Don’t wait for God — Hannah Viviers

A monthly column on purpose, passion and power in Jesus.

Have you made the decision to do what you feel you should do in this life?

I don’t mean the half-hearted, maybe one day someday, wishy washy, decision.

I mean the “yes-I’m-doing-it”, all-in, holding-nothing-back kind of decision.

Turns out until you make that decision what you hope to do “one day”, “someday” will never become a reality.

Now. Don’t get nervous.

Every time I say things like this people think I’m asking them to quit their job.

Don’t do that!

In fact quitting your job before you have a strong secondary income can be one of the worst things you can do — especially if you have kids.

The decision doesn’t have to mean quitting your job right now and moving back in with mom — for some people that might work — but for others it’s a process that might not always take off as fast as we hope.

However slow is far better than never.

I’d like to share with you why I have conviction about the power of making the decision to wholeheartedly go for it.

Last year felt like hell for me.

I know, as believers in Jesus, we’re not supposed to have periods that feel that bad. Well mine did.

I’d started my health and body detox business in February last year; but things were going so badly it looked more like an expensive hobby than a business.

Almost every day I was wracked with anxiety.

We went through huge financial turmoil (the worst I’d ever been in).

My bank account was constantly — and I mean constantly in the red.

By year end I felt beyond defeated.

I wanted to crawl up into a ball, hibernate for a while and hopefully wake up to a spring season when things weren’t this hard. Turns out humans don’t hibernate. So…

The New Year rolled in. My New Year’s Resolution was: Decide to not decide on doing anything.

I’d just lie still — do what needed to be done each day — not put too much effort into anything. Kinda playing dead — or at least half dead.

I felt like a loser!

I was angry at God. I felt He’d abandoned me at a time I needed Him most. Right in front of everyone who knew I was trusting Him, He’d let me down.

I’d had egg on my face, and He’d let it happen. I questioned how He could “love me” when He’d allowed me to go through what felt like utter financial ruin?

One morning, as my children were having breakfast, my daughter asked me something that yanked me out of that zombie-like state I was in.

I won’t get into it here because it was so profound it deserves a whole article to properly articulate.

What I can share is my daughter’s question made me realise that my “playing dead” when it came to my business was having an enormous impact on her. Not in a good way.

I knew I had to get back in the game, but I didn’t know how.

I thought I’d tried everything I knew and I’d still failed … what else could I possibly do to get out of my rut?

A few days earlier a friend had told me how motivational material had helped her get through some difficult periods in her life.

I went to YouTube and started looking for a speaker I’d once heard who had greatly inspired me. Eric Thomas (aka ET). I found his videos and started watching.

Every morning I’d watch his videos — some of them repeatedly. I didn’t know what else to do.

Truth be told I didn’t have the energy, confidence, or knowhow to do anything else.

In one of his videos ET told me I was to blame for not succeeding — no one else but me.

That was hard to hear. But also empowering.

He went on to say how many of us (yes he was talking about me), spoke about how “hard” we worked or how we’d tried “everything” — but that wasn’t entirely true.

We hadn’t worked as hard as we said and we hadn’t given it “everything. Because, according to ET, when you do it — wholeheartedly — with burning passion — giving it your all — you can’t but succeed.

So there it was, I had no business blaming God for my failure; I had let myself down.

I looked back on my rubbish year and for the first time saw how much time I’d wasted on things that didn’t matter or benefit my business.

My biggest mistake had been that I hadn’t gone all-in for this new venture.

I hadn’t made the solid decision that this business was what I was going to pursue wholeheartedly.

I’d been double-minded. Easily distracted. Easily discouraged. Not willing to do what it took to nurture a newborn enterprise.

I thought back on all the things I’d seen as obstacles and now understood that those were merely excuses to not go all in.

As I reflected I made a decision: I was going all in with my business. No holding back.

I was going to give it everything I had and I was going to succeed.

The Bible says a double-minded man is unstable in all his ways and should not expect to receive anything from the Lord.

Most folks are waiting for God to make things happen for them — the reality is God is waiting for You.

In February of this year I made the decision to go all in for my business. No holding back. No more excuses. No more pity partying and no more shifting blame.

As soon as I made that decision things started to change.

It was as though everything that needed to happen was just waiting for me to make that decision.

It’s been about four months since I made the decision and I’ve made more sales in the past four months than I did all of last year!

I’ve done nothing different — except make that decision to go all-in, no holding back.

This turn of events has made me wonder: What if the miracle we seek was in us all along, just waiting for us to decide we were going to release it?