I was standing in a bar at National Harbor, as the clock struck midnight, on January 1, 2017, while my boyfriend at the time was at a holy-spirit-filled week-long conference...

And here I stand, depressed, overwhelmed, uncomfortable because I KNEW this environment was never a place for me...

Yet I decided to forgo the conference for a Dallas Cowboys football game.

I had enough, I leaned into my convictions, after giving God a year to prove himself a few months prior, telling GOD at this bar, if you want me to be a follower of YOU, then I TOO must give up things that separate me from your love and PROVE my devotion.

1. Alcohol

2. Cursing

3. Secular Music.

I did not understand then why these three things were so vital for me to recklessly abandon to pursue the one who my soul longed for and desperately needed.

But now I do...

Jesus answered him, "What I am doing you do not understand now, but afterward you will understand. (John 13:7)"

I learned my vices, my temptations, and the things the enemy uses to pull me backward. It's not about me not drinking, cursing, or listening to secular music—it's the knowing that these things pervert my call to purity and taint my ability to hear God's voice.

The enemy desires to sift us like wheat, keeping us in an identity crisis.

If we cling to things that temporarily fulfill us, we'll continue to indulge, neglecting the one who can silence the voids.

Why? Because we allow the language of this world and the same people struggling themselves to shame us or offer their opinion laced In their self-doubt.

NO!

This life is not a game, people.

We are not here by mere chance.

We are here because an all-knowing, all-powerful, all-loving GOD saw fit to write you into the story of redemption.

This battle is SPIRITUAL!

You have a role to play!

You can continue to passively live life, complaining about the circumstance you're born into, or how your poor decisions shaped... or you can get yourself together AND DECIDE to give God a chance to show you who HE IS!

BUT BELIEVE YOU TOO MUST SACRIFICE SOMETHING... even if it's uncomfortable. What are you willing to forgo, RICH YOUNG RULER, for what God has in store?

God didn't call us to live an inactive life...

"But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light (1 Peter 2:9)."