Why Won't God Move Me to the Next Level Yet?

By Angela D. Thomas, DrPH, MPH, MBA

Because He's watching how you handle the opposition at the level you're on right now. If you can't manage two haters here, He isn't going to hand you two hundred there. The next level isn't a reward for wanting it badly enough. It's a promotion for being faithful with what's already in your hands.

I keep hearing the same prayer, and I've prayed it myself, so I'm not pointing at anybody I'm not also pointing at. Take me higher, God. Take me to the next level. Open the next door. Grow the ministry, grow the platform, grow the business, give me the bigger thing. And I believe God hears every word of it. But I've come to think that a lot of us are asking for a promotion at a job we haven't even shown up faithful for yet.

Let me say it the way it finally sat down in me and stopped being cute.

What Does the Bible Say About Getting to the Next Level?

Go read the parable of the talents in Matthew 25 for yourself, the whole thing. I'm not going to repeat all of it, but you already know the line God is trying to get us to. The master gives out talents, and to the servants who took what they had and were faithful with it, Matthew 25:23 (NKJV) says, "His lord said to him, 'Well done, good and faithful servant; you were faithful over a few things, I will make you ruler over many things. Enter into the joy of your lord.'"

Faithful over a few, then ruler over many. That is the order, and it does not change for anybody, no matter how gifted or how anointed. It works exactly like school. If you are not passing the test at the grade you are in, you do not get to move up to the next grade. And that's not the teacher being against you. That's the teacher refusing to set you up to drown in material you were never prepared for. God is not being stingy with your promotion. He is being responsible with your life. He will not hand you a level of opposition you never learned to carry down here, because up there that same opposition wouldn't bless you, it would break you.

So the haters at your current level are not just an annoyance to survive. They are the test. How you handle the two people who don't like you right now is the interview for everything you keep asking God to give you next.

Don't skip the servant in that parable who buried what he was given. He didn't waste it on foolishness. He was just scared, so he played it safe and did nothing with it, and he still got called unfaithful. Sitting on your assignment because the opposition scares you counts as burying it. God is not only watching whether you react badly to your haters. He's watching whether you keep showing up and doing the work while they talk. Faithful doesn't mean unbothered. Faithful means you kept going anyway.

One Five-Second Decision Can Cost You Everything

Here's why I take this so seriously, and let me bring it into my own life so you know I'm not preaching from a safe distance. I am a healthcare executive. If I walk into my professional world and decide I'm going to pop off on somebody, or God forbid put my hands on somebody because they came for me, I can lose my entire career over one five-second decision made out of emotion. Everything I studied for, sacrificed for, sat up nights and prayed over, gone in an instant. Not because I wasn't gifted enough. Because in one moment I couldn't handle the opposition that was standing right in front of me.

That is exactly what is on the line at your current level, and please do not treat it like it's small. A five-second reaction out of emotion can literally change your entire world. And the enemy knows it. He is not always trying to take out your assignment with some big dramatic attack you can see coming. A lot of the time he just needs five seconds and one raw nerve, and he'll let your own reaction do the rest of the damage for him.

So before you beg God for the next level, ask Him to make you faithful at this one. In my experience that prayer gets answered a whole lot faster, and it's the only version that gets you promoted without getting you exposed.

And can I be honest about that take-me-higher prayer for a minute? Sometimes we want the next level because we think it'll finally quiet the critics. It won't. I showed you the math on Monday. A bigger level just means bigger numbers, which means more haters, not fewer. So if two are unsettling you now, two hundred will bury you later. God loves you too much to answer a prayer that would crush you. The kindest thing He can do is keep you right here until here can't shake you anymore. So let this current level finish its work in you. It is not a punishment. It is preparation.

What This Means for You

What is the opposition at your current level actually trying to teach you, and be honest with yourself, are you passing that test or are you asking God to let you skip it?

Yesterday we saw that greater assignments bring greater opposition. Today we learned the next level waits on your faithfulness with this one. Next up, the part everybody wants to skip straight to, exactly how the Word tells us to respond.

I teach God's Word weekly inside the SheShed Community, and this is exactly the kind of teaching that hits different when you're in the room for it. The replay of this teaching, "Why THEY Mad," is available inside the community as well. Come sit with us.