Latest / The Wholehearted Enneagram Podcast / Make Your Move | a conversation with Lynn Cowell

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Make Your Move | a conversation with Lynn Cowell · The Wholehearted Enneagram Podcast

0:17
SPEAKER_03: Hi friends! Welcome back to the Simply Wholehearted Podcast.
0:21
SPEAKER_03: And if you are new here, we are so glad you've joined us.
0:24
SPEAKER_03: Ashley Pittman and I, Amy Wicks, are your hosts of the Simply Wholehearted Podcast.
0:28
SPEAKER_03: We believe we are all on a journey to live out the call to love the Lord with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength.
0:35
SPEAKER_03: Our mission is to inspire and equip you to live an unplugged, purposeful, and intentional life.
0:40
SPEAKER_03: We hope to encourage you by sharing stories of friends, new and old alike, who are living out their calling and purpose with a passion.
0:47
SPEAKER_03: And thanks to our friends from Inner the Worship Circle for the music you hear in the background.
0:52
SPEAKER_03: Ben Pasley and Carla Adolf have been so kind to share their song, Heavenly Things, from their album Down Here and Up Above.
0:58
SPEAKER_03: You can find them at inner the Worship Circle.com and all things social.
1:03
SPEAKER_03: Just when I think my podcast job can't get any more fun, the Lord just keeps sending us amazing guests to partner with and sharing his messages.
1:13
SPEAKER_03: It really is such a gift.
1:14
SPEAKER_03: I am so honored.
1:16
SPEAKER_03: Lynn Cal found the Simply Wholehearted podcast through a friend she met at a conference last fall.
1:21
SPEAKER_03: Lynn is a national conference speaker who's passionate about helping tweens, teens, and women of all ages to find their confidence in Christ.
1:30
SPEAKER_03: Her most recent published book is Make Your Move, Finding Unshakable Confidence Despite Your Fears and Failures.
1:37
SPEAKER_03: And ladies, this podcast is especially for you.
1:40
SPEAKER_03: And our guide friends don't need to skip this one, but Lynn's book is full of stories about women in the Word whose love for God was stronger than their fear of human opinion.
1:49
SPEAKER_03: Even if you don't feel like you struggle much with confidence, I think you will take away some great encouragement and wisdom from this conversation.
1:56
SPEAKER_03: Oh, and just a little funny inside story.
1:59
SPEAKER_03: Because I am not always great with details, I had the wrong time for our conversation with Lynn.
2:04
SPEAKER_03: And thankfully, we were able to both jump on and record, but Ashley didn't get to chime in until we were a little bit into the conversation.
2:12
SPEAKER_03: I'm glad she wasn't too far away so she could get to meet Lynn for herself, because she happens to be leading a small group of women from our church radiant in Kansas City through Lynn's study.
2:23
SPEAKER_03: She's meeting at 5 a.m.
2:24
SPEAKER_03: again, friends.
2:26
SPEAKER_03: Isn't she amazing?
2:27
SPEAKER_03: It's gonna be an incredible group, and I can't wait to hear the stories and see the fruit from their times together.
2:33
SPEAKER_03: And if you'd like to join a group of women who are going through the study, Lynn is doing a special Facebook live video edition starting February 26th, which is this next Monday.
2:43
SPEAKER_03: You'll be sure to want to join her for this interactive opportunity to build your confidence and make your move.
2:49
SPEAKER_03: Now here's our conversation with Lynn Cow.
2:54
SPEAKER_03: Okay, well, I I know a little bit about you just because I've been, you know, reading your book and I've been just, you know, digging around and your emails, um, your devotions with Proverbs 31 have been popping my e bo um email box lately.
3:09
SPEAKER_03: So tell me what your connection is with Proverbs 31 and your history and all of that.
3:14
SPEAKER_00: Okay, so I started volunteering with Proverbs about 10 years ago.
3:18
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
3:19
SPEAKER_00: I had stopped homeschooling.
3:21
SPEAKER_00: Oh five years as well.
3:24
SPEAKER_00: So I needed some time to kind of recuperate before um I thought that I was gonna jump back in the um professional world that I had done before.
3:36
SPEAKER_00: And so um I I just took some time off.
3:39
SPEAKER_00: And during that time, my husband encouraged me to volunteer.
3:43
SPEAKER_00: And he suggested Proverbs, which at the time I didn't think was a really great fit for me.
3:48
SPEAKER_00: Um, but I contacted them and they didn't need any help, and that verified my thoughts.
3:54
SPEAKER_00: Um, but then about six months later, I contacted them again and started out doing data entry with them.
4:00
SPEAKER_00: And um at the time I had and still do a passion for teens, and they didn't have anyone that was speaking into the lives of young girls.
4:08
SPEAKER_00: And so um eventually I started um speaking on their speaker team as someone who spoke to teens and then from there started um writing.
4:17
SPEAKER_03: Oh wow, that's awesome.
4:18
SPEAKER_03: Okay, so did your passion come from raising a couple of teen girls or had it always been in there?
4:24
SPEAKER_00: No, um, when I started mentoring teen girls, my own daughters were three and six, which is why I fought tooth and nail with God, because I'm like, I know nothing about this age group, and it's been long enough that, you know, I don't really remember what it's like to be a teen.
4:42
SPEAKER_00: Um, but really it ended up being one of the greatest gifts to me because by investing in young girls when they weren't mine, um, they allowed me to kind of get inside their heart and their heads so that by the time my own girls were teens, I felt like I I was more equipped to be a mother of a teen girl.
5:00
SPEAKER_03: Oh, that's awesome.
5:01
SPEAKER_03: I bet you were using pulling all sorts of things and probably comparing stories.
5:04
SPEAKER_03: Well, this isn't as bad as this situation was, so I can I can handle this, right?
5:11
SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
5:12
SPEAKER_00: Right.
5:12
SPEAKER_03: That's awesome.
5:13
SPEAKER_03: Now you um you wrote then a book um geared towards uh tweens.
5:18
SPEAKER_03: Is that right?
5:19
SPEAKER_00: Mm-hmm.
5:19
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I my first three books were for were for teens.
5:23
SPEAKER_00: Okay, and I kind of thought I was moving out of that market.
5:26
SPEAKER_00: Um, and then my publisher came to me and asked me if I would write this book for tweens um called Brave Beauty, Finding the Fearless You.
5:34
SPEAKER_00: And um it it was a completely stretching experience for me to write for eight to 12-year-old girls.
5:41
SPEAKER_00: But as I um read my own diaries from that time period, okay, that's awesome.
5:46
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's a great idea.
5:49
SPEAKER_00: Um, I hung out with my great niece who um is in that time.
5:53
SPEAKER_00: Um, I, you know, when you're a girl, whether you're a 10-year-old girl or a 40, 50-year-old girl, um, a lot of the things that we struggle with and process um are still the same.
6:07
SPEAKER_03: They are.
6:07
SPEAKER_03: It's so true.
6:08
SPEAKER_03: And it's sad because I mean uh the fact that no matter how old we get, we have to we kind of are faced with these same struggles and we have to kind of get rid of the same old demons again and again.
6:20
SPEAKER_03: And I part of it is our culture, and I realize a lot of it it's the first world issues that we're faced with and um it constantly being kind of flaunted in our faces everywhere.
6:32
SPEAKER_00: One of the things I read was that when I was doing the research for that book was that uh teen girls come or a girl's competence peaks at age nine.
6:41
SPEAKER_02: Really?
6:41
SPEAKER_00: And that shocked me because I thought, wow, we have a whole lot of life to live, you know, past age nine, which actually kind of prepared me for the second book that I wrote last year, which is Make Your Move, Finding Unshakable Competence Despite Your Fears and Failures.
6:57
SPEAKER_00: Um, so they kind of complimented, you know, as I was writing one, it kind of complimented and prepared me to write the book for adult women because, like I said, confidence, whether you're talking about a 10-year-old girl or you're talking about an older woman, um, confidence is something that we all need if we're gonna do the things that that God has poured into us to do.
7:18
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
7:19
SPEAKER_03: Oh, that's so good.
7:20
SPEAKER_03: I love that.
7:21
SPEAKER_03: And I I'm really um, I've read through your book and it's so rich and full with stories from the Bible, like real life application and questions.
7:32
SPEAKER_03: I really like um kind of the setup and the flow of it.
7:35
SPEAKER_03: I feel like it's different from anything that I've read um lately, uh at least.
7:39
SPEAKER_03: So, what kind of inspired that format of how you took um that book?
7:44
SPEAKER_00: Well, um, I am a big believer in reading God's word for yourself.
7:49
SPEAKER_00: Yes, you know, if you're if if if my husband wrote me a love letter and then he gave it to my mom and my mom was gonna read it to me, I don't want that.
7:59
SPEAKER_00: I want to hear what he has to say for myself.
8:01
SPEAKER_00: And I think sometimes we can become really reliant on the revelation that God has given to a speaker, a writer, to our pastor.
8:10
SPEAKER_00: And so everything that we are getting in our life is secondhand.
8:14
SPEAKER_00: Right.
8:14
SPEAKER_00: And that's not what God wants for us.
8:16
SPEAKER_00: He wants to give us direct revelation.
8:18
SPEAKER_00: So it's been really cool.
8:19
SPEAKER_00: Um, my youngest daughter's been home on um uh break, and um, she started, I have this idea, let's do make your move together.
8:28
SPEAKER_00: And so um she's been sharing with me the things that she's getting out of the study, and they're not things I wrote.
8:35
SPEAKER_00: And that makes me so happy because what that means is that as she is reading God's word, because it is a Bible study, yeah, that God is giving her direct revelation for her own life, and it has nothing to do with what's written in the book, and I love that.
8:51
SPEAKER_03: That's beautiful.
8:51
SPEAKER_03: That is the best thing because yeah, that just the Holy Spirit inspiring revelation there, just through reading the words herself and and all of that.
9:00
SPEAKER_03: I love it.
9:01
SPEAKER_03: So now is this the daughter that you went skydiving with that you talked about?
9:05
SPEAKER_00: It is, it is, it's Maddie.
9:07
SPEAKER_03: That's awesome.
9:08
SPEAKER_03: So, okay, skydiving, that's a pretty big deal.
9:11
SPEAKER_03: Like that's a leap.
9:15
SPEAKER_03: Absolutely, yes, yeah, elite, literally.
9:18
SPEAKER_01: You said it was elite.
9:19
SPEAKER_01: That was funny.
9:20
SPEAKER_03: So, how did now you share a little bit about like okay, you've she maddie had talked about this whole skydiving thing for years, and you just kind of like, of course, we'll do it, you know.
9:32
SPEAKER_03: But then when you finally like push game to shove, you were really terrified.
9:37
SPEAKER_03: Um tell us a little bit about that story.
9:39
SPEAKER_03: I think it's a good one.
9:41
SPEAKER_00: Um, so when my daughter was 13, um, she had this brilliant idea that for her 18th birthday, we would go skydiving together.
9:49
SPEAKER_00: And you know, when a 13 would do that too.
9:52
SPEAKER_03: I'm scared.
9:53
SPEAKER_03: Yes, that's a deal breaker for me.
9:56
SPEAKER_00: When a when a 13-year-old says something like that, you're just like, yeah, right.
10:00
SPEAKER_00: You know, that's five years away.
10:02
SPEAKER_00: I made the same mistake.
10:04
SPEAKER_00: I should have learned it when, you know, my kids started asking for a puppy.
10:07
SPEAKER_00: And I said, when you turn 10, those days actually come.
10:14
SPEAKER_00: Um, so as it got closer to her 18th birthday, she started using words like you promised.
10:20
SPEAKER_00: And I knew I was loved.
10:23
SPEAKER_03: Well, you know how that goes.
10:25
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I knew at that point I was in serious trouble.
10:28
SPEAKER_00: Um, so I tried to get her brother to jump out of a plane with her.
10:32
SPEAKER_00: Um, because you know, you can fulfill a promise by getting somebody else to do it for you.
10:36
SPEAKER_02: Right, right.
10:37
SPEAKER_00: Um, but that didn't actually happen.
10:40
SPEAKER_00: And so I had to fulfill what I said I would do and jumped out of a plane.
10:46
SPEAKER_03: I love it.
10:47
SPEAKER_03: Well, I I applaud you.
10:49
SPEAKER_03: You did it.
10:49
SPEAKER_03: Did you now?
10:50
SPEAKER_03: I think you said that it's something that you actually ended up enjoying and you would do it.
10:55
SPEAKER_00: Oh, I would do it this afternoon if if I could.
10:58
SPEAKER_00: It's it's incredible.
10:59
SPEAKER_03: Oh, do you think part of that is the idea of tandem jumping, or are you uh past the point where you're like, I just do it by myself?
11:06
SPEAKER_00: Absolutely tandem.
11:07
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
11:08
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
11:08
SPEAKER_03: I could see that.
11:09
SPEAKER_03: I could maybe wrap my mind around that.
11:12
unknown: Absolutely.
11:14
SPEAKER_01: No, no.
11:16
SPEAKER_03: I I just feel like a little bit better thinking through the process, and you did it because I really do have at least one of mine who would ask me to fulfill that sort of promise.
11:25
SPEAKER_03: And so I haven't I haven't been talked into the dog yet.
11:29
SPEAKER_01: We okay, so no dog, but let's did you say dog?
11:34
SPEAKER_01: Dog, so no dog, but I'll jump out of an airplane with you.
11:37
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
11:38
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, see the dog commitment lasts a long time.
11:40
SPEAKER_00: Jumping out of a plane just is a mere like three, four minutes.
11:43
SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
11:43
SPEAKER_01: This is exactly what I do.
11:45
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
11:46
unknown: Yeah.
11:46
SPEAKER_01: I totally agree.
11:47
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think it's awesome though.
11:49
SPEAKER_03: Okay, besides the really great story, and obviously the Lord had already begun to kind of work this confidence message in your kind of just through your pen and through your thoughts as you were writing to Tween Girls.
12:01
SPEAKER_03: Um, but what really kind of got you to write this message out the way you did for women?
12:06
SPEAKER_03: What was the just the final like because I mean, having written a few things myself, like I just feel like I have to really clearly know from the Lord because it's a lot of commitment and it's a big deal and it's kind of scary to put yourself out there.
12:21
SPEAKER_03: So what finally pushed you to put it together finally?
12:26
SPEAKER_00: Well, I think for me, um, I wrote this book for me.
12:30
SPEAKER_00: I wrote this study for myself because I would find myself feeling very confident one day, you know, kind of like the skydiving thing.
12:38
SPEAKER_00: One day I'm brave and I can do it.
12:40
SPEAKER_00: And then the next day I would find myself, you know, scraping myself off the floor after another rejection.
12:47
SPEAKER_00: And I was tired in my own life of that roller coaster.
12:51
SPEAKER_00: I was tired of feeling great and life is good and I am good, um, only to the next day to be, you know, putting myself down over my whatever my recent failure was.
13:03
SPEAKER_00: And so I knew that that is not what God had for me.
13:07
SPEAKER_00: Um, and so that I wrote make your move for me because I needed to make the move in my life from building my confidence on myself to building my confidence on the one who never leaves us, never fails us.
13:22
SPEAKER_00: Um, because I knew that an unshakable confidence is built on an unshakable God.
13:27
SPEAKER_00: And it was time for me to do that.
13:29
SPEAKER_03: That's awesome.
13:30
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, because I feel like um a lot of us have prayed for the confidence and we realize this shortcoming in our own lives, and we we do a good job of pulling ourselves up by the bootstraps and pushing forward and and going on when those, you know, those situations come against us.
13:49
SPEAKER_03: But really, um what you've done is that you're going to the word of God to replace those lies and our self-talk with the actual truth.
13:59
SPEAKER_03: Uh tell us about some of the stories.
14:02
SPEAKER_03: I know like the women of Exodus, you talk about.
14:04
SPEAKER_03: I I love that.
14:05
SPEAKER_03: I love that element and kind of how you divide it up and just kind of highlighted different people or or persons of the Bible.
14:12
SPEAKER_03: So tell us a little bit kind of what led you to their stories in particular and what you think each one teaches us about confidence.
14:20
SPEAKER_00: So when I first started doing some digging and looking at um people who were confident, you know, the Bible's full of them.
14:28
SPEAKER_00: And I began with so many, you know, from you know, men and women and and all kinds of people.
14:35
SPEAKER_00: And as I began to narrow it down, I really wanted to focus on the more obscure people in the Bible.
14:42
SPEAKER_00: And since I'm writing for women, I wanted to write on women.
14:46
SPEAKER_00: Um, and so that kind of took out people like Ruth and Esther, who have an entire book to themselves.
14:51
SPEAKER_00: Um, love them, competent women, but you know, they've gotten a lot of attention.
14:56
SPEAKER_00: And so um I started writing about, you know, the women of Exodus, um, Jacobed, Miriam, Shipra, Pua, um, the daughters of Zephalofahad.
15:06
SPEAKER_00: One of my very favorites is a gal in um 1 Chronicles 724 named Shera.
15:12
SPEAKER_00: I'd never heard, I mean, I've read the Bible several times through.
15:16
SPEAKER_00: I'd never heard of Shera.
15:17
SPEAKER_00: And yet she was a really cool lady.
15:19
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
15:20
SPEAKER_00: Um, so that's kind of what what I started was I started with all kinds of women, and then I narrowed it down to the ones that I felt like had great stories, but were a bit obscure.
15:30
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, no, I love it.
15:31
SPEAKER_03: And I like how you, I don't think I'm gonna even try to pronounce it, but you call them daughters of Z.
15:36
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, daughters of Zephalofahat is the number.
15:38
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I'm not gonna how long did it take you to learn to say that?
15:41
SPEAKER_03: Oh my word.
15:43
SPEAKER_03: Yes, I don't know.
15:44
SPEAKER_03: I think I'd have to spend a good hour practicing that one.
15:46
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
15:47
SPEAKER_03: That's awesome.
15:48
SPEAKER_03: Um, and and so you kind of so you you highlight their different stories and you take us through scripture and you ask different questions.
15:57
SPEAKER_03: Um also tell us how the DVD, because you did read video recordings and you can get DVD or you can download the videos um to share with your group or to do it privately if you don't have a group to do the study with.
16:09
SPEAKER_03: Um tell us what that kind of interface looks like and and even kind of why you thought of doing that part.
16:16
SPEAKER_00: So those were created for, like you said, they um it's either for a small group setting or if you want to have it, you know, on your own study.
16:24
SPEAKER_00: The one thing that I wanted to do different was that sometimes when I participated in women's Bible study, the video for that week was shared at the beginning of the week.
16:33
SPEAKER_00: Um, and so really, if you didn't do your Bible study, you know, you were gonna get the teaching out of the video.
16:41
SPEAKER_00: You know, I didn't really want to do that.
16:43
SPEAKER_00: I want women to study God's word.
16:45
SPEAKER_00: And so the teachings are completely different from what's in the book.
16:50
SPEAKER_00: There is no app, there is no overlapping teaching.
16:53
SPEAKER_00: So if you just watch the videos, you're gonna miss out on a ton.
16:57
SPEAKER_00: And the videos are done at the end of studying the chapter.
17:01
SPEAKER_00: Um, and so again, it all comes down to what's what's my hopeful goal, what's my prayer?
17:07
SPEAKER_00: And that is that we will study God's word so that we become confident in who he says we are and and not on somebody else's teaching.
17:16
SPEAKER_01: I like that.
17:16
SPEAKER_01: And just as a side note, because you chose people that are obscure, it kind of defamiliarizes the whole thing so that you're like, oh, I already know the story of Ruth, I don't have to really study this, or I already know Esther, so I don't have to do it.
17:28
SPEAKER_01: And so if your goal is to get women to study God's word by choosing obscure uh women, I think it kind of forces you to do that.
17:35
SPEAKER_01: So I like that strategy.
17:36
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, that's good, that's good.
17:37
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, definitely divinely inspired.
17:39
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
17:40
SPEAKER_03: So as you've written all these things, um, someone listening today, um, I think our society and then just you know, just as people as a whole, we define maybe confidence um not according to the Bible standard.
17:54
SPEAKER_03: So if you can summarize how do you define confidence, how do we know what we're looking for?
17:59
SPEAKER_03: What would you say?
18:01
SPEAKER_00: Well, if you look up the definition of confidence in dictionary.com, it's it defines it as full trust, belief in the powers, trustworthiness, or reliability of a person or a thing.
18:14
SPEAKER_00: And so our culture teaches us to put our belief in the powers and trustworthiness and reliability in ourselves.
18:24
SPEAKER_00: And and I mean, it starts from the time that you're in first grade and and you sign up to play little league softball.
18:30
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you know, go out there, girl, you can kill it, you got it, you know, and we just from the minute our our kids are little, we start building confidence on themselves.
18:41
SPEAKER_00: I mean, we can't wait for the report card to come because you know what?
18:44
SPEAKER_00: If all of the letters are the right letters, then that says something about you.
18:50
SPEAKER_00: And so from the very beginning, we start building success on, or we build our confidence on the success of ourselves.
18:57
SPEAKER_00: And then as it moves older, you know, we start linking that success to other people.
19:02
SPEAKER_00: You know, when we have a significant other, you're somebody when you have somebody, or to our education.
19:08
SPEAKER_00: And, you know, parents at my age are starting to ask the questions, you know, what college is your kid at?
19:15
SPEAKER_00: What internship has your child gotten?
19:17
SPEAKER_00: And we start linking our confidence to the success of our children.
19:20
SPEAKER_00: And our successes are our confidence are built on either someone, ourselves, our spouse, our our children, or they'll built on something, such as our careers, our our successes in the workplace, um, what kind of mother we or homemaker we see ourselves, or on something, you know, what have we accomplished?
19:44
SPEAKER_00: And the sad thing about all of that is those are all things that we can either lose or haven't taken from us.
19:51
SPEAKER_00: And when we do, they take our confidence with them.
19:55
SPEAKER_00: And that's just what I saw in my life.
19:57
SPEAKER_00: Like I said, when I I, you know, when I started writing, I experienced 19 rejections over five years.
20:05
SPEAKER_00: And some days when those rejections came, you know, I was like, yeah, that's okay.
20:09
SPEAKER_00: Jesus has got it, it's his timing.
20:11
SPEAKER_00: You know, I was great with the rah-rah.
20:14
SPEAKER_00: But other days, I literally was in a fetal position on the floor crying because the rejection from that person was a rejection of myself as in and my value.
20:26
SPEAKER_00: And that's what God wanted to do in me.
20:28
SPEAKER_00: And I think that's what He wants to do in all of us is to stop having us build our confidence on something that is faulty and can be gone tomorrow.
20:37
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
20:37
SPEAKER_03: Oh, that's good.
20:38
SPEAKER_03: I uh I remember having a conversation when I was pregnant with my first one, or maybe she was just a few months old.
20:46
SPEAKER_03: And I knowingly, like I think having a daughter kind of brought it to mind about my own issues with self-confidence.
20:52
SPEAKER_03: And I remember telling this friend, I just you know, I just hope that I can instill great confidence in her and she won't struggle with her self-esteem.
20:58
SPEAKER_03: And she's like, Well, that's good, but uh, don't you think it's really more important for her to love Jesus and know who her God is and put her faith in him?
21:07
SPEAKER_03: And I was like, I felt a little slapped.
21:09
SPEAKER_03: Like, uh yes, I guess that's probably the better thing.
21:14
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, but that kind of summarizes it there.
21:16
SPEAKER_03: It's like we so look for the answer to boost our self-esteem if we finally fit in a certain size, or you know, we get to do a certain thing, and we're waiting for those to tell us that we're worthy.
21:28
SPEAKER_03: And we can't get that from all those different you know, messages.
21:32
SPEAKER_03: We can only get it from him.
21:33
SPEAKER_03: You I think you say about um the women of Exodus.
21:37
SPEAKER_03: Um, I wrote it down here, their love for God was stronger than their fear of a human.
21:44
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that that's absolutely right.
21:47
SPEAKER_00: I I ship Ron Pua.
21:49
SPEAKER_00: My husband loves to say their names because they're so weird.
21:53
SPEAKER_00: He cracks up, he cracks up at their names.
21:56
SPEAKER_00: But they were some of the most inspirational women to me because.
22:00
SPEAKER_00: Because you know, you know, I speak for a living.
22:03
SPEAKER_00: And sometimes when I get ready to speak, I'm sitting in my chair and I feel like I have to go to the bathroom and I'm gonna throw up.
22:10
SPEAKER_00: And you know, I get so terrified inside, and I'm simply getting up to talk in front of people who have invited me to come and speak.
22:19
SPEAKER_00: But yet these women were told to appear before Pharaoh, and Pharaoh gave them a command, and they had enough guts to go against that, knowing that ultimately the thing they could have gotten was death.
22:35
SPEAKER_00: But they feared God, they revered God, they they had so they had the majesty of God so in awe in their heart that obeying Him and following Him was more important than their fear of a man.
22:50
SPEAKER_00: And I want to be that woman.
22:53
SPEAKER_00: I want to be that woman that fears and honors God and has him in so much high esteem in my heart that that I don't fear man anymore.
23:03
SPEAKER_00: And obviously, based on how emotional I'm getting, I'm not completely there yet.
23:08
SPEAKER_00: But I I I want to be, and I'm partnering with the Holy Spirit to become that woman.
23:13
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, that's amazing.
23:14
SPEAKER_03: I love it.
23:15
SPEAKER_03: And you mentioned the speaking thing.
23:17
SPEAKER_03: I just have to throw out there, I read Amy Carroll's ebook um about speaking.
23:22
SPEAKER_03: I can't remember the name of it right now at the top of my head, but um, she mentions you and what a great speaker you are, and just I think even asking, like, how do you have so much confidence in it and being honest of like, I still get scared and it's still really hard.
23:36
SPEAKER_03: And but it's it's what the Lord does when we just take what we have and he comes through and and makes it amazing because it's him through us and our weakness.
23:47
SPEAKER_03: So that's awesome.
23:48
SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
23:49
SPEAKER_03: Well, I threw this question out to you through email before um because I I I think this might actually be a real uh issue.
23:57
SPEAKER_03: Um but what about the woman who thinks that they're okay in the confidence department?
24:03
SPEAKER_03: Um maybe the person who hasn't experienced rejection yet, I might say, um, but just you know doesn't have a long story and history in their life of a ton of self-esteem issues and all of that.
24:17
SPEAKER_03: What what could we learn, what could they learn from the word of God about confidence?
24:24
SPEAKER_00: Well, I think that if you look at the the women that I studied, it until your confidence is in question, until you find your place where life is squeezing you, you know, whether that is because of a divorce, whether it's because of a child who quote unquote isn't turning out the way that society tells us they they they're supposed to turn, you know, turn out until that um career that you have gotten that education for crumbles.
24:57
SPEAKER_00: I don't think that we we can really know what it's like to be in that place until that that confidence isn't questioned like that.
25:07
SPEAKER_00: And I think a wise woman, which is, you know, my prayer every day is James 1, 5, that God will give me the wisdom that he promises that he will give me.
25:17
SPEAKER_00: The wise woman builds her confidence before that time comes.
25:21
SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, has her confidence built on the rock and not on the sand before that happens.
25:28
SPEAKER_00: Um, but if she does not, you know, the the then he's there for us.
25:33
SPEAKER_00: He never leaves us, he never forsakes us, and it's never too late to build that foundation on him.
25:39
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, that's good.
25:40
SPEAKER_03: I love it.
25:40
SPEAKER_03: I love how you articulate because I think we are gonna be faced um with that of where we either put our confidence um because life crushes in on us, or you know, just the reality of, oh, wait a minute, you know, like it's not in the right thing.
25:55
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
25:56
SPEAKER_03: So yeah, for sure.
25:58
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
25:59
SPEAKER_03: So a couple of things that um we also wanted to know, and I know that we have a little bit of time because of our our communication.
26:06
SPEAKER_03: We uh I'll just let our friends in on this as we had some Eastern Standard Time, Central Standard Time, this communication.
26:13
SPEAKER_03: And so Lynn has been awesome and flexible.
26:16
SPEAKER_03: So we're kind of on the fly um squeezing her in before her next podcast.
26:20
SPEAKER_03: But um there are um there are a few things that you give in the book, some like practical things.
26:26
SPEAKER_03: I I really like the element because you obviously you're pointing us to the word of God, you're letting the word um bring about revelation in our hearts and our minds and the Holy Spirit to do um his work.
26:37
SPEAKER_03: But what are some ways that you would challenge us to grow our confidence?
26:41
SPEAKER_03: Before, you know, maybe they don't have the study yet, or they're gonna do the study with some friends, just as they're like, oh yeah, this I think this message is for me.
26:49
SPEAKER_03: I see this weakness in my life.
26:50
SPEAKER_03: What would you tell them?
26:52
SPEAKER_00: First, um, I would just challenge you to grow your confidence in hearing from God.
26:57
SPEAKER_00: You know, one of the things that I saw from these women, for instance, Rahab.
27:02
SPEAKER_00: You there's no way you could call her super Christian.
27:05
unknown: Yeah.
27:06
SPEAKER_00: And yet she stepped out with God.
27:09
SPEAKER_00: She didn't even know that she was hearing from God when she opened the door and hid the spies.
27:14
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
27:15
SPEAKER_00: And so I think that's the first place is to challenge ourselves, is to believe and know that we can hear from God.
27:22
SPEAKER_00: Um, we can hear from the Holy Spirit, and we can make our move with him as we are in process.
27:29
SPEAKER_00: Um, the second would be in reaching your potential in him.
27:33
SPEAKER_00: When you were created, God poured potential into you.
27:37
SPEAKER_00: And no matter how young or how old you are, that potential is still being worked out.
27:43
SPEAKER_00: And so we can partner with God every day to look for how our potential can be worked out in our life today.
27:52
SPEAKER_00: How can I lean into him for the confidence that I need today to take those steps?
27:58
SPEAKER_00: And then the third would be in doing the hard thing.
28:01
SPEAKER_00: One thing that I've learned from all these women is that when God moves you to move, rarely is it easy.
28:10
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
28:10
SPEAKER_00: And that's been the experience in my life too, is that we think that if God gives us an assignment, the least He can do is not make it difficult.
28:19
SPEAKER_00: That's not been my experience.
28:22
SPEAKER_00: You know, and one thing that we do is that we tell people that God will not give you more than you can handle.
28:28
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
28:29
SPEAKER_00: I have scrubbed the Bible.
28:31
SPEAKER_00: I can't find that anywhere.
28:33
SPEAKER_00: My guess is that we're getting 1 Corinthians 10, 13 twisted, which says that he will not give us a temptation that is more than we can handle.
28:41
SPEAKER_00: But that's different than trials or life experiences.
28:45
SPEAKER_00: And in fact, my experience says that God gives me more than I can handle because he wants my confidence in him and not in me.
28:55
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
28:56
SPEAKER_00: Um, so those would be the the the three steps.
28:59
SPEAKER_00: And and um, and also if you kind of want to test drive this message and get a taste for it, on my website at lyncowell.com under freebies, I have um a freebie called Five Days to Unshakable Confidence.
29:11
SPEAKER_03: Oh, that's awesome.
29:12
SPEAKER_03: That's great.
29:13
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, that's definitely worth downloading.
29:15
SPEAKER_03: And I would also just, you know, call to mind what you said there is that um he who began a good work is faithful to complete it.
29:23
SPEAKER_03: And I I think that's you know, whether it's this journey to confidence or it's a journey to something that the Lord has called you to, um the the fact is we can do all things through him who strengthens us and it's in our weakness he's made strong.
29:37
SPEAKER_03: So I I think that's just such a yeah, just a beautiful reminder of yeah, because I mean so far, all the things that he's asking me to do, I feel like are out of the realm of possibility.
29:47
SPEAKER_03: But he invites us to go ask him for what it is that we're not able to do, and I think he kind of can just give that to us and equip us and um enable us to do it.
29:59
SPEAKER_03: So that's just such awesome thing.
30:02
SPEAKER_03: Um well as we close here, I asked if you would um just say a prayer for us.
30:06
SPEAKER_03: Maybe um someone who's listening, whether they're on the treadmill or driving kids around or cooking dinner, um, this message resonates with them.
30:15
SPEAKER_03: And because it is uh the whole confidence self-esteem issue for most of us, especially us women, it's a pain point.
30:22
SPEAKER_03: It's not to be taken like lightly.
30:25
SPEAKER_03: And um there might be a lot of healing that needs to happen.
30:28
SPEAKER_03: And so besides just going to the word of God and discovering what it says for ourselves, um, there is power in prayer.
30:35
SPEAKER_03: So, Lynn, would you just kind of close our time with your prayer?
30:39
SPEAKER_00: Sure.
30:40
SPEAKER_00: Um, and this is um in the back of my book, I have this a prayer for confidence.
30:44
SPEAKER_00: And and personally, I I printed it out and I have it before me because um again, it's this is something is that the enemy is gonna come after us not once and not, you know, after if you choose to do this study, not at the end, you're gonna be like, yes, I've got it for the rest of my life.
31:03
SPEAKER_00: This is a daily, a daily dependence.
31:06
SPEAKER_00: It is.
31:07
SPEAKER_00: Um, so let me pray for us.
31:09
SPEAKER_00: Jesus, I admit that I can't do today without you.
31:13
SPEAKER_00: Confidence doesn't come natural to me, it's only something that comes from you.
31:17
SPEAKER_00: As I rehearse your faithfulness in my life, my confidence will grow.
31:22
SPEAKER_00: There will be times when I have to make a move even when I don't have the confidence to do it.
31:28
SPEAKER_00: When confidence-crus overwhelm my mind, guard my mind with the promises in your word.
31:34
SPEAKER_00: My flesh wants to say I'm not good enough, but you say, with me, all things are possible.
31:40
SPEAKER_00: As I walk in your wisdom and see the blessings that come from obedience, may my faith build in you.
31:46
SPEAKER_00: And as I wait for your direction for my next step, help me see when I need to move, wait, or simply get out of your way.
31:55
SPEAKER_00: Enable me to fully understand and live out my spiritual gifts so I can fulfill my calling in your plan.
32:02
SPEAKER_00: I know when I'm focused on what you've called me to do, I can celebrate what you've called others to.
32:08
SPEAKER_00: Mold me into the confident woman who doesn't have to pull another down in order to pull myself up.
32:15
SPEAKER_00: I will, you will ask me to do things beyond my natural abilities, and I'm okay with that because it allows you to do greater things through me than I could ever do alone.
32:27
SPEAKER_00: When disappointment and discouragement deplete me, you will restore me.
32:31
SPEAKER_00: When life knocks me down, I will choose to draw closer to you still, and I will remember that where you move, the enemy isn't far behind.
32:40
SPEAKER_00: These trials that come my way are indications that you are at work in my life.
32:46
SPEAKER_00: As I take a deep breath in, I feel your peace from the top of my head to the tips of my toes, and I exhale, knowing that with you, I've got the confidence I need for this day.
32:57
SPEAKER_00: In Jesus' name, amen.
33:00
SPEAKER_03: Amen and amen.
33:01
SPEAKER_03: That is beautiful, Lynn.
33:03
SPEAKER_03: I love it.
33:03
SPEAKER_03: I know so many people are already being blessed by your message and will continue to be blessed and changed.
33:09
SPEAKER_03: And it's just beautiful the fruit that's going to come from it.
33:12
SPEAKER_03: Tons of world changers being birthed.
33:15
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
33:16
SPEAKER_03: It's so awesome.
33:17
SPEAKER_03: Thank you, Lynn, for your flexibility.
33:19
SPEAKER_03: And I'm so glad we got to make this happen.
33:22
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
33:22
SPEAKER_03: Me too.
33:24
SPEAKER_03: Thank you so much.
33:25
SPEAKER_03: Yes.
33:26
SPEAKER_03: Thank you.
33:26
SPEAKER_03: Have a great day.
33:27
SPEAKER_03: Have a great day.
33:27
SPEAKER_03: You too.
33:28
SPEAKER_03: Bye-bye.
33:30
SPEAKER_03: Wasn't that a beautiful prayer?
33:32
SPEAKER_03: We finished our conversation with Lynn feeling refreshed and inspired to make our next move.
33:38
SPEAKER_03: I hope you get her study, which is easy to find on Amazon, and then join her online Facebook group starting next week.
33:44
SPEAKER_03: We'll be sure to put all the details about how to find Lynn and to join her online Facebook study group in the show notes.
33:50
SPEAKER_03: And while you're there, would you take a quick minute and give us a five star rating?
33:54
SPEAKER_03: Our podcast community is growing rapidly, and we want to keep sharing these amazing, empowering stories with so many others.
34:01
SPEAKER_03: So until next week, we hope you'll be joining us as we discover more ways to live a simply, wholehearted life.
34:07
SPEAKER_03: Unplugged, purposeful, and intentional.