Description
In this episode, we dive into the process of becoming and how faith can shape that journey. We explore the importance of the Word of God in forming and revealing your identity, as well as the value of building an intimate relationship with the Holy Spirit in order to become the person God has called you to be according to His will.
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Transcription
Hello everyone and welcome back to the Mend the More podcast. I'm really happy because it's been a while but we are back. So today we are going to have a discussion with a guest. We are going to talk about becoming through faith and I'm really happy because she hosts her own podcast where she talks about blooming and a lot of it flourishing and becoming. And today, I believe that we are going to learn a lot from her journey and how faith has helped her to become the person she is today. So, welcome, Chloe.
Hi, thank you so much for having me.
We are happy to have you on this podcast. Alright, so we are going to start from the beginning. Can you introduce yourself and tell us what you do?
Okay, so my name is Chloe. I am Zambian. Currently, I'm working, doing the 9 to 5. I work in fast-moving consumer goods. I work in marketing. I love marketing. I love telling a story. I love getting people to understand what a brand is about. And I absolutely love Jesus Christ. I am a tea ministry teacher at my church. Currently going to Rema Bible Training Center in Zambia. I'm in my second year. So I think that's one of the things that's keeping me busy at the moment. But yeah, overall, love Jesus, works in marketing, team history teacher, Bible student.
That's good. But you forgot to mention that you host a podcast as well.
I do. I also host a podcast, my bad. It's called Blooming with Chloe. It is basically... A Christian podcast. And the whole aim of the podcast is to help the listeners bloom in Christ wherever they are in their journey. So whether you're in a waiting season, a growing season, a learning season, whether you're a baby Christian, a maturing Christian, it's just the aim is to help you bloom in Christ wherever you are in your journey.
I love that. I feel like it's the same as my podcast because I feel like we want to help people to. grow to become a better version of themselves whether it's through faith or advices or any tips that you can give or even our journey so yeah so you you told me off camera that right now you are in this season where you are learning about you are more um you are into your faith and your your faith journey so can you tell me what does it look like for you
Okay, so I think it's been interesting because at school, REMMA, the whole purpose of the school or the mandate that Kenneth Hagen was given when he started the school was to teach his people faith. So being at REMMA first year and now in my second year, I think it's really been practically taking me through ways that I could build my faith or can build my faith. And I feel like I've also been in a waiting season for a long time. And I know that we all have waiting seasons. So even if a prayer is answered, there's still something you're waiting for. Or you're like, you're always waiting for something. I've been waiting on the Lord for certain things to happen. And he's just been teaching me faith. And faith to me looks like just taking God at his word. because I think sometimes as Christians, we know the word of God, but we don't really believe it. Like we know it in our heads, but we don't believe it in our hearts. So this has been a season where God has been just taking me through the process of actually believing his word in my heart, taking him at his word, like if God has said something, then surely he will do it. And he's also just teaching me to seek him earnestly through reading his word. Faith comes by hearing. hearing by the word of God. So if you're not in the word of God, then your faith isn't growing because it's like present continuous. You need to be hearing the word of God. So being in the word of God and just seeking God, because sometimes I would only seek God when I needed something, but now I'm just seeking him for his presence and for who he is.
Hi friend, if you have been enjoying the Mainsumo podcast, I would like to invite you to the Main Tumor Community. This is a space for young women who want to grow and become together. In that community, you will find support, encouragement, and more. So if you want to join the Main Tumor Community, the link is in the description. You just have to press on that link and you'll be part of our community. You spoke about the waiting season, so I want to dive deeper into this because this is something that all the Christians are struggling with. So can you tell me, can you tell us what your waiting season was looking like?
So, I think every Christian wants to have like the perfect waiting season and be like, yeah, I waited on the Lord. I had faith and it was wonderful and amazing. But one of the things that I'm drawing strength from is the scriptures. So you see like almost everyone in the Bible had a waiting season. And I think the only person who waited really well was Jesus. When you look at like Abraham and Sarah, they ended up having Ishmael. When you look at David, he was... practically depressed when he was running away from the soul crying to god why have you forsaken me so it's been a journey there have been times i've waited well there are other times i've given an ishmael there have been times i'm able to be like yes i believe the lord and the lord's promises and then the other times i'm like god is this ever gonna happen for me will you do it for me and the funny thing about waiting is that when you're waiting for something you everyone around you suddenly starts experiencing that or receiving that message and I'm like what about me what about me yeah it's been like here and there but also I don't know I've started to take it as if God is doing it for someone else then he's in the neighborhood he's on his way for me I'll be next in line so it's been a bit up and down but yeah I'm getting there
I really like what you said. And when I'm thinking about my own life, I'm currently in the waiting season. You know, the whole process of becoming, when you want to become, when you want to change some things in your behavior, in your mindset, there's this idea that you have in your mind that you want to, this person that you want to reach, you know, this perfect person that you want to reach. And you're always, you're constantly thinking, Like. am i like that i arrived to that like do i have the right mindset right now or do i still have to work on myself so this is hard this is hard to wait no matter what i'm looking for this season is is hard but it's actually an opportunity to grow if you are willing to submit to god if you are willing to follow him, to listen to him, you'll feel like you won't feel like this season is hard you would feel like it's easy actually and honestly yeah right now i'm currently waiting for a lot of things i'm out there's a lot of things that i'm waiting for but i'm also learning because i believe that if god is making me wait for some things it means that there are some things that you want to remove um from there are some things that you want to change there are some behaviors that you want me to change so yeah I'm still learning. I'm still growing. And that's it.
Yeah.
So, okay. So, yeah, you talked about the season you are currently in. So I want to know what was your life before you were a Christian? Can you describe how your life was before you became a Christian?
Okay, life before I was a Christian. So I think for me, I was one of those people who like, you grew up in the church. My mom was a Sunday school teacher, church every Sunday. But I think it became more of like just routine, like, okay, yes, every Sunday we go to church. Oh, yes, this is what we do. But I don't think I had personally, I think I had accepted Christ, but I wasn't being serious about my faith walk. So I think throughout primary school, secondary school, I was doing pretty okay. But then when I went to universities, when I really like went crazy, I started drinking, started having, I started fornicating, I started smoking weed. I actually smoked weed for like nine years. I was addicted. And I used to have affairs with like married men. Like I was just doing, I was doing so much. Glory to God for his saving power. But yeah, life before Christ was It was that kind of lifestyle, but I was also very sad, very dissatisfied with life. I was not confident in myself. I used to seek validation from relationships. So that's where I used to find my validation. Like, oh, okay, yeah, this guy loves me. And I felt love was more about performing. Like, what can I do for him to make him love me or for him to see me a certain way? So. that was my life before Christ and then I think at some point I just got really tired like you know when you're just like in the same cycle like it's the same thing over and over again and maybe it's like oh you meet a guy you sleep together he breaks your heart it's done you meet I'm tired of that cycle. And also I was very heavily into the smoking weed and I was just tired. Like I was very exhausted about how my life was going. And I remember I was like, okay, Jesus, I'm going to give you a chance for real, for real. And if, you know, if it doesn't work out, I'm going back to the world, but it worked out and I've actually never looked back. So I think what really drove me to developing my relationship with Christ. Christ was just I was tired I was tired I was depressed and I was just so dissatisfied with life so I want to dig deeper into
I want to talk about your identity how were you seeing yourself at that time what did you think about yourself before you became a Christian I want to know what you spoke about the lack of confidence so I want to know more about that aspect of your life where you Were you feeling good about yourself? Can you tell me more about it?
So when it came to my identity, I think when you are living in darkness and ignorance, you think you feel good and you think this is how life should be and you feel like it's the pinnacle of everything. So I would say at the time in the story.
Because for me, when I was in the dark, I wasn't feeling good about myself at all. So maybe it's a different story.
Yeah. You know, I think for me, it was more of like, you know, when you're like on substances, you're like, do you read? You're high. I used to be high a lot of the time. So I think that gave me like a false sense of security. And then when you're in a relationship, even that makes you feel good, like, oh, yeah, I'm the girl. I'm like this person, that person. Then you find all the relationship ends and all of a sudden you're depressed or you're sad or you don't have anything to land on. I feel like I used to feel like I was happy and I was good but then the more that went on the more I realized like actually no something is wrong I shouldn't be smoking this much or somebody else shouldn't be able to determine how I feel about myself like how I feel about me should come from the inside out but it was coming like from the outside in so yeah it was like an illusion and It was only...
as I grew older and I saw like I could feel like no this there's more to life than this like my life can't be dependent on the approval of others yeah I like that yeah I wanted to say that from what you were explaining it looked like you were happy on the outside but internally yeah yeah for me it was different because I feel like when I was in that Because for me, I knew God. I knew God since I'm a child and all. But the devil really found a way to get into my heart. So even when I was a Christian, I experienced depression, low self-esteem, you know, lack of confidence, all of those things. And I was a Christian. It's not as if I was far from Jesus. I was a Christian. So I had to fight and I had to, yeah. yes fight and also look for my deliverance because it was a lot of things that i was going to so for me it was different i was in the darkness i was in the dark there was no way for um four secrets whatever i was really in the dark i was just feeling good i was sad all the time and you know you know the devil is wicked so yeah so my next question is Do you think that faith has changed the way you see yourself now?
It definitely has 100% because, I mean, if you like look at the Bible or read the Bible, there are so many wonderful things God has said about us. He says before he formed us, he knew us, he predestined us for greatness. We are a chosen generation, chosen people. We are loved. We are righteous. We are holy. So before that, I would read the word of God and I wouldn't believe like I'm righteous. I know there's a verse that says, the steps of a righteous man are ordered by the Lord or a righteous man falls seven times but gets up seven times or the prayer of a righteous man availeth much. So I would read that and think to myself, oh my gosh, I'm actually not righteous. But the more I've grown, I understand that actually Christ imputed his righteousness to me. I am the righteousness of God through Jesus Christ. So I am righteous. So even if I stumble today, I'm still righteous. So it's really helped shape my identity of myself because now when I read the word of God, I have faith and I believe what I read. I believe that I am holy. I believe that I am righteous. I believe that I am justified. I believe that I am chosen. I believe that I am loved. I believe that God formed me. He knows me deeply and that he loves me. So that has really helped shape who I am. So I don't think anybody can come today and tell me something about myself. that is contrary to the word of God, I'll be like, no, no, no, listen, the word of God says this. So it's really helped me form my identity in Christ based on what Christ did on the cross and what the word of God says.
I really like what you're saying. And for what I'm hearing, I feel like your identity is solid. It's strong. It's unshakable. It's like, I cannot, I cannot commentate you, Chloe, you are a bad person. You won't even listen to me. And this is what I do. A lot of us need that. We need to have that strong belief that we are loved, that we are... All of what the Bible says about us, we need to believe that because it's so important because the devil will always come and tell you lies. And if you dare listen to him, if you dare put your ears to listen to the devil, you will be saved. right you will like yourself but i want to know more about that process like yes you told me all of those things it looks nice that you believe but what was the process of you coming to these points of believing that you are loved that you are all of those things um
so i mentioned that i go to remma right i think remma has really played a big role in Thank you.
shaping this because i think like um as christians sometimes we yes um the woman is it your church or is it uh what is it oh no no it's um it's a bible training uh yes
so it's a i think they're global they're in africa they're in the americas they're all over the all over the world yeah founded by kenneth hayden so it's a two-year program very intensive. It's Monday to Friday. I go for evening classes. So immediately after work, I'm going to school from like 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. So it's just a very structured course. So first year is more about you as an individual. You learn things like the courses we did were like faith foundations, righteousness, search for significance, biblical finances, blood covenants. So. it just really helps you understand who you are in Christ. Like, Search for Significance showed us like sometimes people draw their identity from approval. Some people are approval addicts. Some people fear rejection. Some people have shame. And it just helps you identify a lot of things, really.
So going through
Rema. Yes. So going through Rema has really just helped me solidify it and I would say for someone who says oh I'm not going through Rema it's just basically the word of God like my favorite verse is Romans 12 2 which says do not be conformed to the pattern of the world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind then you'll be able to test and approve God's good perfect and pleasing will. So your mind basically you have strongholds in your mind. And the only thing that can break those strongholds is the word of God, who the son sets free is free indeed. So the more you listen to the word, the more you read your word, the more your mind is renewed and the way you think begins to change. So like the Bible says, faith comes by hearing. You need to be constantly hearing. It's not about it doesn't come by. I heard you need to constantly be hearing the word of God so that your mind is renewed. and you're transformed so i think that's one thing that's i just love what i'm hearing i love that because you're giving a lot of so yeah it's hearing the word of god and being in the word of god like i don't underestimate the power of the word i remember at the time i stopped smoking weed prior to that i had been like really in my bible listening to sermons listening to podcasts podcasts, all these things. And one day I woke up and I didn't want to smoke weed anymore. And it was this year. I've been sober for years. And this year I was asking the Lord, I was like, what happened? I didn't have like deliverance. There was no laying of hands. There was no shaking. There was no demons. And the Holy Spirit revealed to me that just.
hearing the truth when you know the truth the truth will set you free so just the word of god and having that truth set me free so it was just a problem you're pushing to my heart and i love that i honestly i love that yeah i love it yeah
so it's just reading the word of god just getting into the word that's why we always say read your bible pray every day because there's power in the word of god and in the presence of god
I love it. So for you, it was more about reading the word of God. Everything. Or did you do anything else in that process?
So I guess there was reading the word of God. Definitely having a good community around me of good Christian friends who, first of all, confessed the word of God over my life. who you When you go to them, they give you wise, godly counsel. Because, you know, they can be friends. And they can be your good friends. But you go to them and you're like, oh, I want to do this thing that's wrong. And they'll be hyping you up like, yeah, no, it's okay. Everybody else is doing it. But just having people who can tell you, no, this isn't right. This won't benefit you. That also really helps. Also, just having people like the friends you can be accountable to them. If you're struggling in a certain area and you tell them, I'm trying to do this or trying to achieve it. And they help you. be accountable and actually do what you want to do. And another thing that's really helped is like just getting a hold of my mind. I'm the kind of person who has the tendency to like daydream or overanalyze or like take a situation and make it something it's not. Or if somebody wrongs me, oh yeah, if I could do something bad happen to me, they would feel bad. Like my mind just was one of my biggest enemies. So just making sure that if thought enters my head. that doesn't align with the word of God just being intentional about first of all rebuking that thought and replacing it with the truth of God so whereas before if I felt like oh my gosh nobody loves me I'd be like no no no you are chosen uh before the foundation of the earth were laid Christ was laid for your sake just controlling my mind because my mind was one of my biggest struggles because you either win or lose in your mind first so that was one of the things that really helped me.
I loved what you said about working on your mind because me too, my biggest issue in my life story is my mind. Yeah.
This is the fight of my life.
Are you ready? Are you ready? I think I read it yes yeah so it's all in the mind this book blesses me so much and this book one thing that really helps me is that she spoke about she said discipline your mind and I never knew that I never knew that I needed to discipline my mind that any thoughts that I had in my mind were not thoughts from God Sometimes those thoughts were from the devil and I had to rebuke them. I had to change and speak the word of God constantly so that my mind would expand. So yeah, I also struggled a lot with this mind thing. But by the grace of God now, I'm still working on it. But I love that you talk about it because this is something that I feel like a lot of people are also struggling with. But they don't know what to do. you know sometimes when you um you you listen constantly lies you ended up you end up um believing in those lies if you don't learn to rebuke them constantly you feel like you are not loved that people don't love you that you are not worthy of love of you know all of those things exactly so my next question is what kind of person do you think that you are becoming through faith the kind of person I'm becoming through faith
I would say um well hopefully I'm becoming the woman God has called me to be I think one of the things that's really important for me is to really fulfill God's purpose for my life and And that's one of the things that. this season of faith is teaching me like you can be doing something good there's nothing wrong with that but if you're not fulfilling god's purpose for your life then you're not where you're supposed to be so um i think i'm becoming the woman god has called me to be it's not easy it's been a journey some days are better but I just want to be that woman who God has called me to be, whoever she is. Still discovering who she is, but looking forward to meeting her and fully becoming her. That's good. Yeah.
That's good. Okay, let's go to the next question. Do you feel like you are unlearning an old version of yourself? If yes, what?
I definitely feel like I'm learning a new version of myself. feel like I'm unlearning an old version of myself and one thing this journey with God has taught me is that there will be a lot of unlearning and it requires humility to unlearn like it requires a lot of humility to be like okay the way I was thinking was wrong the way I was doing things was wrong the way I was believing is wrong especially if it's like something you've been with your whole life it really takes a lot of humility so I'm definitely unlearning Thank you. I think one of the things I'm unlearning is with regards to me. I feel like sometimes in the corporate world, it's tough. It's like a very tough space to be in, especially if you're in like a fast paced environment. So I started to believe the lie that, OK, I wasn't smart enough. I wasn't qualified enough to be here. I wasn't like the other people. And, you know, like people are different and people like are passionate about the corporate space. That's all they are like. my job, my job, my job. But for me, it was like, okay, I have my job. I also have my life. So I used to feel like, maybe I'm not cut out for this. Maybe this isn't my thing. Maybe I'm not smart enough. But lately, it has been reminding me like you have the mind of Christ, you can do all things through Christ who strengthens you. And if you're in a place like he has placed you there for a reason. So don't count yourself out. Because of the standards of the world, like you need to be shrewd. You need to...
exercise the mind of christ so i think that's when please god has really been growing me like no you are strong enough you are capable enough to be in this space yeah um you mentioned that it requires humility to unlearn some things and i i believe that and this is so true last i think it was last week i was watching um a preaching a sermon yes i was watching a sermon from Pastor Sarah Jigswell, but I don't know if you know her.
Yes.
So she was talking about transformation. And she said that transformation is not about perfection, but it's when you are humble enough to be teachable. And I was like, wow, that's true.
Yes.
Because it's not about like, I want to become, I want to become. When I see the result, then I'm transformed. But are you humble enough? to receive um comments are you humble enough to receive um opinions from other people when you are wrong are you humble enough to even from god you know there are some times you like god can say some things about you but are you humble enough to receive those um word that god will give you about your destiny your path your journey or whatever that you're doing that's how you become from that Thank you. You are constantly transformed to the image of Jesus. It's when you are humble enough. So I believe that this is, yeah, if you want to change, if you want to unlearn an old version of yourself, you have to be humble. You have to recognize that you don't know everything, that there will be some days you will not be perfect, that there will be some days you will miss the mark. And God will forgive you, but you get up and keep going. Yeah.
That's what I believe.
You get up and keep going. You don't have to stay down and, you know, victimize yourself and say that I'm not worthy. I don't, no, You don't have to do this. You have to get up and keep going because God is always there for you. He's always there to forgive you and all that. So I really love what you say. My next question is, how has faith shaped your identity and beliefs? Okay, how is faith shaped by identity? Okay, so I think, yeah, I kind of touched on this. My identity, faith, who God says I am is who I am, regardless of situation, circumstances, how things are looking. I'm still loved even if I'm waiting. I'm still chosen even if man rejects me. And it's also just shaped. my beliefs in the sense that i don't know i'm just able to stand on the word of god more and even how i interact with you are speaking the word constantly and honestly this is perfect yeah i've also just even in how i interact with people um i don't know just treating loving because jesus said we should love him and love god and love people so even just how i'm showing up for people. loving people. I feel like I used to have a big challenge with people. Like I used to believe people are not worthy. I once held a grudge against a guy for seven years and it's only when I got, yeah, seven years. And it's only when I really came to Christ that I forgave him. So even the way I interact with people or treat people is different. Like I believe everyone worthy of love and everyone deserves just to be loved because that's what God asked us to do. So it's really just also helped my relationship with others as well.
That's good. For me, when I think about my life, I feel like faith has shaped a lot of things in me. First of all, my identity. I really struggled to believe that God loves me, that even people love me. I always thought that I was never enough. I was never enough. I was never enough. Like, no matter what I do. Even though I was a very smart student, I was a young person. Yes, yes. But that low self-esteem, you know, that spirit would constantly tell me that I'm not enough, that no matter what I do, I need to do more, I need to do more. And so when I, for me, it was more about my relationship with the Holy Spirit. There was the Word of God. I believed the Word of God a lot. But for me, it was... especially my relationship with the Holy Spirit. I talk a lot with the Holy Spirit. No matter what I go through, I would just enter into my home and start talking to Him and doing everything. You know what happened to me today? Let me tell you this. This girl, she did this communion, this relationship that I had with the Holy Spirit. This is what really helps me to build my identity. There were some days where I was talking to Him and crying and He would talk to me back. it would tell me that you don't believe the yeah the holy spirit is so sweet it's the comfort as the bible says so it would always convince me and tell me the things that i have to believe the things that i have to change in my mindset since i was struggling with my mind so it told me that i had to think on the word of god and those things really helps me a lot you know there's There are some things that you can do if you are a therapist. But believe me, the Holy Spirit is is the best of the therapy because it knows you it really is it knows your heart it can enter into your heart and see what is wrong with you you see and you love it you love it yes so it can enter into your heart and see in your heart what is wrong with you what is happening on the inside of you even some things that you can't even see some things that you can't even and those things it would reveal them to you and you see that oh so this is the world this is what happened so for me the holy spirit is the best person if you want to yeah anyway when when i talk about my story is the person that really helps me to um shape my identity to change the way i saw myself and to believe that i'm i am more than what i was thinking you that i'm enough yeah that i'm loved you know yeah so yeah that's it okay let's talk about now what part of the you feel god is refining right now um what part of my character um
i would definitely i don't know i don't know what part i can call this but it's definitely the part of waiting I guess well I don't know if it's patience I think maybe it's patience because I truly lacked patience And I think he's still working on me with regards to patience because, I don't know, I always think of the Israelites, like going from Egypt to the promised land. And like you said, like in the waiting season is just refining you. He's removing things. He's removing the Egypt mentality because you can't enter the promised land with an Egypt mentality. So I think he's really just pruning me, removing things from that. not disturb me in the next season and also just teaching me to wait well and to just be patient not just with him with other people as well because sometimes i can i lack patience i think he's teaching me you know just take it easy relax be calm and also just helping me appreciate that the season of wilderness is the necessary season like you really can't step into Thank you. who God has called you to be unless or until you've gone through the wilderness those seasons where your faith is being tested those seasons where you know you learn to rely heavily on God because I can be self-sufficient sometimes I'm like okay I need to do something I'll get it done but God is teaching me like no you need to rely on me you don't always have to do it yourself or you know be this strong macho woman like I'm here rely on me so I'm learning to be patient to rely on the Lord and also to just embrace every season. I heard something or someone once said that if you can't be content in your current season, then you won't be content in your next season. And I think Paul also said that he knows what it is to have plenty. He knows what it is to lack, but he can do all things through Christ. So if Christ isn't your main source of satisfaction in your current season, then even in your next season, Always want the next thing, So I'm also just trying to find contentment in Christ so that even when I go to my next season, it won't be like, oh, what's next? What's next? Okay, yes, you can obviously desire more and want to grow. But true contentment should come from Christ.
Yeah. For me, I think that what God is trying to find in me is... He wants me to learn to silence my mind and to cultivate peace. Cultivate peace. I used to talk a lot about peace, but listen, to cultivate your peace constantly, this is work. This is a lot of work. It is. It is. This is harder than I thought. Because, you know, I have this thing of, I want to control everything. no matter what is happening around me i want to control i want to do what's going to happen i want to know how i'm going to react i want to anticipate i want to make sure that everything is perfect and god is telling me to relax just to stop that like you don't have to know what next you don't have to control you even you don't have to anticipate you have to silence your mind and to be at peace this is something that i'm still learning. Sometimes I'm like, oh God, it's hard. It's really hard.
He wants to know what's going to happen next.
We are still in it. What else can we do? Let's go to the next question. Do you think the word of God is something that can help people go through the process of becoming? I know we already talked about it, but Since you love the Word of God and you speak the Word of God, I want you to explain, to go deeper into this. Tell us how the Word of God can help someone who wants to become a better version of themselves. What is the process? What does it look like if you want to focus on the Word of God in order to change some behaviors, in order to unlearn an old version of yourself?
I think what helps, first of all, the word of God is the infallible truth. It is true 100%. If it's in the Bible, if it's in the word of God, if it came from the mouth of God, it's 100% true. And what I love about living in this age is if you specifically want certain scriptures for something, you can literally just Google it and be like, okay, I'm struggling with anger. I'm struggling with identity. Or give me verses. people or different kinds of things so there is there's nothing that happens in the world that's not in the word of god so for whatever situation you're in there's a scripture related to that so i would say that's a good starting point just finding out the truth about what you're going through and um you Actually get into the word of God. I know some Christians who will take someone else's word for it or will, yeah, they don't really get into the word of God or read the word of God. So I think even just building the habit of reading the Bible for yourself because listening to sermons is okay. Going to church is great. Like we basically go to church, listen to the podcast, listen to the sermons. But. when you cultivate quiet time with God and you spend time one-on-one with him he can speak to you about you the thing about like he can obviously speak to you through other people but when you're together God can really go deep regarding your situation and regarding where you are and like really tailor make his own personal holy spirit sermon for you so actually read your bible actually make time for the Lord I feel like a lot of Christians want to be like oh I want to walk in God's purpose for my life I want to do this and that but we neglect that intimacy and that relationship but we've seen the story of Mary and Martha Martha was busy cooking and obviously what Martha was doing was not a bad thing Jesus Christ is in your house are you telling me I'm not going to cook for Jesus and whip out your best chef skills of course you are but Mary preferred or chose relationship. over performance so also just really just cultivating relationship and i think that's one thing i struggled with at some point was like okay what's the next podcast episode okay what do i post next okay okay like you get a revelation and straight jia i was off to the internet but just having a moment with god with that word like okay god this is what your word says what are you saying to me what did you mean when this and that like let him reveal things to you. Yeah.
Okay. What can you say to, because I know some Christians will say that they are struggling to understand the word of God. They are raising it, but sometimes it's hard. When you go to the book of Leviticus, you know, that book is hard. There are some things that you just know that you cannot understand. So what advice would you give to someone who is struggling to understand the word of God?
Okay. First of all, pray before you read the Word of God. Ask the Holy Spirit to open up the scriptures to you. I think one thing I used to do, I would just open up the Bible and I'll start reading and I'll be like, what's going on? What's going on? But definitely pray before you read the Bible. And secondly, I think Paul talked about there being spiritual milk and spiritual meat. I think sometimes when we don't read the Bible, you can open up the Bible and anything will be. spiritual meat because you don't understand the background you don't understand what's going on or what this means so a good place to always start is the costos like what's jesus about what's going on with jesus and then i think when you get a big more of an understanding of who jesus is and the more you read your word the more you desire to read your word and then the more you can grow and also i think a lot of christians just read the bible we should you be studying the Bible. Yes, you can read the Bible time to time. You're just reading, but you need to study the Bible. I think it's called hermeneutics. You need to know who wrote the book, why they wrote the book, who they wrote the book to, what was the cultural context, what was the political context. So as opposed to just reading, like do some research, like, okay, why is it saying in the book of Leviticus that, oh, you shouldn't be getting tattoos? Oh, at the time there was a culture. people were cutting their skin to honor um people who passed away or false gods like you need to dive deeper into the text as opposed to just reading so like actually make the effort to study the bible yeah but the holy spirit will guide you first prayer and
i wanted to dive deeper into this um i wanted to say that before um opening your bible always pray to the holy food and asking the Bible to you because he's the author of the Bible. He knows the Bible very well. So if you want to know any scripture that you're struggling with, just ask him and he will explain to you. So this is what I wanted to add to what you see, but I really love the answer. So is there any scripture, and you already talked about this, but is there any scripture that you, your favorite scripture from the Bible or any scripture that helps you to Thank you. to work on yourself? Any scripture that you kept coming back to when you were struggling, when you were going through some challenges? Is there any particular scripture that really is in your heart?
um there's so many we just won i think for this season the scripture that i'm like standing on is numbers 23 19 which says that god is not a man that he should lie god is not a man that he should change his mind if he said it he will do it has he ever failed to achieve what he set out to achieve and this has really been my anchor especially when trying to build my faith because you know god makes He's made promises to me. He's made promises to us in the Bible. And sometimes in the day-to-day life, it's hard. It's hard to remember, oh, God spoke this over my life. Or, oh, God has said this about me in his word. It can be really challenging. So this verse has just, it's reminding me that, listen, girl, God is not a liar. If anybody is a liar, it's definitely not God. He doesn't change his mind. If he said it, he will do it. So. That's one thing that has been keeping me going. The fact that God is good. God is who he says he is. And if he said it, he will do it. Like that's been keeping me this season because life has been challenging. But every time I'm like, my Lord is not a liar. I will not despair because the God I serve does not lie. And he said some things to me and he did not lie when he said those things.
Wow. I love it. Okay. Bye.
Your scripture must be keeping you.
I'm coming. I'm coming. Mine is Psalm 139, verse 14. I praise you because I'm cheerfully and wonderfully made. Your works are wonderful, and I know them very well. Full work, yes. That's it. So this scripture really helps me because at some points, I kept comparing myself to people. you know i kept comparing myself to people and god kept telling me that you are unique that you don't have to compare yourself that i made you that you are different so you have to understand that you have to be conscious about that so i kept coming back to that scripture every day when the day was telling me to compare myself to people or when i had some friend of mine who were doing better than me in some you know in another area and then i would start myself today may say wait am i not enough what no i'll always come back to that scripture and remind myself that i am fearfully and wonderfully amazed that i don't have to compare to anyone that i am enough that i am unique that i'm special that god loves me and constantly remind me hallelujah and that really helps me to be firm and to go into to my personality and to what God has called me to do and to find out to be different and to love myself with who I am what I have and yeah that's it so this is all
right I feel like I really I relate to that so much and I was having a conversation with my friend and I was like have you ever noticed that if like you're talking about King David you never say oh David was a great king but he wasn't as good a prophet as Elijah. No, we don't ever compare them. We just say David was great. Elijah was great. Like we acknowledge them for who they are. So I don't understand why we start to compare ourselves to other people. Like, yeah, I think God has also like been teaching me that this season. Like, here are you. Like, there's nobody else like you. I made you exactly the way you are and put you where you are for the purpose on your life. So yeah, I like that.
Me too, I like that. Okay. what message would you give to someone who is currently in this season where they are stuck between who they are and who they are becoming? What message would you give to them?
Well, first I would say it's not easy. It definitely isn't an easy place to be because you can see who you're called to be you can see where you want to go but when you look around you um you it's not matching up to the place that you're seeing or envisioning for yourself so first of all you're not alone there's a lot of us who are in the in between and the in between can be daunting it can be challenging but i love um the story of peter walking on water it always really encourages me especially when i'm feeling especially low because Peter was able to keep walking on water as long as he kept his eyes fixed on Jesus and the minute he took his eyes off of Jesus and he looked at the situation he saw the wind he saw the waves he began to sink and I think the same is true for us we can only keep progressing towards being the person we want to become or who God has called us to be when we focused on Christ. It helps us get through the disappointments the heartbreaks the setbacks the financial challenges the losses when you focus on christ you're able to keep taking steps forward but the minute you look to the left or you look to the right you start to drown and you find yourself stuck so the best advice i would give is like keep yourself focused on jesus christ whatever that looks reading your bible praying being in your word having godly community around you just keep your eyes focused on christ because we walk by faith not by sight so if you're not if you are going to focus on what's happening around you which is the site like the situation you will not move you'll be discouraged but if you keep your eyes focused on christ you'll be able to walk by faith because a lot of people in the bible david imagine david had been anointed to be king when he was a kid he killed goliath he killed all these bears and whatever then for a long period of his life If he was running away from Saul. If he had. right if he had let that situation get to him he wouldn't have become king because he wouldn't have kept his eyes focused on where god had called him if joseph sold into slavery wrongfully arrested but if he had focused on that situation around him he would have never become second in command to pharaoh so keep your eyes focused on christ and hold on to the word that god has given you like let that be your motivation faith begins where the will of god is known so if god has given you a word and you know this is what god wants for you hold on to that because that's what's going to keep you through the pain the disappointments and the setbacks i love that i love it okay
we are already at the end of this but i have one last question for you so this is a common question that i ask all the keys. What does it mean for you to become a better version of yourself?
Okay, better version of myself. Definitely walking in God's will for my life. Another thing God has been convicting me about is taking care of myself. I think there's a point where I let myself go. I stop working out. I stop doing my skincare routine. It's also just taking care of myself, bettering myself, whether it's through maybe a program, going to school. school just constantly improving myself allowing the holy spirit to work in and through me going through sanctification and just being obedient to god and being at the feet of the lord oh yeah thank you it's amazing and i really love that um
thank you chloe i'm really happy i learned a lot and you preach a lot to me you know Thank you. your voice you said a lot of things and i love that thank you so much for this insight i'm sure that a lot of people are learning from you and for from all the things that you said about your journey you spoke about the word of god um you spoke about um listening to the holy we spoke about listening to the holy spirit as well so all of those things if you want to become a better version of yourself through faith Thank you. If you want to become a better version of yourself with God, with the Holy Spirit, you know, he gives a lot of advices inside. So, yeah, I'm sure people are learning a lot. So, yeah, we are at the end of this live. See you at the next episode. Bye.
Description
In this episode, we dive into the process of becoming and how faith can shape that journey. We explore the importance of the Word of God in forming and revealing your identity, as well as the value of building an intimate relationship with the Holy Spirit in order to become the person God has called you to be according to His will.
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Transcription
Hello everyone and welcome back to the Mend the More podcast. I'm really happy because it's been a while but we are back. So today we are going to have a discussion with a guest. We are going to talk about becoming through faith and I'm really happy because she hosts her own podcast where she talks about blooming and a lot of it flourishing and becoming. And today, I believe that we are going to learn a lot from her journey and how faith has helped her to become the person she is today. So, welcome, Chloe.
Hi, thank you so much for having me.
We are happy to have you on this podcast. Alright, so we are going to start from the beginning. Can you introduce yourself and tell us what you do?
Okay, so my name is Chloe. I am Zambian. Currently, I'm working, doing the 9 to 5. I work in fast-moving consumer goods. I work in marketing. I love marketing. I love telling a story. I love getting people to understand what a brand is about. And I absolutely love Jesus Christ. I am a tea ministry teacher at my church. Currently going to Rema Bible Training Center in Zambia. I'm in my second year. So I think that's one of the things that's keeping me busy at the moment. But yeah, overall, love Jesus, works in marketing, team history teacher, Bible student.
That's good. But you forgot to mention that you host a podcast as well.
I do. I also host a podcast, my bad. It's called Blooming with Chloe. It is basically... A Christian podcast. And the whole aim of the podcast is to help the listeners bloom in Christ wherever they are in their journey. So whether you're in a waiting season, a growing season, a learning season, whether you're a baby Christian, a maturing Christian, it's just the aim is to help you bloom in Christ wherever you are in your journey.
I love that. I feel like it's the same as my podcast because I feel like we want to help people to. grow to become a better version of themselves whether it's through faith or advices or any tips that you can give or even our journey so yeah so you you told me off camera that right now you are in this season where you are learning about you are more um you are into your faith and your your faith journey so can you tell me what does it look like for you
Okay, so I think it's been interesting because at school, REMMA, the whole purpose of the school or the mandate that Kenneth Hagen was given when he started the school was to teach his people faith. So being at REMMA first year and now in my second year, I think it's really been practically taking me through ways that I could build my faith or can build my faith. And I feel like I've also been in a waiting season for a long time. And I know that we all have waiting seasons. So even if a prayer is answered, there's still something you're waiting for. Or you're like, you're always waiting for something. I've been waiting on the Lord for certain things to happen. And he's just been teaching me faith. And faith to me looks like just taking God at his word. because I think sometimes as Christians, we know the word of God, but we don't really believe it. Like we know it in our heads, but we don't believe it in our hearts. So this has been a season where God has been just taking me through the process of actually believing his word in my heart, taking him at his word, like if God has said something, then surely he will do it. And he's also just teaching me to seek him earnestly through reading his word. Faith comes by hearing. hearing by the word of God. So if you're not in the word of God, then your faith isn't growing because it's like present continuous. You need to be hearing the word of God. So being in the word of God and just seeking God, because sometimes I would only seek God when I needed something, but now I'm just seeking him for his presence and for who he is.
Hi friend, if you have been enjoying the Mainsumo podcast, I would like to invite you to the Main Tumor Community. This is a space for young women who want to grow and become together. In that community, you will find support, encouragement, and more. So if you want to join the Main Tumor Community, the link is in the description. You just have to press on that link and you'll be part of our community. You spoke about the waiting season, so I want to dive deeper into this because this is something that all the Christians are struggling with. So can you tell me, can you tell us what your waiting season was looking like?
So, I think every Christian wants to have like the perfect waiting season and be like, yeah, I waited on the Lord. I had faith and it was wonderful and amazing. But one of the things that I'm drawing strength from is the scriptures. So you see like almost everyone in the Bible had a waiting season. And I think the only person who waited really well was Jesus. When you look at like Abraham and Sarah, they ended up having Ishmael. When you look at David, he was... practically depressed when he was running away from the soul crying to god why have you forsaken me so it's been a journey there have been times i've waited well there are other times i've given an ishmael there have been times i'm able to be like yes i believe the lord and the lord's promises and then the other times i'm like god is this ever gonna happen for me will you do it for me and the funny thing about waiting is that when you're waiting for something you everyone around you suddenly starts experiencing that or receiving that message and I'm like what about me what about me yeah it's been like here and there but also I don't know I've started to take it as if God is doing it for someone else then he's in the neighborhood he's on his way for me I'll be next in line so it's been a bit up and down but yeah I'm getting there
I really like what you said. And when I'm thinking about my own life, I'm currently in the waiting season. You know, the whole process of becoming, when you want to become, when you want to change some things in your behavior, in your mindset, there's this idea that you have in your mind that you want to, this person that you want to reach, you know, this perfect person that you want to reach. And you're always, you're constantly thinking, Like. am i like that i arrived to that like do i have the right mindset right now or do i still have to work on myself so this is hard this is hard to wait no matter what i'm looking for this season is is hard but it's actually an opportunity to grow if you are willing to submit to god if you are willing to follow him, to listen to him, you'll feel like you won't feel like this season is hard you would feel like it's easy actually and honestly yeah right now i'm currently waiting for a lot of things i'm out there's a lot of things that i'm waiting for but i'm also learning because i believe that if god is making me wait for some things it means that there are some things that you want to remove um from there are some things that you want to change there are some behaviors that you want me to change so yeah I'm still learning. I'm still growing. And that's it.
Yeah.
So, okay. So, yeah, you talked about the season you are currently in. So I want to know what was your life before you were a Christian? Can you describe how your life was before you became a Christian?
Okay, life before I was a Christian. So I think for me, I was one of those people who like, you grew up in the church. My mom was a Sunday school teacher, church every Sunday. But I think it became more of like just routine, like, okay, yes, every Sunday we go to church. Oh, yes, this is what we do. But I don't think I had personally, I think I had accepted Christ, but I wasn't being serious about my faith walk. So I think throughout primary school, secondary school, I was doing pretty okay. But then when I went to universities, when I really like went crazy, I started drinking, started having, I started fornicating, I started smoking weed. I actually smoked weed for like nine years. I was addicted. And I used to have affairs with like married men. Like I was just doing, I was doing so much. Glory to God for his saving power. But yeah, life before Christ was It was that kind of lifestyle, but I was also very sad, very dissatisfied with life. I was not confident in myself. I used to seek validation from relationships. So that's where I used to find my validation. Like, oh, okay, yeah, this guy loves me. And I felt love was more about performing. Like, what can I do for him to make him love me or for him to see me a certain way? So. that was my life before Christ and then I think at some point I just got really tired like you know when you're just like in the same cycle like it's the same thing over and over again and maybe it's like oh you meet a guy you sleep together he breaks your heart it's done you meet I'm tired of that cycle. And also I was very heavily into the smoking weed and I was just tired. Like I was very exhausted about how my life was going. And I remember I was like, okay, Jesus, I'm going to give you a chance for real, for real. And if, you know, if it doesn't work out, I'm going back to the world, but it worked out and I've actually never looked back. So I think what really drove me to developing my relationship with Christ. Christ was just I was tired I was tired I was depressed and I was just so dissatisfied with life so I want to dig deeper into
I want to talk about your identity how were you seeing yourself at that time what did you think about yourself before you became a Christian I want to know what you spoke about the lack of confidence so I want to know more about that aspect of your life where you Were you feeling good about yourself? Can you tell me more about it?
So when it came to my identity, I think when you are living in darkness and ignorance, you think you feel good and you think this is how life should be and you feel like it's the pinnacle of everything. So I would say at the time in the story.
Because for me, when I was in the dark, I wasn't feeling good about myself at all. So maybe it's a different story.
Yeah. You know, I think for me, it was more of like, you know, when you're like on substances, you're like, do you read? You're high. I used to be high a lot of the time. So I think that gave me like a false sense of security. And then when you're in a relationship, even that makes you feel good, like, oh, yeah, I'm the girl. I'm like this person, that person. Then you find all the relationship ends and all of a sudden you're depressed or you're sad or you don't have anything to land on. I feel like I used to feel like I was happy and I was good but then the more that went on the more I realized like actually no something is wrong I shouldn't be smoking this much or somebody else shouldn't be able to determine how I feel about myself like how I feel about me should come from the inside out but it was coming like from the outside in so yeah it was like an illusion and It was only...
as I grew older and I saw like I could feel like no this there's more to life than this like my life can't be dependent on the approval of others yeah I like that yeah I wanted to say that from what you were explaining it looked like you were happy on the outside but internally yeah yeah for me it was different because I feel like when I was in that Because for me, I knew God. I knew God since I'm a child and all. But the devil really found a way to get into my heart. So even when I was a Christian, I experienced depression, low self-esteem, you know, lack of confidence, all of those things. And I was a Christian. It's not as if I was far from Jesus. I was a Christian. So I had to fight and I had to, yeah. yes fight and also look for my deliverance because it was a lot of things that i was going to so for me it was different i was in the darkness i was in the dark there was no way for um four secrets whatever i was really in the dark i was just feeling good i was sad all the time and you know you know the devil is wicked so yeah so my next question is Do you think that faith has changed the way you see yourself now?
It definitely has 100% because, I mean, if you like look at the Bible or read the Bible, there are so many wonderful things God has said about us. He says before he formed us, he knew us, he predestined us for greatness. We are a chosen generation, chosen people. We are loved. We are righteous. We are holy. So before that, I would read the word of God and I wouldn't believe like I'm righteous. I know there's a verse that says, the steps of a righteous man are ordered by the Lord or a righteous man falls seven times but gets up seven times or the prayer of a righteous man availeth much. So I would read that and think to myself, oh my gosh, I'm actually not righteous. But the more I've grown, I understand that actually Christ imputed his righteousness to me. I am the righteousness of God through Jesus Christ. So I am righteous. So even if I stumble today, I'm still righteous. So it's really helped shape my identity of myself because now when I read the word of God, I have faith and I believe what I read. I believe that I am holy. I believe that I am righteous. I believe that I am justified. I believe that I am chosen. I believe that I am loved. I believe that God formed me. He knows me deeply and that he loves me. So that has really helped shape who I am. So I don't think anybody can come today and tell me something about myself. that is contrary to the word of God, I'll be like, no, no, no, listen, the word of God says this. So it's really helped me form my identity in Christ based on what Christ did on the cross and what the word of God says.
I really like what you're saying. And for what I'm hearing, I feel like your identity is solid. It's strong. It's unshakable. It's like, I cannot, I cannot commentate you, Chloe, you are a bad person. You won't even listen to me. And this is what I do. A lot of us need that. We need to have that strong belief that we are loved, that we are... All of what the Bible says about us, we need to believe that because it's so important because the devil will always come and tell you lies. And if you dare listen to him, if you dare put your ears to listen to the devil, you will be saved. right you will like yourself but i want to know more about that process like yes you told me all of those things it looks nice that you believe but what was the process of you coming to these points of believing that you are loved that you are all of those things um
so i mentioned that i go to remma right i think remma has really played a big role in Thank you.
shaping this because i think like um as christians sometimes we yes um the woman is it your church or is it uh what is it oh no no it's um it's a bible training uh yes
so it's a i think they're global they're in africa they're in the americas they're all over the all over the world yeah founded by kenneth hayden so it's a two-year program very intensive. It's Monday to Friday. I go for evening classes. So immediately after work, I'm going to school from like 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. So it's just a very structured course. So first year is more about you as an individual. You learn things like the courses we did were like faith foundations, righteousness, search for significance, biblical finances, blood covenants. So. it just really helps you understand who you are in Christ. Like, Search for Significance showed us like sometimes people draw their identity from approval. Some people are approval addicts. Some people fear rejection. Some people have shame. And it just helps you identify a lot of things, really.
So going through
Rema. Yes. So going through Rema has really just helped me solidify it and I would say for someone who says oh I'm not going through Rema it's just basically the word of God like my favorite verse is Romans 12 2 which says do not be conformed to the pattern of the world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind then you'll be able to test and approve God's good perfect and pleasing will. So your mind basically you have strongholds in your mind. And the only thing that can break those strongholds is the word of God, who the son sets free is free indeed. So the more you listen to the word, the more you read your word, the more your mind is renewed and the way you think begins to change. So like the Bible says, faith comes by hearing. You need to be constantly hearing. It's not about it doesn't come by. I heard you need to constantly be hearing the word of God so that your mind is renewed. and you're transformed so i think that's one thing that's i just love what i'm hearing i love that because you're giving a lot of so yeah it's hearing the word of god and being in the word of god like i don't underestimate the power of the word i remember at the time i stopped smoking weed prior to that i had been like really in my bible listening to sermons listening to podcasts podcasts, all these things. And one day I woke up and I didn't want to smoke weed anymore. And it was this year. I've been sober for years. And this year I was asking the Lord, I was like, what happened? I didn't have like deliverance. There was no laying of hands. There was no shaking. There was no demons. And the Holy Spirit revealed to me that just.
hearing the truth when you know the truth the truth will set you free so just the word of god and having that truth set me free so it was just a problem you're pushing to my heart and i love that i honestly i love that yeah i love it yeah
so it's just reading the word of god just getting into the word that's why we always say read your bible pray every day because there's power in the word of god and in the presence of god
I love it. So for you, it was more about reading the word of God. Everything. Or did you do anything else in that process?
So I guess there was reading the word of God. Definitely having a good community around me of good Christian friends who, first of all, confessed the word of God over my life. who you When you go to them, they give you wise, godly counsel. Because, you know, they can be friends. And they can be your good friends. But you go to them and you're like, oh, I want to do this thing that's wrong. And they'll be hyping you up like, yeah, no, it's okay. Everybody else is doing it. But just having people who can tell you, no, this isn't right. This won't benefit you. That also really helps. Also, just having people like the friends you can be accountable to them. If you're struggling in a certain area and you tell them, I'm trying to do this or trying to achieve it. And they help you. be accountable and actually do what you want to do. And another thing that's really helped is like just getting a hold of my mind. I'm the kind of person who has the tendency to like daydream or overanalyze or like take a situation and make it something it's not. Or if somebody wrongs me, oh yeah, if I could do something bad happen to me, they would feel bad. Like my mind just was one of my biggest enemies. So just making sure that if thought enters my head. that doesn't align with the word of God just being intentional about first of all rebuking that thought and replacing it with the truth of God so whereas before if I felt like oh my gosh nobody loves me I'd be like no no no you are chosen uh before the foundation of the earth were laid Christ was laid for your sake just controlling my mind because my mind was one of my biggest struggles because you either win or lose in your mind first so that was one of the things that really helped me.
I loved what you said about working on your mind because me too, my biggest issue in my life story is my mind. Yeah.
This is the fight of my life.
Are you ready? Are you ready? I think I read it yes yeah so it's all in the mind this book blesses me so much and this book one thing that really helps me is that she spoke about she said discipline your mind and I never knew that I never knew that I needed to discipline my mind that any thoughts that I had in my mind were not thoughts from God Sometimes those thoughts were from the devil and I had to rebuke them. I had to change and speak the word of God constantly so that my mind would expand. So yeah, I also struggled a lot with this mind thing. But by the grace of God now, I'm still working on it. But I love that you talk about it because this is something that I feel like a lot of people are also struggling with. But they don't know what to do. you know sometimes when you um you you listen constantly lies you ended up you end up um believing in those lies if you don't learn to rebuke them constantly you feel like you are not loved that people don't love you that you are not worthy of love of you know all of those things exactly so my next question is what kind of person do you think that you are becoming through faith the kind of person I'm becoming through faith
I would say um well hopefully I'm becoming the woman God has called me to be I think one of the things that's really important for me is to really fulfill God's purpose for my life and And that's one of the things that. this season of faith is teaching me like you can be doing something good there's nothing wrong with that but if you're not fulfilling god's purpose for your life then you're not where you're supposed to be so um i think i'm becoming the woman god has called me to be it's not easy it's been a journey some days are better but I just want to be that woman who God has called me to be, whoever she is. Still discovering who she is, but looking forward to meeting her and fully becoming her. That's good. Yeah.
That's good. Okay, let's go to the next question. Do you feel like you are unlearning an old version of yourself? If yes, what?
I definitely feel like I'm learning a new version of myself. feel like I'm unlearning an old version of myself and one thing this journey with God has taught me is that there will be a lot of unlearning and it requires humility to unlearn like it requires a lot of humility to be like okay the way I was thinking was wrong the way I was doing things was wrong the way I was believing is wrong especially if it's like something you've been with your whole life it really takes a lot of humility so I'm definitely unlearning Thank you. I think one of the things I'm unlearning is with regards to me. I feel like sometimes in the corporate world, it's tough. It's like a very tough space to be in, especially if you're in like a fast paced environment. So I started to believe the lie that, OK, I wasn't smart enough. I wasn't qualified enough to be here. I wasn't like the other people. And, you know, like people are different and people like are passionate about the corporate space. That's all they are like. my job, my job, my job. But for me, it was like, okay, I have my job. I also have my life. So I used to feel like, maybe I'm not cut out for this. Maybe this isn't my thing. Maybe I'm not smart enough. But lately, it has been reminding me like you have the mind of Christ, you can do all things through Christ who strengthens you. And if you're in a place like he has placed you there for a reason. So don't count yourself out. Because of the standards of the world, like you need to be shrewd. You need to...
exercise the mind of christ so i think that's when please god has really been growing me like no you are strong enough you are capable enough to be in this space yeah um you mentioned that it requires humility to unlearn some things and i i believe that and this is so true last i think it was last week i was watching um a preaching a sermon yes i was watching a sermon from Pastor Sarah Jigswell, but I don't know if you know her.
Yes.
So she was talking about transformation. And she said that transformation is not about perfection, but it's when you are humble enough to be teachable. And I was like, wow, that's true.
Yes.
Because it's not about like, I want to become, I want to become. When I see the result, then I'm transformed. But are you humble enough? to receive um comments are you humble enough to receive um opinions from other people when you are wrong are you humble enough to even from god you know there are some times you like god can say some things about you but are you humble enough to receive those um word that god will give you about your destiny your path your journey or whatever that you're doing that's how you become from that Thank you. You are constantly transformed to the image of Jesus. It's when you are humble enough. So I believe that this is, yeah, if you want to change, if you want to unlearn an old version of yourself, you have to be humble. You have to recognize that you don't know everything, that there will be some days you will not be perfect, that there will be some days you will miss the mark. And God will forgive you, but you get up and keep going. Yeah.
That's what I believe.
You get up and keep going. You don't have to stay down and, you know, victimize yourself and say that I'm not worthy. I don't, no, You don't have to do this. You have to get up and keep going because God is always there for you. He's always there to forgive you and all that. So I really love what you say. My next question is, how has faith shaped your identity and beliefs? Okay, how is faith shaped by identity? Okay, so I think, yeah, I kind of touched on this. My identity, faith, who God says I am is who I am, regardless of situation, circumstances, how things are looking. I'm still loved even if I'm waiting. I'm still chosen even if man rejects me. And it's also just shaped. my beliefs in the sense that i don't know i'm just able to stand on the word of god more and even how i interact with you are speaking the word constantly and honestly this is perfect yeah i've also just even in how i interact with people um i don't know just treating loving because jesus said we should love him and love god and love people so even just how i'm showing up for people. loving people. I feel like I used to have a big challenge with people. Like I used to believe people are not worthy. I once held a grudge against a guy for seven years and it's only when I got, yeah, seven years. And it's only when I really came to Christ that I forgave him. So even the way I interact with people or treat people is different. Like I believe everyone worthy of love and everyone deserves just to be loved because that's what God asked us to do. So it's really just also helped my relationship with others as well.
That's good. For me, when I think about my life, I feel like faith has shaped a lot of things in me. First of all, my identity. I really struggled to believe that God loves me, that even people love me. I always thought that I was never enough. I was never enough. I was never enough. Like, no matter what I do. Even though I was a very smart student, I was a young person. Yes, yes. But that low self-esteem, you know, that spirit would constantly tell me that I'm not enough, that no matter what I do, I need to do more, I need to do more. And so when I, for me, it was more about my relationship with the Holy Spirit. There was the Word of God. I believed the Word of God a lot. But for me, it was... especially my relationship with the Holy Spirit. I talk a lot with the Holy Spirit. No matter what I go through, I would just enter into my home and start talking to Him and doing everything. You know what happened to me today? Let me tell you this. This girl, she did this communion, this relationship that I had with the Holy Spirit. This is what really helps me to build my identity. There were some days where I was talking to Him and crying and He would talk to me back. it would tell me that you don't believe the yeah the holy spirit is so sweet it's the comfort as the bible says so it would always convince me and tell me the things that i have to believe the things that i have to change in my mindset since i was struggling with my mind so it told me that i had to think on the word of god and those things really helps me a lot you know there's There are some things that you can do if you are a therapist. But believe me, the Holy Spirit is is the best of the therapy because it knows you it really is it knows your heart it can enter into your heart and see what is wrong with you you see and you love it you love it yes so it can enter into your heart and see in your heart what is wrong with you what is happening on the inside of you even some things that you can't even see some things that you can't even and those things it would reveal them to you and you see that oh so this is the world this is what happened so for me the holy spirit is the best person if you want to yeah anyway when when i talk about my story is the person that really helps me to um shape my identity to change the way i saw myself and to believe that i'm i am more than what i was thinking you that i'm enough yeah that i'm loved you know yeah so yeah that's it okay let's talk about now what part of the you feel god is refining right now um what part of my character um
i would definitely i don't know i don't know what part i can call this but it's definitely the part of waiting I guess well I don't know if it's patience I think maybe it's patience because I truly lacked patience And I think he's still working on me with regards to patience because, I don't know, I always think of the Israelites, like going from Egypt to the promised land. And like you said, like in the waiting season is just refining you. He's removing things. He's removing the Egypt mentality because you can't enter the promised land with an Egypt mentality. So I think he's really just pruning me, removing things from that. not disturb me in the next season and also just teaching me to wait well and to just be patient not just with him with other people as well because sometimes i can i lack patience i think he's teaching me you know just take it easy relax be calm and also just helping me appreciate that the season of wilderness is the necessary season like you really can't step into Thank you. who God has called you to be unless or until you've gone through the wilderness those seasons where your faith is being tested those seasons where you know you learn to rely heavily on God because I can be self-sufficient sometimes I'm like okay I need to do something I'll get it done but God is teaching me like no you need to rely on me you don't always have to do it yourself or you know be this strong macho woman like I'm here rely on me so I'm learning to be patient to rely on the Lord and also to just embrace every season. I heard something or someone once said that if you can't be content in your current season, then you won't be content in your next season. And I think Paul also said that he knows what it is to have plenty. He knows what it is to lack, but he can do all things through Christ. So if Christ isn't your main source of satisfaction in your current season, then even in your next season, Always want the next thing, So I'm also just trying to find contentment in Christ so that even when I go to my next season, it won't be like, oh, what's next? What's next? Okay, yes, you can obviously desire more and want to grow. But true contentment should come from Christ.
Yeah. For me, I think that what God is trying to find in me is... He wants me to learn to silence my mind and to cultivate peace. Cultivate peace. I used to talk a lot about peace, but listen, to cultivate your peace constantly, this is work. This is a lot of work. It is. It is. This is harder than I thought. Because, you know, I have this thing of, I want to control everything. no matter what is happening around me i want to control i want to do what's going to happen i want to know how i'm going to react i want to anticipate i want to make sure that everything is perfect and god is telling me to relax just to stop that like you don't have to know what next you don't have to control you even you don't have to anticipate you have to silence your mind and to be at peace this is something that i'm still learning. Sometimes I'm like, oh God, it's hard. It's really hard.
He wants to know what's going to happen next.
We are still in it. What else can we do? Let's go to the next question. Do you think the word of God is something that can help people go through the process of becoming? I know we already talked about it, but Since you love the Word of God and you speak the Word of God, I want you to explain, to go deeper into this. Tell us how the Word of God can help someone who wants to become a better version of themselves. What is the process? What does it look like if you want to focus on the Word of God in order to change some behaviors, in order to unlearn an old version of yourself?
I think what helps, first of all, the word of God is the infallible truth. It is true 100%. If it's in the Bible, if it's in the word of God, if it came from the mouth of God, it's 100% true. And what I love about living in this age is if you specifically want certain scriptures for something, you can literally just Google it and be like, okay, I'm struggling with anger. I'm struggling with identity. Or give me verses. people or different kinds of things so there is there's nothing that happens in the world that's not in the word of god so for whatever situation you're in there's a scripture related to that so i would say that's a good starting point just finding out the truth about what you're going through and um you Actually get into the word of God. I know some Christians who will take someone else's word for it or will, yeah, they don't really get into the word of God or read the word of God. So I think even just building the habit of reading the Bible for yourself because listening to sermons is okay. Going to church is great. Like we basically go to church, listen to the podcast, listen to the sermons. But. when you cultivate quiet time with God and you spend time one-on-one with him he can speak to you about you the thing about like he can obviously speak to you through other people but when you're together God can really go deep regarding your situation and regarding where you are and like really tailor make his own personal holy spirit sermon for you so actually read your bible actually make time for the Lord I feel like a lot of Christians want to be like oh I want to walk in God's purpose for my life I want to do this and that but we neglect that intimacy and that relationship but we've seen the story of Mary and Martha Martha was busy cooking and obviously what Martha was doing was not a bad thing Jesus Christ is in your house are you telling me I'm not going to cook for Jesus and whip out your best chef skills of course you are but Mary preferred or chose relationship. over performance so also just really just cultivating relationship and i think that's one thing i struggled with at some point was like okay what's the next podcast episode okay what do i post next okay okay like you get a revelation and straight jia i was off to the internet but just having a moment with god with that word like okay god this is what your word says what are you saying to me what did you mean when this and that like let him reveal things to you. Yeah.
Okay. What can you say to, because I know some Christians will say that they are struggling to understand the word of God. They are raising it, but sometimes it's hard. When you go to the book of Leviticus, you know, that book is hard. There are some things that you just know that you cannot understand. So what advice would you give to someone who is struggling to understand the word of God?
Okay. First of all, pray before you read the Word of God. Ask the Holy Spirit to open up the scriptures to you. I think one thing I used to do, I would just open up the Bible and I'll start reading and I'll be like, what's going on? What's going on? But definitely pray before you read the Bible. And secondly, I think Paul talked about there being spiritual milk and spiritual meat. I think sometimes when we don't read the Bible, you can open up the Bible and anything will be. spiritual meat because you don't understand the background you don't understand what's going on or what this means so a good place to always start is the costos like what's jesus about what's going on with jesus and then i think when you get a big more of an understanding of who jesus is and the more you read your word the more you desire to read your word and then the more you can grow and also i think a lot of christians just read the bible we should you be studying the Bible. Yes, you can read the Bible time to time. You're just reading, but you need to study the Bible. I think it's called hermeneutics. You need to know who wrote the book, why they wrote the book, who they wrote the book to, what was the cultural context, what was the political context. So as opposed to just reading, like do some research, like, okay, why is it saying in the book of Leviticus that, oh, you shouldn't be getting tattoos? Oh, at the time there was a culture. people were cutting their skin to honor um people who passed away or false gods like you need to dive deeper into the text as opposed to just reading so like actually make the effort to study the bible yeah but the holy spirit will guide you first prayer and
i wanted to dive deeper into this um i wanted to say that before um opening your bible always pray to the holy food and asking the Bible to you because he's the author of the Bible. He knows the Bible very well. So if you want to know any scripture that you're struggling with, just ask him and he will explain to you. So this is what I wanted to add to what you see, but I really love the answer. So is there any scripture, and you already talked about this, but is there any scripture that you, your favorite scripture from the Bible or any scripture that helps you to Thank you. to work on yourself? Any scripture that you kept coming back to when you were struggling, when you were going through some challenges? Is there any particular scripture that really is in your heart?
um there's so many we just won i think for this season the scripture that i'm like standing on is numbers 23 19 which says that god is not a man that he should lie god is not a man that he should change his mind if he said it he will do it has he ever failed to achieve what he set out to achieve and this has really been my anchor especially when trying to build my faith because you know god makes He's made promises to me. He's made promises to us in the Bible. And sometimes in the day-to-day life, it's hard. It's hard to remember, oh, God spoke this over my life. Or, oh, God has said this about me in his word. It can be really challenging. So this verse has just, it's reminding me that, listen, girl, God is not a liar. If anybody is a liar, it's definitely not God. He doesn't change his mind. If he said it, he will do it. So. That's one thing that has been keeping me going. The fact that God is good. God is who he says he is. And if he said it, he will do it. Like that's been keeping me this season because life has been challenging. But every time I'm like, my Lord is not a liar. I will not despair because the God I serve does not lie. And he said some things to me and he did not lie when he said those things.
Wow. I love it. Okay. Bye.
Your scripture must be keeping you.
I'm coming. I'm coming. Mine is Psalm 139, verse 14. I praise you because I'm cheerfully and wonderfully made. Your works are wonderful, and I know them very well. Full work, yes. That's it. So this scripture really helps me because at some points, I kept comparing myself to people. you know i kept comparing myself to people and god kept telling me that you are unique that you don't have to compare yourself that i made you that you are different so you have to understand that you have to be conscious about that so i kept coming back to that scripture every day when the day was telling me to compare myself to people or when i had some friend of mine who were doing better than me in some you know in another area and then i would start myself today may say wait am i not enough what no i'll always come back to that scripture and remind myself that i am fearfully and wonderfully amazed that i don't have to compare to anyone that i am enough that i am unique that i'm special that god loves me and constantly remind me hallelujah and that really helps me to be firm and to go into to my personality and to what God has called me to do and to find out to be different and to love myself with who I am what I have and yeah that's it so this is all
right I feel like I really I relate to that so much and I was having a conversation with my friend and I was like have you ever noticed that if like you're talking about King David you never say oh David was a great king but he wasn't as good a prophet as Elijah. No, we don't ever compare them. We just say David was great. Elijah was great. Like we acknowledge them for who they are. So I don't understand why we start to compare ourselves to other people. Like, yeah, I think God has also like been teaching me that this season. Like, here are you. Like, there's nobody else like you. I made you exactly the way you are and put you where you are for the purpose on your life. So yeah, I like that.
Me too, I like that. Okay. what message would you give to someone who is currently in this season where they are stuck between who they are and who they are becoming? What message would you give to them?
Well, first I would say it's not easy. It definitely isn't an easy place to be because you can see who you're called to be you can see where you want to go but when you look around you um you it's not matching up to the place that you're seeing or envisioning for yourself so first of all you're not alone there's a lot of us who are in the in between and the in between can be daunting it can be challenging but i love um the story of peter walking on water it always really encourages me especially when i'm feeling especially low because Peter was able to keep walking on water as long as he kept his eyes fixed on Jesus and the minute he took his eyes off of Jesus and he looked at the situation he saw the wind he saw the waves he began to sink and I think the same is true for us we can only keep progressing towards being the person we want to become or who God has called us to be when we focused on Christ. It helps us get through the disappointments the heartbreaks the setbacks the financial challenges the losses when you focus on christ you're able to keep taking steps forward but the minute you look to the left or you look to the right you start to drown and you find yourself stuck so the best advice i would give is like keep yourself focused on jesus christ whatever that looks reading your bible praying being in your word having godly community around you just keep your eyes focused on christ because we walk by faith not by sight so if you're not if you are going to focus on what's happening around you which is the site like the situation you will not move you'll be discouraged but if you keep your eyes focused on christ you'll be able to walk by faith because a lot of people in the bible david imagine david had been anointed to be king when he was a kid he killed goliath he killed all these bears and whatever then for a long period of his life If he was running away from Saul. If he had. right if he had let that situation get to him he wouldn't have become king because he wouldn't have kept his eyes focused on where god had called him if joseph sold into slavery wrongfully arrested but if he had focused on that situation around him he would have never become second in command to pharaoh so keep your eyes focused on christ and hold on to the word that god has given you like let that be your motivation faith begins where the will of god is known so if god has given you a word and you know this is what god wants for you hold on to that because that's what's going to keep you through the pain the disappointments and the setbacks i love that i love it okay
we are already at the end of this but i have one last question for you so this is a common question that i ask all the keys. What does it mean for you to become a better version of yourself?
Okay, better version of myself. Definitely walking in God's will for my life. Another thing God has been convicting me about is taking care of myself. I think there's a point where I let myself go. I stop working out. I stop doing my skincare routine. It's also just taking care of myself, bettering myself, whether it's through maybe a program, going to school. school just constantly improving myself allowing the holy spirit to work in and through me going through sanctification and just being obedient to god and being at the feet of the lord oh yeah thank you it's amazing and i really love that um
thank you chloe i'm really happy i learned a lot and you preach a lot to me you know Thank you. your voice you said a lot of things and i love that thank you so much for this insight i'm sure that a lot of people are learning from you and for from all the things that you said about your journey you spoke about the word of god um you spoke about um listening to the holy we spoke about listening to the holy spirit as well so all of those things if you want to become a better version of yourself through faith Thank you. If you want to become a better version of yourself with God, with the Holy Spirit, you know, he gives a lot of advices inside. So, yeah, I'm sure people are learning a lot. So, yeah, we are at the end of this live. See you at the next episode. Bye.
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In this episode, we dive into the process of becoming and how faith can shape that journey. We explore the importance of the Word of God in forming and revealing your identity, as well as the value of building an intimate relationship with the Holy Spirit in order to become the person God has called you to be according to His will.
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Transcription
Hello everyone and welcome back to the Mend the More podcast. I'm really happy because it's been a while but we are back. So today we are going to have a discussion with a guest. We are going to talk about becoming through faith and I'm really happy because she hosts her own podcast where she talks about blooming and a lot of it flourishing and becoming. And today, I believe that we are going to learn a lot from her journey and how faith has helped her to become the person she is today. So, welcome, Chloe.
Hi, thank you so much for having me.
We are happy to have you on this podcast. Alright, so we are going to start from the beginning. Can you introduce yourself and tell us what you do?
Okay, so my name is Chloe. I am Zambian. Currently, I'm working, doing the 9 to 5. I work in fast-moving consumer goods. I work in marketing. I love marketing. I love telling a story. I love getting people to understand what a brand is about. And I absolutely love Jesus Christ. I am a tea ministry teacher at my church. Currently going to Rema Bible Training Center in Zambia. I'm in my second year. So I think that's one of the things that's keeping me busy at the moment. But yeah, overall, love Jesus, works in marketing, team history teacher, Bible student.
That's good. But you forgot to mention that you host a podcast as well.
I do. I also host a podcast, my bad. It's called Blooming with Chloe. It is basically... A Christian podcast. And the whole aim of the podcast is to help the listeners bloom in Christ wherever they are in their journey. So whether you're in a waiting season, a growing season, a learning season, whether you're a baby Christian, a maturing Christian, it's just the aim is to help you bloom in Christ wherever you are in your journey.
I love that. I feel like it's the same as my podcast because I feel like we want to help people to. grow to become a better version of themselves whether it's through faith or advices or any tips that you can give or even our journey so yeah so you you told me off camera that right now you are in this season where you are learning about you are more um you are into your faith and your your faith journey so can you tell me what does it look like for you
Okay, so I think it's been interesting because at school, REMMA, the whole purpose of the school or the mandate that Kenneth Hagen was given when he started the school was to teach his people faith. So being at REMMA first year and now in my second year, I think it's really been practically taking me through ways that I could build my faith or can build my faith. And I feel like I've also been in a waiting season for a long time. And I know that we all have waiting seasons. So even if a prayer is answered, there's still something you're waiting for. Or you're like, you're always waiting for something. I've been waiting on the Lord for certain things to happen. And he's just been teaching me faith. And faith to me looks like just taking God at his word. because I think sometimes as Christians, we know the word of God, but we don't really believe it. Like we know it in our heads, but we don't believe it in our hearts. So this has been a season where God has been just taking me through the process of actually believing his word in my heart, taking him at his word, like if God has said something, then surely he will do it. And he's also just teaching me to seek him earnestly through reading his word. Faith comes by hearing. hearing by the word of God. So if you're not in the word of God, then your faith isn't growing because it's like present continuous. You need to be hearing the word of God. So being in the word of God and just seeking God, because sometimes I would only seek God when I needed something, but now I'm just seeking him for his presence and for who he is.
Hi friend, if you have been enjoying the Mainsumo podcast, I would like to invite you to the Main Tumor Community. This is a space for young women who want to grow and become together. In that community, you will find support, encouragement, and more. So if you want to join the Main Tumor Community, the link is in the description. You just have to press on that link and you'll be part of our community. You spoke about the waiting season, so I want to dive deeper into this because this is something that all the Christians are struggling with. So can you tell me, can you tell us what your waiting season was looking like?
So, I think every Christian wants to have like the perfect waiting season and be like, yeah, I waited on the Lord. I had faith and it was wonderful and amazing. But one of the things that I'm drawing strength from is the scriptures. So you see like almost everyone in the Bible had a waiting season. And I think the only person who waited really well was Jesus. When you look at like Abraham and Sarah, they ended up having Ishmael. When you look at David, he was... practically depressed when he was running away from the soul crying to god why have you forsaken me so it's been a journey there have been times i've waited well there are other times i've given an ishmael there have been times i'm able to be like yes i believe the lord and the lord's promises and then the other times i'm like god is this ever gonna happen for me will you do it for me and the funny thing about waiting is that when you're waiting for something you everyone around you suddenly starts experiencing that or receiving that message and I'm like what about me what about me yeah it's been like here and there but also I don't know I've started to take it as if God is doing it for someone else then he's in the neighborhood he's on his way for me I'll be next in line so it's been a bit up and down but yeah I'm getting there
I really like what you said. And when I'm thinking about my own life, I'm currently in the waiting season. You know, the whole process of becoming, when you want to become, when you want to change some things in your behavior, in your mindset, there's this idea that you have in your mind that you want to, this person that you want to reach, you know, this perfect person that you want to reach. And you're always, you're constantly thinking, Like. am i like that i arrived to that like do i have the right mindset right now or do i still have to work on myself so this is hard this is hard to wait no matter what i'm looking for this season is is hard but it's actually an opportunity to grow if you are willing to submit to god if you are willing to follow him, to listen to him, you'll feel like you won't feel like this season is hard you would feel like it's easy actually and honestly yeah right now i'm currently waiting for a lot of things i'm out there's a lot of things that i'm waiting for but i'm also learning because i believe that if god is making me wait for some things it means that there are some things that you want to remove um from there are some things that you want to change there are some behaviors that you want me to change so yeah I'm still learning. I'm still growing. And that's it.
Yeah.
So, okay. So, yeah, you talked about the season you are currently in. So I want to know what was your life before you were a Christian? Can you describe how your life was before you became a Christian?
Okay, life before I was a Christian. So I think for me, I was one of those people who like, you grew up in the church. My mom was a Sunday school teacher, church every Sunday. But I think it became more of like just routine, like, okay, yes, every Sunday we go to church. Oh, yes, this is what we do. But I don't think I had personally, I think I had accepted Christ, but I wasn't being serious about my faith walk. So I think throughout primary school, secondary school, I was doing pretty okay. But then when I went to universities, when I really like went crazy, I started drinking, started having, I started fornicating, I started smoking weed. I actually smoked weed for like nine years. I was addicted. And I used to have affairs with like married men. Like I was just doing, I was doing so much. Glory to God for his saving power. But yeah, life before Christ was It was that kind of lifestyle, but I was also very sad, very dissatisfied with life. I was not confident in myself. I used to seek validation from relationships. So that's where I used to find my validation. Like, oh, okay, yeah, this guy loves me. And I felt love was more about performing. Like, what can I do for him to make him love me or for him to see me a certain way? So. that was my life before Christ and then I think at some point I just got really tired like you know when you're just like in the same cycle like it's the same thing over and over again and maybe it's like oh you meet a guy you sleep together he breaks your heart it's done you meet I'm tired of that cycle. And also I was very heavily into the smoking weed and I was just tired. Like I was very exhausted about how my life was going. And I remember I was like, okay, Jesus, I'm going to give you a chance for real, for real. And if, you know, if it doesn't work out, I'm going back to the world, but it worked out and I've actually never looked back. So I think what really drove me to developing my relationship with Christ. Christ was just I was tired I was tired I was depressed and I was just so dissatisfied with life so I want to dig deeper into
I want to talk about your identity how were you seeing yourself at that time what did you think about yourself before you became a Christian I want to know what you spoke about the lack of confidence so I want to know more about that aspect of your life where you Were you feeling good about yourself? Can you tell me more about it?
So when it came to my identity, I think when you are living in darkness and ignorance, you think you feel good and you think this is how life should be and you feel like it's the pinnacle of everything. So I would say at the time in the story.
Because for me, when I was in the dark, I wasn't feeling good about myself at all. So maybe it's a different story.
Yeah. You know, I think for me, it was more of like, you know, when you're like on substances, you're like, do you read? You're high. I used to be high a lot of the time. So I think that gave me like a false sense of security. And then when you're in a relationship, even that makes you feel good, like, oh, yeah, I'm the girl. I'm like this person, that person. Then you find all the relationship ends and all of a sudden you're depressed or you're sad or you don't have anything to land on. I feel like I used to feel like I was happy and I was good but then the more that went on the more I realized like actually no something is wrong I shouldn't be smoking this much or somebody else shouldn't be able to determine how I feel about myself like how I feel about me should come from the inside out but it was coming like from the outside in so yeah it was like an illusion and It was only...
as I grew older and I saw like I could feel like no this there's more to life than this like my life can't be dependent on the approval of others yeah I like that yeah I wanted to say that from what you were explaining it looked like you were happy on the outside but internally yeah yeah for me it was different because I feel like when I was in that Because for me, I knew God. I knew God since I'm a child and all. But the devil really found a way to get into my heart. So even when I was a Christian, I experienced depression, low self-esteem, you know, lack of confidence, all of those things. And I was a Christian. It's not as if I was far from Jesus. I was a Christian. So I had to fight and I had to, yeah. yes fight and also look for my deliverance because it was a lot of things that i was going to so for me it was different i was in the darkness i was in the dark there was no way for um four secrets whatever i was really in the dark i was just feeling good i was sad all the time and you know you know the devil is wicked so yeah so my next question is Do you think that faith has changed the way you see yourself now?
It definitely has 100% because, I mean, if you like look at the Bible or read the Bible, there are so many wonderful things God has said about us. He says before he formed us, he knew us, he predestined us for greatness. We are a chosen generation, chosen people. We are loved. We are righteous. We are holy. So before that, I would read the word of God and I wouldn't believe like I'm righteous. I know there's a verse that says, the steps of a righteous man are ordered by the Lord or a righteous man falls seven times but gets up seven times or the prayer of a righteous man availeth much. So I would read that and think to myself, oh my gosh, I'm actually not righteous. But the more I've grown, I understand that actually Christ imputed his righteousness to me. I am the righteousness of God through Jesus Christ. So I am righteous. So even if I stumble today, I'm still righteous. So it's really helped shape my identity of myself because now when I read the word of God, I have faith and I believe what I read. I believe that I am holy. I believe that I am righteous. I believe that I am justified. I believe that I am chosen. I believe that I am loved. I believe that God formed me. He knows me deeply and that he loves me. So that has really helped shape who I am. So I don't think anybody can come today and tell me something about myself. that is contrary to the word of God, I'll be like, no, no, no, listen, the word of God says this. So it's really helped me form my identity in Christ based on what Christ did on the cross and what the word of God says.
I really like what you're saying. And for what I'm hearing, I feel like your identity is solid. It's strong. It's unshakable. It's like, I cannot, I cannot commentate you, Chloe, you are a bad person. You won't even listen to me. And this is what I do. A lot of us need that. We need to have that strong belief that we are loved, that we are... All of what the Bible says about us, we need to believe that because it's so important because the devil will always come and tell you lies. And if you dare listen to him, if you dare put your ears to listen to the devil, you will be saved. right you will like yourself but i want to know more about that process like yes you told me all of those things it looks nice that you believe but what was the process of you coming to these points of believing that you are loved that you are all of those things um
so i mentioned that i go to remma right i think remma has really played a big role in Thank you.
shaping this because i think like um as christians sometimes we yes um the woman is it your church or is it uh what is it oh no no it's um it's a bible training uh yes
so it's a i think they're global they're in africa they're in the americas they're all over the all over the world yeah founded by kenneth hayden so it's a two-year program very intensive. It's Monday to Friday. I go for evening classes. So immediately after work, I'm going to school from like 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. So it's just a very structured course. So first year is more about you as an individual. You learn things like the courses we did were like faith foundations, righteousness, search for significance, biblical finances, blood covenants. So. it just really helps you understand who you are in Christ. Like, Search for Significance showed us like sometimes people draw their identity from approval. Some people are approval addicts. Some people fear rejection. Some people have shame. And it just helps you identify a lot of things, really.
So going through
Rema. Yes. So going through Rema has really just helped me solidify it and I would say for someone who says oh I'm not going through Rema it's just basically the word of God like my favorite verse is Romans 12 2 which says do not be conformed to the pattern of the world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind then you'll be able to test and approve God's good perfect and pleasing will. So your mind basically you have strongholds in your mind. And the only thing that can break those strongholds is the word of God, who the son sets free is free indeed. So the more you listen to the word, the more you read your word, the more your mind is renewed and the way you think begins to change. So like the Bible says, faith comes by hearing. You need to be constantly hearing. It's not about it doesn't come by. I heard you need to constantly be hearing the word of God so that your mind is renewed. and you're transformed so i think that's one thing that's i just love what i'm hearing i love that because you're giving a lot of so yeah it's hearing the word of god and being in the word of god like i don't underestimate the power of the word i remember at the time i stopped smoking weed prior to that i had been like really in my bible listening to sermons listening to podcasts podcasts, all these things. And one day I woke up and I didn't want to smoke weed anymore. And it was this year. I've been sober for years. And this year I was asking the Lord, I was like, what happened? I didn't have like deliverance. There was no laying of hands. There was no shaking. There was no demons. And the Holy Spirit revealed to me that just.
hearing the truth when you know the truth the truth will set you free so just the word of god and having that truth set me free so it was just a problem you're pushing to my heart and i love that i honestly i love that yeah i love it yeah
so it's just reading the word of god just getting into the word that's why we always say read your bible pray every day because there's power in the word of god and in the presence of god
I love it. So for you, it was more about reading the word of God. Everything. Or did you do anything else in that process?
So I guess there was reading the word of God. Definitely having a good community around me of good Christian friends who, first of all, confessed the word of God over my life. who you When you go to them, they give you wise, godly counsel. Because, you know, they can be friends. And they can be your good friends. But you go to them and you're like, oh, I want to do this thing that's wrong. And they'll be hyping you up like, yeah, no, it's okay. Everybody else is doing it. But just having people who can tell you, no, this isn't right. This won't benefit you. That also really helps. Also, just having people like the friends you can be accountable to them. If you're struggling in a certain area and you tell them, I'm trying to do this or trying to achieve it. And they help you. be accountable and actually do what you want to do. And another thing that's really helped is like just getting a hold of my mind. I'm the kind of person who has the tendency to like daydream or overanalyze or like take a situation and make it something it's not. Or if somebody wrongs me, oh yeah, if I could do something bad happen to me, they would feel bad. Like my mind just was one of my biggest enemies. So just making sure that if thought enters my head. that doesn't align with the word of God just being intentional about first of all rebuking that thought and replacing it with the truth of God so whereas before if I felt like oh my gosh nobody loves me I'd be like no no no you are chosen uh before the foundation of the earth were laid Christ was laid for your sake just controlling my mind because my mind was one of my biggest struggles because you either win or lose in your mind first so that was one of the things that really helped me.
I loved what you said about working on your mind because me too, my biggest issue in my life story is my mind. Yeah.
This is the fight of my life.
Are you ready? Are you ready? I think I read it yes yeah so it's all in the mind this book blesses me so much and this book one thing that really helps me is that she spoke about she said discipline your mind and I never knew that I never knew that I needed to discipline my mind that any thoughts that I had in my mind were not thoughts from God Sometimes those thoughts were from the devil and I had to rebuke them. I had to change and speak the word of God constantly so that my mind would expand. So yeah, I also struggled a lot with this mind thing. But by the grace of God now, I'm still working on it. But I love that you talk about it because this is something that I feel like a lot of people are also struggling with. But they don't know what to do. you know sometimes when you um you you listen constantly lies you ended up you end up um believing in those lies if you don't learn to rebuke them constantly you feel like you are not loved that people don't love you that you are not worthy of love of you know all of those things exactly so my next question is what kind of person do you think that you are becoming through faith the kind of person I'm becoming through faith
I would say um well hopefully I'm becoming the woman God has called me to be I think one of the things that's really important for me is to really fulfill God's purpose for my life and And that's one of the things that. this season of faith is teaching me like you can be doing something good there's nothing wrong with that but if you're not fulfilling god's purpose for your life then you're not where you're supposed to be so um i think i'm becoming the woman god has called me to be it's not easy it's been a journey some days are better but I just want to be that woman who God has called me to be, whoever she is. Still discovering who she is, but looking forward to meeting her and fully becoming her. That's good. Yeah.
That's good. Okay, let's go to the next question. Do you feel like you are unlearning an old version of yourself? If yes, what?
I definitely feel like I'm learning a new version of myself. feel like I'm unlearning an old version of myself and one thing this journey with God has taught me is that there will be a lot of unlearning and it requires humility to unlearn like it requires a lot of humility to be like okay the way I was thinking was wrong the way I was doing things was wrong the way I was believing is wrong especially if it's like something you've been with your whole life it really takes a lot of humility so I'm definitely unlearning Thank you. I think one of the things I'm unlearning is with regards to me. I feel like sometimes in the corporate world, it's tough. It's like a very tough space to be in, especially if you're in like a fast paced environment. So I started to believe the lie that, OK, I wasn't smart enough. I wasn't qualified enough to be here. I wasn't like the other people. And, you know, like people are different and people like are passionate about the corporate space. That's all they are like. my job, my job, my job. But for me, it was like, okay, I have my job. I also have my life. So I used to feel like, maybe I'm not cut out for this. Maybe this isn't my thing. Maybe I'm not smart enough. But lately, it has been reminding me like you have the mind of Christ, you can do all things through Christ who strengthens you. And if you're in a place like he has placed you there for a reason. So don't count yourself out. Because of the standards of the world, like you need to be shrewd. You need to...
exercise the mind of christ so i think that's when please god has really been growing me like no you are strong enough you are capable enough to be in this space yeah um you mentioned that it requires humility to unlearn some things and i i believe that and this is so true last i think it was last week i was watching um a preaching a sermon yes i was watching a sermon from Pastor Sarah Jigswell, but I don't know if you know her.
Yes.
So she was talking about transformation. And she said that transformation is not about perfection, but it's when you are humble enough to be teachable. And I was like, wow, that's true.
Yes.
Because it's not about like, I want to become, I want to become. When I see the result, then I'm transformed. But are you humble enough? to receive um comments are you humble enough to receive um opinions from other people when you are wrong are you humble enough to even from god you know there are some times you like god can say some things about you but are you humble enough to receive those um word that god will give you about your destiny your path your journey or whatever that you're doing that's how you become from that Thank you. You are constantly transformed to the image of Jesus. It's when you are humble enough. So I believe that this is, yeah, if you want to change, if you want to unlearn an old version of yourself, you have to be humble. You have to recognize that you don't know everything, that there will be some days you will not be perfect, that there will be some days you will miss the mark. And God will forgive you, but you get up and keep going. Yeah.
That's what I believe.
You get up and keep going. You don't have to stay down and, you know, victimize yourself and say that I'm not worthy. I don't, no, You don't have to do this. You have to get up and keep going because God is always there for you. He's always there to forgive you and all that. So I really love what you say. My next question is, how has faith shaped your identity and beliefs? Okay, how is faith shaped by identity? Okay, so I think, yeah, I kind of touched on this. My identity, faith, who God says I am is who I am, regardless of situation, circumstances, how things are looking. I'm still loved even if I'm waiting. I'm still chosen even if man rejects me. And it's also just shaped. my beliefs in the sense that i don't know i'm just able to stand on the word of god more and even how i interact with you are speaking the word constantly and honestly this is perfect yeah i've also just even in how i interact with people um i don't know just treating loving because jesus said we should love him and love god and love people so even just how i'm showing up for people. loving people. I feel like I used to have a big challenge with people. Like I used to believe people are not worthy. I once held a grudge against a guy for seven years and it's only when I got, yeah, seven years. And it's only when I really came to Christ that I forgave him. So even the way I interact with people or treat people is different. Like I believe everyone worthy of love and everyone deserves just to be loved because that's what God asked us to do. So it's really just also helped my relationship with others as well.
That's good. For me, when I think about my life, I feel like faith has shaped a lot of things in me. First of all, my identity. I really struggled to believe that God loves me, that even people love me. I always thought that I was never enough. I was never enough. I was never enough. Like, no matter what I do. Even though I was a very smart student, I was a young person. Yes, yes. But that low self-esteem, you know, that spirit would constantly tell me that I'm not enough, that no matter what I do, I need to do more, I need to do more. And so when I, for me, it was more about my relationship with the Holy Spirit. There was the Word of God. I believed the Word of God a lot. But for me, it was... especially my relationship with the Holy Spirit. I talk a lot with the Holy Spirit. No matter what I go through, I would just enter into my home and start talking to Him and doing everything. You know what happened to me today? Let me tell you this. This girl, she did this communion, this relationship that I had with the Holy Spirit. This is what really helps me to build my identity. There were some days where I was talking to Him and crying and He would talk to me back. it would tell me that you don't believe the yeah the holy spirit is so sweet it's the comfort as the bible says so it would always convince me and tell me the things that i have to believe the things that i have to change in my mindset since i was struggling with my mind so it told me that i had to think on the word of god and those things really helps me a lot you know there's There are some things that you can do if you are a therapist. But believe me, the Holy Spirit is is the best of the therapy because it knows you it really is it knows your heart it can enter into your heart and see what is wrong with you you see and you love it you love it yes so it can enter into your heart and see in your heart what is wrong with you what is happening on the inside of you even some things that you can't even see some things that you can't even and those things it would reveal them to you and you see that oh so this is the world this is what happened so for me the holy spirit is the best person if you want to yeah anyway when when i talk about my story is the person that really helps me to um shape my identity to change the way i saw myself and to believe that i'm i am more than what i was thinking you that i'm enough yeah that i'm loved you know yeah so yeah that's it okay let's talk about now what part of the you feel god is refining right now um what part of my character um
i would definitely i don't know i don't know what part i can call this but it's definitely the part of waiting I guess well I don't know if it's patience I think maybe it's patience because I truly lacked patience And I think he's still working on me with regards to patience because, I don't know, I always think of the Israelites, like going from Egypt to the promised land. And like you said, like in the waiting season is just refining you. He's removing things. He's removing the Egypt mentality because you can't enter the promised land with an Egypt mentality. So I think he's really just pruning me, removing things from that. not disturb me in the next season and also just teaching me to wait well and to just be patient not just with him with other people as well because sometimes i can i lack patience i think he's teaching me you know just take it easy relax be calm and also just helping me appreciate that the season of wilderness is the necessary season like you really can't step into Thank you. who God has called you to be unless or until you've gone through the wilderness those seasons where your faith is being tested those seasons where you know you learn to rely heavily on God because I can be self-sufficient sometimes I'm like okay I need to do something I'll get it done but God is teaching me like no you need to rely on me you don't always have to do it yourself or you know be this strong macho woman like I'm here rely on me so I'm learning to be patient to rely on the Lord and also to just embrace every season. I heard something or someone once said that if you can't be content in your current season, then you won't be content in your next season. And I think Paul also said that he knows what it is to have plenty. He knows what it is to lack, but he can do all things through Christ. So if Christ isn't your main source of satisfaction in your current season, then even in your next season, Always want the next thing, So I'm also just trying to find contentment in Christ so that even when I go to my next season, it won't be like, oh, what's next? What's next? Okay, yes, you can obviously desire more and want to grow. But true contentment should come from Christ.
Yeah. For me, I think that what God is trying to find in me is... He wants me to learn to silence my mind and to cultivate peace. Cultivate peace. I used to talk a lot about peace, but listen, to cultivate your peace constantly, this is work. This is a lot of work. It is. It is. This is harder than I thought. Because, you know, I have this thing of, I want to control everything. no matter what is happening around me i want to control i want to do what's going to happen i want to know how i'm going to react i want to anticipate i want to make sure that everything is perfect and god is telling me to relax just to stop that like you don't have to know what next you don't have to control you even you don't have to anticipate you have to silence your mind and to be at peace this is something that i'm still learning. Sometimes I'm like, oh God, it's hard. It's really hard.
He wants to know what's going to happen next.
We are still in it. What else can we do? Let's go to the next question. Do you think the word of God is something that can help people go through the process of becoming? I know we already talked about it, but Since you love the Word of God and you speak the Word of God, I want you to explain, to go deeper into this. Tell us how the Word of God can help someone who wants to become a better version of themselves. What is the process? What does it look like if you want to focus on the Word of God in order to change some behaviors, in order to unlearn an old version of yourself?
I think what helps, first of all, the word of God is the infallible truth. It is true 100%. If it's in the Bible, if it's in the word of God, if it came from the mouth of God, it's 100% true. And what I love about living in this age is if you specifically want certain scriptures for something, you can literally just Google it and be like, okay, I'm struggling with anger. I'm struggling with identity. Or give me verses. people or different kinds of things so there is there's nothing that happens in the world that's not in the word of god so for whatever situation you're in there's a scripture related to that so i would say that's a good starting point just finding out the truth about what you're going through and um you Actually get into the word of God. I know some Christians who will take someone else's word for it or will, yeah, they don't really get into the word of God or read the word of God. So I think even just building the habit of reading the Bible for yourself because listening to sermons is okay. Going to church is great. Like we basically go to church, listen to the podcast, listen to the sermons. But. when you cultivate quiet time with God and you spend time one-on-one with him he can speak to you about you the thing about like he can obviously speak to you through other people but when you're together God can really go deep regarding your situation and regarding where you are and like really tailor make his own personal holy spirit sermon for you so actually read your bible actually make time for the Lord I feel like a lot of Christians want to be like oh I want to walk in God's purpose for my life I want to do this and that but we neglect that intimacy and that relationship but we've seen the story of Mary and Martha Martha was busy cooking and obviously what Martha was doing was not a bad thing Jesus Christ is in your house are you telling me I'm not going to cook for Jesus and whip out your best chef skills of course you are but Mary preferred or chose relationship. over performance so also just really just cultivating relationship and i think that's one thing i struggled with at some point was like okay what's the next podcast episode okay what do i post next okay okay like you get a revelation and straight jia i was off to the internet but just having a moment with god with that word like okay god this is what your word says what are you saying to me what did you mean when this and that like let him reveal things to you. Yeah.
Okay. What can you say to, because I know some Christians will say that they are struggling to understand the word of God. They are raising it, but sometimes it's hard. When you go to the book of Leviticus, you know, that book is hard. There are some things that you just know that you cannot understand. So what advice would you give to someone who is struggling to understand the word of God?
Okay. First of all, pray before you read the Word of God. Ask the Holy Spirit to open up the scriptures to you. I think one thing I used to do, I would just open up the Bible and I'll start reading and I'll be like, what's going on? What's going on? But definitely pray before you read the Bible. And secondly, I think Paul talked about there being spiritual milk and spiritual meat. I think sometimes when we don't read the Bible, you can open up the Bible and anything will be. spiritual meat because you don't understand the background you don't understand what's going on or what this means so a good place to always start is the costos like what's jesus about what's going on with jesus and then i think when you get a big more of an understanding of who jesus is and the more you read your word the more you desire to read your word and then the more you can grow and also i think a lot of christians just read the bible we should you be studying the Bible. Yes, you can read the Bible time to time. You're just reading, but you need to study the Bible. I think it's called hermeneutics. You need to know who wrote the book, why they wrote the book, who they wrote the book to, what was the cultural context, what was the political context. So as opposed to just reading, like do some research, like, okay, why is it saying in the book of Leviticus that, oh, you shouldn't be getting tattoos? Oh, at the time there was a culture. people were cutting their skin to honor um people who passed away or false gods like you need to dive deeper into the text as opposed to just reading so like actually make the effort to study the bible yeah but the holy spirit will guide you first prayer and
i wanted to dive deeper into this um i wanted to say that before um opening your bible always pray to the holy food and asking the Bible to you because he's the author of the Bible. He knows the Bible very well. So if you want to know any scripture that you're struggling with, just ask him and he will explain to you. So this is what I wanted to add to what you see, but I really love the answer. So is there any scripture, and you already talked about this, but is there any scripture that you, your favorite scripture from the Bible or any scripture that helps you to Thank you. to work on yourself? Any scripture that you kept coming back to when you were struggling, when you were going through some challenges? Is there any particular scripture that really is in your heart?
um there's so many we just won i think for this season the scripture that i'm like standing on is numbers 23 19 which says that god is not a man that he should lie god is not a man that he should change his mind if he said it he will do it has he ever failed to achieve what he set out to achieve and this has really been my anchor especially when trying to build my faith because you know god makes He's made promises to me. He's made promises to us in the Bible. And sometimes in the day-to-day life, it's hard. It's hard to remember, oh, God spoke this over my life. Or, oh, God has said this about me in his word. It can be really challenging. So this verse has just, it's reminding me that, listen, girl, God is not a liar. If anybody is a liar, it's definitely not God. He doesn't change his mind. If he said it, he will do it. So. That's one thing that has been keeping me going. The fact that God is good. God is who he says he is. And if he said it, he will do it. Like that's been keeping me this season because life has been challenging. But every time I'm like, my Lord is not a liar. I will not despair because the God I serve does not lie. And he said some things to me and he did not lie when he said those things.
Wow. I love it. Okay. Bye.
Your scripture must be keeping you.
I'm coming. I'm coming. Mine is Psalm 139, verse 14. I praise you because I'm cheerfully and wonderfully made. Your works are wonderful, and I know them very well. Full work, yes. That's it. So this scripture really helps me because at some points, I kept comparing myself to people. you know i kept comparing myself to people and god kept telling me that you are unique that you don't have to compare yourself that i made you that you are different so you have to understand that you have to be conscious about that so i kept coming back to that scripture every day when the day was telling me to compare myself to people or when i had some friend of mine who were doing better than me in some you know in another area and then i would start myself today may say wait am i not enough what no i'll always come back to that scripture and remind myself that i am fearfully and wonderfully amazed that i don't have to compare to anyone that i am enough that i am unique that i'm special that god loves me and constantly remind me hallelujah and that really helps me to be firm and to go into to my personality and to what God has called me to do and to find out to be different and to love myself with who I am what I have and yeah that's it so this is all
right I feel like I really I relate to that so much and I was having a conversation with my friend and I was like have you ever noticed that if like you're talking about King David you never say oh David was a great king but he wasn't as good a prophet as Elijah. No, we don't ever compare them. We just say David was great. Elijah was great. Like we acknowledge them for who they are. So I don't understand why we start to compare ourselves to other people. Like, yeah, I think God has also like been teaching me that this season. Like, here are you. Like, there's nobody else like you. I made you exactly the way you are and put you where you are for the purpose on your life. So yeah, I like that.
Me too, I like that. Okay. what message would you give to someone who is currently in this season where they are stuck between who they are and who they are becoming? What message would you give to them?
Well, first I would say it's not easy. It definitely isn't an easy place to be because you can see who you're called to be you can see where you want to go but when you look around you um you it's not matching up to the place that you're seeing or envisioning for yourself so first of all you're not alone there's a lot of us who are in the in between and the in between can be daunting it can be challenging but i love um the story of peter walking on water it always really encourages me especially when i'm feeling especially low because Peter was able to keep walking on water as long as he kept his eyes fixed on Jesus and the minute he took his eyes off of Jesus and he looked at the situation he saw the wind he saw the waves he began to sink and I think the same is true for us we can only keep progressing towards being the person we want to become or who God has called us to be when we focused on Christ. It helps us get through the disappointments the heartbreaks the setbacks the financial challenges the losses when you focus on christ you're able to keep taking steps forward but the minute you look to the left or you look to the right you start to drown and you find yourself stuck so the best advice i would give is like keep yourself focused on jesus christ whatever that looks reading your bible praying being in your word having godly community around you just keep your eyes focused on christ because we walk by faith not by sight so if you're not if you are going to focus on what's happening around you which is the site like the situation you will not move you'll be discouraged but if you keep your eyes focused on christ you'll be able to walk by faith because a lot of people in the bible david imagine david had been anointed to be king when he was a kid he killed goliath he killed all these bears and whatever then for a long period of his life If he was running away from Saul. If he had. right if he had let that situation get to him he wouldn't have become king because he wouldn't have kept his eyes focused on where god had called him if joseph sold into slavery wrongfully arrested but if he had focused on that situation around him he would have never become second in command to pharaoh so keep your eyes focused on christ and hold on to the word that god has given you like let that be your motivation faith begins where the will of god is known so if god has given you a word and you know this is what god wants for you hold on to that because that's what's going to keep you through the pain the disappointments and the setbacks i love that i love it okay
we are already at the end of this but i have one last question for you so this is a common question that i ask all the keys. What does it mean for you to become a better version of yourself?
Okay, better version of myself. Definitely walking in God's will for my life. Another thing God has been convicting me about is taking care of myself. I think there's a point where I let myself go. I stop working out. I stop doing my skincare routine. It's also just taking care of myself, bettering myself, whether it's through maybe a program, going to school. school just constantly improving myself allowing the holy spirit to work in and through me going through sanctification and just being obedient to god and being at the feet of the lord oh yeah thank you it's amazing and i really love that um
thank you chloe i'm really happy i learned a lot and you preach a lot to me you know Thank you. your voice you said a lot of things and i love that thank you so much for this insight i'm sure that a lot of people are learning from you and for from all the things that you said about your journey you spoke about the word of god um you spoke about um listening to the holy we spoke about listening to the holy spirit as well so all of those things if you want to become a better version of yourself through faith Thank you. If you want to become a better version of yourself with God, with the Holy Spirit, you know, he gives a lot of advices inside. So, yeah, I'm sure people are learning a lot. So, yeah, we are at the end of this live. See you at the next episode. Bye.
Description
In this episode, we dive into the process of becoming and how faith can shape that journey. We explore the importance of the Word of God in forming and revealing your identity, as well as the value of building an intimate relationship with the Holy Spirit in order to become the person God has called you to be according to His will.
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Transcription
Hello everyone and welcome back to the Mend the More podcast. I'm really happy because it's been a while but we are back. So today we are going to have a discussion with a guest. We are going to talk about becoming through faith and I'm really happy because she hosts her own podcast where she talks about blooming and a lot of it flourishing and becoming. And today, I believe that we are going to learn a lot from her journey and how faith has helped her to become the person she is today. So, welcome, Chloe.
Hi, thank you so much for having me.
We are happy to have you on this podcast. Alright, so we are going to start from the beginning. Can you introduce yourself and tell us what you do?
Okay, so my name is Chloe. I am Zambian. Currently, I'm working, doing the 9 to 5. I work in fast-moving consumer goods. I work in marketing. I love marketing. I love telling a story. I love getting people to understand what a brand is about. And I absolutely love Jesus Christ. I am a tea ministry teacher at my church. Currently going to Rema Bible Training Center in Zambia. I'm in my second year. So I think that's one of the things that's keeping me busy at the moment. But yeah, overall, love Jesus, works in marketing, team history teacher, Bible student.
That's good. But you forgot to mention that you host a podcast as well.
I do. I also host a podcast, my bad. It's called Blooming with Chloe. It is basically... A Christian podcast. And the whole aim of the podcast is to help the listeners bloom in Christ wherever they are in their journey. So whether you're in a waiting season, a growing season, a learning season, whether you're a baby Christian, a maturing Christian, it's just the aim is to help you bloom in Christ wherever you are in your journey.
I love that. I feel like it's the same as my podcast because I feel like we want to help people to. grow to become a better version of themselves whether it's through faith or advices or any tips that you can give or even our journey so yeah so you you told me off camera that right now you are in this season where you are learning about you are more um you are into your faith and your your faith journey so can you tell me what does it look like for you
Okay, so I think it's been interesting because at school, REMMA, the whole purpose of the school or the mandate that Kenneth Hagen was given when he started the school was to teach his people faith. So being at REMMA first year and now in my second year, I think it's really been practically taking me through ways that I could build my faith or can build my faith. And I feel like I've also been in a waiting season for a long time. And I know that we all have waiting seasons. So even if a prayer is answered, there's still something you're waiting for. Or you're like, you're always waiting for something. I've been waiting on the Lord for certain things to happen. And he's just been teaching me faith. And faith to me looks like just taking God at his word. because I think sometimes as Christians, we know the word of God, but we don't really believe it. Like we know it in our heads, but we don't believe it in our hearts. So this has been a season where God has been just taking me through the process of actually believing his word in my heart, taking him at his word, like if God has said something, then surely he will do it. And he's also just teaching me to seek him earnestly through reading his word. Faith comes by hearing. hearing by the word of God. So if you're not in the word of God, then your faith isn't growing because it's like present continuous. You need to be hearing the word of God. So being in the word of God and just seeking God, because sometimes I would only seek God when I needed something, but now I'm just seeking him for his presence and for who he is.
Hi friend, if you have been enjoying the Mainsumo podcast, I would like to invite you to the Main Tumor Community. This is a space for young women who want to grow and become together. In that community, you will find support, encouragement, and more. So if you want to join the Main Tumor Community, the link is in the description. You just have to press on that link and you'll be part of our community. You spoke about the waiting season, so I want to dive deeper into this because this is something that all the Christians are struggling with. So can you tell me, can you tell us what your waiting season was looking like?
So, I think every Christian wants to have like the perfect waiting season and be like, yeah, I waited on the Lord. I had faith and it was wonderful and amazing. But one of the things that I'm drawing strength from is the scriptures. So you see like almost everyone in the Bible had a waiting season. And I think the only person who waited really well was Jesus. When you look at like Abraham and Sarah, they ended up having Ishmael. When you look at David, he was... practically depressed when he was running away from the soul crying to god why have you forsaken me so it's been a journey there have been times i've waited well there are other times i've given an ishmael there have been times i'm able to be like yes i believe the lord and the lord's promises and then the other times i'm like god is this ever gonna happen for me will you do it for me and the funny thing about waiting is that when you're waiting for something you everyone around you suddenly starts experiencing that or receiving that message and I'm like what about me what about me yeah it's been like here and there but also I don't know I've started to take it as if God is doing it for someone else then he's in the neighborhood he's on his way for me I'll be next in line so it's been a bit up and down but yeah I'm getting there
I really like what you said. And when I'm thinking about my own life, I'm currently in the waiting season. You know, the whole process of becoming, when you want to become, when you want to change some things in your behavior, in your mindset, there's this idea that you have in your mind that you want to, this person that you want to reach, you know, this perfect person that you want to reach. And you're always, you're constantly thinking, Like. am i like that i arrived to that like do i have the right mindset right now or do i still have to work on myself so this is hard this is hard to wait no matter what i'm looking for this season is is hard but it's actually an opportunity to grow if you are willing to submit to god if you are willing to follow him, to listen to him, you'll feel like you won't feel like this season is hard you would feel like it's easy actually and honestly yeah right now i'm currently waiting for a lot of things i'm out there's a lot of things that i'm waiting for but i'm also learning because i believe that if god is making me wait for some things it means that there are some things that you want to remove um from there are some things that you want to change there are some behaviors that you want me to change so yeah I'm still learning. I'm still growing. And that's it.
Yeah.
So, okay. So, yeah, you talked about the season you are currently in. So I want to know what was your life before you were a Christian? Can you describe how your life was before you became a Christian?
Okay, life before I was a Christian. So I think for me, I was one of those people who like, you grew up in the church. My mom was a Sunday school teacher, church every Sunday. But I think it became more of like just routine, like, okay, yes, every Sunday we go to church. Oh, yes, this is what we do. But I don't think I had personally, I think I had accepted Christ, but I wasn't being serious about my faith walk. So I think throughout primary school, secondary school, I was doing pretty okay. But then when I went to universities, when I really like went crazy, I started drinking, started having, I started fornicating, I started smoking weed. I actually smoked weed for like nine years. I was addicted. And I used to have affairs with like married men. Like I was just doing, I was doing so much. Glory to God for his saving power. But yeah, life before Christ was It was that kind of lifestyle, but I was also very sad, very dissatisfied with life. I was not confident in myself. I used to seek validation from relationships. So that's where I used to find my validation. Like, oh, okay, yeah, this guy loves me. And I felt love was more about performing. Like, what can I do for him to make him love me or for him to see me a certain way? So. that was my life before Christ and then I think at some point I just got really tired like you know when you're just like in the same cycle like it's the same thing over and over again and maybe it's like oh you meet a guy you sleep together he breaks your heart it's done you meet I'm tired of that cycle. And also I was very heavily into the smoking weed and I was just tired. Like I was very exhausted about how my life was going. And I remember I was like, okay, Jesus, I'm going to give you a chance for real, for real. And if, you know, if it doesn't work out, I'm going back to the world, but it worked out and I've actually never looked back. So I think what really drove me to developing my relationship with Christ. Christ was just I was tired I was tired I was depressed and I was just so dissatisfied with life so I want to dig deeper into
I want to talk about your identity how were you seeing yourself at that time what did you think about yourself before you became a Christian I want to know what you spoke about the lack of confidence so I want to know more about that aspect of your life where you Were you feeling good about yourself? Can you tell me more about it?
So when it came to my identity, I think when you are living in darkness and ignorance, you think you feel good and you think this is how life should be and you feel like it's the pinnacle of everything. So I would say at the time in the story.
Because for me, when I was in the dark, I wasn't feeling good about myself at all. So maybe it's a different story.
Yeah. You know, I think for me, it was more of like, you know, when you're like on substances, you're like, do you read? You're high. I used to be high a lot of the time. So I think that gave me like a false sense of security. And then when you're in a relationship, even that makes you feel good, like, oh, yeah, I'm the girl. I'm like this person, that person. Then you find all the relationship ends and all of a sudden you're depressed or you're sad or you don't have anything to land on. I feel like I used to feel like I was happy and I was good but then the more that went on the more I realized like actually no something is wrong I shouldn't be smoking this much or somebody else shouldn't be able to determine how I feel about myself like how I feel about me should come from the inside out but it was coming like from the outside in so yeah it was like an illusion and It was only...
as I grew older and I saw like I could feel like no this there's more to life than this like my life can't be dependent on the approval of others yeah I like that yeah I wanted to say that from what you were explaining it looked like you were happy on the outside but internally yeah yeah for me it was different because I feel like when I was in that Because for me, I knew God. I knew God since I'm a child and all. But the devil really found a way to get into my heart. So even when I was a Christian, I experienced depression, low self-esteem, you know, lack of confidence, all of those things. And I was a Christian. It's not as if I was far from Jesus. I was a Christian. So I had to fight and I had to, yeah. yes fight and also look for my deliverance because it was a lot of things that i was going to so for me it was different i was in the darkness i was in the dark there was no way for um four secrets whatever i was really in the dark i was just feeling good i was sad all the time and you know you know the devil is wicked so yeah so my next question is Do you think that faith has changed the way you see yourself now?
It definitely has 100% because, I mean, if you like look at the Bible or read the Bible, there are so many wonderful things God has said about us. He says before he formed us, he knew us, he predestined us for greatness. We are a chosen generation, chosen people. We are loved. We are righteous. We are holy. So before that, I would read the word of God and I wouldn't believe like I'm righteous. I know there's a verse that says, the steps of a righteous man are ordered by the Lord or a righteous man falls seven times but gets up seven times or the prayer of a righteous man availeth much. So I would read that and think to myself, oh my gosh, I'm actually not righteous. But the more I've grown, I understand that actually Christ imputed his righteousness to me. I am the righteousness of God through Jesus Christ. So I am righteous. So even if I stumble today, I'm still righteous. So it's really helped shape my identity of myself because now when I read the word of God, I have faith and I believe what I read. I believe that I am holy. I believe that I am righteous. I believe that I am justified. I believe that I am chosen. I believe that I am loved. I believe that God formed me. He knows me deeply and that he loves me. So that has really helped shape who I am. So I don't think anybody can come today and tell me something about myself. that is contrary to the word of God, I'll be like, no, no, no, listen, the word of God says this. So it's really helped me form my identity in Christ based on what Christ did on the cross and what the word of God says.
I really like what you're saying. And for what I'm hearing, I feel like your identity is solid. It's strong. It's unshakable. It's like, I cannot, I cannot commentate you, Chloe, you are a bad person. You won't even listen to me. And this is what I do. A lot of us need that. We need to have that strong belief that we are loved, that we are... All of what the Bible says about us, we need to believe that because it's so important because the devil will always come and tell you lies. And if you dare listen to him, if you dare put your ears to listen to the devil, you will be saved. right you will like yourself but i want to know more about that process like yes you told me all of those things it looks nice that you believe but what was the process of you coming to these points of believing that you are loved that you are all of those things um
so i mentioned that i go to remma right i think remma has really played a big role in Thank you.
shaping this because i think like um as christians sometimes we yes um the woman is it your church or is it uh what is it oh no no it's um it's a bible training uh yes
so it's a i think they're global they're in africa they're in the americas they're all over the all over the world yeah founded by kenneth hayden so it's a two-year program very intensive. It's Monday to Friday. I go for evening classes. So immediately after work, I'm going to school from like 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. So it's just a very structured course. So first year is more about you as an individual. You learn things like the courses we did were like faith foundations, righteousness, search for significance, biblical finances, blood covenants. So. it just really helps you understand who you are in Christ. Like, Search for Significance showed us like sometimes people draw their identity from approval. Some people are approval addicts. Some people fear rejection. Some people have shame. And it just helps you identify a lot of things, really.
So going through
Rema. Yes. So going through Rema has really just helped me solidify it and I would say for someone who says oh I'm not going through Rema it's just basically the word of God like my favorite verse is Romans 12 2 which says do not be conformed to the pattern of the world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind then you'll be able to test and approve God's good perfect and pleasing will. So your mind basically you have strongholds in your mind. And the only thing that can break those strongholds is the word of God, who the son sets free is free indeed. So the more you listen to the word, the more you read your word, the more your mind is renewed and the way you think begins to change. So like the Bible says, faith comes by hearing. You need to be constantly hearing. It's not about it doesn't come by. I heard you need to constantly be hearing the word of God so that your mind is renewed. and you're transformed so i think that's one thing that's i just love what i'm hearing i love that because you're giving a lot of so yeah it's hearing the word of god and being in the word of god like i don't underestimate the power of the word i remember at the time i stopped smoking weed prior to that i had been like really in my bible listening to sermons listening to podcasts podcasts, all these things. And one day I woke up and I didn't want to smoke weed anymore. And it was this year. I've been sober for years. And this year I was asking the Lord, I was like, what happened? I didn't have like deliverance. There was no laying of hands. There was no shaking. There was no demons. And the Holy Spirit revealed to me that just.
hearing the truth when you know the truth the truth will set you free so just the word of god and having that truth set me free so it was just a problem you're pushing to my heart and i love that i honestly i love that yeah i love it yeah
so it's just reading the word of god just getting into the word that's why we always say read your bible pray every day because there's power in the word of god and in the presence of god
I love it. So for you, it was more about reading the word of God. Everything. Or did you do anything else in that process?
So I guess there was reading the word of God. Definitely having a good community around me of good Christian friends who, first of all, confessed the word of God over my life. who you When you go to them, they give you wise, godly counsel. Because, you know, they can be friends. And they can be your good friends. But you go to them and you're like, oh, I want to do this thing that's wrong. And they'll be hyping you up like, yeah, no, it's okay. Everybody else is doing it. But just having people who can tell you, no, this isn't right. This won't benefit you. That also really helps. Also, just having people like the friends you can be accountable to them. If you're struggling in a certain area and you tell them, I'm trying to do this or trying to achieve it. And they help you. be accountable and actually do what you want to do. And another thing that's really helped is like just getting a hold of my mind. I'm the kind of person who has the tendency to like daydream or overanalyze or like take a situation and make it something it's not. Or if somebody wrongs me, oh yeah, if I could do something bad happen to me, they would feel bad. Like my mind just was one of my biggest enemies. So just making sure that if thought enters my head. that doesn't align with the word of God just being intentional about first of all rebuking that thought and replacing it with the truth of God so whereas before if I felt like oh my gosh nobody loves me I'd be like no no no you are chosen uh before the foundation of the earth were laid Christ was laid for your sake just controlling my mind because my mind was one of my biggest struggles because you either win or lose in your mind first so that was one of the things that really helped me.
I loved what you said about working on your mind because me too, my biggest issue in my life story is my mind. Yeah.
This is the fight of my life.
Are you ready? Are you ready? I think I read it yes yeah so it's all in the mind this book blesses me so much and this book one thing that really helps me is that she spoke about she said discipline your mind and I never knew that I never knew that I needed to discipline my mind that any thoughts that I had in my mind were not thoughts from God Sometimes those thoughts were from the devil and I had to rebuke them. I had to change and speak the word of God constantly so that my mind would expand. So yeah, I also struggled a lot with this mind thing. But by the grace of God now, I'm still working on it. But I love that you talk about it because this is something that I feel like a lot of people are also struggling with. But they don't know what to do. you know sometimes when you um you you listen constantly lies you ended up you end up um believing in those lies if you don't learn to rebuke them constantly you feel like you are not loved that people don't love you that you are not worthy of love of you know all of those things exactly so my next question is what kind of person do you think that you are becoming through faith the kind of person I'm becoming through faith
I would say um well hopefully I'm becoming the woman God has called me to be I think one of the things that's really important for me is to really fulfill God's purpose for my life and And that's one of the things that. this season of faith is teaching me like you can be doing something good there's nothing wrong with that but if you're not fulfilling god's purpose for your life then you're not where you're supposed to be so um i think i'm becoming the woman god has called me to be it's not easy it's been a journey some days are better but I just want to be that woman who God has called me to be, whoever she is. Still discovering who she is, but looking forward to meeting her and fully becoming her. That's good. Yeah.
That's good. Okay, let's go to the next question. Do you feel like you are unlearning an old version of yourself? If yes, what?
I definitely feel like I'm learning a new version of myself. feel like I'm unlearning an old version of myself and one thing this journey with God has taught me is that there will be a lot of unlearning and it requires humility to unlearn like it requires a lot of humility to be like okay the way I was thinking was wrong the way I was doing things was wrong the way I was believing is wrong especially if it's like something you've been with your whole life it really takes a lot of humility so I'm definitely unlearning Thank you. I think one of the things I'm unlearning is with regards to me. I feel like sometimes in the corporate world, it's tough. It's like a very tough space to be in, especially if you're in like a fast paced environment. So I started to believe the lie that, OK, I wasn't smart enough. I wasn't qualified enough to be here. I wasn't like the other people. And, you know, like people are different and people like are passionate about the corporate space. That's all they are like. my job, my job, my job. But for me, it was like, okay, I have my job. I also have my life. So I used to feel like, maybe I'm not cut out for this. Maybe this isn't my thing. Maybe I'm not smart enough. But lately, it has been reminding me like you have the mind of Christ, you can do all things through Christ who strengthens you. And if you're in a place like he has placed you there for a reason. So don't count yourself out. Because of the standards of the world, like you need to be shrewd. You need to...
exercise the mind of christ so i think that's when please god has really been growing me like no you are strong enough you are capable enough to be in this space yeah um you mentioned that it requires humility to unlearn some things and i i believe that and this is so true last i think it was last week i was watching um a preaching a sermon yes i was watching a sermon from Pastor Sarah Jigswell, but I don't know if you know her.
Yes.
So she was talking about transformation. And she said that transformation is not about perfection, but it's when you are humble enough to be teachable. And I was like, wow, that's true.
Yes.
Because it's not about like, I want to become, I want to become. When I see the result, then I'm transformed. But are you humble enough? to receive um comments are you humble enough to receive um opinions from other people when you are wrong are you humble enough to even from god you know there are some times you like god can say some things about you but are you humble enough to receive those um word that god will give you about your destiny your path your journey or whatever that you're doing that's how you become from that Thank you. You are constantly transformed to the image of Jesus. It's when you are humble enough. So I believe that this is, yeah, if you want to change, if you want to unlearn an old version of yourself, you have to be humble. You have to recognize that you don't know everything, that there will be some days you will not be perfect, that there will be some days you will miss the mark. And God will forgive you, but you get up and keep going. Yeah.
That's what I believe.
You get up and keep going. You don't have to stay down and, you know, victimize yourself and say that I'm not worthy. I don't, no, You don't have to do this. You have to get up and keep going because God is always there for you. He's always there to forgive you and all that. So I really love what you say. My next question is, how has faith shaped your identity and beliefs? Okay, how is faith shaped by identity? Okay, so I think, yeah, I kind of touched on this. My identity, faith, who God says I am is who I am, regardless of situation, circumstances, how things are looking. I'm still loved even if I'm waiting. I'm still chosen even if man rejects me. And it's also just shaped. my beliefs in the sense that i don't know i'm just able to stand on the word of god more and even how i interact with you are speaking the word constantly and honestly this is perfect yeah i've also just even in how i interact with people um i don't know just treating loving because jesus said we should love him and love god and love people so even just how i'm showing up for people. loving people. I feel like I used to have a big challenge with people. Like I used to believe people are not worthy. I once held a grudge against a guy for seven years and it's only when I got, yeah, seven years. And it's only when I really came to Christ that I forgave him. So even the way I interact with people or treat people is different. Like I believe everyone worthy of love and everyone deserves just to be loved because that's what God asked us to do. So it's really just also helped my relationship with others as well.
That's good. For me, when I think about my life, I feel like faith has shaped a lot of things in me. First of all, my identity. I really struggled to believe that God loves me, that even people love me. I always thought that I was never enough. I was never enough. I was never enough. Like, no matter what I do. Even though I was a very smart student, I was a young person. Yes, yes. But that low self-esteem, you know, that spirit would constantly tell me that I'm not enough, that no matter what I do, I need to do more, I need to do more. And so when I, for me, it was more about my relationship with the Holy Spirit. There was the Word of God. I believed the Word of God a lot. But for me, it was... especially my relationship with the Holy Spirit. I talk a lot with the Holy Spirit. No matter what I go through, I would just enter into my home and start talking to Him and doing everything. You know what happened to me today? Let me tell you this. This girl, she did this communion, this relationship that I had with the Holy Spirit. This is what really helps me to build my identity. There were some days where I was talking to Him and crying and He would talk to me back. it would tell me that you don't believe the yeah the holy spirit is so sweet it's the comfort as the bible says so it would always convince me and tell me the things that i have to believe the things that i have to change in my mindset since i was struggling with my mind so it told me that i had to think on the word of god and those things really helps me a lot you know there's There are some things that you can do if you are a therapist. But believe me, the Holy Spirit is is the best of the therapy because it knows you it really is it knows your heart it can enter into your heart and see what is wrong with you you see and you love it you love it yes so it can enter into your heart and see in your heart what is wrong with you what is happening on the inside of you even some things that you can't even see some things that you can't even and those things it would reveal them to you and you see that oh so this is the world this is what happened so for me the holy spirit is the best person if you want to yeah anyway when when i talk about my story is the person that really helps me to um shape my identity to change the way i saw myself and to believe that i'm i am more than what i was thinking you that i'm enough yeah that i'm loved you know yeah so yeah that's it okay let's talk about now what part of the you feel god is refining right now um what part of my character um
i would definitely i don't know i don't know what part i can call this but it's definitely the part of waiting I guess well I don't know if it's patience I think maybe it's patience because I truly lacked patience And I think he's still working on me with regards to patience because, I don't know, I always think of the Israelites, like going from Egypt to the promised land. And like you said, like in the waiting season is just refining you. He's removing things. He's removing the Egypt mentality because you can't enter the promised land with an Egypt mentality. So I think he's really just pruning me, removing things from that. not disturb me in the next season and also just teaching me to wait well and to just be patient not just with him with other people as well because sometimes i can i lack patience i think he's teaching me you know just take it easy relax be calm and also just helping me appreciate that the season of wilderness is the necessary season like you really can't step into Thank you. who God has called you to be unless or until you've gone through the wilderness those seasons where your faith is being tested those seasons where you know you learn to rely heavily on God because I can be self-sufficient sometimes I'm like okay I need to do something I'll get it done but God is teaching me like no you need to rely on me you don't always have to do it yourself or you know be this strong macho woman like I'm here rely on me so I'm learning to be patient to rely on the Lord and also to just embrace every season. I heard something or someone once said that if you can't be content in your current season, then you won't be content in your next season. And I think Paul also said that he knows what it is to have plenty. He knows what it is to lack, but he can do all things through Christ. So if Christ isn't your main source of satisfaction in your current season, then even in your next season, Always want the next thing, So I'm also just trying to find contentment in Christ so that even when I go to my next season, it won't be like, oh, what's next? What's next? Okay, yes, you can obviously desire more and want to grow. But true contentment should come from Christ.
Yeah. For me, I think that what God is trying to find in me is... He wants me to learn to silence my mind and to cultivate peace. Cultivate peace. I used to talk a lot about peace, but listen, to cultivate your peace constantly, this is work. This is a lot of work. It is. It is. This is harder than I thought. Because, you know, I have this thing of, I want to control everything. no matter what is happening around me i want to control i want to do what's going to happen i want to know how i'm going to react i want to anticipate i want to make sure that everything is perfect and god is telling me to relax just to stop that like you don't have to know what next you don't have to control you even you don't have to anticipate you have to silence your mind and to be at peace this is something that i'm still learning. Sometimes I'm like, oh God, it's hard. It's really hard.
He wants to know what's going to happen next.
We are still in it. What else can we do? Let's go to the next question. Do you think the word of God is something that can help people go through the process of becoming? I know we already talked about it, but Since you love the Word of God and you speak the Word of God, I want you to explain, to go deeper into this. Tell us how the Word of God can help someone who wants to become a better version of themselves. What is the process? What does it look like if you want to focus on the Word of God in order to change some behaviors, in order to unlearn an old version of yourself?
I think what helps, first of all, the word of God is the infallible truth. It is true 100%. If it's in the Bible, if it's in the word of God, if it came from the mouth of God, it's 100% true. And what I love about living in this age is if you specifically want certain scriptures for something, you can literally just Google it and be like, okay, I'm struggling with anger. I'm struggling with identity. Or give me verses. people or different kinds of things so there is there's nothing that happens in the world that's not in the word of god so for whatever situation you're in there's a scripture related to that so i would say that's a good starting point just finding out the truth about what you're going through and um you Actually get into the word of God. I know some Christians who will take someone else's word for it or will, yeah, they don't really get into the word of God or read the word of God. So I think even just building the habit of reading the Bible for yourself because listening to sermons is okay. Going to church is great. Like we basically go to church, listen to the podcast, listen to the sermons. But. when you cultivate quiet time with God and you spend time one-on-one with him he can speak to you about you the thing about like he can obviously speak to you through other people but when you're together God can really go deep regarding your situation and regarding where you are and like really tailor make his own personal holy spirit sermon for you so actually read your bible actually make time for the Lord I feel like a lot of Christians want to be like oh I want to walk in God's purpose for my life I want to do this and that but we neglect that intimacy and that relationship but we've seen the story of Mary and Martha Martha was busy cooking and obviously what Martha was doing was not a bad thing Jesus Christ is in your house are you telling me I'm not going to cook for Jesus and whip out your best chef skills of course you are but Mary preferred or chose relationship. over performance so also just really just cultivating relationship and i think that's one thing i struggled with at some point was like okay what's the next podcast episode okay what do i post next okay okay like you get a revelation and straight jia i was off to the internet but just having a moment with god with that word like okay god this is what your word says what are you saying to me what did you mean when this and that like let him reveal things to you. Yeah.
Okay. What can you say to, because I know some Christians will say that they are struggling to understand the word of God. They are raising it, but sometimes it's hard. When you go to the book of Leviticus, you know, that book is hard. There are some things that you just know that you cannot understand. So what advice would you give to someone who is struggling to understand the word of God?
Okay. First of all, pray before you read the Word of God. Ask the Holy Spirit to open up the scriptures to you. I think one thing I used to do, I would just open up the Bible and I'll start reading and I'll be like, what's going on? What's going on? But definitely pray before you read the Bible. And secondly, I think Paul talked about there being spiritual milk and spiritual meat. I think sometimes when we don't read the Bible, you can open up the Bible and anything will be. spiritual meat because you don't understand the background you don't understand what's going on or what this means so a good place to always start is the costos like what's jesus about what's going on with jesus and then i think when you get a big more of an understanding of who jesus is and the more you read your word the more you desire to read your word and then the more you can grow and also i think a lot of christians just read the bible we should you be studying the Bible. Yes, you can read the Bible time to time. You're just reading, but you need to study the Bible. I think it's called hermeneutics. You need to know who wrote the book, why they wrote the book, who they wrote the book to, what was the cultural context, what was the political context. So as opposed to just reading, like do some research, like, okay, why is it saying in the book of Leviticus that, oh, you shouldn't be getting tattoos? Oh, at the time there was a culture. people were cutting their skin to honor um people who passed away or false gods like you need to dive deeper into the text as opposed to just reading so like actually make the effort to study the bible yeah but the holy spirit will guide you first prayer and
i wanted to dive deeper into this um i wanted to say that before um opening your bible always pray to the holy food and asking the Bible to you because he's the author of the Bible. He knows the Bible very well. So if you want to know any scripture that you're struggling with, just ask him and he will explain to you. So this is what I wanted to add to what you see, but I really love the answer. So is there any scripture, and you already talked about this, but is there any scripture that you, your favorite scripture from the Bible or any scripture that helps you to Thank you. to work on yourself? Any scripture that you kept coming back to when you were struggling, when you were going through some challenges? Is there any particular scripture that really is in your heart?
um there's so many we just won i think for this season the scripture that i'm like standing on is numbers 23 19 which says that god is not a man that he should lie god is not a man that he should change his mind if he said it he will do it has he ever failed to achieve what he set out to achieve and this has really been my anchor especially when trying to build my faith because you know god makes He's made promises to me. He's made promises to us in the Bible. And sometimes in the day-to-day life, it's hard. It's hard to remember, oh, God spoke this over my life. Or, oh, God has said this about me in his word. It can be really challenging. So this verse has just, it's reminding me that, listen, girl, God is not a liar. If anybody is a liar, it's definitely not God. He doesn't change his mind. If he said it, he will do it. So. That's one thing that has been keeping me going. The fact that God is good. God is who he says he is. And if he said it, he will do it. Like that's been keeping me this season because life has been challenging. But every time I'm like, my Lord is not a liar. I will not despair because the God I serve does not lie. And he said some things to me and he did not lie when he said those things.
Wow. I love it. Okay. Bye.
Your scripture must be keeping you.
I'm coming. I'm coming. Mine is Psalm 139, verse 14. I praise you because I'm cheerfully and wonderfully made. Your works are wonderful, and I know them very well. Full work, yes. That's it. So this scripture really helps me because at some points, I kept comparing myself to people. you know i kept comparing myself to people and god kept telling me that you are unique that you don't have to compare yourself that i made you that you are different so you have to understand that you have to be conscious about that so i kept coming back to that scripture every day when the day was telling me to compare myself to people or when i had some friend of mine who were doing better than me in some you know in another area and then i would start myself today may say wait am i not enough what no i'll always come back to that scripture and remind myself that i am fearfully and wonderfully amazed that i don't have to compare to anyone that i am enough that i am unique that i'm special that god loves me and constantly remind me hallelujah and that really helps me to be firm and to go into to my personality and to what God has called me to do and to find out to be different and to love myself with who I am what I have and yeah that's it so this is all
right I feel like I really I relate to that so much and I was having a conversation with my friend and I was like have you ever noticed that if like you're talking about King David you never say oh David was a great king but he wasn't as good a prophet as Elijah. No, we don't ever compare them. We just say David was great. Elijah was great. Like we acknowledge them for who they are. So I don't understand why we start to compare ourselves to other people. Like, yeah, I think God has also like been teaching me that this season. Like, here are you. Like, there's nobody else like you. I made you exactly the way you are and put you where you are for the purpose on your life. So yeah, I like that.
Me too, I like that. Okay. what message would you give to someone who is currently in this season where they are stuck between who they are and who they are becoming? What message would you give to them?
Well, first I would say it's not easy. It definitely isn't an easy place to be because you can see who you're called to be you can see where you want to go but when you look around you um you it's not matching up to the place that you're seeing or envisioning for yourself so first of all you're not alone there's a lot of us who are in the in between and the in between can be daunting it can be challenging but i love um the story of peter walking on water it always really encourages me especially when i'm feeling especially low because Peter was able to keep walking on water as long as he kept his eyes fixed on Jesus and the minute he took his eyes off of Jesus and he looked at the situation he saw the wind he saw the waves he began to sink and I think the same is true for us we can only keep progressing towards being the person we want to become or who God has called us to be when we focused on Christ. It helps us get through the disappointments the heartbreaks the setbacks the financial challenges the losses when you focus on christ you're able to keep taking steps forward but the minute you look to the left or you look to the right you start to drown and you find yourself stuck so the best advice i would give is like keep yourself focused on jesus christ whatever that looks reading your bible praying being in your word having godly community around you just keep your eyes focused on christ because we walk by faith not by sight so if you're not if you are going to focus on what's happening around you which is the site like the situation you will not move you'll be discouraged but if you keep your eyes focused on christ you'll be able to walk by faith because a lot of people in the bible david imagine david had been anointed to be king when he was a kid he killed goliath he killed all these bears and whatever then for a long period of his life If he was running away from Saul. If he had. right if he had let that situation get to him he wouldn't have become king because he wouldn't have kept his eyes focused on where god had called him if joseph sold into slavery wrongfully arrested but if he had focused on that situation around him he would have never become second in command to pharaoh so keep your eyes focused on christ and hold on to the word that god has given you like let that be your motivation faith begins where the will of god is known so if god has given you a word and you know this is what god wants for you hold on to that because that's what's going to keep you through the pain the disappointments and the setbacks i love that i love it okay
we are already at the end of this but i have one last question for you so this is a common question that i ask all the keys. What does it mean for you to become a better version of yourself?
Okay, better version of myself. Definitely walking in God's will for my life. Another thing God has been convicting me about is taking care of myself. I think there's a point where I let myself go. I stop working out. I stop doing my skincare routine. It's also just taking care of myself, bettering myself, whether it's through maybe a program, going to school. school just constantly improving myself allowing the holy spirit to work in and through me going through sanctification and just being obedient to god and being at the feet of the lord oh yeah thank you it's amazing and i really love that um
thank you chloe i'm really happy i learned a lot and you preach a lot to me you know Thank you. your voice you said a lot of things and i love that thank you so much for this insight i'm sure that a lot of people are learning from you and for from all the things that you said about your journey you spoke about the word of god um you spoke about um listening to the holy we spoke about listening to the holy spirit as well so all of those things if you want to become a better version of yourself through faith Thank you. If you want to become a better version of yourself with God, with the Holy Spirit, you know, he gives a lot of advices inside. So, yeah, I'm sure people are learning a lot. So, yeah, we are at the end of this live. See you at the next episode. Bye.
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