Lisa Taylor is an author, spiritual practitioner and speaker. This former news anchor for The Christian Science Monitor and Director of Communications in private education, is Founder of This Choice Matters and her simple 3-step approach to solving problems in health, wealth, and relationships.

She helps honest seekers who are feeling lost, full of self doubt, and in pain find lives of clarity, consistency, confidence and contribution through a defined daily spiritual practice, a practical understanding of divine law, and a newfound ability to listen and follow the voice within. She lives on an island with her husband of 33 years and their two children live in New York and Los Angeles.

lisalovesyou.com

Welcome to 12-minute convos with Jesus Believers.

God chose first to have a conversation with us, his creation.

Our prayer is that this listening space brings growth and transforms your life forever.

Praise God, Lisa, you're here today.

How are you doing?

I am doing so well.

You know, God is at the center of my life.

God is everything.

When I started praying every day, I grew up loving God.

But in seventh grade, in junior high school, my mom suggested that I just sit with the Bible before I start my day.

And that was when I started my daily practice.

I remember the first day, I sat on the edge of my bed and I read the Bible for just like five minutes.

It wasn't even that long.

And I went to school that day.

And it was so different that day.

I mean, I don't know if you remember junior high school when you're a young teen, when everything feels awkward.

It was like everything was perfect that day because I had put God first.

And I thought, you know, if sitting with God for five minutes before I start my day gets me this, I'm doing this every day.

I was just like, very excited.

And I've prayed every day before I've started my day since then.

And my daily spiritual practice, walking with God, has completely changed my life.

Now, the thing that caught my interest is the concept of looking up.

Look up, look in, look out.

That actually was a message I got from God, like a download from God.

I was doing a workshop for people just around this idea of developing your daily spiritual practice.

And what does that look like?

And how does that inform your life and support your life?

How does walking with God make your life better?

So I went out in prayer, just listening, saying, OK, God, how do I sort of introduce this idea?

And that phrase came to me, look up, look in, look out.

And I thought, wait, that's interesting.

What is that?

And the more I thought about it, the more I realized, oh, it's the two great commandments.

Look up, love God with all your heart and soul and mind and strength, and then love your neighbor as yourself.

You've got to love who God created you to be in order to love others as God created them to be.

So it's like, I look up, I know God, I see God, I look in, I see myself made in the image and likeness of God, Genesis 1.

And then I look out and I see my brothers and sisters made in the image and likeness of God.

And the looking out is the expression of, like Jesus gave us this example of what does it look like to walk in the Christ spirit, to walk as the Christ embodiment?

What does it look like to walk with God?

When he said, I and my father are one, I can't have my own self do nothing.

He was saying, God is the power.

God is the source of all being.

There is none good that I can do but God.

God is good.

None good but the father.

I can have my own self, little I do nothing.

But as God's embodiment, I can do everything because God is the power.

So look up, look in, look out really is the two great commandments just said in a little bit different way.

It gives people who may not be walking with Jesus as the example, who may not be walking alongside the Christ.

It gives people sort of entry into this idea.

Some people who have experienced some kind of church trauma because they were not led by somebody who was godly or have some problem with words and haven't sort of gotten into.

So it's like, okay, let's give people an open door and let them come in and learn what does it feel like to have a relationship with God day to day, just individually yourself.

That it's not this sort of idea that's out there in space somewhere.

It's actually your individual relationship and look up, look in, look out, gives people that way in.

And then they realize, oh, this is God.

Oh, I can relate to this.

Oh, this I can bring into my life every day.

It's kind of a, hey, come meet God and then say, by the way, this is God.

And then they go, oh, I can sort of get on board with that.

Which falls into the pattern of how you came to know God.

My mom was very spiritually in tuned and she had sort of gone a different path, partying and smoking and drinking.

And then when she had children, she came back to the original roots because she'd gone to Sunday school and she knew God and she'd kind of gone away.

And then she came back and she said, by the time I came along, I was the third child.

And she realized that she couldn't bring up children without God's help.

And so she came back to God and said, God, I need to lean on you in bringing up these children.

From a very young child, I just, I was asking questions about God at three.

Like if God is everywhere, is God in that doorknob?

You know, it's like asking my mom.

And I don't remember her answer, but I do know that I always felt comforted by her understanding of God.

And then going to Sunday school and just understanding who God is and that I could pray to God.

And I had a really amazing healing when I was 10, 9 or 10, 11, I don't know, somewhere in there.

I was skiing with my dad and got hit by another skier and was taken down in the toboggan.

The ski patrol took me down and said, you know, that looked like I'd broken my leg.

And they took me off to, my dad took me off to the hospital and they x-rayed it and said, yes, you have a fracture in your leg, a hairline fracture.

You need to stay off your leg for six weeks.

And I, up until that point, I'd always relied on God for healing.

I'd always chosen prayer as my way of healing.

So in that moment, I had a choice.

Am I going to listen to the medical and really take that on as my identity?

Or am I going to turn to God and say, God, who do you know me to be?

And I turned to Genesis 1 and just said, wait, I'm made in the image and likeness of God.

So I cannot, that relationship cannot be broken.

It cannot be fractured.

There is nothing, there is no material circumstance that can get between me and God's spirit.

So I, they wheeled me to the edge of the hospital and said, here are your crutches.

And I got up from that wheelchair and I walked to the car.

Going into the hospital, I was going to find out how I was.

Leaving the hospital, I had decided who I was.

I was God's.

I was not the doctor's.

I was God's.

And I was standing firmly on that rock.

And I ended up just staying up that night and reading my Bible.

And I honestly don't remember exactly what passages I read or what I was praying specifically, but it was the same look up, look in, look out.

It was looking up and knowing God and looking in and knowing myself as God's image and likeness.

And then looking out and saying, well, I can't be deprived of that expression.

Just like Jesus did.

When he saw someone who was on the ground and couldn't walk, he didn't see, in those days, they would call it a cripple.

He didn't see a cripple.

He saw God's man.

He saw God's child.

And he said, rise and walk.

And in the spirit of God, you must stand on the strength of that.

So it was that idea.

And the next morning I went to sleep.

And the next morning I woke up and I jumped out of bed like, I'm going to go skiing with my dad.

And then I remembered, oh, wait, I'm not supposed to be on my leg.

Wait a second.

No, it's fine.

I was fine.

I skied with my dad that day.

I was healed.

So those kinds of examples are how I have really practiced living by the law of God, not just thinking about it, not just hoping for it in sort of a faith, but not a blind faith, like an active witness of being God's representative.

Like, I get to be a witness of God.

I get to stand in the presence of Christ and let that be expressed because God is always with me.

Just like Jesus said, I am my father one and greater works than these shall you do.

It's like, okay, so what are those greater works?

We get to demonstrate.

He was our way shower.

He was our example to follow.

He was our shepherd.

We get to follow him and his example.

And he said, do as I do.

You know, be as I'm being, be at one with the father.

You are at one.

I am at one.

All of the flock is at one because we are in the same fold and have the same shepherd.

So we get to live that way.

It's not just let's pray and then go about our day.

It's like, let's walk in prayer.

Let's demonstrate Christ.

Let's demonstrate the Christ presence being with us, that Emmanuel, God with us, right?

That definition of Emmanuel, God with us.

Amazing audience.

Links will be in the show notes.

It's been such a great pleasure connecting with you.

I appreciate you so much.

I really appreciate what you're doing with this.

So thank you.

Thank you for putting this out into the world.

You're welcome.

You're welcome.

Again, amazing audience.

Lisa Taylor, a pleasure.

I treasure.

Thank you for being on what is inspired by 12 Minute Chronicles.