I am asking you to turn the behavior that they are putting on others back on them.

I'm not asking you to punish them. I'm asking you to give them what they're giving others. That's a whole thing, right?

When I read the Psalms sometimes I was like, man, David, the Psalmists, they're praying for God to hurt other people. I don't understand this. I don't get this [00:31:00] as a leader, is that true? And it's like, well no, it is different if I am praying for justice.

If I am praying for compassion and mercy and also like God, can you please help them experience what they are causing other people? Because some of us, including myself in this, some of us struggle to learn lessons unless we can directly experience the consequences of what we are causing other people.

Some of us need to experience the pain that we are causing others before we truly understand it and go, oh, this is bad.

And so I see her like praying and saying, God, I'm praying to you for justice. I'm asking you to turn back what they are doing on themselves. That's it. I'm not asking you to go any further than that.

What's interesting is she's talking about what these people are doing. [00:32:00] And I want to just invite you to sit here for a second and think about this in your current life and think about this as a kingdom seeker, as somebody who loves God or is like on the path to really deepening their relationship with God.

I want you to think about this in today's society because this is 2000 plus years ago. Okay? But I want you to see like how directly applicable this is in some spaces today.

She's saying that the people who have enslaved us, the people who are in control of us, the people who have the power, that they are not satisfied with our bitter servitude. They're not satisfied with capitalizing on what we can produce. They're not satisfied with making sure that we are underneath of their rule and that we follow what they say. They're not satisfied with that. They are trying to destroy your inheritance. [00:33:00] They don't want us to keep existing. They don't want our faith to be something that exists on this planet.

She says, "the people who have enslaved us, they want to close the mouths of the people who praise you."

I don't know about y'all, but up until very recently, and even now, like it is tough for me to step out of the worldly box and go, okay, Lee, you're just a nurse practitioner. You're just a professor, you're just a business owner. Like you're not a pastor, you're not a priest, you're not a, a biblical scholar. You're not any of those things like, who are you to do this? Who are you to come online and start talking about the Bible and talking about God and talking about Jesus , and applying biblical wisdom to business and to growth and to leadership. Like who do you think you are? And that's the voice I hear a lot of times in my head.[00:34:00] 

That is the voice of the enemy. That is also the voice of the captor that is the voice of the system that says like, Hey, we are not neutral towards your faith, Lee. This is not a separation of church and state. This is a fight against how you see things and your faith. Like you can talk about anything else.

You can talk about paganism, you can talk about a lot of other religions. You can talk about a lot of other beliefs. You can talk about astrology, you can talk about all of these things, but mention you love Jesus in a public business setting and sometimes that's really not gonna go over well.

Sometimes it is scary to open your mouth or even to wear your cross or your crucifix or to bring your Bible to the lunch table or to mention that you went to church on Sunday or to share that you are on a board of a nonprofit that's Christian, like they [00:35:00] want you to shut your mouth and not praise God.

That's fine. Do it in your own home. Do it in the privacy of your own life. Don't bring that into our space because when you bring that into our space, you are violating our freedom. Well, no, I'm exercising mine. There is a difference between me exercising my own freedom to speak about my faith and you deciding who can and who can't do that.

Like, I'm not violating your rights by talking about what I believe. I might be disturbing your spirit. I might be unsettling your soul. I, I, I might be irritating you. That's between you and God.

Or whoever you worship like that's not my problem. And it sounds so unkind to say that, but [00:36:00] like truly that is what separation of church and state and religious freedom looks like, is that I'm able to worship who I worship.

I'm able to believe in who I believe I'm able to talk about that you're able to talk about who you worship and you believe and like your faith, like we're both, we're both allowed to do that.

That's. That's what that means. So, she says that these captors, this king, this mortal king is trying to extinguish the glory of God's house and his altar.

So these captors , are also saying that they want people to open the mouths, open their mouths and acclaim their worthless gods.

She's like, not only do they want me to stop praising you, they want me to praise their God. They want me to worship who they worship and they want me to do it publicly, [00:37:00] and they want me to pretend that this box that they have are trying to put me in. That I love it, that I love being in this box, and I love showing up this way, and I love acting this way, and I love being this person and like this is how I wanna live my life.

They're not satisfied with me just staying quiet. If I don't say what they want me to say, then I still get in trouble. I still get in trouble. I still could get kicked outta the boardroom. I still could lose my job. I still could do these things and this is what is so fascinating to me.

And this is something that I've been really thinking on when it comes to like stepping onto the path and stepping onto the calling. Jesus talks about the fact that the more that we externally talk about the fact that we love him and that we love God, the more the [00:38:00] world will hate us. He talks about this. He says, look at how they hate me. Of course they're gonna hate you.

And so I'm not gonna spoil the story of Esther. It ends in a really cool way. I actually invite you to go read it or to at least go look it up and like get the Cliffs notes of it .

And when she steps in the way in which she steps in and the way in which things work out, there's no way that that could have happened without God orchestrating it.

She was called for a time such as that. She was created for that specific purpose and her willingness to be obedient and to allow God to put her into a position that looked like, oh my gosh, why did you bring me here?

I'm a young teenage [00:39:00] girl. My parents have died. I have one family member. I'm living as in servitude in a foreign country with my one elder who takes such good care of me. I get taken from my home. I get put in the King's service. I have no idea what's gonna happen to me. He can literally kill me at any moment. And then I'm being called to save the Jewish people by going to the king and doing something that normally gets somebody killed.

When I read a story like that, it helps me when I'm in a moment very much like I'm in right now, and coming out of in my own business, where it's like really God? Like this is what you want me to do. This is what you're calling me to do. But notice what she does here. She comes to Mordecai, her elder, and she kind of jaws back and forth with him. She questions him. She's like, I don't know. 'cause I don't, I don't know that this is the best idea.

Mordecai says something to her really, really powerful that I wanna say to you. He gives her a [00:40:00] reality check.

He says to her something that like, when I say things like this to my clients, they know it's gonna hurt because I say, Hey, I love you and what I'm about to say, i'm gonna say with all the kindness and compassion in the world, like I'm saying this because I love you.

If you are ever on the receiving end of that from me as a client, you know what I'm about to say is going to be harshly loving.

Mordecai says, "look ,we are God's people, and Esther, if you decide to not do this, God will rescue us. I feel I have full faith that God will still save the Jewish people. But what's gonna happen to you?

If you choose to not step out of this worldly box and step up into accountability and responsibility and step. Into the calling that God is really placing on your life, what is [00:41:00] gonna happen to you?

Because God, God is good. God will handle this and it will work out in the end. But what's gonna happen to you?

I don't know if y'all have ever had a moment where you know you missed what God was calling you to do.

I went to confession for the first time in a long time, several months ago. And right as I was walking out of the church, there was a man who looked to be having a tough time and he had a rosary in his hand and he was sitting on the steps of the church and now granted, I had just had a pretty profound experience in confession.

There was just, it was just such a weight being lifted off and I felt so different. Like I walked outside the world literally looked brighter, like it was an amazing experience and I heard God say, talk to him and I didn't.

Y'all. I had just come out of having like one of the most amazing experiences with God and being forgiven and repenting, and God immediately called me to do something and I didn't do [00:42:00] it. And I still think about that. I still think about that to this day.

I've prayed on it, I've repented on it. Like I'm not, it's not something I hold shame over myself for, and it's one of those things where I ask myself like, what could have happened? If I had listened to God and talked to that man, like what could have happened?

And so when I got in my car after that, I just sat there and cried and I was like, God, please don't stop giving me callings like that.

I know that was a test and I failed it within like five seconds and I'm working on not shaming myself, so I know that was just a question on the test. So, I know I got that question wrong, but , can you please keep giving me more questions? Can you please keep giving me more questions? Because I wanna learn how to get the answers right on the test.

And I know that the way that I get the answers right on the test is not answering it correctly, but it's doing what you [00:43:00] tell me to do. I may do it wrong. I may do it badly. I may make a mistake. , I may like try to do it in a certain way and then realize that's not the way to do it. But the fact that I'm following and I'm saying, Hey, you know, I'm being led to do this and so I'm gonna do it.

I'm gonna step outta that box. I'm gonna step up into the accountability and responsibility. I'm gonna step into the calling. I'm gonna follow what you're telling me to do. It doesn't matter how that goes and however it goes, it's gonna work out.

So what I am saying to you is what Mordecai said to Esther, where are the places that God has called you? He is like, this is the box that you need to step out of. You are clinging to the walls of this box. But the door [00:44:00] is open, the lid is off, like bust out, go.

And yes, it's gonna hurt, and yes, it's gonna suck. And yes, it's gonna, your flesh is gonna feel like it's dying. And yes, you're gonna make a ton of mistakes and you're gonna fail, and you're gonna have all of these struggling experiences, and you're gonna mature and you're gonna grow, and you're gonna deepen in your faith, and you're gonna get stronger and you're gonna learn how to come back to me more.

You're going to be sanctified and purified. You're gonna understand and be able to better discern and tell what my wisdom is and follow the directions I'm leading you to go because you know me better. We're in relationship more because you've chosen me over the box.

Where are you staying in the box? Where are you staying in the box? And then once you know the answer to that question, here's what I wanna invite you to ask God to show you. If it feels like an aligned thing to do, [00:45:00] ask God to show you all of the ways that it is actually more dangerous for you to stay in the box. Ask God to show you all the ways that it is more dangerous for you to stay in the box.

Ask him to show you all of the places that you cannot change, all of the people that you cannot help, all of the situations that you cannot shift, all of the things that you cannot bring to fruition, all of the harm and the hurt that you cannot alleviate. All of the struggles and the pain that you cannot prevent. All of those things, ask him to show you those.

You are going to get absolutely wrecked. Okay, I'm saying that off the bat. So you know that prayer will wreck you in the best of ways because you're gonna realize just how much you are living for the world, just [00:46:00] how many worthless idols the world has convinced you to worship.

Just how many places God is like, oh my goodness. If you just listened, if you just trusted me, if you just remembered that outside of the box the world is going to tell you that you are in danger, but I can reach you outside of the box. I can't reach you when you're in the box because when you're in the box, what you're doing is you're telling me that you don't want my help.

You don't want my provision. You don't want my protection, you don't want my guidance, you don't want my wisdom. You don't want me to lead you. You don't want me to give you plans. You don't want me to help you. When you choose the box, you're not choosing me, and I am a God who honors your free will. So if you choose the box, I can't help you.

I can only help you to [00:47:00] the degree that you allow me. I can only provide for you to the level that you give me permission. So if you are choosing the box, then I can't keep you safe. In the way that God desires, he cannot keep you safe in the way that he truly desires. So the box is actually the most dangerous place you can stay. Even though two year flush, it's going to feel like the safest place to live.

And so that's my invitation to you today is like step out of the worldly box because y'all, I still sometimes try to crawl back in, but living my life, I would say about 85 to 90% outside of that box.

Do I feel terrified? Does my flesh sometimes feel absolutely terrified? Yes, my soul's good though. My soul feels at peace. My soul's like, it doesn't matter how much money we have in the bank, it doesn't matter what's [00:48:00] going on with clients. It doesn't matter what's going on with health. It doesn't matter what's happening with my family, it doesn't matter because he's got me, I've got him, he's gonna lead me, and he's gonna tell me the direction to go.

And he made me for such a time as this. He made me to do exactly what he is calling me to do. He wouldn't have given that to me if it wasn't what I was supposed to be doing.

Speaker 3: So

I wanna just close this by saying that,

it's okay to be scared. It's okay to be scared. It is okay to be scared. It is okay to be scared to grow. It is okay to be scared 

Speaker 2: to mature. It is okay to be scared to release the restrictions and the constrictions and the walls and the boxes that you have either had placed around you or that you have built up in [00:49:00] order to try to keep yourself safe in this world, it is okay to be scared.

Speaker 3: And this is what you were made for, so go do it. He knows you're scared, so go talk to him about it and let yourself be scared. Let

Speaker 2: yourself tell him how scared you are and go do it anyway. So I love you all. Thank you for joining me. I really appreciate y'all joining me, and I'll see you next Friday.