I Asked God How to Grow. He Told Me to Stop.
I was sitting with God thinking about everything I was building. The vision. The work. The people I was serving. My mind was full and my hands were busy and I was asking Him how I could grow, how I could be better, how I could do more.
And He said one word: PAUSE
Not slow down. Not recalibrate. Pause. A full stop in the middle of everything I was building.
Then He began to highlight different areas of my life. Not my ministry. Not my platform. My life. He asked me to audit them. To assess them. To evaluate them honestly and without the filter of what I wished they looked like.
What I found changed everything.
I found voids in places I had not looked in a long time. And underneath all of it, I found the thing I had not expected to find.
I had lost myself in my gift.
I was building everything. And somehow I had forgotten to build me.
When I looked at my shelves I saw everyone except myself. I was available for everyone. Present for everyone. Pouring into everyone. And when I asked myself what I loved to do, everything I could name was connected to serving other people.
So I asked again. What about me? Who am I? What do I actually love? What brings me joy that has nothing to do with what I can give?
I had to sit with those questions for a long time before I could answer them.
That was the eye-opener. And it is why I am writing this.
What a Life Audit Actually Is
A life audit is not a performance review. It is not a list of everything you have failed to do. It is not a productivity exercise or a goal-setting session dressed up in spiritual language.
It is an honest inventory. The same way a supermarket pulls every product off the shelf to check what is selling, what has expired, and what is taking up space producing nothing, a life audit asks you to look at every area of your life with clear eyes and honest hands.
The audit does not judge you. It just shows you what is actually there. And sometimes what is there surprises you.
And God woke her up in the middle of her night to fight for me in mine.
The Five Shelves
When God walked me through my own audit, these were the areas He highlighted. I want to walk you through them the same way.
Spiritual Growth
This is not just how much you pray or how often you read your Bible. It is the quality of your connection with God. Is it alive and active or has it become routine? Are you encountering Him or just performing for Him? Is your spiritual life feeding you or have you been giving out of a vessel that stopped being filled somewhere along the way?
Primary Love Relationships
Family. The people closest to you. The ones who get whatever is left after everyone else has taken their portion. Check this shelf honestly. Are you present with the people who matter most or are you physically there but mentally somewhere else? Are you investing in these relationships with the same energy you invest in your calling?
Personal and Professional Development
Are you growing? Not just in ministry. In your mind. In your craft. In your understanding of the world, you are called to influence. Prophetic people can sometimes stall here because they equate spiritual revelation with personal development. They are not the same thing. God can give you a word for a nation and you can still need to read more books.
Health and Wellness
Your body is the vessel. You cannot carry the weight of the gift in a vessel you have been neglecting. Sleep. Movement. What you eat. How you rest. Exercise. These are not secular concerns. They are stewardship. Check this shelf without shame and without excuses.
Freedom of Time and Money
Are you building toward financial freedom or are you always one emergency away from panic? Is your time owned by your assignment or by everyone else’s agenda? This shelf is often the one people avoid the longest because it requires the most honesty. But a prophet who cannot sustain themselves financially and protect their time will eventually be too depleted to sustain their assignment.
The audit gives you clarity on what was hiding behind the busyness.
What To Do With What You Find
When you sit down with these five areas, you will find things. Some of what you find will encourage you. Some of it will convict you. Some of it will grieve you.
Let it. Do not rush past the grief of a neglected shelf. Do not minimize a void just because you have been too busy to address it. The point of the audit is not to make you feel good about where you are. It is to give you an honest picture so you can make intentional decisions about where you are going.
Ask yourself these questions for each area. What is growing here? What has expired and needs to be released? What is running low and needs immediate attention? What is taking up space but producing nothing?
Then bring what you find to God. Not to perform repentance. Not to make promises you cannot keep. Just to be honest with Him about the state of the person He called.
He already knows what is on your shelves. The audit is for you.
I am still in the middle of my own audit. The layers are still coming off. And what I am finding, underneath the gift and the calling and the assignments, is a woman I am just beginning to know again.
I think it is time you met yourself too.
Which of the five shelves have you been avoiding the longest? You are not as alone in this as you think.
Mercy Fakoya (PM)
Prophetic Teacher. Marketplace Strategist. The Praying Prophet.