What's going on, pursuers? Welcome to the Pursuit of Calling podcast, where my goal
and purpose is to provide you with the skills and mindset needed to successfully discover
and pursue your God-given calling. I'm your host, Thomas Carney, and today, well, I'm
heading to Uganda.
All right. Okay. So yeah, I'm going to Uganda. Not today. Not specifically the day I'm recording,
but I am going the day that this episode releases. And you might be wondering, like, why is a
person that is in, has chronic pain and has, you know, has a chronic movement disorder,
why are they going to a completely different hemisphere? Like, I'm going to be on a plane
for like 14 hours, I think one way. That might even be, it may be a little bit less, might
be a little bit more, I'm not sure. But like, why am I going? Like, and like, honestly,
that's a really big reason why. Now I have two main reasons I want to talk about in this
episode. And I'm going to go in depth and I'm also going to, and then we're going to,
for each section, I'm going to have some reflective questions for you guys to reflect back on
your lives and to hopefully use my life, the use of the things I'm, the things I'm going
through and pushing myself towards to help you reflect on your life and help you push
yourself as well. So let's dive in. So two reasons I'm going. Two big reasons. One, because
I want to increase my dependency on God. And I would normally say this isn't a quote unquote
Christian podcast, but this is, I'm going to Uganda on a missions trip with my church
and with Compassion International. Compassion International, through Compassion International,
a lot of us have our compassion children who we sponsor. And yes, if you don't have heard
of them, definitely look them up. I'll put the link in the show notes so you can look
at what they do. But there's, you can sponsor it. Essentially, you can sponsor a child and
for believe it's $47 a month. And that money goes to whatever that child needs, whether
that be medical care, whether that be food, food, clothing, hope maybe with school is
whatever that child needs to live a more fulfilled life. So that's one big reason. But I also
want to see the lives of those who have have a very different view of the world and believe
in the same God to see how the lives have, how they live out their faith without all
the same things I have in the US here in the US that I take for granted. I'm specifically
saying that I take for granted even though I know a lot of us take things for granted,
but I'm thinking about I'm thinking about the things I personally take for granted that
if I lived in a different country, if I lived in a country, a country like Uganda, that
I think that just wouldn't have. And I want to see their dependency on God and to learn
from I want to learn from them. That's the goal. This is a learning experience. It's
not for me to go there and teach them anything. It's to go there and learn something from
them so I can come back a better a better man and a better child of God. So I'm hopefully
going to be able to meet my sponsor child Shafik. That's like it was like a shift. But
that's like something huge I want to do. I want to I have a sponsor sponsored child called
Shafik. If we get to meet, that'd be amazing. I still got to buy him something. I want to
buy him a gift. And if I don't meet him, I'll give it to some other I give it to another
kid and they'll be I know they'll be grateful. I want to get him something. I'm not sure
what yet. I'm not sure what to expect on this journey. But I'm extremely excited to go.
I'll update all of you on what I've learned in an upcoming episode once I'm back. Maybe
I'll bring on some guests who are going on the trip with me. That would actually be really
cool. I might have to ask him about about that one. We're on the plane for 14 hours.
So for the reflective questions, so for this section, I want you to think about like what
are some things in your life that you've been taken for granted that you've been taking
for granted and how might your faith or perspective change if those things were taken away? How
might your faith or perspective change if those things were taken away? What would you
do if you no longer had your phone? What would you do if you no longer had social media?
What if you what would you do if you no longer had access to all the food that you have now?
What would you do? How did your perspective change on your perspective change towards
God? How would your perspective change towards your faith? Think about that, right, right
down your answer. And how do you and this is the second question, how do you currently
rely on God in your day to day life? In what areas could you deepen that dependency? And
in what way? When I say a great thing you can do to deepen your faith is going up fast.
And right now the Amplified Church is actually going through a 14 day fast, where a lot of
people you can are fasting from social media, but I highly suggest that you fast honestly
for even for a few days, you fast from food. And you know that might sound crazy to some
of you and especially those who aren't people of faith. But let me quickly explain that
and I'm going to move on to the next section. So fasting from food. The whole reason to
do that is to deny the flesh is to deny your flesh, deny what your flesh wants and to become
completely feed the spirit through having more constant conversation with God, diving
into your word more. And time you feel hungry, you just speak to him and you thank him for
what he has for what he has given you. Fasting from food, like for three days even, that's
not going to kill you. It's going to hurt. But it's going but like I heard something
recently where a pastor said, if it doesn't hurt, it's not a fast. And it sounds harsh.
It sounds harsh, but it's true. So think about that. Think about that. That is a great way
to deepen your faith, to deepen your dependency on God is by loosening your dependency on
worldly things. Okay, so I'm done with the heavy Christian stuff. So if you've been tuning
me out for the last six minutes, you can come back, you can come back now. So the other
reason I'm going is because I want to increase my margin of endurance. So it's funny because
I this is the second to the second time I recorded this episode. And I said margin of
endurance, I was like, wow, that's really good. And I was like, I shouldn't make a whole
episode on that. And maybe I will one day. But now that is the second time I really fleshed
out my notes a little bit more. And I really want to talk to you guys about why I want
to increase my margin of endurance and what that is. You might already know. So I want
to I want to prove to myself and others that I can do hard things regardless of my condition.
I want to show others that they can do the same. Maybe not specifically go to Uganda,
but maybe it is. But you get the point. I want to prove to other people who are other
people who specifically can even be specifically we can say people with chronic movement disorders,
like pain, chronic conditions that despite their circumstances, that they can still do
hard things. I'm going to be I'm going to be proof of it. You know, I have a lot of
hard things I want to do in my life. No, this won't make this won't make things easier.
This won't necessarily this won't necessarily make things easier. But it will give me something
amazing to look back on. I got to be a part of something hard, something that I'm still
not 300% sure of how my body is going to handle. To be honest, I know there will be pain. But
you know what else is new? I know there's going to be pain. Like that's like that's
my normal. That doesn't bother me. I just don't know how much. And that's the part
that I'm like wrestling with. And that's where my dependency on God is increasing.
So this is my way to prepare for the unexpected. You know, within all the areas of my life,
I want to increase my margin of endurance to the other hard things will that will cause
pain whether it's mental or physical, or even spiritual, I'll be prepared for. So I, this
is a concept that margin of the concept of margin, I've just to go into a bit more depth.
I've heard I heard I hear about it a lot whenever you're talking about your time. I also hear
about whenever you that means margin like leaving room for margin of error in your schedule.
So if something runs over you have something a meeting runs over that you were expecting
only take 30 minutes, but takes 40, you have scheduled that time for it to take that long,
for instance, or margin of margin in your finances by having a decent savings having
an emergency fund to be prepared for the unexpected. I want to build up my endurance so that whenever
there is something hard I have I have a I have a pool of endurance I can pull from.
I have this built up foundation of endurance I can pull from now. Okay, good Christiania
Christiania a little bit again. This is going to help me and this is goes right hand in
hand with this good. I can't you can't even see on the camera I'm gonna show it. This
goes hand in hand in increasing my dependency on God increasing my spiritual endurance increasing
my relationship with him endurance increasing my endurance my margin of endurance increasing
my dependency on God they are they are pretty much one in the same. I wanted to give I wanted
to give a reason for both because they are they're not the same but they're very closely
related as a Christian. I don't think you can have one without the other. So for the
reflective questions for this section I want to I'm going to ask to this time to say in
what ways are you currently stepping outside of your comfort zone to grow into the person
you feel called to be? What in what areas are you currently stepping outside of your
comfort zone to grow into your calling to pursue your calling well? You can't pursue
your calling well if you're not stepping out of your comfort zone. You're not gonna do
that you're not going to be you're not going to pursue your calling well if you're comfortable,
so think about that in what various are you currently stepping out if you're not currently
stepping out in any way, start figure out, write the areas down where you can start stepping
out and becoming uncomfortable.
How do you prepare yourself in the unexpected challenges in life?
This is question two.
Are you actively building a margin of endurance to help you face future obstacles?
So if you aren't currently doing anything, this is write down two things that you can
be doing that you can start doing.
You can start doing today.
You can start doing this week because like we said, the margin of endurance is not going
to make things, it's not going to make the thing that you're going to be doing easier,
but it's going to make you able to do it with a higher level of excellence.
It's going to cause you to not want to quit as quickly.
It's going to be able to give you a, it's going to be, I'm trying to use a different
word other than endurance, but it's going to be able to give you a confidence that you
can do it because you've already done other hard things.
That's exactly what it is.
You've already done this.
That's why I'm doing this.
I can look back on this and say, I already did something hard.
I already went, I went to Uganda in pain.
I was sat on a plane for 14 hours and maybe that causes a lot of pain.
I did all of these things.
I think about it that now, like I've been in, I go in, I'm in pain every single day
and I can pull from that and I've already done that.
I've already done that hard.
I've already done these hard, I've already done hard things.
I can do this.
Right?
It's all, it's a lot of it's mental.
So if you aren't currently doing anything, write down two things you can be doing right
now that you can be doing today.
You can be doing next this week.
All right, guys, I hope you enjoyed this episode.
I hope you got something out of this and if you liked it, share it out on social media,
on Instagram, on Facebook, and don't forget to leave a five star review and on Spotify
podcast.
I'd also leave a comment on Apple podcast or Spotify.
All right, guys, don't forget to pursue your calling.
I'll see you next time.