It's fine.
We're back today.
This is living up in the town world and we have a special guest today back in the studio
with us.
Who might that be?
That would be Chevy.
Mr. Chevy.
He's so excited.
He is so happy to be here.
It's so funny.
He knows.
He's the smartest dog we've ever had.
Yeah.
It's like he knows we're going up to the church.
We didn't come in earlier today.
We came in just to do the podcast because we've been traveling and he knew.
He just went to the door and he was so excited.
We let him out of the car.
He said, oh no, you didn't bring his leash.
I said, he doesn't need his leash.
He doesn't need it.
He went right to the door.
I know.
He went right to where he's supposed to and he did.
He went right to our studio.
He's pretty predictable.
He's cute.
Yes.
But anyway, it's good to have him.
He's chilling out.
He's laying down.
As long as I don't snap my fingers, he'll be fine.
Please don't.
I know.
It's the weirdest thing.
I know.
I don't understand that.
That's because that's how I get his attention at home.
Don't do it.
No, I'm not.
I'm just going to put it in my hands.
Oh, I see.
Welcome to the show, family.
It's good to have everybody.
Again, I said it earlier, but this is Jimmy and Annette Pruitt.
We are lead pastors at Bridge Church in Fredericksburg, Texas.
That's our day job and our night job and our weekend job.
It's our job.
24-7.
It's our 24-7 job, but we love doing the podcast.
We just enjoy having a different format to share our hearts and our thoughts and what
God's doing in our lives and in the world.
It's just a different angle, a different way of saying what we say.
It's not formal like a service, like a church service.
We can be relaxed and silly and make mistakes and fumble and stumble over our words and
it doesn't matter.
But all that, I love podcasting and I love it.
I love the whole premise of podcasting.
Spending time with Adam Curry is always such a blessing because he has such a heart for
podcasting.
The guy invented it, so that's pretty cool.
What, 20, 19 years ago and nearly 20 now coming up on 20.
Really?
Yeah, yeah, it was 19.
So anyway, when we talk about podcasting, what he loves about it, first of all, it's
decentralized.
Nobody owns it.
You can't control it and it'll never be regulated by the government.
It can't be.
The only thing it gets regulated by is like if you're being paid by Spotify or you have
paid sponsors.
Which we don't.
We have Zilch.
Yes.
And we're not trying to either, but we're not doing it for that.
We're doing it because we want to share good news and help people live up in a down world.
And really, it's no different than us sitting in our living room or in our hot tub or whatever
and talking.
And we just talk about issues and things that are going on in the world, in our church,
in our family.
And it's really no different.
We just get on a microphone and air it out to the world.
I know.
It's just a different approach.
And what we hope is that the things we do air out to the world, that it'll be life-giving
for people and it'll be helpful, especially for people who are on the journey of faith.
Maybe they're coming back to it.
Maybe you're exploring it.
And we also want to show you another side of pastors that we're real people too.
There's not like a separate category for like male, female pastors.
They're so weird and it's always funny.
Now through the years, I've been in this 40 years, you've been in it 30 years.
And what's funny is how when you're around people that don't know you and they find out
you're a pastor, they change how they act around you.
They get all...they try to clean up their act, so to speak, which is comical to me.
We were on the airplane last night and we were visiting with another man named Jimmy
from Bernie and he was talking.
We never told him what we did for a living.
He heard us talk about being a podcaster, but he didn't ask us what we did for a living.
And I thought, you don't want to tell him, do you?
Because he's going to clean up his mouth because he had a mouth on him.
And he was a great guy.
Super nice guy.
Great guy.
And yeah, it was cool sitting there, but I was waiting to see if you were going to say...
And I was waiting to see if he was going to ask us, but we didn't ask him either.
Here's why I don't do it.
Because if someone's already dropped the F-bomb a few times, or they're being themselves...
They'll feel ashamed.
They'll feel terrible.
Yeah.
I don't ever want to make anyone feel that way or try to create some false atmosphere
of righteousness and holiness.
Well, think about it.
When you first met Adam Curry and he said the F-bomb a few times, but he didn't know.
I didn't flinch.
Well, and when I worked at a dental firm...
Speaking of, he just texted me.
Everybody.
It was F this, F this, F this.
And to them, it wasn't derogatory.
It's just, that's the way they talk.
To me, I was like, oh, I finally had to get to a point where I said, can you please not
say that?
It really...
It's just a word I don't really care for.
They got better.
I won't say they completely cleaned up their language, but it got better.
But they knew around me, I just didn't...
It wasn't something that I...
It's a little different because it's an ongoing work environment where you're around people.
You know them and they know you.
I'm always trying to be considerate of where other people are.
I'm not talking about cussing per se, just life in general.
You want to be aware and socially savvy and be in the zone when you're with people.
Because the last thing I want to do is create discomfort.
Exactly.
But what's funny is, is a lot of times I'll be in these conversations, whether it's on
a plane or standing in a line somewhere, and they'll be going on and running their mouth
off and saying all kinds of stuff.
And I just smile.
I don't...
Again, I'm not going to try to make them feel anyway.
And then they finally ask, oh, what do you do?
And then that's when I have to go, I'm a motivational speaker.
Right.
Or a laugh coach.
I've done that in the past.
I don't anymore.
I'm proud.
I'm so proud that I'm a pastor.
In a day where pastors are very vilified, because there's been a lot of people spin
out.
I mean, there have been a lot of mistakes made and church has come an aberration of
what it used to be.
I know.
So sad.
Our hearts to keep this community, this sense of community and family and be humble.
And we're not trying to do anything.
I won't be buying an airplane anytime soon.
You know, anything like that.
No, you won't.
But just living in humility and really walking out the teachings of Jesus.
But a lot of churches have moved towards kind of a, I don't know what to say, cookie cutter
almost like they all have the same formula.
We're not trying to do that.
Well, and we don't have all the answers, but we know the person that does.
There you go.
And it's the person of Jesus Christ.
If we can point people to Him to get to know Him, then we've done what we're supposed to
do.
But we don't have all the answers.
No, we don't.
If there's ever a pastor, anyone that says they know it all, run, forest run.
Because I'm always learning.
Every day there's some lesson.
Also, I mean, and I love this about us together as a couple, we're teachable.
Some people get to the age we are, they're really young, you know, little past teenagers.
But you get to an age where you kind of get this sense of, hey, I've been there, done
that.
And then, you know, people come up and they're excited about something.
You go, oh yeah, I did that 30 years ago.
You know, I don't, we don't think like that with people.
We go, hey, that's great.
Celebrate the win, celebrate what they're learning.
And I don't like to throw cold water on people's fires either.
You know, even if I see that it may be a little over the top or outside the bounds, like, hey,
you go get them.
I always say this.
I say run with a vision.
Run with a vision.
We'll see where it goes.
Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.
And when it doesn't, we're there to help clean it up, you know, and help them and navigate
things and navigate life.
Absolutely.
So, we've had a busy couple of weeks.
Wow.
We just got back from the K-Love Awards show.
It was a whole weekend.
It wasn't, we went to the show on Sunday night, but the weekend started Friday night.
And it was, we took Adam and Tina along.
That was their first experience.
We went last year, came back and said, you have to go with us next year because this
is going to be an annual event.
And it was amazing.
I mean, we're kind of tired, as you can tell.
We don't have the skip in our step.
It's only because we have a major jet lag too.
It's 4 11 p.m. and I need coffee.
Well, and yesterday, our plane got delayed and delayed and delayed.
We didn't get home until-
A lot of weather stuff.
Yeah.
We didn't get, it was late, late, late last night, early in the morning, really before
we got to sleep.
We had to cancel all of our appointments today.
We needed to just relax and really take in everything that God did over the last few
days.
Processing everything.
Gosh.
It was so much.
So much.
We're going to add songs that we heard that we added to our playlist.
We're going to have our worship pastor add them to our church playlist.
Right.
And, but they bring, they have so much more meaning because we heard from the artists
themselves who wrote the songs, who gave context of the song, where they were.
Most of the songs, I noticed again, last year they said most of the songs were written out
of COVID.
I believe the same thing as this year, a lot of them were written out of the experience
of COVID.
Yeah, COVID inspired.
Yes, totally.
Because of the trauma and the uncertainty that it all brought, especially for musicians.
Think about it.
Yes.
Certain jobs were like, oh yeah, you're necessary.
Oh, you're not necessary.
Yes.
And they got put in that category of not essential, which I would beg to differ.
But anyway, they got put in that category and so they're stalled out for a while.
But they had, the good thing is, is they wrote the most amazing songs because they had the
time and they're powerful.
I've noticed more of the songs that are coming out are worshipful songs.
Very much so.
More so than Christian pop.
And I appreciate that.
It was very refreshing.
They have a lot more depth.
Yes.
There's more depth.
There's more angst, you know, in a sense, wrestling with things.
I love it.
They sound like a lot of Psalms.
The Psalms can start off pretty negative.
I mean, like, oh God, why do my enemies overtake me?
You know, I used to walk to go to the temple with them and now they've turned on me.
Nobody cares.
Nobody, I mean, and then the Psalmist, whether it's David or the other Psalmist, they have
these but God moments where they pivot and they begin to say, but your goodness follows
me all my life.
Your goodness chases me.
I see the evidence of your goodness all over my life.
That's a great song.
No, Josh Baldwin.
No, no.
I see the evidence of your goodness.
Jeremy Camp, honey.
Can we bet?
Can I?
What do you want to bet?
Okay, I'm going to look it up.
$100 bill.
$100.
I saw one in your purse.
I want that.
Okay.
$100 bill.
Okay.
It's mine.
Thank you very much.
Oh, right.
Hey, I'm all on.
I'm all in this.
I can't wait.
This is going to be fun.
Oh my gosh.
I'm going to look it up.
We were just listening to it in the car coming over here.
Yeah, and it was Jeremy Camp.
This is fun.
I don't win often in these kinds of things.
You're not going to win.
But I won this one.
I'm going to do a victory dance.
No, I want to probably hurt myself.
You're so funny.
Are you still?
Is it taking you that long to look it up?
I've got it right here.
I'm looking it up.
I've got it right here.
Okay, you look it up because my phone is...
Oh, this is going to be rich.
This is going to be fun.
Let's see.
It is Josh Baldwin.
No, it is not.
I have it right here.
Let's see.
Oh, I actually turned it on.
I wasn't going to play it.
I didn't mean to play it.
All right, here it is.
Evidence, Josh Baldwin.
This is the radio version we were listening to.
No way.
It's on the live album as well.
Honey.
There's no way.
Well, I get the hundred because it's in my billboard.
We bet $100 bill.
You owe me.
It sounds just like Jeremy Camp.
They must sound too much alike.
Voice-wise, yeah.
I could see how you could get that, but it's not.
That feels really good.
What am I going to get with $100?
No, nothing.
A steak dinner.
Tina is the same way I am.
We know the songs, but putting the artist with it is so hard.
They do sound so much alike.
You were willing to go to the mat on it right here in front of God and everybody in podcast.
It's for the show.
Wow.
Tina and Adam do everything that... I had to tell them, please don't put this on your
show, a little faux pas you and I had, because I don't want all of our dirty laundry aired
out.
Well, let's tell our faux pas anyway.
No, I don't want to do it.
It's funny.
Let's talk about... No, no, no.
Let's just talk about the theme.
The theme.
This is what we were going to talk about.
This is what we want to encourage you with, because we've got some friends that are going
through a... Everybody does, and everybody's going through stuff, but this particular couple
is going through a truly life-changing, trajectory-changing moment.
I mean, everything in their life literally just changed.
Just changed.
And not for the better, although God can redeem all of that.
Yes, He can.
But right now, in the short term... Turn what's bad for good.
Yeah.
In the short term, it's scary and hard.
And they've been shaky initially, because it just took the breath away, because it was
unexpected, and there was actually a different outcome expected.
Well, you can talk about it.
Just don't talk about who it is.
No, I don't want to do that.
Okay.
There was just a different outcome that we all thought...
They already put it all over Facebook and everything, all the way.
Okay.
Well, they all thought it was going to go one way.
It went another way.
It went totally the other.
And this is the challenge with Christians, is we think that if we pray, pray, pray, we
say all the right things that we're always going to get the best outcome.
But the outcome may be different than what we think, because God's got a bigger plan
than we know.
So that's exactly what happened.
They were expecting one thing.
They were praying, believing.
All of us were standing together as friends and community and standing for them.
And when it went the other way, now you have a massive choice.
You're presented with an option, with an opportunity for growth.
And Annette and I, you and I have talked about this back early in the shows, in our earlier
episodes that when we got fired, we went through a hard, hard thing where... And it wasn't
just me getting fired.
It was us.
We got fired.
And it was completely out of our controls because I took a stand for what I thought
was righteous and true.
And we paid the high price of losing everything.
We lost our savings, we lost our retirement.
I mean, it just... We lost it because we had to use it quickly.
Yeah, to live.
Because everything was so unexpected.
But anyway, we went through that.
But here's the thing that we knew immediately.
We had these conversations in the car and faith was 13, 14, 15 during that time.
And we had these conversations and said, we have a choice to make here.
We can get bitter and angry or we can choose to be better by trusting God no matter what
the temporary circumstances look like.
Because what we're facing, if you'll remember these conversations, I said it this way, because
here's what happened.
When the bottom drops out of your life and you preach every Sunday of your life, your
adult life, you're going to have to work out the messages you preached.
Exactly.
You're going to have to live them out.
You're going to get tested first.
Yeah, you have to walk it out.
And we had to make a decision, are we going to believe the facts or are we going to believe
truth?
There's a difference between truth and facts.
Facts are temporary and subject to change.
So you may be in a circumstance and the fact is it's painful.
The fact is you're confused.
The fact is it hurts.
Or you're wrongly accused of something.
Or maybe you got caught doing something.
You got busted.
I mean, it can be whatever got you there, you're there.
Whether it was your doing or not.
At the end of the day, you're there.
You are where you are.
Facts are it hurts.
Facts are a lot of things in your life are going to have to change.
Your comfort, everything you've known that's familiar may be taken away.
And that's what we experienced.
We lost everything and we had to move.
It was humiliating.
It was embarrassing.
I mean, so many pieces of that.
But we made a decision early on.
We said we're not going to worry about the facts.
We're going to stand on the truth of what we know about the character and nature of
God.
And we're going to stand on the truth of God's Word.
And that's what we did.
We leaned into the Word of God and we leaned into Him in prayer.
Now, some of our prayers weren't pretty.
I mean, some of our conversations weren't pretty.
They were hard.
Because it was hard.
You lose everything that you've worked for and there doesn't seem to be a clear path.
I mean, it is devastating.
And you grieve it.
And we were in our 50s, which was really hard because it's not like...
If you're looking for a job, especially as a pastor, they're looking for the young ones,
the ones that are starting out where they can be paid less.
I was going to say the ones that don't have to pay their experience.
And so when you have an experienced pastor and then they see you aren't at a church anymore
and it wasn't your day, it's like, what is it about that person?
It looks suspect.
It does.
Whether it was into your control or whether you did the right thing or not is irrelevant.
It just looks bad on your resume.
So we had to go through that.
So our friends are experiencing something dynamically the same.
And so our encouragement to them has been stay the course, don't give up, don't quit.
God's in control.
Look for God in it.
Yes.
He is not abandoning you.
I love that, Annette.
Look for God in it.
Because Jesus was in the storm.
He didn't just show up and still the storm.
He was asleep in the storm.
I mean, he was on the boat crashed out in dreamland and they were freaking out.
The disciples, the storm blew up and they went down to...
They're like, how can you sleep during this storm?
We're about to perish.
We're going to die.
And Jesus said, how long must I bear with you?
Oh, you have little faith.
And then he spoke to the storm, peace be still.
Why could he speak to it?
Because he was in it with them.
Right.
He didn't speak from the outside in, he spoke from within.
And that's the thing, look for God in it.
We want to encourage you, whatever you're going through.
I know we have listeners who have cancer issues and going through, have gotten terrible diagnoses
that are getting treated.
Family issues.
Family issues or they've gotten away from God.
Life happened and they're trying to get, find their way back, you know, and get back on
the path.
And for whatever, wherever you are and wherever you find yourself, look for God in it.
He's there.
He's not left.
And that's the thing I think you and I never let go of that worked is that we never believe
that God left us.
We never wavered on that.
We had a very strong foundation and we questioned where we're going to go from here.
Of course.
What's next?
But we never lost our faith, which was, you know, just basically because we had had a
long, we had a lot of experience with God.
And so we knew because of our past that he had never, he won't leave us.
The thing is, is we're going through this with this family and then we go to K-Love
and it's happening.
The continual effect of it was while we were at K-Love and we're trying to enjoy and get
out what we can of that experience while we're grieving for a family.
Right.
What we noticed was that the whole theme at K-Love was that very thing we were sharing
and trying to help this couple as they're going through the worst time of their whole
entire life.
And that is, he will never leave you.
He will never forsake you.
He will come.
He's with you in the storm.
You will overcome this and that God's going to show you something that you have to go
through things for God to get something to you sometimes.
Failure is not final.
No, it's not.
Nor is it fatal.
No, it's not.
And you know, we've talked about this too in the past as hard as that was for a year.
It was hard on our whole family.
Oh, it was rough.
Really it was longer than a year.
It was a year that we were unemployed but then it was another two years of still being
in the wilderness because we weren't in our full destination that we knew God had for
us eventually.
But what, I don't, we've said this over and over.
We don't have regrets because we learned so much in that and we needed to learn how to
be better pastors for a church.
We needed to learn how to minister to people out of their hurt based on what-
How to forgive.
Yes, how to forgive.
How to forgive betrayal when no one's saying, I'm sorry.
When no, yes, and they weren't.
Nobody was saying that.
And so we had to learn a lot of lessons that you can't learn if everything is always going
your way.
That's right.
That's true.
And I don't like this dynamic, but it's just true.
Not a fact.
It's the truth.
And my old boss, Dave Ramsey said it this way, the pain of staying the same has to outweigh
the pain of change.
People do not change until there's a high degree of pain.
For example, our culture.
Recently Donald Trump did a thing out in the Bronx in New York and had a massive showing.
Tons of people, thousands and thousands of people that were-
Was it like a hundred thousand people?
No, that was in New York.
This is a little bit different.
This is not quite that number, but still it was staggering because that is a completely
blue democratic area, mostly African American and various minorities and immigrants and
whatnot, which is a beautiful dynamic there.
But they've been classically Democrat, big time.
Well, there's been a massive pendulum swing.
Well, why?
It's because the pain of staying the same now outweighs the pain of change.
And the change that needs to happen is we need to get our economy back.
We need to get our national security and defense back.
We need to get our borders back.
All these things that need to happen, we've got to get integrity back in the White House
and politics, not that it's ever been total.
We need to get the Bible back in the White House.
We've got to get back to God's Word and the foundations of our nation.
So now I'm not going to wax along on that, but it's an important point and it makes the
point that if people just say, oh, it's getting worse.
I can't afford groceries.
I can't fill my car up anymore.
Well, I can't even afford two cars.
And God forbid I try to buy a house right now with the interest rates at seven plus
percent.
You know, there are so many things have been locked down.
And how can I build a house at $380 a square foot?
You know, everything is just gone.
We were just talking about grocery prices and even articles out this last couple of
weeks on fast food prices like at McDonald's and Water Burger and all these.
They've just gone insane.
And people are like, people are beginning to groan under the weight of that.
And all of it's starting to touch people's pain points, which now even people who were
classically Democrat, I'm not knocking.
It's beyond the red and blue anyway.
So don't hear what I'm not saying.
I'm not pro pushing anything other than let's get back to God's Word, get our country back
to its foundation.
Now, however that gets, I'm going to be with that platform, which are the one that's closest
because there's not any perfect platform.
But the pain point now, people that were classically blue, Democrat are saying, you know what?
We got to be able to afford, we got to be able to raise our kids.
We've got to be able to afford food and gas.
We've got to be able to live.
We've got to be able to heat our home, our apartment, our dwelling this winter, this
next winter when it rolls around.
And right now it doesn't look like we'll be able to do that.
And I can't afford to go out and buy an electric car.
I've got a car that's running fine.
It's been going well for 15, 20 years.
I'm not going to go buy a new car because the government's going to make me.
So people are beginning to feel the pain points and that pain is causing change, which really
will result in a better outcome.
But it's going to be painful to go through it.
And that's what we're doing right now.
That goes, that's also true in our life.
Normally it takes pain to wake us up.
It takes pain, suffering to get our attention.
People that I have known that have had like a cancer diagnosis, I'm thinking of my friend
Mark Berry, you know, life's been good for him in terms of he's successful.
He's made a good living.
He's sharp.
He's a smart guy, a musician, loves the Lord.
Entrepreneur.
Entrepreneur for real.
I mean, really doing it at a high level.
Now he's doing this great ministry with VR stuff and going into hospitals and giving
people that are at the end of their life, just a treat, just a life changing event.
So he's doing these amazing things and then he gets a cancer diagnosis and it's scary.
And the doctors are saying, you're going to have treatment, blah, blah, blah.
It goes down the list.
And we pray, reaches out to me, we pray, we believe God, we had our church pray, put him
on our church prayer list.
And he had a turnaround.
But what it did, it changed his perspective.
The pain of staying the same outweighed the pain of change.
He wanted to change.
And so what he's done, he's developed these VR glasses and this program where he goes
into palliative care, hospice, and treats people to an experience.
Somebody who's at the end of their life.
What is something you've always wanted to do that you can't?
Well, I always thought it'd be cool to go to outer space.
I can make that happen.
They put on the VR goggles, family's in the room, and they get to watch their loved one
fly through space via a digital world, a virtual world.
But what brought that about?
Pain.
Scaring.
I may be at the end of my life and now he has compassion for those who are.
So anyway, tell us about how these songs ministered to us and how we kept looking at each other
going, oh my gosh, this is exactly what we're talking about.
It's just, you could tell they were written out of pain.
And like we just said is that these artists, especially in COVID, when they couldn't perform,
they couldn't go in and.
They couldn't do concerts.
They couldn't do anything.
They were stuck at their home.
And so they spent their time rotting out of their pain.
And I wonder if some of the songs were written partly.
And then when we came out of it and they were able to perform again, get in the studios,
if they were able to write the end of their songs during that time where there was a turnaround.
And I don't know.
I see that happening because of what happened.
Or it could, or just those that knew had enough of a foundation that they were writing their
songs out of pain, but said, I know God's going to get me through it because they have
history in God.
And that's the thing.
Once you have history in God, you know, he's going to get you through it no matter what.
It just won't.
It probably most likely will not look like what you think because I, you know, when we
were going through the darkest times in different times of our life, we never ended up where
we thought we would end up.
Ever.
Ever in life.
Even my darkest times being alone after my divorce, I would have never in a million years
imagined myself remarrying someone like you.
And then my whole trajectory of my life changed spiritually, physically, just in what God
was going to do with me, how he was going to use me.
I was in banking.
I was in real estate for years.
Never thought that God would move me into a pastor role.
And so it's just amazing because what he has for us is so much more than what we can ever
imagine or think because he is, we just need to see him for who he is.
He's God.
And he's good.
And he's a good God no matter what, even when our circumstances don't look good, he's still
good.
And I think that's one of the things that we really had to learn through all of our
challenges in life is he's got a better plan.
We think we have a better plan in our head.
We think, oh, well, if he'll do this for me, I'm going to do this.
It's going to be greater.
And sometimes don't we pray like that?
Yes.
Hey, God, I need your help on this.
In fact, let me go ahead and give you how to do that.
And if you do this, I will do this for you the rest of my life.
And then 10 minutes later after he does it, we go back to who we were.
And he's just, he's a better God.
It's because we want the relief.
We want the quick fix.
Yes.
He's into crafting character.
He's into sanctification where he wants to walk us through a process.
We think the miracle is instantaneous.
I think the miracle is someone who can endure and persevere through a process and come out
on the other side better.
That's the miracle.
It is.
We want to think, I'm not going to snap my finger because he'll go nuts.
Shebi's doing great.
Thanks for joining us today, Shebi.
But here's the thing, people want a finger snap miracle.
They want God to show up and just fix it.
Why?
Because we want relief.
We want relief in the moment.
And yet God says, I love you so much that I'm not going to ruin your opportunity to learn.
There is a process.
Progress always comes with a process.
We heard a sermon on that by Tarrin Wells who killed it and knocked it out of the park
on Sunday.
Oh my gosh, that was a great sermon.
They hosted a church service basically with Elevation Worship and Tarrin Wells, who is
his own musician, who is amazing, but he is also pastoring a church now in Austin.
He brought a message called, process.
To progress.
No, progress is a process.
Something like that.
I'm getting that exactly right.
But the principle is that.
That if you want to progress and you want to grow and you want to move forward and develop,
there is a process to go through.
And it is a lot longer than we think it will be.
Isn't it though?
My goodness.
Tina and I just kept looking at each other throughout his message, throughout all the
different songs, the different artists when they would share about their songs.
We would just look at each other and go, what?
I know.
God just.
It was the same message over and over.
It was the same message.
It was quite remarkable to be a part of that.
It reminded, okay, I want two things.
Number one, I want to share Romans 8 28.
Because we were talking, I was like, what is the scripture that really captures the
heart of what we talked about?
It is this one.
It is Romans 8 28.
If you have a Bible, I would love for you to jot that down or remember that.
Romans 8 28.
And it says this, and we know that in all things, God works for the good of those who
love him and who have been called according to his purpose.
It doesn't say works for the good for everybody.
It says for those who love him and those who have been called according to his purpose.
In other words, those who he has wooed to himself and we've said, yes, Jesus, yes, I
want to be a Christian.
I want you to change my life, change my heart, change me from the inside out.
I give you my life.
I'm now saved.
I'm now born again.
I'm yours.
And he says that all things, we know that in all things, God works for the good.
That's what we have to understand that his goodness is chasing us.
His mercy is chasing us.
I want to quote the words to that song by Josh Baldwin.
The one I thought was Jeremy Camp.
It's okay.
I'm not going to razz you on that one.
It's so crazy because literally they sound identical.
If Jeremy Camp sang that song, I would think it was, I mean, you would think it was Josh
Baldwin.
I know.
So listen to the lyrics to the song.
And as you're listening to the show.
We were listening to it on the way here.
Yeah, we were listening to the song and we're like, we need to do that as a church.
We need to bring that in.
The lyrics are all throughout my history.
Your faithfulness has walked beside me.
The winter storms made a way for spring in every season from where I'm standing.
And here's the course.
Listen to the course.
I see the evidence of your goodness all over my life, all over my life.
I see your promises in fulfillment all over my life, all over my life.
And it's just such a poignant reminder that we see the evidence of God's goodness.
It's not just that you bought a new car last year.
It's not just that you got a promotion at that job.
I'm not opposed to saying, Hey, that could be God's blessing.
I'm not opposed to that.
But there are bigger, more important things and it's your growth.
It's your development.
It's your maturity.
It's how you handle pain and disappointment.
And here's the thing.
It's okay to waver at first.
Absolutely.
It's okay to question God and be human.
He can handle it.
It's don't stay there.
And that was our friends.
Say that again.
That is so good.
It's okay to waver in your faith.
It's okay to question God, but don't stay there.
And our friends that were going through a tough time, there was a few days that it was
tough, but they didn't stay there.
And that was my whole prayer for them.
That was my prayer for them too.
It's God, please get them to the place that you can work.
You can stay bitter.
You can.
I really believed that it was just an emotional cry because they just took a hit.
They just took a life-changing hit.
And that's why I had a lot of patience about it.
When I heard, I got the text, I've lost my faith.
And I said, no, you didn't lose your faith.
Your faith's right there.
You just can't see it.
You're numb.
And I just tried to give counsel here and there.
And not being preachy, but I am a preacher, so what do you expect?
Well, they wrote you.
They wrote you.
So yeah, exactly.
But I love this family so much that I didn't want to so enter into empathy that I didn't
give them truth.
That's true.
And they need to hear truth in the middle of all that because there's going to be a
lot of people patting them on the back going, you should be mad.
You should respond.
You should retaliate.
You should get revenge.
Which is not the right thing to do.
There are people around them that have that voice and I'm like, no, no, no, no, no.
We're bigger than that.
We're followers of Jesus and we have to respond accordingly to what we're learning.
And so you know what?
They turn the corner.
She said, I love the text.
I did not.
I never lost my faith.
He never left.
I'm like, ah, there it is.
After how many scriptures we had.
But that's okay.
But you know what?
There's only a few days.
It was quicker than I thought it would be.
And it doesn't mean that they're not going to have more bad days.
More bad days.
It's going to happen.
But for those of you that are listening today and you're hearing this and you're going,
I so relate to this because I'm in pain right now.
What would you say to somebody right now who's listening going, but you don't understand
my circumstances.
Look for God in it.
I love that.
You have to.
That's one of the wisest things you've said maybe ever.
Wow.
In it.
Wow.
Look for God.
It's so simple.
It just came to me.
Wow.
Because he's in every detail.
He's numbered every hair on our head.
I have so many hairs that fall out, but he knows those numbers that are left.
I mean, it's so hilarious.
I don't know.
They may get a point where maybe too much.
No, I'm just kidding.
But he knows, if he knows every hair and he says, I delight in every detail of your life.
Every detail.
And because he does that, we have to put our big girl panties on.
Wait, I'm a boy.
Well, I'm a girl.
And she's a boy.
And thank God I'm still a female.
I am a female.
There's male and female.
I'm a female.
And God says, look up to me.
Look up to the heavens where I am.
Colossians 3.2, set your mind on things above and not on things on the earth.
If you can just get a hold of that God is for you and not against you and he loves you
and he's more, what is it that you say?
You say he's not interested in your comfort as he is your character.
So, let's work on our character and let's be the best character witness that we can
for God.
Thank you.
You really nailed that and it's inspired another thought is that we need to ask the Holy Spirit
to help us respond rightly.
Yes.
So, okay.
So what just happened to me is a terrible thing.
I might have got a cancer diagnosis.
I might have lost a loved one.
I mean, there's a lot of hard things.
I mean, I can't pay my bills anymore because of what's going on in culture right now.
And the answer is not going to be voting for somebody else.
Although we need to get out, we get involved, but our Savior is not a president.
That is not going to fix everything.
It's actually all of this is highlighting the fact that no one human can fix everything.
We need God.
Yes, yes, don't we?
If anything, this is highlighting for me is how much we need God and how we need to be
not silent when you shout it from the rooftops.
Exactly.
But I love what you said because that really spawns this thought of look for God in it.
He's there.
He hasn't quit.
He hasn't abandoned.
Listen to this out of Hebrews chapter 13 verse 5.
God has said, never will I leave you.
Never will I forsake you.
That's Hebrews 13, 5 in the NIV.
I never, never will I leave you.
Never will I forsake you.
That is a promise.
The only time it seems like he's gone is when we've grown numb because we're in pain.
We're grieving.
We've lost something.
The thing is, he's sad for us.
Absolutely.
He doesn't want us to hurt.
He's hurting with us because he loves us so much.
He's got the most empathy of anybody is God.
His love is so pure that he cares more about crafting our character, which means how much
do you have to love somebody to not stop the pain knowing the outcome is going to be better
and then they'll be better for it.
That's the best kind of father.
That's the best kind of parent.
He says, I love you so much.
I remember my dad, my mom would freak out when we got on the monkey bars when we were
little kids.
I said, nope, they've got to learn and sure enough, one of us would crash, fall off.
Did you break your arm?
I never broke my arm.
Jerry broke his hand.
I broke my hand, but we had broken bones.
All of us had broken bones, but I learned, don't do that.
But my dad had the presence of mind to say, no, no, no, let him.
He's got skin in his knees.
He's going to have to make a mistake.
And so anyway, but we hope this encourages you.
We came out of this obviously with our buckets overflowing, but really it wasn't as much
for us and talking with Adam and Tina about it, it was more for our friends and more for
what some others are going on around us to give us insight into how to give them sound
biblical counsel and a biblical perspective.
And it's hard because even while we were at K-Love, Tina and I, the first comment she
made and I told you that she was going to make this comment because I knew it, but how
can I have a good time when our friends are hurting so much?
Yeah, she said that out loud.
Yeah, she said it.
And it was, and I agree, it's hard, but God brought us there for a reason.
And it was to learn how to navigate the pains of life that other people go through.
That became very clear, very quickly too.
I mean, like the first thing we sat down at, we started getting these very clear messages
from God.
It was really beautiful.
I have a feeling that might be Tina's God shot tomorrow night for their show, Currying
the Keeper.
If it's not, it should be.
Who knows how many she has.
It'll be something around that.
Who knows?
Yeah, but we hurt for people, but we pray that God will get the last word no matter
what.
No doubt.
We want to encourage you, first of all, just to ask a favor, would you go to our website,
LivingUpAndAdownWorld.com and subscribe to our newsletter?
What we do, either on the day we do the show or a day before, hopefully, just depending
on our crazy schedule right now, we get it out.
And it's just a heads up, say, hey, it's coming.
And if you want to get other people, we talk about value for value, and it's not just about
finances, money, or anything like that.
It's about value.
What kind of value can you add?
If we're adding value to you and encouraging you, there's easy ways to add value to us.
And one is just to share our podcast with others and get it.
Because hopefully, this is going to help somebody.
I believe this message, look for God in it.
He'll never leave you or forsake you.
He works all things for your good.
He's not left.
He's not abandoned.
These are messages that people need to hear right now in the moment, especially in our
culture and the way things are so out of control right now.
We need to know God's there.
But also that He cares more about our character than our comfort.
He's crafting us.
He's building something beautiful.
He's building a masterpiece.
So if these words, these messages, this podcast encourages you, you can encourage us back.
One of the ways you can do that is drop us a note.
Let us know you're listening.
Let us know it's helping, it's you're finding encouragement in it.
You can do that on our website, livingupinadoworld.com.
There's a place you can just send us a note.
You can leave a review.
That's always helpful.
Or you can, through PayPal, you can donate and support.
It's just whatever it is.
Value is value.
We're not putting any kind of stipulation on that.
It's whatever you think is valuable.
And we love to hear from you.
And we do enjoy.
Never think you're, we talk about being so busy, but don't ever think we're too busy
to read your note because your notes of encouragement are what?
They're life to us.
That's like the air we breathe.
And so we'd love to hear from you.
And hope you've been encouraged today.
This is, I didn't even say it, but this is episode number six.
You did.
But technically it's not.
Oh.
I know.
I made a mistake.
You missed a day.
I missed an episode.
I skipped 64?
One of those.
Five, four, three.
You missed one.
One of those.
So we're just going to keep it at 66.
We're just going to keep going.
So we're going to pretend there's a phantom, phantom episode and people are going to go,
wait, I was listening to your episodes and there's one that's been skipped.
Yeah, I know.
I know that in retrospect.
It's because you're not a numbers person.
That is true.
So we're going to keep it at 66 and welcome to Living Up In A Down World.
We'll help you have an amazing week.
And we want you to live up in a down world no matter what's going on in this crazy world
you're in.
God bless you.
One last word in that other word.
Look for God in it.
Great word.
God bless you.
We love you.