What's going on, Pursuers? Welcome to The Pursuit
of Calling, the podcast that provides you with
the strategies and tools needed to successfully
discover and pursue your calling. Whether it's
through inspiring stories, thought -provoking
interviews, or quick, insightful episodes on
personal growth and development, we've got you
covered. I'm your host, Thomas Carney. Enjoy
the episode. Hey, so quick thing. I know you
already listened maybe to an intro, but I'm kind
of skipping this week. I'm in recovery mode for
after the mission trip. I wanted to make an episode
about the mission trip and talk to you about
generosity and why it's more blessed to give
than to receive. And it's going to give you the
Bible verse Acts 20 verse 35. And then read it,
and it says, in everything I did, I showed you
that by this kind of hard work, we must help
the weak. Remembering the words of the Lord Jesus
himself said, it is more blessed to give than
to receive. And I was going to explain that verse
and explain why it is more blessed to give than
to receive. And the benefit of what I saw in
that, in Uganda, of the benefit of how The generosity
of Amplified Church affected that community and
then it affected multiple communities over there
in Uganda that also have the generosity of a
single person can change the life of a child
and a family. And I was also going to talk about
my experiences meeting my compassion kids, Shafiq,
Elijah, and I also got to meet Katrina. who is
the Amplify Young Adults kid, and I got to represent
our yoga adult ministry and got to meet her four
days in a row. I was going to talk about how
sweet of a girl she is and how she has 11 people
in her family, three bedrooms to the house. It's
probably the size of a house with three bedrooms
and a small little family room. It's probably
about the size, it's probably smaller than a,
about the size of my first floor townhouse, I'd
say, relatively. And that's in the kitchen. I
was going to talk about how there's a kitchen
and there's a kitchen on the outside, which is
just a wooden mud hut with a little fire pit
that they cook on. And how the greatest need
that they need right now is food. I was also
going to talk about how blessed we are to live
here, how blessed I am to live here in America
where food is so easily accessible. And how blessed
Katrina is to have a community who is supporting
her, where we can max out giving every year fairly
easily. We haven't yet, I don't think. And now
that I know, the max. And now that it's put into
perspective of what she needs to, how easily
we can get it, how easily we can help her and
her family get what they need as a community.
It's going to talk about how I'm going to challenge
that community to do it. But like I said, I'm
taking a break this week. I just want to leave
you with saying that this mission trip changed
my life. This mission trip is the second time
I've been to Uganda. Last year was a learning
experience, and this year was a reinforcement
experience. Reinforcing seeing those living in
mud huts and people that care about people I
love, like my sponsor kids. who live in mud huts,
children who, even though they live in those
circumstances, they treat people they don't know
just like family. Jesus calls us to, if you're
a Christian, Jesus calls us to help the lowly,
help those who are Not as well off as you. We
are blessed to be a blessing. We are called to
be the light of the world and to not just help
those who are outside the body of Christ, but
also especially help those who are within it.
Regardless of whether they are, we're called
to love our neighbor as ourselves. So I don't
really have a pursuit of calling -esque talk
this week, but I just want to leave you with
this, saying now that I'm back from Uganda, the
background mission trip, that the perspective
has shifted. Not for the podcast, not for that,
and that's not what I'm saying, but my perspective
has shifted over what generosity is, what it's
for, and what it can do in somebody's life. I
want to challenge you to be more generous. I
want to challenge you to have more of a servant
heart, to not just being generous with your money,
but be generous with your time. be more interested
in serving others and how you can serve them
than how they can serve you. I do truly believe
that the calling we have in our lives is all
about serving others in ways and not at all about
how people can serve us. It doesn't even make
sense. If you're trying to Find out what your
calling is. You're looking for how you can put
others above yourself so you can see yourself
as a servant and serve those people from a place
of humility. And with that, I'm going to leave
you. I'm tired. I'm like zonked. I'm ready to
zonk out right now. I don't know if you can tell
it by the timbre of my voice, but I'm tired.
So guys, I hope you enjoyed this episode. Again,
I'm not really, there's no lesson, there's a
challenge, but no real lesson. I just, I just
want to call you higher in this episode to give
more, to be more generous and do it filled with
joy because you know that. When you're generous
and you're not doing it for you, you're doing
it for those people around you to benefit their
lives. So guys, thank you for listening to this
episode. Not going to do any other outro stuff,
but I love you guys. Thank you for pursuing your
calling. Thank you for listening to this episode.
Be more generous. I love you guys.