Asking For Help

Start to Finish one of the best episodes I’ve written. If you would also like to listen to it you can do so here. 

This is going to be a unique blog post. It’s a bit of a confession, repentance, revelation, and action call all wrapped into one. I wrote the first half of this episode and it got erased when our power went out. I was super bummed but saw it as an opportunity to get everything out that I left out the first go around.

I just went through 5 solid days of revelations, breakdowns, and breakthroughs. I am for the first time in my life feel like I have put the things I struggle with into the hands of God. I realize I can’t do a lot of the things I do on my own. I can’t control what only God can control and I am about to share with you guys my heart and what I’ve been going through. Not every detail of course but enough for you to get the spiritual message behind everything.  

My ministry is a unique one. It’s one man chasing after God’s heart and trying to bring other humans along with me. When I say it’s a one-man ministry, it’s describing this concept. I have been seeking God my whole life and I became even more passionate to know him when I read the gospel of John and at that moment Jesus became alive in my mind, body, and soul. 

I struggle in my faith just like anyone and everyone. I am coming out of a season that I’m not proud of, but in order to get where I’m at now and where I’m going - I had to go through it. 

Most of you guys know me, some of you don’t. I’ll give you the first part of this season. I had my firstborn son noah at 19 and we spent 5 years living in the same state and I was his dad and he was my son. We played together, we did life together, and we slept together half of the week, and the other half he was with his mom. 

I share more about this story in the book I am writing, but I wanted to fill you guys in for the purpose of this story I am about to share with you. After having him on and off again for four years, I was lucky enough to have him for the fifth year for 10 months straight while his mom was in basic training and tech school for the military. My wife and I moved into a house in Riverview that we loved and we did life together for those 9-10 months. 

After the recruiter promised to do his best to get his mom stationed in Tampa… she got stationed in South Carolina. Despite the tears, we came up with a plan to have him go with her and do school with her and I would get him on all the breaks. 

So for 3 years straight I saw my best friend - My first real love - only 9-10 weeks of the year. I became the FaceTime dad and I fricking hated it. I lived with a pain that was unbearable for years. It was the biggest hole in my heart. I prayed and pleaded to God to find a way for him to be closer again for three years straight.

This past summer I found out his mom was getting out of the military and was moving back to Florida to be closer to her family. I was excited for him but this put me in a huge pickle with my family. I moved to Texas three years ago and my wife and I had our first child. We named him Malachi and he luckily spent the first 2 years of his life being around my wife’s family who adores him. My wife Katherine and I struggled with the idea of picking up everything and going back to Florida. 

God is bigger than our worries, stresses, and uncertainties! By the grace of God, Florida wasn’t where they were supposed to be. I invited them to come to Texas and six weeks later he was here! We picked him up and spent 4 weeks with him trying to learn how to do life again. (No more vacation Dad, we doing life again!)

My wife and I parked our RV and decided to stay put since he was in Texas now. This threw off our plan of being on the road for a year and it made life get more stressful as we began plotting on how to get into a home. One that we own! 

We are 3 months into him being here and that hole in my heart is filled, but as of late I have discovered that there are other holes as well. I used him being gone and away as my main focus when despair and stress arose. It was revealed to me there are many things holding me back from the fruits of the spirit. 

I just went through a super stormy season mentally. I was in a pit of depression. One day I was feeling like I was on top of a mountain the next day I was in the valley.

I know some of you are aware of me doing freelance writing. I had 2 months of it being so busy and lucrative that I lost sight of who I was really serving in this life. I got wrapped up in money and lost sight of the bread of life. My ego was inflated, my goals were ridiculous, I literally text my wife “ima make 100k next year.” 😂

I think it’s good to dream big, but not when you are getting off the path God has you on. Being called to ministry is not one where you prioritize money over people and I was doing that on Fiverr. I was treating people behind a screen like dollar signs. I was sloppy with my work, I wasn’t proofreading speeches. I was rushing through them, I was copying and pasting when I didn’t need to, and I was even giving away work to a friend of mine. 

God pulled the rug on that platform and all my gigs got knocked down in the rankings and I have been barely getting by since late October. I have experienced financial hardship and uncertainty and the enemy knows this is one of my vulnerable spots due to my parents’ frequent fighting about money. 

I let money become a god a season of my life and I have been told by the Lord loud and clear to no longer write and record financial freedom episodes. That’s not what he called me to do. He called me to tell people about Jesus, not money. Yes God blesses us financially and gives us the wisdom of what to do with our money and he teaches us how to steward and invest that money but let him teach you that in His Word. My calling is to put on for Jesus. Not put on for silver and bitcoin. 

The stress attached to money is a real one. Especially because we have big purchases coming up with a house. Septic, electric, water, driveway, and everything else that is needed to put a house on some land. We have the baby coming in March. We have a birthing center to pay for. My wife has to go see a specialist for a health issue and we are trying to get a bigger family car soon. A LOT!

When your income is secure you can figure these things out but when it’s up and down you feel up and down sometimes as well. I realized when I started this ministry pursuit I would have to be bi-vocational. But, I foolishly started serving money more than serving Jesus and that can never happen again. 

Small revelations build the biggest temples and I am coming out of the storm seeing I need to tighten up. I was being sloppy. I wasn’t being Christ Like. I still loved Jesus and was going through the motions and enjoyed sitting down with him still but my mind when I wasn’t in the Bible, was somewhere else. I let the pressure of the money situation and our life situation truly break me down. Dead serious, my brain hurts after this season I just went through. I feel fried. I feel exhausted. 

This fatigue led me to almost backing out of my trip to Africa. I quietly bought a ticket to Africa to go with my in- laws and my buddy Olivier for 2 weeks at the end of the year and I wasn’t wanting to go. The reason was not only fatigue, it’s also the revelation I had that I wasn’t currently living in a way that was representing Christ. I wasn’t being a foot solider for Jesus. I was so worried and stressed about things out of my control that I had no desire to get on a plane and go spread the gospel. 

The enemy knows how to attack and boy has he attacked me these last 6 weeks. I have a target on my back and I have to be prayed up ready to go. I’m back in the gym getting my body right and it’s been helping me get my mind right. I’m disconnected from my phone, socials, and most importantly not letting the stock market impact my mood anymore. 

I met my pastor Dustin who has been huge into helping me get into my ministry school and has been a great voice for me since moving here. He’s always been in my corner and I actually had a meeting with him in regards to helping me with my finances. He is a financial advisor and is incredible at his job and I believe he will alleviate some stress in my life by bringing him in. 

God put it on my heart to reach out to him and set up a meeting and give him the keys to help me. 

HELP! 

This is another BIG revelation I had this past week. It’s been revealed that I am not good at asking for help. I try to do everything myself and it wears me out, breaks me down, and makes my pride get in my own way of God’s blessing. 

For instance, my in-laws have been so helpful in this season and I have made myself the bad guy for receiving that help. I was looking at myself like a loser for parking our Rv on their land and living there. It’s like dude, do you not realize Noah came here at the snap of a finger and you are figuring it out. Give yourself some grace! 

Katherine and I discussed it and the reason stems back to my younger days. I was often times the helper in my family. I was the one giving money to my folks. I moved out at 19 and was a young father and tried to prove the critics wrong and do it all by myself. I had used furniture, nothing on the walls, and was in a low-income apartment but God was with me the whole step of the way!

Now I’m in a position where I am able to ask for help and I struggle to do it. I let my pride block my blessings from those who are able to bless. 

This brought me to a place of realization that I need help to keep this going. I am trying to do everything in my power to finish school and continue doing this ministry. I am also gone 3 nights a week now doing volunteer character coaching for a high school basketball team. This is another layer of my ministry and to be honest with each and every one of you adding a job on top of that would pull me away from the calling God has me on. 

So this is me admitting I need some help from my fellow birds. In the episode notes I will be putting a support link and you can do a one-time donation that will help us out in the short term and I am also working on creating a patron account so we can have monthly supporters that will also get exclusive perks like an extra episode every month, ebooks, Merch discounts, and a signed copy of my first book when it comes out. 

I’d truly appreciate it if you can help us keep the ministry going: I never wanted to ask for help and I was hoping the shirts would be enough to get us by. We put out a sponsorship request and we haven’t gotten any bites. So if you or someone you know would like to support this ministry with a sponsorship opportunity please send them my way. 

I am a man chasing after God’s heart and I want to help those around me get that same fire for the Lord! A complete surrender of self and putting it all in his hands. The holes in our hearts I give to him. The financial stresses I give to him. The loss of work I give to him. The doubt and fear about going to Africa I give to him. The co-parenting adjustment I give to him. The baby on the way I give to him. The health issue with my wife I give to him. The mental battles I give to him! 

Thank you for listening and any help you can give would be greatly appreciated. I promise to always go after Jesus, even when I slip and stumble I will dance back to Jesus!