Alli Worthington
16 min read ⭑
“The greatest danger to us, I think, is staying so busy with so many good things that we don’t have the time and space to hear him.”
The following is a transcript of a live interview. Responses have been edited and condensed for brevity and clarity.
QUESTION #1: ACQUAINT
There's much more to food than palate and preference. How does a go-to meal at your favorite hometown restaurant reveal the true you behind the web bio?
We live outside of Nashville, Tennessee, in a suburb called Hendersonville. There's a hole-in-the-wall Mexican restaurant called Casa Vieja, and every time I go in, I get a large order of fajitas. I joke that fajitas are dangerous because, as a woman, you don't necessarily want to wash your hair every day. But if you order fajitas, you're going to have fajita hair and your hair is going to smell like fajitas. So you have to get extra shampoo in there. I love fajitas because, as a type 7 on the Enneagram, I like to do a lot of things. I like a lot of options. And fajitas are a party on multiple plates. I can make it different every time. I can play with how things are put together. My family always gets other boring things—but I am always having a party with my fajitas.
RedCharlie; Unsplash
QUESTION #2: REVEAL
We’ve all got quirky proclivities and out-of-the-way interests. So, what are yours? What so-called "nonspiritual" activities do you love and help you find spiritual renewal?
Okay, this is going to be good. I have two very different hobbies that I'll tell you about. First hobby—I love amusement parks. I would go to an amusement park every weekend if I could. I'm somebody who loves roller coasters. If I find a roller coaster that I love, I will ride it until my neck is so sore that I can't ride it anymore. I sometimes go for the single-rider line so I can get 10 rides in a day. I like the excitement of it all. I like the fun. I love that feeling that I regret my choice to get on and then the excitement of going for it. I hope in heaven there are amusement parks. That's how much I love them.
Then there’s my second hobby. Inside, I’m an elderly woman who loves birdwatching. So in the summer, I have eight different hummingbird feeders on my windows. The hummingbirds are part of my life now, and I’m fascinated by how fierce and mean hummingbirds are to each other. They're so delicate and small and lovely, but God has made them angry, territorial, vicious little creatures. They are the biggest jerks in the animal kingdom. They’re amazing. I find them endlessly entertaining.
I am full-on embracing my bird-watching, elderly lifestyle. I’ve just gotten some feeders for the fall and winter birds. But so far, the fall and winter birds are very boring compared to hummingbirds.
QUESTION #3: CONFESS
Every superhero has a weakness. Every human too. We're just good at faking it. But who are we kidding? We’re broken and in this thing together. So, what’s your kryptonite and how do you hide it?
Here's the thing, we always know our big sins, right? We always know the big things. But I've been really interested in the smaller things that are kryptonite in my life for the past couple of years—things that I wouldn't necessarily recognize. And when we don't recognize it, we can't take them to God and have him help us get over it. And so for me, I think it's not knowing when to stop.
As I said, I'm the person that wants to go to an amusement park every day and ride the ride 10 times. If I like something, I'll do it over and over again. If I take one of my sons to a movie, I’ll say, “Let's see another movie.” It’s the mentality of we can always have more. If I’ve had one piece of cake, I might as well have three. So for me, it's learning to know when things are enough. When I've had enough good times. When I've had enough of a workday or enough of a vacation. It’s trying to define for myself when things are good enough and when I feel satisfied instead of always wanting more of something that's great to the point where I'm not paying attention to things in my life that might be a little bit harder or that are a bit less fun.
QUESTION #4: FIRE UP
Tell us about your toil. How are you investing your professional time right now? What’s your obsession? And why should it be ours?
My latest project is called Standing Strong: A Woman's Guide to Overcoming Adversity and Living with Confidence. This project is something that God put on my heart a couple of years ago. He gave me two thoughts for this book. One was that he had great plans for women alive right now—plans of partnering with them and the work of their hands, whether their work is in ministry or they are teachers or attorneys or entrepreneurs or stay-at-home moms. He has very important work for women to do. And the key to doing all that he's called us to do is partnering with him.
The second thing that God put on my heart is that things are going to get harder—and women are especially at risk of taking themselves out of the game before they even get a chance to play. As the book was finished and 2020 unfolded, I realized what an important message this is right now. For so many women with a goal or a dream in their heart—maybe they feel called to start a ministry or write a book or adopt a child, whatever it is—2020 has been so hard. It's a very easy season for us to go, I thought I heard God on this. I thought God was leading my heart this way. But all of my circumstances have changed. And that thing inside of me, it doesn't matter anymore. It's not realistic.
And God is in heaven saying, Hey, I knew this was coming. I'm here with you. I'm not surprised by this. All of the plans I have for you, the purposes I have for you, the ideas that I've planted inside of you, I'm going to bring to fruition. Don't sideline yourself before it's time—even if you can't see the future ahead of you. Keep planting those seeds that we're going to harvest in a new season. I do have great plans for you.
It's been such an honor for me, in this difficult season of fall 2020, to be able to bring this message to women.
QUESTION #5: BOOST
Cashiers, CEOs, contractors, or customer service reps, we all need grace flowing into us and back out into the world. How does the Holy Spirit invigorate your work? And how do you know it's God when it happens?
It's in different ways. Sometimes, he's very clear with me on what he wants me to do. Normally, he's very clear with me on what he doesn't want me to do—because he knows my personality. I'll do all the things. And he's always said, Ali, no. Not that. Come back over here.
I think that the Holy Spirit shows that I'm doing what I'm supposed to do in different ways. For instance, the majority of my work week is filled with being a business coach. So I'm helping people who are either just starting out in business or the ministry or people who are running large companies and organizations. And he never told me to be a business coach. But he gave me the skills to be able to do it. And when I'm on the phone and I'm coaching somebody, I always know exactly what they need to hear and what they need to do next. I feel like I have that ability, in a supernatural way, to partner with God to help people understand what they are supposed to do next—whether it's a hiring decision or leadership or marketing. I can't take the credit for any of it because I know I'm a conduit to help them do what God has called them to do.
But there are other circumstances too. I'm also a speaker—more so back when events were happening all the time before COVID-19. But I'm a reluctant speaker. I never decided that I wanted to be a speaker. I kind of fell into it accidentally. And whenever I have a speaking engagement, I'm not exactly overjoyed. I'm always a little nervous before I get out on stage and have this overwhelming feeling that I'm doing what God has called me to do. With coaching, I just know and I'm able to help people. And it feels good, but it's not a “I was born to do this” kind of thing like it is before I go out on stage to speak. In those moments, I have an overwhelming feeling that what I'm doing is pleasing to God; it makes him happy to see me doing what he's filled me to do.
I think they're equally important too. I think, in our culture, we make so much of ministry work and work in the church, but we don't make enough of the work that he puts in our hands. I feel like the work that I do as a business coach is just as important to the kingdom as the work I do on a stage where I'm talking about Jesus—because he cares about every little thing. He cares that surgery centers stay open and people can be healed. He cares that attorneys hire the right people to work at their firms—so that they’re able to help people. He cares that teachers are teaching in classrooms with love and attention. He cares about it all. And when we separate things—when we say, Some work is better because it’s in ministry or the nonprofit world or a church, but I'm just earning a paycheck or I'm just running a business—we create an inaccurate view of what matters to God. Everything matters everything to him.
QUESTION #6: inspire
Scripture and tradition beckon us into the rich and varied actions that open our hearts to the presence of God. So, spill it, which spiritual practice is workin' best for you right now?
I think one easy way for me to make sure I'm connecting with God outside of times when I’m in church or a Bible study or listening to worship music. Whether it's when I'm going out for a walk in the morning or I'm working on boring things around the house, I keep worship music in my ear. If I’m working on spreadsheets, for example, I’m not necessarily thinking about how great God is, because I’m focused on spreadsheets. But what always happens, eventually, when I have worship music on, is that he will pick a song or a piece of a song, and all of a sudden, it will break through the background noise and he will reveal something to me with it. Maybe something about his greatness, or his love for me, or something about a situation I'm going through.
With worship music playing, I'm inviting him in and creating an atmosphere where it’s easier for him to break through into my day-to-day life. And that’s huge, because the risk we all face right now, whether we're in 2020 or not, is that we're busy. Even if we're home every day, we’re just as busy as we were before COVID-19. We've made ourselves busy without even leaving the house. The greatest danger to us, I think, is staying so busy with so many good things that we don't have the time and space to hear him. So for me, going along with my day, when I can and when it's appropriate, I can pop my earbuds in and have worship music on. And it reminds me of who I am and who he is. It provides that little opportunity for him to come into my day in a way that’s new and different. When I don’t do it, I get busy and get into a zone, and I'll go through a whole workday without him being part of it. But I know that power and strength and wisdom and revelation—they all come from him. So I want to bring him into my work.
QUESTION #7: FOCUS
Our email subscribers get free ebooks featuring our favorite resources—lots of things that have truly impacted our faith lives. But you know about some really great stuff, too. What are some resources that have impacted you?
I'll tell you about three life-changing books. The first one is Brennan Manning’s Ruthless Trust: The Ragamuffin's Path to God. That one is fantastic. Another one is Francis Chan’s Forgotten God: Reversing Our Tragic Neglect of the Holy Spirit. And I should probably have mentioned this one first, but it's C.S. Lewis’ The Screwtape Letters.
I think Screwtape is one of the most brilliant books that's ever been written because it's so accessible. Every line is packed with truths about God and the human condition. But because the letters are, of course, fictional letters written between two demons, we really can wrap our brains around the way that the enemy is scheming against us and against God every day. I wrote about this in Fierce Faith. My husband and I have developed what we call, “The Screwtape Letters Game.” So we'll ask one another, If I were the enemy and I was trying to get you off track, what three things would I say to you to get you off track? And then we think, OK, this is what I would say, if I were the enemy, to try to get me off track. And sure enough, those are the thoughts that have been in our heads. It makes us aware that, just as the Bible says, we have an enemy who is prowling like a lion, looking for someone to devour. And he knows us. He pays attention to us. He is good at getting humans off track. He’s been doing it forever. So, Screwtape has been super impactful. I've read it over and over and over again through the years.
I read Ruthless Trust by Brennan Manning long before I ever started writing, but I was profoundly impacted by his level of honesty and vulnerability. I thought, If I ever get a chance to write something, I want this level of honesty. I wanted to be able to say, I told the truth ... about everything in my book. But I also love how he wrestles with learning how to trust the Lord.
Even though I write books about my relationship with Jesus and what he's teaching me on different things, my struggle will always be, to some degree, trusting God. Do I trust him with my life and my soul? Yes. But do I trust him every day that things are going to be OK? No. It's something that I'll probably keep re-learning in different seasons of my life, for the rest of my life. So that book really spoke to me. And then Francis Chan’s Forgotten God was very impactful. I go to a Southern Baptist church, grew up Southern Baptist, and (maybe not a shock to everybody) Southern Baptists aren't the biggest on talking about the Holy Spirit. You read a little bit, growing up in that denomination or many other denominations, about the Holy Spirit. But when I really started studying Scripture, going through everything that the Bible says, and reading through the New Testament about the power of the Holy Spirit, that was eye-opening for me. So I consider myself Bapti-costal at this point.
I didn’t hear the voice of the Holy Spirit until I was about 30. When I was 30, we had four sons. In church one day, I heard inaudibly in my spirit, You will have another son, and you will call him Jeremiah. And I thought, Well, that’s dumb because I'm not having any more kids, and I don’t even like that name.
Then, after church, my husband said, “I had the weirdest thing happen to me. I feel like it's time for me to apply for a new job.”
I said, “Oh, why?”
And he said, “I feel like God said, You’ve been blessed and you'll be blessed again.”
I said, “Oh, no. That's not a new job. That's Jeremiah.”
So I took a pregnancy test, and I wasn't pregnant yet. I took one a couple of days later, and I was. That was the first time I heard the Holy Spirit. Crazy. A few years went by, and I heard something else. And through the years, I would hear more and more. Now, I still go through seasons where I don’t hear anything.
I was in Philippi about five years ago, and I was walking around and talking to God. I was saying, “Lord, I'm in Philippi and you're still not talking to me. Can you throw me a bone here? What's going on? Can you give me something?”
And he said, “You can't hear me because you aren’t obeying me.”
That was a big eye-opener for me—that the more I obey him, the more I lean into him, the more I obey him in the big things and the little things, too, the more he's going to reveal to me and talk to me. In Scripture, it says we don't want to squelch the Holy Spirit. When he tells us to do something, or if we feel led and we don't know why we feel led to do something, if we don't take action, if we ignore the Holy Spirit, the Spirit will get quiet. And it takes time. It's a relationship. It takes trust and listening.
Some people, they just know that they know that they know stuff, and that's how they hear God. I feel like that's how I am with my clients. I just know what they need to do. Some people hear things inaudibly. That's how I hear things most. For some people, it's a feeling. Some people have dreams or visions. I've never had those. I think it would be totally wild and fun.
For everyone learning to hear God, you want to make sure that everything you're hearing agrees with Scripture. If anything disagrees with Scripture, you can count that out. But one other way to know whether the voice you are hearing might be the Lord’s is seeing if it’s loving and kind. It can be convicting, but it’s going to be convicting with love and hope. That’s of the Lord. But if it is shaming and critical, if it is trying to shame us into submission and criticize us, that's not of the Lord. And I think that’s where a lot of people get confused. They have a thought, but it’s shaming. That’s never of the Lord.
We all have things we cling to to survive (or thrive) in tough times. Name one resource you’ve found indispensable in this current season—and tell us what it's done for you.
This is going to sound strange, but as soon as life got hard in 2020, I started engaging in content and entertainment about times that were much harder and how people survived. I watched movies like 1917 and Dunkirk. I read stories of people who survived and made it through World War II. For me and so many of us, we've never been through hard times. My whole life has been one of ease and safety and security. So I’ve been trying to get a perspective that's different than my really blessed, privileged life. Each generation, up until the past couple of generations, has gone through something hard. And God has seen them through.
That newfound interest happened accidentally. It's just what I found myself drawn to. But my goal has been to remind myself that life isn't normally as easy as I thought it was my whole lifetime. Horrible things have happened, and people have recovered. And it just helps me to remember that no matter what we go through, God is still there. God is still overseeing everything. He will see us through. We are going to get through to the other side of this. It's not the end of the world. Humans have been through a lot worse. Connecting with these stories is just a little way to shift perspective.
QUESTION #8: dream
God is continually stirring new things in each of us. So, give us the scoop! What’s beginning to stir in you but not yet fully awakened? What can we expect from you in the future?
It's not so much a project that I’m just dreaming about. It's a project that was launched this year—of all years. But we're still figuring out what all it is and what we're doing with it. It's called Called Creatives, and it's a coaching community for women who feel called to write and speak—whether it's writing their first book or their 10th book or speaking on stage (when events start happening again) or speaking on a podcast. We launched it this year and have a great community. But my co-founder and I are kind of leaning into the question of where to take it in 2021. Where does God want this to go? How does God want us to serve women? We give women trainings on writing and speaking, but we're trying to figure out the best way to build real community in a digital community.
What we’re praying into and planning is building mastermind groups inside our community, with five or six women together based on interests or what their dreams are—so they can give each other accountability and help each other move forward. So that's what we're dreaming about. And we're just seeking the Lord on how he wants us to build this community, how he wants us to train women up over this next year because we believe strongly that when people tell their stories, the world changes. And when men or women feel a call to create something for the glory of God, whether it's a book or a message or a podcast, it matters. And it's important. The people who have felt that nudge or felt that call are especially vulnerable to self-doubt coming in and going, Oh, that's not me. I don't know what I'm doing. I don't have the right connections. I have no idea what the steps are. And so we want to come alongside people and say, “God has put this in your heart, let's protect it. Let's invest in this dream.” We feel like that's the most important thing we can do as people who are a few steps ahead. And it’s really fun for us.
What calling or dream from God have you put off over the years because of self-doubt? Too often we get excited about a plan God puts in our hearts, but then we get overloaded with thoughts that belittle that dream or our talents—and so we lay that plan aside and say, “Maybe later.” We hope that Alli has encouraged you today to stop saying no to that God-given dream and start giving it the attention and life it deserves. You have a purpose in your generation. It’s time to say yes to it.
Alli Worthington is a best-selling author, speaker, business coach, and host of The Alli Worthington Show. As a coach for entrepreneurs and executives, Alli has worked with companies like Disney, Intel, Microsoft, and P&G. Alli has a passion for helping women pursue their dreams, which you can tell when you read her best-selling books: Breaking Busy, Fierce Faith, The Year of Happy Living, and her latest, Standing Strong: A Woman's Guide to Overcoming Adversity and Living with Confidence. Learn more about her many endeavors at alliworthington.com.
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