Lessons in the Ladder Days

Candace Long: I'm Candace Long with Lessons in the Ladder Days, discussing biblical commentary to try to make sense of the times that we're living in. One of the most important things that God is doing right now is restoring foundational truths that we have lost touch with in an attempt to bring about reformation in our country. Today's topic is called the Law of the Seed.

This revelation occurred during a wilderness period when I was asking a lot of questions about life. I could write an entire book on what I learned about the law of the seed, but today I want to share how understanding this divine law relates to your calling. What does it teach us about our personal calling? Does everyone have one? And if so, what is yours? And how do you move forward once you find it?

Before unpacking this topic, you might be saying, "Wait a minute, I'm not a young person anymore, so if I've missed my calling, it's too late for me. Why learn it now? That's too depressing." But let me assure you that most people cannot answer the question, "What has God called you to do?" So if you do not know your calling, you are not alone.

Let me also assure you that many throughout scripture did not discover their calling until they were old, and God used their remaining years in incredible ways. Just in case you doubt what I'm saying here, Moses was 80 years old when God called him to deliver his children from Egypt. Abraham and Sarah were 100 and 90 when God called them to birth an entire nation. And Caleb was 80 when he recognized his mountain and fought for it to pass down to his descendants. So please take your age out of the equation.

Today you're going to learn that God has called you for a specific purpose. My style of teaching is using visual pictures or metaphors because that is the way God speaks. I also tend to speak from life experiences and inevitably they trigger memories in listeners. So if I'm sharing a key thread in my own journey and a memory pops up in your mind from your life, please write it down. Your memories are important clues to discover your calling.

Question for you: are you right-brained or left-brained? Now bear with me a minute because this section has a lot to say about the way God gifted you as either a man or a woman. One of the signs of the latter days, which is what this programming series is all about, is that God is bringing about freedom and restitution to people groups who have been repressed and made to feel worthless most of their lives. Being a right-brain thinker, this has very much been my experience. When I was in the MBA program, we did a deep dive into the brain and this has become a key part of my teaching.

I want to offer you a few highlights that I believe may set some listeners free. Number one, the typical brain consists of some 100 billion cells, each of which connects with other cells and this network is like a highway system that guides how we do everything. Number two, scientists have long known that there is a neurological Mason-Dixon line that divides the brain into two regions, a left hemisphere and a right hemisphere. This Mason-Dixon line is called the corpus callosum.

As far back as Hippocrates, physicians believed that the left side of the brain, which was the same side of the body that houses the heart, was the essential half of the brain. By the 1800s, the scientists gathered all kinds of evidence to support this view. That is why our mothers and grandmothers grew up believing that their opinions did not matter because they didn't to people who were in charge, who were by and large left-brain thinkers.

This view was the primary view until the middle of the 20th century when a soft-spoken professor at Caltech named Roger Sperry had a scientific breakthrough. Dr. Sperry was studying patients who had epileptic seizures that required removal of this corpus callosum, this thick bundle of some 300 million nerve fibers that connects the two brain hemispheres. And here's what he discovered in his own words.

"This so-called minor hemisphere"—he was speaking of the right—"which we had formerly supposed to be illiterate and mentally retarded, was found in fact to be the superior cerebral member when it came to performing certain kinds of mental tasks." In other words, the right side of the brain was not inferior to the left; it was just different. His findings showed that the left part of the brain reasoned sequentially, step one, step two, very organized and logical. The left side also excelled at analysis and left-brain thinkers were good with words.

The right part of the brain, on the other hand, reasoned holistically, meaning these thinkers could automatically see the big picture. They could recognize patterns and trends. They could interpret emotions and non-verbal expressions. This was a big deal and Roger Sperry won the Nobel Prize in Medicine. I learned in the MBA program that there are four key areas of the brain, two on the left and two on the right. I want to show you how the left brain thinks.

The upper part of the left brain is what I call analyze. People who function mostly in this quadrant are people like Albert Einstein, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and Sheldon Cooper with the Big Bang Theory. Someone who's strong in this area has a keen grasp of how things work. They build things, design, analyze, discover things, and these geniuses are in high demand in our technical race to world dominance. The lower part of the left brain is where the business sector shines. I call this part organize.

People who are strong here are superb at business execution, process improvement, cost analysis. Our business leaders value this quadrant above all others because this area fuels the MBA programs and finance schools, and this is the place where people begin to climb up the corporate ladder. So if you don't see yourself here, that's fine. Let's look at the right side of the brain. Down in the lower right part is the area where most women excel. I call this personalize.

People who are strong here are great at interpersonal skills, in making an emotional connection with people. This is where art and music and spirituality lives. This area lies right next to the limbic system which drives all of your feeling mechanisms, and this area also controls our instincts and memories. The people who are strong here are typically found in human resources, in teaching, social work, marketing, and the arts. Finally, we'll look at the upper right part, which I call conceptualize.

Being strong in this section of the brain is found in your big-picture people. These are your visionaries, those who have an ability to see patterns, trends, and signs in unusual places. These are the visionaries who populate the entrepreneurial sector. Here's a key difference between right-brain and left-brain thinkers. The left brain values reason, data, facts, and logical presentation. The right brain values revelation, having "aha" moments where they just know something.

So here are three takeaways I want to propose to you as you consider where you fit in here. Number one, creativity is the number one quality that most businesses look for in their leaders. But the ability to hear and receive God-ideas is found more in women than in men. Sadly, the last place that left-brain leaders look for creativity is in women. Feeling that their ideas are not valued because we've never been taught how to communicate our ideas to left-brain people who control the money and the corporate power.

And the third takeaway: did you know that the United States alone loses over $360 billion every year in failed innovations? That's because there's a difference between a good idea and a God-idea. Women are stronger in hearing inspired ideas, and men are stronger in implementing them. So in these latter days, God's heart is for us to tap into our God-given gifts and work together. For the rest of our time together, I want to unpack a universal law that I learned during my three years in the wilderness after my life fell apart at 9/11. I believe that this law will help you in your business and in your personal life.

I call it the law of the seed. It is the first of three universal laws that God set up that points the way to your calling. It is also a foundational law that I'll be referring to in future episodes. I'm laying a conceptual cornerstone today to explain what is going wrong in the world and what we have done to mess up the things as God intended. I'd like you first to picture a pumpkin seed. A seed is the building block that God used for all of creation. I want you to realize that every seed is different. This pumpkin seed you're figuratively holding in your mind looks totally different from a corn seed or a mustard seed.

Every seed has three things in common. First, it has a seed coat. This is the hard shell that protects it from the elements. Second, it has an endosperm. That is the fatty part of the seed or the food storage tissue. This is the part that we eat, the fleshy part of an avocado or a peach or an apple. It holds all of the nutrients that support the life of the seed. Finally, it has an embryo tucked away deep inside the seed, and this is where a paradigm shift happens.

Everything that God created has a genetic code assigned to that embryo, something that seed was destined to be. The Hebrew meaning of the word create is *bara*. That means that everything was formed and fashioned from nothing with a specific destiny or purpose in God's mind. So if God created this seed, for instance, to be a pumpkin, it cannot be anything else. The reason most people never actualize their destiny is because they do not know what's inside their genetic embryo.

You see, you were created with purpose. And like that imaginary pumpkin you're holding in your hand, God put something inside of you that knows what you are to be. It's a genetic code that manifests itself and shows up throughout your entire life. My calling is to teach you to find what it is. Here are two questions that most people ask when they're growing up. Number one, what can I do to earn a living? Or they ask number two, what should I do to earn a living? But there's a third question that very few people ask: what was I created to do?

I want to present to you five lessons to ponder from the seed. Number one, there is no guarantee that that seed, meaning you, will become what it was created to be. Why? Well, it could be eaten by birds, it could have no root system to survive a drought, or the weeds could crowd it out and take all the nutrients that it needs to survive. Jesus talked to us a lot about seeds in Mark 4, and only the ones that were planted in good, fertile soil will make it.

Number two lesson: what you look like first going into the ground—I am speaking metaphorically—looks totally different from when you finally break through the surface. The lesson is that every seed has to die to its seed-ness or what it looked like when it went into the ground in order to become what it was created to be.

My first understanding of my calling was in 1975 as a songwriter. I basically put my seed into the ground at that time and I expected to blossom like Carole King, who was my songwriting idol at the time. I did not know that God had a different path, which would require me to lose almost everything and remain underground for years, struggling to learn how to survive. So my seed looks very different 45 years later than it did going into the ground.

The third lesson to ponder is to examine your soil. Let's say you were born into difficult circumstances and yet God put inside of you a very high calling and a noble purpose. Will that seed automatically die just because life was tough? No. It will survive if there is a will to survive. You see, this is God's way of weeding out the strong from the weak.

I had to keep pressing in with my call to the arts because I had many bitter roots from old hurts that I had to deal with, and this went back to my father not understanding or championing my creative temperament. My mother died when I was very young and God by his providence left me with the parent who didn't seem to value my gifts. So I had a lot of bitterness and anger along with a need to prove myself. All these were toxic emotions that required time for me to deal with. Thankfully, before my father passed away, we made peace and I was able to ask his forgiveness for shutting him out of my life.

Number four lesson: a seed cannot transport itself. It must choose to be nourished to survive. If your seed refuses to be nourished in that environment and complains every day, it will most likely shrivel up and die. That seed will have no other chance to grow. This is a big lesson for parents because some children give up when times get hard and we enable them just to keep them in the game. But in the long run, we rob them of the determination that they need to will their seed to survive.

So what does this mean for people that are in very difficult circumstances? That seed has two choices. Number one, it can get mad at God, wall up, become bitter and shrivel up. Or number two, it can accept with humility where God has placed you and you pray, "Lord, help me learn what you want me to in this situation, but I ask you to please provide a way to move to an environment where I can grow well."

Number five: when our attitudes are pleasing to the Lord, God transplants the humble seed to a whole different soil. This promise is found in Psalms 1. It says the one who delights in the law of the Lord is like a tree planted by streams of water, that yields its fruit in its season and whose leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers. The word that's used for planted actually means to transplant. So what God does is he uproots it from where it was and relocates it to a new place.

The reason that people are not activating their seed's internal embryo is an important secondary law. It is the law of naming your seed. Most people have never really thought about the need to name their seed. They take a passive position. Basically, they throw their seed out there into life and whatever sticks is what they go with. Naming your seed takes effort in self-discovery. I have spent over 40 years doing this and have a lot of resources on my website at CandaceLong.com to help you.

God would want you to understand your unique gifts and strengths and areas where he intends to anoint and use you. When you find your sweet spot, you will be fulfilled in life and will touch the lives of people that only you are equipped to reach. Another obstacle a lot of people have is wanting to be someone else. A pumpkin seed was created to be a pumpkin, period. It does not have an identity crisis saying, "You know, I'd really like to be an apple."

A pumpkin seed was created to become a pumpkin in order to nourish others the way God intended. You see, everything God creates carries with it specific nutrients and light given to help others grow. That can only happen when you name your seed and plant it in your ground. You have to know what it is you're planting. This brings us to the third part of the law of the seed. It's called the law of applied faith. This is a phrase coined by the late success coach Napoleon Hill, who was the author of the classic book *Think and Grow Rich*.

This part of the law was key in transforming my life. It involves the word faith. This is a transforming faith that is wrapped in certainty, not wishful thinking. It actually reads like a mathematical formula that goes like this: desire plus faith equals realization. When you really know yourself and embrace your gifts and strengths and can put into words what's in your heart to become, and you have the kind of faith that when you put the pumpkin seed into the soil, you know with certainty that it will become a pumpkin, that's when you start becoming your destiny.

But where do you get this kind of faith? Romans 12 says, "I bid every one of among you not to think more highly of himself than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment according to the measure of faith given to you." To think with sober judgment: that means sound mind, not hype. And the measure of faith: measure is the word *metron* which means a specific amount. Let me illustrate. It would be foolish for me to say my greatest desire is to be the Queen of England because the measure of faith or the amount of faith necessary to actualize that destiny has not been given to me.

Whereas if I were to say my desire is to be a writer and producer whose work makes a difference in people's lives, I can absolutely see myself in that role because that's who I am. It was January 1999 when I named my seed after years of self-discovery, counseling, coaching, and therapy. I said, "Lord, as best I understand who you made me to be, I am a writer and producer at my core."

I dedicate this seed to you and I put it into the ground in front of me now. I ask you to open the doors so I can grow and walk in this calling. A couple of months later, Georgia Hall of Fame singer Francine Reed heard through mutual friends that I had written a black musical and she asked to read it. That meeting with her catapulted me to the next level as a writer and producer, all because I named my seed.

Psalm 139 says this, "Your eyes beheld my unformed substance; and in your book were written every one of them, the days that were formed for me." God was there at your conception and will be there when your earthly life is finished. In between are appointed the days that you have on this earth, days that he has numbered for you. How are you spending them? I'm Candace Long. I want to thank you for sharing this time with me. If you'd like to know more, log on to my website at CandaceLong.com. You'll find my books, podcast, courses, and digital resources in my online store that can help you. My calling is to help you fulfill your divine calling and destiny in these end times. Join me again next time for Lessons in the Ladder Days.