“Am I now trying to win the approval of human beings, or of God? Or am I trying to please people?” - Galatians 1:10 What happens when a gift that God gave you to serve other people quietly becomes the place you go to prove who you are? That question sits underneath so much of my conversation with Latonya Flood. Early in the episode, Latonya shares a vision God showed her years ago. In it, she was building a house with her bare hands, stacking bricks and enjoying the work, when people began walking by asking whether she had a few bricks to spare. She did have extra…. so she began giving them away. And she KEPT giving them away, again and again... until she looked around and saw a neighborhood filled with beautiful houses she had helped build, only to turn around, look at her own lot, and realize that she no longer had enough bricks to lay her own foundation. That image became one of the clearest pictures I’ve heard of what can happen when a God-given gift becomes distorted. Your gift itself is inherently good. You may genuinely love serving, giving, teaching, encouraging, leading, solving, organizing, nurturing, or helping. And other people benefit tremendously from what you give them through those gifts. But somewhere along the way, you began using your gifts to try and answer questions they were never meant to answer. Questions like: Am I valuable?Am I needed?Am I doing enough?Do people approve of me?Will they still want me if I stop being useful?Latonya and I talked about what happened when she realized she had spent years giving away bricks before tending to what God had actually entrusted to her. We also discussed the long road between recognizing a pattern and actually learning to live differently, and how uncomfortable that gap between point A and point B can feel. Latonya shared that God while first showed her this vision years ago, she’d only recently begun to feel that she was walking boldly and confidently in alignment. I wanted to highlight this specific part of her story, because formation rarely happens because we understand wholly the first time we “see” it. Sometimes God shows us the same truth through our work, our children, Scripture, disappointment, conviction, and ordinary moments. He lets us hand things away, brick by brick, until we realize the COST- and the weight of that cost leads us to change the way we live. In this Episode, we discuss: Latonya’s vision of giving away the bricks she needed to build her own houseHow being generous, helpful, and useful become entangled with our identityThe difference between being a resource God uses and treating yourself like an assetWhat happens when we expect other people to replenish what we were meant to receive from GodWhy outcomes, attendance, money, applause, and response are unreliable measures of obedienceLatonya’s shift toward seeing her work as planting seeds and allowing God to determine the harvestWhy understanding a biblical principle doesn’t mean we have finished being formed by itThe difference between humility and shrinkingWhat changes when we stop making other people’s response responsible for determining our valueWhy faithful use of our gifts requires us to release control of how those gifts are receivedOne of the threads I keep returning to from this conversation is Latonya’s description of planting. She had been asking God how to separate obedience from the anxiety she felt about whether her book sold, whether people came to a coaching event, or whether the work produced visible financial results. The answer she felt God give her was to focus on planting. The coaching is a seed. The book is a seed. The conversation is a seed. Showing up is a seed. She doesn’t have to determine exactly when or how every seed will produce a harvest. For High Responsibility Humans, I think that distinction matters deeply. We are often very good at producing outcomes. That can make it surprisingly easy to attach our identity to the outcome and then use our gifts from a posture of pressure, proving, control, or fear. Galatians 1:10 gives us a piercing question: whose approval are we actually seeking? That question matters when we use our gifts- because we can obey God faithfully and still feel the pull to measure that obedience by whether people approve, attend, buy, affirm, or respond the way we hoped. Our responsibility is to follow what God asks of us faithfully. The response and outcome remain His. A question to carry with you from this episode: Where have you been giving away bricks God intended you to steward….and what might change if your usefulness no longer had to prove your identity? Connect with Latonya Latonya Flood is a licensed life coach, author, and faith-driven entrepreneur whose work centers on identity, alignment, obedience, and helping people become who God created them to be. You can connect with Latonya through her website: Latonyareneefludd.com Connect with Dr. Lee, TLC, & the High Responsibility Humans™ Community: Discover your Primary Motivational Gift: www.growinyourgifts.comJoin Our High Responsibility Humans Community: https://regulatedroots.com/hrhExplore our Agency services: regulatedroots.com/agencyFollow on TikTok: @leechelseacordell Connect on LinkedIn: Dr. Lee Cordell
