Running on Coffee and Christ
We are an energetic couple, focused on building a community that is able to impact their families, friends, and their world by; Growing their Faith, Improving their Fitness, and Pursuing their Future.
The topics we discuss, revolve around the hopes that YOU are inspired to better yourself and that you could dare to dream above and beyond all that you have ever imagined for yourself.
Running on Coffee and Christ
Train Your Response The Way You Train Your Heart
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Ever notice how the first week of January can feel hopeful and crushing at the same time? We sat down in our coffee shop—machines warming, customers buzzing—to talk about what really happens when life presses us: our reactions. Not the polished responses we imagine, but the knee-jerk ones that snap, withdraw, doom scroll, or overwork. We wanted to know how to shift those reflexes without pretending the pressure isn’t real.
Our reading plans met us in the tension. Job absorbed staggering loss while holding onto God, even as his friends offered tidy, hurtful answers. Then there’s Peter—bold promises followed by fear, denial, and bitter tears—who later became strikingly courageous. Those stories show a path forward: acknowledge the weight, repent when you blow it, remember what God has already carried you through, and choose differently next time. That’s discipleship in motion.
We also got practical. Think of your reactions like training muscle: you won’t run strong on cardio alone. Strength work—prayer, scripture, sleep, honest check-ins—prepares you before the hit comes. Our espresso analogy makes it simple: remove variables you can control (fatigue, endless scrolling, poorly timed replies), dial in what you can’t (humidity happens), and keep adjusting through the day. Emotional intelligence matters here: self-awareness, empathy, timing, and the humility to repair when your words land hard. Not every true thought needs to be said, and your response shapes more than your mood—it shapes the people around you.
If your year already feels loud, take a breath with us. Learn how to name your triggers, build small guardrails, and turn your testimony into fuel for today’s choices. Listen now, then share the one practice that helps you respond with grace. Subscribe, leave a review, and pass this to a friend who could use a calmer first move.
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Hi everyone and welcome back to the Coffee and Christ podcast. Running on Coffee and Christ. Hey everybody, and welcome back to this week's episode of Running on Coffee and Christ Podcast. We're so excited to be with you again. We are actually in our shop right now, and um so there's customers around, but this is the best time for us to do it, and we've put it on the calendar that we're doing it now, and so we're like we're doing it now, even if the it's not optimal, I guess, with the we're trying to take some of our own advice and scheduling things and holding ourselves to that schedule.
SPEAKER_01:So here we are.
SPEAKER_00:Absolutely, absolutely. So I think this is season two, episode two. But today we're going to be talking about being reactionary in life and um having basically we're really gonna be pointing out when we have those negative reactions in life, when things are not going our way, when things are looking hopeless, and we tend to fall into the same patterns with our reactions.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I think um my brother the other day he's mentioned something about how uh people remember you by your worst moment in life. This is true. Um, and a lot of that comes from a negative reaction or from a negative moment, and uh they say, Oh, well, that's that person that did XYZ, and they're remembered by that. And me personally, I don't I don't want that to happen in my life. I want to be remembered by my my best moments, you know? Absolutely my best interactions with people and in in every area of our life.
SPEAKER_00:I think everybody wants to be, and as we move on into this episode, I want to uh I guess lead off by saying we're not perfect people, obviously. We're human, that's what makes us not God, right? Um we are fallen and we're going to make mistakes. But I do believe that it is our goal in life to strive and strive to be more and more Christ-like. And Christ was not reactionary. I'm not saying that he didn't have reactions, but his action reactions were positive. They were what they needed to be, obviously because he didn't sin, right?
SPEAKER_01:Everyone tried to push his buttons.
SPEAKER_00:Yes, and that's another thing that we need to point out as well. Like he was just as much man as he was God. So don't tell me that he wasn't tempted to react poorly. He just he didn't. And so I think that we need to um really sharpen each other's saws uh in this episode and trying not to be so reacting negatively. Um and this is at the forefront of my mind right now because at the beginning of the year, everything like I would say January 1, it all feels so hopeful, right? Or really after that time from Christmas, you have like December 26th through the 31st. And I would say I actually really love that time because it feels like I can just wind down. There's not a a whole lot of expectations put on you during that week, but then like January 1 hits.
SPEAKER_01:And you're like, the rest of this year, who am I and what am I doing and how am I going to accomplish it? It's like the weight of the world just slams into you, January 1.
SPEAKER_00:It does, and I felt myself like even like going into this week, feeling very down and discouraged. And we have like so many things planned um that we're doing this year that I am excited about, but I just felt like so heavy and so discouraged because I was thinking about all the things that we haven't done or the things that we're gonna get caught up on, and um I caught myself reacting poorly and having a bad attitude. Um, and I can tell um one of the things that I do when I am down or discouraged is I tend to retreat, I don't want to talk, I want to eat things that I shouldn't, um, curl up in a bed, maybe doom scroll or read a book. And so while I was doing that, okay, because I did that, I was thinking, okay, this behavior is a pattern for me. Yeah, so you recognize that this isn't something that is in my personality of a way that I want to be acting all the time, and I don't act this way all the time. What has happened that is making me react to this way? Well, actually, nothing had happened. It was just like for I don't know, just feeling so heavy for the year coming ahead. And I attribute it to Satan just getting inside my head and me allowing him to take residence there, honestly. And because nothing is coming out of me laying in that bed and doom scrolling and feeling sorry for myself.
SPEAKER_01:Well, you find your comfort zone. There's it we all like to go to our comfort zone, whatever that is. Your reaction is to go to the garage and work on a car, and that's your comfort zone, and life hits you, you're gonna you're gonna retreat to that comfort zone, even if that's work. Some guys it's cutting grass, some guys it's uh chopping trees down, whatever it might be. I can remember like when I was growing up, some of the my my reactions to difficult situations would be um hard isolation. Like I'd be like so frustrated, I'd just go for a run. And wherever I went, I went. I'd be so frustrated that I just go chop down a tree. Whatever, how however it fell, it fell. I didn't care. My reaction would have been like physical exertion, you know, to try to wear myself out because that's what I I needed in the moment. And I was fairly young, you know. I was surprised I was that young running on the road, but different times, right? And um, I was just thinking about you know, like how how you react. Uh, it really is kind of a tell, and you but you also you learn from it. You learn from it uh yourself. If you know how you react to situations, hopefully you can learn to negate that. You can learn to control it. And we're gonna talk about that.
SPEAKER_00:We're gonna talk a couple about a couple of ways that you can try to combat the reactions that you have, the negative reactions you have. Now, I'm doing the Bible recap, which I know Calvin is too, but um, I think you're still finishing up last year, you're like at the tail end, and he went a little slower in it, and that's perfectly fine. Like, you don't have to go through this in the exact same in that exact timetable.
SPEAKER_01:I thought about starting over, but I'm like, if my normal character does not have the consistency to stay on track, I'm gonna feel defeated. I want to follow it out and finish it out. Yeah, so we're at two different places, but we were talking about reactions and where she is, she has an example, and where I am, yeah, I had an example.
SPEAKER_00:Which I thought was really cool because we were talking about um what are we gonna talk about on this podcast? And we were just kind of hashing some things out, and um, I started talking about reactions and talking about where I was reading. So I'm in Job right now, obviously, um, which I thought was very timely. Um, I thought, God, and when I was reading Job, I was like, God, like this is like probably one of the most depressing times of year for most people because it's just that funk. You've come after off of the most high, you know, with Christmas and the holidays and things like that. I can imagine I had to do it. Yes, and then it's just and the weather's dreary, it's it's raining today, it's dreary. Um, and I was like, and then here we are in Job, like, oh my gosh, like this is so depressing, you know. But um, Job has not been depressing for me this time. This is my third time reading it, and um I would I felt myself just really being like, God, what can I learn from this? So obviously, if you haven't read Job, or if you have read Job, um Job has basically everything taken away from him. Um no comfort, no there's nothing, okay?
SPEAKER_01:Like his kids, he loses his livelihood, livelihood, yes, his health, buildings, his health, everything, everything, and he feels utterly hopeless.
SPEAKER_00:Um, and he says this, he says things in there like um he felt like God was doing this to him, but he still never doubts God or um turns his back on God, his trust is completely in whatever it is that God is doing, okay? But his friends' reactions are absolutely terrible, and I think that they at some point they came from a good place, maybe like they felt like maybe they were helping their friend Joe, but it really just comes off as self-righteous and um like Job, you must have done some really bad sin in order for all of these things to be happening to you, but that wasn't the case at all. And Job did know that Job did know truth, and standing that he knew I haven't done anything, not that he was a perfect person, but he knew that he had not like done anything that God would do these things to him as a uh punishment, I guess. Yes, but he did know that God was using this in his life for a reason.
SPEAKER_01:It's like before we understood what lightning was and why it would hit tall buildings, they would say, Oh, lightning struck your building, therefore you must have been doing something wrong and God is punishing you. No, it's just that they had a taller building than all the other ones, and lightning hit it first. Right. It was closest to the ground.
SPEAKER_00:Right.
SPEAKER_01:Um, but but you know, that Joe was like, you know, this isn't something that I have caused, this is just God's plan for my life.
SPEAKER_00:But isn't that our reaction when things don't go right in our life? Or because I was thinking about that. There's some things going on in my life right now that I'm not happy with. I'm not happy with the way that it's going, and I'm I'm like, God, turn it around, turn it around. Why are you not turning it around? You know, and I'll automatically go into my head thinking about what have I done. But uh I I need to really punch myself in the face and say, hey, you know what? God's love. Um, it's not dependent on the things that I do or the things or the things that I don't do. Yeah, um, He is merciful, He is full of grace, He loves me. I think about my my children and the things that they do that really tick me off, you know, but I still am gonna do everything I possibly can for them. I don't want bad for them. And God loves me even more than I love my children. So I think while Jub's friends did react very poorly, it's still something that we can learn from um and how we're reacting to the situations in our in our life and maybe in the lives of our friends and family, things that are going on in their life. Like maybe we don't need to be so quick to judge, right?
SPEAKER_01:Right, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Um, so Calvin, why don't you talk about like what you're reading in?
SPEAKER_01:Where I was, so I'm still kind of at the end of the or in the middle of the New Testament, and I'm right at where Jesus is being crucified, he's getting he's on trial. I just got through that, but I'm remembering the story where when Peter denied Christ, you know, and Jesus even told him, You're gonna deny me three times before the cock grows twice. He says, This is gonna happen. And Peter was like, Never more never, Lord, never. And he's building himself up, like, no, that's not me, that's not who I am. That's not my identity. Right. I'm I'm a follower of you. Why would I do that? And uh and when it came down to it, he was worried about persecution, he was worried about being thrown in there with Jesus and being put on trial and beaten and killed. And well, when people confronted him and say, Hey, aren't you a Galilean? That aren't you one of the followers with with of of Jesus? And he like, No, he his reaction was negative, his his reaction was fear. He was in fear. It was can you imagine a moment like when everything you knew about your world was ripped out from underneath you because the person that you're following that was like this is my future, got ripped out from underneath you and is being put on trial and possibly gonna be killed. In a horrifying way as well. And then someone saying, Oh, yeah, you're with him, right? And you get like the the the the moment they didn't prepare themselves for that, I don't think they understood exactly what was gonna happen to Jesus because he Jesus foretold it many times in his in his ministry, and still they were like, What are you talking about? Right, you know, they didn't get it. But uh hindsight's 2020. Yes, always but but Peter reacted negatively in that moment, you know, and I was thinking, man, how could he not react that uh in a different way? Uh like what what happened that caused him to have to react like that? And I'm like, man, uh, I don't want to be Peter. None of us want to be Peter in that moment.
SPEAKER_00:No, we can learn from Peter.
SPEAKER_01:But here's the thing where I was like, we're talking about reactions. Peter also had to react to his reaction.
SPEAKER_00:Absolutely.
SPEAKER_01:So what was one of the things that was so prominent about Peter later on is that he was bold. I mean, he was on fire. He was a man that walked around that didn't give two rips before that from someone's.
SPEAKER_00:Can we talk about the immediate reaction he had to it? Yeah was he wept bitterly. There was a repentance there, right? Yes. That's that's always got to be present, I believe. Yeah. For sure. Yes.
SPEAKER_01:And I feel but like anytime I've reacted negatively in my past, as you know, in my life, I I know that there's that moment of oh man, I shouldn't have done that. You know, or if I do something that I I act in anger and I sinned, well, you know, that's that's something I need to ask forgiveness for, you know, and repentance. And and you can think back on that.
SPEAKER_00:But well, I would say even uh maybe an hour prior to this, like I'm I'm dealing with some things in my life that are fearful, I guess, you know, uh afraid of the future and and things like that. And I kind of bit your head off, you know, and it's like for no reason. But as soon as I did it, you know, I'm like, I knew I'd be trying to target it. But I knew that I was having a negative reaction to fear. Yeah, right. And um, so I think sometimes the way that we do react, like we've got to have some intelligence about it. Like, okay, wait, my behavior right now, I must be reacting poorly to something. And it's kind of a muscle memory thing, right? Like we usually are always going to react poorly in the same way. For instance, for me, I can get really mean and shoot off at the mouth when I'm afraid.
SPEAKER_01:I've had some some coaches in the that I've been around in the past when it comes to um sports where you know when it comes to muscle memory, yes, you train your muscle for the sport that you're gonna be doing. Like whether it's a fast twitch muscle if you're a sprinter, whether you're trying to bulk up if you're a uh a football, you know, coach or whatever, or if you're a long dirt long distance, you want those long twitch muscles that are gonna have a little endurance and be able to withstand the impact over a long period of time. So you're training them f specifically for your sport. But you gotta know what sport you're in. You gotta know what what your triggers are, what your area in life that you're going to be dealing with, you've got to build up the muscles to be able to deal with that. Absolutely. You know, if it's something that's like a fearful, you gotta build up the muscles to deal with fear. If it's something with doubt, you gotta build up the muscles to deal with doubt. You know, and that's the reason why the Bible is so important that we are getting that scripture into our heart. Um it's that the Bible says study to show yourself, approve, a workman rightly dividing the word of God. You're dividing it because you need certain parts of it because not everyone's the same. Yeah, there's certain things God is very personal, so he's gonna use certain things in my life that he's not gonna use in your life. You know, and and that and that's like a training for your sport. Yes, because your life is different than everyone else's.
SPEAKER_00:Well, I know, like uh going back to the training for sport, um, and which I've been running off and on for uh quite a few I mean, I guess three years, yeah, four, three or four years. But I remember I was running when Jude was in a stroller, so that was a but I went through spells then. I wasn't just like stuck on it like I am now. But I remember when I would run and being down in my back or hurting, you know, because I was not doing any strength training during that time. I was just running. And what I learned now is that strength training is equally as important as going and run running the miles for the distance or whatever, because your body has to be able to react well to it being pounded on the pavement because that's normally where I'm running at anyway.
SPEAKER_01:And so you were running on a we were running on a trail. And I remember it was a fresh cut trail, and there was a root right in the middle of the trail, and you hit that root with your with your foot. Yes, and I have never seen you fall that hard. I mean, it was like there's there was an old uh video game that we used to play where like Street Fighter or something like that, where you would you would hit the person and they would fly back and they would bounce, they go boom, boom, boom, they would bounce on the ground, and that's what you did.
SPEAKER_02:Yes, you were running. I know it scared you.
SPEAKER_01:You went face first and you bounced. I was like, oh Lord, what just happened? Well, you bounced, you basically bounced, but you caught yourself and you were able to control it to some extent, even though it was very quick. Yes, a quick fall. No way you could expect it. But you got up and your testimony was if I hadn't have been strength training, that would have been really bad.
SPEAKER_00:Yes, we had that conversation. And that's a conversation that I have with my ladies that come to my workout groups. I'm like, I'm not really concerned about you walking out of here super buffed, super cut in some kind of vain way. I was like, you know what? When you fall down, I want you to be able to get back up, and I also want you to be able to move the next day, and I don't want you to be down.
SPEAKER_01:I heard a statistic the other day that said that when someone has the osteo arthritis. Not arthritis. It was yeah, well, like when you when your bone density gets soft and you're older.
SPEAKER_00:I think that's osteoporosis.
SPEAKER_01:Okay. Well, when when you have that and you have a fall after the age of 70, your mortality chances uh for within one year drops to like 40% mortality rate. And then if you don't have surgery to recover from it, your mortality rate is like 70% over the next three years. So like if you have a fall past the age of 70 and it breaks a hip or a leg and your mobility is reduced within three years, if you don't have corrective action, you have a 70% chance of dying. Yep. So it's like you need to lift.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, and you know, like the way to negate that is getting a strong core, which means having a strong um stomach, strong glutes, strong thighs, you know, like those are gonna be the places that that the back, you know, really working that back out, those are gonna be the places that are going to um I guess work as a buffer for a fall.
SPEAKER_01:Stabilize.
SPEAKER_00:Yes. So anyway, um going back, it's important though to um to realize, hey, I do need to build up some resistance to be ready for the struggles, yes. Uh and same thing with our reactions. Like I said, you know, when I was in the office and I bit his head off, I realized immediately, I was like, okay, what am I upset about? Because he hasn't done anything. What am I upset about? And I'm like, oh, it's this other stuff that's looming on me, like some stress or whatever, and it's a poor reaction. Well, Calvin, let's talk about like how do we negate having these poor reactions? What can we do?
SPEAKER_01:Okay, so let's coffee out here.
SPEAKER_00:Okay.
SPEAKER_01:Our espresso machine, right?
SPEAKER_00:Yes.
SPEAKER_01:Okay. If you were to take cold beans, grind them up, throw them in that machine, you would have so many variables. So many variables. The the barometric pressure, the temperature, humidity, the temperature of the bean, the temperature of the portafilter, the temperature of the water.
SPEAKER_00:The actual machine itself.
SPEAKER_01:The machine itself, the pressure that it puts out, the everything about it.
SPEAKER_00:One reason why we get here so early is because we have to get all of our machinery going.
SPEAKER_01:You dial it in for the day. Now, so what we have done with our espresso equipment, um, and we have tried to eliminate variables. So we want our our grinder is temperature regulated. So the bean is a certain temperature. So when it gets dropped into the portafilter, the portafilter just came off the espresso machine, which is a certain temperature.
SPEAKER_02:Yes.
SPEAKER_01:You know, and the humidity, you can't help that. You gotta dial in throughout the day to negate those things.
SPEAKER_02:Absolutely.
SPEAKER_01:But you want to remove any of the variables that could cause a negative reaction in that espresso. So when it comes to like our Faith and our walk with Christ in this life, in order to not have negative reactions, we gotta eliminate the variables that can cause those negative reactions. So you gotta for instance, you know how you normally react from your the past, the things you've been sorrowful for, or needed repentant, or you're like, hey, I don't want to react that way again. But those are really good things to learn from because if I know that a certain bean that was harvested at a certain out uh altitude is gonna be denser or lighter than another one, and I try to dial that bean in and I have to grind it a little bit finer than I normally do, next time I put that bean in, I'm gonna set that grinder closer to the finer grind. Sure because I'm not gonna have to worry about I have a past practice, a past reference. I've learned from my mistakes. You're a testimony. A testimony, yes.
SPEAKER_00:So I think that's one thing to to to really latch on to when we are feeling hopeless, when we're feeling fearful of our future, when we're feeling discouraged, um, instead of reacting poorly, like for instance, biting someone's head off, or retreating to a room and throwing the covers over your head, um, or working out too hard, you know what I'm saying? Like there's nothing wrong with uh, I guess, going for a run just to kind of release some stress or whatever. But when we do it in ways that that are harmful to others or to ourselves, then that is a negative reaction. So remembering though the testimony of your life and the things that God has already brought you through, because we tend to forget those things, right? It's like you said your brother said that we only we're remembered for the worst day of our life. Sometimes we only remember the worst moment um that's happening at that moment. A lot of times we want to get our identity tied up in that moment, but we don't, and we're like, um my life's never gonna turn out the way that I want it to. And it's like, well, how many times have you felt that way? And he's carried you through. You know, you can pull up circums certain circumstances in your life and go back and remember, hey, you know what? He got me through that, and he's gonna get me through this as well. Definitely because Satan wants you to stay in that funk, he wants you to stay discouraged, and he wants you to continue having negative reactions, you know. We live in a culture now that reacts poorly. Um, like you, for instance, and this may be um, I guess maybe a little risque to say. I don't really know the word to use, but uh women in particular at a certain time of the month, you might need to double check before. Well, I will, I will go there. Um, I'm a woman and I know like our hormones are crazy sometimes, but you know, like maybe you don't need to comment on that post at that time, right? You know, like um, and that's having some honestly, that's having emotional intelligence. And we're gonna be having a lunch and learn about emotional intelligence at the end of this month. Uh, you can look on our Facebook for that, but having emotional intelligence is super important, like understanding your own emotions and understanding the their emotions of others, it will definitely um it's I always control the way that you react to others and to yourself. But um but knowing yourself, knowing yourself of like, hey, okay, I catch myself wanting to have this negative reaction and think about what's going on in my life right now. Maybe uh you know, pull back, have some wisdom, right?
SPEAKER_01:I can I can completely attest to this that you have much more wisdom in your mouth nowadays than you did when we were dating. When you were dating, we were you were a fireball of what you thought you said. Absolutely. And it got you in a lot of trouble.
SPEAKER_00:Yes, it did, and it hurt people, you know. And I and I remember even then I had no it wasn't in me to want to hurt people. I had no wisdom or discernment that what I was saying was going to affect other people. I was just thinking like I was really selfish in just wanting my opinion to be known. Yeah, and it's like it doesn't always have to be known, right? Yeah, and sometimes it may be true, it may be true, but it doesn't have to be said. But um one of my favorite quotes, and it comes from one of my professors, and she was just in here in my shop earlier, passing through Kristen Scrogan, but uh, I carry this with me. Calvin can attest to it, I do. But it doesn't it doesn't matter what you meant to say, it only matters what you said. And um that was a huge eye-opener for me. Uh it really that statement really changed my life, honestly.
SPEAKER_01:And knowing what audience you're saying it to, you know, there people are what you said is gonna affect your audience in a specific way based on who that audience is.
SPEAKER_00:Like me even uh just earlier, me biting your head off. And I mean when I say biting his head off, I mean just answering sharply or making the way that I answer making you feel stupid or something, you know, like that affects you, you know, and like that can affect the rest of your day. That can affect how you interact with our other employees or interact with our customers because I made you feel down. Do you know what I'm saying? Like we it Terry Lee Cobble says this in the Bible recap we don't send in a vacuum, and we don't like the things that we do affect other people. They really do.
SPEAKER_01:Um the first time you ever said that when after she had said it and you mentioned that, I was like, we don't send in a vacuum, like a vacuum cleaner. And then it took me, I was like, oh no, you're talking about like in space where you can you can scream and no one hears you. Right.
SPEAKER_00:It's not only just coming back to you, it's going out. It is, and um, you really have to think about those negative reactions are affecting other people. Um, so having that emotional intelligence to know, hey, I'm having a poor reaction. Okay, let's step back and look at what's going on in my life and just gosh, have some wisdom and intelligence about it. Yeah, go to God because I know that when I'm in that bed and I've got those covers thrown over my head and I'm doom scrolling, none of that is necessarily ungodly, but it's not godly either. I'm not running to him with my problem. And guys, he wants us to run to him with our problems. I want my kids to come to me when they have a problem, right? So if I find out that they've been struggling with something in silence, I'm like, it hurts me because I'm like, I want them to be able to come to me. So I think about how God would feel if I'm not coming to him, and rather I'm relying on uh food or uh doom scrolling to give me some kind of comfort that allows me to check out, basically. That's it's burying your head in the sand like an ostrich and being like, this isn't happening, this doesn't exist, but guys, it is happening and it does exist and you're reacting poorly to it.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:So another that's one way. Another way that um that we talked about was remembering your that testimony of all the things that he's that he has brought you through. I think I think we have a hard time remembering those things.
SPEAKER_01:One of the one of the most powerful things that you have in a conversation with people is your personal testimony. Because if if I'm talking with you, Holly, and I say, uh, what do you think about red hair? And you're like, Well, when I had red hair, I felt a certain way, or whatever. And and then you know, you have a personal testimony of having red hair. But if I say, hey, you know, what do you think about red hair? And you've never had red hair, you'd be like, uh, I don't know. I guess it's all right. It doesn't carry any weight.
SPEAKER_02:Yes.
SPEAKER_01:But your personal testimony, when you had red-dyed hair, right, you have a a point of reference. So a testimony is the same way. Like this is a point of reference, a pen that we put at a moment in our life where we saw a reaction where we that was either negative or positive, and or we saw God move in a certain way. And and we can look back on that and say, This moment, and it's not a testimony that I have to share with someone else, but it's to look back on the testimony of what God's already done for you in your past, because you're trying to control your reaction. You're trying to control the out like like what you're gonna do from this point on. Are you gonna be the one that denies Christ, or are you gonna be the one that goes out and boldly proclaims? Exactly. You know, those are two separate reactions to separate to to the to kind of the same event. Yes. But but it took the the testimony of the negative reaction and his repentance. He looked back on it and said, Hey, last time I reacted badly or poorly, this time let's react a different way.
SPEAKER_00:Because there are so many things in our life that we have absolutely no control over. We don't have control over a lot of the events that are happening in our life or the situations that are happening in our life. But there is one thing that you can control, and what is that?
SPEAKER_01:Your reaction.
SPEAKER_00:Your reaction to it. And I know that may sound hokey, but it is absolute truth, and that's why I think God's word is full, full of ways of how to react positively. Let's just go read Proverbs, for instance. Um and learning from the other people in the Bible and how they reacted to things, you know, and it's good and it's comforting to see that there are people that you look up to from the word that did react poorly. Yeah, you know, yeah, they did.
SPEAKER_01:We're all human, we're in the same boat.
SPEAKER_00:I think about Elijah um after he had just had the contest with the prophets of Baal, you know, and like the fire came down, and it was like um I mean can you think of a uh an event that would bolster you so much than that? And then right after that, he wanted to die because Jezebel was after him, she wanted to kill him. There was the you know it it was a time, you know, for him, and so he was reacting poorly to that situation, and he was forgetting that testimony that God had just given him. But he was an amazing prophet for God, he loved God, he's somebody that we definitely can look up to. Um, but yeah, even he had a negative reaction, you know. So we're going the truth is is that we are going to react negatively. But the also truth is is that we can fix that, we can learn that. We can fine-tune that, we can understand ourselves better when we are reacting poorly, or when um when you're in that situation, be like, hey, this is a situation that I could see myself retreating again. Um and so go going to God, praying. I don't think that we pray enough. I know that's something that's being talked about in our church a lot is just having that hardcore prayer life. It I have really honed in on my Bible reading in the last few years, and I'm really wanting to hone in on my prayer life. I don't I don't feel like it's where it needs to be, and I know there was a time in my life where it was, and I saw God move in my life. That's a testimony that I have, and I'm like, why do we get away from these things? Yeah, life, you know, or whatever, or we start maybe we start thinking that we can do everything on our own. But one thing I have learned is we absolutely cannot do anything. I can't trust myself to make the right decisions. Yeah, I need him. Um, I can't trust myself to have a positive reaction to things, I can trust myself to have a negative one. Yeah, and because of that, I need to be in his word and I need to be in prayer with him because he's the only one that's going to be able to fine-tune that situation for me.
SPEAKER_01:Well, I completely agree. Yes, I think that you know, every single one of us, we're all on our s on our own journeys, right? And uh, so I just want to encourage everyone, um, look at your past, learn from it, grow from it, look towards the future, and uh and you know, recognize that you are going to react one way or the other, and how you react will affect other people around you.
SPEAKER_00:Know what pushes your buttons, yep, and how you're gonna react to that. And guys, if you want to learn more about that topic, uh really wasn't trying to do a plug for this, but it's just fitting right in. So thank you, God. But we are gonna have a lunch and learn on January 27th. It's a Tuesday lunchtime. You come, uh it's$20 a person, but you're gonna it's it lasts an hour, you'll get a nice lunch from us, and we're gonna talk about um how to have emotional intelligence in your workplace, or it's something that you're gonna be able to use within your life, um with your family, church, whatever. Um, but we need to know ourselves. And when we know ourselves, it will help us in how we react to others.
SPEAKER_01:Yep.
SPEAKER_00:So thank you for joining us today, and we can't wait to see you next week. We love y'all. Don't forget to share hope, share love, and share Christ. Right?
SPEAKER_02:Right.
SPEAKER_00:See you later.