What Was Restored

In this episode of The Weekend Joyride, Mac and Rhoni take a deeper look at Good Friday — not just what Jesus did, but what was truly restored and how that changes the way we live today.

With Good Friday approaching and nearly a year since a life-altering diagnosis in their family, they revisit a powerful moment from their very first episode — a story of praise, faith, and standing strong in the middle of uncertainty.

Along the way, they share a few favorite Texas ice cream stops and reflect on what it looks like to live connected to God in everyday life.

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Transcript

Introduction

Mac 0:10

Hey there, welcome to the weekend joyride. I'm Mac here with my wife Ronnie. With Good Friday coming up, we've been thinking a lot about what that moment really means. Not just that Jesus came, but what was actually restored and how that changes the way we live right now. And this week is a little personal for us, too. It's been almost a year since Ronnie's mom received a diagnosis that really shook our world. So before we're done today, we're going to revisit a moment from our very first episode, something that meant a lot then and honestly means even more now. We'll get there in a bit, but we're really glad you're here for the ride. Welcome to the weekend joyride. We were thinking about Good Friday coming up. It's just right around the corner, a week or so away. And we thought we'd slow down for just a few minutes and take a look at something powerful. I want to look at not that Jesus came, but why he came the way he did. That's a whole story. I mean, that's a whole layer that a lot of times people don't think of that. I didn't do that. Yeah, he didn't just come just to save us, he came to show us actually how to live on earth.

Rhoni 1:24

Right. You have to start with what was lost. So I think it's helpful to go all the way back to Genesis.

Mac 1:31

Yeah.

Rhoni 1:32

So God created man in his image. We know that. And he gave him something incredible, though, and that is dominion. Adam wasn't just alive, he was in full, absolute fellowship with God. He was led by God. He carried authority and dominion in the earth. He was told really to tend it, take care of it, take control of it, right? But then came the fall, and it wasn't just that it was a sin. Sometimes in religious circles, we just talk about Adam sinned. But it wasn't just that. What it really was was a separation from God. It was a shift.

Mac 2:10

Can you imagine how that felt to have been, I mean, walking side by side with God. Empty. Yeah. And then all of a sudden gone.

Rhoni 2:19

Yeah.

Mac 2:19

Yeah.

Rhoni 2:20

I can't imagine how that would feel. But the closest I can get is someone who doesn't know God or doesn't have the comfort of the living God on the inside of them. You see people like that.

Mac 2:33

Yeah.

Rhoni 2:34

But I think the magnitude of what Adam had is much bigger than we can imagine. So, in a sense, what he did was he chose independence over being dependent on God. He made his own decision.

Mac 2:48

Let me have it. I can handle it, right? Yeah.

Rhoni 2:50

Instead of being led by God's spirit, you know, they were at one. They were in complete fellowship in one. Well, he just decided, he and Eve decided that they would just be led by their own understanding, which that there's a layer to that that we could go into. But from that moment on, humanity was still here, but humanity became disconnected from the source, unplugged from God.

Mac 3:18

Yeah, just apart, separated, like you said. But the the cool thing about the story is that God didn't just decide to fix this from heaven, right from up high. He decided that he would send Jesus to us.

Rhoni 3:33

And understand, John 1 1 tells us that in the beginning was the word, the word was with God, the word was God, the word came and dwelt among men. So we know that Jesus didn't just come. He was in heaven before the beginning, from the foundation of the world, with God, part of God, part of the triune being. And if that's hard to understand, just accept that it's bigger than our finite minds can wrap our heads around. But he was a part of the Godhead and decided to step into earth, right?

Mac 4:06

Yeah.

Rhoni 4:07

And become or wear a man suit.

Mac 4:11

Yeah. Yeah, it really was. He he was of God, but also of man, uh born of man. And we we you and I talked about this just a little bit uh a few minutes ago about the lineage that Jesus came from. Because what what Adam lost as a man had to be restored by a man. By a man, yeah, it had to be made right. So Jesus came to restore our relationship with God and to show us how to live on earth led by the spirit.

Rhoni 4:43

Yes.

Mac 4:44

That's interesting.

Rhoni 4:45

It is uh filled with the spirit, a a human man walking on earth filled by the spirit. You know, we say a lot on here, you are a spirit, you have a soul, you live in a body. Yeah, but that spirit part of us was disconnected from God due to what Adam had done. So Jesus came to plug us back into God, you might say.

Mac 5:09

Yeah. And Jesus did only what he heard from the Father, or only what he saw the Father doing.

Rhoni 5:16

That's our clue that he was being spirit-led.

Mac 5:18

Yeah, for sure. Right.

Rhoni 5:20

So we look at Jesus, we're not just seeing God, we're seeing what a spirit-led life actually looks like.

Mac 5:27

And that's not living independently. No, it's not at all. It's not. He was he was being fully led by God, by the spirit.

Rhoni 5:37

Yeah, and when we say spirit-led or spirit-filled, that can be confusing to some people. I'm sure that some people think, like, what does that even mean?

Mac 5:45

Yeah.

Rhoni 5:46

Well, I'm gonna try to make it really simple. Being led by the spirit is not being strange or overly emotional. It's really just about relational awareness between you and God. And it it looks like pausing at times, listening on the inside. It looks like responding to God's gentle leading or direction.

Mac 6:08

We've talked about that so many times about listening to that small still voice or that nudge.

Rhoni 6:13

Yeah, it's sometimes that nudge, like you say, sometimes it's just a sense of peace or it's the lack of peace. You know, he's leading you away from something. Yeah. It can be a thought that aligns with truth or fear. But here's the key if you have invited Jesus into your life, you really don't have to go, quote, find the Holy Spirit because he's already with you. You've been plugged back in. So the spirit life of God Himself made his home on the inside of you. So you're plugged in. And therefore, our journey from here on out is not really about getting more of him, it's about becoming more aware of him and being closer to him, developing our relationship with him. Yeah. So a really simple place you might start if that's something that is kind of intriguing you, or kind of a place that you might start if that's something that you want to explore, would be to pause and just say, Holy Spirit, help me, lead me. That's it. There's no pressure, there's no performance. Because when you read through the gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, and you read the letters that Paul wrote, yeah, there's no pressure. No, and it's not about performance. And Jesus, while he was here on earth, did not model something impossible.

Mac 7:39

Oh, it's just the opposite.

Rhoni 7:41

He modeled something available, and that's the key. He modeled it. Some would say, We can't do what Jesus did. Well, yes, you can, in a sense, because you now have the Holy Spirit on the inside of you.

Mac 7:54

Yeah. You think back about the the lineage that Jesus came from.

Rhoni 8:03

It was important. It wasn't random.

Mac 8:05

Have you I mean, how many times have you looked at all those genealogies in the Bible? You know, so and so begot begat so-and-so, and all those things. And you know, and I still don't get them sometimes, but if you read through them or if you find a commentary or something that will explain them to you, it just shows the blood lineage.

Rhoni 8:27

It was important.

Mac 8:27

Yeah, that Jesus came from.

Rhoni 8:30

It's important because he came as a man who was also fully God, fully man. When you read through the gospels, you'll hear him referred to as son of man and son of God. And that's not random. Yeah. So you look at the lineages. In the lineages, we see that through his earthly father, Joseph, now Joseph didn't father Jesus, God the Father fathered Jesus. Right. But as far as earth is concerned, Joseph was Jesus' earthly father. And that's important because Joseph had a legal lineage from Abraham to David.

Mac 9:14

And then to him, then to Jesus.

Rhoni 9:18

And what that establishes is that Jesus had a rightful place, and what that does is establishes Jesus as a rightful king of Israel. That's a thing people don't always get. But Joseph was part of David's lineage, and therefore Jesus had the right to be a king. A king. That connects him fully to all of us. So Jesus really is legally entitled to be king and fully human.

Mac 9:58

And he just didn't come to rule. He came to redeem humanity. And here you can probably see that from the inside out. He was one of us. It's deep. It's amazing.

Rhoni 10:10

It's deep. And the Bible is so perfect. When you think about these events historically, how they lined up so perfectly could only have been done by God.

Mac 10:21

It's divine.

Rhoni 10:22

It's divine. And then you that brings us to Good Friday. So from the very beginning, when sin entered the world, or when Adam became unplugged, something had to die to cover it. Something had to die to restore it. And that's where the pattern of the lamb enters in. And you see all throughout the Old Testament, people were bringing sacrifices, which were really just temporary coverings. They never really fully restored what was lost, but that sacrificial lamb was required. Yeah. Remember.

Mac 10:58

And every year.

Rhoni 10:58

And every year.

Mac 10:59

Yeah.

Rhoni 11:00

But they never fully restored what was lost.

Mac 11:02

Right.

Rhoni 11:03

Remember how we've said the old testament is Jesus concealed. The New Testament is Jesus revealed. So here we are, Good Friday, standing between the Old and the New Testament.

Mac 11:15

Yeah. So Jesus came not just as a teacher and not just as a miracle worker, as some called him, some called him a great, you know, masterful teacher. But he was the final lamb.

Rhoni 11:28

He was the final lamb. And listen, y'all, he rode into town at precisely the time that they were bringing the sacrificial lambs to slaughter them wherever they did that. His riding into town was perfectly aligned with that. That is another remarkable thing. So not only is he walking the earth, fully man, fully God, he's about to become the sacrificial lamb for all of humanity. The timing is impeccable.

Mac 12:06

Yes, it's amazing.

Rhoni 12:08

It's amazing. He rides in, and then that one sacrifice, Jesus' life, his life, it doesn't just cover sin. It's not just another lamb, but it removes all of the sin, past, present, and future. He's paid for it. That's a big concept.

Mac 12:26

I think it's important to study that again. He didn't it doesn't just cover it, doesn't just wash it over, it doesn't just remove it for this year. It removes it permanently.

Rhoni 12:38

Yeah, he has actually paid for everything you've done and everything you will do.

Mac 12:44

Yes.

Rhoni 12:45

And let that sink in. Now I might get some pushback on this, but I can defend it.

Mac 12:52

Okay.

Rhoni 12:54

He paid for anything that you are going to do. Yeah. And some, if you have a little bit of a religious mindset, might get upset about me saying that. Well, that would just mean that you can go out and sin. That would just mean you could go do whatever. Well, the truth is, that's exactly what Paul was writing about in the letters. Yeah. Does that give us a license to sin? No. No, of course not. No. But his point was it is paid for, it is finished. And Jesus, who gave his life on the cross, actually removes all sin, restores access between us and God. Yeah. Completely he plugs us back in. And that is the beauty of Good Friday.

Mac 13:41

And that's the relationship that God always wanted to have with us.

Rhoni 13:44

Yes.

Mac 13:45

Was there was no separation between us and God, but all that stuff that happened in between, Adam and Eve, and all that, all this sin and everything.

Rhoni 13:54

And all the preparation. Yeah. All the preparation from then to now took us away from it. And it was a marvelous thing. Who could have orchestrated that over hundreds of years except God? My mind can't wrap itself around it. Yeah. But take this away that He didn't just come so that we could go to heaven someday. We preach that. We hear it preached in churches all across America every Sunday. The heaven message. The heaven message is so important. He did come so that we could be plugged into eternity. He did. That's that's important.

Mac 14:33

But that's that's in the future. What about today?

Rhoni 14:36

Today he came so that we could walk with God again and be led by his Holy Spirit with all kinds of clarity and peace.

Mac 14:46

It's the same spirit that led Jesus, and that's available to us every single moment of every day.

Rhoni 14:53

Every single moment. So see this Good Friday as something different, something bigger than just a moment we observe because we honor the resurrection of Jesus. It's bigger than that.

Mac 15:05

It's really an invitation to get back into that life that we were created to live.

A Few Favorite Ice Cream Stops

Rhoni 15:10

Exactly. God with us, and now God in us. One of our favorite things to do

Mac 15:27

Always

Rhoni 15:28

is ice cream.

Mac 15:30

That's one thing that, well, I was gonna say that got us together. But it didn't, we didn't know that about each other before we started dating. But it sure was a nice uh mesh of the gears when uh when you and I realized we were both big fans of ice cream.

Rhoni 15:45

It's been a problem. It's been a problem.

Mac 15:49

Sometimes I say that Bluebell is what made me the man I am today, you know. I didn't drink beer, I didn't, you know, all that stuff.

Rhoni 15:56

We don't do anything like that.

Mac 15:57

No.

Rhoni 15:58

But we eat ice cream. We eat ice cream. It's some of our favorite places we just thought we'd share with the world.

Mac 16:04

Yes. It's kind of like a tour day ice cream or whatever. Not really that bad, but what would you call your favorite flavor of ice cream? Let's start with that. Favorite flavor of ice cream. That's too hard, but it's not either butter chocolate.

Rhoni 16:22

I like peanut butter chocolate. And let me just say that's that comes from Baskin Robbins. Baskin Robbins has been around forever, and and I can still remember as a child going down to Congress Avenue in Austin every single birthday to get my free ice cream cone until I was 12 or 13.

Mac 16:40

Oh.

Rhoni 16:40

I always ordered peanut butter chocolate. My dad always ordered vanilla. I always thought that was so weird that he would go to this special ice cream store and get vanilla. And then I married someone who will do the same thing. So Baskin Robbins peanut butter chocolate is probably my favorite in the whole world.

Mac 16:58

I know that as adults, I want to say that you and I have been in a Baskin Robbins close to your birthday end, and you've said, hey, it's it's my birthday. And I believe they gave you a free scoop. I don't know. I can't remember exactly, but it would not uh it would not surprise me at all.

Rhoni 17:14

So but next to next to Baskin Robbins, I I love Amy's.

Mac 17:18

Yeah.

Rhoni 17:19

I'll go eat Amy's anytime you ask me.

Mac 17:22

It's interesting. There's different flavors to Amy's. You you had me something the other day. Oh, it was like a Texas cheapcake, is what it tasted like. Something dirt or something like that.

Rhoni 17:33

And uh Texas dirt cake, but that was in Columbus.

Mac 17:36

That was in Columbus.

Rhoni 17:37

Maybe our listeners need to know that there is an Amy's in Columbus.

Mac 17:41

Yeah, it's not called Amy's, it's called OST. Oh well, it's also called, I think OST is actually the bar next to it, maybe, but it's called Wiboozy or something like W. It's got a real funny name, but it's a little hole in the wall, right?

Rhoni 17:55

It's Main Street Columbus. Yeah. And it's just this little place that has Amy's ice cream in it. For those who don't know, you need to check that out. Yeah. I'll just tell you. We left our kids' house, and it's a little stop they don't know we make. We don't get onto I-10. We just go straight into Columbus. Stay off the side so we can hit this little ice cream store. So that's our dirty little secret.

Mac 18:20

Yeah.

Rhoni 18:21

The ice cream store in Columbus, which is actually Amy's. It's actually called OST Creamery.

Mac 18:26

Okay, OST creamery. But it's uh it's very interesting. It's just it's no deeper than a closet, really. You walk in and there's just enough room for maybe four people to stand looking at the You got to know about it, and we do know about it. Yeah, you have to. I don't know how we found it. I probably you probably found it online as we were driving.

Rhoni 18:43

I don't know, but it but we know about it anyway.

Mac 18:44

And you have to take a little side road. In fact, this last trip, we kind of there is there's a real side road and there's a regular side road. And we usually take the regular side road, which is well paved and everything. This time we took a different side road.

Rhoni 18:57

Yeah, you gotta know where you're going.

Mac 18:59

I thought banjos were gonna play out there, man. I thought there was something gonna go on, uh, but it did. It got us there and hooked us right into the into the main, and we went down into downtown Columbus, and there it was.

Rhoni 19:12

But I can eat Amy's ice cream in any city. I just didn't realize Amy's was branching out into other locations. All kinds of places in Austin serve Amy's.

Mac 19:21

Yeah.

Rhoni 19:21

I think the thing I like about Amy's is that it's just real cream.

Mac 19:25

Yeah.

Rhoni 19:26

It's real ingredients.

Mac 19:27

It's premium ice cream cream. It is cream. Yeah. It is. It's our favorite because it's just so rich.

Rhoni 19:33

But there's some other, well, nothing wrong with rich. You know, something people may not realize about mandolas.

Mac 19:43

The gelato thing. Yeah.

Rhoni 19:46

Yeah. We go to we go to the gelato bar at Mandolas. I mean, sometimes you think we're ordering spaghetti, but we're going for the gelato.

Mac 19:56

Yeah. Uh-huh.

Rhoni 19:56

What is the difference? People may want to know, between gelato and ice cream. Did you used to think it was ice milk? Why don't you just school us a little bit on the difference between ice cream and gelato?

Mac 20:12

Well, okay. Well, let's learn something then. Ice cream, they're both frozen desserts, as you know. Gelato is denser and maybe a little smoother and cr creamier, it feels like. You like that. It actually I've listed at this list, it says it's served a little warmer than ice cream.

Rhoni 20:31

I haven't I haven't realized that. However, we can say that gelato is softer, so that's probably why.

Mac 20:37

Maybe that's it, yeah. It's less airy, too. Because ice cream is is is whipped and there's more air in it. Ice cream usually is higher in cream and butter fat.

Rhoni 20:48

Oh.

Mac 20:48

It's whipped with more air, like I said. It's colder and it's firmer and it's lighter and fluffier in texture.

Rhoni 20:55

So it sounds to me like we should get more gelato.

Mac 20:58

Well, the thing is about gelato is that the way it's made with more milk than cream, it apparently allows the flavors to come out better. And that's why that's why you salivate every time we pass the gelato bar. Man.

Rhoni 21:11

Well, like I said, you can find gelato at Mandola. So show up for the Italian dinner and then just make sure you stop by the gelato bar. But there's a place in the hill country that people don't know about.

Mac 21:25

Yeah.

Rhoni 21:25

Tell them about it.

Mac 21:26

It's Oro, I think it's Bianco, and it's in Blanco, Texas. It's right on highway to what is that, 281, as you're going down towards San Antonio.

Rhoni 21:35

It is so good.

Mac 21:36

Yeah, it's just really rich.

Rhoni 21:39

Yeah. And what they say about this little place, Oro Bianco, they call it a creamery that's known for its water buffalo milk, gelato. What is that? They also do artisan cheeses and other Italian style treats. I've seen that in the yeah, I've seen the I don't get past the gelato. But here's what's good about this place it's a hundred percent grass-fed water buffalo milk from their own ranches. Oh, really? I didn't know and they create this small batch gelato. Um it's pet and family friendly if you want to take your dog there.

Mac 22:15

Yeah, they have a little porch that you can sit out there, which kind of it's kind of funny to me. We were talking about that the other day in Houston. How people like to sit outside in Houston or uh at this place uh in uh Blanco, and you're just sitting alongside the highway and the cars are just whizzing by all the time. It's it's not very comforting out there, but they have this nice little patio out there. You can sit there. We sat there with your parents not long ago.

Rhoni 22:38

Yeah, so visit Oro Bianco Italian Creamery in Blanco, Texas if you'd like a little water buffalo milk gelato.

Mac 22:46

Yeah.

Rhoni 22:46

It's great.

Mac 22:47

Now there are a couple of places we've been to, or at least one I can think of that we haven't been back to.

Rhoni 22:54

There's an odd little place.

Mac 22:56

She said that and I immediately know what she's talking about. It's in Austin, right? Or have they grown?

Rhoni 23:04

I think they've grown. Um I think we I honestly, I think we landed upon them when they first opened.

Mac 23:11

Okay.

Rhoni 23:12

Because they look a little more mainstream now. Oh, really? Huh. Um they have flavors like coffee with cream. But this this will give you a little highlight. Dark chocolate, olive oil, and sea salt ice cream.

Mac 23:29

Well, now, see, now today that sounds okay. But back then, back years ago when we first went by there, I didn't I didn't think that that sounded good.

Rhoni 23:39

Here's another one goat cheese, thyme and honey ice cream. I don't really see you ordering that.

Mac 23:45

No.

Rhoni 23:46

Here's another one roasted beets and fresh mint.

Mac 23:48

Yeah, see, that's the thing. That's the thing. Put some find some.

Rhoni 23:52

Oh, but look, here's your favorite. Mac's favorite cake is Texas sheet cake.

Mac 23:56

Yeah.

Rhoni 23:57

And there's a Texas sheet cake ice cream. So I think when we first showed up at Lick, they had just opened and it was kind of only the wild flavors. Yeah.

Mac 24:09

We didn't it was things like like prickly pear and jelly or something. I don't know, ice cream. And there were ice cream.

Rhoni 24:15

But now it looks like, you know, give give Lick a try if you want something like ladybird lavender crisp ice cream. You know, it's trislecheus. Mac would eat that.

Mac 24:25

I'm actually looking through the list here, and except for the ones you've mentioned, like roasted beets and fresh mint, they all look like I would eat them. So okay.

Rhoni 24:33

So we'll go back to Lick.

Mac 24:35

Gotta go back to Lick now, don't we?

Rhoni 24:37

But if you go further out into the hill country, you can go to the creamery in Lano.

Mac 24:42

That's a handy place to have.

Rhoni 24:44

That's a handy little stop because there ain't nothing else around there that has ice cream.

Mac 24:48

It's right on the square, and it's a it's a the Lano creamery, I think is what it's called. And they have a bunch of different flavors of ice cream in there. And they have food and everything. It's right next to right next to a bar. But I in fact it's part of that same company. But you stay on one side and you've got ice cream and hamburgers and all that stuff, and it's it's good. Yeah.

Rhoni 25:06

It's good. And then I guess our favorite place to land, because we know we don't need the butterfly and all of the stuff, is is delights. It's our favorite. There are a couple of delight locations in Austin.

Mac 25:21

It's low carb ice.

Rhoni 25:23

Low carb ice cream is really good.

Mac 25:24

Soft serve.

Rhoni 25:25

It is. Six grams of carb, maybe in a large.

Mac 25:31

Uh-huh.

Rhoni 25:32

Yeah. And a hundred calories or something like that.

Mac 25:34

They usually have they usually have like six or eight flavors turning up in the machines there, and they give you a taste of what you want, and then they'll have ice cream stuck away in the in the freezers. Yeah. Yeah, we've we've liked Delights ever since we ever since we, you know, found it in South Austin. So and now they're kind of branching out a little bit too.

Rhoni 25:54

Right. And sometimes, just to be transparent here, sometimes we know we don't need the sugar, we don't need the calories. We will just make some ice cream and sometimes we do it with just heavy whip and some extracts and ice or some frozen berries and heavy whip, whiz it up in the food processor and freeze it for a little bit.

Mac 26:14

But is that like a keto thing? Could that be? I think so.

Rhoni 26:18

If you don't have too much sugar in it, yeah, it could be low carb.

Mac 26:21

It would sure um it sure what am I trying to say? It sure satisfies that urge. Right.

Rhoni 26:29

Satisfies your your desire to go have a pint of uh back to where we started, Baskin Robbins, peanut butter, and bluebell chocolate.

Mac 26:37

I you know, Ronnie laughs at me. He heard her at the beginning talking about how you know she married a guy that likes vanilla ice cream, but uh above all bluebell homemade vanilla is my favorite ice cream.

Rhoni 26:49

And if you've never been to the little creamery in Brynham, uh-huh. I suggest every Texan go there.

Mac 26:56

Yeah. They have a they have a store. Now we went when it was like before COVID, and before they had that Listeria thing that went on, and I don't know if they let you tour inside the factory anymore, but they still have that shop at the end with all sorts of flavors, and it's like a dollar a scoop or something like that. Oh, yeah. It's ridiculous.

Rhoni 27:16

It's worth going to Brennan to the little creamery and check out Bluebell. Just iconic, iconic Texas ice cream is Bluebell.

A Year Later: A Story About Praise and Faith

Mac 27:24

Buy yourself some swag and some ice cream and head out. As we head toward Good Friday and as we look back on this past year, we kept coming back to something we shared in our very first episode. It meant a lot to us then, and honestly, it means even more now. So let's take a little playlist pit stop on the weekend joyride. Ronnie is, I don't know how you would say it, honey, other than you're just moved by CeCe Wynan's music, aren't you?

Speaker 3 28:05

You got choked up, yes, and you said that.

Mac 28:09

It's really um uh this the music that she sings is so anointed, and in Ronnie's heart, it just it just fills her. She's literally taking a second here because she's well it's it's bigger than that.

Speaker 3 28:23

So Cece Wynan's music is anointed.

Speaker 1 28:27

I love the scene songs that I feel like were written for me, that they were written from me, from my heart, and for my heart.

Speaker 3 28:37

I'm thinking back to when we saw her in person, and that was at Austin Ridge.

Mac 28:45

I believe so.

Speaker 3 28:46

It was, I just looked up the date. It was April 25th in 2024.

Speaker 4 28:51

Okay.

Speaker 3 28:52

My mother was diagnosed with stage three ovarian and peritoneal cancer Good Friday, which was March 29th, just barely less than a month before we saw CC Wine's. And I'm gonna say to listeners, this is so close to my heart because praise is used as a weapon.

Rhoni 29:16

I'm gonna talk about that in just a minute. But the wind had been knocked out of me the Good Friday. And I first want to say when we got that diagnosis, all I can describe it as is that these death words were flying through the air. And my mother looked at me, and I looked at her, and I had to just catch my breath. And what I said to the doctor who was pronouncing this sentence over my mother, I just looked at her and I said, Stop. And I said, We are faith people, and start over. And it was for me, it was for me because I had to catch those words and I had to hold them in my hand and do something with them.

Mac 30:15

And so what was the doctor's reaction to you just like?

Rhoni 30:19

Well, she looked at me like I was crazy and I really didn't care. Because that's what the world thinks about you. Yeah. Because, you know, the word says that we are not of this world, right? We are in it, but we are not of it. We're different. And so I want to say that we caught those words, and never once did my mother take those words as a destinants. She didn't. And so what I told the doctor was we are faith people, and you may see some facts on the screen, but we have a truth that we're gonna hold on to. And so what the word says is true. And so this song that CeCe Winen sings, worthy of it all, just speaks to the very center of my heart because we saw her April 25th, right after mom got that diagnosis. And I don't know if you remember this, but I stepped out, I couldn't sit, I had to stand through the whole thing because it was just worship. And I was caught up in the the worship of really all of her songs, but that one took me somewhere. And so what I wanted, I just wanted to share some of the things that we know about praise. This is why it's such a big deal to praise, especially when you're going through something. So you can look at Psalm 149-6 and it says, May the high praises of God be in their mouths. That's what was happening at that concert, and a two-edged sword in their hands. Why do those things go together? Because the sword of the spirit is what changes atmospheres and changes situations. So that passage of scripture uses that metaphor, so to speak, to link praise as a weapon of war. So there I was in the middle of CC's concert with this weapon in my hand.

Mac 32:08

You were actually fighting a war.

Speaker 3 32:11

I was, I was fighting the fear that I had. And I can't deny that I had fear, but I was facing it.

Mac 32:20

And it was still so very fresh. We didn't know answers to anything really about that.

Rhoni 32:25

Right, yeah, right. And so I just stepped into CC's song. And uh there's also some interesting things about praise that we know from studying the scripture.

Mac 32:39

Well, we can read that the Hebrew word for sing is is the concept of creation. Um, so you're singing and creating and that's according to the Hebrews, yeah, associated with bringing things actually into existence, right?

Rhoni 32:55

Which is really interesting because if you ask around or talk with people who are Jewish, some people believe that God sang the world into existence. I've heard that, which that's that's an interesting concept. So, yeah, so when you come back to why I love this song so much, because it's a praise song, and I was standing in the midst of that praise and lifting up words to God from the depth of my heart and singing the promises of God mostly. There's a line in CC song that gets me every single time. Uh, this is where I was imagining my words going up into the throne room of heaven.

Speaker 33:47

Day and night, nine and day, and instance. Day and night, nine and day, and instance, day and night.

Speaker 3 34:03

And as I was singing this line, my prayers were going up into the throne of heaven.

Speaker 4 34:12

Yeah.

Speaker 3 34:12

And it was from the center of my heart. It wasn't something I was just saying. It wasn't just a line and a song, it was my heartfelt prayer. Like James talks about in James 5:16. The heartfelt or the earnest prayer of a righteous person makes tremendous power available. I have no doubt that there was a moment there that something happened in my mother. Now, I'm not trying to say that my prayers saved my mom. No, but it was a moment where my prayers connected with hers and so many people praying for her. Her church, our church, individuals that love her. And it was just strengthening the power that was going up into heaven for mom. Such a powerful song.

Rhoni 35:08

And that line, let incense arise, that in itself is an interesting part of worship, the concept of incense.

Mac 35:19

Incense has always been associated with some kind of uh worship, and it's used in the temple, it's used uh uh during sacrifices, daily prayer uh everywhere. I mean, incense is has been around and it it creates a pleasant atmosphere.

Rhoni 35:36

It's fragrant to God. Yeah, and so when you think about what we know about Jesus, remember that the old testament is Jesus concealed. So you think about the idea of the temple, they would they would burn incense as they would pray, and that was their method of communicating with God. The New Testament is Jesus revealed. Now we are the temple and he has moved on to the inside of us. So now it is our prayers and our heartfelt worship that become incense to the Lord. There's one more really interesting concept here, and that is, you know, we always say in the end, the entire world will know that Jesus is Lord. The entire world's gonna know this. There's also a scripture that says creation is waiting for the manifestation of the sons and daughters of God, and we know that science will align with our Bible, our word of God eventually. And it was put out in Discovery Magazine decades ago. I'm sure they've only continued to study this that black holes sing, they have a sound that comes from them, which I thought was really, really interesting. That the black holes are creation that actually has sounds that the human ear can't hear. So song is all around us, and worship is so much more than reading words on a page. And if you can think about whatever big battle you might be going through, and you find that song that speaks to your spirit and your soul like it did mine, I mean it's worthy of it all, just it took me from my fear into the throne room of God. And I can report that my mother, a year later, she has never one day been sick with ovarian and peritoneal cancer. That's right. Not one day, they found it accidentally.

Speaker 3 37:47

Yeah, stage three. She's you know that she's never missed a beat.

Mac 37:52

She's never missed a beat. It's like, are you sure you feel okay? Of course I am. Are you sure she had that?

Rhoni 37:58

Yes, and and not to say she's had to take some medication and a couple little things like that, but I just feel like people need to understand the role of praise in warfare, and the role of praise in having your prayers answered. It takes you into an atmosphere that is bigger than yourself and bigger than your feelings, and bigger than the circumstances around you. Praise is a weapon, and it's used in warfare. And my mother is healed today, all to the glory of God.

Mac 38:44

As we wrap up today, maybe this is what stays with you. What Jesus restored wasn't just something for the future, it's something we can live in right now. And whatever you're facing, praise isn't just a response, sometimes it's how you stand. If this episode connected with you, or if you're walking through something and just want someone to agree with you in faith, we'd love to hear from you. You can reach us anytime at hello at weekendjoyride.com. We really do read those, and it means a lot to us. And if you want to keep up with the show during the week, you can find us on the Weekend Joyride Facebook page, too. Thanks for spending part of your weekend with us. We'll see you next time on the weekend joyride.