WOFOYO SHORT: YODA THAT STUFF!

“I don’t know, I’m learning” can sound humble, but sometimes it’s just an excuse that keeps us from owning what we signed up for. C Dub opens with a story from a workplace promotion and a Navy vet coworker who gives a blunt correction: responsibility includes the job of learning fast, showing up prepared, and stopping the easy outs. That same confrontation belongs in our spiritual life too.

We can spend years chasing theology, parsing mysteries, and building the perfect mental model of God’s ways, but the Christian walk still hits the same ground-level commands. James says faith without works is dead, and that means the basics never get replaced by “deeper” knowledge. If someone offends you, you still have to forgive. If something is sin, it still needs to be avoided. Understanding Scripture is valuable, but applying Scripture is the point.

The episode circles around a surprisingly sharp picture of obedience: Yoda’s line to Luke Skywalker, “Do or do not. There is no try.” There’s a season for learning, praying, and listening, but sooner or later God says, “Go.” Real discipleship and Christian leadership grow when we stop performing faith with words and start practicing it with choices, even when the outcome looks different than we expected.

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Transcript

A Hard Work Lesson On Responsibility

SPEAKER_00 0:16

Everybody, welcome to another WoFo Yo short with C dub. I'm gonna tell you a little story. I just promoted at work, not the rank I'm at now, but the rank before, and uh had this guy, we called him Gut, and he was a Navy vet, he was very matter-of-fact, could be a little bit crude at times. I learned one of my better lessons from him, not only for work and career, but also in life. I was asked a question, it was my first week since being promoted, and he I I answered, I don't know, but I'm learning. I'm finding out. Similar situation the next week. He asked, I said, Give me a minute, I'm finding out, still learning the job. And he goes, No, that don't cut it. You've been at your rank for two weeks now. You signed up for the responsibility, you signed up for the extra pay. It is your job to learn it. I don't want to ever hear this again. And kind of took me aback. Why? Because I was making excuses where there were no excuses to be

Faith Without Works In Daily Life

SPEAKER_00 1:28

made. And if we're going to talk about anything in this episode, I want to talk about the simple responsibility we have as Christians. There are people that would love to get into all of the theology and will want to get into all of the mysteries of God and will want to get into all these things. And bottom line is we know in part and we prophesy in part. But it basically comes down to this. You know, James says that faith without works is dead. And was having a conversation here recently, and it was basically this if you understand how God created everything, you got you have been able to get into scripture and you understand the creative process and you you understand everything that was involved and how it is, and you understand all the works of redemption, and somebody offends you, really, you still gotta forgive them. And it's that simple. If you understand all these things and you can theoretically explain away why this applies and why this doesn't apply, sin is still something to be avoided.

Do Or Do Not And No Excuses

SPEAKER_00 2:39

One of the other things that I remember my pops talking about, he had he was like, Boys, we're gonna go see this movie called The Empire Strikes Back. He was got this one great scene. And what he's referring to, there's this saying, Luke Skywalker, he's over in the swamps of Dagobah and meets Yoda. Didn't know who he was. And um there's this challenge to lift the X-wing fighter out of the swamp, use the force. Oh Luke says, I'll give it a try. And Oyoda goes, No, there's either do or do not. There is no try. One of the best lessons ever on film. Because the bottom line is with Christianity, there comes a time, hey, it's great to grow in the Lord. Bones and I were there. A couple of our friends were there. We were growing together. We were reading the word, we were getting into it, we were getting simultaneous revelations that we really hadn't applied. And we get called out into the wilderness a little bit different times, but Bones and I were really close. But the bottom line is we had all this knowledge

The Wilderness Tests What You Learned

SPEAKER_00 3:58

that we had applied in a certain mindset. And the bottom line, was it wrong? It was incomplete. And we know in part and we prophesy in part. But you eventually are going to have to get some experience in this Christian walk. One of the best things you can do is actually disciple. We mentioned not too long ago that discipleship is leadership. How are you going to lead if you haven't done it? The whole wilderness experience for Bones and I was about simple application as well as revealing our inner man to us. It was about revealing the condition of things we have been taught to make confessions of faith. But if you really ain't living it out, it's just words. Now, there's a process, the grace of God, uh, repentance, forgiveness, a lot of forgiveness, and the gifts and callings of God being without repentance, uh, meaning that he wasn't confused when he called you to do what he's called you to do. There just has to be a process to mature you to get you to where you are going. And part of that process is learning how to be a doer of the word and not a hearer only, is learning how to yoda that stuff. And we're either going to do it or else we ain't. Still my responsibility to say yes, Lord, and not just say yes, Lord, but to actually do it. Everything else is secondary. We go, oh Lord, I still want to work on the relationship. Lord, I just want to show you how much I love you. And eventually, he's going to say go. And you can't just hang back and say, but I would really like to get to know you better, Lord. That don't cut it. It's either do or do not. There is no try. You ought to be applying what you learn. One of the reasons that we had to get taken into the wilderness is simply to learn, to apply all this knowledge that we had received. We had to test this knowledge, and we found out that some of this knowledge that we had acquired, it wasn't worth a darn. Most of it had a very practical application. It bore great fruit. However, it might not have necessarily been in the method or in the mode or looked exactly like it was explained in church. It's not that what we learned in church was wrong, but it kind of created a different mental picture as when we went out and actually applied it, and we go, oh, wait a minute, the word is consistent, and even what we were taught wasn't wrong, but our mental picture of what that was going to look like was.

Simple Steps Toward Obedience

SPEAKER_00 7:16

I want to encourage you as you get in the word for yourself this week to ask yourself, how can I simply be a doer? I don't even want you to be a thinker. Be a prayer, be a listener. Don't overthink it. There's do or do not. There really is no try. When you remove those excuses from yourself, let the Lord love on you, but you be disciplined about yourself. When you do that, it sets you on track. I'm almost going to describe it as tunnel vision. Probably not the best description, but it gets you to going, it sharpens your obedience, it sharpens your hearing, and it sharpens your ability to apply as well as your willingness to obey. And when you do that, there'll be a period of time that goes by where you won't even notice the process, but you'll look back six months later and you'll be like, what in the world just happened? And the Lord's gonna be like, This is what I've been trying to get you to do the whole time. Are you ready for what's next? Wofoyo.

Where To Find More And Closing

SPEAKER_00 8:39

Everybody, thanks for listening. We hope this challenges you to act and challenges you to grow. You can always check us out at woofoyo.org or subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or Audible, or even check us out on YouTube. For Bones and Myself, this is C Dub, reminding you that if you're going to grow, you got a Wofo Yo. Get in the word for yourself.