Welcome to the God's Goodness podcast where our mission is to encourage as well as highlight
God's goodness and modern-day miracles.
We are your hosts, Josh and Shelley Hankins.
Today we have a special treat for you.
Now I mentioned before in my podcast that any time I talk to my friend Jen O'Donnell,
she'll mention, oh, you might be interested in this or you might be interested in that
and I'll take notes.
And when I act upon the things, they're like golden nuggets.
And one of the things she mentioned the other month, well, January, was Heather Shriver
Burns and she is our guest today.
And she, Heather is a top-notch woman and something you would be blessed by is her
podcast.
It's the Seek First CEO podcast and her introduction.
It just pumps me up.
So I mentioned it on, I did a video on social media.
If you've ever followed along with my social media posts, one of the beginning videos this
year was about the word of the year and Heather did a great podcast about what to do with your
word of the year, how to get the word of the year.
And it was just very powerful and, you know, I've never seen anybody talk about what to
do and she did.
So I shared a little bit about that.
So that gave some of you an insight to what was coming.
But her podcast is top-notch and like anything that she does, I want to be a part of because
she has all this knowledge and most of it on social media, she's offering it for free.
So I like to take advantage of free things.
There's that saying, if it's free, it's for me.
So, but with that, I just want to introduce Heather Shriver Burns with us and she's going
to open us with an opening prayer and then let the Holy Spirit lead from there.
So with that, thank you for having me.
Yes, let's pray.
Right, Father, I thank you so much for how good you are and for connecting us to each
other, Lord, that the body of Christ is, although we don't even know each other, that we are
united in your spirit.
So God, we just pray that this episode glorifies and honors you, that it just speaks to the
hearts that need to hear exactly what it is that you have for them.
And so we thank you in advance for all that you're going to do through it in Jesus' name.
Amen.
Now, I know that one of the things, not to direct you where to go, but one of the things
that you had mentioned this year was your gifts.
And you're another, the second life coach this year that has mentioned about working
in your gifts.
And it was also mentioned by Ian Wreath.
And when you work in your gift, your gifting, God can put the super on your natural.
And when I took those tests in the business tree, boot camp, boot camp, we did.
Actually I was sick that week and I got to take part of the lives, but I took those tests,
the two tests, it was the five fold ministry test and the gifts test.com.
And wow, those were amazing.
I was like, that is spot on because evangelist was the one that came up for me.
And I was like, yeah, I would do want to bring Jesus to the light and make his stories famous.
So I just love that.
And you also mentioned that brain tries to keep us comfortable and safe.
Yeah.
So I don't know where you want to go with all that.
But this is the stuff that I've been personally working on and taking in this year.
And then we have a small group of church that we're actually honing in on our gifts and we're
going to be working on that too.
So that was, I love how God's just working everything together.
Carl has Godwings, right?
It's like something that's already been on your heart and he's like, oh, let me show
you it again from maybe from another angle that you haven't necessarily thought of or
you didn't know.
Yeah.
I grew up actually in a more traditional church, no spirit filled.
It wasn't really, we didn't really talk about the Holy Spirit.
And so as I have been in my own journey of discovering God on my own and my own miracles,
literally of just life and healing, I've learned just the power of the Holy Spirit.
And so those gifts are so important when we're fulfilling our calling.
We need to know what those things are so that we can do the things.
And like you said, he puts his super on our natural.
Oh, yes, absolutely.
And it is very important to know our gifts.
And I believe that some gifts seem scarier to us than others because we're afraid that
if we have a gift that's outward that people will mock us more than we have a gift that's
inward where they don't know what we're doing for the kingdom.
Yeah.
So I actually, the reason that I discovered the deeper the depths, you know, and I got
one on this journey of just like, who is that God?
Like, I mean, I've known Jesus my whole life was raised in a Christian home.
So in 2018, I lost a business that was pretty much my whole life at the time.
And I'm an entrepreneur.
And so in 2018, lost this business and was just broken.
This was like an eight figure business that my husband, I mean, just changed our family's
life and overnight lost it at 27 weeks pregnant.
And with our third job, and as I was going through healing, just seeking the Lord, like,
why did you let this happen?
And what did I do wrong?
Asking a lot of those questions that we tend to ask when we go through very painful seasons.
He met me in the Psalm 23 moment, like he met me in the valley.
And I was at church one morning, and I was just worshiping and I was holding my newborn
at the time.
And this woman came up to me and she said, Hey, you know, I don't know you.
She said, but I was just praying for you during worship and the Lord shared something with
me.
Can I can I share it with you?
And, you know, in the meantime, I didn't know this was a newer church.
We didn't know many people.
Nobody knew my name.
Nobody knew I would just had gone through this, this, you know, loss.
And I'm like, sure.
And she said, Well, God showed me this picture of a broken heart.
And he showed me this gigantic needle and she used her arms to like stretch him out
wide.
And she said, I just want you to know God wants you to know that he is weaving your heart
back together in the places that are broken and that you will be stronger than ever before.
And I was wrecked in the best of ways.
I thought, wait, what God are you talking to?
Like how do you how he sees me?
And for the first time in my life, I've heard the verse that he knows the number of hairs
in your head.
I wept and wept like he literally sees me in my pain and he knows me and he cares enough
to tell some stranger that I'm healing you.
Like I see you and you're in the process of healing and that was my beginning pursuit
of the more of God.
And I think we can stop at the surface of salvation and that doesn't mean we're not saved, right?
But there's so much more of who God is if we're hungry and we're curious and we want
to go after it.
And that really changed my life.
And it was either 2018, 2019.
It was all very blurry in that season.
New baby, loss of everything.
But my goodness, God is so good and he does see us.
And maybe someone just needs to hear that.
Maybe you're in a season of loss or pain and you're like, what is going on?
And you're asking the Lord to understand why.
But I just hope that you experience that.
I call those marking moments.
Those are those marking moments that I mean, somebody could tell me there is no God or
somebody could tell me that, you know, something I'm like, I know that I know that I know that
I want to know that I experienced that to the depths of my soul.
And that is my experience with the Lord.
And it has made me just fall in love with him even more.
I think that's the key that a lot of Christians miss.
They're safe in their salvation and they don't want to move out further because they're afraid
of what that looks like, what that means.
And ultimately, when you have an experience with Jesus, there is no going back.
And I think a lot of Christians that are that are on the sidelines have not experienced
Jesus in the way that those that have of whatever circumstance, because we sought the Lord and
he and he answered, right?
It wasn't just that he said, I'm choosing you and I'm choosing you and I'm choosing
you know, not you behind you, that guy, right?
That's not how God operates, right?
He chose us because he knew we were choosing him back.
He loved us first and give us every one of us this opportunity to come to the salvation
with his.
And he knows that there's the people that chose him back aren't comfortable with sitting
in just the salvation box.
There's so much more to life that he's given us the open air of freedom that Jesus provides
that we are adopted as sons and daughters that we are commissioned to represent God
Almighty.
Like, wow.
Wow.
And and then he says, Hey guys, you wouldn't you guys do this?
You're all going to die.
They're going to kill you.
You'll never be able to succeed.
But I'm going to let my Holy Spirit in you and you will never fail.
Yeah, it's too good to be true.
Well, and I think of if she didn't use her spiritual gifts going back to the ones that
might feel a little uncomfortable.
She I'm a complete stranger to this woman for her to have the courage to come up to me
and say, Hey, I don't know you, you know, but I have something to tell you that took
courage and I am forever grateful that she stood out and she she was bold in in those
gifts because that literally I've been able to thank her since then.
We actually spoke at a conference not too long ago and I just honored her in that that
had you not done that, I wouldn't be on the same trajectory that I'm sure God would have
met me at some point and showed me those things because he wanted me to have that revelation.
And that's one thing I always say, we don't need more information.
We need revelation because that's what really brings that transformation of our heart.
And so information is good, but if we get consumed with just the needing more of that,
God wants the revelation for us so that it sinks in from the head to the heart.
And then we live that out instead of just know it in our minds.
How did that woman's act of faith help strengthen you knowing what it looked like to be courageous
in the word?
Yeah, well, I think in that season, I was just so wrecked like, I want to get to know this
God, I want to know this Jesus, I want to know this Holy Spirit that spoke to her in
that moment.
And so I went on that journey.
But as I have reflected back on my own healing journey and where I am now versus where I
was, I'm like, God, if I can be a vessel for somebody else in that way, literally to change
the trajectory of somebody's life to go deeper with you, like use me.
And so I have been in those moments, whether it's on an airplane or in the store, you know,
I'm like, Lord, Lord, use me.
And if you have a word for somebody or whatever that if I can pray for somebody, you know,
sometimes I think we want to have those big like, aha, but it could just be a small thing.
Yeah, it's challenged me to, you know, we freely give, we freely receive.
So we want to freely give that to other people.
How shocked are you looking at the old you in the disbelief of someone coming up to you
to being that is your personality now that that is who God called you to be.
And not just that, but you stepped into that and you were willing to say, Hey, what can
I do for you?
What can I do for you through through me?
What can God do for you?
Yeah, I think about so my entrepreneurial journey has been a lot about sharing the Lord.
And I think that's originally what people were other believers were like, Oh, wait, she
is talking about Jesus and business like we can do that.
And so I feel like that's been kind of a common theme for about a decade for me, but then
insert this really, those spiritual gifts that I've had, I just didn't know I had, I
didn't know how to activate them.
I didn't know that I could activate them.
I didn't really know that there was the more right.
And then I think that's where it's been.
But if I could go back to like the 20 year old that knew Jesus, but was definitely a
prodigal and you know, I was like going to church on Sundays, but definitely not living
like a Christian on the weekends going, you know, maybe hung over on Sunday morning, but
I made it.
And I just think about if she would have had that boldness in her twenties, how many other
friends could she have led to the Lord?
And I think, man, like God has always pursued me.
He has been after me my whole life.
And I'm just so grateful for that.
And yeah, there's like, I wish I would have known.
And I think that's as a mom of three, you know, I want my kids to encounter the Lord,
not just no information about him.
Like, it's great to know scripture.
Obviously, that's part of the journey and write it on our hearts.
We don't forget it.
But I want my children to encounter the living God so that they can have those marking moments
way before I did and really have that empowerment to be the hands and feet of Jesus.
Our son had one of those moments where he got to know you want to tell her about that.
So when he was born, he exhibited different traits than normal people.
He acted as though he was autistic.
And I don't want to disclaim that they're not normal people.
I want to preface that even though I spoke.
And so he would do things that cross his fingers on cross on lineup, cars and things.
And then it kind of stopped.
And he was well adjusted normal.
So, okay, there's nothing.
And as he got older, he started exhibiting different mannerisms like he couldn't touch
metal.
Like he couldn't do certain things.
So he'd have to use a shirt to do it because he said he didn't like the smell.
It turns out that he was lying the whole time because he was hiding something else.
OCD.
And when he turned 10, it flared up so badly.
I'm a researcher.
So I started researching it right away and figuring out what was going on.
And they said it two times in someone's life.
They have bad flare ups.
So the CD in 10 was one of them.
And I was like, oh my goodness.
It was so bad.
He would wash his hands.
His hands would be red.
It looked like he washed them so much that it looked like he was wearing red gloves.
Oh yeah, they were literally chafing.
And he was in pain.
He couldn't eat certain things.
If he he would put things out by pressing it down with both hands.
And if it wasn't just right, he would do it again and again and again until he gets so
frustrated.
It looked like he was possessed by demons.
He would rile and just contort his body.
And it was just horrible.
And I'm going to admit this here, but if anyway, see me in person, I won't.
But I'd be in the basement sometimes doing laundry and I'd just cry about it.
And it just broke my heart that that's not who God gave me.
That he saved him from so much before that.
And it bothered me like that.
After a little while, you know, I prayed for him.
He had suffered and suffered and suffered.
And I felt hopeless.
And I don't know why prayer wasn't the first thought that came to my mind.
But when he did and I prayed for him and I was about halfway through it and she heard
she was doing dishes or cooking something and she came in from the kitchen.
That's how oblivious I was to what she was doing.
I was just in the moment and she was there at the end of the prayer.
And when I finished, he was healed in that moment, in that hour.
He had never gone back.
He's never had an issue.
And it was so real that I had PTSD for weeks because of it where I was expecting I would
do something and he would have an issue.
Or if he had an actual normal mental issue with something, emotional response to something
that is normal, but it looked like a trigger for the mouse.
I'm thinking here it is every single time.
It was a rough go.
But he got to experience the healing power of God like I did years before.
I was healed.
It was 17 years of chronic neck and shoulder pain.
And the last day I had it, I was in tears and I was just in so much pain that like I
had been put on muscle relaxers, painkillers for this pain.
And it was just so bad that I was like, I can't take this anymore.
And Josh and Nathan laid hands and it was 2015 and it was healed that day and it's never
been back.
So like when you experience it, it's just another level.
It is.
Yeah.
Now I want to go back to you had mentioned about activating your gifts.
Can you talk more about that?
Oh man.
Because some people might not have like, I see I have these gifts, but like how do I
like activate them?
Yeah.
I think awareness is always the first part, right?
Just understanding what they are.
I think also it's being around people who are practicing those.
It's, it's, I think a lot of the times it's like we observe and then it's, oh, like, like
the person her name's Jerry who gave me a word of knowledge, right?
I'm like, you know, but for me it was, I want to be around people who are actually doing
those things.
I think that's why it's so important in the church that we have spiritual moms and dads.
We have these mothers and fathers who are nurturing us in that.
So I think it really, it's prayer.
It's asking the Lord, Lord help me, show me, teach me, right?
There's a ton of resources and we can read books, but again, the information isn't always,
information is good, right?
But it's not always the thing that puts us in that moment.
It's on it.
Right.
And I think like you were saying those scary moments where, you know, you just feel it in
your gut or your heart and you're like, oh, you're really asking me to do this.
And I think a lot of those times are just little like, okay, I want you to do so much
more, but can you do it here?
And can you give me your yes right now, even though it's uncomfortable, because that's
just that small trust and doing it.
So I think when it's praying about it, just asking the Lord, like, give me opportunities,
show me how it would lead me to the right tools, people, resources.
But often it's just that small step.
It's not anything crazy big, right?
It's those little things that maybe God says, go pray for that person.
You know, at a Starbucks or go ask them, you know, what they need, like whatever.
It could just be such a, for me, it's been small things that it's really me just saying
yes to God.
Yeah.
I think I have to share this.
So you shared a couple of testimonies about your, your, your son.
So my wife, three, and my youngest had, he hit his tooth on, I don't know what, but one
day I was like looking at his tooth and he was, he's just five.
So they're all baby teeth still.
And his tooth was like turning purple and I'm like, like you Googling, like researching,
like what is going on with his tooth?
Well, we had read that if it gets impact, like if there's so much impact on it, sometimes
the tooth will like die.
And I thought, oh my God, these are his baby teeth.
I don't want him to walk around like, and this, he was three at the time.
He's going to have no tooth.
I don't want a fake tooth and a three year old and all the things.
And so I prayed over him and a day later, his tooth was back to white.
No way.
And that, as we said, I mean, and I think, you know, there's those, you know, there's
those big things and you might think a tooth is little.
God cares about the tooth.
You know, I'm in my brain.
I'm processing as a mom, what are we going to have to do?
Take him to a, you know, a child, a pediatric dentist, he's going to have to have surgery,
like, oh my goodness.
And it's like, like you said, why didn't I think of prayer first?
And often we don't because logic wants to, we want to fix things where we want to be
safe.
We want to feel comfortable.
And when we're uncomfortable, even if it's somebody else's stuff that we're dealing
with, we just want to fix it.
And prayer is, and that's just a good reminder to me to like go to prayer.
We have in our house.
So we just moved into our home last summer and the address is, I won't give you the full
address, but the number is 403.
And the Lord often speaks to me just unique ways.
And I was like, what does that number mean?
Like I feel like there's significance in it.
So I looked it up and on, you know, when you go to a website and it says like 403, like
no access.
And the Holy Spirit spoke to me and said, this home, there's no access to the enemy.
And no weapons formed against your home or prospering.
And so the Lord gave me this phrase and maybe those of you listening just want to speak life
over your home.
But we have a sign I had at custom made and it says, this is the house of miracle signs
and wonders.
The presence of the Lord is evident here.
And I've been praying that like Lord, I really want this house to be a house of miracle
signs and wonders that the presence of your living God is here.
So again, that goes back to my kids experiencing that here and now that they get to do at the
episodes on podcast in the future and get to share about God and he is still in the
miracle working business.
Whether it's, you know, the skin, the hands, the brain, your tooth, like God, your heart,
God cares.
Well, he knows the best way to reach us.
And he knows what is so important in our hearts that maybe triviled someone else is a way
for him to connect with us at such a level that we never forget what he has done for
us.
And we're not good at being God, right?
I don't know if this is true.
We're publicly accurate, but I like to imagine that the fear that we feel before we pray
for something is the enemy projecting his fear upon us.
And whether it's true or not, to me, is irrelevant.
I will always imagine that I'm making him uncomfortable when I step out in faith and
do something that I feel fearful of.
And because it seems like the closer you get to doing it, the more fear you have, right?
So to me, my brain's like, this has got to be making him uncomfortable because he doesn't
want us to realize what we can do through Christ.
He doesn't want us to love Jesus more.
He doesn't want us to share that love of Jesus with someone else.
He wants to stop that and he's trying to project his fear on us.
And so I like this mom's like, you're not going to like this.
I'm going to do it.
Yeah, I love that concept.
Yeah, because our words are powerful, right?
And our prayers are powerful, even if they're not answered right away.
There's still power behind it because that's what Jesus paid the price for, that we have
power and authority and we can use our mouths.
And so we can use it against us or we can use it for us or against others or for others.
There was also something you talked about how we are in Genesis, God created man.
Like he said, let us create man in our image.
And it's three parts.
It's the God, Jesus, and Holy Spirit.
And then just like he's three parts, we're three parts.
Do you want to talk more about that?
Yeah, so we're made in his image, right?
So there's the body, right?
And then there's our soul and that's what the enemy's after.
That's what God is after.
I love the quote by Charles Spurgeon.
It says, I might butcher it a little bit, but essentially it's how precious a soul is that
both the enemy and God are after it because God, like that's what he wants is our soul.
And I think, you know, people have their own opinions about what the soul is, but I believe
it's your mind, it's your will, it's your emotions.
It's where you're operating from.
And then of course we have our spirit.
And as believers, when we get our new spirit, we are supposed to be spirit led, but because
we're humans and we operate from our soul really, which is our subconscious, our non-conscious,
it's our mind.
And then we make 80 to 90% of our decisions daily based off of what we believe there.
So we can have a wrestling of being spirit led or being led by our soul.
And that can be, that can be a challenge.
And I agree 100% that human beings are threefold as well.
100% that, you know, the Hebrews called this old and a fish or the throat because it's
what gave the body life.
And the body without it is just a hunk of flesh on the ground.
And the spirit is what gives it the spark of God to gives us that drive that hunger for
him because we are spirit filled beings were spirit created things.
And if you don't seek God, you're going to seek something else spiritual.
And if God says that he is the only God and I believe him, what else out there is spiritual
that you're going to?
That's a scary thought.
Because we're wired for that.
We're wired for that connection and that more.
And so, right, like you said, and that's what the enemy takes advantage of that.
Whereas if we're easily distracted or easily deceived and sometimes it can even, you know,
that might feel good, but it's not the true.
The true Holy Spirit.
Yeah.
I remember, and this is going to make some Oprah fans angry, but I remember a long time
ago that she was bragging about being a spiritual person, but she never named Jesus and her
spirituality in that specific section.
And I thought, that's not something I would brag about.
I'm a spiritual person.
I believe in spirits.
Like, yeah, I do, but I'm not a spiritual person.
I am a Godly person.
I'm a God fearing man.
And that doesn't mean I fear that God is going to destroy me at any moment, which he could.
It's just that I love him and I know that he loves me and I want to live a life for him.
I want to be a living sacrifice for him.
I was at Roman 12.
12 too.
And I'm not real.
I don't remember Bible versions.
We don't have to know the address.
We can still hang out.
Yeah.
No, no, no.
I got that.
Yeah.
I've always been bad at that.
I always quote Jesus.
Like, did he say it's written in Isaiah?
No, he did not.
That's right.
Yeah.
Well, demons, demons believed in Jesus too, right?
So they were like, who are it's, you know, they knew who he was.
And so, yeah, the spiritual realm is a whole other thing.
And I think because we are so right, we're living in the here now.
Sometimes we can forget how the now and here is a is a byproduct of what's happening in
the spiritual realm.
And that's where our prayers go, right?
That's why our words are so important.
I agree 100%.
And oftentimes we mismanage our spirit.
We mismanage our flesh.
And as a result, our soul suffers.
And you know, God is not focused like on the legalism aspect of the rules, right?
So we 613 laws basically just to show us that we can't live under the law when you needed
to save here.
But the 10 commandments aren't the same as a moral laws, basic human law, right?
That's what you guys need to do to be just humans, how I created you to be.
And it's not because he doesn't want us to have fun.
It's not that he doesn't want us to do things.
It's not that he doesn't want us to experience life to its fullest.
It's that he doesn't want us hurt.
And when I...
I think of him like baby gates, right?
Like when you have a baby starting to crawl or starting to walk or cruise, right?
Where do you put them in the little playpen?
Why?
So that they don't get hurt.
Not to not have fun.
But because you as a parent know what are the boundaries that are going to set them
up for success.
And when you want what your neighbor has, how are you living your fullest life?
When you disobey your parents, how are you living your fullest life?
When you're committing adultery, how are you living your fullest life?
And so God knows us better than...
Most people, they don't look at the 10 commandments the way that God intended them.
And they look at it as a series of rules of what not to do.
I mean, it's okay if that's your rudimentary understanding of it.
But there's so much more that God has intended through the 10 commandments for us.
There's so much more...
Yeah, to do.
You know, remember the Sabbath and keep it holy, right?
Put no other God before me.
I think it's that have to mentality like, oh, I have to or I can't.
I need to.
I should.
Well, no, it's we get to.
We get to follow those boundaries because I'm choosing to do those things.
I want to honor the Lord in those because I think he's a good father and I trust that
he knows better than I do, right?
And so I think it's that pressure filled that feeling held back like, oh, I have to.
These are rules, right?
As opposed to the bat.
These are just loving boundaries that the Lord gives us.
Happy little guidelines.
I like to ask people if you could get rid of any of the 10 commandments, which one do
you get rid of?
That's a good question.
And oftentimes, most people don't even know the 10 commandments.
You know, like four or five of them.
They only go to the El Shalom at murders and such and like, which would you...
Is it okay to murder?
No.
Is it okay to covet your neighbor's luck?
No.
So, which one would you get rid of?
None of them?
So, you guys hate this God that you don't know because he's telling you what you have
to do and you're doing it anyway.
I don't understand why you feel like this is something he's forcing on you when you
already know morally because he created the moral law.
He's the moral law giver.
You know, if it was up to me, I'm only going to do what's good for me and my family.
And anything that you do for your family is good.
But if what you do for your family conflicts with my family, then you're evil to me and
I'm evil to you.
So that's why it's no good for a human being to be in charge of moral law because we only
look out for ourselves.
And so we needed a moral law giver and that's where God comes in for us and that's where
the 10 commandments like this is your moral law.
This is your compass to be good to each other so you don't hurt and you don't hurt each
other and to have a relationship with him, you know, within the first four.
I see your head, your gears are turning over there.
I often bring like, oh, that reminds me of and just in the back of my mind, I'm like,
just heaven is our home.
Earth is our assignment.
You know, like just what are you here to do that was going through my mind in this episode
for some reason.
Yeah.
And I mean, and it's really him bringing us bringing having to earth right now and the
new Jerusalem, right?
It's just about a restoration process.
And I, the closer we can get to our original design where God, you know, did it, that's
what God created us for originally.
That's how we'll fulfill our calling better and better if we can get into alignment with
that truth and see ourselves as the original plan that God had for us.
And that's hard for us to do sometimes when we are under lamentations.
Like when you came to the church, that woman poured into you, what God had poured into
her and you were saying earlier about, you know, why is this happening?
What did I do wrong?
And I don't think those are poor questions to ask.
I believe that you should ask God these questions.
I believe that you can be mad at God.
I believe that you can be sad and upset with him.
So when you were done lamenting, you remember who he is and who's you are and that you change
your why is this happening to?
What do you want me to do through this?
I'll tell you how can I serve you in this capacity now that you've removed this other
one?
What avenue do you want me to go down?
When I pursue what you need me to pursue in light of what has happened.
And it's really about him and it's okay to cry.
It's okay to be upset.
It's okay to lament.
It's okay to say why me, right?
Because we are still human and we are still very selfish when it comes to certain things.
As long as we remember that he's got something better for us that he didn't make us, he didn't
create us to go so far and then say, bye.
See you later.
Good luck.
Thank you for that little shoulder tap.
It's not who he is.
He didn't get you this far, only to have brought you this far.
And it's hard for us to remember when we're stuck in the sadness, stuck in the situation,
stuck in the anger, stuck in the unforgiveness.
But when we allow that to come through, we allow that healing in and we are able to move
forward with a greater understanding of his purpose for us.
And that is a very key component for us to do.
And a set of us wallowing forever, never, never.
Or stuffing it, right?
Because I think that's what a lot of the times there's shame around feelings because, well,
if we know that God is good and he's going to turn all things to good, we can think,
well, we just try to muster up that like a fake faith almost or this fake.
Yeah, that's one of the things I really help a lot of my clients do is I, to create a safe
place for them to be honest because I work with leaders and leaders have to be leaders,
right?
And I don't have the people who they're serving, right?
They have this certain level of what they know.
And that's one of the things I always tell them that your feelings are like a check engine
light.
They're just trying to tell you, pop open the hood, like take a look and like look under
there, get curious around what's going on.
Why do you feel that way?
And then again, that's to be honest.
But I talk a lot about that depending on your earthly relationship with your father will
always really highly impact your heavenly relationship.
And so perhaps maybe you grew up in a home where when you had emotionally, you know,
I think I'm my youngest, my young, my two youngest are very, very fiery and it's going
to serve them so well one day, but they are, they're, they're much more emotional than
my oldest.
And you know, it's like, if I can't handle my emotions and I can't handle theirs.
And so if you grew up in a home where your emotions were not welcomed and that was go
to your room or quit, quit crying, you know, I'll give you something to cry about.
Right?
Yeah.
How many of us grew up with that?
That, that can give us that, oh, my feelings are bad.
When I hear what you're saying, it's like, no, your feelings are actually good.
Jesus.
I mean, come on, we see him expressing his feelings regarding a 70s, like the, I mean,
all throughout scripture, but that's the one time I think he was so honest with God.
And he asked, do I have to like, if I don't have to, if this doesn't have to be my
cup, like take it away, but yeah.
And so it's okay to say like, I don't like this.
I don't like this situation.
I don't like this story.
I don't like this, what, what I've gone through and God's like, okay, I can do something
with that.
I can, I can still meet you in that.
And so that's the first part is being honest about our feelings.
I'm glad you brought that up.
You know, it's, it alludes to, does God hear me when I pray and did he answer me?
And he always answers us.
Sometimes it's not yet.
Sometimes it's absolutely sometimes in all good time.
Sometimes it's no.
He told Jesus without us reading it in scripture, no three times.
Right.
Can you pass this cup for me?
And he had to ask again, what does that mean God's answer was?
No, he told Jesus, no.
And what I love about that too, it just kind of hit me as we said it.
I'm like, and Jesus asked again.
And so how many times maybe you are praying for a miracle, maybe you are praying for something
and ask again, like it's okay to ask again.
And again, he might come back with the same answer, right?
But you can be persistent in asking the Lord, like he's not going to thank you around grateful
or how dare you ask me, you know, I always say, I love Christmas time when we get the
catalogs and the kids get to circle all the things.
And God used that as a story for me as I've done a lot of healing with my relationship
with with my heavenly father and just learning like really his true nature and character
to be loving and kind and nurturing.
And so it's like, I think he wants us to look at that book and have permission to say what
we want.
Does he give us everything?
No.
Right.
So when my kids, I give them a marker and I give them a target catalog and I say, well,
tell me what you want.
And they circle all these crazy things, some things they already have some things.
I'm like, that is for a baby.
You wouldn't like that.
You're a 15 year old, you're not even there yet.
So as a mom and my husband, we look at that and we're like, oh, right.
And so we don't necessarily just buy them all those things, but I love that my kids
feel free enough to say that's what they want.
And God was like, that's how I look at you.
You can ask me for anything that you want.
And I'm good enough to know like what's right for you.
And you know, I think about on Christmas morning, are my kids sad?
Like are they completely disappointed?
No.
They're so excited for what they got.
And I think so often we can forget we are God's children.
And he looks at us that same way that often we look at our kids and we can move into that
adult role and life happens and pressure and all these things and we forget, wait, we're
God's children too.
And no matter how old we get, you know, you have kids, we have kids, it doesn't matter
how they get.
When they come to you hurting, when they come to you sad, they're still your baby, right?
They like a grown man.
I'm 48 and if my son was 20 something and he's like, Dad, I need you.
Come here, baby boy, right?
It's immediate.
So why would we think God would look at us any differently if he created us with these
emotions?
If he created us with this yearning for our children, why would he be worse than us?
We already know he's better than us in every capacity.
He can love better than us.
He can do everything better than us.
We can even understand the level of love that he can provide.
That's how far beyond it.
And I know how much I love my kids.
Trying to imagine that he loves me more blows my mind.
Yeah.
And as a mom, especially after the past few years worrying, you know, I started to get
into this, oh God, why did you allow me to have three kids?
Like I don't want them to go through this.
I don't want them to go and God was like, wait a second, I love your babies more than
you do.
I'm like, no, you do?
He's like, yes, I do.
I love them.
They're my kids too, right?
And I have good, good plans for them.
And that just changed this, that shifted my heart and my mind and get out of worry and
fear and get into expectation that they were made for such a time as this.
We've had many of the same thoughts when my son was getting older and I looked back at
him and his older sister.
I'm thinking, what was I thinking having kids in a world like this?
And I had a fear and doubt and worry.
And then I came to God in prayer and he basically told me that he allowed them to be born in
a time such as this.
That he has nothing but goodness for them.
And if he wants them here, and who am I to say what they're going to do for him?
Who am I to get in the way of God's plans?
Right?
And they may suffer and they will suffer.
They're going to be human beings, like what they are human beings, but they're going to
be productive human beings in society.
They're going to stumble and they're going to fail and they're going to get hurt and
they're going to have dumb things happen and they're going to do dumb things and they're
going to grow.
And that's a hard concept as a parent to look at your baby child and looking like, oh, they're
just so sweet that one day they're going to do something stupid, like really stupid that's
going to cause them consequences, real consequences.
And they're going to learn who Jesus is through an experience that I can't provide.
Right?
So my son is healed with OCD, but does that mean that he understands the magnitude of
what happened to him?
So I don't know if he still needs more of an experience with Jesus to help tie it together.
I don't know how God's going to reach him, but I know that he will.
Yeah.
I was reading this book this year.
It's called Healed by Gail T. Taylor.
And these ladies had been, well, this lady went from planning her funeral to planning
her future and she had MS.
I think it was MS.
Oh, look at me.
I don't read.
Anyway, she had a disease that they said was incurable and she was cured of it.
And of course the doctors say, oh, she's in remission, but we know better.
And one of the many stories in her story was she was part of this prayer group and they
had been praying for this one woman who was in a wheelchair for over a year because of
like a stroke or something happened to the pastor's wife.
And they, God told her to pray one more time.
And so they all gathered around this woman's house and they prayed around her for an hour
and she got out of the wheelchair that day.
So they just, you know, they didn't give up because if they had given up, she would have
been stuck there, you know, for how much longer until...
So it's like interesting.
I think as you go on through life, sometimes we can forget how good God is.
And as you shared that story, I'm like, oh my gosh, well, I had an autoimmune disease.
I was diagnosed in 2017, was in the height of my career and I was so stressed out.
So from the outside appearance, everything looked wonderful traveling the world, speaking
on stages, you know, all the success.
And my insides were like so stressed that my body was reacting to that level of stress.
And so I was diagnosed with autoimmune disease, told I was never, it was incurable, same thing.
And that I would be on medication for the rest of my life.
And I did not accept that.
Absolutely not.
That is not God's plan for me.
And I'm not, you know, of course there's the, this could turn into cancer and I'm like,
oh my goodness, I have three children and all, you know, all your brain starts to go in all
those places.
And I just believed and belief is such a big key to being a believer, literally, no one
intended, but it's like, belief is important.
And I am healed of that 100% have not had any symptoms of that.
I have, I never took medication.
I pursued Jesus and some natural solutions.
And within about a year, I have had zero symptoms of it.
And I mean, you sharing the story of that one, like, oh my gosh, I'm a walking miracle
too.
I'm a walking miracle.
Jesus.
Look at me.
Jesus did heal me and man, I think, you know, as we journey along with the Lord, whether
it's the tooth or my body, like he is still in the miracle working business.
And my goodness, we can, we can sometimes even forget the goodness of God.
So thanks for reminding me about it.
Yeah.
It's like, we have that, there's also a book called the third heaven authority by Mike
Thompson.
He talks about the his, when he was taught about the third heaven, he was in this prayer,
they were praying over the city.
They were going to have like a conference or something for a few days.
And he had this out of body experience where he was taken up out of his body through the
building over the city, up over the world.
And then like he was next to the throne and in the throne room and he was looking down.
And he had passed by these colored dots and then more colored dots and they were representations
of demons.
And then demons over those demons.
And he was taught to pray with the third heaven authority that you have power to speak over
the situation, not speaking from inside it, but over it next to the throne in the throne
room.
And you just speak that because our words have the power of life and death.
And so he was, you know, speaking confusion into the ranks of the demons and chaos among
them.
So they're, you know, they're evil plans, wouldn't prosper.
And I have yet to finish the book, but it was so good.
I did a couple videos on social media reading it.
And it's just really powerful.
We had to remind her we are seated in heavenly places, right?
But how often do we not believe that or not feel that or not think that?
Because we're in here now.
I mean, we read about it in Daniel, right?
So when the angel comes to interpret the dreams for Daniel, he was delayed because he was
fighting with the prince of Persia.
Do you think an angel was fighting with an actual person or the entity that was in charge
of the region of Persia?
Right?
Like, why would an angel waste his time?
Like, you know, I'm a little bit tougher than you guys.
And yeah, if you've actually seen the real images of angels or what they think they like,
right, we kind of think like, I know growing up, I thought they were just like, you know,
the wings.
You see the ones when you look at the biblical scripture and you're like, holy moly holding
swords.
You know, when God sends Gabriel to Egypt, did he like have a hard time with that?
No.
When he sends angels, do they have a hard time?
No.
So why would he be delayed by one guy?
And then you mentioned earlier that you just believed so much that this wasn't what was
for you.
And it reminded me of the woman with the issue of blood.
And I'm thinking, you know, of all the times that people came to Jesus, they asked him
to heal him, they asked him to heal him, they asked him to heal him and he healed them.
They were made well.
But when she reached out in faith and touched his robe, she was made whole.
And it's not just healing, right?
It's whole.
And so when we ask God for these miracles and he provides, we get that miracle, we get
that healing, we get that experience.
But when we seek Jesus with our whole heart, with the belief that he can restore, we are
made whole.
And I think that's a huge difference.
And I'm not saying you're wrong.
If you haven't, I'm just saying that that's a key for you to seek the Lord because he
will make you whole.
Whatever the issue is, it doesn't have to be a physical abnormality.
It doesn't have to be a mental breakdown.
It could be anything because God is not limited by our imagination.
I just want to add in there.
That's really good.
Yeah, just just one touch, right?
If we were seeking him that much, just one touch to believe that that was enough.
That's powerful.
He's made in his image and he's the Creator, so we just need to tap into our imaginations
and get creative, praise and big prayers.
Yeah, yeah, nothing is too big.
Somebody probably laughed at us sometimes when we say something like, God, this is a
big one.
He's like, I'll bet.
Go help me hear it.
Is that all you got?
Oh, little guy.
He ever read the book of the prayer of J-Buzz?
Okay, so it's, it comes out of like the one verse that's stuck in chronicles that is like
more than all the boring stuff.
I forgive me, Lord, it's not all boring, it's all purpose.
But the prayer of J-Buzz, he says, bless me indeed, increase my territory, be with me
all every step of the way and keep the enemy far, far away from me.
So there's this book about it and what he shares is that when you go into heaven, it's
a story about if you were to go to heaven and God would show you everything that he
has for you, but because you didn't pray for it, you didn't get it.
So there was like warehouse of all these un, basically like unopened prayers, unopened
boxes and because we didn't ask, ask, seek, knock, right?
That's I mean, he tells us, ask, seek, not believe, have faith for what you haven't experienced
yet.
But that reminded me of that book.
So I'm like, how many things does God want to give us?
Like we think the big thing is the big thing.
And he's like, not really.
Like I have so much more for you.
That's something God has been speaking to me recently is that there's more where that
came from.
There's more where that came from because we can live in such a scarcity mindset or like,
again, our brains are wired to be.
We want to be safe.
We want to feel comfortable, safe.
We just need to stay in our little bubble.
And so the Lord has just been speaking that to me as, you know, I had my own issues, right?
And the Lord's like, there's more where that came from.
So I don't know who that can bless, but whatever God has already done for you, there's more
where that came from.
We can continue to seek and knock and believe and being content in the now, right?
Finding satisfaction and joy in that, in the now, while we're still believing for the more.
And I know that can be challenging.
It can be easier said than done, you know, to be satisfied.
For sure.
You know, that's, we're humans.
We want that immediate gratification and we don't get it.
We get sour.
How many non-Christians or former Christians are mad at God?
Not because of God doing anything, but because of poor representation by his children.
And you know, you're in comments on your videos like, well, you know, 25,000 kids are sick
and die and where's God in that?
I was like, God didn't cause those kids to get sick and dead.
We did.
Good point.
He's not.
He's not in that.
Kids got cancer at four.
Well, who's the one that decided to make everything the carcinogens?
Is that his fault or is that our fault?
Like, when are we going to take responsibility for our part in this?
Right?
We don't want to give him any credit for any of the good things in the world, but only
want to blame him when things aren't going right.
I think that is a paltry excuse to use that if you really feel that God is harming people
deliberately because he's unjust, because he's not good, because he's sadistic, whatever,
tell him.
Tell him yourself.
Right?
Because clearly you believe in him because you think he's doing this to them.
Tell him yourself.
I don't mind.
My job isn't to convert you.
My job is to make disciples of all nations.
I'm not going to condemn you on something I think you're doing wrong.
My job is to have you guys have them eating and talking about yourself.
You're born a certain kind of way, like in a certain kind of person.
I don't care.
Take it up with Jesus.
You think he made you that way?
Tell him, hey, Jesus, I don't think I'm broken.
I think you made me this way.
That's your conversation.
I step out.
If you want to learn more about the word, come call me.
You want to learn more about what Jesus meant at Sir.
Let's talk.
You want to pray together?
I'm in.
But if you want to blame God for everything that's wrong in the world, that's between
you and God.
Just like when I want to blame him for stupid stuff that he didn't do wrong, but I just
want to blame him because you've got to blame someone.
Yeah, logic.
I don't involve people.
Logic wants to make sense, right?
Because as humans, we want to know that that makes sense.
We seek logic so much that we forget that things are spiritual, right?
There are things that are spiritual.
If we're not seeking spiritual truth and wisdom in that, we can get stuck in this cycle of,
right?
Everyone's wired differently, right?
My oldest is very, he has an engineering brain.
He needs to understand how things work.
At a very young age, he would take cars apart and observe it.
I'm just fun.
I just want to have a good time.
I couldn't care less how it's put together.
I'm like, let's just do it.
It's been so fun to watch his personality, but he really feels the need to understand
how things, and I have the gift of faith.
That's one of my spiritual gifts.
So to me, I'm like, no, it's good.
But my son does need, but logic is good and it's beautiful and God gave it to us.
It's to help us remain safe.
But we can get so stuck in that, because we want to make it make sense.
And again, we forget that we're living the spiritual world, right?
So yeah, I love that.
I'm grateful that God puts a caveat.
Because I'm like your son.
I need to know how things are made, how things work, why things do things.
He caused me many problems when I was in the Navy, because this is this.
Why is this this?
Because it is.
Or they tell me, because, okay, well, why is that?
And then why is that?
And we go right down that rabbit trail.
And so I'm very grateful that God says that his ways are beyond our ways, that his understanding
is not our understanding.
And so when he calls us to trust him, when he calls us to live in a loving relationship
with him, we don't have to understand it.
We don't have to come to the table saying, God, I have all the answers.
I'm ready.
You know, you know, and you don't need the answers.
All you need is me.
And I think is a heart for me.
When you can surrender that, that's what makes the journey fun.
And it's like, so I love the verse, deep calls to deep.
And essentially, I feel like that's how the Lord has given me that for my life, that there's
that goes kind of back to what he's been telling me recently.
There's more where that came from.
Do you want to come out?
Do you want to come out of the boat a little bit more?
Like, there's more.
I'll take you deeper if you're willing to trust me.
And it takes trust.
And I think, I think trust is God's love language.
I think that's where he's like, I want you to trust me.
And when you show me that you do, I'll show you the more.
Sure, that makes a lot of sense.
You know, you think about the original sin, the fall of Adam and Eve and the pride that
they took thinking they could be like God really involved trust, right?
They said, God, I don't believe you.
I don't believe that you're the best for us.
This guy over here, you know, this thing, whatever it is, said that we could do this.
And so I think you lied.
So I saw the fruit is good, good for me, good for consumption, good for my husband.
Good for the garden, good for everything.
And that user cannot be trusted, which is a ludicrous concept, right?
And so ever since the very fall of man, God has only ever been trying to regain his character,
to defend his character and to let us know that he's never been anything other than honest,
true, full of integrity, full of character, and most of all, full of love.
Yeah.
And I think as you read the Bible, right, that's like the revelation.
You can kind of see the like aha moments of Moses and Abraham.
And then it comes to Jesus and we've got the New Testament and here it is.
It's like, aha, like he is God in flesh.
And I know sometimes I can get confused about Old Testament and like, oh man, that seems
horrible.
Like you did that.
And you know, like the things I don't really want to read to my kids yet.
Cause I'm like, you might need to be a little bit older to like have this.
But I'm always like, you know what Heather, just as I just simplify for myself, go back
to the New Testament and did Jesus do it?
Like was that, is that what Jesus reflected?
Because that's how we can, I mean, that's easy for me to settle on that.
I'm like, okay, what was Jesus's character and nature?
Cause he only did what the father told him to do and he only, he reflected that.
So anyone wrestling with his God really good?
I mean, we have those questions when we read the Bible, right?
Oh, that does not seem good.
He turned her into a pillar of salt, like what?
But we can always look for Jesus and what did he do?
And that's to me just a, okay, I can exhale.
Well, it's again, it goes to our level of understanding.
You know, you mentioned Lot's wife being turned into a pillar of salt.
How do we know how detrimental her longing to be where she was would have affected Lot
and his family in the future.
We don't know what was laid out ahead of them.
So it may seem like a cruel and unusual thing, but to God, he may have just saved generations
and so that his plan could succeed because she would have derailed it.
Lot would have listened to his wife as he should have.
So he just took her out of the equation because she had that longing to look back, the longing
to miss what she had left, which to me is crazy too.
Cause like, cause you were okay with that.
That's not okay, you know, whatever.
You know, it's not that it was, you know, the lifestyle or anything is that, you know,
literally when the angels showed up, they came to the door and wanted to take them and
accost them and do things with these people because they were new.
Like that's a level of barbarism that is not seen in most places.
Like, Hey, we know you got guests sent them out.
We want them on the table.
I get, no, he nuts.
And so it's not just about certain debauchery.
It's about the level of which they were comfortable with it.
And so, you know, the, oh, the bears that ate the children.
I hear that one all the time, you know, and God did this or, you know, he killed every
man, woman and child in Jericho, right?
And God is a hateful, vengeful God.
And it's like, well, first of all, God didn't kill any of those people.
He saw them and get more.
Sure.
And so, he killed Jericho.
That was his people who did under his orders, right?
So it's still basically him doing it, but we don't understand the level of why we don't
understand what was going on.
We don't understand that these people would never, ever, ever, ever, ever in a million
years, ever turn in worship God.
And the one person who did was the one person whose family was saved, right?
The one person who recognized him as the God of Israel was the one person that became Israel,
right?
And she became part of the family just by believing in him.
And God alludes to that later, right?
Jesus talks about, don't worry about genealogy.
He says, hey, you may think you're Abraham's seed, but you're not.
If you believe in me, you're Abraham's seed.
Even if you come from his lineage, it doesn't matter to me, right?
So if you're a Gentile, you're basically Israel, so long as you believe in Jesus.
And that's why when I hear things like, hey, we support Israel, I do.
I love Israel.
I support Israel.
But we are Israel as well.
Right.
Amen.
And that goes back to that belief, right?
Do we believe, right?
So yeah, is it a literal location or is it more figuratively we as the body of Christ,
right?
Who has accepted and proclaimed Jesus to be our Lord and Savior.
Yeah.
This has been great.
I'm so excited to have you with us today.
Well, thank you for having me.
It's been fun.
It's been a good conversation.
We went to all different places, which has been super fun.
I've heard a lot about you.
I've never met you until today.
I can't make them listen to a podcast of yours.
Well, it's better in person anyway.
So obviously, obviously.
And I am so stoked that we have come to the same realizations on so many things from
clearly different paths, from clearly different backgrounds, from clearly different demographics,
from clearly different gender aspects, right?
Like, I've never known who's loved to be loved by a father as a daughter.
And you've never known as loved as a son by far, right?
And yet you came to, I mean, almost marrying a lot of the way I've understood Jesus.
And I think that's phenomenal.
I love seeing that.
And like, every time you're saying something, oh, my gosh, and you said something, I'm looking
at him like, I see that all the time, right?
And it was so amazing.
Like I've always said, your relationship with your father is directly dependent on your
relationship with your earthly father.
So if you felt conditional love, you're going to think God is conditional love.
If you felt that you're not seeing or your emotions don't matter, you're not going to
go to God with your emotions.
You're not going to go to God like you've been seen.
Like, I've been saying that for years.
I was like, right here.
Yes.
I felt so excited that literally, I'm not going to put a percentage up because I don't
know, but it's high.
It's definitely the 90th percentile that we agreed on things that came to the same conclusion.
And it's, it's just...
That's the Holy Spirit.
Or maybe being united in spirit and truth.
And we are united in spirit and truth.
Because that's how good his, he is, that he wants the body of Christ connected.
And I think that personally is something that he has been working in my heart and to show
me the importance of for all of us to fulfill our assignments here, we have to function
together as the body.
God, Jesus is the head, right?
And we all function differently, but our spirits are what's the same, right?
You're, like you said, you're that engineering brain.
I am not.
But we can serve each other and so we can compliment each other.
And so when we can be united in spirit and truth, man, just think about how much more
the church can do.
It goes along with our church's mission is one body.
And I don't have it memorized, but it's, it's good.
So you did not come prepared.
We'll touch you.
Stay tuned.
One body.
But it is if we really are.
And I think, you know, whether it's the denomination or the eschatology belief or, I mean, we can,
we can argue on a lot of different things or not agree.
But if we could just agree that we are one body and yes, I think that is, that is my
heart to help the body heal, the body of Christ heal.
That's I'm specifically called to serve believers because how can we be the hands and feet of
Jesus if we're the ones hurting?
And I do think that there's just a lot of work to be done in believers hearts and minds
to get back into alignment with who is God.
He is good.
He's loving because you can't give what you haven't received.
And if you haven't received the love of God, you can't give it.
And that's it.
That may we receive that love and encounter it and experience it so that we can then give
that to other people.
It's been great conversation.
I love it.
And if this episode has been a blessing to you, we ask that you pass it along.
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And with that, we'll talk to you next time.