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The Father's Business Podcast
The Father's Business Podcast
Q&A to Teaching on Spirit, Soul, and Body
Embark on an insightful exploration through questions and answers of the interconnectedness of spirit, soul, and body, guided by the teachings of Paul and biblical examples like David’s reflections in the Psalms. Learn how blessing the spirit can refresh and align us with divine love, and discover practical ways to nurture your spirit through music, scripture, and encouragement. We’ll unravel the spiritual significance of blessing others, sharing heartwarming anecdotes about the impact of blessings on infants and non-Christians alike. This episode is a treasure trove of insights into the power of blessings and their ethical boundaries, offering a fresh perspective on spiritual well-being and everyday interactions.
Thank you. Thank you. The Father's Business was founded by Sylvia Gunter to encourage people to a deeper relationship with God. I'm Elizabeth Gunter Powell.
Speaker 2:And I am Kimberly Roddy. Welcome to the Father's Business Podcast. We are so glad that you've joined us. Well, welcome everyone to today's podcast. We are so glad that you are with us today. If you have been with us recently, you have heard us talking about the Ruach Journey Conference. That is coming soon and last week we released a podcast which is a teaching on spirit, soul and body. We really encourage you to go back and listen to that if you haven't listened to it yet. It's a core teaching to the Ruach Journey Conference and we would really love to invite you, if you have not signed up yet, to join us for this conference.
Speaker 2:Our conference this year is going to be at Sandy Cove Retreat Center in Maryland. It is on the Chesapeake Bay. It's a beautiful location. We can't wait for you to be there and experience it with us. It's going to be March 5th through the 7th. You can go to our website to sign up Before we give you those details. Hopefully you know our website by now it's thefathersbusinesscom, because we say it all the time on our podcast. But before you jump there, elizabeth, why don't you tell everyone a little bit about the two tracks we're offering, because I think that's a really exciting opportunity this year.
Speaker 1:Yeah, this is something different that we haven't done before. We are taking Ruach Journey and we are teaching the beginner track, which is going to be the same principles found in the Ruach Journey study that is available on our website, but we're having different people teach different sessions, so they're going to bring their own voice to those, and then we're going to have an advanced level track. For those of you that have either been to a Ruach Journey conference in the past or you've done the study on your own or in a small group, now's your chance to go deeper. So we're going to take all the principles that are found in Ruroc Journey plus introduce some new thoughts about how do you deal with a broken or wounded spirit, what is the interaction of a wounded spirit with the soul and the body, how does land and where you find yourself in the world, how does that impact your spirit and how we can have an impact on land. So it's going to be a really exciting time, whether you're new to the ideas of Ruroc Journey or you've been studying along with us and listening to our podcast and you're ready for more, and we're so excited about everyone who's already signing up. We still have space for you if you want to join us.
Speaker 1:What I'm most excited about is we're seeing a lot of husbands and wives who are coming together.
Speaker 1:We're seeing a lot of parents and adult children who are coming together, and I love the way that families are deciding to come and learn these concepts together so that they then can go out as a family unit to make an impact on the world.
Speaker 1:So if you know anyone who is 40 or under, we have someone who is offering a special scholarship for our next gen people anyone 40 or under because our heart is for the next generations, those coming up, those that are just now graduating from college and trying to figure out who they are in the world.
Speaker 1:For them to understand these concepts, to know who they are in Christ and who he is for them, would be such an incredible gift to give them. So if you know anyone in that age frame, we have a special place on our registration page where you can register for the NextGen Scholarship and also for anyone else. If you are in a place where you would love to be a part of this conference, but finances are an issue for you right now, you can contact us on our website and we will handle scholarships on a case-by-case basis, but we are really looking forward to those that God is drawing. Several people we're praying for that. They don't know why they're coming, but God is just drawing them to come and we're excited about everything that God wants to do in our lives. As we gather together in Maryland in March for the Rock Journey Conference.
Speaker 2:So go to thefathersbusinesscom backslash events to sign up. Look forward to seeing you there.
Speaker 1:So for our podcast today, kimberly, we want to kind of continue our conversation. We talked at our first podcast of the year about the need to be resilient, because there's just feels like there's so much going on in the world and newsflash a few weeks into this year it doesn't feel like it's gotten any easier. There continues to be a lot of things nationally, globally and personally that we all are walking through, and I'm seeing more and more memes pop up on social media about January, feeling like it's about 500 days long.
Speaker 2:Elizabeth, do you mean like the one you sent me earlier? That said, have you or someone you know been a victim of January? You may be entitled to take a little nap on the couch.
Speaker 1:Yes, exactly that and that's exactly how I feel. It's like why can't we be bears, like bears, hibernate through all of this and then they just wake up in the spring and they eat a lot. That's what I want to do, but that's not where God has called us. I know there's a lot of people in other Christian ministries even that are talking about winter and the purpose of winter and that it's not a season where nothing is happening, but it's a season where we have to lean into what God wants to do for us through some of the darker days, the colder days, what feels like a very dark time that we're walking through, not only in the physical as Alabama had snow in the last couple of weeks, which is unusual for us but also just in the emotional and the spiritual.
Speaker 1:This can feel like it's hard to kind of come down from the celebration that was Christmas and all the excitement and the lights, and now everything just feels a little darker, and that's part of my passion for Ruach Journey and the teaching specifically about understanding your spirit, soul and body and how they need to work together with Father, son and Holy Spirit.
Speaker 1:Is sorry, guys, life is hard and we were promised that life was going to be hard, that we were going to have troubles in this world. But then there's always the second part of that, which is but take heart, I've overcome the world, as Jesus has promised to us. But he didn't promise that it wasn't going to be hard, and I find myself kind of waiting and hoping well, if I just wait till this happens, then it's going to get easier, or if I just wait till this happens, it's going to get better. And what God is trying to, I think, teach all of us in this season, kimberly, is it's not about waiting for the circumstances to change, it's how are you going to allow Him to meet you and how are you going to allow Him to align your spirit, soul and body in the midst of the things that are hard.
Speaker 2:Elizabeth, I agree with you wholeheartedly in all of that. We talked about resilience in that first episode we did of this year, two weeks ago, and I continue to see that word pop up on some of my social media feeds and some of my emails, and so I think that everyone is feeling that need to. Okay, we need to be resilient. Right now there's a lot around us, and so you know, the podcast we released last week is this teaching of how do you really understand spirit, soul and body. We also released an episode after that teaching where we answered people's questions, because there's a lot of questions that come out of that, of questions of understanding the teaching, as well as questions of how now shall I live right, like how do I really implement this, what's it really look like, and so we are going to re-release that question and answer episode today. We think it follows up well to the teaching conversation, because we know you naturally have questions after hearing that, so let us know. If you have other questions, you can always reach out to us and let us know your questions. We are happy to engage with those questions because this is a foundational teaching to the Ruach journey and to the Father's business, and so we hope that answers to these questions that we discussed today will be really insightful and helpful for you today on your journey. Well, hi, everyone, welcome back to our podcast.
Speaker 2:Today we are going to be recapping a little bit and answering some questions from an episode that we released a couple of weeks ago, on August 17th, called Biblical Foundation of Body, Soul and Spirit. This is a teaching that Elizabeth and Sylvia have done for a while. It's a foundational teaching that helps you understand a lot of the basics, especially of what we're going to be going over this fall as we enter into a Ruach journey study. If you want to go back and listen to that podcast, that would be really helpful for you, because it is a great teaching on the foundation of that body, soul and spirit aspect. So today we'll answer some questions. We've gotten some good feedback from that episode. So, elizabeth, as we start off today, why don't you give us a brief recap of that teaching of the biblical foundation of body, soul and spirit?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so the best verse that I can think of as the basis for this teaching is found in 1 Thessalonians 5.23, where God talks about wanting to make us whole and complete spirit, soul and body and we spent a lot of time talking about that verse, as well as in Hebrews 4.12, where it says that the word of God divides between spirit and soul, and we spent some time discussing that question of if spirit and soul are the same thing, then why do they need to be divided by the word of God?
Speaker 1:And there were a lot of scriptures in that teaching that talked about both in Old Testament and New Testament so from both a Hebrew mindset as well as the Greek mindset of the New Testament about spirit, soul and body.
Speaker 1:And we talked a lot about Mary, the mother of Jesus, and when she meets Elizabeth and Elizabeth declares that Mary is carrying the Messiah and Elizabeth declares that you know that Mary is carrying the Messiah, Mary's response was that my soul glorifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God, my Savior. That's found in Luke 1, 47. And so there's just a lot of rich teaching about spirit, soul and body, and Paul does a lot with that where he talks. There's several places where he mentions blessing the spirits of others, and so the journey that we're going to be on this fall, as we go through Rock Journey together, is kind of digging through God's word and understanding spirit, soul and body and how they can be rejoicing and they can be worshiping, but they can also be troubled. Your spirit can be crushed, it can be broken. There's lots of things that can happen with our spirit, soul and body, and so our goal is to help our spirit, soul and body live in tune and in alignment with Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
Speaker 2:So, Elizabeth, how do we do that? How do we bring body, soul and spirit into alignment?
Speaker 1:Well, there's a couple of things. One, it's a choice. It's a choice that I'm going to wake up and allow my spirit, which is my human spirit, is connected to God's spirit. Right, that is the connection as we become believers. That is, the connection between God and man is the spirit, and so it's choosing to allow my spirit to be in the lead instead of say my soul or my body and we can get into more of that as we talk about how they impact one another. But when my soul is in charge, because my soul is more my emotions, my thoughts, the more the human part of me, right, and so my soul doesn't know everything. My spirit, connected to God's spirit, has access to things that maybe my brain doesn't understand, like even. I think of that verse that I love that talks about how it's impossible for us to conceive the height, the depth, the width of God's love for us. Our brains are not able to handle the fullness of who God is and how much he loves us. And so, while the soul is beautiful and has its place, there are limitations there.
Speaker 1:If I'm in a situation, and instead of leaning into God's understanding and what God is speaking to my spirit, I try to figure out logically what's going on. I can get it wrong. Or my favorite part of me that likes to be in charge is my body. I love food. I love food that tastes good. As I've talked before, I love sugar. It's probably my number one drug of choice. And so am I going to be driven by desires and lust of my body or am I going to make a choice to say no. I am being led by God and my spirit is going to take the lead over my body. I'm going to allow God to help me to make wise choices and do right things and have healthy emotional responses to people and allow God's spirit to flow through me. So, first off, it's a choice that I'm going to choose to stay close to him. The whole idea of abiding with him is a lot of it.
Speaker 1:But then also, this is where the concept of blessing or speaking to the spirit comes in, and there are four times in the New Testament where Paul blesses the spirits of others. He says may the grace of Jesus be with your spirit. He says it to the church in Galatians, in Galatians 6.18, and he says it in Philippians 4.23. And then twice he speaks about blessing the spirit of his friend Timothy in both 2 Timothy 4.22 and in Philemon, verse 25. And so there is this understanding in the culture of the early church that blessing or speaking to the spirit of someone was just part of the practice. I've kind of done some research and I don't have those figures in front of me right now, but you can kind of trace it through church history till about the 300s and then at that point it's kind of there are those leaders that come along and say this is heretical or this is not something we want people doing. I think that was more about power and control than anything else and so it kind of fades into the background a bit but never completely goes away as part of a church practice for us.
Speaker 1:So, blessing my own spirit think about David and Psalms very famous verse why so downcast, oh my soul. That is David speaking to himself. I believe that is David's spirit saying to his soul hey, we don't have to be downcast because we can put our hope in God. Because again, that's another situation where whatever David was going through on the run for his life, saul's trying to kill him In the natural. That looks like a very dangerous and sad and reason to be downcast situation, but his spirit knows the fullness of who God is and who David was in relationship to him and knew that God's got him and it's going to be okay. So we can put our hope in God. And so David spoke to his own soul. And so there's lots of times where we speak to ourselves, but there's also, as Paul did, where we bless others.
Speaker 1:Paul talks about his spirit a lot, and I remember in 1 Corinthians 16, I think it's chapter 16. Yeah, there are these others that arrive. Three of the Corinthians had arrived to supply what the whole church couldn't do at that time and Paul says they refreshed my spirit and yours also. Such men deserve recognition. Now, exactly what they did to refresh the spirits of those in the church at Corinth, we don't know. Obviously, it was enough of a normal practice within the church that Paul didn't have to go into a whole lot of explanation as to how that happened. There's lots of ways we can speak words of encouragement, speak words of life. Music can restore and refresh our spirit. Beauty can there's focusing in on God's word, focusing in on who God is. There's many different things that you can do to refresh your spirit and the spirit of others. And so it kind of comes down to what are you comfortable with and kind of just trying a few things and seeing how it goes.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I have a few more questions about, about blessing other people's spirit, blessing your own spirits you know that kind of thing. Before I ask that, help us understand Cause, when you like, a lot of times we don't break these things down and think about them, which is why we did the episode on the biblical foundation for these things. Right, but right, I understood soul a little bit better as you talked about it and I understand body Right. Help us understand spirit a little bit better, if you can.
Speaker 1:Sure, well, and some of this is where it gets kind of into the otherness of God category, somewhere in the mysteries of God, he created your spirit and when it was time for you to be created here on earth, and that time when it says he knit us together in our mother's womb think about Adam God breathed his breath into Adam and he became a living being. I think a similar process occurs where spirit, soul and body are knit together in your mother's womb and you become a living being. So what's going on before that? I don't know, and that's where I've just got to say you know, there are verses that talk about, somewhere in eternity. God created you, so you know. And we? He knew us before the foundations of the earth. So how did he know me before I came here in human form? I think that has to do with our spirit. So our spirit is the core essence of who God created us to be. So obviously, god's spirit, holy Spirit, is all knowing, all powerful, and he is the one who comforts and guides, corrects us, and so the way I understand it is, everyone has a human spirit.
Speaker 1:Christian, non-christian doesn't matter, and in the teaching that we shared with you a couple of weeks ago we talked about Nebuchadnezzar who did not. A follower of God wanted people to worship him, but yet he talked about his spirit being troubled. So even as a non-believer, he understood he had one. But the true power is is as we become believers there's a connection between God's spirit and ours. So how do I know if it's God's spirit or my spirit? I think, as long as I'm asking for God to speak to my spirit or be connected with my spirit, or I am choosing to abide and keep on abiding with God, in my spirit it's not. Was that God's spirit or my spirit. I see them more as a team kind of like. As I become a Christian I can't separate when I'm a Christian and when I'm not. It's who I am. I've become the covenant daughter of God most high.
Speaker 1:So I believe our spirit and I'm probably, as I talk about this, y'all can think in your own lives had there been times where you just had the sense that God was leading you a certain direction. But in the natural it didn't make a whole lot of sense, but you just kind of knew in your knower. I think this is what we need to do and maybe later on, as things unfolded, you realize. That's why I felt like God was telling me to do it that way. I mean, you look through the Old Testament.
Speaker 1:The things God asked the people of Israel to do were just weird. I mean, all kinds of stories about this confounds the human mind. But I want you to do this as an act of obedience to me, and so I believe that was God's spirit speaking to their spirit to walk around Jericho for seven days. First six days don't say a word, and then, you know, shouts of joy on the last day and the walls come down. No one would think in logic that walking around a city for seven days would make the city walls fall down. But God knows more.
Speaker 1:David talks about that.
Speaker 1:God speaks to him through the night watches.
Speaker 1:Well, if his body and his soul are asleep, I believe it is God's spirit speaking to David's spirit in the night watch.
Speaker 1:And I've had those times where you kind of we often say the phrase I need to sleep on that right, and so sometimes, when we wake up in the morning, we have a different thought or a different perspective or more peace about a decision, and I believe that God is speaking to us through the night watches and it's the process of God speaking to our spirit and then our human spirit getting it into a language that our mind and our emotions and our will can understand. But our spirit, our human spirit, while, yes, connected to God, is great but, just like as a Christian, I can choose to continue to sin. Our spirit isn't perfect, so it can struggle. Jesus talked about being troubled in the spirit. My spirit can choose to be disobedient. So I think that is some of the distinction between God's spirit and ours is just much like in the other areas of our life. We still have a will, we still have a choice and we still have to choose to obey.
Speaker 2:Does that help? Yeah, that's really helpful. And again, I want to go back to blessing your spirit, but I got one more question for you about like that goes in this, in this category how do my spirit, soul and body interact with one another? Well, I mean, let let's think.
Speaker 1:Let's think about that. I think all three impact one another. There are psychological and emotional benefits to exercise. I mean we know that. I mean I hate to hear that because I don't enjoy exercise, but there's multiple studies that have been found through the years that exercise can help treat depression and anxiety and it helps us sleep better at night. And there's all these endorphin and adrenaline and serotonin and all these things that are involved in our physical body that have an impact on our emotions or on our soul or on our help us. Sometimes, when I'm struggling with something, I just need to go take a walk and clarity comes to my mind as I get my body active, doing something right, and the body can have an effect on the spirit.
Speaker 1:John Piper wrote a book called I don't remember the title, maybe it was how to Fight for Joy, but it was about fighting for joy. And he asked a good question. He said are love, joy, peace, patience, goodness, kindness, gentleness and self-control the food of the spirit or of a good night's sleep? And I was like you know what? You're right. It's a whole lot easier for me to live in alignment, allowing God's spirit to control my spirit and respond the way that I should respond to people, when I've slept well, what I eat, if I yes, I love sugar. But after you eat the sugar, there's the, there's the happy time and then there's the crash. And then I get grouchy and mean Sometimes I am not displaying the fruit of the spirit because I'm in a sugar crash or I'm hungry or I'm tired. I mean, think of all those things where I don't make any decisions. When you're hungry or angry or lonely or tired, all of these types of things can impact. It's a whole lot easier to follow Jesus and to bend to his will when I'm taking care of all three parts and so, absolutely, and I think there's a lot of ways that you can use your soul and body to feed your spirit.
Speaker 1:I mentioned beauty and even Charles. I love this quote from Charles Spurgeon that I'd just like to read to you. He says it's wisdom to take occasional furloughs. In the long run, we shall do more by sometimes doing less. On and on and on.
Speaker 1:Forever, without recreation, may suit spirits emancipated from the heavy clay, but while we are in this tabernacle we must every now and then cry, halt and serve the Lord by holy inaction and consecrated leisure, and I think that is so important to hear, especially for those of us that are in full-time ministry. Just feel like I should always be serving the Lord. Even going to an art gallery, there's something deep that God may want to be speaking to your spirit as you are looking at beauty or for me it's going down to the beach sometimes and being able to see the vast horizon that doesn't end and there's something about the greatness and the majesty and the bigness of who God is that speaks to my spirit when I see that part of nature. And so I think there are ways. As I bless my spirit and I strengthen my spirit, it's easier for my soul and body to kind of get in line. The battle inside of me is less I know for sometimes, even like when someone is going through counseling, one of the things that I've encouraged some people to do is to be blessing their spirit while they're doing good soul work on. Here's some traumas from my past. This is how it affected my emotions and my heart and my mind, so that as my spirit is stronger, it gives me more capacity to be able to receive the healing that I need for my soul or my body. I've also blessed someone's spirit and asked their spirit to receive from God what is needed to bring physical healing to someone's body. I've watched them get healed, or over time, or the doctor all of a sudden had a different thought and they figured out what was really going on inside their body and healing came through, you know, medicine and surgery and other things. They're very integrated.
Speaker 1:Much like it's kind of asking how do you separate spirit, soul and body? It's also like, well, how do you totally separate Father, son and Holy Spirit? I mean, there's some roles that you can kind of understand, but in a lot of ways it's like, well, they're all God, so God is one, but God is three, and there's Father, son and Holy Spirit, but all three of them are God. I mean, if you want to get yourself in a swirl, just try to figure out the Trinity. So I think in some ways, as we are made in His image, we have some of that same complexity where we'll never fully be able to understand what exactly is spirit, what exactly is soul, what exactly is body? But we can come into a better understanding of it. What exactly is body? But we can come into a better understanding of it. And then also, the goal is mainly about all three of them being under the lead of God.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's all really helpful and insightful. So you were talking about, like us, blessing our own spirit and then also blessing other spirit, and you're talking about how we see that in scripture. We see first Corinthians scripture, we see 1 Corinthians. You see that idea of refreshing your spirit. So I would imagine that that feels strange or uncomfortable at first, because we're accustomed to praying for others. But blessing is different, and so do we have to be with the person to speak to their spirit? Do we have to say it out loud? Can we bless them at a distance, like, speak to that a little bit?
Speaker 1:Do we have to say it out loud. Can we bless them at a distance, like speak to that a little bit? Yeah, and I mean it's it's. I know a lot of people kind of push back on this when I say, you know, speak to your spirit or bless your spirit, because it might feel a little new agey to them and we talked a little bit about that in the teaching and it's like, well, I mean, honestly, the enemy can't create anything, he can only counterfeit. So while the New Age movement may be doing things with the human spirit, the original creator of the idea of the human spirit was God, and so I don't think we should back away from this teaching just because it might feel a little weird, but there are boundaries for it.
Speaker 1:But yes, I am an extreme introvert and the older I get, the more of a hermit I become, and so I'm not the one who wants to talk to the stranger on the airplane that I'm sitting next to. I don't want to go up to people out in public that I don't know and say can I pray for you? That's not me. It's really got to be like God really pressing down on me that you need to do this for me to do it out loud, but just think about it. Blessing someone's spirit is kind of it's like prayer. Sometimes we pray out loud, sometimes we pray silently, sometimes we pray with the person, sometimes we pray for someone who's far away, and so, in the same way, blessing your spirit can be done that way and it's kind of like think about it. Even when someone tells us a problem, you can either say to them I'll be praying for you and walk away from the conversation, or you can say can I pray for you right now? And sometimes it's so much more impactful for the person to hear you praying for them instead of just knowing that they're praying for you and so are for them. And so it's the same in blessing someone's spirit. There's a most of the time, especially when I'm out in public I am not going to bless someone's spirit out loud, and that is simply a personality choice. Kimberly, you and I have friends who have never met a stranger and think a groom full of people is a playground, and I'm like God bless you. You go do that. So they would go up to all these people and say can I bless you? And just bless them right there and think that was fun.
Speaker 1:My story is I was taught about blessing the spirit and was taught a whole lot less than what we have in Rock Journey, because after I was taught basically just the first Thessalonians 5, 23 verse saying you have one and God wants to make it whole, so go do that. We have spent a lot of time, mom and I have digging into the scripture and kind of fleshing out all the verses for this, but I was just told very basic. And I remember I left the conference and I stopped at Chick-fil-A because that's what all good Christians do is they eat at Chick-fil-A and the lady was putting my order together at the counter and so I thought, okay, I'll just try this. And so while she's sitting there taking my money at the register or whatever, just silently from inside my own heart and spirit, I just said I read her name, let's say it was Rachel. Rachel, I just bless you to know that God loves you and that he is happy with who you are. So didn't say those words out loud, but, just like you, pray silently, bless her spirit silently. She was looking down at the register, you know, trying to get my change, and she looked up at me and she said thank you and I just froze and then she said, I don't know why, I just said that to you and I was like, uh-uh, uh-uh, this is too weird. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. So I decided after that I'm not blessing people who can talk back to me.
Speaker 1:I'll start with babies, okay, because at the conference we had talked about, hey, you have a human spirit from the time you were born and how awesome is it to begin to bless the spirit of your children from the time they're coming out of the womb. Their brain isn't formed and they don't have language, but their spirit is there and you can bless their spirit. And so I started going at Walmart. Wherever I was, you know you're in line, there's always a mom with a baby in Walmart. So when I'm in line waiting to check out, the mom's in front of me and little baby's there and I just start with babies. You know I was like, you know, little one. I just want you to know that God knows you have a spirit, and your mom and dad may not even know you have a spirit, but God knows and he sees you.
Speaker 1:And we talked about a verse in the teaching that we did a couple of weeks ago that talks about how, job in Job, where it says that he's watched over our spirits from the time that he has put us in our mother's womb, and so I just quote that verse. You know, I just bless you to know and I quote that verse to them and you know, or just say that bless them with. God knows the plans he has for you to give you and hope in a future. And every time I bless babies and I've checked this out with other people it happens with them as well. Baby doesn't matter how young it is, they will turn and look you in the eye the entire time you're blessing them. That also kind of freaked me out, but at least they're not talking to me.
Speaker 1:So I was like, okay, and when I would stop blessing they would go back and you know, just look around at whatever. And then I was like I got to try that again. So I started blessing the baby. Again. It turned around and looked at me and I was like, okay, there's something to this. I need to get in the word, need to understand more.
Speaker 1:And so for me, that's where I'm most comfortable is blessing babies. That can't talk back to me, but there are times if I feel led, or you know, a friend calls me on the phone and they're just spinning with trauma. Just as a way to help get their emotions to calm down, I will just start blessing their spirit to know the peace of God, to know the love of God, to know that God is in control. And so it's just using whatever Bible promises, who God is all never trying to direct what you want them to do. So it's not I bless you to become a lawyer. It is using who God is, his word, who we are in Him, just to help encourage the Spirit to take up its full capacity that God has given it.
Speaker 2:Is there extra authority or extra power in blessing someone's spirit compared to like praying for someone?
Speaker 1:Yes and no. I see it just as another tool for the toolbox, so it's not replacing prayer. It may not necessarily be more powerful than prayer, because prayer is very powerful. But one thing I do see is, again, in situations like I was just talking about, where someone's soul is so spinning out of control with fear or trauma or sadness, or there's something's going on, sometimes, if I am praying for a person, their brain is just like I can't even take this in right now, you know, because there's just so much going on and so sometimes blessing that person's spirit to turn towards God, receive what God wants to say to you about the situation, because I don't know what to, sometimes even what to pray.
Speaker 1:So, god, I don't even know what to pray for my friend here who's in crisis Would you speak the words that she needs to hear from you to her spirit and her soul and her body? And so oftentimes if I'm praying or blessing someone, I end up kind of going back and forth I'll pray a little bit, and then you bless a little bit and pray a little bit, and it kind of gets mixed together, because that's also what I see Paul doing in scripture is they'll start out saying I pray that you will know this. And then he says may the God of peace be with you. And so he's mixing this prayer and blessing together. So I don't know that one has more authority than the other, but it's just like sometimes you need a hammer and sometimes you need a screwdriver.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So sometimes you can say, lord, I pray that you would cause this person to love you with all their heart. Or you can say I pray that you would cause this person to love you with all their heart. Or you can say, I bless you with loving God with all your heart. I mean, you can interchange those things a little bit. What about the boundaries or the guidelines when you're blessing someone's spirit? Because I know we have to be wise and careful with that too.
Speaker 1:Yes, and we talked about this in the other recording as well. It is very easy, especially if you are blessing the spirit of, say, a spouse, a child, someone that you feel like you have a lot of understanding of how they should be or what they should be doing. It would be very easy to try to use blessing someone's spirit, or speaking to someone's spirit, as a manipulative tool to get them to act a certain way, and that is absolutely beyond the bounds of what we're trying to do. You don't see that in scripture anywhere. What you see, the idea of blessing is a lot of times it's about identity. It's or about who God is. May you know who God is. May you know who you are in him, which is our heartbeat around here, kim.
Speaker 1:And so anytime you are trying to manipulate or control the human spirit of another person to get them to do something, you have slipped into witchcraft, and that's a big word and not a word I use lightly, but that's what witchcraft is is trying to manipulate the will and the choices of another human being outside of God, and so I don't know what God's up to. I may think that my child is supposed to be an astronaut, but God may know that my child has the heart of a surgeon or an artist or a mechanic, like I don't know what the plans are for my child that God has and has had for my child since the beginning of time, and so it's much more about blessing my child to have a heart and a spirit and a mind that are open to hear what God has to say to them, and it's just making space for people to be able to hear from God, rather than I bless you to be this type of person or do this type of thing.
Speaker 2:So can we bless the spirit of someone who's not yet a Christian, a pre-Christian.
Speaker 1:I say yes, much like I know a lot of us pray for children, family, friends who are not believers, that they would come to know Christ. And I think of the story of the prodigal son. There's a lovely phrase in there that I pray it and bless people with it all the time. So the prodigal son comes to his father and says I want my inheritance. He goes off into the land, he spends it all on sinful things and he ends up having to work as a slave or a servant in someone else's farm. And there's a phrase in there that says and when he came to himself he returned to his father's house. I don't even know what all that means, but it just is such a powerful phrase of what all happened in that moment for that son.
Speaker 1:I don't know, it's not said in scripture, but I often, for pre-Christians, will bless them that they will come to themselves. And by that I mean who did God breathe them to be when God knitted them together in their mother's womb? What was in God's mind? So I bless that you would come to yourself and return to your father's house, and I bless their spirit to be open to hear the voice of God.
Speaker 1:And I will also quote scriptures that a lot of us have adult children or even teenagers, whatever that they're like, I don't want to hear your Jesus stuff right, there's been some wounding by the church or who knows what all has happened, or we've wounded them in some way and they're not really open to hearing us talk to them about the gospel. There's nothing stopping you from one praying that your child will come to know that Jesus is the way, and there's also nothing stopping you from blessing their spirit with scripture. So I bless your spirit to know that Jesus is the way, the truth and the life. Okay, and so that's not manipulating them, that's not trying to control them, it's just speaking in a way that part of them can hear and strengthening their spirit, because maybe their spirit does hunger for God, but their soul and body are often rebellion and like what they're up to, and it's a bit of an unfair battle between spirit, soul and body. So we strengthen the spirit of people so that they can then choose to follow after God.
Speaker 2:So, along with that, there are a couple of resources that the Father's Business has. You are blessed, right, you are blessed in the names of God. Blessed in the names of God. Blessings for life, daily spirit blessings. Yes, so those tools can help us know how to bless others. You've alluded to this, but let's go back to it and make sure it's clear. Can we bless our own spirit?
Speaker 1:Yes, I mean, we see it several times, the most famous one being David saying why so downcast on my soul, Put your hope in God. There's a lot of times that we have to wake up in the morning to preach into ourselves Elizabeth, it doesn't matter what the circumstances of your life are today. Jesus is still on the throne and you're still a covenant daughter and we're going to make it through this. So, yes, we can. When it comes to those resources, you Are Blessed Blessings for Life and Daily Spirit Blessings.
Speaker 1:There are a lot of people that can read those and read them either out loud or just silently to themselves and receive it. There are some people who have said I can't read them to myself, but if someone else reads them to me, I'm really ministered to by them, and I mean that could be learning styles. There could be a lot of things going on there that I don't fully understand why For some people it's very easy for them to bless their own spirit. I spend a lot of time telling my own okay, spirit, soul and body. We're all going to be on the same team and we're all going to be aligned in Father, Son and Holy Spirit. So that type of blessing, of blessing and speaking to my own spirit.
Speaker 1:As far as the blessings in those books, some people can read them over themselves. Some people need to hear someone else saying it to them, and that, I believe, is just a learning style. So we also have created you've heard some of the blessings that we had at the end of Safe in the Father's Heart, because we had our board member, Richard, record all of those. And then we have three volumes of blessings from you Are Blessed in the Name of God, where I'm reading the blessings and saying the blessings for people, and so those are available as CDs and also as MP3s that you can download, as mp3s that you can download. So if you are one of those people that is like I just need to hear someone else's voice blessing me. We created those as a way to make that resource available. And then also our devotional podcasts that we're sending out on Tuesday. Some of them are blessing devotionals, some of them are prayer or other types of devotionals, and so you can also find some of those audio blessings on our podcast.
Speaker 2:So I think you hit on this a few minutes earlier too. Like we want to remember that blessing the spirit does not replace prayer.
Speaker 1:No.
Speaker 2:Doesn't replace counseling. It adds another dimension or tool in the toolbox, right yeah?
Speaker 1:absolutely, it goes both ways. I remember times when I have been in intensive counseling that blessing my spirit before I went into the session and then also blessing my spirit after I left the session really helped that time in that counseling session be much more productive and helped me process through things better. I also have had times where I have almost felt my spirit saying thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you for taking the time to do the soul work, because it's it's all three parts need to be healthy. So if I'm blessing my spirit and trying to strengthen my spirit, but I've got this wound in my soul that I'm carrying around and not dealing with my spirit's having to work overtime to compensate for a soul that's not fully healthy, and so I think it works both ways. Yes, blessing the spirit helps, but also counseling and dealing with soul issues or body issues, making sure I'm eating right and hydrating myself and exercising. As my body is healthy, it's easier for me to live from the fullness of spirit, soul and body.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, I think. I mean I think you've answered a lot of the questions that I've had and that others have had about this. There's lots of questions that people continue to have, and so if you've got other questions as you're listening to this, feel free to shoot those our way via email or through our website or on our social media outlets. We are going to be diving into the Ruach Journey Study in about two weeks, and so we hope you will join us then and, in the meantime, continue to ruminate on these things. Check out some of these resources. If you don't have them, go online and order them. They're under the store link on the fathersbusinesscom website and you will definitely benefit from these resources and just start practicing some of this stuff, like Elizabeth was talking about.
Speaker 1:I mean just go to your local Chick-fil-A and try blessing somebody and see what happens yeah.
Speaker 2:And I think you'll be really encouraged and don't give up and get discouraged if you're not yet either Like just it's a journey, it's a process. It's not called Ruach journey for nothing, right.
Speaker 1:Right, and that definitely is why we use the word journey in the title, because also I know the teaching we shared last week and even this question answer may feel like a little like drinking out of a fire hydrant, which is why I'm looking forward to spending about 13 weeks going through the study to kind of slow it down a bit and ask more questions and basically it's also I believe your spirit is hearing this and are like, yeah, yeah, I like there's something here, I want this, but we also have to understand it takes our brain sometimes a little longer to catch up.
Speaker 1:So giving our minds because we're not trying to dismiss our minds, our minds are beautiful and God-given and so giving our brains the time to process through and understand and ask the questions and fully come to an understanding of maybe some things that your spirit is like yeah, got it Ready, let's go, but we definitely need to make sure that all parts of us are on board Next week. I'm super excited Sam Storms is going to join us. This is going to be fun. He is probably my favorite person when it comes to thinking about the balance between word and spirit, and by that we mean hearing God through scripture, but then also, jesus says my sheep know my voice, so how do we hear the voice of God? What does the role of the Holy Spirit today? And so we're just going to jump in and have some good conversation with him next week and really looking forward to that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that'd be great. So join us then, and then join us for the Ruach journey, prepare for that on September 21st, so we will see you back next week.
Speaker 1:I want to thank you for listening to the Father's Business Podcast. This podcast is made possible through donations by people like you. To donate, go to wwwTheFathersBusinesscom. Be sure to follow us at the Father's Biz on Instagram and Facebook.
