Ep 14: Restoring the Years the Locusts Have Eaten: Positioning Your Business for God's Double Reward (Joel 2:25)

In this episode, Dr. Lee drives deep into an unexpected dive into the Book of Joel — a short, four-chapter prophetic book that packs an absolutely powerful punch. 

Dr. Lee walks us through a common yet infrequently addressed entrepreneurial pattern: 

The exhausting cycle of struggle → repentance → repair → abundance → rupture → struggle.

If you have ever had a season of incredible business growth, only to find yourself slowly drifting away from God and watching the fruit start to dry up... this episode was meant just for you (side note: be sure to let God's grace into your heart as you listen to it. 🤍)

Here's what she covered:

• The historical context of the Prophet Joel and why his message to ancient Judah sounds exactly like what many of us are walking through right now
• The four waves of the "locust plague" — and how to recognize them when they show up in your business
• How the enemy uses distraction and abundance to numb us out and cut off our first fruits
• The difference between a performative business pivot and the deep, heart-level surrender God is actually asking for
• How to position yourself and your business for God's promised double reward
• Three practical ways to break the cycle for good — and stay awake in seasons of abundance

If this resonates with you, feel free to connect with Dr. Lee via socials or email and share your reflections — and if you know someone who needs to hear this right now, please share it with them, because we're all journeying with Christ together.

Lastly, we invite you to join our May Make MOVES challenge, starting May 11th in our FREE Skool community, Regulated Roots Academy. 

Connect with Dr. Lee and the Regulated Roots Community:

• Discover your Primary Motivational Gift: www.growinyourgifts.com
• Join Our Regulated Roots Academy: skool.com/regulatedrootsacademy
• Explore our Agency services: regulatedroots.com/agency

Follow on TikTok: @leechelseacordell

Connect on LinkedIn: Dr. Lee Cordell

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 1:51

Hey y'all, welcome to this week's episode. So, as those of you who have been here before know, y'all know, I record these podcasts inside of our school community. So if you haven't joined our regulated Roots Academy, highly encourage you to do so. And today we're going to be talking about a topic that gonna be honest, I don't really want to talk about this topic today. Sometimes God lays topics on my heart and I'm like, oh goodness, not that one. I don't know that I want to talk about that right now. And sometimes he does it in this really fun way where he's like, oh no, that's not what I'm gonna have you talk about. And then it's like, nope, that's what he's gonna have me talk about. There's some resistance in my flesh to talking about this because it is still something that is like pretty near and dear to the experiences that we've been having in business, we have had in business over the last several years. And y'all know me, if I'm gonna be something, I'm gonna be real raw, vulnerable, right? So one of the things about this episode as you're listening to it is I want to invite you to, if you see yourself in this scenario or if you see a previous version of yourself in this scenario, I want to invite y'all to give yourself a little bit of extra grace today. Okay. So whether you're listening to this on the podcast, whether you're here with me live, whether you're watching this on the replay inside the school community, give yourself some grace as you listen to this. And it might not even be that you're giving yourself some grace, it might be that you're accepting the very grace that God wants to give you. This has been a topic that's come up with several people close to us, clients and friends recently around the difference between being saved and being children of God. So the difference between being like adopted into the family and then us really accepting our sonship, accepting our role in the family. When we accept Jesus and we allow the Holy Spirit to come into our hearts, that is a beautiful experience. And that's the most incredible grace within itself. That is the moment where we know that as we continue to choose to be connected to him, if we don't turn away from him in mortal sin, we are going to get to spend eternity with him. And it's gorgeous. And there is also the graces that God bestows upon us that we get to really allow ourselves to receive as adopted brothers and sisters of Christ, as children of God. We're made in his image and also we get disconnected. And so when we accept Jesus, we get reconnected to the family. We get reunited with the family. And the beautiful thing about the Israelites and God's chosen people, like when you read the Old Testament and understand what they went through, and that's what we're going to be talking about today with Joel, you also understand that when you are part of a family in Jewish culture tradition, that affords you specific provision, protection, that affords you privileges. And so when we don't understand that there are privileges that God promises his children, and we don't accept the grace, because again, he doesn't have to give those to any of us. They're done because he loves us, not because we deserve them. But when we truly allow ourselves to not just accept the fact that Jesus died for our sins and saved us that way, but also that we are daughters and sons of God, that is a different level of grace. And so that is the level of grace I want to invite you to meditate upon as we talk through what I'm about to share with y'all today. Because the book of Joel, if you haven't read it, it's a short book and it packs a very powerful punch. It's in the Old Testament. It is a book of uh a minor prophet. Okay, so it's only four chapters, it's about five pages, and there are some differing thoughts around when Joel was written and the context in which it was uh actually compiled. So we're gonna talk through the social, geopolitical, and religious understanding of Joel and what was going on at the time beforehand. And as we do that, I want to make sure that we're really thinking about this in the terms of business growth. So I want you to think about if you've ever experienced a season of incredible business growth, only to find yourself suddenly distracted and disconnected from God and watching the fruit of your business dry up. If that's happened for you, you are not alone. We're gonna look at this 500-year-old prophetic book that really describes this entrepreneurial cycle of struggle, repentance, repair, and abundance and talk about how we break out of this for good. And it's gonna go back to this conversation I kicked this off with around allowing ourselves to accept the role of being an adopted brother and sister of Christ, right? To allow ourselves to accept the role of being children of God. So whether you're a solopreneur and you're just starting out or you're a seasoned CEO scaling your team, I really want you to think about this book and this conversation we're about to have and allow this to challenge how you view the quote unquote dry seasons in your business. And I hope by the end of this that you're gonna understand how to discern if your business struggles are natural, seasonal, cyclical cycles that are just like this is how business goes, or it's supernatural and God is moving in some specific ways. How the enemy uses distraction to cut off your first fruits and what you're giving back to God, and then how to position yourself and your business for God's double reward. So those are the things we're gonna be talking through. So, like I started to go into the prophet Joel means Yahweh is God, which I love, right? It's such a beautiful name. He was a prophet to the southern kingdom of Judah. So, like I said, there's two differing schools of thought. Some people think that the book of Joel was written around the 800s, 830s BC during the reign of the boy king Joash, and some people think that it was written in around the time of 400 to 450 BC. It has to do with the enemies that Joel mentions that Judah at the time is battling. So Joel mentions the enemies, the Philistines, the Phoenicians, and the Edomites, but he leaves out the Babylonians and the Assyrians. And so that's why a lot of people think it happened in the 800s BC, not the 400s BC, because 400s BC, he would have likely mentioned the Babylonians and Assyrians, and he didn't. The reason I give you that context, and I also love this, is like we've been studying this book for how long, and we're still not quite sure when this was written. The cool part, I think, is that the story could fit in either time frame, which just kind of shows you that this is a pattern that God's people go through. So that's the time perspective. The context of the economic and social situation is really important as well. So the people who are surrounding the Israelites who are in Judah at the time, they are worshiping the false god Baal. And so a lot of times when the Jewish people got comfortable and were in seasons of abundance, they would turn away from God and they'd start worshiping other gods, they'd start practicing other practices, they'd marry Gentiles, they'd do things that God specifically said in his commandments and in the law that was passed down from Moses, was outside of what God had told them to do. So at this time, their economy in Judah was entirely agrarian. So they survived by depending on the fruits of the harvest of the farming. So Joel, when he opens up his prophetic book, he is describing a situation in which Judah has just experienced a devastating winter drought, and they're on the tail end of a spring infestation of locusts. Now, what's interesting about this as Joel's describing it is that this wasn't just one plague, quote unquote, of locusts. This was four different pests that came in, one after another. He mentions the cutter as a pest, he mentions the swarmer, he mentions the hopper, and he mentions the crawler. So he's saying this one came in and ate, and then what that one hadn't eaten, this one ate, and then what that one left, this one ate. And then the finally the fourth one just completely finished stripping bare everything. So what does this have to do with business? I think it's important to think about this. In I know in our business, we've had seasons where we had a lot of abundance and we slowly started drifting away from God. And this is very common, right? A lot of times people find Jesus in the low moments. They find Jesus when they are completely humbled, when they don't have another place to turn to, right? A lot of times that's when we get the closest to God, is when we are suffering and we're like, God help, and we can't turn to anything else to help us. And so when we see a season like this in business, it looks like we've had this period of abundance. We've had some things start to happen, and then all of a sudden, there's some drying up of weeds, there's some failed launches, there's team falling apart, there's uh quote unquote economic devastation, and it's happening in like back to back to back. So there's a drying up of the life-giving resource that we need, the water that we need in order to be able to help the crops grow well. And then what does grow from that starts getting destroyed. So if you've ever been in a season like that, if you're in a season like this now, what Joel calls the elders, the leaders, to do in this moment is what I want to invite you all to think about in this moment, too. He calls on the elders to use their wisdom to assess the situation. So he says, Is this normal? Have you ever seen this before in your lifetime? And he's not asking that as an actual question. What he's doing is he's pointing out to them, this is beyond anything that you have ever experienced. This is beyond anything that you've seen in the years you've been here. So is this a natural thing or is this a supernatural thing? God is sending a message. And so he calls on the elders to use their wisdom. And as CEOs, as solopreneurs, as business owners and entrepreneurs, we have to do the same thing. We have to look at what's happening. And oftentimes in prayer, get quiet, get still, and in our discernment, go, hold on a second. Is this just normal? Is the world going through something right now? And what I am experiencing is what the world is experiencing. Is this just the stock market? Is this just the economy? Is this just what everybody, whether they are drawing close to God or not, like this is just what's happening? Or is this divine providence? Is this a supernatural season of pruning or judgment? And this is something that I think is very important because Joel calls on the elders, he's talking to the entire community as he's saying these things, and then he's pointing to the elders, the mentors, and saying, What do you think? And he's encouraging the community to go to them and ask them what they think. This is very important because, and my assumption here, based on reading this, the way that he says it, is he's not condemning the elders and the priests in this prophecy, in this speaking that he's doing. In a lot of the prophetic books, you see the prophets condemning the leadership of the Jewish community. That doesn't really happen in chapter one of Joel. Now, he talks about globally what he is seeing happen. And we're going to talk about that in a minute. But he does not specifically call out the elders except to tell them to use their discernment and their wisdom. So what that tells me is that the elders are probably still somewhat connected to God. They haven't committed apostasy, they're not turning away completely or fully. Okay. I think that's something that's beneficial for us as entrepreneurs to see is that if we are in a supernatural season like this and we notice, oh, I think this might just be happening to me. Is this just me? Do I need to get back into a closer relationship with God? Is this a supernatural thing that He is putting me through, like a pruning or a judgment? Or is this a more global thing? Or is this just a fluke and something that I just put my head down and keep doing what I'm doing? It's helpful to identify a spiritual mentor who is still very connected and close to God in that moment, who is able to say, Yeah, you know what? I know that you're freaking out because you were doing, let me give you an example. Actually, I saw this oh, a couple of months ago. I saw somebody who was had ran their business entirely on doing webinars. And she was like, Lee, the webinars aren't selling anymore. They're not converting anymore. And I think I might need to shift or change or whatever. And when we got in there, I said, No, actually, you're drawing leads into your webinars. And the way in which you are selling, there's something in this sales process that gets to get cleaned up and gets to get pruned. But beyond that, you're not doing anything quote unquote wrong here. It is, there's just a tiny tweak. So, yeah, there's a little bit of something that's out of spiritual alignment here. And once we fix that, everything else is going to continue working. All right. This person, I'm sure it felt to them like, oh my gosh, failed launch after failed launch. This things aren't working, things aren't working. But when we really got in there, things were working. It was just there needed to be a tweak. Her nervous system was actually telling her, oh my gosh, things are a lot worse than they are. When in reality, we could get in there and see the cycle, see the growth pattern, see everything, and go, nope, we're still aligned. Let's just shift the focus of the webinar, it's not anything else. And we did that, and then things started working again. So contrast that with someone who is really having their business fall apart. Everything is falling apart. And they're like, What is going on? What is going on? What is going on? Like clients are falling off, and all of these chaotic things are happening, and they seek out mentorship. And it's like, yeah, the way in which you got here, that's not going to work moving forward. And in fact, this is very out of alignment with what God's will is for you and for your life. And so you're still trying to do this in your own way. You're still, to put it plainly, you're still worshiping the God of income. You're still worshiping the God of success and metrics and external ROI and all of those things, instead of ensuring that what you are doing is in the direction that God is truly calling you to move. So, what is falling apart in your business, these locusts that keep showing up, these plagues that keep happening, these dry seasons that are occurring, this is happening because this is a precursor of what is to come, the destruction that is to come if you don't shift this. So here's the interesting thing that I think we have to look at. When things get tight, a lot of times our ability to give back our first fruits dries up. So one thing I see when people start to get into abundance, and this is something that I have fallen into in the past plenty of times. So again, if you're hearing this and you're like, oh, that's me, give yourself some grace, okay? When we get into these abundant times, sometimes we forget that we want to thank God and we want to continue to give him the first fruits. Now, whether you are somebody who strongly believes in tithing, whether you are somebody who your faith might look a little bit like more like mine does, and how you practice that. So we don't tithe in the sense of like we believe you have to give 10%, like in the old testament. We personally choose to give a percentage off of the top of every penny that comes in through our business, and we donate it right back to our church. And then we have missions and ministries above and beyond that we give to. Okay, I've committed to giving 15%. 15% of 3,000 was that felt a lot different than 15% of 30%. Am I really gonna donate that much every time? And so sometimes we'll start to stop thanking God and understanding that He was the one who gave the provision in the first place. And then as things start to dry up, we feel like, oh, now I really can't give. Now I really can't tithe. Now I really can't steward resources for the kingdom because I barely have enough to survive. And this is one of those things that when we draw closer to God and God helps us flourish, the human tendency, and the enemy really loves to utilize this human tendency is when we get comfortable, we forget. We get comfortable, we forget, and we turn away from the source of our provision and we start worshiping the provision itself. I'm gonna say that again because I think that's really powerful. When God helps us flourish in terms of assets, oftentimes we get so comfortable that we forget to continue to turn to him because before we were turning to him out of necessity, before we were going to him for our daily bread every day, we were really relying on him because without him, nothing was happening. We needed the mana that he was giving us. But once we get access to our own, right? They're really God's, but once we get access to those assets and we start to think that they're ours and they're coming from us and our hard work and our effort and our success and our awesomeness, we can forget about him. And like I said, the enemy will use this, Satan will absolutely use this. He will get us hooked on distractions, he will get us hooked on the social media metrics and the revenue goals and the hustle of scaling, and he will turn us away from God's commandments. And again, if you've got a lot of income coming in, and only one percent of it is coming from a place that you're like, man, that's not really godly, that's not really aligned, that's not where I want the income to come in from, but it's only one percent, it's fine. Or, you know, it's okay for me to just do this one time because it's just gonna be this one time. It's okay for me to just not tithe or not give back my first fruits just this one time. It's okay for me to start focusing over here because God gave this to me, right? It's mine now. And so I think the focus here, and what Joel is really calling people to, he said, you all are numbing yourself. You're numbing yourself and you're distracting yourself with the very wine that comes from the grapes that God grew for you. He's saying you're getting drunk, you're losing your ability to be of sober mind, and you're getting distracted on what's in your storehouses right now, not recognizing that your storehouses are about to be empty, not recognizing that there's an enemy force that's come in and is destroying your land, not recognizing how close you are to utter barrenness and destruction. And I think the parallel to that in business is we do this by burying ourselves in busy work and managing all of the assets that have now come through the Connection and the co-creation with God, and we busy ourselves in that while the spiritual foundation crumbles. And so the result is that when that wine runs out, and we look up and we all of a sudden are hung over and disoriented, and we can see things clearly and look around, and things are pretty barren. That's very uncomfortable, and we feel very empty. And I have seen the enemy do this to a lot of people. Again, the enemy loves to take the natural way that God has designed us. God has designed us to worship. He has designed us to freely choose to be in obedience. And he goes, Okay, yeah, I'm gonna shift your obedience from over here to over here. I'm gonna get you to stop obeying God. I'm gonna have you start obeying money. I'm gonna get you to stop obeying God. I'm gonna get you to start obeying success. And this is gonna feel uncomfortable for you because you know in your bones that it's not quite right. It's gonna make you restless because you're not drinking the living water, you're drinking wine. And so he gets you hooked and then he takes it away. And God oftentimes, in my understanding, and again, I'm not a preacher, I'm not a prophet myself. This is just my discernment. So please run everything I say by God. Use your own discernment. But my understanding after reading and seeing this cycle play out time and time again in the Bible is that God lets the devil do this. Because what the devil tries to use against God, what the devil tries to do to hurt us, because he knows that hurting us hurts God. God then uses for his good. God understands this cycle. He understands that at a certain point, that wine's gonna run out and you're gonna be very uncomfortable. So God sends Joel in this moment right before the wine runs out, right before things are about to go completely awful. And he says, Look, if you do not repent, as the elders and the high priests, if you do not call an assembly, call all of the people of Judah together, if we do not, as a community, take individual responsibility and come together and repent for what we are doing, there is going to be total destruction. And this is still at a time in the biblical timeline that God still would enact wrath in this way against his chosen people, all right? So God often humbles us and sends warnings because it hurts God to hurt us. So in Joel chapter two, Joel's describing this impending wrath. And honestly, the way he describes it is absolutely terrifying. And he uses that word, he uses the word terrifying. He says, When you see this, you will feel utter terror. He talks about God's army coming as this massive, terrifying army. And remember, he's already describing a land that has been destroyed by drought and completely picked over by pests four times. And he says that as this army comes upon Judah, the land before them looks like the Garden of Eden. So he is saying this barren, dry wasteland that you have in front of you right now, that's Eden compared to the desolate wilderness that you are going to experience once the armies come through. And Joel tells people, I want you to tear open your heart, not your clothes. The literal line is he says, I want you to rend your hearts, not your garments. If you aren't aware, in the Old Testament, one of the things that Jewish people would do to show their utter grief and their repentance towards God, like their just sadness, their bereftness, they would tear their clothes. They would tear their clothes and they would put on sackcloth and they would put ashes on their head. And it was a way of shaming themselves to say, like, I am in a state of penance, a state of repentance towards God because I have sinned. Okay. How many of us do this? How many of us start to see things really drying up, drying out in our business? And we go back to God and we're like, God, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. Here's what I'm gonna change. I'm gonna change the offer and I'm gonna change the price, and I'm gonna change this, I'm gonna change that, and I'm gonna look, I'm gonna change all of these things so that it's more what you want, right, God? And Joel's is saying this to the assemblies. He's saying, God does not want you to change the superficial things, He doesn't want superficial apologies, He doesn't want performative business pivots, He wants deep internal surrender. He wants you to understand that you are a child of God, and that if you accept that role, you must choose to respond and act accordingly. If you're going to choose to accept your role as a child of God, you accept the whole role, which means that we obey and we fear and we revere and we worship and we praise. It means that we don't ever look at ourselves and go, I made this, I created this. No, I co-created with God, I used my free will to allow him to create through me, but this is not possible without him. I could not do this on my own. None of the fruits of my labor are because I exist. Because God could just simply have done them another way, but he chose to do it through me because I chose to do it with him. Okay. What I love is what Joel says here. He says, I invite you to render your hearts, not your garments. Oh, I'm tearing up. He says, return to the Lord, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. So beautiful. Return to the Lord, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. When God withdraws his hand, and in this case, back then, because this doesn't happen anymore to his chosen people, and I will tell you why, because Joel talks about why. But when God withdraws his hand and removes that protection and removes that provision, he does so because we choose it. If our hearts don't get torn open and we do not allow for the Holy Spirit to clear out and clean up anything in there that is not of him, anything that puts money, power, success, fame, riches, anything over him. If we do not rend our hearts in that way, and there are parts of our heart that are not surrendered to God. There are parts of our heart that are not surrendered to God. We're like, God, there are parts of our business that are not surrendered to God. He honors that. So if we say, God, I did this, not you, if we're out here going, I'm the one who builds my business, not God, God goes, okay, if you are saying that you are the source, which I know is not true, but if you are saying you are the source of all of this, then you're cutting me off from being that source. You're saying that you're choosing to be the source of this, and you don't want my help. You don't want me to co-create with you. This is why they say pride goeth before a fall. When we forget our position, when we forget our purpose as humans, and we elevate ourselves to a position of mini God, on omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient. Like when we do that, even though it's not accurate, God says, okay, this is an area in which Lee is not letting me into her life. This is an area in which Lee is saying she does not put me first. This is an area in which Lee is not honoring the commandment. And she's saying that she doesn't want me first. So if I'm not first, then I can't do what I do when I'm first. And this is something that I think has been so helpful for me to understand because I used to get really angry at God. I used to be like, God, why are you letting these things happen to people? Now, to be clear, a lot of times things just happen to us. And that's why I said you've got to be able to discern between the just fluke, natural, this is what happened, and the supernatural. And sometimes that clarity doesn't even come until three, six months, a year, five years down the road. And one of the beautiful things about the free will that we're given, the autonomy that we're given, and especially as business owners, is that every time we put God first, every time we rend our hearts and we clear them out and we allow the Holy Spirit to get in there and really purify us and refine us, we fast and we pray and we do the things that God has told us and draw us closer to Him. When we do those things, that is us saying, No, God, like I I want to hold your hand and I want to strengthen my grip and I want to never let go. I want to do this with you. I want you to do this through me. And so Joel calls the community together to fast and to pray. He calls them together. And as CEOs, we are called to be royal priests. In fact, in Paul's letters in the New Testament, he talks about how we are now high priests. We are royal priests, we participate in the sacred like sacrament of communion with Jesus and with God. Like we get to do that on a daily basis. Every time we surrender ourselves to God's will, every time we offer up our suffering and combine it with Jesus' suffering, we are acting as priests in our own businesses. So we've got to lead our teams and our communities in repentance and realignment with God's will. TLC and I had to do this recently. We went to several of our clients and we were like, hey, we're out of alignment in some places. The direction that God is taking us is X. And, you know, this was around pricing, this was around boundaries, this was around time, this was around offers, this was around like the actual work we were doing, this is around the population of people we were working with. And so we had to go to a lot of different people and say, hey, in order for us to ensure that we are fully walking hand in hand with God and we are like strongly holding on to that grip and not letting go because we've repented, because we've come back to him and said, Hey, God, sorry for all the places that we put other things above you. Sorry for all the places we've been prideful. Those were tough conversations to have. This isn't a superficial apology, this isn't a performative business pivot. This is me getting back in accordance with God and His will. Joel three talks about what it looks like when we do this. And I want to be very intentional with this line because I think if you don't understand the context of what we just talked about, you'll read Joel three, and there's a promise in here that is so true and beautiful and so profound, especially for business owners. And you've got to put it in the context of what we just talked about. Okay. When we genuinely repent and realign our businesses with God's commandments, he spares us. What happens is that the community does come together. When Joel prophecies to this community and he says, God's about to destroy this whole area, you think it's bad now, just wait. And they all come together and they fast and they pray and they repent from this deep, heart-centered place. And it says, God has mercy on them. And God tells Joel to tell the people, he says, I promise that I will restore the years the locusts have eaten. I will restore the years the locusts have eaten. And God doesn't promise to just bring Judah back to baseline. God promises to in time give Judah a double reward, not in heaven, on earth. What is beautiful about this is when Joel says this, there is an understanding contextually as he's speaking it out in three and four, that the people now recognize that God is the true source of their economic and political prosperity after being blinded to the fact that he was the reason for the crop failure. When we operate in obedience, when we both claim the role of the child of God and we claim the responsibilities of being a child of God. So we claim the benefits and the responsibilities, God promises protection and provision. We will see tangible fruit of being in the right relationship with Him. Now, a lot of times that fruit is the fruit of the spirit, especially to start. And this is something that I think is really important because as we've been coming out of this sort of cycle for the last several months, one of the things that happened first before the tangible restoration, double reward of Judah and the land, there was a production of the fruits of the spirit. So what we started experiencing was the internal shift before like the external reality shifted. So we were experiencing peace that surpassed all understanding. We were experiencing more joy because on Joel 1, he says that the joy leaves when the fruits do. Because the joy is a result of being in relationship with God. So that runs out. But a lot of times the joy is there for a little while after things start going wrong. The joy shows up here before sometimes you really see the evidence externally of things shifting. So the joy, the peace, the gentleness, the discipline, the self-control, the endurance, the patience, all of those fruits start to be produced first. When you see somebody in business who's like, yeah, I just went through one of the toughest seasons, and it's like the bleeding has been staunched. And we're not back to abundance yet. But oh man, God is so good. And every day I'm so grateful to wake up and get to worship him and talk about him and talk to him and tell other people about him. I'm so grateful to get to serve him through my business. I'm so grateful to get to love others like Jesus did through my business. The business that God has given me. That protection and provision happens right away. It's just things take time to get cleaned up. Things take time to get cleaned up. God didn't snap his fingers for Judah and say, okay, you've all repented. I'm giving you mercy and I'm taking pity on you, and I'm snapping my fingers, and all the crops are back, and uh I watered everything and the fruit's already on the trees and everything's ready to go. That's not what he says. He says, in time, in time I will give you a double reward. That's why I think endurance, patience as a fruit of the spirit is incredibly important. Because you got to let this work. Because again, the natural order of growth, we got to let that happen. So we're gonna need to go through a few seasons now. We're gonna need to plant some more seeds. But if we're doing it with God, remember that's kingdom math. So one seed could have a 30 times production in a few months. We've got to tend the seeds, but remember, just enough water could produce an absolutely flourishing tree with God. We've got to be willing to be patient while those things grow. But remember, God can speed up timelines like no other because he exists outside of time. So when we operate in obedience, God is going to allow things to naturally happen, and supernatural things get to happen too. Just like supernatural things happen when we've turned away, supernatural things get to happen when we come back and draw close again. Now, here's the part that I wanted to pull out that I think is very beautiful about Joel. And I didn't realize this, so um, you and I can learn something together today. God promises in Joel, not once, not twice, but three times. He says, after today, I promise to never put my people to shame again. This is why a lot of times people think this happened in the 400s to 450s rather than the 800s, because there's some things that happened from 800 BC to 400 BC that would make that part tough. I promise to never put my people to shame again. So if in the year 2026 we are experiencing this supernatural experience, right? Jesus died for us already. So God putting us to shame and coming and utterly destroying his people, that's not something that he does now. We have the choice. If we decide to accept Jesus, that's what makes us his people, and then also to live in accordance with his ways, to accept and obey. So if we are experiencing in this year, in this moment, if we are experiencing the withdrawing of God's hand, we get to take responsibility for that. Now, we either chose what's happening, right? There's that saying, well, well, well, if it isn't the consequences of my own actions, we either chose what we're experiencing right now, or you might be having an experience like Job, where you are getting tested by the enemy to forsake God. God allows the enemy to do what he does, like we said at the beginning, for his good. So God knows the ending. God may let the devil tempt you right now. God may let the devil do some things in your life to try to get you to forsake God because God knows what's going to happen on the other side of that. He knows that this is gonna get used for his glory. And personally, whether I am in a situation where I've been disobedient or I'm in a situation where I've been obedient and things are just happening, the beautiful part of that is that the answer is the same. The answer is to stop, to rend your heart, to check and see if there's anything that needs cleared or cleaned up, to see if there's any place where you were holding God's hand and you were gripping it tightly, and you guys were walking together and you understood that everything that you have comes through him and that he is the source and you are simply a resource. Am I still like this? Are there any places that my hand has started to loosen its grip or my fingers have come undone, or I'm starting to pull? Like, is there any place, or am I still lockstep gripping? Now, if the answer to that is no, just keep going. Offer up your suffering, lay it at the foot of Jesus' cross. Say thank you so much, Jesus, because I know you understand this. I know you understand what it feels like to suffer like this. You suffered way more than I ever will. Thank you for helping me understand the price that you paid for all of us. So we can offer that suffering up and we can continue to pray for God to provide his provision and protection and to help us continue walking with him. Through the valley of the shadow of death. You might realize that you have let go, that you have distanced yourself, that you have put something maybe in between your hands. Maybe you grab something, you grab a waddle dollar bills and put it in your hand, and now you can't fully hold God's hand because the money's in between. So the invitation is to check and see if there's anything there that is getting in the way. And if there is, if there's distraction, if there's numbing, if there's wine drinking to the point that you're like not paying attention to what's going on, get sober-minded again. Figure out what's there and ask God to help purify it. Okay. The way we break this cycle, this exhausting loop of I'm gonna struggle. I'm gonna have God's hand withdraw because I choose that. I'm going to recognize I've chosen it and repent. And then I'm gonna come back, I'm gonna grab his hand again. We're gonna repair. Things are gonna happen. I'm gonna, there's gonna be a rupture. I'm gonna struggle again. The way that we break that is that there's a couple things you can do. The first is to stay awake. Jesus talks about this in the gospel. He talks about the story of the 10 virgins that they had oil, but they didn't have enough oil. And they fall asleep waiting for the bridegroom. And then when they wake up, all their oil is gone, and they go to the other virgins who have oil and they ask for some, and they're like, No, we need this. We can't give that to you because then we won't have enough. Don't numb out when the abundance comes. Don't be like, oh, I have enough oil and it's totally fine, and pass out waiting for the bridegroom. Stay vigilant. Jesus tells us this: stay vigilant, stay connected to the source. Pray every day. Talk to God every day. Read the word every day. Go to Mass or say in our Father or pray a rosary or get in your daily meditation or listen to something on the Hallow. Those are all things that I do. Every day I do something. Sometimes I read a whole book of the Bible. Granted, it's only four chapters, but like every day. And a lot of times I listen to his prompting for what he wants me to do. That's the first thing. The second thing is we want to make sure that we prioritize the first fruits. So you want to always ensure that your business is positioned to give back to God first. He is the reason you have everything that you do. Don't forget it. And set it up in a way that you can't forget it. It is okay for you to put automatic withdrawals on things. It is okay for you to do auto drafts. It's okay for you to set things up so that you don't have to make it more painful for yourself. I think a lot of times people think that. No, it doesn't. That's not the point. The point is to be in gratitude. The point is to give willingly out of gratitude back to God. So giving to a church, right? People who are helping evangelize and bring more, bring Jesus to more people and help people keep their relationships with God, keep them drawn close to God. Ideally, that's where we're doing it. And also ministries that serve people and bring Jesus to people. Yes. Okay. Give back to God first. It doesn't have to be money. Maybe there's not a lot of money to start. Maybe you're not donating. One of the things that God did for us when there wasn't a lot of money coming in, y'all. I'm just being honest with you. When we closed down our trauma institute and then opened up regulated routes, there wasn't a lot of money coming in. And so when God was like, hey, open the school community. Hey, offer these things up for free. Hey, do these things in this way? It was so beautiful to be able to take other assets, our time, our energy, our knowledge, and give those to people first. And say, wow, I learned something great today about business, about God. Let me go share that. Oh, I've got these courses that I created before that brought in money when we weren't tithing, when we weren't giving back to God our first fruits. So let me go ahead and offer those up for free to people. So it's not always about physical money, it's about the assets that you go, these belong to God. And so I am going to give back a portion first to help that flow continue. The third thing is to maintain that altar. Keep your daily communion stronger with God stronger than your daily commitment to your business tasks. I'm going to say that again because that's a sentence. Keep your daily communion with God stronger than your daily commitment to your business tasks. In our April challenge inside of the school community, the ROI reset for 21 days, we did five activities and they spelled out roots. Okay, so we did nervous system regulation, offers, operations, team, and then sustainability and scalability. The regulation part was spending five minutes in connection with God. And that was the first thing. We said, if even on your Sabbath day when you're not working, okay, great. Instead of spending five minutes in each of those five areas, spend 25, 30 minutes with God. Your daily communion with God has to come before your business. Making the shift in our business has been incredible. Nothing comes before I pray. I don't brush my teeth. I don't look at my phone. I don't talk to my husband. Nothing happens before I roll off the bed and onto my knees, say in our father, and go on. And then while I'm brushing my teeth, I have a conversation with God. Even while I'm getting the kids ready for school, a lot of times it's meditation time. I'll be tidying up the kitchen while I'm talking to God, or maybe listening to Above Inspiration's one of my favorite YouTube channels. They've got 10 to 15 minute compilations of Christian mentors talking about specific topics. And so a lot of times I'll just pop on there and listen to one. They have some ones that are over an hour too, which are nice. But I like the 10 minutes because I'm doing the dishes, I'm making some breakfast, I'm doing the things, and I can get in that space. And a lot of them are on gratitude, which is great. But that comes first.

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And then the last thing I want to mention is that Joel talks about in his prophecy something that gets mentioned by Peter, the founder of the church. He mentions this during Pentecost, during one of his public talks. He quotes Joel. He talks about God pouring out his spirit on all flesh and how we have access to the Holy Spirit for visions and dreams and prophetic direction in our business. When we completely surrender and submit our businesses to God and we go, God, this is your business, not mine. You are creating it through me, growing it through me. When we do that and we open ourselves up to God's ability to be the most incredible chief inspiration officer ever, he will give you nudges and insight and wisdom that will double, triple, exponentially increase that reward tangibly in this life and in the next. So as kingdom CEOs, we have access to an asset that non-Christians don't, which is the Holy Spirit and the ability to allow the Holy Spirit to give us wisdom. And we have access to the Bible. We have a direct connection to God that we recognize is there. And the Holy Spirit that literally lives in the tabernacle of our hearts. Like we have those. And we have Jesus' word lived out, breathed out onto paper. We have all three of those things. Like those resources, that outpouring of the spirit, those assets, that is like you don't need anything else. You don't need anything else in order to be able to flourish in your business. So we don't have to live in cycles of locusts. We can stay rooted in God, we can recognize enemy distraction, we can lead with repentant hearts, and we can build businesses that truly flourish under God's protection. So if you are navigating a locust season in your business and you want wisdom of elders and peers to help you discern that path forward, come into our free school community. And I'll make sure the link is in the show notes. Those of you who are watching live in our school community, you're already in here, invite one of your friends, your people, your colleagues, your collaborators in here because we're doing this together. Okay. And if you're like, oh yeah, I really could spend some more time meditating on my business with God. Starting May 11th, we are going to be doing the make moves challenge inside of the school community. And so each day you're going to focus in on five key areas. And the first one is meditation. And when we meditate, what we're doing is we're getting silent, we're getting still, we're reflecting upon God's word, we are listening for his advice. We are doing the very thing we just talked about here. We're putting the time with him first. Okay. Then we are getting into obedience. And then we are verifying that what we did and what we heard is correct. And then we are enduring. And we are growing that fruit of the spirit of endurance. And then we are surrendering the results because the results are God's. The ROI will come from Him. It's just our job to move in the way that He calls us to move.