Israel & Rachel Campbell "SOUP" Podcast
Welcome to Season 3 of the Campbell Soup Podcast with Israel and Rachel Campbell. We are celebrating over 10,800 downloads and counting, thanks to listeners like you. We started this podcast with a simple idea: discipleship should be more than a classroom, it should be a way of life. When Jesus walked with His disciples, the lessons did not happen behind a podium but along the road, around meals, and through conversations about real life. That is exactly what we do here.
Each episode is like sitting down to a hearty bowl of soup, warm, nourishing, and full of flavor. We talk about life, love, parenting, relationships, faith, and whatever else bubbles up along the way. Some moments will make you laugh, others might make you think, but every conversation is stirred with honesty, hope, and a little humor. So pull up a chair, grab your spoon, and join us for another season of real talk, real life, and real discipleship, one spoonful at a time.
Israel & Rachel Campbell "SOUP" Podcast
"God is a Hard Target To Miss" CAMPBELL SOUP PODCAST SEASON 3 EPISODE 8
What if the will of God isn’t a tiny bullseye but a wide-open horizon you can’t help but hit when your heart is surrendered? We unpack a freeing approach to guidance that replaces fear and perfectionism with trust, movement, and the confidence that the Holy Spirit both opens doors and blocks wrong turns.
We start with the fear that keeps so many of us stuck—wanting to please God yet terrified of choosing “wrong.” Through Psalms 139 and 37, we reframe God’s guidance as relational and robust: He hems us in, lays His hand on us, and orders our steps. From Paul’s “effectual door” to the Spirit’s redirection in Acts, we explore how to sense direction without demanding details. You’ll hear practical tools for big choices about dating, jobs, and where to live, including how to make a prayerful pros-and-cons list and then actually decide. We also talk about “holy misses”—closed doors and near wins that still expand faith and prepare you for what’s next.
We challenge the habit of handing God our script and invite a posture of surrender that can receive unexpected answers. You’ll hear how open-handed faith leads to better relationships and more aligned opportunities, plus a candid look at disappointment, cynicism, and what to do when hope runs low. God as Restorer is central here: even real mistakes don’t end the story. Think of Israel’s demand for a king and how the lineage of David became the path for the Messiah—proof that grace is not fragile.
By the end, you’ll have a simple, repeatable way to move forward: seek first the kingdom, aim your life toward righteousness, acknowledge God in every step, and walk through the doors that open. If a door shuts, let it. If your heart is surrendered, God is a hard target to miss. If this encouraged you, follow the show, share it with a friend who’s stuck at a crossroads, and leave a review telling us the next step you’re taking.
Hey, everybody, welcome back. I'm wearing my Dodgers hat because we are the champions.
SPEAKER_01:The champions.
SPEAKER_00:I just wanted to start with that because it's good news in the neighborhood. Today we're going to be talking about a really great subject that Israel and I have been kind of talking in and out of for the last month. And we thought that would be a really great podcast conversation, too. But we titled it God is a really hard target to miss.
SPEAKER_01:And I think before you just jump into the intro, can I just say this? I actually think that this is very prophetic for somebody. I think there's some people right now listening and maybe a little bit paralyzed by fear. And I think this title is going to release some people to say, okay, I'm going to trust God and I'm not going to walk in fear. So sorry, I interrupted, but go ahead.
SPEAKER_00:The enemy would love to paralyze you because not for bad things, not for bad reasons because you're trapped in sin, but to paralyze you with fear that you're going to miss God by moving forward. And so, you know, that can be maybe you're single and you're like, you're not dating anyone because you're paralyzed that you're going to make a mistake and who you choose, or maybe it's in a career move and you're just paralyzed because you don't want to miss God. I want to read this scripture verse just to get us started. Psalms 139, 5 through 6 is such a beautiful promise from God. It says, You hem me in behind and before me. You lay your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me. It is high. I cannot attain it. And it is so true that God has so many blessings and God wants to bless our lives. And He wants to make our path clear. God is not a God who's dangling cheese like for a mouse, and like, oh, if you're smart enough, if you're discerning enough, if you do enough spiritual things, then I might bless you with the right thing. And I was on a walk with one of our single girls in our church, and she was just opening up about her the stage of life that she's in. And I just said that sentence or it's like, I just want to tell you, God is so big that he is a really hard target to miss. If you are aiming for him, you're gonna hit, he's gonna make like I believe that God, he will make himself so big that you will not miss. If your heart is right, you really want to please the Lord, you want what he wants for you, he's a hard target to miss.
SPEAKER_01:And it's such a good phrase to just have in your spirit because the opposite of that is I have to be perfect. And it actually creates works, it creates something to do that it has more to do with you than it really has to do with him. And so it really is a legalistic way that the enemy loves to kind of have us think that somehow there is only this. And so we have to, we, you know, there's this. I think we've even used the story of the wave, there's this window. And but then what you can do is you can miss out on the rest of your life because you're always looking for this small little window, this small little target, or you're gonna miss it and really displease God. And I think that this podcast is to actually reverse that a little bit, it's actually really more difficult to miss him than to get him. Like you'll have to work harder to miss him than you will to get him, and just being released in that. And I think it goes back to just even a couple of weeks ago, we talked in one of the messages is just getting a mindset of he is a good God. And so if you have the mindset he is a good God, he is for me, not against me, then all of that shifts of like, okay, I don't have to be perfect, I just need to aim and point towards him, and then he'll work out everything that needs to be worked out. And one of my favorite scriptures in the New Testament, Paul says, an effectual door has opened unto me. And so that that gives it's more of a direction. It's like, okay, here's the way to go, but it wasn't this specific. You know what I mean? It was more of like, hey, there's something that is opened up to me. I'm gonna go in it. And then you and I got a life word from Harold Woodson of all people when we were very young, that just said the Holy Spirit will not allow you to make the wrong choice. And we were in the middle of transition, not knowing exactly. And we our biggest prayer wasn't it, was God, we just don't want to displease you. We just don't want to make the wrong, we don't want to miss you. And and that was such a relief to go, oh no, the Holy Spirit won't even allow us to make the wrong mistake. And that is from that scripture in Acts where the Bible says that the Holy Spirit wouldn't allow Paul into this area. What a change of attitude when you know the Holy Spirit won't even allow me to make the right, the wrong choice makes it so much easier to not get stressed out about missing the target.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, so true. Do you remember that old 70s poem that was written and it's like footprints in the sand? And it's like the person's asking God. I was gonna say, and then someone wrote another one called Butt Prints in the Sand. The whole footprints in the sand was like you could only see one set of footprints, and then God was like, It was when I was carrying you. And it's such a cool idea that you know, when you feel like God's not there, it's because he's actually closer than that, he's carrying you. But then the then somebody was like really right in the real one, and they're like, butt prints in the sand, God can't do anything because you're just sitting on your butt. And I think it actually is just so true that movement matters, you know, moving forward. This this life is called the walk of faith. In Hebrews 11 talks about the hall of fame of all the faith people. And you know, we have all these heroes in the faith, and we're living out our faith walk now, but it's a walk, it's a journey, it's taking a step, even it's taking a step towards what you believe God is asking you and and trusting him. And the other thing is, you know, we God gives us choice. God gives us, he doesn't just always, you know, smite us from heaven and only there's only one way. God actually gives us choice and he wants us to begin, he gives us desires in our heart, he gives us dreams that are different. My dreams were are different than Israel's. And so, you know, we have to be people who move, we have to take steps. And one way that I believe that we can miss God is by not obeying when he does ask us something. If we aren't obeying his word, you know, where we're deliberately living outside of his will, that's about the only way I believe that we miss God. But when the Bible, listen to this portion of scripture. I love it so much. Psalms 37, 23 says, Rejoice for the steps of a righteous man or woman are ordered of the Lord. I love that because it takes the pressure off of us. When we our goal is to be righteous, when our goal is to keep our heart right before God and to live according to the, like the Bible is our source to how to live life. And we're with all the power that we have, we're living our lives to please the Lord and to obey his commandments, then we can rejoice because he orders our steps and we can be out of alignment with God, but not when we're in obedience to him. And I think that there's a real fear for Christians that somehow we're gonna miss God and we over-spiritualize just being able to follow after him and walk by faith.
SPEAKER_01:I I can't uh agree with you more. And you know, obviously, yes, you can't do something dumb like, well, I I'm gonna start dating this other person when you're married, because I, you know, Pastor Israel and Rachel said, I should just go for it. Can't miss God. Can't miss God. Well, of course not. You we like you said, when you're going after God and you're going after righteousness, Jesus says it seek first the kingdom of God, and then all these things will be added. So if you align yourself, number one, with seeking God, then the grace that comes on you is so much like I am going in that direction and I'm gonna find God in it. And I may not have the bullseye yet, but I know the general direction and I'm gonna go for. And God says if you do that, if you put me first, all these other things that you're worried about, the job, the spouse, the where are we supposed to live, is this the right house we're supposed to buy? Is it the wrong house that we're gonna buy? And so people can be, again, I think what you said earlier, paralyzed, never even being able to make a decision because in a good way they don't want to not please God, but in a bad way, not moving forward and then stuck. And so I think that that is what this podcast is about, maybe giving you some practical things to do and then go for it. So I think this is actually a really big, I get this one on counseling a lot with jobs. I get this with like, hey, I just should I take this job? Shouldn't I take this job? You know, should we go here? Should we not? And I think that we by God's grace learn this pretty early, maybe that prophetic word, but we learn to be practical too. If God were seeking you, God, we understand you've put desires in our heart that we believe are from you. Uh we don't believe that this is a devil desire, this is a you desire. And so one of the things that we did practical when we were young, and we've still done it to even older, is just the list. What are the positives, what are the negatives? Holy Spirit, help us, and then just even able to write it out and then just go and go, it looks like on paper we should actually do this, or we've done it, it looks like on paper we should do this, but we really feel like God is speaking for us to do this versus nothing because we couldn't decide which one to do. We actually are like, okay, God, we're gonna do it. And we'll get into it. Maybe you want to jump into maybe some more practical, but we've also, I don't think we've missed it, but I do think there were some situations that didn't turn out like we wanted it to or how we expected it to. Yeah, but then how God can step in and still makes it awesome. So I don't know which one you want to go on with that.
SPEAKER_00:Well, I think that you talked about the bullseye. And when I was on this walk with this girl and I was saying, like, God's a hard target to me. I literally saw a vision of we picture like target practice where it's like the you know, the big huge circle and then the yellow circle and then the little tiny red circle, and that's what you're aiming for. God's not like that. God is not tiny in any way. He is vast, he is He is one of my verses omnipresent everywhere that we are, God is. And so I think that we need to kind of eradicate the bullseye, that God is as small as a bullseye because we're the smallest part of it. God is the biggest. Like if you look at the blue sky and how big it is, that is the expansion of who God is. And when you think of it that way, he is a big God who is able to move on our behalf and he is able to lead us and he is able to, you know, prepare the way for us in such a big way that I think the enemy wants us to think it's this time that we're gonna miss him. God is a big God and he has created us to run after him. And, you know, the psalmist David said, My soul follows hard after thee. That doesn't sound like someone who's afraid of missing God. It sounds like someone who is so expectant for God to move on his behalf that he is chasing with everything in him toward God. And I think that that is the kind of life that pleases God. I do not want to be, you know, a little old lady at the end of my days and still like being looking back, wishing that I didn't follow hard after God and believe him for the things that seemed impossible. If we would have lived that way, we would have never left the safety of pastoring in North Carolina because we had the most beautiful and amazing congregation. We had all, we had way more property. We had property. We don't have property in LA. And, you know, we would have just been stayed in that comfort because it was still a really amazing thing we were doing for the Lord, but we knew that God was calling us to run after him in a new season hard. And God wants us to be those kind of people who go after every good thing he has for us. And the enemy wants us to live small and confined lives. The other thing that I think about is sometimes we can miss God because we tell him our vision.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:That could be, you know, if you live a life that's not surrendered and submitted to, God, I want everything that you have for me. So show me your way. But instead, you're like, God, I'm gonna sit down and I'm gonna show you my way. Sometimes that can confine us, you know, like if you have a certain house that you really feel like you're supposed to live in, but God opens up a miracle house that doesn't quite look like that. And you're like, no, that's not the one. You can minimize what God wants to do. And so we've got to live this life. We have to go hard after God, we have to trust Him with our faith, but we also have to be open-handed with God, this is what I'm running after. But if you bring me something, I am going to know that that's you and welcome that into my life. And that can be, you know, if you're too small-minded or narrow-minded in who you're gonna date, I want to talk to you singles, because I'm very passionate about this. Is that God, Israel is not anything like all of the guys that I dated. And there weren't tons. I wasn't, it was like all that long ago.
SPEAKER_01:You weren't a floozy.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, but you weren't like my brothers, you were very different than any guy that I'd ever had any kind of relationship with or interaction. And you are exactly who God purposed and created for me. And if I would have been like, no, he's not my type, I would have missed out on my person. And I think that that's something is we cannot tell God our plans and then think that we won't miss him. The Bible says, rejoice for the steps of a righteous person. They're ordered of the Lord, which means we welcome his plans over our plans and we don't bully him with vision.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Does that make sense? No, it's so true. Because those are the ways to God is a hard target to miss, but that's definitely the way to miss it, is when it's become your ways and not his ways. Yes, exactly. And so that surrender. And I just I think that that is just a yes and amen. So good. You can't manipulate God now with this. Well, I'm just going for it, and you're a hard target. No, it's very much a point of surrender, but I do, I think the whole point of this is like what Rachel said is just inactive is not what God's called you to be. And then to be so particular, well, God's got to do it this way, and almost manipulating God. Well, that's not it either. And so going for it and saying, okay, God. And then I, as you were saying that, I was thinking, and you know what else is kind of funny? When you have the mentality that God is a is a hard target to miss, you end up with some misses. But they actually turn out to be God ordained. And so there have been some things, there have been some buildings we have looked at, and it didn't turn out. There have been some houses. We went and looked at some houses before we got in the house that we are in now. And we even believed, well, maybe that could be it. You know what I mean? But they were some misses. And so sometimes God will use even our misses to build our faith because it actually turned out to not, maybe it wasn't the guy, maybe it wasn't the job, maybe it wasn't the house or whatever, but it started you to build your faith of what God could do, that you just started to open up more and go, wow, he could before I was inactive. Now I'm actively pursuing his will. And I guess that wasn't his will because that door shut, but now my faith is enlarged to go, he can do it. He's got more. And so I think that that even can help with us when it is making God a hard target to miss.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. And I think about when I was young and I loved Jesus all my life. Like I just have always had a beautiful and sincere relationship with the Lord. But my heart grew hard. Well, I when I was like 15 years old, I was just hard-hearted and numb. And I absolutely walked away from God and I totally like shut those doors where it was like, I'm not even aiming for your target. I'm not even looking to please God. I'm looking to please myself. I'm looking to, you know, disqualify myself from God ever being able to use me. That was the lifestyle I was living out of my pain. And even in that, when I willfully made mistakes to separate myself from God, He showed up as my restorer. And that meeting the Lord as your restorer, that is such a beautiful and special thing that he does for us. And so we don't need to be afraid. We will make mistakes and we will fail. We'll even fail God, we'll fail people, we'll fail in making decisions. But that shouldn't be the reason why we're not pursuing things, is because God is a restorer. God is good at being God. And both of us have a testimony of, you know, maybe there's some of you in your listening today, and you know you failed. You know that God spoke one thing and you did not follow after that, and you actually canceled out what you knew was God's plan. And here you are standing in some rubble in your life. We've been there before. And the enemy will come in and he will shame you and he will try to paralyze you and make you feel like you know you can't have confidence, you don't hear from God. That's not the truth. And all of us fail. And the Bible says that the only difference between a sinner and a righteous person is that the righteous get back up. And I believe that that's a word from the Lord for somebody today is get back up. All of us fail, but God is a restorer and He's really good at being the restorer. It's our job to just keep getting up and following.
SPEAKER_01:And I just love this story in the Old Testament where the children of Israel really blew it. God is a hard target to miss, and they missed it. They said, We want a king. Samuel tried to warn them, don't do it. Then God gets upset, thundered all this, says, You missed it. They get Saul, and Saul was a knucklehead. We know that. But what's funny is the next king, David, here is a program that God did not want. Here is a symbol. He didn't want anybody to have another king of Israel. He wanted to be the king of Israel and him only. That's why they had judges and they had prophets and they had, you know, leaders like Moses, but they didn't have a king. They wanted a king because all the other nations had a king. And so they missed God on it. But what is so amazing is Jesus, our messiah. His nickname was Son of David. Even when we blow it and miss it, God is so gracious and so quick to forgive that he actually births his messiah in that lineage of David, a king of Israel, to save us. And so it's such a that's not sloppy agape or sloppy grace. It's just a go forward. And the war, if you miss it and your heart is right, God still has a way of birthing Jesus through it, somehow working all things to good for those that are in Christ Jesus. And I just think that that's such a better way to live is to live. We're going for it. We trust God. We're believing God. We feel like He has spoken and we're gonna do it. And I I I think this promotion is it. I think this position is it. I'm gonna try this dating. I'm gonna go out for coffee with them. You know what I mean? And just think and just go and then wait and see what God does. And if He shuts it down, great, use it as a faith thing. If you blow it and it's just off, thank Him and be and say you are a God of second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, a million chances. Get me right on track. And live that way is far better. Because don't you think that if you live the opposite of God as a hard target to mix, miss, it's not just that you're paralyzed, but I think it's worse than paralyzed because then you start becoming critical of everybody and everything. You start becoming sarcastic of anything that is good. You start comparing, and because you're not moving forward, then you have to start being critical of people that are moving forward, and you start attacking them because you want to somehow say that it's okay of where you're at. So then now they don't hear from God. Oh, now they are wrong. And I so I don't think it's just the opposite of just maybe being paralyzed. I think it goes to be a lot deeper than that.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I think that you know, disappointment is the mother of cynicism. Yeah. And there's nothing worse than a cynical Christian. And there's a lot of them right now where they've just been disappointed and they haven't seen what they believed God for. And so now they are this new thing that's been birthed in them is cynicism. And cynicism is a protective wall that just starts being sarcastic, starts making fun of Christians that are too passionate, starts to stop looking at churches and critiquing their worship. That's cynical. And cynicism is not the heartbeat of God, it's not the language that He invites or blesses, it's just not. And cynicism is the first sign to me of something going on in our heart. When we're cynical and we're always mocking and we're always looking for the bad instead of seeing the good, it's it's birthed from disappointment. And so if that's you, go be honest with God about it and be like, God, I am cynical. I have been disappointed, I feel like I did miss you. I feel like when I shot for having faith and trusting you, you didn't show up for me. You know, God can handle those kind of raw conversations. I know because I've had a lot of them, but also so did David in the Bible. And I think that when we are secretly suffering and we feel like God is nowhere to be found, that's a really dangerous place to be because it's where our heart starts getting sick. So talk to God about it. Surrender again, say yes again to God and watch what he begins to do. He will begin to light the path. He is such a good God of showing us his way when we want. There's that scripture that says, in all your ways, acknowledge him and he'll direct your path. And so if you want to know what God's path is, acknowledge that he's for you, acknowledge what he's already done and allow him to lead you.
SPEAKER_01:So good, so good, so good. I hope this really I do feel like definitely moments of this were very prophetic for some people right now in the what you're in the middle of. And so we just pray. I believe when you're really prophetic, what would happen is the Bible says that what was in Elizabeth leaped at the voice of Mary. It leaped inside of her, and that baby leaped. And so we pray that something leaps inside of you that you're like, oh yeah, God is a hard target to miss. I'm gonna go forward with this and uh let us know. We want to know. Give us a comment and let us know. Share this with somebody. Uh, let us know on Instagram. But we really do believe and are praying for you that this is gonna be a great season. The Holy Spirit is with you, and He is not going to allow you to make a right, a wrong choice when you've surrendered to Him. Amen. And so we can't wait to hear about the miracles, and we'll see you next time. Go for it.
