005: Bring Your Plans to God to Let Him Establish Your Path with Pastor Ebonie Mukasa
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Show Notes
In this episode I chat with Pastor Ebonie Mukasa about the concept behind her Plan, Pray, Pursue women’s conference — why we should bring our plans to God, not just wait for God to bring plans to us. We talk about why it’s not “pray” first, but how prayer is the glue needed once you bring your plans to God. We discuss how fear and procrastination can keep you from pursuing the plans God has for you, and what to do if you feel stuck. She shares some practical tips for how we can bring our plans to God — through prayer and relationship with God.
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Connect with Ebonie:
www.EbonieMukasa.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/AGatherings
Facebook: www.facebook.com/Ebonie.Mukasa
Instagram: www.instagram.com/agatherings
Instagram: www.instagram.com/eboniemukasa
About Ebonie:
Ebonie is a catalytic agent whose unique gifting is invigorating individuals, moving them from where they are to a place of faith, hope and love-in-action. Her life experiences in both the marketplace and ministry offers a fresh perspective for women seeking to say “Yes” to God’s plan and purposes for their lives.
Links Mentioned*:
Proverbs 16:3
The Best Yes by Lysa TerKeurst
Plan, Pray, Pursue Conference
*Some links are affiliate links, which means I may receive a small commission from the referral purchase at no extra expense to you. I only promote items I trust and believe in. Clicking these links helps support my show.
Transcript
Lauren:
Welcome everybody to the Anchored Decision Show. I am so excited for our guest today, Ebonie Mukasa. Ebonie is a catalytic agent whose unique gift is invigorating women, moving them from where they are to a place of faith, hope, and love and action. Her life experiences in both the marketplace and ministry offers a fresh perspective for women seeking to say yes to God's plan and purposes for their lives. Creative, innovative, inspirational, and making great things happen are her hallmarks.
Ebonie has been graced with relevant, timely wisdom and insight. Along with her megawatt smile, she illuminates hearts and heads. Ebonie approaches God's call and purpose for her life with an adventurous spirit and visionary flair.
Ebonie and her husband, Samuel are the lead pastors of Experience Church International in Miami. And I had the opportunity to hear both of them speak this year in January at their annual Adoration Gatherings conference, which is an online women's conference called, Plan, Pray, Pursue. And I got to be a speaker at that as well, and so that's how we connected and everything Ebonie said was touched with such a sense of godliness and such a heart for other people. So I'm so excited to have you here, Ebonie.
Ebonie:
I'm excited to be here. , thank you so much for that kind introduction, but I'm excited and I'm excited to talk about our topic today.
Lauren:
Yes. So I will dive in and introduce it. At the Plan, Pray, Pursue conference, Ebonie mentioned that there's a reason why she put them in that order of the plan first, then pray and pursue. And I found that really interesting because so often we hear to pray first and then we'll plan and pursue, or we wait for God's calling rather than stepping out.
So I wanted Ebonie to come on today and just share a little bit of the behind the scenes of what does that concept mean? So tell me a little bit about it and how you came up with that.
Ebonie
You know, I get the question of why plan first? Why don't you just not say pray, plan, pursue? And, the honest answer is, I asked God the same thing, right? I asked him the same thing. And, this conference is actually birthed out of this exact process. And that is, first and foremost, all of what we as believers in Christ and all that, where we're going to start is relationship, right? Relationship with God. And the scripture tells us about this intimacy that we're to draw into.
And he becomes our friend and he's our father and he's our healer and all those things. Relationship. And from that, I said, I have a relationship, yes, Lord, and because of that, the Spirit of God helps inspire my mind to do the things that please God's heart, right?
And those are plans. Those are just simply plans. I think sometimes we ook at the plan and we say, "Oh, I'm laying it all out, I'm excluding God." But we forget that we're already in conversation with God. Like prayer is, not a, “I pray at 12 noon and that's it.” If you are living a lifestyle of relationship with God, you are in prayer all the time. The scripture says pray without ceasing, right? But if we understand that prayer is just a conversation, prayer is just a thought, prayer is expressing whatever we're feeling; Or listening, through reading the word and letting the Holy Spirit reveal to us, then our mind is already aligned with the heart of God.
And so therefore, we think about godly things. And so when I thought about this Plan, Pray, Pursue, I mean, I really resisted it because, again, I know that in our community, it's all about prayer first and you know, "You're unholy, you're not doing it right if you're excluding God, if you don't pray first."
And I realized that, we have this freedom, right? Free will. We can even live autonomous to God. Many people do, right? You don't have to have a relationship with him. And we're not robots. He created us to be able to think. I mean, way back in the beginning of scripture, when we talk about Adam and Eve, and it describes God's relationship with Adam, it was a conversation going on. It said that he came in the cool of the day, and he walked in the garden of Eden with them, and he asked Adam, name the animals. So man is made to have thought, right? And we say, well, we're made to create like our creator, you're going to have plans. You're going to look at things in question and that's how he created us.
And so he liberated me in that and said, the truth is, is you planning anyway. Man plans! We do. Don't we? Man plans. But the key is that juncture is pray. Bring your thoughts, bring your plans. We're going to talk a little bit more about this, but that's where it really began to me is, I questioned too, and the Holy Spirit really gave me a true comfort and grounded me in this so that I can go forward and encourage people to be courageous and allowing yourself to think and explore and use your mind, dedicating that back to Christ, but trusting that when your relationship with God, you know, your heart begins to align with him, and so does your will, and therefore your thoughts.
Lauren:
Yes. So I actually have a story related to this as well, that with coming up with Anchored Decisions, I was feeling a tug in my heart to do something more, to pursue a godly mission and I wasn't sure what that was and I was bringing it to God basically and waiting for him to confirm and give me direction.
But I had that plan first that I want to be doing something with my business that's kingdom related that makes an impact. In the past, I've felt callings from God and then I take it my own way and it doesn't work out. And so then I come back to God. Okay.
You know, it's like coach, put me in. Boom. You get tackled. Coach, put me in. Boom. You get tackled. Coach, put me in. I want to be pursuing and to be building my business kingdom centered with God's direction. And so sometimes I question, was my calling for Anchored Decisions actually God pursuing me first or me pursuing God with it and saying, "Hey, do something with this."
Ebonie:
I love that. Something that you said so crucial. What I tried to get through with this conference is I tried to help people move from the stagnant place that we can find ourselves as believers for fear of displeasing God. Like we get stuck. You end up living your whole life doing nothing, because you fear that oh my goodness if I do this will this please God? If I do that with this please God? But first and foremost the scripture says every good and perfect gift comes from God, right?
So how many of us can say that a good idea, even when we look at just world human beings, period. People are always asking for good ideas. You have billionaires looking the world for good ideas to invest in. So, when it's good, every good and perfect gift comes from God, you can then say, I can pursue that thought. And then I'm going to take that thought and then I'm going to insert God in it. I'm going to give God, I like to say Lordship because some good ideas aren't meant for you to pursue. This is part of where this conference goes.
You know, some of the ideas that we have, they're great, but that's not meant for us to pursue every idea. I mean, if my husband, let it be told, I have like a, storage bank. You know how they said Prince had all these songs written up that nobody, he had like a vault? That's me with ideas.
Lauren:
Yes, I have it in my Evernote file, like pages of ideas.
Ebonie:
But every idea is not meant for me to pursue. And that's where God is in no way, shape or form left out of this formula. The glue is prayer. The glue is seeking God. The glue is seeking wisdom.
The glue is getting an understanding from God. The pursuit is on the end and the pursuit is the doing: I'm going to go after it. So, we can't do anything without this prayer, without bringing our ideas to God and having Him give us the wisdom and the green light to go with it.
So when people see it, it's so not excluding God. It's the core. God is the core of this.
Lauren:
Yeah, when I first went to start my first business is graphic design, and I had wanted to, I mentioned this in one of my other episodes, that I had wanted to leave that day job and kept waiting for God to give me that green light, and there were things that every time I tried to leave, it was a, "Nope, here's something to keep you there." And finally, when I got the green light, the peace, I was like, "Oh, okay, it's God's timing now."
Ebonie:
Yes. God is, if we allow him to be, he can be woven all through our lives, all through our lives. I love this scripture right here. It says, "Commit your works to the Lord and your thoughts will be established." This is Proverbs 16:3. I love giving these type of scriptures because, I get it, everybody isn't at this place. And this is the honest truth. Everybody isn't in the place or the space where they feel like they can trust their thoughts. Can we be honest? They don't. And the reason is because it's possible that you aren't fully trusting God. And that doesn't mean that you're living wild and you're not praying. Those are two different things. It's just living in and being a believer in Christ and having relationship with God doesn't necessarily equate to full trust in every area, right?
So we can trust Him in some things and then some things we hold close and we're like, "I'm not sure yet. You know, this thing I gotta control." So when we look at Proverbs 16:3, it says, "Commit your works to the Lord and your thoughts will be established." Those are those plans and those ideas. The Lord will establish them. So, when you start working this equation, I call it… my daughter's is in first grade, you all, and she's doing reveal math. I'm ready to pick it because it's so not the way we learned how to do first grade math, but when you look at the equations that are written out, one thing can't work without the other. And so when we look at our plans and we wanna pursue things, we wanna establish things, we wanna leave a legacy... all those things are good. And I believe God wants them for us, but we need to partner them in prayer.
It's committing it to the Lord and then he will establish your thoughts and it's okay to have some independent thought people. It's okay to be a thinker. It's okay to use your mind. It's okay to be creative. It's okay to doodle and, and figure out and come up with new inventions and all those things. God, he's put that in you. And so I love this conference because it's really established to help women, to liberate women, to, I call it to explore, you know, take the adventure, say yes to God and, let him establish your ways.
Lauren:
So do you believe that procrastination is a part of why people feel uncomfortable with this notation of planning first and then praying?
Ebonie:
I think that can be a definitely a part of it. All of us when we start planning, planning is really putting it on paper, if you want to say, and when we start putting things on paper, we start feeling committed, we start feeling tied down to the thought or the idea. And then we also start feeling the need or the anxiety that comes with performance and the performance is just making it happen, right, actually taking the steps to bring the thought and make it a concept or make it real. Bring it to fruition. And so I think sometimes, I get in my little procrastination modes where I don't want to plan. I don't want to commit my time or my resources. Planning requires funding, and that could be funding of your time, funding of energy, funding of someone else's time. Whatever it is, all of those things can contribute to us delaying in our plan.
Lauren:
Right. I think there's sometimes productive procrastination too, where you think that you're being productive because you're taking some action, but it's not the right action. So it might be you’re stuck in research mode where you want to do research and research and research until you feel you have enough to move forward.
Or some people focus first on their logo and their website and the graphics before they even have a plan for what it's all about.
Ebonie:
Yes. Oh, that's good. That's a good one. My husband, , because I've been working for myself for a while now, he always says, "income generating activity," That's what he says to me every day, that when I'm saying "bye, okay, have a good day." "Income generating activity." Because we can find ourselves doing all those wonderful things we love to do. Some of us are so creative and, that branding process, logos, design, and all that stuff. We can get stuck there and we think that we are moving the bar forward. And we're actually procrastinating.
Lauren:
As a graphic designer, I have to catch myself, especially I have the tendency to want to perfect every single graphic and make sure the fonts are just the right size and placement and the hierarchy. I have to stop myself saying this brand, Anchored Decisions, is not a graphic design agency. It doesn't have to be perfect.
Ebonie:
Yes. Oh, see, can we talk about that though? You just said something. In this Plan, Pray, Pursue the heart of this is to encourage women to say yes to the Lord, period. I'm not talking only to women who are building brands or women who are starting small businesses. I'm talking to women who are in their homes, and they've started their first few years of marriage or they're beginning to establish a family or they're in the stage of rearing their family, they're in the stage of children getting ready to leave for college or that they're gone. Whatever that looks like, going back to school, et cetera.
There are so many things that we have plans to do that don't involve business. Okay? So it's really important that that's made clear. This is not a business conference. It's not for only business. Businesswomen come, but everyone comes because we're living right? And we all have different plans and we're all in different stages of life.
My favorite word is to live forward because we can be living and living stationary, living stagnant, or we can be living backwards, living in the past, living in regret. Living forward is a part of this, helping to move women forward to say yes to God. Say yes to his plans for their life.
His plan for your life may be to be a dynamic woman who is single and caring for your mother or your parents or something like that. You know, this conference is for everyone to say yes to God because that's the beginning of whatever adventure he has planned for your life.
Lauren:
Yeah. Now, how do you see fear playing into this and keeping people from living forward?
Ebonie:
I think fear plays a huge role because I think fear is really compounded in failure. We think that if we take a step forward with our plans, the world is now looking at us, right? I'm not talking being on social media and all bold, but if you decide to get married, you were single and now you're married. Everybody's knows you're married, right? And they're not necessarily keeping an eye on you, but you certainly don't want to in three, four, five years announce you're getting a divorce, right? So a lot of people procrastinate or they hold back.
And then some of that procrastination, as we just talked about is rooted in fear. And that fear is rooted in the fear of failing, the fear of the plans failing. But can I tell you how many of my plans fail that were God ordained? Let's get real. Some of what God is calling us to do is preparation, is experience building, it's character building, it's giving you opportunity to hone your skills.
And when I say failure, that means, that you, started a launching a little clothing line. I don't like to say little, a clothing line, cause it was big to you. So a clothing line, and you did a t shirt line or whatever for a couple of years and you don't do that anymore for whatever reason, right? And you're like, “You know, I really believe that in that season I took this idea, I took it to God, I got the green light, everything worked out, and then it just was time for that season to be over, you know?” And then we think we failed. It's important that we know that sometimes the closing of doors does not signify failure. It signifies the end of the assignment. And God has a new one for you. And that's what I mean like living forward, living courageously.
Lauren:
Yeah. I love this. So encouraging. One thing someone once shared with me that was super encouraging in this is that no matter what, as a Christian, we are not a failure because our number one and only true goal in life is to be connected to a relationship with God. And so if we have that, then we're covered everywhere else.
Ebonie:
That is so good. Yes. Say that again for the people in the back.
Lauren:
Why do you think that some people, some Christians, leave God out of their plans and out of this equation?
Ebonie:
Truthfully, I think there's a couple of reasons. One, I like to give people the benefit. Okay. So let's start with the benefit of the doubt. And then the truth is, is that you didn't realize you left him out. You thought you were including him, right? You did a couple of prayers. And we don't realize that, pray without ceasing.
So as we're doing this, I don't know about you, Lauren, but I know me, I know you. You're praying through your business every day, right? I'm praying every day through the decisions and all of that. And so I think sometimes we can include him and then we begin to exclude him as we move forward. I think sometimes people literally are so amped about their idea that they don't want to hear that it's possibly not what they're supposed to be doing.
Can we be honest about this?
Lauren:
When I think for me in the past, one of the businesses I had started, that was one of those quote unquote failures, was one where God gave me the direction and said, you need to create workbooks for Christian women. So I took that idea and then I blew it up into something completely more than just workbooks.
And I was like, "well, I can reach more people for God if I make it for just general population and then sprinkle in the Christianity here and there." Then that business did not take off. It was also right before I had my first son. And so I shut that one down. And then when, full circle, God's calling me back to making workbooks for Christian women, and I went to this conference that was secular and they're all like, "your target market is everybody here. There's all these business women that could use decision help. You need to make it for everybody." And God was confirming over and over that, no, this is meant for Christian women.
So I had to fully step into that and embrace it. And it took a while. And I don't know why I fought it. Because it didn't work out the first time when I took it my own way. So why would I try to pursue my own way again?
Ebonie:
Yeah, you know, I have this other talk that I do about the power of our yes and our no's, right.
And I start off with the whole point of a no is only because you cannot fulfill your yes. Right? That's it. What is your yes? How powerful is your yes. We really have this fear of God's no. And I don't understand why, and maybe because we want our way, but we also don't trust him as much when we're afraid of his no. Because somehow we think his no is denial or his no is rejection or his no is punishment. This is what we don't get. I really believe God never really says no to us. He always says yes because when it's no, and God's no is more powerful than his yes. His no is his yes. It's a yes to his way.
Like if he says no to you in this particular plan, it's simply not that door, this door. Do you understand? Like, there's a door open for you. There is a path for you. There's a plan for you. And all he is doing is redirecting you towards the way which is best for you.
So, I mean, it's like a parent. I don't know about you, but when my daughter doesn't trust that I say to her, “That might hurt you.” I mean, I'm not saying it to hurt you. I'm saying it for your good. So we get afraid of God's no. And I say, look for his no's because his no's are blessings. His no's are the huge green sign or the green light, directing you towards the way you should go that will be the blessing, that will prosper, that you will find success. And again, we're talking in every aspect of our lives, you're not just talking business. We're talking about application in every aspect of your life. Look for his no's because his no's mean yes. Just yes to the better, right?
The best. So, yeah.
Lauren:
Yes. So good. So good. One of my favorite books is "The Best Yes" by Lysa TerKeurst. It's all about that concept of saying no. Even sometimes things that seem like they're good, they're godly: oh, having this missionary move in with me or pursuing leadership on the women's ministry. Those are godly things. Shouldn't they be a yes? But sometimes it's a no so you can be saved for your best.
So tell me what you would say to someone who feels stuck in one of these three areas of plan, pray, pursue.
Ebonie:
I would say, pray. If you're stuck in a place of planning, pray about it. And prayer for me is always partnered with the word. So my prayers, my husband and I are prayer warriors. We believe in strategic prayer. So what we do is partner prayer with the word. So we would read and find what does the word say? What is about this idea or this concept, or this struggle?
And I'm not talking about trendy words. We have this thing right now where people say, well, that wasn't in the Bible. Well, what we're talking about, isn't about the words, it's about the idea or the ideals or the value or whatever. So those things are most certainly found in the scripture.
And so what we do is, I say, read the word, always context — I always tell people, read the word in context — and then pray standing on that truth, that word. Because now you're praying the word of God, right? The word is already God. It is him. Jesus is the word made flesh to live among us, right? So when you pray strategic prayer, you're standing on the word and then when you're stuck in planning and when you're stuck in a place of prayer, keep praying. Don't lose faith. We're to be praying always, and that praying is simply bringing it back to the Lord. And it doesn't have to be the prayer of doubt, but it's the prayer of "God, I know you're going to answer me. I trust you. I'm okay in this season of waiting for the answer. I'm going to trust you. I'm going to continue to do the things that I know I already have a green light on from you," right? I'm thinking about this new thing, but I've already got the green light. So I'm going to continue to be diligent and flourish in the yes that I've already gotten from you while I wait for the the direction of the next.
And then when we're pursuing, this is where we lose it all, because when we start tasting a measure of success we forget the formula that got us there and that formula is Prayer. That formula is bringing our works committing our works to the Lord so that he can establish us. It's so crucial that when you get to that place of pursuit, or when they're stagnant, let's say you've been pursuing and things are bottlenecked and your growth is stunted, maybe you're not growing, you're not expanding and all of that. You're going to go to prayer, strategic prayer, the word.
I also say in the season of pursuit to seek mentorship, godly mentorship. So Lauren, you, the decision-making, because when you're in that area of pursuit, there comes a lot of decisions. That's when you're actually doing it, right? Lots of decisions to be made. And if you're stuck in that, that's why I fell in love when I found you and met you, fell in love with what you do because it is such a needed tool for anyone as they begin to pursue God. And they got, they got the green light. They're going. You're going to need to make a lot of decisions. And if you get stuck there, seek godly counsel, right? And if you get stuck in your marriage is moving forward, you've been married 10 years, you find some bottleneck there, seek godly marital counseling. If you're stuck in education, you need more skills, et cetera, seek education. You see what I'm saying? But partnered with continued prayer and standing on God's word.
Lauren:
Yeah, this is so good, so encouraging, and you just have so much wisdom. So final question is, tell me how this concept of Plan, Pray, Pursue plays out in your life and how do you live this concept out?
Ebonie:
Wow. You know, I'm going to be honest with you. I like to be really, authentic with ministry. And it's because there is a dynamic of our will and our way and what I want and what I feel combating with what God wants, what is his way, et cetera. Right? And so I love to share it and to have women because we're all pursuing God, right? We want to be in relationship with him, let's say. But we're still living in this, this body. I still have experiences. I still have, you know, whatever. I mean, I have my taste, my kind of thing. It is constantly flowing.
It's like, the level — when you have the level and it has a little bubble in there that tells you when you're balanced, if it's too far this way, too far that way. Well, this concept Plan, Pray, Pursue for me personally levels my life. It helps me level. It's the little bubble in that level that when the bubble is in the middle, which is prayer, when it's there, when I'm, when I'm consistent in prayer, I'm consistent in study, I'm consistent in worship and in relationship with God, just pursuing that first.
Yes, my mind is going, like I said, I got a boat full of plans. They're God inspired plans. I had a mentor years ago tell me, "Ebonie, God has given you a gift but I want to give you some freedom in that. And that is, every idea that he gives you is not meant for you personally to pursue.” He's like you can share these ideas with others. He said you need to be free, He said be free with the ideas because your whole lifetime you're not gonna be able to do it all. But God sometimes wants to use us as a conduit to get his work done. There are some people who don't get any ideas, but they've got the financing, they've got the skill, right, to make it happen. So he was like just be free in sharing these ideas. And that's something that I do: Share ideas with people.
And so the Plan, Pray, Pursue equation really helps me balance my life, because my husband and I pursue multiple things and like I said, I have the plans, but that prayer life it constitutes yes prayer, but it constitutes worship, it constitutes relationship, even community, right? Because we can pray for each other, pray with each other, right? That's how it literally, this is my little secret sauce, if you want to say for life.
Lauren:
I love that. And you definitely can see how it's lived out in your life and can see how strong of a relationship with God you have because it just pours out. It's overflowing from your heart to those around you.
Ebonie:
Thank you. God is good.
Lauren:
Yes. All right. Well, I'm going to end with a few rapid fire, quick decision questions. So let me know which one you prefer. Okay.
So coffee or tea? Coffee.
Summer or winter? Winter.
Books or movies? Movies.
Dogs or cats? Oh, dogs for sure.
Pizza or pasta? Pasta. Which I shouldn’t. Carbs!
Lauren:
I love both pizza and pasta!
So Ebonie has been so gracious to raffle off a ticket to her Plan, Pray, Pursue 2025, which the theme is Deeper, super excited about it. The last one was so amazing. So many wonderful speakers. So how you enter is follow both of us on Instagram. So @AnchoredDecisions and her Adoration Gatherings, which is the women's ministry from her church, and that's @AGatherings follow both pages, like the post when you find it, and then share it to your story and tag us so that it's public and we can be able to see that, so you can enter to win and we'll probably pull that maybe a month after this episode airs (April 14th, 2024). So, check it out if you're listening in real time.
So Ebonie, this was amazing. I can't wait to share this with my audience. So tell people where they can find you online and follow you for more of this amazing wisdom that you have.
Ebonie:
Well, you can go to my website at EbonieMukasa.com.
And truthfully, you can find everything, all of my ideas there, everything that I'm involved in. And you can sign up for my monthly newsletters called Vibrant Courage and you can connect with me, through ministry, through business, all of that there.
Lauren:
Awesome. And I will drop all of those links into the show notes so people can click there for easy access. All right. Well, thank you so much and have a good day.
Ebonie:
Thank you, Lauren. Bye.