Kingdom Woman Wednesday #3

Hey girls, it's Chrystal Hurst, and I'm in the bathroom, of course, my favorite place to be. And it is Wednesday, Kingdom Woman Wednesday, and I am excited to go into the next section of our journey, next place that we are going to be reading, discussing for the next week to come. It's going to be a little bit more than what we did last time. Last time we did chapters 1 through 3. This time we're going to do chapters 4, 5, 6, 6, 7, and 8. So there's 5 chapters, but you can do it, you can do it. Um, and basically just to introduce this next section, um, I thought I'd talk a little bit about a movie that we grew up watching as kids. Um, my dad loves action movies, and we grew up watching the Indiana Jones series. So if you have not watched those, it's good clean fun that you can watch by yourself or with your family, with your kids. And because I have 5 kids, my girls have watched some of them, but because my boys are 10, 8, and 4 and now kind of able to appreciate that, we've started watching them again. They're just intrigued by them. But there's this one Indiana Jones movie where Indy has basically known from his dad for a very, very long time that his dad has been after a treasure, a Holy Grail. And he has been, you know, kind of on this manhunt. Indiana Jones rolls his eyes all the time when his dad is talking about it because he's really not interested in joining his dad for this journey, but he decides to do it anyway. And the movie is just phenomenal because it's action-packed, it's funny, and the whole idea is that Indiana Jones is on this journey to find this Holy Grail that really is not his passion, but that is the passion of his father. And so when we look at chapters 7, and I'm gonna kind of jump around a little bit here, chapter 7 is about the possibilities of a kingdom woman. And again, Indiana Jones was not really interested at all in this whole Holy Grail, but there was the possibility of this thing being out there. You know, he was a little curious and he chose to walk a pathway of faith. He chose to take a step in the direction of something that might be, and that's the whole point of this movie, him in search of a possibility, him being willing to make sacrifices for this possibility, him being willing to be in danger and inconvenienced for this possibility. But it's a possibility, and so he takes a leap of faith. He has the idea of something great, and he moves forward in pursuit of that possibility. And Pursuit is Chapter 6. He has the idea that there's a prize out there, and he passionately pursues that prize. And the whole movie, that's the whole point of the movie, is his passionate pursuit of this prize, which of course, you know, it's a movie, so in the end he finds the prize. He is undeterred by troubles, he's undeterred by difficult situations, by discomfort, because there's this possibility of this thing that's out there and he's decided to passionately pursue it. And then in Chapter 5, we see that in Kingdom Woman talking about power. What's interesting about this Indiana Jones movie, and I'll parallel that to the Kingdom Woman journey in just a second, what's interesting is that he always found himself in a little bit more of a difficult situation than he was prepared to handle, but time after time after time again, he either gets rescued by a friend, or just in the nick of time he's able to untie himself and move out of the way of impending danger, or just in the nick of time something happens to the bad guy and he's able to escape. I mean, time after time. But those, those opportunities, those powerful moments, don't come with him standing still. They come with him moving. And what we find is that when we're in passionate pursuit of a possibility, we are not just able to believe and that's enough. You find the power in your movement. You find the power as you walk. You find the power as you take steps in the direction that God has intended for you. And so one particular point in the movie that's really cool, he's standing at the edge of kind of a cliff and he stares down and there's this great abyss, can't even see the bottom. And he knows that in order to get to this Holy Grail where he thinks it is, he's got to cross this abyss. And he sees the opening at the other end of of this empty space, and all he knows is he's supposed to go. So he picks his foot up and he steps out expecting completely to fall to his death, and as soon as his foot comes down in what would be into nothingness, it hits something hard, and he's kind of confused because he doesn't see anything. He picks up some dust and he throws it on the ground, and then he realizes there's ground there. It was just invisible, and he never would have seen it if he hadn't taken that step. So he runs across the abyss and then the rest is history. He finds the Holy Grail and the whole story ends in a great hurrah. But the thing is, he didn't know he had the power to walk out into the abyss until he took the step. Okay, let me keep going because this is gonna get good. Possibilities, pursuit, and power. In our walk as kingdom women, we may not know exactly— excuse a little wiggly, my arm is getting tired— we may not know exactly what or where this possibility is, or when we're going to get there, or where exactly it's located, or what it's going to be surrounded by, or what we're going to have to fight to get there. But there is a possibility. Some of us know what that is. Some of us have a hope for what that is. Maybe it's healing in our family. Maybe it's healing in our hearts. Maybe it's God's revelation to us about our destiny or the direction that we should be headed. Or maybe it's we're struggling on our job and we have this possibility in our head that God can provide a way for us to be successful and be a light for Him in the workplace. Whatever that possibility is, it's there, and our job is to passionately pursue it even when it doesn't look like it makes any sense, even when we may not even be sure that we want the possibility, but we're sure that He wants it for us. Our job is to just figure out a way to passionately pursue what He's shown us, and then we have power. Girls, let me tell you something. Power is not something that just comes to you when you're sitting down waiting on it to just drop into your lap. Power is this extraterrestrial thing that you have in your Christian walk that as you take steps, He then shows you that when you're stepping into what you think is nothingness, that He's there. That is so exciting to me because I can't tell you time and time again how I'm going in a direction where I feel like I'm not really sure this is what I'm supposed to be doing, and it's not until I take a step that God goes, "Yes, that was right, that was right." He gives us a little bit of light for every step of the journey that we take, and we always will have just enough light as we take just the next step that he's asking us to take. So how do you get this possibility and this pursuit and this power? Honey, first of all, you got to be committed, and that takes us back to chapter 4. No matter what, you have to be committed to the instruction of your God. And Indiana Jones, he wasn't interested in the possibility. He could have cared less about the pursuit. He wasn't even sure that he wanted the power to do what he needed to do, but he was committed to his dad. He was committed to his dad, and when his dad said, "This is my dream, and this is what I want you to help me do," Indiana Jones said, "Okay." He was committed to the instruction and the word of his dad, even when it didn't make sense. He was committed, and that's what we have to be, committed to the word of God even when it doesn't make sense. And so I went 7, 6, 5, 4, and I'm about to jump to chapter 8. How do you know what God is telling you to do? How do you know what instruction he's trying to give you? First of all, you read the Word. Second of all, you pray. And that's what chapter 8 is all about. You can have a conversation with the Lord, this ongoing discussion with a friend, where he will reveal himself to you if you take the time to talk to him. And so this week, I just want to challenge you to take the time to talk to him. When you get up in the morning, before your feet hit the floor, raise your arms to heaven and say, "Lord, what is your will for me for today?" And just sit there for a second. He may speak, he may not speak. He may show you something in his word. He may speak to you through a friend, but reach out to him first. As he comes to mind during the day, talk to him. Talk out loud to him in the car if you have to. That's what I do sometimes. In the evening before you go to bed, if that's a good time for you, talk to him then. But it's a conversation, just like you were on the phone all day with a friend. Open up those lines and see what he says. There's so much excitement waiting for you, ladies, as we talk about the power of a kingdom woman's voice. Faith. These are great chapters, some of my favorites. I hope you enjoy them, and I look forward to talking to you this week. You know, Matthew— and I'll leave you with this verse and we'll talk more about it later— chapter 7 says, "Ask and it will be given to you. Seek and you will find. Knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives." Verse 8, "He who seeks finds, and to him who knocks, the door will be opened. If you pray, he will answer." Because if a son asks for bread, would his dad give him a stone? No, your Father is a good Father, and he knows how to give good gifts to those who ask him. That's in Matthew chapter 7, verses 7 through 11, if you want to read that for encouragement this week. I look forward to spending time with you ladies. Bye!