I’m Jezebel!

I looked across the room at Sally and saw the oddest look on her face. It was a room full of disciples (guys and gals), but I had to ask. God was queuing me to ask, “Sally, what’s up?”

“I’m Jezebel,” she said.
The room got quiet. I said nothing. The air was thick. Right there in front of everyone, Sally said,
“I am that controlling woman leading my husband astray. I am that woman taking his strength and manipulating.”
It stayed quiet, and I let the moment sink in.
“Well now you know what you need to do, right?”
“Repent?” she offered.
“Yep. Okay, next highlight. Who has the next highlight?”

Sally’s face remained pensive. We went on to cover the next “aha” moment from the group’s bible reading. I shared the moment with my wife (an incredible disciple-maker!), and we committed ourselves to prayer that God would finish breaking up the ground and that Sally would lean in and adjust to God’s truths.

We were not teaching about Jezebel. Sally had not highlighted Jezebel as she read that week. Someone else had highlighted Jezebel. Sally was just feeding off the crumbs of someone else’s “aha” moment when it happened. God took what she had read and the question someone else asked that week and turned it into a catalyst that began to change the very core of “who Sally was.”

Sally’s moment is an excellent example of the power of discipleship, the power of God’s word. It is also an example of the power of having a plan. Sally’s moment did not just happen. There was a plan behind it.

• Time together. Our discipleship group had been meeting weekly for four months when Sally’s moment happened. We had been on a mission trip together—most of the group. We had built intimacy that allowed her to be “raw and real.”
• Leveraging God’s word. We were all reading the Bible cover-to-cover. Not teaching topics but finding topics and truths each week as we read. The system allowed God to bump Sally’s heart just at the right time. His Spirit was doing what He wanted to do in Sally’s life. We would never have chosen to do a study on Jezebel in a group, but God did.
• Individual discipleship in a group. No one spoke to her, no one commented, and no one jumped in to comfort her. No one said anything because they knew the plan. Everyone is in individual discipleship in a group. The moment was Sally’s, God’s, and mine. The plan prevented anyone from being a well-intentioned dragon that distracted God’s work.
• Pushing is necessary. When her moment happened, I said nothing. I knew Sally was right because I knew about Jezebel, and I knew Sally. I also knew that God did not need me to comfort, cheer, or console. He just needed me to push. “What do you need to do?” is part of our plan. That simple question is discipleship because discipleship is all about adjustment.

Following God’s disciple-making models and having a plan ushered Sally’s moment into existence. When I began this journey to understand and teach others to make disciples, I realized that most of my success was accidental. It was the studying of God’s models, our successes, and our failures that led to us actually having a plan before we made disciples.

We have a plan for every Sally moment. Each moment is expected, not accidental. What is your plan to usher in Sally moments?