Well, welcome back to Rise of 365, a podcast committed to inspiring and supporting others
who embrace the opportunity to rise with each new day.
Rising daily can be a challenge for many and it has been including for myself.
And I hope that what you hear in these episodes will assist you in rising every day of the
year.
I'm Mike Penney and I'm so thankful that you have pressed play.
Here we are in episode 34, this is the final episode of 2024.
It's called Gift of Remembering the Year That Was.
You know, it's the season to remember we're in the thick of holiday season with last month
being Thanksgiving, where we take time to reflect on the years past and see where we
are currently and to well up inside of us the thankfulness of what we've gone through.
If you have breath in your lungs right now and your heart is beating, you have something
to be thankful for.
I want to do that.
As schools, I know here in central Nebraska, if you're new to this podcast, my family and
our full time missionaries with a ministry called Child Evangelism Fellowship.
And what we do is through the school year, we offer and organize these after school Bible
clubs called Good News Clubs.
They meet once a week for about an hour in the school and it just gives students to have
a safe and positive environment to come to, to learn about Jesus one day a week.
It gives parents an extra hour of work.
And in this season, this week, a lot of our schools are ending their school season.
They're going to go on break for Christmas and New Year's break.
And that means we're going to go on break.
So as you get these breaks, I know as being as adults, we don't get these breaks.
If you're not a teacher and you're not a student, you don't get a Christmas break.
You may get Christmas day, you may get New Year's day.
So you get two days when everyone else is getting, you know, two weeks, 20 days, some
places 30 days, but whatever amount of time you get, so that you take a vacation, go to
a quiet place, go for a walk, just some place to be peaceful, to think about this past year.
You know, I've been talking, I do a lot of teaching at youth groups and Bible studies
and at churches on Sundays, sharing God's message and sharing the struggles that God
has brought me through and how for so long I found it very difficult to do what this
podcast is set out to do and that's inspire others to embrace and rise to the new day.
So as I was sharing my testimonies throughout the year, someone said, you know, you should
record these.
I said, why not?
We're in a wonderful time of technology.
And I started this podcast last January and I never knew where it would go.
If anyone would even listen and I'm using a platform where it tracks who presses play
and who listens and to see it be listened to across the globe and even little cool markers
that hang in the middle of oceans because people are listening to it because maybe they
serve on a tanker ship or they're on a cruise ship or something.
I don't know.
People are listening and I hope what they're hearing this past year has helped them even
in the smallest ways.
Even it is from episode two of like, get your day in order.
You know, it all starts to rise the new day.
It all starts the night before.
What are you doing the night before to make the morning successful?
Or if it's remembering that even though you feel broken, broken frowns, still color or
that it's okay.
I do live theater and I'm currently in the production.
We open tomorrow, our first show tomorrow of it's a wonderful life.
Like it's okay to take the stage of this life.
You don't have to be the main character.
You can be the supporting cast.
You can be the crew.
One of my most favorite episodes of what about God?
Where is God in your life?
You know, I wanted to almost steer away from my faith and I was convicted.
There's so many podcasts and postcasts, leaders and posts out there where they claim to be
Christians but you never hear one iota of their faith.
God specifically says, if you deny me in front of people, I would deny you from my father
was like, that's a good enough warning for me.
So the podcast kind of took a got back on the right path.
And I know deep down inside the reason that I am able to rise 365 days a year.
It's not always with joy.
I'm not saying and I'm not this kind of person where I'm overly joyful in the morning.
I'm kind of like a diesel engine, especially here.
I live in Nebraska and in cold winter times, you got to let those diesels warm up.
You know, they take a little bit of time to get going.
And that's me.
I wish I was one of those bubbly Christians.
My wife's kind of like that.
She can wake up and she's on top of the world.
You're like, did you swallow a rainbow and butterflies this morning?
That's not me, but it's okay.
We're not all the same.
When you're reflecting on this past year, look for the deep dark times and see if you
can see where you came back to the surface or when the light shined into those places.
Maybe you had an amazing year and there was no uphills for you.
Everything for you was just mountain tops.
If so, sing praise to God for those.
Maybe you spent some time in the valley and you're in the valley right now.
Holiday seasons isn't the best for me.
I spent 10 years in the military and it seemed like one, I was always deployed when I got
married 20 years ago.
My wife and I got married October 30th and November 7th, I left for basic training in
the Coast Guard.
So I spent the holidays away from family.
Then my dad was in the military, so he was always gone over the holidays.
Then my time in the military, I was gone in the holidays.
Not only was I gone in the holidays, it seemed that all the conflicts I went to, deployments,
and all the conflicts and we exchanged fire or there was combat, it was during the holidays.
Then I leave the service and I go in my civilian life and become a police officer and a first
responder.
I'm one of those guys who's like, I'll work over the holidays.
So I worked.
So it doesn't have this peace on earth, goodwill to men, and this overly joyful time for me.
So I kind of struggled during this time of year.
But that's okay.
God has shined his light into those places.
Now I see this holiday with my kids through their eyes, the joy and the beauty of the
lights.
So often we want to live in our neighborhoods and not be noticed, but this time of year,
we put beautiful lights on our house.
Now people can notice our homes even in the darkness.
But remember each day was a gift and is a gift and that's why it is good to journal
them.
I encouraged the episode of the power of writing.
I've been writing for a number of years.
I started when I was a kid because I didn't know how to express myself.
I went through Jordan B. Peterson's Horses of Self-Authoring, where you look back in
your past and you write about those stuff, that stuff in the most deepest details that
you can.
And then you write about your current situation.
And then you write about where you want to be in the future and what it would take to
get there and the tangible steps that you can take starting now in the present to get
to where you want in the future.
You write about those things.
So you have it on paper.
So when you wake up in the morning, like, okay, how do I get to where I want to in the
future?
And you can start taking those steps.
That's why journaling is so important.
You can do it on your phone.
You can do it old school like I do with journals, where you write them out.
That way as days go by, years go by, you can open them and reflect.
And then thankfulness just wells up in your heart.
That's what kind of this podcast is as well.
The Rising 65 is a vocal journal for myself.
I can go back to an episode and be like, what did I tell others?
Am I doing those things?
I need to be reminded of something and I can go back this past year and press play and
be like, okay.
Now remember, use what was not a stay or to start over, but to propel you continue forward
in 2025.
I'm not a big fan of New Year's resolutions where you're going to set a goal January 1st,
no more of this and no more of that.
We all know the statistics that within the first three days, 90% of people stopped their
New Year's resolution.
In three days, they've stopped their goal because they fell into the temptation and
old habits.
If I don't set those, I just try to live life.
You get one day at a time and to say on this day, I'm going to make all 365 days great.
I don't do it that way.
My encouragement to you is not to do it that way at all.
Just take one day that you're given.
The Bible tells us we are not guaranteed tomorrow.
Today has enough in it that needs our full focus and our full hearts and our full strength
and needs him fully present in our lives helping us make the right steps and make the right
choices.
Don't rush into 2025.
Take it one day at a time.
If you're listening to this right now, I want to say thank you so much.
There's thousands and thousands of podcasts out there by doctors and professionals and
people with letters behind their name.
I'm not one of those, but for you to press play and spend just a little bit of time in
your day with me, I hope you've been encouraged.
And this episode ends for 2024 I want you to take a deep breath and close your eyes.
Put a smile on your face because there's something about when your eyes are closed and you've
taken that deep breath and you let it out, put a smile on your face.
It happens.
Your heart begins to smile and your chemicals in your brain start firing differently and
you get this joy that overflows in your over your body.
When you open your eyes and you take your next breath, next step you take, take, you
can take it filled with joy and confidence.
Thank God today that you are alive.
Thank God today you have another opportunity to make the choices you need to make to take
the steps you need to make to improve your life, to improve your family's life, your
community's life.
You've got chances and opportunities here.
So again, from me to you, thank you so much.
I'm looking forward to season two in 2025.
This past year has been little nuggets of what I see has helped me and I hope can help
you.
But ultimately what has really helped me is being in God's word.
So we're going to walk through the Bible and use that to inspire us to rise 365.
We're going to start at the beginning in Genesis and I'm going to have guests who also use
God's word to motivate them and encourage them to rise 365 days a year.
And then there still will be sprinklings of things that touch my heart and my mind that
says this is helping me and I want it to help others.
So 2025, I'm looking forward to it and I hope you are too.
So thank you for tuning in.
I hope each episode brings you inspiration to embrace every new day.
To support this podcast, consider booking me as a speaker for your next conference,
school assembly, youth events, Bible study, or any special occasion where I can share
the message of rising 365.
To arrange this, it's simple.
Just send me a message or an email at rising 24 7 365 at gmail.com.
Additionally, you can support by liking, sharing, and rating the podcast on your preferred listening
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Join the rising 365 race Facebook community.
There's also going to be a rising 365 TikTok community.
Until we meet again, Merry Christmas, Happy New Year.
I'm Mike Pena reminding you to rise and seize the gift of a new day.
You are destined for this moment.