Ready to RiseSample

You Were Made For Influence As a young adult, I kept telling myself, I’m not a leader, I’m just someone who has strong opinions. I didn’t see that the path I was on was God-created, God-designed. On a good day, I’d describe leadership as just the things I did. On a bad day, I saw it as a concession God made for a weird woman. On a very bad day, I feared something was fundamentally wrong with me. That I was too much. That I wanted the wrong things in life. That I was the last person who should be given opportunity for influence. I wanted to change the world, because where I grew up, it needed changing. Yet at the same time, I felt disillusioned because I didn’t see women who looked like me making an impact on their world. Some famous people loomed in the distance, but I needed to talk, to ask questions, to hear answers from women leaders. And as a Christian, I heard contradictory and yet passionately held views on what a woman could and should be and what her area of influence was supposed to look like. But the more I encountered the power of Jesus in every fragment of my life, the more I felt both grateful and compelled. I was grateful because Jesus was changing my perspective, healing my heart, challenging me. I was compelled because I knew His good news was a life-giving change agent for the very fabric of society, as well as for the human heart. I discovered over time that I was, indeed, made for influence. A leader. That it wasn’t only in my blood from the women who made me and raised me but it was in the design of the God who created each of us in His image with a two-fold purpose: (1) to have a living and active relationship with Him and (2) to boldly represent Him in the world. That kind of purpose makes it worth it to push past our fears, because if there was ever a time to uncover our potential and voices—it’s now. Now is the time to boldly represent God’s goodness in the world, living as channels for His transformative change and power. Now is the time to rise. Consider the limits and opportunities in your story. How have they shaped your life?