Striving vs. Stretching: Knowing the Season You're In

Hello, my name is Chrystal Hurst, and I am your host, the host of What You Ask of the Sister Circle Podcast. And every week you get me solo one time, and then another time you get me and a friend, because I'm often inviting a sister or a brother to join me in the circle to talk about what really matters. Why? Because we all need encouragement. We need to know that we're not alone, and we need to hear from someone else who's experienced something in life. That will help us on our journey. I believe that we are really better together. I want to let you know that this podcast is available not only here via audio, but it is also available in its entirety on YouTube. You can watch me every week. We release a video every Sunday night typically, and that video for me has an audio component that gets released on the podcast as well. The interviews that you hear on the podcast, you can only hear on the podcast. So I encourage you to subscribe, and you can do that by going to your favorite podcast player. You can do that by listening on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify, and now Amazon Music and Pandora. Y'all, we trying to come up in the world. I'm so glad you're here. I want you to know that if you're listening, I would love for you to join me at my retreat 2023, but I'm only going if y'all are coming with me and you commit. Go to chrystalevanshurst.com/tscretreat. To hold your spot and to let me know you're there. When I know you're serious, then I'll get serious and pay that deposit for the place. Listen, y'all, doing business is serious business. I also want you to know that if you are not on my email list, you are missing out because there are certain things I only share with those on my email list. And if you thought about getting into the Inner Circle— what is the Inner Circle, you say? It's for those who want more, more of the fun and foolery, because y'all are getting the serious buttoned-up version right here.. But if you want more of the foolery and honestly more of the mentoring, the big sistering, the wisdom that me and my friends share for you to live your life well, then that's what you wanna do. You can check that out by going to chrystallevanshurst.com/innercircle. I know I just gave you a lot. That's why you need to be on my email list. Get on it right now. I'd love to send you an email as soon as you join. I wanna talk to you about what it means to know the season you are in. There is a difference between striving and stretching. There is a difference between striving and being strengthened, and it behooves you to know the difference. Why? Because striving is basically stretching or strengthening, but out of order. In other words, you are stretching for nothing that God has planned for you. You are trying to strengthen yourself for something that he has not purposed for you. And if you are exercising your strength outside of God's will, then you are wasting your time. Can you be successful in any way, shape, or form without being in the will of God? Sure you can. But do you want to be out of the will of God? Because everything that you do in and of this life is only for this life if you are only living for this life. When you are strengthening and stretching yourself in the will of God, then you are not only doing what he wants you to do this life, but you are doing something that will benefit people after you're gone and also set things up for you when you leave here. This is not all there is, y'all. We are divine beings that are having a spiritual experience in heaven if we allow that to be the case. But most of us get stuck in the physical experience that we have every day. We get stuck with the sights, the sounds, the smells, what we can touch, what we can feel, what we can see. And we think we get confused about that. And when we get confused, we'll start striving and strengthening ourselves for the things that are physically available. I need you to know you're more than a physical being. And in order to strive and strengthen and stretch in the right ways, you need to be connected to the purpose God has for you. So how do you do that? How do you strengthen and stretch in right ways? And not strive unnecessarily? Well, I'm glad you asked. Striving is devoting serious effort or energy in a way that is not in the purposes and plans that God has for you. I love Proverbs 10:22 that says, "The blessing of the Lord brings true riches, and he adds no sorrow to it, for it comes as a blessing to God." And riches in this scripture, does it mean like money? Sure it does. But does it mean having a blessed life? Sure it does. Riches, of course, I hope you know, is more than the green stuff that you put in your purse or in your pocket, or more than what you have behind your debit card, or more than what you have in that crypto you hope jumps up tomorrow, next week, next year. Everybody's trying to figure out how to make a dollar, but what you don't understand is that if you make a dollar without having divine purpose at work in your life, that dollar can bring stress, unnecessary stress, and you don't want that. What does it mean to stretch in good ways, to strengthen in good ways? It means for you to amplify enlarge or expand to fill a larger function. And let me tell you something, God is always interested in your expansion. Always. Because physically you can see it. You weren't born to be a baby. You didn't grow to be a toddler. You didn't leave toddlerhood to become an elementary student. You didn't go from being an elementary student to be a high schooler and that was the end of that. No, the goal was always you being a mature adult. And even through the seasons of your life in adulthood, growing and developing and becoming more wise with time. What makes you think that your spiritual development would be any different. He wants you to grow so that you can inhabit and have a larger function in different seasons of your life. I've taught spin. I've broken my spin bike back out. Why not? Because I love it. I love it. And so my husband has put my spin bike back in the middle of the room. And y'all, um, let's just say I'm in there because we have a large TV with a surround sound system in there. Let's also say that on our alarm system, I have to disable the glass breaks because I pump up I love music so loud. What can I say? I used to teach spin, and when you're in spin, 75% of the beauty of the spin class is the music. Why do you think they call it SoulCycle? Because y'all, if the music is right, it's not only your body that gets right in cycle, it's your soul too. Somebody say Chrystal Hurst wants to be a DJ. It's true. And I would always tell people when they would come to join me in a spin class, because everybody complains about their hiney hurting I would say you gotta come at least 3 times. You gotta come at least 3 times. Do as much as you can the first time, you'll go further the second time, and the third time you might even like it. But definitely by the fourth time, your hiney will have toughened up and you'll be ready to roll. I knew this to be true because it was true for me. It's not striving, it's strengthening. It's not striving, it's stretching. It feels tough, but shouldn't everything feel tough that you've never done before? I think that might be the case. I'm convinced that spin is an amazing way to exercise your body. And because I'm convinced, I would tell other people that were struggling, listen, it's all about getting strengthened. It's all about expanding your ability to do more than you could do yesterday. I have the same thing that works for me today. I wanna tell you how it works for me, and then I wanna tell you how to do it. When I get speaking engagements, y'all, I look at them. I look at how many people are going to be there. I look at who's it for. I look at where it is. I look at when it is. And then, y'all, I push it back and I sit on it for a second. I pray about them for a second. And you want to know why? Because God is the only one who knows a year from now, 6 months from now, 8 months from now, what I need to be committed to. So even if everything on paper says yes, I don't give a yes until I know it's a yes, because I don't want to strive and fill my calendar with a bunch of things to do. Sure. Do I want to go and speak? Absolutely. Do I want to go and speak everywhere I'm asked? I can't. Do I want to say yes to all the ones that I'm really excited about? I'd like to, but what am I going to do? I want to only stretch to make room for, to strengthen myself for, to prepare for the places I'm supposed to be. Because if I go and it wasn't where I was supposed to be, that I'm not living the way I'm supposed to live. God is the only one— this is why you have to recognize your divine creation— he's the only one who can give you the answer you need right now for the reality that you will live later. Because he is the only one that is from the beginning to the end, Alpha and Omega. He is the only one who holds the future in his hands and in his knowledge holds your future too. So you got to check in. And know that what you're doing is what you're supposed to be doing. Is this done perfectly? No. How do you know the difference? Because striving and strengthening, striving and stretching, they both can require hard work. They both can require similar stress. They both can require doing something new. So that's what I want to tell you about today, how to know the season you're in. First of all, here's how you know you need to hear from God. Now listen, y'all, I believe in practical information, and I'm always going to come from the angle of what I believe is truth based on my relationship with God and what he says in his word. If you've been here for any length of time, you know I am not always preaching and I'm not always going to quote scripture. But on today, somebody say, on today, let the church say on today. I cannot go any further into this topic without bringing deep spirituality to bear, without bringing your relationship with God to bear, without bringing your relationship with Jesus Christ to bear. Because how in the world are you going to connect to the divine being that you are without consulting the person who created you, that has a plan for you, that knows the beginning of time from the end of time, who knows how each and every decision you make— what, not just the first step you take, but the next 10 to 20 steps down the road, what what it will look like. How can you even move forward correctly without striving, strengthening instead, without striving, stretching instead, without consulting with the person who has in mind who you were supposed to be when you were full grown? When I raise my kids, I have in mind who they're supposed to be. I may not know exactly what they're going to look like, but I have plans for them. I have plans for them to, to finish high school and to go to college, plans for them to get a degree or to find a career that they love, plans for them to be raised in house, to know how to treat their spouse, to know how to treat their kids, to know how to treat their community. Plans for them to, to, to maximize their ability. I want to speak into them. I want to breathe life into them because I didn't have them just for them to be babies. I knew that they were going somewhere, and I had thoughts about what I wanted that to look like. Let me tell you something, God has thoughts about who he wants you to be, so you got to consult with him. You need to hear from God. And I can tell you that this is where people go, well, how do I do that? So I want to give you some practical tips, and I also want to give you some resources. Process. Number 1, it's okay to know that you need to practice hearing. Hearing takes practice. Listening to God's voice, it's okay if it takes you practice. But let me tell you how you do that. Step 1, you obey. You start by obeying the revealed word in scripture. If you don't read your Bible, then you don't know God. If you don't study your Bible, let me tell you, you don't know God. If you won't take the time to read his love letter that he wrote for you, to look at it, to listen to it, to study it, to hide it in your heart, you're not starting with the easiest thing there is, which is what he's already said. When my children come to me and they ask me a question if I've already said it, you want to know what I say? I say, I just look at them sideways and I say, didn't I already answer that? What did I say yesterday? Because I already spoke. A lot of what you need to know is already written. So you start with obeying the word. The Bible tells us in John 1 that in the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God. You want to know God, you got to get to know the word. So you stop, start by obeying what's obviously right there, low-hanging fruit. Number 2, you pray. The reason why I wrote a book called 28 Days of Prayer is because, y'all, I was struggling to pray. So this is back when Instagram was chronological, and I put 5 prayers a day for 28 days years ago on Instagram. And then my publisher came to me and said, you know that thing that you did? We think that you probably have enough words for a book. Are you sure? Let me check that out. Sure did. Added a few more words to it, but the reason why I even did that for myself is because prayer is simple, y'all. It is simply communication with God. He is everywhere, all the time, anytime. So guess what that means? When you need to have a conversation to consult with God, you can talk to God. But guess what else? Prayer is a two-sided conversation. You don't just talk, you listen. And this is where most of us fall off the bandwagon. We want to know what we're supposed to do. We want God to bless us. We want God to tell us where we should— help me to be a success. So we'll go to church, read a little word. We may even break it open every day and read a little Psalm or Proverb. Are we digging in deep? Maybe not, but that's okay. Are we praying? Sure, we sure do pray when we get into trouble. Lord, help me. If you'll just do this one more again, I will get right. But we don't do a good job of with God and even with our people, with our friends, with our family, is listen. We don't do a good job of listening because listening requires a few things from us. Listening to God looks like being still, being quiet. It looks like writing down what you hear, and that way you realize a month from now, 6 weeks from now, 6 years from now, did you hear right? It looks like spiritual discipline. Zondervan, academic, in a blog wrote this: The spiritual disciplines are the product of a synergy between divine and human initiative. By practicing the spiritual disciplines, we place our minds, our temperaments, and our bodies before God and learn to appropriate the power of kingdom living. These disciplines connect us to the power of the indwelling Holy Spirit who manifests the life of Christ in us and through us. Spiritual discipline means doing things that you probably would not otherwise make time for because we're too busy living life. But if you want the Holy Spirit to guide you, and John 16:13 says he will guide you into all truth, he won't speak on his own, he will speak what he hears. If you want to hear what the Holy Spirit is saying, and if you have Jesus Christ in you, then the Holy Spirit is in you too. That's how you become powerful. I have a whole video, I'll share it in the comments here on YouTube later. But there's a whole video that I talked about connecting with your intuition, the power of your intuition. You as a person of intuition, if you're a girl, you got an extra dose. If you know Jesus, the Holy Spirit rides that intuition and speaks things to you that you could not even know. But you don't get that without the discipline of listening. I'll repeat that. You don't get that without the discipline of listening. So what does that mean? These are a few. Solitude. Getting in the position to hear. Getting quiet. Making the space where nothing else is competing for your attention. Y'all, I went on a trip by myself. Yes, I did. Yes, I did. I sure did. By myself. Why? Because I can't hear. I'm able to do that now, y'all. I'm 50. That's what people tell me anyway. And my children are older, so I can do that. What did it look like when my kids were smaller? Hiding in the bathroom. Now it looks like I get in my car and I drive, or sometimes I hide in my car. When I was working in corporate finance, institutional money management— that's where I came from— I would take a break and go sit in my car. Listen, I would go for a walk. Can you go for a walk without headphones? Quiet. Can you get up in the middle of the night? My kids were small when I was nursing. The middle of the night was my best time to pray and to listen. Now what do I do? I'm an early riser. A few years ago, I ran a marathon, had to meet the people at 5 AM, had to get up at 4 to leave the house at 4:30, and ever since then, my circadian rhythms are off. And I wake up naturally between 5 or 6 o'clock in the morning. You know what I do? I sit at my kitchen table and I listen. I journal, I pray, I read, I study, and I listen. Solitude, being quiet, silence, meditation. The world stole us— stole that from believers. But meditation is simply focusing your mind. But the question is, focusing your mind on what? I could tell you what: on revealed truth. Being still enough so that you can hear and meditate on what the word of God tells you. So you ponder a verse or a passage. So that its truth can sink deeply into your being. Resources I wanna share, Priscilla, Discerning the Voice of God. Priscilla Shirer, my sister, wrote a great book, another one. Secrets of the Secret Place, one of my faves. I've read it now 3 times. Bob Sorge, Sorge, S-O-R-G-E. We'll put these in the notes on YouTube and in the show notes that will be also available with this episode. And then Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life. Don Whitney. You get to practice. And the good news is, is just like my kids get to learn my voice and I leave room for them to do that, you can learn to hear from God yourself. How do you stop striving, cease striving, and instead know when you're supposed to be stretched and strengthened? You got to learn how to hear God, and then you practice what you heard. Did you hear? How will you know unless you go? How do I know if I'm in alignment in my car? I have to drive it. How do I know if I'm out of alignment in my car? I have to drive it. I have to get my car out of park. Your alignment with what God is saying to you, or what you think he's saying to you, or what you're not sure he's saying to you, you test that with action. Alignment requires action. I will not know if I know how to play the notes correctly on the piano if I don't sit down and play. How will I know if I don't know how to play? Because I will hear dissonance. On the piano. My keys will be out of alignment. The more you practice driving, the more you practice playing, the more you practice living and obeying the written word, just like I watch the written notes on my page in front of my keys, the better you will get at it. If you think that you're hearing from God and you're like, "I thought I heard from God and this didn't work out," that's okay. You were practicing. And guess what happens? The longer you live, the better you'll get. Your emotions can help you. Emotions shouldn't govern you, but they can guide you. God gave you that not as an indictment, but as an indication. Often when you are in the place that you need to be, it will be physical. Now it's physical for me. I feel a chill run down my spine when I say something or do something that is in alignment with what I know God has for me. And then there is the spiritual deep knowing. But I didn't just get here today. The more I listen, the better I get. The more I practice, the more I know. My mother used to say, if you move with the light that you have, and as you move forward, you'll see that that's more light that he'll give. You don't need to know the whole story. God orders your steps. I'll say that again. God orders your steps. The Bible tells us, but How do you know that the steps are ordered until you've taken them? Number 1, hear from God. 2 and 3 gonna come a little bit quicker. Trust your knower. What is your knower? It is knowing the peace of the Holy Spirit. It is knowing yourself and the soul of you. It is knowing that, as I mentioned, you a person, you got intuition. You're a girl, you got an extra gift. You know Jesus, oh my goodness, the power of God sits on that intuition and tells you things. The beautiful thing is, y'all, that you are a soul, a uniquely divinely inspired, created work of art. And God gave you a start and then said, now I want to walk with you, and I want you to make some decisions. Adam and Eve in the garden, he created them, and then he said, go ahead, Adam, name the animals. And then the three-head God in one said, let them rule, let them rule. What does that mean? You got power to make some decisions. Every little thing you don't need to consult with God about. Who cares if you wear the green dress or the red dress today? He doesn't. Get creative, live your life, have some fun, explore this Earth, make new friends, try new things, take that class, explore that career choice, make some decisions. And sometimes, y'all, we get hung up on, I just need to know if this is in God's will for me. And he's like, girl, it don't matter, just choose, just choose. Know yourself. Know what you love. Know what you're passionate about. Know your history. Know what you need. Know your trauma. Know your triumphs. Know you. So that way, when your knower says go— some things you need to pray deeply about, some things, y'all, you just need to go on and do the thing. Trust your knower. Know the spirit. Know yourself. Know the yes that happens deep down, like it's not even in your heart, it's in the pit of your stomach. It's the peace that passes all understanding. It's the settled grace that the settled confidence brings. It is knowing that you're going to take the risk even when you're not a risk-taker, because you're absolutely positive. And it's up to you to learn and grow to know the difference. How do you learn? Well, you look back. You know your history. Where in the past have you taken the wrong turn, and what led to that decision? What can you learn about your life and yourself? Look back. Where in the past have you taken the right turns? What can you learn from them? We had an event in January in person. I knew I was supposed to do it. I knew, I knew, I knew. We couldn't find a place, but I knew, I knew, I knew. And as soon as we did it, as soon as we knew we had a place, we moved forward. People came, and I had a total light bulb experience there. Total light bulb experience. And it wouldn't have happened had I not known and moved forward despite what I didn't know. Trust your knower. Here's the last thing: seek to serve. You want to be a servant before you seek to be a star. You want to be a manager more than you want to be a master. You want to be a liaison where you bring people and concepts together, communication, before you become a leader. It's not about you. It is about you, but it's not about you. It's about you being a good steward. Of the things that God has put in your path, of what he's put in your life, of what he's put in your heart. So you gotta hear from God. That's the biggest one. Then you gotta trust yourself, trust your knower, and trust that if you're following God, he'll lead you into knowing you. And then you gotta seek to serve, because the reason why you're here, I can guarantee you, is to serve God and serve people. And even if you are a CEO, you realize that the product that you're delivering or the service you provide is about blessing someone else. The end user, the person who is going to use what you've provided, what you've created, the people that you serve. So I told you about the January event. Why did I do that? I was seeking to serve. My parents bought the home that my dad still lives in to this day thinking it's too much for us. It's too big for us. We're stretching. But why were we stretching? Because we're seeking to serve. We hold Bible studies here. We serve the people in our church here. We're seeking to serve. So that move was about stretching and strengthening, not striving. When I decided to homeschool my daughter, I wasn't trying to be stretched. I wasn't trying to be— I wasn't trying to be strengthened, but I was— I wasn't striving to do for her what I wanted her to be in her life. It was about— it was about Serving. Seek to serve. You can ask yourself anywhere, as I seek to grow and as I seek to develop, how do I know if I'm doing something in my own strength, if I'm in the season where I need to lay low or where I need to do more? How do you know? You hear from God, you trust your knower, and you seek to serve. And then you need to be free. Free to figure it out. Free to walk with trial and error. Trial and error is not always a bad thing. So that's for my millennials and my Gen Zers. Free to reinvent yourself. Free to change things up. Free to take your time. Striving happens only when you don't listen when you're not willing to learn and when you're not willing to lean in. Every decade of my life has looked different. My 20s, they were corporate. In my 30s, I was staying at home. In my 40s, building my own business, walking into a different season of ministry. Every season has looked totally different. But you know what? My goal in each season has been to stretch and to strengthen, to let God lead, and to serve others. And what does that mean? I have been stretched and strengthened. But I want you to know the season you're in. Why? Because striving is going to wear you out, take your time, and render nothing useful. It will suck your energy, and you will be left thinking, why did I waste that time? The good news is God uses things, but I don't want you to waste unnecessary time. So if you're in a season where you don't know what to do, Here's the freedom to stand. If he's not telling you to go, if you don't feel the need to go, if there's no one around you to serve, just stand and know that when it's time, he'll tell you. Children don't choose their growth spurts, they just happen. That's how often it works in your life. You don't have to look around to figure out your season. When it's time to stretch, stretch or strengthen, you'll know. When you find yourself hunting something down, working so hard for it, putting your energy into it, ask yourself, "Am I striving or am I stretching? Is God stretching me? Is he strengthening in me?" Because if you're spending the energy, I want you to spend it well. So, what season are you in? Me? To be honest, I've been doing a little striving. And when I realized that, I was like, oh no, oh no, let me back up. Let me hear from God and do what He told me to do. And only that. My encouragement to you is to do the same. All right, y'all, I hope that blessed you. And I'll see you next week.