Trigger: Lessons from the Wonder Horse

Angela Lenhardt is an intuitive consultant, life coach, and spiritual healer. She is also the author of two books, Trigger – The Wonder Horse and A Charmed Journey: An Inspired Guide to Personal Transformation. We have a great discussion about transforming God’s way, our journeys and pets! It was a fun and enjoyable chat!

Website: https://angelalenhardt.com/

Book: Trigger the Wonder Horse 

Site: Angela Lenhardt - Live Peacefully

 YouTube: Angela Lenhardt 

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Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:07

If you're listening right now and you're a follower of Christ, then you, my friend, are a 21st century Christian. And if you're new to the faith or interested in getting deeper into it, you're in the right place. Welcome to the 21st Century Christian Podcast. It's your girl, Karen Beach, and I'm back with another episode. And this time we're talking pets. Now you've probably heard me talk about Benji, my pamper crazy Yorkie. I love him to death. And when I lived in Ghana for six months, Benji was right there with me. He handled the airport and the plane ride like a champ. So today we're going to look at what we can learn from our pets as it applies to our faith and how we practice it. We'll also look at what the Bible has to say about animals and how we treat them. All of this leading up to our conversation with Angela Linhart. She's an intuitive coach, life coach, spiritual healer, and author of Trigger the Wonder Horse and The Charm Journey. Now we had a great conversation about what we can learn and what animals can teach us about our faith and our relationship with God. And we'll end, of course, with a virtuous verse and a call to action that all of us should be doing. Now I'm a dog lover. And while Benji might be my first Yorkshire Terrier, he's not my first dog. Before him, I was a dog mom to Jake, to Marty, and to the original, my high school bestie soda pop. Now they were all toy poodles, but even though they were the same breed, each dog I've had has been different, full of nuance and quirks and unique personalities. They give us as much love as we give them. Animals show patience and they can teach it. And so I'm gonna tell you a lesson I've learned from each dog I've had. First soda pop. Ignore the geese behind me. I'm outside. Anyway, first soda pop. He was a rascal and really, really moody. And somehow, even though he was a house dog, he became the leader of the strays who hung out at the cemetery across the street from us. Seriously, these dogs would actually come to the living room window looking for him. Now, I got soda in the ninth grade, and he taught me loyalty and being there and never ever giving up. Now, my mom died when I was 15, and when we got soda, she was in the process of going through dialysis and many hospital stays in and out of the hospital. My mother was not a dog person, but I think she knew that I needed him. Soda being there for me during this very difficult time was priceless. There were many times that him just being by my side was enough. And then I went to college. I left him. Yet I'm told he waited for me when the school bus would go by. He'd wait by that window for me to come home. And when I did come home on breaks or weekends, he was there, always happy to see me. So Soda Pop's lesson: God's presence is constant and consistent. And even though we may stray far from him, he never strays far from us. He was there and like God is with comfort and companionship all the time. Now, after Soda, I didn't have a dog for a while. I was in my 20s, I was moving around a lot, and knowing the work that a dog takes, I knew it just wasn't the right time. But in my early 30s, I missed that canine companionship. And I ended up adopting Marty. And Marty, at the time, I was living in Maryland, and Marty and I relocated together to Los Angeles. He came back with me to the East Coast a few years later when I moved to Charlotte. He was there for me when I purchased my first home. And Marty was truly a canine counselor. Seriously, people would talk to that dog like they were talking to a therapist or a good friend. Most people that came in contact with him ended up talking to him like, I don't know, like they had known him forever. And he would look at them with those warm brown eyes as if to say, go ahead, I'm listening. And you're not paying for it, which was really good. There was no judgment, there was no boredom, there was just love and acceptance. So Marty's lesson: God is always there to listen, to talk to. Remember, there is no condemnation in Christ Jesus. Now, after Marty, I just couldn't see having another dog. He left some pretty big paws to fill. But about a year later, I ran into Marty's groomer and told her I was thinking of getting another dog. And she told me where I could find a great dog to adopt for Forever Angels Animal Rescue. And I went there and sure enough, there was Jake, my angel. Now, Jake was a laid-back soul, and the funny thing about Jake is that people were initially scared of him, a toy poodle. And it's because he had this underbite that gave him a slightly vicious look. But he was the sweetest good boy there could be. Only one time he wasn't sweet. I was running out of room to my house, and a woman came by with her boyfriend to look at the room. And Jake didn't like that guy at all. He barked, he backed away from him, which was all for Jake. I'd never seen him do that before. And I ended up running to her, and sure enough, I found out that Jake was right. The guy whom she broke up with before she moved in was not a good guy. And Jake saw it way before I did. Jake's lesson. God is love, he is patient, he is kind. He'll also let you know and warn you about people and situations. You just have to listen. Now, Jake died in my arms when I had taken him to the emergency vet. I went there thinking that I would leave with a prescription. But I ended up leaving without my dog. Weeks later, I was on a poodle rescue site. I didn't think I was really looking for a dog. Or maybe I was. It was just comforting to look at dogs. But once I saw Benji, that little Yorkie on the poodle rescue site, I knew I had my next dog. See, the thing about Benji is I was his third owner in three years. The first couple was older and not ready at all for an energetic puppy. The second was a much younger couple who were just starting out their married life and they realized after getting Benji they were kind of too busy for a dog. But see, I knew that with me, Benji had his forever home. Now, I don't know the details of his previous life, but I do know that when my husband tries to kiss me or someone tries to hug me, Benji's instinct is to protect me. He's had good discernment about people twice with malintent. And he actually bit one of them. I mean, it wasn't a big bite, but still. So Benji's lesson is that God is our protector. His love for us is intense and he will keep us safe. This podcast episode is brought to you by Concepts and Clarity, affordable online Christian courses for a very reasonable price. Get excited about reading the Bible and getting to know God better. It's the end of Women's History Month, and we have Beyond Proverbs 31. We look at women from the Old Testament, from the New Testament, and we look at how Jesus himself interacted with women, which was surprising for the first century. It's a five-week course. Actually, it's a six-week course because we have a bonus episode in there. And it tells us all about women. You'll get another episode over six weeks. You'll get one episode a week with questions for discussion for journaling. It's a lot of fun. So get Beyond 31st, or I'm sorry, Beyond Proverbs 31 women. I only wrote it, of course I know the name. Beyond Proverbs 31. It's at conceptsandclarity.com. Again, that website is conceptsandclarity.com.

SPEAKER_00 11:20

Did you know?

SPEAKER_02 11:22

There are no pets like 21st century American pets in the Bible. You know what I'm talking about. They're not biblical pets that get groomed and have their nails trimmed. Biblical pets didn't wear clothes, they didn't have wardrobes, they didn't eat special food, or sleep in a special bed, or with their human, like Benji does. Yet the Bible talks about how animals should be treated. In Proverbs 12:10, it says, whoever is righteous has regard for the life of his beast. In 2 Samuel 12:3, the prophet talks to David about a situation that is pretty similar to what David did with Bathsheba and her husband. He says, But the poor man had nothing but one little ew lamb, which he had bought. He brought it up, and it grew up with him and with his children. It used to eat of his morsel and drink from his cup and lie in his arms. And it was like a daughter to him. This is part of the story that Samuel told David. The king in the story takes the poor man's sheep and kills it for food instead of killing one of the many from his own flock. And David is outraged. He can't believe that the king took this little man, this man's little sheep. And this is the closest we get to a pet in the Bible. In her book, Trigger the Wonder Horse, Angela Linhart rescues Trigger, a horse that lived an impressive 44 years. And together we talk about what she learned from and experienced with Trigger and what pets have to teach us about God and our relationship to him. Thank you, Angela. Welcome to the 21st Century Christian. I'm so excited to talk to you.

SPEAKER_01 13:42

Me too, Karen. Thank you for having me today.

SPEAKER_02 13:45

I love the fact that you're a horse person. Now I can ride a horse. I've ridden several horses in my adult life. Um when I was a kid in um summer school or summer camp, let's call it what it was. Summer camp. Um, there was a horse named Peter Pan that we all wanted to ride. So I know horses, and I'm an animal lover, particularly a dog lover. Um people that know the show know Lil' Bingie, my little Yorkie. So I really want to talk to you because having animals really and caring for animals really helps you as far as your faith. You know, and what there is so much we can learn from animals. Now, before the show started, I asked you, how long do don't uh do horses live? And you said, well, they live 20, 25 years, but Trigger lived 44 years. That is awesome. How did you manage to get a horse to live that long?

SPEAKER_01 15:04

Well, like I told you, he lived off of love. He lived off of unconditional love, not only from me, but from the tribe of people that were around him that that gave to Trigger. They they supported his his health uh physically, mentally, emotionally. Uh, he was supported on ever on every level. And and one of the reasons why I wrote the book is because it is such a a God, a God book. And the reason God in healing and miracles, trigger wouldn't have made it as long as he did, if it wouldn't have been for God to put those the people in my life that that gave us one hoof in front of the other, and we were able to to do what we did in our in our life together.

SPEAKER_02 16:00

Now I know being a dog owner, what dogs have taught me about my faith and how they have helped me grow my faith, um, see sometimes where my faith has been lacking. But what did Trigger teach you about your faith?

SPEAKER_01 16:22

He taught me so many life lessons. You know, our teach our animals teach us life lessons and which are in essence characteristics of God. So they teach us patience, right? I we all have to learn patience sometimes. The unconditional love. They teach us being in the present moment. Our animals teach us to be in the here and now. They're not worried about the future, they're not worried about the past, they're here and now, which is the truly the only moment that you have control over anyway, right? They teach us respect, to respect ourselves, to respect our hearts, to respect our bodies, and to respect, you know, respect their space. And uh, horses are big animals. You want to respect their space. Uh they teach you discipline, you know, which is part of responsibility to show up every single day to take care of them, to feed, water, provide shelter, to to provide your presence in their life.

SPEAKER_02 17:34

You know what I love about animals? You're their person, just like God needs to be our person. And when they know that you're there, they know they don't worry about anything. They know that you're gonna be there to feed them, you're gonna be there to take them outside. Um, my dog, Bingy, he's a crazy Yorkie. He's a bit of a champ, so he doesn't he didn't he does not know fear. But my dog Marty before him, um, two dogs before him, didn't like loud noises. He was one of those dogs that's afraid of fireworks. You know, I I stopped sleeping through storms because he would be like, hey, wake up.

SPEAKER_01 18:31

Right, right. Well, they're babies. They you need to take care of them. You need to become, you need to be a good steward.

SPEAKER_02 18:37

God gave you the responsibilities, therefore, you need to be a good steward for them, and you you really do, and you have a responsibility for them, but in return for that responsibility, you get so much love, you get so much acceptance, and you get so much good things, and if you really think about it, that's all God wants from us. He doesn't expect perfection, he just wants our love, just like our animals give us love.

SPEAKER_01 19:16

God wants us to show up every day for God, for God, show up for God, show up, and he shows up because he shows up for us all the time, every second of the day. God is showing up. So when we show up for God and full, fully put our heart into it to to be as holy, holy with an H and holy as with a W as we possibly can be for God, we've we can grow our roots in our faith so much, and that means that we can begin to produce fruit in the in the world outside of us. So it's it's building that that inner sustenance with with God, that walk with God that produces a life, a purposeful life.

SPEAKER_02 20:04

It really does. It gives your life meaning and just being able to know that you have this life that depends on you. Just like we depend on our creator. That relationship is sort of like a microcosm of what we are expected to do in relation to God. You know, my Yorkie knows that there's gonna be food in that bowl. He knows that if he's gotta go to the bathroom, he's gonna say something and I'm gonna take him out.

SPEAKER_01 20:48

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 20:49

He's probably gonna say a lot because that's Fingy, but he's gonna say something and I'm going to respond. If he's sick, I'm gonna be there, and we need to realize that God is there for us in the same way, exactly the same way.

SPEAKER_01 21:08

When when when we are sick, you know, to place our own hands on our body to ask God for healing. God, we our intention is for God to show up, for God to hear our prayer, correct? So we we ask in that space of of I need help, God, I surrender, please, please fill me up with the your Holy Spirit, with your unconditional love, renew my body, renew my mind, and we set that intention for God to show up. And we also, this is part of the earthly journey. We have to show up. We don't have to show up for God. God's gonna God's gonna do what God's gonna do. But when God gives us a responsibility to fulfill, such as an animal or a child, our it is our duty as being a good servant on this earth. Earthly plane that we are all in right now, called life, to show up for the responsibilities that God designated to us. So we want God to show up for us when we need health, when we need maybe a new career, when we need guidance about where to live or where to go or how to do it. But in return, we need to show up for what God has assigned us to do. It isn't just a one-way street. You can't just, you can't just expect, expect, expect, and then do nothing on this hand. It doesn't, and it doesn't, it doesn't balance out.

SPEAKER_02 22:34

That's what a lot of new Christians and people that aren't in the faith don't understand is that God is not a cosmic Santa Claus.

SPEAKER_01 22:47

No, he isn't God performs miracles. God shows up unexpectedly.

SPEAKER_02 22:52

He shows up unexpectedly, but I remember having my little list. I expected saying, here's my list. This is what I want. Thanks. Bye-bye. And that's not necessarily how God works. Like you're you're right, God is a two-way street. So I'll give you an example. I'm I'm trying to get my husband here. And I had a plan because Karen always has plans. Karen, because this is gonna happen, then I'm gonna do this, and it's gonna work like that. And I was praying about it, and God was like, I need you to do this. And I was like, What? That's not my plan. I got a plan, God, and it goes to the left, and you're telling me to go to the right. And he was like, Karen, just go to the right. Because God and I have that kind of relationship. He's like, Will you please listen to me? And I'm like, because you kind of made me this way. But let's let's I digress, but hey, you created me. And so I said, okay, I'm gonna trust you because we were talking before the show started about different situations and what am I learning and how am I applying things and taking responsibility for your actions. One of the responsibilities I had to take is realizing that it's not the Karen show. Right.

SPEAKER_01 24:35

It isn't. It's it's it's the God show. It's the God show.

SPEAKER_02 24:38

It's the God show, and I'm a character. Yes, but not uh I need to deal with my main character energy another way. Um, but I was like, okay, God, I'll do it your way.

SPEAKER_01 24:53

So I always say you have the lead, you have the lead role in your life. You are the lead character.

SPEAKER_02 24:58

I'm the lead character, but he's the director.

SPEAKER_01 25:02

Yes, yes, he is. Yes, he is. And you can do it your way or you can do it thy will-be-done way. It doesn't matter, but if you choose your way, you're usually gonna end up his way. It's well, after a few hard knocks and a life lesson, and you you get knocked, you got you get knocked out a few times. So I just get up and go, you know what, Todd, I'm gonna listen.

SPEAKER_02 25:27

Yeah, and so but I just saw I'm like, you know what? It literally took less than a day. He was like, I was like, okay, I need you to go right. You want to go left, I need you to go right. And I was like, you know what? You want me to go right? I'm going right. And now things are moving forward. Perfect. And I was like, well, it's just it's easy if I just listen to you. Right. I would have got it.

SPEAKER_01 25:53

God is like you astray.

SPEAKER_02 25:57

God's like, well, if you listen to me from the first part, and I'm like, okay, I get, I get it, I get it. But it's it's submitting your will to his will, and it's not always my will be done, but it's thy will be done. And thy will with a capital T, thy, God's will be done. Because, like you said, it's gonna be done anyway. You might get there, you can get there the long way, you can get there the hard way, or you can just do what he said to do in the first place. So I'm like, you know what? I've had enough of the long way and the hard way, right? So I don't understand my plan to left, seems very clear cut, and everything, but I don't know what God knows. Right, I don't have all of the faculties that he has, and I'm not gonna try to do that.

SPEAKER_01 27:02

So you don't know the divine plan, you don't know, you don't know what the greater plan is supposed to look like, and and the journey to get there probably involves a lot of other people that come in to your play and play a certain role to spiritually grow you, spiritually grow you, mentally, emotionally grow you, so you can become that person that God needs you to be to do the next assignment, whatever, whatever that should be. You know, it just occurred to me, um, theater kid here.

SPEAKER_02 27:43

It's like life is really like a big improv. Like if you've ever taken an improv class, the teacher might call for, now you're in a stable, and you're like, Okay, I'm in a stable, and now I have to act a certain way. As if you know, I need you to play the horse trainer. Okay, I'll play the horse trainer, and then he's like, But now we're in a movie theater, and now you have to be the usher. And I'm like, Okay, I'm an usher, and that's how God is, he directs you where you should go, and then you act within that realm, and you but you're always following that direction, correct?

SPEAKER_01 28:27

And and I think if you look at if you approach your life that way, like this is this is my story, this is my play. I am the lead character, and I'm going to invite a lot of other people to be in this movie with me throughout my life, and you get to choose how you want to interact with each individual. You get to choose how you want to show up, like we talked about earlier. We have to when we show up for God, we ex you know, we want God to show up for us to help us maneuver to navigate this way through life, and you know, we have to show up for our animals. We show up when we show up for our animals and have patience and discipline and re and respect and boundaries, those are they're reflecting back to us what what we should work on to develop our own character, exactly.

SPEAKER_02 29:24

And we need to learn, I think, from our animals because they do have so much to teach us, so much to show us, and I think a lot of times people just kind of overlook it. Oh, you know, this is my dog, I'm gonna walk you and fill your bowl up. But there was so much more to that relationship. There's a depth really look at it.

SPEAKER_01 29:52

It's it's it's it's it's a depth. If you stop to to be present with them, and you tune, you tune into their heartbeat, you tune into the they say that a lot uh a horse's heart emanates like five times the frequency that a heart that a human heart does. And just us coming into uh uh a closeness with with the physical presence of a horse energetically heals our heart. It energetically heals our heart. So animals, because they have the ability to to give unconditionally, to give love unconditionally, if we are good to them. I mean, I mean, yes, they're gonna do it anyway. If we're not abusing our animals and and and those people always have a special place, but you know, if we can be present with them and allow them just to love on us, to to love a horse, stand there and just be present and to breathe, to allow a dog to come up and put his paw on you and you get in sync with his breath or your her breath, or you know, you have a cat that just kind of stares at you from a distance. You they are they are they are God's messengers, they're God's messengers, God's gift to us humans, so we can see the joy and beauty in all that is.

SPEAKER_02 31:15

It's you know, they say that if you are stressed, petting your dog or your cat, and I would imagine your horse for five, 10 minutes lowers your heart and makes you feel better. And I think part of that is it's just being present.

SPEAKER_01 31:36

It calms the nervous system, you know, the the parasympathetic nervous system where we go from fight or flight, which most of the time we are operating in that I gotta run here, I gotta go there.

SPEAKER_02 31:46

It slows us down so we can be in that rest and relaxation place is important, and you know, that is something that our pets give us unconditionally in addition to the love, it's the hey, I'm here with you right now. Let's enjoy right now, absolutely, and God, God, God watches over our animals, God watches over us.

SPEAKER_01 32:17

God oversees everything, first of all, first and foremost, everything. So, what we do and don't do for our animals, God sees. God witnesses, God sees it all. So when we do not show up, and when we do uh even talk poorly to our animals, God hears that. That's all that's all words carry energy. We we speak it into existence, right? We our thoughts become a manifestation of what our actions do. And I, you know, trigger's story is about uh about miracles, and our first story is where God literally sent a human angel to save him right before he jumped out onto a busy highway. That's just one, that's just one of the stories that I have about how God has worked miracles. Another story I have is I had a cat, Essa, and she it was towards the end of her life. She'd lived 17, 18 years, and I I thought that her day was up before it actually was. So I was going to, I was taking her outside to the vet as I was going outside, walking her to my truck to go to the vet to have her euthanized. She literally jumped out of my car, out of my hands, and ran back to the house, like to the step. And she's like, I'm not going in that car. And so I said to her that day, all right, you get to decide when your life is up. I'm not going to. And I I get it. Sometimes we have to make those choices for our animals. I've I've been in that situation as well. But in this situation, she was she was not having it. So I opened the door, she walked in, she went and laid in the corner. So I said, okay, so I did what I could to make her comfortable while she's sitting in the corner. So I put some essential oils on her, I put a humidifier on her because she was a Persian, so she couldn't breathe that easily. So I tried to make her environment as conducive to whatever she needed to do as I possibly could. And that and that day, I I was was invited out to dinner. So I told Esa, I said, All right, I am I am leaving for a couple of hours. I will be back. And I left, went to dinner, and when I came back, she found the strength. This cat had was pretty limp. She she could not move, had found this the strength to maneuver down the stairs to the basement. And when I got home, I came into the back door and I ran right over to the corner and she wasn't there. And I was frantic. So I I ran downstairs. And here she was laying on the on the cement, just in the middle of the basement. And I walked over to her and I put my hands on her and I said, Essa, what do you need to go? I will do whatever it takes. And I heard, I intuitively heard, the Rainbow Bridge. She wanted to hear the prayer, the Rainbow Bridge. And I actually had that prayer because my uh an animal had passed away. So I had the prayer. I went and got the prayer, and I read her the prayer. And it's about when angels cross, they they go over, and you know, it's it's like we'll greet them again someday. So I was sitting there with her. I read her the I read her the prayer, and she was listening to me. Like her ears were tuned to my voice, and she was breathing. I could I could see her, her eyes were kind of moving a little bit. She was still alive, and I could see that she was struggling. And I said, Essa, what what else do you need to go? I said, I'll do whatever. And then I heard Psalm 23. So I ran upstairs. I grabbed my Bible, I came back down the stairs, I opened it up, and I began to recite Psalm 23. When I was done, I look up, and it was like the power of the Holy Spirit came through the wall, began to swirl in the air. I look at it, I look at her, she takes one deep breath, and she was gone.

SPEAKER_00 36:47

Wow. She was gone. And so was the Holy Spirit the Holy Spirit.

SPEAKER_01 36:54

And I just sat there and I was, I I cried, and I then I went upstairs and I grabbed a blanket and I came down and I covered her because it was six o'clock, seven o'clock at night, and the next morning I was just gonna take I took her body to the vet and and had her cremated. And that is just one experience of how God has worked, you know, in my life to to come and get his creatures and and just to to prove to me that he, yes, God takes care of our animals, God oversees us and how we interact with our animals, and God wants us to be good stewards of his creations.

SPEAKER_02 37:36

Okay, we're almost out of time. So my final question for you is what does trigger, what would trigger say, or what does trigger's life say to you, or what would you want to say to us about God?

SPEAKER_01 37:57

Courage, have courage in this life. This life isn't set up for us to be courageous. This life, I think, is set up for us to be more cowardly and and to live the life that God intends for you, which is unique to each and every one of us, will require, will require us to get up when life gets you down. Because it's in that it's inevitable. You we all hit bumps in the road, we all have challenges, we all lose, lose it all, get some back, lose it again, get some back. We we struggle financially, emotionally, with um mentally, with relationships, you know, what kind of real relationships with ourselves, relationships with God. We we question sometimes our our relationship with God in this life, right? And and our animals bring us back to to God and how how unconditional He is. So, to if you are in a struggle in your life right now and you feel like there is no hope, just stop. Stop and be in the present moment. Get yourself together, take a deep breath, open your eyes and look at the beauty around you and know that God is omnipresent and take that next courageous step in the right direction. You know, go back to the word of God. You know, if you have a question, Google it. Say, what does the Bible say about uh my anger? What does the Bible say about resentment? You will find there will be some scripture that speaks to you, and then meditate on that. Meditate, say, God, what do you want me to know? God will tell you, He will tell you. It may not be immediate because you're gonna have to sit in it for a little bit. You're gonna have to sit, you're gonna have to sit on that uncomfortable space and grow your roots. Nothing just happens automatically, right? It's kind of like having a flower that needs to bloom sitting in front of you. You walk over to the flower and you're like bloom, bloom, bloom. It doesn't, it isn't gonna bloom when you tell it to, it's gonna bloom on its own time. You are that flower and you are going to bloom in divine time. Just keep watering yourself and nurturing yourself with with prayer, with with scripture, with with your environment. Put yourself in a good environment. And and even though you may not be in the most, you know, uh conducive environment for healing at the moment, you can you can choose to go outside. You can choose to go outside and sit underneath a tree and just take in the breath, uh take in some fresh air and and and saturate yourself in in the the holiness of nature.

SPEAKER_02 40:43

This has been amazing. I'm gonna hug Benji and trigger. I wish I would have met him because he seems like an awesome, an awesome companion. But thank you so much for coming by my little show. I appreciate it. And I'll have you back because there's so much more we can talk about.

SPEAKER_01 41:09

Oh, sounds good. Thanks, Karen. Have a great day.

SPEAKER_02 41:12

You too. The Lord is good to those who wait for him, to the souls that seek him. That's Lamentations 325. Again, this is from the Old Testament Book of Lamentations, and the Book of Lamentations is a collection of five Hebrew poems, one per chapter, lamenting the utter destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians in 587 and 586 BC, expressing profound grief, despair, and questioning, while also finding glimmers of hope in God's enduring mercy. They're traditionally attributed as far as writing to the prophet Jeremiah. But they may or may not have been written by him. Now, waiting is hard in good times, but waiting on the Lord is infinitely more difficult during hard times. Despite what they were going through, they were encouraging one another to focus on what matters. God. God rewards us when we take our focus of the temporal and material things. We take that focus off and we focus on Him. Now, I was watching a funny reel on Facebook with Talking Dogs, which is something I probably do way too much of the time. And I heard something truly profound. And it goes like this if you find yourself waiting, do what waiters do and serve. When we serve or just focus on others instead of on ourselves, the waiting gets easier and the time passes faster. So wait on others while you wait and always seek Him. How do you do that? Through prayer and to kind of further this concept, pray for others as much as if not more than you pray for yourself. Spend quiet time in contemplation, read the word. Seeking God means looking for Him and getting to know. One of the things you can do when you're seeking God is something that most of us need to do more of anyway. And that's read the Bible. So this week, I'd like you to spend some time reading a book in the Bible that you aren't familiar with. Now, if you don't have a version of the Bible you'd like to read, spend some time this week finding a version that works for you. I like and use in the podcast, the English standard version. But sometimes, if I get a little confused, I look to the good news translation. Now I may I have the UVersion Bible app on my phone, which makes it easy to explore and change versions of the Bible or translations of the Bible. Um, because it gives you access to a ton of them. So if you don't have it yet, go ahead and download it. It's the Bible app by you version. I think they've passed over a billion downloads. So go ahead and download it. Get access to all those versions. Find a version or two that speak to you. So that's your your assignment for the week. Do that and then read a book you're unfamiliar with. Now, if you like what you're hearing, you can donate to me because I need donations at dollar sign Karen Beach921. That is K-A-R-Y-N. Beachlike by the Ocean 921. Once again, that's dollar sign Kieran Beach 921. That's K-A-R-Y-N Beach Like by the Ocean 921. So that's it for this week. I'm gonna call it a day. I'm sitting outside. It's a beautiful day, so you might have heard some trucks going by, some birds chirping. Anyway, that's spring. So that is what I've been doing. That's what I've been up to. I hope you have an amazing week. And you come back next week where we'll have another episode. We'll talk Bible, we'll talk verses, we'll talk real life Christianity in the 21st century. So don't be a stranger. Come back soon, and I will talk to you then. The conversation continues in the twenty-first century Christian Facebook group. Got questions, comments, feedback. That's where you go. God bless.