Why Don't I Feel God's Peace...

In this episode of Full Fledged, JC and Priscilla Shirer have an honest conversation about one of the deepest desires of the human heart: peace. In a world filled with stress, anxiety, and uncertainty, they explore what the Bible actually says about the peace of God and why so many people struggle to experience it especially when it comes to your personal responsibility.

Transcript

SPEAKER_04 0:00

So are all actions in the workings of God and as a as a believer, like all your actions are powered or sourced through God, but you just don't know, or some like, do you know how that works?

SPEAKER_00 0:13

Exodus 18, when God graciously gives the children of Israel all this mana. Okay, then he says, on the seventh day, you're not gonna gather. If you do go out there, you're gonna be expending so much time, effort, energy, it's gonna be exhausting, and you're still gonna come up empty-handed. That is one of the markers when I've stepped into God margin. When I'm doing, doing, doing, doing, and really the only fruit I'm getting out of it is a feeling of exhaustion. Hello, son. Hello, mother. Welcome back to the podcast. I'm welcoming you back. Hi. Oh, hi. I'm welcoming you back. Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 0:57

Welcome back.

SPEAKER_00 0:58

Very, very good to be here. We're back in our childhood home. This is our childhood home where Tony and Lois Evans raised us, where we raised our children, their grandchildren. It's fun sitting on this old couch with these old pillows. Look at this pillow, JC. That joint's gonna be a little bit of a game. This used to be the jam. I mean in the 1980s, stuff like this was the jam. That joint's gross. I'm not gonna lie, mom. You don't even know, like this is quintessential Lois Evans right here.

SPEAKER_04 1:26

Yeah, it looks it looks like Nani. It looks like Nani. It looks like this whole house is just Nani centric. Speaking of old, um what the right before this, we um I asked mom if she could bring like a Bible because I left my at home. No, I'm not super spiritual today. Um, and she brought her Bible. Y'all, you know, she is the holiest one of them all because look at these pages. Um, it is the Bible's on this last leg.

SPEAKER_00 1:51

It I don't understand how what makes those pages on their last leg.

SPEAKER_04 1:55

You know, you done did some work in this Bible. You done prayed with this Bible, you done stomped with this Bible, you didn't adventures with this Bible. Well, you know, it is true.

SPEAKER_00 2:05

I have had that Bible. Actually, I was in this house when Nani and Poppy gave me that Bible. I was 17 years old. So there's a note written in the front of that Bible from Nani and Poppy to me on my 17th birthday. So, yes, I've had that my entire life, but I keep I have gotten it rebound. Like that's brand new leather on the outside because I got it, I've gotten it rebound at least six times.

SPEAKER_04 2:29

That's how you know the Bible, you had to get it rebound. 97% of people don't even know what rebound means because they never have to rebound their Bibles because they don't be in it like that.

SPEAKER_00 2:38

But you but also I've had it for 35 years.

SPEAKER_04 2:42

It's not I can find some good clean 35-year-old Bibles. I know the Saints got some good clean ones up in there.

SPEAKER_00 2:49

Well, I'm glad that it's used. I do, I will tell you this and then we'll move on with what we're supposed to be talking about today. But I will say that the last time I got it rebound, they told me it's the last time I can bind it. Because yeah, because every I didn't know this, but every time you're rebinding it, there's probably illustration here. You're using whatever margin space is right there in the center on each side of the interior pages. You're using the margin space. So once you rebind it over and over, you'll see now when you open it up, there is no space in the margin next to the words. It's that was it. So they were like, you actually can't do it anymore. It'll start infringing on the actual copy of this, you know, the wording. So that was the last time I could bind it. And I'm now having to kind of make a decision. Am I gonna keep using it in the same way? Because that's that's my that's what I use personally. That's what I used to teach with. It's so I'm kind of trying to decide now. Do I keep using it in the same way, or do I need to get a new one that I use and get comfortable with the way I'm comfortable with that one? It might be time, dog. Because you see how there's no margin in the center. There, you ain't got nothing.

SPEAKER_04 3:52

I mean nothing. I can't even see the verse, the the the verse. Oh, really?

SPEAKER_00 3:55

You can't see the number?

SPEAKER_04 3:56

It says I see one. Hold on, let me three, three with verse 31. Okay, it's not 11, 31.

SPEAKER_00 4:04

Yeah, so it's it's definitely on its last leg. I'm hoping to give this to a grandchild one day, so I don't want it to be destroyed.

SPEAKER_04 4:11

Yeah, this is not making it to the next generation, anyways. Um, so we didn't do an opening song, and I can't believe you forgot. No, I didn't forget. I just was we were bantering.

SPEAKER_00 4:21

Oh opening song, we're so glad y'all are here. Hey, hey, hey hey, hey, hey, hey, um, hey, hey, I've seen hey, okay, hey, hey, I'm about to get serious and super feeling based.

SPEAKER_04 4:39

I'm just kidding. Um, but okay, I saw like a couple videos recently, and I've been wrestling with this idea because I'm kind of confused, and I I want to talk through like I looked at a little bit last night and like throughout the last couple months-ish, but I just want to talk about it. So there were two things that happened. One, I saw this video, it was like on Instagram or YouTube, shorts, or whatever, and it was basically saying how it's self-righteous to rely on your discipline, basically. Like, I'm trying to remember the way that they that these people worded it because it was it was great.

SPEAKER_00 5:20

Rely on your discipline to honor God, to honor God.

SPEAKER_04 5:23

Like they were like being they they referenced it or preferenced it by saying, like, being holy. Like when we try to like, oh, I'm not, I'm just not gonna look at that, so now I'm holy, or like I'm just not gonna do this, or I am gonna do, I'm gonna, I am gonna read my word now. I'm holy. You know what I mean? Yeah, and so they were like a checklist of here's what I do and don't do, and that's how I measure mine. Exactly. And they were talking about that being form of legalism, I think. Uh-huh. And so I was like, I understand that spiritually, like it sounds really good, but I'm a little confused because there is a level of, and I don't know if this is just me, but I feel like there is a level of responsibility, responsibility, like you gotta do it, you know what I mean? And I've been trying to wrestle with this through this because I'm like an I have an athlete gene, you know, like I am very just high achiever, go get it, get it done. It's gonna get done, you gotta do it. You know what I mean? Like, that's just kind of the way that I was trained and cultivated in sports, and that's just kind of my whole life. So I kind of have that perspective. So when they said that, I was just like, like it, like that's like I'm like, yep, sounds right, but I just am confused on where actual like like like discipline and decisions come into play. And does it have anything to do with you being holy, or does it have any like part to be in holy? And I have another, I was listening last night. Sorry, it's another thing. Listening last night, and there was something else. Um, Pastor Brian Laritz. He's exceptional. Yeah, oh he's a monster. He was at our church uh yesterday to this episode, and um we were we were listening, and my mom was like, go, yeah, listen back to the to the um to the service because I didn't go. And um, he was like, he gave illustration of these two sports people, I can't remember their names, but one, it was like a super long voyage from like West Africa to South America, I think it was. And this one girl, she rowed the whole way from West Africa to South America, or something like that, might be butchering it, but something like that. And so something crazy. And the other person just used a sail, and the sail brought her from um from West Africa. Around the world, yeah, on the water. Wherever, on the water. And the point that he was trying to make was we oftentimes we try to row in our own strength, but not like use the sail, which God being the wind, to push you to the place that he's calling you to go. I was like, that sounds great. But the first thing that was went through my head was if I rode and used the sail, it'd be faster. So I'm just like, I'm I just am trying to wrestle with the idea of what if it's it's just God, obviously, it's just God. But where does where do I come into play? How do I come into play? Am I even in the play? Like you, like I'm just very confused. I don't hear any thoughts on that.

SPEAKER_00 8:06

Well, I'm glad that you are wrestling with it because I feel like that's one of the things that it's okay in your faith and in your walk with God as you're maturing. Part of that maturing process is wrestling through things like this. Like, this is a great thing to just let yourself relax into the wrestle about. I will share a few thoughts, but I didn't want to skip that because a lot of people, when we're wrestling with stuff, we're kind of hard on ourselves about wrestling. Like, I should know this by now. And it's like, no, like relax here. God's allowing you to toy with this, to think through it. That's how growth happens. So good for you. Um at the very beginning of your statements, though, I feel like you used a key word that kind of gave clarity to the answer. You said, when we rely on one over the other, I think the key word is rely. It the problem becomes when for your standard of holiness, you are relying on, not that you're not utilizing your own stewardship and being responsible and disciplined and obedient. That's what it is. Obedient. Here, Lord, is what you've spelled out for me in black and white on the scripture, in the scripture, or by the Holy Spirit's conviction and wise leadership in my life that I'm supposed to be doing and not doing, then there is an act of obedience and discipline that says, all right, here are things I'm not gonna allow in my orbit, here are things I'm gonna engage in because I want to cultivate a life, a dynamic, an environment that will support the holiness that Christ is working in me. I think the problem becomes legalism becomes when my definition of whether or not I am holy, whether or not I'm acceptable, whether or not the Lord is pleased with me, is based on, I am relying on my own willpower and strength to check off this to-do list of stuff.

SPEAKER_04 9:51

Yeah. And this might be a like a reiteration, and maybe you just answer that, but I kind of gotta ask again. So, like when I when I think of willpower, I think of the ability to I guess that okay, I kind of answered my thing. What I was gonna say was the ability within yourself to keep going, but it's not within yourself, it's God who gives you the ability to keep going. I guess it always okay. Actually, you know what? I saw a verse about this last night. Hold on. I wrote it down so I didn't forget, so I didn't have to keep it look at you pre-planning. Because I was thinking, I've been thinking about this, and I'm like, because it's it's kind of irritating me and bothering me because I don't understand it. And I don't like not understanding things. And sometimes you just have to not all the way understand, but not this.

SPEAKER_00 10:34

But even as you find that verse, just know that it's not an either-or. It's not that I'm totally supposed to be um relying on God and the Holy Spirit to do everything for me. No, you have free will, you have a body, you have a mind to think. He has given you um gifts and talents to steward. So you have to be responsible and be a good steward. It's like the parable where the master gives the servants the talents. They have to now steward what he has entrusted, what the master entrusted to them. So there is responsibility on our part to be good stewards and walk in obedience with what God has entrusted to us, our body, whatever. Um, I think again, it becomes whether or not we are depending on and um gauging our level of holiness based on what we are doing or what Christ is doing in us. It's the dependence factor, the reliance factor.

SPEAKER_04 11:30

Okay, before I read this first, I just saw something. Um it the the the Bible somewhere says be holy and set apart or something like that. When it's saying be holy, like what is what is that, what is that implying to me? Like, is it telling us to me to be to act holy? Like, like right, and like yeah, acting holy seems like I mean, I guess me, I'm just not going too far, like I'm I'm not going to the root of the thing, but acting holy looks like following the boundaries in which God is designed, obedience, obedience, right? And um, a level of obedience comes from discipline of yourself, of course, which is one of the fruit of the spirit.

SPEAKER_00 12:13

So think about that. Discipline is one of the fruit of the spirit, Galatians chapter five. So still being disciplined is an outworking of God's operation in you.

SPEAKER_03 12:26

Do you see what I'm saying?

SPEAKER_00 12:27

So even that is not just my own will, you know, New Year's resolution. Even that is me going, okay, Lord, I'm gonna have to trust. I need to be filled with the spirit, I need to concentrate on being filled with the spirit. As I'm filled with the spirit, which obedience has a lot to do with being filled with the spirit, it's like the cycle. As I'm obeying the Holy Spirit's work in my life, obeying the scriptures, as I'm um uh just cultivating a life in which I don't grieve the Holy Spirit, but as I'm continually filled, the outworking, the manifesting, the evidence, the fruit of his filling in me is that I'm more patient than I would be. Gracious, kind, joyful, self-restraining. So that is even an outworking of the priority being being filled with the spirit over I gotta do A, B, C, and D.

SPEAKER_04 13:19

So how do I I know I was like a lot of questions now? I got a bunch of questions. So how do you know? I don't know all the answers just to be clear. I know, but you can you know, and you I don't know, but agree, let's find it in the Bible. Um, so how do you know when an action that you're doing is like an inner or okay? So are all actions inner workings of God and as a believer, like all your actions are powered or sourced through God, but you just don't know, or some like for for God and others are not, even though the same actions, like, do you know how that works?

SPEAKER_00 13:59

Well, the illustration that comes to my mind, or the thought from scripture that comes to my mind, and again, I believe that there would be a much better, more comprehensive answer on this from the scripture. But one of the things that comes to mind is Exodus 18, when God graciously gives the children of Israel all this manna. Okay, then he says, on the seventh day, you're not gonna gather. If you do go out there, you're gonna be expending so much time, effort, energy, it's gonna be exhausting, and you're still gonna come up empty-handed. To me, that is one of the markers when I've stepped into God margin. When I'm doing, doing, doing, doing, and really the only fruit I'm getting out of it is a feeling of exhaustion.

SPEAKER_04 14:42

That's good. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_00 14:44

And I and I mean that in every area of life, work ethic, because because we could apply this even to working and being productive and diligent. Okay, we can't say God do the work for me. No, he's given you gifts and talents, and you have to be disciplined enough to sit down and do the work he's given your hands to do to be productive. Okay, so here's the Lord giving me opportunity to go gather manna, and I see fruit of it. The fruit of it means there's some evidence that what I'm doing matters. I feel purpose. I feel even when I'm tired and there are challenges, there is not only exhaustion and nothing, no other fruit that makes me feel fulfilled, even though I'm tired. Whenever I start feeling that, where it's more striving, angst, anxiety attached to it, exhaustion, that is one of the evidences for me, and whether it's in my work or whether it's in a relationship or what that I have actually crossed into the margin that's supposed to be belong to God.

SPEAKER_04 15:40

That is good. That is good. That hits me. That hits me.

SPEAKER_00 15:44

Yeah. So what if that's the marker for whether or not we're like, wait a minute, am I starting to be legalistic and strive and strain to claim my own whatever? Am I doing this to be impressive to people? Like it's kind of like what your focus is, and then also whether or not you're stepping into margin that actually is beyond what he's asked you to actually do.

SPEAKER_04 16:05

Yes, because I think here's here's the thing that happens with me a lot, I think. Especially so it was athletics, now it's like entrepreneurship, because they both have very similar like characteristics and traits that you have to have to be successful at both. Um, and so every time For example, for example, um endurance, stamina, um, grit, striving, like like those are just like even even like from a secular, secular standpoint, like striving too much is deemed as good in those areas. So you're always totally growing up, like if you want to be a great basketball player, you have to just work harder than everybody else, even when like you just don't feel like it, which there's some truth to that. However, like it goes beyond the point of health, health, right? And so in entrepreneurship, it's the same way, and that's kind of what I'm in right now, like building a business and all the stuff. Like it is very um, you're like the people who are gonna be successful are the ones that strive, like like in in in an over-exuberant way, like in a way that's not healthy. So I can find myself and see myself often like doing things beyond what I feel like God has called me to do at the moment, because it's just the it seems like the right thing to do from a from a success driven perspective. Yeah, like like if if all of the other people were like to look at me and be like, like we're my coaches, they'd be like, Why haven't you done that already? Like, why would you not do that? And if I'm like, oh, God just God hasn't, I feel like God hasn't said that to me, they'd be like, You're an idiot. You know what I mean? And obviously, you're like, you know, got you follow God, whatever he says. But it's it is very like you, it's easy to get into the point of striving, striving, striving. And so I I just that that makes sense because that actually is a good marker for me. Because there have been times where I'm operating in what I feel like God has called me to do right now, and the places that He's called me to be, what He's called me to do, and I feel great. Like even exhaustion feels like, you know, like still accomplishment, there's still fulfillment, and there's still like, you know, like joy within the process. But then there are times where I have gone beyond what he's called me to do, trying to create certain things, and it just feels like I'm just doing a lot. And it doesn't, I don't feel it. I I focus too much on my work and not enough on him at that point. Like that's what it kind of would have starts to feel like. Like I start to work and strive so much that I forget him in the mix, you know what I mean? Absolutely. And so, anyways, that's just was really good and was a great marker for me. Um, and will be a great marker for me, is what I mean. Um, so thank you, Miss Uh Priscilla. Um, so where's my first name? You're calling me. I said Miss Priscilla. But why were you calling me Miss Priscilla? Um, I just was trying to be with the people. Oh they would be they would call you Miss Priscilla, so I was also calling you Miss Priscilla, the one and only. Okay, Hebrews 12, 5 through 11. I I was reading this last night. Do you notice?

SPEAKER_01 19:09

Is this about rest?

SPEAKER_04 19:11

Uh maybe not, actually. Okay, go ahead. Okay, and you have forgotten the exhortation, which is addressed to you as sons, my son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord. Now, faint. Oh Lord, you is this the King K KJV?

SPEAKER_00 19:25

No, it's the New American Standard Bible, 1995. Okay, my bad. Okay, here we go.

SPEAKER_04 19:31

Nor faint when you are reproved by him. For those whom the Lord loves, he disciplines, and he scourges every son whom he receives. It is for discipline that you that you endure. God deals with you as with sons. For for what son, oh Lord Jesus Christ, mom, what this book is a little, I'm sorry, let me keep going. Let me verse 7. I'm sorry, y'all. It is for discipline that you endure. God deals with you as with as with sons, for what son is there whom his father does not discipline? But if you are without discipline, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. Furthermore, we had earthly fathers to discipline us, and we respected them. Shall we shall we not much rather be subject to the father of spirits and live? For they disciplined us for a short time as seemed best to them, but he disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness. Right.

SPEAKER_00 20:27

Do you know that you probably need glasses? Because you just had that Bible just like this. Like nobody saw your face for those. You need glasses, son. I uh do you not think these words are just abnormally small? Yes, and the older I get, the more I'm realizing they're they're small. But yeah, you're you don't have older eyes. You're 21. Right, and I'm good with reading my Bible. This is how you were JC.

SPEAKER_04 20:55

I'm good reading my Bible. It's just your Bible that's the problem. Okay. Your Bible.

SPEAKER_00 21:00

What's your point, son, from that passage?

SPEAKER_04 21:02

My point is that what's interesting about this passage is I was reading it, was the source of discipline. Like it says that God disciplines us so that we can be disciplined and share in his holiness. So I think that it usually for me, whenever it just stops at my discipline, like I'm being disciplined. I never I need to just take it back another layer or another step and be like, no, no, no, no, no, no. Like it's God who gives you the opportunities to be disciplined in the first place.

SPEAKER_00 21:33

I do know though, his discipline in this passage, he's talking about correcting you like a parent that disciplines a child for disobedience.

SPEAKER_04 21:42

Oh, yeah. Well, I guess, yeah, right. Well, I guess my my overarching point was the fact that he gives us he puts us in situations to discipline us. Like, and I guess like discipline in this being consequences, but I but to like rework it. Into not rework the passage, but rework our thought process from going up towards God gives us the circumstances to discipline us in corrective ways, to give us the opportunity to be disciplined in productive ways or disciplined in holiness ways or whatever it is.

SPEAKER_00 22:14

Yeah, that's the hope of any good parent. I would I would agree with you in that that when y'all were growing up or when I was growing up and you do something kind of raggedy out of line, and you have to be disciplined, there are consequences for the action. Well, my hope in disciplining my child, my hope is that it will teach them and train them through their lifetime to discipline themselves. My hope is that because I'm disciplining you, you don't get to be an adult. And now the discipline has to be dealt with by some people that don't love you, don't care about you, the legal system, whatever. I'm hoping you learn to discipline your own self because you have a parent that has disciplined you. I would suspect that's kind of what you're drawing attention to here, that God's correction of us, his discipline of us, the consequences he allows. We got ourselves into it, but he then allows the consequences to fall where they may, or he enacts discipline. The hope is, yeah, that your kid is maturing and growing up with through that discipline and they will learn to self-discipline.

SPEAKER_04 23:14

I yeah, okay, that's good. Because yeah, I just think it's it all comes back to like the source in this area. Yeah. Like the fact that God gives us the puts us in positions so that we can be self-disciplined in a corrective way.

SPEAKER_01 23:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 23:27

Or he puts us in situations where, like a circumstance where we have to endure past the problem, where now it becomes, oh, like thank you, God, for giving me the ability to uh mature in my endurance in a predict in a productive way. You know what I mean? So I just feel I think for me it's so easy to get caught up in everything that I'm doing, everything that I've done, because again, sports kind of I have to rework myself out of this mentality, but it's very much so center focused, like very much so, like self-focused. Like you get it done, if you don't get it done, then it's your fault. And if you get it done, it's all on you. Like you're the you're the reason.

SPEAKER_01 24:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 24:10

So we I I remember being in an elevator and um asking myself, like after a basketball practice one day, I think I played like really bad. And I was like, I don't, I was I because my coach is very, very spiritual guy. Like he's great, he's amazing. This was in your Bible somewhere, yes. Um, I'm great, amazing man of man of God, like he's great. Um, and so he always talked about basketball, uh, talking about God in basketball. And for the longest time, I'm just like, yo, I don't understand how these two are supposed to mix. Like I remember being on the elevator asking myself, how the heck is God and basketball intertwined? Like that literally does not make sense to me. Like God is not making the ball go in the hoop. Like, you know what I'm saying? Like, I like like it's just not making sense. And then as I kept going, like I realized the broader perspective of God using basketball to maneuver like situation and characteristics and traits in me. But it was just very interesting because I had to rework myself out of that basketball mind mindset or that athletic mindset into that frame of my everyday life. Because taking that hard work ethic only and it's it's all on your shoulders and it's all on you, and holiness is based off of what you are able to do and how hard you work and how disciplined you are, carrying that over to like my faith life has been like super, super hard.

SPEAKER_00 25:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 25:34

You know what I mean? And so it's just understood, it's just interesting.

SPEAKER_00 25:38

And back to the illustration that you brought up, that Pastor Brian Lawritz talked about those two women that are endurance athletes, sailors, uh rowers. And and in one, you know, like you mentioned, she rowed the entire way across from one continent to the next. The other one put up a sail. It would be, I think, unreasonable to think that the one who had the sail up also didn't do any work. She had tons of work to do. She had tons of work to do. It might not have looked like the rowing, the rowers' work, but whatever work she had to do to keep the sail up, you're constantly managing that. You've got to, there are a million other things you have to do on a boat.

SPEAKER_01 26:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:18

Especially when you're by yourself on a boat, which what he highlighted about both of these women is that they did that effort by themselves on the boat. So she was not not doing anything. She was doing what she's required to do on that boat and also hoisting up a sail and taking advantage of the wind that is blowing. So there, I think that applies to what you're saying, is that you have to be a good steward of the level of work that you are required to do while also taking advantage of the wind of God's spirit that is there to help support, comfort, walk with.

SPEAKER_04 26:52

I got something. I got something, I got something. Okay. Um I feel like, and this is why it may be really, really hard for me to grasp this concept, or maybe not even to grasp it, because I feel like logically, it may it make sense. Like, you know what I mean? But like hard for me to really just it like like adopt it into my life, is because one involves trusting that the wind will blow, and not only that the wind will blow, it'll blow in the right direction. You know what I mean? And so one, if you got the oars and all the and it's all in your hands, you can you feel like you can control everything about it. Like I can control how fast I go, I can control how slow I go, I can control the direction in which I go. And I don't have to trust on anything or rely on there's that word rely again, rely on anything but myself. And I like that feeling until it gets too much, but I like the idea that I can control the ways that I go and how my life pans out. Like, oh no, I think that this avenue would be very fun for me to go in in a business way. I think it'll be great to create this thing because it I would like the profit margin on it, or I'll like the impact that it'll be able to do from what I think is valuable and acceptable to the society and the community around me. And I can go on all these things about me, me, me, and it feels good because I can control what I think is best.

SPEAKER_00 28:18

In theory, because that doesn't take into account the current. Unpacked, please. I don't know what that means. Do you remember when we were in the ocean with some friends? We went to go lobstering, finding lobsters, which this is our first time, haven't ever done that. And we were in the ocean, swimming through the ocean, and we could be swimming with all of our strength and all of our might. But if the current was working against us, it did not matter how much effort we were putting in. The current was going in the opposite direction. So at some point, we literally just had to swim in alignment with the current. And the boat that was with us to help pick us up, they would switch their direction to come over to where the current was pushing us to pick us up because there was no way we were going to go against the current and get to them. So, just to your point with your illustration, yes, all that effort and control is actually a figment of our imagination because there is a measure of control that no matter how hard you try, the current of life, the current that God is allowing in His divine sovereignty, unless you swim in the current, you really will just be striving and exhausted. At some point you're gonna drown because you cannot. You remember how that overwhelming feeling that it didn't matter what we were doing. We just couldn't, you know what I'm saying? To me, the current or the where the wind is blowing is the responsibility as believers to constantly be tapping in and saying, okay, Lord, which way is the wind blowing? What are you doing? Open up my spiritual eyes, open up my spiritual ears, make my spirit sensitive enough that I actually can detect when the current is going another way. And I quit trying to fight against it. And I go with it so that I can actually be in the stream of what you are actually doing in my church or in my family or in my ministry or in my career. Would you show me what where the current is blowing and then give me enough courage to trust that if the current is going that way and I swim in conjunction with it, it'll be better for me. I will enjoy this whole process more and um that you'll get me ultimately to where you want me to be.

SPEAKER_04 30:21

So it's just it's it's trust in there. Like it's it's a lot of trust in there. That's why I feel like it's just very difficult for me and probably a lot of people out there. Of course. Because there's trust. And like I did a I did a whole talk on trust. And and so I I definitely like, like, again, it's a logical understanding, but it's one of those things, it's just probably why I talked about it, is because the thing that I've had to like try to like die to daily in myself and like pract put into practice so much and so often, it's so constant in my mind, because it's so easy for me to trust on everything but God, every and things that I see. Um, even though God has shown me over and over again, oh, you can trust me. I'd be like, but this one seems a little bigger this time. Let me get this one.

SPEAKER_00 31:05

Like, and that's the part where I think that that's the part where I want you to give yourself a break. Meaning the struggle that you recognize you're having with trusting God, that is part of sanctification. The fact that you recognize it and that you're wrestling with it and that you're constantly going, okay, Lord, I realize I don't want to loosen my grip on this, this, or this. That right there is how he conforms us into his image slowly in each season of life. So we can sometimes we just get so down on ourselves, oh my gosh, I'm not trusting God, or I'm struggling in this area. And instead of allowing ourselves the struggle, which is part of what sanctification is, um, we get hard on ourselves and forget that his grace is sufficient for us. So I love that you're struggling because there's a whole bunch of people who don't trust God and they're not struggling with it.

SPEAKER_04 31:52

Yeah, that's a good point.

SPEAKER_00 31:53

They're just like, oh well, this is what it is, but you're saying I'm wrestling with it, I recognize it, and God is calling me to a deeper level of trust. And that's where most of us are for our whole lives, you know? Yeah. Um, there's this illustration that Chuck Swindah gave. I was in seminary at the time, he was the chancellor of Dallas Theological Seminary. So let's say this is 25 years ago. Then he gave it again a couple of weeks ago when he was at our church and he was being interviewed, and it was amazing because he's 91 years old now. But I remember it from nearly 30 years ago. He said that he had finished preaching, he was a pastor at the time, he had finished preaching at church, and he said this little woman came up to him afterwards after he was preaching about wanting control over his children, his family, his ministry, blah, blah, blah, and really like striving and all that. He said, This little short little woman came over to him and said, Pastor Swindle, let me see your hands. And she cupped her teeny tiny little hands. He said, She's like four feet ten under his big, massive man hands. And she said to him, Now, Pastor Swindall, you need to hold everything loosely. And she started pulling his little pulling his bigger hands apart. She said, if you're not holding it loosely, then it's gonna hurt when God has to pry your fingers open to take it away. She was specifically referring to his kids who were standing right next to him. Hold it all loosely. Otherwise, it's really gonna hurt when God has to pry your fingers open. It's not until two weeks ago that I realized the person that he was talking about is Corey Tin Boone. Now, see, I don't know if you know who Corey Tin Boone is.

SPEAKER_03 33:32

Corey Tin Boone. Mr. David, you know who Corey Tin Boon is?

SPEAKER_00 33:37

She's a legend. Yeah, all right. So this woman was the Holocaust, right? She and her sister, I believe, were you know a part of that whole experience with the Holocaust and everything. And her, the way she viewed God, sovereignty, suffering, holiness in the midst of complete devastation, like watching people be killed. I mean, the devastation of the Holocaust. She, her writings out of that, her diaries out of that became some of the framework for the church and honoring God. Um, so it's not until two weeks ago that I realized the little woman he was talking about that would come to his church was Corey Tinboon. Oh. This is the woman who put her little hands and said in her little Dutch action. That's so good. Keep your fingers loose on what God has given you.

SPEAKER_04 34:27

Ooh, that's that that that hits a whole different way coming from that.

SPEAKER_00 34:32

Exactly. Oh my gosh. Now you need to go read. I'm gonna reread it. I read it when I was your age. But her most famous book is probably uh called The Hiding Place. I mean, I think she has many more. The hiding place. It's a classic, like it's just her telling her story. But also, how do you trust God when you're be you're on a concentration camp? Your family's been ripped away from you. You don't know if you're gonna eat again. You don't, your your body is covered in sores, and you there is no control, there's no ability to determine what the next 20 minutes will hold, much less the next 24 hours or beyond. And here's a woman saying, learn learn how to hold things loosely.

SPEAKER_04 35:12

Yeah. I also, yeah, I mean that that that that's that's amazing. I think it's one of the things that, and I've said one of the things that because I've this subject in particular is something that I've just had to wrestle with a lot.

SPEAKER_01 35:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 35:24

Um, but there I think the the the devil tries to he has a great way of trying to use your gifts for his glory. It's just it's just great, it's just so crazy because a good thing like work ethic and being able to strive and endure and being able to like like like I because I I guess you can put it in workout terms, like I work out every day, and so um like six times a week, and like running miles upon miles upon miles, like physically exhausting my body, like, and then keep going, like over like it. It's I feel like it's a gift that some people have to be able to just keep going regardless of how they feel. And so, and I think that's a gift, but whenever it's used out of place and out of order, then it becomes a gift that is used, like I said, for the devil's glory, because now you're misplacing trust in yourself and not so it's just like a lot of inner.

SPEAKER_00 36:28

There's layers, and also when that happens, when you pressed past the point of health, now you are actually dismantling the gift God gave you. Because if you work out too much, now you're tearing your body down. Now your body can't even function right. Now your knees, your joints don't work. Now you are actually bringing to disrepair the gift God has given you if you don't have boundaries in that work ethic. Here's what I would say to you, uh, which has been one of the biggest gifts in my life. This is the reason why we need accountability and sounding boards and mentors around us who are able to help us wade through these questions, who are able to help us to see, because sometimes you have to have somebody on the outside of your life that's looking in and going, it's time to stop. It's too much. You don't even realize your marriage is in complete disrepair because you're over here trying to do a good thing, build this ministry or whatever, build this business, but you're doing it at the expense of other things that need to be a priority. Yeah. You have to have somebody, because you don't know, you're just being tenacious and disciplined and having a great work ethic. Yeah. Somebody has to be there to go, excuse me. You realize you haven't slept in three weeks? Go to bed, take a vacation, take a sabbatical. And that's one of the biggest gifts that God has given us as we've wrestled our whole lives, me and Jerry, with balancing family and um balancing the growing ministry the Lord was entrusting to us. We had people outside of us that cared more about the state of our soul than they did about the state of our ministry. They cared more about the success of our marriage than they did the success of some book I wrote. So they would be like, Yeah, that's good. Y'all, y'all going on vacation.

SPEAKER_04 38:11

I think that that is also why Chick-fil-A does so good.

SPEAKER_00 38:16

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 38:16

Like I know this is like it's so funny, but like they you look at them and for the record, we had Chick-fil-A sandwiches this morning for breakfast.

SPEAKER_00 38:23

Yeah, we did.

SPEAKER_04 38:25

And um, I and it's so interesting because if any anybody was to look at their business model and be like, you work 52 days less than everybody else, like you literally do not have any business open on Sunday every single Sunday. Like, and what why would they do that?

SPEAKER_00 38:44

Because think about the business they lose. Yes, even just like whenever I'm in the airport on a Sunday and I'm watching all the people in line at all the other places in the airport, but the Chick-fil-A is closed in the airport where they have a concentrated audience and customers.

SPEAKER_04 38:59

That I mean, that it that's something right there because that it like we will look at the McDonald's and all the other stuff and think that they got it going on, and Chick-fil-A is just like, no, I'm going to trust, and it's because of God, it's literally because of God. It's just literally because of God. Like, nope, Sundays, we're not gonna we're not gonna do that because we trust that God's the wind of God is gonna take us to where he wants us to go, rather than our work ethic of do having to sell sandwiches and having to do this every single day and work like our work is not more important than glorifying God in the way that He has called us to do it. Yeah, so I just thought those are very funny decisions we just have to collect.

SPEAKER_00 39:34

Dan Kathy, one of the Kathy family, I was with him and Bubba Kathy somewhere, and he said to me, Do you know the day our chicken tastes the absolute best? I said, When? He was like, on Monday. Yeah. Everybody wanted it on Sunday. And because we have decided that we're just not doing it on Sunday, man, Monday, it is a free-for-all because everybody wants it so much. And I just thought that's so interesting that they just are like, we're gonna have some margin in here that we allow ourselves to be reminded. And that's what margin does. Margin is not just to give yourself a rest, it's that too. But it is also to remind you what your source actually is. It's to make you quiet the intensity feeling that you have that I gotta make the chicken sandwich, I gotta run 10 more miles, I gotta, whatever. Because if I don't, the world will stop spinning. If I don't, it won't get mastered. If I don't, it quells it when you discipline. This is also discipline, discipline yourself to say, nope, I'm gonna sit in this margin and require myself to recalibrate towards trusting God over trusting in my own ability.

SPEAKER_04 40:44

Okay. I want to leave off with an encouragement to me and to the some the people out there. Let's look, because I need to do this. Let's look at our schedule, our day. Let's look at the things that we're doing constantly every single day. And let's figure out a time to where we're gonna cut something out. Like maybe it's like on Sundays, I'm not gonna work. Or it's like, you know what? Like like during this break, like usually I work if you're an entrepreneur, like usually I work till five. You know what? I'm gonna work till four. And then and then that next hour, I'm gonna trust that God is gonna like like something like that, some sacrifice in there will help loosen our grip. But I'm gonna do it too because I need to do that. Because I'll I'll be like, yeah, I'm working from you know, like 9 30 to 5. And then all of a sudden it's it's 11 p.m. I'm like, you going back out to the cabana again? And you still working? I'd be like, yeah, I got caught up in stuff. Like, but but it's because the the underlying the underlayer of it is because if I don't do it, it's not gonna work. If I don't do it, it's nothing's gonna work out. Like I think it's gonna work out and how it needs to work out. And so um, yeah, so put it in the comments. Um, what what that is that you're gonna do. Like, like, what is it that you're gonna look in your schedule and be like, I'm gonna cut this out. Let's do it together because I'm gonna do it. Take 30 minutes, 15 minutes, whatever you can, and be like, you know what? I'm not gonna work like I usually do because I'm gonna trust that God is going to ultimately use that time to mold my character, to do whatever, and to loosen my grip because I can trust him with what happened. Like, I'm gonna do that.

SPEAKER_00 42:14

And and just to be clear, this is across the because this could be about anything in your life. Anything you're doing that you realize the extra is attached to anxiety. You're doing that extra because if I don't, oh no, that's what we're talking about there. So it could be like you talked about working out, could be working out, it could be working out that you just can't stop. You have to do the extra 20 minutes, you know, because you feel like if I don't, I won't burn the calories that I ate. But there's a frantic, frenetic reasoning why you're doing that. Yeah. Could be that you just enjoy something. That's different. We're not talking about that. We're talking about something you're doing because you feel like if you don't.

SPEAKER_04 42:51

We're talking about if you're like me. And if you don't do it, your life's gonna fall apart. Yeah, you're gonna gain all the weight back in a day. Your whole business is gonna crumble, like you're not gonna get any leads, like any of that, like all that.

SPEAKER_00 43:03

Like, do yeah, discipline yourself to quiet that part of you that wants to step into God's margin.

SPEAKER_04 43:09

Okay, well, I just left this episode with some encouragement of how it can be more holy. Trust God more. Amen. Hallelujah. Thanks, Mom. Appreciate that. Y'all have a good day. Have a good one.