Ep 16: Sunday Faith to Daily Faith

We explore how to carry Sunday’s faith into the workweek with honesty about parking lot patience, men’s surrender, and small habits that keep us close to God. We end with a challenge to identify the Bible character that mirrors our own journey and a prayer for steady steps.

• Sunday emotions versus weekday actions
• James 1:22 as a mirror for living
• Parking lot tests of patience and love
• Daily gratitude prayers that re-center
• Men and the trap of self-reliance
• Surrender as strength, not defeat
• Power of praying with other men
• Mustard seed faith amid self-doubt
• Hope that keeps us swimming longer
• Church as people, not a building
• Small, steady habits over big gestures
• Teaser to name your Bible character

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Transcript

Welcome And Purpose Of The Show

SPEAKER_00 0:14

By charting the road when you travel, whether you're walking through challenge, or calling, this is your road. And you don't have to travel it alone. Now, let's talk to number 12 with your host, Aaron Degler and Alan Hugator.

Sunday Love Versus Weekday Life

James 1:22 And Living It Out

SPEAKER_02 0:31

Welcome back to the Road Travel. Thanks for taking all the time to join us today. I'm your host, Aaron Degler, along with our host, Alan Hugator. We're excited for you to join us on the road travel as we just try to share each week a little bit about our journey. We take some scripture, we take a topic each week. Uh we share our thoughts, our ideas, our experiences that some of them are not so good experiences, some of how it didn't always work out, but that you can hopefully apply to the road to troop traveling. And we just want to impart that with you. So again, thank you for joining us and we'll kind of get started. You know, sometimes Al and I talk about Sunday morning church and going to church in different groups and things like that. And, you know, I think sometimes, I think we'd all say, you know, we'll go to church, we'll go to church on a Sunday. We love going to church on Sunday. We love God on Sunday. But as Al and I were kind of discussing earlier before we started recording, well, how does that play out during the week? Because it's real easy to love God on a Sunday morning when we go in and everybody's all dressed up pretty and looking nice and worship music playing as you come in, and then everybody you have the meet and greet, you know, everybody hugs and shakes hands, and then you're worshiping, the preacher preaches you leave. It's real easy to love God. But you know, it it's really uh strong on Sunday morning. And uh, you know, you go home and then uh home life happens, uh work happens, you start to get stressed by temptation, and then somewhere between Sunday and Monday, uh our faith gets parked a little bit. So I want to read a scripture from James 1 22 to 25. It says, not merely listen to the word, so decide does decide over, do not merely listen to the word and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like someone who looks at his face in a mirror and after looking at himself goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. But whoever looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom and continues in it, not forgetting what they have heard, but doing it, they will be blessed in what they do. And I was getting as I was getting ready for today's episode, I thought, now, what if I went and looked in the mirror and went away and forgot what I looked like?

Parking Lot Tests Of Faith

SPEAKER_01 3:15

Well, you'd you'd first sign of insanity, you'd already forgot about who you were, but yes. That's true. Sure. Uh what come to my mind was who are you really trying to kid here? When you step out of church and you feel so good, and then you you don't start walking the walk through the rest of the day. You start already veering off the path that he would have you to go. And, you know, you're getting off path real quick because you all I went to church this morning. I feel good. I feel good. And am I good for the day now? Am I good for the week? But you know, you talked about the love that you'd have for the Lord and you shared it and you worshiped him and all, and that's what praising at church is about and everything, and then the other part that came to my mind was how quick is it? Is it just getting in the car and trying to get out of the parking lot that you're already ill with somebody in another car that cut you off? How long did your love for the for fellow man last when you stepped out of church? Did it last till Monday morning when you went to work? Somebody irritated you there. How long did your love is for your neighbor, as God said, to love thy neighbor? How long did that last? Does it last the whole week till you come back and recharge again on Sunday morning?

SPEAKER_02 4:38

I mean, it might not even last out of the parking lot. You know, some some go to churches where they have people that are directing traffic and all. You may have got out of that church and got mad at the parking tenant or the person that pulled out in front of you when it was your turn to go. It may not have made it out of the parking lot.

SPEAKER_01 4:54

Exactly. So how strong is your love? And I'm guilty. I'm guilty. I mean, I can step step out of Bible study on Sunday morning and pull out on the road and something happened, and boy, you jerk. What are you doing cutting me off like that, or here, or there? Boy, this traffic's driving me nuts, you know. And already have the wrong attitude. Well, if you're starting out that way, how long do you think that lasts this week? And how hard is it to get back on track? Do you wait till Sunday morning to get back on track?

SPEAKER_02 5:30

So, so so that's a good question. How how do we, you know, how do we keep that during the week? You know, because we leave when we leave church when we're feeling good. You know, some of the things that we, you know, what do we do? Our Sunday morning faith looks like it it's church, it's worship, it's good intentions, but then during the week, we don't have any prayer, we don't have any Bible, we don't have any spiritual leadership, we're not depending on God. And so, you know, like you said, our faith shows up for an hour, our love, and then disappears as we get on any London.

Keeping Faith Through Daily Practice

SPEAKER_01 6:12

I do a prayer every morning, and I have worked real hard at trying to do gratitude prayers throughout the day. Whether I sit down and have another real long talk with him or not, but I try to thank you, thank you, Lord, for the opportunity you give me to hear the thank you for keeping my children safe. I love them very much, Lord, and thank you for, you know, beautiful day, or thank you for, boy, just my life is wonderful, Lord. Thank you. You know, thank you for my great wonderful wife. Whatever comes to my mind, I try to do those to stay connected throughout the day. And then something will go wrong, or a couple of things go wrong, and I do I lose that connection for a little bit and I get out, and so I have to reach and grab myself. Matter of fact, it's happened today, you know. So I'm trying to bring myself back in order here to be thankful for him, be thankful and show kindness and love for my fellow man. And, you know, I got offended here a few days ago. Well, why am I so easy to offend, right? Is it all it's all about me, right? But so that's one way that I have worked real hard at, and that is doing my daily morning prayer, and let that not be the only one, but to do the little small ones throughout the day and thank of him and try to bring it back like a smile on my face with hey, that other's not that bad. You still got God's love, you still got all these things you're grateful for. So get your mindset back right. Because if you just walk in to church and no church in particular, just walk in, well, right here, boy, I'm in, I'm in good. Well, we had a great service, minister done an outstanding job and all that. And then when the door closes behind you, if that's it for a full week, that's pretty limited. And I'm not saying church is that way. For a lot of people, it's not. They carry it right on and they show it and they live it every day, all day long. You know, when you get up in the morning and you do your prayer, think about it and say, I'm surrendering to you today, Lord, to you your will. Also, what does he say? In anything you do, seek the kingdom of heaven first. Seek first the kingdom of heaven, I believe is what it is. So let those kind of thoughts come into your mind and don't get locked up on your work this world too much, and let those things come into your mind and they will help lead you.

Men, Self-Reliance, And Surrender

SPEAKER_02 8:49

And I think as as men, you know, because we're geared towards, you know, um helping men on their road to be better husbands, better fathers, better sons, better leaders. You know, some reasons we probably all struggle. And one I think is men, we we try to be really self-reliant. That's kind of that's what we do. We we we handle it, we fix it. I don't need help. And really, faith is saying, I need some help. Prayer sometimes is saying, I need some help. I think it's men, you know, how do I how do I fix this problem? I need to go fix this problem. And so I think we lose that sometimes during the week. We might be praying on Sunday and go, I might even walk down to the altar if that's a church you go to and and really ask for help. And but then come Monday, we want to try to work on it ourselves. We want whatever the problem is in that relationship, we want to fix it. Whatever the problem is at work, we want to fix it. Whatever problem is going on in the community, we want to fix it. And we don't always rely on that faith that we have. And then I think sometimes too, not necessarily we reject God because we live in a busy world. And we say, Well, we're busy. And I don't think it's necessarily that we're rejecting him. We just crowd him out. He gets crowded. Well, yeah, I'll I'll get I'll get to that. I I'll I'll pray later. I'll uh talk to him about it later. I'll read my Bible later. I got this, I got that. And and like you mentioned, you you say the prayers in the morning. Right before your day gets started, before everything gets going. You have all kinds of things that happen.

SPEAKER_01 10:34

Well, when I miss them, I miss them. I miss them all day. I feel something's missing in my life that day when I don't do it. Say somebody calls me, I get up about five, somebody calls me, and I get sidetracked, or there's a problem, or we're talking through some market, or we're talking about something, and next thing you know, well, here comes in the hired hands, and then we're going off and we're doing things, and well, I think, well, there's something missing today. Well, I didn't have that connection with the Lord. It I I've made it such a habit that I miss it when it when I don't do it.

SPEAKER_02 11:10

And you have to be intentional.

Crowding God Out With Busyness

SPEAKER_01 11:11

I don't feel, oh, I'm guilty. Well, I should, you know, it's not a guilty feeling. I miss it because I wasn't able to lay some of my problems at the cross that morning and let him take care of it instead of me trying to handle it. I wasn't able to tell him how much I appreciate everything he's done in my life or what's going on. Maybe I wanted to ask him a question, you know, or maybe I say, God, you know, help me uh you know, use me today to for others can see you through me. And whatever that reason is, and you might not even know it at the moment, but the more you do that, the more it will become it's not habit. You'll want to do it. And the more the gratitude prayers that I do throughout the day keeps me in tune. It does not take the place of coming together and worshiping. There's it's really powerful when people come together and worship together. We was at the Bible study one morning, and this man, we we decided to pray for this individual. And that morning there's probably 20 to 25 men there. And we put hands on each other's shoulders or backs or whatever, and went around and said prayer for this person. And it really got to me because I go, these men right here have faith that they can go to the Lord and He will help answer their prayers. And there's 20, 25 men here that's willing to come together, not be ashamed to, or not be bashful or anything, just come together. And not everyone said a prayer, but we kind of passed it around, and and probably the majority of them said a short prayer to help this in or to ask God to take this individual and help them with their child. But it was just, it was very moving to me that men would do that. Or, and we've done it before where there'd be eight or ten of us, and we just held hands. I mean, men holding hands and we're saying this prayer, and I go, wow, that's that's powerful. That moved me a lot, more so than everybody singing at church, even. But it just really moved me that men was willing to come and do that and had that faith that they were praying to God. We believe that you will answer and that you are listening. We know that. So we come to you with this problem, we come to you with this situation, we come with you with this person's life to help them. It just very it was very moving to me.

SPEAKER_02 14:03

And I think you're right. I think sometimes we go out of that situation and then think, well, you go, you know, we're in a group like that, we're all praying together, and then we go out into maybe home, and we think, well, my work is mine, my stress is mine, my marriage is mine, it's my responsibility to take care of it all. I think sometimes, I mean, I think we're all guilty of it that we go, well, let me see if I can, you know. And and even coming from a, you know, that might have been some of those men that that left that day and prayed that strong for somebody and yet still tried to take on some things in their life themselves. That was that was their thing. Cause that sometimes it's easier to pray for somebody else and and think it'll work out than it is for ourselves as men, think I have to be patient, I have to wait. I want to wait. I want to be patient, I want to get it done.

Power Of Praying With Other Men

Admitting Weakness And Finding Strength

SPEAKER_01 15:02

Well, you gotta admit first that you're needing help. That, hey, I need help, Lord. I'm praying to you. And it's gotten so much easier for me to say the word surrender. And Lord, I know I'm a weak man. And by my faith in you and with your strength that you can give me, I ask for your strength to go through this day and to try to be a better human on this earth, to be a better servant to you. And doing that every day to me is is so important in my life. It has changed my life tremendously. Yeah, when you go and you accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior and you get baptized and you do things like that, yes, there's big change that goes on. But when you start really surrendering, and I I still sin, I still have problems. I mean, you know, I had some things the other day that come up, and it was one thing hit me, and then another thing hit me, and another deal hit me, and then another deal, and and I kind of got all frustrated and irritated, and and then I was kind of I was even embarrassed to said, Lord, look what I done. I dropped the ball. You know, forgive me. But as a thought was he letting me go through this as a learning experience? Was that why I was going through that that morning? And it the good part is at least I turned to him and I'm not bragging about myself because I've been in G in times I have not, but this time I turned to him, I said, Lord, I need I apologize for getting frustrated, aggravated, I hate the word mad, but you know, upset and running my day, and there's no need. These things can all come about and be taken care of in time, and so if I left it at the door at the church and left my praise and everything to God right there, just inside there, and didn't do this all week long, that wouldn't have felt comfortable for me to go to God at that moment and say, hey, I see that I'm weak. I see that I failed here. I'm seeing that I got aggravated. Don't think clear when you're doing that, don't put him first when I'm doing that. I could see that it still happens at different ones of our lives, different points in our life. But I think that by going to him on a daily basis and keeping him in mind, and you know, it's great to stay in the word also. That's where you draw a lot of your strength from, is in the word of God. So you need to read scripture as often as possible. I don't say it's a daily ritual, but yes, it's good, if you will. As often as you can, you draw so much of your strength from his word and his promises that the Bible's full of. But then through the day, just keep going back to him and either thanking him or let him come to your mind because then you're thinking of him, and that's going to help you walk the walk he wants you to walk.

SPEAKER_02 18:18

And it's not when you talk about just as you mentioned, doing those things daily, it's not have to read a whole chapter in the Bible. It's maybe read a verse. It's maybe say a 10-word prayer. You know, it's thank him for this. I need help with that. Whatever it is, it it's it's simple, but still being in that constant communication, that constant word. And then when we have pressures, when we have stresses, can we trust him? And it we just have to have what, the fate of a mustard seed.

SPEAKER_01 18:51

I I sometimes You ever looked at one of them?

SPEAKER_02 18:54

I've never seen a mustard seed, but I figured it's pretty small.

SPEAKER_01 18:56

It's really small.

SPEAKER_02 18:58

Because I always think, well, if things don't happen, and that's always a encouragement to me, because I always think, well, what things don't happen, I must have had some inkling of a doubt. And so since I had an inkling of a doubt, then that's probably didn't happen. But then when I read about the faith of a mustard seed, that doesn't mean that there's not doubt. It's just I need a little bit of faith. Just a little bit. It doesn't take much.

SPEAKER_01 19:22

That may not be the doubt that you have in God. No, it's the doubt in your in you. Are you living the kind of life that he'd want you to live to where he is truly listening? Would he really act upon your prayer? Is that where the doubt comes from? Is that well, my faith is not as strong as it needs to be? Okay, well, whose is? We could all improve. So there's where the doubt is. It's not in God's power.

SPEAKER_02 19:54

Yeah, it's really what you know.

SPEAKER_01 19:56

You're not doubting there, but you're doubting yourself. You're doubting your relationship with him, you're doubting your shortcomings. Believe me, he says and he will, he'll forgive you for all those. So have faith that he will. The hope, the word hope, I've been confused on at times, and it's not hoping about God's promises will be there. I believe that. When he promises, he will not break a promise. The Bible's full of his promises, full of examples, people that have turned to him and got went away and come back, and he's forgiven, and and all of those things it's full of. It's not the hope in God, it's the hope in ourselves, is the way I view it. It's I'm hoping that I can change my life enough that he will continue to accept me. I'm hoping that my faith grows in myself, even. That I can grow more faith in myself that I can walk the walk he wants me to walk. Don't doubt yourself so much. I had problems, I still have problems with that. Well, you're not living the way you know. Hey, be strong. Be strong in faith in yourself. I can do this.

Mustard Seed Faith And Doubt

SPEAKER_02 21:14

And when you talk about hope, I mean I I might have told her I don't remember, but I'll tell her in there. There's a study back in the 50s with some rats and scientists, and there were lab rats. And so they wanted to see how long the rats could swim. So they put them in the water, they let them tread waters, see how long they lasted. But when they started sinking, and they lasted about 15 minutes. They let them sink a little just sinking in the the researchers, they grab them out of the water. And they only made it 15 minutes before they started going down into the water. And so the researchers get them out, dry them off, let them rest for a couple minutes, put them right back in the water. And and a lot of times I say research shows, and Kim doesn't believe me, so she goes and looked it up, and she went looked up. One up in the real, so we can believe you. And so they put them back in the water, they oil out for a couple minutes, and to see how long they'd last the second time. The second time, they lasted 60 hours. Because of one simple fact, they now got hope that somebody was gonna come to Satan. That somebody was gonna pull them out of the water when life got hard, so they kept struggling, they kept swimming, they kept their nose above water because there's hope that at any minute, any second, someone was gonna pluck them out of that water. And I think that's the same we do. We we do those things. My hope is that I want to be better, I want to do more because at any moment we've already asked Jesus in our hearts to save us, but again, he's gonna take that stress away. At any moment, he's gonna take that pain away. And at any moment he's gonna take that hurt away. And we always have that hope. And we keep we keep swimming, we keep struggling, we keep fighting for that next breath because of that hope. And we do that throughout the week when when it gets hard to breathe in life sometimes. Because we have that hope that whether it's through what he's trying to train us on and make us stronger at, that we're gonna come through and go, whew, that feels bad. But we have that hope.

Redefining Hope And Forgiveness

SPEAKER_01 23:22

Yeah, he tells us he will forgive us. And we hope even though we failed again and again and again, but his love is so strong if you truly are growing stronger and truly mean it and truly come to him, he will forgive you again. It's hard to believe that because we don't, we're not that forgiving. That's where we have trouble understanding how much forgiveness and how much love he has, because we don't have that much forgiveness in us. There's times when I have very little at all. But I've learned to forgive others more and more, and but God, his love is so strong, he's always there to forgive you to the last moment. That's how much love he has for each one of us. No matter. And so we're hoping that he will continue to forgive us because we fall short every day in some manner, way, form. Just in a thought. Maybe not even in a full action, maybe not even in words, but just a thought of, oh, that sucker pulled out in front of me. I wished he'd have a flat. Something so minor, we think. And yet that's not the way we should be.

SPEAKER_02 24:45

And you know, the challenge really is how how do we, you know, how do we have that faith all week long so we bring it back to church or bring it back to where we meet on a Sunday? And maybe Sunday's a little different for everybody, but you know, how do we, and I think we've talked about some of the a few of those ways, is to start your day with with God.

SPEAKER_01 25:05

Well, how's your mindset in church? What is your mindset there? Okay, I'm in a holy place. Is that church so much more holier than this whole universe that he made? He made this for us, it's his. This is his.

SPEAKER_02 26:05

Does he he look more upon it when we're in church at the altar with the several others around us praying for us? Is that any different than when a group of men that you talked about at men's?

SPEAKER_01 26:17

The Bible study.

SPEAKER_02 26:18

Bible study. Getting together and praying. It's not like, oh, one's better because it's in one place than the other. And I think I think sometimes we forget that that's not the point, it's not the structure that is overhead.

SPEAKER_01 26:33

Do you do you love those people at church more than you do the people out here in the rest of the world? Just because they attend church with you?

SPEAKER_02 26:40

And what makes up the church? People.

SPEAKER_01 26:43

The people. All people.

SPEAKER_02 26:45

All people.

SPEAKER_01 26:47

When they come together in his name, wherever it's at, outside, inside, you know. Church is just a building. And yes, I do show respect and take my hat off before I enter the church and things like that. There's something to showing respect.

SPEAKER_02 27:03

But you've been at a Sailborne.

SPEAKER_01 27:06

Oh, yeah, we had church at Sailborne, you know. We've had church a lot of places. I mean, I we've done Bible study, and I mean, wherever we're talking about God, I remove my hat. You know, that's just part of it. You know, to show respect. But that's all day, every day, so to speak.

Church As People, Not A Building

SPEAKER_02 27:26

Because that's just intertwined in your life. And it didn't start out that way. It's not, I mean, it's taking years to get there. It's, you know, a little here, a little there. And I think that's what we're trying to share, is that it gets stressful, but just start adding a little bit. A little bit. Maybe it's a verse, maybe it's a quick prayer. And a prayer doesn't have to be official, it's just in your truck and you walk, sitting in your recliner. You know, close your eyes, keep them open, think in your head. It's a prayer.

SPEAKER_01 27:55

You said the walk. We're we try to walk the path that God will have us. We ask him to take us by the hand and hold us to the path. It's a journey, right? And we've talked before and we will many a time about the intent of the heart. And if you're growing, the intent of your heart is to become better, closer, more what he wants you to be, the way he wants you to live. The way Jesus described it, we should live. But it is a journey. And long as we're taking steps forward that are really accomplishing that forward motion, that increase in our closeness to him, reactions, life that we live, it's a journey.

SPEAKER_02 28:42

I mean, that's a great way to kind of wrap it up, is that strong men just don't worship. They walk with God.

SPEAKER_01 28:50

Amen. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 28:52

And when you walk with a friend, you do it all the time.

SPEAKER_01 28:54

Right.

SPEAKER_02 28:55

Side by side. And as we talk about strong men, you and I had a conversation a couple weeks ago about men, and you had asked me a question, so I think maybe you should ask that to everybody else as we're going to discuss that on our next episode.

Small Daily Habits That Stick

SPEAKER_01 29:13

Okay, I'll ask you this question and ask everyone that's listening to this episode. What character in the Bible do you feel like that you most relate to with your experiences and your walk in life? Which one kind of reminds you of you, or you remind of their walk and your walk, how they're kind of alike. I know it's characters and hundreds of years difference in the time and all of those things, but the action or reactions. And when I was first asked this question, uh boy, I don't have a clue. I mean, uh, I know I'm not like Satan. He's a character in the Bible, right? No, but he is for real. Jesus, I'm not there. You're not going to answer it with that. Oh, I'm, you know, no, we try to use, you know, he he set an example and we try to mold ourselves more like that. But I don't care if it's Adam, don't matter if it's Moses, it don't matter if it's one of the apostles. Somewhere in there, think about a character that you relate to the most as far as you and your actions. And there's a purpose for this, and that's what we'll have on our next episode, will be that.

SPEAKER_02 30:37

And then join us next time as we share what we think we Yeah, we'll share.

SPEAKER_01 30:43

Yeah, we'll share who we feel like that we are like and who we our our lives are kind of similar. Join me as I close for us today. Father, we we pause at this time again in our lives, Lord, to study your word, look at it in the mirror at our own actions. And where we fall short, Lord, we apologize and we're sorrowful. And we come to you because we know that with your love, Lord, and with your grace, that's the only way that we have a chance at entering your kingdom. And we do you do realize we have struggles and we know that, and you are right there with us. So, Lord, as we said, continue to take us by the hand as we walk this path on the road that we travel, Lord. We come to you in the name of our Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

SPEAKER_02 31:36

Amen. Thank you, each of you, for joining us today on the road traveled. We hope that we'll find you on the road and keep traveling that we can add some hope on that road. And as always, please subscribe to the podcast and always share it with friends if you think somebody that might get a benefit benefit from it, that they're on a road that we talked about, that we can meet them on the road, and we would love for you to share that with them. And as always, we'll look forward to seeing you on your road.

SPEAKER_00 32:06

You've been listening to The Road Travel, where real faith meets real life. Remember, every step matters, even the hard ones. So keep walking your road with courage, conviction, and Christ leading the way. Until next time, your host, Erin Mellon said, will continue down the road.