Latest / Millennial Mustard Seed / S5 134. Carly Tebbs Micro message – Acceptance as an Idol
Transcript
- 0:35Welcome back to the Millennium Mustard Seed.
- 0:38I'm your host Rod and I have a micro message for you from Carly
- 0:43Tebbs acceptance as an idol. This one hits close to the heart
- 0:48and I know it's going to be helpful to hear Carly's
- 0:51reflection. Recently, Prince and Carly have
- 0:55both been helping with the podcast.
- 0:57They've joined the MMS team, if I can say it that way.
- 1:01God has called them to lift our arms up in time of need and to
- 1:06help with some audio stuff. And this is not a one man show
- 1:10any longer. It's an honor to have like Minds
- 1:13coming together and joining just to be an end time remnant voice.
- 1:19There's so much that they have to offer and it is honestly
- 1:23genuinely an honor to have them stepping up and contributing to
- 1:27the MMSI. Hope you enjoyed this micro
- 1:31message from Carly. We'll be doing this
- 1:33intermittently and also Prince will be reading some scripture
- 1:37and giving reflections as time goes on as well.
- 1:41Let's get into this acceptance as an IDOL audio message from
- 1:46Carly. So my circle of trusted friends
- 2:10and family, the people that are most dear to my heart, that I
- 2:15walk with day after day after day, who I'm vulnerable with and
- 2:19whom we share, you know, forthright, candid, intimate
- 2:24conversations. We all go to the same church,
- 2:27and my brother-in-law is the pastor of that church and his
- 2:31wife, my sister-in-law is a pastress if if that's even a
- 2:36word. But she's a minister in her own
- 2:38right and and we're we're all there.
- 2:41We are all in the house together learning to do ministry
- 2:46together. Now we all used to go to the
- 2:48church. The church I talk about in part
- 2:50four with Rod. We all went there together and
- 2:53and when that whole thing imploded we all kind of went our
- 2:56separate ways. Of course in some ways we're
- 2:59we're family a lot of us are are related by marriage.
- 3:03But we we weren't going to church together anymore and we
- 3:06all it it did scatter the sheep. It really did.
- 3:09And so you know Fast forward and and 12 years later we're all in
- 3:14this church together and we're all learning to be doing
- 3:17ministry together and there's a growing curve there.
- 3:21It's it is a opportunity to really have the Lord search our
- 3:27hearts inside ministry, doing ministry together.
- 3:31And it's been a beautiful and challenging experience.
- 3:33And recently it came to my attention that there were two
- 3:37families that were negatively impacted by something I had
- 3:41said, and they left the church because of me.
- 3:48And I felt so embarrassed by what I had said.
- 3:52And I started questioning God, did you not want me to share
- 3:56that? Did?
- 3:58Am I supposed to be something other than I am?
- 4:01And if you guys have listened to any of my interviews here, you
- 4:04know that what you see is what you get.
- 4:08I'm really just coming with the this is what behind the mask
- 4:13looks like. I'm I'm not about the Christian
- 4:16mask. I'm pretty forthright.
- 4:18So in one instance I had asked this person in in the church we
- 4:25are trying to to work out the next stage in a project and I'd
- 4:30ask him where does your business acumen meet your spiritual gifts
- 4:35Like? What does that look like for
- 4:37you? How?
- 4:38Where's the overlap? You know, what is the sweet spot
- 4:42right in there, you know? And he answered the question
- 4:45really well. And and since I asked a
- 4:47vulnerable question, I offered to be vulnerable because to me
- 4:52that seems fair. You know, if somebody does self
- 4:55disclosure, I then offer self disclosure because it keeps the
- 5:00the playing field level. And so I just, I know I didn't
- 5:04do a good job. In the moment I could feel
- 5:07myself rambling a bit and not being completely concise.
- 5:11But I had I had shared with him that I'm I'm an intercessor, but
- 5:17my my my calling is more over land and gates in the land.
- 5:22It's more for the redemption of territories.
- 5:25And while I do intercede for people, it seems as though for
- 5:28me, the Lord often takes me up above areas over territories and
- 5:32and to set things right. So I shared this with him and to
- 5:34me that seems not outrageous. You know, that's pretty
- 5:40Biblically sound to me, to me. And then another family had been
- 5:45offended by the language I use when I pray.
- 5:47And I can't tell you exactly what that language is, but they
- 5:51ended up being very offended that the pastor would have gone
- 5:55to a Bride ministries advance, you know, conference and
- 6:01confronted the pastor. And we was aggressive and weird,
- 6:05and they left the church as well.
- 6:09And from the time I came into the body of Christ in the
- 6:14church, in the four walls of the church, I was warned that I
- 6:17would not be understood, that I should keep to myself, that I
- 6:20should not tell my story because people wouldn't understand.
- 6:25And let me tell you, when people did start to hear about my
- 6:29story, I was met with prayer meetings against me.
- 6:35Like the witch hunt for the witch I was desperately asking
- 6:41the Lord to deliver me from. Being became a regular
- 6:47occurrence in the church and I I really was.
- 6:51I really felt relegated. I really felt rejected.
- 6:55But but as the Lord would have it I I wanted Jesus more than
- 6:59anything else and and and it hurt but I was like if this is
- 7:03what it is you know OK whatever we're rolling.
- 7:07So anyway I found this out in our in our leadership meeting
- 7:11and it hurt my heart Like it really hurt my heart that I
- 7:16would have just by virtue of being myself offended somebody
- 7:22to the point that they would walk away from the church.
- 7:24And and my my wonderful husband pointed out to me that you know
- 7:28that really they might be blaming you but it has more to
- 7:32do with something that's unresolved inside of them.
- 7:34And and while that that felt right and that sounded right.
- 7:38I couldn't deny the fact that I was a deeply embarrassed.
- 7:43I felt like I don't I don't need to be in the church like I'm
- 7:49cool to be with Jesus in the closet with my close little
- 7:53circle of friends and family for the rest of my life.
- 7:55I don't in fact need any of and I got really mad that night.
- 8:00I came home and I was hot. Mad.
- 8:03I was heated and I was telling Prince and all the things and I
- 8:07was, you know, I was being rather vulgar.
- 8:11OK, Mask off. I did drop some Effenheimer's
- 8:14here and there and I I needed to get it out.
- 8:17It was like I just needed to have emotional diarrhea.
- 8:20If you ever get a stomach ache and you feel like I just need to
- 8:23puke to get this out. It was that.
- 8:25So I did that and and it was rough and the Lord pointed a few
- 8:34things out to me that I think might benefit others to
- 8:38contemplate. One of those things is that when
- 8:44you're working in the Church, when when you are in a position
- 8:48of leadership, you you have to learn to be able to discern the
- 8:52difference between the enemy attacking and God coming for
- 8:58your idols. And it can feel very similar in
- 9:03the moment. Because at first when this came
- 9:06about, I was like, Satan is roar walking around like a roaring
- 9:11lion looking for whom he can devour and he has spotted me.
- 9:18But that wasn't actually what was happening.
- 9:20But it felt very much like that. Because I'm like, man, I'm just
- 9:23being under attack and stuff. But later that night, the Lord
- 9:28pointed out to me, He asked me a question, Carly, why are you at
- 9:35this church? And I was like, well, 'cause you
- 9:38you told me to to come here. You you, you said to be here.
- 9:42And so I'm here. And and he said, well, and what
- 9:47are you supposed to do there? And I said, I don't really know.
- 9:51Apparently I'm not supposed to pray or talk to anybody or share
- 9:55anything about myself. So I, you know, I was being
- 9:58snarky with Jesus, but he's got big, strong shoulders so he
- 10:01could take it. And he said, you know what?
- 10:05You have an idol. You actually idolize being
- 10:12understood and accepted by people in the church.
- 10:20You value that more than you value my word to you.
- 10:25You value that over obeying me. And he was right.
- 10:32Because this isn't the first time in my life that when I have
- 10:35felt misunderstood or not accepted, I got really ugly.
- 10:42I I felt really emotionally destabilized.
- 10:47And that is the marker of of protecting a false identity.
- 10:50That's a marker of protecting an idol.
- 10:53And the idol is that of being accepted and understood by other
- 10:55people. And if I can't get that, then
- 10:59God, I might not obey you, you see.
- 11:03And I had to agree with him that he was right because he's he, he
- 11:07was right. And the process that unfolded
- 11:10after that was it wasn't it wasn't a quick easy like, Yep,
- 11:15God, you're right. Here's my idol.
- 11:17All right, I'm going to go make some soup now.
- 11:19It was like my heart was so affected by the truth of this
- 11:28it. And he what he showed me in the
- 11:29best way I can really describe it to you is like if you have a
- 11:33dead tree in your yard, that dead tree representing at the
- 11:36idol and you were to cut it down, you could just throw the
- 11:40top, you know, the tree in the in the chopper and just chop it
- 11:44up, ship it away. But you still have the stomp
- 11:47right and all the roots and God is coming for the roots.
- 11:51Now when he shows you an idol in your heart, when he asks you to
- 11:54repent about something, you are valuing over him.
- 11:58He wants the roots. Now you have a choice.
- 12:00You can ask him to just cut the tree down and keep it pushing.
- 12:04But when you, when you are able to sit with him or contemplate
- 12:09just how deep the truth he's telling you is, he'll go for the
- 12:12roots. And it can be a mourn, really
- 12:17mournful process. But the thing about God is that
- 12:22his love is so. I mean, it guts me because while
- 12:28I have idolized basically myself, right, my desires over
- 12:35him, when he comes to minister to me about that abhorrent
- 12:39thing, he's so loving and tender.
- 12:42He never comes with condemnation.
- 12:44He's never standing there, arms folded, scowling at me, nose in
- 12:48the air. He's always like, I love you so
- 12:49much. Let me take this root.
- 12:51Let me get this other root. Let me set your soil back right.
- 12:55Let me plant some flowers. Oh, I love you.
- 12:57I love you. I love you.
- 13:00What kind of God is this? So for a couple days, I was, I
- 13:08was feeling that uprooting out of my heart. the IT, it affected
- 13:16my soul. Like all these thoughts around
- 13:20all the ways that this idol has negatively impacted my life.
- 13:23They were coming up. There's one piece of the root,
- 13:26another area. This had impacted my
- 13:29relationships. That's another root.
- 13:32And he's pulling it out and he's so tender and he's so loving.
- 13:35But I can't pretend like it isn't a grievous process,
- 13:39because it is. But this is the depth to which
- 13:43his faithfulness goes. He doesn't leave anything.
- 13:51He's so thorough. He's so thorough, and it's his.
- 13:56It's his responsibility to clean up our heart, and it is our
- 13:59responsibility to give him our willingness, our yes, our
- 14:05agreement to open the door. And so as I went through that
- 14:12process, I realized, thanks to the Holy Spirit, that we often
- 14:18separate the ideas of of doing and being.
- 14:23Like I said to him, I don't know what I'm doing here.
- 14:25Like, what do you want me to do? And he said to me, Carly, you
- 14:29have to stop thinking of doing and being as two separate
- 14:32things, because you are there. By virtue of who I am in you,
- 14:37you are doing enough. You are obeying me.
- 14:41My presence is finding an outlet through your being there.
- 14:49Because we carry him, we affect the atmosphere.
- 14:53It's been said so many times that we we should avoid having a
- 14:58religious mindset. It's not a Martha mindset.
- 15:00It's a merry mindset. When you go somewhere, you have
- 15:04an effect on that territory, on people, on the atmosphere, both
- 15:09physical and spiritual, that you just don't understand.
- 15:14I don't understand, but he pointed out to me that because
- 15:20he is in US, greater is he that is in US than he that is in the
- 15:24world. And we're either going to trust
- 15:27him to be who and what is needed in the moments of life, or, you
- 15:34know, we're going to have to repent and and let him speak to
- 15:40our hearts. Ellie, I've been feeling like
- 15:45I'm Luke 1. Gotta make a move.
- 15:47Go in a world. Out of the world that I'm still
- 15:49trying to do. Don't care if they judge me.
- 15:51Father God. Just being vulnerable.
- 15:53I can gain a word to lose my souls.
- 15:55If I would, I lose. You said the path was narrow.
- 15:57You say this was no tightrope. I need time to repeat.
- 15:59So if I die, please let me die slow.
- 16:01Just thankful it ain't done no more.
- 16:03You came and cut the light on. You just want us to step in
- 16:06there so we can get our shine on.
- 16:07I've seen them demons casting out their body.
- 16:09Have my mind, bro. They're trying to kill my flesh.
- 16:12I want to show you what side on because you can't be in love in
- 16:15the world if you want to love Christ said you.
- 16:19Got to keep it on you got that shot shot.
- 16:25Would you rather? Be loved by.
- 16:27Man or loved by Christ said. You got to keep it on.
- 16:32You got the shot. The shot, the Hey, would you
- 16:37rather be in love with the world or in love with Christ?
- 16:44This is Boy Head Brad and thank you for tuning into The
- 16:46Millennial Muscle Seat, my favorite podcast.