Willing to Obey
“Will your heart and soul say Yes?
Will your spirit still say Yes?
If I told you what I really need,
Would your heart and soul say Yes?
God is saying,
There is more that I require of thee.
Will your heart and soul say Yes?
Will your spirit still say Yes?
So just say, Yes.
Open up your heart and tell the Lord, Yes.
Say I’ll obey, Jesus. I won’t stray, Jesus.
But this time I’ve made up my mind, I’ve made up my mind
I’ll say, YES!
I’ll do what you want me to do,
I’ll say what you want me to say,
If you lead me, if you lead me, if you lead me, if you lead me, I’ll go!
There is more that I require of thee.
He’s calling you higher.
He said, I’m calling you out of your dry places.
He’s saying, come on up a little higher!
I predestined you before the world began to do my will, to do my will.
He said, seek my face.
He said, hear my voice.
The day you hear my voice, harden not your heart.
I’m calling you higher, I’m calling you higher.
So let your heart and soul say, YES.”
“Yes” by Shekinah Glory Ministry
There’s something about a nice long drive that is so therapeutic for me. It’s one of the few times I can have solitude — void of work emails, Zoom meetings, phone calls — where I can zone out and solely focus on me. On a random day in January of 2023 I had one of those drives — one of my many long drives from DC to NYC — where I decided to put on a random playlist on Spotify and just let Spotify surprise me with whatever songs it had in the cannon for me that day. My heart was in a spirit of gratitude so I chose Gospel as my genre that day.
A song I had never heard before came on. It was simply called, “Yes”.
I was listening intently as I drove north on I-95.
And before I knew it, I was in tears. And I didn’t even know why.
My spirit felt ALIVE and I could feel my insides radiating. The words of the song struck me deeply and it felt like the song was specifically chosen for ME to hear at that very moment.
I played the song again.
And again.
And again.
Around time number 5 of listening to the song I heard a voice say “You have not been obedient.”
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Growing up in a Black Baptist church, I always heard the deacons, the elders, and all the church mothers say “Baby… when God speaks, you betta listen.”
As a young child I was taught the magnitude of GOD.
The omnipresence of GOD. The POWER of GOD.
I was taught that GOD can do all things. GOD can do the impossible.
And I was taught that, with prayer and obedience, GOD would grant me the desires of my heart.
However, in my teenage and young adult years, I began to question everything. I was beginning to witness so much non-Christ-like behavior happening in my church. People who claimed to walk in the loving and righteous path that Jesus did were doing quiiiiiiite the opposite of that in their daily lives. And because I was growing up in the beautifully open and affirming community of the artistic world, I also began to disassociate myself with the dogmatic views of the church that condemned the people in my life that I loved who’s way of life was different than the “rules” that were written in the Bible.
The phrase “You’re going to Hell if you…” began to make my blood boil with anger because …. First of all, WHERE is Hell anyway? Does it even exist? Or is it just an imaginary place that we’ve created to instill fear in the lives of human beings who don’t fall in line? And then conversely, if Hell may not exist, then I suppose Heaven may not exist either? But anyway, I digress.
In high school, even amidst all of the doubt that I had, I read a book called “Conversations With God” by Neale Donald Walsch, and though it was interesting to read his perspective, I remember thinking to myself “This ain’t GOD speaking. This man is just… talking to himself!” LoL, oh Chanel. My young teenage mind rejected the notion that GOD SPEAKS — and even more so, that GOD could/would speak to ME!
I found out years later that Neale wrote this book during the lowest point of his life, as a means to release his frustrations to God and to question why the events of his life had unfolded as they had. And while he was not necessarily looking for a response, GOD began to SPEAK… directly to him.
In the dance and artistic community we often say that your best and most honest work comes at the supreme point of exhaustion. That moment in rehearsal or while you’re on stage, when you’ve given everything that you have physically, your body is fatigued and depleted, and you feel as though you have absolutely NOTHING left in the tank…
THAT is when your BEST and most HONEST work emerges.
THAT is when the TRUTH comes forth.
#TheIrony
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June 2022
I hit an emotional wall.
I had come to the end of yet another failed romantic relationship.
I was living in a city that I had moved to, chasing a love that did not chase me back.
I was living in and paying rent for a beautiful apartment in that very city that I was never physically in because I was, ironically, always in NYC.
I had lied to myself one too many times about what I want and how I feel and it was literally making me sick.
I had stress and anxiety in ways that I had never experienced in my life.
I had put myself on the back burner of my own life so many times, in service to what other people need, that I no longer even knew who I was.
I had gotten this far thinking that I could control everything and that I could lift and carry the burdens of my life all by myself.
And then… I was exhausted.
For the first time in my life I felt a clear and significant need for change.
Something had to change.
Many things must change.
I didn’t know what needed to change yet, but I was determined to take a magnifying glass and look at my life to find all of the blemishes that had led me to this place. I found so much that I was excited to dig into, but the first thing I knew was lacking was that I had fallen out of touch with GOD.
I started my healing journey that same June 2022 and through the many days of tears and anger and heartbreak, I began vehemently working on myself. Everything was under examination; my physical health, my mental health, my finances, my issues with my Father, my lack of boundaries, my lack of discipline, my fear of abandonment, and most importantly my spirituality. I realized that I was mentoring and teaching all of these surrender mantras — “Trust your intuition”, “Walk through the open doors”, “What is for me will be for ME”, “Jesus, take the wheel” — but I wasn’t actually living them. Each of those mantras requires a deep amount of “letting go”. A deep amount of surrender. A deep about of obedience to something outside of yourself. I needed to learn how to release what I thought my life would/could/should be and start listening to and trusting GOD for what my life will be.
A year prior I had been kicking around the idea of moving back to NYC in early 2022 but I (again) chose incorrectly and stayed in DC longer than I should have. All signs were pointing to NYC but I stubbornly kept finding more and more reasons to stay. At the end of 2022, when my life was the most chaotic and stressful and I was sick with back-to-back sinus infections, living in the basement of my Brooklyn home for 3 months straight, I knew that I could no longer keep up this version of my life.
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January 2023
“You have not been obedient.”
The voice pierced through my mind and heart like lightning. It was clear and affirmative. There was no way to mistake it. My heart started to race and my breath quickened at the sheer magnitude of what just happened. I was stunned and looked around my car asking myself “Did I just hear what I heard?”
Though I was shocked, I somehow knew at that moment that this was GOD speaking to me. That perhaps I was so tapped in, so open — (thank you Spotify Gospel playlist!) — that God was able to reach me. I waited a few seconds and then asked inside my head “What do you mean I have not been obedient?”
GOD spoke again and replied,
“I told you to move back to NYC last year. You didn’t listen. You have not been obedient.”
I was silent again. All I had were tears.
Tears of epiphany. Tears of gratitude. Tears of affirmation.
Tears of regret. Tears of guilt. Tears of embarrassment.
Tears of courage. Tears of faith. Tears of wonder.
On one hand I was still reveling in the fact that GOD not only spoke to me, but ANSWERED me! Like — whaaaaaaaattttt?!?!?
And on the other hand I had to reckon with the fact that GOD was absolutely right. I had NOT been obedient.
I’ve had a conflicting relationship with the word “obedient” throughout my lifetime. In my young adult years up through my mid-thirties I rejected the idea of “submission”; mostly because of my fear of being taken advantage of and my fear of not being in control. Always wanting to lead and not being able to follow. Holding on to the idea that “I know best” instead of yielding and trusting a guidance outside of my own.
Obey | to follow the commands or guidance of; to conform or to comply with
Obedient | submissive to the restraint or command of authority; willing to obey
How is it that I was praying to GOD to seek clarity and guidance, but then ignoring that guidance when it came?
How is it that I had gotten so stubborn in my approach to life that I couldn’t just trust GOD and say YES?
I had to reposition myself to the idea of obedience. I needed to see it from a different perspective. I had to learn that I am not “giving up” anything when I trust and yield to the guidance of God in my life. In fact, because GOD is GOD I am gaining everything by listening and being obedient.
I had to find the faith that GOD is always listening.
I had to find the gratitude that GOD will answer.
I had to find the obedience to walk the path GOD lights in front of me.
I had to find the surrender and trust that, though I may not be able to see everything right now, GOD has my back.
On the other side of obedience, is abundance.
