#33: What if Your Wholehearted Living is What Builds the Legacy?

Hit record, skip the perfection, and lean into obedience—this is the heartbeat of our latest conversation. We are changing it up around here beginning with this episode! We open up about fear, comparison, and the pressure to polish everything, then turn to Caleb in Numbers 14:24 to explore what a “different spirit” looks like in real life. The thread running through it all is simple and demanding: choose faith over fear, and do it in a way your kids can see and carry.

We unpack how a different spirit is not a personality quirk but a posture grounded in who God is. From 2 Timothy 1:7, we draw out three anchors—power, love, and self-discipline—that help us act with courage, care for people well, and build consistent habits even when emotions wobble. Then we move into wholehearted devotion through Proverbs 3:5–6, showing how trust is practiced in ordinary moments: opening Scripture before the scroll, saying yes to small nudges, and aligning our daily choices with God’s lead.

The conversation lands on legacy. Not money, but a spiritual inheritance formed by the patterns our families watch every day. When we face giants with steady trust, we hand our children tools for their own battles—peace over panic, obedience over optics, hope over hype. You’ll hear practical steps to start small: anchor verses, honest prayer, pruning noisy inputs, and embracing imperfect action that keeps your heart soft and your steps steady.

If this resonates, share it with a friend who needs courage today, subscribe for future episodes, and leave a review so more people can find these conversations. What step of faith will you take this week?

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:06

Ciao and welcome to Life Out Loud. I am your host, Desiree Melfi Bozo. We are going to use this space to share experiences and help you find lasting, unshakeable, unwavering, unmessable with joy and gratitude. We're going to be throwing around encouragement a little bit like confetti and giving you support to live your very best life. Ciao friends. Welcome back to the Life Out Loud Podcast.

Letting Go Of Perfection

Setting The Spiritual Focus

Caleb In Numbers 14:24

Choosing A Different Spirit

Faith Over Fear In Daily Life

Power Love And Self Control

Following God Wholeheartedly

SPEAKER_01 0:34

I am, peruge, your host, Desiree Malfi Bozo. So this looks a little different. You can actually see me, which is also wildly terrifying, doing a new thing, figuring it out as I go, true entrepreneurial fashion. We're gonna build this as we fly it. We are gonna just record and see what happens. Past eight months-ish, the Lord's been like prompting me, you have notebooks full of messages, record them and get them out there. And I'm like, no, it has to be perfect. Like, I need my sound booth that is my husband's closet. And of course, we have to edit these things, and I have to have makeup on, and and and I have plenty of excuses for why. I just kind of put them into pretty little seasons. Well, we're doing away with seasons because it's the season to do that. We are diving into episode-based podcasting. Like I said, it's terrifying, but we'll figure it out because we can do hard things, right? So as I can, I'm gonna push this content out and I hope it leaves you completely and utterly blessed. Lots of messages from all over scripture. Today, we're gonna start off in the Old Testament with a dude named Caleb. So we're gonna talk about Numbers 14, 24. We're gonna break it down, figure out how it's applicable to our lives, and go from there. So handing this all over to God, to you be the glory. Let's do this. Numbers 14, verse 24 says, But because my servant Caleb has a different spirit, keep that in your back pocket and follows me wholeheartedly, also keep that in your back pocket. I will bring him into the land he went to, and his descendants will inherit it. Okay. What does this mean? How does us, how does it, how does this, how does this, I would have edited that out, but we're not doing that. How does this impact us who believe in Jesus today? Right? So there's three things I want to highlight. The first one is a different spirit. So Caleb wasn't ruled by fear, he was actually ruled by faith. And I think this is an important thing for us to pay attention to because often in life, fear starts to creep in to our moments, to our situations, to the things we're going through. We start to get fearful. And so God doesn't want us to do that. If you have kids, parenting is full of fearful moments. There are so many things as a mom that I worry about that are completely irrelevant, probably never going to happen, but fear starts to creep in nonetheless. And I think it's an important thing to keep in mind that Caleb wasn't ruled by this fear. We get to choose to have a different spirit. In here it says, but because my servant Caleb has a different spirit, I have to believe Caleb chose to have a different spirit, right? He was anchored in lockstep with God. So as fear started to creep in, Caleb didn't subscribe to it, right? Also, I think there's an unfinished thought there about what we subscribe to on YouTube and on Instagram and whatever other social media platform. Maybe there are some people you need to unfollow, just a thing. Anyways, moving on, we can stand in faith, maybe even with shaking hands, knowing that we can have a different spirit and we don't have to be ruled by fear, right? I'm gonna highlight the fact that I haven't done these recordings because this is scary, right? Like I am, I don't even want to say I'm a recovering perfectionist. I am still 100% a perfectionist in many areas of my life, good or bad or indifferent, whatever. This is a scary thing, but what's fear gonna do? It's gonna keep me this big. I don't want to be this big. God has a message for me to get out to the world, and staying fearful and small isn't gonna get it there, right? So sometimes with shaking hands, we have to go do the thing that's scary and put fear to the side, knowing God is in control. I want to point us to 2 Timothy one to seven. No, I'm sorry, 2 Timothy chapter 1, verse 7. For the spirit of God, this for the spirit God gave us does not make us timid, but gives us power, love, and self-discipline. We were not given a spirit of fear, but of power, love, and self-control, right? So this is literally the spirit that God gave us. Anything that isn't that is not from God. So we can put it aside and cast it away, right? Say our scripture over it, get it out of our lives. The second thing I want to touch on from Numbers 14, 24, is this idea of wholehearted. But because my servant Caleb has a different spirit and follows me wholeheartedly, what on earth does that mean? So wholehearted devotion isn't about showing up at the foot of the cross when things go south. It's about staying in lockstep every step of the way. It's about every moment making the decision to not be fearful and to wholeheartedly follow God, follow his teachings, follow his promptings, follow all of the things and the pieces that he's guiding you toward. When our spouses see us do this, when our children see us do this, when our friends and our family see us live in this way with this wholehearted devotion to the king of the universe, literally the creator of the universe, they see it lived out tangibly. And when they see that, they can then model it in their lives. They have something to lean into when things go south because they saw you do it, right? So I want to point us to Proverbs chapter three, verses five and six. Trust in the Lord, you know this one. Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding in all your ways. How many of your ways? All of your ways. Submit to him, and he will make your paths straight. Trust in the Lord with all of your heart. He's got that. And the thing after that, and the thing after that, and the thing after that. That's how he works. He's God. He's got it. He's got all the things, the great things and the terrible things, and the mundane things in between. The last thing I want to leave you with from numbers 14-24. But because my servant Caleb has a different spirit and follows me wholeheartedly, you ready for this? I will bring him into the land he went to, and his descendants will inherit it. I want to talk to you parents out there for a minute. I want to talk to you about your children's inheritance, and it has nothing to do with money. It has nothing to do with wealth or any of that. Our different and wholehearted faith isn't just about us. It becomes what our babies cling to. It becomes what's modeled for our children in our homes, and it becomes what they take with us when they leave them. Now, I can't, our son is nine at this recording. I can't fathom the day that he's gonna walk out. Like, oh my gosh, I almost get choked up thinking about it. The day he's gonna walk out of this house and go be his, live his best life. I can't even fathom it. But and it's gonna happen. I'm gonna blink and it's gonna happen. And I have to know that God's got him. Because if I don't, I'll be a mess. I'll be an absolute mess, right? They're arrows in our hand. That's what our children are. They're arrows in the hand of a warrior. And we get to go launch them out into the world. Caleb's faith is gonna open doors for his descendants. My love, your faith is gonna open doors for your kids. Our path or ours, what what what am I saying? I don't know. Hang on. We plant seeds that are gonna grow in our kids' minds. We plant seeds that are gonna grow in their hearts. We plant the seeds that their futures are going to grow into. So we have to know that our faithfulness now, today, right this minute, our wholehearted devotion to God means something. It matters more than we can ever imagine. But from everlasting to everlasting, the Lord's love is with those who fear him. And his righteousness with their children. I hope that you start to choose faith over fear. I hope that you start to find ways to follow God wholeheartedly. And if you're like, what does that even mean? How do I begin to do that? Open your Bible. It's different for every single one of us. Right? Sometimes it's a scripture you read that just you feel this gut urge to just be obedient, right? And you're like, where'd that come from? God, Holy Spirit, that's who that is, right? It's sometimes that thought that pops into your head. I don't know if you've ever had them where you're like, whoa, what was that? It's the Holy Spirit, right? Urging you, pushing you, poking at you, wholehearted devotion. Do this, follow this, come this way, right? And the last one, I hope that you create a lasting legacy of faith for your children and your grandchildren and your grandchildren's children. I can't go back any more generations than that because it confuses my brain. Friends, I hope this was helpful. I hope that this little tiny verse, way, way back in the old testament numbers about this guy named Caleb. I hope it illuminated some things in your life. Ways that you can be a blessing, ways that you can show up differently, ways that you can move the needle to create lasting generational blessings for your children. All right, that was it. That was this episode. Guess what? My hands aren't shaking anymore. Not so nervous anymore. I don't know if it was good or bad, but it was something. So I hope you enjoy it. Per us, as always. What is my ending line? Oh, yeah. We're gonna come back next time. We're gonna throw around more scripture, like confetti. Be careful if you get too close. You're definitely gonna get some money. That's a lot of words. Come back next time. We'll see you soon.

Modeling Faith For Family

SPEAKER_00 12:53

Cheers. Thank you for joining me, Desiree Melfi Bozo, for this episode of Life Out Loud. I would love to hear from you. Leave me a comment, tell me what topics you want to talk about, and how you take your coffee. If you enjoyed what you heard, text a friend the link, share it on social media, or if you're interested in becoming a supporter, beep up over to my webpage, lifeoutloud.me, and sponsor a cup of coffee that keeps this podcast fueled. Until next time, sweet listeners.