SoulFit: God Can Speak Through Your Own Words

We talk honestly about life “winters” and why hard seasons can grow invisible roots that make us stronger later. We share a real-time look at how God can prepare us through our own words, our daily choices, and a shift in perspective when things feel like a blizzard. 
• winter as hardship loss and struggle that comes and goes 
• invisible roots growing beneath the surface when nothing looks different 
• resisting the message we most need to speak and hear 
• how God speaks through planning writing and our own repeated words 
• choosing action over complaint when we feel stuck 
• “When you feel helpless, get helpful” as a practical reset 
• service and meaningful projects as a way to rebuild hope 
• reflecting on growth areas like gratitude resilience compassion and faith 
• surrendering control and relying on God instead of self 
• strengthening faith through Bible time prayer and fellowship 
Join me next week for some relationships are seasonal. 

https://aarondegler.com/

Transcript

A Quick Pivot From The Plan

SPEAKER_00 0:00

So today on our menu is some relationships are seasonal. So I'm not going to talk about that today. So how about that? Join me next week for some relationships are seasonal. That's what I had planned on talking about today. That's what I had planned on talking about all week long and this morning. And then during what and I didn't, I mean I don't have any notes or anything, so I'm just gonna go willy-nilly with this.

Winter Seasons And Invisible Roots

SPEAKER_00 0:43

And so during one of the classes this morning, if if you've joined us all week for walk and talk or hit a walk and talk, we talked a lot about winter. And we talked about the invisible roots that grow that we never see. So one of the invisible things that happens during classes that you never see is my mind spinning 90 to nothing all the time. Thinking about different thoughts, different ideas, all of that. So again, this week we talked about. If you missed any of the walk and talks this week, we've talked about winter and what that looks like. It's it's our seasonal time. We all have a winter in our life. It's seasonal. Winters come and go just like a regular season. But in our lives, a winter looks like some hardship, some loss, some struggle, all different things. And so as I thought about it this morning, I thought of some things that I should have shared maybe earlier in the week, but I didn't want to share. So uh it didn't. But as I was thinking about today, I was thinking about Soul Fit, and I was thinking about, as I thought about maybe what I should talk about, I thought, well, you know, I don't have any scripture. But I thought, you know, sometimes I think we have to have some scripture to back up things, you know. And I think sometimes we don't share the how things actually happen and how God actually works. I think we talk here, we hear a lot of talk about, well, God spoke to me, God did this, God did that, He didn't do this, He didn't do that, but I don't think we ever sometimes share in practical real time how does that look? So I thought I would share a little bit of that and how does that look? Because I thought, you know, maybe somebody is going through a winter, and maybe they need to hear this, maybe they need to

A Personal Winter And Reluctance

SPEAKER_00 2:56

hear how it worked for me. And so, really, probably for for a while, Kim and I have had a winter, and it's been a winter, and so last week, probably the beginning of last week, I chose this topic for walk and talk this week about your roots growing deeper in the winter. So this was chosen early last week. Really not thinking about current winters or anything like that, and and so I outlined it, thought about it, read over it, and then the first time was on Tuesday. And so, like any winter, you know, you remember the winter we had that was really, really cold? And not only was it really, really cold, it got even colder, like in the negatives. So we kind of have had this winter, and then this week we kind of had a snowstorm, and you're like, what in the world? And so I remember telling Kim, and I'll be honest, when I gave this walk-in talk on Tuesday morning about winter and about roots growing deep, I I had I thought of every other topic I could talk about because I didn't want to talk about winter and roots growing deep at all. I didn't want to do it. And but I thought, well, I'll do it. And I and I don't remember if I mentioned to Kim that morning or that evening, as I think it maybe was that morning, I said, I do not want to talk about this. Like, I don't wanna I don't want to share the things that are on there, I don't wanna, I just don't want to talk about it. But I did, and so I just finished right before our call today, I just finished the fifth time I gave that talk. The fifth time about growing your roots deeper, all the different things in a winter, what it looks like, and the thing I I really wanted to share with you is how God works. Because last week I I came up with this topic, even in a current winter, and really didn't connect the dots because I'm not too bright. And I think, well, it's just another day that I don't really consider it a winner, but really it all the stuff we talked about this week, I thought, oh dang, that's a winner. And then getting a snowstorm this week, I'm like, wow, now we're in a winter with deep snow. And how God works is that He gave me all the things we talked about this week in walk and talk and sit and talk, about winter, about what is it trying to grow in you? What are you supposed to get out of it? What are you supposed to do? How are you supposed to look at it? What's gonna come on the other side of winter? I've gone through that all this week for you know, gave it five different times. So if you think about it, that's like two and a half hours. I've talked about roots, deeps, winter. And we often wonder how does God talk

Hearing God Through Your Words

SPEAKER_00 6:12

to us? You know, I I think if you're like me, you hear somebody, well, God talk to me. Well, he's not gonna do it audibly, he's not gonna say, Hey, you, this is what you should do. But I realized this week that he was talking to me last week about a snowstorm in the winter that hadn't even happened yet. He already started talking to me. And how did he talk to me? Because I randomly decided that that would be a good topic for this week. And then after looking over it and deciding I didn't want to do it on Tuesday, that was the start of the week. I didn't want to give that talk. And but he he he spoke to me even more this week, and and the crazy thing is is that he spoke to me through my own words. So all of those things I've been saying all week long, I've been listening to and thinking about. And so it it's just and I think we often think we need to hear we need to hear an audible voice. I did hear an audible voice this week, but guess whose voice it was mine, all week long, out loud, saying all those words. It was my voice, but God gave me the words to say. I mean, those words as I was writing it was words I would need that you know were printed out on paper. So I read them, I you know, had notes all week long to say, what's this bullet point? What's that bullet point? And how God works sometimes is through people, and sometimes He works through us

When You Feel Helpless Get Helpful

SPEAKER_00 8:20

for us. That we we talk about what do you do in your winter? Do you just sit there and complain and do nothing? Or are you doing something? And we've we've talked too about, and I've mentioned this several times, and and and I and and I give Crystal credit for bringing up one day. When you feel helpless, get helpful. This week I had a great idea how to be helpful to young female entrepreneurs on something that I can do and create for them to help and benefit them. This week I worked on medals for the 5K. How can I be helpful and make make people like excited to have accomplished something? I I worked on details for our promgress event for young ladies in the spring. How can I make them feel better about themselves, do things? And and it has made a difference this week because it again makes me feel helpful to others to be doing things, to not just be sitting and waiting and feel hopeless, but use those words that God gave me to write down and then to speak to do something in my winter, to do something about it, and go through all the steps. And so I've been reflecting a lot this week and like wow, maybe there are things that need to grow in me, and then you're like, Whoa, yeah. And if you've ever had that and you ever have a winter and go, well, I don't like that. I thought that was pretty good, and then God says, Well, it could be better, so I'm gonna give you this little bit of winter, this little bit of blizzard to work on that. Because sometimes I would never call myself, I don't think, uh I mean, I wouldn't call myself a prideful person, but then when God points these things out, sometimes I'm like, oh, ooh, me? I thought I was doing pretty good, God. But then through

Reflection On What Winter Grows

SPEAKER_00 10:38

reflection this week and thinking about what do I need to grow on? And you know, I listed a bunch of different things out from gratitude, resilience, to compassion to understanding to faith, all of those things that that are opportunities to grow, and maybe there's somewhere you need to grow in that. And I kept saying, you or we, and really I wanted to replace all of those with me. I need to. I need to do that, I need to do that, I need to do that. So I I often try to share that when I share different talks throughout the week, and even on SOFI, sometimes, a lot of times, really most of the time, it's things I need to hear as well. It's things that I'm struggling with, that I'm challenged with, that it is a way for me to work through those things because I get to talk about it, I get to hear it. And, you know, a lot of those times I would think that's just you know, just the way it is. But I really felt as I was we were in class this morning and I was thinking about the week and the winter and sharing everything, and I thought about how all the dots connected. And so then I thought, well, I bet I can't be the only one, because there's eight billion people in the world, so I can't be the only one that needed to hear those words this week. And if I am, then message received, but I don't think I probably am, and and maybe maybe this winter was because I need to share those with other people, but I need needed to make those words happen to be able to share it with other people. Those words don't happen if I don't have a winter. So again, we talked about perspective this week. What's the perspective of it? Can we complain through it or can we grow through it? And and and really, uh, as I challenged everybody this week to how can you grow through it? And then I thought, well, Aaron, how can you grow through it? What's your perspective? And so that's a challenge, I think, for each of us. So, like I said, today I really didn't I didn't had a really good talk for today, but I just wanted to share

Faith Tested In The Blizzard

SPEAKER_00 13:22

that, not to go with any scripture, just an experience, and just to give you hope that, and that's what perspective will also do. In your winter, can you begin to understand what needs what things you need to work on, what things are challenging to you, and and maybe it's just things you need to strengthen because you could have a really good root system. It's kind of like if you could have really good faith, but it's really easy to have that good faith sitting in front of the on the pew on a Sunday morning in the springtime, but in the winter time, what does that faith really look like when things are going kind of rough and you kind of got a blizzard? Good thing about blizzards is they'll go away and the snow will melt and spring will come. But how does that faith look? And sometimes it has to be tested a little bit, and sometimes I believe we are given things because it is a test. What will we do with that? How are we how can we grow in our faith in this winter time so that when a future winter comes, our roots are deeper and stronger than they were before? So I just think it's important that we really understand that winters will come and they will go. And as I mentioned this morning, I think in the walking talk this morning, everybody was walking next to each other, some facing me, some not. I'm assuming most of them had smiles on their face, but the ones facing me that were walking backwards had smiles on their face. And I said, the interesting thing is, is that everybody here, if you probably looked at the person next to you, probably they are they are perfectly good. As our grandson would do, Riggy, he would give you, you're good, you're good. But we don't know what things are going on underneath, what roots are being grown deeper, and sometimes it's okay to say, God, I don't really want to deeper root. I'm feeling pretty good right now. I don't really want my roots to grow deeper and wider. But sometimes he says, Well, they need to grow a little deeper and wider. And when he says that, we have to understand and and surrender control and say, okay, what can I do? Because I can't fix it, but what can I do to grow that? And sometimes it is simply there's sometimes we've talked about things we can do in the waiting, but there's also the faith. How can I grow in that? How can I grow in my time in the Bible? How can I grow in my communication and prayer time? How can I grow in fellowship with others by sharing? How can I grow in those areas by leaning on other people to pray for me, to do those things when sometimes it's hard to do that? So in those areas, maybe it's an opportunity to go, wow, even in this winter, I can grow and I can become not just a better person, but better a better Christian, a better follower of Jesus because I'm relying more on him than I am relying on me. Because I think a lot of us are guilty from time to time of relying on ourselves. What can I do? And then sometimes God gives us things that He says, there is no way you're gonna be able to rely enough on yourself to make this better. So really, I just wanted to share that and just kind of share in real time what that looks like. So that way you don't think, well, that's all good talk every Friday. That's really good talk. But how does that look in real life? And that's how it looks in real life. And some of you might have those experiences, but we're not always willing to share those with others so that they know. You know me, a lot of times I don't mind sharing because if it's going to help somebody when I feel helpless, if I can share that and be helpful

Perspective Shift And Closing Prayer

SPEAKER_00 17:58

to somebody else, it does make a difference. So I just wanted to share that today, and I'll end with a little, I don't really want to have a challenge, really. Just maybe have a different perspective on your winter, that it is really trying to grow something in you, and the challenge is to grab onto that and grow. You might fight a little bit, but in the end, you end up growing. God will make sure of that. So I'm gonna end this in prayer and then we'll be on with our fantastic Friday. Dear Heavenly Father, thank you so much for bringing us all together today. What a blessing it is for all of us to be together in this time of thanking you and being with you and our you are there when more than two come together, and and we we believe that is any way, this way or in person, Lord. Just thank you for being in this presence. I just pray over each one as they go out, giving the confidence, the understanding for whatever they may be going through, Lord, that that they know that you are the answer, you are the way, and that you are in control. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Thank you, everybody, and thank you to each of you for joining us this week's soul fit.