Episode 33: Doing Life with God: Finding Faithfulness in the Everyday

🎙️ Episode 33: Doing Life with God: Finding Faithfulness in the Everyday

Do you want to spend time with God, but consistency feels impossible in real life? 

In Episode 33 of Unshaken, Tony and Kristy talk about daily time with God for real people with real schedules, real stress, and brains that do not always love routine. They name the tension so many of us feel: the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. If quiet time has become a guilt cycle, or if you have ADHD, executive function challenges, or just a crowded life, this conversation brings grace and practical clarity. 

God is not looking for a streak. He is inviting you into relationship.

🔵 Explore this episode: 
https://unshakenpodcast.org/episodes/doing-life-with-god-finding-faithfulness-in-the-everyday/

Tony shares a honest confession about how seminary can sometimes make devotional life feel dry, because study can quietly replace devotion. Kristy reframes the whole conversation around relationship, not ritual, and reminds you that God is not annoyed with you. He wants you close. They explore what it means to remain and abide in Christ (John 15:5), how to build micro-moments of worship and prayer throughout the day, and how to use tools like Scripture audio, journaling, body-doubling, and apps without turning faith into a checklist. They also talk about grace for missed days, the danger of shame, and a simple weekly challenge: choose one small, joyful way to connect with God, out of love, not pressure.

🔶 What You’ll Hear in This Episode:

• Study is not devotion: God wants relationship, not a checkbox
• Abide and remain (John 15:5): presence matters more than perfection
• Micro-moments count: one verse, one prayer, one thank you can reshape a day
• Use tools without guilt: Scripture audio, journaling, worship music, apps, and body-doubling can help you stay connected
• Grace for missed days: God is not tracking a streak, He is welcoming you back

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Transcript

Kristy 0:06

Welcome to Unstaken, the podcast where unwavering faith is real life. I'm Christy, and together with my husband Tony, we dive into authentic conversations, offering biblical insights and sharing stories that inspire resilience, especially for families navigating the challenges of disabilities. Join us each week as we explore faith with family and the journeys that keep us grounded in Christ. Don't forget to subscribe so you never miss an episode. Let's stand firm together. Hi friends, welcome back as we start another episode of the Unshaken podcast. Today, we would like to talk about something that is near and dear to every single one of us, that also is sometimes scattered in far from every one of us. If we want to talk about spending personal time with God every day on that, on that daily basis, it's something that all of us mean to do. It's something that we want to do, I think, with all of our hearts. And especially for those of us who have ADHD or some other sort of neurodiversity, it can be really tough. It can be tough to stay in that routine, and it can be tough to do it in a way that feels authentic and real day after day when we just crave, you know, newness and and different things to do. So we're going to talk about all of that today. Um, Tony, you want to get us started?

Tony 1:41

Yeah, it's interesting with this topic, especially right now since I just jumped back into seminary, and this is my big confession. Some of the some of the driest times that I've had in in my walk with God have been while I've been in s seminary. And it's just simply because when when you're constantly in the Bible for homework purposes, it's easy to kind of let that time you know count as your devotional time or quiet time or whatever you want to call it. And that's not what God really wants for us. God is looking for a relationship and not a checkoff. And doing homework and studying the word, it sounds really good, but study is not devotion. I I have to be very intentional on a daily basis while in seminary just because it can easily creep into just homework study.

Kristy 2:57

I got you. Um I I can show up here in this conversation with a ton of empathy because for me it's it's life, right? It's all of the things, it's full-time job, teaching classes, taking classes, chasing kids, all of the things, and doing all of this with ADHD and executive function that isn't always stellar. It's hard. It's really hard to be consistent. It's hard to do something every day in a very intentional way without it, you know, having to be built in and feeling very structural. Uh, and in that situation, it can get really rote. I absolutely get you.

Tony 3:42

Scripture is is very clear with this. Um, and I think it's very fitting here. Matthew 26, 41 says, the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. And uh yeah, I I would wholeheartedly agree with that. And uh very much my spirit is very willing to spend time with God, but sometimes in in my own flesh, it it can be very hard to pick up that Bible and and open it up and got it. The flesh is so weak, I get it. Yeah, and it's you know, and and it brings it brings me to to this I'm I'm gonna I'm gonna use the word idea, but it's really a myth of like of perfection, right? That that we've got that there's this like perfect way or that that there's a perfect routine that if we all just did it, it would just be wonderful, and and that's just not how life is. Life is not perfect, life is not routine, life is messy, life is well, life.

Kristy 4:54

I think being kind of scattered and being kind of human and living life, like you said, uh God gets it. I think yeah it it certainly doesn't mean that we love him less. It doesn't mean that he's annoyed with us. Honestly, I don't think that he is annoyed. I think that he he just really wants, I mean, just like any of the rest of us parents, he just wants his kids to come and spend some time with him. You know, yesterday we were in church and the pastor was talking about about being in relationship with Jesus and that everything he did for us, the torture and just the absolute suffering, death, and you know, the time between the death and the resurrection and um all of that, it was worth it. The cost was worth it to him so that he could have relationship with us. He wanted it that much. Uh the way he put it, the way Pastor put it. One time in the history of history, Jesus came to earth and it was to secure the ability to live in relationship with us by by getting us forgiveness. I mean, no, he's not annoyed, he's not mad. He just, he's just standing by. He wants us, he wants us to reach out, he wants us to call. Um, I I can relate to that with our youngest baby just, you know, just being away at college. And I'm not proud of how many times I want to send a text and be like, hey, do you want to talk? Hey, you want to tell me about your day? I'm standing by. I would love to hear all your words, you know, but I try not to. I try not to badger and chase and whatever. I try to just let it be, you know, with any of them on the kiddos terms. But I sure, I sure do want to chase it.

Tony 6:49

And as a dad, um, I'm I'm the same way. Uh would love to hear from any of our girls. Uh, as much as they would love to to talk, I'm always gonna be ready to listen and and hear all their words. And I think that's the that's the recognition, and Christy, you you said it, it's about relationship. And it's not about ritual. We can put a lot of like Christianese around it and we can use a lot of like Christian jargon and you know, fancy words and fancy terms and all this kind of stuff, but at the end of the day, it's it's about relationship. And it's about spending time and recognition that it's not always going to look the same. So spending time with him one day might be thirty minutes reading your Bible and then the next day it might be a five-minute prayer because things are falling falling all over the place, and but you know you need him, and so you get alone for five minutes and you just talk for a minute. I don't want to get into this get into this place where it's about patterns because once we get into a a place of patterns, then it just becomes a checkoff, and that's not where we want to be.

Kristy 8:16

I think for me, I d I don't value patterns. I don't value sameness in any way. If I could drive a different way to work every single day for the rest of my career, I would do it. I value newness and variety. And so I think that in conjunction with my scatter-brained self, I think it really plays havoc with trying to remain consistent, not in the sense that it's from 627 to you know 705 every day or something like that. It's more just that I remain in relationship with with my God, with my dad. It's not meant to be a check mark situation where you know somebody's taken attendance and you're marked present. It's meant to be a steady connection. It's meant to be time spent with someone that you love who loves you too and just wants to be with you.

Tony 9:15

This reminds me of when Jesus was praying to God, and he says in scripture, he says these words. He says, Father, uh I say this out loud, not because I wonder if you hear me, I know you always hear me, but I say it out loud so that those around me know that you he that you hear me. That line and that phrase just rem reminds me that Jesus was always in communication with the Father, and it may not always be something spoken out loud. Are you thinking uh about God, you know, throughout the day? Are you you know, maybe saying a quick two-minute prayer as you're you know, walking somewhere?

Kristy 10:08

Let's hop into scripture again for just a minute. Uh John 15, verse 5 tells us, I am the vine, you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit. You know, obviously Jesus is the vine and we are the branches, we come from him, we're part of him, we grow and thrive because of our connection to him, our relationship with him. He says, if you remain in me and I in you, so remain doesn't mean perfection, it doesn't mean without exception ever. It means present. It means hang around, stay with me. And as long as we remain in him and he in us, we'll bear much fruit, with the implication that if we don't, we don't. Branches apart from the vine, they shrivel up and die. They don't bear fruit. Uh and I think that's the point, right? Is that we're the same way. He wants us to thrive, he wants us to to grow and to learn and to just be more like him every day, to continue to be disciples, discipled. All of that comes with being attached to him, being with him, remaining with him. Um, it's that presence with him near us and us near him that brings all of those things that that you could consider to be much fruit.

Tony 11:37

Some translations, um, instead of using the word remain, they use the word abide. And it's just it's just a more intimate way to to think of that same concept. But whether you use the word abide or remain, ultimately it it it's still about faithfulness over formality. Whenever I can look back on my life at the times where I didn't see much going on, or or the times where I've struggled, it's it's been the times where I wasn't very faithful in my time in the word or you know, my time in prayer, or it's not hard to like diagnose. A word that keeps coming to mind is intentional. Instead of saying, Oh, I have to read my Bible or I have to pray. You know, it's it's like, can we say, I get to, get to read, I get to pray. You know, those kind of things that we get away from this idea that it's gotta be formal.

Kristy 12:45

It's about love, right? It's about being rooted in love and not in guilt or routine or have to. It's it's get to as opposed to have to. When it's rooted in love, when it's our choice, when it's we what we do because we want to, I think that's how it becomes sustainable. You know, it's just like anything that's hard. Like you never want to eat chocolate cake until you're trying to lose five pounds, and then all you want is chocolate cake. Like, you know, I think it's when it's our choice instead of something that we feel like we have to do, that everything just really falls together. And for me, what I what that looks like is more like God just I just kind of like weave the time with him throughout my day. I don't spend a sustained, you know, hour with him every morning or something like that. I pray all day, but it's little bitty, it's little bitty thank you. It's when I look out the window and I see what I see, and all I can say is like thank you so much for that. That thank you for for what I'm looking at for this beautiful day, this beautiful sky, this beautiful weather, that doopy little squirrel watching, or you know, whatever it is. Um, you know, it's in the car. Um, I pray a lot in the car because it's it's one of the times when I'm by myself and I just imagine him sitting in the passenger seat and, you know, I just talk. It's it's times like that when it's when it's not formal, it's not busting out my Bible and you know, my the whatever study that I'm working on. There's some of that, sure. Um, if I'm honest, it's probably what I'm the least good at being consistent with is those kinds of study type things. I want to. I want to learn this stuff, but I, you know, I work on it for a few days and then I wander off and I pick it back up later. It's funny if I have a prayer journal and I've really tried to be intentional about writing in it every day. I don't think I've ever done it maybe more than two or three days in a row. But I don't care. It doesn't, I don't think it matters because I'm still praying in between. It still helps me document like the themes in what I'm praying about. And it helps me look back and see what I've what I've been grateful for, what I've been asking for. It helps me see when things are coming to fruition that I might not have realized otherwise. And it doesn't have to be every day for all of that to, you know, to stand up and still matter. It's it's still there.

Tony 15:29

Yeah, exactly. And for me, especially in the morning, um I I try to jump into work and and and get moving, but what I do to sort of help frame my mindset is I'll turn on scripture in in my earbuds, and I'll have scripture just read over me. Now that's not me like getting out and doing a study or trying to like parse out this verb, or you know, like that's not you know me trying to prep, you know, a sermon or something like that. That's me just having the word read over me and just letting the word soak into my mind and my heart as I'm going through emails or catching up with with what I need to do in the morning. Those things where you just have the word just around you and and in your environment are are so are so key. Um I'm a very auditory type person anyway. When I'm not listening to scripture, I'm listening to worship music. Whatever it is that will help you just get in that environment and get into that sort of headspace, and it doesn't have to be a 20-minute block or 30-minute block. It could be two or three minutes. You know, it could be a prayer while you're waiting for that red light to change to a green light.

Kristy 17:05

So let's stay practical while you're talking about ideas. What does this look like for somebody whose brain is all over the place? I think um micro moments of worship, like you were just saying, start your day with one verse, one prayer, one, you know, just one brief thank you, just a quick prayer of gratitude. How you were saying you're uh an auditory person. I am a, I mean, probably the most visual person I know. And I'm a visual read-write. So for me, it has a lot of value to read something. It has a lot more value to write it. When I find myself like stuck with one verse, like there's something that's just with me or something that I just in can I see it somewhere, whatever, I stop for a minute and look it up and I just write it out. It might be on a post-it, you know, it might be uh it might be in that prayer journal. It could be anywhere, it's on the back of a bill envelope or something. But um, but for me, just to write out a verse is really very impactful. Uh for those of us with some sensory stuff, um, you know, there's a lot of ways to make that work too. Um, you can use movement. It can be that you listen to, you know, to just scripture like you do, or a study or worship music or whatever, maybe at the gym while you're on the treadmill, or you know, while you're outside just walking back from the bus stop or, you know, whatever that looks like. It can be music, it could be art. If you could, I mean, you could draw, uh, you know, just whatever, whatever you feel like spirit led to do, it's what you should do. Um, for me, it's of a lot of journaling. I have just a lot of questions and you know, things to say and prayers. And a lot of times it's it's just easier for me, it's more impactful for me to write it out or even just type it. Um, although I really, I really do love to write, you know, with a pen. I write in all different colors. I I mean, just it's pretty. If it's particularly pretty and it's something I want to hang on to, I might even laminate it and, you know, hang it up at my desk. You know, for for different styles, different ways of learning, different sensory preferences. Um, there's just any number of ways you can try to do stuff like that.

Tony 19:41

And sometimes, um, especially if you've got ADHD, uh, you know, there's this there's this thing of body doubling, you know, where like you're just in a room with another person, whether it be your spouse, uh, a different family member, a friend, and both of you are just doing something in the same space. Hopefully both of you are studying scripture or listening to worship music together or whatever it is. But even if the even if the other person is not doing exactly whatever it is that you are doing, just the fact that they are in the room with you helps you be able to stay focused on whatever it is that you're trying to do, whether that be prayer or reading your Bible or listening to some worship music. That I I know that I know for me, especially when I'm trying to like write papers, that body doubling it it means the world to me for Christy to sit in the room with me. She doesn't have to be working on a paper, but but as long as I know she's in the room with me, it's so much easier to focus and and be able to get whatever I need done actually done.

Kristy 20:59

It makes all the difference to sit at the same dining room table and ignore each other and each work on our own stuff together separately. That's what our youngest and I always say. We're gonna work together separately. I think something else that is pretty cool is there's a lot of tech these days, a lot of different ways to use um tech for connection with um with God and and for learning and things like that. There's apps. Um Dwell is one, um Lectio 365 is one, um Echo. It used to just be a prayer, like a prayer management app, but they've got a ton of resources now. A lot of the um like the the big Bible apps um have everything you need all packaged together. It could be studies or different ways to make um you can sort of make a meme out of a verse, all kinds of backgrounds, make it pretty. You can share. It you can look stuff up. I mean, it's just there's so many ways to use technology. So if you're not a paper and all of the colors are the rainbow pens person like me, um, you know, maybe that will work better for you. And it doesn't matter. It there's not it's not more heartfelt because you say it with your mouth. It's not less heartfelt because you listen to it with an app. Like there's it's just there's not a right or wrong way. It's it's about the intentionality, it's about the seeking time, spending time with God that makes it matter.

Tony 22:40

And I think this fits so well with the point that you just made about technology and about how it doesn't devalue it because we used some kind of technology, because it says in Hebrews, fix your thoughts on Jesus. So it doesn't matter what tools you're using to fix your thoughts on Jesus. What matters is that you are fixing your thoughts on Jesus, whether it that be with a pen and paper, whether that be with earbuds, whether that be with an app. It just doesn't matter as long as we are fixing our thoughts on Jesus. And it says in Psalms as well, be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him. And this is something that I kind of struggle with a lot. Technology is actually helping with this. There's an there's an app called Pause. Um, and this app is by John Eldridge. Um, so for my guy listeners, you guys are probably fans of his. Uh he's he's a big outdoors guy, and I'm not an outdoors guy, but he is. Um, but he's got a really great way of just writing. He and his team just developed a a really cool app called Pause, and it does exactly that. It just helps you pause and be still for literally for a minute. If that's all you can give it, it's got settings for a minute, and then you can go on.

Kristy 24:12

It's um what it brings this brings to mind for me is a lot of people meditate. Like for me, that is the most foreign possible thought. Um, I'm quite positive it would benefit me in a million trillion ways. I feel like it is so far from a meditative state in my brain, I can't even express to you the distance. But um, for a lot of people, uh meditating on scripture, super connective. Um so just, you know, one more thing, one more thing that you can try.

Tony 24:48

And I mean, just going just going back to just the the the small micro bytes, sometimes you can't read a whole chapter. Sometimes it's a single verse that just stays with me because it just it just hit differently that day. You know, um, so whether it is that you you know get the verse of the day from like Bible Gateway or the Bible app or any number of apps that will send that will send you a verse a day, you know, maybe that's it. That just gets you in into a place that for the for your entire day, you just have that in the back of your mind. And you know what? That just that makes a difference. That makes a difference in how you interact with people and makes a difference in how you do your work. Because that context just changes things.

Kristy 25:47

That verse it almost could become your theme for the day. It's just sort of the I like what you said, like a framework. It just becomes almost the filter through which you just move through your day, you interact with people and and what have you. And if if it is just one verse, that's okay. God doesn't measure the time, he's not counting the minutes, he's meeting us in those moments when we're open-hearted and and we're seeking him, whatever that looks like. If it's seconds or minutes or hours or days, you know, he's there. It's it's those moments where he is just waiting for us. And whenever we turn around and say, okay, God, now he's there.

Tony 26:34

We just have to kind of change the momentum sometimes. If it feels stale, do something different. I love you know, different like 30-day devotional books because after 30 days, you move on to something else. And sometimes you do a devotional for seven days, and then you grab a different 30-day devotional and you do their seven days, and grab a different one, and you do their seven days. It you know, it it whatever whatever it is that that's going to just bring you closer to God and bring you to a place where you where you start longing for more for more time and more chasing after it, that's when you know you're in that sweet spot. When when you are to the point you're like, oh, I've already done 10 minutes, but I want more. Uh now you get it. And that's that's a great, great place to be.

Kristy 27:39

As long as when it starts to feel stale, as long as what you change is your approach and you you don't change your commitment level. I think you're golden, you can always rotate you scripture, you know, scripture this week, or scripture today, or scripture this morning, music, prayer walks, journaling, serving, being in service to other people. That's a great way to be intentional with God. As long as that's what you rotate and not your your level of commitment, your golden. It doesn't matter what it looks like.

Tony 28:18

Create like theme weeks. That's cool. Where you are, you know, where where you're focused on, you know, maybe it's peace, maybe it's gratitude, maybe it's Thanksgiving, maybe it's a week on prayer. How did Jesus pray for a week? You know, maybe it's a week on rest. And what does biblical rest look like? Maybe it's a week on resilience. You know, we've got several podcasts that we talk about resilience and and you know, as we continue to grow and as we add to our episodes, I can't believe that we're all we're over 30 at this point, but as we as we add episodes, we're gonna be creating kind of mini playlists that I think can help with some of that.

Kristy 29:12

Yeah, so if we can just just sort of swerve out of here for just a little second, I would love to talk about that because we promised you guys about a month ago that some new things were coming. And Tony is literally working his fingers to the bone, like in just setting up uh just different changes to the website. We've got all kinds of resources that we've been um writing for you: worksheets, devotionals, like all kinds of stuff to go with the episodes, so that if there's a theme that you liked, if there was something that you kind of it just resonated with you one week, there's gonna be, you know, just stuff to go with it. So you could keep that with you for a few days or a week if you wanted to. And so, okay, now back to where we were. That brings me to something else. You know, you can always revisit old verses, things that you've read through before. And I feel like every time I go back to something, I see it with a new perspective. I have taken to in my Bible, whenever, um, like whenever we're in church or some sort of study or a group or whatever, when there, whenever there's a reference to scripture, I turn to it and I write the name of the person who's speaking and I write the date. And then, you know, as I kind of make my notes or, you know, put little stars or underline, or I don't know, I write paragraphs, I write all over it honestly. But I always try to make sure that I date it and I give it some sort of context so that I can remember what was happening back then. And then the next time I come across that same packet uh passage, I write the date again and I I look at it and I think like, wow, with totally different circumstances, I am absolutely not seeing this the same way. Or in some cases, I'm like, yeah, like, you know, this was like a balm to my soul six months ago, and and here it is, and it still reads true. It's the same. Like for me, that's been the it's just been a really cool thing. I've been doing it since I got this Bible, which I think is I want to say going on three years now. I've had this same like main Bible. It's it's cool. I'm gonna give it a try if it's if you think it it might be something that works for you. It's it's been really good for me.

Tony 31:31

So this also brings to mind invite God into your hobbies, whatever those hobbies might be, and also invite God into just your routines. Um, a a friend of ours called me the other day and he said, Hey man, I was listening to your podcast while I was washing dishes, and uh he said, uh what what you and Christy said made me laugh out loud while I was washing dishes. That was just so neat that like while doing something as mundane as like cleaning or washing dishes that you know you're listening to a podcast. But you can do that with scripture, you can do that with you know worship music, any little thing to just bring God into those spaces.

Kristy 32:21

Yeah.

Tony 32:22

If you hate to vacuum, you know what, throw some worship music on while you're vacuuming. Bring God into those spaces, but also bring them into your hobbies, the things that you that you love to do. You know, so if you love to go fishing, you know, if you love to, you know, go for a drive if you and get lost, and which is one of my wife's favorite hobbies, is to go for a drive and turn off the GPS and get lost in the scenery as she's as she's driving. Um, but invite God into those spaces and talk to him and say, God, look just thank you for that wonderful sky. You know, thank you for those wonderful flowers that are so pretty and colorful. You know what you know, thank you for the squirrels that that I saw, you know, run, you know, chasing after each other, whatever the case may be. You know, if it's working out, you know, just there there are so many places where we can bring God into those situations, and it would cost us nothing to do so. We just have to be intentional about doing it.

Kristy 33:32

Baking, cooking, gardening, anything, everything. So back to scripture, Isaiah 43.19 says, see, I'm doing a new thing. Now it springs up, do you not perceive it? It's right there. Whatever we're doing, you know, does he not perceive it? Do you not perceive it when he's doing something new for you? You know, it's all it's all in that relationship. Doing life together. We we say, like with our life group, we do life with our life group, and those are our some of our dearest friends, um, have been members of various life groups that we've been in. I love doing life alongside Tony, but God too, right? I mean, doing life with God, doing life with him as your BFF, you know, as the guy who rides in the car with you and keeps you safe and you know, chats through the miles with you, or chats through the miles on the treadmill, or, you know, sits with you as you're kneading the dough and you know, pressing out the cookies and and you know, those kinds of just sort of rote behaviors, like whatever it is, he just loves hanging out. He just loves doing those things with us.

Tony 34:47

I think too we need to also get to the point that that we can be vulnerable with him. And newsflash, he knows it already. You're not gonna hide anything from him. But I know for me, when I'm down in despair, I can turn on some worship music and it will pull me up out of that negative headspace that I'm in. It'll remind me of of his goodness, of the fact that he is there with me, the fact that he's not disappointed that I'm sad in those moments or that I'm in that despair. He will sit with me in in those moments and want me to to get out of it, but at the same time, being a loving father will sit and hold me in his arms and say, you know what, Tony, it's gonna be okay. How often do we not run to God when things are getting bad and we run to God when they're when there's no other choice. But if we ran to him in the beginning, maybe they wouldn't get so bad that we get in this sort of like desperation state.

Kristy 36:09

He wants to be with us, he wants to be like he wants to be in the moments with us, he wants to just live alongside us. How many hundreds or thousands of verses are there in the Bible that like you run across it and you're like, oh, like that feels amazing, you know? It's like little love notes from God. For me, I you guys know I have a sticky note problem. If I write them on sticky notes and I stick them all over the place, you know, put them on the mirror, put them on your notebook, put them on, you know, put them in your car on the dashboard, um, you know, pin them at work on your bulletin board, whatever, but leave those little love notes from God everywhere. And then you encounter them and you've interact with it for a minute and you you just sit with it and feel it and thank him for it, you know, and you've had a just a beautiful little like reconnective moment with your with your heavenly father there.

Tony 37:12

I want to take a second and just uh I want to speak about grace because this episode we've talked a lot about habits and about building habits and and consistency and all of those things are good things. That's not none of that's bad. But I also want to talk about grace for when there's a day or days that are missed. All of a sudden you have a crazy day. Maybe the kids woke up in the middle of the night and they were sick with a fever or something. You've had to spend all night in the ER, whatever the case may be, where it just threw your day for a loop, everything's crazy.

Kristy 37:59

Maybe you just had a busy day at work. Yeah. Maybe you went to the beach with your family and you were just occupied otherwise. It doesn't even have to be extreme circumstances. Sometimes we just miss it, sometimes we just mess up.

Tony 38:16

Yeah. I I think it goes back to that model of parents. Does Christy want to hear from our girls every day? Sure she does. But does she get mad if one or more of our girls don't call? Of course not. She's gonna be happy and excited to hear from from them when when they do call. I think God's the same way. God wants to spend time with us. He always wants to spend time with us. But if we miss a day, he's not gonna get mad.

Kristy 38:50

No. If you okay, so if you have kids that are in their early to mid-20s right now, your kids were teenagers when our big girl and our middle one were teenagers. And I'm gonna tell you something, all I ever heard about was my snap streaks, my snap streaks. Mom, can you can you log in and just keep my streaks? I have a 400-day streak with so-and-so. This is not like that. God does not require that you keep your your streak, your snap streak with God, your prayer streak with God. If you miss a day, it's not like he resets the counter and he's like, oh, back at zero. You know. There's no, there's no shame in that. There's no shame in restarting at zero. And there's no, there's no glory in counting up to a thousand because it's not about that. It's irrelevant. It's how do you feel? It's how close to him do you feel based on the time that you've been spending together? And if you don't feel close enough, you should spend more time. You know, if you miss a day, just like with anything else, like, you know, we we miss a day seeing somebody. If I used to work crazy hours when I would, I was teaching mornings and then I was teaching at night. Um and there were days when I would get home, it was when my kids were little, and I would get home and I would see their little clothes in the laundry, and I would just, it just killed me that that my baby wore that outfit all day and I didn't even see her in it. Like it was folded up in the drawer when I left and it was in the in the bin, you know, when I came home. And I just lamented. I just it just hurt me so much that I I missed a whole day of her tiny life, of, you know, whatever she did in that little shorts and t-shirt or whatever it was, you know, and and there's days when we get to the end of the day and I feel like that, like I'm just longing, like just can't wait to have a minute to spend with God. And I am positive that he feels like that every day, that he just he just wants to to spend our days with us. He wants to wander around with us, he wants to be in our pocket, he wants to be, you know, in that passenger seat. He wants to just spend it with us because he loves us so much. You know, Tony said with with parenting, like if our kids don't call me, I'm not mad at them. I just miss them and I just wish they'd come home. I think um, you know, we go through seasons where I'm I'm proud, you know, I'm like, wow, I am really in a good place. I'm in a really good groove with God. And I'm I'm feeling like we're he knows all my stuff. And, you know, we've talked it all through. And I feel like as I'm making decisions, they're, you know, they're informed by him, like he's given me guidance. I feel great about it. And there's times when I'm just, it's all I can do to just, you know, whisper or, you know, in the middle of the night, even sometimes cry out like, God, please, just help me show up, bring me close, pick me up. I'm struggling, you know, just pick me up and hold me for a minute.

Tony 42:18

And he does. Every single time. There's a song in the Christine and I listen to often, and and then I think it's one of our it's one of our joint favorites, it's one step away. That literally is God in all circumstances. He's literally right there, either behind you, beside you, whatever, you know, wherever you need him to be. He's one step away. What an amazing God that we have. What a loving father that we have, that he truly is one step away.

Kristy 42:58

Okay, friends, so let's make this real. Um, can we agree that sometime this week, not out of pressure, but out of love for our God, that you will find just one small joyful way to connect. I'm gonna do it. Um, I can commit to that. I can commit to to do to doing it as many days as it feels comfy this week. Are you in, Tony?

Tony 43:26

I'm in. Absolutely.

Kristy 43:28

All right, friends. I hope you're in too. You know, if you come up with something really cool, message us and let us know. If you, you know, you've got a cool devotional that you've been really enjoying the last few days or weeks or whatever it is, let us know. It's if there's a song that's just really driving you right now and it's keeping you afloat, let us know. If we just want to share in on this stuff with you guys, first of all, I mean, because we want to know. We want to know the cool songs that you guys are listening to and whatever. But if we just want to rejoice with you, if we want to be, if we want to be real friends, not just podcast friends. We want to, you know, we want to connect, we want to hear from you. In the last couple of weeks, I I always like to call out where they are. If we've had some new listens in Minnesota this last two weeks, actually, whoever you are in Minnesota, if you hear this, message us and just let us know that you heard it and just know that we're thinking about you and we're gonna pray for you tonight. Christy, will you pray us out? I will be glad to pray us out. Father, we come before you this evening so grateful that that you want us to be here, that you want more than anything to pull us up into your lap and to just hear about our day, just like we do with our babies. We're so grateful that you're a flexible God. And as long as it makes us feel close to you, you're already close to us. Could not be more grateful. I don't have words to say how grateful I am, and we are all of us, that you saw relationship with us as worth the sacrifice, worth the cost that you paid to bring us back close to you. That is something I will always be awed by. And every day of my life, I'll be grateful for that. God, thank you for our friends, the unshaken family that are, you know, all across the country and and across the world. Please, um, please be with each person um who hears this, just wherever they are, whatever they need, just please be with them. You know, touch them, be in their heart and provide peace or encouragement or joy, whatever they need. Specifically, some friends of ours right now, Amy and Randy, are in Costa Rica, be with them there. Just whatever needs there are, whatever um joys there are, you know, all the kiddos that they encounter, please just draw them close to you like you draw us close to you. Thank you that we can always come to you, that we are always welcome at your feet to just talk about our day and um to just spend some time with our Father. We love you. We're we're grateful for all that you do for us and everything that we ask, we ask it in the beautiful name of Jesus. Thank you. Love you. Amen. Love you, friends.