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For the Family-Preparing Yourself for Prayer · The Father's Business Podcast

• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: The Father's Business was founded by Sylvia Gunter to encourage people to a deeper relationship with God.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Elizabeth Gunter Powell.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: And I am Kimberly Roddy.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome to the Father's Business Podcast.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_01: We are so glad that you've joined us.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome back to episode two of uh season two, where we are walking through the For the Family booklet resource.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_01: And um today we're gonna kind of talk about what does it look like to check ourselves before we jump in to um fix others, right?
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_01: We were just talking about that, Elizabeth.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, I was saying some people, of course, not you and me, but some people um find it easier to focus on what needs to be fixed in other people, right?
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: Instead of focusing on themselves.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_00: No, seriously, all of us, it's so much easier to look at someone else and say, these are the things that they need to get right in their own life, but be very gracious with our own sin.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's not, oh well, yeah, I did that because and to justify our own wickedness in our own heart and yet call out the wickedness in another.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_00: And so, yeah, I love that for the family starts with getting your own heart right before you start trying to do anything for anyone else.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_01: Right, right.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_01: And this um this section uh that's titled Steps to Powerful Prayer.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_01: I I really like this.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_01: And it's uh it has 12 steps um to powerful prayer, and it is right in line with all the things that we discussed with your mom in those first couple episodes of knowing God and knowing who we are in Him, like just being the foundation to so many things.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_01: And so um, one of the steps to powerful prayer is worship.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_01: We worship God because He's an awesome God.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_01: So, how do we have powerful prayer?
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_01: It starts with worship, it starts with acknowledging, recognizing and worshiping God and who he is.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, be still, confess, submit.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_01: Like I think of those things as just uh quieting myself before him, confessing my sin, um before him, and submitting myself to his lordship, uh, believing.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_01: Gosh, you in in the last episode, um, you talked about choosing um choosing the word joy or the Lord bringing you the word joy, however you want to look at that.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_01: Lord dragging me into the word joy.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_01: But but you talked about recognizing that some of the opposite of joy is that that aspect of unbelief.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_01: And so I think about like um in this resource right here, it says believe that God will hear and answer our prayer.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_01: There is the belief that is a step to to powerful prayer, and then doing battle and the warfare.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_01: I'm just highlighting these because I just thought these were so like they just focused me in listening to the Holy Spirit.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_01: We so need the the prompting and the urging and our sensitivity to the Holy Spirit and the work that he is doing.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, ask God, ask God what he wants us to pray about, huh?
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_01: Like acknowledgement, yeah.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_01: But you know, I I don't have to figure it out.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_01: I I think of just like being in a small group, you know, and you're going around and you're praying and you're you're not even paying attention to the person before you because you're trying to focus on what you're supposed to pray and what you're gonna say.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_01: And and it's just like, huh, maybe I could just ask the sovereign God of the universe what he wants me to pray about, um, and listen to him.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_01: Join together in agreement with other believers, um, finding prayer partners.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, that could be something that maybe some of our listeners want to do during this season, that they want to join together with um another family member, a spouse, um, a friend, um, a person in their church or in their small group or whatever, just to join together in agreement um with in prayer for others, um, persisting in that prayer.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_01: Wow, that's that's a tough one because we don't quite have persistence and patience, especially when it comes to waiting um prayerfully, right?
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_01: Um just being persistent, keep like I love uh verse that Matthew 7 verse, keep on asking and it will be given you.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_01: Keep on seeking, keep on knocking.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and then praise the Lord that he has heard, acknowledging that God hears our prayers and praising him that he hears our prayers and that he will answer.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_01: And then acting on what God has revealed to you.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_01: Again, that man, that's critical too, right?
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_01: Like pray and obey.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_01: Don't just act on what I think I want to act on or take things into my own hands, but act on what God has revealed, which requires all those other steps above it, listening and persistent and praising and acknowledging.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_01: So um I just kind of wanted to highlight those 12 steps to powerful prayer because I think that's a great foundation as we jump into um how to how to have uh the the right spirit, the right attitude, the right perspective towards prayer.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_00: Um yeah, and I love that so many of those 12 steps have nothing to do with actually what we think prayer is, which is presenting requests to God.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: Like I love the way um that this is laid out, that worship be still, confess, submit, and believe all come before anything's ever mentioned about doing battle in prayer.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I think there is such a deep wisdom in that.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I just had to smile, yeah, as I'm reading through this with you and it's talking about uh joining together in agreement with others, believers, because I remember when I was in elementary, junior high, um, my mom would get up.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_00: I I mean she's a morning person anyway.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_00: So again, I looked at her and I'm like, how do you do this?
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_00: But she would be up at like 4:30 or 5 o'clock in the morning, and she would get in her car and drive down to the parking lot of our local church.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_00: And a friend of hers would also get up at that time who had kids about our age, and they would sit in a car together in a parking lot, maybe it was one day a week, and pray together for each other's family.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: And it's like, I know I've said it before, but I so much of everything that's written in these resources, it's not like mom just wrote that down and thought you might want to find a prayer partner.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_00: That's my that was my mom's life as I was growing up, is that she made it intentional to do that.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_00: And uh that just uh really, I love that about her and um so grateful for that foundation that was put out in front of me that I saw that that prayer was that important that she would get up early and leave her house and go sit in a church parking lot to pray with someone.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I think now they could just do it over the phone, but um, you know, because she could take her cell phone somewhere and get away from the rest of the family.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_00: But the time, you know, you had the landline in the kitchen um where you can't really get away from everybody.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_00: But um, I love that she made that kind of commitment for that.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_00: But so many of these, even as as you're reading them off, I was like, there's very little in this list about presenting specific requests to God.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and yeah, like you, uh join together in agreement with other beliefs and ask God what he wants you to pray about.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, well, what a brilliant idea.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so I I agree with you that those are wonderful um steps to a powerful prayer life.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and then undergirding taking those steps requires an attitude check, a heart check, right?
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_01: Um, which leads us to the next piece in this resource resource, which is the love checkup.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, sometimes not as much fun to read.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_01: Why don't you walk us through some things that stand out to you here?
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_00: Well, no, it it is it is a good resource because again, as I was saying a few minutes ago, I think it's real easy for me to say, well, you're not being kind, well, you're not being loving, or you're, you know, you're not rejoicing with the truth of that situation, looking at everyone else's heart.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_00: But when it comes to my own heart, I'm quick to justify why I did what I did.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and that's why I love that the love checkup is just basically going through 1 Corinthians 13 and saying, okay, here's what God says love is.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_00: Take a minute, search your own heart, and are you loving your family the way that Jesus does?
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and again, I think a lot of times I'm looking to my for my family to love me the way that Jesus does, but am I am I being kind?
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_00: Am I not envying and not being jealous?
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_00: Am I not boasting or being anxious?
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_00: It's so easy to, I think I snap at family members more uh often because they're my family and they just they kind of have to take it.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_00: Let's just be honest.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you in some ways you feel the most relaxed around your family, but then that also means sometimes you don't speak to them.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_00: Like I there are times I speak to my family in a way that I would never speak to a stranger.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so it's this love checkup is just a good uh chance to walk through every line of first Corinthians 13 and say, this is what love does.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_00: And am I doing that?
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_00: And where I'm not, God, would you convict me of that?
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_00: But Kimberly, you and I have both talked about it.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_00: It's hard.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's really hard because there are layers and layers and layers to relationships, and I think sometimes that's why it's easier to be polite to the stranger because I don't have 40 years of history with the stranger.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_00: I don't have places where I've been hurt by a family member or I've hurt them, or just there, there's so many dynamics like you were talking about last week in family systems.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_00: There's so much going on in a family, and I think also the spiritual warfare could be pretty intense because I think the enemy would love nothing more than to destroy the family, um, since it is something that God created.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_00: And so I think it's it's it is so very hard and so so good to have this love checkup just to kind of run through and go, okay, and and be honest to ask God, God, I need you to tell me.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_00: Because again, I'm like, oh yeah, I was very kind to my family this week.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_00: And if you ask my family members, they might have a different answer to that.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_00: They were like, No, actually, no, she wasn't.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_00: But from my perception, I was being kind because I was trying to quote unquote be helpful, and so I think it's good to stop and ask, God, can you reveal in my heart where are there places where I was not loving according to your definition of love with my family?
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's what I was gonna include is that piece of what does love mean?
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_01: What's it look like, right?
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_01: Because we in in our own personalities and makeups or whatever, we we receive and give love in different ways.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_01: And and and while that's true, at the end of the day, First Corinthians 13 gives us some key aspects of what love looks like.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_01: And right, and there's that old adage of I can talk about my family, but you can't talk about my family.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_01: Um I will say at the I mean, all of us, any of us, a lot of us will say at the end of the day, you know, like I may have not treated my family as nice as I would treat the stranger on the street, but I love my family, don't touch my family.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_01: But yet, how do I show that?
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_01: How do I live that?
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_01: Um, yeah, and and just that that question on this page, are you loving your family as Jesus does?
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_01: Look reading that description of First Corinthians 13.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_01: And if not, allowing the Lord to show you that, confessing it as sin, repenting it and receiving God's forgiveness and grace, and then walking forward in that love.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and love's an overflow too, right?
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_01: Like this is the piece that we've got to remember is if I can believe who God is and I see myself as his beloved, then I can allow that to flow out of me.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_01: And yes, it's hard and there's all sorts of things that get in the way, but if I can keep that perspective of it's an overflow, then sometimes it's a little bit I can take a breath and go, okay, let me approach this differently.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_01: It's an overflow, I'm living out of an overflow and not out of an empty container.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_01: Um, yeah, it's a good, a good checkup to have.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, and I think it is a good reminder that love again, God is love for one.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but then also love is a fruit of the spirit, right?
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_00: So again, if I'm keeping myself, spirit, soul, and body in tune with the Holy Spirit, it's a whole lot easier to let that love flow through me to the people around me than um if I'm trying to manufacture love for my family on my own.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_00: Um, for sure.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_00: And but a lot of times I feel that I kind of fall into that category of all things, not just love, but all of them.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_00: I have to make, I have to find my own peace, I have to find my own hope, I have to find my own love.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_00: And so it's this constant reminder to abide with him and allow his love to flow through us.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_01: Right, which again leads us directly into the clean hands, pure heart inventory, which is another great piece here.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_01: And I remember um was it like a passion worship song or something?
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_01: There was a worship song that we used to sing a lot.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, give us clean hands, give us pure hearts, let us not lift our souls to another.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and so I think that that this piece is um, I mean, I'd encourage people that are listening to pull out page 12 and walk through this inventory.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_01: And there's seven things that um that are included here and make and make a list of each of the following and just walk through this and and truly ask, do I have clean hands and a pure heart?
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_01: Where do I need to pause and recognize where I have conceded to Satan?
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_01: Um, help me identify those issues, submit them to you, Jesus, resist the devil, he will flee.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and and renounce the strongholds of the enemy, and again, confess and repent and purify.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_01: I think about just all the imagery, especially in the old testament, but then again, with the perfect sacrifice of Jesus in the New Testament.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_01: But you had a sacrificial system that required the blood of the sacrifice, which was to cleanse us before entering the temple.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_01: And and so we have the biblical picture of Jesus being that perfect sacrifice to us, who is his blood is to cleanse us from our unrighteousness and allow us to enter into his presence.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_01: So we have been cleansed in Christ, but we also have to actively in our sinful fleshly world and life continue to offer up ourselves to have clean hands and a pure heart.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and there's several places where Jesus talks about not allowing the prince of this world to uh have any hold in us or we're to sweep the house clean.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_00: And so a lot of people ask, okay, but I am uh I've become a Christian.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I have I'm in the new covenant, I've been washed by the blood.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we're not a part of the sacrificial system of the Old Testament anymore.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so why, you know, why do I need to do this?
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I've been given a new heart.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_00: And and I get that, but at the same time, Jesus spoke often in John and Luke and other places about not allowing the enemy to have any foothold in us, um, needing to sweep the house clean of things.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_00: And I think there are ways, knowingly and unknowingly, that we bump up against things, that we in some ways open a door to things that belong that are that are not of God.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_00: And that I think that's kind of what this list is going through is it's kind of a a whole grocery list here of all the different things that might possibly um be impacting our hearts.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_00: And the thing that was convicting to me as I went through this list is, you know, it starts off talking about the you know involvement in any type of occult or cults or false religion.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, that's pretty heavy and pretty big.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_00: But right after that is the lies that you believe about fear of failure, rejection, um, you know, blame, shame, like things that we in our culture are much more likely to go, well, I I just have it, I have anger issues, or I have, you know, you know, I just have anxiety issues, and we try to talk to them as if they're issues when what they are are wounded places in our heart that we've turned to other things to try to fix or protect or defend ourselves from being wounded again, and therefore we're falling into sin.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_00: And it's it's not really popular right now in our Christian culture to like talk about sin.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_00: We want to talk about God is love and he loves everybody, and and you know, and I think we've kind of kind of gotten off balance and need to have that balance of yes, God is love and his grace is huge, and he does cleanse us of these things, but at the same time, there's an accountability built into our Christian walk.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_00: There is a sanctification process.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes you you're doing something and you don't even realize what you're doing, you know.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, there's there's times where I absolutely straight out, I know this is sin.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna choose to do it because I want to.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_00: But there's other times I think that we are bumping up against things that are in some ways impacting our walk with God or somehow not allowing our heart to feel as clean as it should be.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_00: And so it's good just to go through this.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_00: And I love the way that it ends with the prayer of saying, Father, I renounce these strongholds of the enemy.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_00: I plead the blood of Jesus over each of these.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_00: I renounce my sin, I resist the enemy, and I submit to you to be filled with your righteousness in these areas.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_00: And so a lot of times when I'm talking with people, I'm like, I try to ask God, is there anything that I need to ask forgiveness for or confess or renounce?
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_00: But at the same time, I always end with just a kind of a blanket, God.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_00: If there is anything that's not of you, if there's anything hindering my walk with you, I ask for you to help me renounce, be cleansed, and have a clean hand and a pure heart before you.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_00: Because again, it's very hard to be honest about self-perception.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_00: Because I, when I'm looking at my behavior, I'm also tying to it my intent.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_00: And my intent was not to hurt you, my intent was I didn't want to be hurt, so therefore I lashed out in anger towards you to stop you before you could hurt me.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_00: But it's still anger.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we can uh reframe a lot of things in our own minds and hearts, and just like scripture says the heart is deceitful, who can know it?
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_01: And until we quiet ourselves and submit ourselves um to the Lord and to prayer, sometimes we can't see those things without the work of the Holy Spirit.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_01: And the last slide on this page says that you know, this process is vital to your victory in Jesus and your position of intercession for your family.
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_01: So there is an importance to our position of intercession um as we pray for others.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_01: Um, check out that that page and and do some work with that.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_01: We we're doing it too.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's why we have joked about are you sure we want to talk about the for the family book?
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_00: Because then we have to live that's right what we're talking about.
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_00: So definitely for all of us, there is a consecration.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_00: Um, that again, I think we step away from that a little bit because we're like, well, that's old testament versus new, but we're told to consecrate our hearts.
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_00: And so I just think back to the priests in the old testament, like they would send the dude into the Holy of the Holies with a rope tied around his ankle, because if he had any speck of anything in him, he was going to be struck dead.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_00: Right now, I am very grateful that Jesus came and I don't have to walk around with a rope tied around my ankle so Kimberly can jerk me out of the Holy of the Holies when I went in there unprepared.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so we have been saved from so much.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_00: And yet when I focus so much on the love and grace of God, sometimes I also forget the holiness of God.
• 20:51
  unknown: Yeah.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_00: And he will not be mocked.
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_00: And because I love him, I want my heart to be clean.
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_00: And I think about why I would want to run around with any kind of like heavy lead coat on me or shackles on my ankles, anything that would deter me from being able to run the race that he is setting before me by not taking the time just to do the love checkup and to say, okay, clean hands for your heart.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_00: Is there anything that I need to confess, make right?
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_00: What what do I need to do to have a clean heart before you?
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_01: And recognizing that he and his work is sufficient for wherever we are with regard to sin, with regard to our attitudes, and then also regarding our emotions and our needs, which is this next section here.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I I I mean, I'm gonna confess I really love this one and part of this because I I wrote it.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_00: It comes from my life.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_00: But um, like every time I we come to the I am for your every need, um, I I am immediately transported back to where I was.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_00: I was either a freshman or sophomore in college, um, living With a lot of people, didn't you know, you know how college life is.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_00: Throw as many people in bedrooms as you can because you're all poor.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_00: And there's there was nowhere in the house where I could get alone.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_00: And I was really struggling.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_00: I had a lot of um, there was some conflict going on, there was just a lot of emotional turmoil about a lot of things.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_00: And I was feeling misunderstood.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_00: I was feeling falsely accused.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_00: There was just a lot going on.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_00: So the only place I could find to be by myself was to go into our little laundry room at the house where we lived that was basically big enough just for the washer, the dryer, and enough space to walk in front of them.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_00: And I went in there and I closed the door and I sat down on the floor with my journal.
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_00: And I just started writing down on one side of the page, God, I feel.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_00: And I, you know, I feel uh accused, I feel this, I feel that.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_00: And it was 15 to 20 different emotions I was feeling uh that day and just got it all out.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_00: And I just sat there for a minute and I wasn't planning on doing this.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't go in there going, okay, here's an exercise I'm gonna do.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_00: I just went in there because I needed somewhere alone where I could write out this is everything that I'm feeling.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_00: And then one by one, as I read back over the list where I was like, I feel uh falsely accused, Jesus just sweetly spoke to me, you know, I I am the truth.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_00: And he just one by one walked through every emotion I was feeling and gave me a name of who he was.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_00: He didn't say anything about the situations or who said what about who or what was going on.
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_00: The only thing he said to me is, This is who I am.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_00: But God, I feel this way.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_00: This is who I am, this is who I am.
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_00: And it wasn't even this is who you are, it was who he was.
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_00: And it was amazing how that ministered to my heart, just having him say, I know you're feeling like this, but this is who I am for you.
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it really helped me out of that situation a little while later.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_00: I you know, go home from college, whatever.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_00: And I happened to show it to my mom.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_00: And she looked at the piece of paper and she said, Where did you learn to do this?
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_00: And and she's like, Who taught you this?
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, Mom, I don't know, no one taught me this.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_00: I just went in the laundry room and sat down and I wrote it.
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, I didn't have enough wisdom at the time to know, but who taught it to me was her, not by telling me, when you feel this way, go write your emotions down.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_00: But I had had a lifetime of watching her declare who God is and who he is for me, and that he is enough for me, regardless of what's going on in my life.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_00: And so I was just able to draw on what she had lived in front of me, um, and and be able to do that in that time.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_00: And so it's as I read back through this, this one in particular, it makes me smile.
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_00: I'm so grateful that for every need I've ever had.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_00: And that's not the last time I did that exercise.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_00: I do that exercise all the time.
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_00: God, I'm feeling this way.
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_00: Who are you for me in this situation?
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_00: It's so rich to know that there's a name of God for every one of my needs.
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_00: And it's also a very good reminder for me as I have now become a parent to some wonderful kids that um they're watching and they're absorbing.
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm not necessarily always instructing them in the ways of God, but they are watching me live my life, they're watching how I handle things, and they're absorbing things from me, whether I know it or not, which is encouraging and also very humbling um to know that that I have that level of influence there.
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_01: Even in you just saying that, Elizabeth, about people, like we are we are influencing people.
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, that takes me right back to kind of what I talked about with the definition of of family and talking about family systems and culture last week, right?
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_01: Like we we influence one another, we affect one another.
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_01: And um, and yet at the same time, it's this tension and this not tension, it's more that this balance between it's not about us, but it's about God.
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_01: This is such a good exercise because I think sometimes for me, I remember this is slightly different, but I think it's similar.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_01: I remember whenever I would pause to pray, I was in I was a young youth intern right out of college.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_01: And I remember pausing to pray often for my students and for whatever was going on in life.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, every time you would sit down to pray, it would just be like you'd be bombarded with all the things you have to do and all the things that you're needing.
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and that's a slight little slant on what you were just talking about of feeling all of these emotions and and writing down those emotions and how God meets us.
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_01: But it's also like sometimes I just need to recognize uh sometimes when I just pause, I'm met with myself.
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_01: And and in this, these last paragraphs of this page, it says, you know, make your own alphabet of the names and character of God as your personal affirmation that he is more than adequate as your need meter.
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_01: He is a covenant-keeping God, he is covenantly committed to being true to his name and his names and his attributes by which he has revealed himself to his people.
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_01: He is enthroned in your situation and life as you call his names.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_01: And when I am met with myself in the quiet of my needs, whether it's my needs or my my to-do list or whatever it is, this is an exercise that allows me to recognize he is enthroned in my situation in my life as I call on his name.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_01: So it's not about me fretting.
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_01: I'm acting as just anyone in the world without Christ when I focus on my need and I fret over meeting my own need or not having my need met, rather than recognizing he is enthroned in your situation in your life as you call on his name.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_01: So we gaze at God and we glance at the need and we entrust it to his all-wise, all-loving care.
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_01: He's the Lord, the Most High God, who reigns over all.
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_01: To whom else would we go?
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_01: And so I love this too.
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_01: I recall various times when Elizabeth, you and I have done ministry together when we have prayed and sang through the names of God, and how those names minister so deeply to our needs.
• 28:42
  SPEAKER_01: And so, why is this included in the For the Family booklet?
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_00: It's included in the For the Family booklet because it doesn't matter whether it's what's going on in the family and what's going on uh in whatever relationship you may find yourself.
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_00: And that's why I say for the families, not just for people who have families.
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_00: All of us have needs in our lives that we need to continually be centered back on who God is and his name, because his name is the answer to everything that we're ever going to face.
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_00: And I think God puts us in circumstances.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_00: I know he puts us in circumstances sometimes because he wants to reveal a new part of who he is to us.
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_00: That's this that's the pattern throughout scripture.
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_00: Every time God sent his people through something, he'd at some point be, okay, now stop, build an altar and remember what I did for you here, and this is who I am.
• 29:40
  SPEAKER_00: And he would give them a new name of who he is.
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_00: And so I think understanding the connection between our brokenness, our neediness, our frailty as a human, and the all-sufficient, more than enough characteristics of God is how we get to this place of wholeness.
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_00: It's not that he's just those things for me.
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_00: All of his names meet all the needs of my husband, of my kids, of my parents, of my coworkers, of my friends.
• 30:13
  SPEAKER_00: Because I know I do.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_00: I hear someone I love in need or in crisis, and I feel like I'm now carrying that burden with them because I love them.
• 30:24
  SPEAKER_00: And so God never told me to be their burden bearer.
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_00: He told me that I need to help them see that he is more than enough for them in those places.
• 30:35
  SPEAKER_00: And so, this also is a lot of how I pray for a lot of people in my life because I can either have a prayer session with God that goes like, God, I'm really concerned about my friend.
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_00: This is all she's going through.
• 30:47
  SPEAKER_00: I can't imagine the pain and the hurt and the whatever that she's going through.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_00: And I can sit there and I can rehearse the pain, the hurt, the circumstance of what my friend is going through, or I can pray, God, will you reveal yourself to my friend?
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_00: Would you come into their deep need and give them a revelation of who you are?
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_00: And what a much more powerful way to pray for my friend.
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_00: Because I'm not, I'm not trying to fix them or fix it for them.
• 31:17
  SPEAKER_00: I'm allowing God to show up and do what only God can do.
• 31:21
  SPEAKER_00: And I think it helps keep me in a right perspective because, especially for my family, I mean, I want nothing more than for everything in my family's members' lives to be okay and for them to flourish and for them to grow.
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't like to watch them struggle.
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_00: And so it's very easy for me to want to jump in and become the savior and the fixer of that.
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_00: And so this piece in particular helps me not only with my own heart, more so helps me not try to be the fixture and savior of those around me.
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_01: And I think this whole section that we've talked about is that piece.
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_01: It focuses us on the Lord and on God and on who he is, and it prepares us to humble ourselves and put him first in our lives and declare him to those that we're praying for.
• 32:13
  SPEAKER_00: And I agree because if we it's it's like Peter stepping out of the boat.
• 32:17
  SPEAKER_00: When you look at the waves all around you, you're gonna sink.
• 32:20
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 32:20
  SPEAKER_00: But if you keep your eyes on Jesus, then it's okay if there's waves.
• 32:25
  SPEAKER_00: And it doesn't always you that panic doesn't come when times get hard because you know who the anchor and the foundation is.
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_00: And not to say it's it's fun.
• 32:35
  SPEAKER_00: I'm I'm I'm still looking for a Disney World year if anyone's listening.
• 32:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um God, if you want to give me a year of just strict happiness, I'm okay with that.
• 32:45
  SPEAKER_00: But it's as we've talked about before, it's in the hard places where he you really get to know him and his character.
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_00: So we're all going to face trial and tribulations, right?
• 32:56
  SPEAKER_00: And so we can choose to either focus on the problem or we can focus on him and learn of him and lean into him.
• 33:01
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_01: And so for this week, as we've talked through these, uh, I think it's four um pieces here to this resource.
• 33:11
  SPEAKER_01: Um, that's the encouragement.
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_01: The encouragement is to walk through these four exercises and and contemplate these things with intention, with a prayerful heart, with a um a loving attitude.
• 33:25
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and some people like me that are a little bit more task-oriented and peep, you know, like, hey, okay, so but when do I'm not praying for my family yet?
• 33:32
  SPEAKER_01: The book's called Pray for the Family.
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_01: And that's why I asked you, Elizabeth.
• 33:36
  SPEAKER_01: So, why is this in pray for the family to remind us, bring us full circle back to we have to prepare ourselves.
• 33:42
  SPEAKER_01: We can't just, I mean, we prepare ourselves.
• 33:44
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, we should prepare ourselves to go to the gym.
• 33:46
  SPEAKER_01: We should prepare ourselves before we get dressed.
• 33:49
  SPEAKER_01: There's things we do each day before we get dressed.
• 33:50
  SPEAKER_01: We prepare ourselves in a lot of different ways for meetings.
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_01: We prepare, we, you know, all sorts of things.
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_01: We we prepare dinner before we sit down to eat it.
• 33:58
  SPEAKER_01: We have to be prepared.
• 33:59
  SPEAKER_01: And so um, this is our our encouragement to you and to us this week.
• 34:04
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and we just want to remind you um that we also want you to send us your questions and your thoughts because we do want to highlight those as we um go through this resource.
• 34:16
  SPEAKER_01: Um, we want to highlight some of your questions as we work through this resource.
• 34:22
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so again, look for us on social media, pose us some questions, some thoughts, some stories on social media and also um to the website, to our email.
• 34:32
  SPEAKER_01: Elizabeth, why don't you give them that info one more time?
• 34:34
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you can always reach out to us at our website, which is thefathersbusiness.com.
• 34:39
  SPEAKER_00: And you can also uh email us, they come directly to my inbox, info at thefathersbusiness.com.
• 34:48
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, I definitely I want to encourage all of us um to take some time to uh just look into our own hearts and prepare our own hearts.
• 34:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and honestly, I'm a better wife and mother, daughter, sister, friend when my heart is pure and my heart is aligned with God than when I'm not.
• 35:07
  SPEAKER_00: And so while you may not feel like you're doing something for your family, believe me, by getting your own heart right with God and centering yourself on who God is and who you are in Him, you are doing amazing things for your family.
• 35:20
  SPEAKER_00: So we look forward to absolutely hearing your feedback and sharing some um next week um with you about kind of how we ourselves have processed through this information.
• 35:29
  SPEAKER_01: Yep.
• 35:30
  SPEAKER_01: So we'll see you next time.
• 35:31
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks, everyone.
• 35:33
  SPEAKER_00: I want to thank you for listening to the Father's Business Podcast.
• 35:39
  SPEAKER_00: Check us out at thefathersbusiness.com or follow us at the Father's Biz on Instagram and Facebook.