Honest Christian Conversations
A weekly podcast dealing with cultural and spiritual issues within the Christian faith.
Honest Christian Conversations
Are You In A Revelationship?
What does it mean to have a "revelationship" with God? Cathy Garland guides us through this profound concept with Southern charm and biblical wisdom that will transform how you view your spiritual journey.
CATHY'S WEBSITE: https://www.revelationship.net/
WANT TO PURCHASE CATHY'S BOOK? CLICK HERE
WANT MORE EPISODES ABOUT BIBLE STUDY?
DO YOU WANT A SHOUT-OUT ON THE PODCAST? Use one or ALL of these links below
VISIT THE WEBSITE
https://www.honestchristianconversations.com/
JOIN THE COMMUNITY
https://www.honestchristianconversations.com/hcccommunity
CHECK OUT THE STORE
RESOURCES FOR YOU
Leave a Review for the Podcast
ARE YOU A PODCASTER?
Friends, welcome back to Honest Christian Conversations. I'm your host, anna Murby. My guest, kathy Clover Garland, is a very sweet Southern woman. That alone is one reason to love her, but another one is because of her deep love and connection with Christ and the Bible, and how simply she puts it so that we can understand as well. Because I don't know about you, but I want to have a deep relationship with God and I'm always looking for new ways to encounter God, ways to understand who he is and to feel His presence around me. I don't necessarily want to have that mountaintop experience all the time, or that one you get when you go to camp and that high that you have. You're not going to have that all the time, but you can have a deep connection with God and all you have to do is keep him in the center of your life. And the way she talks about this is contagious and makes you want to have it too. She reminds us of the simple ways that we can encounter God All together. This is a wonderful conversation that you are going to enjoy so much.
Speaker 1:Let's get into this awesome episode with Kathy Before the episode starts. Make sure you follow the show so you never miss another episode. Kathy, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. I'm very excited to have you on. I heard you a long time ago. You were on Johnny T's podcast, refuge Freedom Stories, and your story really resonated with me a lot and encouraged me, so I had to have you on the podcast. I'm sorry that it took so long to get you on. It was a while ago, but I had not forgotten you. And yeah, I just I want to pick your brain about your book, which unfortunately, I haven't had a chance to read.
Speaker 1:But I am looking forward to it. It's one of mine that I plan on reading, but I want to talk about your book and I want to know how you managed to have a revelationship, which is the name of your book. How did you come to have a solid, deep relationship with God? Because this is a thing that I know a lot of Christians want to have and it's not easy to attain, especially depending on what season of life you're in. You know, having little kids I've got all different seasons. I've got teenagers, adults, and I've got it all. I've got little kids. So it's hard for a mom to find time to make a deep relationship with God. So tell us how you realized that you needed a deeper relationship. I know you've been involved in church forever. Your father is a pastor, and how did being raised like that bring you into who you are today?
Speaker 2:Yes, you're right, being a mom makes it harder. You're certainly going to have devotions are going to look very different. They may be eating a granola bar, saying help me, jesus, as you run your bloody nose child to the ER because it's got the Lego up it. Oh no, I mean. You know, we have to be real about life. I mean, sometimes devotions is not morning devotions. It doesn't look like the leisurely, quiet time that I had before I had children and a husband, you know. So, yes, it changes different seasons. I think something one of the pastor's wives that is also an aunt of mine she told me a long time ago was that if you keep Christ at the center, so not to prioritize 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10. Men can do that, but in a day for a woman those priorities are all jumbled and a mess. And are you kidding me? I'll be lucky if I check off two of those priorities, right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm a to-do list person, so I get that yeah.
Speaker 2:I get that too, but I also don't want to lay in bed at night consumed with the fact that I didn't spend enough time with my child, right? So that happens to women too. So there's this thing that we have to do. So we have to be gracious with ourselves. And she told me put God as the center, not one, two, three. Not God is the top, god is the center. That's a very different thing. God at the center and then all the different roles are sort of the spokes of a wheel and as you're rolling along in different seasons, one or more of those spokes are going to be under pressure and that you have to roll with that, literally roll with that, and that's okay. We call that a season. But there's this thing in Christians, particularly, where we think we have to be all things to all people, using Paul's scripture, but using it wrong, and so we think that means that we've got to balance these plates, spinning plates and balance. Balance these plates, spinning plates and balance achieve some kind of Hindu utopian balance. It's not even in the Bible, it's an unbiblical concept, whereas seasons and knowing that you're in a different season, and being gracious and faithful to yourself which means for me eating right. When I'm chopping up strawberries for my kid, I got to eat them myself right. So those kinds of things. She kind of really helped me make sure that I wasn't just a priority person, because in corporate world you can be, but then all the rest of your life gets thrown into like one spot on your to-do list. That's not going to work.
Speaker 2:Growing up in the church, as you said, I always had a close relationship with Christ. I knew salvation and understood it in varying degrees as I grew up. When I was 13, I saw a lot of hypocrisy because the business world had moved into the church and things switched from the Jesus movement. We were from that sort of flow, the Jesus movement flow. We shared everything and we were living in each other's houses and eating together all the time and asking each other what is God doing in your life? It switched to a very business mentality and because of that I saw a lot of hypocrisy and I saw things that discouraged me and I told my parents you know I don't think this is for me, something's not right here and my dad, who is both a pastor and what we would call an ordained teacher, so we do believe in the Bible. And so, as a teacher, he said all right, here's what we're going to do. We're going to go to the library and check out books on all the religions and we'll study them. And I was homeschooled, so that was easy and we did. And by the end of my 13th year I was convinced that Christ was real, he was who he said he was and he wanted a relationship with me. So that was the basis for what came next.
Speaker 2:And then, over the years, I did feel like I had sort of stopped at a wall and that people were pretending that they were moving beyond this wall and I didn't understand what it was Like. We would go away to camp and we would experience the power of the Holy Spirit and we would repent and we would, you know, just have these kumbaya moments with God. And they were real, I'm not discounting them. But then we would come back and the world would just take it out of us. You know, it was just like a skiv, you know, and it just leaked out of you and I was like, how do you keep the power of God alive? And so that for me, was absolute surrender. It was like I was a lamp walking around with a plug trying to plug in, and the plug really was surrendering absolutely All that. I am, all that. I'm not good, bad, the ugly and everything I ever hoped to be. I surrender to the Lord absolutely. And that gave me the power to explore, sort of a framework to explore. What is it that he's saying?
Speaker 2:And then, as I told our friend Johnny T, one of the main things that happened for me to make the Bible come alive, because I've read it so many times, I mean I had certificates on my wall for reading the Bible. I think so many times like I had them. And many times I mean I had certificates on my wall for reading the Bible, I think so many times Like I had them. And it was the Old Testament which is dry and so much blood, and like how many cows have to die for these people, and so I'm really dreading reading this Old Testament yet again. And he said look for me, look for me revealing myself. And so I began to look for the God who, which is actually the title of my next book, and then how God says things like I am the God who sees you, I am the God who rescues you, I am the God who makes myself available to you. You know all these different things that he says and I started to find them, particularly in Genesis, and it just made it come alive.
Speaker 1:Your parents. Giving you the opportunity to search through different religions is definitely not something that every child has, especially Christian children, because their parents just kind of get on. I don't want them to learn about other religions. What if they choose that one? Well, that's a big what if? And that's their decision. But if you just keep them locked into one thing, what makes you think they aren't going to go searching for that later if they're having the same kind of feelings you were having? So I think that was a very wise decision that your parents were able to do that for you and go through it with you.
Speaker 1:I mean, I'm right now. I'm still learning about different languages. I didn't learn about all that stuff. I went to a Christian school but I don't remember them talking too much in depth about other religions to a point where I was thinking maybe I would rather do this one. Not that I ever went that way, because I was the good girl who did everything she was told to and live the way I was told to because I was told to. So there was that.
Speaker 1:But for you to have that hunger and that desire at such a young teenage year and realizing that I want to plug in and I want to stay plugged in in and I want to stay plugged in. I don't want it to just be a one and done. Or the camp thing is a very good example, because I used to go to youth camp too. You get the high, you're feeling it, you come home, maybe it sticks for a couple days and then life sets in. And it's the same with the newlywed phase. It's like you're there, you're in love and then all of a sudden you want to throw something at them and you're like, when did it end? And it's the same thing.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, that's awesome that you were able to do that. Definitely going to have to read your next book too, because that's a brilliant way to read the Old Testament Because, as you said, it's very dry, it's very difficult, no-transcript, but it is hard to read If you're not putting God first. And I like how you said you were reading to see who God was, what he does and focusing on him, because that's what the Bible is supposed to be about is God?
Speaker 2:Yeah, and my children. I'm doing the same thing Now. I have a son who is nine and a daughter who is seven, and so we're talking about things that I think adults struggle even now to talk about. Like you mentioned, I think, with your podcast with Johnny T about Sodom and Gomorrah. I've already had that conversation with them on several occasions.
Speaker 2:That, and you know, Nineveh and kind of the conversation that, whenever I come to a scripture verse or a story that reveals something about God, I do have a framework for that. It's not just like willy-nilly, I have a framework. The framework starts with God is holy, because that's what he says he is and God is good. So whatever happens in this story, I know it's going to reveal that God is both holy and good. So you know, when I read something like Sodom and Gomorrah and the negotiation between God and Abraham, or when somebody says, well, you know, God changes his mind because he changed his mind with Abraham, I'm like nope, nope, that's not how it worked. He didn't change his mind, he still destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah.
Speaker 2:And, technically, if you're a full out theologian and you know that God is omnipresent and he exists in an eternal now, that he has no past and no future. He only has an eternal now. He actually already destroyed it when he was talking to Abraham, because he does everything in his eternal now. He is still present, laying the foundations of the earth. He's still present knitting you and I and our mother's wounds. He is still present in the future where he has full victory and technically we're with him, but we just haven't experienced it yet as far as he's concerned. There is only now. And so that whole negotiation. There was a reason he allowed Abraham to negotiate. What was it? He said I'm doing this so that Abraham's descendants can know what is holy and righteous and good. He said that's why he's doing it. And so you know, if you read the Bible with those foundational understandings God is holy, God is good then it's going to reveal an aspect of his character that is holy and good.
Speaker 1:Mind-blowing content.
Speaker 1:Ladies and gentlemen, mind-blowing content. I love it, mind-blowing content. I am soaking up so much new information about who God is and who I thought he was and what he actually is, and realizing some things from what I once believed, and even years ago, a couple years ago, things I believe that I no longer believe. God is always showing me new things, revelations, and I love it and I'm here for it. I wasn't always open to seeing new ideas and understanding and reading the Bible in a fresh, new way.
Speaker 1:I was very close-minded. Very well, this is how I was raised. This is what I was told. I'm not going to question it. You can't question God. You can't question that. My parents told me this. My church told me that I have to believe it. If I don't believe it, what's going to happen? That's just how I was very doom and gloom. If I don't believe this, if this isn't true the way I think it is, then what is true? What is? And then you start freaking out and you're like, oh no, maybe it's wrong, and then you don't know what to do with that. So that was me.
Speaker 2:Well, it's probably part of your God-given personality is probably stability and those kinds of things, and there's nothing wrong with that at all. I tend to be more of a maverick. I tend to be more of the one who throws the bomb in the conference meeting. So it comes out a little differently, Don't? I'm not afraid to confront different people, especially if I think it's true, or stop people in their tracks if they're saying something to me or over me, or over my children or something like that. So there's a boldness that can come from that. But I think what you're talking about and what I'm talking about is who we are in Christ, because we're talking about who God is revealing himself to be. But the key part of that is also what it says about me. So practicality, this is for your listeners. This is not more of the deep theology, which I love, but we could go there anytime.
Speaker 2:But he says I look up, I see what God is. Then I look down and I see who I am because of who he is. And then I look around and I see what I'm supposed to be doing in order to participate in who God is and what he's doing. What he's doing and who he is can never be separated. So if I look up and I see that God is the God who sees injustice, like Hagar and sees me, she said Elroy, you're the God who sees me Then I look down, I am seen. Even when injustice happens to me, I am seen by God. That makes me very valuable to him. I am seen. Being seen today is this big deal because most people are not seen and partly because of COVID and the isolation and all this sort of thing. But if I look up, god is the God who sees me. I am seen. Now I need to go around and I need to do the same thing to other people so I can participate.
Speaker 2:That's the practical outworking of why he reveals himself. One he wants relationship. Two he wants you to know who you are. Three he wants you to get involved. Does that make sense? Yeah, yeah, he wants relationship. Two he wants you to know who you are. Three he wants you to get involved. Does that make sense?
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, exactly. We're supposed to be the hands and feet of Jesus. We are supposed to see other people see the needs there and meet those according to to do. Hey friends, have you joined the Honest Christian Conversations online group yet? If you haven't, you're missing out on a perfect opportunity to grow your relationship with Jesus Christ. This is a community for those who want to go deeper in their relationship. You can do Bible studies together, ask the questions you have biblically and get the answers that you might need or maybe you're somebody who has answers to somebody else's questions. You can leave your prayer requests. You can leave your praise reports.
Speaker 1:This is a community. This is what church is supposed to be, and I am so glad that I finally took that step to make this group so that people's lives can flourish in Jesus name. Also, if you haven't signed up for the mailing list, you're missing out on an opportunity there as well. I send out a weekly email chocked full of so much awesome content that I don't have time right now to share it all with you. But when you do sign up for that mailing list, you get my seven-day free devotional that I created just for those who sign up for the mailing list. If you haven't joined either of these, you can go to my website, honestchristianconversationscom and sign up there, or you can use the links for it in the show notes. What drove you to write your book Revelationship which is a very clever title, by the way?
Speaker 2:Thank you. It's not as clever as you think, because Amazon changed it from Revelationship to Relationship. So if your listeners actually look for the book on Amazon, if you type in revelationship, it will change it to relationship, which is annoying.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it is.
Speaker 2:It is Revelationship Kathy Garland or Randy Culver you'll find it. So anyway, why did we write the book? Dad and I wrote the book because two reasons. One, I was writing the God who and it's taken me 10 years to get through Genesis. That's what's going to be in the book the God who. 10 years of all the revelations of who God is in Genesis just Genesis, which is enormous amount. There's more revelations in Genesis than the rest of the Bible put together. It's probably because he was trying to introduce himself. He's like this is who I am, you know, just in case you didn't know Anyway.
Speaker 2:So I was writing that and I was sharing it with his interns and my dad was like this is good, but a lot of people do not have a framework for experiencing God's revelation. And it is true like maybe you learn to experience God through worship at your church if you're a sensate, or maybe reading the Bible. Those two are kind of the key. Maybe community, if that's sort of your love, language or acts of service. You know, experiencing God through those things are certainly sacred pathways, as we call them in the church history, but not really anything beyond that.
Speaker 2:So a lot of people are afraid to experience God in nature, which is outlandish but it's real, mostly, I think, because Wiccanism became very popular when I was younger, and, of course, paganism. And you know, if you go outside and you're experiencing God in nature, are you really experiencing God or maybe are you experiencing paganism? You know there's that sort of mission, but the Bible says that creation declares loudly who God is. And so getting out there in the silence and the quiet, putting your feet on the grass, listening to his birds, listening to just the stillness of things, a lot of people like city girls, like me I grew up in Atlanta, I'm a city girl. My nighttime crickets is airplanes going ahead Like people, my husband-.
Speaker 1:I was from Sacramento, California.
Speaker 2:Okay, so you understand. Yes, the sound of the air brakes of semi trucks puts me to sleep. My husband he's more of a country boy. He grew up in Tennessee and Augusta and so he likes the quieter.
Speaker 2:I have had to learn to appreciate quiet. It's a discipline that I did not have and I had to acquire it. In order to hear God's voice, I have to silence all the other voices that are coming 24-7, from the Internet, from TV, from the radio, from music, from my parents, my mom's voice in my head, my dad's voice in my head, even the church. I mean 24-7, we have voices going into our ears, and is it any wonder people can't discern the voice of God? They have a deluge of voices to listen to. You go outside, go quiet. I guarantee you God will speak to you, because that's where he first speaks to us in the Bible, when he creates creation, in the garden. So he's there, present in creation. So dad said you got to write a book to help people have a framework for experiencing God, and so that's why we wrote Revelationship God revealing himself as he pursues us for relationship Revelationship.
Speaker 1:Beautiful, awesome. I'm not always a nature person because mosquitoes enjoy me so much and I don't like the humidity. Here in Connecticut it's terrible. I feel like I can't breathe and I know everyone on the East Coast right now is booing me because they don't, because you have to shovel and I don't really have a problem with shoveling as long as it's soft snow. But my favorite time of year or to hear or to even feel God's presence is when it's nighttime, it's quiet and it's snowing. I love going outside. I will go and shovel by myself if I have to. My husband does most of the shoveling, but I will go out and do it by myself, no problem. Sometimes I'll take some music, but even if I do have music, just looking around, I feel God's presence and that just reminds me of how we've been washed white as snow and I look at the fresh snow that's on the grass that nobody's touched yet and it just it brings me back to that verse and it reminds me of that's what God sees when he sees me, because I am his child. And yeah, I completely agree with you.
Speaker 1:Nature is where it all started. Nature is where we need to go and I think that's one of Satan's tactics is to pervert it somehow. Like you said, are we going out for God or are we going out because it's new agey or it's hippie or whatever? And, yes, maybe some people that's why they go out. God knows your motives, he knows the heart posture of you going out. So if you're going out for new age purposes, then that's something you need to repent from. But you can't not go outside because of that, because you're afraid that, oh, the new age has made it that way, hijacked it. Yeah, yes, exactly. There's been a lot of hijacking lately of certain things, absolutely and exactly. There's been a lot of hijacking lately of certain things.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. And another way people have not been taught, unfortunately, how to experience God is through suffering, and this seems to be a theme I'm not the only one I noticed talking about this, but the church has failed to teach us how to suffer well and to glorify God through suffering. We're going to learn it. There will be a time and the time to come, when it's closer to the end and I don't know when that's going to be Don't ever ask me to predict it, because whatever day I choose, that is not the day. But he tells us you're going to suffer in my name, so suffer well, and this is something we have to learn. Suffer in my name, so suffer well, and this is something we have to learn.
Speaker 2:And I was just speaking to the middle school and upper school and my son's school. It's a Christian school, it's a classical Christian school, and I was in the chapel and I said that I wasn't naive enough to think that the kids in this room haven't suffered. There were kids, say, 17, 18 and younger, who were crying while I was talking, because they have suffered and we have to be able to talk about it, and talking about it is not including. Pick is a thing that happens to children and it's suffering. So I was talking to them about two things.
Speaker 2:I said there's a garden and you've got to plant seeds in your garden from reading the Bible, planting scripture, so that it's there, so that when you suffer in order to suffer, well, you have something. Like a man goes out to his garden and he looks for vegetables to eat and there's nothing there because he didn't plant them. Well, that's stupid. So plant it with the scripture and then reap them during suffering. There has to be something for you to know about God, like you have to have the scriptures that tell you what God is, who God is, what he does, what he does not do. You know, like I don't change, etc. And then you can go out to that garden and you can reap it when you suffer. So if he's close to the brokenhearted and you're brokenhearted and you know that scripture, you will experience God who is closer than a brother. Does that make sense?
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I've had my share of suffering, so I definitely I resonate with that and I read a lot of Voice of the Martyrs. Yeah, I get theirs too, their magazines, and I'll read them to my kids and I'll remind them that there's children who don't get food, there's children who suffer, there's children who don't get food, there's children who suffer. I said there's probably children even close to you that you know at school who are not able to get food. So we need to learn how to be grateful for what we have, because at some point you never know if you will be in that position. I said everything we have is a gift. You're not entitled to it and at some point it can all be taken away.
Speaker 1:And I read the stories, not because I want them to hear all the terrible things that have happened to different Christians, but that I want them to think outside of themselves and realize that there's other areas around where there's kids and they suffer and they go through things with their families and they go through these things on behalf of Jesus too, so that they know that this is not going to be a cakewalk. This is going to be a struggle sometimes and you have to learn how to handle it, which is I didn't handle things well. I got really angry, I got addicted to things, I did not suffer well and I don't want that for my kids.
Speaker 2:I was in a Bible study recently and one of the oldest members of the Bible study she's like 80, she said we were reading Revelations and she said I'm reading this about those who overcome to the end, and she's like. That strikes fear in my heart because I can't even deal with a paper cut. How am I going to deal with martyrdom? Now? It's highly unlikely she's going to have to because she's the age that she is. But she has suffered. I know she has. She's a widow and she's lost children and she's lost all sorts of things.
Speaker 2:And so I told her, as I told the kids in the school part of learning to suffer well is learning the faithfulness of God, proving it to yourself. You suffer in a small way, small comparatively, and then you learn that God is there, he is faithful, he comes through for you or he's just there while you go through it. Like sometimes being there for you is the way he shows up. It's not rescue. Sometimes he rescues, sometimes he doesn't. And so you prove yourself in this way and then you prove yourself in this way and then you prove yourself in that way. You proved yourself over and over again God is good, he is faithful.
Speaker 2:And then, when you hit the big suffering. I presume you know persecution, like these voices of the martyr, I get the magazine too. I love it. When you hit those, you're like, okay, the same God who kept me like David said, the same God who kept me and gave me the power to kill the lion and the bear, he will help me destroy and vanquish this enemy. So the same God who keeps me in this life is the same God who will keep me as I face death.
Speaker 1:Whatever that is, yeah that's a very good reminder. And, yeah, I know there's times where I'm reading through the books and I'm like I don't think I could handle this if this was my child, if this was my husband. And I appreciate when they get vulnerable and they say it was not easy to forgive the person who killed their spouse or their child. Some of them maybe they have a quick turnaround, some of them not so much, but you learn through those things and you pick yourself up. You allow God to help you through, and that's what we need to do. No matter how small our suffering may be compared to someone else's or how big we think it is. We need to, like you said, we need to trust in God. We need to know that he is faithful. He will always be faithful and he will be where we need Him to be. He will be there with us through the whole thing, until the very end.
Speaker 2:Do you remember that story in the Voice of the Martyrs where they were in church and the terrorists came in? It was in Africa. I'm pretty sure I could be wrong. It might have been more of a Middle Eastern country. It seems like you could throw either one of those countries you know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, unfortunately, you know it's on the rise, but anyway, in the story the whole congregation was afraid because these terrorists came in with their guns and they started roughhousing some of the people and they put the women over here and some of the children, and then all of a sudden, you know, they were fearful, like what you're talking about. Then, all of a sudden, the pastor said I see heaven and Christ seated at the throne. He had a vision and in that instance everybody changed their perspective Instead of an earthly perspective. What's going to happen to me? I don't know being jostled about or whatever.
Speaker 2:And instantly people began to make sure that they were ready to go to heaven and they trusted that he had indeed seen, just like Stephen, you know. And so the terrorists didn't feed on fear anymore because there was no fear, and so they realized that they couldn't get these people panicked. So they stole a bunch of things and left. They didn't kill anybody, and I remember that story because I'm like okay, a revelation of God changed the entire atmosphere and it was a way that God rescued them, but everybody got their hearts in the right posture instead of in a fearful one. What's going to happen to me?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think I remember that story and it's very powerful. You are absolutely right your heart. Once it is in the right posture, nothing's going to change you and how you act, and it can be a very powerful tool that God uses to change the hearts of those who are persecuting you as well. So, yeah, it's very, very important that we have the right heart posture, for sure. Well, I have enjoyed this time with you so much. I know there's so much more we could be talking about because you have so much wisdom. I can tell so I'm definitely going to be reading your books. Where can they get your books and what are they called? Well, I can tell so I'm definitely going to be reading your books. Where can they get your books and what are they called? Well, I know your other one. I don't think it's out yet, but where can they find you if they're waiting for that book?
Speaker 2:The best place to find things would be revelationshipnet. That's where they can connect with me. I'm on threads and Instagram and Facebook and also people email me with questions, as I've done some of these podcasts. People will send me some of the harder questions, like Sodom and Gomorrah why did it happen? Or something like that, and I've kind of wrestled a lot of those things down to the ground and so I'm happy to take any tough, legitimate, authentic conversation. I mean, there's always trolls, but I'm not talking about those, yeah yeah, you gotta love the trolls.
Speaker 2:Well, that's the pain of my existence. I'm always wanting to prove that the Bible is errant and I'm just like don't talk to me. The Bible's not, it's not errant, there's no error in scripture. So, anyway, but if they can talk to me, they can connect with me by email, connect with me on Instagram. They can get the book Revelationship on Amazon or off the website, whichever one, and I also have a devotional as well.
Speaker 2:It contains the book, as well as journaling prompts and mindfulness exercises, qr codes that they can scan to listen to worship music while they're learning something. I mean, it's just about 250 pages. I think it's massive. And then so they can get that there. And then also, my dad has a lot of other books that we have listed there that he's written over the years as a pastor, things about reconciliation, because I grew up in Atlanta in a half black, half white church and racial reconciliation was a massive subject at all times. So they can get all those kinds of things at the website, and I actually have a Lenten study that's out. I did not grow up observing Lent. I had no idea what Lent really was. I thought it was a Catholic sort of penance thing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's what I thought it was.
Speaker 2:Yes, and I kind of viewed it with some suspicion, like maybe they're trying to earn grace or something like that. But it's not. It's really about giving up something in order to make space to connect with God, and if there's one message that the church needs right now is we need to make some space. We have way too overcrowded lives, and so it's got a Lenten study that people can download for free if they want.
Speaker 1:Okay, that's cool, very interesting. Well, thank you, kathy, so much for coming on and talking with me today. It's been very exciting, very interesting, and I'm hoping that people will have a new heart posture, wanting to desire a deeper relationship with God and focusing on Him rather than ourselves, and definitely making time for God and making room for Him instead of trying to fit Him into our lives. Like you said, putting Him in the center. Everything else will radiate out of putting him in the center, so thank you for that reminder.
Speaker 2:Thank you for having me. Thanks for listening, if you enjoyed the episode.
Speaker 1:leave a review for the podcast wherever you are listening, or click the link in the show notes. If you have feedback for me, use the leave a message or voicemail links also in the show notes. You can check out my website honestchristianconversationscom to leave a review or feedback as well. Join the community and become part of something bigger than yourself. Lastly, sign up for the mailing list and get the free seven-day devotional as a thank you gift. Once again, thanks for listening. I look forward to our next conversation.
