The Anna Szabo Show Anna Szabo of Online Discipleship For Women

Surrender to God! James 4:7 instructs us. I personally struggle with this. How about you? Can you relate? My struggle with God is this: I want to have control but God wants me to surrender control to Him. God wants me to choose to trust His plan. And I want to trust God if He reveals to me what His plan is... So, we fight and argue me and God. And ... God always wins!
https://AnnaSzabo.com/surrender-to-god-james-4-7
Today, let’s discuss how to surrender to God and let go. Thanks so much for tuning in today.
 
My name is Anna Szabo.
 
I am the founder of OnlineDiscipleshipforWomen.com and my life’s purpose is to help YOU create a joyful life by embracing God’s word. This podcast for Christian women is all about living for God!
 
If you’d like to support my work, donate from the heart.
 
 
James 4:7 says: “Submit yourselves to God.” It says:c “Subject yourselves to God.”
 
The Bible is clear: we must step out of our own power, strength, and wisdom and step into Christ’s power, strength, and wisdom . 
 
How? Through faith-based action. 
 
It’s hard to do. What is so hard about it? It requires complete surrender of control. 
 
We must lean not on our own understanding in life. We must trust in the Lord with everything. This requires giving up control. And it is scary... it is hard.
 
Surrender feels like falling backwards into the arms of God trusting that He’ll be there to catch you from crushing. 
 
This is very difficult.
 
 
In 2014, I fell on my knees in the middle of my living room late at night, wept, invited God to take control, and gave my life to Christ that night. I asked Jesus to be my personal Lord and Savior; and I surrendered myself to Him completely.
 
 
God controls my life. 
 
God is the source of my blessings, faith, and strength. I am here alive and productive today not because of my own power but because of the power of Christ in me. 
 
 
Submit to the authority of God - James 4:7 tells us. Place yourselves under God's authority!
 
 
I pondered and questioned everything when it comes to God. Today, I know that God is my creator, that I am God’s child, made in His image, here on earth to do His work, the work He prepared in advance for me to do, and once I do His divine work, I will go to heaven to spend my eternity with Jesus when my time here is up. 
 
These truths about myself and my life I received from God’s word. After understanding that Jesus, who was fully man and fully God, came here on earth to surrender His life so that I could have mine, I was overcome with gratitude for my salvation . 
 
Once I fully - intellectually, spiritually, emotionally, mentally, and wholeheartedly - understood what happened on the cross, that Jesus was sacrificed for my sake... I wept, fell on my knees, and surrendered my life to Christ. What happened? 
 
I accepted God’s grace. 
 
Not in theory but in practice. 
 
I understood how broken and weak and powerless and hopeless I am on my own and how much I need a Savior - Jesus Christ. I surrendered myself to God. 
 
Still, God and argue because I am human.
 
 
God took me from a lost and confused addict to a woman of God, a disciple of Christ, a helper to Jesus Himself.
 
Surrendering everything I had (my life, my habits, my identity, my desires, my control...) surrendering it all to God allowed me to become a woman of God.
 
Thanks to God’s saving grace, I am who I am, how I am, and where I am. 
 
I live a sober ad simple life of peace and joy.
 
 
God’s grace is sufficient for me in all my circumstances and helps me endure adversity, persevere through challenges, and share my testimony with you to encourage and empower Christian women.
 
Biblical faith requires strength from us. Don’t be strong in your own power, be strong in Christ. Biblical faith guarantees that we will have trials in life and asks that we surrender our own pow

“Do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.” Isaiah 41:10
 
In today’s Biblical devotional for Christian women, we will ponder Isaiah 41:10 and its practical application in our daily lives as women who follow God and love Jesus.
 
In this Biblical devotional, I will share with you a very specific, unique, and breakthrough spiritual practice I perform regularly that causes many people to fear intensely, and in fact, there’s a record of people being unable to benefit from this spiritual practice that goes back to 1929. Frankly, this very profound spiritual practice caused me to fear for my life initially, but now I perform it several times a month, in faith, with peace.
 
I’ll share with you today HOW exactly I continue this uncommon and bold spiritual practice without giving in to my fears.
 
In this Biblical devotional for Christian women today, I’ll help you examine YOUR fears and show you how confronting them courageously allows God to not only work IN you but also THROUGH you spiritually.
 
The examples of fears and the antidote to fear, which I’ll share today, will be relevant to most of the Christian women listening to my Christian podcast The Anna Szabo Show and reading my Christian blog Onlinediscipleshipforwomen.com
 
This original and authentic Biblical devotional for Christian women will encourage and empower you with God’s truth as we apply it practically to real-life experiences of fear and anxiety we all go through as His disciples and daughters.
 
I am Anna Szabo from AnnaSzabo.com/devotionals, and you are listening to The Anna Szabo Show Christian podcast for women who love Jesus. I make content to help you create a joyful life by embracing God’s word. My passion in life is to help encourage and empower you by sharing testimonies of God’s amazing glory revealed through my own adverse yet faith-filled life story.
 
Subscribe to my podcast and tell other Christian women about it to help me do God’s work through this women’s ministry.
 
If you’d like to support my ministry, please donate at the link is in the notes below.
 
There are three things you can expect from this Biblical devotional for Christian women today:
 
You’ll hear the scriptures-based devotional I prepared for you There will be an exercise for you to do in order to ponder Isaiah 41:10 as it relates to your own faith journey I’ll offer you a prayer to lift you up to God and ask for His peace, protection, provision, and promotion  
Let’s get started!
 
PART 1. BIBLICAL DEVOTIONAL FOR CHRISTIAN WOMEN
 
“Do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.”
Isaiah 41:10
 
 
As I’m sharing this Biblical devotional for Christian women with you right now, I have been without any food and any water for 24 hours. This is incomprehensible to many people, and the fasting book from 1929 reveals a story of a man who began fasting but quit when he felt overcome by intense fear for his life. He broke his fast.
 
I practice fasting regularly and have been doing it since early 2018, for three years now. I’m 38 years old, and enjoy the best health of my life after being very sick for decades. My height is 5’10”, my weight is 116 lb, my size is zero, my weekly, monthly, and yearly spendings include zero dollars on medical bills or doctors or hospitals or pills or diets. I’m able to do 10000 steps every day, perform handstands, backbends, jump on the trampoline, run, swim, hike, hula hoop, squat on a BOSU ball, exercise with weights, do all my own chores, travel as I wish, and do all the necessary handy work at home by myself.
 
I’ll leave some links below for you to explore how I live my life free from illnesses, unwanted weight, and useless medical spe

In today’s Biblical devotional for Christian women, we will ponder Proverbs 3:25-26 (how to not be afraid) and its practical application in our daily lives: “Have no fear of sudden disaster or of the ruin, for the Lord will be at your side and will keep your foot from being trapped.” I will share with you an example from my life of how I stay mentally strong in the midst of a global pandemic, nationwide unemployment, and an economic crisis. 
I will also explain why learning how to not be afraid is critical. We will review the consequences of allowing the fear of a sudden disaster and ruin to overwhelm you. At the end of my message, I’ll offer you a powerful prayer. In this Biblical devotional for Christian women today, I’ll help you examine your own faith journey with God. We will explore why it’s so critical for us as Christian women, the disciples of Jesus, to always remember that it’s the Lord who is at our side and keeps us from being trapped. 
“Have no fear of sudden disaster or of the ruin, for the Lord will be at your side and will keep your foot from being trapped.” Proverbs 3:25-26. Fearing sudden disasters and ruin leaves you anxious, scared, mentally paralyzed, emotionally overwhelmed, physically exhausted, and unable to do God’s work, incapable to fulfill His purpose for your life. That is why learning and practicing how to not be afraid is so critical.
The CDC reports: “Communities have faced mental health challenges related to COVID-19–associated morbidity, mortality, and mitigation activities, including the impact of physical distancing and stay-at-home orders. The percentage of respondents who reported having seriously considered suicide in the 30 days before completing the survey (10.7%) was significantly higher among respondents aged 18–24 years (25.5%).
This Biblical devotional for Christian women will be relevant and helpful to all of the listeners of my Christian podcast – The Anna Szabo Show – and all the readers of my Christian blog everywhere in the world. We all need to learn now how to not be afraid because being afraid is deadly in the midst of this ongoing global crisis.
This original and authentic Biblical devotional will encourage and empower you with God’s truth as we apply it practically to real-life experiences we all are going through all around the globe because we are all facing a continuous sudden disaster and have been affected by it for over a year already.
I make content to help you create a joyful life by embracing God’s word. My passion in life is to help encourage and empower you by sharing testimonies of God’s amazing glory revealed through my life story. I personally have adjusted my life a lot due to the COVID-19 pandemic. I myself have a history of suicidal depression, and also during the pandemic, the number of women who came to my Christian blog because of their self-harm impulses has increased significantly. I have to practice every day how to not be afraid by leaning on God.
I love you. When I was depressed and suicidal during my marriage with a narcissist a few years ago, as God was working in me to keep me alive in the midst of cruel abuse, I thought of you: the Christian woman facing challenges. I thought to myself: if I ever make it out of this abusive marriage alive, I’ll dedicate myself to ministry and help other Christian women. And I’ve been doing this since 2017 when I started my Christian podcast for women and founded Online Discipleship For Women.
Subscribe to my podcast and tell other Christian women about it to help me do God’s work through this women’s ministry. If you’d like to support my ministry, you can donate here.
There are three things you can expect from this Biblical devotional for Christian women today:
You’ll hear the scriptures-based devotional I prepared for you There will be an exercise for you to do in order to ponder Proverbs 3:25-26 as it relates to your own faith jo

“Guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.” - Proverbs 4:23. In this Biblical devotional for Christian women today, I’ll help you examine your journey and witness how not guarding your heart leaves you overwhelmed, exhausted, paralyzed by anxiety, unable or unwilling to do God’s work, and incapable to fulfill His purpose for your life. We will ponder Proverbs 4:23 and its practical application in our daily lives. I will share with you how I personally guard my heart and how I realized the deadly implications of leaving my heart unguarded, defenseless, unprotected, and exposed. The deadly consequences were a paralyzing anxiety and suicidal depression.
 
The examples of an unguarded heart, which I’ll share today, will be relevant to most of the Christian women listening to my Christian podcast The Anna Szabo Show and reading my Christian blog Onlinediscipleshipforwomen.com
This original and authentic Biblical devotional for Christian women will encourage and empower you with God’s truth as we apply it practically to real-life experiences we all go through as His disciples and daughters.
 
I am Anna Szabo from AnnaSzabo.com, and you are listening to The Anna Szabo Show Christian podcast for women who love Jesus. I make content to help you create a joyful life by embracing God’s word. My passion in life is to help encourage and empower you by sharing testimonies of God’s amazing glory revealed through my life story.
 
Subscribe to my podcast and tell other Christian women about it to help me do God’s work through this women’s ministry.
 
If you’d like to support my ministry, you can donate at onlinediscipleshipforwomen.com, the link is in the notes below.
 
There are three things you can expect from this Biblical devotional for Christian women today:
 
You’ll hear the scriptures-based devotional I prepared for you There will be an exercise for you to do in order to ponder Proverbs 4:23 as it relates to your own faith journey I’ll pray for you to lift you up to God and ask for His peace, protection, provision, and promotion in your life  
Let’s get started!
 
PART 1. BIBLICAL DEVOTIONAL FOR CHRISTIAN WOMEN
 
“Guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.” - Proverbs 4:23
 
I was raised by a very abusive mother. This year, in 2021, I have been sharing my story as a scapegoat daughter of a narcissistic mother on my main YouTube channel every day. Every day, I post a new helpful video on YouTube to share what happened to me and how the narcissistic trauma affected me. I always mention that the best way to deal with abuse is to block the abuser. I blocked my abusive mother on social media everywhere even when I still had social media, before I permanently deleted my Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter in 2020. I also blocked my abusive, hostile, cruel mother on email and phone. But while those were effective measures, in February on 2021, as I went to my email trash can to clean it, I was stunned to see that, despite all the blocking filters I applied, almost 100 hateful, abusive, death-focused emails from my toxic mother made their way to my email. As I saw her messages terrorizing me, denouncing me, harassing me, and condemning me, I immediately spiraled down into a deep and very dark place.
 
It’s important to disclose here something significant. My mother tried to kill me many times, and she repeatedly told me: I hate you and I just want you dead. This was the main theme of her 25-year long relationship with me while I lived with her on Russia. I’m 38 now, and I’ve lived in America for almost 13 years. I haven’t seen my mother for this long but her hatred and cruelty are deadly.
 
“Guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.” - Proverbs 4:23
 
I became unable to work out or get out of bed many times before due to her hateful, cruel, evil, death-wishing attacks. This time, I knew that even technology is imp

In today’s Biblical devotional for Christian women, we will ponder Proverbs 4:27 and its practical application in our daily lives. I will share with you how I personally battle two TWO evils in my own life (lust and gluttony), and I’ll help you examine your life and witness how God is leading your path straight.
https://onlinediscipleshipforwomen.com/proverbs-4-27
The examples I’ll be sharing are for adults only. Children should not be listening to this content. The examples of evil from my own personal life, which I’ll share today, will be relevant to most of the Christian women listening to my Christian podcast The Anna Szabo Show and reading my Christian blog Onlinediscipleshipforwomen.com
 
I am Anna Szabo, and right now you’re listening to The Anna Szabo Show Christian podcast for women who love Jesus. I make content to help you create a joyful life by embracing God’s word. My passion in life is to help encourage and empower you by sharing my testimony of God’s amazing glory in my own life story.
 
Subscribe to my podcast and tell other Christian women about it to help me do God’s work through this women’s ministry.
 
If you’d like to support my ministry, you can donate at onlinediscipleshipforwomen.com, the link is in the notes below.
 
There are three things you can expect:
 
You’ll hear the Biblical devotional I prepared for you There will be an exercise for you to do in order to ponder Proverbs 4:27 as it relates to your own faith journey I’ll pray for you to lift you up to God and ask for His peace, protection, provision, and promotion in your life  
 
PART 1. BIBLICAL DEVOTIONAL FOR CHRISTIAN WOMEN
 
 
This is the most difficult devotional I have ever set out to create. I’m going to share with you my deepest struggles, which I’d prefer to forever keep to myself of course, but God called me to share my testimony and tell you my story to display His glory. 
 
God’s glory is not the only thing you’ll see displayed throughout this Biblical devotional for Christian women. You’ll witness what’s called “the human condition,” which is my endless struggle with the flesh. The flesh and the spirit always at odds within us, the Christian women who desire to obey and honor God. I desire to obey and honor God.
 
My Heavenly Father God specified two evils, and told me personally to flee from these two evils. What are they?
 
Proverbs 23:2 says: “put a knife to your throat if you are given to gluttony.”
 
Why is gluttony so evil?
 
Proverbs 23:21 explains this: “the glutton will come to poverty, and the drowsiness of overindulgence will clothe them with rags.”
 
Not only is it expensive to indulge in gluttony but also overindulgence in food leads to drowsiness, which is the opposite of what God’s word directs us to be - alert, aware, awake, and alive fully as His daughters and disciples of Jesus Christ. We can’t serve God being drowsy, which is a feeling of being sleepy and lethargic.
 
Whenever I indulge in gluttony, I feel not only sleepy and lethargic but also powerless as the desire for food overwhelms me. After I indulge in gluttony, I feel off my path, exactly the opposite of what Proverbs 4:27 teaches: “Do not turn to the right or the left; keep your foot from evil.” Whenever I surrender to this first evil, the sin of gluttony, I stray away from God.
 
1 John 2:16 explains this in great detail:
“For all that is in the world - the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes - are not from the Father but are from the world.” So what it means is that whenever I give into the desires of the flesh, such as the sin of gluttony, indulging in food, it is not from God, so it is evil.
 
The first evil I battle is gluttony.
 
Only a few people know this: my best friend Maria, my neighbors Gabby and Mary, and the readers on my Christian blog posts about fasting and the plant-based diet. I will link those resour

“Let your eyes look straight ahead; fix your gaze directly before you.” In today’s Biblical devotional for Christian women, we will ponder Proverbs 4:25 and its practical application in our daily lives: https://onlinediscipleshipforwomen.com/let-your-eyes-look-straight-ahead-proverbs-4-25
There are three things you can expect:
You’ll hear the Biblical devotional I prepared for you There will be an exercise for you to do in order to ponder Proverbs 4:25 as it relates to your current situation I’ll pray for you to lift you up to God and ask for His peace, protection, provision, and promotion in your life  
PART 1. BIBLICAL DEVOTIONAL FOR CHRISTIAN WOMEN
 
Have you ever felt distracted from your purpose, knowing exactly what you need to do, walking the narrow path, following God, and staying focused? I have.
In fact, I’ll share my personal stories with you. Two stories.
The first story happened twice. I was 22 lb overweight and felt that I was on the wrong health path. God called me to pursue holistic weight loss to honor Him with my body. And I knew exactly what to do, but doing it was difficult because the numbers on my scale showed no result.
For a long time, my weight wouldn’t come off but despite my distractions with numbers, I kept following God’s calling and guidance on a very narrow path: 10000 steps a day, 100 squats a day, regular water fasting, and eating a plant-based diet. “Let your eyes look straight ahead; fix your gaze directly before you.” Proverbs 4:25 helped me push through and stay focused on one step at a time, one step only, step by step. I fixed my gaze directly before me. At the end of 60 days, all my weight melted away, and I was the healthiest I had been. You might wonder: why would you need to go through this twice? The reason why is that I was rear-ended in a car accident and had to recover. After my recovery, I went on to lose 22 lb again by doing exactly what Proverbs 4:25 teaches us to do.
Here’s my second personal story.
Today is 2/7/2021. On January 1st this year, I started publishing a video a day on my main YouTube channel, which I’ll link below for you. I have been working so hard, but my analytics show that right now my videos get only between 14 and 200 views. It looks like I’m getting nowhere. The analytics make it appear as if I am not going far. But God gave me a vision for my ministry Online Discipleship for Women. He asked me to take my message to YouTube. And He advised me to do this: “Let your eyes look straight ahead; fix your gaze directly before you.” Proverbs 4:25.
I am publishing a video every single day on my main YouTube channel for Christian women, following God’s sacred word.
In addition to that, today, I started a new YouTube channel called The Anna Szabo Show where I now publish my weekly podcast. I have only 1314 subscribers on my main channel and zero subscribers on my podcast channel as of today.
But I won’t let myself get distracted!
“Let your eyes look straight ahead; fix your gaze directly before you.” Proverbs 4:25
That’s what I’m doing.
Because God called me to a very specific mission. He created me for this purpose. And I won’t get destructed. I am staying focused, fixing my gaze directly before me, taking productive action every single day. And I want to share with you my poem about purpose, which I hope will help you focus and take action without letting anyone or anything distract you.
This is poem number 127 at AnnaSzabo.com/poems
 
“Purpose”
 
Purpose is what you know you are supposed to do.
It’s what you’re confident you were created for.
It’s why you think God to Himself you drew.
It helps transform your life into a blessing from a chore.
Pursuing purpose is fulfilling and exciting.
Your purpose fuels your daily life with joy.
A purpose-driven future is inviting
Because it can your heart and mind deploy.
Pursuing purpose is a very special blessing.
To know your purpo