Ep. 5: The Lord Is My Shepherd But I Still Want

Transcript

0:22

All right. Welcome back to The Way, the Truth, and the Traveler. Excited to kick off today's show. Got a cool topic we're gonna talk about. We'll start off today as usual talking about our travel for the past week or two. So w-- I told y'all last time we were up on the border of Iowa and Nebraska. I was doing a project up there. We finally finished that, got that one all wrapped up. Left Iowa a couple days ago, drove from Iowa all the way down to the coast in two days. Was a long journey and a little exhausting, but it was worth it to get down here. We stopped, uh, halfway for the night down there at Little Rock, Arkansas. Stayed right there on the river. That was pretty cool, just staring out at the river in the evening and seeing the boats and things go by. Had us some good barbecue to eat while we were up there. That was a good time. Left the next morning, headed all the way down here. We're currently in, uh, Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, right here on the coast, parked right across the street from the ocean, getting to stare out at the waves as I talk to you guys today and do this. My family loves the beach. We, come down here two, three, sometimes four times a year every summer. My kids love to get to run and play in the sand, and my wife and I just love sitting there staring out at the waves and just getting to enjoy some more of God's creation. It's always a peaceful time for us and relaxation, and we generally need it every year when the summer comes around. Our lives are pretty busy, and we get exhausted between work and raising kids and marriage and everything else, and just trying to pay bills and all the things that come in between. But we love coming here. It's our happy place, as we call it. We just get to sit back and relax for a week at a time throughout the summer and really enjoy it, so that's where we try to end up. We'll be here for about a week, and then I've gotta go over to Opelousas, Louisiana. I got a project going over there for about a month, and then, uh, get to work on that, and then I'll be headed back up to Little Rock for another big project after that one. But while we're in Opelousas, I work a week on, week off schedule, so I'll be bouncing between Opelousas and back over here to Bay St. Louis. On my off weeks, I'm gonna try to bring the wife and kids over here every week so they can play on the beach and have a good time and everybody can just kinda relax for the summer and enjoy what God's creation has to offer and just really get to spend some good quality family time together. So on today's episode, we're gonna talk about contentment or being happy. And boy, do I struggle with that sometimes, just being content with what we have, whether it be our earthly possessions or, you know, things we own or with being happy and content with where our life is right now or our jobs and careers and all the things. So we'll get kicked off here. The first thing I did is I, you know, I was just curious, what's the definition of contentment? You know, we read it all through the Bible, and it talks about being content and just being happy with what we have. So I, I was like, "Well, what's the Webster dictionary of contentment?" You know, help us get a deeper understanding. And the very definition of contentment, it says it's a state of personal satisfaction and well-being or being happy with what you have and where you are in life without desiring more That's a pretty good definition. I mean, that breaks it all the way down for us. But, you know, that's the part we sometimes struggle with is the being happy with what you have or where you are in life and not desiring more, which is why I called this episode what I called it. It's called The Lord is My Shepherd, But I Still Want. We've all heard the Psalms 23 where it says, "The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want," which is probably the most accurate description of what we should be. But sometimes we're not, you know, sometimes we're not content. So sometimes we're the opposite of that, which is the but I still want. Like I said, I struggle with this all the time, whether it be where my career is going or where I'm at in life. You know, I tell you guys about our travel all the time. And it's a blessing for us definitely 100% to get to do what I do and travel with my family the way I do. But, you know, sometimes in my life, I feel unsettled with it and feel like I'm out of place. And sometimes it's difficult to, to be content in that and to, to wrap my head around it because sometimes you feel like you just don't belong anywhere. You don't have a home base. And, and that's a little tough for me at times to, to understand. So that's why I always like to go back to scripture and see what God says about this. And, you know, what can I do to find my peace and my contentment in that? And that's what I'm going to try to help us do here today on this episode is talk about, well, what does the Bible say? What did, what did Jesus say about being content? What is the root of the problem? You know, what are, what are we chasing after that's making us so unhappy in our lives, whatever the situation is, whether it's, you know, the house we own, the car we drive, the things we have, or just where we're located maybe, or, you know, our career's not advancing like we think it should. So that, that's, like I said, I struggle with that, and that's where I'm going to try to take today's episode and try to show you guys some things in the scriptures that I found and studied because it, it always brings me peace to go back to God's Word. I always find my joy and my contentment in that because I know if God said it or God promised it, it's the truth, and I can rely on that. You know, I've told y'all before, I always go to the Bible, and that's the part of, you know, my show that's called The Way, The Truth. Jesus is the way. He is the truth. God's words are the truth. So if the Bible says it, I 100% know it's the truth, and that's what I'm going to follow, and that's why I know I can trust it and believe it and find my peace and joy in that. So we'll dig into that All right, so the first thing I wanna do is ask a couple questions. You guys know I like asking questions, and I'm not just asking them to you, I'm asking them to myself as well. So the first one I wanna ask is, are you content? Are you happy? If you are, why? If you're not, why not? Let's build on that. Let's get to the root of the problem in our own life here. And I wanna know, do we understand the difference between need and want? Needs are necessities in my mind. I think, you know, you gotta have food, you gotta have clothes, you, you gotta have certain things in life. Those are necessities, those are needs. Or is it something that we just want? You know, I don't look at a new car as a need. I mean, I know that's a little bit on the high end of the spectrum here that we're talking about, but you know, if you want a new car, you may not necessarily need a new one unless yours is just completely giving out. Then in that case, you probably need one. But, you know, there can be a difference there. I like to compare this to how I ask my kids. My wife and I, we try to raise our kids the best we can and to make good moral citizens out of them, you know, as we're bringing them up, and, and godly kids as well. You know, I want my kids to understand what the Bible says and what God's Word says, because to us, that is the most important thing in life. We want them to understand we obey the laws of the land. You know, we obey our government, we obey the things that, that are in place here in America, but also above all that is God's Word. Above anything is what God has to say, because He's who we should ultimately be following in our life. So I always like to ask my kids, I'll give prime examples. My kids get into different things at different times with their ages. You know, we have a girl and a boy, and they're into different toys and different TV shows at different times. Like my son, he is, he's obsessed with Transformers. I don't think that there's a Transformer toy out there made that my son does not own. I mean, it, it's insane. The, the bucket in his room of the Transformers, it is just overflowing and I don't know how you could fit even a centimeter-sized one into that bucket if you got him another one. Which I enjoy doing that for my kids because I enjoy them having the things that they want to play with and the things they enjoy in life. It's a blessing for me to be able to do that for them. But, you know, I also try to teach them responsibility. So, you know, we're in the store, we're picking up groceries, they always wanna go look around in the toy aisle. If you have kids, you understand that. You know how it is. And we do that pretty much every time. You know, I let my kids look around, but they don't always get something every time we go But, you know, my son in this example, he'll always see something and he'll go, "Oh, I really want this,", or, "Oh, I need this. I need this." And that, that's always his response. He'll tell me, "I need it, I need it." And I'm like, "Do you really need it or do you want it?" You know, and I, I try to explain, you have all these others to play with and all these other toys that are made and Transformers, but do we need that? And that's what I want us to do in our lives as compared to that. You know, when we're looking at these things in life, Is this something I really need or is it something I want? You know, do I need this promotion at work or do I want it? Do I, need this new car or do I want it? And I, want us to be able to dig into our own lives here and to really think about things and decide, is this a need or a want, or can I just be content with what I already have? I feel like I'm rambling on a little bit this morning, and I apologize for that. I'm just excited about this and, to talk about it with you guys. And I know that it can be a little bit of a tough subject sometimes, but I really want us to be honest with ourselves, like I said, but I don't wanna ramble. So we'll dive into Scripture and see what God's Word has to say about it. The first thing I found is in Hebrews chapter thirteen, verse five. It says, "Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said, 'Never will I leave you and never will I forsake you.'" Well, that's a pretty cool promise right there. I mean, if you ask me, God's telling you, we don't need to be caught up in the love of money, but He also goes back and adds a promise at the end of it and says, "I'll never leave you. I'll never forsake you." That means that He's promising He's going to take care of all of our needs He promises to take care of any need that we face in this life. It may not always be the way that we saw it going, but God has a perfect will and a perfect plan for our life, and He's going to take care of it His way. But He does promise that He will take care of it, so we can take peace in that knowing that our needs will be met. Another scripture that was brought to my mind in that is it says right here in Matthew six twenty-one, it says, "For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." It talks about not loving money, and then this scripture right here is talking about your treasures that you store up here on earth. Well, the two go hand in hand, right? I mean, what do you spend your money on? Where- what treasures do you store up for yourself? But you know, the thing is, is if you value money over anything else or you value your possessions, that's where your heart lies, and that's what God's telling you here. Like, our path here to find contentment with what we have and the things that in our life that are going on or the peace that we're seeking in this contentment is where our heart is. If your heart is focused on just making more money and let me do this, let me do that, and let me go buy all these things, then that's where your heart lies. Your heart's not looking for contentment. Your heart is trying to replenish contentment with unnecessary stuff. And, you know, I'm not preaching at anybody. I'm the world's worst. I've been there plenty of times and, like I said, my long break before this, I was working seven days a week every day since past September up until recently, taking no days off. And I thought, "Well, I'll just put this money up and we'll do this." And, like I told you guys earlier, part of it was like, well, you know, the traveling thing gets to me sometimes and I thought, I need to have a backup plan and be ready to buy a house or any of these things. But you know, all it did was just bring disruption in my life because I didn't have any peace. I was always exhausted. I didn't have time with my family. I hardly saw my kids except for, maybe an hour in the evenings. I saw my wife maybe two hours in the evenings, and it was just, it was hard on our marriage, it was hard on both of us. You know, and not necessarily that it just caused knock-down, drag-out fights, but at the same time, it was my sole focus. It's where my heart was, was on piling this money up for nothing. And the whole time, God's trying to tell me, "Hey, slow it down there, bud. You know, you're the one that's ruining your peace because you're not following the practices that I put in the Bible for you to follow." I was following my own path, not God's path in that. Like I said, I'm not trying to harp on anybody here or bash anybody. I mean I'm not insane. I understand we all have bills to pay and things that we have to take care of in this life, you know, and families to provide for. I'm not saying just go out there all willy-nilly and be like, "Well, God's gonna provide everything I need." There's plenty of times I've prayed to the Lord and said, "You know, if you provide the work, I'll go do it," and God's always provided, for sure. But He knows what we need, and He knows the amount we need to get through in our life here. So like I said, not bashing anybody. I totally understand everybody's gotta work. I'm not saying don't have a job. I'm not saying just sit around and wait on God to show up, because that's not exactly how that works. I'm just saying if we focus so hard on loving money and chasing after it and chasing after our earthly desires, then we've missed the point, and that's what's interrupting our peace and contentment in life. But let's get back to the Bible on what it says so I'm not rambling on. There's another passage of scripture in 1 Timothy Chapter 6, Verses 3 through 10, and it says: These are the things you are to teach and insist on. If anyone teaches otherwise and does not agree to the sound instruction of our Lord Jesus Christ and to godly teaching, they are conceited and understand nothing. They have an unhealthy interest in controversies and quarrels about words that result in envy, strife, malicious talk, evil suspicions, and constant friction between people of corrupt minds who have been robbed of the truth and who think that godliness is a means to financial gain. But godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into this world, and we can take nothing out of it. But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that. Those who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. Like I said right there, it's telling you, it's not saying that money is a bad thing, but it's saying that loving money and chasing after it can be. It's warning of the destructions and the temptations that it brings. You know, i-if you're tempted to go out and live these certain lifestyles or keep up with the Joneses, as we say here in the South. But, you know, if you're trying to attempt all these things and your sole focus is that, then you're bringing the destruction in your own life, 'cause that's what it can cause. You're bringing your own strife and worry in that 'cause you're so focused on that, that you can't see the forest through the trees in it, so to speak. And I can tell you, it's easier said than done sometimes. I have a funny story I wanted to tell y'all, about when my wife and I first got married. So when you first get married, We were young anyway. You know, I was twenty-one, she was nineteen. We had just got married. We didn't understand exactly how the world worked and everything., We were still pretty much kids, but we were trying anyway But, when you get married, you don't understand how hard it's gonna be financially starting out. And, I mean, not just financially, but that's a big part of it. So anyway,, our parents were older, and they all had all this stuff. You know, they had nice houses and cars and all this nice furniture and all these things. Well, in our mind, you know, we didn't realize that that was a lifetime that they had already built of, you know, getting these things together and getting financially stable. My wife and I just thought, "Hey, you gotta have this right away." We thought that's what it meant to be successful. So I went to chasing after it, and we both did. You know, we both worked hard and, we were trying to make this money and shell it out left and right and, then that can be a dangerous world because there's a couple things that can come from it. You can put yourself into debt real fast. Trust me. Ask me how I know. I've been there. I've been deep in debt and had to dig my way out of it before, and I'm just being totally honest and transparent with you guys. It's not a fun place to be in, because when you get in over your head, nobody's there just to give you a free pile of cash at the end of the day. And, like I said, you bring the own destruction in your life in that situation, which is what I did. Nobody's gonna just stand there and hand you all these things to get you out of it. You've gotta work to get out of it. Now, I will say that's where the prayer came in of me asking God, you know, "If you provide the work, I'll go do it." God'll provide the means, and He'll give you what you need to help you through this life if you ask Him for it. But make no mistake, God didn't bring about that part of destruction in my life or the path that I was on. I brought it upon myself. But anyway, back to the story here. So we're first married, we think we gotta have it all. You know, you gotta have nice furniture, you gotta have all these things. So I'm at work one day, and we had some, uh, hand-me-down furniture that we had got from my wife's parents, and there was nothing wrong with it. I mean, my mother-in-law is one of those people that I swear she always says, "Please excuse the mess," but I swear you could eat a sandwich off the floor of that woman's house, 'cause that is the cleanest place you'll ever be in your life. So this furniture was in mint condition. It w- it wasn't that old that they had given us. It was great, but, you know, we decided, oh, we gotta have bigger and better, you know, like everybody else does. So my wife calls me at work one day, and she said, "What do you think about getting rid of our furniture and getting, getting new stuff, like brand-new stuff?" And I said, "I don't care," you know? I s- but I just told her, I said, "Why don't you sell the old furniture first?" Precursor here to the story, I had no idea how furniture stores worked. I was a twenty-one-year-old and never bought a piece of furniture in my life, but we'll get to that. Well, she says, "Okay." And I said, "Well, you know, just sell the old stuff first, and then, you know, we'll buy new. Don't worry about it." Well, I hang up the phone. This is probably eleven o'clock in the morning. I get home at six o'clock that evening, and my wife has done exactly what I told her to do. She sold all the furniture. I walk in, and my living room is empty, and I'm talking about empty. She sold the couch, the love seat, recliner, the whole nine. It's gone. I've just got an empty living room. I said, "Well, I didn't think about this, but okay." I said, "Load up." I went and hooked the trailer up. I said, "We'll just go to the furniture store and get new furniture tonight. Don't worry about it." So we get to the furniture store, and I'm looking at some stuff, and she picks out what she likes. And I asked the lady, I said, uh, "I just pull around back to load it up?" And she said, "Oh, no, sir. That's not how this works." When you buy furniture, apparently you have to order it. You don't just get what's there in the store, which ding, ding, ding, I didn't know that's how it worked. I thought you just went to the store, bought what you needed like you're at Walmart and took it home with you. Well, apparently not in the furniture world. So I asked her, I said, "Well, how long is it gonna be before it comes in?" They told us six weeks. So here's the funny part. For six weeks, we had nothing but those fold-out lawn chairs in our living room. We had two or three fold-out lawn chairs just sitting in the middle of this big empty living room, and that's what we sat on for about six weeks. Now, looking back, that's some of the funniest times we had. It was sitting in these little bag chairs in our living room waiting on this furniture to come in. And you know, uh, the funny part is, as I look back, I was just as happy in that lawn chair as I was in the La-Z-Boy recliner we ordered. Y-you know, yes, the La-Z-Boy recliner may be a bit more comfortable, don't mistake me there, but it, it didn't bring peace and contentment in my life any more than the lawn chair did. The lawn chair was just as good to me, and it was to my wife as well. You know, we were happy. All of our needs were met. We had a place to sit and a roof over our heads, and the contentment was there, whether we realized it or not. You know, we-- God had provided our necessities there. I had a place to sit and a roof over my head, like I said. So but instead of going out and about and trying to chase after this money and chase after the things that I thought I needed, I didn't need it, I wanted it. I was happy and content whether I realized it or not But anyway, I'm gonna get back to the scripture here. I'm gonna read you guys one of my favorite passages of scripture. My dad, as I was growing up, has quoted this passage to me more times than I could count, and it's a really good memory for me 'cause it was always truth, and it was always right, and my dad has always,, tried to guide me down the right path throughout my life. But I remember him quoting, this passage to me more than any other one, and it's one of my favorites. It's in Matthew 6. It starts in verse 25 and will go through verse 34. It's Jesus speaking here, and He says, "Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air. They do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they are? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?" And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the fields grow? They do not labor or spin, yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and gone is thrown into the fire, He will not much more clothe you, you of little faith. So do not worry, saying, "What shall we eat?" Or, "What shall we drink?" Or, "What shall we wear?" For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. This is my favorite verse starting here in thirty-three. This is the one my dad always quoted my whole life, and it's still true today. Verse thirty-three says, But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore, do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough troubles of its own. So right there, God's telling you exactly what we need to do to find our peace and contentment. And that's right there in verse thirty-three. Like I said, my dad quoted it my whole life. Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness. If we are so focused on the kingdom of God and the things of God and serving Him and doing what He has put us on this earth to do, and that we were called to do, then everything else will take care of itself. It says, He feeds the bird, He clothes the flowers. God knows what we need in this life. He's not unaware of our needs. He still likes hearing from us about it. You know, we pray and we talk about the things we need and the things that we would like to see God do in our lives, and, and He loves to hear that from us. But He already knows. He knows what we need, and He's promised in every scripture that I've told you guys about today, He promises that He will take care of every need that we have. Like I said, I love that. If we could just focus on following Jesus, and I can tell you, the more you do so, and it's, it's not always easy, I'm not saying that it is, but the more that you do it, the deeper your relationship with Jesus Christ gets, and the closer and more personal that relationship gets, the more truth you see in this. If you seek His kingdom and you're concerned about doing the will of God and His work here on the earth- then you will see that the truth becomes more evident in your life because these things just, they take care of themselves. His promises are true. His words are true. So we can't worry about tomorrow. Like it says, we can't worry about the things of this life. God knows what we need. He knows what we're going to face today, tomorrow, 40 years from now. He knows the things that I'll face if Lord willing, I'm still here. He knows the struggles I'll go through, and he's already got a plan to take care of that for us. I know I'm kind of running short on time today, but I want to give y'all one more passage of scripture. It's also another one of my favorites, and I quote it to myself about daily because it just reminds me of God's character, His love, and His promises to us, and that's Jeremiah twenty-nine eleven. And it says, "For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." That right there, like I said before, you know, God promises to take care of our needs and our necessities, and He promises to take care of things for us in this life. But right here, He's promising you. He says, "I know what's in front of you. I know the plans I have for you." But He goes on to explain. It's plans for us to prosper, plans for us of good, plans to give us hope and a future. I don't know about you, but I've, I've never seen a future that God designed Himself, where He is involved, that is not a good one. It's just like the promise of heaven, the promise of eternal life. That future cannot be compared to and cannot be beaten, which is the last point I wanna make today. I know I've kind of rambled a little bit and bounced around, and it, it's been a little bit of a different style of an episode. But guys, at the end of the day, I just want you to see the peace, joy, and contentment that following Jesus can bring to your life. And if you don't know who Jesus is, or you don't know anything about Him, or you're not sure, please, please message me, contact me. I would be more than happy to get into deeper discussions with you on the subject and show you exactly what God's Word says about us. You know, His love for us, His faithfulness, everything about the Lord. Any question you have, I would love to try to answer for you in that. But the one thing I can promise is, like I said at the beginning, the Bible is God's Word. We know it is one hundred percent the truth, and we know every word in there is a promise. It is one that cannot be broken. God will not leave you. He won't forsake you. His words are true, and He will never turn His back on you. And if you don't have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, I hope and pray that you get one today. Putting my faith in Jesus and following Jesus in every aspect of my life has single-handedly been the best thing that I have ever done. It is the greatest accomplishment that I have ever had in my life, and like I said, that's counting everything. I love my wife, and I love my kids, and I love being a husband and a father, and yet still, my relationship with Christ is better than that, my wife is my best friend and being a daddy to my kids and playing and running with my kids is some of the greatest joy I get out of life. You know, I would do anything it took to provide or to protect my family. I would lay down my life for my wife and my kids in a heartbeat, no thought to it. But that's why I say, even as great as that is and as deep of love as I have for them, Jesus' love for us is even deeper than that. And it's hard for our human mind to comprehend. It's hard for us to understand and fully just wrap our head around it sometimes. But I tell you right now, my personal relationship with Jesus Christ is even better than that. It's better than anyone could ever imagine. So I hope and I pray for you guys today that if you don't know him or you don't have that relationship with him, that you get one and you get one quickly. I just wanna thank everybody for tuning in and listening today. I had a great time talking with you guys today. If you have any comments or questions, you can always reach us at truthtravelerpodcast@gmail.com. I'd be happy to try to answer any questions you have or love to hear some feedback, anything that you have on that. So we hope to see you back next time for a new episode and some new topics. Until then, always remember, love God, love your neighbor, and trust Jesus with everything that you do