Amy Ramsey: 0:42

Are you ready to live a fruitful and faithful life, honoring God, honoring yourself, honoring your health, honoring your relationships? One thing that can hold us back, that holds so many women back, is they are honestly stuck in mediocrity. Like I'm feeling a little sassy bridges today and we're just gonna talk about it. Hello, welcome back to the podcast. My name is Amy Ramsey. I am a number one. I'm a follower of Jesus Christ. I'm on my own walk, my own mission, just like you, and God has called me to, and called all of us Christians to, walk worthy of our calling. And my goal, my mission, is to walk worthy of my calling and to powerfully use my voice for God's glory and help other women use their voice and walk worthy of their calling. Okay, so this podcast today is really birthed out of a place of helping you tangibly, tactically, practically take some steps to not just breaking bad habits. It's more about moving in purpose in your life. It's more about moving in purpose in your life and, unfortunately, so many Christians, so many women, so many mid-lifers this like breaks my heart are really truly stuck in indifference, apathy, mediocrity. They're settling, and there's so much more to our lives than that. This is a trap. We cannot afford to stay stuck in, and so today I want to help you take some bold steps to break bad habits, align with purpose and pursue excellence. Today's podcast is a recording that I send to my walk-worthy mentorship Now between me and you so they receive a faith activation text. On the internally in our team, we call them the FATs that's an acronym for faith activation text. On the internally in our team, we call them the FATS that's an acronym for faith activation text. So every morning they receive a FAT from me, and it's in alignment with what we're working on to help move them forward and optimizing their spiritual growth, personal growth, professional growth, and these women are on fire. Let me tell you something these women are taking bold moves, they're getting out of automatic pilot and they're using their lives. They're getting healthier spiritually, physically, emotionally. It's just really incredible to see. So if you're looking for a community, I will put the link to this Walkworthy Mentorship below, and this is a text that I sent to them, and so I actually typically I record a week at a time, I batch record them, and so I listen to them in real life every morning when they come out too, and sometimes they're a surprise to me. But, wow, as I was listening to this one, I was like, oh, this is it really stirred me. It really stirred me, so I pray it stirs you.

Amy Ramsey: 4:14

We had recently been doing in our mentorship we've been, we had been going through Proverbs, reading a proverb a day that matches up with the month, and that's a good habit to do anytime anyway. So, anyway, enjoy this podcast and I would love for you to tell me your takeaways from it, like, hit me up in the DMs and Instagram after you listen to it and let me know what you think. Proverbs 25, of course, please read through this entire scripture, the whole verse. I mean, excuse me, the whole chapter and really, as I was reading through it, I was struck by I don't know it. Just kind of, I got tickled a little bit and I thought read the room. There's so much common sense but like higher level ways that one should manage themselves in situations. Read the room, read the room. How do we read the room? Okay, so that was just a little side note, but our conversation today. I want to just give you a couple of little thoughts to think about out.

Amy Ramsey: 5:22

As believers, we're called to walk in the Spirit, and part of walk worthy, and walking worthy is this pursuit of excellence in our lives. Most Christians these days are living an apathetic life on autopilot. I've been there, maybe you've been there, maybe you can relate with that. Or maybe you were there for a little time. Or maybe you're there now and you're trying to come back. What do I mean by that? Apathetic, just really not even concerned with God's best. What is God saying here? Maybe even going to church regularly, maybe even checking off the checklist of quiet time, quote, unquote. But it's just a checklist, and I know I had a crucial time in my life where my yes was on the table, my surrender was on the table.

Amy Ramsey: 6:18

It's like, lord, whatever you want with my life, that's what I want to do, because this whole thing that I'm doing is not working for me and in that, as we're pursuing excellence in our life, it's for God's glory, and so I just want to encourage you on that. But one of my prayers for my life and one of the prayers that I have over this mission that he's put on me of walk worthy and the walk worthy, mentorship and the coaching that I do, is to be fruitful and faithful. Faithful and fruitful, faithful to his word, to live my life with that personal integrity, moral courage, walking forward, walking worthy of that, calling in my spiritual gifts, but to be fruitful in it. Like, what does it look like to actually have evident fruit? Not to do something quote, unquote, check off a list, no, but like, literally, that my life matters and that I am walking worthy of that. And I know that if you're listening to this, that is important to you too.

Amy Ramsey: 7:32

So, when we're thinking about being fruitful, there's this place of it's constantly dying to our own flesh. Our flesh is strong, right, and it really does fight up against the ways of God. And so, asking yourself, when you start to think about being fruitful, I like to think about it like these beautiful fruits. I just love how nature, god is so creative with nature, right. And so, just thinking about, just in your own mind, think about this big beautiful basket of gorgeous fruits, all different fruits. It could be a banana, a pineapple, grapes, strawberries, you name it your favorite fruits, okay? And that our life is like that. Our spiritual life is like that just beautiful, vibrant, thriving, because I'm telling you, just beautiful, vibrant, thriving, because I'm telling you where the Lord is, that is where freedom is. So when we think about this, we think about the fruit of the Spirit. These are evidences in our life. So ask yourself, how am I marked by these things? Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, faithfulness, self-control. These are evidences of the spirit, of the work of the spirit in our lives. And so one of those fruits is self-control.

Amy Ramsey: 10:28

How are you with is self-control? How are you with your self-control? How are you leading your own self? How are you under pressure In our own flesh? It ain't pretty right, if we're really honest. It's not pretty flesh. It ain't pretty right, if we're really honest, it's not pretty. So building up, walking in the fruit of the spirit with self-control, for us is a work.

Amy Ramsey: 10:56

So, wherever you are on that tendal, maybe you've got yourself under control or maybe you're like, not so great, and let's think about that. Let me just expand upon that just a little bit. Self-control how are you doing with food? It's a struggle, right, but are you gaining on that? How are you managing yourself? Self-control with your time how are you stewarding your time? How are you stewarding your time? Now, I know I'm probably stepping on some toes, and that's okay, right.

Amy Ramsey: 11:39

So let's think about self-control in self-leadership with our nutrition, with our health and wellness with our time. It's one of the most beautiful things you have dominion over, and if you find that, over and over again, you're wasting your time on things that are fruitless, they don't matter, like social media aimlessly scrolling, how are you with self-control with your money? We have dominion over our time. We have dominion over our money. We have dominion over what we put inside of our mouths, and so, the more that we can go okay, how is my self-control?

Amy Ramsey: 12:24

So, as we're just thinking about this whole idea of pursuing excellence in our life and that walk-worthy verse in Ephesians 4.1 talks about personal integrity, like actually doing what we say we're going to do, okay, let me land this plane. Verse 28 says Whoever has no rule over his own spirit is like a city broken down without walls. Here's the passion translation. If you live without restraint and are unable to control your temper, you are as helpless as a city with broken down defenses open to attack, defenses open to attack.

Amy Ramsey: 13:06

Okay, pray for self-control in every area of your life today. Ask God to strengthen your spiritual defenses. Ask God to help you in the areas like identify the areas you need to build up self-control, whether it's in your physical realm, whether it's in your physical realm, spiritually, emotionally. We are called remember to be strong and we build this daily. We build these things into our lives daily. So ask the Lord. Ask the Lord and pray for him to strengthen you. And then here's the challenge Identify one habit you need to surrender to God for greater self-discipline.

Amy Ramsey: 13:55

Identify one, identify one, and I just want to challenge you with whatever that one is, I think we all can real quickly go. Yeah, this needs to go in my life. I know it and maybe I haven't addressed it or maybe I've been addressing it. I want you to, in four weeks from now, make progress on it. Maybe it's your tongue, maybe it's emotional outburst, maybe it's emotionally eating, drinking, social media. I would love for you to identify one area of your life and say to yourself I'm going to focus on this and I'm going to actually take strides. This is getting a little long.

Amy Ramsey: 14:35

I want to share with you one thing that I did recently. That was really helpful. I struggle with too much social media, just like probably you do, and I actually kept thinking, okay, I'm going to get better, I'm going to get better. But I put some numbers to it. I actually wasn't getting better and I made some changes. So I put on my phone time limits. I can't access my phone and social media but certain times of the day, and so that really helped a lot. Like after 9 pm. I don't even want to tell you my times because I want you to decide your own times, but I can't get on social media. And here's the other thing I put on time limits. Time limits, I get locked out of my own phone. Now I can actually override it if I need to, but it was so helpful, it was what I needed to do.

Amy Ramsey: 15:37

I had to make it harder to access those things. My time on social media because you can see it every single week dramatically decreased, dramatically decreased. I also decided I couldn't answer all of the text messages that were coming my way and all of the responses, and it just kept me on my phone instead of pursuing things. And then, if I get on my phone, you're probably the same. Oh my gosh, I'm off to the races Like I get lost. I'm like my phone you're probably the same. Oh my gosh, I'm off to the races Like I get lost, I'm like. So anyway that it built up my self-control, but I had to take some actions to get there, all right. So what are the actions you need to take to get to more self-control in your life?

Amy Ramsey: 16:33

I just want to cheer you on on this. Excuse me, but I want to cheer you on to make whatever you're doing harder to access or make some sort of your own personal consequences around it. Set up like your own system to make progress toward that thing. Oh my gosh, this got so long. I hope this was helpful. Oh my goodness, I really hope this is helpful. I'm really here to cheer you on. I'm your girl here to cheer you on. Let's go walk worthy today. Okay, my friend, I hope you enjoyed that fact from the Walkworthy Mentorship and if you would like to know more about how to get that in your ears and more support for you on your journey, on your march to living the life that God's called you to live, and you want to do it with like-minded women who are on the same journey, definitely check out the Walkworthy Mentorship. Those links will be in the show notes, and I just want to leave with a challenge for you, as I was listening to this podcast and just realizing how much work the Lord has done in my life.

Amy Ramsey: 17:40

Just 10 years ago I was so, so, so stuck. I was stuck in insecurities, self-doubt. I literally did not want to be known by anybody because of my story, because of shame, and I didn't think that my message mattered. I didn't think that I had anything to contribute to the world because of I just had screwed up too many times. And I, after talking now for through to so many women, I realized that that is just a ploy of the enemy, it's a tactic. He is not, he's clever, but he's not creative. And so if you're feeling some sort of version of that story, you're too old, it's too late, you're not good enough, you're not smart enough, you don't have enough skills enough. All of those are lies from the enemy. Somebody needs you on your A game. Your message is so crucial for the kingdom of God, so I just want to share here.

Amy Ramsey: 18:54

Sometimes, when you hear somebody that's already kind of been through the journey and maybe they're on the other side of it, it sounds like oh well, that's just for them. No, no, no, no. This is for all of us. Anybody that has quote unquote gotten through to the other side has gone through this process, and you have to overcome your insecurities and self-doubt and fear, and that's what God wants for you too. So I want to encourage you to take bold moves, moving forward in your kingdom. Call in the things that God has for you here on this earth, because you matter, your voice matters and somebody is waiting on you to step up. There's a responsibility here. We cannot let that go unnoticed. All right, so that's my challenge for you today. I love you so much. Thank you for being here. I truly appreciate it. Thank you for sharing this podcast. Thank you for telling other people about it. Oh, my goodness, I'm so grateful and I will see you here soon, next week. Okay, bye.