Latest / Vine Worship at Kingwood Methodist / Testimony... The Good, The Bland, and The Point? | GET TALKIN' with Kimberly, Chris, and Ryan

Transcript

Testimony... The Good, The Bland, and The Point? | GET TALKIN' with Kimberly, Chris, and Ryan · Vine Worship at Kingwood Methodist

• 0:00
  Music.
• 0:26
  Well, hey, good morning, good afternoon, good night. Welcome to Get Talking.
• 0:30
  Get Talking is a podcast ministry out of Vine Worship, which is the contemporary
• 0:34
  worship ministry at Kingwood Methodist.
• 0:36
  And we exist to have fun, inquisitive conversations about our Sunday scripture
• 0:40
  to help people fall in love with God's word and inspire conversations with others.
• 0:44
  My name is Ryan, and I'm joined with Chris and Kimberly. Hello.
• 0:49
  How you doing? I'm living the dream. How are you doing, Chris?
• 0:52
  For the first time in eight years I will not be watching playoff baseball and
• 0:58
  it's a bit sad I gotta be honest it is really crazy why is that?
• 1:02
  Because Houston didn't make the playoffs this year oh I've literally never been
• 1:06
  down here when the Astros weren't in the playoffs so like I really don't it's hard to remember,
• 1:12
  it's been like Astro week at the office like every year I've been here so it's
• 1:16
  gonna be weird Blake was already talking trash on the staff email,
• 1:21
  I haven't really waded into those waters.
• 1:24
  Well, your cubbies are still in. Well, yes.
• 1:28
  And like three years ago, I bet- It still wasn't a but.
• 1:32
  Yeah. Yes, but. Yeah, well, they're in, but like three years ago,
• 1:37
  I think, do y'all remember the Sunday I had to wear like all Astro gear?
• 1:40
  Oh, you made a bet with somebody. Well, okay, I made a bet with the pastors that like if-
• 1:46
  And I think the Astros at least went to the World Series, if not won it that year.
• 1:49
  It's like, whoever's team goes further in the playoffs, like,
• 1:53
  you have to wear the opposing team's jersey to preach to the league worship.
• 1:57
  See, I thought there was some other element to that bet.
• 1:59
  No. Is there not? Okay. But the most embarrassing part of the whole situation
• 2:03
  was that, like, I think the Astros had a first-round buy, and then the Cubs lost in the wild card.
• 2:07
  So, like, I lost the bet before the Astros even played a game. Oh, man.
• 2:11
  And it was like, I mean, I was the butt of jokes for, like, weeks,
• 2:15
  especially because I think they won the World Series yeah it was 22 they won
• 2:18
  the World Series well you can turn that around this week can't you?
• 2:22
  I'm alright you know I'm living in I've never felt this before your Bears won
• 2:27
  yesterday too okay the Bears won,
• 2:30
  A&M won and the Cubs you're not an Aggie and the Cubs won the season series
• 2:34
  or the Cubs swept the Cardinals to end the series like none of my teams lost,
• 2:39
  even one game this week I don't know if I've ever experienced that before I'm just content.
• 2:45
  Tech had a bye week, so we didn't really have anything to watch this weekend.
• 2:50
  I mean, the Cowboys game last night was pretty wild.
• 2:53
  Did y'all watch it? That is so rare. That is weird. We didn't finish watching
• 2:56
  it because that's way past my bedtime. Oh, okay.
• 2:59
  How bad would you have felt if you did stay up and then they tied?
• 3:02
  And you're like, really? I stayed up late to watch a tie? You didn't actually tie?
• 3:05
  Yeah. That's lame. And they did. They did.
• 3:09
  That was like once every five years maybe or something. There should be some
• 3:12
  sort of sudden death where the quarterbacks just get up there. It's just something.
• 3:15
  What would be, okay, this is a good question. What would be your ideal sudden death?
• 3:21
  If you were the commissioner of the NFL, what would be your sudden death?
• 3:26
  It can be football or like non-football activities.
• 3:30
  So here's the thing that you might not know about me. I actually think there
• 3:33
  are way too many rules in football. Okay.
• 3:35
  Like the newest rule where the kickoff.
• 3:39
  Line can't even start moving i'm like what
• 3:42
  a bunch of weenies it's like it was like a concussion lawsuit
• 3:46
  that they started doing that you know what they people
• 3:50
  were getting seriously injured because they ran when
• 3:53
  the ball got kicked off i mean come on yeah it was like the
• 3:56
  top speed you reach and then like colliding with someone caused
• 3:59
  a lot of concussion issues well i'm sorry
• 4:02
  i mean all right there is a
• 4:05
  risk reward benefit to every action that you take in
• 4:08
  your life like a huge lawsuit against the nfl and somebody
• 4:11
  got money from that and good for them all right everything is
• 4:14
  risk reward this is economics 101 okay anyway i
• 4:19
  think i'm just thinking i'm just thinking this off the
• 4:22
  top of my head okay there would definitely be a kickoff like a punt and like
• 4:28
  one guy who catches it okay and has to run it back okay but there's like the
• 4:34
  they can pick whether they want their biggest defender out there or their fastest defender out there.
• 4:40
  Okay. And it's just one-on-one.
• 4:43
  And whoever gets the farthest back down the field, they each get to do it.
• 4:46
  And whoever makes the most yardage off of that run wins.
• 4:50
  What about that? All right, I like that. Yeah.
• 4:52
  What would be your idea, Chris? I'm trying to think of something that would
• 4:55
  be fair, like in the vein of the soccer kickoffs or whatever.
• 5:00
  You want something entertaining. Yeah, something entertaining,
• 5:02
  but also something kind of fair. No, not at this point. If you're tied, it's beyond fairness.
• 5:08
  So, like, I think you would go, like, I was thinking one of two routes.
• 5:16
  So the first route, which I think would be not nearly as interesting,
• 5:20
  but might be decently fair, is just like a kickoff with your kicker.
• 5:25
  And so we're going to start at, like, a 50-yarder, and each kicker gets a kick
• 5:29
  at 50-yarder. Like, no defenses, no nothing. Okay, got it. You know what I mean?
• 5:32
  And then you move to 55, and then we move to 60. Oh, what if you did it with
• 5:36
  the kicker for field goals?
• 5:38
  Yeah. And like each kicker, is that what you were saying? Yeah,
• 5:40
  field goals. Oh, I thought you were talking about like a punting.
• 5:42
  No, no, no, like a field goal.
• 5:43
  Yeah, and whoever makes the longest one. Yeah.
• 5:46
  So that would be one. The other one I think would be interesting is more like
• 5:50
  a, what's the game you play with your friends where like five or six of y'all
• 5:55
  are all way back and the quarterback throws it and then like whoever jumps up
• 5:59
  and like catches the ball. Oh, like 500.
• 6:01
  Yeah, right? I do like a game of that with like the QB throwing to the end zone
• 6:07
  and you have like your three receivers and then three defenders.
• 6:10
  And it's like, can your receiver come down with the ball? You know what I mean?
• 6:14
  And then the other team gets to do it until someone doesn't get.
• 6:17
  You know, maybe you do it three times, four times, whatever.
• 6:19
  But, you know, some shootout type of like scenario like that. Yeah.
• 6:24
  That would be more fun, I think. Yeah, it's got to be something that gets –
• 6:27
  because if you're in a tied game And you've been through, what,
• 6:30
  how many rounds of overtime?
• 6:33
  They only do one now. They only do one? Yeah. Well, that's another lame roll. Okay, I've...
• 6:38
  I did not think about this question ahead of time, but this is going to sound
• 6:41
  as though I was thinking about it all night.
• 6:44
  I think if, and so it's a 10-minute overtime.
• 6:49
  Both teams do get the ball. So a full, I don't know, 70 minutes or 80 minutes
• 6:55
  of game play is happening.
• 6:56
  I think every NFL team, every game, should have a ticket lottery to select a
• 7:02
  fan that if it gets to the spot where it's a tie.
• 7:06
  That fan has to come down and do a three-legged race with the largest pound person on each team.
• 7:13
  Wow. From like end zone to 50 yard line. That's so goofy. What you would want is like a kid to win.
• 7:18
  Can you imagine it though? Yeah, you'd want like a kid to win the lottery and
• 7:22
  then the big, you know, 300 pound defensive lineman, he just like straps him
• 7:26
  to his leg and just picks him up and goes.
• 7:28
  It would kind of be like David and Goliath. Yeah. It would be like David and Goliath.
• 7:31
  Like think about like Eli.
• 7:35
  Eli, like strapped to Michael Parsons. Yeah.
• 7:38
  Yeah. That would be awesome. Yeah. That would be so good. So NFL, if you're listening.
• 7:43
  We have all the answers. Those are your three options. Yeah.
• 7:46
  So, well, we're continuing, or actually finishing.
• 7:49
  Finishing. This is the last week of our Discipleship Distinctive series.
• 7:52
  And Kimberly's got the scripture, and then Chris will get us kicked off.
• 7:55
  Yes. So we are in 1 Samuel 17. Football pun.
• 8:01
  He's got the dad jokes today. All right, we're in 1 Samuel 17. I'm going to start in 32.
• 8:08
  And David said to Saul, may no one's heart fail on account of him.
• 8:11
  Your servant will go and fight this Philistine.
• 8:13
  But Saul said to David, you are not able to go against this Philistine to fight
• 8:18
  him for you are only a youth while he has been a warrior since his youth.
• 8:22
  But David said to Saul, your servant was tending his father's sheep.
• 8:27
  When a lion or a bear came and took a sheep from the flock, I went out after
• 8:31
  it and attacked it and rescued the sheep from its mouth.
• 8:34
  And when it rose up against me, I grabbed it by its mane and struck it and killed it.
• 8:39
  Your servant has killed both the lion and the bear, and this uncircumcised Philistine
• 8:44
  will be like one of them since he has defied the armies of the living God.
• 8:50
  And David said, The Lord who saved me from the paw of the lion and the paw of
• 8:55
  the bear, he will save me from the hand of this Philistine.
• 8:59
  So Saul said to David, Go and may the Lord be with you.
• 9:04
  So we're talking this week about the eighth point and what it is to be a disciple.
• 9:10
  And it is to basically tell your story, give your testimony,
• 9:14
  show how God has been faithful in your life.
• 9:17
  And the scripture here is talking,
• 9:21
  David is justifying why he can do what nobody else thinks he can do.
• 9:30
  They've been out there for weeks and weeks.
• 9:33
  Facing this Philistine army. Goliath has been taunting them for,
• 9:38
  I think, 40 days is what Cabe said.
• 9:41
  I may be pulling that out of thin air, but anyway, it's been going on for a
• 9:44
  while. This has been an ongoing saga for a while.
• 9:48
  And David just points to where the Lord has been faithful to him,
• 9:54
  where he has been allowed to do things that his size,
• 9:59
  his stature, he should not have been
• 10:02
  capable of doing so whatever even if
• 10:05
  it's like the smallest little black bears that's still
• 10:09
  huge for a kid out tending sheep right yeah or whatever this lion was we were
• 10:14
  debating before this about what kind of lions they have in the middle east is
• 10:18
  it like the mountain lions in west texas or is it like the big maimed lions
• 10:23
  of africa you know i have no idea it doesn't really matter because either way,
• 10:27
  it's a ferocious animal.
• 10:28
  That this child, this kid, because he's been doing this since he was a child,
• 10:34
  there's debate about how old he is when he does this, but I think we can agree
• 10:40
  that when he faced these lions and bears,
• 10:43
  he is a very, not a young child, but a older child,
• 10:50
  early teenager type situation.
• 10:53
  And so he is pointing to where God has been faithful.
• 10:57
  And there are other times I know we see in the Old Testament where a prophet
• 11:03
  or somebody points to where God has been faithful to the whole—and David's just talking about himself.
• 11:09
  You know, there's other passages where somebody is reminding the Israelites
• 11:14
  how God has been faithful to them as a people over and over.
• 11:17
  And I think we all have stories like that. But so it's just really a really
• 11:21
  great point to make about how we sometimes have to remind ourselves to look
• 11:27
  back and see where God has been faithful, but we don't keep that to ourselves.
• 11:31
  We have to provide that testimony so that others can see.
• 11:36
  And I will say, and then I'm going to hand this off, that happened to me on Sunday.
• 11:40
  I was sitting with my friend and I was complaining, and it was shocking.
• 11:46
  And was talking about how God had not answered this prayer that I've had.
• 11:50
  And she pointed out, she's like, but he's answered this other one that you've
• 11:54
  had for years. And I was like, yeah.
• 11:58
  So sometimes we even need to have others.
• 12:01
  That's where community comes in to share our concerns, share our testimony with
• 12:07
  each other, because sometimes we don't even see where it is.
• 12:10
  Others can see where God has worked in our lives. So it can go both ways.
• 12:15
  Yeah, I think that's good to understand. And I like, we were talking a little bit pre-
• 12:21
  Recording about the difference between having like some sort of like prepared
• 12:26
  testimony that you share at like an event or whatever, or Bible study or whatever, right?
• 12:33
  Versus like everyday, like normal life occurrences like you had on Sunday.
• 12:37
  And I think one of the things I was thinking about coming out of this is like
• 12:40
  that, that latter one, like you had with on Sundays, I think is much more like
• 12:43
  our target for like just normal everyday Christian life.
• 12:48
  I want to encourage people and myself also to like, when I'm thinking about,
• 12:52
  Hey, okay, I want to be a better disciple.
• 12:54
  And if being better at this means me being more comfortable with sharing God's
• 12:59
  faithfulness, it's not necessarily like, okay, I have to have like a planned
• 13:03
  testimony to share, but it's rather like,
• 13:06
  am I looking for ways like in everyday life to remember what God's done or to
• 13:11
  remind other people what God has done to like encourage them to be more faithful
• 13:15
  or encourage them to like strengthen their faith or whatever.
• 13:18
  And I love it. I think it's beautiful.
• 13:20
  We talked beforehand also about a couple other stories in the Bible.
• 13:24
  Yeah. With the demoniac or whatever you want to call him.
• 13:28
  Demon possessed. The demon possessed man. Yes, who lived outside of the Decapolis.
• 13:33
  And then also like. I think Kimberly started that conversation with like,
• 13:37
  do you remember the pig story? Yeah, the pig story.
• 13:40
  That's right. The pig story. That's right. And I knew exactly what she was talking about. Ryan didn't.
• 13:46
  I didn't read my mind. Right, yeah. Or the woman at the well,
• 13:50
  like the Samaritan woman we talk about.
• 13:52
  And in both of those stories, they were encouraged to go back to their people.
• 13:55
  Yeah, and tell their story. And tell their story. And then we see in that telling
• 13:59
  of that story, there seems to be an increased receptiveness to Jesus in those areas.
• 14:05
  Yeah. Yeah, because at first in the demon-possessed man, I kind of joked earlier, so when...
• 14:14
  When Jesus does that, they see what he's done, and they are like,
• 14:20
  the people are like, you need to get out of here. Please leave.
• 14:24
  And I can only imagine that it's like, you are disturbing our life here.
• 14:29
  You just ran somebody's herd off of a cliff.
• 14:32
  Yeah. You know, now they were pigs, so they probably were neither Israelites
• 14:36
  or. Well, they're in the Decapolis, which would have been like a region outside.
• 14:41
  Yeah. Right. So this would have been someone who, a Gentile of some sort is how I should say that.
• 14:46
  But, you know, they're being penalized very economically here.
• 14:51
  And so they're like, please just like go away.
• 14:55
  But the man wants to go with Jesus. Jesus gets into the boat with his disciples
• 15:00
  and he's like, please let me go with you.
• 15:02
  And, you know, so there's this dichotomy here of like a whole group saying, Jesus, get out.
• 15:08
  And this other one that is like, but I want to be with you. You just did this for me.
• 15:13
  And Jesus tells him, no, I need you to go and preach. Yeah, go tell your story.
• 15:18
  Go tell your story. Yeah.
• 15:20
  And I just love that because obviously he does.
• 15:24
  I mean, Chris, you were alluding to evidence in other chapters.
• 15:27
  Yeah, like two chapters later, Jesus returns. There's a whole group of people
• 15:30
  that are waiting for Jesus to preach and to teach and to heal and do all the
• 15:35
  things. And so seeds were planted.
• 15:37
  And that's, I just love that.
• 15:40
  You never know what your testimony is going to plant in somebody else you can think you have the,
• 15:47
  We were kind of joking earlier, like, some of us, me personally,
• 15:51
  have probably one of the most bland testimonies that there is.
• 15:54
  Like, I grew up in a home, and we went to church, and, you know,
• 15:59
  I was in the suburbs, and everything was just great. And then I went to college,
• 16:03
  and, you know, it just kind of—it doesn't sound exciting.
• 16:07
  But, like, in that unexciting story, God has been incredibly faithful through
• 16:13
  every step of the way. And so it doesn't sound exciting to tell people,
• 16:17
  but it does matter to plant those seeds, I think. Yeah, absolutely.
• 16:23
  Absolutely. And I mean, I think underpinning all this too is like how important
• 16:28
  it is to tell your story of Jesus to like the next generation that you have the ability to talk to.
• 16:34
  You know, if you're hanging out at a family barbecue, don't be the guy necessarily
• 16:38
  that exclusively tells their testimony for two hours.
• 16:40
  But I think, you know, something that I've been thinking about as we've been talking is,
• 16:48
  I'm wondering if there's, I think there's a tension when we tell our testimony
• 16:53
  that I want to just bring to us for talking out and thinking about it.
• 16:58
  A lot of testimonies that I've heard have talked quite a bit about the like
• 17:04
  linear time that we have been alive and kind of how like the Lord intersects
• 17:08
  through like our story you know and I.
• 17:13
  Think some of that's inevitable you
• 17:16
  know like to tell a story you need like a time and
• 17:19
  a place and a thing to happen you know it can just be like just ethereal conversation
• 17:25
  only like for us to like understand it and be like okay I get your story like
• 17:29
  when you just throw out pigs and you don't know where that's coming from yeah
• 17:31
  it's like uh what you know but I do I think if there's a spot where in some ways in like,
• 17:38
  I'm, you know, like Jane and I are really in this, in this spot where like life
• 17:41
  has significantly slowed down from a uniqueness of places and times.
• 17:46
  We've been in Kingwood for seven years, you know, like this is home.
• 17:51
  Yeah. Not, not, not just like on an ideal wise, it's like, no,
• 17:55
  we like literally pay a mortgage and we literally have kids and we literally go to jobs, you know?
• 18:00
  And I think how do we maybe as Christians, as we grow in maturity,
• 18:05
  but in a lot of ways grow in like stagnation in place.
• 18:10
  Sometimes i think we feel our testimony getting less exciting and less powerful
• 18:14
  because there's not as many like linear moments to connect christ's transformation,
• 18:20
  to them you know because we're doing a lot of we're tending kind of the garden
• 18:24
  of our families in our life quite yeah how do we how do we maybe look how do
• 18:30
  we maybe tell a better testimony,
• 18:32
  looking back that focuses more on christ as the author and perfecter of our testimonies,
• 18:39
  and how do we envision life moving forward so that the center character continues
• 18:45
  to be Christ's work and not as much our work. Hmm.
• 18:51
  Okay. Kimberly and I are each like looking at each other like, who's going to talk?
• 18:55
  Well, the first thought that came to my mind is... Good questions sometimes
• 19:00
  require a little. Yeah. Require a moment.
• 19:04
  I think to tell that story, you have to sometimes...
• 19:09
  Okay, where I'm going with this is not that you need to have a rehearsed story,
• 19:15
  But to see where those moments are, you sometimes have to tell your testimony to yourself.
• 19:21
  I think you have to remind yourself where God has been.
• 19:26
  And so what seems like a normal, calm waters moment of time in your life,
• 19:34
  as opposed to like if you had a timeline and there were these peaks where something
• 19:40
  monumental has happened, good or bad, but something that God was in.
• 19:44
  If if you have lived a life where maybe the
• 19:47
  peaks are really far and few between which is not
• 19:50
  a bad thing i think you're probably missing peaks and so the reason i say that
• 19:55
  is because i think in my own life i tend to downplay things that maybe others
• 20:03
  would have a bigger part of their story,
• 20:08
  And so I have to go and tell myself my story sometimes and remind myself of
• 20:13
  things that I have just kind of, whether I blocked them out or just said,
• 20:18
  eh, that was just something that happened. But it was a pretty big thing.
• 20:22
  But the way I deal with things is I deal with them. I don't want to be like psychoanalyzed here.
• 20:30
  I process things and then I push it out of the way.
• 20:34
  I don't linger on them. And so I will actually forget what those peaks are in that timeline.
• 20:41
  And so for me to be able to say, I mean, even just what I said five minutes
• 20:46
  ago about like I live this, I mean, I literally glossed over some very significant things in my life.
• 20:53
  And I mean, that's not fair to God's story, you know, because I am,
• 21:00
  and it's just the way, and we all process things differently.
• 21:04
  So the only reason I say that is I have to remind myself of what God has done in my life.
• 21:10
  Because if I go to tell you, I'm going to be like, yeah, I just lived the easiest life.
• 21:17
  I mean, I do. I feel blessed. I feel lucky. Whatever words you want to use to
• 21:22
  describe, God has always been there in my life.
• 21:26
  And maybe because he was there through those hard things, they don't linger
• 21:33
  and they don't impact me long term.
• 21:37
  But it's still a part of the story that I should not gloss over. And I do.
• 21:42
  Before I get talking too much about this, like, I want to clarify,
• 21:46
  are you kind of alluding to,
• 21:48
  like, sort of what we talked about a little in the pre-talk about not just talking
• 21:54
  about how God's been faithful in our individual lives, but, like,
• 21:56
  throughout the history of the church or throughout the history of the Israelites?
• 22:00
  Is that what you mean when you say, like, keeping Jesus, like, centered?
• 22:04
  Or did you mean something a little different? I think maybe that could impact
• 22:08
  I think like I just see like a lot of times and it's like and it's not bagging
• 22:13
  on it because honestly I guess this is the space that I found myself telling my testimony,
• 22:18
  a lot in meetings with like new worship volunteers or like coffees with you
• 22:23
  know like new connections or something like that like I just talk a lot about
• 22:26
  like I grew up in Chicago I grew up in a great home I grew up in a great church like,
• 22:32
  I went to college and just like a lot of the narrative is kind of like about me,
• 22:38
  you know, and, and, and how, how, you know, like, and, and not just like in,
• 22:44
  in my head, like, like David's confidence in this passage that we read is coming from his.
• 22:50
  Conviction that like the God of Israel is like a living God,
• 22:54
  like the, the armies of the living God, you know?
• 22:56
  And so like, I'm like, man, I just, on Sunday when I was thinking,
• 22:58
  I was like, man, I just so much of like, when I process my testimony,
• 23:03
  it like Ryan, Ryan Stuckerman is like the main character and God's kind of just
• 23:09
  like peeking in, you know?
• 23:10
  And, you know, we've introduced a new song that I said, part of this is that
• 23:15
  we are like infusing our testimony into this corporate worship song.
• 23:18
  So I think it can be both ways, but just to clarify.
• 23:20
  Okay. Yeah. Yeah. I kind of see what you're saying. I think we definitely want
• 23:24
  to avoid the temptation of making it sound like we're the hero of the story.
• 23:28
  I think my first like thought on that is like two, two things which are potentially
• 23:33
  helpful in that regards is listening to other people's stories,
• 23:39
  right? And how God has like worked in their life.
• 23:42
  And like keeping that like on our brains and not just, you know,
• 23:47
  I'm intimately aware with how God's worked in my life, but I have no idea how
• 23:51
  he's worked in anyone else's life.
• 23:52
  You know what I mean? I think can help us with that.
• 23:55
  One of the things I like to do, I think, to try to keep me away from being the
• 24:00
  main character in my hero story,
• 24:02
  is that I try to filter, and this is where it really ties in with,
• 24:07
  I think, one of our other principles of like reading and studying God's word,
• 24:10
  is I try to filter my situation through similar biblical stories.
• 24:17
  So it's not just how God's worked in my life, but like, and so in a real practical way,
• 24:25
  The demoniac story with the pigs, the guy, like you mentioned,
• 24:31
  was like, hey, Jesus, that was awesome. Thanks, man. Can I come and be part of your crew?
• 24:35
  And Jesus is like, no, you can't. But what I want you to do is go back and tell
• 24:41
  your people about what happened.
• 24:43
  And then so if I have a similar scenario in my life, then maybe where I was
• 24:51
  like, Jesus, I'd love to do this thing for you. And it didn't work out.
• 24:55
  You know what I mean? Or Jesus asked me to do something different that it's
• 25:00
  not just, I'm not just thinking of it in the context of me personally,
• 25:03
  but I'm trying to think about it like, okay, well,
• 25:05
  how did other people respond in the, in the scriptures to Jesus saying,
• 25:10
  Hey, you know, that's nice that you would like want to do that,
• 25:13
  you know, but I have different plans for you.
• 25:16
  And viewing it in that regards so I was just thinking I was actually literally
• 25:20
  this week going through my head of the people that didn't get picked.
• 25:25
  And so who are people in the Bible who didn't get picked and how did they handle the story,
• 25:30
  did they handle it well did they handle it poorly how did God intersect with
• 25:34
  that how did Jesus intersect with that so that I'm not just trying to think
• 25:38
  of my story in isolation but I'm trying to make it comparable to other Bible
• 25:44
  stories and what not That's really good.
• 25:46
  That's one of the things I love about reading biographies.
• 25:49
  Yeah. You see what other people are going through or have gone through,
• 25:55
  and it can often make your problems seem not so big or relatable.
• 26:03
  Right. Because sometimes your problems are big, and it's comforting to know
• 26:08
  that someone else has made it through to the other side with their big problems, too. Yeah.
• 26:12
  So if I could add one thing to just for consideration,
• 26:16
  like if I'm looking back on, I haven't really thought about my testimony too
• 26:21
  much until this, too much recently until we haven't been adding a ton more worship
• 26:27
  volunteers recently for me
• 26:28
  to have that conversation necessarily because we've got so many already.
• 26:31
  So, but one thing I just looking back and seeing this, having had so much like
• 26:38
  spiritual satisfaction over the past like two years, I really think the thing
• 26:42
  that changed the most was a rebalancing of my prayer life.
• 26:46
  You know, I mean, in my kind of like, I feel like the moment that I kind of
• 26:51
  circle is like, all right, Ryan really chose Jesus outside of family persuasion
• 26:56
  or outside of culture was in college.
• 26:58
  And I just remember like looking back on that, like my prayer life was so,
• 27:02
  the end of it was max two weeks,
• 27:05
  you know, like whether it was for tests or making groups or passing,
• 27:09
  whatever, you know, and like, I just like, I don't know if this is like a shout
• 27:13
  out to college kids or something like that, but like no paper I ever wrote got published in anything.
• 27:20
  What? No group that I ever joined substantially changed my life,
• 27:24
  you know, but like, but the person that changed my life substantially was Jesus.
• 27:28
  And so if I could go back and tap, you know, freshman year college Ryan on the
• 27:34
  shoulder, I would just be like, man, just like pray for your character.
• 27:39
  Just just as much as you pray for the things that you think you need or the
• 27:42
  things that you feel because that like.
• 27:46
  When you are, when you are praying for an interceding, like,
• 27:49
  cause a big part of our testimony obviously is how did God come through for you?
• 27:53
  You know, like, like that's, that's the heart of it, like in a lot of ways.
• 27:56
  And obviously a core way for us would be how did he come, come through with
• 28:00
  his mighty saving acts for you.
• 28:01
  But also like, once you get past salvation, a lot of times I talk about Jane
• 28:05
  or I talk about moving places or musical opportunities or whatever.
• 28:09
  And like, I just like looking back, I just, I just wish I had more and I'm so happy I have it now,
• 28:16
  but I just have like more time where I just prayed about my character and prayed
• 28:20
  for like wisdom and joy and hope and love outside of success or whatever.
• 28:26
  And I have that from the past two years, but man, I really could have used that
• 28:30
  in some really substantial ways when I didn't have it.
• 28:34
  And, and, you know, I don't, and I don't have the testimony of like,
• 28:37
  I chose to make bad decisions out of that. I just didn't have it.
• 28:41
  But I think the Lord really wanted to deliver like
• 28:44
  more than just my soul in some of those spaces and
• 28:48
  I and I I don't have those testimonies and I think the heart of
• 28:51
  it is because I just wasn't really asking for
• 28:54
  it yeah no I think there's a lot to that because I mean just sitting here I
• 29:00
  can sometimes think about really dumb things that I did or bad things that I
• 29:06
  did and I'm the kind of person there's only a couple of moments in my life where
• 29:10
  I'm just like, I still remember doing this.
• 29:13
  I mean, these are very minor things. Nobody was hurt. Nobody was...
• 29:16
  Threw a tortilla on the football field? I never threw a tortilla on the football field.
• 29:20
  I think that's silly. Anyway, but I look back on those and I think,
• 29:25
  oh, Kimberly, why did you do that?
• 29:27
  That was so immature. That was so dumb. That was so...
• 29:30
  You had no character when you were doing that.
• 29:33
  And those episodes in my life really...
• 29:38
  But they tug on my heart because I'm like, why did you do that? You knew better.
• 29:46
  When I think about them now, and I look at my own kids, and I think,
• 29:51
  okay, well, what mistakes are they going to make?
• 29:53
  I pray that they're the mistakes that nobody's really heard on the other side, you know?
• 29:57
  I don't want, you know, because we want that for our kids. We want them to have
• 30:01
  this amazing testimony in love for Jesus.
• 30:05
  But like, let's make it a nice testimony, you know?
• 30:09
  I think about that with my kids and what their testimony is going to be.
• 30:13
  You want them to have boring testimonies, too. I would love for them to have
• 30:15
  boring testimonies. Yes.
• 30:17
  It's definitely the other side of being an adult. But just think,
• 30:21
  I mean, that thought just came to me here.
• 30:24
  You know, when I'm looking at the next generation or I'm thinking about,
• 30:30
  so I'm thinking outside of myself.
• 30:32
  So I've got my kids. I have my parents.
• 30:35
  Even the stories that my dad would tell about his mother and grandmother and
• 30:40
  great-grandmother, he would tell me about their faithfulness.
• 30:45
  Like I know that those three generation of women, his mother,
• 30:50
  his mammy, and his granny were, you know, Jesus loving women.
• 30:55
  I don't know anything else about them. I never met any of them.
• 30:58
  But that testimony has filed down through those generations. I love that.
• 31:03
  It's good stuff. I like it. Yeah.
• 31:07
  As you're saying that, I'm just wondering like, you know, like I'm just wondering
• 31:12
  if some of this to like really praying through.
• 31:14
  Because, okay, because obviously it's important in, like, sometimes Jane has
• 31:18
  accused me in some ways of being able to, like, compartmentalize on,
• 31:22
  like, a semi-insane level in some ways.
• 31:24
  So, like, I'm not saying, like, when our kid is sick, I mean, we're praying.
• 31:29
  We're putting him to bed and then we're putting our hands on that door and be
• 31:31
  like, like, be healed in the name of Jesus, for sure. We tried vegetable oil. Oh, no.
• 31:39
  We'll talk after. but but like so it's it's not to like it's not to say that
• 31:44
  like that that doesn't like,
• 31:47
  that doesn't matter but i'm just wondering like when i'm talking to like my
• 31:51
  neighbor or like when i'm talking to someone who you know on the fence about
• 31:54
  jesus or not in at all you know like hey how's how's it going you know like
• 31:58
  it's one thing to say like oh like you know like i'm praying for,
• 32:03
  I'm praying that they get better. You know, it's like, yeah, no, that makes sense.
• 32:06
  You know, it's a bummer when they can't go to school, you know,
• 32:09
  like for sure. But I'm just wondering. It is a real bummer when they can't go to school. Yeah.
• 32:13
  But like, I'm just, I don't know. I'm wondering if it opens the door in some
• 32:16
  ways to be like, man, I'm just like, I'm just like really like praying and hoping
• 32:19
  for some like big things for my kid.
• 32:22
  Yeah. You know, or like, you know, in a conversation with other believers too
• 32:25
  and being like, man, God is just like, there's just so much going on in our life right now.
• 32:29
  But like, I've just been really praying for and feeling the peace of the Lord.
• 32:32
  Or, like, I don't know, I think that might inspire some more conversations or,
• 32:39
  like, kind of leave a bigger crack in the door open for Christ to be magnified
• 32:44
  maybe than just, like, weak of situation.
• 32:47
  Yeah, I think being open to when those conversations—I mean,
• 32:51
  I remember this conversation I had with my neighbor one time.
• 32:54
  I was just—I did not expect it to go the direction that it did.
• 33:00
  And because it was one of those, I'll be honest here, it was just one of those
• 33:04
  few moments that I actually like listened to God.
• 33:08
  I mean, I say that kind of tongue in cheek, but you know, how often do we hear
• 33:12
  like God say, you need to listen to her right now? Because she was really struggling with something.
• 33:17
  And I just asked her, I don't even remember what question I asked her,
• 33:21
  I can't tell you. But I asked her, like, from God's perspective,
• 33:26
  had she, you know, basically saw God in this situation?
• 33:32
  And, you know, I am not, if anybody knows me, I am not the person who normally does that.
• 33:38
  And it was just, it was a beautiful conversation. She came back to me a couple
• 33:41
  weeks later and she's like, you know, I really, I really thought about that question.
• 33:45
  You know, you never know where those are going to lead.
• 33:49
  And I will say, if you don't know your neighbor very well, sometimes just,
• 33:54
  how's it going? Fair. It's okay.
• 33:57
  You're not. Yeah, fair. But if you want to get to know your neighbor better.
• 34:03
  You know, you've got to be willing to open up. You've got to be willing to say
• 34:06
  more than just, it's good.
• 34:08
  You know, you've got to offer something. And so I think being ready,
• 34:15
  they always say to be ready to give your testimony or give an answer to,
• 34:20
  I don't know, there's some Bible verse about that. Give a reason for the hope
• 34:23
  that you have. There you go.
• 34:25
  Sometimes I feel like it's just you don't know what part of your testimony is
• 34:30
  going to be impactful. So just listen for the Holy Spirit to just be in the
• 34:35
  conversation of where you are, because you don't know where the other person is.
• 34:39
  So you need to be willing to pivot or to just,
• 34:45
  I say pivot, but like that's listening to the Holy Spirit and letting Him guide
• 34:49
  to where you might be able to give something beneficial to what that person needs.
• 34:55
  Because they may not need to hear that story from your, you know, childhood.
• 35:00
  It might be. That's a great point. You know, because there's like a thousand
• 35:02
  stories you could tell, you know.
• 35:04
  Yeah. Yeah, I think that's good. I think part of underlining all that is like
• 35:08
  really believing that God wants to and is able to use you to impact someone else's life. Yeah.
• 35:13
  And I think that's something we need to really, the more like wrestle with the
• 35:17
  reality of that and just believe it, you know.
• 35:20
  Believe like David, believe that, well, God can work right here,
• 35:23
  right now to take this giant down. Yeah. You know.
• 35:27
  Yeah. Definitely. Well, y'all, thank you so much for joining us today.
• 35:31
  We hope this conversation made you think about God and about his word.
• 35:35
  And we hope this inspires you to start conversations about faith with those around you.
• 35:39
  And if we inspired you specifically, that you would share this episode with others.
• 35:43
  See y'all next week. Bye. Bye, y'all.
• 35:46
  Music.