Latest / Rise and Thrive with Dr. J. Nicole Podcast / Navigating Life's Valleys: Faith, Purpose, and Resilience with Lamar Butler

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Navigating Life's Valleys: Faith, Purpose, and Resilience with Lamar Butler · Rise and Thrive with Dr. J. Nicole Podcast

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• 1:07
  Good morning, good morning, and welcome to Rise and Thrive by
• 1:10
  Doctor J Nicole, where we are rising in faith and thriving in
• 1:13
  purpose. Today I am joined by Lamar
• 1:17
  Butler, affectionately known as LB.
• 1:20
  He is a young man striving for greatness, a graduate of the
• 1:24
  Alabama State University and a proud member of Alpha Phi Alpha
• 1:28
  Fraternity, Incorporated, LB has spent the majority of his life
• 1:32
  following the blueprint that was given to him by his grandmother.
• 1:36
  Do good in school, get a good job, enjoy life and retire.
• 1:41
  While following the blueprint brought him much success in
• 1:44
  January of 2025, he was met with an unexpected circumstance and
• 1:49
  God is now calling him on a different journey.
• 1:54
  He's learning the power of trusting God and truly walking
• 1:57
  in faith. LB is a son, a brother, a
• 2:00
  godfather, uncle, and most recently a husband who loves
• 2:06
  basketball, anime, and gaming. Welcome, LB.
• 2:10
  Hey, hey, hey, what's going on? Oh, that was beautiful.
• 2:13
  Thank you so much for our introduction.
• 2:16
  Hey, it's your story. I'm.
• 2:18
  Going to look. I might need you to introduce me
• 2:21
  more often in spaces 'cause I feel good.
• 2:24
  Oh, yes, yes. Everyone says that and that's
• 2:28
  that's always funny to me. I'm like, this is your story,
• 2:31
  like you know, this is your life.
• 2:33
  These are things that you lived. I don't know if it y'all hear
• 2:36
  something different when I speak, but hey, I'm happy to do
• 2:39
  it. Happy to do it, but it's good to
• 2:41
  have you here. Thank you, thank you.
• 2:44
  It's an honor to be here. I'm so, so grateful for this
• 2:46
  opportunity. Yeah.
• 2:49
  It's that I haven't seen you in 10 years since that HBCU White
• 2:54
  House initiative Like HBCU lost our conference in 2015.
• 2:59
  We were in the same cohort. It has been so long and we've
• 3:03
  both come so very far from that day and that that moment,
• 3:07
  absolutely. Yeah, yeah, it's a great moment.
• 3:10
  But I guess that's the beauty of, like, building your networks
• 3:13
  continuously along the way and just staying in touch with
• 3:17
  people. And I guess that's where social
• 3:18
  media does come in handy, to be able to stay in touch with
• 3:23
  people and still have access. So today, LB and I are going to
• 3:27
  be having a very open and honest conversation about his recent
• 3:31
  journey of navigating administrative leave, a major
• 3:35
  career shift, and finding clarity in the unknown with
• 3:39
  powerful insight. And so accountability, healing
• 3:41
  and past trauma, and the courage of waiting on God's timing, LB
• 3:46
  is going to open up about learning, learning self, how to
• 3:49
  sit still, trust deeply, and grow intentionally.
• 3:52
  So whether you're going through transition, waiting on God, Rich
• 3:57
  waiting on God, or facing rejection after rejection, this
• 4:01
  episode will remind you that you're not being punished, that
• 4:04
  you are being prepared. And L BS story will encourage
• 4:09
  you and it'll help you to not jump at the first opportunity,
• 4:15
  but to instead seek alignment with where God has truly caught
• 4:19
  you to be. So you can expect some wisdom,
• 4:22
  some different insight and spiritual guidance.
• 4:24
  And hopefully this is going to be a refreshing, A refreshing
• 4:28
  take on what it means to be planted in purpose.
• 4:31
  Tell us a little bit about what led to your administrative leave
• 4:35
  and how did you process it. Oh, OK, So that is a it's one of
• 4:45
  those questions where like you want to just be flat out honest,
• 4:47
  but then you because of the space and where I'm coming from,
• 4:50
  it's like, do I do I play the political game?
• 4:54
  But the truth and honest, the honesty behind it is we had a
• 4:58
  president elected in November that did not agree with how the
• 5:03
  previous administration ran things and did things across our
• 5:07
  government. So when that President got in in
• 5:09
  January, 1 of the first things that they decided to do our our
• 5:13
  current president, what he decided to do was kind of pull
• 5:16
  back all DEI&DEIA kind of initiatives.
• 5:20
  And I originally brought on as a fellow with AmeriCorps, an
• 5:25
  amazing agency that honestly shaped a lot of my professional
• 5:29
  career because I've started as a program member brought on, I
• 5:32
  brought on as a fellow for the work.
• 5:34
  And then the next five years of my life from 2020 to till
• 5:39
  January, I was all working for them and doing different work.
• 5:44
  But because I was aligned in the DEI and DEIA space, I was
• 5:48
  affected when they came on and said all things DEI are put to a
• 5:51
  halt. And all people working in that
• 5:54
  space were immediately put on administrative leave.
• 5:58
  So that was the administrative leave part was like, OK, I'm
• 6:02
  getting paid to sit at home. Not not a big deal.
• 6:05
  I'm not going to trip about that.
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  But I think the hardest part about that entire experience for
• 6:09
  me was watching the work that I had done for the agency be
• 6:15
  ripped down from the Internet and essentially pulled from
• 6:19
  public view. Of course, they can't destroy
• 6:20
  anything because it's public record.
• 6:23
  It has to remain government policy.
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  We had my office, my supervisor, it tasked me with building a
• 6:29
  podcast for the agency. So I was able to collaborate
• 6:32
  with our Office of Communications and Marketing and
• 6:34
  we were building a beautiful podcast and all because of that
• 6:39
  one order. And that those decisions, that
• 6:42
  part, I have to watch it like be poured down from the Internet.
• 6:44
  And so like, I can say, yeah, I did this, but there's no true
• 6:48
  evidence of the work. So I think that was the hard
• 6:50
  part. Everything that I was doing and
• 6:52
  everything that I had done was having to be wiped clean from
• 6:57
  agency history, essentially. And that doesn't feel good when
• 7:00
  you're the one having to like go back and change the language and
• 7:03
  go back and fix this and fix that.
• 7:05
  And it's like, it's not fair, it's not right.
• 7:07
  This stuff should be able to live forever and now it can't.
• 7:12
  All because you don't. Someone or a group of people
• 7:16
  don't agree with what something stands for.
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  And that's what hurt. Oh man, there's so many layers
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  to that. Like this is where you had been
• 7:26
  working for five years. You're building a solid, like a
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  building a legacy there, then creating something to be
• 7:33
  consumed by people. You know, it's a form of legacy,
• 7:36
  right. And you're right.
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  And also that it's still public record and it should go into the
• 7:41
  National Archives too. May.
• 7:43
  Yeah. Right.
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  Yes. So.
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  But they are. We know that.
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  Go ahead. Oh no, I just think we have to
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  pull it from the public. So I do believe it goes to the
• 7:52
  archives. Yeah.
• 7:55
  And, you know, that's just rough.
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  I'm just thinking later, right, Because we won't have the same
• 8:01
  leadership forever. You never know what might be
• 8:04
  restored. And then if it was already out
• 8:07
  there, it has blessed people. But just to feel like something
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  is being torn down, that's that's awful.
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  That's awful. So when you talk about that,
• 8:18
  right, like in a lot of us, we pour so much of ourselves into
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  the work that we do. How were you able to separate
• 8:24
  your identity from the position from the what happened with the
• 8:29
  administrative leave? Like how are you able to
• 8:31
  separate that? Because we are programmed in
• 8:34
  society that like it's what you do, right?
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  Like go achieve like even the great advice that your
• 8:39
  grandmother gave, right? Like to do those things and then
• 8:44
  something happened that's directly against it.
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  So how do you maintain a sense of self and identity separate
• 8:49
  from that? Can't lie, I lost myself for a
• 8:56
  period of time. OK, it's not feeling like part
• 9:03
  of it was, oh, I've come so far. Let me enjoy some of the fruits
• 9:06
  for my labor and just not stress about things I can't control.
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  So wanting to just numb myself to the pain I was actually
• 9:14
  experiencing by trying to enjoy and give myself this instant
• 9:18
  kind of gratification. But then also this
• 9:22
  simultaneously feel like maybe I'm not as good as I thought
• 9:26
  because why am I the one that's getting reached out, right?
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  Why is it that I don't get an opportunity to continue to work?
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  What did I do that was so wrong, right?
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  And you know, because you have you have colleagues and peers
• 9:40
  and others that you know, are going through some of the same
• 9:42
  things, but it's hard not to say why me.
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  And that was a period of time like why me and trying to numb
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  that. And just, you know, it is what
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  it is. Life will go on.
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  So while dealing with those two kind of conflicting spaces, but
• 9:57
  also in space that can live together, I also started to find
• 10:01
  that there were the things that I was doing in my role were not
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  because they were designed for the role, but they were designed
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  for me. OK, sound like purpose loading.
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  So it was really, it became like talking to my mentors, talking
• 10:17
  to, you know, my work mom, talking to those colleagues that
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  I had the opportunity to work with during my time at
• 10:25
  AmeriCorps. And like really just bouncing
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  ideas. Because again, we're all not all
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  of us, but many of us are experiencing some of the same
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  things. Some of us are jumping ship and
• 10:33
  finding jobs quickly. Other others are trying to hold
• 10:35
  on and see what's going to happen.
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  But everybody's experiencing this shift together.
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  And my member was just telling me how I got my final promotion
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  before the administrative leave. He was reminding me how I
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  interviewed and reminded me how I stood for and I was able to
• 10:53
  explain what I did not, you know, how a team did something,
• 10:57
  but the work that I was responsible for, the work that I
• 11:01
  had impact on leading. And so that started reminding
• 11:05
  me, oh, wow, you, you were never supposed to be doing outreach
• 11:10
  work in that role. But because you were good at
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  connecting with people, because you understood how to share the
• 11:15
  AmeriCorps story, because you were able to break down the
• 11:19
  programs and help young people understand their options, it
• 11:23
  became something you were able to do.
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  And they believed you had a supervisor that believed in you.
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  So remember your talents, remember your skills, remember
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  your gifts, because those are going to be the things that make
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  room for you. And that started to shift me
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  into a space of, OK, God, what am I actually supposed to be
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  doing? Like, I don't want to have
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  anything taken away from me. And again, I'm tired of doing
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  things and building things and having things.
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  And someone else is always having the final say.
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  It's not me. It's always someone else that
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  has the final say. God, it needs to be me.
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  It needs to be you. No one else in between.
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  If you not saying it and I'm not saying it, I don't want it to be
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  moved no more. So how do I get there?
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  What do I need to do? And He's slowly revealing things
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  to me. And that's, and that's how I'm
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  separating myself, reminding myself of the gifts that I have
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  and the talents that I have that God's given me to show up and
• 12:18
  remind like, it's not the role you were not fit for the role,
• 12:21
  the role was fit for you. It becomes a difference when you
• 12:24
  start to understand that I can do anything.
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  And so I'm no longer just interviewing to fulfill the
• 12:30
  role. I'm actually trying to see, does
• 12:31
  that role fulfill me? Does that role fit where I'm
• 12:33
  going? Does that role fit what God has
• 12:35
  called me to do? Because that is giving me so
• 12:38
  much power, even in the job search process to go on an
• 12:41
  interview and like hear what they're saying and understand
• 12:44
  that I don't have to say yes right now.
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  I don't have to. God, is this what you want me to
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  do? Is this type of work I should be
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  doing? Is this how my time needs to be
• 12:55
  spent? Am I going to be impacting or in
• 12:58
  the right with the right people that you need me talking to,
• 13:00
  shaking hands with, rubbing shoulders with, sharing my
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  testimony with? Is this God?
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  Is this it? And if it's not, it's not going
• 13:07
  to feel good. I'm not going to have peace with
• 13:08
  it and I'm not going to desire it.
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  Wow, there's so much in there, right?
• 13:16
  So I heard I could hear like your journey to acceptance,
• 13:20
  right? Like because it's a form of loss
• 13:23
  that you went through, right? And I also hear how you went
• 13:27
  from like your identity being up for grabs and in the air to
• 13:31
  really getting it backgrounded in God and how God answers
• 13:35
  prayers like, and it doesn't always look like what we want or
• 13:41
  what we think because it's he, his ways are not our ways.
• 13:46
  And as you were just talking about it and you're like, why
• 13:48
  me? And what did I do wrong?
• 13:51
  That's not what the enemy wants you to think that it's you.
• 13:53
  Because I personally believe that it's always a lot of this
• 13:58
  is about identity crisis, because if the enemy could
• 14:00
  confuse you about who you are and who's you are and why you
• 14:05
  are. Come on now.
• 14:07
  He can have his way with you. He can have his way with you.
• 14:09
  And so this is the danger when we tie what we do to who we are,
• 14:15
  right? Unless we're literally operating
• 14:19
  a purpose with God, and even with that, depending on our
• 14:21
  personalities and if we start to idolize it, that can become a
• 14:25
  thing too. But we're not going to go down
• 14:27
  that rabbit hole. But exactly.
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  So there was a pruning, if you will, because you feel like
• 14:33
  something was taken away. But if you want to do what God
• 14:37
  wants you to do, He does have to move things.
• 14:41
  I was literally sharing with a client yesterday.
• 14:44
  I looked out my window and I was like, just like looking at the
• 14:47
  leaves. And it just made me think of
• 14:49
  transition. Every single year, leaves fall.
• 14:53
  The leaves have to fall in order for them to make their full
• 14:57
  transition and prepare for the next season.
• 15:00
  Can you imagine and trying to hold on to all the leaves.
• 15:03
  God is trying to take things away, not to punish you, but to
• 15:06
  make a room. And there's so many things that
• 15:09
  look like they're dead, barren, desolate, but we just can't see
• 15:14
  what's happening on the inside. That's you're you're in that.
• 15:22
  So like there's the pruning, the falling away of the things, but
• 15:26
  also our good. Listen, I don't want to say this
• 15:31
  because sometimes I be, I can be very funny and relatable with
• 15:34
  God. And I'm like, it just makes me
• 15:36
  think about where I think it was a conversation that Denzel
• 15:40
  Washington and Jamie Foxx were having.
• 15:41
  And Denzel was like, I'm a wand away.
• 15:44
  I'm leaving here with something, right?
• 15:46
  And I feel like that's how God is with us.
• 15:49
  You are not going to leave empty handed.
• 15:52
  While you obviously felt like there was a stripping away, you
• 15:56
  didn't leave empty handed. You had an opportunity to
• 15:59
  prepare and practice. You're like being built for
• 16:02
  what's coming. So I've also have been lived
• 16:06
  experience where things that seemed completely unrelated have
• 16:11
  come into this moment. Me being able to do what I'm
• 16:14
  doing here with you are skills that I got to practice and hone
• 16:18
  and sharpen and other periods and other seasons of my life.
• 16:22
  And I was like, whoa, God, like it didn't seem like it was
• 16:25
  anything. And so for you to get here to
• 16:30
  this space now where you're in your authority and you're like
• 16:33
  God, if it's not you, if it's not me, then I don't want it.
• 16:39
  And that's so powerful. But sometimes we have to have
• 16:44
  those stripping away moments to bring us to that.
• 16:47
  And obviously that that that's not that's Bible, right.
• 16:51
  All things work together for good for those who love the Lord
• 16:54
  to them that are the called according to his purpose.
• 16:57
  That's Romans 828. Yes, that is Romans 828.
• 17:01
  And sometimes we can't see it because we're in the flesh and
• 17:04
  the body and our bodies. We're not good with pain, we're
• 17:07
  not good with discomfort, we're not good with embarrassment.
• 17:10
  We're not good with any of those things that are fleshly, right?
• 17:14
  We don't like it. And so we will try to hold on to
• 17:17
  things. And so I man, I'm gonna let you
• 17:23
  talk some more. So what did you learn?
• 17:25
  Where have you been learning more about yourself during this
• 17:28
  time? Because I'm just excited for you
• 17:29
  and I could just keep talking about all the stuff that I'm
• 17:31
  hearing that it's going to be amazing.
• 17:38
  God is that is really working and he's proving all the prayers
• 17:43
  for wisdom and knowledge that I've asked for since, you know,
• 17:46
  growing up. He's showing me how he's giving
• 17:49
  it to me and a lot of it, he's like, son, the lesson I tried to
• 17:53
  show you, you didn't want to. You weren't attuned for you, you
• 17:57
  weren't in tune, you weren't you weren't ready for it.
• 17:59
  But now you see it, now you understand it, and now you're
• 18:01
  ready to digest it. Yeah.
• 18:04
  It's what I learned is that though I was really smart,
• 18:08
  really intelligent, really talented, I wasn't mature enough
• 18:14
  to take in certain types of food and certain lessons that God was
• 18:18
  trying to teach me. Oh yeah.
• 18:21
  And you know, just like a baby, we can't, our baby can't be born
• 18:24
  again. Fried chicken off the bone
• 18:25
  immediately, that stomach can't process it.
• 18:28
  Baby can't chew it. It's a big problem, right.
• 18:31
  So when we are what I've learned is like all the things I want in
• 18:36
  terms of some of the material things in life and some of the,
• 18:39
  you know, I want to live this way.
• 18:41
  I want to have this thing. I want to be able to do this for
• 18:42
  somebody. I want to be able to do this for
• 18:44
  somebody. All these things that I desire,
• 18:47
  guys like those things come with certain trials, certain
• 18:51
  tribulations and certain journeys and certain lessons.
• 18:56
  Son, you aren't ready. Like as much as you think you're
• 18:59
  ready, as much as you want to puff your chest out and say, oh,
• 19:02
  I can do it. I'm the man, I'm this son, all
• 19:04
  right, I'm protecting you from this thing that you, you're
• 19:09
  really not ready to go to war with.
• 19:12
  If God has David to war with Goliath before David fought the
• 19:16
  lion and the bear, David would not have had the faith to
• 19:20
  understand that God's got me in this moment.
• 19:22
  So there there were smaller moments that God has been had to
• 19:28
  take me through at terms of my own accountability.
• 19:30
  Like, hey, I remember sitting and talking to someone who I
• 19:34
  look up to as like a mentor. And we had like a prayer
• 19:37
  session. We had a prayer session.
• 19:38
  We had a moment to really help me find direction in my life.
• 19:41
  And it was like, go to law school.
• 19:43
  That was like very clear, vivid. I need to be preparing for law
• 19:45
  school. I need to make that shift.
• 19:47
  I need to be everything to take that step.
• 19:51
  Walked away from that conversation, walked away from
• 19:52
  that moment knowing this is exactly what I need to be doing
• 19:55
  because it was something I always wanted to do.
• 19:59
  However, when I walked away from that moment, yeah, I started
• 20:02
  studying. And then, you know, that moment,
• 20:03
  that feeling, that invigoration of like, oh, God's giving me
• 20:06
  clear direction that past. Because now I have to go through
• 20:10
  the training process of preparation for what he's trying
• 20:13
  to bestow upon me. And training isn't fun.
• 20:16
  Training isn't beautiful. Training isn't.
• 20:18
  Training isn't what people look at and go, wow, you're awesome.
• 20:22
  They will look at the final performance.
• 20:24
  And so God taught me that I wasn't ready to hold myself
• 20:28
  accountable to the training, to get to the dream and to the
• 20:30
  vision because I didn't do the work because I said God, 2025,
• 20:34
  but let's go to law school. Let's go ahead and start law
• 20:36
  school in 2025. Well, God positioned my life
• 20:41
  perfectly so that I would transition out of my job with
• 20:45
  AmeriCorps and into law school in fall of 2025 because I prayed
• 20:49
  for it and I asked for it. But the problem was God upheld
• 20:52
  His end so that I could do it in 2025, but I didn't uphold mine.
• 20:55
  So when 2025 came, I wasn't ready to step into law school.
• 20:59
  Let me tell you something, the chills that I'm feeling, the way
• 21:04
  you describing his timeline and how you being so raw and real
• 21:08
  right now that he set it up. He it was perfect.
• 21:15
  It was perfect and he sent the reminders.
• 21:16
  He sent the you know how to how it says and but I will knock on
• 21:19
  the door and continue to knock. I had an intern in my when I,
• 21:23
  you know, getting in my role, one of my I got really close to
• 21:26
  one of our interns and she is now in her cell year.
• 21:29
  She's in her, she started her second year of law school.
• 21:33
  She started the process while she was still interning for us,
• 21:36
  the studying, the applying. So it was a constant reminder of
• 21:40
  Lamar. This is where you're supposed to
• 21:41
  be going to. We even had conversations about
• 21:43
  it, like it was a constant reminder of Lamar.
• 21:45
  This is where you're supposed to be going to.
• 21:47
  But I was so caught up in the making of the money or I got the
• 21:51
  time and I'll do it when I get ready.
• 21:53
  And I was so caught up in the static of life that the very
• 21:56
  clear direction that he had given given me, I said, oh God,
• 22:00
  I'll come back to it. You've given me the direction.
• 22:02
  Cool, I'll come back to it. And so now here I am in this
• 22:07
  space of like, OK, now I got to really learn to listen and
• 22:09
  trust. And because I'm about to go
• 22:12
  through and I know I'm experiencing something that is
• 22:14
  not is unnecessary because he told me a long time ago what to
• 22:19
  do. Told you what to do.
• 22:23
  I also hear that he's also giving you a second chance
• 22:26
  because this is time to study again if you want to retake the
• 22:29
  LSAT. Like that's how great God is.
• 22:32
  He's like, OK, since you want to be disobedient and drag your
• 22:35
  feet and think you got time, watch this.
• 22:38
  You going to learn to listen to me and I'm like be graceful,
• 22:42
  give you mercy or be gracious and give you mercy and you got
• 22:47
  time to study. Yes, he's awesome and every
• 22:52
  vision and every vision that he's given me, everything that I
• 22:57
  once saw and everything I wanted to do.
• 22:58
  He's saying like, you can have it all, son, you can have it
• 23:01
  all, but you're not going to get it until you do.
• 23:05
  You have to be disciplined. You have to be willing to
• 23:07
  sacrifice. You have to be committed.
• 23:09
  The things that you lack, the things that you never wanted to
• 23:12
  learn, the things that you never wanted to really do, it's going
• 23:15
  to require that of you. You've gotten this far because
• 23:18
  you were that good, but if you want to get further, you have to
• 23:20
  become better. It's not going to work.
• 23:23
  Every new every new level has a new devil.
• 23:25
  Every new level has a new obstacle.
• 23:26
  Every new level is going to require a better, new, more
• 23:29
  developed version of you. Middle school ball and JV ball
• 23:33
  are not the same. JV ball and varsity ball are not
• 23:36
  in fame. Varsity ball and D1 all are not
• 23:38
  the same. D1 and NBA are not the same.
• 23:41
  You may be the best at that level before, but when you get
• 23:44
  to the next level, you have to climb that mountain all over
• 23:47
  again. And that was something I'm I was
• 23:49
  truly an uncomfortable with, like I truly do not.
• 23:52
  And in my before this moment before like getting into the
• 23:56
  space, I did not want to climb mountain again.
• 23:58
  I did not want to have to go through all the all the I got to
• 24:01
  show up and execute. I got to be this and I got to
• 24:03
  show up this way and I got to speak this way.
• 24:05
  And I got to do this because I had done it for seven years
• 24:10
  before I got to America or I had already started that process
• 24:13
  with teach for America before I got to teach for America.
• 24:16
  If you want to talk about college, I was in the process.
• 24:19
  And so no, God, I don't want to go back into the valley.
• 24:23
  I don't want to go back down there because I climbed this
• 24:26
  mountain and it feels good to be up here finally.
• 24:29
  But what he had to teach me was that you know why you're tired?
• 24:33
  You know why you're exhausted? Do you understand why you don't
• 24:37
  have the energy you need, the focus you need to go to the next
• 24:40
  mountain because there are no nutrients up here.
• 24:43
  I need you to go back into. Hey, come on.
• 24:45
  Nutrients, you got to go back. You got to go back and get
• 24:48
  filled up. You got to go back and be
• 24:49
  restored. You got to go back and grow some
• 24:51
  more. You got to go back and get
• 24:53
  everything that you lost climbing up here.
• 24:55
  You got to go back down there and get it because you're going
• 24:58
  to get more this time. Your capacity to carry the
• 25:01
  nutrients has increased. What you can now carry up this
• 25:04
  mountain is a lot more than you can carry the first time.
• 25:06
  So now you can go up a larger mountain because you've gained
• 25:09
  the capacity to take more with you.
• 25:12
  But you got to go back down there.
• 25:14
  You got to go to the valley to get it first.
• 25:16
  You got to go back down there. So that's that's where I am.
• 25:19
  I'm in the valley experience of regaining the nutrients,
• 25:22
  regaining what it's like to stay focused, regaining what it's
• 25:24
  like to be disciplined, regaining what it's like to be
• 25:26
  consistent. And I'm being able to do it now
• 25:29
  with a different perspective, a different understanding, and
• 25:32
  still being able to juggle the challenges of life.
• 25:36
  Oh my goodness. I was just talking about the
• 25:39
  Valley and how nobody wants to be there.
• 25:42
  Like we don't want to be in the valley, but when you look, it's
• 25:45
  so green and lush and beautiful and everything collects and
• 25:50
  gathers down there. So it's important to go through
• 25:53
  the valley. But there's valleys in between
• 25:56
  the mountains for a reason. This is for you to climb.
• 25:59
  So it's so easy to think of it just literal because it's lower
• 26:04
  and it's like, no, this is the valley before your next
• 26:06
  mountain. And I love everything that
• 26:09
  you've been saying about like this is preparation.
• 26:11
  You got to replace. You got to, you know, replace.
• 26:15
  You get the nutrients to nourishment.
• 26:17
  This is a season of preparation. It really and truly is.
• 26:21
  And you're going through God humbling you, maturing you so
• 26:30
  that you can actually go into these spaces, be effective, be
• 26:36
  long and be impactful. He's working out any type of
• 26:41
  arrogance that could get in the way and what we have to learn
• 26:47
  along the way. Because I think in our minds,
• 26:49
  the way society programs us like you get to a certain point, you,
• 26:53
  you're not supposed to have to do this type of stuff.
• 26:55
  You've already done it. We've already gone through it.
• 26:57
  When the reality is you have to go through it, an iteration of
• 27:02
  it over and over and over again. And then, and that's what we're
• 27:07
  doing by ourselves, what we're doing by ourselves.
• 27:10
  But when we are working with and really collaborating or allowing
• 27:13
  God to lead us, right? Well, we collaborate with him, I
• 27:16
  guess, right? Because he's the creator of it
• 27:19
  and he makes the rules. But we just have to be willing
• 27:23
  to allow that fine tuning to happen.
• 27:26
  That's just like instruments. They have to be tuned.
• 27:31
  Yes, it might have been the best whatever instrument, but if it's
• 27:35
  not cared for, if it's not maintained, if it's not tuned,
• 27:39
  it's not going to be able to play when it comes time to
• 27:42
  perform. And it can sound awful.
• 27:44
  He doesn't want that for us because especially when you're
• 27:46
  representing him. So it's easy to just see it as
• 27:50
  something negative when no God is he setting you up to do some
• 27:54
  serious work. Setting you up and protecting
• 27:57
  you. Yes.
• 28:02
  And we don't know it because sometimes what we think is
• 28:04
  punishment is actually protection.
• 28:06
  Like no's are really and truly redirection.
• 28:10
  So let me ask you this. What did some of this radical
• 28:14
  accountability look like when nobody was watching, when it was
• 28:17
  just LB versus LB? So part of it is making sure I
• 28:26
  get up and at first it was just open my Bible, Bible app, just
• 28:32
  open that up, open that. Up.
• 28:34
  I see you be active in there. Open that app up, read, read
• 28:37
  that, read that daily verse going my life.
• 28:40
  You know that it started off as that just because I you know, I
• 28:42
  want to build the streak of reading the Bible, but the
• 28:46
  radical accountability became when no one was checking me.
• 28:54
  Do I go deeper than just reading that first verse?
• 28:57
  OK. And then it became, I'm going to
• 29:01
  read the verse, listen to the video.
• 29:05
  If you know the Bible app, it has the video that explains the
• 29:08
  verse and give them a brief testimony with it.
• 29:10
  Then it gives you a passage to read and then it gives you a
• 29:13
  prayer. And it so it was like, OK, we're
• 29:15
  going to go through this whole refresh, this daily refresh.
• 29:18
  Love the daily refresh? You love it, so it's like, go
• 29:21
  through that. Then it became, Oh, no, that's
• 29:24
  not enough. I need to be reading Scripture,
• 29:27
  Scripture. I need to really be reading it.
• 29:29
  And now it's, oh, I want to get through the Bible in 365 days.
• 29:33
  So you start, I started that in January and I'm almost done.
• 29:38
  Almost. We're almost.
• 29:39
  Done. And almost.
• 29:41
  And I'm almost done. And it's exciting because when I
• 29:45
  hear things now, even though I can't say, oh, I can tell you
• 29:49
  the exact verse in chapter. No, no, no.
• 29:52
  But these stories are no longer unfamiliar to me.
• 29:56
  Correct. Problems with the Eliza, the
• 29:58
  Elijah and the Elijah, like those problems that people have
• 30:01
  of not knowing, these are different people.
• 30:03
  They're same, similar names, but different people.
• 30:05
  Like I can tell you, Nah, they're different.
• 30:07
  Like I can tell you certain things because I'm reading and
• 30:10
  I'm understanding. But with that, it's also the
• 30:14
  accountability of attuning myself to now get God's
• 30:17
  revelation because I've started reading more because I'm
• 30:20
  intentional about the time I'm spending God's able to show me
• 30:24
  things in a Bible that I wasn't able to see before.
• 30:27
  I can say I was sitting in Bible, I was sitting in class
• 30:30
  with our young, the youth of the church, and we were talking with
• 30:35
  the story of sample. And if you know Samson's hair,
• 30:38
  the Delilah, everything just showing that story.
• 30:41
  And I was like, and God revealed to me how Samson, not only was
• 30:46
  he a judge, but he was a foreshadowing of Christ because
• 30:49
  he was betrayed for silver. He sacrificed himself to free
• 30:55
  Israel from palace, the Palestinians.
• 30:57
  And you know, he it was a lie that set him up.
• 31:00
  So it was like there was so many congruencies between what are we
• 31:03
  were reading and studying and this judge of Israel in Christ.
• 31:07
  And it's like, yeah, this is the type of stuff I'm can show you
• 31:11
  when you read and walk with me. I couldn't show you this before
• 31:15
  because you it wouldn't, it wouldn't make sense.
• 31:18
  It wouldn't have made sense. But now you see it because you,
• 31:21
  you understanding Christ is not just this one figure in this one
• 31:26
  moment in this one time, but you're starting to understand
• 31:28
  how the whole Bible points to him.
• 31:30
  The entirety of the Bible points to Jesus Christ.
• 31:34
  I couldn't see that before. It's like, Oh, it's just a
• 31:37
  history book. Oh, it's just a story book.
• 31:39
  Oh, it's just this, It's just that.
• 31:40
  Nah, it it's the testimony of Jesus Christ to show you that
• 31:44
  you are who you are before you come into this world and long
• 31:48
  after you leave this world. You are who you are and
• 31:52
  everything about is going to lead to what God wants from you
• 31:55
  and for you. Because everything in the Old
• 31:57
  Testament, no matter what they try to do, no matter what they
• 32:00
  said led to Jesus Christ having to be here.
• 32:03
  Everything in the New Testament, no matter what they did, no
• 32:05
  matter what they tried to lead to the fact that he's coming
• 32:08
  back. And This is why we need to do
• 32:10
  certain things. And so the radical
• 32:13
  accountability really started to challenge me in how I walk, how
• 32:17
  I talk, how I behave in God's image.
• 32:20
  And no, I'm not perfect. There's God is still working on
• 32:23
  me. There are still things I do that
• 32:26
  I know I probably shouldn't. It comes natural, cursing and
• 32:29
  other things. It comes natural.
• 32:31
  But then you start to fight it, and you start to, as my
• 32:33
  grandmother's for reminding me, you have to deny the flesh and
• 32:37
  spirit. And die to yourself, David.
• 32:41
  Yes, So all this accountability is refocusing me when I don't
• 32:46
  want to go to the gym. And I'd say, oh, I'm going to
• 32:48
  sit here and play the PlayStation for the next 10
• 32:49
  hours. Nah, Get up, champ.
• 32:51
  Sorry. You know, you got something to
• 32:53
  do. You know your body needs to
• 32:55
  move. Sorry.
• 32:56
  It feels good. Yeah, it feels good.
• 32:58
  You know, you got some money you don't get.
• 32:59
  You don't got to go work for that money right now.
• 33:01
  You know, you got some money coming in.
• 33:02
  You know you're good. Nah.
• 33:04
  Nah. What comes after?
• 33:07
  What do you want to be able to do later?
• 33:09
  And so it started challenging me that in the moments that I would
• 33:11
  normally be idle, the moments that I would try to enjoy or
• 33:15
  reward myself for not doing anything.
• 33:19
  Give yourself something to reward yourself for.
• 33:22
  Go work out, go hit that mile, run, go, go, go, go to the gym,
• 33:25
  go play basketball, go read a book.
• 33:28
  And the challenges of not always doing it for super long periods
• 33:32
  of time. But if you don't read, challenge
• 33:34
  yourself to read 10 books a day. It's not ten books, 10 pages a
• 33:36
  day, read 10 pages a day. And then you, you just get into
• 33:40
  this habit and it's like, oh wow, I actually want to continue
• 33:43
  reading this book Now I'm at a really good part and I don't
• 33:44
  want to put it down. You thinking about it in
• 33:47
  between? Yeah.
• 33:49
  Exactly. So now it's just these small
• 33:51
  things. The radical accountabilities
• 33:52
  just started doing this, finding and forcing yourself to do the
• 33:57
  little things. Do the little things add up to
• 34:01
  the big ones? That was so powerful like and
• 34:07
  and there's so many layers that are in there.
• 34:11
  So accountability created space for you to see yourself and to
• 34:16
  really grow and so many different scriptures were going
• 34:19
  through my mind as you were talking like he who has ears,
• 34:22
  let him hear, you know what I mean?
• 34:24
  He who has eyes, let him see. Then I'm also thinking, well, my
• 34:27
  sheep know my voice and how you going to learn the voice of God
• 34:30
  if you not in the book, if you're not in his words, That's
• 34:35
  what's going to feed your spirit, right.
• 34:38
  And these times like we really, I don't think or maybe I'm just
• 34:44
  late to the party, but I don't know if people realize how much
• 34:49
  every day we are really fighting for our spirits that we are
• 34:53
  engaged in spiritual warfare and we don't even know it and it's
• 34:57
  so simple or may not even recognize it.
• 34:59
  The amount of time you spend scrolling attention distraction,
• 35:03
  that's that's the enemy. Like you said, the video games,
• 35:07
  you know, it's easy to do that binge watching things now,
• 35:09
  sometimes we do need a break, but think about how people
• 35:14
  literally they just get lost in it and then they procrastinate
• 35:20
  and then at the end when the deadline is coming and we'll use
• 35:24
  an exam, right, because I'm I'm getting ready for another exam
• 35:28
  that I got to take right this in December.
• 35:30
  So I'm like, Ciao, you. I started getting my prep stuff
• 35:35
  together, but it's like we're not what we're not going to do
• 35:38
  is do all this other stuff. It's go time.
• 35:41
  You have a date scheduled. It's go.
• 35:43
  You know what to do. You've done this before, but
• 35:48
  that version of us, that's just like poor that version of us
• 35:57
  that's like we good here. We could just stay where we are.
• 36:01
  That comfort, comfort, comfort is one of the biggest
• 36:06
  distractions is one of the since you were just talking about, but
• 36:11
  this is the antagonist, right to purpose to growth like one of
• 36:16
  many. But like we're going through
• 36:18
  that every single day with what we give our time to, our energy
• 36:22
  to, and the number of hours we lose on things that are not
• 36:27
  going to give us a return on investment.
• 36:30
  Yes, yes. And I love that you see that.
• 36:33
  And you're talking about building those small habits
• 36:36
  because people, they want to see instant quick stuff.
• 36:38
  And if it's not fasting, they don't.
• 36:40
  When all you got to do is do 1015 minutes a day, like 15
• 36:44
  minutes a day, that's 1% more than the day before. 15 minutes
• 36:48
  is 1%. We can all do anything for 15
• 36:52
  minutes. And just think about that 1%.
• 36:57
  A hundred days later, you are 100% better. 100% better doesn't
• 37:00
  mean you are now. You went from playing like a
• 37:04
  middle schooler to playing like LeBron James, but you are 100%.
• 37:08
  You are twice the player you were or you are twice you.
• 37:13
  And then you just keep compounding.
• 37:15
  Like Chris called this idea. He's called stacking days.
• 37:19
  You just keep stacking this in the days and every time you miss
• 37:22
  a day, you reset. It's like you're resetting
• 37:24
  yourself. So if you, you don't want to
• 37:26
  reset, you don't want to have to start over, you don't want to
• 37:29
  have to start get that skill back.
• 37:30
  So you just keep stacking the day.
• 37:32
  Some days you might put in 2-3 hours in that thing because
• 37:35
  you're just, you just have the time, you have the past, you
• 37:37
  have the energy. The other days it's like I'm
• 37:40
  doing for 10 minutes because I know I got to do touch it.
• 37:42
  I got to touch it, I got to do it.
• 37:45
  And eventually you will be all that you've been called to be.
• 37:48
  You'll be all that you've been called to be.
• 37:51
  And also something that I've learned in the last like year
• 37:55
  and a half. So really when you put God
• 37:57
  first, time expands for you. Resources don't seem to run out
• 38:04
  things and people just show up. There's no explanation.
• 38:07
  The money stretch longer. God's math is crazy work.
• 38:14
  And I'll and I'll just love the evidence he gives us.
• 38:16
  He gives us that evidence time and time and time and time
• 38:19
  again, like, but my math don't make sense.
• 38:21
  It's never going to make sense. You're never going to understand
• 38:23
  it. I'm a take, take a jar with this
• 38:26
  much oil. Come on, I'm a tell you to pour,
• 38:31
  but it ain't going to ever run out.
• 38:32
  It's just going you're going to feel, Hey, you go borrow every
• 38:37
  jar, every vessel you can from your neighbors.
• 38:40
  Go borrow and it's going to and like he's and his math is so
• 38:45
  crazy because sometimes we get caught up on the physical
• 38:47
  manifestations of his math, but it's like no, no, no, no, no, I
• 38:50
  need you to see this little bit is you, this little bit is you
• 38:56
  this little bit of gifts. You think I gave you the the
• 38:58
  little bit of resources. You think I gave you that little
• 39:00
  family. You don't like that you think I
• 39:01
  gave you those little friends. You got that you that I gave you
• 39:04
  that that's all that is, and now I need you to pour.
• 39:07
  I don't need you to worry about how much I gave you you.
• 39:10
  You're worrying about we we be worried about the wrong thing.
• 39:13
  God be like y'all is worried about all the wrong stuff.
• 39:15
  Here's what I gave you. Now poor don't I get it?
• 39:20
  They say don't pour from an empty cup.
• 39:21
  OK, cool, cool. Not an empty cup.
• 39:23
  You're not empty, obviously. It's still coming out.
• 39:26
  You're not empty. You keep telling yourself you're
• 39:28
  empty, but it's still there. And that's the God's math is
• 39:32
  bewildering because it's out of us.
• 39:35
  I'm feeling you and I'm not going to stop.
• 39:41
  You keep feeling empty and you're pouring from an empty
• 39:45
  vessel because you keep going away from me.
• 39:49
  But if you stay connected to me. The source abides.
• 39:53
  I won't turn off there is no there it on and off switch to
• 39:57
  me. There is no vow that there's
• 40:00
  none of that. I am a living water unending
• 40:03
  spring that's going to bubble over every time I it's I'm I'm
• 40:07
  so fooled that I am constantly bubbling over.
• 40:10
  So stay connected so that you are never not fool that that be
• 40:16
  our issue. Like I asked my pastor all the
• 40:19
  time because my pastor does amazing work and he is all like
• 40:24
  I'll be talking. My doctor schedule is just every
• 40:26
  day, every day. Doc doesn't sit down and I'm
• 40:30
  just like, how do you do it? And we experience like a very
• 40:34
  traumatic thing at, you know, as a church family.
• 40:37
  And even in that moment, like I'm asking them, how do you stay
• 40:40
  strong? How do you stay filled?
• 40:41
  How do you like just show up for your people?
• 40:43
  Being the pastor, something that I tell you I'm not, I
• 40:46
  understand, I'm not ready for that.
• 40:48
  But he just, he's like Doc, I don't leave from God's presence.
• 40:52
  I'm always his presence, I'm always at his like he's always
• 40:57
  with God because that way it's not his energy, it's not his
• 41:02
  oil, it's not his strength. Nothing is of nothing that he's
• 41:07
  doing for God's people is coming from him.
• 41:08
  It comes from God. So he doesn't have to worry
• 41:10
  about his capacity because God's capacity is unending.
• 41:14
  So he and like he tries to me so much like that of just stay
• 41:20
  connected and because he got he get on me like I always wouldn't
• 41:25
  want to talk to him or I I want he's like you got God.
• 41:27
  You don't need me. I've talked to you.
• 41:29
  I trained you when you've spent enough time with me to know all
• 41:33
  the stuff you asking me all these questions, all these
• 41:35
  worries, all these things you want to bring to me, bro, take
• 41:38
  him to God. I taught you that not because I
• 41:41
  don't want to, but when you grow to a certain point, the shepherd
• 41:47
  has to worry about the sheep that aren't where you are.
• 41:50
  I've taught you enough to go directly to him.
• 41:54
  You don't have to come to me anymore.
• 41:55
  I don't have to be your intercessor.
• 41:57
  You can go directly to him. And that's and that's what he
• 41:59
  impresses upon me. Just stay connected to God.
• 42:01
  Your energy, your strength, you will be filled.
• 42:03
  You will be filled. It sounds as that we walk and
• 42:06
  not get weary. We mount up with wings like
• 42:09
  eagles, like we're going to have an energy that's unfathomable.
• 42:14
  And so God's math is not our math.
• 42:19
  Listen, we could just end the podcast right now because that
• 42:21
  was a whole word we episode done.
• 42:26
  But for real, if they don't take nothing else away, that right
• 42:30
  there, yes, like wow. But I'm going to keep us moving
• 42:36
  because we could just stay in that.
• 42:38
  And I know there's so much more richness for you to share.
• 42:41
  So what mindset shift or shifts help you to reframe the
• 42:47
  rejection of being put on administrative leave, being a
• 42:51
  high achiever especially? You know us high achievers have
• 42:56
  an issue. We don't want to hear.
• 42:58
  No, we don't want to hear you did bad.
• 43:02
  We don't. We don't, we don't even like I
• 43:04
  know for me personally, I don't want to speak to all high
• 43:05
  achievers. I was the child and the adult
• 43:09
  who didn't want to get read back on anything they gave it.
• 43:12
  I did not want to like red. Seeing those red marks would
• 43:16
  tear me apart. And so the ability to like
• 43:23
  reframe myself, it was a, it started with my second
• 43:28
  supervisor or really my third supervisor at AmeriCorps.
• 43:31
  He was the first chief diversity and inclusion officer that we
• 43:33
  had at the agency. And what she did was acts like
• 43:38
  we when we want to send information out to the agency or
• 43:42
  get information to like leadership, she would be the one
• 43:45
  to disseminate the information. OK, but we had to draft the
• 43:50
  language and the memo and whatever we had to draft it and
• 43:53
  send it to him. And if you've ever worked with
• 43:57
  executive leader, executive letter leader level leader and
• 44:01
  you know how a stiffer for their voice they are, they want things
• 44:06
  to be in their voice. And so working with him, sending
• 44:10
  the sending the the hey, this is what I think we should send out
• 44:14
  and then getting it back, right. I, I need you to fix this then.
• 44:16
  I don't like this. I don't like this, I don't like
• 44:18
  this on it started the process of building the calluses I
• 44:21
  needed to unders to get rejection.
• 44:24
  So it got me come first. And it was just something small.
• 44:26
  It's just being comfortable with constructive criticism, being
• 44:29
  comfortable with being told you're not the best, being
• 44:32
  comfortable. We told you got you got growing
• 44:34
  to do just being comfortable in that space.
• 44:37
  And I've heard it before. And this is the importance I
• 44:41
  think of having diversity and representation.
• 44:45
  I had heard it before. I've been taught these lessons,
• 44:47
  but a lot of them came from black women.
• 44:50
  So I heard them, I took them in, but it did not stick the same
• 44:53
  way it did when a black man took me under his wing to say I want
• 44:58
  to make you better. It just felt different.
• 45:02
  And it's not anything because I, I credit a lot of my success to
• 45:05
  black women, but seeing that black man that looked like me,
• 45:09
  that came from a same little background for me and like being
• 45:11
  in that space, really, I took to him differently.
• 45:15
  And so building those calluses, when it came time for all of
• 45:19
  this that is now happening, I was able to reframe things again
• 45:26
  after a period of time of going through some dark spots to
• 45:29
  reframe it of stop giving them the power.
• 45:33
  They didn't take the job from you.
• 45:36
  They didn't fire you. They didn't put you on
• 45:39
  administrative leave. They didn't push you out.
• 45:42
  God is repositioning you for what He needs you to do next.
• 45:45
  Come on, Reframe. And so when I started to reframe
• 45:49
  that, I started to look around me at what opportunities do I
• 45:53
  now have from where I am to be God's vessel.
• 45:59
  And what that has led me into is being more supportive of my
• 46:01
  friends and my wife and the work that they're doing, helping them
• 46:05
  build their businesses and chase their dreams and do all the
• 46:08
  things that they need to do. Because something that God
• 46:11
  taught me while I was working in the government was strategy.
• 46:15
  He taught me how to strategy jobs.
• 46:16
  He taught me how to project manage.
• 46:18
  He taught me how to dot my IS and cross my TS effectively.
• 46:23
  And it's a skill that not all of my friends and all the people
• 46:26
  around me have. So God was like, hey, you're
• 46:30
  supposed to be doing things for my people in my glory anyway, so
• 46:34
  start doing things for my people in my glory by helping your
• 46:37
  friends achieve, by being the one by they need, they need some
• 46:42
  help. Go be help.
• 46:44
  Don't worry about where your money's going to come from.
• 46:46
  Don't worry about how I'm going to protect you.
• 46:47
  Don't you see the lilies of the field and how finally they are
• 46:51
  dressed? Your Father loves you.
• 46:56
  Don't you think he's don't you think he's going to take care of
• 46:59
  you just that good? Not even Solomon look like that.
• 47:03
  So come on now we have to understand that God's souls
• 47:07
  like, OK, stop worrying about the little things.
• 47:09
  I got you on the big ones. Don't worry about that.
• 47:14
  I got you, you all that. I just need you to take care of
• 47:17
  these big these big assignments I'm sending your way.
• 47:19
  I got you all that little stuff. I need you to execute on the big
• 47:21
  ones. And so then it was showing up
• 47:23
  for people, not being a victim, but repositioning myself as I
• 47:26
  have the power to change my entire situation.
• 47:29
  I just have to lean. I know where I have to lean.
• 47:30
  I know what I have to do. God, you're, you're, you're
• 47:32
  empowering me. You're not taking anything away
• 47:34
  from me. You're empowering me to use what
• 47:37
  I have and stop relying on man and start relying on you because
• 47:41
  where I was distractions exactly because where I was, I had
• 47:46
  gotten to a point where I was making really good money.
• 47:49
  I was comfortable and content with like, oh, I can just stay
• 47:52
  in this agency. I can rise, I can keep going up
• 47:56
  and I can out my salary will keep going and you know, I'm
• 48:00
  good here. I'm good and there's a pathway
• 48:02
  here that I see, but God's like, why are you putting limits on
• 48:05
  me? Like what?
• 48:07
  Why are you putting limits on me?
• 48:08
  Like I. Was not.
• 48:10
  Calling you to just be in a row and just live this like yes,
• 48:14
  that's cool. You can you will survive little
• 48:17
  happy, but you're going to miss out on all this that I got and I
• 48:21
  want you to have it. And sometimes, and I truly
• 48:25
  believe he's going to fight for us to have what he desires for
• 48:29
  us to have until the day that we go home to see him until we
• 48:33
  can't do it anymore. He's going to continue to fight
• 48:35
  for us to have what he wants us to have.
• 48:37
  And so that's what that's what it was.
• 48:39
  My I've reframed my entire thinking of not being this
• 48:42
  victim in this. I'm not, I'm Howard to take
• 48:45
  control of my life now. I'm empowered to really use the
• 48:49
  knowledge, the wisdom, the understanding that he gave me
• 48:51
  and not just coast, not just continue to rely on this
• 48:55
  paycheck, that this agency that was created for man to do man's
• 48:59
  work, to be what man is called man to be.
• 49:03
  That's not the. That's not where I want you to
• 49:05
  be. But you went there and you got
• 49:08
  complacent when you were just supposed to go there, use it to
• 49:11
  go somewhere else, but you went there and got comfortable.
• 49:16
  So yeah, it's common for us to. See a place where we can be,
• 49:23
  where we plant ourselves in a place we're not supposed to be.
• 49:29
  How can I? Say this without telling the
• 49:30
  whole story. But I had an experience where I
• 49:34
  was somewhere and like you, I could see a path.
• 49:36
  I would have stayed who knows how long.
• 49:39
  And I love the work that I was doing, the impact that I was
• 49:42
  having. But the organization was not
• 49:45
  supportive. It was toxic.
• 49:48
  It was a toxic environment, but I was doing amazing work and the
• 49:52
  impact that I was having and I'm just like, yeah, oh.
• 49:55
  And like he was like, OK, I can see.
• 49:56
  Oh, that's how much they make it.
• 49:58
  Oh, I can get there. I could do that.
• 49:59
  And God is like, he made sure I could not be at peace.
• 50:03
  So if you're ever in the space and you're not really and truly
• 50:06
  at peace in that space, there's disruption coming from
• 50:10
  somewhere. That's a marker right there that
• 50:13
  says God doesn't intend for you to stay here.
• 50:17
  This is just a stop off and we just we want to get to comfort
• 50:21
  because we're taught get to this place like that old that that
• 50:26
  advice your grandma. Gave you that?
• 50:27
  Was the goal. That was what people did and in
• 50:31
  prior generations, that's what you did.
• 50:34
  We are in a completely different type of space where and it's not
• 50:38
  to say what she's saying wasn't good because it got you as far
• 50:40
  as it could. And God said I got it from here,
• 50:43
  that guy LB where I wanted him to be.
• 50:46
  And now I'm going to take over Grandma, hand it over, you know?
• 50:49
  And so, yeah, exactly. And so.
• 50:54
  He'll, he'll, he'll take us out of those spaces and places and
• 50:57
  we think this is it. We think we've arrived.
• 50:59
  And you're absolutely right, 'cause if I had stayed where I
• 51:01
  was, there's, we would have never met number one.
• 51:06
  Then we wouldn't be having this moment.
• 51:08
  This podcast wouldn't exist. There would be no Doctor J
• 51:12
  Nicole, like there would be none of this, right?
• 51:16
  If he didn't come and disrupt and he's not done.
• 51:21
  So I'm like, listen, I'm locked in obedience.
• 51:24
  That's you. You get fed through obedience.
• 51:26
  That's where the reward really and truly comes from.
• 51:29
  And he just will really set us up.
• 51:32
  So why do you think we rush to be planted almost anywhere,
• 51:38
  right? And how do we like unlearn that?
• 51:45
  I think it goes back to the garden.
• 51:48
  It goes back to. This we rushed to have.
• 51:50
  Comfort and access, Eve was. Tricked because she wanted
• 51:55
  access to the same. Level of knowledge that God had,
• 52:00
  we want access. And access can.
• 52:02
  Be to anything, right. So we we want access to people,
• 52:06
  we want access to resources, we want access to places, we want
• 52:09
  access to time. We want whatever it is that we
• 52:12
  want access to, we will rush to be planted somewhere because we
• 52:15
  believe where would be possibly planted is going to give us that
• 52:17
  access. Yeah, so like.
• 52:21
  And I'll tell a. Story of like moving and
• 52:23
  sometimes like jumping from where you're planted to
• 52:26
  somewhere else, OK. I desire to get into.
• 52:32
  Ministry of like full time, like like let me be in it full time
• 52:38
  ministry. And this was around 2018 when I
• 52:41
  first got back home to South Carolina.
• 52:43
  After graduating and starting off my job as a teacher, I
• 52:46
  really wanted to get into full, active and full time ministry.
• 52:49
  I took it to my pastor at the time and we had a conversation
• 52:54
  and so he loved the. Idea, but he and.
• 52:57
  He told me upfront he's like, there's I want you to sit and
• 53:01
  learn first. So he wanted.
• 53:04
  Me to sit at his feet, he wanted me to like.
• 53:07
  Be with him go when he goes to speak places go go with him
• 53:09
  speaking there show up the church you know learn like
• 53:12
  really be connected to him to really see what ministry is like
• 53:17
  and live that life get the rhythm yes business and that's.
• 53:20
  What? He wanted me to.
• 53:22
  You don't have to. Build it while you fly it.
• 53:25
  Boom. So that's what he wanted.
• 53:27
  Me to do and you know, when you're in that phase that you're
• 53:32
  also given other tasks to show up in the church.
• 53:35
  So things that may not seem important, but things that I
• 53:38
  want to see, can you just be obedient?
• 53:40
  So it was like, Hey, can you do the announcements for the
• 53:42
  church? Like so I'm, you know, creating
• 53:43
  announcements. I'm doing voice overs.
• 53:45
  So I'm walking up to the front and reading off the
• 53:47
  announcements for the church and things of that nature.
• 53:50
  And I'd done, I had done that for some time, but I was ready.
• 53:54
  To start speaking. I had been speaking since I was
• 53:57
  12, the first time I stepped on anybody's church or in the
• 54:02
  pulpit to give a sermon, sermon that I was 12 years old.
• 54:05
  So here I am. It's what, 20/22/23?
• 54:11
  I'm at this point No 24 and I'm ready to go like I'm ready to
• 54:14
  like, yo, give me a Sunday. Give, give me something.
• 54:18
  Let me give me a Wednesday. Let me do something like my
• 54:21
  ambition. And I want, I'm wanting access
• 54:24
  to be able to share God's word, not from a selfish space, but I
• 54:28
  just love speaking. And if you really know me, those
• 54:30
  who know me, like once you get this talking Bible with me, I
• 54:34
  have a desire to know more. So I'm, I want to talk about it.
• 54:37
  I don't want to debate. I want to, Hey, did you see
• 54:39
  this? OK, so you see this and like,
• 54:40
  can we like, I'd get into it. So I I just wanted to do that,
• 54:45
  but I'm. In his head and what he was
• 54:48
  saying. Like I wasn't ready.
• 54:49
  It wasn't a time I needed to continue to sit and wait.
• 54:54
  So that ambition. For me.
• 54:57
  Caused me to chase other things outside of God.
• 55:03
  So when God had. Planted me at home to grow.
• 55:05
  Because I had went home after losing my mom for very
• 55:09
  intentional reasons, I went home for it.
• 55:12
  But because my ambition and desire to was not being met
• 55:16
  where I was, I decided to dig up my roots, not worry.
• 55:21
  About anything else God had said.
• 55:23
  Anything else God was doing around me, I was worried about
• 55:28
  what I. Wanted in that.
• 55:29
  Moment so I wanted to go rush and rush to somewhere to find
• 55:33
  that yeah and so I. Left and I, I.
• 55:38
  Found I get I found exactly what I was looking for.
• 55:42
  I found a place that gave me the opportunity to speak and to be
• 55:45
  around people and to share God's word, which was great.
• 55:51
  That was the great part about it.
• 55:54
  The bad part about it was all of those relationships and all
• 55:58
  those people weren't the people God wanted me to be doing all
• 56:01
  this stuff with. So I wanted to rush into
• 56:07
  comfort. Into a place where I feel
• 56:09
  validated, where I feel heard and recognized.
• 56:11
  Where you hear. I, I, I, I, I.
• 56:15
  That's all these eyes and God was like pride.
• 56:20
  No, that was never the. Purpose in the. 1st place like
• 56:23
  it wasn't about you and what you wanted, but that's what I rushed
• 56:27
  to and I found myself in an environment where I gave way
• 56:31
  more than what I ever would receive in return and that's not
• 56:37
  what. God wanted for me because I.
• 56:38
  Wasn't in a space in my life to where I need.
• 56:40
  I should be giving in that way. There's and.
• 56:45
  So I think it's super important. That we recognize those things
• 56:50
  and. Rushing we so when we rush.
• 56:53
  To plant ourselves, because we feel that comfort, we can be
• 56:57
  planting ourselves. We could be a type of plant that
• 56:59
  needs to be in a tropical rainforest, right?
• 57:02
  We just planted. Ourselves in.
• 57:05
  A desert or in the Savannah. These are not the.
• 57:10
  Same climates and these are not. The same situations, these are
• 57:12
  not the same type of environment, don't have the same
• 57:15
  nutrients. They don't have the same
• 57:16
  predators and prey. They don't have the same
• 57:18
  pollinators. Nothing that a plant needs is
• 57:21
  the exact same in these in these locations.
• 57:24
  So it's like we've rushed to go be planted here in the Savannah
• 57:27
  where it's, oh, I get the sunshine and oh, there's some
• 57:30
  animals here and it looks so beautiful and it's not all shady
• 57:34
  and muggy and the clouds ain't in the way in the rainforest and
• 57:36
  it's beautiful. But now you're getting burnt
• 57:41
  because you needed the cloud. Cover to protect you from the
• 57:43
  sun 8 out of the 24 hours of the day, but because you left, you
• 57:49
  only are covered two hours of the day so now you're
• 57:51
  overexposed for six and it's just.
• 57:55
  This thing of like we be wanting.
• 57:56
  To go where we think we're comfortable.
• 57:58
  And God was like, I gave you the environment I need you to be in
• 58:01
  because there are things you don't understand about you yet
• 58:04
  that I'm protecting you from. I'm protecting you from you.
• 58:10
  It's like when we rush. Like when people rush to.
• 58:12
  Go to Atlanta or to LA or to the big city because they're they're
• 58:15
  tired of living like the country, the slow lifestyle,
• 58:18
  right? Yeah, before.
• 58:21
  They're ready to go. I'm not saying take jumping out
• 58:24
  on faith of God has told you to go is wrong, but but if you jump
• 58:27
  out there before you're ready, you those are the individual you
• 58:30
  start to see going through the chaos of the big city.
• 58:33
  The people that get taken advantage of and are called the
• 58:35
  country bumpkins and the people that don't know nothing and
• 58:38
  they're easy. They're easy play in the big
• 58:41
  city because we went to an environment that we weren't
• 58:44
  supposed to be planted in and planted ourselves before we were
• 58:46
  ready. Maybe when you get to a certain
• 58:50
  point you are able to replant. And now deal with that.
• 58:54
  New environment because you've built what you needed to build
• 58:57
  for yourself. The understanding, the
• 58:59
  toughness, the finances. We'd be 1 to jump places and
• 59:02
  can't even afford to live where we are.
• 59:04
  But now we want to go to jump and live in a higher tax
• 59:06
  bracket. Why are you doing that?
• 59:10
  And God, God didn't tell you to take that risk to go there.
• 59:13
  God said, hey, I need you to move from this place to go here.
• 59:17
  Or he might have just said, I need you to move from here and
• 59:19
  I'm going to show you where I want you to go.
• 59:21
  But we said, I don't like the idea of you showing me, so I'm
• 59:24
  going to pick where I'm going to go.
• 59:27
  And so we set the destination. And unlike Abraham, we don't
• 59:30
  just leave and say God, show me. We say, God, this is where I'm
• 59:33
  going. Now I need you to align with
• 59:35
  that plan. No.
• 59:39
  So I can talk about that all day because it's my lived.
• 59:42
  It's literally my lived experience and clearly I can
• 59:46
  have you back because I'm like if.
• 59:48
  There's so many other questions I want to ask.
• 59:50
  And I was like how are we already at an hour?
• 59:52
  Like for real? And what you said, it just made
• 59:55
  me think about like that's how the enemy comes in.
• 59:58
  And so my minister, he reminded us he was like Satan only got 3
• 1:00:02
  tricks. And so of course, we.
• 1:00:05
  Automatically thought kill still.
• 1:00:06
  Destroy and he was like no lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes
• 1:00:12
  and the pride of life. Any of those things are going to
• 1:00:16
  any of it is going to come back to those three things.
• 1:00:21
  That is good. Yeah.
• 1:00:24
  And I was like, but it's, it's plain.
• 1:00:26
  It's written but it was just like him just dropping and I was
• 1:00:28
  like, yeah, anytime we want to do or we're trying to get ahead
• 1:00:32
  of God and don't want to wait on God.
• 1:00:35
  Lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, pride of life.
• 1:00:40
  They all going to. Fit under there.
• 1:00:42
  So those are the ways that. He gets us and he'll he'll have
• 1:00:45
  you in your mind saying all type of stuff.
• 1:00:48
  They don't get it. I'm too big for this.
• 1:00:50
  That's pride. I ain't go to school for all
• 1:00:53
  this training. To be up.
• 1:00:54
  Here, Read no announcement. Talk about it.
• 1:00:59
  Listen, we will. Start telling ourselves all the
• 1:01:03
  things that we are too good for, when if it's for God, there's no
• 1:01:08
  way to be too good for it. And you're supposed to do
• 1:01:10
  everything, because if you're doing it for the Lord himself
• 1:01:14
  and then he literally tells us to do the stuff, then we'll do
• 1:01:18
  it. Or we think we got.
• 1:01:19
  More time, we're going to do it on our.
• 1:01:21
  Time. So what message do you have for
• 1:01:24
  those who feel like they're being benched by God and how
• 1:01:29
  practical ways to kind of like help them while they're while
• 1:01:32
  they're in this benched or waiting season or preparation
• 1:01:35
  season? OK, I think I want to answer
• 1:01:42
  that first with the story Jalen Hurts, who is now we.
• 1:01:49
  Know a super? Bowl winning quarterback was
• 1:01:54
  benched during the championship game in 2018 because he had a
• 1:01:59
  terrible first half for Alabama. OK, so he.
• 1:02:03
  Was benched and. Tua.
• 1:02:05
  Comes in, Tua saves the day. Brings brings them back, wins
• 1:02:08
  the championship. Jalen Hurts plays backup.
• 1:02:12
  For Tua. And then eventually goes off to
• 1:02:15
  Oklahoma and then gets drafted to the NFL.
• 1:02:20
  In a moment where you are all. Lights on you, all eyes on you.
• 1:02:24
  This is your moment to shine and bring home a championship,
• 1:02:29
  Jalen. Hurts for all Intensive.
• 1:02:32
  Purposes in that moment failed. He came up short.
• 1:02:36
  They were down 13. Zero and his coach put him on
• 1:02:40
  the bench Jalen Hurts at. That time.
• 1:02:44
  Was not ready to lead A-Team to the championship six years later
• 1:02:55
  after making it to the Super Bowl and losing again.
• 1:02:59
  You're not ready, Was not at the time, was not then.
• 1:03:03
  He had not quite shown himself ready to win.
• 1:03:07
  It was something there was something missing, whether it
• 1:03:09
  was on his team, whether it was in his leadership, whether it
• 1:03:11
  was in him as a person. There was something else missing
• 1:03:14
  that get them over that hump because I've made it to the
• 1:03:17
  championship, but somehow now I still can't win.
• 1:03:20
  And who knows, Who knows? Jalen Hurts might have had
• 1:03:23
  flashbacks to that championship game in 2018, and that's what
• 1:03:26
  stopped him the first time he got to the Super Bowl.
• 1:03:29
  I'm still being held back by that time I was benched and my
• 1:03:34
  time is now. But this man who's benched took
• 1:03:38
  the time to get better, to never doubt himself, to not give up on
• 1:03:42
  himself. And now he's a Super Bowl
• 1:03:44
  champion. I may not have won that
• 1:03:46
  championship in college, but I went on to be a runner up to
• 1:03:50
  Heisman and now I'm a Super Bowl champion, which all college
• 1:03:54
  champions want to win the Super Bowl.
• 1:03:55
  I've done that so. When we feel like we're getting.
• 1:04:00
  Benched and we're already in a moment of this preparation
• 1:04:06
  season. Don't wait and Twitter your
• 1:04:09
  thumbs. Don't wait.
• 1:04:10
  And just my time's going to come and when my time comes then I'm
• 1:04:14
  going to get to work. Because God didn't tell Noah to
• 1:04:20
  build the ark when it was raining.
• 1:04:22
  He told no one art before the rain came.
• 1:04:25
  Not a drop, not a cloud insight. Nothing.
• 1:04:29
  So we have to. Be preparing ourselves for the
• 1:04:32
  opportunity in the moment that's going to give God all the glory
• 1:04:35
  in that Big Bang. We don't know when that Big Bang
• 1:04:38
  moment's going to be. That's not for us to know, but
• 1:04:41
  it's for us to be prepared. Every day.
• 1:04:44
  We can talk about the 10 virgins who had oil in their lamps, and
• 1:04:48
  we're waiting for the Prince to come.
• 1:04:49
  Five of these versions prepared and understanding that things
• 1:04:52
  may not happen the way I think. So let me bring a little extra
• 1:04:56
  just in case. While the other five said, Oh
• 1:04:58
  yeah, things are going to go exactly as planned, the Prince
• 1:05:02
  is going to oil. But the.
• 1:05:06
  Problem is. God.
• 1:05:09
  Does not always go according. To our plans that there's a
• 1:05:15
  delay, there's a. Hold up there.
• 1:05:16
  There there's a redirect and so when that happens, you don't
• 1:05:22
  want to be caught with no oil. So we got.
• 1:05:26
  To be prepared. We have to do it.
• 1:05:28
  So if we know, and I'll talk about this on my podcast that's
• 1:05:32
  coming, it's going to be dropping soon, talk about like
• 1:05:35
  if we really are going to have faith in this dream that God's
• 1:05:38
  given us, wherever that vision may be for us, then we have to
• 1:05:40
  everyday work towards it. Whether we see it actually
• 1:05:44
  happening and coming to fruition right now or not, we have to
• 1:05:47
  know that God's going to show up.
• 1:05:49
  God gave Joseph a dream that he was going to be above his
• 1:05:52
  brothers and be at such a high position when Joseph was very
• 1:05:56
  young. Joseph told his brothers this
• 1:05:59
  and. Was thrown into a pit.
• 1:06:00
  And from that position of being in the pit, how God are you
• 1:06:03
  going to make this dream come true?
• 1:06:04
  I'm about to be dead. And then he went to jail, too.
• 1:06:10
  So that's a. Slavery, all of it.
• 1:06:12
  And he goes through all these things and that no point.
• 1:06:14
  Is like, is it like, OK, God, you told me this, but I what's
• 1:06:19
  going on? But he never loses faith.
• 1:06:22
  He never stops being a good person.
• 1:06:23
  He never and he continues to trust that God's going to God.
• 1:06:27
  Whatever you said is going to come to pass.
• 1:06:28
  I just need to keep trusting in you and now then he ends up
• 1:06:32
  being the right hand of Pharaoh. So I'm there's only person that
• 1:06:36
  has more power and authority in this Kingdom of Egypt.
• 1:06:40
  And if people know Egypt, you know how powerful of a nation
• 1:06:42
  that was the only person was Pharaoh.
• 1:06:45
  So we have to be willing to trust God even when we doesn't
• 1:06:48
  seem like the vision He has for us is coming to pass.
• 1:06:53
  Continue to work, continue to improve yourself.
• 1:06:55
  Continue to show up. Continue to operate in
• 1:06:58
  excellence because He will. It may not be in one year, it
• 1:07:04
  may not be in three, it may not be in five, it may not be in 10.
• 1:07:08
  Jesus Christ didn't start. His ministry till he was 30.
• 1:07:11
  But he could have started it when he was not.
• 1:07:14
  He was kicking it in a. Temple as an adolescent.
• 1:07:17
  So he could have been started. Kicking it, but.
• 1:07:21
  He was, Oh no, he was. He was answering he.
• 1:07:23
  Was kicking, he was talking and answering questions and I hate
• 1:07:26
  it. Like you got to be that young
• 1:07:29
  and to be in. So if Jesus Christ himself said
• 1:07:33
  I ain't got to pop out till I'm 30, we don't have.
• 1:07:38
  To worry about. Being pushed or forcing
• 1:07:42
  ourselves to do something before we are ready because there's a
• 1:07:46
  divine timing to everything. We just need to stay attuned to
• 1:07:49
  God. God will prompt us when it's
• 1:07:52
  time. Because when God was ready for
• 1:07:54
  Jesus to start his ministry, he had Jesus go get baptized in
• 1:07:58
  front of people, and then he took him into the wilderness to
• 1:08:01
  be tested. Because I believe.
• 1:08:04
  Your time is now. But to ensure that you're ready,
• 1:08:08
  there's one final Test for you. So let's go.
• 1:08:13
  I'm going to. I anointed you in front of
• 1:08:15
  people because when you came up out of water, I sent the Holy
• 1:08:18
  Spirit came down like a dove. And from the heavens, Sir, this
• 1:08:21
  is my son with whom I am well pleased.
• 1:08:24
  Yeah, I've anointed you as my. Son, the world now knows.
• 1:08:27
  You are my son, so son, don't let me down.
• 1:08:31
  We got one test before you can go out and start doing what
• 1:08:34
  you've been called to do. One more, but it's going to be
• 1:08:37
  you. It's just, it's just going to be
• 1:08:40
  you and everything I filled you with.
• 1:08:42
  It's you and everything I filled you with versus the main enemy
• 1:08:46
  that we got that we'd be we're going up against, go out there
• 1:08:50
  and come back victorious. So he so he led them into the
• 1:08:54
  wilderness before he can ever start his ministry because he
• 1:08:57
  had to test and make sure his son was ready for what he was
• 1:09:00
  going to be stepping into. And so that's all of us.
• 1:09:03
  We are going to get benched for a while, but when our test comes
• 1:09:06
  up, we have to show ourselves approved and that goes to show
• 1:09:10
  God goes into second Timothy show, study that word to show
• 1:09:14
  that self approved. Like we have to show ourselves
• 1:09:16
  approved and ready for God's test.
• 1:09:18
  And then he's going to release the blessings and everything of
• 1:09:21
  our Kingdom to us. Because soon as Jesus passed
• 1:09:24
  that test, what's all happening? He's doing miracles.
• 1:09:28
  The world's following him. All the great things, all the
• 1:09:31
  things that we know Jesus for start happening after he passes
• 1:09:34
  the test and God releases him to now go do his work.
• 1:09:38
  We got to pass the. Test.
• 1:09:39
  We want to go do the work before.
• 1:09:41
  We can pass the test and show that we qualify.
• 1:09:43
  So stay. We're ready to quit when we're
• 1:09:45
  in the test. We're right there.
• 1:09:47
  We are one step away, one act of obedience away, and we sabotage
• 1:09:54
  it or we give up because we thought we had.
• 1:09:58
  Arrived or we're. Entitled.
• 1:10:00
  Yes, I needed. To hear that, that was so good.
• 1:10:05
  I'm just getting my we did. Go ahead.
• 1:10:09
  Hey, let I just let the good Lord use me.
• 1:10:11
  That's all that is. Listen, that was.
• 1:10:15
  So good. We definitely got to have you
• 1:10:16
  back because I feel like there's so much more to go deeper into
• 1:10:19
  here and I can't wait for your podcast to drop.
• 1:10:23
  So just let me know whenever that is how I can support you.
• 1:10:27
  Totally here for that. And so I want to wrap us up with
• 1:10:31
  the signature question. If you could leave the audience
• 1:10:34
  with one powerful truth to help them to rise and thrive, what
• 1:10:39
  would it be? Faith is the substance of things
• 1:10:48
  hoped for, the evidence. Of things not seen and hope
• 1:10:52
  stands for healing. Being optimistic.
• 1:10:55
  Finding your purpose. And be enduring.
• 1:10:58
  So you need to heal from the past and all the things that
• 1:11:00
  have hurt you. There's a tons of stuff that
• 1:11:02
  we've gone through that's hurt us.
• 1:11:04
  We have to heal so that God can truly show us where we need to
• 1:11:07
  go. We have to have an attitude of
• 1:11:09
  optimism because it allows us to not see life as a from the
• 1:11:13
  victim mindset, but see life as I'm empowered to take control
• 1:11:17
  and everything becomes an opportunity and a lesson to
• 1:11:19
  learn. We want to find our purpose
• 1:11:21
  because I truly believe that all people are given the purpose to
• 1:11:24
  love. So we're given the purpose to
• 1:11:25
  love everybody around us and to act in love.
• 1:11:28
  And once we begin to do that, God unlocks the purpose that is
• 1:11:31
  unlocked by our gifts and our talents.
• 1:11:34
  So until we love, until we move in that space, God is never
• 1:11:37
  going to have truly allow our gifts to make that room and tap
• 1:11:40
  us into something else. So we have to move the purpose
• 1:11:43
  of loving others and we have to endure.
• 1:11:45
  The swift is not to the strong or the quickest to those who
• 1:11:48
  endure. It is to those who are willing
• 1:11:51
  to go. Through the fight to go.
• 1:11:52
  Through the struggle to hold on when it gets rough, when when
• 1:11:56
  it's dark, they're still there. Those people are the ones God
• 1:12:00
  can truly use because then they're willing to share their
• 1:12:02
  testimony of endurance and how you came through.
• 1:12:05
  So if we can last and hold on until that very last second, God
• 1:12:10
  will show up all, all times. So if you can hope and remember
• 1:12:14
  that hope is where faith is the substance of things hoped for,
• 1:12:19
  and remember to always keep hope in your life, everything would
• 1:12:23
  be all right and God's always going to be there.
• 1:12:26
  All right, that was a word. Thank you so much, LB again for
• 1:12:31
  just gracing the Rise and Thrive audience today with your wisdom
• 1:12:36
  and your lived experiences. And I think you just gave so
• 1:12:39
  many good examples that can help people break it down.
• 1:12:43
  So like, you know, some people are in different places of their
• 1:12:47
  journey and they do need someone in between to give them a
• 1:12:50
  metaphor or an analogy to really help them to digest it and
• 1:12:54
  create that thirst and that hunger.
• 1:12:57
  And so I just pray that it touched who it needed to touch
• 1:13:00
  in this moment. You know, whoever's watching,
• 1:13:02
  whoever's listening. All right, Well, audience, this
• 1:13:06
  is where we're going to shift to you.
• 1:13:08
  I want you to reflect. What vision have you held that
• 1:13:13
  wasn't fully aligned with accountability or healing?
• 1:13:17
  And next, I want you to take action and journal on one area
• 1:13:21
  where rejection may be God's redirection.
• 1:13:25
  I want to leave you affirmed. I am not behind.
• 1:13:28
  I am being positioned. God's plan for me is still
• 1:13:32
  unfolding and I am worthy of the wait.
• 1:13:36
  So if this conversation challenges or affirms you share
• 1:13:40
  this episode wherever you're consuming, please leave us a
• 1:13:44
  comment a five star rating and join the community of people
• 1:13:48
  that are rising in faith and thriving and purpose by
• 1:13:51
  subscribing for this podcast. I'm so that the platform can
• 1:13:54
  continue to to grow. Be sure that you check out the
• 1:13:57
  merch at www.evolvedoctorjnicole.com.
• 1:14:01
  I want to thank you again, LB for joining us and thank you all
• 1:14:04
  for tuning in for another episode of Rise and Thrive with
• 1:14:08
  Doctor J Nicole, where we are rising in faith and thriving in
• 1:14:11
  purpose. Take care.