When You’re Not Okay...Overwhelmed and Facing What’s Underneath

In this week's episode of the TNC Podcast, we're diving deep into the dangerous territory of "I'm Fine" - you know, that classic response we all give when things are definitely NOT fine. 

Pastor Joe Liles and the team crack open a raw conversation about emotional honesty, exploring how we hide behind those two simple words. Discover the surprising emotional landscape of God, from His moments of joy to His deep grief, and learn why saying "I'm fine" might be keeping you from true connection. Hear personal stories about parenting, boundaries, and what happens when we get overwhelmed, plus insights into how recognizing our emotions can actually bring us closer to God. 

Whether you're a parent struggling with video game battles, a church leader navigating burnout, or just someone who wants to get real about feelings, this episode will make you laugh, think, and maybe see your emotional world differently. Get ready for an honest, vulnerable, and surprisingly funny exploration of what it means to be truly okay.

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome and Introductions
• 0:00 Personal experiences with Emotions and God
• 3:37 Message Series, "I'm fine, everything's fine"
• 7:16 Exploring Emotional Boundaries and Sacrifices
• 13:59 Role of Music and Emotions in Worship
• 20:48 Emotions of God and their Impact
• 51:31 Overwhelmed state and the Solution
• 59:00 Coming up next

Transcript

Pastor Joe Liles: 0:01

That's gonna wait and see how long. Yeah, we're gonna get the jingle this time. Welcome to the TNC podcast. It is great to have everyone listening to us on this wonderful day. We are recorded in studio at the neighborhood church, and the studio is the stage. It's the stage in the worship center. That's exactly what it is. That's how we record our podcast, and we have a full stage. And you know what? We've leveled up. You haven't seen the podcast. We have leveled up on our stage. Not only do we have multiple chairs up here, because one of our chairs broke, so we had to add one of these is not like the other. We now put a rug on the stage. Oh, upstage. Wow. That's good. Wow. Did you guys like it? Okay, that's Oh man, alright. So yeah, we got a rug on the stage. It's great. We got some coffees going, and we got four hosts on the podcast today to talk about the message and bring things in. I just want to take a second to introduce you to our wonderful host to my left, interim worship leader for these eight weeks, while you're here, all the way through up to Easter. It is the one, the only

Tyra Dennis: 1:05

Tyra didn't Tyra Dennis,

Pastor Joe Liles: 1:08

this great, good

Tom Helmich: 1:09

friend of mine, something in residence or something.

Pastor Joe Liles: 1:11

It is a worship leader in residence. I liked it in residence because then it's, it's a cool idea to think about. Like, oh, are there other people that can come in residence? Is there a preacher in residence? Is there an artist in residence? Like, there's these really neat moments where you could, like, bring people in, normal staff exist, and then you have, like, someone in residence, right? Which just adding, that's really cool. That meant, so now it makes more sense. Yeah? So, like, universities will do that. Who else will do an in

Tyra Dennis: 1:34

residence? I think churches do it, yeah? Seeing art galleries, that's true. Like, art galleries are really big on the in residence thing, yep.

Pastor Joe Liles: 1:43

Basically it's a season of an artist, season of an artist coming in to share. That's the

Unknown: 1:47

same thing as an singer being in residence in Las Vegas. Yes,

Pastor Joe Liles: 1:52

that's exactly right. Yeah, there you go, of

Tyra Dennis: 1:53

Beyonce in Vegas. Okay. Oh, so

Pastor Joe Liles: 1:56

was she really in Vegas right now? No, no, okay. Do you want that?

Tyra Dennis: 2:00

No, no one had to be in residence at the SoFi stadium. So if I

Pastor Joe Liles: 2:03

stadium, because so if i stadium is four feet from your house, yes, yeah, okay, that's good. Okay, that's great. And to my right, you the wonderful director of operations at the neighborhood church. It is the one, the only Roseanne bowling. Roseanne bowling coming on the podcast. Ready to go? High Priestess. Oh, the High Priestess of operations, the HBO, they were not letting go that you

Tom Helmich: 2:23

said it the matriarch of the neighborhood church.

Pastor Joe Liles: 2:26

Oh, that's not bad. That's not bad. She has been here almost since the beginning, almost since the beginning, ready to rock and roll. So and now directing all operations, getting things ready. So this is good. This is good. And then to her right on the podcast this morning, representing The future of ordained leadership in the neighborhood church. Well, half of the future, because you're going to be part time, it's just going to great. So have the future of ordained leadership. It is the one, the only Tom hell. Much Tom hellish. Hey, Tom. So we are here, joining in on the TNC podcast. And just in case you wonder, how do you get a hold of any one of us? If you have deep, deep, deep theological questions, you can contact Tom at the following number, ready, A, one, a, two, A, 12479367, 2285, neighborhood church. Wow. You guys did so good. I really appreciate that. That was great. That is the

Tom Helmich: 3:24

phone number building the old fashioned landline.

Pastor Joe Liles: 3:27

Oh, wow. You call it the landline. Okay, that's great. It is the phone number for the church. And so you can call and get a hold of Tom helmage, nope, right now you actually get a hold of Roseanne, right, which is

Tom Helmich: 3:37

Joe Liles. You can call me and I'll give you his personal cell phone.

Pastor Joe Liles: 3:41

There it is. That's great. That's wonderful. All right, so we're gonna be jumping in today. We're in a new series. We start a new series with Tom kicking us off, which was wonderful. And the new series is called I'm fine. Everything's fine. And I think this is a series that truly everyone can relate to. And just in awareness, I was sitting with a group of guys the other morning after a workout, and there was about, I would say, 12 of us were sitting in the morning, 615 in the morning, we're talking over a cup of coffee and and the guy's looking there, and one guy goes, Hey, how you doing? And the guy goes, I'm fine. Everything's everything's fine. And literally, guys like, Yeah, I'm fine too. Everything's fine. And then they went, not even knowing that, like, this is the series we're doing in church. They just went around like, What a joke it is. And then they started talking about it like, What a joke it is that we say that everything's fine when we know that we just shared prayers for you because everything wasn't fine, and then you just told us it's fine, right? Like, so I really believe that we we hide a lot of our emotions, right? Because we can get so one which I didn't even preach on. So this is not even a part of the mess. Of the message, but now I kind of like where it's going. One is that we believe we can get through it. I'm fine. Says, Hey, don't worry about me. Now. I'm gonna get through it. I'm fine. And what it's really saying is I'm gonna be fine in the future. I'm not fine with that, but I'm gonna be fine in the future. So I'm just gonna tell you now, because I don't want to deal with more I can. Only deal with the task at hand, right? The task at hand is all my emotions and what's going on in my life. I can't deal with explaining it all to you then trying to hear all the just let me get through I'm fine, right? I'm fine. I'm going to get to the other side. That's number one I'm fine is also I don't have the capacity with all of these emotions in the situation I'm going through to embrace you right now, like I'm fine. Like I can't talk about this again. I can't embrace this again. And then you have the I'm fine, which is, and this is maybe the not saddest one, but the most, the one that needs the most care, is the one that is ignorant of the true things that are happening in their life. The I'm fine without understanding that things are not fine,

Tom Helmich: 5:42

right? Said it so much, they start to actually believe it Yes, and they just

Pastor Joe Liles: 5:45

don't realize that things are so I'm fine is a very dangerous statement. Now that's all the dangerous side of the statement. There are people I believe in a real way that could actually mean I'm fine, like things are going good. And when I hear that a little bit of jealous, the emotion of jealousy is something that I experienced. Has anyone ever, ever experienced that? When someone looks to you and like they're actually doing really good, and they're like, No, I'm doing good. Marriage is good, kids are good, jobs good. And you're like, goals, yeah? And I was like, yeah. I was like, What are you retired? Like, what's happening? Like, how does this work? Like, how do you feel? Like, and it's just one of those levels where I'm like, I don't feel that. So I get a little bit jealous, like, to be honest, and I'm like, oh, okay, I'm missing something in life. This is not good. So we've interesting.

Tyra Dennis: 6:29

It's interesting. I don't ever feel that if someone's like, I'm doing great kids, great marriage is great, preaching is great, whatever. I'm like, That's awesome. And it never goes to a that sucks. I wish I had that, like, I don't know. I just, I always find that reaction interesting, because it makes me think, why are you not looking at your own blessings? Everyone has something that's going great. It may not be the thing you think it is, yeah, but when you take the time to, like, step back, you have some great things going on too. Yeah,

Pastor Joe Liles: 6:59

absolutely, yeah. Work on that. Yeah. Wow. Wow, wow. Yeah, okay, that's great. This is an intervention podcast. Can we bring in the therapist now, please, can they just come on now? Yes, no, but it's an honest feeling. I mean, I agree with you, right? I'm not outside of understanding the blessings in my life, right? But at the same time, like, I can't avoid it like, like, it's just a moment when I hear people and here's, here's part of it. It's, honestly, it's like, when people set real healthy boundaries in order to get to a really good place, I helps me recognize the places that I'm actually don't do well in life. What are those things they set? It begins with the B and ends with boundary. Real healthy? Yeah? Oh, don't worry. I keep on adding adjectives to healthy boundaries to help me understand them. Yeah, I am not good at boundaries. I don't set boundaries. I'm not good at maintaining boundaries, and then I have unhealthy boundaries. If I do set them right, it's so here's the I mean this and Tom maybe can relate to this, right? Roseanne, you just stepped on staff here at the church. Staff here at the church. But the church is, is an all times call, right? It's not, you can't set a nine to five boundary in the church, right? And that's a true thing. I know people will challenge that. I know Tom, you're looking at me challenging it right now. Can't or just, yeah, so well,

Tom Helmich: 8:20

because that's the boundaries that allows that to happen. Because I think it's very true. Yes. Point is like, what is it that we're willing to let go until tomorrow? And when do you say no more today? So

Pastor Joe Liles: 8:30

I, so I, let's just speak to this for a second. I think it's important to set healthy boundaries, which means that, like, for So, for example, I was with a family that was in hospice two weeks ago, right? My healthy boundaries actually with my family on that one. And the healthy boundary you've said is that if people are in a time and a season of their life that that I have to be president, right, aka the passing of someone, different things like that, a crisis care, our family has a perspective, that I can go and be that right, I can have that moment and start to do that so you can grab it. Roseanne, it's all good that is that someone at the front door, is that someone through the little neighbor's door, little neighbors and so, yeah, I have this, I have this wonderful moment where I set healthy boundaries in that, right? The thing that we find is that, in the church especially, is that it's just not one family,

Tom Helmich: 9:27

no, because you have, I mean, how many families do we have at the neighborhood church

Pastor Joe Liles: 9:30

there's, right now, 100 and over 100

Tom Helmich: 9:34

Yeah, so that's a lot of people's, which is why you need, you know, many hands make light work. Yeah, right. Everybody can be everything to everybody all the time, yeah? Which is when you need to have that, those times that you can have your correct, you know, your own time, yeah.

Pastor Joe Liles: 9:47

And I think too, part of my sacrifice, and this is where I think I have unhealthy boundaries, right, is I love the people that serve at the church. I love the people that volunteer at the church, right? I understand that they're getting done with a nine. Into five job, and then they're coming to serve at the church, right? Like that. Like, that's their heart. Like, I look at that, and I'm like, that's incredible, right? That they would have that heart for the church. And so with that, I look at that, I'm like, I need to respond and sacrifice to that. Like, I need to step up and say, Hey, I see what you're doing. And so, yeah, you have all of me also, because I recognize that sacrifice.

Tyra Dennis: 10:22

What if they are stepping up because they see what you're already doing? Well, then

Pastor Joe Liles: 10:26

we are in a vicious cycle. Then that, and it could be very true, right? So this was, I think, what impacted me on Sunday with the message, right? And, and it didn't hit me. I mean, we're going to talk to God's emotions in a second, but when I talked about being overwhelmed, right? And when I talked about like, I can't do this on my own, that caused an emotion in me that was so pure, because looking at it, I realized that when I'm overwhelmed and I'm in the space like it's because I'm trying to do things on my own, it's because I recognize all the help that's there, but I'm still trying to do all the things on my own, and that you have to surround yourself with people like the ask and the request and the celebration of people who serve is so important in the life of the church, and so I can I consistently find myself in a space where I'm like, trying to balance that overwhelmed feeling with the balancing of who is in the church right that is there to step up, to help, to serve, to see the Need of the church and respond to that need and then celebrate them in an incredible way. But I think that's that's a reason we do community of faith. We call it a body of Christ, is because we're all going through all these different things, right? I actually love when I'm getting on the phone with someone to say, Hey, can you help you? And they're like, No, I got this thing going on with the family, like, and, you know, it's really tough right now, and I gotta be here and be present. I'm like, hold on. I was like, forget the volume. Volunteering part. Like, what's going on with your family, you know? And like, God moves this conversation into not a care for the church, but a care for the person. And I love when God moves those conversations in that way, and you experience all the emotions of every single person in the church right when they come in and see what's going on, which is

Tom Helmich: 11:59

why it's so important for a pastor to have a sabbatical? Oh yeah, I can't. I can't do that forever. Everybody hits the limit of how much of other people's stuff they can shoulder before it, you know, oh yeah, camel with the straws, you know, the game. And

Pastor Joe Liles: 12:12

even to go back into personal relationship with God. I mean, I think the thing is that pastors sacrifice often, is that we serve the church and we forget to be in relationship with God, because we equate serving the church to relationship with God, and those are two different things, right? A personal, my personal relationship with God is different than my preaching on Sunday. It's different than my serving on a Sunday. It's different than my being here during the week. My personal like I woke up this morning and felt called to devotion, like I tried to open up the computer and get to work. And I was like, I mean, God was just laying it on my heart. God was like, I need relationship with you this morning before you work for this thing this morning. And and it was powerful. I mean, I literally went into just scripture, and I read the book of Daniel. So, I mean that, yeah, I was just in the book of Daniel. Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego, Daniel. And Pharaoh, oh, Pharaoh, that's probably the pyramids. Again. We're talking about the pyramids. We're talking about the pyramids this morning. It's crazy. So what? Nebuchadnezzar, King, nebucha, you're exactly right. Yep, that's exactly what's happening. Uh huh, yeah. So, and then interpretation of dreams, right? All this kind of stuff. So really interesting, right? To kind of just dwell in the word and scripture, right? And then just spend time with Jess.

Tom Helmich: 13:21

There's a Luther quote in there, right? So that when he's so busy, there's somebody loves this one of his favorite things, he needs twice as much time in prayer. Mm, hmm, yeah, because, yeah, busy he is exactly. But, I mean, what I noticed in me is, what the busier I am, the more likely I am to let my prayer time go or my devotion time go. Yeah, it's sometimes the first thing to go well.

Pastor Joe Liles: 13:40

And here's the hard part, can I just say this out loud? I don't even think we need to be that busy to let that go, like anything happens in life and like, that's the thing that goes right. It is not the priority. Remember,

Tom Helmich: 13:50

you said that when you make that phone call, I'm like, I'm sorry, yeah, but no, there's but you gotta do it right, right? Yeah, you know, when the plane depressurizes, you put your own

Tyra Dennis: 13:59

mask on first. I think this is interesting. Because I've had this conversation with so many pastors, not just like LCA pastors, but in general, all across multiple denominations. Pastors oftentimes use the language like as pastors, we choose to right or we feel called to, but worship leaders use it. We use the language like we were chosen, like they chose us and and I think it's interesting because when, when I lead worship, and I've also had this conversation with other worship leaders and other denominations too, you'll hear us say, like when I lead worship, I'm leading worship for whatever the three reasons are. It's typically like three. I think I'm a good leader. I'm a good musician. I have a heart for worship. What we don't ever consider is that the moment we stand up there, we have become someone's pastor, and they will bypass the pastor and get to us. Us, because now we are their connection to God, but that's not what we signed up for. So then they want you to pray with them. They want you to give them scriptures for devotion. They want to tell you their whole life story, and the whole time you're thinking like, I'm just trying to remember the next lyric. I gotta go back up in five minutes, and I don't even know the melody. Yeah, right, right. And the and so it it's not the peace that we would ever choose. We would never choose to go to hospice and sit down with a family and do the thing that y'all do. But like one time, a pastor's mom died, and we went to the family home, where the whole family was gathered, whole worship team, and we just started singing songs, yeah, and, and we did it because the thought was, well, who like Pastor is the pastor? Yeah? And that kind of became a conversation at one of our rehearsals. And we just left rehearsal and pulled up and had a guitarist with us and said, We're gonna go to this house. We're gonna sing all the songs we know until they kick us out and and that is not naturally. That is not something that a worship leader would choose to do, or the language around it would it would never be I chose this. It's always like you, you were chosen. Like they chose me, or God chose me to do a thing. And so I think like, the difference with like, the resting piece and the pouring into is, if I'm not choosing to constantly like, do the thing, I give myself more permission to pull back and rest. Yeah, right. But the moment I choose to like, if I say I choose to show up for you every whatever day of the week, whatever it is, through all your mess, now I have to hold myself accountable and be responsible to my choice. And so if I feel like I'm slipping, yeah, now it, it feels bad. So now I'm gonna keep going and keep going and until I can't go anymore. So I'm curious to, like, explore the language around it, because we don't, I was going to say we don't do anything different. We do we do the same thing. We give people Jesus, our method in doing that, correct? Is very, very different, right? But it's still, I think it's the language around it that sets the mindset that allows us to I

Tom Helmich: 17:19

think that on a given Sunday, the neighborhood church could run perfectly fine without a pastor in it.

Tyra Dennis: 17:26

I actually agree with that too, not all churches, but the neighborhood, yes,

Tom Helmich: 17:29

but it would be more difficult for it to function without the worship leader. I agree, because the thing that I don't understand about music, but that I know, is there, is it? It's a window into part of my emotions that my brain and logic cannot access correct, and it reveals things to me I don't understand. And it there's an emotiveness in in music and in song that connects us in a way that we can't ever cognitively get to. And people crave that they they they need that they release things through that, that I could come preach, and they're like, you know, they might remember, they might not, but the song, the music that's going to stick in their head, and that message is going to stay with them as they leave the church. My only hope is that whatever I preach tags on a little bit that they remember it. Yeah, it's the music that's going to make them feel connected in a spiritual way.

Unknown: 18:23

Mm, hmm, yeah.

Tyra Dennis: 18:24

And I agree. I agree. It's even down to, like, the sound quality we we were talking about this, and I don't know if Joe thought I was joking or not, but I told him, like, you have to always at least have guitar, because it's quintessentially the TNC sound. Something happens to worship when there's guitar here. Also something very different happens when there is a guitar. And we saw the week before where there were no guitars, and we saw this week where we had two guitars, two very different guitars, and it it, it was extremely transformative that love Holly. I don't think Holly had any moment in her mind or heart or her body, or she told herself when I sing this song, or when I read this scripture out loud, it's going to take me to a place I think she just went. And I think it had everything to do with what was happening musically. And I watch everyone else react to Holly in a way that I have not seen them react to anybody that has stood up here, right? And so there's in that moment, the way I I translate that in my brain, in that moment, whether she knew it or not, her reading that prayer, she became everyone's pastor, at least, like the first three rows, yes, here and here she was, she was now the pastor. She was going to be the vessel that got them to Jesus. Because maybe it was her own feelings of being overwhelmed, or whatever she was feeling that they related to. Maybe it was the tone of her voice when she sang the. Yeah, that moment that they connected to, maybe it was the look in her face where they could see the human behind the machine of worship, seeing read whatever right that they connected to. But whatever it was, there was a moment where she took the whole band out and, like, this whole section where we were just like, and we are going to just back away and let the Spirit work, yeah, work through Holly, and then, like, we look over there, and Joe is all messed up, too. Yeah, I don't really know what's supposed to come next, but

Pastor Joe Liles: 20:35

somebody that was the whole first part of the message, and the whole message is about being overwhelmed. And I said, we can be overwhelmed by life, right? And all the things and all the responsibilities and everything that happens when we walk outside these doors, I said, but we can also be overwhelmed by God, right? And if we are overwhelmed by God, the only outpouring that we have is what is outpouring because of the spirit, and if, yeah, if you didn't watch Sunday, or you haven't watched that back, right? And you experience this, right? That was when that was, that was pre message song, right? And so right before the message read in Scripture, right? And it was a moment. It was a moment to be overwhelmed by God, and you can't not take that in from being a part of this church, right? And yeah, I believe that Gospel comes in Word. I believe that Gospel comes in song. I believe that Gospel comes in Scripture, reading. I believe that Gospel comes because gospel is that news of Jesus Christ, this experience of God. And when we talk about emotions in a series about emotions, right, where we're talking about is, and this was the first point, if you want to experience the fullness of God, you have to express the fullness of self, right? And so what did we experience? Right? What we're talking about is there was something in the fullness of holy right that represented for us, the fullness of God. And everyone without words, was able to feel that, was able to take that in God, was able to dwell in us because of it. And I mean, it's the language you go back to, it's like, Hey, I'm going to preach, right? I'm going to preach the gospel, and if necessary, I might use words, right? You know, like it's, it's this beautiful I've thought so many times of just coming up and just reading scripture and then walking away, right? Because it's enough, right? Like the experience of God is enough in our life, and we don't give that enough weight to say that just the experience of God is enough in our life. And we felt that on Sunday, which was really incredible, but it was over. It's overwhelming, right? We got overwhelmed by God, right? And so we talked on Sunday about this emotional God. And so just this open question here, right? So I kind of went through a couple Scriptures where in Peters book, right, which is Emotionally Healthy Spirituality. And we're talking through this, we're launching life groups on Sunday, right, which is going to be great. And we're talking through this book. And this book is truly about, like, how do we deal with other emotions? And Peter, because scar writes down all these different emotions of God, right? And so I read them piece by piece, right? And just started, hey, here's the emotions of God, here's the emotions of God, here's the emotions of God. And then all the way through the way through the New Testament Jesus, right? And giving some emotions with Jesus and everything's like that. What did you guys feel? Right? So let's talk about emotions. What did you guys feel when we started talking about God as an emotional God, from how you thought about God before? Right? Let's just be honest there to hearing the emotions of God in a row, right? Because those scriptures are all throughout the Old Testament, right? So imagine, you know, 39 books, right? Great, all throughout the Old Testament, right? And we're reading these emotions, but now we capture them in a in a set, right? So what? Yeah, what was the response to

Unknown: 23:33

that? It was really eye opening to me, because I had never God is his father figure in my in my perception, and he's stoic. Tom used that word observing. And so I was sitting there and I heard that, and I'm like, oh, oh. So God was God is emotional, and he does have these expressions, and I think that that for me, that makes me feel closer to God, like because he knows how I feel.

Pastor Joe Liles: 24:26

That's a great way to put that. I would also like you to be more expressive in worship, because if you're feeling that on Sunday, oh, whoa. Like that. Like I would love to hear that from the church. I'd love to start that way, but you're right. It does make us feel more connected to God. I think that's great. What about you?

Tom Helmich: 24:42

Tom I think that, like, there's this whole whole movement of, like, trying to bring stoicism back, because it gives us fallacy of control, of like, nothing moves me, the unmovable mountain. And so we get this idea that God, like, nothing that we're going to do or say is going to surprise God. Because so many times when our emotions come out, it's because there's something a. Prize. It catches us off guard, where we kind of lose control to our emotions and like that. Can't be God, and so we want to have this idea of God being this very stoic, just like unmoved, unsurprised, yeah? Just like emotionless. But the Bible is full of times when, when God has emotion, yeah. But then we, when we read things in the New Testament about Jesus, we see Jesus experiencing emotion, we think, Well, we're seeing the humanity of Jesus as both God and man, and we don't want to think about God having emotions, because it it doesn't seem to jive with our own emotions. At least it doesn't. But there's, I can't remember, the fancy, fancy word, Anthropo Anthro, something where we try to project our own like anthropomorphism, like things about humanity and things that are not human, yep, correct? Because I think there's a difference between God's emotions and ours, yeah, because God's emotions are always pure and just and and righteous, whereas sometimes ours come out of sinfulness, of pride and greed, Oh, absolutely, and anger, selfishness and things like that. And I don't, I can't tell you what a good definition what it means to be that we are made in the likeness of God, yeah, but I think that emotion has to be part of it. Mm, hmm, emotion, love, creativity, so that to see times when God shows emotion, I think helps us to little see a little bit more of what we are supposed to be, yeah, and how we're supposed to live life and and express our emotions in a way that's that's healthy, because we're not, we're not good at that, and so it shows us a little bit more of who we are when we're we willing to think about the emotions of God that are in Scripture.

Pastor Joe Liles: 26:35

That's great. That's great.

Tyra Dennis: 26:37

I am, for those listening, I was born and raised in uh, Southern Baptist Church, and God is hyper emotional in the Baptist like hyper denomination got all the fields. He doing all the things because he's overjoyed, super angry, whatever, right? I

Pastor Joe Liles: 26:59

mean, do they literally give God that emotion, like in worship, or they say, like, Oh, God is angry at this, right? It's,

Tyra Dennis: 27:04

it's like, they say it and they get it, they like, personify it and, and also,

Pastor Joe Liles: 27:09

they're, they're reflecting that emotion as they're saying it also, yes, interesting. Okay,

Tyra Dennis: 27:13

it is interesting. Um, so I actually appreciated that you talked about the emotional state of God, but probably not, for the reasons that most people would think it I in my work in the church is it's emotional, whether I want it to be, I've actually tried to be the stoic worship leader, and I'm like, nothing's gonna move me. We're gonna get through this heart song, yeah, I spent four weeks, you know, my band spent four weeks, four hours a week, you know. And then we come in there, and we nail it, and then something always happens, and there's like, the one person that you see put their their hand up, and they're like, Oh no, yeah, now I'm gonna cry, because I see that and and it's never for me. It's it's never me crying. Like, if I had to, if you were to ask me, were you sad in the moment? Like, I don't know where those tears came from, but I I try to compare it to like this one experience I had at a funeral. So this is why I don't sing at funerals anymore. It will take a lot really not sing at funerals anymore. I don't Okay. It will take a lot for me to do this, especially for people that I know and I love. Oh, absolutely not. I will ruin it. But this woman died, and the family asked me to sing because they wanted only good singers. Oh, they didn't care about what I sing. They just wanted good music, because the woman who died loved music. Okay? And so I don't know this, there was a respect. It was an honor this woman, right? I felt like that was an honor. You think I'm good, I can do it, whatever. Um, and so the songs I practice, they are not emotional songs at all. And I get up there and I see, I start to sing it, and when I say, like, I have no emotional tie to these people and to this music, I'm just doing the job, I look down in the audience, and these people are so messed up at the loss of their loved one. And then I turn around, and I look behind me, and there's like a choir behind me That's messed up because they all knew the lady, the whole like staff of roster leaders in the pulpit, they're messed up because they knew the lady. And I kid you not. God was like, you have to connect with them. And I just lost it. Yeah, I had never met this lady a day in my life. Yeah, the songs are not songs that would ever move me emotionally. But in that moment, I recognize it was it was not about me. I was the vessel for God's tears to come out, and that's where I like I see where God shows like his emotions. And it also makes me think of like, you know, Jesus weeping because Lazarus died, and not because Lazarus died, but because his home girls lost their brother, and they were crying, and he felt for them, and he cried, right? So, like, it's, it's that moment for me and and to imagine that God doesn't. Not have any emotions. I think it's wild, like it's God, you had to care about something to do all the things you did absolutely what, what were your point? Was it? You rose. Who was I talking to? Where I was like, Oh, it was Jess. I was talking to Jess, and we were talking about moles and and Kaylee Jess was telling Nova to go get the moles out the moles

Pastor Joe Liles: 30:22

out the backyard. I didn't know if you're talking about like moles on a body or like moles. Was like,

Tyra Dennis: 30:26

I don't know, right, great. And Kaylee's outside. And I said, that's crazy. Jess like, that they can do all that digging and they have no eyes. And Kaylee said they had no eyes. I said, Yeah. She was like, kind of sense of humor does God have? And I'm like, I know, right? Like, because you gotta think about moles platypus, or just think about Jonah, like, after the Whole Whale or whatever, and he gets to Nineveh, Jonah's like, pissed the whole time, because everything that God said, if they did this, it'll come to pass. It came to pass. He's like, now you're making me a liar. I'm going to but I'm gonna throw a tantrum, and God's just, like, all right, bro, yeah? Like, I just laugh at you for like, five minutes tantrum, so you can't, I don't know. I'm not convinced that there's an emotionalist God up there. Like, just, that's beautiful in the abyss, there's

Tom Helmich: 31:13

some kind of cold and impersonal, you know? It's like, gotta be a loving God without, see, it's interesting,

Pastor Joe Liles: 31:18

because I don't take cold and I don't take cold and personal, right? Cold and impersonal, right? And we talked about this just right before the podcast, just a little bit, right? But, man, I love to think of God as just the god who's not anxious. It's like the mentor you can go to, and we're like, Hey, this is all going on. They're like, Hey, I've been through that before. Like, let's talk. And there's like, oh, like, you've been on the other side of this, okay? Like, how does this go? Like, that person you can go to that's not going to meet you in the emotion, right? Like, they don't, they don't respond with that emotion, but they meet you in the place where, you know, there's, there's hope, right? Like, and that's what I always view God as, right? So when I read these scriptures as, like, an emotional God, I'm like, Oh, man. Like, like, I've always gone to God, being like, Hey, God, this happened, but you know, I'm gonna really work hard to not have this happen again. And then you get like, wrath, God, and you're like, Oh, I didn't know. I didn't know, you know, like, and it's the same thing with like, parents, right? Like parents, you get this moment where, yeah, parents always open, but then at the time when they've done something wrong, and you hit us in a moment when a lot of things were going on in life, and I'm like, great, I don't have patience for this right now. And you're going to be the one that gets the one that gets the wrath, right? And here you go. It's a boundary, right? It's a boundary right now. Do this right now. But you

Tyra Dennis: 32:26

know, like speaking of the parent piece. So I think about God being Jesus in the flesh, right? And the first miracle that we know recorded is Jesus turning the water into wine. Yes. Now context matters. Bro, asleep, his mom wakes him up. It's at a wedding, yeah? And he's so annoyed that he's like, I'm gonna do this for you, mom, because I love you. I don't really care about them. Go get the big barrels, and I'm gonna make so much wine that if y'all run out of this, I'm gonna do it once y'all are on your own, like you can't. I

Pastor Joe Liles: 33:01

never thought about Jesus saying that I'm gonna do this one time only,

Tyra Dennis: 33:07

did you not? I was taking a nap. Did you not? Who disturbs the guy like that moment? I think it's, it's kind of sarcastic, but he's also probably really frustrated. But he loves his mom because he's still a human Yeah? So he honors his mom's request and reminds her, like a do not do this again, right? Because I will flip tables and we learn later. He does that, um, B, I'm gonna do this one time and one time only, and if y'all run out of wine, yeah, out of these 12 giant bears, that's a different conversation. I don't know what to tell you. Yeah, let's tell you, that's great. I just feel like, if that's who God's Son is, somebody, and it's not giving Mary has that personality, but somebody got that personality, and I, I would just attribute that to

Pastor Joe Liles: 33:50

God. Interesting. I was with Landon last night, and we were going to bed and and I was tired. I was I was done tired. I had already fallen asleep. And then the kids were now going to bed. So I woke back up to put them well, that I just I was asleep, like the kind where I just fell asleep in position like I it was, like a pat. It was Ah, alright. And done. And so I zombie into their room, alright? And I'm just trying to like, Hey, we're going to pray, we're going to sing, I'm going to try and make it back out of your room before I pass out again. Right? Go and and I walk in the room, and it's spring break, so the kids are allowed to be a plate, right? Everything. So it's like, 1115 1130 something like that. And I walk into the room and Landon is still gaming, and that boy is supposed to be off gaming, like an hour ago. And instant emotions for me, like I was like, I don't have time. You're supposed to be in bed already, and we're supposed to be laying down. I already want to go back to sleep, right? And so I look at my like, Landon, turn that off, right? You know it's saying. He goes, Yeah, yeah, I just want to play. It's like, Landon, turn that off. And this is like, the Jesus moment of, do you love me? Do you love me? Turn it off. What is happening so, and look at him. He's like, Jack, and he's still playing well. He's like. Dad, but dad, but dad, and he's still playing. I'm like, oh, and it's just all welling up for me, right? And I was like, Landon, you know you were supposed to turn this off over an hour ago. And I was like, and get to bed. And I was like, turn it off. And so he's like, but I gotta finish this 3v three match, right? Or my loose point started out, right? And he's like, What do you want me to do? And so I just sat behind him on the bed, and he's sitting there, and he's like, Dad, what do you want me to do? What do you want me to do, dad? And at this point, I've already told him three times to turn it off. And so I just stared at him and said nothing. And he's like, Dad, I need you to talk to me. And he's yelling in his word it's like, he's like, What do you want me to do? And I was just staring at him. You're more patient than I was. Just quiet, and I didn't say anything. I just looked at him. He's like, Dad, you have to tell me what to do. It's like, no. He's like, Oh. Then he finally just turns it off, right? And now he's like, he's angry right in this moment, right? And I'm like, Ah, so he gets angry, right? And at this point he knows I don't like fans on my face when I sleep. He has 13 fans by his bed. She kid you not. Okay, there's only two, but he has two fans right by his bed and the overhead fan. And it's 1130 at night, and we're all going to bed. The cat is over for my parents, so Kaylee's been sleeping in his room. Also. She's climbing to bed, right? And so he goes over and he goes, Oh, I need to get ready now. He flips on every fan. He flips on the light in the room, and gets, like, all this stuff. And I'm like, boy, you about to be in some drama right now, I'm telling you, just trying to go back to bed. And so I was like, you don't need to do this, right? And so, so he gets in bed. We pray everything's fine, right? We fall asleep. Wake up this morning. He comes up this morning, right? And he's already gaming this morning. This morning, right? It's spring break. It's okay. And so I was thinking about taking away his games all for today. This is the emotion I had, right? But I was like, it's not worth it. So he comes in. It's like, Landon, right? When I saw him, there was no high it was Landon last night. And he's like, Yeah, dad, they did. I was like, You know what happened? And he's like, Yeah, I know what happened. I was like, you kept on yelling at me to tell you to tell you to do something. I said, What did I tell you to do? He's like, you told me to turn off the games. And I was like, I did how many times? He's like, three times. And I was like, so you did hear me, and he's like, and when I didn't respond to he's like, I knew you'd already told me. I was like, dude, and this is what I feel like, though our relationship was with God sometimes, right? And this is why I got, like, I envisioned God to be in to be an even God like to be this God who's not anxious, differentiated self differentiate, like, can remove God's self from the emotions of the world in order to meet us in those emotions, but not with our emotions, right? And I sat in that bed in silence realizing I've already walked you through this. I'm not going to leave your side. I know you're struggling in this right now. I'm going to be right here, but, man, we have gone through

Tom Helmich: 37:53

this, so you're being New Testament.

Pastor Joe Liles: 37:55

God, I was being a little bit, yeah,

Tom Helmich: 37:59

growing and like, know what you're supposed to do? Yes, what are you doing? Because when Mike, when current, got to that age, yeah, point doing the same thing with the video games. I went Old

Tyra Dennis: 38:10

Testament. Oh,

Pastor Joe Liles: 38:13

my mom still believes in Old Testament. Some video games, Old Testament. This is the OTT right now. He's like, I can't turn

Tom Helmich: 38:21

it off. Oh, so I pulled the power cord out of the back of his computer. Oh,

Tyra Dennis: 38:24

my gosh, that sounds like my

Tom Helmich: 38:26

mom, and I took it with me. Oh, no, you did it. Yes, downstairs, yeah. And I went to work the next day and didn't tell him where it was. When I got home from work, and he did all of his chores and made up for it, yeah, then he could earn his power cord his computer back. Wow. And it became such a common thing. It happened so many times we told them video games off at eight, yeah, because you got, you know, bedtime stuff, all these things you gotta be off at eight. Okay, well, he won't be off at eight. Yeah. So at eight o'clock, my wife and I just would go and unplug the router. This is great. Just power it off. Is off in our house. Tell me you can

Pastor Joe Liles: 38:59

hear it. Could you hear an audible like, oh, ah,

Tom Helmich: 39:04

so mad. And I'm like, the game was like, I told you, you're gonna be off at eight. You said yes, so you knew Yeah, and so that's on you because you weren't off at the appropriate time. Yeah. I don't know if that's the most emotionally healthy thing to have done, but I feel like that's that moment where I'm just like, I don't have the energy for this. So energy for this. So we just, I want to be clear,

Tyra Dennis: 39:25

I would never, in all of my life, even today, go against my parent that was a cop like that is because they have all of the tricks, all of the tactics. My mom, she she didn't take the job, but she applied to be an LAPD officer. It was a long process. And then they asked her, like, if the suspect was a child or like a teenage boy, would you take them down? And she was like, No, I have a teenage daughter. Absolutely not. No one shoots that kids. And so she walked away, but I remember saying to my like, my. Because the cup, please don't let her get me, like she said, with my things, she hides my thing. She used to break my drums. She would always buy an extra pair, but, like, if she could break one? Well, like, if, okay, so it's like the video games. But for me, it was drums. And, you know, drums are loud, and so she would break the sticks and think, like, Oh, if she doesn't have sticks, she wouldn't play.

Pastor Joe Liles: 40:21

I love how tired blew by the part that drums are loud. She's like, Yeah, drums are loud, but she would never let me play off,

Tyra Dennis: 40:27

because you invest in my gift, ladies.

Pastor Joe Liles: 40:32

She would break

Tyra Dennis: 40:33

the sticks, and then she would do things like, she leave one piece of the stick over here, and then I go to my Barbie doll house. That's another story for another day. But there'd be a half a stick in the dollhouse, and it was like she was taunting me. So can you imagine, like her becoming a cop? Your son's crazy. I would not test you at all.

Tom Helmich: 40:52

My wife's where's my wife's the one had the plumber put the the shut off valve on top of the hot water tank. See, this is what I'm talking about. He'd stay in the shower for like he'd be late

Pastor Joe Liles: 40:59

to school. This is beautiful. And so he got to the point of a relationship with their child where they installed extra plumbing hardware and a stool controls, because

Tom Helmich: 41:06

my wife's five one, right? So we had a step stool. It's still in there. We don't need it anymore, but we're like, he'd be out of the shower by seven, because at seven o'clock, the hot water got turned off to the house, and the first time it happened was brilliant, yeah, like, and we also have our kids rooms marked on the breaker box because you can just shut all the

Pastor Joe Liles: 41:25

power off to the room. Sometimes you need that. Tom, can I ask you a question about you and Amy, like, when this happened, what was your two emotions when you were doing it? There's a little

Tyra Dennis: 41:37

satisfaction traumatized for the kids right now. I'm like, oh,

Tom Helmich: 41:42

but but they made it. Yeah, they made it, but, but sometimes you if people don't set their own healthy boundaries, sometimes we

Pastor Joe Liles: 41:49

are you look why you gotta look at me when you say that, did you see him look across at me? He also looked at me and rose in the longest he did look at me the long it's

Tom Helmich: 41:56

like, as a parent, if your children aren't responding with their own healthy boundaries, their own healthy boundaries. Their parents have a responsibility to do make sure they go to bed on time, and that they go to school and stuff like that. And you gotta wonder, that's why I know. Like, if God's knocking on your door telling you need to do something, the sooner you answer, the better it's going to be, because the longer you wait, the more insistent God's going to get. And you don't want God like ripping the power cord out of what you're doing you're not supposed to be doing.

Unknown: 42:22

Yeah, get more creative with Yeah. He pushes you, yeah.

Pastor Joe Liles: 42:26

Roseanne, what was your childhood like with emotions from parents?

Unknown: 42:30

Well, it wasn't gaming. So what was the

Pastor Joe Liles: 42:37

emotions like? Yeah? Like, yeah. Tom was pressing his emotions with his children, like Tyra was talking about her parents like, like, what were what were your parents like, and what were the emotions from your parents?

Unknown: 42:47

My mom was a she was like, a hard candy. She was hard on the outside, but then she was mushy on the inside. She was very not a

Pastor Joe Liles: 43:00

great descriptive way of describing your mom. That's great but, and she's like a workers original friends

Unknown: 43:06

would say, I'm not afraid of your dad. He is cool. Is your mom? Is

Pastor Joe Liles: 43:10

your mom done?

Unknown: 43:12

But, but she was. They were both very intelligent, and we lost my dad really early, so I was about 18, so, but it was probably a pretty stoic, okay, childhood. Very much. Yeah,

Pastor Joe Liles: 43:40

what were your emotions with your kids?

Unknown: 43:43

Oh, well,

Pastor Joe Liles: 43:46

Oh, wow. I did not know this. I mean, you've treated me like this. I was like, now I know roseanne's coming, man, she come with me hot someday. So I'm telling you right now, like Roseanne, come on the love of Jesus. Love of a Jesus.

Unknown: 44:02

I was the type of parent that natural consequences were, wow. Natural consequences, I think she enjoyed it, pretty effective, yeah, but she got pregnant.

Pastor Joe Liles: 44:16

Oh, okay, oh, wow. Okay, well, that's

Unknown: 44:19

the biggest natural consequences, yeah,

Pastor Joe Liles: 44:23

yep, that's true. That's true so

Unknown: 44:26

but we were very much, yeah, natural consequences and just letting her learn on her own, because my daughter was the type that if I put my thumb on her, she was going to wiggle her way out of that, and I knew that. I knew that about her, and stubborn, yeah, so we were both pretty stubborn. Okay, well, let's take a

Pastor Joe Liles: 44:50

second and read through the emotions of God, and then I want to take you through kind of the last part of the message, which was what happens when we feel over. Overwhelmed, right? What does that mean in our life? So here's movie, here's the there's a movie Inside Out too. Oh yeah, anxiety. That's such a good movie. If you have not said, yeah, how anxiety grows throughout that movie is crazy. Is profound. It

Tyra Dennis: 45:14

is one of the most brilliantly written scripts. I

Pastor Joe Liles: 45:19

would agree. I would watch it again for the fact of just following anxiety and and the good that anxiety wants to do, and not recognizing the the the permeating like, there's this, the permeating consequences that continue to compound, right, like, and just go so, oh, great movie if you haven't seen it. So here it was. So number one from Genesis, chapter one, right? Verses 25 and 31 God saw that it was good, very good, right? This is talking about creation, right? And I love these two. I broke them out individually on Sunday, right? God said that was good. You know? Like, I had this emotion. I tried to give God so much. I was like, it was it was good. This is good. It was not good.

Unknown: 46:01

It was weird. It was

Pastor Joe Liles: 46:03

weird. It was weird. No, was it really good? God is looking down at Grace and go,

Tom Helmich: 46:11

This is good, almost a tone of like, I didn't think it was going to turn out like this.

Pastor Joe Liles: 46:15

That, yeah, that kind of has that, yeah. And then it but then when he gets to like human kind is, like, very good. Yes, this is great. So, so next one, Exodus, 20, the Lord regretted that he'd made human beings. So there you go, that juxtaposition. Evidently,

Tom Helmich: 46:33

humanity was in its teenage years. Yes, I'm telling you right

Pastor Joe Liles: 46:37

now, that was just the beautiful juxtaposition of those two, and that's why I really built up, and not really, and not really it was, yeah, it was very good, and yeah, but it is not, and that's why I built up a lot of the good, and very good, so I can get people this, like, elatedness, and then be like, in the next text, he regretted humans, you know, like, Ah, man. And then deeply troubled. God's heart was deeply troubled, right? We have this emotion in Isaiah, right? For a long time, I've kept silent, right? There's me sitting on the end of the bed talking to Landon. I've been quiet and held myself back. But now, like a woman in childbirth, I cry out, I gasp and I pant. We got Jeremiah, 30, the fierce anger of the Lord will not turn back until he fully accomplishes the purpose of his heart. Jeremiah, again, I have loved you with everlasting love. I really like this one, because it wasn't just I've loved you, it extended into that divine love of everlasting love, right? So just this beautiful, beloved language, right? Came out of this. How can I hand you over Israel, my heart has changed within me, all my compassion, right? All my compassion. Is there the shared suffering? He begin to be sorrowful and troubled. Right? Again, we have that sorrow and grief. He looked around at them in anger and deeply distressed at their stubborn hearts, which is true a lot of the time. Alright? We have that going on. And then at that time, Jesus was full of joy. So now we're into the New Testament, right? Jesus in Luke chapter, there so full of joy. And so you take these and you start to understand that there are emotions from God, right? You start to understand that God is not just. God is not just in a space where it is even, even, if I look at it that way, right, it's not right. I think God in sending Jesus Christ to become human, that little become human is so important because it removes us from thinking of God as extranose, like outside of right?

Tom Helmich: 48:29

It's easier to think of Jesus having emotions. Yep, because Jesus was human. Yeah, correct is to think of God having emotions, correct?

Tyra Dennis: 48:35

I have a question, when you say deeply troubled, well, I guess you don't see it. It's in the scripture. But how do you define deeply troubled? Cuz, when I hear deeply troubled, I read it, the word that comes to me is concerned, like, I'm concerned. I don't I don't think like we're in danger, yeah, I don't think that we're afraid. I'm just just concerned.

Pastor Joe Liles: 48:57

Where was that? Which I want to look it up right now. I think it's

Unknown: 49:02

I I think it's like, broken hearted. Oh,

Tyra Dennis: 49:07

okay, okay,

Pastor Joe Liles: 49:10

Tom, what about you?

Tom Helmich: 49:13

I don't know, because there's like, what my assumption of what that would mean for me versus maybe, what was I kind of curious to, what the Hebrew like, what the word is,

Pastor Joe Liles: 49:20

yeah. This is from, yeah, but this is from Genesis six, six. And I am looking this up right now for the deeply troubled I looked at that this morning. Is that the Canaan able moment? Uh, we're going to find out right now. No, this is the regretted that he made human beings on the earth, and his heart was deeply troubled. God's heart was deeply troubled. So let me pull up and I'm going to see if I can get the Hebrew in here. So we have grieved. In his heart. It was yeah, the language is grieved, and it is yeah. It's hard to say in Hebrew, Tom Tom Tom's a language scholar right now, and he's. Jordan.

Tom Helmich: 50:00

I'm going to try that as a current one occurrence. So this is not so it's

Pastor Joe Liles: 50:04

to grieve, to hurt, to pain or to vex which is very interesting. So the Hebrew verb at some primarily conveys the idea of causing pain or grief, either physically or emotionally. It can refer to the act of grieving or being in distress, as well as causing sorrow or vexation to others. The term is often used in context where emotional or spiritual pain is evident, highlighting the depth of human suffering and the impact of sin and disobedience. Yeah, broken hearted, right? And to imagine that's broken hearted, right over sin and disobedience, like that disappointment, like you see your disappointment, such a strong word. Oh,

Tom Helmich: 50:40

the best way I can think that to humanize that, for me, is seeing what like when you have kids that do something that you know is not in their best interest, because our sins don't hurt God, right? They they hurt us. But like when you have kids that have the same free will we have, which is very frustrating for our children to have free will like it could be so much better if I wasn't the case, right? But they have their own free will, and they do choose things that I know is not going to be good for them, right? Like, what do you what do you do? It's kind of hard.

Pastor Joe Liles: 51:05

Like, heartbreak. Yeah, it's, I mean, if I look at the relationship I have with my children, right, love is never the question, ever, ever, right? You can all. You can be in trouble at 24/7 love is never the question, right? My love for you does not change, right? And I've told the kids that many times, right now you'll have consequences for your actions, but my love does not change righteous anger, and maybe some righteous anger, right? It's gonna come about so but I think a part of this is that we get into these emotions, right? When we feel overwhelmed is because we can't we can't differentiate, we can't hold them back because we're over capacity, and they spill out. And that's not the heart I said. We really if we want to talk about spiritual maturity, right, and Emotionally Healthy Spirituality, what it means is that we have to have the heart of God when we go into every situation, and it's that moment before the emotion, before the reaction, right? That says, Hey, how does my heart of God respond to this? It doesn't dissipate the emotion. It doesn't take away the emotion. It just says I need to respond to this emotion with the heart of God, right? Which means that it also needs to tell a truth about what God is doing in my life. It can't just be my truth coming out. And so I talked about at the end of the message, just a few ways that you can recognize that you are overwhelmed in life, and how to step back in that relationship with God. And it was this one we feel overwhelmed when our relationship with others is more important than our relationship with God, and that's because when we respond to others and how they treat us, and before we go back to God, it's because our relationship to others is more important, right? I feel that you slandered me, you disrespected me, you Dishonored me, before I go back to my relationship with God and be like, Hey, God, what are you teaching me through this? Like, where are we at? Right? And coming through? Yeah, there's a moment there, and then we also have that we hide the truth of our feelings instead of revealing God's truth to others. I can tell you that I'm angry, I can tell you that I'm frustrated, but I can also tell you that my relationship with God means our relationship is is strong, but I'm frustrated right now, right? There's a God's truth, and I know the times that God has continued to come back to me even when I've been frustrated with God. I think that revealing of God's truth in the midst of the revealing of our feelings is very important, right? Those two things need to be together when we're doing that. And then lastly, it was that the noise of the world. This is when we feel overwhelmed. The noise of the world is more than our peace with God,

Tom Helmich: 53:22

and more in the world, more in the world, than we are in our relationship, exactly,

Pastor Joe Liles: 53:26

right? If we can't. And I think that was this morning, right? Like I woke up, and I was I woke up at 445 was exhausted, and I was like, I'm gonna go work out, right? Because I have my group that I work out with 530 and I was like, I'm gonna go work out. And then I was like, but I got 10 more minutes of sleep, that's great. And then I woke up at 521 I can't wait. One, and I can't make the workout. I was like, Oh, I'm so frustrated, right? And I was like, but I need it. And then I'm convincing myself I needed to sleep. And then I wake up, and I'm even more frustrated that the morning did not go as planned, right? And now I'm overwhelmed because I had a path, and I know the workout sets my mind right and sets my body right and all these kind of things. And I'm like, Ah, and I'm just feeling this. And then I think that was my draw. That was my draw back into devotion. God was like, Look, you are getting overwhelmed with the world right now, and you have not even sought peace with me like you have not stopped to take in a morning. And I gave you this time this morning to meet me. And I was like, ooh. And I couldn't even, I couldn't even do work like I had to do devotion before, and it was a beautiful moment. And then I went and spent the next 45 minutes just with Jess, spending morning time together, right? And it was anti everything that was in my soul to do, right? Because I'm usually just like, go in the morning, right? Here we go. And I stopped, and I was like, this, this is what God intended. And it was because I was overwhelmed. So we're gonna continue this now we gotta, we go ahead. Did you wanna say something? Tara, you did? I did, yeah, what did you wanna say? I'm

Tyra Dennis: 54:47

nosy. Okay, Are you overwhelmed? Joe,

Pastor Joe Liles: 54:49

oh, that's a great question. That's great. No, I think right now I will one. My parents were in for a day, right? They came in for one day to go back. My sister just had a baby, right? So they were in the house, right? And they're coming in. We did dinner last night, right? And then Kaylin landed on the same room. I was also with them, put them to bed, didn't make it back to the bedroom, made it halfway to the couch before I passed out again. Then I woke up, made it back to the bedroom, then I woke up to go to the I think it was not necessarily like overwhelmed with everything that's going on. It was just everything that had led to this morning, was out of place, right? It was out of place. And, and I was like, oh, and it was all good. It was just out of place, right? And I woke up in an exhausted fashion, and I was like, Oh, I can't so exhausted, leading to me feel overwhelmed, right? And then I was like, Okay, I can't go through the day because I'm already overwhelmed. Like, I feel like I don't have the energy to give to the day and so, so, but, I mean, it was, it was great. It was great to hang out. We had, we had sand with my parents last night, right? I got to sit at the table and work with my mom a little bit this morning, right after the morning routine and everything else like that. So, like, there was great things. Was awesome, right? Gotta say hi to the kids and come here and do podcasts. So,

Tom Helmich: 55:57

you know, the relentless elimination of hurry and then Emotionally Healthy Spirituality, and then there's, like, the age of over there's all these books talking about overwhelm and the need to slow down a little bit. And it's like, why we have so many books about trying to slow down? Yeah, it's important, you know, because I can only deal with one thing at a time. Yeah, slow. I gotta slow down. Yeah, a

Unknown: 56:19

lot. So Joe, I have a question for you. What would your day have been like had you not listened to God not taking that time? You

Pastor Joe Liles: 56:31

know, here's what. That's very interesting, because I processed that this morning, actually. And here's what I processed everything that I wanted to get done was not going to happen in the time frame I wanted it to anyways. And so my processing was like, I can work as hard and as fast as I want right now and take these next two and a half hours that I had in the morning before nine o'clock right to do all this stuff. And I was like, but on my list, there is no way that it's all accomplished before nine o'clock. And with that, it means that I'm going to be frustrated again at nine o'clock. And I was like, and if I'm frustrated there, then I walk into podcast, and then from podcast, we go to Step lunch, and then we have a meeting, and then I have a 230 and then I have a finance meeting tonight, right? And I was like, I'm gonna go through the whole day, and I'm starting my day off in a way where, like I'm feeling like it's not gonna get done throughout the whole day. And I was like, the only thing that will get done is a beautiful resetting of my relationship with God. And I was like, and if I do that, my hope out of that was that I would find peace knowing that these things are not salvation issues, right? They're I feel that I've made them more important than my relationship with God and so and literally, it's a response to the message. And I was like, if I'm feeling I kid you not, if I'm feeling overwhelmed is because the world is more important than my relationship with God. And I went back into my relationship with God and and that was my processing this morning. Was that cool to hear? Oh yeah, yeah, i i Over process a lot. So if you want to know what my product, no, what? That's crazy. But I do. I mean, I really want to find the space that when I'm not just going through a routine in life, I process every moment. Why did I get to this place? Why am I here now? How can I avoid this in the future? What's I mean, I woke up and I was like, great, if I missed my workout. I mean, I did this for a half hour this morning. I got to get back to a nine o'clock bedtime. If a nine o'clock bedtime goes to that, it means I got to be doing this at eight o'clock, which means the kids got to be doing this at seven o'clock. You know, I was processing all that this morning, right? Which means that chores need to change, and this needs to change and that, but Jess and I did really good on that. So, like, I over process a ton that there's probably some conditions for that, but with with that, that's a large part of what I do right, in order to continue to be who God made me right, and continue to step into that. You

Tyra Dennis: 58:39

know, how, like, God has a plan for our lives, but then we also have, like, free will to do our own thing. What I just got from that is, every time you do your own thing and you don't like do the thing God asks you to do, you overwhelm God be up there like Joe, yeah, it was good. And he probably was really upset when he said, I regret, regret making them

Tom Helmich: 59:06

because God of your bed. Like I told

Pastor Joe Liles: 59:08

you three I told you three times I've told you for 42 years. Sweet guys would be like, John, seriously, so much work with you. I'm sorry, guys, that being said. Okay, we're jumping in. Next week. We're going to talk, be talking about sadness. It's going to be really incredible and and in a way, because that's an emotion we have to deal with, right? We have to walk through that none of us are outside of that. It's going to continue to grow in the series. We're on our run now towards Easter so we got Palm Sunday on the 13th, we got good Friday on the 18th, we got Easter Sunday on the 20th, which is exciting. So a lot of good things coming up, but that is your TNC podcast here on this day, talking about being overwhelmed and all God's people said, Amen. Nice job.