Latest / CEO Kingdom Seekers / Ep 41: Turn Right: When Performance Becomes a Place to Hide with Matthew Wingo

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Ep 41: Turn Right: When Performance Becomes a Place to Hide with Matthew Wingo · CEO Kingdom Seekers

0:00
SPEAKER_00: Hello everyone, welcome back to the CEO Kingdom Seekers podcast.
0:04
SPEAKER_00: Today's guest knows what it costs to choose comfort over character.
0:08
SPEAKER_00: Matthew Wingo is the founder and president of Turn Right Ministry.
0:12
SPEAKER_00: And after he left Corporate America, he began speaking to and ministering to men on their path to healing and freedom.
0:18
SPEAKER_00: He's a men's 12-step leader, a worship guitarist, and a vivid storyteller whose own journey has been marked by redemption, discovery, and a steadfast pursuit of noble character.
0:28
SPEAKER_00: He's also the author of Turn Right, The Pursuit of Noble Things, a book that serves as both his personal story and an invitation to live with conviction, walk in grace, and pursue the noble path set before every man.
0:39
SPEAKER_00: If you've ever wondered if you're performing your way through life instead of actually living it, and if you're ready to stop choosing the easy path, this conversation is definitely going to be for you.
0:49
SPEAKER_00: Welcome, Matthew.
0:50
SPEAKER_01: Thank you, Dr.
0:51
SPEAKER_01: Lee.
0:52
SPEAKER_01: Excited to be here today.
0:53
SPEAKER_00: I'm excited to have you.
0:55
SPEAKER_00: So I wanted to just start off because you mentioned this a couple of times in your bio and with your book, this idea of turning and turning right, which I love is a play on words, I think a little bit.
1:08
SPEAKER_00: And I'd love to hear more about how you came up with that.
1:11
SPEAKER_00: But there's this difference between choosing paths.
1:16
SPEAKER_00: And I feel like a lot of times as Christians, we're called between choosing the easy path and the noble path.
1:21
SPEAKER_00: So I'd love to just start off with you taking us back to that turning point in your own life that made that clear to you and has led to where you are today.
1:30
SPEAKER_01: Sure thing.
1:31
SPEAKER_01: There are pivotal moments, and that's the turn right.
1:34
SPEAKER_01: And for me, that's an actual real moment in my life when the the Holy Spirit prompted me to turn right.
1:41
SPEAKER_01: I had a choice whether to go straight.
1:43
SPEAKER_01: I was literally at a stoplight.
1:44
SPEAKER_01: And I had a choice whether to drive straight at that stoplight or take a right turn.
1:49
SPEAKER_01: Straight ahead was what I was wanting.
1:51
SPEAKER_01: That was the life I was wanting.
1:53
SPEAKER_01: That was my freedom, my chance to make all things new.
1:56
SPEAKER_01: To the right was 20 years of hurt and betrayal in a family in distress.
2:02
SPEAKER_01: And that was to the right.
2:03
SPEAKER_01: And without getting too much into the spoiler of what happened, that's it very much comes from the idea of turn right.
2:10
SPEAKER_01: Not only the metaphorical side of that, right?
2:13
SPEAKER_01: Turn the right way.
2:14
SPEAKER_01: There's so many play-on words in that, but it was literally a prompting of the Holy Spirit in that moment to turn right when I was at that stoplight.
2:22
SPEAKER_01: And that's how I actually opened my story when I share this story is that it's at that pivotal moment of turn right, and that shapes everything that follows from there.
2:32
SPEAKER_00: Already off the bat, I could see that in my head.
2:35
SPEAKER_00: I could see myself like in a car at that point where you're at that four-way stop.
2:40
SPEAKER_00: And it's I think what you're describing is interesting because what came to mind was a lot of times people think that the going the direction of what is already happening is the straight path.
2:56
SPEAKER_00: Like continuing to go in the way that you're already going.
3:00
SPEAKER_00: A lot of times people say that's the easy thing.
3:02
SPEAKER_00: And I'm glad that you're talking about this because I think as a lot of our listeners are entrepreneurs, and as an entrepreneur, a lot of times the scary thing for me is not, or the tougher thing for me is not changing.
3:16
SPEAKER_00: The tougher thing is staying in it and actually consciously, I'm imagining, like turning the wheel and having to put in some effort to going, no, keep doing what you're doing, or keep like being in this place that isn't going to be new and exciting and bring a change and not continue the same suffering.
3:34
SPEAKER_00: Can you say more on that?
3:37
SPEAKER_01: That's the impetus of the whole decision at that point is are you going to stand and fight for what the noble thing is?
3:44
SPEAKER_01: And that's where I get into the idea of noble character is the noble thing to do in that moment is turn right.
3:50
SPEAKER_01: A selfish thing, the thing of desiring what I want for myself, that was the path straight.
3:56
SPEAKER_01: And so it was a very pivotal moment in the fact that not only is the Holy Spirit prompting me to go do the noble thing, but it's also what is my flesh, what is my desire, what is my heart telling me I want to do in this exact moment.
4:10
SPEAKER_01: Jeremiah 17, 9, the the heart is deceitful above all else.
4:14
SPEAKER_01: How can it be trusted?
4:15
SPEAKER_01: Yet we're constantly told follow your heart.
4:17
SPEAKER_01: That's the wisdom of the world.
4:18
SPEAKER_01: And I can tell you that brokenness, financial ruin, a lot of disasters happen with me following my heart.
4:25
SPEAKER_01: And the Lord has been so redeeming and gracious and kind to me in restoration through that process.
4:32
SPEAKER_01: But it's that process that allowed me to get to this point to seek a more meaningful path for myself that pursues the Lord, pursues Christ-likeness, and also leave behind a very successful corporate career.
4:45
SPEAKER_01: And that I was doing amazing things and had all the worldly success that you would see.
4:50
SPEAKER_01: And yet the pursuit of self, the pursuit of just increase the performance, do better, just that was hollow and empty in the end.
4:57
SPEAKER_01: And when it I came to that point that I surrendered to Christ, already a Christian, but living a very much a prodigal season, that's that was a beautiful thing.
5:07
SPEAKER_01: And that's what's enabled me to have this platform now and be able to have this calling from the Lord to say, hey, get out and share this.
5:13
SPEAKER_01: And I love to say it's my experience, but it's his story, is really what all I'm doing is about.
5:19
SPEAKER_01: I'm sharing my experience, but it's really the story of what Christ has done for me.
5:25
SPEAKER_00: I resonate so much with that.
5:28
SPEAKER_00: We have a lot of different, we have a lot of people on here who have different experiences with Jesus, right?
5:35
SPEAKER_00: And he's always right there with us.
5:37
SPEAKER_00: And how we perceive where he's at and how we relate to him is the thing that's different every time.
5:43
SPEAKER_00: He's always right there.
5:45
SPEAKER_00: And I resonate with yours a lot because I think there's a and and I think a lot of our listeners will too.
5:51
SPEAKER_00: There's a lot of people, and I will say that my past self, that if you'd asked me, I'd be like, Yeah, I love God.
5:58
SPEAKER_00: I love Jesus.
5:59
SPEAKER_00: I'm a Christian, I'm teaching in Sunday school.
6:01
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to mass.
6:02
SPEAKER_00: I don't go to Mass every week, but I try to get there when I can.
6:05
SPEAKER_00: And we pray at dinner, and I don't read the Bible a lot, but I love God.
6:12
SPEAKER_00: And also, I was like very much doing everything.
6:17
SPEAKER_00: I say this often on here.
6:19
SPEAKER_00: I was building the business and asking him to bless it.
6:21
SPEAKER_00: I was like deciding things in my marriage and being like, that's cool with you, God, right?
6:24
SPEAKER_00: That's okay.
6:27
SPEAKER_00: And not listening for the actual answer, but being like, that's cool, and being like, he'd tell me if it wasn't.
6:37
SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, but would he?
6:38
SPEAKER_00: Because could I hear him?
6:39
SPEAKER_00: And so I'm glad you're bringing this up because I think it's more common than people talk about.
6:44
SPEAKER_00: A lot of times we see the conversion or conviction stories of people who are like Paul, they're railing against him, and then all of a sudden they're knocked off their course for him.
6:55
SPEAKER_00: Or we see people who didn't know anything about him at all, and all of a sudden are a lot of times they're like those all of a sudden stories.
7:02
SPEAKER_00: But you mentioned that you left this corporate career to start ministering to men on the path to healing.
7:11
SPEAKER_00: And I know that looks nice and clean for a bio, but can you tell me a little bit more of the nitty-gritty of that?
7:17
SPEAKER_01: Sure, sure.
7:18
SPEAKER_01: That's it was actually not not by choice.
7:22
SPEAKER_01: The Lord was calling me to this, and he had to get my attention in very big ways.
7:27
SPEAKER_01: So, with the being from a technology background, engineering, high technology, it changes very fast.
7:35
SPEAKER_01: And a lot of that industry has become younger and cheaper, to be frank.
7:40
SPEAKER_01: And it's hard to get employment.
7:42
SPEAKER_01: It's hard to go back and say, hey, hire me at my age.
7:46
SPEAKER_01: And oh, by the way, I have years of experience and even a willingness to take lesser paying positions.
7:52
SPEAKER_01: They look at my when they say, What's your salary history?
7:55
SPEAKER_01: And then they look at that and they're like, No way, we're not hiring this person.
7:58
SPEAKER_01: Like, I'm honestly okay with taking less.
8:00
SPEAKER_01: They're like, no way, you'll be out of here.
8:02
SPEAKER_01: They're not saying that, but you're getting you're too expensive.
8:05
SPEAKER_01: There's a reason for that.
8:06
SPEAKER_01: It's like, okay, but I think a lot of those closed doors, as the Lord continued to close different doors and industry contacts have all dried up, or they're no longer there.
8:15
SPEAKER_01: They've been impacted themselves.
8:17
SPEAKER_01: And it's interesting to see that changing of the guard.
8:20
SPEAKER_01: But it's also a way I think the Lord has steered me into, He's always provided for me along the way, but He's made it so clear that you're not going back to that.
8:29
SPEAKER_01: That's not where I'm calling you directly.
8:31
SPEAKER_01: Perhaps there's some tie-ins in this new path, this new mission that go back into that space.
8:36
SPEAKER_01: But he's made it very clear that this ministry that he planted the seed for and has given me such a passion for that this is where he has me.
8:45
SPEAKER_01: And I have to sit back and allow him to drive this and do with it what he will, which is very different on the flip side of the corporate career.
8:53
SPEAKER_01: It's we're paid for performance, right?
8:54
SPEAKER_01: When we perform, when we deliver, we're it there's rewards for that.
8:58
SPEAKER_01: There's a lot of rewards for living the culture of the corporation and getting out there.
9:04
SPEAKER_01: These corporations, I don't see them as bad in and of themselves.
9:07
SPEAKER_01: It's just we deal with people all day, every day.
9:10
SPEAKER_01: And there are expectations.
9:11
SPEAKER_01: I think, especially as leaders, there are expectations.
9:14
SPEAKER_01: The higher you go up that corporate ladder, the greater those expectations of how you should behave, how you should perform, and what you should bring to the table each and every day is expected.
9:25
SPEAKER_01: And it leads to a lot of challenges, I think, for leaders where it's hard to be a Christian leader at the top in a very worldly environment.
9:33
SPEAKER_01: And it's hard to share sometimes that you're, hey, be vulnerable because it's seen as weakness.
9:38
SPEAKER_01: So the higher you go, there are a lot of C-suite executives, a lot of CEOs that can never show any sign of weakness because the sharks are circling, the shareholders want delivery and to get vulnerable.
9:49
SPEAKER_01: And I see it with senior pastors too.
9:51
SPEAKER_01: I've been dear friends with some great executive and senior pastors, lead pastors of churches and the things they deal with and the fact that they're not allowed to just be honest and vulnerable with their flock, right?
10:03
SPEAKER_01: With the people in their care.
10:04
SPEAKER_01: I'm struggling with this right now because it's even within the church, I've seen that there's so much backlash they can face for publicly being vulnerable.
10:13
SPEAKER_01: And I love the ones that will go get a group of men around the pastors I've been around and been friends with that'll say, Hey, I trust you with this information.
10:21
SPEAKER_01: Can you keep it in confidence and you can you help?
10:24
SPEAKER_01: Because even leaders struggle, but that's it's not the norm to show that weakness.
10:29
SPEAKER_01: Never show them the weakness.
10:32
SPEAKER_00: You are describing something that we touch on in and out of a lot of our episodes.
10:38
SPEAKER_00: And I'm glad we're just getting to speak about it very frankly here is that even leaders have feelings.
10:44
SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, especially leaders have feelings, you know?
10:47
SPEAKER_00: And I used to see this.
10:49
SPEAKER_00: I remember coming home from in my doctoral program, I would shadow leaders.
10:55
SPEAKER_00: And I told my husband one day, I came home and I said, Yeah, I was in this meeting, and one of the senior leaders got really emotional and started shedding some tears.
11:04
SPEAKER_00: And they're a surgeon, a surgeon shedding tears.
11:07
SPEAKER_00: And I remember watching the entire room just freeze.
11:12
SPEAKER_00: Nobody knew what to do.
11:14
SPEAKER_00: And then it was this next moment of like mortification that I've shown emotion getting up and being like, I need to go collect myself, this person, and then leaving, and then other people talking about how that was unprofessional.
11:27
SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, what if we had the conversation about the fact that this person seeing them cry is a huge anomaly because this person's normally got this ridiculous hard shell and very rough and gruff?
11:42
SPEAKER_00: What is this person going through that that they know that they need to hold this exterior and yet they can't?
11:49
SPEAKER_00: And they have that vulnerability leak through and then they're immediately punished for it.
11:56
SPEAKER_00: And I came home and I was like, I now know that I don't want to have a seat in one of these rooms because first of all, I cry at the drop of a hat.
12:06
SPEAKER_00: And secondly, I was like, I can't force myself to be that kind of leader.
12:12
SPEAKER_00: And I know that I'm not saying it's good if you do you can or it's good if you can't, but it's just this idea, like you said, it's the idea that the person who's holding the most has to be the least vulnerable of all.
12:25
SPEAKER_00: That's not what Jesus modeled.
12:29
SPEAKER_01: That's a great example because Jesus showed vulnerability to the disciples, those that were closest to him.
12:36
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
12:36
SPEAKER_01: In the garden.
12:37
SPEAKER_01: He's sweating blood because there's so much trepidation about what's about to happen in the next day of what's coming for him.
12:44
SPEAKER_01: And he asked the disciples to just, hey, pray with me, be with me, stay awake, be with me.
12:50
SPEAKER_01: And he shows that vulnerability to a group of trusted individuals.
12:55
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
12:55
SPEAKER_01: Even Jesus took time to get away and refresh and pray on his own.
13:00
SPEAKER_01: And I see those demands.
13:02
SPEAKER_01: I see those demands with pastors, I see those demands with leaders where everybody wants a moment of their time.
13:08
SPEAKER_01: If everybody could just go to the senior pastor and just tell them the one thing they need to tell them, and they'll line up.
13:13
SPEAKER_01: And I think that's great because you want to interact with the people, but I don't think people always realize what that means for a pastor and his wife to stand there and pray with people service after service and have lines of people there.
13:28
SPEAKER_01: And it's a lot to carry.
13:29
SPEAKER_01: That's it's a lot of burden as that leaders have to carry.
13:32
SPEAKER_01: And they the saying it's lonely at the top, right?
13:35
SPEAKER_01: It's lonely at the top.
13:36
SPEAKER_01: In some ways, it very much is.
13:38
SPEAKER_01: If you don't have a group of like-minded people around you that have your best interest at heart, it can be very lonely there.
13:46
SPEAKER_01: Who are you going to go to?
13:47
SPEAKER_01: And I love that Jesus gave us such a perfect example of here's the greatest leader, obviously, ever.
13:53
SPEAKER_01: And he's completely vulnerable with his disciples.
13:56
SPEAKER_01: And he shows them at times that, hey, even he needs to recharge, even he needs to refresh and get alone with the Father and take that a moment of Sabbath for himself and recharge.
14:07
SPEAKER_01: But there's that time that he can interact at a friend level.
14:11
SPEAKER_01: And I think it's so critical for, especially as men in the corporate environment, there's that expectation to perform and outdo and be the best always and always be perfect.
14:24
SPEAKER_01: And that's hard sometimes, right?
14:25
SPEAKER_01: We all have feelings, but to be able to share that and get around with a group of trusted individuals, you can say, you know what, I'm struggling, and this is where I'm struggling.
14:33
SPEAKER_01: I've been very blessed to have that, especially post-coming out of what I'll call my prodigal season, to have a group of men, and I've deputized a couple men in my life where they have complete authority to thump me when I need it.
14:45
SPEAKER_01: Because I may have a blind spot, I may be doing something stupid, I may be doing something off-kilter.
14:51
SPEAKER_01: And I've given these men specific access to me to call me out whenever I need it.
14:57
SPEAKER_01: And that's a wonderful thing.
14:58
SPEAKER_01: Number one, it helps keep me focused because I don't want to get thumped by either of them.
15:03
SPEAKER_01: But it also is a great thing to know that I can trust these guys to speak wisdom over me, to speak truth over me, keep it within what is shared in the circle, but also not just let me off and go, oh, well, you'll get it better next time.
15:16
SPEAKER_01: They hold me to a higher standard, which helps me walk in more noble character as well.
15:22
SPEAKER_00: I wanted to ask you about the men part in particular, just even separating that from the traditional view of worldly leadership, right?
15:31
SPEAKER_00: I have gotten myself in some worldly trouble at times because I am a fierce advocate for men.
15:38
SPEAKER_00: After being in the trauma spaces and being a nurse practitioner for as long as I was, the things I would see men be like, I don't get to have any feelings about that, or I don't get to have an opinion on that because I'm a man.
15:53
SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, okay, so pendulum swing from women feeling like they can't have opinions and they can't be vulnerable and they can't do that.
16:04
SPEAKER_00: The the answer to that is not women becoming the people who can do that and men losing the ability to do that.
16:11
SPEAKER_00: And there's a book that I recommend a lot.
16:14
SPEAKER_00: It's called I Don't Want to Talk About It.
16:16
SPEAKER_00: It's by Terrence Real.
16:18
SPEAKER_00: And he's a relationship therapist, and he talks about performance-based identity for men.
16:24
SPEAKER_00: And so women have an object-based identity where we're seen as objectified and like how we can be used.
16:32
SPEAKER_00: But for a lot of times, men have this performance-based identity of like how they can be useful.
16:37
SPEAKER_00: And so everything that they do, their identities are tied to am I gonna be able to perform in a way that is superior and excellent and viewed as good.
16:50
SPEAKER_00: Because if I don't, I lose the identity of masculinity.
16:55
SPEAKER_00: And when I read this book and then I started looking at all of the men in my life, I was like, oh my gosh, we're telling these men that they are useful for how well they perform.
17:08
SPEAKER_00: And when they fall short, like they don't just lose their career or their I'm thinking about high like sports, right?
17:17
SPEAKER_00: Like they don't just lose their position on the team.
17:19
SPEAKER_00: Everyone starts talking about how they're like less of a man.
17:23
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
17:24
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
17:25
SPEAKER_00: And I'd love to hear, I know you've worked with a lot of men and you are like, I'm not a man, you're a man.
17:29
SPEAKER_00: I would love to hear more about that in the context too of like how the world defines it versus how God has really defined the identity of masculinity and leadership and like your role.
17:44
SPEAKER_01: Let me start at that point and go first, we have to understand our identity is in Christ.
17:50
SPEAKER_01: It's not in what we do, it's in who he is and who he's called us to be.
17:54
SPEAKER_01: And that's a lesson I had to learn was not accept words spoken over me that Christ would not speak over me.
18:01
SPEAKER_01: If we're in Christ, we're a new creation.
18:04
SPEAKER_01: And what are the words he says over me?
18:06
SPEAKER_01: What are the words that he says are true about me?
18:09
SPEAKER_01: Am I perfect?
18:10
SPEAKER_01: Absolutely not.
18:10
SPEAKER_01: But am I forgiven and accepted in enough?
18:13
SPEAKER_01: Yes, absolutely.
18:15
SPEAKER_01: And to understand one of the things in noble character is if we're in Christ, we actually are noble.
18:22
SPEAKER_01: Men and women, we already are noble in our identity because we're sons or daughters of the king of kings, right?
18:29
SPEAKER_01: We're sons and daughters of the creator of the universe.
18:31
SPEAKER_01: That makes us the utmost nobility we can be, but we don't live like it.
18:35
SPEAKER_01: We don't live according to that identity.
18:38
SPEAKER_01: And it's so true that failure in business or sports or anything can be such a detriment.
18:44
SPEAKER_01: One day, this is your favorite quarterback out on the field, and he loses the game for you by throwing an interception, and now he's a bum.
18:52
SPEAKER_01: And people are bashing him, and it's constant, right?
18:55
SPEAKER_01: It's constant against them.
18:56
SPEAKER_01: And that's at a magnified level because most people are not on TV with millions of fans watching, but they have no grace.
19:05
SPEAKER_01: There's no grace for failure.
19:06
SPEAKER_01: It's perfection is the standard, perfection is the norm.
19:10
SPEAKER_01: And I love to say we're actually called to be perfect.
19:12
SPEAKER_01: Jesus tells us, be perfect, even as your heavenly father is perfect.
19:15
SPEAKER_01: He says that in the Sermon on the Mount.
19:17
SPEAKER_01: And we're called to be perfect, but we're never going to achieve that this side of heaven.
19:22
SPEAKER_01: We're never going to achieve that perfection.
19:24
SPEAKER_01: We always strive for it, but we shouldn't be beholden to that idea of perfection.
19:29
SPEAKER_01: And when you put that into the corporate world, you're right.
19:32
SPEAKER_01: You're celebrated when you win.
19:34
SPEAKER_01: My personal life was falling apart, but I could walk in that office and I was really good at what I did.
19:39
SPEAKER_01: And I could lead teams and I could get stuff done and I could make amazing things happen.
19:44
SPEAKER_01: And that was celebrated as long as I continued to produce that and do well.
19:48
SPEAKER_01: It's like, this is bad over here, but you know what?
19:51
SPEAKER_01: This is going well.
19:52
SPEAKER_01: And there's another promotion on the line, there's another raise on the line, there's another bonus.
19:56
SPEAKER_01: Whatever the case may be in that, that was always somewhere I could go and say I could perform here, I can do well, I can outwork, I can outpace, and I can get rewarded directly for that.
20:08
SPEAKER_01: This other stuff is a mess over here, but I don't have to deal with it if I just pour myself more and more into my job and into my career.
20:16
SPEAKER_01: And I did that for quite a while.
20:17
SPEAKER_01: A lot of the hurts I experienced actually in that, I started becoming more successful in my corporate career because I started withdrawing more and more from where the hurt was coming from and poured more into the performance at work and pouring all that energy in.
20:33
SPEAKER_01: I may not have anything left at the end of the day to try to save what was left of my marriage at that point.
20:39
SPEAKER_01: But I was getting all the rewards, all the earthly rewards were coming my way through that career.
20:45
SPEAKER_00: I think that transcends male versus female and really just goes to this idea of like the striving.
20:52
SPEAKER_00: And I remember at a time being like, okay, my home life is a disaster often and the business is going really well.
21:03
SPEAKER_00: So if I have a choice between being in a place where I feel like I'm making impact and I'm appreciated and people are like pumping me up, versus coming here and feeling like I'm not enough, like I'm not doing this right, like I'm not a good enough mom, I'm not a good wife, all those pieces.
21:20
SPEAKER_00: The enemy was really good at being like, why don't you just follow your heart and stay in the place where you're not gonna leave your husband, you're not gonna stop being a mother to your kids.
21:28
SPEAKER_00: So, you know, you're not gonna be a bad and I'm putting that in air quotes, you're not gonna be a bad person because you're still gonna be there, but focus over here because look at how much good is over here.
21:40
SPEAKER_00: And it was such a distortion, and very much in the moment of things stopping working in the business and at home, which I'm so grateful to God that he was like, Yeah, we're gonna just start.
21:57
SPEAKER_00: She she's trying to come back to me, so let's start.
22:00
SPEAKER_00: Stripping all this away.
22:04
SPEAKER_00: It was really fascinating how, like, when I surrendered back, he was like, Yeah, so these places that you've been ignoring, again, you've been believing things that I never said about you.
22:16
SPEAKER_00: I've designed you to be an incredible mother.
22:18
SPEAKER_00: I've designed you to be an incredible wife.
22:21
SPEAKER_00: You just get to learn how to do that in the way that I've actually designed you.
22:26
SPEAKER_00: And same for your husband.
22:28
SPEAKER_00: I've designed him to be an incredible husband and an incredible father.
22:31
SPEAKER_00: And he needs space and grace from you and grace from me to be able to develop into that.
22:38
SPEAKER_00: And so I think a lot of parallels between what's happening inside of your home and what's happening outside of your home, and a lot of parallels between what men and women feel.
22:46
SPEAKER_00: And I do think it's interesting that obviously there's distinctions and the Bible even talks about this, but in the distinctions of how we're designed, there's also so much overlap and parallel for us.
22:58
SPEAKER_00: And I think it's fascinating how the enemy is able to kind of get in there and make things look different when they're really the same and make things look the same when they're really different.
23:08
SPEAKER_01: We definitely have different roles biblically.
23:11
SPEAKER_01: Men and women definitely have different roles, but we're all called to the same Christ-likeness.
23:16
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
23:17
SPEAKER_01: We're both called to be like Christ.
23:19
SPEAKER_01: And yes, we have distinctive roles.
23:21
SPEAKER_01: And you're right, there are so many parallels.
23:23
SPEAKER_01: We all have feelings, we all have needs, we all have desires and wants, and we want that validation.
23:28
SPEAKER_01: And it's so easy sometimes to get that validation in the career.
23:33
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
23:33
SPEAKER_01: And maybe you're not getting that at home.
23:35
SPEAKER_01: But so I'll just lean in and I'll just spend an extra hour or two at the office.
23:38
SPEAKER_01: I'll just stay there because the performance is immediately rewarded.
23:42
SPEAKER_01: I can see tangible results right away.
23:44
SPEAKER_01: And if I go home, this might be months or years of hard work to make it right.
23:50
SPEAKER_01: At work, I've got a deadline in 30 days, 60 days, 90 days, I get to knock this project off, and everybody's going to be happy and I get to make a name for myself doing that.
23:59
SPEAKER_01: But at home, hey, that's a long-term battle.
24:01
SPEAKER_01: That's an ongoing fight to stay in a good, healthy relationship.
24:05
SPEAKER_01: And I don't mean fight in terms of argument, but I mean it's a daily fight to pick up our cross and deny ourselves and crucify our flesh daily to do what we're called to do.
24:15
SPEAKER_01: But that's our highest calling.
24:16
SPEAKER_01: So as men, our biggest mission field is our wives.
24:20
SPEAKER_01: That's the single biggest mission field.
24:22
SPEAKER_01: And I failed in that.
24:23
SPEAKER_01: And that's a lot of my stories.
24:24
SPEAKER_01: I failed in that.
24:25
SPEAKER_01: But that is the only person that a man is called to present faultless and blameless before the throne.
24:30
SPEAKER_01: That's to love her as Christ loves the church.
24:34
SPEAKER_01: There's no other relationship that has that.
24:36
SPEAKER_01: Not a work relationship, not a child relationship, not the golfing buddies or fishing buddies.
24:42
SPEAKER_01: And I love to do all those things too.
24:43
SPEAKER_01: But the number one calling for men is their number one mission field is their wife.
24:51
SPEAKER_00: What do you see as some of the biggest obstacles to men shifting this that we're talking about here?
25:00
SPEAKER_00: Because again, like if the straight path is I'm going to just keep pouring into this identity of performance.
25:06
SPEAKER_00: And yet I know that there's a lot at home with my wife, with my kids, with my and again, my relationship with God too.
25:14
SPEAKER_00: Like not too, first and foremost.
25:16
SPEAKER_00: I want to take this beyond the superficial of the world.
25:19
SPEAKER_00: And that what do you see as the tangible things?
25:22
SPEAKER_00: What do you hear men say that they're like, this is why I struggle to turn right in this area?
25:27
SPEAKER_01: It's hard.
25:28
SPEAKER_01: It's hard.
25:29
SPEAKER_01: And I think as men, especially we love movies, we love Braveheart, we love Lord of the Rings, we love Gladiator, we love these epic battle scenes, right?
25:38
SPEAKER_01: We're like, let's run into the fight.
25:40
SPEAKER_01: And yet we'll watch a fight with swords or guns, and but we won't run into the fight that's at home.
25:47
SPEAKER_01: Fight for our family, the fight for the hearts and love of the family and the success of the family.
25:53
SPEAKER_01: We'll run from that fight, but that fight doesn't always have the rewards, and it doesn't sound as that's this is great.
25:59
SPEAKER_01: This is great.
26:00
SPEAKER_01: Let's run.
26:00
SPEAKER_01: But what if we turned into the fight and said, you know what, that's where my biggest battleground is?
26:05
SPEAKER_01: Because the enemy wants our families, he wants our spouses, he wants our children.
26:10
SPEAKER_01: What if we leaned into that and yelled freedom like William Wallace and Braveheart and we ran into that fight at home?
26:17
SPEAKER_01: But it's actually through the door of our front home we yelled freedom and charged in for battle at home versus going out into the worldly way of battle in the corporate marketplace, the in sports arenas, whatever.
26:31
SPEAKER_01: Those are all great things, but our primary focus has to be about pursuing Christ-likeness and doing what he's called us to.
26:39
SPEAKER_01: We're already in the service of a king, right?
26:42
SPEAKER_01: And Jesus is calling us this is your battleground.
26:44
SPEAKER_01: Go, go fight, go win hearts and minds and souls for the kingdom.
26:49
SPEAKER_01: And that definitely starts at the home.
26:51
SPEAKER_01: It starts with our spouses, starts with our kids.
26:53
SPEAKER_01: That's the first mission field.
26:55
SPEAKER_01: Go make disciples of them.
26:57
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes it's easy to look at all the nations out there and want to go make disciples of them, but what about making disciples right in your front door?
27:04
SPEAKER_01: Walking in your front door and every night choosing to say, you know what, I'm going to make disciples tonight in my home.
27:10
SPEAKER_00: I read a statistic the other day and they were looking at like all of the factors that impact if a child who grows up in a exposed to at least some form of Christianity, what impacts the likelihood that they will continue to be a Christian when they're older.
27:30
SPEAKER_00: And the single greatest determinant is how their father interacts with God.
27:40
SPEAKER_00: So if dad's not there, we already have a big problem, right?
27:44
SPEAKER_00: If not present as from a relational perspective.
28:03
SPEAKER_00: And it makes so much sense like when you say it because yeah, we're all taught to see God as God doesn't have a gender, but so often we talk about him as our father.
28:13
SPEAKER_00: And if my earthly father does not have a good relationship with Jesus, if he's not living with the Holy Spirit in his heart, if he's not respecting and loving God and accepting and receiving that, then I'm probably gonna make a lot of assumptions about my heavenly father.
28:33
SPEAKER_01: I have seen that countless times in recovery ministries that I've been a part of and helped co-lead.
28:40
SPEAKER_01: I've seen that time and time again where people have a disposition, an understanding of the Lord, their picture of who the Lord is directly relates to who their earthly father was, who their dad was.
28:53
SPEAKER_01: If they had an absent dad, a lot of them they come from a background where they're not sure God could ever love them.
28:59
SPEAKER_01: Are they worth loving?
29:00
SPEAKER_01: Because there's this feeling they weren't worth loving at home, or a dad that's physically present, but yeah, he's there, but he never has time for me.
29:10
SPEAKER_01: Is that person going to be more reluctant to go to God and actually ask for something in prayer?
29:15
SPEAKER_01: And the same is true with a loving father that's accepting and all that.
29:20
SPEAKER_01: You can actually see when you say God is love and he's a good father, right?
29:23
SPEAKER_01: It's his kindness that leads us to repentance.
29:25
SPEAKER_01: And you can read those verses and go, yeah, God is kind to me.
29:28
SPEAKER_01: God is good to me.
29:30
SPEAKER_01: And it's not to say you can't overcome that, but I could see the lens by which you view God initially could very much be shaped by who you have at home.
29:41
SPEAKER_01: When we talk about a heavenly father, to some people, that's a traumatic thing to mention the word dad or father.
29:48
SPEAKER_01: There could be some trauma for a myriad of reasons of why that is, but there could definitely be some trauma there that impacts how we see the Lord.
29:57
SPEAKER_01: How do we view Jesus?
29:58
SPEAKER_01: How do we view God as heavenly father?
30:00
SPEAKER_01: And is that a beautiful thing to call him our father?
30:03
SPEAKER_01: Or is that a scary thing to say he's my father?
30:06
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
30:07
SPEAKER_00: I recently read a book.
30:08
SPEAKER_00: It's called The Tears of Things, and it challenged me a lot.
30:11
SPEAKER_00: And I prayed on it because after the first couple chapters, I was like, God, I don't know.
30:17
SPEAKER_00: And he was like, keep reading.
30:18
SPEAKER_00: I was like, okay.
30:19
SPEAKER_00: And I'm so glad I did.
30:21
SPEAKER_00: It's a book about the prophets and what we learn from the prophets.
30:24
SPEAKER_00: And what's so fascinating is he actually describes the three-step trauma recovery journey that Dr.
30:29
SPEAKER_00: Judith Herman coined back in the 1970s.
30:33
SPEAKER_00: And he's talking about this phase of anger and naming and claiming the bad things that have happened.
30:43
SPEAKER_00: The second period of grief and just the profound sadness and just being like, I'm so bereft at everything that happened, everything that didn't happen that should have happened, and just like it's just grief.
30:56
SPEAKER_00: And then coming out of that into the reclamation and what he calls the railing against the order, like really sinking into this disorder and then coming into this reordering.
31:12
SPEAKER_00: And he said, A lot of us we get stuck in stage one where we're like mad at God, or we're like, I don't even want to acknowledge he exists because I'm so angry at him.
31:25
SPEAKER_00: And if there was a God, why would he do these things?
31:27
SPEAKER_00: And why would it be this way?
31:29
SPEAKER_00: And then a lot of us get moved through that, but then we get stuck in the grief, and then we like ping-pong back and forth between.
31:36
SPEAKER_00: He's like, we get stuck in the grief of like in this owning that we've been victimized.
31:40
SPEAKER_00: Like this is these are all the bad things that have happened to me.
31:42
SPEAKER_00: This is all the things that have been tough.
31:45
SPEAKER_00: This is my suffering.
31:47
SPEAKER_00: And we miss this restorative, redemptive mercy and justice.
31:53
SPEAKER_00: That if you go back and read the prophets, like after they go through those two phases, it's always, but I know, or but God is, or but he will.
32:02
SPEAKER_00: And that's where the redemption, that's the restoration, that's the recovery.
32:07
SPEAKER_00: And I know for a lot of people, like in their earthly relationships with their parents, they have a lot of that first part and they have a lot of that second part.
32:14
SPEAKER_00: Like they'll even experience that.
32:15
SPEAKER_00: They'll experience their parents' anger, they'll experience their parents' grief, but they never experience that recovery, that restoration.
32:21
SPEAKER_00: Like it just kind of gets pushed.
32:24
SPEAKER_00: And while I see this a lot in women, I feel like women, the traditional spaces of healing for them oftentimes provide this space for them to move through and do this reclamation and recovery.
32:35
SPEAKER_00: And I'm so glad you're doing the work you're doing.
32:37
SPEAKER_00: And I'm starting to see more of this happening again.
32:39
SPEAKER_00: But I think what a lot of what happened was is like we lost these spaces for men to do that third part because we started saying, when you do that third part, it's bad.
32:49
SPEAKER_00: Or they'd start to do the first part and we're like, you're scary and toxic, and you can't be mad and you can't do any of that.
32:54
SPEAKER_00: Or they get into the grief part and we're like, What are you?
32:56
SPEAKER_00: I'm not saying these things, but I hear these things.
32:58
SPEAKER_00: What are you, a sissy?
32:59
SPEAKER_00: What are you, what's and we like mated so none of those three parts of the journey were safe.
33:06
SPEAKER_00: And then we're like, Why aren't they healing?
33:10
SPEAKER_01: Well, I'm not familiar with that particular work.
33:13
SPEAKER_01: The story resonates with me, those three steps, because a lot of that is my story.
33:18
SPEAKER_01: When things were failing at home, I internalize that.
33:22
SPEAKER_01: I call it my hidden orchard.
33:23
SPEAKER_01: So I would suppress the emotions and I'd water them with seeds no one saw, right?
33:28
SPEAKER_01: I would keep those in the dark, and I always say bad things grow in the dark.
33:32
SPEAKER_01: And I never wanted to admit failure.
33:33
SPEAKER_01: A fear of failure was one of my driving factors.
33:36
SPEAKER_01: And if I was going to fail or to admit my marriage was failing or in trouble, would be to admit failure.
33:41
SPEAKER_01: And I was not willing to accept that.
33:43
SPEAKER_01: And I didn't have to accept that in my career.
33:45
SPEAKER_01: I didn't have to accept that.
33:46
SPEAKER_01: I could always succeed.
33:48
SPEAKER_01: But at home, it was failing.
33:50
SPEAKER_01: And so I would bury those emotions.
33:52
SPEAKER_01: And of course, there'd be outbursts occasionally of the anger or the withdrawal, the isolation, but I would never tell anybody.
33:59
SPEAKER_01: Very few people actually knew what was going on.
34:01
SPEAKER_01: I didn't have anybody that I trusted with that to say, hey, I'm struggling.
34:06
SPEAKER_01: And that really led to my breaking point ultimately.
34:09
SPEAKER_01: And I say that the seeds planted yield the crops harvested.
34:13
SPEAKER_01: And when you plant things in the dark, bad things grow in the dark.
34:16
SPEAKER_01: And so, guess what kind of fruit grows in the dark?
34:18
SPEAKER_01: Bad fruit.
34:19
SPEAKER_01: And that actually came to fruition at a point in my life that really led to my prodigal season.
34:26
SPEAKER_01: But it's through that redemptive process of the Lord of welcoming me home, having me go through a recovery ministry.
34:34
SPEAKER_01: It wasn't drugs, it wasn't alcohol, it wasn't those things for me like that.
34:37
SPEAKER_01: It was the isolation, it was discontentment with blessings, never having enough.
34:42
SPEAKER_01: It was a fear of failure, pride.
34:45
SPEAKER_01: We can all circle pride as one of our challenges.
34:48
SPEAKER_01: And pride was a big thing to admit failure.
34:51
SPEAKER_01: That was pride saying, Don't admit failure.
34:53
SPEAKER_01: There's shame in that.
34:54
SPEAKER_01: You'll be ashamed if you say that your marriage is struggling in this way or that this happened to you in your marriage.
35:00
SPEAKER_01: There's shame in that.
35:02
SPEAKER_01: And so that was what was buried.
35:03
SPEAKER_01: And yet coming through a program where I put all that on the table and I brought it out into the light to, hey, this is what I've struggled with, this is what happened.
35:12
SPEAKER_01: The Lord's been able to use that in such a beautiful way to bring me to the point I'm at today.
35:17
SPEAKER_01: And it's been a very long journey to get me where I am today.
35:21
SPEAKER_01: But he used even the things I intended for my own bad, he used them for his glory and his good and ultimately my good.
35:29
SPEAKER_01: He was always good, always faithful to me every step of the way.
35:33
SPEAKER_01: And yet here I am today.
35:35
SPEAKER_01: And I can say, Lord, I'm not happy with the decisions I chose in the past, but I am definitely thankful and grateful for where you've brought me.
35:47
SPEAKER_01: Despite myself, where you've brought me and how you've redeemed the story and redeemed this journey could have only happened by you taking me through this series of events and this season of learning.
36:01
SPEAKER_01: It's been very, very difficult seasons, and yet they're beautiful.
36:06
SPEAKER_01: I look back at them and go, wow, because because of who I am today, it's not fun in the moment.
36:10
SPEAKER_01: There's a lot of remorse for decisions I made at that.
36:13
SPEAKER_01: But I said the Lord has completely redeemed those moments.
36:17
SPEAKER_01: And it's such a beautiful thing to sit on this side of that journey.
36:21
SPEAKER_01: And now that I've arrived or that I'm done yet, he's still doing so much of a work in me.
36:26
SPEAKER_01: But it's brought me nearer the throne of grace and looking at him and his glory and going, Lord, I want more of you.
36:32
SPEAKER_01: I want to be more Christ-like on a daily basis.
36:35
SPEAKER_01: That's now my passion.
36:36
SPEAKER_01: And the pursuits of the worldly success, those don't appeal to me the way they used to.
36:42
SPEAKER_01: That's not the same driving factor that it used to be.
36:46
SPEAKER_01: It's really about how can I live each day more Christ-like.
36:50
SPEAKER_00: You talk about living for a legacy and living so that the next generation knows why.
36:57
SPEAKER_00: The word that Paul uses in Romans for discipleship when he's talking about teaching.
37:04
SPEAKER_00: He's talking about passing on wisdom and helping it be embodied so that future generations both learn it and benefit from it.
37:13
SPEAKER_00: And I thought of that as I was asking you that question.
37:16
SPEAKER_00: You're the father of two grown children now.
37:18
SPEAKER_00: How has your pursuit of noble character shifted how you parent on the back end of this conversation we just had about being a father?
37:27
SPEAKER_01: It's completely shifted.
37:29
SPEAKER_01: And it's interesting because my children are grown.
37:31
SPEAKER_01: So they live on their own.
37:32
SPEAKER_01: My son's been in and out of the Navy already.
37:34
SPEAKER_01: My daughter's soon to be married.
37:36
SPEAKER_01: She's just got her master's degree.
37:38
SPEAKER_01: So it's a different time in life.
37:40
SPEAKER_01: So it's not the at home all the time.
37:43
SPEAKER_01: But they see the change in me.
37:45
SPEAKER_01: And I will say the wounds of the past, my decisions of the past, those still bear scars and they still come up.
37:50
SPEAKER_01: But and to have my son go, wow, you're different now.
37:53
SPEAKER_01: You're not the same you used to be, even just a few years ago.
37:56
SPEAKER_01: And have him recognize that as a young man himself and be able to look at me and say, You're not the same you used to be.
38:03
SPEAKER_01: And he sees the difference.
38:04
SPEAKER_01: And to have my daughter see that difference now.
38:06
SPEAKER_01: And it's still an ongoing thing to try to restore that.
38:10
SPEAKER_01: And there's still times of hurt, and there's times of going, I missed seasons of their life because of the choices I made in that.
38:18
SPEAKER_01: And be it whether in the career and they were still living at the home or after everything happened and I started a divorce process and all of that.
38:26
SPEAKER_01: There were moments I missed in there and moments I can't get back.
38:31
SPEAKER_01: But you know what we can build from here.
38:33
SPEAKER_01: We can build from this new ground.
38:35
SPEAKER_01: And they see the change that this is not the same man that was in the house.
38:39
SPEAKER_01: This is not the same man that was always in the home.
38:42
SPEAKER_01: I'm different.
38:42
SPEAKER_01: And they see that.
38:43
SPEAKER_01: And it's really a testament to Christ.
38:44
SPEAKER_01: What they see is the joy of the Lord.
38:46
SPEAKER_01: They see the peace he's given me and how he's reshaped my character.
38:50
SPEAKER_00: Back in my own like prodigal time when we were running our trauma institute, I remember like there was this theory around how it takes so many generations to heal trauma.
39:03
SPEAKER_00: And it that was from a biological perspective of if you're a woman, and this actually has been proven false somewhat, but your mom had when you were born, like you had your eggs, right?
39:16
SPEAKER_00: So if I am carrying the hurt of my mother from birth, that's impacting me.
39:26
SPEAKER_00: Those eggs are there, that child's already impacted, and then the child after that's impacted, right?
39:30
SPEAKER_00: So but they also talked about how you can heal backwards as you heal, you're healing forward, but you're also healing backwards.
39:37
SPEAKER_00: And it was very quant quantum, like a little new age.
39:40
SPEAKER_00: I always love that what we know scientifically gets backed up spiritually and biblically.
39:47
SPEAKER_00: I saw a video the other day, and it was, I don't remember if it was a pastor or a priest, but he was saying that he was at this one place for it must have been a priest, at this one place for mass, like 15 years ago.
40:00
SPEAKER_00: And that's when he had an encounter with the Holy Spirit, and he was like, I'm gonna become a priest.
40:04
SPEAKER_00: He goes through the whole thing, and 15 years later, he gets the chance, like unexpectedly, to go back there.
40:11
SPEAKER_00: And while he's there, he hears pray for your conversion 15 years ago.
40:17
SPEAKER_00: And he was like, and he questioned it for a second, and he hears, I exist outside of time.
40:24
SPEAKER_00: And I was like, oh my gosh.
40:26
SPEAKER_00: I was like, and I've seen this, I've seen the hurt and the harm that has happened in the past, like the trauma things that have happened in the past, like that when Jesus really gets in there and truly heals and restores, it's yes, there's scars there to remind us of the things that happened, but a lot of that hurt is just gone.
40:43
SPEAKER_00: Like it didn't happen.
40:44
SPEAKER_00: And I think that's so cool, like on a science level, on a quantum level, to just think about the idea that we can actually become grateful and like joyous around the suffering and the trials and be like, I'm glad that thing happened because and that also God can heal those past versions and the future versions and all of that right now because he exists outside of all of it.
41:09
SPEAKER_01: I think anytime we try to think in terms of God who is outside of time, right?
41:15
SPEAKER_01: He's eternal.
41:16
SPEAKER_01: And is eternity a start and finish line, or is it just the absence of time?
41:20
SPEAKER_01: Like just the state of being, right?
41:23
SPEAKER_01: Jesus says I am in John 68.
41:26
SPEAKER_01: There's no beginning, there's no end, just I am.
41:28
SPEAKER_01: And of course, they want to kill him for that because he's been he's saying right there, yes, I'm God, when he says that.
41:33
SPEAKER_01: But you know, that's a timeless statement to say I am.
41:37
SPEAKER_01: That's not we he'll say he's the alpha and the omega, but he's the beginning and the end, he's everything in one.
41:42
SPEAKER_01: And the redemptive power of the cross is not bound by time.
41:46
SPEAKER_01: The ability to restore is not bound by time.
41:48
SPEAKER_01: And we we scratch the surface of understanding, and I love the science and the physics behind all of it and all of that as well.
41:56
SPEAKER_01: But to sit here and say, I know how that works or how the Lord His ways are not our way.
42:02
SPEAKER_01: We how can we?
42:03
SPEAKER_01: We're we're such a small little minuscule thing, even the smartest of us compared to the knowledge and who the Lord is, to say he's limited and his ability to heal.
42:13
SPEAKER_01: And I've heard stories of generational curses.
42:16
SPEAKER_01: They talk about generational curses, and I've heard people explain it, hey, there are spirits that are eternal that have ill intent, and they know the struggles of a family.
42:25
SPEAKER_01: So could they be speaking?
42:26
SPEAKER_01: There's so much that gets far into that.
42:28
SPEAKER_01: I'm not a scholar in that area at all.
42:30
SPEAKER_01: But you you realize that God is not bound by time and space, he's not he's not bound by the limits of a box we could put on him to say he can't heal this, he can't heal that.
42:41
SPEAKER_01: And I think it leads to our current state that that should give everyone hope that you're never too far gone, you're never too lost, you're never the redemption is possible, restoration is possible in earthly relationships and most importantly with our heavenly father.
42:56
SPEAKER_01: That restoration is always available and it's never too late, right?
42:59
SPEAKER_01: It's the the thief on the cross was moments away from his last breath.
43:04
SPEAKER_01: And yet Jesus said, Hey, today you'll be with me in paradise.
43:07
SPEAKER_01: It's in that moment.
43:08
SPEAKER_01: This is a guy that's never, are you familiar with Alistair Begg?
43:11
SPEAKER_01: I love how he talks about this.
43:12
SPEAKER_01: Is a guy that he's never been to mass, he's never gone to a church service, he's never been baptized, he's never done a communion, never done anything.
43:20
SPEAKER_01: And yet Jesus says, Today you're with me in paradise.
43:22
SPEAKER_01: And it was all because of the faith, right?
43:24
SPEAKER_01: And that's Romans 10, 9.
43:26
SPEAKER_01: If we confess with our mouths that Jesus is Lord and believe that God raised him from the dead, we will be saved.
43:33
SPEAKER_01: And to see that redemption is available to everyone.
43:36
SPEAKER_01: So I love your point about it being outside of time because I would never limit what the Lord is able to do with the restoration and healing process in past relationships, in what may come down the road.
43:47
SPEAKER_01: I know where I'm at today.
43:49
SPEAKER_01: And maybe that's enough.
43:51
SPEAKER_01: Maybe that's enough for us just to say, Lord, this is where you have me today.
43:55
SPEAKER_01: And I'm okay.
43:56
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna trust my tomorrow to you, and I trust yesterday to you.
44:00
SPEAKER_01: As well.
44:00
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, because we talk about trusting tomorrow.
44:02
SPEAKER_00: I love that.
44:03
SPEAKER_00: Oh, you just I got chills, as you said.
44:04
SPEAKER_00: The yesterday piece.
44:05
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna trust my yesterday to you, divine tomorrow, right?
44:09
SPEAKER_00: That actually leads me to my last question here, which was perfect segue.
44:12
SPEAKER_00: I think a lot of us we try to limit him because we want to feel like we're in control.
44:20
SPEAKER_00: I sometimes see that again, going back to this if your earthly parents have let you down and disappointed you, not if, however, they have done that, again, we can limit God in that way.
44:32
SPEAKER_00: And sometimes it's almost a fear of having hope that he could do something that feels impossible that I think leads us to limit it because we don't want to own that we really would love if he could do the impossible.
44:44
SPEAKER_00: What do you feel like is the hardest part about walking in the today and surrendering your yesterday and your tomorrow to him when your flesh is, I want to feel like I'm in control.
44:58
SPEAKER_01: That is, I think that's our daily challenge.
45:00
SPEAKER_01: That is the daily challenge of the flesh.
45:02
SPEAKER_01: We never want to cede control.
45:04
SPEAKER_01: I talk about that a little bit.
45:06
SPEAKER_01: We have this idea of chaos.
45:08
SPEAKER_01: There's no such thing as chaos to God.
45:10
SPEAKER_01: Nothing surprised him, and he goes, Wow, I didn't intend for that to happen, or I didn't know that was going to happen.
45:15
SPEAKER_01: There's no chaotic event to the Lord.
45:17
SPEAKER_01: Anything outside of our control, I think we tend to label as chaos.
45:21
SPEAKER_01: And that's that's how we define chaos.
45:23
SPEAKER_01: R.C.
45:23
SPEAKER_01: Sprohl says it so eloquently, talking about there's not a stray atom or molecule in the universe that's outside of the laws he's given it.
45:31
SPEAKER_01: Everything obeys the boundaries that Christ has put on each and everything, and all things hold together through him.
45:38
SPEAKER_01: But the ability to sit back and Exodus 14, 14, just be silent.
45:43
SPEAKER_01: You need only be still, the Lord will fight for you.
45:46
SPEAKER_01: And here's Pharaoh's army crashing down on Moses and the Israelites, and Pharaoh's army is crashing down on the Lord's like, I got you.
45:54
SPEAKER_01: Just but to be able to do that in the moment, that's a completely different mindset to trust the Lord and say, you know what, I'm gonna give this to you.
46:03
SPEAKER_01: I'm scared.
46:03
SPEAKER_01: Maybe sometimes the fear of tomorrow and the unknown is what keeps us from being willing to do that.
46:09
SPEAKER_01: But it is definitely a step of faith to say, I don't understand, but I'm gonna trust.
46:14
SPEAKER_01: I don't know what to do next.
46:15
SPEAKER_01: And maybe he's calling us to silence.
46:17
SPEAKER_01: Maybe he's telling us to be still and know that I am God.
46:20
SPEAKER_01: And what one, the, I think it's the NASB translation says, cease striving and know that I am God.
46:26
SPEAKER_01: And yeah, what if we just allowed him to do, as Ephesians 3.20 says, allow him to do so much more for us than we can hope or imagine or ask, and let him lead and do what he will with our lives.
46:40
SPEAKER_01: I perhaps that's the ultimate point of surrender to him, is when we fully try to seek control.
46:46
SPEAKER_01: But in the flesh, there's always that I'm gonna claw that back, I'm gonna pull that back from him.
46:51
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna, I want to control this.
46:53
SPEAKER_01: And we love the idea of controlling our world when the reality is we control so little of what goes on around us that we can't control much in our lives, yet we want full control.
47:05
SPEAKER_01: And that's where we have to allow him to be God and allow us to just be favored sons and daughters and let him give us the good things he has for us.
47:14
SPEAKER_00: I have this dear friend and client, her name's Ida, and she used to do a lot of satiric comedic content creation and based on her lived experience.
47:25
SPEAKER_00: And she had this character named Mama Aji, and Mama Aji used to say, If you are minding my business and I am minding my business, who is minding yours?
47:37
SPEAKER_00: And I think about that a lot when I find myself trying to control and like mastermind.
47:46
SPEAKER_00: I almost hear God saying, Hey, Lee, if you're minding my business and I'm minding my business, like who's minding yours?
47:54
SPEAKER_00: And I forget that my business, our business, is to love him and to trust him and to seek first his righteousness and to prioritize his kingdom and to, as one of our former guests said, like to just be available, to be available for how he wants to use me and be like, God, I'm yours.
48:16
SPEAKER_00: Like, however, and again, that right there, talking from the female perspective, like I know that my heavenly father doesn't see me as an object.
48:24
SPEAKER_00: So if he's going to put me to use and I am doing that willingly, it's gonna be for some really amazing things, and we're gonna do it together, right?
48:35
SPEAKER_00: Like he's never gonna use me without my like he's he's not gonna violate my free will.
48:41
SPEAKER_00: So by me willingly saying saying, Hey God, I want you to utilize all the things that you've given me for your kingdom and for your glory, it is stepping out of that like performance and objectification and really going to this place of I am gonna be responsible for the the one thing you created me to do, which is I guess it's a couple of I'm gonna be fruitful, I'm gonna multiply, I'm gonna have dominion over the things that you created, I'm gonna co-create with you.
49:13
SPEAKER_00: And I'm gonna be like fully surrendered to your will the whole time.
49:16
SPEAKER_00: And yes, I'm gonna mess up, but I can just keep coming back, and you'll that's the beautiful part of this redemption.
49:22
SPEAKER_00: And so I'm so grateful for this conversation you poured into me in some ways that I am very grateful for, and I know that the people listening are gonna take so much from this.
49:33
SPEAKER_00: And so I want to give you an opportunity to tell us a little bit more about how people can further connect with you and when people decide to read your book or connect further, if they take only like one piece of encouragement from your book, what do you hope it is?
49:52
SPEAKER_01: Okay, good question.
49:53
SPEAKER_01: So I'll start with that one.
49:54
SPEAKER_01: Let's start with what I want them to get out of it.
49:57
SPEAKER_01: I think hope, hope, if there's one word I could say that I could get hope, because my story is a loss and a return to a loving father.
50:06
SPEAKER_01: And if I could challenge people to be of noble character, wonderful.
50:10
SPEAKER_01: But if they could leave after seeing my story and, or I should say, my experience and his story, if they get hope out of that, that this is available to me as well.
50:21
SPEAKER_01: Future redemption is available to me as well.
50:25
SPEAKER_01: He can redeem our past, he can redeem our where we are today, and he can redeem our tomorrow.
50:30
SPEAKER_01: If someone could leave with hope, that would be a success to me if that's what they got out of it.
50:35
SPEAKER_01: The ministry is available at turnrightministry.com and the website's up.
50:41
SPEAKER_01: The book itself will be out probably in the next three to four weeks, my publisher's telling me.
50:46
SPEAKER_01: So it'll be available at Amazon at Barnes and Noble.
50:49
SPEAKER_01: It'll be available in digital format as well, through both of them, as well as the Google Play Store and the Apple store as well.
50:57
SPEAKER_01: So we'll have it and more retailers to come as it grows.
51:01
SPEAKER_01: But that's where we're gonna launch initially, probably by the end of this month, maybe first of next month is I don't have the official date of August yet.
51:09
SPEAKER_01: So we're in August 2026, so the book should be out.
51:12
SPEAKER_01: Maybe by the time this airs, I'm not sure.
51:14
SPEAKER_01: It should be out, but it's imminent, is what they're telling me.
51:17
SPEAKER_01: It's just a matter of getting it all loaded in the systems, but it's ready to go.
51:21
SPEAKER_01: I have my advanced copies, they're all done, and it's ready to go.
51:25
SPEAKER_01: But definitely through the website, turnrightministry.org.
51:27
SPEAKER_01: There's a contact form, and that's a great way to get a hold of me directly.
51:32
SPEAKER_01: Social media's pending.
51:34
SPEAKER_01: I'm not a huge social media, but I'm being told by when people are helping me with this.
51:38
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you got to build a social media presence.
51:40
SPEAKER_01: So that's coming soon.
51:41
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
51:42
SPEAKER_01: And I'll have more content available there as well.
51:44
SPEAKER_00: You know, I've been on social media since it basically since Facebook was created.
51:49
SPEAKER_00: That was my first moment.
51:51
SPEAKER_00: I'm not as far back as a lot of people are like, oh, like the MySpace pages.
51:54
SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, I'm not quite that far back, but social, like what we consider social media.
51:59
SPEAKER_00: And I will tell you, it was one of those things that when for those first 10, 15 years, I was like, oh, you have to be on social media, you have to be on social media, you have to be on social media.
52:08
SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, Do you know how I've watched God grow some of our clients' businesses?
52:13
SPEAKER_00: It is wild how and they have no social media presence whatsoever.
52:19
SPEAKER_00: And I'm watching them grow in these incredible ways, and I'm like, he's so cool how he does that.
52:24
SPEAKER_00: So, like, I always tell people, I'm like, if you want to be on there and you feel called to be on there, or you want somebody else to run that for you, great.
52:32
SPEAKER_00: And also, he could you could sell a million copies through word of mouth.
52:36
SPEAKER_00: You never know.
52:38
SPEAKER_01: This is one of those points of surrender, even with this.
52:41
SPEAKER_01: Obviously, there's the worldly ideas of how this could go.
52:45
SPEAKER_01: I say, Lord, use this.
52:46
SPEAKER_01: If one person finds hope and redemption out of this, then it's a success, right?
52:51
SPEAKER_01: If even just one, if it just brings one more into the kingdom, into the fold of Christ, then it was a success and the journey's worth it.
52:59
SPEAKER_01: And I'm not going to limit what he can do with it.
53:03
SPEAKER_01: Again, it goes back to just the daily trust and trust him for tomorrow.
53:06
SPEAKER_01: Trust him to take this to the places he wants his story and his power and glory to be shown.
53:13
SPEAKER_01: That's he doesn't need me to do that, right?
53:16
SPEAKER_01: He doesn't it's an honor to say, Lord, you already have my yes and amen, whatever it is.
53:20
SPEAKER_01: You tell me where to go, my answer is already yes and amen.
53:23
SPEAKER_01: And I didn't used to be at that point.
53:25
SPEAKER_01: I used to be, Lord, I'd love to do this, but can I put some caveats and give you the fine print on it?
53:30
SPEAKER_01: And now it's truly yes and amen because you mentioned free will earlier.
53:34
SPEAKER_01: I've lived life in my free will, and I don't want to do that anymore.
53:37
SPEAKER_01: I'd rather cede my free will to him and say, Lord, I I know what I'm capable of doing on my own and the places I've ended up doing that on my own.
53:45
SPEAKER_01: And now I want to yield that to you.
53:46
SPEAKER_01: So it's wherever you call me, it's yes and amen.
53:49
SPEAKER_01: And whatever he chooses to do with the ministry and how that blesses whether it's one person or many people, that's for him to use for his glory.
53:58
SPEAKER_00: I'm saying yes and amen to all of that because I yes and amen.
54:02
SPEAKER_00: So Matthew, thank you so much for joining us.
54:05
SPEAKER_00: It's been an absolute pleasure.
54:07
SPEAKER_00: Y'all go if it's after September you're hearing this, go find the book.
54:11
SPEAKER_00: If it's before that time that you're hearing this, go to the website, sign up to get in contact with Matthew.
54:17
SPEAKER_00: That way you're going to be able to get connected with the book.
54:20
SPEAKER_00: And yeah, just praying that this episode blesses you and helps you really just reconnect back with how much God loves you, helps you say yes and amen.
54:29
SPEAKER_00: And we're really grateful that you tuned in.
54:32
SPEAKER_00: Thanks for listening, and we'll see you next week.