The Time Is Now

People often ask me how I move so fast. How do I hear an idea in the morning and have the domain purchased, the offer mapped, the logo started, and half the business built before lunch? How do I make a decision without spending six months researching the decision, building a committee around the decision, polling everyone who will never have to live with the decision, and then asking God to confirm what He already said twelve more times?

How do I move without getting trapped in analysis paralysis? Simple. If God even hints at asking me to do something, I move. I do not put His voice on trial. I do not build a jury out of fear, logic, public opinion, odds, consequences, or what everybody else can see. I do not ask sight for permission to obey faith. I move. Sometimes the movement is big. Sometimes it is one tiny step. Sometimes it works immediately. Sometimes it creates a story that takes years to understand.

Sometimes it looks brilliant. Sometimes it looks insane. Sometimes it looks dangerous, wrong, or impossible to explain in the earthly realm. But the outcome has never been the thing that determined my obedience. The voice did.

Jesus said:

“My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me.”

The sheep do not stop every time the Shepherd speaks and demand a business plan. They recognize Him. They follow. That recognition does not come from a checklist. It comes from relationship. I know His voice because I have spent years walking with Him through wins, losses, valleys, courtrooms, hospital rooms, casinos, caves, businesses, breakdowns, miracles, and moments that made absolutely no sense until I reached the other side. His voice has become familiar to me.

So when He moves, I move.

The Voice in the Shower

One of the first times I ever heard what I believe was the audible voice of God was in 2017. I was standing in the shower. There was no worship band. No pastor. No prayer line. No dramatic music playing in the background. Just water, steam, and a 29-year-old guy whose mind was probably operating twelve businesses ahead of his body.

Then, loud and clear, I heard:

THE TIME IS NOW.

My head spun around so fast I am surprised I did not slip, fall, and meet Jesus in person. I shut off the water, hurried out, and told Danielle what had happened. At the time, I thought I knew exactly what He meant.

God had recently given me a business idea. So in my mind, the message was obvious:

The time is now to build it. The time is now to launch it. The time is now to go. And I moved. Over the next several months, God revealed that the words were much larger than the business idea I had attached them to. The time was now to focus on my health. The time was now to focus on my family. The time was now to prepare for a chapter I could not yet see coming.

At 29 years old, I thought:

What could I possibly need to focus on with my health? More on that later. The important lesson is not that I should have ignored the voice until I fully understood it. The lesson is that obedience can begin before understanding catches up. God gave me four words. Those four words created movement. As I moved, He expanded their meaning. Faith did not require me to see the entire chapter. It required me to respond to the sentence He gave me.

That is how much of my life has worked. He gives me enough light for one step. I take it. Then the light moves. So do I.

Faithful With the Little

Early in entrepreneurship, if God gave me even the slightest vision of an opportunity, a solution, a business, or a service, I acted on it. I might buy the domain, map the offer stack, design the logo, write the first page, build an entire website, or lay out the systems. I would put something physical in front of the vision and say:

God, thank You for trusting me with this idea. Thank You for allowing me to see what it could become. I heard You. Here is my yes. What is next?

Sometimes He kept moving the project forward. Sometimes it went on a shelf, where it might remain for years until the right person, opportunity, or season appeared. Sometimes an idea I thought belonged to one business became the foundation of something completely different.

And sometimes the act of building it was the entire assignment. Not every domain had to become a company. Not every logo had to become a brand. Not every idea had to become a public victory. The small act showed that I heard Him. It showed that I was willing to move. Luke 16:10 says that whoever is faithful with very little will also be faithful with much.

In the random-ass visual language of my mind, I see it this way: if God asks you to do something small and you refuse, it is like looking at the Creator of the universe and saying, “I heard You, but I need more information before Your word deserves my action.” I cannot live that way. If He gives me a sentence, I write it. If He gives me a name, I make the introduction. If He gives me an idea, I put my hands on it. If He says call, give, go, stop, or wait, I respond. Even waiting can be immediate obedience when waiting is what He said. The point is not constant motion.

The point is constant surrender.

At Once

When Jesus called Peter and Andrew, Matthew says they left their nets at once and followed Him. At once. They did not receive a five-year ministry forecast. They did not know where they would sleep, what they would eat, who would oppose them, how the story would end, or what following Jesus would eventually cost. They knew who called. That was enough. Second Corinthians 5:7 says we walk by faith, not by sight. Sight wants the whole map. Sight wants the odds.

Sight wants evidence that the decision will produce a favorable outcome. Sight wants the door open, the funding secured, the opposition removed, the contract signed, the road cleared, and the ending written where everyone can read it. Faith knows the One who is writing. Faith does not require the ending before taking the first step. Faith does not say, “God, prove this will work and then I will obey.” Faith says, “God, because it is You, I will move.”

That is why immediate obedience matters. The longer I stand still after God says move, the more time my flesh has to create another option. Fear starts talking. Logic starts negotiating. Other people start voting on a word they did not hear. The possible consequences begin looking larger than the One who gave the command. So I move before all those voices can become louder than His. Not because I have every answer. Because I know the Voice.

The Stories That Sound Crazy

I have enough stories of immediate obedience to make an entire life sound fictional. There was a time I believed God told me to take $50,000 out of a business account and gamble it. So I did. I lost it all very quickly. There was a situation where I believed God showed me that I needed to step in physically and hold someone at gunpoint while making what I understood to be a citizen’s arrest. So I stepped in.

There were times when I prayed for invisibility while driving, believing that even when I was moving extremely fast I would remain unseen by the cops. There were stocks I believed He showed me to buy. Businesses He showed me to build. Deals He showed me to leave. People He told me to call. Turns He told me to make. Moments when He said left while everything visible seemed to point right. Then there was Danielle. God told me she was my wife.

I proposed after knowing her for three weeks. We were married 58 days after we met. More than 13 years later, six children here, a seventh on the way, books still being written, and a lifetime of evidence surrounding us, I am grateful I did not ask sight to explain that decision before faith moved my feet. These stories are not instructions for you to copy my actions. My obedience cannot substitute for your relationship with God.

The point is not that everyone should gamble $50,000, carry a gun into a confrontation, drive fast, propose after three weeks, or buy the same stock. The point is that when I knew He was speaking to me, I moved. Some of those decisions produced immediate wins. Some produced losses. Some created miracles. Some created consequences. Some took years before I could see why God wanted me to experience the road at all.

But I do not measure obedience by whether the visible outcome looked successful. If I only call it God when I win, then I am not walking by faith. I am worshiping results. The $50,000 loss did not have the power to decide whether I heard Him. The 58-day marriage did not become obedience only after the marriage lasted. The outcome belongs to God. My yes belongs to me.

When Obedience Looks Wrong

The Bible is filled with moments when obedience looked dangerous, foolish, socially unacceptable, or completely wrong to the people watching. God told Abraham to take Isaac up the mountain. He told Moses to walk back into Egypt and confront Pharaoh. He told Israel to move toward the Red Sea before the road appeared. He told Joshua to march around Jericho instead of attacking it like a normal military leader.

He told Hosea to enter a marriage that would become a living prophecy. He told Esther to walk into the king’s presence knowing she could be killed for appearing without being summoned. Jesus told Peter to step out of a perfectly good boat and walk on water. He called fishermen to leave their nets, income, routines, and expectations at once. He told a rich young ruler to sell everything. He told the apostles to keep preaching after human authorities ordered them to stop.

None of those instructions became logical before the first step. The road did not always appear until someone started walking toward the water. The wall did not fall on the first lap. The water did not hold Peter until his foot left the boat. Esther did not know whether the king would extend the scepter until she entered the room. Faith has never required God to make obedience look reasonable to everybody watching.

Sometimes God’s order is higher than the order men have built.

Peter and the apostles said it plainly:

“We must obey God rather than human beings.”

That does not mean every rebellious impulse is holy. It means human approval has never been the final authority over divine direction. The Bible is not filled with safe people waiting for every visible condition to line up. It is filled with people who knew enough about the One speaking to take a step that looked insane to everyone who had not heard Him. The world usually calls it foolish before it calls it faith. It often calls it dangerous before it calls it destiny.

And sometimes it calls it wrong until God finishes the story.

No Sweat

I am still living this in real time. Recently, I received an email connected to a federal legal situation. In the earthly realm, it did not look good. My mind could have created a thousand endings before the first one happened. I could have allowed fear to take over the story. Instead, I prayed while driving.

Windshield time has become one of the places where I hear God clearly. The road creates a kind of moving solitude. My hands are occupied. The noise settles. I talk. I listen. I move.

As I was praying about the email and what came next, I heard a simple direction:

Slow down and let this truck pass you. So I did. A big lifted Ram diesel flew around me. I looked at the license plate.

It said:

NO SWEAT.

I laughed out loud. I did not need a committee to interpret that one. I did not need to ask twelve people whether God was allowed to use a license plate. I did not need another sign confirming the sign. I received it. No sweat. God already knows the ending. He knew about the email before it arrived. He knew the people involved before I knew their names. He knew the valley before I entered it.

He knows what this situation will produce, what it will expose, what it will close, what it will open, and how the testimony will eventually be told. So I can walk through it cheerful or depressed. I can move through it in faith or spend every day demanding that sight tell me I am safe. The valley does not change because I sweat. The Author does not lose control because the chapter looks dark. No sweat did not give me every detail.

It gave me what I needed for that moment:

Peace. Keep moving. God has it. I have already watched an approximately $12 million judgment hang over my life for years and then close through a $5,000 resolution. I have already seen God write an ending no amount of earthly analysis could have predicted. So when the current page looks dark, I do not assume the story ends there. I remember who holds the pen.

Born for This

Esther did not choose the crisis that made her position necessary. Her people were facing destruction.

Mordecai challenged her with one of the most powerful questions in Scripture:

What if you have come to this position for such a time as this? What if the room you are in, the influence you carry, the scars you survived, the relationships you built, and the voice you have learned to recognize were all preparing you for this exact moment? Esther still had to enter the room. Purpose did not remove the danger. Calling did not guarantee comfort. Being born for the moment did not mean she could see how the moment would end. She moved anyway.

Jeremiah received the same truth from another direction:

Before God formed him in the womb, God knew him. Before he was born, God set him apart. Purpose existed before Jeremiah understood it. The assignment existed before he could see it. God had already written identity into him before the world had an opinion about who he should become. That is why “Born for This” by The Score connects so strongly with this Field Note.

The song sounds like an army of people who have walked through pain, doubt, criticism, brokenness, and mistakes without allowing any of it to steal their voice. It is a declaration that the words being written are meant to help somebody else know they are not alone. That is why I am making these stories public. Not because every choice looked clean. Not because every battle ended quickly. Not because every instruction produced the outcome I wanted.

I am writing because someone like me needs to know that their scars do not cancel their assignment. Someone caught in analysis paralysis needs to know that clarity often comes in motion. Someone waiting for fear to disappear needs to know that courage is movement while fear is still talking. Someone staring at a dark chapter needs to remember that darkness on the current page does not mean God stopped writing. Maybe I was born for these stories.

Maybe you were born to read one of them at the exact moment you needed enough faith for the next step. Maybe all the pain, tears, wrong turns, miracles, attacks, victories, and losses created a voice capable of reaching the one. Jesus will leave the ninety-nine to go after the one. If one person moves because this testimony gave them courage, the story did its job.

Relationship Removes Hesitation

People want a process for hearing God. They want a formula. They want me to explain exactly how many prayers, confirmations, verses, signs, dreams, or conversations are required before they can know it is Him. I cannot give them one. I can only point them toward relationship. When Danielle speaks in a crowded room, I do not need to analyze every frequency of her voice before I know it is my wife. I recognize her because I know her.

Years of conversation, covenant, laughter, fights, tears, children, prayers, travel, victories, and ordinary days have made her voice familiar. My relationship with God works the same way. I know Him through years of conversation. Through His Word. Through obedience. Through the times He whispered. Through the times He thundered. Through the times I moved and watched the road appear. Through the times I lost and found Him waiting on the other side of the loss.

Through the times the ending proved He had been ahead of me the entire time. Relationship removes hesitation because recognition becomes natural. I do not test Danielle’s identity every time she calls my name. I respond. I do not put God’s voice on trial every time He gives me the next step. I follow. That does not mean I understand everything He says immediately. It means I trust the One speaking more than I trust my ability to understand.

The Speed of Faith

Fast obedience is not doing the biggest possible thing every day. It is responding fluidly to what God is saying right now. Sometimes that means building. Sometimes it means closing. Sometimes it means giving. Sometimes it means losing. Sometimes it means fighting. Sometimes it means letting Him fight. Sometimes it means going public. Sometimes it means disappearing into Covert preparation for years. Sometimes it means marrying the woman after 58 days.

Sometimes it means putting an idea on the shelf without needing to explain why it has not become visible yet. Fluid obedience does not worship speed. It refuses hesitation. It means my answer is already yes before I know the question.

Tell the truth. Name the next faithful step. Move before fear leaves. That is how I move so fast. I do not wait for sight to agree with faith. I do not wait for fear to become comfortable. I do not need everybody else to hear what God said to me. I do not have to understand the ending to obey the instruction. I know the Shepherd’s voice. He knows me. I follow Him. The time is now. Take the step. Let Him reveal the road beneath your moving feet.

You were born for this.

Scripture to Carry

“For we live by faith, not by sight.” — 2 Corinthians 5:7

“My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me.” — John 10:27

“And who knows but that you have come to your royal position for such a time as this?” — Esther 4:14

“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart.” — Jeremiah 1:5

“At once they left their nets and followed him.” — Matthew 4:20

“We must obey God rather than human beings!” — Acts 5:29

A Short Prayer

Father, thank You for knowing me before I was born and preparing me for this time. Draw me so close that Your voice becomes more familiar than fear, logic, or the opinions surrounding me. Give me faith to move without seeing the whole road, courage to obey before the outcome is visible, and endurance for the dangerous middle. My answer is yes. Tell me the next step, and help me move the moment You speak. I trust You with the ending. In Jesus’ name, amen.

Listen

“Born for This” — The Score
Theme: Pain, doubt, criticism, mistakes, and brokenness do not have to steal the voice or extinguish the assignment. The story can become a flame that helps someone else know they are not alone—and that they were born to move when their moment comes.