Author | Speaker | Mentor

The God Dare

The God Dare Text-to
Have you ever felt it? The tug in your conscience of a really big thing? I mean really big. Bigger than you and virtually impossible to pull off? The still small voice that thunders through your being, grips your heart and won’t let it go?
 I heard it clear as a bell a couple of years ago. Mike and I had been invited to speak at a big meeting for a homeschool organization. They wanted us to speak about the steps we’d taken to raise our daughter into an adult who’d found her purpose and was living it out. Mike and I talked it over and came up with 15 intentional things we’d done raising her and later that week we spoke at the meeting.
So, the morning after the meeting, there I am stretched out on the floor praying and thanking God for allowing us to share our 15 steps and for all the good things He’s done for our family. I was awash in gratitude and going over in my mind all the topics we’d discussed the night before.

And that’s when I heard it.

The God Dare.

“Those are book chapters.”

Wait, what? Book chapters? Are you SERIOUS GOD? You want me to write a BOOK???

No way God I can’t and here’s why:

  1. I’m not a trained writer.
  2. I don’t have a college degree.
  3. I’m not a parenting expert.
  4. I don’t have time to write a book. (Okay, I knew that wasn’t true but I thought it anyway.)
  5. Who will read it?
  6. How will I ever get it published?
  7. People will think it’s a stupid idea.
  8. People will think I’m promoting myself.
  9. And on and on and on………….

“Those are book chapters.”

The sentence exploded in my brain like a firecracker and though I went into hypermode trying to find an excuse not to do it, there wasn’t one. I had no excuse. It’s funny, all the things I’d taught my daughter about crossing self imposed boundaries, stepping out of your comfort zone, doing it afraid, all of them came flooding in to haunt me in that moment.

So, I did the only thing I could. I said yes to The God Dare. The big fat triple-dog-dare. I chose to believe He knows me better than I know myself and He knows what I’m capable of accomplishing.

I learned that within each God Dare are the seeds of it’s success. The dare itself obliterates all questions because He already assumes you have the capacity to do it or He wouldn’t have dared you! You’ll only accept the dare if you believe He believes in you. And believe me sister, He does!

Over the next year I blew through every single one of my excuses by the act of doing what He dared me to do, which was to write a book. I did and Growing Great Kids came out January 2012.

Get this, I found a publisher while I had no previous serious writing experience, no platform and no college degree. So don’t give me excuses why you can’t do something. If God tells you to than anything is possible. Anything.

I know I had a choice. I could have chosen to limit myself, to ignore the still, small voice, to settle for less. I’m so glad I didn’t. I’m glad I pushed through my excuses and I’m proud of the book I wrote.

Think about this. Moses took The God Dare. There he is, in the back of a hot, lonely desert leading stinky sheep for 40 years. Solitary days and cold nights, most likely imagining he totally missed his purpose. Then all of a sudden he sees a bush on fire in the distance. He could’ve ignored it or thought he was imagining things but he didn’t. No, he said, ” ‘I will now turn aside and see this great sight, why the bush does not burn.’ So when the Lord saw that he turned aside to look, God called to him…” Exodus 3:3-4

And God dared him.  ‘Hey Moses, you’ve been leading sheep for 40 years. I’ve chosen you to lead human sheep for another 40, out of bondage and oppression and into a land flowing with milk and honey.’ We all know how the story ends. Moses took the dare, reluctantly and with his brother Aaron’s help, and changed history.

So did Noah. ‘Hey Noah, take a hundred years to build a boat. I know there is no water and people will think you are absolutely nuts, but trust me.’ And he and his family alone escaped the flood and started a new world.

‘Hey Abraham, you’re a hundred years old and your wife is 90 and barren, but I’m giving you more descendants than the sand on the seashore or the stars in the sky. In you all the families of the earth will be blessed. Trust me.’ And he did and we are.

And Ruth. ‘Hey Ruth, move away from everything you know and follow your sad, bitter mother-in-law to her country where you have absolutely no prospects. Trust me.’ And she ended up in the lineage of Christ.

And Mary who took the biggest, scariest God Dare of them all. Eight simple words of hers changed the world, “Be it unto me according to your word.” And the rest is history…

 

What about you. Will you take The God Dare? What’s He asking you to do? Maybe He wants you to go back to school or start a business or adopt a baby or lose weight. Maybe He wants you to write a book 🙂 I’d love  you to share about it and I commit to pray for you because I know what it takes and it’s not an easy journey.  But really, isn’t anything worth having worth fighting for?

I triple-dog-dare you. Take The God Dare.

 

 

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