ZACH: Hey Chantelle?

CHANTELLE: Hey Zach, how are you?

ZACH: I’m doing really well, how are you?

CHANTELLE: I am good… I am good. Happy Thursday.

ZACH: Happy Thursday, How’s your day going so far?

CHANTELLE: It is going wonderfully, how about yours?

ZACH: My day is going pretty well. A couple of speed bumps in the road, but it’s a beautiful day and I can’t complain. Just super grateful to be living in South Florida. Where are you located?

CHANTELLE: Oh nice, I love South Florida, I lived in Miami for about 8-9 months, so I love South Florida. I am currently in San Diego. 

ZACH: San Diego, I’ve been there twice. San Diego is beautiful.

CHANTELLE: It is, it reminds me a little of Miami honestly.

ZACH: Yeah, absolutely, although I think the weather in San Diego is a little better.

CHANTELLE: Yeah, much less humidity.

ZACH: Yeah, much less humidity. When I went to San Diego the weather was incredible, it couldn’t have been better. I’m super happy to have you on the Podcast, welcome. 

CHANTELLE: Yeah, thank you, happy to be here.

ZACH: So for all of the audience and the people that are listening, Chantelle Anderson is an Author, Faith and Confidence Coach. So Chantel tell us more about all that.

CHANTELLE:  Yeah, so for the last about three and a half years I have been going to corporations and teaching a Confidence and Leadership Curriculum that I wrote. That has been fun, now covid-19 has changed that a lot but I’m still doing some Executive coaching online. I also oversee the online Ministry for the church that I’m a part of and I do that and then I am an author and a faith coach, so I’m writing my first faith based book, which will be a hundred devotionals to help people through really hard times which, listen, I just wrote the book I needed this year hahaha. In the process of working in the ministry, I help women get closer to God by building their faith and their confidence in their identity.

ZACH: So how can women get closer to God?

CHANTELLE:  Oh man that is a loaded and deep question, but a very simple answer is to date Jesus. I always say people expect to fall in love at first sight with God and that just doesn’t happen. But when we, just like in real life, just like any other relationship, if we spend time with that person we get to know their character and then we will eventually fall in love with them. So how I started on my faith walk and getting to the point eventually where I am today where I help women with theirs is I just started dating Jesus. I started setting aside time to read the Bible even though at that time I didn’t even believe in it to be honest. But I was like okay, maybe god is somewhere in there, so I just started reading it, intentionally, and I eventually fell in love with the author.

ZACH: Wow, so how does one date Jesus?

CHANTELLE:  Just that. Like when you are dating a person right? You schedule it. You set aside time for that person. You do it regularly. You talk to them regularly, you communicate. You listen to them regularly. So it’s just applying those same aspects to your relationship with God you know? I start every morning with what I call a quiet time. I’ll read my Bible and I’ll pray before an hour to two hours depending on what I’m going through and you know it’s just setting aside that time and prioritizing that relationship.

ZACH: Yeah I was going to say just making it a priority, making him a priority in your life. For someone like me I was raised Jewish, my whole family is Jewish, but I’m very open-minded and I actually have been to church multiple different occasions with multiple different people. Whenever someone really shows me their gospel in their faith and how committed they are to Christianity or Catholicism or whatever religion it is. I respected it so much.  There was one guy I met when I was selling Life Insurance, his name was John Maples and he was so passionate about his relationship with God. And that was something I really admired and was kind of jealous of. I was like, how do I get that relationship with God. How do I create that underlying unconditional faith that God has a plan for me. I started going to church with him. Every Sunday for three weeks we went to Church together we got breakfast in the morning and he would kind of just coach me on how I can live my truth, with God and it was really great and I enjoyed it so much. Fast forward to today, I don’t really identify with a religion. I do believe in God. I love God. I see God in myself and in the birds, in trees and in the ocean and I see it in the people fighting for humanity in general. But how does someone like me, and I don’t want to assume anything, but Jesus isn’t someone who doesn’t play a part in my life. I’m just going to be honest and transparent. How do I become more faithful and how do I have a relationship with Jesus if that’s something that I wanted and why is it something that I would want in my life? 

CHANTELLE: Wow! Great question. First of all thank you for your transparency and honesty. I really appreciate it because I think people are hesitant to admit how they really feel because they are afraid they are going to be judged, so I think it’s really brave that you would even say that.

I grew up in church. I looked around me and I saw people who looked like they had these amazing relationships with God, but similar to you, like I just didn’t feel it, you know?  I don’t feel this and I’m not going to be fake. So I left and I went and I did life on my own and you know what I realized in coming back to the faith after years and years (that’s a much longer story for another day), but what I realized was I had been in the church, but I hadn’t been in the Bible. When we look for the church to fulfill a role that God himself can only fulfill, we’re making the church our idol. So sometimes we can go to church and even we can talk to other people about our relationship with God but we haven’t really gotten deep into his word and the Bible, even if you don’t believe it, the Bible isn’t just a normal book. It changes your heart.  I didn’t believe it when I started reading it but it changed the way I looked at things and eventually I fell in love with the author. And so I would say just start reading the Bible. The best place to start is the Gospel of John because John was the closest Apostle to Jesus and when you’re getting to know anyone you want to get to know their heart and John talks a lot about Jesus’s heart. So read the Gospel of John and really get to know who Jesus was. How you would have a relationship with him and why you would want to have a relationship with him is because of who he was. The fact that he loves you unconditionally, he died for you. He wants a relationship with you regardless of anything that you have done or continue to do on a daily basis. So that’s why. You know? Like that’s the best news ever. We search for that approval and that love from so many other places. I know I’ve looked for it in my relationships, in my career, in my self-actualization, in journaling and meditation, all these things and it’s like. I already have that love from Jesus. I just have to choose him back, you know?

ZACH:  Oh my God that was a really good answer and what I learned from that answer is that I won’t know unless I try and in order to try the first step is opening the Bible reading John and learning about John and learning by John’s heart. Even if I don’t go to church every Sunday and even if I don’t raise my children to be Christians or Catholics there’s something to be learned from someone who has a good heart that means well, that loves his neighbor and that cares about people and that is following what God wants him to do. That’s something that I am going to do is I’m going to give it a try cuz I got nothing to lose. 

CHANTELLE: Oh my gosh I’m so I’m so excited I don’t know exactly where you are in South Florida but from being in Miami, I actually have several friends there that do the same thing I do as far as like I Faith Coach with women, so I’ll help them actually build their relationship with God and it’s free just because it’s changed my life so I want to help as many people as possible. Depending on where you are I know people in Miami and Fort Lauderdale, so I can connect you if you’re interested. 

ZACH: I’m definitely interested and that sounds incredible, thank you. It’s ironic you mention it, when I started going to church with John (it’s ironic that his name is John), When I started going to church with John, he inviting me to one of his brotherhood meet ups and we would read a passage or a verse from the Bible and we would all talk about it. And there were a lot of people that were battling and overcame addiction or battling and overcoming a bad divorce with their wives. We all experience these hardships in our lives, whether big or small, but we are all battling our own demons. We all sin, I sin all the time. I have confidence that if I follow God, not necessarily Christianity, but if I follow God and I work on cultivating a better relationship with him and if I’m intentional about trying to get closer to God everyday, then it will be easier to fight these demons.

CHANTELLE: For sure, for sure. I love what you said just there. 2020 has been a hard year for a lot of us and I went through one of the hardest things in my life this year in losing my father.

ZACH: I’m sorry to hear that.

CHANTELLE: Thank you, yeah it’s definitely been a struggle, but the thing that has kept me able to continue to live this life and kept me connected to the earth has been my faith in God.  And you’re right, we all struggle with demons, we all struggle with things we have to fight every single day and the Bible and my relationship with God has become the way that I fight, the way that I do it.  Yeah, one of the things I love is in John, when Jesus calls, there are people following him and he turns around and he’s like “what do you want?” and they are like “yo what’s up? Where are you staying?” They ask him where he’s staying. His response to them is “Come and see”. He could have said obey me, he could have said give up your life, he could have judged them for their sins. He could have said anything. Instead, he said “come and see”. He invited them to come hang out with him. And I think he did that because he knew that when they hung out with him then they would eventually love him. So that’s what we need to remember is that we don’t have to — you don’t need to want to be a Christian, you don’t need to be like Oh I’m so in love with God, or I’m so in love with Jesus, you just have to be willing to come and see.

ZACH: I like that. Yeah I’m willing to come and see. I’m going to open the Bible and I’m going to read John and I’m going to see what he has to say. 

CHANTELLE: Yeah…. I love it!

ZACH: John, what’s up? I’m Zach, Chantelle said you’re a good dude, what’s Poppin?

CHANTELLE: LOL OMG

ZACH: There’s is so much more I want to talk about but I think we should save that for another podcast but I wanted to tell the audience that you provide faith and confidence instruction through your YouTube channel private Facebook group, email list and you also offer courses and events for deeper learning and more intimate community experience. Can you tell the audience where they can find you and all these incredible resources.

CHANTELLE: Absolutely, you can find me on my website confidentlyhis.com. You can find me on Instagram. I’m always on Instagram @MissChantelle. 

I will be giving away. I’m doing a very special give-away next week which I’m excited about. My first book of devotionals will be launching at the end of next month and I’m very very excited about that as well. Follow me on Instagram to stay up to date on that. 

ZACH: I’m on your website right now and I’m subscribing so I can start getting not only the emails, but access all the resources and to the devotionals?

CHANTELLE: Yes, I’m writing that now and it comes out at the end of November.

ZACH: I just got the ten scriptures that you sent me and I’m going to read one of them to end this, how does that sound.

CHANTELLE: Yes, for sure.

ZACH: This one says “For I am the LORD your God who takes hold of your right hand and says to you, Do not fear; I will help you” Isaiah 41:13.

CHANTELLE: Oh my gosh, I love that scripture because we all need help. If we believe God who he says he is then if he is holding our hand, then we have no reason to fear. 

ZACH: Awe… That’s the epitome of faith right there.

CHANTELLE:  I remember it all the time when I’m going through a hard time. I’m like, okay I’m going through a hard time but God is here he’s holding my hand I don’t have to fear because he promises to help me. 

ZACH: He’s got you, he’s got your back. And you know I think now more than ever we can all benefit from having a little more faith in God cuz there’s a lot going on right now. So let’s all just have our faith in God and just do our best. Just do your best, everything will work out. You got nothing to worry about God’s Got Your Back.

CHANTELLE: For sure, for sure.

ZACH: Chantel it was a pleasure having you this was an incredible conversation I’m sure the audience really enjoyed it as well. Everyone go check her out on her website confidentlyhis.com 

CHANTELLE: Zach, thank you so much, I appreciate you having me. I just wish you the best in everything that you’re doing, you’re an amazing conversationalist.

ZACH: Thank you so much, and you know what I am going to let you know after I read John from the Bible and we’re going to get back on another podcast and we’re going to talk about it.

CHANTELLE: Totally here for it.

ZACH: Sounds good, Chantelle enjoy the rest of your week. I wish you nothing but all the health wealth success and happiness for you and your friends and your family today tomorrow the rest of the year.

CHANTELLE: Awe Zach Thank you same to you… God bless!

ZACH: God bless.

Chantelle can be found at Confidentlyhis.com and on Instagram @MissChantelle