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Ep 29: The Fourth Watch (Part 2): The Wisdom You Can Walk On (James 1: 2-8) · CEO Kingdom Seekers

• 0:04
  SPEAKER_01: Hey y'all, welcome to this week's episode of CEO Kingdom Seekers.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_01: This episode is actually going to be part two.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_01: And for those of you who haven't had a chance to listen to part one, you don't have to listen to it first.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_01: It's all good.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_01: And I want to invite you to go back after you listen to this and listen to part one.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_01: I fully believe that if you're getting part two to start, that's for a reason.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_01: And if you take it to God and you're like, okay, yeah, no, actually, I think I need to start with part one.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_01: That's totally cool.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so go do that.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm gonna recap a little bit of what happened in the part one of this.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_01: And then we're gonna get into the part for today, which is about doubt and double-mindedness and the wisdom that allows us to maturely walk in our faith.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_01: All right.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_01: So we're gonna be talking through James chapter one, verses two through eight.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_01: We're gonna be revisiting Matthew chapter 14, verses 22 through 33.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_01: And then I'm pulling in a couple other verses today from Jeremiah and from Joshua.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_01: Part one of this was all about the external storm.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_01: So we talked through what it looked like for God to orchestrate this event for Peter and for the other apostles to truly embody wisdom.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_01: Now, what is so fascinating about this is that sometimes God will lead me to teach on things.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, oh, I get this, right?
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_01: I understand this.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_01: And so I do get lessons from that, but there's other times that God will call me to teach on something.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, God, are you sure that this is what you want me to talk through?
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_01: And He's like, Yeah, I've given you examples of what other people say here.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I do.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_01: I want you to really get in and study this and talk about it.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm sharing that with you because sometimes it can be tough for us as people who are called to share and called to speak and called to teach, is that sometimes God's gonna ask you to do stuff when like you don't feel fully prepared for it.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_01: And maybe there's a part of your past that's hanging on in the background and you don't recognize that's what's going on, but there's something that's happening to you previously that is causing some hesitation or some resistance.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_01: And it's not that you don't doubt God, it's that you kind of doubt yourself.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_01: You doubt that you're gonna be able to handle it, you doubt that you're gonna be able to show up.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_01: You've gotten to the point that you trust God and you have a relatively mature faith, and there's still stuff that you are working through.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_01: And so that is what happened when I originally went live and was teaching on Peter walking out on the water.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_01: And so, like I said, go back and listen to part one.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_01: I talk about what has happened from before the apostles get and the disciples get in the boat and try to cross the sea and end up in this storm that is even as experienced fishermen, like they're struggling.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_01: I talk about how Jesus is doing his own thing and taking care of himself and ensuring that he is restored and praying on the mountain where he can see what's happening on the waters.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_01: He can see what's happening with the disciples.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_01: And it's not that he's left them, it's not that he doesn't care, but he knows that God's handling it, right?
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_01: And I talked about what happens when Jesus then walks out onto the water and how he scares the disciples, right?
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_01: The disciples are so dysregulated that they don't even recognize Jesus.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_01: The first thing that pops to their head when someone is walking on water is that it's a ghost, not that it's the Messiah.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_01: I had just introduced the idea of doubt and the word for doubt.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_01: If part one was the external storm, we're gonna talk about part two, which is what God's forming inside of us while we are in that storm.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_01: So today we're gonna talk through doubt and we're gonna talk through double-mindedness, and we're gonna talk through what it looks like.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_01: And knowing God's word is preparation for storms, watching God work and understanding how he shows up, how he feeds the 5,000, how he loves and helps others, how he sacrifices.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_01: Like that's preparation.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_01: Mature faith happens when we take his wisdom and we like viscerally understand it because we experience it for ourselves.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_01: And it makes it so that when we walk out on the water and we walk out on what we know and we show up in what we know, when we get in those moments of doubt, the very first thing that we do is we call on Jesus because we know he's there.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_01: All right.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_01: And at that moment, we can take his hand and he will lead us forward.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_01: So the things is that the goal is not to be able to never doubt.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_01: The goal is not to be able to never doubt.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_01: The goal is to be able to catch the doubt as quickly as possible before you start sinking and reach for Jesus, because you know that he's going to be able to do miracles and supernatural things to help you continue walking in his grace in a way that like you physically shouldn't be able to do.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_01: He's gonna give you strength and peace and fruits of the spirit in a way that you shouldn't physically as a human be able to have because you are relying on him, because you love the Holy Spirit, because you've accepted him into your heart.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_01: So today, I just want to start in an opening prayer.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_01: I want to ask everyone to, if it's safe for you to do so, just pause and close your eyes and take a breath.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_01: If you are driving or doing something that requires your actual physical sight, please continue to do that, okay?
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_01: So in the name of the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit, amen.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_01: Dear God, thank you so much for bringing us all together today for this.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you for bringing us storms.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_01: And I know that's an odd thing to pray for, but when we understand what a storm is, we understand that whether we are the ones who created the storm or someone else has created the storm, no matter who is behind the external chaos and disorder that we are experiencing, we know that you have orchestrated the storm.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_01: You are using it for order and for restoration and for sanctification and for healing.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_01: We know you're using it for your good.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_01: So whether you're allowing this thing to happen or you are creating it yourself, thank you.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you for putting us in these storms and allowing us to get to know ourselves better and to get to know others better, and most importantly, to get to know you better.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you for always being with us.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you for arriving at the exact right moment, always, not a moment too soon and not a moment too late, and helping us.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_01: And thank you for being someone that we can always call on.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_01: We can always call on you, God.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you for just always immediately extending out your hand and inviting us to walk with you.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_01: And when we start to sink and we start to doubt, when that double-mindedness starts to come in, even as mature Christians, you allow us to just fix our eyes back on you and ask for help to cry out.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_01: And you're always there.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you for being with us in every single tough moment.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you for helping us grow in the fruits of the Spirit and growing them in us.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you for giving them to us, your peace and your love, and your joy and your discipline and your steadfastness and your kindness and your love and your gentleness.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_01: I pray for all of us to mature in our faith today as we listen to this.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_01: I pray for those who hear this to embody this wisdom a little bit deeper, or to even set it to the side and allow it to work on them over the next hours, days, weeks, months.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_01: Allow this to be something that really serves them for all time, even if that time is not in this current moment.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_01: And God, I just pray all of this in your son Jesus' name.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_01: Amen.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_01: All right.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_01: When I recorded the first part of this, I was about an hour in and I was about 10 minutes away from being done and the power went out.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm teaching on a storm and the power goes out.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_01: All right.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_01: That is so wild because talk about God orchestrating things.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_01: So our power's out.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_01: I can't see anything.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_01: I'm recording in our basement.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_01: So I go upstairs because we have a lot of windows upstairs.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, surely I'll be able to see up there.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_01: Surely I'll be able to continue working up there.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_01: Nope, can't see up there either.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_01: It is so dark.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_01: And it turns out that there were actually tornadoes just a few miles from our house.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_01: There's so many trees that got snapped and knocked over.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_01: There was a lot of damage.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_01: There was a lot of destruction that happened.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_01: And we were really blessed in the fact that we were not severely affected to the way that other people were.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_01: In the moment, I was actually feeling relatively grateful.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, okay, well, yes, I'm feeling frustrated that I can't work.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, I'm feeling frustrated that I might have just lost that live and I don't know if it recorded or not.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I'm feeling concerned.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know what's going on.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_01: But we know that there's people working on our power in particular.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_01: We know that we're safe.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_01: We know our kids are safe.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_01: Everything's good, right?
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_01: And so I can't work.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_01: And if y'all know me, if I got a plan to work and I want to work and I can't work, that can feel tough.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_01: And so again, I'm like surrendering and submitting this to God.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, God, there's got to be a reason that this is happening as I'm teaching on this today.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_01: It's got to be a reason.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_01: So the only place in our house that even had a little bit of light was our bedroom upstairs.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm sitting in the oversized chair, and just to kind of give you guys a mental picture of this.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_01: So my chair is up against the window on like the north facing side, the long side of our room.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm looking at my bookshelf right next to me on the right.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_01: I'm looking at my desk over here to the right in front of me.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_01: The door that you walk into the room is in the right corner.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_01: And then on the other side is like our bed and our nightstand and our bathroom and all of those things.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm sitting there and my husband comes in and he sits in the chair in my desk.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_01: So he's facing me.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_01: And we're just talking through this.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm like crying again.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not mad at God.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not mad with God.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_01: I'm just feeling frustrated and mad.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not understanding what it is that God's doing here.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, okay, I had this plan.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_01: This was like one of the best lives I've been doing in a really long time.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_01: God, you told me you wanted me to speak.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_01: God, you told me you wanted me to write.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_01: You told me you wanted to be doing these things.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm telling you that I have so little time to do this.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_01: I finally have time to speak and to write.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_01: And I literally can't see.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_01: And I can't record.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_01: I can't go live.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_01: I can't speak and teach because like I don't know how long we're gonna be without power.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_01: So I don't want to use up all my phone battery.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_01: I don't want to use up all the laptop battery.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_01: Like I need to save those things.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm just kind of talking this through with my husband.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_01: And again, I think what's an important part of this story to understand for people is that like there is a difference between externally processing out what's going on and you like complaining.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_01: Complaining is being like, I'm mad at God and frustrated with him for this thing.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_01: And like I'm judging that what he is doing is wrong or bad.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_01: Lamenting to God is basically saying, Hey, God, I trust you and I believe that what you are doing is right.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_01: You are all knowing, you are all powerful, you are all seeing, you exist outside of time and space.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_01: I respect you and I don't understand.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm having human emotions and feelings about the fact that I don't understand.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_01: And so in part one of this episode, we were talking through the fact that these Jesus has come to the boat and he is out there and he has introduced himself as I am.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_01: So they know that it's Jesus.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_01: And Peter has asked Jesus in the midst of this storm, Jesus, can I be with you?
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_01: Can I come onto the water with you?
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_01: And Jesus says, Come.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_01: So Peter has done a very, very bold, courageous thing.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_01: He has stepped out onto the water and he has started walking.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_01: And then the storm got really loud and the wind got louder.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_01: And Peter is starting to understand in his visceral sense wow, this storm is really bad.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_01: And that visceral, physical sense, human sense of what's happening, that his ability to physically see how bad this is clouding his ability to spiritually see who Jesus is.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_01: And so Peter gets distracted by the wind and he starts to sink.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_01: And as he starts to sink, he cries out and he says, Jesus, save me, Lord, save me.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_01: And Jesus immediately pulls him back up and he's standing on the water.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_01: And Jesus says to him, You have little faith, why did you doubt?
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_01: Well, in part one, we talked about that little faith doesn't mean small, it means short.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_01: And he could have been saying, Why do you have such a small faith?
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_01: But what I and a lot of theologians think he was saying was, Why is your faith so short?
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_01: Like, why did you trust me to step out?
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_01: Why did you trust me throughout all of this?
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_01: And once you knew it was me, you know who I am, you know what I can do, you just watched me save and feed 5,000 people, you've watched me perform miracles.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_01: Like, why are you doubting?
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_01: And so we had ended with this word distazzo, doubt as double-mindedness.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_01: And so I want to talk through doubt because I think I was feeling this double-mindedness.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_01: And double-mindedness is different for a mature Christian.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_01: And when I say mature Christian, I don't mean a certain age, I don't mean that you've read the whole Bible or that you've gotten a master's in divinity or anything like that.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_01: It's not about education, it's not about age, it is about spiritual maturity.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_01: It's how well have you gotten to know God and Jesus?
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_01: How strong, how mature is your relationship with Jesus?
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_01: There are some people that I met that have only known Jesus for six months or a year, and they are more mature in their faith than I am.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_01: There are some people who've never read a Bible before, who can't read.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_01: There are people who have never laid their eyes on a Bible before, who are more mature in their faith in Jesus than others.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_01: So it's really important to understand that maturity comes from the ability to really surrender, to submit, to obey, to respect, to fear, and to love God and to allow him to love you back, to believe his word about what he says about you, just as much as you believe his word about what he says about him.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_01: So you understand who he is and you understand who you are in relationship to him.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_01: That's maturity.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_01: And maturity comes not just from understanding things abstractly, and it also doesn't come from witnessing things, it comes from personally experiencing things.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so maturity comes from personally experiencing things and embodying wisdom so that it becomes second nature.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_01: So I use this example a lot.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_01: Take kindergartners, okay?
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_01: You can teach a kindergartner two plus two equals four, and they will repeat that back to you.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_01: Two plus two equals four.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_01: And you'll say, okay, what's a two and what's a four?
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_01: They're not gonna be able to tell you what that is.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_01: What does it mean to add?
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_01: They're not gonna be able to tell you what that is.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_01: What happens if you add in another two?
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_01: A lot of times they're not gonna be able to tell you what that is, some of them will.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_01: But the whole point is that they understand rote memorization, two plus two equals four.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_01: They can repeat that back to you, but the context is not there.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_01: They don't understand the concepts underneath of the statement.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_01: So there's a lot of people out there that are like, Jesus is king, Jesus is Lord, Jesus is it, and then they go, Okay, well, but who is Jesus?
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_01: And how does he show up?
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_01: And who's the Holy Spirit?
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_01: And what's the relationship between Jesus and God?
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_01: And why do bad things happen to good people?
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_01: And why would God allow this when he doesn't allow this?
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_01: And how is the Bible made?
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_01: And all of a sudden you're getting these questions, and you're like, oh gosh, I don't know how to answer these things.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_01: I just know Jesus is Lord.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_01: Now, again, your ability to answer those things is not necessarily what makes you mature.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_01: That's going to make you educated, but education is often a part of maturity.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_01: There's a reason why we send our kids to school, there's a reason why we send our kids into spiritual formation.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_01: There's a reason why we do Sunday school, there's a reason why we do Bible study.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_01: And again, feel the way you feel about higher education.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_01: Our entire human existence, we have matured by watching and learning from other people.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_01: That's actually what Jesus does.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_01: Jesus waits until he's 30 to start doing his public ministry because he also understood from a contextual perspective, if he steps out and starts discipling and starts acting as a rabbi before 30 and doing that publicly, people are gonna have a lot to say about that because there was an expectation that you reached a certain age before you started teaching others.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_01: All right.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_01: So you've got the two plus two equals four.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_01: That's that's you know something.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_01: You don't understand it.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_01: We understand things when we start to get the context underneath, when we can answer some of those how and some of those why questions, all right.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_01: So as we start to be able to answer the who, what, when, where, why questions, as we're able to also understand not just two plus two equals four, but we understand the concept enough that we can go, oh, and also four minus two is two.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_01: And here's why.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_01: Now, embodying wisdom.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_01: I used to tell my students this all the time when I used to teach as a nurse practitioner.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_01: I would say, y'all, if you want to see, if you truly have embodied wisdom, teach somebody else how to do it.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_01: Teach somebody else how to do it.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_01: We actually had this exercise in one of our former business academies.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_01: I would tell people, I'm like, hey, teach somebody how to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_01: The amount of assumptions that you make that other people know about peanut butter and jelly sandwiches is astounding.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_01: The amount that you're gonna assume that somebody understands, what if they don't know what peanut butter is?
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_01: What if they don't know what jelly is?
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_01: What if they don't have sliced bread?
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_01: What if they don't have a knife?
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_01: Are you gonna include going to the store and buying these things?
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_01: Are they making some of these things themselves?
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_01: Are they doing a handmade peanut butter and jelly sandwich where they're actually like crushing the peanuts and they're making the jelly?
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_01: Do you see what I'm saying?
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_01: So what's important to think about here is that the embodiment is I can watch other people make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches all day.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_01: I can understand, okay, yes, I'm gonna go to the store and then I'm gonna need to get the bread, and then I'm gonna get the bread out, and then I'm gonna slice it, and then I'm gonna get the peanut butter out, and I'm gonna get the jelly out, and then I'm gonna lay the pieces flat, and then I'm gonna, and you can do all of that.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_01: But if you haven't made it yourself, if you haven't made it yourself, when you go to make it yourself, you're gonna realize that less than you think you do.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_01: And when you then go to teach it to somebody else, you're gonna realize how many assumptions you make about what other people know.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_01: And this is something I see a lot of leaders do.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_01: A lot of leaders have one to two parts of the wisdom, one of the two key parts.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_01: They can teach it to other people, but they've never personally done it.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_01: Or they've personally done it, but they've never taught it to people.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_01: Uh you need both of those for maturity.
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_01: You need the lived experience personally, and then you also need to be able to say, okay, and I've taught it to someone else and help them have the lived experience.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_01: Now, I want to be clear here because I know some of my very smart listeners will be like, well, Lee, do I have to have practical experience in order to have maturity?
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_01: Not necessarily in the way you're thinking about it, right?
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_01: Still, I'll use my former job as an example.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_01: I worked in bone marrow transplant as a nurse practitioner.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't have personal experience as a bone marrow transplant patient, right?
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_01: I did have personal experience taking care of bone marrow transplant patients.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_01: And I had taught other people how to take care of bone marrow transplant patients, and I had also experienced a lot of the symptoms and a lot of the things that bone marrow transplant patients had experienced.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_01: I know what it feels like to be in that much pain.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_01: I know what it feels like to be that nauseated.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_01: I know what it feels like to not be certain about how things are gonna turn out in the next hour, let alone day, week, month.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_01: I've been in those situations.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_01: And the more that I've sat in those situations and the more that I've personally experienced these things, I'm gonna be able to connect with this person in a way that people who haven't experienced those things won't.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_01: So I had this visceral understanding.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_01: This is why maturity and age oftentimes get connected.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_01: Because if you're older, it is reasonable to assume that you've been through more experiences that you're gonna be able to practically say, oh yeah, I've been through that.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_01: Now that's not a hard and fast rule.
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_01: All right.
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_01: There's a lot of people who are very old who are very immature.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_01: There's a lot of people who are young who are very mature.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_01: They've had a lot of experience and they've had to teach other people these things.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_01: So I set that context up because when we talk about mature faith, and you look at the disciples in Matthew chapter 14, they just watch Jesus uh heal a lot of people.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_01: And then they just watched Jesus ask them for all the food that they had available to them when they were like, hey, let's go send these people off because they need to go eat.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_01: And Jesus is like, Well, what do we have available?
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_01: And they watch him uh uh take five fish and two loaves and feed 5,000 men, probably 10,000 people total.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so they've seen this.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_01: They have the practical experience now.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_01: Peter even has the practical experience of Jesus coming up to his boat and saying, Peter, I know you've been fishing all night, but cast your net out again.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_01: Uh Peter, the first he's like, Jesus, I've been fishing all night.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_01: He doesn't even know who Thomas is.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_01: He says, I've been fishing all night.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_01: And he's like, Do it again.
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_01: And he goes, Okay.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_01: What Peter does immediately after Jesus, then there's so many fish in his net that it almost breaks.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_01: Uh Peter hits the ground because he has the wisdom to know this is something that the Messiah would do.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_01: And other people have told me that he might be the Messiah.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_01: So Simon Peter, he's Simon at this point, but he automatically recognizes oh, based on what I know, based I knew two plus two equaled four, but I just watched that layout.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_01: I knew that the messiah could make two plus two equal five, but I just watched that happen in my boat.
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_01: And now all of the disciples are having this experience of I know two plus two equals four in human math, but I just watched God, Jesus, the Son of God, take five plus two.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: And make ten thousand.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm getting an understanding of supernatural math now.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_01: And it's not personally happening to me.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_01: I'm watching him save people, but he's not saving me.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_01: I'm watching him feed people, but he's not feeding me.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not hungry.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_01: I wasn't worried about my own hunger, I was worried about these people's hunger.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_01: I wasn't sick, I was concerned about these other people's sickness.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_00: I'm here because you called me.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm learning from you.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_00: But I'm here because you called me.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_01: So now Peter's double-mindedness that James talks about, it's not a condemnation of the disciples.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_01: This is a human story.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that we do this.
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_01: We forget that the disciples are humans.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_01: We forget that the disciples are humans.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_01: We forget they're fallible.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_01: Peter literally denies Jesus three times.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_01: We judge them for their double-mindedness.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_01: Well, how could you watch all these things happen?
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_01: How could you know two plus two equaled four and then not?
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_01: Because there's a difference.
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_01: There's a difference then when you have this personally happen for yourself.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_01: And there are levels to this, there are depths to this, okay?
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_01: And so embodiment happens in stages and phases and depths.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_01: So a lot of us are just like these disciples.
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_01: We are ordinary people who are called by Jesus.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_01: And we are maturing in our faith, and we are understanding the context behind why two plus two equals four, and how you can move those numbers around, and how supernatural math changes those numbers, how Jesus changes those numbers, how God changes those numbers.
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_01: We're starting to really understand that.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_01: Suddenly, the thing that you either understood in your head because you learned it in the Bible, you read it in scripture, that the preacher or the priest talked about it in church, you talked about it in Bible study.
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_01: Or suddenly the miracle you've seen happen for someone else, you're in that same situation.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_01: Or suddenly, the way that God saved you years and years ago, it happened again, but the context is different.
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_01: All of a sudden, the thing that you know you don't know.
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_01: The thing that you knew, the thing that felt very sturdy and rock solid for you, all of a sudden is very unstable.
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_01: That that water that you were walking on that felt like solid ground as you were fixing your eyes on Jesus, you realize it's water.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_01: And you're like, well, maybe two plus two doesn't equal supernatural numbers.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe two plus two just equals four.
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_01: Or maybe I don't even know that two plus two equals four.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_01: I don't even know that what I know is true anymore.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_01: This is the difference between seeing wisdom outside of you and having wisdom available inside.
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_01: This is the difference between needing external sight to trust and having internal sight to trust.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_01: A lot of us don't have an information problem.
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_01: And this is something that I was praying on recently.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_01: I was in a situation where I decided that I was going to consecrate myself to Mary.
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_01: Now, for my Protestant friends, you might have just gone, oh my gosh, what is she talking about?
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_01: So, no matter what our denomination is, I think we can all agree that Mary is the mother of Jesus and she agreed to have him.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_01: She agreed to take on the sorrow and the pain and also the like incredible blessing of having Jesus as her son.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_01: All right.
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_01: So in Catholicism, Mary and consecration just means that Mary is fully devoted to Jesus and also Jesus is a he's a mama's boy.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_01: Jesus is a mama's boy.
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_01: The first miracle that Jesus publicly does is because his mother asks him to.
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_01: And he even says, Mom, it's not time yet.
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_01: And she says, I trust you to do whatever, son.
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_01: And she turns to her servants and says, Do whatever he wills.
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_01: So the idea of Mary in consecration is we are the servants in that moment.
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_01: And we are going to do whatever Jesus tells us to do.
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_01: But we come to Mary and ask her to intercede.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_01: And I know that's a complicated thing.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_01: And I don't want that to be the point of the podcast.
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_01: If you want to talk about Mary and Mary in consecration and have a conversation around denominational pieces, I'm so down for that.
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_01: And the important part to understand is that I was basically saying, hey, God, I want to deepen in my understanding and follow your will, Jesus, not mine.
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_00: And I want to look to somebody who did that better than anybody else ever did.
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_01: So I realized, like, oh man, when I did this consecration, I did it from a book, but then I was reading later and I was like, let me see this.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_01: And there's actually a new book out that gives you 33 prayers that teach you how to do this.
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_01: I started to feel really bad.
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, oh man, maybe I should have done a better job.
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe.
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_01: And then I thought, okay, if I was a human outside of today's time or didn't have internet access or any of this, would I have still been able to do the Marian consecration?
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_01: So did I need that book in order to be successful?
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_01: No.
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_01: So a lot of us don't have an information problem because we have access to scripture, we have these sermons, we have these books, we have these podcasts, we have other people's testimonies.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_01: We know God is our provider.
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_01: We know he's faithful.
• 28:42
  SPEAKER_01: We know he tells us not to fear.
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_01: And then these things come up for us.
• 28:47
  SPEAKER_01: It's our payroll or our diagnosis or our marriage or our calling or our kids or our client list, our reputation.
• 28:52
  SPEAKER_01: Those get put on the line.
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_01: And that's when we figure out if we're going to be able to confidently walk on water.
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_01: That's when we figure out if we're going to be able to have a sustained faith, if we're going to be steadfast in our faith.
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_01: At this point, there's an invitation for you to consider what truth you know intellectually that becomes hard to hold when you get into one of these situations.
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_01: Where does two plus two equal four?
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_01: Or where do you know that the math is supernatural unless this thing happens?
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_00: So we doubt and become double-minded because number one, we forget the law, the Torah, we forget the law because remember, Jesus says that he does not come to abolish the law, but to fulfill it.
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_01: There are places where we have questions still.
• 29:55
  SPEAKER_01: There are questions that stand in between us and trusting God because we maybe don't understand why God allows bad things to happen to good people.
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe we don't understand why He allows personal tragedies.
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_01: We don't understand how the devil versus God work.
• 30:13
  SPEAKER_01: We don't understand how the Holy Spirit truly works.
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_01: We don't understand how our relationship with God is supposed to be.
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_01: Like we don't understand the temple and the tabernacle and the Ark of the Covenant and all of these pieces that our scripture teaches us that help us understand how Jesus fulfilled the law and how Jesus fulfilled the prophecies.
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_01: We don't understand a lot of that.
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_01: We don't understand who Jesus is and why he came and why he is here.
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe you don't understand Genesis.
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe you don't understand why and how God created the universe.
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_01: And again, there's so many mysteries and all of this.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_01: So there's pieces of this that surpass human understanding that we will find out while we die.
• 30:55
  SPEAKER_01: But I say this because a lot of us do not meditate on scripture.
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_01: We don't get to know the word so well that it is there for us in those moments of doubt.
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_01: Joshua 1, verses 8 and 9.
• 31:13
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, God tells Joshua to meditate on the book of law day and night so he can be careful to do everything written in it.
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_01: Not just know it, not just repeat it, but do it.
• 31:25
  SPEAKER_01: We actually talked about this in episode 27.
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_01: By the time that you are you are a leader, you're a business owner, you're a mom, you've got all these things going on, you taking time to understand more context and to deepen your understanding of who God is and how he works and who you are in relationship to him on your own, right?
• 31:49
  SPEAKER_01: You meditating on scriptures, you having scriptures memorized that you can pull out and use in tough moments, you not just knowing that scripture and being able to repeat it, you not just being able to explain the context, but you embodying the wisdom of that scripture.
• 32:06
  SPEAKER_01: That is what God calls us to do.
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_01: God wants his word to live within us.
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_01: All right.
• 32:13
  SPEAKER_01: So Jeremiah 31, 33, he says, I will put my law within them and I will write it on their hearts.
• 32:18
  SPEAKER_01: Jeremiah, in Jeremiah, he talks about giving us new hearts.
• 32:23
  SPEAKER_01: And on those hearts, writing his law, writing how he created things and why he created things and understanding wisdom of how he did these things.
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_01: And so the law, God's instruction, it's going to tell us who he is and how he calls us to live.
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_01: It's not a checklist that we complete so that hard things never happen.
• 32:41
  SPEAKER_01: It's formation.
• 32:43
  SPEAKER_01: He's teaching us his ways before we need them in the storm.
• 32:46
  SPEAKER_01: And I see a lot of people do this.
• 32:47
  SPEAKER_01: They wait until they are in the storm to go to scripture.
• 32:49
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, how cool would it be if you already had God's word?
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_01: How cool would it be if you already had a spiritual practice?
• 32:56
  SPEAKER_01: How cool would it be if you already had a really strong relationship with God, a really mature faith with Jesus before the storm hit.
• 33:05
  SPEAKER_01: And I'll tell y'all, it has been so fascinating for me over this last year.
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_01: I wouldn't say that we've gone through less storms.
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_01: And in fact, I've talked about this.
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_01: One of the storms that I recently went through was a similar storm that I went through in February, March of 2025.
• 33:20
  SPEAKER_01: So 15 months later, going through the exact same storm, and yet it's so much easier to weather because I've gained the wisdom.
• 33:27
  SPEAKER_01: I remember the practical experience of calling on God.
• 33:30
  SPEAKER_01: And then after that, I got deeper into his word and understanding him better and writing the law on my heart, allowing God to write the law on my heart.
• 33:39
  SPEAKER_01: There is a difference between just carrying the words on a page and carrying them in your heart.
• 33:44
  SPEAKER_01: There's a difference between just being able to spout out of scripture and truly feeling it within.
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_01: There's a difference between like knowing God calls you to rest and take a Sabbath and closing the laptop, even when you feel afraid that everything's gonna fall apart if you do.
• 34:03
  SPEAKER_01: This is something that I've gone through recently.
• 34:05
  SPEAKER_01: We had something that we thought was gonna happen get delayed by weeks.
• 34:09
  SPEAKER_01: And in the past, what I would have done is scrambled to do something.
• 34:15
  SPEAKER_01: I would have ran ahead of God.
• 34:16
  SPEAKER_01: I probably wouldn't have even prayed to him.
• 34:18
  SPEAKER_01: And I kept praying and I was like, God, what do you want me to do?
• 34:21
  SPEAKER_01: And he was like, wait.
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_01: I just kept hearing, wait.
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_01: And y'all, that was one of the toughest things to do.
• 34:30
  SPEAKER_01: I wasn't very good at it.
• 34:31
  SPEAKER_01: I wasn't very good at waiting, and yet I was better at it than I used to be.
• 34:35
  SPEAKER_01: I was actually able to listen to him and hear him.
• 34:38
  SPEAKER_01: And as he was like, wait, I'm like, okay, I will sit here.
• 34:40
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna be uncomfortable.
• 34:42
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna stay sober-minded, but I'm gonna stay sober the way that I've talked about on here.
• 34:46
  SPEAKER_01: I'm staying sober.
• 34:47
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not going to change what I'm doing.
• 34:48
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna just keep waiting and I'm gonna trust you.
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_01: And then also I'm gonna keep bringing my dysregulation around the fact that this feels tough.
• 34:53
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna keep bringing it to you.
• 34:55
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 34:56
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm gonna trust that anytime I start to sink, anytime that I take my eyes off of you and start to pay attention to how big the waves are or how loud the wind is, I'm gonna, I'm gonna trust that I can call out to you every single time and you're gonna grab my hand every single time.
• 35:13
  SPEAKER_00: I see leaders struggle with this so much.
• 35:18
  SPEAKER_01: And if this is you, you are not alone.
• 35:20
  SPEAKER_01: And this is actually part of the reason that I know God put me through this, and I'll share more about that in a minute, is because I know how many of you are out there that you know in your heart the right thing to do, and it's really just putting it into practice.
• 35:37
  SPEAKER_01: You know that you are supposed to keep your eyes fixed on Jesus, you know that you are supposed to end that contract that's not serving you, you know that you're supposed to go tell that person the truth.
• 35:46
  SPEAKER_01: You know that you're supposed to go send that email, you know you're supposed to go record the podcast, you know you're supposed to stop offering that thing, and you know supernaturally, like the Holy Spirit has made it very clear.
• 35:56
  SPEAKER_01: He has convicted you, and it's gonna cost you something in your flesh and the wind and the waves are big and loud, and you start sinking because you're afraid.
• 36:07
  SPEAKER_00: You are afraid.
• 36:11
  SPEAKER_01: Because the physical reality of what you are seeing in front of you versus the spiritual reality of what you know to be true, they are coming up together and they are butting heads, and that is double-mindedness.
• 36:24
  SPEAKER_01: That is what James is talking about when he is speaking to these people who are mature in their faith, who know the law.
• 36:30
  SPEAKER_01: He's saying to people who have studied Torah, studied scripture their entire life, who are now adding this new Christian context onto it because they believe and they've received the Holy Spirit.
• 36:39
  SPEAKER_01: He's saying, Hey, look, you know the law, and adding the Holy Spirit to it here, you know the physical piece of this.
• 36:50
  SPEAKER_01: Add the spiritual piece on, and don't be double-minded.
• 36:54
  SPEAKER_01: And it makes sense that you would be double-minded because you have experience, you have practical experience.
• 37:00
  SPEAKER_01: I want to bring this back to Peter because Peter knows who Jesus is.
• 37:05
  SPEAKER_01: Peter has to decide as he steps out on that water and starts to walk.
• 37:09
  SPEAKER_00: He has to decide is what I know about Jesus gonna stay outside of me or am I going to embody it?
• 37:23
  SPEAKER_00: Because it's one thing to hand him a loaf of bread.
• 37:29
  SPEAKER_01: It's one thing to walk with him and watch him perform miracles, it's another thing entirely to personally step out of the boat and to walk on something that my physical mind and body understand should not be possible, but for Jesus.
• 37:49
  SPEAKER_00: So Peter embodies his faith when he steps out of the boat.
• 37:55
  SPEAKER_01: Embodied wisdom is what gets expressed.
• 38:00
  SPEAKER_01: And it's so funny.
• 38:01
  SPEAKER_01: God leads me to Bible verses sometimes, and sometimes all he will do is he'll be like, He did this to me the other day.
• 38:07
  SPEAKER_01: Mark, I think it was Mark chapter 7, uh, verses 5 through 17.
• 38:11
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, Okay, I haven't read Mark in a year and a half, but sure, why not?
• 38:17
  SPEAKER_01: I have no idea what that is.
• 38:18
  SPEAKER_01: That whole thing is talking about how the Jewish people, the Pharisees, are so focused on what they are putting in and if they are taking the right things in.
• 38:29
  SPEAKER_01: And Jesus is saying, it's not what goes in your mouth that defiles your lips, it's what comes out.
• 38:37
  SPEAKER_01: So, like, you can read a leadership book and learn how to have a hard conversation and you can do all of those things, and then you can get into the boardroom and you can snap at your colleague.
• 38:48
  SPEAKER_01: You can know that boundaries are healthy, and then at 10:45 on a Friday night, when you should be like, and when I say should, like you know it's the right thing to do, you know that you should be spending time with your family or going to bed.
• 39:00
  SPEAKER_01: You're still on your laptop.
• 39:03
  SPEAKER_01: You know God has called you, He's created you for something.
• 39:06
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe you you even already stepped into it in a good amount, but he's asking you to take this other step, and you're like, I don't know, God.
• 39:12
  SPEAKER_01: I know you've taken me like these 50 steps, but I don't know about that 51.
• 39:18
  SPEAKER_00: I know it's what I should be doing.
• 39:21
  SPEAKER_01: I've taken in the wisdom to understand, and I've got the context and it makes sense, but I'm not living it.
• 39:30
  SPEAKER_01: So at this point, I want y'all to just stop and think like, where has God already shown you in his word what you need to do next, what you know you need to do?
• 39:41
  SPEAKER_01: That you're still treating like information that he gave you rather than an invitation.
• 39:45
  SPEAKER_01: And by the way, I'm calling you in as much as I am calling myself in right now, because this is what God's been doing for me.
• 39:52
  SPEAKER_01: Y'all, that first part one, I recorded like a month ago.
• 39:57
  SPEAKER_01: And then I got stuck, I got distracted by winds and waves and this exciting thing that might be happening, but that also felt really dysregulating.
• 40:05
  SPEAKER_01: And then through that entire experience where I'm submitting and surrendering to God and asking him for wisdom and asking him for help and keeping my eyes on him, and I'm stepping out of the boat, I'm slowly starting to sink because what I'm doing is I'm not remembering that God called me to speak and to write.
• 40:26
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm moving in the direction.
• 40:28
  SPEAKER_01: I've stepped out of the boat, I'm confidently doing it, but now there's winds and there's waves and they're loud, and I'm not writing and I'm not speaking.
• 40:38
  SPEAKER_00: And I know it in my bones that's what he told me to do, and yet I'm struggling to do it.
• 40:45
  SPEAKER_00: So where do you know the next step?
• 40:50
  SPEAKER_01: But you're waiting to feel more qualified, safer, more certain before you take it?
• 40:55
  SPEAKER_01: That's my question in this section for you.
• 40:58
  SPEAKER_01: Is like, where do you know?
• 41:00
  SPEAKER_00: Where do you know that God is convicting you and he is going like Lee?
• 41:04
  SPEAKER_00: Come on.
• 41:07
  SPEAKER_00: And you are hesitating.
• 41:11
  SPEAKER_00: What would it look like for God's instruction to move from your head to your calendar, to your conversations, to your habits, to your decisions?
• 41:18
  SPEAKER_00: What would it look like?
• 41:24
  SPEAKER_00: The information is what's going to help prepare you to leave the boat.
• 41:27
  SPEAKER_01: It cannot do the walking for you.
• 41:29
  SPEAKER_01: All right?
• 41:30
  SPEAKER_01: The way you walk, the way you embody wisdom, what comes out of your mouth, what you write, what you speak, that is what shows you who you are.
• 41:40
  SPEAKER_01: That is what shows you what you value.
• 41:42
  SPEAKER_01: That is what shows you what you believe.
• 41:45
  SPEAKER_01: Walking with Jesus means it's not that you're never going to get distracted by the wind.
• 41:49
  SPEAKER_01: It's not that you're never going to struggle with those things, but it means that you're going to learn what to do in the moment that you realize you're double-minded.
• 41:58
  SPEAKER_01: I started taking the physical stuff that I'm seeing in front of me and caring about that more than the spiritual stuff.
• 42:04
  SPEAKER_01: I've started weighing the short-term comfort over the long-term sanctification.
• 42:13
  SPEAKER_01: I've allowed my flesh to war with what my soul and my spirit know.
• 42:20
  SPEAKER_01: And this is creating division within.
• 42:36
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 42:37
  SPEAKER_00: So I think the thing to highlight here is that mature faith knows what to do in those moments where you start to sink.
• 42:48
  SPEAKER_01: So I mentioned that in the that moment where the the power's out and everything's dark, and God is like, Will you have little faith to me?
• 42:57
  SPEAKER_01: And I was realizing, I'm teaching on this thing that I'm not embodying.
• 43:01
  SPEAKER_01: I'm teaching on this thing that I'm not embodying.
• 43:03
  SPEAKER_01: And I didn't have that language at the time.
• 43:05
  SPEAKER_01: I have that language now.
• 43:06
  SPEAKER_01: And of course, I think God is so good because that's why I'm recording this now, is because now I have the language for it.
• 43:11
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes things take a minute to settle in.
• 43:14
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes that that pause, that delay, that interruption is exactly what you need.
• 43:18
  SPEAKER_01: And so I looked over to my right where I told y'all I had that bookshelf and I see four of my old journals and I hear clear as a bell, go back through your old journals.
• 43:28
  SPEAKER_01: Y'all, I had 33 journals that were most, if not all the way full.
• 43:33
  SPEAKER_01: 33 journals.
• 43:35
  SPEAKER_01: That's wild.
• 43:36
  SPEAKER_01: It took me 40 hours to go through them, and I had to take breaks because I was going through a period in my life where I am turned almost completely away from God.
• 43:45
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm watching as I'm going through and reflecting on these things.
• 43:49
  SPEAKER_01: You want to embody wisdom, keep a record of everything you've done, and then go review it.
• 43:55
  SPEAKER_01: Go back through it.
• 43:56
  SPEAKER_01: You're gonna see a lot of lessons in there.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm watching, and the thing that I'm tracking as I'm going through this, there's several things, but the the main thing I'm tracking is what does my relationship with God look like through this?
• 44:10
  SPEAKER_01: And in the beginning, I'm writing Bible verses and I'm talking to him and I'm calling him God.
• 44:15
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm actually in my journal talking about how I don't really understand Jesus, which is wild to think about because at that point I had taught Sunday school.
• 44:25
  SPEAKER_01: I had been going to church for years.
• 44:27
  SPEAKER_01: I had gone through RCIA, now OCIA, as a Catholic.
• 44:30
  SPEAKER_01: I had been through Bible study.
• 44:32
  SPEAKER_01: I had gone to youth group.
• 44:33
  SPEAKER_01: I had done all these things, but I didn't get Jesus.
• 44:35
  SPEAKER_01: The Holy Spirit was in me, but he was a flicker of a flame.
• 44:39
  SPEAKER_01: I did not understand him.
• 44:42
  SPEAKER_01: I just knew who he was.
• 44:46
  SPEAKER_01: There's a video about this.
• 44:48
  SPEAKER_01: I can't remember who did it.
• 44:48
  SPEAKER_01: If y'all know who it is, you can email in or share in.
• 44:51
  SPEAKER_01: He talks about, like, oh yeah, you know LeBron James, right?
• 44:54
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I know who LeBron James is, but I don't know LeBron James.
• 44:59
  SPEAKER_01: I know of people.
• 45:01
  SPEAKER_01: I know they exist.
• 45:02
  SPEAKER_01: I know the positions they hold.
• 45:04
  SPEAKER_01: I can name some facts and figures about them, but I don't know them.
• 45:09
  SPEAKER_00: I don't understand them.
• 45:14
  SPEAKER_00: So that's where I was.
• 45:16
  SPEAKER_01: I was even writing, like, oh, I want Jesus to be my big brother and best friend.
• 45:19
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I'm I don't understand the Holy Spirit and Jesus, which means I don't understand God, by the way.
• 45:24
  SPEAKER_01: Because that Trinity, like, they they work together.
• 45:28
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm going through this and I'm watching myself, and I can pinpoint the exact moment.
• 45:36
  SPEAKER_01: And if any of you have ever had this, I'm sharing this with you.
• 45:39
  SPEAKER_01: This is vulnerable for me.
• 45:41
  SPEAKER_01: It's not often that you can pinpoint the exact moment that you turn away from God.
• 45:46
  SPEAKER_01: But some people can.
• 45:48
  SPEAKER_01: I can pinpoint the exact moment that I made a choice to take my eyes off him and go a different direction and let the storm mean more to me than him holding out his hand.
• 45:59
  SPEAKER_01: And I started doing this manifesting exercise because I just joined this new age spiritual community because I still believed that I could believe in God and Jesus and be Christian and also believe in all of these new age spiritual practices.
• 46:13
  SPEAKER_01: Guess what?
• 46:14
  SPEAKER_01: They don't go together.
• 46:16
  SPEAKER_01: They don't go together.
• 46:19
  SPEAKER_01: Jesus and these new age spiritual practices don't go together.
• 46:23
  SPEAKER_01: Jesus loves every single person.
• 46:25
  SPEAKER_01: Please do not hear what I'm not saying.
• 46:27
  SPEAKER_01: Jesus loves everyone and these practices that I started doing, these manifestation practices, you can watch the trajectory.
• 46:36
  SPEAKER_01: You can watch me fall away from him.
• 46:38
  SPEAKER_01: You can watch me get more prideful.
• 46:39
  SPEAKER_01: You can watch me lose the fruits of the Spirit.
• 46:41
  SPEAKER_01: I get less patient, I get less kind, I get less peaceful, I get less joyful, I get less loving, I get less discipline and self-control.
• 46:49
  SPEAKER_01: I get less steadfastness and faithfulness in Jesus.
• 46:55
  SPEAKER_01: And I start believing in the God of self.
• 46:59
  SPEAKER_01: I start worshiping myself.
• 47:02
  SPEAKER_01: And it's all about better and deeper and stronger and more and faster and pleasure and excitement and abundance.
• 47:09
  SPEAKER_01: And it's all focused on all of these like physical, tangible things.
• 47:14
  SPEAKER_01: It's focused on the wind and the waves.
• 47:18
  SPEAKER_01: And at first I'm just talking to God, because that's how I journal.
• 47:21
  SPEAKER_01: I write dear God.
• 47:22
  SPEAKER_01: And then I start writing dear God slash universe.
• 47:25
  SPEAKER_01: And then I start writing dear source.
• 47:27
  SPEAKER_01: And then I start writing dear feminine, oh gosh, what was it?
• 47:31
  SPEAKER_01: Divine feminine.
• 47:33
  SPEAKER_01: And a P word that I can't even say on here without it getting an explicit rating.
• 47:40
  SPEAKER_01: And I start worshiping false gods.
• 47:47
  SPEAKER_01: Now, I think this is why I have so much compassion for Peter because Peter doesn't do any of that.
• 47:54
  SPEAKER_01: But in Peter's story, what does he do?
• 47:56
  SPEAKER_01: If you've been in Sunday school, if you've been to Easter Sunday, if you've been in church, you've probably heard the story of Peter denying Jesus three times.
• 48:09
  SPEAKER_01: And he does that after this story that we're talking about today.
• 48:13
  SPEAKER_01: He does that after Jesus literally saves him from drowning while he's walking on water and continues to help him walk.
• 48:22
  SPEAKER_01: I think Peter gets a really hard time in this story and in all the stories.
• 48:29
  SPEAKER_01: But the thing that I love about Peter is that Peter gets out of the boat.
• 48:32
  SPEAKER_01: He doesn't wait for the water to become still.
• 48:34
  SPEAKER_01: He doesn't ask Jesus for a five-year plan.
• 48:36
  SPEAKER_01: He doesn't ask him to explain how water works.
• 48:39
  SPEAKER_01: Jesus says, Come, Peter goes.
• 48:42
  SPEAKER_01: And when he starts to sink, he cries out to Jesus.
• 48:46
  SPEAKER_01: Now, I wish that I could say that I cried out to Jesus that quickly.
• 48:49
  SPEAKER_01: I did not.
• 48:51
  SPEAKER_01: There's moments in my story where I'm watching it, and there's a moment where God will come back in.
• 48:56
  SPEAKER_01: And it's usually a really bad moment.
• 48:58
  SPEAKER_01: It's usually a moment that I am sinking.
• 49:01
  SPEAKER_00: It's a moment that I am sinking.
• 49:06
  SPEAKER_00: And I cry out and God pulls me up just enough.
• 49:12
  SPEAKER_00: God save me.
• 49:14
  SPEAKER_00: And he does.
• 49:15
  SPEAKER_00: And then I go right back.
• 49:18
  SPEAKER_01: I think the important part about this story is to understand that it does not matter how long you have been turned away from him.
• 49:23
  SPEAKER_01: It does not matter if you've been embodying all of these different kinds of wisdom.
• 49:26
  SPEAKER_01: If you earnestly and wholeheartedly call on Jesus, he will come.
• 49:32
  SPEAKER_01: Not after you perform better, not after you save yourself halfway, immediately.
• 49:38
  SPEAKER_01: And that word immediately is important.
• 49:39
  SPEAKER_01: I mentioned this in part one.
• 49:41
  SPEAKER_01: Immediate is not a word that gets used in the Bible like at all.
• 49:46
  SPEAKER_01: The only place that this word immediate gets used is here in this story, twice.
• 50:03
  SPEAKER_01: He has these experiences with Jesus that are so miraculous that all of us are like, if I ever experienced that, like I would embody that wisdom and I would never leave Jesus again.
• 50:14
  SPEAKER_01: Well, Peter is the rock that Jesus built his church on.
• 50:18
  SPEAKER_00: And Peter, after this story, denies Jesus.
• 50:24
  SPEAKER_01: So the idea that we are better than Peter, the idea that we would do better with him, this is something we do in today's day and age with all the information we have.
• 50:34
  SPEAKER_01: We're like, oh, well, I would.
• 50:35
  SPEAKER_01: No, you wouldn't.
• 50:36
  SPEAKER_01: You wouldn't.
• 50:38
  SPEAKER_01: Humans have been doing this for thousands of years.
• 50:40
  SPEAKER_01: This is one of the beautiful parts of the context of the Bible.
• 50:42
  SPEAKER_01: The Old Testament is full of this.
• 50:43
  SPEAKER_01: It shows this is the pattern.
• 50:46
  SPEAKER_01: We get saved.
• 50:49
  SPEAKER_01: God helps us.
• 50:50
  SPEAKER_01: We get abundance.
• 50:51
  SPEAKER_01: We get plenty.
• 50:52
  SPEAKER_01: We start getting prideful.
• 50:53
  SPEAKER_01: We start thinking we did it on our own.
• 50:55
  SPEAKER_01: We start falling away from God.
• 50:57
  SPEAKER_01: Things work for a while, and then all of a sudden they don't start working because Jesus and God, like they're no longer got their hands stretched out over us, protecting us because we have denied them.
• 51:06
  SPEAKER_01: We have pushed them away with our own free will.
• 51:08
  SPEAKER_01: Things start to go really poorly.
• 51:10
  SPEAKER_01: We try to do things in our own strength.
• 51:12
  SPEAKER_01: We try to fix it.
• 51:12
  SPEAKER_01: We try to change it.
• 51:13
  SPEAKER_01: We try to make it better.
• 51:15
  SPEAKER_01: And we hit the ground and we call on Jesus.
• 51:17
  SPEAKER_01: We start drowning and we call on Jesus.
• 51:18
  SPEAKER_01: We call on God.
• 51:19
  SPEAKER_01: And He saves this again.
• 51:21
  SPEAKER_01: It's how it works.
• 51:22
  SPEAKER_01: This happened in the Old Testament so many times.
• 51:26
  SPEAKER_01: It's why Jesus is necessary.
• 51:28
  SPEAKER_01: Because if it were just up to us to save ourselves, we've proven we can't.
• 51:35
  SPEAKER_01: We're incapable of a long faith without Jesus.
• 51:39
  SPEAKER_01: This is why the Holy Spirit is so important.
• 51:43
  SPEAKER_01: Because the Holy Spirit, when it lives inside of our hearts and we allow it to guide us, it's going to convict us whenever we start to sink.
• 51:57
  SPEAKER_01: We want to grow in our sanctification and we want to grow in our faith.
• 52:03
  SPEAKER_01: But I want to invite you to think about this in a different way.
• 52:06
  SPEAKER_01: Because what I noticed in my journals is that when I hit that rock bottom moment and I called out, that journal is missing.
• 52:14
  SPEAKER_01: I know the exact moment I turned away.
• 52:16
  SPEAKER_01: I remember in my brain, I remember in my body the exact moment I came back, but I can't tell you timeline-wise exactly where it happened.
• 52:24
  SPEAKER_01: I know it was in a three-month period and that journal is missing, and I don't know what I did with it.
• 52:30
  SPEAKER_01: But what I know is that in the journal after that, you start seeing me talking to God, and I am being more real and more honest and more vulnerable, and I'm feeling a lot of feelings.
• 52:41
  SPEAKER_01: I'm angry, I'm frustrated, I'm tired.
• 52:44
  SPEAKER_01: I am questioning him.
• 52:45
  SPEAKER_01: I am pulling a full-on job.
• 52:49
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 52:50
  SPEAKER_01: Why?
• 52:50
  SPEAKER_01: Why'd you do it like this?
• 52:51
  SPEAKER_01: Why is it like this?
• 52:52
  SPEAKER_01: What's going on?
• 52:53
  SPEAKER_01: But I'm doing it from this very earnest place.
• 52:55
  SPEAKER_01: I'm doing it from this place of like, God, I don't understand and I want to understand you.
• 52:59
  SPEAKER_01: God, I don't get you and I want to get you better.
• 53:01
  SPEAKER_01: I don't get Jesus.
• 53:02
  SPEAKER_01: I don't get the Holy Spirit.
• 53:03
  SPEAKER_01: I don't get why you are the way and the truth and the light.
• 53:06
  SPEAKER_01: Why don't any of these other ways work?
• 53:08
  SPEAKER_01: Why don't any of these other faiths work?
• 53:10
  SPEAKER_01: The Pope says that they have a ray of truth in them, but why is it just a ray and not full light?
• 53:14
  SPEAKER_01: What is it?
• 53:17
  SPEAKER_01: Why do I need to do it this way?
• 53:19
  SPEAKER_01: But I'm not asking in this judgmental way.
• 53:21
  SPEAKER_01: I'm asking in a curious way.
• 53:22
  SPEAKER_01: I'm asking in a desperate way.
• 53:24
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, God, please save me.
• 53:25
  SPEAKER_00: Help me stop drowning.
• 53:27
  SPEAKER_00: Help me stop looking away from you.
• 53:34
  SPEAKER_00: I want after this podcast to invite you to go read James again.
• 53:40
  SPEAKER_01: Chapter 1, verses 2 through 8.
• 53:42
  SPEAKER_01: James, chapter 1, verses 2 through 8.
• 53:44
  SPEAKER_01: I want to invite you to read the whole passage slowly.
• 53:49
  SPEAKER_01: And there's some points in here I want you to catch.
• 53:52
  SPEAKER_01: I'm going to say them now so that when you see them, it will remind you.
• 53:56
  SPEAKER_01: All right.
• 53:56
  SPEAKER_01: The testing of your faith produces steadfastness.
• 54:00
  SPEAKER_01: Let steadfastness have its full effect.
• 54:04
  SPEAKER_01: If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God.
• 54:08
  SPEAKER_01: Let him ask in faith with no doubting.
• 54:12
  SPEAKER_01: A double-minded person is unstable in all of their ways.
• 54:19
  SPEAKER_01: My final point is that maturity is not self-sufficiency.
• 54:24
  SPEAKER_01: God is not maturing us in our faith as Christians, as leaders, to get to a point that we don't need him anymore.
• 54:31
  SPEAKER_01: I'm going to say that again because that realization is new for me in the last four weeks.
• 54:39
  SPEAKER_01: Like I understood that.
• 54:51
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not doing that so that I never need them again.
• 54:56
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not doing that so that I get to the point that I'm like, okay, I've arrived.
• 54:59
  SPEAKER_01: I don't need you anymore, God.
• 55:01
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much.
• 55:02
  SPEAKER_01: But a lot of us think about it like this, right?
• 55:04
  SPEAKER_01: We think about maturity as getting to the point that you don't need anybody else to give you wisdom anymore.
• 55:10
  SPEAKER_01: You don't need any outside help.
• 55:12
  SPEAKER_01: You're going to know what to do and you're going to know how to do it.
• 55:15
  SPEAKER_01: I will tell you this as an agency owner, my husband will tell you as well.
• 55:20
  SPEAKER_01: We've had these conversations with clients the last several months.
• 55:27
  SPEAKER_01: Maturity is not self-sufficiency.
• 55:29
  SPEAKER_01: Maturity is recognizing when you actually need wisdom from an outside source.
• 55:35
  SPEAKER_01: And look, maybe you need wisdom by looking back at your past self and recognizing how much you've grown.
• 55:41
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe you need wisdom by talking to someone who's a few years ahead of you.
• 55:44
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe you need wisdom by talking to someone who's never gone through what you've gone through and having them reflect back on what they're seeing.
• 55:49
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe you need to talk to somebody who's gone through exactly what you've gone through.
• 55:53
  SPEAKER_01: But maturity is not about becoming someone who doesn't need help.
• 55:57
  SPEAKER_00: It's knowing where to go when you realize you're scared.
• 56:02
  SPEAKER_00: It's knowing where to go when you realize that you are afraid.
• 56:34
  SPEAKER_01: Peter is so incredibly mature in his faith at this point.
• 56:38
  SPEAKER_01: And I think we miss it in the stories because the whole goal is for us not to get to the point that we never need Jesus.
• 56:47
  SPEAKER_01: The goal is to stretch out these points of time that we are keeping our eyes fully fixed on him and to have these moments where it's a little bit of faith and then I lose them, and a little bit of faith and I lose them, and a little bit of faith, and I lose them, and a little bit of faith, and I lose them.
• 57:00
  SPEAKER_01: To oh, I'm focusing on him this entire time, and then I lose him for a minute, but then I'm focusing on him for this entire time, and then I lose him a bit.
• 57:09
  SPEAKER_01: We want to start connecting the moments of faith and having them extend out.
• 57:14
  SPEAKER_01: But notice that doesn't mean that you're gonna need Jesus less.
• 57:19
  SPEAKER_01: That doesn't mean you call on God less.
• 57:22
  SPEAKER_01: That doesn't mean you meditate on what the Holy Spirit is trying to show you and the wisdom that God is trying to inspire within you.
• 57:30
  SPEAKER_01: That doesn't mean that you call on that less, it means you call on that more.
• 57:34
  SPEAKER_01: It means you're doing it continuously.
• 57:38
  SPEAKER_01: And it means that you are not scared to ask God why.
• 57:45
  SPEAKER_01: You are not scared to ask God why.
• 57:47
  SPEAKER_01: God, why am I in this storm?
• 57:50
  SPEAKER_01: But it's not from the perspective of an immature faith.
• 57:53
  SPEAKER_01: An immature faith says, God, I don't understand this, so it must be wrong.
• 57:57
  SPEAKER_01: God, I don't understand this, and it's not meeting my expectations, so I'm upset with you.
• 58:03
  SPEAKER_01: Jesus, you must not be right because I'm looking at the situation and I'm outside of this boat, but I should be able to walk on the water and you should have calmed the wind, you should have calmed the waves, you should have done this.
• 58:13
  SPEAKER_01: We're we are outside of that conversation.
• 58:16
  SPEAKER_01: If you start noticing yourself going there, that's when you pause and you pray and you say, Hey, God, bring me back to you.
• 58:22
  SPEAKER_01: Because this resistance I'm doing is covering up a deeper emotion.
• 58:27
  SPEAKER_01: This fighting I'm doing with you is covering up a deeper emotion, and that deeper emotion is fear.
• 58:32
  SPEAKER_01: That deeper emotion is I'm afraid, God.
• 58:34
  SPEAKER_01: I'm afraid because I'm doubting who you are, and I'm doubting who I am to you.
• 58:38
  SPEAKER_00: I'm doubting who you've told me you are, and I'm doubting who you've told me I am to you.
• 58:48
  SPEAKER_00: The mature faith goes, God, hey, um I'm really struggling.
• 58:54
  SPEAKER_01: This doesn't make sense to me.
• 58:56
  SPEAKER_01: And even if you never show me the answer to this, I'll keep going.
• 59:00
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna just keep doing what I think you're calling me to do.
• 59:03
  SPEAKER_01: And God, anytime I start doing this in my own strength and my own will, anytime I start running past you or I sit down when you're trying to get me to move, can you help me see it?
• 59:11
  SPEAKER_00: Can you help me notice it?
• 59:16
  SPEAKER_00: You ask for wisdom.
• 59:19
  SPEAKER_00: Now, here's the prayer, okay?
• 59:21
  SPEAKER_00: You can copy this.
• 59:22
  SPEAKER_01: Please copy my paper.
• 59:23
  SPEAKER_01: God, I do not understand this.
• 59:28
  SPEAKER_01: And I am scared and I don't like it.
• 59:32
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm still surrendered to your will.
• 59:35
  SPEAKER_01: Give me the wisdom to see what you want me to see.
• 59:39
  SPEAKER_01: Give me the strength to continue walking by faith.
• 59:46
  SPEAKER_01: Give me your peace and your joy to be able to stay regulated in this moment where everything feels so chaotic.
• 59:55
  SPEAKER_01: And to find these little moments of happiness, even when it's so difficult.
• 1:00:02
  SPEAKER_01: And most importantly, God, help me take the next step that you've already shown me because that's the part, y'all.
• 1:00:07
  SPEAKER_01: Peter already knew where he was supposed to be walking.
• 1:00:11
  SPEAKER_01: Peter knew he was supposed to be walking forward.
• 1:00:16
  SPEAKER_01: He wasn't confused about what he was supposed to be doing.
• 1:00:20
  SPEAKER_01: It was just that the wind and the waves got so loud that he forgot.
• 1:00:24
  SPEAKER_01: We don't want to invalidate the wind.
• 1:00:26
  SPEAKER_01: We don't want to invalidate the waves.
• 1:00:28
  SPEAKER_01: We don't want to invalidate the external storm.
• 1:00:30
  SPEAKER_01: I am not saying that the financial struggles or the relational struggles or the health struggles or the professional struggles you are going through.
• 1:00:38
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not saying that those aren't real.
• 1:00:39
  SPEAKER_01: They're very real.
• 1:00:40
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 1:00:42
  SPEAKER_00: But when we allow fear that is whipped up out here to decide what happens in here, we become the storm.
• 1:00:55
  SPEAKER_01: We become the storm.
• 1:00:58
  SPEAKER_01: There are winds within us between our flesh and our spirit that start fighting, that start whipping around.
• 1:01:06
  SPEAKER_01: And that's double-mindedness.
• 1:01:09
  SPEAKER_01: It's God, I know you told me to end this contract, but I need the money.
• 1:01:13
  SPEAKER_01: God, I know you told me to go sober, but when I drink, I'm nicer to my family.
• 1:01:19
  SPEAKER_01: And when I don't have that glass of wine, I'm way shorter.
• 1:01:23
  SPEAKER_01: And don't you want me to love them?
• 1:01:25
  SPEAKER_01: God, I know you told me to rest, but I'm really scared of what's gonna happen if I stop.
• 1:01:30
  SPEAKER_01: I know you told me to put that offer out to the universe.
• 1:01:34
  SPEAKER_01: Ooh, see?
• 1:01:35
  SPEAKER_01: Ooh, hoo, hoo.
• 1:01:38
  SPEAKER_01: That patterning's still there.
• 1:01:39
  SPEAKER_01: Gotta catch it.
• 1:01:40
  SPEAKER_01: I know you told me to put that offering out to other people who need it.
• 1:01:45
  SPEAKER_01: But I need one more person to look at it.
• 1:01:48
  SPEAKER_01: I need to just fix the copy one more time.
• 1:01:50
  SPEAKER_01: I need to just look over the thing one more time.
• 1:01:52
  SPEAKER_01: I need to just wait one more day.
• 1:01:54
  SPEAKER_01: God, this is mine.
• 1:01:56
  SPEAKER_01: I I know you told me to write and to speak and to create and to teach people, but I want you to make it feel safer before I do it.
• 1:02:05
  SPEAKER_01: And these are questions I had to ask myself.
• 1:02:07
  SPEAKER_01: Am I asking God for wisdom or am I asking him to give me enough information to feel like I'm in control?
• 1:02:17
  SPEAKER_01: 18 months ago, I got a pretty clear vision that this that in August everything would be different.
• 1:02:27
  SPEAKER_01: Everything would be different.
• 1:02:29
  SPEAKER_01: So in like January of 2025, everything will be different in August.
• 1:02:32
  SPEAKER_01: And I heard that everything will be different in August.
• 1:02:34
  SPEAKER_01: Things are gonna fundamentally change for you in August.
• 1:02:37
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, me, I like a plan.
• 1:02:39
  SPEAKER_01: So I was like, this is phenomenal.
• 1:02:40
  SPEAKER_01: I'm so excited.
• 1:02:41
  SPEAKER_01: This is so great.
• 1:02:43
  SPEAKER_01: And then that August came and it went.
• 1:02:46
  SPEAKER_01: And on September 1st, I remember I was really upset and I said, you know, I might have been complaining some.
• 1:02:51
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know that it was a mature prayer, but I was like, God, I do not understand this.
• 1:02:54
  SPEAKER_01: And I heard clear as a bell.
• 1:02:56
  SPEAKER_01: Did I say this August?
• 1:02:59
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, oh man.
• 1:03:02
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I heard what I wanted to hear.
• 1:03:05
  SPEAKER_01: I interpreted two plus two equals four to mean what I wanted it to mean.
• 1:03:09
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't take it back to you.
• 1:03:10
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't ask the Holy Spirit to test it.
• 1:03:12
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't do any of those things that I now know that I should have done.
• 1:03:17
  SPEAKER_01: And so I heard it's next August.
• 1:03:19
  SPEAKER_01: I said, okay, great.
• 1:03:20
  SPEAKER_01: And so I approached this last year differently because I was like, okay, well, now that I know what it looks like to prepare from January to August that last year, how can I prepare from this August to next August?
• 1:03:31
  SPEAKER_01: And so you can ask the people around me.
• 1:03:34
  SPEAKER_01: I have grown and embodied a lot of wisdom.
• 1:03:37
  SPEAKER_01: And there was one more lesson God needed me to learn.
• 1:03:42
  SPEAKER_01: And the lesson was if your eyes are fixed on Jesus, then it doesn't matter where you're going.
• 1:03:50
  SPEAKER_01: It doesn't matter when things work out, it doesn't matter how long things take.
• 1:03:55
  SPEAKER_01: It doesn't matter if what you thought was going to happen is what actually happens.
• 1:03:58
  SPEAKER_01: Were your eyes fixed on Jesus?
• 1:03:59
  SPEAKER_01: Were you following him?
• 1:04:00
  SPEAKER_01: Were you surrendered and submitted to his will?
• 1:04:02
  SPEAKER_01: If the answer to that is yes, it doesn't matter.
• 1:04:06
  SPEAKER_01: You did what you were supposed to do.
• 1:04:07
  SPEAKER_01: You went where you were supposed to go.
• 1:04:09
  SPEAKER_01: You arrived where you were supposed to arrive.
• 1:04:12
  SPEAKER_01: And what shifted in August for me, because yesterday was August 31st, I'm recording this on September 1st.
• 1:04:18
  SPEAKER_01: The things that on August 1st and August 15th and August 22nd that I thought God was doing in me in August were not the things that He did in me.
• 1:04:26
  SPEAKER_01: What He did in me was go, hey, guess what?
• 1:04:33
  SPEAKER_00: You needed mature faith.
• 1:04:36
  SPEAKER_01: And so can you now mature to the point that if I reach out my hand, you're gonna walk with me wherever we go?
• 1:04:41
  SPEAKER_01: And yeah, you might get a little distracted, but you're gonna keep coming back.
• 1:04:45
  SPEAKER_01: And here's the crucial part, y'all.
• 1:04:47
  SPEAKER_01: If you take nothing else from this, take this.
• 1:04:52
  SPEAKER_00: Do not be so wise that you become foolish.
• 1:04:59
  SPEAKER_01: Do not become so certain of your relationship with Jesus and so sure that you know who He is and you know who God is and you know who the Holy Spirit is.
• 1:05:09
  SPEAKER_01: Don't become so sure that you fall away.
• 1:05:18
  SPEAKER_01: Peter taught us this too.
• 1:05:20
  SPEAKER_01: Peter taught us you're so sure that you know how things are gonna go because you're so sure that you know who Jesus is.
• 1:05:29
  SPEAKER_01: We will not fully know who Jesus is until we die.
• 1:05:34
  SPEAKER_01: We will not fully know who God is until we die.
• 1:05:36
  SPEAKER_01: The Holy Spirit gives us a glimpse, and there are still so many mysteries around who He is and how He loves us, and we're not gonna discover those until we pass away from this life.
• 1:05:48
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 1:05:49
  SPEAKER_01: So, as leaders, you need to remain humble.
• 1:05:53
  SPEAKER_01: You need to remember, we need to remember that we're not God and that we don't know everything, and that we can.
• 1:06:00
  SPEAKER_01: Never know everything.
• 1:06:01
  SPEAKER_01: And that our desire to be so sure for things is actually going to make us less sure about anything because it's going to actually create the very storms that we're then going to ask God to help us get out of.
• 1:06:14
  SPEAKER_01: God will keep sending the same storms over and over if you're not learning the lesson.
• 1:06:18
  SPEAKER_01: And that was the lesson that I was like, oh, that was it.
• 1:06:22
  SPEAKER_01: And now September will be different.
• 1:06:24
  SPEAKER_01: And I am not proud enough to pretend that I couldn't end back up in this same spot.
• 1:06:30
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm inviting you, if you are getting through a storm and you are really starting to embody your wisdom in some places, that you don't make the mistake of being like, oh, thank goodness I'm through that storm.
• 1:06:42
  SPEAKER_01: And so storms are over.
• 1:06:43
  SPEAKER_01: And now I know there's gonna be another storm.
• 1:06:47
  SPEAKER_01: There's more wisdom to embody.
• 1:06:48
  SPEAKER_01: You're not done.
• 1:06:49
  SPEAKER_01: You won't be done until you die.
• 1:06:52
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 1:06:53
  SPEAKER_01: So embodied wisdom isn't that you stop falling.
• 1:06:57
  SPEAKER_01: It isn't that you become self-sufficient.
• 1:06:59
  SPEAKER_01: It isn't any of that.
• 1:07:00
  SPEAKER_01: It is that you string together these moments of little faith so that you have longer faith.
• 1:07:07
  SPEAKER_01: It is that you go back to the law and you write it on your heart and you don't just memorize it in your head.
• 1:07:12
  SPEAKER_01: And it is that you are willing to take the step out of the boat, even when it's scary, and even if you're feeling double-minded.
• 1:07:20
  SPEAKER_01: This happened this morning.
• 1:07:23
  SPEAKER_01: I had so much of an internal struggle getting started this morning and writing and speaking.
• 1:07:30
  SPEAKER_01: And I got to the point that I just said, hey, God, I'm gonna do this for five minutes because I want to follow you.
• 1:07:37
  SPEAKER_01: And also, like, I don't want to do this right now.
• 1:07:39
  SPEAKER_01: I don't want to speak, I don't want to teach, I don't want to do a podcast, I don't want to do any of this.
• 1:07:45
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I didn't even know what I was gonna be focusing on, but I was just like, God, I don't want to do any of this.
• 1:07:49
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm being honest with you, I'm gonna do it anyway, because it doesn't matter if I want to or not.
• 1:07:53
  SPEAKER_01: I'm keeping my eyes fixed on you.
• 1:07:54
  SPEAKER_01: So I got up and I started.
• 1:07:56
  SPEAKER_01: And guess which podcast was on the docket for me to edit?
• 1:08:00
  SPEAKER_01: Part one.
• 1:08:01
  SPEAKER_01: And you better believe that my husband was sitting next to me while I was editing part one, and he and I are just looking at each other in shock and awe.
• 1:08:12
  SPEAKER_01: And I must have paused and said five times, God is so good, because the lessons that I taught in that part one, I hadn't embodied when I taught them, but I embodied them in such a deeper way over the last several weeks to the point now that I can teach part two.
• 1:08:32
  SPEAKER_00: And so this was always meant to be part two, not the part that didn't get recorded.
• 1:08:39
  SPEAKER_01: This was part two, and I didn't know that, and God did.
• 1:08:43
  SPEAKER_01: So if this is the kind of wisdom and maturity and leadership that you are desiring to embody, if you are looking to learn in this way, not just to know, not just to understand, but embody the wisdom, we are creating a space called High Responsibility Humans.
• 1:09:05
  SPEAKER_01: And it is an online community, and it is a space for Christian leaders who really want this level, this depth, this maturity of faith.
• 1:09:18
  SPEAKER_01: All right.
• 1:09:19
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not even gonna walk y'all through it.
• 1:09:22
  SPEAKER_01: I've been talking for a hot minute now.
• 1:09:24
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna put the details in the show notes of the podcast.
• 1:09:29
  SPEAKER_01: All right.
• 1:09:29
  SPEAKER_01: We're gonna be launching it on TikTok and on our website shortly.
• 1:09:35
  SPEAKER_01: And if you just listen to all of this and you went, okay, yep, this is it.
• 1:09:41
  SPEAKER_01: This is where God's calling me to grow, then I would invite you to take high responsibility humans back to him and ask the Holy Spirit, is this the space you want me to learn it in?
• 1:09:53
  SPEAKER_01: And if it is, then come in and join us.
• 1:09:56
  SPEAKER_01: So I pray that if this didn't fully sink in and create that embodied wisdom today for you, or that it touched a part, but there's another part you got to sit with and chew on.
• 1:10:05
  SPEAKER_01: That's okay.
• 1:10:06
  SPEAKER_01: Sit with it, chew on it, come back and listen again.
• 1:10:09
  SPEAKER_00: And I pray that it works in you.
• 1:10:15
  SPEAKER_00: I pray you let it work in you.
• 1:10:18
  SPEAKER_01: I pray that you let this work in you and connect more of those moments of little faith so that you can be known by God and by some by others as a leader who really shows that steadfastness.
• 1:10:31
  SPEAKER_01: So love you all.
• 1:10:33
  SPEAKER_01: I will see you next week and be blessed.