May 25, 2025
God says, “Rebuild the road!
Clear away the rocks and stones
so my people can return from captivity.” Isaiah 57:14 NLT
“Andy, what’s the most important thing I need to do to be successful in this role?”
That was the first question a new CEO asked me when we were first introduced.
I answered, “do your work”.
“What do you mean,” he replied, “I’ve been doing that, 24/7 for six months.”
I paused, to consider my response and decided he needed an answer from my heart not my head.
So I replied, “I know how you feel, because I felt the same way once, but I learned that the most important factor in success is not what I do, but knowing who I am. So the work you need to do, is inner work. Knowing WHO you are. That is where you will discover REAL success.”
I wrote in the preface to my next book, WISDOM FROM THE WILDERNESS, that life is a cycle from CAPTIVITY through a WILDERNESS into a PROMISED LAND. My experience has taught me this is true, not just for me, but for everyone and especially for leaders.
My wilderness experience taught me I needed to clear away the rocks and stones, so that I could enter my “promised land”.
Those “rocks and stones” where behind my CAPTIVITY, beliefs that were holding me back.
But how do you clear them away?
By doing your inner work.
For me that work started by turning to my inner life, my faith and to Jesus. Trusting him through my pain and doing the self-examination I needed to do to become all he created me to be.
For me, it was a BIG project: a three-day trauma intensive, followed by 18-months of intensive counseling and now a monthly check-in with my therapist. It was hard, but it was good.
Your project may not look like mine, but everyone has work to do.
Doing the work helped me to understand, what Jesus meant when he said, You didn’t choose me. I chose you. I appointed you to go and produce lasting fruit, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask for, using my name. John 15:16
The “fruit” of my life in CAPITIVITY, did not last, because it was rooted in the wrong things, so it produced bad fruit.
But God, choose me and appointed me produce fruit, good fruit. When God calls, he equips us and works in us. When we are rooted in him the result is good fruit.
What type of fruit is your life producing, would you like it to be different?
Consider that you may need to do some work; are there rocks and stones in your path that need to be cleared away?
Start with turning to your inner life and to Jesus, he will help you.
I guarantee it.
Because he said it, Remain in me, and I will remain in you. For a branch cannot produce fruit if it is severed from the vine, and you cannot be fruitful unless you remain in me. Yes, I am the vine; you are the branches. Those who remain in me, and I in them, will produce much fruit. For apart from me you can do nothing. John 15:4-5 NLT
Until next time,
LIVE INSIDE OUT,
Andy Wyatt