Last year I had the very humbling honor to speak at a church in New York. The pastor was my early childhood pastor and he asked me to talk about my testimony. I honestly considered it a kind of one-off experience, something that was exciting and good but probably not going to my calling. After all, I’m a writer, speaking is all fine and good but that’s not “my calling.” Until I began to hear God tell me I was entering a new season.

I didn’t want to enter a new season. The one I was in was nice, I was working at a school, writing, doing a podcast with friends, training my dog… It was nice. It was comfortable.

Much of this last year I wrestled with God especially the speaking to people part. I became exhausted trying to keep up all the things, dissatisfied with everything I was doing, and starting to feel like a small breakdown might start happening. How could this be? I was doing so many good and even God things! How could I be struggling with doing even the things I loved.

I had entered a phase I like to call “The Holy Agitation.” Where everything is just wrong and uncomfortable, like a scratchy sweater on warm day. Nothing felt right. To be totally honest some of it was me entering perimenopause, but the larger part was I simply didn’t want to fight God or obey Him. So I was just being a sullen child and pouting.

Finally after months of “The Holy Agitation,” I gave up. I prayed, “I’m done. I don’t know what You want from me but I’ll do it. But just realize, I don’t know how to get this stuff started. If You want me to do this speaking stuff, You’re gonna have to start it.” I wasn’t exactly pleasant but it was about as honest as I could be.

I immediately remembered something God had told me right before I published my first book I was terrified and worried that the money I had put into it would be lost. “If I tell you: you will succeed then you will succeed.” Those words slammed into my heart that night and here they were making a reappearance.

After that moment, I let go of the fighting and excuses. If God wanted me to start speaking, it would be up to Him to set it up. Within the next two weeks, two churches asked me to come and share my testimony. One I have already been to and another is slated for next month. And I never asked them, they contacted me. Even writing about this makes me a little weak at the knees. Not because I have a great story, or because I speak so good but because I told God that He could use me and He is. Is it scary? Absolutely! Do I still struggle with everything? Yup, ask my family.

But He wants to use me.

That blows my mind. And I’m not so stupid as to believe that I’m the only one. He wants to use you too. What would you step into if you let God be your frontman?

“If I tell you: you will succeed then you will succeed.”