How to hang onto hope even when people misunderstand you

Hi guys! In today's episode, we are talking about the importance of keeping a godly perspective versus judging situations based on external appearances. We dive into Luke 2 and discuss Mary and Joseph's encounters with external voices judging their pregnancy and how God was actually working in their lives to bring our Savior into the world, despite the pushback and ridicule they probably received.

I also share some of Briston and I's experiences when we decided to move into a camper and what people might have thought was going on financially in the business when really God was instilling in us a heart of stewardship, contentment, and generosity. 

Hope you enjoy!

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

What is up, guys? Welcome to the Entrepreneur's Wife podcast. I'm your host, Carly Rains. This is a podcast where we talk about finding purpose as the helper to our small business owners in this feminist obsessed world. And today we're I'm really excited about this topic. Um, this is actually something that I feel like when we talk about just the business and what God has done in our life, um, through Bristol and I in Texas Outlaw, this is like the most passionate thing that uh I love talking about just because I've seen the faithfulness and the fruit of from the Lord with it. And so we're gonna talk about stepping out in faith and being obedient, even when it looks crazy to the outward eyes. Um, and we're gonna kind of dive into some scripture and then I'm gonna give some testimonies. And my goal is that it encourages you to be bold and courageous and to really step out and ask the Lord, like, hey, um, what, you know, as master of our life, like what are we supposed to do? How are we supposed to make decisions and moving forward, like making sure that you're praying and asking the Lord every step of the way, um, because he wants to be a part of your life, not just in the big things, but also in the little things too. And so we're gonna dive into scripture first. I looked at Luke chapter two, and this is the first paragraph or the first section, if you will, is the birth of Christ, and it's really interesting because if you know the story of the birth of Christ, Mary actually gets pregnant before she gets married. So she um they they were engaged and they were supposed to be married, and then to not make her, you know, get humiliated, um, Joseph was like, Hey, I will just we'll just you know, I'll just decree a separation privately. Um so that way you're not humiliated. The angel comes to Joseph, and angel also came to Mary before she got pregnant, and so when we start in Luke chapter two, they're actually going to Bethlehem, and they are going to get registered, as it says, because of Joseph's lineage. And as I was reading this section, they're not like fully married yet, but she's pregnant. Um, I'm sure the rumors, so there's a there were a couple things that popped out. Number one is that Joseph knew that he was of the lineage of David, and you gotta think about like how much time passed between Joseph and and King David. There were like a lot of years, hundreds, probably hundreds of years that passed between King David's reign, because King David was in the Old Testament, and then Joseph that's in the New Testament, yet he knew, Oh, my family line is of King David. I think that that's pretty cool that they kept track of that. Um, so he knew that he was of the lineage uh of David, and then they're going to be registered, and I when I was reading, I was just thinking like she was with trial, she's pregnant. So this would kind of be like if we had an engaged couple at church in the Christian sphere, and they got pregnant outside of marriage, which is a big no-no. So everybody knows y'all did the deed and y'all didn't necessarily do it right, and they're getting married, but they didn't do it in the order that it should have been done. And I would when I was reading, I was just thinking about all the gossip and all the rumors and all of the chatter, and and honestly, like the downward looking, all the external voices that are looking at them and that are not approving of the decisions that they're making. They're probably thinking, Joseph, why the heck would you marry this woman? Like she's just terrible. Um, you need to go and find a better one. I'm sure they're looking at Mary, like you're so disgraceful, all this stuff, right? So, like, there's all of this chatter and talk coming from the outside. And I was just thinking about that. And I was thinking about when I was reading how they birthed Jesus in a manger in a barn, and but because of their experience that they had with the angels, so both Mary and Joseph had encountered a supernatural event that basically proved to them no, this is really from the Lord, and they were so confident in knowing this is from the Lord that I feel like they weren't scared to walk out in obedience. She still gave birth to Jesus, Joseph still married her, they still followed through with what they were gonna do, and I think that that's really important because when I give the examples of Briston and I, and I feel like as Christians, when you're like for instance, in a small business, like when you're leading a business, you're gonna make decisions, at least Briston does, that not everybody's gonna agree with. And Briston actually posted about this on Facebook one day, but the past few years he's been really a lot more bold about his faith. And he before, you know, if you knew Briston, you knew he was a Christian, but he didn't really talk about his faith because our company is just like a secular company, it's not like it's like it's a Christian company, but it's not Christian, like it's a secular running company, we just have Christian values. So before, if you knew Briston, he talks about his faith, but he wasn't very outward and bold about it. Well, the Lord kind of convicted him of that, and so he started talking more about his faith and the values, and especially with you know the non-binary stuff, the man, male, and female categories, all of that has really impacted the running community, so it's impacted our industry. So he's been very bold about that, and I remember there were good-hearted people who love Briston, um, who came to him because he had made a post on his personal profile, and it was going against the LGB, that whole community always makes up the letters, but that community it was going against just different stuff, and they came, they called Briston and they were like, Hey, they were like, This is gonna affect your business. I know you posted on your personal profile, and they were right. Like, I will say, I always now when we hire employees, um, we've learned that him having a small business as the founder, if an employee messes up, it affects him. Like, people are gonna think they're gonna associate Texas Outlaw with Briston. They're not necessarily gonna think, oh, this employee messed up, they're gonna backlash it on Briston. It's just how it works. And so, um, these good hearted people had a small business themselves and they came to Briston, they were like, hey, this is gonna affect your company, and you're gonna lose customers, and you need to think about that when you're posting stuff. And and they they are right, like it your what you say will affect your company, it will affect your customers. But I love what Briston said because Briston was like, Well, then they if they if they don't, you know, at least tolerate, they don't have to agree with his values, but he said if they don't tolerate his beliefs, then he doesn't want them at their he doesn't want them as customers anyways. And even though that post came with a lot of backlash, um, because 90% of our industry is leans left, it leans very liberal, very woke, very not Christian. Um, so it came with a lot of backlash. We've seen the Lord's faithfulness despite that, and I wanted to parallel it with this verse in Luke with Mary and Joseph, that there have been times in our life where we know God is calling us to do something, and these external voices either don't agree, or there's backlash, or there's negativity, and it comes to a point where you have to make a decision of am I going to amplify the external voices or am I going to amplify what I know God has called me to do? And we've really had to learn over the years to hone in on this is what God has called me to do. And I also want to say that thankfully, just like Mary and Joseph encountered the moments with those angels, there have been confirmations where we can confidently stand and say, no, this is the Lord. Like I can confidently walk in this, even though I'm getting all of this, I don't want to say persecution, but all of this backlash. I can confidently walk in it because I know that this is from the Lord. And so I kind of want to go into moments in our business where we know it was from the Lord, but we received backlash. That was one example when Briston started being bold about his faith. And it's really sad. I've mentioned this on an episode before, how we started. Um, I want to say we've done like a 180 because we've started with one group of people. And the people that we have now, some of them have been with us since the beginning, but most have actually either come in because of our faith, like we will find people who love Texas Outlaw because of the Christian faith and they're newer to it. And then we will find people who leave because they don't agree with our values, but they might have started with us, but then they figure out who we are and what we believe and what we support, and they leave. And it's sad, I'm not gonna lie, I miss those people, and I also hope that those people understand, you know, it's it's a balance because you also want those people to know your heart, but at the same time, you can't force it. Like you have to sit there and you have to trust the Lord that they're gonna see truth and they're gonna see the reality, and you can't manifest or try to make them see it. You just have to let go, and it's out of your control at the end of the day, and also you can't change people. That's something that I've had to realize is people misunderstand or they'll leave um our community or whatever. And at the end of the day, I have to say, you know what? Like good-hearted people are gonna ask questions and they're actually gonna seek truth and they're actually gonna be curious, and they're actually gonna hear you out. And if they're not willing to do that, then you probably don't want them in your circle or in your community or as customers, anyways. Because if one thing goes wrong, they're gonna, you know, leave and twist things and kind of be like these people were with Mary and Joseph. You know, they're gonna believe the gossip, the rumors, and they're not gonna actually go and seek truth. So, um, I was thinking about this last night, um, because we Briston and I recently bought a new camper, and we were talking about how for nine months we lived in a 20-foot camper. And if you don't know, a 20-foot camper is tiny, it basically was one room, um, and it had like a little bathroom, and I always think back to that experience, and I always like I it's it's just a moment where I smile because I can't believe that we lived in a 20-foot camper, but I think back, and I think it's it's so funny, guys, because I just feel like this is how the Lord works, because if I would describe that moment, I think everyone on the outside really thought we were struggling and failing in life, and this is just like paralleling it with Mary and Joseph. Everyone on the outside thinks that they're failing in life, like she got pregnant either by you and y'all weren't married, talking about Joseph or by somebody else, and you're not doing it right, and everybody's seeing that they're failing in life. Well, when we moved to Longview, that was a very scary move. We didn't the business was not, we didn't know if it was gonna pay the bills, but we knew God called us to Longview, and it was not making that much money. Um, so it was a very scary thing to do. We had hired Asher because we were pregnant, and so we're having to pay Asher a salary on top of paying us, and I'm staying home, not working, and we have rent and bills and all this stuff, and so we lived in um an apartment for I think like a little over a year, and our rent was going up, they were increasing our rent pays, so we really were like, you know what? Like, crime was going up in the area. Um, we just were like, we feel like we need to move out of this area, and we had a camper, and my parents had lived in a camper before, so I knew how that worked. So we pitched the idea of what if we move into a camper? Pretty much to save money because we eventually wanted to buy a house. And if our rent in our apartment was going up, that was gonna make it a lot harder for us to save for a down payment and buying a house. If we moved into a camper, it literally decreased our rent expense in half, it cut it in half. So we pitched the idea, we prayed about it. Um, crazy, y'all. But I remember I was sitting on my bed pumping. I was I was I breastfed, so I was pumping milk, and I remember like being like, God, I don't know what we should do. Should we move out of our apartment and move into a camper? That's crazy. Um, or should we stay here? Like, I don't know what we should do. And literally, as I'm praying, I get a call from this um RV park that we lived at um saying that there was a spot, a long-term spot available for us to move into if we wanted it. Because when we originally called, there weren't any spots available, and so we were gonna have to go on a wait list. And then she calls and she's like, Hey, there's a spot available. Do you want it? And that was pretty much confirmation from the Lord that yes, you should do this. Because I'm literally praying, asking, what should we do? And then I get this call. I mean, it was pretty cool. So I knew we should move into a camper. Well, like a few months before this, Briston accepted another job as a teacher and a coach at a school outside of Longview. And I'm sure from the outside it looked like, okay, y'all moved to Longview to depend on this business. Now he's working as a teacher and a coach. So I'm sure from the outside it looked like, yeah, I don't think the business is doing that good because he had to get another job. When really the business was doing good, uh, the reason he got another job um was because we needed our baby Briley, she needed insurance. We didn't have, I was under 26, but she didn't have insurance, and we were about to give birth. And thank God we had he took that job because if y'all know our birth story, Briley had to go into the NICU, and the NICU is not cheap, y'all. Um, and so because we had insurance, it paid for a lot of it. And so he got this teaching and coaching job. He also made like great connections um through this teaching and coaching job. I mean, literally, uh a two-A school was hiring a head cross-country coach, which is pretty unheard of for that small of a school. But it was just, again, it was like the Lord was like, No, this is what I want you to do, and he learned so much. Um, he got a part of FCA, which is Fellowship of Christian Athletes, and he met a bunch of great people and great connections. He made great relationships with the students. There's just a lot of good that came from that. But I'm sure from the outside, it looked like we were failing and the business was failing because he had to get this other job when really the business was growing and we just needed insurance, and this was also an opportunity for him, and he he enjoys coaching, so he he enjoyed the coaching aspect of it. Um, so he gets another job, he's also doing the business, then we move out of our apartment into a camper. So, so it's getting worse. It just looks like it's getting worse, okay? So we move out of our apartment into a camper, and then we had this new 2020, what was used, but newer Jeep Grand Cherokee 2021. Jeep, it was so nice, guys. Very bougie, but we were tired of the car payment. We didn't like the car payment. We're spending $500 on this car payment, and I just was like, Briston, I just was like, let's get a cash car. So we're living in the camper, he has this teaching job, and I was like, let's sell this car, this new car, and let's buy this old rinky dinky 20 2006 for an expedition that we found on Facebook Marketplace. This old guy had had it, he kept it in very good conditions. We drove to Texas, Arcana to pick it up, and so we sold our car. So now we he has this, he has two jobs, we have a baby, he's uh we're living in a camper, and we sold our nice new car for this old Ford expedition, and in the American culture, this is not looking good. Like from the outside, this is probably looking crazy. When really, in reality, guys, we were thriving. Like, like, this is a point in our life where we had no stress with money. We we were saving a lot for our house, we didn't have a car payment, we didn't have any debt, we didn't have any medical debt because of insurance. Like, we we were living at peace in terms of finances, and we we loved living in a camper. I had a community of people, I could run, it was so nice, I could walk and take Briley out in the little RV park and walk around. Whereas in our apartment, it was literally in the middle of Longview, and I couldn't just go out and walk around because it was so busy. Um, there were just so many benefits to it. But going back to Luke chapter two with Mary and Joseph, it probably looked crazy. Like it probably looked like this is getting bad. And for Mary and Joseph, I'm sure it was too like y'all are pregnant, this is bad. Like what basically what good can come from this? And as you know, Jesus was born and there was so much good that came from it, and but in the moment it didn't look good. And so my point in this episode is to encourage you that in the moment it might look crazy. And really, I want us to think about like looking at other people's lives, but then also our own lives. There might be people that you just don't understand their situation, and I would caution us to conclude that it's a failing situation because you don't know what God could be doing in that moment. Okay. Just like Mary and Joseph, he was birthing the Savior who would come and save the world. And all these people who are gossiping and and pointing fingers and just talking and chattering, they didn't understand that of what was happening, of what was being planted and what was being birthed. They didn't understand any of that. And then looking back at Briston and I's life, oh my gosh, how much we saved so that we could pour back into the business, and how much we saw the faithfulness of God, like all of that stuff was being birthed in that moment from the outside, it didn't look like that. From the outside, it looked like y'all are struggling and this is really bad. And so, yeah, my encouragement is that we wouldn't look at people's lives from a physical external perspective, that we would see them and we would actually say God is doing something. I might not see it right now, but God is doing something because you don't know. And so the biggest thing, especially as women, I feel like a big temptation is gossip. Um, we just chatter and talk, and I just feel like as women, it's just a bigger temptation than it is for men. And I don't want us to resort to if we see a situation, we just immediately think of the negative or we immediately think of it failing. Like I want us to see a situation and say, you know what? God's doing something. Like I don't know what God's doing, but I know in Proverbs, He calls me to trust in Him and not lean on my own understanding. And I think that's the biggest thing out of all of this is not leaning on our own understanding. That actually, like a part of being a Christian is having hope. And actually saying, like, there can be hope even if the situation doesn't look good. And so I wanted to encourage y'all with that um for today's episode because I don't know. I just was thinking about it last night, and it I just feel like it's so cool to see just it feel like it's so funny too, because it just doesn't look good, but really there was so much good going on that behind the scenes the outside people probably wouldn't see. Um and the and like people mean well. That's that's also another thing is people mean well. We um but I think the biggest thing is is is trusting in the Lord and not trying to control the situation. We were watching the movie The Pilgrim's Progress, and at the very beginning, like so many of the people who are watching the main character, his name's Christian, watching the main character leave and go follow God, so many people, good-hearted people, were like, What are you doing? Like they were like, Why why the heck would you do that? Like you're crazy, you know? And even in the in the book uh the dream giver, which I encourage you to read, it talks about this character named Ordinary, and he feels like God's calling him out and calling him to step out, and his family and his friends can't understand like why would he do that? Like they can't understand why God would call him away from them or like go do this scary crazy thing, and they mean well, but again, it's it goes back to perspective of like don't look at the physical things, don't look at what's physically going on, look at what's going on spiritually. Um, and I think that's a big part because a lot of Bristol and I's character building happened in those times when we did move to Longview and we did obey God and depend on the business, and we moved into a camper, and he got that job, and we sold our car, like those moments really built our character. And I look at how we are now, and like we wouldn't be where we are now had we not have done that. And I also want to say and just kind of end with this um, I don't think we can receive God's blessings if we're not willing to first obey. I think sometimes as Christians we want to have both. Like we want, we what's the saying where it says you want to have your cake and eat it too, and it's like that's not how it works. Okay, God in scripture talks about blessings, he talks about rewarding you, but with the reward comes action and obedience on our part. And sometimes I feel like we want God to bless us, but we're actually not really willing to change what we're doing in life, like we're not willing to change our character, we're not willing to change our habits, we're not willing to change our discipline, we're not willing to change, we're not willing to change anything, and yet we're like, Lord, bless me in this area, or Lord help me in this area, or Lord help me do this. And it's like, well, are you are you gonna be willing to take action if he says, Okay, well, I want you to do this, you know. Think about the story of Abraham, right? Like, Abraham, in order for Abraham had to become this great nation and be blessed, he had to first obey God when God called him away and said, Hey, go to the land which I will show you. Like that had to happen first, and then God said, I'm gonna make you a great nation and I'm gonna bless you. But in order for him to be a great nation and to be blessed, he had to actually step out and obey. And so I say all that to say that Mary and Joseph, same way, like they had to obey God in order to receive the blessing. And sometimes I feel like in life we are making decisions wanting the blessing, but not wanting to obey God. And so I just want to encourage you with this testimony to obey God. Like obey him, and you will see the blessing come. But don't expect the blessing before the obedience, because obedience comes first. And and pray that God will help you. So, I love you guys. Thanks for listening to this episode, and I will see you on the next one.