Latest / Coffee and Bible Time Podcast / How Trusting God's Plan Changes Everything | Jaime Jamgochian

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How Trusting God's Plan Changes Everything | Jaime Jamgochian · Coffee and Bible Time Podcast

1:01
Ellen Krause: The Coffee of Bible Time podcast, our goal is to help you delight in God's Word and thrive in Christian living.
1:08
Ellen Krause: Each week, we talk to subject matter experts who broaden your biblical understanding, encourage you in hard times, and provide life-building tips to enhance your Christian walk.
1:19
Ellen Krause: We are so glad you have joined us.
1:22
Ellen Krause: Hi, friends, and welcome back to the Coffee and Bible Time podcast.
1:29
Ellen Krause: I'm Ellen, your host, and I'm so excited you're here for today's conversation.
1:36
Ellen Krause: My guest today is Jamie Jamgoshin, a Dove Award-nominated singer, songwriter, worship leader, and someone whose walk with the Lord has been shaped by long seasons of waiting, unexpected detours, and deep surrender.
1:54
Ellen Krause: Over the past two decades, Jamie has experienced the highs and lows of life and ministry.
2:01
Ellen Krause: But what is so powerful about her story is that she hasn't waited to live until the waiting is over.
2:09
Ellen Krause: Instead, she's discovered what it means to live fully and abundantly, even when the answers haven't come yet.
2:18
Ellen Krause: So whether you're in a season of uncertainty, holding out hope for something yet to come, or learning to let go of what you can't control, I believe Jamie's words will speak directly to your heart.
2:32
Ellen Krause: So grab your coffee, open your Bible, and let's dive in.
2:36
Ellen Krause: Jamie, welcome.
2:37
Jaime Jamgochian: Thank you.
2:38
Jaime Jamgochian: I brought my coffee.
2:39
Jaime Jamgochian: I don't know where it is, but it's somewhere.
2:42
Ellen Krause: Well, no worries.
2:43
Ellen Krause: I'm just glad that you're here.
2:45
Ellen Krause: Thank you.
2:46
Ellen Krause: Why don't you start out just by telling our listeners a little bit about you and your ministry?
2:53
Jaime Jamgochian: Yeah.
2:54
Jaime Jamgochian: So I have been singing, leading worship, Christian songs since I was 24.
2:59
Jaime Jamgochian: I came to faith at 21 while studying jazz piano at Berkeley.
3:04
Jaime Jamgochian: I was singing in the bars, the cruise lines, my funny valentine, all of that.
3:08
Jaime Jamgochian: And God got a hold of my life through a classmate, and she was the first one to share the gospel and tell me who Jesus is.
3:16
Jaime Jamgochian: And my heart was ready, and I think she could see that.
3:19
Jaime Jamgochian: And I surrendered everything.
3:21
Jaime Jamgochian: That was my first true test of surrender, which I know we're going to talk about, Ellen, in a little bit.
3:26
Jaime Jamgochian: But that led me from the East Coast to Seattle, Washington, where I laid down every musical dream.
3:34
Jaime Jamgochian: I was set to go to LA, New York.
3:36
Jaime Jamgochian: Had really excelled in my professional career.
3:40
Jaime Jamgochian: But the Lord said, go to Seattle and take a two-year Bible internship at a church.
3:46
Jaime Jamgochian: I had never seen hands raised in worship.
3:49
Jaime Jamgochian: I had never experienced the power of corporate worship in my life, was ruined and wrecked for the glory of God in the best way.
3:56
Jaime Jamgochian: And that began a journey.
3:58
Jaime Jamgochian: And ever since then, I did end up signing a Christian record deal that led me here to Nashville.
4:04
Jaime Jamgochian: So I've been in ministry the last 25 years.
4:07
Jaime Jamgochian: I counted an honor to lead people into worship, to share hope, to share what it's like to go from darkness to light, as we all know.
4:16
Jaime Jamgochian: I reside in the southern part of Tennessee, right outside of Nashville.
4:22
Jaime Jamgochian: I love my community here.
4:24
Jaime Jamgochian: I have some dear friends that we're all kind of in the ministry Christian music world.
4:29
Jaime Jamgochian: So I love my community, have a beautiful family still back east in Boston.
4:33
Jaime Jamgochian: And after putting out seven albums, God was being funny, I guess, and decided to say, You're gonna be an author.
4:41
Jaime Jamgochian: I said, I'm the girl that had the learning disabilities.
4:43
Jaime Jamgochian: Lord, I'm a singer.
4:45
Jaime Jamgochian: And so I have my first book coming out October 7th, and truly cling to that verse.
4:51
Jaime Jamgochian: God will use the foolish things of the world to confound the wise, because I don't think I should have written a book.
4:57
Jaime Jamgochian: But here we are, and I believe it's gonna really unlock and bring some breakthrough to people that um have navigated just long seasons of waiting or suffering, um, or how to live an abundant, full life, even in some empty places.
5:12
Jaime Jamgochian: So that's a little bit about me.
5:14
Jaime Jamgochian: I'm a earthy, crunchy, organic, holistic girl.
5:17
Jaime Jamgochian: So you can find me at all the holistic uh little crunchy markets, um, living my best life, drinking my golden milk lattes.
5:25
Ellen Krause: Oh thank you for that awesome introduction, Jamie.
5:30
Ellen Krause: I know um because I have read your beautifully written book that you have had some challenges and setbacks.
5:40
Ellen Krause: Tell us about, you know, a moment in your spiritual life where you felt called to fully surrender and trust.
5:50
Jaime Jamgochian: Oh my goodness, I feel like it's a daily thing, right, Alan?
5:53
Jaime Jamgochian: Like every day, Lord, I surrender this, or I give you this desire, I give you this dream.
5:58
Jaime Jamgochian: I think one of the hardest parts of my story of surrender would be in 2019 when on the outside everything looked great.
6:07
Jaime Jamgochian: I was thriving in ministry.
6:09
Jaime Jamgochian: I had actually helped some dear friends and pastors of mine plant a church in Nashville called The Belonging, you know, part of the core small team where we're just seeing it bloom and bloom.
6:20
Jaime Jamgochian: I was on staff there as the new Christians pastor, and I just didn't feel well.
6:25
Jaime Jamgochian: I can remember I was still taking ministry trips, singing, leading worship on the road, and I would get home and just something wasn't quite right.
6:33
Jaime Jamgochian: Well, fast forward, I was uh finally diagnosed with late-stage neurological Lyme disease, which I don't ever remember getting bit by a tick.
6:42
Jaime Jamgochian: I I'm not an like go live in the forest kind of girl.
6:45
Jaime Jamgochian: I'm more of like, let's go to a nice hotel.
6:48
Jaime Jamgochian: So I'm like, how did I get a ticky bite?
6:50
Jaime Jamgochian: I don't even hike, you know?
6:51
Jaime Jamgochian: What's funny is now I do, but uh long story.
6:54
Jaime Jamgochian: Um that led me into a season of true surrender, truly saying, God, this doesn't make sense.
7:01
Jaime Jamgochian: I had to sell my condo, move back home, have my parents care for me.
7:06
Jaime Jamgochian: Had to really lay down if I'd ever be well again, because there's a lot of doctors that believe Lyme is incurable and that you'll always have these tough chronic symptoms.
7:17
Jaime Jamgochian: Something in my spirit did not resonate with that.
7:20
Jaime Jamgochian: Maybe because I'm a late convert and I take every word of that Bible to be true.
7:25
Jaime Jamgochian: And I kept saying, but the Lord says that by his stripes I can be healed.
7:29
Jaime Jamgochian: And the Lord says who the sun sets free is free indeed.
7:32
Jaime Jamgochian: So, God, I believe you can free me from this affliction, from this infirmity, from this sickness.
7:38
Jaime Jamgochian: And um, we found a clinic in New York that I actually now work for very part-time remotely, and they do advanced Lyme cases, and I was able to get on the other side, but the Lord invited me in that season after, gosh, 20 years of travel and just living the life and ministry.
7:57
Jaime Jamgochian: He invited me into this holy season of suffering, of surrender, where I really got to see him in a new way and trust him.
8:07
Jaime Jamgochian: And I think that's probably one of the most profound areas of surrender where I had to give everything up.
8:13
Jaime Jamgochian: If I could never talk right again, if I could never walk right again.
8:17
Jaime Jamgochian: I mean, I'm talking, it was hard to get my head off the pillow, but I found this sweet spot of joy and surrender that he's enough.
8:25
Jaime Jamgochian: And if nothing else ever happened, the cross of Jesus is enough.
8:30
Jaime Jamgochian: I'm saved, I know where I'm going.
8:32
Jaime Jamgochian: If I never sing another note, play the piano again, which is my favorite thing to do, God, you're enough.
8:38
Jaime Jamgochian: And that was a great test of surrender.
8:43
Ellen Krause: Jamie, I can completely relate to your story in that I experienced something similar with an autoimmune disease that literally left me on my bed to the point of not able to get out of bed myself.
8:59
Ellen Krause: I mean, it is a very humbling experience and one that God used in my life as well.
9:07
Ellen Krause: So I just I I applaud you for what you were able to pull out and learn from that experience and grow in that experience.
9:18
Ellen Krause: It's a it's important to acknowledge that there are challenges we face that are not God's will.
9:27
Ellen Krause: They are consequences of living in a fallen world.
9:30
Ellen Krause: So what does patience and surrender look like for someone who's in the midst of that situation?
9:38
Ellen Krause: Maybe someone who's right there today listening.
9:41
Jaime Jamgochian: Yeah, well, patience is never hard, right?
9:43
Jaime Jamgochian: And you know that.
9:45
Jaime Jamgochian: I didn't know that part of your story when you're waiting and waiting for breakthrough, and it just feels like groundhog day.
9:51
Jaime Jamgochian: Every day, the same thing, every day the same thing.
9:54
Jaime Jamgochian: Um, but patience is a fruit of the spirit, and just like joy and just like peace and just like love, we are instructed to walk in patience.
10:04
Jaime Jamgochian: I fail daily in this area.
10:07
Jaime Jamgochian: Um, we're a microwave generation, we want it now, we want it quick.
10:11
Jaime Jamgochian: Um, but I do think that learning patience, um, you you kind of settle down a little bit.
10:17
Jaime Jamgochian: You don't freak out about things as much.
10:20
Jaime Jamgochian: Even last night at a Bible study I was teaching, we talked about what position are we in?
10:25
Jaime Jamgochian: Are we in a position of rest?
10:27
Jaime Jamgochian: God, I trust you in the circumstance that's not changing that I don't understand.
10:32
Jaime Jamgochian: Are we seated in Him and we know our identity as a daughter of God?
10:36
Jaime Jamgochian: So we can be patient, we can say, God, I don't get it, but I trust you.
10:41
Jaime Jamgochian: Um or, and I'm I'm not saying I've always done this perfect, we try to run ahead, right?
10:46
Jaime Jamgochian: We try to make it happen.
10:47
Jaime Jamgochian: We manipulate a situation to have it happen sooner than it's supposed to.
10:52
Jaime Jamgochian: And something the Lord's taught me is his timing is best.
10:55
Jaime Jamgochian: There's a chapter in my new book called When Your Plan A was God's plan B, and how he really makes it the best plan because we think we know what we want, but he's up there saying, Oh, my daughters, oh my sons, if only you could see what I have for you.
11:12
Jaime Jamgochian: It's so much better.
11:13
Jaime Jamgochian: The timing might be different, the scenario might be different, but I'm a good dad and I'm not gonna fail you.
11:18
Jaime Jamgochian: So I think walking and patience, although hard, it takes grip, it takes daily discipline, takes character, it takes integrity.
11:28
Jaime Jamgochian: I I mean, I'm telling you, I fail some days, but it's asking the Lord for that fruit of the spirit.
11:34
Jaime Jamgochian: Be careful if you pray for patience because he will test you.
11:40
Ellen Krause: Yes, absolutely.
11:41
Ellen Krause: Faith and trust as we wait.
11:44
Ellen Krause: You make a note that there is a difference between waiting well and not waiting well.
11:50
Ellen Krause: How would you describe those two different scenarios?
11:54
Jaime Jamgochian: Yeah, so the tagline of the book, uh Sacred Surrender, the practice of waiting well.
12:01
Jaime Jamgochian: I remember when we we dreamed that up and I thought, oh, I don't know if I wait well, Lord.
12:07
Jaime Jamgochian: Um but then I realized in the last 20 plus years, there's been some significant areas in my life that I've had to lay down to the Lord and say, I'm gonna wait for your best in this area.
12:20
Jaime Jamgochian: And I've seen him, I have seen his faithfulness time and time again when I take my hands off.
12:27
Jaime Jamgochian: And waiting well, I think is the posture of the heart.
12:32
Jaime Jamgochian: It's saying, God, not my will, your will be done, which is back to that posture of living a sacred, surrendered life.
12:40
Jaime Jamgochian: So I have tools, I have things I've learned along the way that have helped me to wait well.
12:46
Jaime Jamgochian: Some of those is I'll do a test.
12:48
Jaime Jamgochian: Uh, I'll ask myself every day, am I jumping ahead?
12:51
Jaime Jamgochian: Am I lagging behind?
12:53
Jaime Jamgochian: Lord, am I right on time?
12:54
Jaime Jamgochian: It's a prayer I'll pray, it's something I'll journal, I'll see what the Holy Spirit says.
12:59
Jaime Jamgochian: Um, I can tell when I'm not waiting well.
13:02
Jaime Jamgochian: Something I need to do is take a step back and take care of myself.
13:06
Jaime Jamgochian: Um, not into like the whole self-love movement.
13:09
Jaime Jamgochian: I think that's very anti-Jesus.
13:11
Jaime Jamgochian: But I do think God wants us to take care of ourselves and love ourselves enough to be able to love others, right?
13:18
Jaime Jamgochian: So I'll I'll recognize oh, I'm not waiting well.
13:22
Jaime Jamgochian: I need to go on some of my sunset walks.
13:24
Jaime Jamgochian: I need to reconnect with some of my dear friends and have some beautiful dinners that bring life to me and fuel, fill yourself up, take care of you so that you are able to wait upon the Lord.
13:36
Jaime Jamgochian: If not, you know, Ellen, we get in our flesh and we try to figure things out and do things on our own.
13:42
Jaime Jamgochian: And well, we know that doesn't benefit us very much.
13:45
Jaime Jamgochian: Those are a few things that I do.
13:47
Jaime Jamgochian: I ask trusted people in my life, how do you think I'm doing in this area?
13:52
Jaime Jamgochian: You know this is hard.
13:53
Jaime Jamgochian: You know, I've been waiting for a long time.
13:55
Jaime Jamgochian: Give me some insight and I listen to what they have to say and get their feedback.
13:59
Jaime Jamgochian: So those are some of my tips of how to wait well.
14:02
Ellen Krause: Thank you so much for that.
14:04
Ellen Krause: You know, all of those things sort of add up, right?
14:07
Ellen Krause: When you they build upon one another and get you to this place of being able to wait in peace and trust.
14:17
Ellen Krause: There's an interesting quote I want to read from your book.
14:20
Ellen Krause: You say there is a pruning that happens when we are walking through a difficult situation, which causes the dead and dying things in our life to fall to the ground and be stripped away.
14:31
Ellen Krause: If you are being humbled in a particular area, do not resist it, but rather lean in even further into the ways that God is shaping you through that challenging time.
14:45
Ellen Krause: What are some ways that we can notice where God might be pruning us?
14:52
Ellen Krause: And what does it look like to actually lean into those seasons?
14:57
Ellen Krause: Sounds painful.
15:00
Jaime Jamgochian: Yeah.
15:00
Jaime Jamgochian: Um, I remember when I became a Christian, I had the revelation that it's no longer I that live, but Christ that lives within me.
15:08
Jaime Jamgochian: We die to ourselves to live unto Christ, right?
15:11
Jaime Jamgochian: That's the whole Christian faith.
15:13
Jaime Jamgochian: It's no longer me, Jamie's no longer Ellen.
15:15
Jaime Jamgochian: It's Christ within us.
15:17
Jaime Jamgochian: So how do we reflect him the best we can this side of heaven until we are in glory, until we are changed in an instant, right?
15:26
Jaime Jamgochian: Oh, I long for that today.
15:27
Jaime Jamgochian: I think some of the ways that the pruning happens is when he's trying to highlight an area in our life that maybe he does want to make a little bit more like him.
15:38
Jaime Jamgochian: Maybe it's a little rougher on the edges, maybe we're pushing back in some way.
15:42
Jaime Jamgochian: And usually that comes through testing, through trials.
15:46
Jaime Jamgochian: That's where we are pruned.
15:48
Jaime Jamgochian: We're not pruned when everything's great and we're on the mountaintop and every prayer is coming true.
15:53
Jaime Jamgochian: We're pruned when we're down in the valley with him, saying, God, I need you for my next breath.
15:58
Jaime Jamgochian: I need you for my next decision.
16:00
Jaime Jamgochian: We're pruned when we humbly come before him and say, I can't do this, but you can do this.
16:06
Jaime Jamgochian: So I think pruning is actually a beautiful thing, and we don't talk about that a lot.
16:11
Jaime Jamgochian: Like hidden seasons in Christ are some of the most holy, because that's when God is really fortifying who we are.
16:19
Jaime Jamgochian: So if you're being pruned right now, I would see that as a loving heavenly father saying, daughter, I've got more for you.
16:27
Jaime Jamgochian: Oh, if you could just see what's ahead.
16:29
Jaime Jamgochian: So embrace the pruning, embrace when there's correction, embrace when he says, you know what, you didn't quite get that right.
16:37
Jaime Jamgochian: I still love you, of course, but let's work on it for the next time.
16:41
Jaime Jamgochian: So I always feel like a pruning season comes before typically a next thing God's gonna do in your life.
16:48
Jaime Jamgochian: Like for me, I had to be pruned as a young believer in my early 20s and learn a lot of stuff.
16:55
Jaime Jamgochian: And then I got the Christian record deal.
16:57
Jaime Jamgochian: I couldn't have done that had I not walked through some of those prior seasons.
17:01
Jaime Jamgochian: Um, even the health season, the trial, brought me to a whole new level of pruning.
17:08
Ellen Krause: Yes, it's amazing how when after going through those things, they do equip you for what God is calling you to do next.
17:17
Ellen Krause: You know, my husband is a landscape architect, so he is always making sure our trees are pruned and we have this incredibly gorgeous crab apple tree.
17:28
Ellen Krause: And always when he prunes it, I'm thinking to myself, but it's so beautiful right now.
17:34
Ellen Krause: And yet when he prunes it, it's looking a little bit more bare, but then the next year, when it actually bears fruit and has less disease, it's just you see how that that pruning process is so prolific.
17:50
Ellen Krause: And so it it it's so cool to see how God does that actually in our lives.
17:56
Ellen Krause: Well, Jamie, you uh write about the importance of words in difficult seasons.
18:02
Ellen Krause: I know you're very vulnerable in your book, telling us about some harsh words that were spoken over you when you were young.
18:10
Ellen Krause: Tell us about um why those words are so important and what it actually looks like to speak truth over one another and ourselves in those seasons.
18:23
Jaime Jamgochian: Yeah, our words carry power.
18:25
Jaime Jamgochian: You know, the Bible says that there's blessing, there's cursing, there's life, there's death in our words.
18:31
Jaime Jamgochian: So we really need to watch them, especially as believers.
18:34
Jaime Jamgochian: I think even when we're uh thinking, we're like, are we flattering someone or are we really encouraging them?
18:41
Jaime Jamgochian: God's really checked me lately on the words that come out.
18:45
Jaime Jamgochian: And um yeah, that story that you're referencing is one that happened in my life, gosh, so long ago.
18:53
Jaime Jamgochian: And I was seven or eight, and I learned about this later in life, probably a few years after it really happened, that I realized the power of our words.
19:04
Jaime Jamgochian: And I wasn't great in school, I was great at the social stuff, the music stuff, all of that.
19:10
Jaime Jamgochian: Personality was great.
19:11
Jaime Jamgochian: Learning was hard, and I can remember my parents went to their teacher-parent conference, and for whatever reason, maybe the teacher was having a bad day.
19:22
Jaime Jamgochian: She just decided to speak some real negative, hurtful words, and it ended with your daughter will amount to not much because she's not comprehending, she can't, I couldn't get words outright, which was true.
19:35
Jaime Jamgochian: I had to then start resource rooms and learning centers and the Sylvan Learning Center and speech therapists, and so there was truth to it, but the delivery, and I think our words carry power, and thank God for parents that were like, Oh no, you didn't.
19:52
Jaime Jamgochian: My little girl is gonna change the world, and we weren't saying, we weren't believers.
19:57
Jaime Jamgochian: Um, that was our first encounter, I would say, with negative words, and you know, you can latch onto those and think, Well, I'm never gonna learn and I'm always gonna have speech problems.
20:08
Jaime Jamgochian: But actually, I flipped that script, and music helped that a lot.
20:13
Jaime Jamgochian: Uh, they even say that people that deal with learning issues, if you get your brain going musically, creatively, statistics show it really helps.
20:23
Jaime Jamgochian: And that was my case.
20:24
Jaime Jamgochian: And I ended up graduating.
20:26
Jaime Jamgochian: Kuma sum lata, top of the class, giving the valedictorian speech.
20:30
Jaime Jamgochian: Um, all of that, graduate top of the class at Berkeley.
20:34
Jaime Jamgochian: You can you can partner with a negative word, or you can come out of agreement with it.
20:39
Jaime Jamgochian: And that's for any lie that the enemy would want to throw onto us.
20:42
Jaime Jamgochian: You can come in agreement with that lie, or you can see it, validate it, say, actually, this is not the truth of who God says I am, and I'm gonna come out of agreement with that, and I'm not gonna walk in that place.
20:53
Jaime Jamgochian: So that's what I chose to do, and that's how my parents chose to raise me that no, you're a world changer.
20:59
Jaime Jamgochian: This is not gonna hold you back.
21:01
Jaime Jamgochian: Yeah, there's some learning issues.
21:03
Jaime Jamgochian: So I'm really careful about what I speak about other people in their hard seasons and their broken seasons and their challenges, because you don't know what God's gonna do with that.
21:13
Jaime Jamgochian: And it's just a reminder to us that our words really do carry power.
21:18
Ellen Krause: They sure do.
21:19
Ellen Krause: And labels like that um can be so detrimental.
21:23
Ellen Krause: I'm sorry you had to go through that because that's that's so hard in a kid.
21:27
Ellen Krause: I love though what you said in the book, um what you alluded to about music, but you also said art.
21:34
Ellen Krause: And my my daughter Ashley was kind of similar to what you're describing in learning.
21:41
Ellen Krause: And coincidentally, she was in like an outdoor or an out-of-school art program, and she just blossomed and it did exactly what you said music did for you.
21:56
Ellen Krause: It's incredible how art and music can help the other side of your brain.
22:01
Jaime Jamgochian: It does.
22:01
Jaime Jamgochian: I wish I knew the statistic better, but I love hearing those stories that I tore, and I hear these stories every night on tour how you know my daughter was doing so bad, and then we got her into flute lessons, and all of a sudden, or you know, my son, and then we got him playing the drums and the marching band.
22:17
Jaime Jamgochian: And I'm like, there is there's something about that side of the brain, the creative side that clicks on and helps the other side.
22:25
Ellen Krause: Yes.
22:26
Jaime Jamgochian: I need to study it up.
22:27
Ellen Krause: Absolutely.
22:28
Ellen Krause: One of the big themes in your book is hope.
22:31
Ellen Krause: And at one point, you ask your readers to consider where their hope comes from and if it has been hijacked.
22:40
Ellen Krause: So tell us what you mean by that and how can we know if it's happened to us?
22:46
Jaime Jamgochian: Yeah.
22:46
Jaime Jamgochian: I once saw someone in the airport.
22:48
Jaime Jamgochian: I spent a lot of time there with a t-shirt that says got hope.
22:52
Jaime Jamgochian: And I thought that's so cool.
22:53
Jaime Jamgochian: And then I started to think about all the places that we as believers and people that don't know the Lord yet put their hope in.
23:01
Jaime Jamgochian: So we put our hope in our relational status.
23:04
Jaime Jamgochian: If we're married, we put our hope in our dreams coming true.
23:08
Jaime Jamgochian: We put our hope in maybe even our health, our financial bracket, where have we reached a certain place financially?
23:15
Jaime Jamgochian: All these things we put our hope in.
23:17
Jaime Jamgochian: And I remember one day the Lord really challenged me and he said, Do you know that I'm the author of hope?
23:22
Jaime Jamgochian: And I'm like, Of course, Lord, you you know you're and he led me to the scripture that talks about Jesus.
23:27
Jaime Jamgochian: Once we're born again, we are entering into the resurrection power, into the living hope.
23:33
Jaime Jamgochian: So Jesus is our actual living hope, which I think makes so much sense because I think you can probably relate to this as believers.
23:43
Jaime Jamgochian: Even when something is devastating or there's grief and you've lost someone so dear to your heart, we still have that living hope within us.
23:55
Jaime Jamgochian: We will grieve, we will be sad, yes, but we don't mourn as those that don't have that living hope within us.
24:03
Jaime Jamgochian: And so I like to challenge people where is your hope?
24:07
Jaime Jamgochian: Where are you placing your hope?
24:08
Jaime Jamgochian: Is it in the person of Jesus?
24:10
Jaime Jamgochian: Is that your identity, or is your hope in something that's gonna happen outside of him?
24:16
Jaime Jamgochian: I I had a few big career goals, and one of them kind of happened several years ago, and I remember thinking I finally got the dub nomination, and in my genre, that's like a big thing.
24:27
Jaime Jamgochian: It's like the Christian Grammys, right?
24:30
Jaime Jamgochian: And um got the pretty dress, walked the red carpet, was in the category with three people that I really look up to, peers.
24:39
Jaime Jamgochian: I didn't win, but I remembered getting home that night and thinking, wow, finally, 20 years in, I was nominated for a Dove Award.
24:47
Jaime Jamgochian: And the Lord asked me a question, do you feel any different?
24:51
Jaime Jamgochian: I said, No.
24:53
Jaime Jamgochian: He said, Do you think you would have felt any different if you won?
24:56
Jaime Jamgochian: I said, No.
24:58
Jaime Jamgochian: And it was this wake-up call to me that even though it's not a bad thing, right?
25:04
Jaime Jamgochian: Any earthly accolade or earthly win, so to speak, it never fills that god hole.
25:12
Jaime Jamgochian: It never fills true hope or purpose.
25:15
Jaime Jamgochian: That's only in our relationship with Christ.
25:19
Jaime Jamgochian: And it was such a good lesson for me that if nothing else ever happens in life, is my hope anchored in you and are you enough?
25:27
Jaime Jamgochian: And those are questions I ask myself.
25:29
Jaime Jamgochian: So I ask people, has your hope been hijacked?
25:32
Jaime Jamgochian: And if so, let's go in and see where that happened.
25:35
Jaime Jamgochian: Let's deal with that wound.
25:37
Jaime Jamgochian: Um, let's do some inner healing, some prayer there, so that your heart can be free and you cannot live under, but you can live above that circumstance.
25:47
Jaime Jamgochian: You know, the Bible says hope deferred makes the heart sick.
25:49
Jaime Jamgochian: So let's heal that hope deferred so you don't have a sick heart.
25:55
Ellen Krause: Yes, that's that's a good question that we need to be asking ourselves as a checkpoint.
26:01
Ellen Krause: Well, Jamie, you included um, which I really love at the end of each chapter, some incredible reflection questions that readers can sort of chew on the content and ask themselves these same things that you've asked yourself in that same spirit.
26:17
Ellen Krause: What is a question you would want to leave our listeners with?
26:23
Jaime Jamgochian: Yeah.
26:24
Jaime Jamgochian: I think in the days and times we're living, um, are you truly surrendered to the Lord and his purpose for your life?
26:33
Jaime Jamgochian: Because as believers, and I'm guessing um a lot of your audience probably are Christ followers, um, we need to be more fired up and surrendered than ever for what the days ahead um are gonna entail.
26:49
Jaime Jamgochian: And that takes that posture.
26:50
Jaime Jamgochian: I always just picture it open hands.
26:53
Jaime Jamgochian: I'm letting go and I'm letting God.
26:55
Jaime Jamgochian: I'm letting you do whatever you need to do in my life.
26:57
Jaime Jamgochian: So are you truly surrendered?
26:59
Jaime Jamgochian: Are you surrendering daily to the plans of God or are we just coasting?
27:04
Jaime Jamgochian: I think it's easy to coast as a believer.
27:06
Jaime Jamgochian: We get comfortable, we get in our rhythms.
27:09
Jaime Jamgochian: Um, are we fully living out the calling and purpose God has placed in our life?
27:14
Jaime Jamgochian: Because I think it's gonna take each one of us, whatever sphere we're in, if we're the most amazing mama at home raising four world changers, right?
27:22
Jaime Jamgochian: That is just as important as the person traveling in full-time ministry.
27:27
Jaime Jamgochian: So, whatever God has called you to, are we doing it with all of our hearts in a posture of surrender?
27:33
Jaime Jamgochian: Um, I think that in the days to come, that's what we're gonna need.
27:39
Ellen Krause: Thank you for that encouragement.
27:41
Ellen Krause: Um, it's almost something you wanted, like, you know, put a put a sign of that up on your wall and sort of reground yourself periodically.
27:52
Ellen Krause: Well, such encouraging words from you, Jamie.
27:56
Ellen Krause: Where can people go to find out more information about you and your new book, Sacred Surrender?
28:03
Jaime Jamgochian: Yeah, so the book is available wherever you like to get books.
28:07
Jaime Jamgochian: Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Mardell's Christian Bookstore.
28:10
Jaime Jamgochian: Maybe you're an audiobook girly like me, you can find the audiobook as well.
28:14
Jaime Jamgochian: I love to connect on social media.
28:16
Jaime Jamgochian: Uh, Instagram is probably the best place, Facebook.
28:19
Jaime Jamgochian: And my website's Jamie Jam, J A I M E J A M.com.
28:26
Jaime Jamgochian: And uh, you can find all those spots on jamejam.com.
28:30
Jaime Jamgochian: My name's long Jamie Jam Goshen.
28:32
Jaime Jamgochian: So good luck with that one.
28:34
Jaime Jamgochian: But just go to jamiejam.com and it'll help you out.
28:37
Ellen Krause: Oh, yay, that makes it so much easier.
28:38
Ellen Krause: And we will definitely put those links in our show notes to make it easy for you to find her.
28:45
Ellen Krause: Well, before we go, we have to ask you a couple of our favorite questions.
28:48
Ellen Krause: What Bible is your go-to Bible, and what translation is it?
28:53
Jaime Jamgochian: It's the NLT, the New Living Translation.
28:57
Jaime Jamgochian: I love that one.
28:57
Jaime Jamgochian: I started on the NIV and then I transitioned to the NLT.
29:01
Jaime Jamgochian: So that's my favorite Bible.
29:03
Jaime Jamgochian: And then, did you ask me my favorite verse?
29:06
Jaime Jamgochian: Oh, I wasn't going to, but I'd love for you to share.
29:09
Jaime Jamgochian: My favorite verse is the first verse I learned that most people know.
29:14
Jaime Jamgochian: Proverbs 3, 4, and 5.
29:16
Jaime Jamgochian: Trust in the Lord with all your heart.
29:18
Jaime Jamgochian: Lean not on your own understanding, but acknowledge him in all your ways, and he will direct your steps.
29:25
Jaime Jamgochian: So that's the one I cling to daily.
29:29
Ellen Krause: Love that one.
29:30
Ellen Krause: Okay.
29:30
Ellen Krause: Do you have any favorite journaling supplies that you like to use for do you do Bible journaling?
29:38
Jaime Jamgochian: I journal, but I don't do Bible journaling.
29:40
Jaime Jamgochian: So I just have like my Bible and a separate journal, and I'll journal my thoughts out.
29:45
Jaime Jamgochian: But no, I I know some friends that do that.
29:48
Jaime Jamgochian: I haven't gotten into that yet.
29:51
Ellen Krause: Okay, no problem.
29:52
Ellen Krause: Okay, lastly, what is your favorite app or website for Bible study tools?
29:59
Jaime Jamgochian: I had U version for a while, and I would listen to um some audio Bible, but then I switched to an app called Abide, and I would listen every morning to the three-minute little teaching and the breathing, and I loved it because I did like breath work with the scripture.
30:17
Jaime Jamgochian: So I like the Abide app.
30:20
Ellen Krause: Okay, awesome.
30:21
Ellen Krause: Okay, thank you for sharing your tips with us.
30:25
Ellen Krause: Well, JB, I just appreciate you being here so much, and thank you for your vulnerability.
30:31
Ellen Krause: I know that God is using your story already and will continue to do so with this book.
30:38
Ellen Krause: Um, so thank you for being with us today.
30:41
Jaime Jamgochian: Thanks for having me on your show.
30:43
Ellen Krause: All right, and to our listeners, I hope Jamie's words encourage you to see your current season, whatever it looks like, as a place where God is still present.
30:56
Ellen Krause: Still working and still inviting you into deeper trust.
31:01
Ellen Krause: We'll see you next time here at the Coffee and Bible Time podcast.
31:06
Ellen Krause: Until then, we pray that the God of Hope will fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in Him.
31:12
Ellen Krause: Have a blessed day.