Latest / Karl and Crew / How to Resurrect Your Dead Prayer Life with Dr. Bill Thrasher & AI Biblical Counseling with Dr. Eric Scalise
Transcript
- 0:00S1: Broadcasting from Chicago, across North America and beyond. It's Carl
- 0:05S1: and crew.
- 0:06S2: Come as you are an experienced guide, overcome what seems
- 0:11S2: impossible and live as you never imagined.
- 0:14S1: Start your morning with a laugh.
- 0:16S2: Cold spaghetti's. Great. Okay.
- 0:19S3: Okay, I disagree. I guess not. No, I guess certainly
- 0:22S3: it is not. No. Okay. Well, man, I'm going back.
- 0:26S2: To my bachelor days. I guess I like cold spaghetti
- 0:29S2: was universally loved.
- 0:31S4: I've never been known for, like, high levels of coordination.
- 0:34S4: That's just. And it feels like.
- 0:37S2: I've never been known for high levels of coordination.
- 0:42S1: Delivering the truth daily.
- 0:44S4: If it were possible to have every worldly gain available.
- 0:48S4: And you're forfeiting your soul. There's no amount of gain
- 0:52S4: that would make it worth it.
- 0:53S5: Our own way never ever works because it's apart from
- 0:56S5: the life source, which is God.
- 0:59S6: For me, growing up, love was always conditional and can
- 1:02S6: be taken from you. Christ love can't. And he went
- 1:06S6: to the cross with my mind and my heart that night.
- 1:10S1: Now from the call of Hope Studios, this is Carl
- 1:15S1: and crew.
- 1:16S4: Hey. Good morning. Welcome to Carl and crew, our 6:00
- 1:20S4: central time. Our listeners across the country though.
- 1:24S3: So yes, we do.
- 1:25S5: Sometimes it's right now it's 7:07.
- 1:27S4: A.m. for many of you. I hope, I hope the
- 1:30S4: rest of the day is going well.
- 1:31S5: Could be three in the afternoon. I don't know.
- 1:34S4: And if you're listening to our show cast, you could
- 1:36S4: be hearing this at an entirely different time. You know,
- 1:38S4: sports are such a great metaphor for life. Yeah. And
- 1:42S4: even if you don't consider yourself an athlete, I think
- 1:45S4: that there are things about athletes that people can most
- 1:49S4: people can look at and appreciate.
- 1:51S5: Yeah. You don't have to know all the ins and
- 1:54S5: outs of how football or basketball work to get the
- 1:58S5: story and to enjoy the story.
- 2:00S4: I don't consider myself a great athlete. I mean, I,
- 2:04S4: I played volleyball, I played a couple of years of
- 2:07S4: college volleyball, but I am I will be the first
- 2:09S4: to admit that I was. I was a solid volleyball player.
- 2:16S4: I was never the best.
- 2:18S5: Sure you weren't. You didn't have thoughts of Olympics.
- 2:22S4: No, I mean, I play, I play after two years
- 2:25S4: of college, I said, I think I'm done. Sure I
- 2:29S4: loved I really, truly did love the sport, but coaching
- 2:33S4: situations and an ankle injury, ultimately, I was like, I
- 2:37S4: think that this is I think it's run its course
- 2:40S4: for me, you know, but I, I look at my
- 2:43S4: husband who was a, a high level athlete and played professionally.
- 2:48S4: And then now I have two kids who both love basketball.
- 2:52S4: And I, you know, it's interesting the amount of things
- 2:54S4: I learned from my daughter who's a junior in high
- 2:57S4: school who has aspirations to play college basketball, women's college basketball.
- 3:04S4: And so she has totally learned from my husband. So
- 3:08S4: it's not like this is just kind of come out
- 3:10S4: of nowhere.
- 3:11S5: You know, she's had the right training.
- 3:13S4: But the level of drive and commitment that she has
- 3:17S4: to the simple things is what I find remarkable because
- 3:23S4: I know that I am I tend to want to
- 3:27S4: give up quickly. I mean, I just do. I'm just
- 3:33S4: being honest with my personality.
- 3:35S5: Sure.
- 3:35S4: My natural personality, apart from the grace of God, I
- 3:39S4: want to give up when the minute adversity hits.
- 3:42S5: Smacking into resistance, you're.
- 3:43S3: Like, yeah.
- 3:44S5: Kind of lean into.
- 3:46S3: It.
- 3:46S4: Like if it, you know, when it feels really hard
- 3:50S4: in my weightlifting class, I want to drop down and
- 3:53S4: do lighter weights. And sometimes I do, like, I just
- 3:56S4: don't have it today.
- 3:57S5: Yeah, I get it.
- 3:58S3: Yeah, sure.
- 3:59S4: Would you consider yourself someone who sticks with it? Like to.
- 4:05S4: You know, at a pretty high level, like, okay, this
- 4:08S4: is a little bit adversity. This is expected. Or do
- 4:11S4: you are you more like me? And you're kind of like, I,
- 4:14S4: I want to give up.
- 4:15S5: No, I most of the time I'm in a place of,
- 4:19S5: of that wanting to give up when the resistance comes.
- 4:22S5: When you talk about weightlifting. Yep. I totally understand it.
- 4:24S5: As soon as you feel the burn, you're like, all right,
- 4:26S5: I'm kind of done with this. I've had a couple
- 4:28S5: moments where I've stuck with it in in some high
- 4:30S5: leverage things. And it's, it's felt awesome. But like I,
- 4:34S5: I've been here for nine years. So this is, I
- 4:36S5: don't think I've even shared it before the, the first
- 4:38S5: week that I worked here, you know, the new waking
- 4:41S5: up early schedule. I was also a student at the time.
- 4:44S5: So when I finished here, I didn't get to go
- 4:45S5: take a nap. Always. I had classes all the rest
- 4:48S5: of the day. And like on Thursday of my first week,
- 4:51S5: I called my my now wife girlfriend. Then Shannon and
- 4:55S5: I called her and I was crying, and I was like,
- 4:57S5: I don't think I can do this.
- 4:59S3: I was.
- 4:59S5: Like, I was like, I can't.
- 5:01S3: Hold up. I was like, oh, yeah.
- 5:02S5: And, and she said, she said, just stick with it
- 5:05S5: a little longer. And, and I think that you'll see
- 5:08S5: an adjustment come. And the adjustment came and I was
- 5:10S5: grateful for that because I'm still here now. But yeah, no,
- 5:14S5: as soon as the resistance comes and a lot of things,
- 5:16S5: I'm kind of like, all right, is it worth it?
- 5:18S4: Every first day of every job I've ever had, I've
- 5:21S4: wanted to quit. But how will how can I ever
- 5:24S4: do this? This is so hard. I will never learn
- 5:26S4: how to do this. What about you? I do you,
- 5:28S4: I you know, I, I think I'm going to answer
- 5:31S4: for you. Okay. But you go first, but you go first.
- 5:35S4: Go ahead. I think you have. I think you have
- 5:37S4: a stick with Itness.
- 5:39S6: Yeah.
- 5:40S3: Yeah, absolutely.
- 5:42S4: And I don't think she's going to say that.
- 5:44S3: Correct.
- 5:44S4: But what I've seen to be true about you is
- 5:47S4: I think that you have a, a, a deeper well
- 5:50S4: of stick with it.
- 5:52S3: I would agree.
- 5:53S6: I hang on. I'm. Yeah, very, very hopeful. Maybe I
- 5:57S6: hang on to some things that I probably shouldn't.
- 5:59S3: I'm going to.
- 6:00S6: I'm going to say that that's the that's the whole
- 6:02S6: problem with our show and segment. But yeah, sometimes you
- 6:05S6: can stick with it too much.
- 6:08S4: Sure, sure, sure. And we know that there's always that
- 6:10S4: high ridge in anything that we talk about.
- 6:13S6: But yeah, I stick with it.
- 6:14S4: And there's, you know, so back to my daughter. So
- 6:16S4: she's a high school junior and, you know, she really
- 6:21S4: started loving basketball, I would say in like fourth or
- 6:25S4: fifth grade. She played a little bit before that, played
- 6:27S4: on a couple of teams. But in fifth grade during
- 6:30S4: Covid actually was when she said there was a switch
- 6:35S4: that flipped for her. And so Covid, you know, everything
- 6:40S4: was shut down. Everything, even the parks.
- 6:43S3: Yeah.
- 6:44S4: And so.
- 6:45S5: Man, that was hard.
- 6:46S4: But I remember her, you know, she decided, okay, I
- 6:50S4: if it takes 10,000 zero hours to be great at something.
- 6:55S4: I'm going to start my ten zero zero zero hours.
- 6:57S5: Hey.
- 6:58S3: Start early.
- 6:58S4: And so she started like a book, like a notebook
- 7:01S4: to start to log. Wow.
- 7:03S3: Good for her.
- 7:04S4: And so she would go out there with my husband
- 7:07S4: kind of training her, but it was her driving it
- 7:10S4: that was, that was the thing that and if you're
- 7:12S4: a sports parent, oh, boy, is this important. She was
- 7:15S4: the one driving it. So she was like, I got
- 7:17S4: it's time I got to go out. It's like, well,
- 7:19S4: it's raining. No, no, no, no, I need to go out.
- 7:21S4: And so she would go out there and she would
- 7:23S4: do her ball handling. And she started to get better
- 7:26S4: and better at her ball handling. And she was is
- 7:30S4: to this day. Now it's six years later, she's so
- 7:33S4: disciplined with the work that it takes to be good
- 7:36S4: at basketball. And there are so many times that I'm like,
- 7:40S4: you probably should take like, this should be a day off.
- 7:42S4: Like you worked really hard yesterday and there is time
- 7:45S4: for recovery. So we do emphasize that. But she's like,
- 7:49S4: I'm like, but you didn't feel great this morning. She's like,
- 7:51S4: it like, it doesn't matter. I'm going. I'm going to
- 7:54S4: the gym. I'm going to work on my shots. And
- 7:57S4: so I'll just watch her. And I kind of marvel
- 7:59S4: at it because it's this this quality that the great
- 8:02S4: athletes have for sure.
- 8:03S3: Yeah.
- 8:03S4: And she would be the first one to tell you
- 8:05S4: that she doesn't have like insane natural athleticism.
- 8:09S5: The one of the most cool things in sports is
- 8:13S5: that a lot of these professional leagues are more made
- 8:17S5: up of people who have this high drive of discipline
- 8:20S5: than have this insane amount of natural.
- 8:22S3: Talent.
- 8:23S4: And who know how to get the most out of
- 8:25S4: what they do have. Yes. And so we always joke
- 8:28S4: that starting from the very first kind of big basketball
- 8:32S4: games that she started to play, she loved to shoot
- 8:35S4: the ball, as most kids do. And so there would
- 8:38S4: be times when she would shoot up like five airballs.
- 8:42S4: And in my mind, I would look at my husband
- 8:44S4: and I would go, she should probably stop shooting now.
- 8:47S4: I mean, they're not going in for her today, But
- 8:51S4: without fail, she just keeps shooting. And so a lot
- 8:55S4: of you could see, especially with girls, I think you
- 8:57S4: would see a lot of girls. If they miss a
- 8:59S4: couple shots, they start to like shrink back a little bit.
- 9:02S3: Sure.
- 9:02S4: Do a little bit less because nobody really likes to
- 9:05S4: be the one out there that shoots five airballs, right?
- 9:08S5: I'm putting myself out there and it's just not working.
- 9:10S4: But for whatever reason, that didn't she was undeterred.
- 9:14S6: Did not. Yeah.
- 9:15S4: And so we will watch games now where some games,
- 9:19S4: if you shoot some games, you shoot well and some games.
- 9:22S4: And this is true for even the very best shooters
- 9:24S4: in the world. Steph Curry if he has an off game.
- 9:26S4: But what do you tell shooters keep shooting. Yeah. So
- 9:29S4: she she could miss nine straight and shoot that ten
- 9:33S4: with the full confidence that it's going in.
- 9:36S3: That's man.
- 9:37S5: Crazy.
- 9:38S3: It is crazy.
- 9:39S4: It's absolutely crazy to me. And and so there's been
- 9:42S4: many times where she will shoot herself back into a
- 9:46S4: game because she doesn't let the misses keep her from
- 9:51S4: keeping doing exactly what she knows to do. Not changing
- 9:54S4: her shot. And so I said, this is not a
- 9:57S4: brag on my kid thing.
- 9:59S3: No, no.
- 10:00S4: When I think about the spiritual discipline that it takes
- 10:04S4: to not be great in our own eyes, but to
- 10:08S4: be able to withstand adversity, be able to walk through
- 10:12S4: the storms of life. There's a certain stick to it
- 10:16S4: ness when the ball's not going in. But don't change anything.
- 10:20S4: Just keep shooting mentality that you have to have in
- 10:24S4: the spiritual life.
- 10:26S3: Yes.
- 10:27S4: Because the reps that it takes to walk in victory,
- 10:31S4: it's not exciting. It's like going out and dribbling in
- 10:35S4: the rain when you'd rather sit on the couch and
- 10:37S4: watch Netflix.
- 10:39S5: Yep, absolutely.
- 10:40S4: And so I want to wrestle with that this morning
- 10:42S4: because as somebody who wants to give up easily, like
- 10:47S4: it's the shots aren't going in. Let's pack it up
- 10:49S4: and go home. I'm not feeling like my prayers are
- 10:52S4: getting answered, so maybe I should just stop. I've been
- 10:56S4: reading my Bible, but I don't really understand what I'm reading.
- 11:00S4: Maybe I should try something else. Does that sound familiar?
- 11:07S4: You want to give up because you don't see the results.
- 11:10S4: It doesn't feel like it's making a difference and doing
- 11:12S4: the same thing day after day after day. It gets boring.
- 11:17S4: It gets monotonous. Sticking with the basics, let's talk about it.
- 11:22S1: It's Carl and Crew on Moody Radio.
- 11:28S4: You know, we've been talking about sticking with it all
- 11:30S4: week and sticking with the basics. What are the things
- 11:35S4: that we know help us grow spiritually? I mean, just basics, prayer.
- 11:42S5: Getting in the word, fasting.
- 11:45S6: Uh, community.
- 11:47S5: Church community, the body of getting involved, uh, being the
- 11:51S5: hands and feet.
- 11:52S4: Reading your Bible and praying every day. And we've seen,
- 11:55S4: we've sung that little song before. Jonathan. You learned it.
- 11:57S4: Maybe you learned it too soon. I read your Bible
- 12:00S4: and pray every day.
- 12:01S6: I've heard of it.
- 12:03S4: Yes.
- 12:04S6: I grew up with it, but I heard of it.
- 12:05S4: And and you'll grow, grow, grow. And the thing about
- 12:11S4: the everydayness of spiritual disciplines is that you don't always
- 12:16S4: see immediate results, right?
- 12:21S5: Oh, I mean, you never see immediate results. I mean, okay,
- 12:25S5: that's not true.
- 12:26S4: We'll leave room for. There are times when.
- 12:29S5: Yes, there.
- 12:29S4: Are certainly times when you see an immediate answer to.
- 12:31S5: Prayer. Yes, that is very true. 100%. And but in
- 12:34S5: terms of growth, like, yeah, I after I read the Bible,
- 12:38S5: God gives me an amazing truth and I, I am
- 12:42S5: immediately affected by it and it helps me immediately. I
- 12:46S5: also probably do need to focus in on that for
- 12:49S5: a while in order to retain it and keep it
- 12:52S5: past just that immediate moment.
- 12:55S4: So what can easily happen? The battle that we fight
- 12:58S4: in the in the spiritual life is often a battle
- 13:02S4: to stick with it. When spiritual disciplines feel dry, when
- 13:07S4: prayer feels like it's not really doing anything, and Bible
- 13:12S4: reading feels like I don't know what I'm. Don't know
- 13:16S4: what I'm reading. I don't know if I'm retaining this
- 13:19S4: when it feels like fasting. I mean, I'm kind of hungry, right?
- 13:24S4: Like the, the, there's such a, it always amazes me
- 13:27S4: how much the flesh wars against the spirit life.
- 13:33S5: Yep.
- 13:34S4: In the biggest and smallest ways. You sit down to
- 13:39S4: read your Bible and you have great intentions, and then
- 13:42S4: you wake up 30 minutes later and go, what just happened?
- 13:45S4: How did I.
- 13:46S5: Yeah.
- 13:47S4: Like happens all of a sudden. I got go so
- 13:50S4: sleepy I couldn't keep my eyes open.
- 13:52S5: I understand how the disciples fell asleep in the garden
- 13:55S5: when they were praying with Jesus.
- 13:57S4: Just like you couldn't even pray with me for one hour.
- 14:01S4: And this is not a legalistic thing, not a this
- 14:04S4: is not a box checking thing. This is what I
- 14:08S4: think the human experience often is, always is, is that
- 14:14S4: war between the flesh and the spirit. So I'm curious
- 14:18S4: to hear from you when it comes to spiritual disciplines,
- 14:22S4: what makes you most likely to want to give up?
- 14:26S4: Just take texts on this one. What makes you most
- 14:29S4: likely want to give up? Is it discouragement? Is it motivation?
- 14:36S4: Is it something else? What is it that makes you
- 14:39S4: most want to give up on prayer, Bible reading, gathering
- 14:44S4: with God's people, the basics of the Christian life that
- 14:49S4: actually do over time help you grow strong in the Lord.
- 14:54S4: And without them, without fail, 100% of the time, you
- 15:00S4: are the weaker for it. Right?
- 15:03S5: Oh yeah.
- 15:04S4: Oh yeah.
- 15:04S5: Every single. Time.
- 15:05S4: Oh yeah. We've all lived that. You've been out of
- 15:08S4: the word. You've been out of community. You've neglected to pray.
- 15:12S4: And you can, you can kind of start to beat
- 15:14S4: yourself up over it, but it's not about like, oh,
- 15:17S4: God must be disappointed in me. It's that we're actually
- 15:20S4: sacrificing the very thing that helps us grow. So that,
- 15:25S4: like the athlete who has not really prepared all week,
- 15:30S4: but then shows up for the game and they're not
- 15:33S4: ready for the moment. Right?
- 15:36S5: Exactly.
- 15:36S4: And it's not that they're a bad person or that
- 15:39S4: they'll never be any good, it's that.
- 15:42S5: They just weren't ready.
- 15:43S4: You didn't do the very basics. You didn't show up
- 15:46S4: to practice this week. You didn't put in any reps
- 15:50S4: to actually have the muscle memory so that when you
- 15:53S4: go out there and the clock is ticking and the
- 15:55S4: opponent is on you, you've got a higher percentage of
- 15:59S4: making that shot. When you've been shooting, when nobody else
- 16:04S4: is watching.
- 16:05S5: Exactly.
- 16:06S4: What is it for you that most makes you prone
- 16:09S4: to want to give up on the basics? The spiritual disciplines.
- 16:13S4: Give us a text 805 557898 (800) 555-7898.
- 16:20S1: Your shot of hope to help you through the day.
- 16:23S1: This is Carl and crew on Moody Radio.
- 16:28S4: Lots of responses coming in from you on this question.
- 16:32S4: What is that thing that most makes you want to
- 16:35S4: give up on the spiritual disciplines, the basics of prayer
- 16:40S4: and Bible reading and fasting and gathering with God's people.
- 16:44S4: Let's see. Illness or lack. Truly feeling overwhelmed. Depression. Exhaustion.
- 16:53S4: The constant need of the flesh. Non-Stop thoughts. Busyness. Busyness. Distractions. Discouraged.
- 17:01S4: How does this hit you guys?
- 17:03S5: Yeah, I think it's real. I mean, all of those
- 17:05S5: things are understandable. Uh, it's, you know, you said discouraged.
- 17:10S5: And I think sometimes, and I'm guilty of this as
- 17:15S5: well is we, we feel that type of way. And
- 17:19S5: then we don't look to the one place that can
- 17:21S5: help us. Yeah. Pull us out of it.
- 17:23S4: That's the irony, right?
- 17:24S5: Yeah.
- 17:24S4: Is it on all of those places is where God
- 17:27S4: meets us 100%.
- 17:28S5: I think for me, one of the hardest things or
- 17:30S5: what kind of pulls me out sometimes is, uh, just
- 17:35S5: in all honesty, uh, the desire or distraction of other things.
- 17:39S5: I yeah, you know what I. I could sit and
- 17:42S5: read the Bible right now, but I had a long
- 17:44S5: day and I kind of just want to sit and
- 17:45S5: watch TV and not do anything. Uh, and and that's hard,
- 17:49S5: but it's true. Uh, sometimes I can just get pulled away. Yeah.
- 17:53S5: And I got to be wary of that.
- 17:55S4: Uh, 9630 just gave a response. Um, laziness. And that's.
- 18:02S5: That's real.
- 18:02S4: Let's call it what it is.
- 18:03S6: That's so real.
- 18:04S4: Yeah. What were you going to say?
- 18:05S6: I, I was just saying that that phrase like I'm tired.
- 18:08S4: Mhm.
- 18:08S6: Can really have a lot of layers. A lot of
- 18:13S6: layers to two little words. Yeah. I'm tired. And I
- 18:16S6: would just really encourage that when you're in that point
- 18:19S6: community more than ever. Yes. In the word, in the, in,
- 18:23S6: in prayer. But seek a friend, seek a pastor, seek, uh,
- 18:28S6: women within the church or men depending, you know what
- 18:30S6: I'm saying? Just seek, uh, seek help. And on the
- 18:34S6: opposite note, if you're really noticing someone just kind of going,
- 18:38S6: they're not coming out as much as they used to.
- 18:40S6: They're not involved as much as they used to. Maybe
- 18:43S6: they're saying the phrase, I'm tired more than they used to,
- 18:46S6: kind of pay more attention to that.
- 18:48S4: Yeah. Always, always good insight. You know, when you think
- 18:52S4: about I've, I've been in acts this week and you
- 18:55S4: think about the basis for so many churches comes out
- 19:00S4: of acts two, the fellowship of the believers. Now we've
- 19:03S4: talked about the when the early church, the 120 that
- 19:07S4: were gathered in that upper room, the day of Pentecost
- 19:09S4: comes and they're filled with the Holy Spirit. And Peter
- 19:12S4: boldly preaches the gospel, and it starts to spread quickly.
- 19:16S4: They're also met with a lot of opposition, as there
- 19:20S4: are public healings that are performed, and leaders start to
- 19:24S4: question and fear this movement of Jesus's followers. And so
- 19:30S4: the believers were so tightly knit. And so acts 242
- 19:34S4: on it says, and they devoted themselves to the apostles
- 19:38S4: teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread. And
- 19:41S4: the prayers and awe came upon every soul, and many
- 19:44S4: wonders and signs were being done through the apostles, and
- 19:47S4: all who believed were together and had all things in common.
- 19:50S4: They were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the
- 19:53S4: proceeds to all as any had need, and day by day,
- 19:57S4: attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes,
- 20:00S4: they received their food with glad and generous hearts, praising
- 20:03S4: God and having favor with all people. And the Lord
- 20:06S4: added to their number day by day those who were
- 20:10S4: being saved. Did you catch that twice? Day by day,
- 20:15S4: attending the temple together. Breaking bread in their homes day
- 20:18S4: by day.
- 20:18S5: Day by day.
- 20:19S4: The Lord was adding to their number. So it was
- 20:22S4: the devotion to the teaching or preaching of the word,
- 20:26S4: the fellowship, the breaking of bread, and the prayers. It's
- 20:31S4: a pretty simple existence, right?
- 20:34S5: Yeah. And it was day by day.
- 20:36S4: Day by.
- 20:37S5: Day. And that's so important because, you know, I like
- 20:41S5: to run. But as soon as I take a day off,
- 20:47S5: I kind of stop wanting to run a little bit.
- 20:49S5: And then maybe I take a couple more days off.
- 20:51S4: It's easier to neglect it, right?
- 20:54S5: Yes.
- 20:55S4: So if you've been in a pattern or a season
- 20:58S4: of neglecting God's Word or neglecting to gather with God's people,
- 21:03S4: we talked a little bit about that yesterday, neglecting to
- 21:06S4: seek God in prayer. You know, go to God with that.
- 21:10S4: And that sounds so simple and so obvious, yet it's
- 21:13S4: the reminder that I always need, and that I think
- 21:15S4: we all need is go back to God. It's not
- 21:20S4: a five step plan to try to get your life right.
- 21:24S4: Just go back to God, confess honestly where you're at. Repent, turn.
- 21:32S5: Yeah.
- 21:33S4: And ask him for the grace to help you read
- 21:36S4: your word, even if you don't understand it. Tomorrow, get
- 21:40S4: up again and and and read your word. You know,
- 21:44S4: my pastor, Pastor Al Toledo, is so this is the
- 21:48S4: thing that he preaches faithfully. It's it's woven into almost
- 21:51S4: everything that he says and does. It's like it's his
- 21:54S4: heart's motto and mission of, you know, just like that
- 21:57S4: day by day, putting down roots, being privately healthy, seeking
- 22:02S4: God in the quiet places. And it's it never I
- 22:05S4: never get tired of hearing it because it's always the
- 22:08S4: reminder that I need, that it's that every day, day
- 22:11S4: by day, seeking God that ultimately allows us to grow.
- 22:17S4: And I want to grow.
- 22:18S5: I'd like to as well.
- 22:20S4: Super di, you want to grow?
- 22:21S6: Oh, I think so. Yeah. Hands up for sure.
- 22:24S4: If you want to grow.
- 22:25S6: Absolutely. Yeah.
- 22:26S4: Got to get back to the basics. Good reminder this
- 22:28S4: morning here on Carl and crew.
- 22:30S1: Walking closer to Jesus every day. You're listening to Carl
- 22:35S1: and crew.
- 22:38S4: Sometimes it can be challenging to stick with it in prayer.
- 22:42S4: If you have not seen God move, or at least
- 22:44S4: you don't think you've seen him move in the way
- 22:47S4: that you have been praying for, expecting, asking you for
- 22:50S4: your story this morning, what's something you had to persevere
- 22:53S4: in prayer for? 800 555, 7898 got a text message
- 22:59S4: from someone who says, I prayed for my brother's salvation
- 23:02S4: for 50 years. Three years ago, he came to Christ.
- 23:06S4: His life was totally changed.
- 23:08S5: Incredible.
- 23:09S4: Oh, wow.
- 23:10S5: That's proof enough to just stay persistent.
- 23:13S4: 50 years of praying for a loved one.
- 23:16S6: Thank you for sharing.
- 23:17S4: Yeah.
- 23:17S6: That's awesome.
- 23:18S4: Another text message. Healing for my marriage. We separated for
- 23:22S4: over a year. He'll he and salvation for my husband
- 23:25S4: so persevered in prayer there. What's your answer to that question?
- 23:28S4: What's something you had to persevere in prayer for? 800 555, 78, 98.
- 23:34S5: You know, for me, it was my daughter. My first daughter.
- 23:39S5: We've got a second daughter on the way. But, you know,
- 23:42S5: the process of of wanting to have a child and
- 23:45S5: not having a child for when you want them is
- 23:48S5: it can be difficult sometimes there's a lot of emotional, uh,
- 23:51S5: weight to carry with that because you're hopeful and then,
- 23:54S5: you know, you're waiting and then you find out no,
- 23:56S5: and then okay, you're hopeful and then you're waiting and no,
- 23:59S5: and you kind of get that no, a good few
- 24:01S5: stretches down the road and you're like, oh man, I
- 24:05S5: just keep waiting and I keep hearing no. And it's
- 24:07S5: just it's discouraging and it hurts and it's hard. And,
- 24:10S5: and we didn't stop praying. We changed our prayers. We allowed,
- 24:15S5: you know, us to surrender it to God. But we
- 24:17S5: did keep praying. And eventually he did answer us. And
- 24:21S5: we named our daughter Eliana, which means God has answered
- 24:25S5: just to remind us that he's there. And I think about, uh,
- 24:28S5: Luke 181 through eight as we're talking about this, Jesus
- 24:33S5: gives this parable. It says he told them a parable
- 24:35S5: to the effect that they ought to always pray and
- 24:39S5: not lose heart. He said, in a certain city there
- 24:41S5: was a judge who neither feared God nor respected man,
- 24:44S5: and there was a widow in that city who kept
- 24:46S5: coming to him and saying, give me justice against my adversary.
- 24:50S5: For a while he refused. For a while he refused.
- 24:52S5: But afterwards he said to himself, though I neither fear
- 24:55S5: God nor respect man, yet because this widow keeps bothering me,
- 24:58S5: I will give her justice so that she will not
- 25:00S5: beat me down by her continual coming. And the Lord said,
- 25:03S5: hear what the unrighteous judge says. And will not God
- 25:06S5: give you justice to his elect who cried to him
- 25:09S5: day and night? Will he delay long over them? I
- 25:11S5: tell you, he will give justice to them speedily. I
- 25:14S5: think that that's a really important thing for us. God
- 25:16S5: tells us to be persistent. He tells us to be
- 25:19S5: persistent with him, to keep coming to him because he's
- 25:22S5: better than that unrighteous judge that he gives the parable about. Yeah.
- 25:26S5: And so he loves us. He wants to take care
- 25:28S5: of us, and he wants to give us the things
- 25:29S5: that we need.
- 25:30S4: And I love that, that parable, because it's not the
- 25:34S4: takeaway is not that just keep bothering God until he
- 25:38S4: gets so tired of hearing from you.
- 25:40S5: Exactly.
- 25:41S4: That there are definitely been times when my kids were
- 25:44S4: wore me down in that I. I did not intend
- 25:50S4: to give them ice cream, for example, but they pestered
- 25:55S4: me enough to where I was like, fine, we're just
- 25:58S4: gonna do ice cream today because I can't take your
- 26:02S4: asking anymore. That is not the picture of God here. Correct.
- 26:05S4: It is that if an unrighteous judge can be worn
- 26:09S4: down by persistence, how much more a good God seeks
- 26:14S4: to give good gifts to his children who persist in
- 26:19S4: asking him?
- 26:19S5: Exactly right.
- 26:20S4: So he is obviously the comparison. Like God is not
- 26:26S4: a God, not a not a man. Right? And so
- 26:29S4: everything that he does is infinitely better, infinitely more perfect
- 26:34S4: than what we could ever accomplish, even on our best days. Right?
- 26:37S5: Exactly.
- 26:38S4: So don't stop praying.
- 26:40S1: Celebrating the unstoppable gospel.
- 26:43S5: It's not that I've got to fill in these check boxes,
- 26:46S5: so he's okay with me, but it's that I get
- 26:47S5: to stand close to him so that I can experience
- 26:50S5: the life that he has for me.
- 26:52S1: You're listening to cast and Crew.
- 26:56S4: Well, has this ever happened to you? Have you ever
- 26:58S4: had a season of life in your journey with the
- 27:02S4: Lord where prayer seems difficult? Maybe you feel like your
- 27:05S4: prayers haven't been answered, or you feel like you start praying,
- 27:08S4: but then you get so distracted and your mind goes
- 27:11S4: a million other places. Maybe you're saying words, but it
- 27:13S4: feels disconnected. And if you're not careful, you can start
- 27:17S4: to feel like, what's the point? Why am I even
- 27:20S4: doing this? Doctor Bill Thrasher, who's been such a treasure
- 27:24S4: for our show, he's got a book that I think
- 27:26S4: is such a great resource. It goes right after it.
- 27:29S4: How to resurrect a dead prayer life transforming your prayers
- 27:33S4: into a spirit empowered, life giving adventure. I'm so glad
- 27:37S4: you've written a book like this and that you've given
- 27:39S4: it a title that's so clearly captures what so many
- 27:42S4: people may feel, but are afraid to say out loud.
- 27:46S4: Let's start with how do you know if your prayer
- 27:50S4: life has died?
- 27:51S7: You know, certainly the title of the book is No
- 27:54S7: Desire to Demean Anybody. I'm really talking about my own experience.
- 27:58S7: I got saved at 13 years of age at a
- 28:00S7: Billy Graham crusade. It did not significantly grow after that,
- 28:03S7: but until it was actually in college and walked into
- 28:07S7: a fraternity brother's room and he shared with me about
- 28:10S7: the ministry of the Holy Spirit. And that sort of
- 28:12S7: sparked that was a very uninformed Christian. God used that
- 28:16S7: to spark my Christian life and got involved in ministry
- 28:19S7: and ultimately called into ministry. I roomed with him, and
- 28:22S7: we had a prayer meeting in our room every night.
- 28:24S7: And as I felt God's call to go to seminary,
- 28:27S7: I had a prayer meeting in my room every night
- 28:29S7: there and and even God's call to come to Moody.
- 28:32S7: So after about ten years of being very involved in
- 28:35S7: the activity of prayer and you're around the church, people say,
- 28:38S7: pray for this, pray for this. I really tried to
- 28:40S7: pray for it all. And then there was one morning,
- 28:42S7: like you so clearly articulated, I said, God, this thing
- 28:46S7: that I've given myself to the Lord, would you just
- 28:48S7: sort of take this burden off my back? Because what
- 28:51S7: I realized that morning, Lord, I'm not sure I'm really
- 28:53S7: expecting anything to happen. And if you're praying, you're not
- 28:56S7: expecting anything to happen. Sooner or later you'll ask yourself
- 28:59S7: the question, why pray? So I felt like my prayer
- 29:01S7: life had died. I said, God, there's two things I
- 29:03S7: keep hearing about prayer, and I've bought into those totally. Uh,
- 29:07S7: one is it's very, very, very important. Two is you
- 29:10S7: need to discipline yourself to do it. Well, God, I've
- 29:12S7: bought into both of those things. So, God, there's got
- 29:15S7: to be something else you got to teach me. And
- 29:17S7: so that put me on a pilgrimage to trusting God
- 29:20S7: to resurrect my own prayer life.
- 29:22S4: So I'm curious more about what that looked like when
- 29:25S4: you realized that you had bought into the things that
- 29:29S4: were true, that it was a discipline, that it was
- 29:31S4: important to do. But there was like, you weren't really
- 29:33S4: expecting anything to happen. Where did you go from there?
- 29:38S7: Well, you know, I said, God, I've got to learn some,
- 29:41S7: some new lessons. And, you know, there are five commands
- 29:44S7: in relationship to the Holy Spirit. Be filled with the spirit.
- 29:47S7: Walk by the spirit. Don't grieve the spirit. Don't quench
- 29:50S7: the spirit. But the fifth one is pray in the spirit.
- 29:53S7: I said, Lord, I think that's the one. I'm not
- 29:55S7: sure I know what that means, but but God, it
- 29:58S7: seems to me you tell me this experience of prayer
- 30:01S7: is not just a human event. I'm not supposed to
- 30:03S7: be able to pull it off. You've given me a helper.
- 30:06S7: And Lord, also when I saw Scripture, God, you seem
- 30:09S7: to honor need you say it does not lie within
- 30:13S7: man to direct his path. I'm not supposed to be
- 30:15S7: smart enough. You give all these promises to the needy.
- 30:18S7: You save the children of the needy. Okay, God, I've
- 30:21S7: always felt my children qualified for that verse. And he
- 30:24S7: sets the needy securely on high away from affliction. So
- 30:28S7: he's opposed to the proud. Grace to the humble. So, Lord, okay,
- 30:31S7: I recognize my need in my prayer life. I need
- 30:33S7: you to resurrect it. And that put me on a pilgrimage. God,
- 30:36S7: what does it mean to pray in the spirit? And
- 30:40S7: you know, D.L. Moody, the greatest preacher of his day? Unquestionably.
- 30:43S7: I think every church historian would say that. He said,
- 30:46S7: I'd rather teach one person to pray than ten people
- 30:48S7: to preach. Yeah. So there is a teaching to it.
- 30:50S7: And so Luke 111 used to be on the top
- 30:53S7: of my prayer life for many years. Lord, teach me
- 30:55S7: to pray. And sometimes I've had to unlearn things about prayer.
- 30:59S7: And so you come to God. It's very unflattering. So
- 31:02S7: I'm speaking of myself, Lord, in and of myself. I
- 31:04S7: don't care about anybody but me. What's in it for me?
- 31:07S7: Just run so deep in our soul. I can't produce
- 31:09S7: Christ like fervency. I can't produce Christ like compassion. And so, God,
- 31:14S7: I need to trust you under the filling of your spirit,
- 31:16S7: which you produce that in me. And he can and
- 31:19S7: he will.
- 31:20S4: You know, I love that. And have you seen that
- 31:22S4: to be the case in your own life, in your
- 31:24S4: own journey with the Lord, that as you trusted the
- 31:26S4: Holy Spirit to develop that passion and that fervency to
- 31:30S4: where it wasn't just kind of reading a grocery list
- 31:32S4: of bless this person, heal this person, help this person.
- 31:36S4: How long did it take before God answered that prayer
- 31:39S4: of give me some passion and fervency here?
- 31:42S7: And may I say also that I think I have
- 31:44S7: to continually rediscover it? Yes. You know, I don't think
- 31:48S7: it's something oh boy, I've got this down or whatever.
- 31:50S7: I think there's continually new lessons that God has shown me. But,
- 31:53S7: you know, when you open your life up to the
- 31:55S7: spirit and he begins to help you see needs and
- 31:58S7: to begin to feel those needs, and then you admit
- 32:02S7: your helplessness to do anything about it, but you surrender
- 32:05S7: it to God and you cry out to God with
- 32:07S7: that fervency and helplessness, and you see him work. And also,
- 32:10S7: I think the thrilling thing is you're praying to God.
- 32:13S7: You're always open to what he wants to do in you.
- 32:18S7: I remember praying one time with a group of people,
- 32:20S7: and we prayed all over the world. And then at
- 32:22S7: the end of the meeting, the person said, let's all
- 32:24S7: get on our knees and say, God, we're willing to
- 32:26S7: do anything he want us to do to be an
- 32:28S7: answer to these prayers. You know, as we let him
- 32:31S7: work in us, he can do a fresh, glorious work
- 32:34S7: if he. He teaches us how to pray.
- 32:36S4: Yeah. Doctor Bill Thrasher, our guest this morning, the book
- 32:39S4: How to Resurrect a Dead Prayer Life Transforming Your Prayers
- 32:42S4: into a spirit empowered, life giving adventure. That's what you want.
- 32:46S4: That's what I want. Coming up, how can you use
- 32:49S4: the things that maybe cause you to be worried or
- 32:52S4: anxious or even persistent temptations? An area where you feel
- 32:55S4: like maybe you've given in to sin and it keeps
- 32:58S4: coming up and you feel like, can I really pray
- 33:00S4: for that again? How can that actually help your prayer life?
- 33:05S4: I'll ask doctor Bill Thrasher that coming up.
- 33:07S1: Want to hear that again. Just download the Carl and
- 33:10S1: Crew podcast wherever you like to stream.
- 33:14S4: Well, if you have something that you've been praying about
- 33:16S4: for a long time, maybe it's an area of temptation
- 33:19S4: or an area where you have compromised or fallen into sin,
- 33:23S4: and you keep going back to God with the same
- 33:25S4: thing over and over again. There reaches a point where
- 33:28S4: you may be tempted to stop, to stop praying about
- 33:30S4: it altogether. The shame, the discouragement sets in, and you
- 33:35S4: stop talking to God. Has that ever happened to you?
- 33:38S4: Doctor Bill Thrasher with us this morning on this important
- 33:41S4: topic of sticking with it, sticking with prayer. When you
- 33:44S4: feel like giving up, how can persistent temptations or even
- 33:48S4: failure aid us in our prayers for ourselves, but also
- 33:52S4: intercession for others?
- 33:54S7: Well, you know, I think it can become the power
- 33:58S7: of your prayer life. What makes the temptation of temptation
- 34:00S7: is what it appeals to. A legitimate need to meet
- 34:03S7: it in an unrighteous way. And sometimes we can develop
- 34:06S7: almost a reflex, wrong reflex reaction or whatever. And so
- 34:10S7: let's talk about persistent temptations. This principle here has helped
- 34:14S7: me the last 40 years, every day of my life.
- 34:17S7: And continually it's this. This dear man was leading a
- 34:21S7: number of people from hard backgrounds to the Lord. He says,
- 34:25S7: now that you've come to Christ, you're going to be
- 34:26S7: tempted to go back to some of those wrong choices.
- 34:28S7: And he says, here's what I want you to do.
- 34:30S7: I want you to go to God and ask him
- 34:33S7: to give you a prayer request, a prayer burden that
- 34:35S7: every time you're tempted to go back to that wrong choice,
- 34:37S7: I want you to take it as a prompting to
- 34:39S7: pray for this. He says. Let it be a request
- 34:41S7: that damages Satan Kingdom as God answers that. And, uh,
- 34:45S7: I developed the reflex that my temptations are to turn
- 34:47S7: me into conversations with God. You'll speak to God from
- 34:50S7: your heart when you talk to him about your temptations.
- 34:52S7: You walk in the light with that, but also this
- 34:54S7: idea of taking your temptations and praying for others. You'll
- 34:58S7: get tired of saying no if you're not saying yes
- 35:00S7: to something else. And I just know in those situations,
- 35:03S7: I pray with compassion for people, and I feel with people,
- 35:07S7: it's not like, God, I've got it together. Now. Would
- 35:09S7: you whip these people into shape? It's like God gives
- 35:12S7: me a compassion and and many times when I'm about
- 35:15S7: to have a ministry, God puts me through a real period.
- 35:18S7: And I think that prepares me as I pray for
- 35:20S7: the people that I'm about to minister to. I feel
- 35:22S7: with them so it. Don't look at your temptation, as
- 35:25S7: one person says, like it's a a wolf that you
- 35:27S7: need to cage up. It's a seeing eye dog to
- 35:30S7: lead you to Jesus. Your temptations lead you to Jesus.
- 35:33S7: It shows you your need for him. It shows you
- 35:35S7: that what? Apart from him, I can do nothing. Lord,
- 35:38S7: if I have my own way, I will respond wrong.
- 35:40S7: God meets us in our struggle. Yes. If he's not there,
- 35:43S7: he's not relevant anywhere. You can come boldly to that
- 35:46S7: throne of grace and come boldly needs to come with freedom.
- 35:49S7: And that's good news.
- 35:51S4: And we know that because of Scripture, that the Holy
- 35:53S4: Spirit will help us when we don't know how to pray.
- 35:56S4: How how does that work? How have you seen that
- 35:59S4: work in your own life?
- 36:00S7: Well, that's a beautiful thing. You know, the idea that
- 36:03S7: he says in Romans eight, the Holy Spirit helps us
- 36:05S7: in our weakness. The next phrase explains what he means
- 36:08S7: by weakness. But we don't know how to pray as
- 36:10S7: we ought. There are times in our life we don't
- 36:12S7: know how to pray as we are. You know, you
- 36:14S7: can be around the church for a while, and we've
- 36:16S7: got a prayer that we'll lay on you on any occasion.
- 36:18S7: You know we've got one. But I remember this dear student.
- 36:21S7: I had left a very lucrative career in chemical engineering.
- 36:24S7: And he came and he was an incredible prayer warrior.
- 36:27S7: He was doing a pastoral internship. He went to visit
- 36:29S7: somebody in the hospital. Their health was deteriorating. And and
- 36:32S7: they were angry. And they said, I don't want you
- 36:35S7: to come to see me. I didn't ask you to come.
- 36:37S7: And so he said, well, can I pray with you?
- 36:39S7: I don't care if you pray for me or not.
- 36:41S7: And so he said, well, let me pray. He said
- 36:42S7: he went to pray for her and he just began
- 36:44S7: crying like a baby. And he came to me as
- 36:47S7: if he was a total failure. Hey, I'm 50 years old.
- 36:49S7: I'm getting a master's degree, and all I can do
- 36:51S7: is go to somebody and cry like a baby. But,
- 36:54S7: you know, he went back the next time. I mean,
- 36:56S7: that guy was an incredible prayer warrior. I could tell
- 36:58S7: you stories for hours of how God used his prayers. But,
- 37:01S7: you know, there there was such authenticity and she began
- 37:05S7: to open her heart. God dealt with her bitterness. Her
- 37:07S7: health began to improve. He could have professionalized that moment
- 37:10S7: and destroyed the effectiveness of it. And so there are
- 37:13S7: times we don't know how to pray. As we all see.
- 37:15S7: Sometimes there is a deeper desire beneath our desire. When
- 37:19S7: Paul prayed, Lord, remove this thorn in the flesh. That
- 37:22S7: was a strong desire. But underneath that was God. I
- 37:25S7: want to be the most fruitful. I want to know
- 37:28S7: your grace and your power. The possible extent. So God
- 37:30S7: did not answer his desire in order to give him
- 37:33S7: a deeper desire. And sometimes we're not in touch with
- 37:36S7: that deeper desire. And that's what the Holy Spirit wants
- 37:38S7: to do. Now he can guide us and pray our hearts.
- 37:41S7: But sometimes when we don't know how to pray our hearts,
- 37:43S7: he prays our hearts for us. And that's wonderful news.
- 37:46S4: Doctor Bill Thrasher, our guest. Such a great conversation. If
- 37:49S4: you want more text, pray to 805 557898. I believe
- 37:55S4: this is going to be a real help for you.
- 37:57S4: Just text pray to 805 557898.
- 38:01S1: She was trying to earn her way to God, but
- 38:04S1: God showed her she didn't have to. Ali is in
- 38:08S1: the crew. It's Carl and crew on Moody Radio.
- 38:14S8: What's the worst advice you've ever been given. Worst advice? Super.
- 38:24S4: I didn't see that one coming. If someone told you, hey,
- 38:30S4: this is a great idea, go for it. Definitely do this.
- 38:35S4: Don't do this.
- 38:37S6: Um.
- 38:38S4: Tell me. Text me. What is the worst advice you've
- 38:43S4: ever been given? 805. 557898. 805 557898. Remember being a
- 38:54S4: college freshman, that is not a year that is historically
- 38:59S4: known for fantastic decision making.
- 39:02S6: Correct?
- 39:02S5: Usually one of the worst.
- 39:04S4: Yes. And so I made the mistake of going to
- 39:09S4: I was on a volleyball team. I was going to
- 39:11S4: school out of state. And there was a girl on
- 39:14S4: the team who was much older. So I was I
- 39:16S4: was really young. I was 17 years old my freshman
- 39:19S4: year in college.
- 39:20S5: Okay.
- 39:21S4: She was like a 17th year senior. So she was probably,
- 39:26S4: I mean, the age gap. She was probably 22 or 23.
- 39:29S5: Okay. Yeah.
- 39:29S4: So good.
- 39:30S5: So good age.
- 39:31S4: Gap.
- 39:31S6: Huge difference in that age.
- 39:32S4: I won't get into the details around what I asked
- 39:34S4: her advice for, but it was life stuff and I
- 39:38S4: wanted to make a decision that wasn't going to be
- 39:40S4: a great decision, and anybody should have been able to
- 39:44S4: tell me, hey, this is a bad idea. But I
- 39:46S4: went to her and she was like, it's a great idea.
- 39:49S4: I think this is a really good idea. And in fact,
- 39:52S4: you're going to school here, so nobody back home has
- 39:56S4: to know at all, which is even better. So she's
- 40:00S4: basically telling me to go for this thing. That was
- 40:04S4: a terrible idea, and then telling me how I can
- 40:07S4: lie about it so that nobody in my family or
- 40:10S4: like friends back home would ever find out. So you
- 40:13S4: are totally in the clear. You are were out of state.
- 40:15S4: Go for it. Nobody will ever know. Oh, I'm so
- 40:18S4: grateful that I did not take that advice. I was
- 40:22S4: tempted to. Because in my 17 year old, far from
- 40:26S4: the Lord mindset. What. What could go wrong? About a
- 40:33S4: million things. Praise God he kept me from taking her
- 40:35S4: horrible advice.
- 40:37S5: Yeah. Yeah. You know what? I the only I can
- 40:40S5: think of the worst advice I ever gave.
- 40:42S4: Oh, okay. We'll take that.
- 40:44S5: Uh, you know, so this was back when I still
- 40:47S5: had the illusion of salvation. Uh, one of my buddies
- 40:51S5: from high school did also, uh, and we were driving
- 40:56S5: in the car and talking and, and he, he was
- 41:00S5: opening up and he was kind of like, I just
- 41:03S5: don't know where I'm at with Jesus.
- 41:06S4: Oh, boy.
- 41:07S5: And, and I said, well, like you, you believe, right?
- 41:14S5: And he goes, yeah, I believe. And I said, great,
- 41:18S5: then you don't have to worry about anything. And then
- 41:22S5: I found a real relationship with Jesus. And I was like, oh,
- 41:26S5: real belief causes us to follow and repent and change
- 41:29S5: our lives. And yes, he takes all of it. I
- 41:31S5: don't do anything. I'm not responsible and don't earn anything.
- 41:35S5: But I am called to follow just as much as
- 41:38S5: I'm called to believe, more so than I'm called to
- 41:40S5: believe him. And after I came to a real a
- 41:43S5: real relationship with Jesus, he actually did as well. And
- 41:46S5: we talked and I apologized and I said, hey, I
- 41:49S5: gave you some really bad advice back then. And I said,
- 41:51S5: I was also in a bad spot. And, uh, and
- 41:54S5: he said, it's all good. And we're thankfully we're both
- 41:57S5: with Jesus. But, but yeah, it was I gave some
- 41:59S5: bad advice there.
- 42:00S4: Wow, wow. That's honest. Thank you for sharing that. Uh,
- 42:04S4: a couple of text messages that came in. Worst advice ever.
- 42:08S4: Follow your heart, they said, wish I would have known
- 42:11S4: to follow the Lord. Guided by His word, truth and
- 42:14S4: purpose for my life.
- 42:16S5: Yes, our heart will tell us to do some pretty
- 42:18S5: stupid stuff.
- 42:18S4: There's another. This is a painful piece of bad advice.
- 42:22S4: This person said the. You should get a divorce. You
- 42:25S4: deserve to be happy. The kids will understand.
- 42:28S5: Oh yeah. Bad advice.
- 42:31S4: Bad advice. File for bankruptcy. This person said another piece
- 42:35S4: of bad advice. Eat whatever you want. Yeah, that.
- 42:40S5: Bad.
- 42:41S4: Advice. Sideways.
- 42:42S6: Yeah.
- 42:44S4: Okay. This is another one. When I was young, the
- 42:47S4: motto in my neighborhood was to get rich or die trying. Yeah.
- 42:51S4: Sometimes advice may be, even if not explicitly stated, is
- 42:54S4: sort of implied.
- 42:55S5: Yeah. It's lived.
- 42:56S4: This is this is the way that you go. I mean,
- 42:58S4: there's so many kind of unspoken codes.
- 43:01S6: Oh, yeah. Do before somebody does to you. Yeah. That
- 43:04S6: was a big one when I was growing up. Do
- 43:06S6: before they do to you.
- 43:07S4: Interesting.
- 43:08S6: Mhm.
- 43:09S4: Bad advice. Another one. I was driving in a group.
- 43:13S4: An officer pulled behind us with his lights on and
- 43:16S4: my sister said, don't pull over. Yeah, that's bad advice.
- 43:19S5: Oh my goodness.
- 43:20S8: That is really bad advice, sister.
- 43:22S6: Wait a minute. Oh.
- 43:26S4: Man. Bad advice can get you so far down the
- 43:30S4: wrong path.
- 43:31S5: Relationships.
- 43:33S6: Oh, man.
- 43:34S4: And the problem is, you don't. If you're not careful,
- 43:38S4: you don't. You don't know that it's bad advice until
- 43:40S4: after you've taken it.
- 43:41S5: Oh, yeah? Well, I was gonna say you wouldn't take
- 43:43S5: it if you thought it was bad, right?
- 43:45S4: You, you you go a path because maybe somebody told
- 43:49S4: you that's what you were supposed to do. Right. And
- 43:51S4: then you get down the road and realize, wait a second.
- 43:54S5: I made a mistake.
- 43:55S4: I made a mistake.
- 43:56S6: Yeah. What filter did they. What filter did I run
- 43:59S6: that advice through? Or did I even run it through
- 44:02S6: a filter? You know what I mean? It's like, wait
- 44:04S6: a minute.
- 44:05S4: Keep them coming. Keep your texts coming on this one.
- 44:07S4: We'll take a couple more. Uh, what is that? bad
- 44:10S4: advice that you've got? Maybe you took it and regretted it.
- 44:14S4: Maybe by God's grace, you didn't take it. Worst advice
- 44:17S4: you've ever been given. 805. Five. Five. 78. 98. Another one.
- 44:23S4: Do what makes you happy. That one you got to
- 44:26S4: be careful of, too. We'll talk more about that coming up.
- 44:29S1: It's Carl and crew on Moody Radio.
- 44:33S4: Well, some advice is so obviously bad that only. Man,
- 44:38S4: you go. Nobody would take that.
- 44:41S5: Sure.
- 44:41S4: But.
- 44:42S5: But you'd be surprised.
- 44:43S4: You'd be surprised. But so often now, really bad advice
- 44:47S4: is very nicely packaged. So the messaging around self-empowerment Self-encouragement self-esteem.
- 44:56S4: Notice a common theme here of self. Self at the center? Yeah.
- 45:00S4: And so here's what happens is a lot of people
- 45:02S4: are turning to AI chats for advice. So a lot
- 45:08S4: of people use it for kind of like a search engine, like.
- 45:12S6: Pretty much.
- 45:13S4: Yes. Tell me the best place to get a new
- 45:15S4: lawn mower in the Chicago area.
- 45:18S5: A great price.
- 45:19S4: You could probably come up with a couple of good answers.
- 45:22S4: But when you start asking questions like, I am struggling
- 45:26S4: in my relationship and I need you to tell me
- 45:30S4: what are the things that I should do to try
- 45:32S4: to fix my marriage or my friendship, or I'm struggling
- 45:37S4: with depression. And heartbreakingly, we've seen high profile stories in
- 45:42S4: the news of how AI has been utilized in an
- 45:46S4: incredibly evil and destructive way, with tragic consequences. And I
- 45:50S4: won't get into that. But I think you have heard
- 45:53S4: those stories as I have. So the problem with AI
- 45:58S4: is that it's packaged really nicely. It's easy to pick
- 46:03S4: up your device and to anonymously ask a question and
- 46:08S4: get a voice that responds to you, no doubt. And
- 46:11S4: it's usually affirming. Hey, great question. Glad you asked.
- 46:14S5: You're so smart.
- 46:16S4: You deserve to be happy. This is.
- 46:18S6: Oh yeah.
- 46:19S4: And then outlining in what seems like really grounded, well
- 46:24S4: thought through.
- 46:25S5: Sure. It looks like it looks like getting a really
- 46:29S5: encouraging text from a nice friend.
- 46:31S4: Because there's a worldview behind it and it's a godless one, right?
- 46:36S5: Yes.
- 46:37S4: So coming up, I want to introduce you to a
- 46:40S4: new tool that is available that I think is really exciting,
- 46:44S4: knowing that people are going to these AI chats to
- 46:47S4: try to get answers to from the mundane to life's deepest,
- 46:52S4: all the way to life's deepest questions. What if there
- 46:54S4: was a way that you could guarantee that the AI
- 46:57S4: response was actually grounded in Scripture that eliminated all of
- 47:02S4: the other nonsense that could actually Destroy and gave biblically grounded,
- 47:10S4: theologically sound and actually rooted in counseling principles. A new
- 47:16S4: tool available, I think is going to be great, particularly
- 47:19S4: for the church to utilize. I'll tell you about it
- 47:21S4: coming up.
- 47:22S1: You're listening to Carl and Crew on Moody Radio.
- 47:27S6: Who do you.
- 47:28S4: Go to to ask some of those deep life questions?
- 47:32S4: Maybe you go to a pastor. Maybe you wake up
- 47:35S4: in the middle of the night with questions that beg answers,
- 47:38S4: and you don't want to pick up the phone. In fact,
- 47:40S4: maybe you're not even comfortable asking a person. So many
- 47:44S4: people are turning to AI to try to get some answers.
- 47:48S4: There's two ways that you could respond to this. You
- 47:51S4: could feel like, no way. We don't want to be
- 47:53S4: turning to AI to get some of those questions answered.
- 47:57S4: But what if there was a safe and more? Let's
- 48:01S4: see responsible way to interact. Special guests with us this morning,
- 48:06S4: doctor Eric Scalise. He's the president and chief strategy officer
- 48:09S4: for Hope for the heart. It's an international counseling ministry. Now,
- 48:13S4: this is very, very exciting. Now, this is a biblical
- 48:17S4: counseling ministry, hope for the heart that was founded by
- 48:19S4: June Hunt. But there's something that new that you are offering,
- 48:23S4: partnering with pray.com to build the first AI platform grounded
- 48:27S4: entirely on Scripture. Please explain. Give me the high points
- 48:31S4: of this, because you can explain it far better than
- 48:33S4: I can.
- 48:34S9: We are partnering with pray.com and many of your listeners,
- 48:39S9: they may know it's a fairly large media platform that
- 48:43S9: hosts radio programs and podcasts and other kinds of content,
- 48:47S9: and they're moving into the AI world, as many are.
- 48:52S9: And I'll just say, this AI is here and it's
- 48:55S9: not going away. And like other new technologies, when they
- 48:59S9: arrive on the scene, it's always interesting to me. Sometimes
- 49:03S9: people of faith are a little suspicious. And is this
- 49:07S9: can this be used for evil? And the answers are sure, absolutely.
- 49:10S9: But it can also be used for good. Are there
- 49:13S9: radio broadcasts that are ungodly? You bet. Are there ones
- 49:16S9: just like this show, uh, that honor Christ? You bet.
- 49:20S9: And so we just have to be wise about it.
- 49:23S9: And that's what we've done with pray.com. These open systems
- 49:29S9: basically troll the entire internet universe to get their information
- 49:34S9: and data in terms of responding to people, that's potentially dangerous.
- 49:40S9: And you can get all kinds of unbiblical feedback in
- 49:45S9: council in the mental health space. I don't know if
- 49:47S9: you heard about a couple of these cases, but people
- 49:50S9: were using AI to ask about some pretty serious life
- 49:55S9: challenges people were going through. And in a couple of cases,
- 50:00S9: it resulted in an actual suicide of the person using it.
- 50:04S9: So people rightly raised some alarms. And what we did
- 50:10S9: with prey.com was we created what's called a closed system.
- 50:15S9: Therein lies the a little bit of the wisdom and
- 50:18S9: the safety in that world.
- 50:20S4: We have Doctor Eric Scalise with us this morning. He's
- 50:22S4: president and chief strategy officer for Hope for the heart. Okay,
- 50:26S4: so this AI platform is built on the ministry's keys
- 50:30S4: for living library. So there are 108 life topics that
- 50:37S4: someone could ask about. Give me some examples of how
- 50:40S4: this can be utilized.
- 50:42S9: It is a pretty extensive library. I've been in the oh,
- 50:46S9: let's call it the People Helping World Mental Health space
- 50:49S9: for 46 years now. And I like to say I
- 50:53S9: started when I was seven, but that wouldn't exactly be true.
- 50:56S9: But I've never seen such a comprehensive resource topically that
- 51:03S9: covers almost every life challenge you can imagine, but it's combined.
- 51:08S9: Not only is it professionally informed, it's combined with biblical integration.
- 51:13S9: It's a trusted resource for people of faith. And so
- 51:17S9: we we tackle some pretty serious topics like suicide, depression, anxiety,
- 51:23S9: domestic violence, childhood sexual abuse. But then others like forgiveness, hope, worry, anger.
- 51:31S9: And so there's something in there for everybody. What I
- 51:35S9: did is I, in essence, gave pray.com our entire library.
- 51:40S9: It's probably over 15,000 pages of biblically, professionally informed resource.
- 51:48S9: So I imagine for a minute if you and I
- 51:51S9: were talking and you said, hey, do you have anything
- 51:53S9: on anxiety? I might be having a panic attack every
- 51:56S9: now and then. And imagine if I handed you 108
- 51:59S9: books and I said, somewhere in this 15000 pages, I'm
- 52:04S9: pretty sure there's some help for you. Well, okay. But
- 52:08S9: then it's on you to cull through all that material
- 52:11S9: and find what you do, what the AI platform does with.
- 52:15S9: In the partnership with pray.com, it queries the entire resource
- 52:20S9: base and within seconds it gives you relevant information, feedback,
- 52:27S9: and support in that area. So it doesn't draw from
- 52:29S9: the internet world. It only draws from that repository that
- 52:34S9: we gave them.
- 52:35S4: Now, why is this such a game changer? I mean,
- 52:38S4: there are many people who maybe could benefit from a
- 52:42S4: help with counseling and would definitely could use pastoral support,
- 52:47S4: but maybe our there's some shame and stigma. I mean,
- 52:50S4: is that what this seeks to remove?
- 52:52S9: Huge. There is so much shame and guilt associated with
- 52:58S9: many things that people wrestle with. You know, how many
- 53:01S9: times do people come up and say, hey, I'd like
- 53:04S9: to talk to you about my pornography addiction, or I'm
- 53:07S9: really wrestling with using cocaine or I'm being bullied or I,
- 53:11S9: I was sexually abused and I don't know what to
- 53:14S9: do with that. So there is quite a bit of stigmatization.
- 53:18S9: And the church capital C has historically not done a
- 53:23S9: great job in that department. I think it's changing. I
- 53:27S9: think that's one of the factors. I think other factors
- 53:29S9: are young people are used to text and screens and stuff.
- 53:37S9: And I think part of this came out of sort
- 53:39S9: of the post Covid environment. I know we're a little
- 53:42S9: bit past Covid now, but for 1 to 2 years
- 53:46S9: we were isolated, especially our young people. There was no
- 53:49S9: face to face stuff. We all learned to connect, you know,
- 53:52S9: through other media forms, Zoom in particular, right? And so
- 53:56S9: the fact that people gravitate to those formats now. It
- 54:01S9: shouldn't surprise us, but I will say this. AI is
- 54:05S9: not a substitute for face to face relational support and care.
- 54:11S9: We were created for relationship through relationship and in relationship,
- 54:17S9: and we have to be mindful of that. It's a tool.
- 54:20S9: It can help people get started, but it shouldn't be
- 54:23S9: a replacement.
- 54:24S4: Yeah. So we're featuring today this Hope for the heart
- 54:27S4: AI chat. Now this is the first resource of its
- 54:29S4: kind to offer AI powered guidance that's rooted entirely in
- 54:34S4: Scripture and decades of professional biblical counseling. Talk about how
- 54:38S4: churches can utilize this because, as you mentioned, people need people.
- 54:43S4: That has always been God's way. How can the church
- 54:46S4: use this as a tool in their toolbox?
- 54:49S9: They can simply go to the pray.com site. They have
- 54:53S9: a number of chat links, but it's also on our website.
- 54:57S9: And we, you know, you train AI. It's not always intuitive.
- 55:00S9: You shape it, you train it. And so we've made
- 55:03S9: sure we're always pointing people to higher levels of support
- 55:07S9: and care if they need it to. National hotlines like suicide,
- 55:11S9: runaway drug hotlines, and how to call 911, how to engage.
- 55:17S9: And perhaps they need to connect with their pastor or
- 55:20S9: a licensed mental health clinician. So it points people to
- 55:25S9: additional levels of support and care. The important thing, though,
- 55:29S9: and the reason we're doing it, is because I think
- 55:32S9: we have to go to where people are. Jesus didn't
- 55:36S9: wait for the lost and the sick and others always
- 55:41S9: to come to him. He went to where they were.
- 55:43S9: You have to connect with someone before you can take
- 55:46S9: them anywhere.
- 55:47S4: Doctor Eric Scalise with us this morning. Is this already
- 55:50S4: out and available? Is it in the development stages? What
- 55:53S4: kind of feedback are you getting so far?
- 55:55S9: Uh, we spent a good chunk of last year in
- 55:58S9: the development side of it. We launched it some months ago,
- 56:03S9: and literally thousands of people are utilizing this tool right now,
- 56:08S9: so it's available.
- 56:09S4: You can text chat to 800 555 7898. Exciting new resource.
- 56:15S4: I want you to check it out, just text chat
- 56:18S4: to 805 557898.
- 56:22S1: A basketball mom who's mastered the dad joke. Ali is
- 56:26S1: in the crew. It's Carl and crew on Moody Radio
- 56:31S1: making herself laugh no matter who joins her. It's time
- 56:35S1: for Ali thinks it's funny.
- 56:40S4: Got a bit of a math joke for you here
- 56:42S4: on this Wednesday. I you know, I never like to
- 56:46S4: set it up this way, but this is one of
- 56:48S4: those ones that I kind of wish Carl was here
- 56:50S4: because I'm just not sure.
- 56:52S5: Are you worried it's going to go over my head?
- 56:54S6: He's your number one supporter.
- 56:55S4: Over your head. I'm just worried that I'm worried that
- 56:58S4: this 1st May not be like a super die young
- 57:01S4: thunder special. And so. But I'm gonna because these jokes
- 57:06S4: are ultimately all about me.
- 57:08S5: I was gonna say, talk about staying ready. Ali, you
- 57:09S5: knew Carl wasn't here today.
- 57:11S6: I know.
- 57:12S4: I know, so maybe I don't.
- 57:13S6: Feel good right now. Jonathan. I feel like, okay, well.
- 57:17S4: Okay. So as, as per my usual, occasionally I have
- 57:20S4: a little, a little story to lead up to the jokes.
- 57:23S6: Okay.
- 57:23S4: Anyone like to do a match making you got a
- 57:26S4: friend over here and a friend, you meet this person
- 57:29S4: over here and you're like, boy, I would love for
- 57:32S4: you two to meet. Do you ever do you ever, uh,
- 57:34S4: you ever do a little matchmaking?
- 57:36S5: No, I've never done matchmaking.
- 57:37S6: Never.
- 57:38S5: I had that feeling one time at at my wife
- 57:41S5: and I's wedding. We looked at at a couple friends
- 57:44S5: and we were like, hey, that's that's a, that would
- 57:46S5: be a good couple right there. We never tried. And
- 57:49S5: then and then it was kind of, oh, and I've
- 57:51S5: never done it. No.
- 57:51S6: Okay.
- 57:52S4: Well, I have a couple of friends. And remember, this
- 57:54S4: is a math joke. I got a couple of friends.
- 57:58S4: I got parallel line number one over here. Great. Great girl.
- 58:04S4: Just kind works really hard. And then Mr. Parallel Line
- 58:08S4: over here. They have so much in common. It's a
- 58:12S4: shame they'll never meet.
- 58:15S6: I knew exactly.
- 58:17S4: See, I knew, I knew that the math one wasn't, like,
- 58:21S4: super nice. Stretch a stretch. No, it's a parallel line.
- 58:25S4: Stop it! And they'll never.
- 58:26S6: Delivery, though, because parallel lines.
- 58:29S5: No, I get it.
- 58:30S4: They never meet.
- 58:30S5: Never meet. Who? Understand?
- 58:32S4: Okay, well let's try.
- 58:33S6: Let's try another way. Next.
- 58:35S4: So I bought a new 4 in 1 printer at
- 58:38S4: Costco recently. Yeah, those things are great. They can do
- 58:42S4: a little bit of everything. Did I run out of music?
- 58:43S6: You did.
- 58:44S4: Fire it up again.
- 58:44S5: Okay. On it. Give me a second. You gotta wait
- 58:47S5: for it to.
- 58:47S4: Then I'm like, wait, I was talking too long. Thank you.
- 58:51S4: You're welcome. So my new 4 in 1 printer, I
- 58:53S4: had it in the back seat and bought it from Costco,
- 58:55S4: and I guess that I didn't make a full stop
- 58:58S4: at the stop sign, so I got pulled over driving home.
- 59:02S5: Oh no.
- 59:03S4: Not happy about this, so but I did. I asked
- 59:06S4: the police officer, I said, I got this new 4
- 59:08S4: in 1 printer. Would you like to see all the
- 59:10S4: cool features? He looked at me and he said, just
- 59:13S4: the facts, ma'am.
- 59:22S10: Ladies and gentlemen.
- 59:22S4: What?
- 59:23S5: Come on.
- 59:24S4: Just the facts.
- 59:25S5: I see, I know. No, I don't know. I don't
- 59:28S5: know what that is.
- 59:29S4: You don't know what a fax?
- 59:30S5: No, I know what a fax is, but, like, just
- 59:33S5: the facts.
- 59:34S4: No, just the facts. It's a 4 in 1 printer.
- 59:38S5: Okay.
- 59:38S4: Fax. Fax.
- 59:40S11: Didn't want the details.
- 59:41S5: I was overthinking it.
- 59:44S4: Jonathan.
- 59:44S5: I thought. Okay, listen.
- 59:46S4: So you you didn't get the facts?
- 59:47S5: No. Okay. And this one, this actually. Because usually, sometimes
- 59:51S5: what you tell me to grab, like the audio clip
- 59:53S5: that you tell me to grab. Right will give me
- 59:56S5: some insight as to what you're doing.
- 59:58S4: This was a dead giveaway.
- 59:59S5: And I thought that this was some quote from this show, Dragnet.
- 1:00:04S4: It is just the facts, ma'am.
- 1:00:05S5: Okay. I don't know that because it's from the 50s.
- 1:00:09S4: Text jokes to 800 555, 78, 98. My apologies on
- 1:00:14S4: behalf of all that I know for this one. Text
- 1:00:17S4: jokes to 805 557898.
- 1:00:20S5: Sorry. You told your 75 year old joke to a
- 1:00:23S5: 30 year old.
- 1:00:23S4: But do you think I'm 75? Yeah, you're you're I.
- 1:00:28S11: Would stop Jonathan while you had fun digging a bit. No.
- 1:00:34S4: Now, was I a ten year old who loved Nick
- 1:00:37S4: at Nite? There we go. That's. Yes. TV land. So. Dragnet. Yes. Text.
- 1:00:42S4: Text jokes to 805 5578, 98. You got it. Text
- 1:00:48S4: jokes 805 557898.