Armed & Anointed with Ashley Russell
May 29, 2026 · 26 min · 11 segments
In this episode, Ashley discussed how loyalty can prevent people from following God's will, sharing her personal experiences with this struggle. She explained that loyalty from a place of fear or…
And this topic, I've struggled with it a lot, okay? I've struggled with a lot because loyalty can carry a lot of guilt, and there's not a lot of permission to change your mind.
And sometimes where God calls us and where we're led in life, it really requires us to...
There's going to be things that we were loyal to, w- loyal to where God's like, "Nah," like, "We're not doing that.
That was your plan, not mine." And there can be these feelings of, of guilt that come up, and I have gone through layers of this where I'm afraid to let people down, or I'm afraid to let my old self down, or it feels like I'm, you know, just not being a loyal person.
And you think about integrity in life, and everybody wants to have the label of loyalty.
And I've gotten to the point where I want everybody to expect the fact that I'm loyal to God, right? I'm, I'm loyal to the people in my life, absolutely.
But, you know, if I say I'm gonna do something and then God's like, "No, we're not doing that," I'm not doing that thing.
And, um, the woman who was speaking on it said, "The difference between a wolf and a sheepdog is a wound.
Same thing, but one is driven by a wound," right? And I'm like, "Yeah, uh, I wanna be a wolf in life, and I don't wanna be driven by these wounds that keep me small." And, like, loyalty can become a wound.
It can be this thing that drives your decisions and not from a good place, right? Like, we think of loyalty, and we're like, "Oh, it's all good.
It's definitely something I should have." Yeah, absolutely, but what's the source that's driving it? Is it really loyalty, or is it a mask? Right? Like, when I look at, at loyalty, it can be fear or wounds just dressed up as self-righteousness, and that is not comfortable to sit with when you're telling yourself...
It wants to protect you, right? So, like, if you're in an environment that's too small for you, you've outgrown, you're supposed to leave, you're supposed to do something, your ego will put a loyalty label on it and be like, "Well, we can't do that because then we're not being loyal to the decision that we made, then, you know, we're gonna let people down, and, like, we're loyal to these people." And that's not loyalty and integrity.
That is loyalty from a place of being afraid and masking a wound, but you've dressed it up as self-righteousness to make yourself feel good, right? Like, that is not the kind of loyalty that we want.
And something I've learned as I've gone through this spiritual journey, I was thinking about the verse that says, like, work, work your righteousness out with God.
And this topic, I've struggled with it a lot, okay? I've struggled with a lot because loyalty can carry a lot of guilt, and there's not a lot of permission to change your mind.
And sometimes where God calls us and where we're led in life, it really requires us to...
There's going to be things that we were loyal to, w- loyal to where God's like, "Nah," like, "We're not doing that.
That was your plan, not mine." And there can be these feelings of, of guilt that come up, and I have gone through layers of this where I'm afraid to let people down, or I'm afraid to let my old self down, or it feels like I'm, you know, just not being a loyal person.
And you think about integrity in life, and everybody wants to have the label of loyalty.
And I've gotten to the point where I want everybody to expect the fact that I'm loyal to God, right? I'm, I'm loyal to the people in my life, absolutely.
But, you know, if I say I'm gonna do something and then God's like, "No, we're not doing that," I'm not doing that thing.
And, um, the woman who was speaking on it said, "The difference between a wolf and a sheepdog is a wound.
Same thing, but one is driven by a wound," right? And I'm like, "Yeah, uh, I wanna be a wolf in life, and I don't wanna be driven by these wounds that keep me small." And, like, loyalty can become a wound.
It can be this thing that drives your decisions and not from a good place, right? Like, we think of loyalty, and we're like, "Oh, it's all good.
It's definitely something I should have." Yeah, absolutely, but what's the source that's driving it? Is it really loyalty, or is it a mask? Right? Like, when I look at, at loyalty, it can be fear or wounds just dressed up as self-righteousness, and that is not comfortable to sit with when you're telling yourself...
It wants to protect you, right? So, like, if you're in an environment that's too small for you, you've outgrown, you're supposed to leave, you're supposed to do something, your ego will put a loyalty label on it and be like, "Well, we can't do that because then we're not being loyal to the decision that we made, then, you know, we're gonna let people down, and, like, we're loyal to these people." And that's not loyalty and integrity.
That is loyalty from a place of being afraid and masking a wound, but you've dressed it up as self-righteousness to make yourself feel good, right? Like, that is not the kind of loyalty that we want.
And something I've learned as I've gone through this spiritual journey, I was thinking about the verse that says, like, work, work your righteousness out with God.
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