Episode 18 - When Trust Requires Action

When Trust Requires Action

Trusting God is easy when life makes sense. But what happens when He asks you to do something that stretches your faith?

In this episode, Val Mitchell shares one of the most challenging moments in her own journey of faith and how choosing to trust God changed everything. Through the story of Joseph, the earthly father of Jesus, you'll discover that faith isn't just believing God—it also means taking action, even when you don't understand the outcome.

If you've been wrestling with a difficult decision or sensing God leading you in a direction that feels uncomfortable, this episode will encourage you to trust His heart, even when you can't yet see His plan.

Key Scriptures:
• Proverbs 3:5–6
• Matthew 1–2

💜 Key Takeaway:
Trust isn't proven by what we believe—it's revealed by what we're willing to do.

Welcome to Valetha's Greatest Moments with God, a podcast for women who desire to hear God's voice, find healing, and grow closer to Him.

Each week, Val Mitchell shares personal stories, biblical insights, and powerful revelations from her own walk with God. Through real-life experiences and practical faith lessons, you'll discover how God speaks in everyday moments, guides us through difficult seasons, and invites us into a deeper relationship with Him.

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Thank you for joining me for today's episode of Valetha's Greatest Moments with God.

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Until next time,

Hear God's Voice.
Find Healing.
Build Intimacy and Trust.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:34

Everyone, how are you doing today? I am so excited to be here myself. Why? Because we got something to talk about. The Lord said, talk about obedience. Now, mind you, I am the first one to raise my hand. I am guilty of not always following every single thing that comes in. But I'm working on that. And so we're going to kind of talk about obedience, what it is, why it's beneficial. And then what do I always do? Who's doing it in the box? Amen. And then hopefully from that you can gather some tools and some things that will help you in your walk with God as well. Amen. So let's do a quick prayer and then we're going to jump right in it. Heavenly Father, I thank you today. I thank you for this opportunity to get in front of your people. Lord, speak the words that you need to come forth today in regards to obedience. Lord, let it be received on good ground. Let it be covered and sealed and advanced so the enemy can't pluck it out. Lord, we do this for your glory and honor. So I invite you into this live in Jesus' name. Amen. Alrighty. One quick note. If you did not catch me on Thursday, Thursdays for the next remaining four weeks, I am going to be talking about specific topics related to women like myself that get exhausted. Where you're not there mentally, you're not there spiritually, but you're still trying your hardest to press forward. This is all coming out of my new book, yay, that I have written. And so each week we're diving into a specific topic related to that. If you missed last Thursday, go back on my page and catch it. All right. Let's dive into what we are talking about. Today's topic, we are talking about the word obedience. Amen. And so when we look at obedience, what does it mean? The Lord already tells us those that love me show that because they follow what I ask them to do. When you think about that, it's like when you're in a relationship with someone. And from that relationship, trust comes out. Love comes out. They do things for you that builds up your trust and your love and your faith in them. And then in return, you do the same thing for them. So it's not a master servant type of relationship where you are a slave to the master, and no matter what he says, you're just doing it out of fear, out of hopes that you don't get in trouble and things of that nature. When it comes to an intimate relationship with God, with Jesus, it's more of a father-daughter or father-son relationship. Or I love to look at it because Jesus says he's our friend. How do we know he's a good, good friend? It's because he tells us the things that the father is doing. And we only get that from good, close friendship. So when God is asking us to do things that he is telling us to do, he is looking for us to do them. And vice versa. When we go to God in prayer and we're asking God to do stuff for us because of his love for us, because of his grace, which means we don't have to pay for it. We don't have to be this super perfect person. It's because of grace. He gives us mercy when we don't do it right or when we get things wrong. But when we go to him in prayer, he does some things for us sometimes, right? So it is a back and forth relationship, just like any true relationship that you're in today, right? So let me pull my notes up because I really wanted to dig into what is the term, what does it meant when God asks us to be obedient to his word? What is he saying? So I did look up the word obedient. We know when you look at the Bible, when you look at when it was written, the Old Testament was written in Hebrew, and the New Testament was written in Greek. So there's two different, a little bit difference of the meanings from each one, but they kind of still go together. So when I dig into it, when I looked at the word obedient from the Old Testament, from the Hebrew side, it pretty much means to hear, to listen attentively, to respond, and then to obey what you heard. When I looked at it from the Greek standpoint, it said it literally means to listen under. And the word broke it down said it carries the picture of a willing placing, willingly placing yourself under God's authority and then simply doing what he asked you to do. So based off of that, I wanted to step back and look at two things. I wanted to look at one, we're going to go into who in the Bible we can reference obedience from. But I also looked at it from myself. I looked at it from the times that God has asked me to do something. And then my response to that. When I first got on my personal journey with the Lord, now I've been in church since a little little girl. Amen. But it's the fact that when I got to a place of maturity with God, and it was mainly because God pulled me in. He literally said, look, enough is enough. We got work to do. I need you to get it together. That's a true statement. But anyhow, God during that time poured into my life. He poured into my children. I had situations going on with my sons that I went to God in prayer over, and he showed up and showed out. With me personally, I saw the favor of God in my life on situations that I look back today and said, only God did it. So God built a relationship with me. He built trust with me. Where when you get with someone into a relationship, they learn you, you learn them, you start doing things for them to let you know, hey, I'm here, I ain't going nowhere, I got your back. Well, God did those types of things to me, for me, where he got me to a point where he says, Do you trust me now? Can you trust me now? And regardless of what I do, what I ask of you, or where you end up, do you trust me? And I had to really sit and think with that, because I'm a thinker. And I had to look back and say, a lot of situations that I found myself in of my own, my own obedience, my own way, which means God didn't get me there, I got my own stuff in. And how I was able to pray, and because of how I got there, I should have remained there. But because God loved me, because he was faithful to what he told me he was going to do for me, he got me out of a lot of situations. So when he came to me and said, Do you trust me now? I had to say, Yes, Lord. I do, I really, really do trust you. And when I gave him that yes, then he started asking things of me. He started asking hard things for me to do. And a lot of times when they came, he asked me to do things. One, I didn't know why. Two, it pulled me way, let me say that again, way out of my comfort zone. And three, I saw the negative impact, at least what I thought, that if I went to what God wanted me to do, this was going to be damaged. That person was going to be hurt. The finances I had saved up for one thing were not going to occur for that thing, because now I got to place them over here where God said, that's the subject in itself. But when he started asking me those hard things to do, the things that, if it was up to Val Mitchell, would not be done. But because in the beginning he said, Do you trust me? And I knew he got my back. I knew that he's not going to have me do something that's going to cause damage to me, damage to my kids, regardless of what it looked like, or even what I had to do to be obedient to that act. And what I've learned from the walk of walking in obedience is that the after-effect that comes after you do what he asked you to do. I've seen, let's go with finances. I had a situation where when my kids were in college and I physically was paying for their college tuition every semester that Bill came around with two kids in college. So I was on my knees a lot during that time. Because I didn't, I'm a single parent. Dad, we're just not happy, we're not helping, and that money only came from God. Well, I came into a situation where it was time to pay the next balance for that semester. And I was able to obtain the money that was needed to pay it off. So I was like, praising God for the money. Thank you, God. I got it in advance. I don't even have to stress about, you know, the due date, just do it like a week or two. I got it and I could pay it. That evening, God came to me and said, Yes, I gave you the money. But two, I need you to take that money, the full amount, and place it over here as a seed. My mouth went and I was like, God, thank you for giving me the money. But, you know, my kids' tuition is due in like a couple days. What are we doing? I cried that night. I literally boo-hooed and cried. I seriously tell you. I went to bed in tears because I'm like, if I don't pay this bill, it won't get paid. That's the mindset I had. My kids will have to come home. They can't finish. You know, all the things we have when we got a bill that it ain't no small bills, a large bill that's in their face. I went to bed and I called a dear, dear friend, my BFF. And I I just cried. And she said, What's wrong? And I said, Well, I got I got the funding, and you know, I gotta pay the kids tuition, but the Lord told me to take the money and put it over here. And mind you, where I had to take the money, I had to put it in their hand, and they were out of state. So I had to travel to where they were in a different state and put it in their hand. And mind you, finances were real tight back then. So she asked me one question Do you know it came from God? I said, Yes, I know for a fact. You gotta be able to know his voice, you gotta be able to be close enough with God that you know it's not something else that is telling you to do so. So I answered yes. And then she responded, then what's the problem? So I had to think, and I said, I trust him, I trust him. So that morning I got up, figured out my route on how to get to that different state. I'm gonna drive because I can't buy no plane ticket. Pulled the money out. It's a nice sum of money, pulled it out, drove to the location. I made her go with me because I needed somebody to keep praying in my ear to cast out the doubt that I had. So we went together, went to the location, and I took the money. I told the person, look, he didn't know what was going on, why I was doing what I was doing, but I knew. Look, I'm doing this because I was told by God to do it. This is no thing of my own. I got needs. But because the Lord asked, I'm going to be obedient and drop, give you this money. He didn't know the amount, he didn't know why I was there, no nothing. I don't know what him and God was working out, or what blessing I did for him. I didn't know, and still to this day, though. But I know that when I released it out of my hands, and I went after I did, he he said a prayer over me, and then I went and just praised and worship. I just praised God for having the money, praising God for trusting me with releasing it, and then praising him for his faithfulness for him handling my own personal situation, even though I didn't know how. Got back home and I just left it alone. I stopped worrying about it, I stopped stressing over, and I'm not gonna cry over a bill when the Lord told me to release the money in my hand. I just, I just not. So I think it was a couple days later that came in, and there was unexpected scholarship funds that my sons, I don't even know when or if they even applied for it, but it hit both their accounts for the full amount of the balance that was needed. And the money that came in wasn't enough, wasn't just for that semester, it was also covered the second semester, which means the money that I had was only enough for just the one semester. But the Lord brought in a blessing that covered not only my that one, but he covered the second. That was a defining moment for me. That when the Lord asked me to do something, no matter what it is, no matter how hard it's going to be, I'm going to walk in obedience. The reason we are talking today is because, like I said, when I got into prayer, the Lord said, When we are obedient in every circumstance, favor always follows, and it will rest upon you. And for that, he is asking of us to follow through on everything all the time every time. So I want to go through now who in the Bible, you know me, you know how we do this, who in the Bible had an act of obedience, no matter what the circumstances were. And as a result, favor followed his life. So when I got this, I was led automatically to Joseph, Mary's husband. If we know the story of Joseph, and let me go back to my notes. I'm jumping all over the place today, guys. I am sorry. Hold on. So we can find the story of Joseph's life in Matthew chapter one and chapter two. If we know the story, before Mary was conceived by the Holy Spirit, she was betrothed to Joseph. We know Joseph is in the lineage of David. We know that God promised David that I'm just gonna say the Messiah is gonna come out of his lineage. He didn't say Messiah, but the Messiah would come out of his lineage. So Joseph was already destined because he fell in the lineage of David. He was chosen to be Mary's husband, and Mary was chosen to conceive the Messiah. That's a powerful thing all in itself. When our lives are already, ooh, Lord, when our lives are already predestined before we even arrive, because of a promise that God gave to our ancestors so long ago. So, anyhow, I'm not gonna go there, but that's that's a whole word in itself. So, anyway, Joseph and Mary were supposed to be married, and any fiance, and they, you know, they're all doing their thing, and then the wedding date is scheduled, you know, down the road. But during that betrothement, during that time, Mary got pregnant. And Joseph is like, okay, we are betrothed, which means we are we are connected, we are scheduled to be married. You're my fiance type of thing. And how do you come up pregnant? And you're telling me it's from the Holy Spirit? Okay, I love you, I love you a lot, but I I can't marry you. So Joseph was put in a position where the woman he was supposed to marry is pregnant, who she says by the Holy Spirit. So he's like, okay, no, I can't do this. So, but he didn't he loved her so much that he didn't want to just to leave her in front of everybody. He didn't want everybody to know a business. He didn't want to say all of that. So he was secretly planning, okay, we're not gonna get married. I'm gonna send you over here so that way you're not disgraced in front of everybody else. And then, you know, you go your way, I go my way. That night, when he went to sleep, the Lord spoke to him in his dreams. And an angel came forth and said, Joseph, don't stop what God has already planned together. Joseph, I need you to still take Mary as your wife. That was what we seen in the Bible. The first instructions that came from God to Joseph. And then Joseph woke up and he was obedient to that ass. Now you gotta think about it. That act of obedience, he's taking on a woman that's pregnant by the Holy Spirit. Now, through that dream, he got confirmation that that child that she's carrying is from God. But then you still gotta look at people and how people are gonna look at how she's pregnant. So we don't know if they moved the wedding date up, you know, we don't know all of that. We know he had to do a lot of moving around, but he honored God's request, and him and Mary got married. Later, and I'm not gonna go too much detail because of time, but later, Jesus, I mean not Jesus, the Lord spoke to Joseph three more times in a dream. And during that time, he was always instructed okay, you're living here, but I need you to pack your family up right now when you wake up and move to another city. Now just think about if you've got Those types of instructions from God. Sometimes God told him, hey, the king is trying to kill Jesus, get out of here. But sometimes he didn't say all the details as to why. He just said, I need you to get up and move your family now. Now, Joseph, I'm sure, had some idea. He knew who his child was, right? And he knew he was in a position where God trusted him enough to be the father figure, the earthly father figure of the Messiah. Do you know how powerful that is? That God can trust you with managing and being responsible for something that's going to save the lives and remove the sins from the world?

unknown 23:20

My God.

SPEAKER_00 23:21

So when you look at it from that point, you ask me to do something, oh God, we're gonna do it. So anytime, so when he woke up, it wasn't no, oh, let me pack for a week, let me let me get the house on because they didn't have cars and stuff. They literally had to pack their stuff on horses and go from that. A lot of times they're walking to their next destination. So he wasn't like, oh, let me cancel my job because he was a carpenter. Let me let those people know that I got craft things for that, you know, either get your stuff in now because I'm moving in two weeks. No, he didn't do none of that. It was what he got up, it's time to go. And that same day, they were out of there. And his wife, which was, she didn't get that word. Mary didn't get that word. That word came from Joseph. So she was obedient to her husband. God said, Let's go. She likes, okay, I guess we're going. You know what I'm saying? She didn't stop. She didn't say, Joseph, God didn't tell me that. He visited me when I was pregnant. Joseph, do you know I'm pregnant? I can't be just moving. We need she did none of that. God told her husband, it's time to go. They got up and they went, Oh my gosh, I'm hearing so many words come out of this. Stay focused now. So, anyhow, what Joseph's obedience was to God, each time he got a dream, each time he got something from God in his specific instruction. And because Joseph was faithful to every instruction, when the Messiah was born, the Lord favored Joseph. Now we don't hear in the Bible a lot of things that Joseph was favored for, like what happened after the Messiah went on. Because after the only time we hear about Joseph again is when Jesus turned 12 and him and Mary left him in Jerusalem, and they came back and said, What are you doing here? Outside of that, we didn't hear too much. But the one thing we do know what God did is what God asked Joseph to do while Mary was pregnant is not to consummate the marriage. Don't have no sex. Don't go into her, don't defile her until after Jesus is born. And he honored that. They did not consummate their marriage until after Jesus was born. And because of Joseph's faithfulness and obedience to what God asked him to do, he blessed him with many children. He had, oh, and I'm going off the top of my head, which is not good, three to four sons, I think it is. And the Bible says, and daughters with the Ness. So we don't know if that's one, two daughters, if it's ten daughters, we don't know. But we do know he had abundant of children after that. I come on today to allow us to just self-reflect. What has God asked you to do? What has you said, okay? I know God told me to do this, but I'm going to get to it. Or you followed through some of it, but you didn't complete the full assignment. God asked us to follow through all the time, every time. Now, when God gives us a word, I already said in the beginning, it is not because he's just being a master, king of kings, lord of lords, and I can tell you what to do, what I want to do. It's not a dictator type of thing. We have a relationship with God. And the closer you get to him, the closer he gets to you. And in that relationship, he's defining himself in his life, in your life from him. I'm messing that up. He is letting you know who he is, how he loves you. He shows you how he loves you. And then from that love, you develop trust, you develop faith, and you start believing in the words that come out of his mouth. And when he asks us for something, there's a purpose, there's a reason behind it. The purpose could be to protect you. The purpose could be to bless someone else because we are his disciples. We are his hands and feet on the earth. That voice can be to put some allow his will to go forth because he's got plans and things that he's trying to do for the greater good on the earth. And we do not get the reasons why all the time. Because it may hurt a person. It may, you may have plans, like I said, with my finances. I had plans for that money. But God had plans for those money. Whatever it is, when you get on the other side of that act of obedience, favor rests on you. Things move in a way that you would have never seen move in your life, all because of your walk of obedience. Now, I'm not gonna say trouble still don't come. I'm not gonna say pressure still don't be there. I'm not gonna say people do not still be people. Jealousy, attack, mad, because hey, you told me you was gonna do this today. Now all of a sudden you can't do it for X, Y's. But I gotta be obedient to God. I gotta be faithful to God because in our relationship, He is always faithful and obedient. I won't say obedient, but He's always faithful to me. So I come today, and I wanted to ask that you you kind of sit with yourself, and you sit and you kind of ask, okay, what is God asking of me? What has He already asked for me that I put to the side? Proverbs 3, 5 and 6 says, Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. But in all your ways, acknowledge him, and he shall direct your path. Whatever he is asking of you today, do not worry about trying to figure out what he's up to, why he's asking me this, what it, why I gotta do it. Believe me, there's a lot of things that I have done that I just had to do this morning that I'm like, all right, Lord. We because he already knows what's going on in your life, he already knows. He is L roi. He sits on the throne and he sees you, he sees your circumstance, he sees what's in your life, but yet he still asks you to do and act for him. And I think sometimes I'm guilty is I can face the hard things to do. It's not easy a lot, but I can face the hard things. I get in trouble with the simple things. Amen. I get in trouble with, oh, that's not a big deal. Yeah, okay. Or did I hear that right? Nah, I didn't hear that right. It could be as simple as you see that that lady at the desk. Go over there and just and tell, ask her how she's doing today and give her a smile and walk away. And I'll walk by and see her at her desk. I'll talk to her later. Oh, she's too busy. You know, she's doing something right now. The Lord didn't tell me that.

unknown 32:09

I'll be walking.

SPEAKER_00 32:10

I struggle with the little things. Amen. I'm just being honest. But God said all things, every time. It can be small or it can be big. The big things where it really tests your own personal faith because it goes against everything that you would do and it pulls you out of your comfort. No matter what it is. Let's try to be faithful to God because He is already faithful to us. Thanks for watching, and I'll see you next time.