Episode 5 - Every Challenge Is A Message Pointing You To Your Mission

What if the hardest parts of your week are not random setbacks but personalized signals pointing you toward your purpose? We take a clear-eyed look at divine providence and how it shapes the details of life—relationships, money, timing, even the doors that close. Rather than speaking in abstractions, we break down how to read those signals before they turn into crises, and why a “low breaking point” is a sign of wisdom, not weakness.

We dig into a powerful idea: some of us are formed through lean seasons and others through seasons of abundance. Poverty and wealth are not verdicts on your worth; they are different classrooms. If you’re entrusted with resources, the test becomes stewardship, generosity, and focus. If you’re walking the tight budget, the curriculum often calls for patience, dignity, and trust. Either way, purpose grows when you treat money as a tool for good rather than a measure of identity. We also talk about how to spot your personal frontiers—those actions that feel stubbornly hard—so you can practise where growth matters most.

As the conversation deepens, we explore why life’s nudges intensify when we refuse to listen. Early whispers show up as minor frictions; if we ignore them, the volume goes up. The path forward is partnership: asking for help, staying honest, and including the Divine in planning and decisions. That shift moves us from grinding water—constant effort without progress—to grounded momentum. You’ll leave with a sharper lens for interpreting challenges, a healthier mindset about money and meaning, and a practical way to align effort with purpose.

If this resonates, follow the show, share it with a friend who needs encouragement, and drop a review with your biggest insight. Your support helps more people find these conversations and step into a life of trust and purpose.

Chapters

• 0:17 Host Updates And Book Giveaway
• 1:25 Divine Providence And Life’s Design
• 2:08 Tests Of Poverty And Wealth
• 4:18 Precision Of God’s Plan
• 5:10 Recognizing Personal Tests
• 6:23 When Messages Get Louder
• 9:19 Breaking Points And Surrender
• 11:01 From Grinding Water To Growth
• 11:15 Closing And Calls To Action

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:17

Hello and welcome to the Trust Factor Podcast, the only podcast that guarantees your success when you implement its divine age old teachings. Hi, everybody. Thanks for joining us today on what is episode five of season two of the Trust Factor Podcast. Again, it's Friday. It's not our usual weekly interview series. It's because I'm away. I'm in the Holy Land. I'm in Israel. And so when I get back, God willing, we will make efforts to arrange additional weekly interviews. I've got a list. It's just that the time difference makes it quite difficult to establish. Having said that, we're going to continue on with where we left off. And I want to also remind everybody, we're coming up on Sunday. It is the free book giveaway, The Book of Amuna, by Rav David Saperman. I've already given away four copies. We're down to six. This coming Sunday, there's going to be a draw. Your name will be announced on Monday. Be sure all you need to do, guys, to get in on this is like, click, share any of the episodes of the podcast, and I will choose a name at random on Sunday, and it will be shipped directly to the winner's door. Here we go, my friends. Let's pick up where we left off. So we said one must know that Hashem's divine providence is constant and never ending. All for the ultimate benefit of each individual. It is designed to direct each person to his or her objective in life, the reason and purpose behind their creation. That is exactly why Hashem runs our lives. That's why there's this thing called divine providence, where he watches over us, every move that we make, every situation that we're in, every individual that we interact with, how much money we make, where we're going to live, who our spouse is going to be, who are on and on and on. We said yesterday he does this because that is part of the plan. He needs to make sure that we are interacting with the same people from previous existences in similar situations, because we need to overcome them. We need to correct and we need to make sure that we've succeeded in those areas of our life. We've fixed what we've done wrong in the past. And the only way to do that is to surround us with the right circumstances. God sees that a person won't be able to attain his or her soul correction without the particular circumstance and hardships that they'll encounter in this world for the reason I just said. One person's path to success is a road of poverty while another person's is a road to opulence. You hear this? One person is put in this world, and in order for them to achieve their greatness, they have to be on a road of poverty. It's unbelievable. I mean, that's a difficult thing to swallow. It's a difficult pill to swallow. It's a difficult thing to accept. But that's the reality. In previous existences, that individual may have done quite well as a wealthy person. But when it came to being poor and having financial troubles, they failed. And so their test, again in this life, is to overcome that situation. While another person may have passed the test of poverty in previous lives, but in this life, he's failing at the test of wealth. His money is going the wrong way. He's investing in the wrong things. He's spending it on corruption. He's spending it on his stomach. He's building his bank account. He's hoarding money. He doesn't understand that the money is a tool that was given to him in order to do good in this world. And he ends up spending it on himself and doing all the wrong things with it, going to the wrong places, looking at the wrong things. And therefore, Hashem puts him back in this world as a wealthy person who has to overcome those challenges and start to realize what he should and shouldn't be doing with the money that was given to him. In like manner, Hashem determines every detail of a person's life, everything according to precision and divine providence with a zero margin of error. There are no mistakes. Understand, we're dealing with God. We're not dealing with your boss, we're not dealing with your teacher, we're not dealing with your coworker, we're dealing with the creator of the universe. He who created and manages everything on a millisecond by millisecond basis and has been doing a perfect job of it for thousands of years. That's who we're talking about over here. There are no mistakes. Everything is perfect. Everything is designed to facilitate a person's fulfilling his or her designated mission and function in life. His exclusive purpose in this world is to enable us to achieve greatness. What is the divine will? In other words, what does God want from us? Which is in essence your purpose in life. The creator created you so that you'll get to know him. You hear? As we learn in the holy Zohar, in Kabbalah, in Jewish mysticism, written by Rabbi Shimon Boyekai and his disciples, every single event in our lives is intended to help us get to know Hashem. That's it. Hashem knows each of us and knows full well the exact conditions that facilitate our getting to know him. Nothing is random and there are no mistakes. He knows about previous existences. We don't. He was there. We were in a different time, in a different body, in a different existence. We have no recollection of that. Some people do, by the way, it's a different conversation. But generally speaking, we don't know what our challenges are. We have feelings inside of us. We know what comes easy and what comes hard to us. The things that come easy to us, such as specific mitzvahs, those are tests that we've passed in previous existences. If it's easy for me to keep Shabbat and I wouldn't even dream about not keeping Shabbat, it's not a test for me. That means I've passed it in a previous life. The things that are difficult for me, the mitzvas that are challenging for me, those are an indication of things that I need to work on. Because that's obviously something that I have an evil inclination towards, which means I need to work on myself. Those are indications that are given to us. But who knows us perfectly and exactly what circumstance we need to be in? It's our creator and only our creator. I want to skip a little bit here. It says, every stimulus in life, for better or for worse, comes from the creator, all designed to help us get to know him. Consequently, when people ignore Hashem's personal message, Hashem is compelled to send louder messages. In other words, situations of greater difficulty. You have to understand this is a very important concept. When Hashem wants to get your attention, he gives you a little bit of a challenge and he waits to see. Are you going to call out to me? Are you going to enlist me as a partner? Are you going to make sure that no matter what you do, you've got me in mind to think outside the box, to think that there is a creator, that there's a higher purpose, that nothing is random? Or are you just going to run and attack this thing and think that you've got everything and you're going to control everything and make a series of bad decisions? If you choose the latter, that means that Hashem recognizes that you don't recognize him. But he wants to have a relationship with you. He can't demand it, but he can nudge, he can poke, and that's what he does. So the messages get louder and louder. In other words, the challenges get more and more difficult. Why? Because everybody has a breaking point. And the question becomes when you get to that breaking point, first of all, what is your breaking point? How low is it or how high is it? If you've got a really low breaking point, then you've won in life. You've won. I can guarantee that. Because if you're a good person and you've got your head on straight and you're looking for truth, you need truth. You cannot live without it. When you're put in a situation that makes you question truth and lies, good and bad, right and wrong, your initial instinct is to look for a higher purpose. You've won in life. The alternative is the person who digs their heels in. They're stubborn. They're like rocks. They're bulls. They don't move. Doesn't matter how difficult the test becomes, for them, it becomes an even bigger challenge to see how much they can handle on their own and at any cost because they will not acknowledge that there is a creator in the world. That person lives a life of suffering. I know them. There are many of them. Unfortunately, a lot of people are like that. They believe so much in their own abilities, or they don't want to believe in a creator, in a higher power for umpteen reasons. They refuse to accept the knowledge that there is a higher power. And because of that, they live a life where everything starts and stops with them, the good and the bad. Those who fail to get to know Hashem in good times risk being placed in predicaments devoid of any natural or logical solution, where the only remaining alternative is to cry out to Hashem. That's where we get to, my friends. That's what we've said in season one multiple times. Everybody is screaming out God's name in the hospital. When the doctor says to you there's no alternative, go home and get your affairs in order. Suddenly everybody says, Okay, I'm done. It's out of my control. I have no more ability to impact anything over here. Even the best specialists in the world where I've spent all of my hard-earned money. I've worked like a slave to amass this wealth because I thought that was the holy grail. I finally got it. I've spent it all on my treatments and on doctors and on medications. I've flown all around the world because remember, it starts and stops with me. And finally I've gotten to the point where the doctors have said, you're done. I've got nothing more to do for you. That is oftentimes obviously too late, but where people, even the most stubborn, will wake up and recognize that there's a creator. Hashem doesn't want you to get there. He doesn't want to have to inflict that. Remember, his entire purpose is to see us succeed. But if we're not succeeding, if we're not moving the ball forward, then what's the point? What's the point of sitting here? In Hebrew, there's a saying that you're grinding water. You're grinding water. You can't grind water. You can try as much as you want, but there's no point. It's futile. It's the same idea. Hashem sees you over here spinning your wheels, trying to grind water, not going anywhere. And he says, okay, I've got to do my best. I've got to hit this guy up with everything I got to see what it takes to get him to change so that he could start living and stop dying. What do you mean stop dying? He's not dying. He's not dead. He's alive. He's functioning. He's walking, he's talking, he's eating, he's drinking, he's working. There's a difference between dying and death. There's a difference between living a life of death and dying. Somebody who doesn't live a proper life, somebody who's not connected to the source of life, their creator, is actively dying. They don't even realize it. But they are my friends, and that's not what he wants. He wants life. He wants success. He wants production. He wants all the good things in the world that we want for ourselves. He wants only infinitely more, my friends. Have an amazing Shabbat. We'll speak on Sunday. Thank you for spending time with us on the Trust Factor Podcast. If you've heard something today that moved you, save this episode and share it with someone who might need to hear it. Be sure to subscribe so you don't miss upcoming conversations that challenge, empower, and uplift. And if you're on social media, connect with us. Leave your thoughts. Drop a quote that resonated with you. Hashtag the TrustFactor Podcast. Until next time, keep growing in your trust and keep living with purpose. I'm Jesse Revivo, and this has been The Trust Factory. Thanks for listening.