The past year has been a very difficult one for me. This past year I went through the largest battle for my mind that I have had in a long time, possibly ever.
I am reminded of the verse of “Amazing Grace”
“Through many dangers, toils, and snares
I have already come.
T’was grace that led me safe thus far,
And grace will lead me home.”
Truly, it has been the grace, mercy, and patience of God that has led me through these trying times, and without them, I would not be where I am today.
Desiring to Live a Quiet Life
In my 8+ years of personal development, I have developed a mindset of constant and never-ending improvement. There is always some area of my life that needs improving. This is a healthy attitude to have, because it keeps me humble. If I have an area of growth, it means I don’t know everything, and someone else has more knowledge than I do about a particular topic.
In Christianity, we are taught to emulate Christ. Since He was perfect and holy, we are also called to be perfect and holy. Since we are fallen creatures, in this world, we can never achieve this. Since we are not perfect by ourselves, many people, including myself, have turned to personal development as a way of striving for perfection.
This creates a problem. Because we have so much room to grow, it is so easy to focus our attention on all the things we have to work on, rather than focusing on how far we have come already.
This is where I was at the beginning of this year. I was trying so hard to work out my perfection. Even though I was trying my best to follow what I thought God wanted me to do, I didn’t seem to be getting anywhere. I kept getting focused on grinding out my personal growth by myself.
Recently, I had been using personal growth as a way of striving for perfection, and whenever I did not live up to my own expectations, I would be incredibly hard on myself, to put it lightly. I would get so angry and frustrated at myself, because I would fall short in the easiest of circumstances. Rather than writing, I would watch movies. Rather than reading the Word and praying, I would game online. (Not to say these are inherently bad. They are simply not where I need to direct my attention.)
In April 2024, I finally got fed up with myself. I had one of those moments of desperation that Jim Rohn used to talk about. I was done with trying to be perfect. I was done with trying to live up to the expectations I had set for myself. I remember all but screaming at the top of my lungs, “I don’t want to be perfect! I just want to live!”
Of course, I still wanted to be better, and I knew that this was not quite the right idea to have. However, when I said this, it was as if a weight was lifted off my shoulders. While I was not entirely at peace with my cry, my mind was at ease, and my next question was, “What now?”
My answer came shortly after with a message by Francis Chan called “The Power of a Quiet Life.” It is based off of 1 Thessalonians 4:10b-12:
“…But we urge you, brethren, that you increase more and more, that you also aspire to lead a quiet life, to mind your own business, and to work with your own hands, as we commanded you, that you may walk properly toward those who are outside, and that you may lack nothing.
What he basically says is that there are too many people in today’s world who strive to be a part of public ministry. They want to speak in front of a room full of people, to share what they have in their heart with everybody. This is especially true of the younger generation who, when they have learned and discovered something, they immediately want to spread it with the rest of the world. I was exactly like this as well. However, doing so is not always within the call that God has on these people, at least for a season.
What more people should seek is to live a life in quiet service to God.
All too often, when a person wants to be in front of a room speaking, it is more about personal satisfaction and personal validation of their ego, rather than a genuine, complete compassion for helping the other people. It becomes more about getting their idea heard rather than what the impact will be to the audience.
This is where I was for the longest time. Even before I knew about personal growth, I had a deep desire to teach people, and after starting my personal growth journey, this desire became even stronger. After coming to Christ and discovering my calling, I know that I am called to teach.
However, I have learned the humbling truth that there is a huge difference between being called and being ready to step into the calling.
All too often, when someone receives a calling God has for them, they assume that they’re immediately supposed to walk it out. This is not necessarily the case. Oftentimes, there is a period of training and equipping that we have to walk first in order to be ready to fulfill our calling.
In my case, I have known my foundational calling for many years. However, as I have grown and matured, my perspective on this has shifted, and I now know that I am not called to it immediately. My time to be fully actualized in my calling is still in the future. Yet, there are steps as a part of my preordained destiny Father is having me walk that are building up to this inevitable moment.
All this to say, at this moment I am called to live a quiet life. I am to continue this quiet path, and when the time comes, I will be ready for the promotion Father has for me.
Breaking Intimidation
For the next several months, I wrestled heavily with this new reality. How do I keep moving forward while living a quiet life?
I got back to the only thing I knew – striving for personal development. Although I have come incredibly far in overcoming pornography, it has still been an issue over the past years. Additionally, while I was not as hard on myself for my mistakes, I still constantly found myself falling short of performing even remotely close to my best.
One evening in October 2024, I was working the hotel front desk by myself. While it was a little busy, I could still have gotten the rest of the laundry done for the gentleman working the overnight shift. However, I was constantly distracting myself with my phone. As a result, I did not get nearly as far with the laundry as I wanted to or should have.
When the night shift gentleman came in, he saw how much laundry was left and asked, “Was there a lot of laundry tonight?”
I replied, “There wasn’t a terrible amount, but it was a bit busy tonight, so I didn’t get as far as I wanted.” (which was only partially true).
“I’m going to be straight with you, dude,” he said, looking at the folded laundry that was done on the shelves. “This looks like it is still left over from housekeeping.”
He said, “I’ve seen you work. I don’t think this looks like you did much.”
I tried reiterating what I said before, but I could tell he was not buying it. I left shortly after.
His words pierced me, however. I knew he was right. I had not done everything I had been responsible for doing. Unlike before, my under-performance did not just affect me. It affected someone else.
On my way home, I bawled. This was the first time in a long time I realized I needed serious help from God. That night, I again made a decision. I vowed that something like this would never happen again. My purposeful lack of performance will never affect anybody else ever again.
The next day, I looked for a series by John Bevere that I should listen to, and the “Breaking Intimidation” series popped out at me.
“Breaking Intimidation” is about setting people free from the spirit of intimidation and the fear of man and instead embracing the spirit of love, power, and a sound mind.
This was huge for me, because for as long as I can remember, I have been so concerned with how everyone will perceive me. I have always thought in the back of my mind, “What will that person say about me? If I truly speak my mind, will they accept me? If I show them who I really am, will they reject me?”
With this series, cracks began to form in this shell I had built for myself.
Right around this time, I also listened to Rachel Platten’s – most known for her hit song “Fight Song” – new album “I am Rachel Platten.” This song helped solidify what I was hearing from John Bevere.
Here are the lyrics:
“In October, I got close to giving up.
Well, I fell on my hands and knees and screamed, ‘That’s enough.’
‘Cause I brought life into this world. I’ve sacrificed.
Laid my roots down deep, and it’s my time to rise.
“So, I will face my demons, every single one,
And when the wolves come out, I won’t run.
‘Cause I am done with people pleasing, playing small.
Love me as I am, or don’t love me at all.
“There were days I didn’t even know myself.
So ashamed, though I should be like someone else.
My whole live they told me I need thicker skin,
But thicker skin only held all my fire and all my passion in.
“I don’t really care what you say, what you think about me.
Almost lost my mind trying to make everybody happy.
I know who I am. I don’t care who you want me to be.
This is the night I set me free”
This had begun a time of peace for me. I am as happy with myself as I have been in a while. For the first time in a while, I am actively moving forward.
This song precisely encapsulates the identity and mindset I have adopted. I have spent far too long trying to please everybody. I am DONE with people pleasing, playing small. I know who I am, and I know Whose I am. I do not care what the world wants me to be.
This isn’t even the end of the story.
In the 3 weeks leading up to the 2024 Bride Tribe Advance with Bride Ministries in Houston, TX, I came under serious attack from the kingdom of darkness via porn. Yet, for the first time in a while, I was not bothered by it. Though I could not always resist the temptation, when I did fall into it, I knew that I was not under condemnation from God.
With this, the stage was set for the greatest transformational weekend of my life.
Executing Justice and Judgment
If you have not heard of Bride Ministries International, I will briefly introduce them to you here.
Bride Ministries International is led by Dan Duval, and he has spent more than a decade working with people who have gone through Satanic Ritual Abuse (SRA), who have Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID; formerly known as Multiple Personality Disorder), and who have gone through government-sponsored mind control programs. In essence, his clients make up the worst of the worst regarding those who have gone through immense levels of trauma and suffering.
For many, many years, Bride Ministries has been at the forefront of spiritual warfare and exploring spiritual mechanics, primarily through Dan’s session work and the prayers he has developed. These prayers are the most powerful prayers of spiritual warfare I have come across, and are essentially prefabricated lawsuits against the kingdom of darkness. They have been some of the most instrumental tools responsible for my own freedom.
Each year, Bride Ministries holds a conference, or “Advance” – as opposed to a “retreat.” This year, 2024, is the second year I’ve attended.
This year, I decided to drive the whole way down – all 17 hours of it. With all this time on my hands sitting behind a steering wheel, I decided to get caught up on Dan’s ongoing Sunday morning series on scrolls. I won’t share it all here, but even though I only got half-way through the series, the revelations I received brought me up to speed to where Father wanted me to have me coming into this event.
The event itself was almost indescribable. To reiterate, it is the single greatest transformational weekend of my entire life. At this event, I got completely set free and healed from the pornography addiction I have been fighting for the last 6 years. It was this part of my testimony I gave on the Sunday morning session. I have the video of this at the end of this article.
However, this is only part of the story of what happened, because all this happened after the first day.
During the evening session on the first day, the speaker that evening, Todd Edwards, pointed out something that cemented this mindset within me.
As I said at the beginning, because we are fallen creatures, we cannot attain perfection ourselves. However, the only way to get into the Kingdom of Jehovah is to be perfect. So, how do we get into heaven? Through Christ – because we are made perfect in Him through His death, burial, and resurrection.
What Todd said was, “We have already been judged with Christ on the cross.” In the Old Testament, the wrath of God was always hanging over the heads of the Israelites because of the laws they were under. But, through Christ’s death on the cross, the wrath of God was taken away towards those who believe in Him.
This is when it clicked for me. Since we have already been judged with Christ on the cross, we no longer have to fear judgment and condemnation from the Father. Since we no longer have to fear His judgment and condemnation, we no longer have to fear the judgment and condemnation from other people. More importantly, we no longer have to judge and condemn ourselves.
Since we have been forgiven, we no longer have to be afraid of falling short of perfection. We no longer have to beat ourselves up over every little mistake. His wrath was taken away on the cross, and it is replaced within us with the authority to execute justice and judgment over the kingdom of darkness.
This is why I am done hiding. This is why I write about things many people may disagree with. I am no longer afraid of the world. I am no longer afraid of what the enemy can bring against me. This is why I leave you with this:
“I don’t really care what you say, what you think about me.
Almost lost my mind trying to make everybody happy.
I know who I am. I don’t care who you want me to be.
This is the night I set me free”
Testimony video:
Super Success 