Episode 15 - Amy's Story - What I Think About God

What if the most spiritual thing you can do right now is stop trying to impress God? Scott sits down with Amy for a personal story that starts with the Shema, Jesus’ “great command” to love God with our whole self, and then gets uncomfortably honest about how discipleship can drift into performance. Amy grew up deeply aware of being loved, but over time her faith picked up a harsher, more transactional soundtrack: read the Bible to keep God happy, try harder to stay in favor, manage behavior to “hit the mark.”

From there, we walk through the internal shift that hit in 2020 when God pressed a single question: what do you really think about me? Along the way we unpack A.W. Tozer’s claim that our thoughts about God shape everything, plus the “false narratives” Amy discovered through James Bryan Smith’s The Good and Beautiful God and Dane Ortlund’s Gentle and Lowly. The themes are simple but weighty: repentance as a change of mind, God’s mercy as his deepest disposition, and transformation that comes from the Holy Spirit instead of sheer willpower.

We also get practical about spiritual disciplines for real life: abiding in Christ from John 15, stillness for the exhausted doer, fasting as strength training for the soul, and even the surprising ways delight can rewire our hearts. If you’ve ever felt worn down by transactional faith, this is a path back to love that actually overflows into other people. Subscribe for more, share this with a friend who’s tired, and leave a review with your answer: what do you think about God today?

"The Good And Beautiful God" by James Bryan Smith

The Good and Beautiful God: Falling in Love with the God Jesus Knows (The Good and Beautiful Series): Smith, James Bryan: 8601420922501: Amazon.com: Books

"Gentle And Lowly" by Dane Ortland

Gentle and Lowly: The Heart of Christ for Sinners and Sufferers: Ortlund, Dane: 9781433566134: Amazon.com: Books

Transcript

Tempo: 120.0

SPEAKER_00 0:04

Welcome, listeners. This is Scott, and I've got Amy here with me. And this week we're diving into another episode just to kind of catch you up on what we've been talking about when we started this thing is like Amy and I have a lot of language that we use between ourselves and with some friends of specifically kind of five lessons. And we started off the podcast with those kind of early on. And then the the last number of episodes, we've we've mostly been kind of talking about what is a disciple and what is it like to live toward trying to live in the kingdom and live to become like Jesus in every way possible and talking about those things. Last week we talked about like there's an internal shift that can happen. And so this week, y'all get something really special. I love my big sister, and we're gonna get to hear a little bit of her story today. And so as we kind of dive into that, Amy, I just kind of want to start with one of the things that we've talked a lot about is, you know, Jesus being questioned, you know, what's the great command? And he begins with what's known as the Shema, right? This ancient passage that the Jewish tradition centers around in Deuteronomy 6. And Jesus' answer to that question, what is the greatest command? He said, it's this, it's to love the Lord God with all your heart, with all your mind, with all your soul, and with all your might. And then he added to it, and to love your neighbors yourself. And so I know that this is like a paramount piece for you, Amy, but I'd love to just kind of start there. Like, what is it that God has been doing in your life? And I know that a significant piece ties back to the Shema. So talk to me and tell me a bit of what how that is true.

SPEAKER_03 1:51

Well, I believe that God began to pose a question to me about who I thought he was. And so probably the best way for me to to handle this is to just kind of tell you my story, all right. Which was that, you know, you and I were raised in a Christian home. We always went to church. Our parents are Christians, but for me, I believe that God began to pursue me through through our dad. He was always like just a very loving, kind father to me. Uh, and probably him putting me to bed each night was very influential to me. He always said prayers with me, he always told me how much he loved me that he loved me unconditionally, no matter what I ever did. He would always love me. And I think I've shared before about him naming me Amy because it means beloved. And so I just grew up with this being reinforced in my mind that I was loved, that my father loved me, and that God loved me. So I don't think that I have ever doubted God's love or his loving kindness. And so, I mean, as an adult, I have grown to really appreciate what a gift that is. But, you know, as life happens, I would say you probably recall my teenage years. We're not really a godly time.

SPEAKER_00 4:12

No, no, no.

SPEAKER_03 4:14

In my life, there was some rebellion and some shenanigans and whatnot. And so I really got away from the Lord then. But probably early adulthood, I think the Lord began pursuing me and drawing me more towards him. And by the time that I got married, we had started going to church and had become very regular and then later very involved in our church. And I very much wanted to grow my relationship with the Lord, and I started doing Bible study, and anyway, just we were just very involved.

SPEAKER_00 5:10

I gotta, I gotta, I got interrupted. Did you smoke the cigarettes on the way to the Bible study or after you left the Bible study? Sorry, I just gotta throw you under the bus in those teenage years.

SPEAKER_03 5:21

Yeah, yeah. Okay, so moving on. And um, I would say like during adulthood, some new discipleship thoughts began to come to me. Uh, like somehow as I was learning, studying more. I don't know if these were my narratives, if they were my friends' narratives, or if they were the narratives being taught, but somewhere I picked up on these narratives that I was constantly missing the mark with God, and that I needed to really manage my behavior, I needed to try harder, I needed to work more to check off the boxes to be a good follower of Jesus.

SPEAKER_00 6:25

Oh, it was a a real performance understanding and drive in relationships. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 6:34

Yes. And like just like reading my Bible every day, praying every day, serving more, and there were so many wonderful people that I was very close friends with during this time, but I would say that somehow this belief about a relationship with God became very transactional and exhausting. So, like at some point, I just realized this was not healthy. The Lord opened my eyes that what I thought about him from childhood that began as thinking of him as a loving kind father had somehow along the way turned into me thinking of him as more harsh and like a demanding master.

SPEAKER_00 7:44

What what general age would you say that season was in your life?

SPEAKER_03 7:49

Uh the change probably happened from about age 30 to 45.

SPEAKER_02 7:59

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 8:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 8:00

I think that's good.

SPEAKER_03 8:01

And so, but in 2020, I was 50 years old, and that is when God just really opened my eyes that there has got to be a change. Like this is not going the right direction. So he really challenged my thinking and began to lead me on the journey that you know you and I have talked about abiding with him.

SPEAKER_02 8:41

Right.

SPEAKER_03 8:42

And that's all in John 15. He's the vine, we're the branches, we can't do anything apart from him. And then also you mentioned the Shema, like learning to love him and to truly just love other people. And at this point in my journey, when he challenged me with loving him, he also challenged me with this question of what do I think about God? And there's a really famous quote by A.W. Tozer that says, What comes to our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us. I mean, that's really true.

SPEAKER_02 9:39

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 9:40

It's true. And it's very, very deep. And I think it also carries the idea that the highest and the best thoughts about God are probably the truest thoughts about God. So, like, if I think God is loving, well, He is exceedingly abundantly more than I can dream or imagine in love.

SPEAKER_00 10:16

So let me pause you real quick. We may have to back up just a bit in your timeline. Like, so my first kind of career job was in 2000, right? Just got married, moved to Orlando, run a campus ministry. And I remember I got in the habit of you and I talking on my commute home in the afternoons. And after, you know, throughout that year, it was like, oh, God's God bringing about some visible change and language change. Like there's something happening clearly in Amy's life. And that was, you know, about about that time that you're saying, you know, there began to be this shift. And then as you've already discussed, you know, a breakthrough a number of years later. But what was what was Christianity like before that that shift began happening when we were dialoguing, you know, when when really that was when we started our conversations, right? Here we are. What's probably 20 26 years later, when we said, guys, we we have a lot of conversations, like we're 26 years into these brother-sister, God-centered conversations. So we weren't kidding. But go ahead, tell me what that season was, what was happening in that.

SPEAKER_03 11:39

Well, I had started doing Bible study, and at that time there, there were not a ton of women's Bible study leaders. So probably back then, it was like Kay Arthur and Bethmore, they were probably the two big women's Bible study games.

SPEAKER_02 12:04

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 12:05

And my church offered a lot of Beth Moore studies. And so I was doing her studies. If anyone has ever done a Bethmore study, they are intense. It is daily homework. Like you are spending a lot of time in the Bible looking things up, reading, thinking, praying, asking the Lord. So I mean, you do those things and you will check. I mean, the Lord will speak through his word and to you personally. And honestly, I think there was one other thing, and that was listening to Beth Moore teach like she loves Jesus. Like, I mean, Scott, that woman loves Jesus. Like I have never seen somebody love Jesus.

SPEAKER_00 13:13

Yeah, it's so true when you run into someone that it is so authentic. Like it's what it's, you know, you know, I won't tell my story now, but that was that was a absolute game changer for me. I ran into someone in college that loved Jesus in a way I I did not know was possible and I could not have imagined before I went there.

SPEAKER_03 13:33

Right.

SPEAKER_00 13:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 13:35

Right. I mean, it was just crazy. And I somewhere along the page is found myself right in Lord. Whatever she's got, I want some of that. However, that looks on me, I want some of what she's got that makes her love you so much. And so I would say, you know, those teachings were and just the time with God, I mean, it just really started changing me.

SPEAKER_00 14:12

Would you say that that her authentic passion and hunger w was contagious?

SPEAKER_01 14:21

Oh, for sure.

SPEAKER_00 14:23

Right. And I think I think we probably all need to hear that, right? Like when we're when we're truly hungry, like it just and we're passionate about Jesus, like I think we just all need to understand the spirit's gonna be at work, God's gonna be doing things we might not even be aware of just because we're authentically desiring and connecting with him. Uh he's gonna minister to people around us. So I'm gonna throw that in there.

SPEAKER_03 14:54

Totally. Okay, so are you ready for me to uh pick back up 2020?

SPEAKER_00 15:01

Yeah, jump in on 2020. What happened?

SPEAKER_03 15:04

Okay, so this was like the big I mean, uh-huh. Like you are not gonna escape this. We're getting ready to go on a journey, girlfriend.

SPEAKER_00 15:15

I remember this.

SPEAKER_03 15:16

Yeah, so I began to be challenged with what I really thought about God, and I really thought that I thought pretty well about God. I mean, I didn't question that God loves me, and you know, I just I just never doubted that. So I really thought that I thought well of him. But then I realized that, well, maybe though I don't always believe the best about God. Like I started reading First Corinthians 13, the love chapter, and there were some things about it that just started making me question how well I loved anyone. Okay, and God too, and so anyway, a book kind of came across my path called The Good and Beautiful God by James Bryan Smith. And interestingly, each chapter of that book looks at a false narrative that many people have concerning God, and then it also gives you the true narrative, and man, that book wrecked me in the best of ways, and I'll just tell you a few of the narratives that I realized that I had from that book.

SPEAKER_00 17:10

I was about to ask you, what was uh what were a couple of the biggest? So you're ahead of me.

SPEAKER_03 17:14

Yeah, one was that I realized that I actually did to think of God as being pretty angry and judgmental, and like more in the sense that he was just like eternally annoyed with me and I said.

SPEAKER_00 17:36

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 17:37

I mean, I really did, and but what is true is that God is good and loving, and the book Gentle and Lowly by Dane Orland also came into my path, and I realized from that book that God in his deepest parts of him is merciful, and it is the very mercy of God, and it is our sin that draws him to us in his mercy. I mean, and think about it, Jesus came to kindness, yes, yeah, Jesus came to earth to save us. He didn't, he could have come up with a lot of different plans. Yes, now you're preaching he came to us, our sin did not repel him from coming.

SPEAKER_00 18:47

And so I was like, oh and we're if you're annoyed with somebody, you don't go running passionately.

SPEAKER_03 18:57

No, no, no. So I I don't think I thought of God as well as I should have in this way, but I also realized that I had kind of thought of God's love and favor that they had to be earned, but like my relationship with him was much more transactional. Like I thought, well, I I need to read my Bible today so that I'll make God happy and he'll bless me with a good day. I mean, that's so far from the truth, anyway. But but truly what is true is that God's love is free and it's unconditional, and he delights in us, and our efforts are just an overflow of love towards him. They're not to earn something from him, he's already given it to us, we've already got it. There's nothing I can do to make him love me more. So there was that then probably the third diggie for me was I realized that honestly, I kind of thought that my own transformation happens through willpower. That like God saved me eternally from my sins, but then like the rest of the work was kind of up to me to do good and work really hard at being a good follower the rest of my life.

SPEAKER_00 20:56

Okay, what what triggered that or what was the moment what where did that come about?

SPEAKER_03 21:05

Well, I don't really know where it came from. I don't know if you know what things I learned from people or what I really don't know where that came from, but but I certainly did think that I needed to buckle up and be a good soldier, you know.

SPEAKER_00 21:30

Oh and back when we were back when we were going through our lessons and what is maybe the third or fourth episode, right? We got to and you said it, you said this is my favorite, right? And it was the episode on repent. Oh, for sure. Right. And when when we talk about metanoe, that Greek term repent, it means change your thinking. So I mean, yeah, it it's it's getting more and more clear that really these turning points were a breakthrough. And how you thought?

SPEAKER_03 22:02

Totally, totally. I mean, honestly, this whole thing was like a season of repentance. I realized the transformation was not me working harder, it was the Holy Spirit working in me, and me just letting him do the work. And so during the season of repentance, I changed what I thought about so many things. And not only that, I feel like it was a repentance of, I mean, I had taught these things to people because I had been in a position to help develop discipleship materials at my old church. And so inadvertently, I had been teaching these things to people. And I just could not believe how wrong I had gotten it. And uh so I mean I literally sat down with some people and had a confession of I am so sorry that I taught you this. And so anyway, and I've had that conversation with my daughter too, and said, you know, if I have given you any impression of these false narratives, you need to know that those are not true.

SPEAKER_00 23:41

So is there one that stands out specifically, like in when as you talk to Kate, like is there is there one that stood out that was like this was I was so I was so far from understanding this?

SPEAKER_03 23:55

I think it's the transactional piece. Okay, and she's her personality is very much she's a rule follower, and so I I can see how that piece in particular could be really hard for her.

SPEAKER_00 24:18

Okay, so so in the post-transactional in the change of the new thought the that you've embraced, the truth that you've engaged, yeah, like how do you now live? Like, so you're living repentantly. That's like living in the in the reality of what was true or what is true. Yeah, what is different and how do you do that?

SPEAKER_03 24:42

Well, so I think that kind of the some of the things we've been saying in this podcast, like, what are you thinking? Clearly, in this season, God was asking me that what would God have me think? He was clearly showing me that. But then how now do you live? I wasn't really sure how to do that, you know, but the God in his grace introduced me to spiritual disciplines. Okay, and I suppose the only well the primary spiritual disciplines that I had prior to this were reading a Bible and praying.

SPEAKER_02 25:34

Right.

SPEAKER_03 25:35

So I mean, I don't know how I don't know what's a good definition like for spiritual disciplines, how do you eat health people?

SPEAKER_00 25:44

And I went through a season of asking people, like, how do you grow? And inevitably everybody said the same four things. Well, you read your Bible, you pray, you go to church, and you serve. You know, most people would make would say those four things. And so, but if you moved, if you're, you know, it's like, well, what else is there? Right, was I think kind of what I grew up wondering. And and so, but spiritual disciplines are anything that we're doing to engage, you know, formation into the likeness of Christ that we're choosing to challenge ourselves in. You know, a discipline serves to empower you to do what you couldn't do before you began practicing it, right? So, like, for instance, neither you or I could go run a marathon tomorrow, right?

SPEAKER_03 26:33

No, we could not.

SPEAKER_00 26:34

We could not. Okay. Um questionable whether we could, even with training. But training, we could run you know, immensely further than we could without training. And so a discipline is you're engaging an exercise and a tool that is going to help enable and empower you to do something you couldn't have done before exercising it. So, like, you know, an example of another way other than reading your Bible and going to church and praying, you know, a discipline of fasting. Like if you're somebody who really struggles with being able to have self-discipline, right? Well, then, you know, a discipline of abstinence like fasting, that you're engaging, choosing to do without something to engage us in and strengthen a spiritual muscle to say no to self and strengthen that ability to say no to self in order to gain greater, like putting a bit in the mouth of self and having a greater strength to resist things that you didn't have the ability to resist. So that's an example, a definition of a of a spiritual discipline, an example of how it might help strengthen you to do what you couldn't have done or what you really struggled to do before practicing it.

SPEAKER_03 27:56

Well, that makes sense. One of the spiritual is I'll mention a few that were really helpful to me, but one was just sitting and being still with the Lord. And I think that the Lord really used this for me because it was so helpful with that transactional piece. Like he just would have me sit and do nothing, and that is very hard to do if you're not used to doing that. That is very hard to do.

SPEAKER_00 28:33

So I would say and you're a doer, and doer. Your view of earning relationship with God was to do things for him, to please him.

SPEAKER_03 28:43

Exactly, right? And and I do know that there was a narrative like that that was definitely prevalent in my stream of religion to do things for God. And but this really helped me to sit there to do nothing, but just to let it be aware of the presence of the Lord. And he just allowed that to help me see how much he delighted in me. Not in what I was doing, not in what I was saying, just because you know what is me, his job.

SPEAKER_00 29:41

Okay, so for for people, other doers out there, right, who hear what you just said and are like, oh, that's that's that's good to hear, right? But God's way too efficient and he needs, you know, things need to be getting done. I don't have time to do that. Like help that person who you who can identify with kind of your story here, of what transpired by learning to just sit and be still. Like, why was that? I mean, I I get what you've just said, but help them realize the brilliance of what's what God's doing, not asking you to do something.

SPEAKER_03 30:25

Well, it for one thing, it helped me to feel loved by God. And when you receive love, it is so easy to give love back. Like God was God was just making me sit down and be still. So he could just love me. And for me to know that I I was not doing anything to earn his love. I was just he loved me because he loved me because he loved me.

SPEAKER_00 31:19

So I'm gonna put that into some language that is thrown around in church a lot, like the five love languages, right? Um I think a lot of doers, like their love language is probably doing things, right, for people and for God. But if God's love language is, let's just say he wants you to engage him in the love language of being of time, yeah, just being with him, and we're not doing something. Like, are you willing to love him in a way that he's inviting you to love him? Because I think what we both discovered in that, because we both had breakthroughs with that specific discipline and how valuable it is, is that you know, not only do you are you loving God in a way that he's inviting you to, you're we're we're loving God in a way that he's teaching us to how to love in a whole new way.

SPEAKER_03 32:13

Right.

SPEAKER_00 32:14

That is very much a part of who he is. Not that he doesn't love us when we do things, but there's something very profound when he actually leads us to this deep desire that he put in us way back in the beginning when he was thinking us you know of who we were, and he put this love of being with and this this love language of time in each and every one of us. That's spiritually like with God, like that's not just your love language, like he's already put that love language in you, and he wants to awaken it when you choose to do it.

SPEAKER_03 32:51

So well, I'll say there's been some other interesting spiritual disciplines. I'm not an outdoorsy person.

SPEAKER_00 33:02

No, you're not.

SPEAKER_03 33:03

No, I'm not.

SPEAKER_00 33:04

I got the outdoors jeans, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 33:07

But I do love sitting outside and listening to all the birds in my yard, and there's something about the birds singing that's really sweet to me. Okay, this one I did not see coming, but this is a really sweet one, dancing. I do enjoy dancing.

SPEAKER_02 33:32

I didn't know this.

SPEAKER_03 33:33

I do, okay. And you know, I guess I could sometimes I might dance around my house like with some praise and worship on.

SPEAKER_00 33:44

Wait, now are you gonna be one of those people that's dancing at church, like going around jumping up and down?

SPEAKER_03 33:50

Okay, no, not so much, but but that's okay. Okay, that's worshiping the Lord. King David did that, but that so when Kate was getting married, David and I practiced dancing, and he he does not love to dance, um, and he really does not dance, but he was a really good sport and he would work on dancing with me, and the Lord has really used that to again speak to me about how he loves me through a Bruno's Bruno Mars song. I mean, God can speak however he wants to, but David and I would dance to just the way you are. And if you have not heard that song, like it is just a really sweet song of someone who is so taken with the other person, and the other person just does not see themselves, you know, in this beautiful light that this person who loves them sees them. And David's such a great example of God's love to me. He he truly does love me so well. And he he really helps me to know of God's love for me, but the Bruno's Mars, the Bruno Mars song now, when I hear that, it is like it is like the Lord has just tapped me on the shoulder and said, Come on, girl, let's dance.

SPEAKER_01 35:46

And it's so sweet.

SPEAKER_00 35:49

Yeah, I love it. So there's a lot of internal shift to use the language that we just that was happening uh through these this knowledge that you're discovering, the things that you used to think about God and believe about God weren't what they weren't weren't the truth that they could be, and in some cases weren't truth at all.

SPEAKER_01 36:14

Right.

SPEAKER_00 36:15

And but on the other side of the new found discovery of truth, this new thought and living in repentance, living in the new thought and engaging that new thought and practicing how to live in that new thought, like is very life-giving. And yeah, how has that changed how you view and interact with and see people?

SPEAKER_03 36:40

Oh gosh, hugely. I mean, I see it as this natural flow, like when God loves me, it just fills me with love that I just cannot help but overflow and love God back. And for the love of me, I cannot help it. I just love these other people. I'm not even trying to.

SPEAKER_00 37:07

Right. It's authentic, right? Again.

SPEAKER_01 37:10

Yes, yes.

SPEAKER_00 37:11

And and life-giving, right?

SPEAKER_01 37:14

Totally.

SPEAKER_00 37:15

Not just to you, but into the world in which you live. Right. I mean, and and if you don't know Amy, a lot of you who may be listening may know Amy, may be friends of hers, you know that it's very clear, like God loved Amy and Amy knows it, and Amy overflows into other people in a genuine way that cares about folks. Well, we need to wrap this up because as we're getting, I love that you're sharing your story, and we probably need to come back and hear more parts of your story another day. But, you know, I love really a lot of what you're talking about in your story, is a lot of what we've tried to kind of allude to in our episodes. But is there one moment, Amy, is there one thing about God's heart that's changed everything for you? If there was one standout closing statement, like what would it be that you would love to have listeners pay most attention to and walk away to maybe sit with God with?

SPEAKER_03 38:18

Well, there's really two things. One is I think that being challenged with the question, what do you think about God, was so huge for me. So I would love to invite people to to ask themselves that same question and and to to really ask that of the Lord to show them what they think concerning God. But but the one thing that has been my takeaway from it is I thought God was pretty great all of my life. But however great I thought he was, he is so much far greater than I ever dreamed or imagined. And the more that I continue to know him, the greater he gets.

SPEAKER_00 39:28

When you say no, reader, she's not talking about comprehending, right? Like reading something to say, I I comprehend the sentence. You're talking about encountering and experiencing this person, like David, who was not desired to dance, but he loved you and wanted to do that with you. Like you've encountered, and that's a big change. Like you've encountered God and have a knowledge of that love that's far beyond an informational thing about what you believe about God. Well, we need to wrap up. Thank you guys for listening. I know this has been a longer episode, but Amy, thank you for sharing. I think there's something really powerful when we get to tell our stories. And, you know, we're just here to try to love God and pursue him and see what things he wants to do in our lives as he brings about brings about change in us and through us into the world. So you guys have a great week. We'll look forward to seeing you again next week. Take care.

SPEAKER_01 40:29

See ya.