My Testimony: Being Obedient, Not Right

Last year, your message on Running in Circles: Confronting Compromise came right after I was asking God to give me the next steps for my business. I put money into many aspects of it earlier in the year, and all I could see was goodness from my divinely inspired yoga ministry – the women I impacted as I spoke life and understanding into them only by knowledge from the Holy Spirit. On the other hand, my business was causing some friction in my home re: time management, and I began to question yoga because I know its origins has nothing to do with Christianity and my possible role in cultural appropriation had me conflicted. I also was witnessing many New Age tendencies becoming synonymous with yoga. I knew I drew a line at a specific place as I enjoyed it for the stretching and breathing components and then added my faith to it, which prayerfully birthed AYoga in 2016. I know that God called me to the wellness community but wasn’t sure in what capacity. I prayed and voiced my concerns to my spiritual mentor. She knows my heart and love for God and used that lens to share that she was not concerned. She also shared through the Spirit of God weeks before your sermon that “there’s something I have to give birth to, but I have to let something else die.”

I had no idea what she was referring to, but I wrote it down. I literally began taking notes from your sermon, Confronting Compromise, on the opposite page from that declaration (I don’t take hand-written notes on a regular). Your message was very clear: Woe to him who believes evil is good and good is evil in Isaiah 5, James 4:17, and Rom 6:16, but yoga had been a part of me for so long that it became a part of my identity. I never thought this was an issue in my life until I heard God say to make room for Him. Our gracious and oh so patient Father gave me many other signs.

Again, OK Lord, but I didn’t know exactly what it was pertaining to. So I was obedient in all the seemingly small things – buy two extra books to support a friend and gift to close friends to help reset and draw closer to God; tell this lady I just met that God is pursuing her; give this amount of money to this person, which all blessed those people immensely by me being obedient (it also blessed me!). It wasn’t until March 7^th of this year that I unequivocally knew I was to terminate my yoga business and yoga practice after a conversation with my spiritual mentor. It was a powerful interchange. Many tears of relief and an overwhelming sense of freedom as a weight was being lifted and my eyes were open to what God had me do. Hours after deleting the business portion of my website on 3/7/22, God revealed through our oldest child the solution to a problem my husband and I had already given up on. We had already resolved to celebrate our 10 year wedding anniversary (4/7/22) later in the year because neither of us had peace with our childcare situation. The very person our son mentioned was the one who was able to watch our 3 kids with my mom. We ended up traveling to St. Maarten during the last week of March, which made room to deeply connect with each other and God and allowed us to have a divinely timed introduction to a woman who worked at the resort! She spoke so much life over our marriage and family.

I didn’t mention that the Sunday you preached Confronting Compromise, it was our oldest who asked us to go to Midtown. We are closer to Norcross and have always worshiped there until the pandemic. We began coming to Midtown to ease our youngest into a smaller Sunday school when we went back to in-person church January 2021. We had already transitioned back to Norcross before then but our oldest (6 yo) was adamant that we go to Midtown on that day you preached 11/7/22 (and I am just now seeing all of these 7s lining up. Wow). After I terminated my business, I woke up very early one morning and was reminded of that message you preached. I looked in my journal where I wrote notes but also wanted to watch. So I went to the app. Although it was the same title, the guest pastor at Norcross preached a very different message that day. Not until that moment did I know that God had me in Midtown on 11/7/22 to hear from Him through you.