{"id":35096,"date":"2024-01-19T13:21:56","date_gmt":"2024-01-19T21:21:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/?p=35096"},"modified":"2024-01-19T13:21:56","modified_gmt":"2024-01-19T21:21:56","slug":"surrendering-to-gods-plan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/surrendering-to-gods-plan\/","title":{"rendered":"Surrendering to God’s Plan"},"content":{"rendered":"

In Tom Camacho\u2019s \u201cMining for Gold,\u201d he shares his own journey of what I call leading whole, which is leading from a deep belief that who you are, as you are, is complete, whole, and lacking nothing. It sounds easy enough but unfortunately, it isn’t. Camacho talks about this challenge we face regarding believing the lies of the world rather than the Word of God, and how these then become beliefs that form our identity.\u00a0 He talks about his own failures and outlines a pathway to freedom for us all through Christ-centered leadership coaching.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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While the book didn’t wow me, I share a lot of the same beliefs and feel really grateful to be reading it at this particular point in time, where God\u2019s been doing some deep excavation and refining in me. When I started school last semester I was in the middle of a bit of a meltdown \u2013 actually, it was a pretty gigantic breakdown but one which I knew was a breakthrough in the making. In fact, that was part of why I joined this program in the first place. For the last couple of years God had been telling me to stop everything I was doing and focus solely on Him because where He wanted me to go next, I needed to be developed further with and in Him.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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At first, it was a small nudge and subtle invitation to delve deeper into the patterns I was seeing amongst my coaching clients. It didn’t matter if I was sitting with a young professional or CEO of a company, all the issues they\u2019d bring were rooted in the same thing; some form of not being \u201cenough\u201d. At the core, I knew this was about identity and a sense of separation from God.\u00a0 The solution felt aligned with my message of leading whole but the problem came with how to develop that sense of wholeness, when wholeness, at least for me, was a journey rooted in God. While I knew I needed to pivot my coaching niche and begin relaunching my work around a more Christ-centered, Spirit-led model, I struggled to do so in a generative way.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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Camacho talks about how you cannot lead anyone where you have not gone yourself. Despite spending the last decade immersed in meaningful leadership work with change makers, I knew it was only touching the surface of the true depth of love, peace, and freedom God wanted to release. I also knew that if I was feeling called to support others in deeper levels of their walks, I too would need to go to even deeper levels of mine by being radically obedient to His word and pausing my work so He could permeate the darkest corners of my heart, helping me lead from the purity of agape motives.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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Ever since the first time I heard God tell me to stop and focus on deepening my knowledge of His Kingdom, I\u2019d close down a program and spend more time in prayer and fasting, however, when bills came and I needed to pay salaries I’d eventually end up right back where I started \u2013 moving time with God back down to a second or third priority. I can see now how that was testing my ability to trust and fully embody what I know to be true, which is that God is my source.\u00a0 While I\u2019ve failed many times, I\u2019d like to think I am growing because here I am walking in faith and while I still feel like a hot mess on so many days,\u00a0 it\u2019s liberating to have first-hand insight into what it actually takes to carry the cross, remove all idolatry and surrender to God.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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So much of Camacho\u2019s message affirms what I have witnessed as challenges to leadership development and what I\u2019ve intuitively known as the way forward. In part of the book he talks about how we are all in search of answers around our identity, our design, and our calling but we look for them in all the wrong places. We go to self-help and leadership development books or coaches but most of the materials we seek for support are flawed since they begin with self, rather than God.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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It all started with God ( being of gold, made in His image), remains with God ( leaving the work up to the Holy Spirit as our Helper), and will end with God ( our ultimate purpose being to glorify Him by being vessels for our natural design to shine). The sooner we can surrender to God as both the miner and refiner, the faster we\u2019ll begin to heal and find freedom.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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I\u2019ve now realized that this is the only work of developing leaders that really matters.\u00a0 As I battled whether to make this pivot into more explicitly kingdom-based work or not, I felt a great deal of urgency as God reminded me that there are so many wonderful leadership coaches out there and also many wonderful pastors, however, there are not many people who can be a bridge between the world and His kingdom. But these are my unique giftings and so many hearts are hungry for God but have felt disconnection or rejection from organized religion, leading them to feel alone and unsupported in their walk with God.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Taking the last couple of months to pause my work, join this doctoral program, and spend some time away with God were just a few of the action steps I took towards obedience to God as He reveals what He wants for me in this next chapter of life. I look forward to the ongoing insight and accountability I\u2019ll receive for how best to reshape my work as a leadership coach in a way that repositions Jesus at the center since mining for gold is an ongoing battle and the only true sustainable answer is to facilitate room for the Holy Spirit to take lead.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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For those of you who don\u2019t currently work in a faith-based setting, I\u2019m curious if you\u2019ve felt a calling to do so, in any way shape, or form. \u00a0I’m specifically curious to hear if any other entrepreneurs have built a business around your Calling.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n



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In Tom Camacho\u2019s \u201cMining for Gold,\u201d he shares his own journey of what I call leading whole, which is leading from a deep belief that who you are, as you are, is complete, whole, and lacking nothing. It sounds easy enough but unfortunately, it isn’t. Camacho talks about this challenge we face regarding believing the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":209,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1555,2967],"class_list":["post-35096","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-camacho","tag-dlgp03","cohort-dlgp03"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35096","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/209"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35096"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35096\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35098,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35096\/revisions\/35098"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35096"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35096"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35096"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}