Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: So can you expand on what is repentance?
[00:00:02] Speaker B: Sure. Met. Anonymity is a Greek word. It's just very simple. Change your thought, change your thinking. And, you know, if you look at Ephesians 3, and we've talked about this a lot this morning, the power to understand how the Holy Spirit.
And that's hard to do without the Holy Spirit giving you that revelation.
Foreign.
[00:00:39] Speaker A: Welcome to a special episode here of let's Talk Life. What makes it so special is this guy right next to me, Pastor Frank. Frank Friedman. Friend, mentor. He's a mentor of mine. More than he even knows, I'm sure. Pastor, author. His podcast is our Resolute. Hope he's working on a new one. We're talking about what that looks like one of my favorite teachers. You are in. In all this, in the last three years of. Of me really growing and learning who I am in Christ and just drawn from a lot of your content. And I, I was in church work myself for 20 years, and I resigned. And as I stepped into this understanding, I was like, I don't know how to preach. I don't know how to teach. I don't know how to lead music. I don't know how to do any of this. I don't know how to lead anybody. So.
[00:01:23] Speaker B: But you know someone who does.
[00:01:24] Speaker A: Yeah. Well, you. You. You helped me to process some of that stuff. And so I didn't mean.
No, I.
[00:01:31] Speaker B: The Holy Spirit.
[00:01:32] Speaker A: But you. You helped me by processing that stuff. And then when I moved to Florida, you put me in contact with three men, and one of them happened to be in the next town over. And if that wasn't a God thing, you know, so being able to journey with all these people and the connections that I've made meeting you the first time at Network 220, just so beautiful. So, just. Just connecting to your content.
[00:01:53] Speaker B: Your.
[00:01:53] Speaker A: Your book was part of my required reading in the class that I went through for the Network 220 training. That was my first introduction to you. Teresa is the director. She so wanted to be here this weekend. I told her about. She's. She's your number one fan is what she says. So she said, make sure you tell him that this week. But anyways, yeah, man, the last two years has been such a neat journey, moving to Florida. My cousin and I were having conversations, really every week. And he had a guy that told him, you should start a podcast. And then we were talking one day and I said, carl, maybe we should start a podcast and just have these conversations. As you know, it's not the first time I heard that this week. And so the next couple of weeks we worked on what does it look like?
[00:02:36] Speaker B: And.
[00:02:36] Speaker A: And here we are, 86 weeks in would be this episode. So it's kind of fun, exciting stuff. But, yeah, I have some things to ask you, and just. I don't know where it'll go. We never know where it's going to go. When we open up the link, we
[00:02:50] Speaker B: know someone who does know where it's going.
[00:02:51] Speaker A: We do know.
So here we are. I already shared with you earlier today, you know, I would come to my office and I'd say, I don't know what I'm doing. God, what. You know, I have this nonprofit that I started officially in Florida. I have an office. It was going to be a counseling office. Man, even in the last two years, there's so much that's just taking shape to look different than what I thought. But the encouragement when I would come to my office and saying, God, I don't know what I'm doing is God would say, you're doing it. And a lot of it was just me really discovering and. And learning to trust this reality of who I am in Christ so that I could give anything to anybody else. And so, yeah, just coming off of that. Anything that you want to share?
[00:03:29] Speaker B: No, that's great. That's so cool. I. I tell people a lot. I said, you know, Brett mentioned earlier, you know, God not only loves you, he likes you.
[00:03:37] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:03:37] Speaker B: But I also like to add that he believes in you. Right. And he trusts you.
[00:03:42] Speaker A: Sure.
[00:03:43] Speaker B: And. And he's got you. So go walk. Go walk and join the adventure. Right. You know? Right. I mean, if you knew it was going to happen, it wouldn't be an adventure.
[00:03:53] Speaker A: It wouldn't be an adventure. And I love adventure.
[00:03:56] Speaker B: Yeah, it's so cool. I just. Can I testify a little bit about.
[00:04:00] Speaker A: Absolutely.
[00:04:00] Speaker B: Go for it. Proverbs 31 says the, you know, man praises his wife in the city gates. We were. When we were leaving church ministry, we were moving to the country. We bought a house on a lake. It's. It's real pretty. And three days after we signed the agreement, I got the phone call from a doctor that I had a very, very aggressive cancer. And so I was riding home, and I called Janet and told her, naturally, before I got home. And then when we got home, we went outside and we were just sitting outside, and I said, baby, let's cancel the sale, because in Louisiana, you got 10 days to cancel. And she looked at me and she said, Lamb. Whether we have a lot of time or a little bit of time, let's go on an adventure.
[00:04:43] Speaker A: And I thought, man, that's so sweet.
[00:04:45] Speaker B: Isn't that cool?
[00:04:45] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:04:46] Speaker B: So looks like she stuck with me for a little while longer. Had some good treatment, but pretty cool. The adventure.
[00:04:52] Speaker A: The adventure.
[00:04:53] Speaker B: It's really neat.
[00:04:54] Speaker A: One adventure, man. So I'm doing.
I'm going to be up in, in October, I'm going up to Michigan. I'm from Michigan, of course, but going back up there for almost a week. And we're hosting a pastor's ministry leader retreat. And we go through wild at heart material. One of them is an adventure to live. And the adventure is this, you know, being a son of God and knowing this reality and living from there. And so I have the joy this year of actually teaching that. So we. It's a kind of a hybrid retreat where we play some videos and I'm actually taking the adventure one myself. And it's been such a joy because I'm looking at my life like this has been an event like resigning from a full time job and a full salary. And that's. That's going to take you out.
[00:05:38] Speaker B: Yeah, it's an adventure. That's awesome.
[00:05:41] Speaker A: And. And it stepped me right into really learning the new covenant and led me here to moved. I've never lived outside of Michigan. I've been all over the world, but I've never lived anywhere other than Michigan. And so to move was another adventure. And so I'm just, as I'm pondering through this stuff, man, just stories from my life are just pouring out.
[00:06:00] Speaker B: Wow.
[00:06:00] Speaker A: And I'm just so. It just gives me chills even thinking about it. Like that's the adventure to live in Christ. It's just so beautiful. So I haven't, I don't know, a few questions. Like I said, I don't know where it's all gonna necessarily go, but this last Sunday I brought the music and I'm gonna do it this Saturday too. And I'm thinking about using some of the same stuff simply because of how much it relates to the topic and you know, where we're at. But I just love this. I'm gonna bring some of that here. I asked a question Sunday morning, can you believe it? And I made that statement and I put it on a piece of paper for people. What I do with music is I call it creating space. It's like we're not just going to come. I'm not just up here to sing a song. Verse, chorus, verse, chorus, let's spend some time pondering and asking questions and trusting God with this. And so can you believe it? It's kind of this exclamation as well as a question at the same time. Because it's like, can you believe it? Like, I just, like my eyes are open to this. It's so amazing. At the same time, it's like when you're working with somebody that doesn't quite understand it and you're reading like Ephesians 1, like, can you believe this man?
[00:07:03] Speaker B: It's too good to be true.
[00:07:05] Speaker A: It is. And it's so beautiful. So the question I have is, why is it that it's so hard for Christians? Why do Christians struggle to believe what Scripture says that they are? Because the gospel is very clear.
But for some reason we struggle to
[00:07:20] Speaker B: really believe this truth.
I think there's several reasons, Zach. One is that we were birthed into performing.
[00:07:27] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:07:28] Speaker B: You know, we were made receivers in the Garden of Eden. Man is created halfway through the sixth day. His first full day is day seven, day of rest. And then he goes out to work on day eight. But not to achieve anything. He works because the image of God is to work. God is working right now. Colossians 1, holding all things together. I mean, God takes a day off, the universe blows apart. So, you know, work is part of our ethic, but it our image. But it got perverted from being receiver to an achiever. Yes. And so we spend our whole lives performing. Then we've got the Old Covenant, which is the law, ten Commandments. You've got to do think about God's words. He said, do this and live right. And so that's been poured onto us. We've got a church that doesn't understand the difference between covenants. And you're never going to understand the Bible till you understand covenants. For good example, this guy Jim, he was in our kitchen and godly man, I mean, 50 years of believer, servant, deacon, just you want 100 of them in your church. But we were sitting down and I said, jim, I said, do you have a desperately wicked and deceitful heart? And he goes, oh, yes, I do. And I said, I said, well, what about the Ezekiel 36? You're getting a new heart. He said, well, that's true too. Yeah. I said, tim, you can't have two hearts. You know what he said? God says both. So I believe both. And I had to explain to him, no, you had a desperately wicked, deceitful heart. That's Old Testament, New covenant. He gave you a New heart and took the old heart away. So if a church, if we don't understand covenants, we're going to interpret old covenant verses onto us. I was just teaching at a retreat, and I asked this question. How many of you have ever heard of Matthew 6 where Jesus said, if you don't forgive, you won't be forgiven? How many of you want to live under that? All these hands went up. You want to live under that? Well, Jesus said it. I said, yeah, he said it. Under the old covenant, economy pre cross, the new covenant is forgive because you've been forgiven. Ephesians 4, 32. But, you know, there were some of them that wouldn't believe me.
Because Jesus said it. Yeah. So it's crazy. And I think if we don't understand old and new covenants, and then I just think there's this thing inside of us that feels like we have to do.
[00:09:42] Speaker A: Sure.
[00:09:43] Speaker B: We have to do something. Right. And it's like Hebrews 4 says, labor to enter into rest. It's hard work.
[00:09:50] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:09:51] Speaker B: To stop trying to perform for God. Yeah.
[00:09:54] Speaker A: Yeah. It's funny, that almost sounds like an oxymoron, Right?
[00:09:58] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:09:59] Speaker A: Strive to rest, to rest.
[00:10:02] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:10:02] Speaker A: But it's so true. Like, to trust, to live the way that Jesus lived out of the Father, not independence, but dependence.
[00:10:11] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:10:11] Speaker A: That's difficult.
[00:10:12] Speaker B: It is, very.
[00:10:13] Speaker A: After you've lived. So for me, 43 years of only knowing. I'm doing my best to live for God. I'm gonna strive for holiness and try to be like Christ.
[00:10:23] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:10:24] Speaker A: That was the mentality.
[00:10:25] Speaker B: Yeah. You don't reverse that in two days. No, you just don't. It's a programming. Sure. Mindset.
I had a thought, and this would tie into this. In Matthew 18, you remember Jesus said, unless you become converted and become as a child, you won't enter the kingdom. And I always thought that was a salvation verse, but he was teaching to the 12, not the masses. So they're in the kingdom by faith. Sure. So he says, unless you become converted, which is really the Greek word, change your thinking and become as a child.
You're in the kingdom, but you won't experience.
[00:10:58] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:10:58] Speaker B: And to me, I think that's another aspect of why it's so difficult. It's hard for an adult to become a child.
[00:11:05] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:11:06] Speaker B: It's easy for a child to be a child. Right. A child doesn't have to worry about the rent coming and, you know, the bills are due, but an adult does.
[00:11:13] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:11:13] Speaker B: And the hardest thing for an adult to go, okay, Lord, I'm going to trust you. My poster child for that, Zach, would be Abraham. You know, God called him to live by faith and he did some pretty good and some he didn't. You know, he had some real faith failures. But at 120 years old, God says, take that promised kid up and put a dagger in him. And if you read that text, there's not one argument, there's not one rationalizing, reasoning. Yeah. An adult I think would have said, wait a minute, you told Noah that there's no more killing. This is the promised kid. You don't do. And an adult would have reasoned it's not there. He just goes, yes, sir.
[00:11:50] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:11:50] Speaker B: Takes that kid up. I think it took 120 years for Abraham to become a child with his God.
[00:11:55] Speaker A: So I'm not too far behind.
[00:11:57] Speaker B: You're only 40, brother.
[00:11:58] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:11:59] Speaker B: Yeah. Unfortunately, 200.
[00:12:01] Speaker A: Unfortunately.
Unfortunately, I have a long ways to go still, so.
[00:12:05] Speaker B: Wow.
[00:12:06] Speaker A: Yeah, that's. That's really good. When I. So when you said that change of mind, this led me. And that's not even a question that I had written down, but it's something that I've had a lot of people grapple with is repentance.
[00:12:19] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:12:19] Speaker A: And there's still so equal to what we're talking about. There's so many that can't process a lot of things. There's a lot of hindrances to really being freed up in who we are in Christ. I think that repentance often is one of them because I think that we are repenting of our sin. So can you expand on what is repentance?
[00:12:37] Speaker B: Sure. Metanoia is a Greek word. It's just very simple. Means change your thought, change your thinking.
And you know, if you look at Ephesians 3, and we've talked about this a lot this weekend, the power to understand, the power of the Holy Spirit to understand to. And I translate that to think the way God thinks. And that's hard to do without the Holy Spirit giving you that revelation. Right. And so we think repentance because of the way the church uses it. It becomes programmed into us that it's being sorry for your sins and crying tears and, and saying, please forgive me, please forget. It's not repenting.
Repenting is believing what God says. So it's actually going, thank you that I'm forgiven instead of begging for forgiveness.
[00:13:20] Speaker A: Sure.
[00:13:21] Speaker B: And that's weird. It's weird, you know?
[00:13:24] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:13:24] Speaker B: It's saying, God, you think I'm a 10 out of 10 when I just acted like a 1 out of 10. That's repenting thinking the way God thinks. Surely I have to do something to earn your forgiveness, right? No, that's stinking thinking. Think the way God thinks. I have already forgiven you.
And you tie this back in, Zach, to this idea of being a child. I like to use a couple of phrases. Because you want to be a husband to your bride. You will never be a husband till you're first a bride yourself. You got to receive from him all that will equip you to be a husband. You'll never be a dad until you're first a child.
When you're a child with your dad, you will receive all that's needed to become a father yourself. So it's, it's really bass ackwards thinking. But it's biblical thinking, right?
[00:14:12] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:14:12] Speaker B: It's beautiful.
[00:14:13] Speaker A: Thank you. I think there's, you know, there's a lot of. I put the word skeptics out there and I few examples that, that this new Covenant teaching, it's a reality.
[00:14:23] Speaker B: It's.
[00:14:24] Speaker A: It's the gospel is the way that I say it. It's the original gospel. I like how True Face says it,
[00:14:29] Speaker B: but in the only gospel.
[00:14:30] Speaker A: It's the only gospel. But the reason why I like the original gospel is because it has been diluted or it's just been. I don't even know if it's watered down as the right word. It's just been made too complicated when it's really more simple. But when people say that it's too good to be true, you know, what do you do with the, with those skeptics that say that like the too much gracers, you can have too much grace. Any other common skeptical thinking about this that come to your mind, just what do you do with those type of people?
[00:14:59] Speaker B: I turn people back to the character of God. Is God good?
Psalm 119. He is good and does only good. Why would it be too good to be true then? Because he's good and only does good.
[00:15:12] Speaker A: Right.
[00:15:13] Speaker B: So I turn it back on the character of God.
[00:15:15] Speaker A: Sure.
[00:15:15] Speaker B: Say now deal with that. Tell me the same thing. Right?
[00:15:18] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like your quiz. I liked your quiz that you. You give because. And you and something else you shared earlier today about you have them write down their answer.
[00:15:28] Speaker B: Oh yeah.
[00:15:29] Speaker A: You know, because then it's not them against you, it's actually them against what they were just previously thinking.
And they can turn them against you if they didn't write down their answer.
[00:15:40] Speaker B: Well, they're so sneaky. They Say, oh, I knew that.
[00:15:42] Speaker A: Right.
[00:15:43] Speaker B: No, you didn't.
[00:15:44] Speaker A: Right.
[00:15:44] Speaker B: What is it about the pride of man that can't say. I never knew that.
[00:15:49] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:15:49] Speaker B: I never saw it that way.
[00:15:51] Speaker A: Well, I can tell you, being in. In any kind of leadership in ministry, especially, I. There were things that I wanted to understand and ask, but I feel like I. I should. I'm too far along. I should not have to ask this.
[00:16:02] Speaker B: No.
[00:16:03] Speaker A: So where do I go to find the answer? And so that's, again, pride.
[00:16:06] Speaker B: It's just pride comes back to it.
[00:16:08] Speaker A: But it's like, especially when you're in ministry, you feel like I'm the one that's supposed to have the answers for everybody, so I shouldn't be asking this question.
And it's just amazing how much that gets in the way.
[00:16:18] Speaker B: And again, let's go back to what we talked about in that last session we were doing.
[00:16:22] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:16:22] Speaker B: You're trying to be like God.
Only God knows all things. So why can't you just say, I don't know, you know? But the church won't let you because we hired you to know. Right. Well, you didn't hire me to be God. Right.
You know, so it's an interesting deal. I do Q and A a lot of times, and one of the most wonderful things is to be able to say, I don't know, but I'll get back to you.
[00:16:45] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:16:46] Speaker B: And when it's a woman asks a question, I have a lot of fun with that. Because they'll say, haven't you read your Bible? Go home and ask your husband next question.
That's a fun one to do when you're stumped.
[00:16:58] Speaker A: Oh, boy.
[00:17:00] Speaker B: You got to bring humor into this thing.
[00:17:02] Speaker A: Absolutely. Sure. I think a big understanding in this is really grappling with union.
And what makes it so difficult is that you can't. You can't really teach it. As you said last night, the Holy Spirit really is the teacher. But even as we try to share it, explain it. So how would you explain union?
[00:17:24] Speaker B: I believe that's one of the reasons I say, one of the reasons God gave us marriage.
[00:17:30] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:17:30] Speaker B: Because I married Janet. I did not become Janet. Yeah. Janet did not become me. But we are the Friedmans. So you could look at us and go, there go the Friedmans. We are one, but we're two. We're one, but we're two. We're 1, but we're 2. That's our union with God. He's God. We are not. But we're in union. And it's fascinating. I'M glad you asked this question, Zach, because you see the perversion of the enemy. The enemy is trying to destroy our concept of union. Sure. You've got pantheism. I am God. God is in me. Everything is God. The tree is God. Well, no, that's a distortion. And then you've got Mormonism, which is where I become God. So you see the enemy trying to pervert this concept of union. Why? Because if he distorts our concept of union, he distorts the benefits of the union, the blessings. And again, I go back to marriage. Everything I brought to the union now belongs to Janet. And everything Janet brought to the union still belongs to Janet. That's the way they do it. No, I'm kidding, of course. But everything she brought belongs to me. Because now I take that to go. God, sure. Everything I brought to the union is now His. My past, my sin, my guilt, my shame, my life, my home, my kids. It's all His. Yes. But the great glory is everything he brings to the union now belongs to me. His righteousness, his peace, his joy, his life, his strength. And, boy, that's. That's a great trade.
[00:18:57] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:18:57] Speaker B: Because I'm trading that, which is pretty much nothing, and he brings and I get to trade nothing for everything. So I think he gave us marriage. I really do. To help us understand the concept of union.
[00:19:11] Speaker A: You bet. I love that. Thank you. I. I've been. A couple things come out of this. It's called the Call, the Shepherd. This is. There's like 13 different. No, 15, I think, different days that are called the Call, the Shepherd. I don't know if you're familiar with Wayne Jacobson, but he's one of my favorite writers as well. Well, and this is just fascinating to me. First of all, there's the. The word call. Secondly, there's the word shepherd. Just that alone gives me two things to talk about. What do you do with this call? You know, like, when I believed and received. I was nine years old, like in third grade, and I felt I was called, but I didn't really know what that. I only felt that because that's what I was told is what God does. He calls people into ministry. Well, how do you process that? You know, I didn't understand what that meant.
Are people actually called, or is it that? More. What I'm understanding is that as a believer, we all have a calling, and we are the fulfillment, really, of that calling. And we are the expression of Christ in us expressing his love to the world. So how would you look at call?
[00:20:14] Speaker B: Nowadays, yeah, what you said was really good. We all have the calling from God to, to trust God to be everything to us, to be all that he is, to all that we need in the moment of faith. So we are all in that sense called to him. But we all have different functions, different roles. And I really believe personally that it's choice.
If you look at the New Testament and I owe this to my mentor, there are, you know, people are always going, what's the will of God for my life? What's the will of God for my life? And it's so funny because I say to them, does that really sound like God? I've got a will, but I'm not going to tell you. Seek me, seek me. I mean, if I got a will for my kids, I'm telling them my will, you know. Well, there are seven will of God statements in the New Testament point blank says, this is the will of God. There's seven of them. That you be saved, that you be sanctified, set apart. That you be serving, that you be spirit filled. That if the call comes, that you would be willing to suffer. That's the will of God. If it's coming to your life. Saved, sanctified, spirit filled service. And what was the other one? One more and then the last one is thankful in everything. This, give thanks. This is the will of God. Because I'm not going to thank him for this stuff, but I'm going to thank him for what he's doing in this stuff. And my mentor said, you know, if you're doing all seven of those things, you're in the will of God. Go do what you want to do. Yeah, it's a great big circle and there's so much freedom, right? And so I got to do this with my son because my son, you know, he's, he doesn't fit the mold of a pastor's kid, right? And he says, dad, I want to own a karate studio. I said, great, go to karate studio. Well, I'm going to go do this. And I said, well, great, go do that. My constant thing was great, go do it.
[00:21:52] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:21:53] Speaker B: And except for one time and he wanted to be in special Forces in the military. And I was not real pleased with the president at the time. And so I basically told him, I said, son, it's your choice, it's your life. If you want to go do that, go do it. But you're cut out of the will. You won't get a dime. And he looked at me, he says, what are you being such A jerk for. And I said, well, son, I'm not willing to sacrifice my son to a president who will sacrifice the life of my son for a headline.
[00:22:18] Speaker A: Right.
[00:22:19] Speaker B: I said, so you're free to do that, but I'm free to do what I want to do. So he came back about two weeks later, and he says, how about I go into police work and join swat? And I said, it's a miracle you're back in the will. That's about the only time I pulled a manipulation.
But there's this incredible freedom. Sure. You know, And I realized that I didn't have to do the ministry anymore.
[00:22:41] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:22:42] Speaker B: Dear friend of mine, Tim, who was the editor for my spiritual warfare book. Okay. He was. He went to Liberia as a missionary, and so he had tons of demonic experience over there. He was originally going to be with the Creation Research Institute. He's a brilliant scientist, but he got the missions book. And so Tim came home on a furlough, and we were. I was trying to teach him the New Covenant what I had learned since seminary days. Yeah. And it was really fascinating because he. We talked about three years ago, and he said, do you know what opened my eyes to the New Covenant? I said, what's that? He goes, it wasn't everything you were teaching me. It was what you told me.
What are you talking about, Tim? He says, I asked you about the ministry. He said, I asked you, how do you. How are you doing in the ministry?
And I said to him, well, I realized I don't have to do this anymore. I realized that I'm a 10 because I'm his kid, not because I'm doing the ministry. And I can walk away anytime I want, and it's not gonna bother God at all. And he said, so are you gonna walk away? I said, no, I choose to stay here. But he said, that was the statement that made him go, I better listen to the rest of what he was saying.
And he. He had his eyes open in the New Covenant. So, yeah, I don't believe in this call thing.
[00:24:00] Speaker A: Right.
[00:24:01] Speaker B: I don't believe that God has a perfect woman picked out for you, you know, a perfect spouse. It's a choice. And because, you know, I met these Christians and they're all going, I married the wrong one. And now I'm sentenced for the rest of my life because I missed the right one. And I'm like, no, when you married her, she became the right one. You just got to work this out, you know? So, yeah, I don't believe in that. In a calling like That I think it's always choice. It's always been free choice.
And I think that's because God says, I trust you. Right. And guess what? If you mess up, I'm here to pick up the pieces and put you back on the path. Sure. He's bigger than our failures. Yeah. He's bigger than our lack of faith. He's. He's a really big God. Yeah. You know, I need a really big God. I. I don't understand him. Right. Some of the things he does. I'm a white kid, and I'm sure I bother him a lot because I'm always going, why? But you know what? I need a God that I don't understand.
[00:24:57] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:24:57] Speaker B: If I could understand him, I don't know that I'd worship him.
[00:25:00] Speaker A: Sure.
[00:25:00] Speaker B: You know?
[00:25:01] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. That's very good. So, yeah, I mean, just to, I guess, kind of close it all out. I. You know, I've been on this journey and with my wife, too, of just.
Yeah. I mean, you have disillusionments to stuff, frustrations. Michelle earlier mentioned stages of grief because, like, why haven't I known this? And some of it's like, God, why haven't you shown me this a long time ago? And why didn't the people teaching me ever show me this? Like, well, you don't know what you don't know. And some stuff that I gleaned out of here that I just wanted. I just loved this. Like, this is kind of God speaking. And he's saying that he. He tried to scoop me up in his arms, but I recoiled. And. And so this is God still speaking. He says, but I held back, letting you have the distance that you thought you needed.
I thought, well, that's. This is such a beautiful picture.
[00:25:49] Speaker B: It is a beautiful picture.
[00:25:50] Speaker A: Such a loving God that he's not there to try to manipulate and control everything. And then I think back to 20 years of church work, and it was like I was trying to grab at everything to. I got to fix this in your life. I got to fix you. I got to make sure you understand this and pull you back in and get you back in line. And. And then here's what you got to do in order to be a, you know, a holy child of God. And it's like it was all the wrong mindset. And then I read something like that. I'm just like, well, this is so different.
The way of Jesus is so different.
[00:26:21] Speaker B: He has a perfectly tailored plan for every individual based on their created makeup, their personality, their family situation, their circumstances. Their choices. It's a tailor made plan. And he uses all of it so that at the right time he goes, bam. And it all fits together. I believe that with all my heart.
I so relate to what you were saying.
I use catchphrases to cement in my brain. This is what I tell people. I lived with a responsibility beyond reality. I was responsible beyond reality for everything. I had to be sure, in control. Fix this, fix that.
[00:27:03] Speaker A: Right.
[00:27:03] Speaker B: And it'll destroy you.
[00:27:05] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:27:06] Speaker B: And I just, you know.
[00:27:07] Speaker A: Yeah. Interesting. Yeah. That's awesome. I have. I have a catchphrase. I call it the demon of results.
[00:27:13] Speaker B: I like that one. The demon of results.
[00:27:16] Speaker A: Because I can try really hard and I can even get really good at it. And when I see results, I think I must have done the right thing. And so we stay there for far too long because we think we're doing it right.
[00:27:27] Speaker B: You know, in our conversation. I don't know if this is okay to do this, but trust the spirit. If you rebuke me later, if you want to.
[00:27:34] Speaker A: Yes, that's great.
[00:27:35] Speaker B: Talking about the big God, the God we don't understand.
My favorite Bible person of all time is Habakkuk. I so relate to him. He looks at Israel, Israel's wicked. He cries out to God, he's got it right. Go to God. Look at your people. They're wicked. God says, yeah, I see it. I'm going to use the Chaldeans over there to wipe them out. Revival.
No, no. Gonna wipe them out. Use the Chaldeans. They're more wicked than we are. How can you do that? Silence. I'm going up my prayer room and I'm not coming down to you. Answer. I love his tenaciousness. He's fighting with God. I do that all the times. After two weeks, God speaks. Trust me. That's it? Yeah. That's all you're going to get. Trust me. And so he just starts to recite in his mind what he knows about God. And he says, well, though the fig tree doesn't blossom and there's not going to be any fruit on the vine. Bring on the Chaldeans. Yeah, I will rejoice in you. But nobody quotes the verse right before it. There's trembling on my lips and decay. Okay, in my bones. But I'm going to trust you. And you know the thing that hits me? You know, you've got Jehoshaphat, where he's got deep stuff coming. The alliance is coming against him and he has the singers sing praises because of the promise of God that He's going to fight the battle. So you're. You're singing with a promise, but you haven't seen the promise fulfilled. You've got another song with. With Moses. They're caught between the Red Sea and the Egyptians, and he opens the Red Sea. They walk through. They sing a song. Having seen the deliverance, Habakkuk sings the song knowing there's not going to be a deliverance. That's huge, right? That's huge.
I want to get there. I'm not there all the time.
I can sing great songs when there's a promise of deliverance. I can sing, sing grist really good songs when it's the deliverance. Right. But to sing when you know it's not gonna go well, that is my favorite kind of whole Bible.
[00:29:35] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:29:35] Speaker B: And you know what's crazy? He didn't make it into the Heroes of faith. Right. I take that up with the Holy Spirit one day. Why did you not put that back in chapter 11?
[00:29:43] Speaker A: Such good stuff. You know, it's so beautiful sitting in the room here. You know, Brett and. And Jimmy and Brett came to me a little while ago, said, this is all because of you. And I thought, you know, I'm learning to just say thank you to stuff like that because I'm recognizing that it's all God, but I'm in union with him through Christ. And it's so beautiful. But then I can also, right here, just say it's all because of you, you know, and I just think there's. There's all these things, like, you know, how God just orchestrates this stuff to. To, like, how did God know that my in laws would live the next town over, that we would move to this area that this connection would have, you know, so just. It's all just so beautiful.
[00:30:25] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:30:25] Speaker A: And we get to just be those vessels.
[00:30:28] Speaker B: And we. Janet and I were living in California and answered the call to go to Delaware, 3,000 miles away, and then meet a Brett Brooks.
[00:30:37] Speaker A: And isn't that wild? All the. All the puzzle pieces, I go together.
[00:30:41] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:30:41] Speaker A: And God was like, yeah.
[00:30:43] Speaker B: You know, somebody used that illustration. They said, you know, if you ever turn a tapestry in the back, it's chaos. All the different yarn, it's chaos.
[00:30:52] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:30:52] Speaker B: You turn it over and there's that beautiful picture because that's what we go through. You know, we go through this time and it's like chaos. I don't understand. What are you doing? Doesn't make sense. And then you turn it over when it's all done, and God What a beautiful picture. Yeah. That's our God, right? Yeah.
[00:31:06] Speaker A: Awesome.
[00:31:07] Speaker B: Good stuff. Yeah.
[00:31:08] Speaker A: Well, we'll close this out. I'm just looking at this wave. I saw the wave. I have this thing in my daughter. She's a year and a half old. Her name is Zoe. Zoe Grace.
[00:31:16] Speaker B: And two good names.
[00:31:18] Speaker A: Yeah. So. But on her wall is a little picture that says, muddier than the waves of the sea is his love for you and me. Like, how true is that?
[00:31:27] Speaker B: That is so good. And, you know, that's what's so hard, is to receive that love because your pride wants to earn it, right? But to simply say thank you. Amen, it's so humbling. Amen. Yeah, that's. That's really something.
[00:31:43] Speaker A: Amen.
[00:31:43] Speaker B: So I love your heart, my friend.
[00:31:45] Speaker A: Likewise.
[00:31:46] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:31:46] Speaker A: Thanks for you, your ministry, and, yeah. Your mentorship in my life, even though you may think it's small, it's. It's much bigger.
[00:31:53] Speaker B: So.
[00:31:54] Speaker A: Appreciate you. Love you, friend.
[00:31:56] Speaker B: Thank you.
[00:31:57] Speaker A: So let's talk life over and out.
