Fierce Calling
Made for More: Refusing to Settle for Less Than God’s Best with Julie Lefebure
Welcome to the Fierce Calling Podcast, where we explore how God uses our stories—especially our hardest seasons and deepest passions—to call us into His purpose. I’m your host, Doris Swift, and today I’m joined by Julie Lefebure: author, speaker, mentor, and host of the Encouragement for Real Life podcast. Julie Lefebure shares her journey of encouraging women to refuse to settle for less than God’s best, and how her most recent book, Made for More: 365 Devotions for the Woman Who Refuses to Settle , grew out of her desire to help women live abundantly and embrace their unique callings. We’ll dig into the power of beginnings, the significance of the everyday, and how to discern and step into your calling, even when it feels insignificant or unclear. Julie Lefebure offers encouragement for anyone feeling stuck, questioning their purpose, or believing the lie that they have nothing to offer. Get ready for an uplifting conversation filled with faith, practical encouragement, and a reminder that God truly cares about every detail of your life. Episode Highlights & Key Takeaways Julie Lefebure’s Story and Her Fierce Calling Journey from secular work to full-time ministry (04:00-05:22) Passion for helping and encouraging women The calling to help women see they are made for more (05:11) The Concept of “Refusing to Settle” Meaning of refusing to settle and its biblical significance (06:12-08:12) Personal story: questioning if “this is all there is” Reference to John 10:10 and abundant life Distinction between abundance in God vs. material abundance Structure and Focus of the Devotional Book Format of the devotional: short daily readings with scripture and reflection prompts (08:33-09:15) Example topic from the book: “Find Beauty in the Beginning” Importance of valuing the process and early steps (09:18-10:26) The Value of Beginnings and Taking Time with God Parallels to scriptural truths about new beginnings (11:10-12:12) Benefits of daily rhythms and meditating on the Word Expansion of Julie Lefebure’s Ministry Launch and impact of her podcast (13:01-14:46) Development of a mentoring program, “Abundant Life Mentoring” Difference between mentoring and coaching Emphasis on personal connection and discipleship (15:56-16:57) Encouragement about Stepping Out in Faith Stories of how each began podcasting (17:07-18:41) Overcoming fear of imperfection and possible failure The Significance of Mentoring and Discipleship Clarification of what mentoring looks like (20:31-21:01) Focus on walking alongside women personally Comparison with coaching and counseling The Genesis of the Devotional Book Inspiration: summer podcast series “Summer of Abundance” (21:38-23:01) Incorporation of podcast material into the book Writing process and the importance of serving women’s needs Importance of Biblical Foundation in Resources for Women The necessity of basing books and mentoring on scriptural truth (24:30-25:06) Avoiding self-help trends disconnected from the Bible Recognizing What God Has Already Given Us Encouragement to notice gifts, experiences, and opportunities already in hand (25:35-26:10) God’s unique plan and personal purpose for each woman Addressing Feelings of Insignificance and Calling Reframing the idea of calling and everyday faithfulness (30:53-32:31) God’s direction in daily life Joy as an indicator of calling and gifting Embracing Unique Paths and Overcoming Comparison Importance of not comparing oneself to others (34:03-36:08) Examples of unique contributions in writing and podcasting Assurance that God uses everyone’s perspective Commitment to Biblical Truth and Discernment Reiterating the Bible as the ultimate source (37:05-37:54) Necessity of testing all teaching and books against scripture Final Encouragement and Practical Next Steps Assurance of God’s care for every detail (37:56-39:21) Visualizing “handing over” burdens to God Steps to walking in abundant life and trusting God How to Connect with Julie Lefebure and Access Resources Website, social media, and book availability (39:22-39:54) Summary of ways to follow and engage Closing Thoughts from Doris Importance of knowing God’s character through scripture (40:25-41:44) Encouragement to seek God personally, especially when struggling with past hurt or doubt Invitation to future episodes and closing the show Connect with Julie! You can connect with Julie at julielefebure.com Plus, you’ll find real-life encouragement in a variety of ways on Julie’s website: Her weekly podcast, Encouragement for Real Life , that drops new episodes each Tuesday morning. blog posts speaking free resources You can also find her on Instagram julielefebure , X @JulieLefebure , Facebook Julie Lefebure , and on Pinterest @julielefebure Julie is a big fan of sunrises and sunsets, appreciates unrushed mornings, and loves eating outdoors. I love all of that, too! How about you? She’s wife to Bill, and on any given day you might find them on their tandem bicycle enjoying adventures together. They have a goal to bike in each of the 50 states! They’ve participated in RAGBRAI six times, and they are empty-nesters looking forward to growing old together. Julie Lefebure is a writer, speaker, and Abundant Life Mentor who encourages women to live with intention and experience the abundant life Jesus promises. She is the author of Made for More , Right Now Matters , and the Right Now Matters Bible Study , and the host of the Encouragement for Real Life Podcast. Through her words and work, Julie helps women slow down, stay present in the moment, and live from truth instead of pressure, comparison, or fear. Find Julie at julielefebure.com . Remember, Friend, That Your Story Matters! As always, remember—your journey, your fierce calling, and your honest story can comfort and encourage others. Where can you share your experiences this week? Grace and peace, Doris Host, Fierce Calling Podcast What Threatens to Steal Your Joy? Check out Surrender the Joy Stealers: Rediscover the Jesus Joy in You 6-week Bible study rooted in John 15. You can find more info at  https://dorisswift.com/book/ Let’s Stay Connected! Find my free resources including Fear Fighting Bible Verses, Simple Tips for Sharing Your Faith, Surrender the Joy Stealers,  Step Out of Your Doubt and Into Your Calling ebook , and more on my dorisswift.com  homepage ! Love Fierce Calling? Did you know that following, rating, and leaving a review over at   Podchaser   or Apple Podcasts helps others discover the show too ? I would so appreciate it, friend! Need a Speaker for Your Next Women’s Event? Conference, Tea, Christmas Event, Workshops, Retreats? I have a few dates still available in 2026, and booking for 2027 – 2028! Check out my  speaking page,  grab my flyer, and let’s talk about me speaking at your next women’s event… Screenshot Thanks for Listening! I hope this episode encouraged, inspired, and challenged you to cultivate community, live and walk in the value, purpose, and worth God gave you, and take action where your passion, compassion, and conviction intersect. If you’re looking for a speaker for your next women’s conference, retreat, luncheon, or workshop, reach out and connect with me on my speaker page at  https://www.womenspeakers.com/florida/edgewater/speaker/doris-swift Let’s have a chat about your next event! Stay tuned for more amazing content and remember to check the show notes for all the links mentioned. Thank you for being a part of our community. We are grateful for your continued support and encourage you to embrace the unique gifts that make you magnificently you. I hope you’ll join me next time when I talk with another guest who is taking action where her passion, compassion, and conviction intersect … Until then friend, have a blessed week, and I’ll talk to you soon. With love and joy, Doris Transcript Doris Swift [00:00:00 – 00:01:29] What if your hardest seasons, your deepest passions, and all the things you’ve walked through and are currently walking through were meant to become the very calling God has placed on your life? Welcome to the Fierce Calling Podcast. I’m your host, Dara Swift, and I invite guests who are taking action where their passion, compassion, and conviction intersect and share their stories. Of faith, hard seasons, resilience, and their calling. So together we’ll discover how God uses every part of our stories, and how when we say yes to Him and use our gifts to impact the world, that God can do extraordinary things in the midst of our ordinary days. And sometimes hearing someone else’s yes to God is just what we need To find the courage to say yes to Him too. So my hope is that the stories you hear will encourage, inspire, and challenge you to step out and discover your own fierce calling, because your story may be the very place where God is preparing you to jump into the work He prepared in advance for you to do, and to follow Jesus in deeper and more profound ways. So yes, this is Fierce Calling. And if you’re ready to discover where your passion, compassion, and conviction intersect and step out in faith to make a difference, you’re in the right place, friend. Doris Swift [00:01:29 – 00:02:16] So listen in while I have a chat with today’s guest who has a message to share with you. What is threatening to steal your joy? What is it that feels so heavy right now that you could barely stand? God has a plan, and His plan is to surrender it. Surrender it to Him. It might be a prodigal. It might be a relationship, a marriage, something with your job. So many things. We have so many amazing blessings, but there are so many things in our life that threaten to steal our joy. I’m Darris Swift, author of the award-winning 6-week Bible study, Surrender the Joy Stealers: Rediscover the Jesus Joy in You. Doris Swift [00:02:16 – 00:02:57] And it helps women rediscover the overflowing, ever-present Jesus joy within that fills, empowers, and ripens the fruit that God produces in our lives. Using personal and biblical stories, I share how you can identify your joy stealers, surrender them to God, reawaken the joy within, and share the joy with others. You can do it on your own or with a group. If you’re looking for a Bible study, check it out, friends. Surrender the Joy Stealers. Rediscover the Jesus joy in you. It’s time to take your joy back. Welcome back to the show. Doris Swift [00:02:57 – 00:03:23] Today I’m very excited to welcome my friend Julie Lefebure. We have been friends for a long time. She is Amazing. She has these books that have come out, and we’re gonna talk about that. But she’s an author of Right Now Matters, and her new book is Made for More: 365 Devotions for the Woman Who Refuses to Settle. Okay, let’s be that woman. Okay. Julie Lefebure [00:03:23 – 00:03:24] Yes, ma’am. Doris Swift [00:03:24 – 00:03:36] She is a speaker, a mentor, and she’s host of the Encouragement for Real Life podcast. And we’ll talk a little bit more about that too. And I’m excited to jump into the conversation. Welcome to the show, Julie. It’s great to have you. Julie Lefebure [00:03:36 – 00:03:39] Thank you. It is so great to be here. Yeah. Thank you for inviting me. Doris Swift [00:03:40 – 00:03:57] Well, I’ve been thinking about you for a long time and I was like, I gotta reach out to Julie and get her on the show. And so I would love if you would share a little bit about your story and how you are taking action where your passion, compassion, and conviction intersect, which is your fierce calling. Julie Lefebure [00:03:59 – 00:04:34] Okay. Well, gosh, I am a born and raised in Iowa girl. I have never left the state. I mean, I have for vacation and things like that. But, um, but yeah, we are rooted here in Iowa and, uh, been married to my husband, it’ll be 34 years this year. We have 2 kids, 2 bonus kids, our, our in-laws, which I absolutely, I could consider my own, and 3 wonderful grandchildren. And, uh, I’m in a season now where I have, um, just let go of my part-time job. And so I’m really kind of in ministry. Julie Lefebure [00:04:35 – 00:05:22] guess I call it ministry full-time and doing all the things that you had mentioned and, um, taking care of my grandchildren as well. And so that’s been a whole new adventure for us. And, um, my, you know, I just love helping women. I have had this calling on my life, and I didn’t really know it was a calling. You know, that’s kind of a word that we use, but I just had this nudge to just I love helping women, to encourage them, to inspire them, to, to just help them see that they were created more for more than what we are living out in our everyday lives. And so that’s kind of my— that’s who I am. I just— and I love how God continues to put women in front of me who I can help do that. So that’s kind of my fierce calling, I would say. Julie Lefebure [00:05:22 – 00:05:24] So yeah, that’s, that’s it. Doris Swift [00:05:25 – 00:06:00] Yeah, definitely. And, you know, when I see the things that you post and it just is very authentic. It’s like authentic Julie, you know. Your heart is to encourage women in their walk with Christ and for what their calling is, you know, and encourage them in that. So, and I love the book’s subtitle is 365 Devotions for the Woman Who Refuses to Settle. And I would just— if you could unpack that. I know that’s like a little buzzword, but if you could unpack that a little bit for us. Julie Lefebure [00:06:00 – 00:06:00] Yeah. Doris Swift [00:06:01 – 00:06:11] Because I love that you are trying to get the attention of women who aren’t wanting to settle for like, this is, this is kind of it, you know? Yeah. Julie Lefebure [00:06:12 – 00:06:44] Yeah. And I think we all hit that moment at one point in our lives where we’re thinking, is this all there is? You know, there’s got to be more to life than this. And I remember that day and I write it. I wrote about it in the introduction of the book of— I remember exactly where I was. I was in my 20s and I was going through this on this road. And, and I just thought, there’s got to be more to life than this, that this is— this can’t be it. And, um, God just has taken me on a journey since then. He just kind of woke me up that there is more to life than this. Julie Lefebure [00:06:45 – 00:06:56] And I was in a place of settling, and that was a long time ago, you know, in my 20s. And I’m older than that now, but it’s been a journey of just understanding that God created us. Doris Swift [00:06:56 – 00:06:56] Mm-hmm. Julie Lefebure [00:06:57 – 00:08:12] You know, in John 10:10, Jesus says that He came to give us life and life with abundance, depending on the translation that you read. You know, the thief comes to steal, kill, and destroy, but I have come to give life and life with abundance. And this verse has just kind of become my passion because there are times I don’t live in abundance, and God created us to live this abundant life in Him. And so I became a woman that refused to settle, not for settling— excuse me— for the things of this world, because, you know, we’re always going to be tempted to strive and to get more and, you know, buy more and have the nicer house and whatever. Um, but God wants us to, to live this abundant life in the eternal world, you know, the things that aren’t of this world. And, and I I don’t wanna be the woman that settles for anything less than God’s best. And so that’s the tagline, is that we don’t wanna settle for anything less than God’s best. That has nothing to do with really anything of this world, but it’s all to do with God and partnering with him and what his best is for each of us. Julie Lefebure [00:08:12 – 00:08:14] Yeah. So does that, does that, does that help at all? Doris Swift [00:08:15 – 00:08:33] Yes, it really does. It does. And I love how you talk about God’s best, and that’s what we wanna, you know, not just settle for less than that. And, um, yeah, yeah. And, in the book is, is beautiful because it is not, um, like cumbersome or overwhelming. Julie Lefebure [00:08:33 – 00:08:33] No. Doris Swift [00:08:33 – 00:08:45] It’s like each day you read it and then, you know, you have the scripture that goes with it, and then you have the Speak Life, Talk to God, Reflect and Respond, you know, each day. Julie Lefebure [00:08:45 – 00:08:45] Yeah. Doris Swift [00:08:45 – 00:09:15] And, you know, it’s something that women can just do in the morning or whenever they find it You know, to do, have the time to do that. But like, for example, on day 24, you talk about find beauty in the beginning. And I really love that because sometimes we feel like things are insignificant or that what we’re doing doesn’t matter. So what are some of your thoughts on that? Julie Lefebure [00:09:18 – 00:10:26] Well, the, the beauty in the beginning thing, that, that kind of came from that, that piece of, you know, sometimes we do— we don’t appreciate the beginning of something when we just want to get to the end. We want to get to the final piece and achieve the thing or finish the project or whatever it is. But sometimes it’s in the beginning that God really speaks to us, that he directs our, you know, our steps in the beginning. And we may not know how it’s all going to look at the end, but Those beginning steps are sometimes the most important that we should— it helps me to remember to cherish every part of the journey, not just the ending piece. And so that’s, that’s kind of— that was my thought with that one. And each day, you know, each day has a different focus. But that focus was, was really part of my journey of I’m the person that likes to be productive and keeps working towards the thing where sometimes the most important part is just the very beginning when we can trust God and say, okay, I’m yours. Show me the next step, you know, give me the, give me the ideas, the vision, whatever it might be. Julie Lefebure [00:10:26 – 00:10:33] And so that’s, that’s one of those that’s just really personal to me. So I’m really glad that you, you brought that one out. Doris Swift [00:10:33 – 00:11:22] Yeah, I just, it’s just that one struck me. And of course there’s tons of other ones because it’s 365. Um, but I just, you know, I love that too because, uh, it’s just a reminder. It kind of reminds me where the Bible tells us, you know, I’m doing a new thing, do you not perceive it? And, and then of course there’s nothing new under the sun, but still, you know, Right. there could be something just small that starts. And how the Word tells us that, you know, he who began a good work in you, you know, will be faithful to complete it until the day of Christ Jesus. So I think that sometimes we might want to rush the process of what it’s supposed to look like and kind of like, yeah, jump to the end game. So I’m glad that you— Julie Lefebure [00:11:22 – 00:11:22] Yeah. Doris Swift [00:11:23 – 00:11:48] Brought that out. You know, it’s not about just— and it’s good to have like a daily kind of rhythm, you know, where we spend time with the Lord and we, um, meditate on his word and all of that and just kind of Take it one day at a time because we always wanna know like, well, what’s this gonna come out to be? Or how’s this gonna all play out? And we know better than to like, ye
