Nona Jones: God is Not Delayed | FULL EPISODE | Better Together TV

if we are constantly seeking a sign we might miss something that's right in front of us god wants us to seek his heart first come on we need to talk about this as a young woman i remember really wanting to do god's will like surrendering my life but i wanted to know what he wanted me to do and it's really hard i think when you're younger you're like god i want to do it but what if my husband's there or what if my calling is here and so i at that point in my life was cleaning houses so i was house cleaner for six years and owned my own company with my sister and i would go and travel and speak on the weekends so i would pay for my fuel i would go and travel and we would speak at these little youth groups of eight ten people if revival hit there were 12 people and so that's what i did and again i didn't know anything better so i was like i'm going to do it anywhere that's kind of how my life was so you know my sister and i have an identical twin sister and we're these california twins and we're going up and down the california coast and cleaning these big huge homes and then coming back and ministering and so at some point about 19 and this is a couple years in i was invited to be a pastor at a church a small little church in northern california not to be the senior but to come up and be a one of the pastors and so i was so excited like this was my big moment i was gonna have my big break i had been suffering for the lord for two years and now i'm gonna i'm going to yeah two years and this is it this is gonna be it and um but i was really anxious because my parents and my family had just planted a church and so i was a part of the church plant and we're seeing god beginning to grow this church and we're one of the top 500 churches in america that we're in this growth pattern and we're having all these services and i'm getting to do what i feel called to do but i've got this invitation to go happen somewhere else and so i am distraught because i don't know i don't know what god is saying i'm young and i don't know what he's saying to me and so i remember i just felt like i didn't know what to do so i paused in it and i wouldn't commit to go there and i wasn't committed to be home and i was just feeling it out this is back in the day before we had the swipe life and you could pick something else this was kind of like the phone life but anyway so i'm sitting there and i'm distraught i remember this prophetic woman coming in and i was like if i could just get to the prophet she'll tell me what to do because you know this is gonna solve it all let me just get the prophet so she comes up and i wait around the entire service and at the end and i said listen and i explain everything to her in the most eloquent way possible it's this and this and i've got this option and you know all these things and i said what do you think i should do would you feel like god may have told you something and she says i don't know what do you want to do and i go no no you missed it what i'm saying is is that i have these two options and god is in one of them and i need to just i need to figure out where he is and she goes well you're just standing at the threshold you're not sure what to do and god can't bless anything unless you move come on and i go uh okay so i'm now at this moment of well do i want to go there or do i want to stay well i start to have this feeling that i'm not supposed to go and i don't know why because it doesn't make sense i'm supposed to go and this is the next step to ministry and i'm supposed to do it and i hear the lord say and i just sense it i'm not supposed to go i just know it so i finally tell them you know i can't i'm so sorry thank you for the opportunity but i'm going to stay here well meanwhile this church that invited me to come goes from 800 people to a massive worldwide ministry of thousands of people the church is 12 000 people at this at this point and their music goes all over the world and i'm in this small church that is staying what it is a small little church and it was kind of the i could have been you know and all those things kind of happened and i remember really fighting did i miss you god because you know it's like the guy you didn't date and then he gets married and and you're like i mean i i couldn't i could have rallied but i didn't rally for this man and so you kind of have this thing of like i could have but i didn't missed opportunities and i really battled with the lord about it and i didn't understand it until i started to understand that god had spoken to me and i thought well i never got the sign i never got the wonder i never got the dream so how do i know and it wasn't until i began to understand how god speaks to us did i understand how clear it was so the way that i relate it and not to belabor the idea but there's the knowers those that just know what god is saying there's the hearers those that hear god kind of a play-by-play there's the seers the visionaries people that get a picture and they move towards that and then there's the feelers those that sense a tangible grace and an emotion from heaven and they lean in well i'm a knower so i knew i wasn't supposed to go but i didn't know it was god's voice because i didn't have that clarity to know how he was speaking well fast forward 2008 happens and the recession kicks in and if you're in california it's devastating um half my friends lost their homes bankruptcy and we lost our job the church we had planted we lose our job and we have four kids now and i'm devastated and if you've ever been in this place i think our world kind of knows this part where you think you know one thing bad can happen but to have all in the same row and i remember getting the phone call and going into my bedroom and just crying and saying god i have never said no to you like i've done everything you asked me to do and now i'm at the age i'm in my 30s i have four kids clearly i can't give one back so like what am i gonna do and i heard the lord i said you know what do you want me to do you you asked me to stay you asked me to be here and now you're actually like leaving me you're abandoning me and i wasn't angry i was just distraught like i don't know what to do and i heard the lord i said what do you want me to do and i remember him saying i want you to make chicken and i went and i remember in the sarcasm of the california girl in me said you make chicken and he goes i did and i go no no i mean no and he goes i want you to make chicken and i go you mean like like a meal he goes yeah you make really good chicken i really think you should make your chicken meal and i go fine so i remember getting up and i had all four kids around i'm healing from my first c-section i'm trying to nurse the baby bin's at work and i get the chicken together and i light the candles and i put on my frank sinatra and i'm ready for him to come home and ben walks in the door and he looks at me and he knows my wife is this is not a good day for her and um he said you want to talk about i said no i just want to eat our chicken dinner and sit and have a meal and then we can talk about it later so we sat down and we did we fed all the boys and my husband and we had the chicken and the end of the night we put our kids to bed and we sat on the couch and we started talking about our future and i'll tell you what the moment i got up to make chicken it was like everything went peaceful even though nothing had changed and this is how you know right the supernatural grace of god but what i didn't know was that god had already set up a place for us to go and in little less than one month god sent me to the same church that had asked me at the age of 19 to go and be a director at their movement and now the women's pastor in that environment and i get to go all over the world having not been in the growth part of it but get the abundance of that and still be where god called me so i think there are a lot of us and i know myself and different ones that are even probably watching today that are in the delay of the promise and they feel like they missed it they should have married that person they should have taken that job they should have given that they should have rallied and they can sometimes feel like the dream is getting further away and i have learned and i'm learning even in the midst of covid and all the things we're experiencing we can feel like we're missing something and yet i believe that god's bringing back the dreams in the supernatural way and we really need to lean into that so my question is how does god speak to you are you a knower a seer a feeler or a visionary and have you ever had a dream that got delayed and now you're realizing it was the grace of god it was actually supernatural i think it's an interesting fact that we are seeking for the sign yeah rather than the one who is giving come on the signs yeah i think we're always looking for that like the same thing i'd always be like pick me up actually no i need you to know me because then i need you to learn how to hear my voice yeah that's right and when it doesn't make sense so like coming to america go with nothing to nothing but carrying the presence of god well that's great for you but everyone thinks we're nuts everyone thinks you know my husband that was at the pinnacle of his ministry of leading a worship movement in australia and i helped build this church from the ground up with my pastors and we're like leaving i'm about to turn 40 and i'm like this is not a good time but you know it was a knowing and i think that knowing going i can't explain it but i have to trust god but i think he loves to respond to faith he's got and you know what i've learned he'll keep giving us green lights until we're ready to jump off a cliff and he'll put a big flaming red light in front of us but i was always wanting the three green right yes yes he's like yeah i've given you a green light keep walking until i put a really big flashy red light in front of you and you'll know and so it's been a knowing for me and all through our life i think he will bring us back to this place because we can't get familiar with well i've worked this out yes because at 40 it was a wrestle and then now i'm 48 and i know he's doing the same thing again okay where are you headed are you going to stay comfortable is there something you have to lean in i mean i feel like there's been an agitation in my spirit where i have to give margin to the secret place again yes i've gone deeper so he's like okay this was a year season of harvest now i need you back in the secret place against sowing seeds it's a constant and you have to be in tune to know when to stop to know to hear to see and i think it's the beauty again of the wonder of god but it's not seeking the gift or the thing it's seeking him you know what just came to mind for me is um that question you know gosh did i make a mistake did i make the wrong decision should i have done this should i have done that and i literally just heard the lord remind me and i want to remind everyone watching that the steps of a righteous man and what that means is even if you misstep he will direct your steps because they're still ordered and so you don't have to drown in the shoulda coulda woulda's yeah right and then you find yourself paralyzed right because you're like oh gosh you know i thought that was the one tonight he likes me but i don't know because i think i should go and god is like i will order your steps just take a step and even if you take the wrong step all things work together to those who love the lord and are called according to his purpose and i know that there have been several things that i've done in my life where i'm just like oh i don't think but i look back on it and i'm like actually exactly that was a redirection yeah like god literally used it to get me where i am today and i wouldn't change a thing like the mistakes the the hurts the habits the hang-ups like all of it i wouldn't change that thing because god has he has built something beautiful out of it for me my story is so similar to is that we were pastors in northern ireland for almost 20 years and loved our church we planted it in our living room and there were only six of us and they were all related to me so they had to be here they had no choice god bless them and then the lord grew that and grew up but i mean it was extraordinary what the lord did it it was extraordinary and then he just started to speak to us but here's the thing he spoke to us about moving to orange county where we live now but no job nothing to move to yeah just everything to lay on the altar and we knew that we knew that we knew and and it did look crazy because we had two teenage kids and no salary and i for those of you who do not live in orange county you really need a salary maybe two or three i play you need the lord to multiply that for you so that you can go to trader joe's so it's an expensive it's an expensive place to live it is but um the lord he's just so kind and what i wanted to say was there was a long long delay though because we loved what we were doing in northern ireland but back in i think it was 2007 i started having dreams about here to the point where i thought i am losing what few marbles i actually have is this the lord like it was almost distracting at times yeah i knew the lord was calling us here but because he wasn't open in it there was this beautiful opportunity for me to deeply love the people i was right in front of yeah and i mean really love them and they were easy to love my goodness they're incredible people and they continue to be there was a surrender that came in the waiting yeah knowing that and every time i put that thing back not on the altar back on the shelf so that it didn't have to feel so just quiet in there and the lord would just give me another dream and you know what's interesting is i love the way he does he's so sneaky but um i had about seven maybe i can not quite remember maybe it wasn't five five to seven dreams about taking on the church that we now lead like 12 13 14 years before we actually wow cam the lord is saying this is your inheritance so these are inheritance streams so i'm like oh this is amazing lord thank you so much please give us back what the lord did back in those days was like mind-boggling and i'm like yes please lord i would love that but after we moved here it was six months before we realized part of why the lord had brought us here so we were just watching the lord provide for us and finding different ways just to give away jesus to anybody we met yeah everywhere we're like sorry we'll just plant our lives here um and then the church that we lead now vineyard anaheim approached us and asked us would we consider um taking or at least looking at taking on the church and that was when i went i went back and read my journal and i'm like oh my giddy up the lord spoke to me so clearly about this and if i read this through a literal lens i can see the lord spoke 12 13 14 years ago yeah now that makes me think about my journey into ministry because i was in business at the time and and i'm still in business but then the lord told me to walk away from it and i was in real estate and he was just like walk away from everything you know and i was just like what do you mean like i love this so i think it was a mixture of knowing hearing seeing because i dream a lot as well and so in that moment he was telling me like because i entered the place where i just didn't feel at peace with myself i felt like god who you created me to be i'm not being i'm not that person right now so i went on a journey of i was in prayer i was in fasting and i'm like god something is off and the response from that was walk away from everything and move and i almost felt like is the mistake asking you what's that and i remember so i moved to downtown l.a and i'm like i don't understand what i'm doing and i come from a nigerian background and they're very big on what are you doing with your life are you working are you you know so it's very big on being stable established i remember when i told my mom i don't i i'm not sure what i'm doing right now and she was like i need to pray for my daughter i think she's losing her body and so in downton la eventually the lord led me to the church so the church then the executive pastor now and so when he led me there so i remember walking in and he said this is where i would raise you and i was like what does that mean what does that look like and then in a dream he tells me to serve as an usher and the first year that's all i should do serve as an usher and i'm like you want me to do what this is what i left and my mom we didn't talk for like three months yes my brothers were just like are you losing it because my mom was like stephanie if you want to serve in the house of god come to nigeria yes you know you people need god you know so and you could work if there's no work for you to do out there you could work here and serve god all you want and i was like no but this is the instruction that the lord has given me and so during that course and i'm in a place i didn't know anyone there and so during that whole course of one year what god was really doing was prepare a shepherd's heart and so it was serving with people it was loving on people taking on the burdens of people because as an usher you're walking up you're meeting yeah you're greeting him you're hearing what's going on so i didn't realize that that was what was being cultivated but that was very hard for me i was living off my savings i had very hard moments i had moments where i questioned god a lot and just like you're saying now there are moments where i'm like i'm not doing this and then i will have a dream and the lord will come to me and he says if you stay what i said would be perfected and so it was not easy but there were those handprints of god all around it because even when i would have a hard moment it was a hard moment in his hands yeah you know and so i do believe that even when we get into that place of not knowing oh god did i make a mistake the biggest thing you can do is to live surrendered because when you live surrender to christ he knows how to redirect you if needed not you redirected yourself if needed he would redirect you yeah and i started learning that even sometimes what we call mistakes is really just labor pains that god you're birthing me through all of this and i feel like did i get this wrong that you know disappointment all of it is labor pain yeah and so when that year was wrapped up and going into you know just one side he told me to write the book i wrote the book my pastor read the book it was a whole story and then i became what was interesting before i became a pastor the lord told me when i would preach and that's when i gave my message um i remember in a dream i was being anointed to be um the campus pastor and then it was revealed then a year later i was being anointed again to be the executive pastor before it happened and so i saw how god was literally telling me i have been with you all along yeah and so what i learned from that was not about the place but it was about the hand of god that knows how to direct you yeah and wherever he leads you to whether you know you don't know whether you're confused you're sure that he knows how to guide you yeah you know and resting on that because i think so many times we are kind of judging the lack of fruit too soon that's right and so we're saying that god there's no fruit in this decision but the time for fruit has not come that's yes and so we use that to say oh my gosh like i made a mistake no if i'm in god's hands i'd rather make a mistake in his house yes rather than making it in my pride or my ego if i'm making it because i said i was going to do this to glorify the name of god he is god enough to know how to use that to still deliver on his words you just made me reflect on something um so the question of do you you know see you feel here i hear the voice of god and it's interesting because so the role i'm in now i lead faith partnerships at facebook everybody thinks facebook is a godless place but nope i'm there and the lord is with me so um but before facebook i never worked in social technology at all i loved what i was doing i was helping lead a network of alternative schools for girls and i was in prayer april 2017 i was in prayer and i was asking god for clarity on what i need to do next in that role and the lord said this assignment is over like i heard it so clearly yeah and the ceo had came to me like a couple weeks before and was like we're doing my succession plan i want to put you down as my successor just want to make you aware of that i was like all right and for me i felt like that was my assignment because you know my background where i came from i saw myself in these girls and i thought i would do that for the rest of my life but i know i heard the voice of god and i know the voice of god and so i told my husband and i said babe god just told me to resign from from my job and he was like are the bills resigning too because uh you can't just walk off your job but uh i knew what god said so um i prayed again i said lord you know what do you want me to do next and he told me to resign at the end of the fiscal year june 30th 2017. friday june 30 2017. gave me that date so i sit down with my boss and i give her my letter of resignation and she's like well what are you going to do next and i'm like i'ma tell you soon and in the back of my mind i'm like lord what am i going to do next right and so we finished talking at 1 40 i get in my car and i'm driving home and like the weight of it is now settling on me because i'm like i just quit my job and so i'm like jesus what are we doing yeah 205 25 minutes later my cell phone rings and it's a 650 area code it just said san francisco california i didn't know anybody i wasn't going to answer it thought i was a telemarketer and the spirit said take that call yeah and so i was like all right so i picked it up and uh this woman was like hi is this nona jones and i said yes and she said hi i'm calling from facebook i said well facebook doesn't call people so who is this playing games on my phone and she proceeded to tell me that the week before mark changed the mission of the whole company to focus on community building and she said that the largest community in the world that was the most meaningful to the people who were in it was the faith community and that my name had been mentioned in a meeting as someone that they should talk to about the work and i was just like all right lord so you knew months ago that if i walked in faith because see here's the thing here's the key we talk about identity and assignment my identity was so wrapped up in what i was doing that if they would have called me and i had not resigned right i wouldn't have left right that's right i wouldn't have left because i loved what i was doing and i felt like that's what i was called to do and so god was like i'm calling you away to a land that you know nothing of you've never even seen it you've never stepped foot in it you're gonna question why you're there but i've called you to it and so i'm just i'm so grateful as i listen to your stories it's encouraging me that a lot of times god will call you away from the very thing that was your identity so he can get you to walk in your assignment yes and that's what we're doing yeah it's so true wow yeah and sometimes i think especially if we are strong women we sometimes feel like we want to make it happen and then we'll give it to god like look what i did for you rather than i don't know what i'm doing i might be an adult and i might have been adult for a while but i don't know what's next and i just think of so many people right now in my own personal life that are in all seasons of life that have killed the goliaths in their life but now they're saying they're going what's next and so i want to pray for you if you're watching and let's pray today for those women and that are watching men and women that are like i just need to know so holy spirit yes i thank you that you knew they were supposed to watch this today i thank you that they have tuned in to this very moment and there's something within them that's saying yes i need to believe for the next i need to see the next and i just want to remind them first that the holy spirit you live within them and you are leading them and guiding them and comforting them and i ask right now that we would as women surrender to the leading of your holy spirit and i ask where there is no courage you would help them to be courageous where there is fear you would give them faith god wherever they might feel depleted and bankrupt whether it be financially emotionally mentally even relationally i ask holy spirit that they would see that they are not this moment that there is so much more ahead of them and i pray right now for a divine intervention like right now right where they are that if their marriage is over i pray that you would revive their marriage if their finances are at the darkest place i asked god that you would give them clarity on what to do to generate and to to see revenue like they haven't seen and for those that are maybe have had lost loved ones in this season and and they're they're feeling discouraged and sad and in grief i pray you would revive them and let them know that you didn't bring them out of egypt to let them die in the desert but you're they're going to carry on and there is still a great promise so revive our hearts today encourage us do what only you can do god speak to the deepest of who we are and remind us of who we are in you in jesus mighty name amen amen i hope you enjoyed this video subscribe today and you'll never miss a 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Channel: Better Together on TBN

Views: 239,474

Keywords: Nona Jones, nona jones ministries, nona jones youtube, nona jones sermons, nona jones social ministry, promise, god's leading, seeking god, god will direct your steps, hearing god's voice, is god speaking to me, signs from god, dreams from god, Kathryn Scott, Stephanie Ike, Alex Seeley, Havilah Cunnington, identity, god's will for my life, know god's will, better together, better together tv, better together tv full episodes, laurie crouch, tbn, BTTVTBN, B2T8, B2E3T8, T8E3R7, L5C2

Id: m4uinH8cDlY

Length: 25min 7sec (1507 seconds)

Published: Sun Mar 13 2022