Welcome to the God's Goodness podcast where our mission is to encourage and highlight God's
Goodness and modern-day miracles. We are your hosts, Josh and Shelley Hankins. Today we have
with us a special guest. I'm super excited. Her name is Mary Gordon and she and I met ultimately
through social media but God had like these details woven together and it was so cool. And
like back in January I did a 31-day wisdom challenge with kingdom seekers and I loved it so much that
I signed up and Mary is one of the people that's on their zoom call sometimes so you may know her
if you're in kingdom seekers. And what's really neat is we became Facebook friends and I didn't
realize until after God told me to invite her on the podcast that she knows some of the same people
I know and you've actually heard them on the podcast before and that was so cool and she's local so
she's here with us today and she knows Pastor Rick Cardell, Wendy Lawson, God's Madcap missionary and
she knows Delisae and Justin Buckles, the evangelists that were here in season two at the beginning.
So it's just so cool the connections that God is making that like just you know all these people I
know and it's just so fun to find out it's like one big adventure which reminds me of the book
that Mary wrote and I'm going to have her tell you about it too but first let me have her open
us with an opening prayer. So Heavenly Father we just thank you for today. Father we just thank you
for everyone that is listening to this podcast. Thank you God for their love for you first of all
and I thank you God how you love them and you will show it to them in greater and more dynamic
ways. I just thank you for this in Jesus name amen. Amen. Thank you Mary. So I'm so excited because
life is like an adventure when you follow in the obedience to God's you know promptings
and the book that you wrote it's got a lot of great reviews from the Kingdom Seekers people
and they're on Amazon too the reviews listed so where would you like to start? Well first of all
I just want to thank you Shelley and Josh for having me here. I'm really thankful for this
opportunity to speak and just to share my heart it's really an honor and I'm just very appreciative
of it and I'm also thankful for the listeners. Anyone that won't care enough about God and
His goodness to be attention you guys are great. Thank you. So I am just so thankful to be here
and my journey starts well a number of years ago but when I met the Lord Jesus Christ I had grown
up in a church and I thought that I had it together I mean we were taught that Jesus was raised from
the dead but it wasn't until 1975 when I took a class on the Bible that it dawned on me and it
wasn't even the beginning of the class but it dawned on me oh Jesus is not only raised from the dead
He's still alive. Would you believe it? I thought I knew I had all this background in the Bible
but I never knew that Jesus was still alive so that was a huge revelation for me and it was also
my born again experience. So it was just only like a week later that they led me into tongues and I
got so excited about that I got in my car and I drove off I turned the radio on as high as I could
and just sang in tongues to whatever was playing on the radio and just had a blast and my life has
been picking up and just on the rise ever since. I mean it is amazing. Now you know I'm not saying
I've never had any downs or dumps but I just see God. He's just so much fun and I see Him.
Well there's a couple things that I wanted to share today and I don't know how this is
going to go really but we're going to see but one of them is so simple to get into God's presence
and to hear His voice and to fellowship with Him. It's not hard and the other is that He's fun.
He loves fun and I love fun. I've loved and banter all my life and done a lot of things including
raising two lions in Ethiopia so that's not something to do every day. And you can see why
she's friends with Wendy. So anyway. Two peas in a pod. So but as I was going through my journey
I ended up marrying Ron Gordon which is how I got my last name. It used to be Wayman and that was a
trip because when I was teaching college I had all kinds of names including Mrs. Wait a minute but
anyway but now I'm Gordon and we've been married 38 years and in 2004 we went to a school up in
Canada of inter healing and deliverance but it was during this school that a guy was there. He was
a guest speaker and he was talking about his journaling and his writing and I started doing it
and I've never quit since then. It's been amazing because I discovered that and I've always liked
to write but I discovered how God will slide in and I just I've seen this and I've seen it over
and over and it's a it's actually a principle that when we glide into praise and we're worshiping
the Spirit of the Lord is right there with you and he will just slide in and he'll magnify it. I mean
how many of us have had these amazing counters just in a worship service where God just slid in
and when I'm sitting in the morning and reading the scriptures and then I start to write and just
start to whatever comes I mean I'll write praises I write prayers sometimes I feel like the Holy
Spirit's speaking directly to me now write that down I've had conversations and it's just fun it's
a blast and then you take that because you've got the reality of God's presence right there with you
so as I'm writing I'm experiencing God I'm literally experiencing his presence and he knows I love
rhyme I've always enjoyed rhyme and one day and I'm going to read this to you because it was just so
cool I was on my way to Lexington Kentucky but no I was actually in Lexington Kentucky we were on
our way to Nashville Tennessee for a ballroom dance weekend that's another thing Ron and I do we
love to ballroom dance. But I thought it was one of those times that I had in journal for a number
of days and I felt a little bit disconnected and I sat down and I said okay God I'm just gonna write
until I know you're there I just so and I took my journal and I literally had six pages of notes
I mean just writing praises and prayers and so forth and then all of a sudden it came in rhythm
and I heard I got this run after peace search it out run into my presence and sing and shout
right about then I realized oh that's rhythm that's a poem hey it's coming and then I've
started right I wrote another line and this is what is amazing and that doesn't necessarily the only
time it's ever happened this way but when I got to the end of the second line which you'll hear in
a minute the last word was passion and as soon as I wrote the word passion the word fashion came to
my mind and I'm like how is that gonna fit but it did so here's the poem and it's every single stanza
the fourth the line the last word of the fourth line popped in my mind as I wrote the last word
of the second line that is phenomena that is not another is promised but here is here's the poem
it's run after peace search it out run into my presence and sing and shout run into my love
and be covered with passion for I am forever with you your life to fashion I will build my spirit
within you it'll be grand so walk forth in boldness and simply hold my hand I am there beside you
I'll never let you go as you look into my face my love will fully show walk beside me always cling
to me my friend for I am with you constantly until the very end I will hold you tightly as you gaze
upon my face I will raise you up so you too can run the race enjoy my bountiful spirit enjoy the
abundance I give enjoy my very being and your life will teach others to live and you know every
time I read that poem or even think about it it's just a time to be elated because I was sitting in
we were actually guests in someone's home and I was sitting at their kitchen and I could look
out the east window and see the pine needles against the window and it's just a memory that I hold
dear because I love looking at pine trees anyway it's like a beautiful and when God gave me that
and then just kept giving me the fourth line when or the fourth you know the end of the fourth line
when I had only type written two lines it was amazing there was something about that that
welled up the Holy Spirit inside of me and got my tears in the eyes and that was that was pretty cool
it was an amazing thing when it happened and I see that all the time and God has just
given me so many rich times because I will write praises or prayers and then he'll slide in and
I'm not saying everybody should do it that way some people sit down at a piano or keyboard or
and sing but words are the one thing that will go through the barrier between God's dimension and
ours that's the one thing that will go through that the barrier there's a barrier between where God
there's a barrier in his dimension where there's no space and time and yet we live in a world where
there's space and time and so for us God is everywhere present and he's always there and he's
next to us all the time and we can reach up anytime and he's there but it's amazing that in a sest
he's in a dimension of no space and no time which is what makes that real for us and the barrier
is bridged by words and angels of words you read the Bible God gave us his revelation of who he is
through words all the whole Bible is words and then there's stories in those words so that we
can relate there's stories of amazing lives of people like Hezekiah for instance how he trusted
the Lord more than anyone and you know something's very interesting about Hezekiah his the record of
his story is in three places in the scriptures and there's only one person that has more books
attributed to him than Hezekiah and that is Jesus Christ he has four Matthew, Mark, Luke and John
but Hezekiah is in three different books and I say in the Kings and the Chronicles it's just
really fascinating and then you look at the Joseph and the life that he lived and then you
read about Moses and how he was so obedient and it even brings that up how he was maker than anyone
else so these are all just really cool things so the scriptures are a lot of fun but God he defines
himself and he describes himself with words so one way or another we use words to praise him to
worship him to move into his presence the poem that I just read to you is from a book that I wrote
called Inspired Moments of Truth it's a book of poetry that I wrote but I'll tell you the reason I
wrote it because as I was journaling in the mornings every now and then God would give me a poem
and I started you know as soon as I get a poem I'm like real excited so I pick up my phone I text
it to everybody I know and I got oh Mary that's so cute blah blah blah you know but the thing was
that after a while I had a quite a collection and so people were telling me Mary you got to put it
in a book you need to write a book and I'm always my answer was always okay I will when I get enough
well you know what when I put this book together I realized I had enough for two volumes and I just
got this one done but it was someone and Shelly mentioned this Kingdom Seekers but the guy that
started Kingdom Seekers Pedro deo by the way it's his birthday today so happy birthday Pedro but
when I first met him and threw a wisdom challenge which I think was two years ago I joined his group
and that's what got me motivated to really do something and so I wrote put together my book
Inspired Moments of Truth and then I started working on the second book Sky Hitching to Heaven
which will be a whole bunch of experiences about how God is showing up in my life and I have a lot
of them believe me and so what is what is sky hitching oh well that's you have to get the book
to check it out but I'll tell you this is I'll just I need a teaser give me a reason why I want
to yeah I'll tell you what yeah well it's actually the sky hitching is defined in chapter eight or
seven I think it is but anyway yeah I know you have what it was until I know everybody knows what
hitchhiking is you get on the road and your hope for cars will stop and pick you up well sky hitching
is kind of getting on the road and hoping that planes will pick you up but where do you go find
planes that are on the ground at airports and you're not going to go to a commercial airport
and sky hitch so you go to private airports so I literally sky hitched from mid Ohio to Spokane
Washington in a day and a half and that's a whole story and it's really a fun story did you
read that did you read so you have to read get my book sky hitching to heaven but anyway I was
working on this book sky hitching to heaven and I signed up for a book course so I thought oh that'll
be cool well the book course was designed to take somebody from scratch and I'd already written a
whole lot of my books sky hitching to heaven so I thought okay all right another book so I did and I
came up with a book called escaping loneliness in marriage and this is quite of a different book
this is actually quite serious and my house read the tagline oh yeah five crucial concepts to feel
loved in a volatile marriage yeah because that's another big thing I'm all about we're going to
do another podcast all about feeling loved but hey because that's a big especially for women but
anyway my husband and I started out on a real bad note and I mean very sour I didn't care if he got
in a car accident and never made it home he was hoping that I would leave both of us hated each
other to that extent but we had this commitment to God now you figure that out we have all this hatred
and yet we're supposedly loving God well God saw a happy ending and we and it was our commitment to
God that kept us together because we both wished when the other one would leave and but neither one
of us were willing to make that step because we didn't want to break that commitment that we made
before God so we stuck it out and in escaping loneliness in marriage you can read about that and
how we did work it out and there's tons of keys in that and one of the big things I discovered
and actually this happened at a conference where Pedro Deo was running it a hundred X conference
in Dallas a year ago in a fall I believe no I don't remember but I was in I think it was March but
anyway it was a conference in Dallas and I woke up one morning with hey you can't understand love
without the renewed mind and but the renewed mind is fantasy without understanding the spiritual realm
in other words I could tell myself I'm happy when I really don't feel happy that would be fantasy
but if I understand how to change the state I'm in by changing my thinking then that would be an
application of renewed mind and love is tied up with renewed mind and then the whole but the three
are intertwined together love renewed mind and the spirit realm so those are some future books because
this might be my love book but I'm sure I'll do more because there's just so many keys here that
are not just for marriage and then the book on the mind and our thoughts I'm in the middle of it
and that's one of my goals is to have that written before before Christmas so relatively soon yes
relatively soon nice I could tell you share a lot about how fun it is to get to know God and how
interesting it could be but I think I'm going to share one of my chapters from sky hitching to heaven
and I'm not going to read it I'm just going to tell you about it but did you read the chapter
about the grizzly bear uh meeting well anyway let me tell you about it because Ron and I were up in
a cabin in New Mexico and we were in the territory where Geronimo was if you know where that was the
last American Indian to hold the hold the land there so anyway we were hiking and we were very
close to the continental divide and people have sworn there's no grizzly bears in that area but
other people have sworn they've seen them well I can attest that there are grizzly bears in that area
but we went walking down away from the cabin there's nothing around except just pine trees and
ground you know and we came to a saddle so we went down into a valley then we went up another
hill which a mountain and we were right near the continental divide and where we ended up for lunch
was at a spot where we were on a rock and when I looked behind us it was straight down straight
drop I could look way down to birds flying above the trees literally I mean that's how straight
down it was it was almost scary but but we didn't stay right next to the edge but anyway but we were
on that rock but before Ron got up there I I always walked faster than he does so I was up on the rock
and I could see him climbing up and I so I could kind of give him some hint or it's like okay make
a right because I could see where the rocks were where it was steeper and where it wasn't so I could
say hey go right go there this way that way but I'm I gotta tell you a little something about Ron
to understand this story now we did a this I think it was a personality test but there was
something where he was tested and he's the type of guy that will not pick something up he'll walk
around it and believe it or not I have seen him squeeze between a dirty sock on the floor and the
dresser why didn't he step over the sock it's just something in his nature that he had to go around it
and he didn't think to pick it up now that's just a little something about him but the reason I'm
telling you that is because of what happened in New Mexico where we were so I'm giving him these
directions and I'm looking off downhill to the right and all of a sudden some movement caught my
left eye and I turned quickly just to see well let me wait let me I'm getting ahead of myself
when Ron got on a rock there was a dead tree apparently there had been some forest fires there
so there were a lot of dead trees but they weren't big they were like maybe four inches in diameter
and fairly long but instead of stepping over the this log which is only four inches in diameter
which makes perfect sense he picked the thing up threw it lifted it up above his head and threw it
over the back of his head so that it dropped behind him and came crashing down to the ground
even lower than where he was because he was climbing up on this rock and made this humongous noise
and you'll have to move it again when it gets off the mountain and right but right at that point
that's when movement caught my left eye and I turned around just in time to see the big red
brown rump of a grizzly he was headed straight towards Ron and that crash made you know the
bears move when they get loud sounds they'll take scare them away you can be firm with a bear and
they'll turn well obviously that was holy spirit because Ron does not pick up anything he steps over
it if he does can't go around it that thing crashed to the ground and that's how the holy spirit
kept us safe I mean it was amazing isn't that cool yeah that was definitely the holy spirit
so that's one of my stories in my books I love that both of you were oblivious to it both of you
who had no idea it was there you're just doing your thing guiding him up and he's doing this thing
trying to avoid obstacles exactly and then when he does get the that one obstacle he does something
completely out of character and throws the obstacle behind him scaring away a danger that you didn't
even know was there that's right but someone did that's right someone knew it was coming and someone
could have told that bear to stop but instead wanted you to have that moment wanted you to have that
thought wanted you to have that memory wanted you to know that he had saved you with what your
your husband had done right something out of character so out of character that's what it was so
amazing and at the point at the time I thought well that's hot yeah I didn't have much to long to
think about it because the crash and then the movement and wow yeah so we had a nice lunch
and the bear did not yeah well the bear nice lunch I mean exactly who's gonna
so anyway I that's my book sky hitching to heaven and I have 31 chapters but basically 30 experiences
of different things where God has shown up where he's either spoken to me and given me insight on
something told me something to keep me away from danger or to give us two times he actually told
us something to give us favor that was really cool and then I there's another book that I have
sitting here and it's called a deeper understanding of biblical concepts and that is by my husband
and he has taken a lot of things that people say like well God is in control well is he really
and different things that people say and then taking a deeper look in the scriptures so that's a
really nice book to get to so where should we go next would you like to learn more about sky
hitching I would I would I'm like I'm blown away by this thought that you don't just hitchhike by
some trucker or some nice people in in a Volkswagen van you know traveling across the country with a
banjo like did you do it before you were married or only exclusively after you were married like
we did you ever do this was before we were married this was actually nine years before we were married
okay and were you ever scared not really maybe when that propeller was turning real close to my face
but other than that the thing is I'm really had it on my heart to go see my grandpa and he lived
in Spokane Washington and I was in mid Ohio and I could have waited and gone in February this was
in the fall because the ministry that I was involved with at the time had an airplane that
was actually going to Seattle in February and I could have gone with them but I was just on my
heart to go before the end of October and there's a whole lot of situations that first of all the
department had said no vacations we took four November November first because they had all
this stuff going on and one thing and another but around the last week of October I heard God
literally screaming in my ear you're supposed to be in Spokane I mean it was just crazy and I was
young in the Bible young in the word I did not know the Lord that well I was I really didn't
know that much about revelation I just got this loud voice saying it was just a thought process
it wasn't even an audible voice that I heard but it was just like you're supposed to be
in the state of Washington and you're only in Ohio and I mean it was just a big deal so and the
department that wasn't even in town at that point she was on some some meetings anyway
I ended up getting permission to leave and I got arrived actually the ministry playing took me all
the way to Wichita to I mean to Emporia Kansas and then I knew I needed to get to Wichita in order
to get better traffic well wouldn't you know as soon as I land in Emporia there is a pilot
in from Wichita that just flew up to Emporia that day to see his girlfriend and was getting ready to
fly back to Wichita so he took me so then and then I got one ride after another and one of my
plane rides was over the rock he said full moon like yeah beautiful snow caps and full moon like
you can't even imagine that was glorious and then there was another stop I was in Salt Lake City
and I was talking to a guy at there and it was just about the time in 1977 where they were
starting to frown on sky hitching so it was a little you had to be a little bit careful and
kind of cool about it you know not be too blatant that this is what you're doing anyway I was talking
to this guy and and a plane came in that was going to Boise, Idaho but they had a rule they just
made a rule no sky hitchers so the plane left without me well then at four in the morning
the another plane came same company but this time it was the boss and he's like sure so he
took me up to Boise and then I got another ride to Spokane and that was interesting too because
I was in the airport at Boise and I saw a guy and I said where are you going he says he's
flying to Spokane I said can I ride along he said sure and then he had to go do some stuff
and then he didn't show up for a while and I'm like well I'm wasn't sure if he was just
kidding with me and he might have gone by then so I really wasn't sure and I'm sitting and I meet
another pilot that's going to go to Spokane but at this point a whole lot of clouds had moved in
and the storms were pending and the second guy was a little bit uncertain and he had not flown
with instruments much he didn't have a whole lot of experience with flying by instruments you know
who's when you can't see the ground you've got to rely on the instruments and so he was like he
was obviously a little bit nervous about it but he was going to take me and then that other guy the
first guy showed up and it's like he was looking for me he came and found me says you ready I said
yeah so we went I went with him and that was one of the best flights I ever did because he was very
experienced and he flew below the clouds in the mountains and you don't do that if you don't know
what you're doing and he's pointing out the different animals all this stuff and you know isn't
it interesting that here in 2024 I have all this detail about a flight I took in 1977 I would not
have this information if it weren't for the fact that I loved writing all my life and I wrote letters
detailed letters and then I made photocopies and kept them and called that my diary so that's how I
have all of this information documented and it's just really fun and I'll tell you one more thing
when I got to Spokane I spent some time with my grandfather and I shared with him I mean he was
not against the Bible he was raised in church and everything but I shared with him Romans chapter 10
verses 9 and 10 that if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus and shalt believe in
thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead thou shalt be saved for with the mouth confession
is made unto salvation and with the heart man believeth unto righteousness and I shared that
with him and he kind of got a little I don't know what what the word is but he was not real
pleased with me shoving this out of me so how did you get so religious blah blah blah but
the interesting thing was that there was something that switched and I honestly think that he may
have gone through the rest through his whole life without actually believing that Jesus in the
literal resurrection of Jesus said he literally was raised from the dead and that's part that's
required for salvation that you believe you confess Jesus as Lord and you believe that God
raised him from the dead and so right after that there were some other people that I knew
from our ministry that lived and spoke and it turns out they were right down the street so they
touched base with him so why didn't I wait and go in February with the plane that I could take
easily you have an idea I'm gonna go ahead and say that your grandfather had passed he passed in
January wow I would have missed him by a month you'd have been heartbroken and not only that I
may have gotten him born again one neighbor's there at the beginning of November yeah so
incredible yes it is incredible I love how how like pastor Rick the Holy Spirit prompts you to do
things and you're obedient and as a result you have an adventure I'm speaking of him too with his hitchhiking
well I'm gonna take that I'm receiving that because I need an adventure and what the God's
got me doing right now well baby it's all an adventure but he's telling me to substitute
teach in the schools here I am special person for that oh my goodness so I would say we take a
glutton for punishment to do that but you know I have thought that I have definitely thought that
if he's calling you to do it then you know that he's got great goodness from there's something
and you know and you know because of the relationship that you have with them and everybody's
relationship with the father is different right because he meets every children on their own
need level right so you said that you and him have fun you know that if you're obedient you're
going to have fun that right there you know you know it's like well I don't really want to do this
because this doesn't sound like fun and God's like I know who you are I wouldn't call you to do something
it isn't going to be fun for us and so I really love that that you are obedient to things that
some of us might even cringe over you know like I don't think like substitute teaching any age group
of kids so I'm probably won't be taking any sixth graders and the fifth graders are quite a trip but
the fourth graders are alright and high school's fine but somehow the high school does they don't
they haven't been posting so I don't know but I've been calling them over at the grade school and say
what's what's available this week and and I had a really fun time Thursday afternoon or no Thursday
morning because it was their Halloween day you know and so the teachers instead of each teacher
having their own class we doubled up in pairs there's six classes of fourth graders and so we
had three pairs of two and so I was with another teacher and we did the the math fun and somebody
else did something else probably like English language of arts and then someone else probably
did social studies but when they came to our room we had the same fun experience in each time it's
just the kids rotated and when they came to our room we played multiplication bingo so they had
their little sheets with their numbers on them and we would give them a multiplication like
what's nine times five and if they had 45 on their sheet they could mark it so that's what we did it
was fun and then we had three groups of that and then there was a period where they went to their
special classes and then they had their party and that was the end of the time for me so that was
easy but there's times where I have not figured out how to keep order in some of these classes
and it can get loud and other teachers will come in and say you know better miss us so and so we're
here you wouldn't be but anyway so we just keep going if I got told me I'm a seed
he told me it was a seed for this school and I would argue for that wholeheartedly that that is
a seed that is definitely necessary in our schools again oh my goodness absolutely without fail without
a doubt that is something it's sorely missing and god knows that yes he does he knows that when they
took him out of the schools that evil filled the place and now look what we have look you don't
you don't need research a whole lot in every single country that's taking god out of schools look what
you've got well we see that in so many different ways don't we and it's interesting that it goes
back to the 60s because prayer was taken out of school in 1962 and then there was a big event
in 1969 in new york have you read the return of the gods by jonathan con oh my have you seen that
book well he he just shows how bail came back in and how ishtar and all these different things came
in but there's and then there's events apparently that led up to some of our voter issues that started
in the 60s so it's interesting that in the 60s some stuff really went down and it has to be because
parents were barely getting relaxed and everything was going great and they didn't really teach their
kids about the lord and they didn't really teach them to read the scriptures and to build a relationship
and so i think a lot of families suffered you know our our fathers our grandfathers our great
grandfathers and mothers they suffered because they didn't know better they didn't understand it
because we had easier times they didn't get to lean on the lord for that understanding they didn't
get to lean on the lord in those hard times and as a result it created weak christians and so they
didn't know to go to prayer all the time they didn't know to teach your children to go to prayer all
the time and so when the enemy came he came while they were asleep yeah and he infiltrated their house
and now we are infiltrated with the enemy everywhere all around us and and now more than ever we need
to dawn the armor of god and fight this adversary on his terms right we have to fight him with prayer
with a fight him with with kindness to each other with love for each other that's right and there's
no other way to do it like if i go out punch somebody that is not winning any worse for god
right that is not the way he's doing it's not the war he's fighting it's not how he wants to
fight it and we're here to win souls and the only way to do that is to show the character of who christ
is you know it's really interesting in the spiritual realm god has built it into the universe
that love will end up winning out it's a bigger force and it it doesn't seem that way at times
but he sees the whole whole thing and it is the bigger power and it will win out
and one of the things that you were mentioning josh about people not knowing how to pray and so
forth it all comes to a how to think and that's what my book is that i'm writing now it's all
about thoughts because you know in romans 12 2 says be not conformed to this world but be transformed
by the renewing of your mind that you may prove what is the good and acceptable and perfect will
of god who does not want to prove god's perfect good and of will i mean who who wouldn't want that
that and the cave right there is on our thinking well i started realizing how much is in the
scriptures about thoughts i mean there's a ton look at roman's ace spiritual thinking leads to life
but carnal thinking leads to death and then there's a list in philippines chapter four there's a
list actually of things to think about you know what's over things are lovely what's over truth
what's over things are holy what's over things of good report so on just honest these are i mean
god even gives us a list so i was when i was growing up you know it's all the dos and don'ts
of the bible the egoism yeah don't drink don't smoke to all that and now i'm realizing that is
just almost irrelevant because what is really the bible so much about when it's about our life it's
about how we think there is so much in there about thoughts and how we think but let me digress about
one thing that you know there used to be a major cigarette brand named camel and so the joke was
you know the first biblical record of smoking what's the first record of smoking in the scriptures
it's when brachael lit off her camel so anyway shall i share some more about the how i spend time
with god well i just want to say something that i remembered like when we talk about being seeds
and planting seeds we also have to pray for good soil that they fall on good soil because you can
plant them all you want but if that ground isn't right that seed isn't going to grow so that's one
thing yeah that's awesome so it's a good soil you also need a water right you know god is what
causes the growth but if like paul and apollyon right they were they were having an issue at one
point where paul was planting seeds but apollyon was a masterful speaker on behalf of the word
and he was a great orator when it came to filling people with encouragement filling people with this
body of christ filling people with with the words of the end of here he's great at it and they were
like well who's greater paul or apollyon and paul's like like neither one of us i plant the seeds
and he waters it god god creates that growth in you that desire like don't count one more than the
other they're both equal in the eyes of god they're both necessary yeah and some people it's
illustrates like you're really good at one spot my wife is really good at another i'm really good
at a third spot because we're all necessary for god's plan to work we all need to be good at our
spots we don't i don't need to do what mary does mary doesn't need to do it shelly does because we
all have our roles to play mm-hmm doesn't that mean christ that we can just move in our own little
thing whatever god is giving us whatever we're good at just to move in that because god's got
this figured out we're one body and he's the whole thing works together to bring the deliverance and
to bring what he wants to accomplish so each one of us so i'm sitting in my bedroom getting a poem
and writing it down getting excited and then i'm texting it to people who knows why certain people
come to my mind to send it to i mean why not that be god saying this person is going to benefit from
that particular poem right now and you know things like that it's just the really sweet how god's
put us all together and formed it so that it does work out and we don't see that we can't possibly
see the whole picture but god does so each one of us as we move forward in what we're supposed to do
then he works it together and see infusion is 416 i think it is from whom the whole body
fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplyeth according to however it works
of will of god somehow but each one of us is one of those joints and we're each supplying and that's
an interesting too that it says it grows and increases but gets compacted when things get
compacted you feel like they're getting tighter and so the whole thing would be getting smaller
but that's not how it works you can look at it it's looking stronger yeah it's stronger and bigger
because each one of us is walking in our gift and then god compacts that but he also increases it so
we the body gets bigger and bigger and the force and the impact becomes larger yeah it's really
cool how god has these things set up yeah all the details every detail thank you for sharing that
if you haven't read any of mary's books i encourage you to do so we'll put some links in the about
section so you can find her there and you can connect with her in social media you'll find her
there and thank you so much for coming on and i'm glad we finally got to do this and god has been
connecting us in a bunch of other ways and other events too that we keep running into each other
for so it's pretty cool so i'm grateful for that yeah truly blessed to have you on i love hearing
anything that has to do with jesus i love hearing about miracles i love hearing about how things
work out i love hearing the coincidences that i don't believe in i know what they are and other
you know they're god orchestrated events i don't believe in coincidences and so i'll say that loosely
with quotation marks so i really appreciate your willingness to to be obedient to god even in things
that don't seem like something that you want to do that's a very christ-like behavior to do something
especially that you don't want to do at the prompting of god and i think that's wonderful thank you
thank you both shelly and josh thank you so much and listener thank you for listening to our episode
today and if this has been a blessing to you we ask that you share it with a friend or family member
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