Episode Transcript
Transcripts are displayed as originally observed. Some content, including advertisements may have changed.
Use Ctrl + F to search
0:00
Dawn and Steve welcome Susie Larson
0:02
to aid us on our next steps with Jesus
0:04
pilgrimage that we're all on as we explore
0:06
God's invitation to flourish, heal,
0:09
and know his peace in a way that changes
0:11
us forever.
0:12
Oh, Susie Larson, we're so thankful
0:14
to have you with us. Happy Valentine's Day, sis.
0:17
Good to have you.
0:18
Good to be back with you guys. Thanks for having me.
0:20
Yeah.
0:21
Okay, so we're looking via zoom and I
0:23
am like, okay, girl, where's your pink? Where's your red?
0:25
You're celebrating Valentine's Day blue today.
0:28
What's wrong with that?
0:29
Yeah. Thank you.
0:30
Yeah. Thank you. I didn't even think
0:32
about it. But again, I can't compete with you. You
0:34
got red and then you got a tiara on your mic.
0:37
So, I mean, you sparkle every
0:39
day, hands down. Yes. You got it.
0:41
Sparkling every day. Well, and really,
0:43
your latest work, waking up to the
0:45
goodness of God in a and
0:47
I to me says, let's
0:49
look to the Lord for our sparkle,
0:51
our strength. Uh, his goodness
0:54
is what makes a difference in our lives.
0:56
And you want to talk about
0:58
bracing for impact and
1:00
holy expectancy. That's that's
1:02
some pretty big words
1:04
on any given day. What is
1:06
it that you thought was important for
1:08
us to hear about bracing for
1:11
impact?
1:12
Well, you know, a little bit about my backstory. I don't
1:14
know that your listeners all do. But, you know, given
1:17
that I have a history, I contracted
1:19
Lyme disease 30 something years ago, and
1:21
it was a pretty big battle for me. I had
1:23
some childhood trauma prior to when I was a little
1:25
girl, jumped by teenage boys,
1:27
beaten mercilessly. And I had a few
1:29
things like that that, um, when
1:32
they happened, there was just the repeated
1:34
message that that enemy
1:36
can get to me anytime, anywhere, and God will
1:38
never stop me. And so even when I became a
1:40
Christian, that still felt
1:42
true. It was like it was a lie that was sitting
1:45
buried in my soul. And then, you know, I, I
1:47
battled pretty bad with the limes in the early
1:49
years as a mom for about seven years.
1:51
Then about 20 years I just managed
1:53
and I was a fitness person. I'm a
1:55
fighter. I wanted to live. And so I did everything
1:58
I could, you know, to get my life
2:00
back. But I would say three, four times a year,
2:02
sometimes five times a year, every few months,
2:04
it seemed my face would start to go numb.
2:07
My arms would start to go numb, the vision would
2:09
blur, the room would spin, and I'm like, oh, here
2:11
we go again. And I'd get knocked over and
2:13
couldn't get out of bed for a few days, and then felt
2:15
crummy for a few weeks. And that was sort of the cycle.
2:18
And then, um, as you know, eight, nine
2:20
years ago, I had a pretty massive health
2:22
relapse, and it was Lyme and then some.
2:24
And it turned out to be people with chronic Lyme
2:27
can't process mold. And I was
2:29
unknowingly, repeatedly exposed to back black
2:31
mold and it affected my brain. So
2:34
as a I'm a live talk show host, you
2:36
know, you have to have an economy of words.
2:38
You've got to be able to think on your feet as you both
2:40
well know. And at the same time. I was writing
2:42
a book and forgot how to spell key words.
2:44
I'd be on the air and was putting the wrong
2:46
words in my sentences, and my
2:49
tongue would go numb, my head would go numb, and
2:51
I'd have these surges of neurological
2:53
symptoms that were so terrifying that there
2:56
were times I would I didn't want to wake my husband up
2:58
because my heart's beating out of my chest,
3:00
irregularly numbing is shooting up my neck,
3:02
feeling like I'm on the verge of a stroke, and I'm
3:04
passing this floor back
3:06
and forth, quoting scripture all night long.
3:08
And finally, by morning, I'd say something
3:11
like, you have to kill me or heal me because
3:13
I can't keep doing this. And
3:15
even though I was still getting up in the morning
3:18
spending time with the Lord, I was serving him with all
3:20
my heart on the air. This is before Covid,
3:22
right? And I had a friend tell me
3:24
very lovingly and compassionately,
3:26
it seems like you're bracing for impact.
3:28
It seems like you are waiting
3:31
for the next shoe to drop. And I
3:33
and she was so compassionate. I really felt
3:35
like I encountered the compassion of Jesus. So
3:37
there was no defensiveness in me.
3:39
But it was like curious to me because,
3:42
excuse me, I am. I thought
3:44
that posture was a natural result
3:47
of an unpredictable disease,
3:49
but because I encountered such compassion
3:51
with no judgment and it flickered something
3:53
in me, I decided to bring it with the Lord and just
3:55
said, is there more here? And God showed
3:57
me that I was disappointed
4:00
in him. He showed me my heart, I
4:02
was hurt, I couldn't believe
4:04
that he'd allowed it to go to this
4:06
lengths again. At this age of my life and
4:09
stage of my life, I didn't know
4:11
that I wasn't harboring an offense. I mean, some
4:13
people who have no fear of God will flippantly
4:15
say, I'm mad at God, you know? And that's immaturity.
4:17
And, you know, eventually hope you grow out of that.
4:19
I wasn't like that, but I think
4:21
it was excuse me, I've got a little post-nasal
4:23
drip this morning. Uh,
4:26
I think it's kind of I would liken it to a
4:28
wife who loves her husband deeply, but
4:30
has been profoundly hurt by him. And it's just not
4:32
that's not been a wound that's been addressed
4:34
yet. That's sort of how it felt. And
4:37
when I start to dig in and go, Lord, show me
4:39
more. Um, I really
4:41
learned to move from bracing for impact
4:44
to anticipating his goodness. And we can
4:46
talk a little bit about how I did that. I
4:48
didn't set out to write a book. I was trying to really
4:50
change my posture before God,
4:53
and something changed in me. And my
4:55
husband's like, your eyes look different. You.
4:57
You carry yourself different, and I
4:59
could. Feel physiologically, my body
5:01
starting to heal. Little did I know, the
5:03
world would be thrust into a season
5:06
where everybody's bracing for impact.
5:08
And so I do feel like the timeliness of this
5:10
book is from the Lord.
5:12
Well, the book is called Waking Up to the Goodness
5:14
of God. Susie is a best selling author.
5:16
She's a national speaker and host
5:19
of Susie Larson Live on many, many
5:21
radio stations across the country. And
5:23
when we come back in just a moment, Susie, I do want
5:25
to talk a little bit about how when that
5:27
light bulb went off for you and you
5:29
realized that you were disappointed
5:32
in God, and because I think a lot
5:34
of us have been there at some point in life,
5:36
and there's something in us that maybe feels like,
5:38
am I allowed to feel this way? I, I
5:40
don't want to feel this way. But yet
5:42
those feelings are so raw. Those
5:45
emotions are so real to us, and we know
5:47
that something should be different, but we don't know how to
5:49
get there. So we want to talk a little bit about
5:51
how we begin to make that change. Coming
5:53
up in just a few minutes, it's
5:55
Don and Steve in the morning on Moody Radio.
5:58
We're talking with Susie Larson this morning. Susie
6:00
is a best selling author, a speaker, radio
6:02
host. She's written Waking Up
6:04
to the Goodness of God. And we'll link you to that through
6:06
our Facebook page. But, Susie, you're just describing
6:09
a scenario where you realize
6:11
that you're disappointed with God,
6:14
and probably all of us can relate to that in
6:16
some way. Circumstances may be different, but
6:18
we come to this sometimes surprising
6:20
realization like, oh man,
6:22
I am disappointed. I God, I
6:24
am angry at him because
6:27
he has not been treating
6:29
me the way I think I deserve, or answering the prayer
6:31
that I've been praying so faithfully. And I've been trying
6:33
to live and serve him well.
6:36
And so as that realization happened
6:38
for you, how did you begin to think
6:40
and live differently?
6:42
Such a good question, Stephen. I want to just, you
6:44
know, say to when you're in that mode, like you
6:46
said, going out to the break. We don't
6:48
want to admit it. If if you're a serious follower
6:50
of Christ, you don't want that
6:52
to be true for you. But if you don't resolve
6:55
the hard parts of your story in light of God's love,
6:57
they're like open loops in your brain, and they're the
6:59
very places the enemy can get in to accuse
7:02
God of things that he's actually guilty
7:04
of. And we have to be able.
7:06
God already knows our hearts. He knows what's in
7:08
us. And so. And the thing is, when
7:10
you don't deal with that stuff, what you will naturally
7:13
do is default to temporary pleasures.
7:15
You will find some way to numb out, some
7:17
way to treat yourself because God's not treating you.
7:19
Just pay attention to your coping mechanisms.
7:21
And I address that in the book because
7:24
you think God's not doing a new thing. So I'm
7:26
going to do a new thing for myself. And
7:28
that is heartbreaking when you think of that.
7:30
Every good gift comes from him. So that's how I started
7:32
when I'm like, Lord, show me a way out of this,
7:35
because, you know, it's literally not
7:37
good for your cells or your soul
7:39
or your physiology to be living, bracing
7:41
for impact and you can't at once receive
7:43
from God and live with elbows
7:45
locked. You can't do it. And that's why the enemy
7:48
wants us constantly stuck in fight
7:50
flight. So the first thing that he
7:52
showed me to do is just to look around and notice
7:54
every good gift in my life
7:56
is from him. But not just like, count
7:58
my blessings, to amass my blessings,
8:01
but to see each blessing like
8:03
a gift with a gift. Tag to Susie from
8:05
God. A gift that's
8:07
tethered to a good God who's meticulous,
8:09
miraculous, and very specific in
8:11
knowing what would bless me. And
8:14
I started to realize everywhere I was looking,
8:16
I was seeing handiwork of his.
8:18
And it brings me back to Jeremiah
8:20
17. I'll go to verse seven before
8:23
to six, but it says, blessed are those
8:25
who trust in the Lord, who've made the Lord their
8:27
hope and their confidence. They are like trees
8:29
planted by streams of living water.
8:31
Their roots go down into the water. They
8:33
leave, stay green. They're not bothered by the heat
8:35
or by long months of drought. They're like, stay
8:37
green and they continue to bear fruit. My paraphrase.
8:40
But that's a point saying they're not impacted
8:42
by the elements because they're so tapped into
8:44
the life giving stream of God. But
8:46
the previous verse, verse six, it
8:49
says, cursed are those who trust in
8:51
man. And you can expand that to mean man
8:53
made solutions. You know, your own
8:55
flesh's ability somehow to hike
8:57
yourself up by the bootstraps
8:59
and political systems, anything where your eyes
9:01
are off of God and on a man made solution.
9:04
It's like you're a stunted shrub in the desert.
9:06
And the new King James Version reads the closest
9:09
to the original. And it says, when you
9:11
do that, you don't see goodness when it comes.
9:13
So this is the thing is, when you're bracing
9:15
for impact, when you're looking at your
9:17
symptoms or your struggles and you're counting
9:19
your days in the desert like the Israelites did,
9:22
you will not see goodness when it comes.
9:24
But God says, you see, I'm doing a
9:26
new thing. Do you perceive it, though? It springs
9:29
up? If you don't perceive it, it means
9:31
you likely could miss it if you're not looking
9:33
for it. So I just started to look around.
9:35
Somebody once said, if tomorrow you only
9:37
woke up with the blessings you thank God for today,
9:40
what would you have? So I started there
9:42
and I just thought, what would I miss tomorrow
9:45
if I that I'm taking for granted today?
9:47
And it showed me, Steve, how wrapped
9:49
up I was in my struggle. And
9:51
it was I had to repent, I really did. But
9:53
then I started to thank God, and I felt
9:55
my whole body relaxed because it gave me
9:58
clarity about who God is and who the
10:00
enemy is. And suddenly the distinction became
10:02
very clear. So that was my first step.
10:04
Oh, that perspective shift.
10:06
When you look at those gift tags
10:09
that say two Susie from God, you
10:11
realize counting your blessings is
10:13
more than just an old hymn. Is that
10:15
part of the strategy, Susie, that you
10:17
were talking about? When you are looking
10:19
at rejecting or accepting
10:21
the things in life, is was that part
10:24
of beginning to say, okay,
10:26
Lord, I'm seeing this more clearly
10:28
because you're showing me.
10:29
Yeah, I love that, Don. You know. Yes.
10:32
Because this is a 40 day journey and I'm asking
10:34
even take 60 if you need take your time. Better
10:36
to go slow than fast, because what
10:38
you'll realize is everybody has trauma.
10:41
Everybody needs healing. And that particular
10:43
chapter, strategic accept and reject
10:46
what I'm believing and praying for. As you go through
10:48
the book, new things will surface as
10:50
they will, and that one strategically
10:52
accept and reject shows you that you have
10:54
a choice about the stuff that you let into
10:56
your heart and mind and the stuff that you reject.
10:58
But when you're in that kind of self-obsessed
11:01
mode, you don't discern which
11:03
is the enemy or your voice or the world
11:05
or your flesh, right? But when you start
11:07
to tap into the goodness of God,
11:09
you more clearly discern the
11:11
schemes of the enemy because he's
11:14
constantly trying to plant lies in your
11:16
life. His native tongue is to steal, kill,
11:18
and destroy. He's a liar. And
11:20
as my friend Maria says, there's a pattern of
11:22
theft in everybody's life. And
11:24
all you got to do is go back to your childhood
11:26
to see how he's conditioned you to believe his
11:29
lies. And when you start to pay attention
11:31
to wait a minute, this thought
11:33
is bringing life and peace, well, then it's not
11:35
from God. I'm strategically
11:37
rejecting that, even if it doesn't feel
11:39
true that I'm the object of his affection that
11:41
I. I should be wearing a tiara like you, Don.
11:44
If that. Even if that doesn't feel true, I'm accepting
11:47
that I'm accepting acceptance because I'm believing
11:49
God is who he says he is. Uh.
11:51
Action steps. Action steps to
11:53
follow the Lord, allowing him to work in our
11:55
lives. This is the practical
11:57
truth of what it means to follow
12:00
the Lord. Susie Larson helping us do that
12:02
and helping us with the resource. Waking
12:04
up into the goodness
12:06
of God. I just so
12:08
appreciate how clear he makes things
12:11
when we start to truly partner with
12:13
him, work with him not
12:16
just against him, which our nature
12:18
is so prone to do.
12:19
And Susie Larson is joining us to talk
12:22
about when we really
12:24
wake up to the goodness of God, because some
12:26
of us have been going through life and even living
12:28
what we think is a faithful Christian life,
12:30
trying to serve God, love him well, but
12:33
we're living in that posture of just
12:35
waiting for the next shoe to
12:37
drop. Susie, you found yourself there
12:39
and you said things began to change. Number
12:41
one, as you recognized it. And number two, as you began
12:43
to look around and see
12:45
the good gifts that God has given
12:48
you, that began to kind of take your eyes
12:50
off of yourself, onto him.
12:52
What else helped you in
12:55
that process of being able to recognize
12:57
God's goodness and quit living in that posture of fear?
13:00
Yeah, I love that question. Uh, really
13:02
asking God to show me the story that I've been telling
13:04
myself. That's not true. You know, to
13:06
show me the lies I picked up in life let me
13:08
down. And that's extremely
13:10
important, because you don't realize the narratives
13:12
that you have around especially painful parts
13:14
of your story, but sometimes even the broader
13:17
part of your story, that's actually not
13:19
true. And in disagreement with God. It's
13:21
not in agreement with God. You know, a
13:23
friend once said to me years ago, she says, Jesus
13:25
is interceding daily for
13:27
you. The devil is accusing you daily.
13:30
You're the one who cast the deciding vote.
13:32
And so when I when I start to picture whose
13:34
line am I getting in and who whose agreement
13:36
am I standing in? And, uh, you
13:39
know, at the end of each chapter there's short readings, but
13:41
there's a faith declaration and then a brain retrain
13:43
statement. And the faith declarations
13:45
are really to help reframe your story.
13:48
Like for me, because of the
13:50
trauma, really, of how this health
13:52
battle has been, it has been traumatic for
13:54
I had to go to counseling after this last relapse
13:57
for a few sessions, just to sort through
13:59
how scary it was for me and
14:01
just what the toll it took on me. And
14:03
so one of mine that God gave me because I
14:05
just said, show me the story I'm telling myself.
14:08
Uh, this one was the cross has spoken.
14:10
The curse is broken. Jesus has set me free.
14:12
Now there are again a number of these at the end of
14:14
each chapter. And the point is for you to
14:16
find one that that resonates, that
14:19
speaks to your story, but your
14:21
your narrative might be this the kind
14:23
of thing runs in the family. Nothing ever works
14:25
for me. I'm so fat, you know
14:27
I'll never get ahead. I'm on the outside
14:29
of the circle. And you think these
14:31
things and say these things without
14:34
thinking about it. And I'm kind of a
14:36
brain science nerd. You know, the big joke is
14:38
I'm not a doctor, but I play one on radio.
14:40
Yeah, but, uh, you know, I've read a lot.
14:42
So basically it makes me an expert. But anyway,
14:45
again, I'm surrounded by doctor friends, though,
14:47
and I'm fascinated by brain science because
14:49
I needed to get my brain back. I mean, I
14:51
needed to get it back. I took an online course
14:53
for limbic rewiring of my brain. I
14:56
mean, I had some they did an MRI, I had some brain
14:58
damage from this wretched mold. And so I'm
15:00
like, I got stuff to do. But when I
15:02
really started to dig in, I started to learn about
15:04
these neural pathways. And when you're just
15:07
automatically even if you're privately thinking
15:09
thoughts that bring weakness, that
15:12
don't strengthen you, they're paving
15:14
paths in your brain that affect you
15:16
physiologically, physiologically. Let me just say this one
15:18
more thing. Let's say you say,
15:20
uh, just, uh, you're you're watching TV and you're you
15:22
hate the politician and you spew some
15:25
toxic junk to yourself in your
15:27
room that sets off a chemical reaction
15:29
in your body. It affects you physiologically
15:32
in the same way when you smile
15:34
and you forgive someone or you, they bud in line
15:36
and you choose to die to yourself and
15:38
live for Christ, that literally
15:40
affects you physiologically. So
15:43
that next step was Lord, show me the lies
15:45
I picked up when life let me down. Show me the
15:47
stories I'm telling myself that aren't true,
15:49
and show me the thoughts that are weakening me.
15:52
And it was a journey just one by one.
15:54
And he was so kind and with the skill of
15:56
a surgeon, he would say, this is the next
15:58
thing we're going to look at, okay, this is the next thing.
16:00
And it was a journey of just redemption
16:02
and healing.
16:04
It's so huge. I'm listening and I'm just
16:06
completely zoned
16:09
in on what you're saying. Suzy, because
16:11
of the truth, the brain science, the
16:13
Lord's allowed us to learn about
16:15
the retraining of the brain. And I'm often
16:17
very curious about we as believers
16:20
in how we will marinate in
16:22
the world and will allow so many
16:24
things to define our
16:26
day, define our thinking. And when we talk
16:28
about speaking truth over our lives
16:30
and as you're naming it, retrain
16:33
the brain. The effort
16:35
that we give seems to be pretty minimal.
16:37
And yet we're in a battle. It's a spiritual battle,
16:40
right?
16:40
We're so. Passive about
16:43
the crud that we put up with, with
16:45
the enemy, you know, and we just we just
16:47
sort of let him march into our house and
16:49
knock things over, and we think we have
16:51
no recourse, but we have all
16:53
authority given to us by Jesus. We've got the
16:55
weapons of our warfare, and we've got to get our
16:57
game on a little bit and get a little feisty about
16:59
this. And one of the things that I've been thinking
17:02
about lately is you keep hearing stories
17:04
of high profile Christians
17:06
falling, and it makes me think of
17:08
David. When most kings go out to war,
17:10
he stayed back. Now I write in the
17:12
book a recipe for vitality is deep
17:15
rest and purposeful faith. But that's
17:17
different than a life of ease when you're choosing
17:19
to be to to self-soothe. Like we
17:22
were saying at the beginning of the show, when you're not dealing
17:24
with your stuff and you get your buzz
17:26
or your hit from status, popularity
17:28
or whatever you're doing, you're literally
17:30
reinforcing captivity and weakening yourself.
17:33
And so what I've been finding myself lately,
17:35
you guys, is on my knees thanking
17:37
God for the battles. I've. I have found
17:39
a way to thank him in them. But lately I've been
17:41
thanking him for them because while I'm doing
17:43
hand to hand combat, I shudder to
17:45
think about where I would be if
17:47
I would have opted for an easier path. And that
17:49
hand to hand combat made me a better warrior.
17:51
So some somebody listening today needs to rise
17:54
up, get your game on, and say, not today,
17:56
Satan, and not tomorrow either.
17:58
Um, and I know that the Word of God
18:00
is the sword that you're wielding. Susie
18:02
Larson encouraging us with
18:04
waking up to the goodness of
18:06
God. And as you can imagine, there is a lot
18:09
to this resource connecting you through our
18:11
Facebook page and Steve in the morning. Also,
18:13
if you text (800)Â 555-7898,
18:17
we can send you the link for the
18:19
info as well. What
18:21
I love about the sister we're talking to
18:24
today, Susie Larson, is that Susie?
18:26
You have learned the lessons
18:28
that you share with us by
18:30
walking them. You're in the battle, you know.
18:32
It's a spiritual battle and you have said something
18:35
that totally has
18:37
me jazzed because I think
18:39
it's resonates so true. We have learned
18:42
as even Christ followers, a
18:44
helplessness and there
18:46
is vitality in Christ to be had.
18:48
Help us go from what we've maybe
18:51
learned unwittingly to
18:53
a life of vitality in following
18:55
and trusting Jesus.
18:57
Yeah, thank you for that. And it's probably
18:59
one of my favorite little chapters in this
19:01
book. It's called recipe for vitality.
19:03
And I look at the the Israelites and
19:05
the way Scripture described their
19:07
brutality and their their slavery was
19:09
brutality oppressive, relentless,
19:12
um, and the whole goal was to break them down.
19:14
So they cried out to God. Their cry
19:16
reached God's ears. He mobilized Moses,
19:19
who had his own identity issues, but he
19:21
was so submitted to God. Those things got solved
19:23
along the way because it says that
19:26
that he no longer feared. There got to be a point where
19:28
he no longer feared the king's anger. But
19:30
something didn't change in the Israelites. They
19:32
had to learned helplessness. Slavery was
19:34
baked in. And so when God emancipated
19:36
them. I want you to think about all that he did for them,
19:39
to set them up for success. I mean,
19:41
he loaded them down with the riches of Egypt.
19:43
How is that even possible when you think these
19:45
were their oppressors? But they wanted them gone so
19:47
bad that they're like, here, take all this stuff that
19:49
also says not a feeble one was among
19:51
them. My layman's thought
19:54
on that is that when the angel of death
19:56
was passing through the land, they were under the blood.
19:58
I think their bodies were healed. You know, I was
20:00
a fitness professional for over a decade,
20:02
and I'm just telling you, based on what they
20:04
endured, there's no way there were not
20:07
herniated discs, a plantar fasciitis
20:09
and parasites and blocked colons
20:11
and all kinds of physiological problems
20:13
from the physical and emotional trauma they went
20:15
through, not a feeble one among
20:17
them. That has to be a miracle.
20:19
And then they saw the Red sea part. They saw
20:21
they were front row seat to see all these miracles.
20:24
And so why did the first generation not
20:26
make it into the promised land? When
20:28
you jump to Hebrews and it says, the promise
20:30
did not benefit them, because when it came,
20:32
it wasn't met by faith. Now, I want you to
20:34
think about this for just a moment. God wove
20:37
into the narrative, I know you've been under backbreaking
20:39
slave labor, but Sabbath rest is going
20:41
to be a part of the new story. And
20:43
he wanted them to learn a deep, abiding
20:45
rest and then an engaged, purposeful
20:48
faith. And the Psalms. It says they refuse
20:50
to enter the Promised Land because they refused to
20:52
believe God's promise to love and care for them. What did
20:54
they do? They stayed in their smallness of
20:56
their tents, grumbled and complained, and
20:58
refused to obey the Lord. Scholars
21:01
say that though their fears were understandable
21:03
at first, they clung to them so tightly
21:05
that they became rebellious. Their fears made
21:08
them rebellious. That confronts me
21:10
because I battled fear on varying
21:12
levels my whole life. But I'm just determined
21:14
not to be a fearful person. And
21:16
you think about when you're doing in that helpless,
21:19
learned, helpless state. You're
21:21
staying in the smallness of your circumstances and
21:23
blaming God for it. So what I say
21:25
that the recipe for vitality is, is
21:28
learning that deep, abiding rest. And that's
21:30
not numbing out. It's not binge watching. I'm not
21:32
being a legalist. I'm just saying there's an abiding
21:34
rest that actually fills your soul again.
21:36
But it's not just rest. It's then re-engaging
21:39
your faith. Like, what are you believing God
21:41
for? Because I shudder to think of all the
21:43
things we've cried out to God for all
21:45
the ways he's answered. And when the answer came
21:47
to us, it didn't benefit us because
21:50
we didn't change our hearts at all. When
21:52
the answer came, it wasn't met by faith.
21:54
So I submit to you that
21:56
the recipe for vitality is when
21:58
you're exhausted, when you're blaming God, get
22:00
that deep rest and reconnect till you find
22:02
peace again, and then rise up. And to say,
22:05
I can't please you without faith. I want
22:07
to be activating my heart. So when these answers
22:09
come, I'm ready for it. I will see
22:11
goodness when it comes. Mm.
22:13
So good. Susie, in the last minute that we have
22:15
here, when we talk about abiding rest,
22:18
you're talking about something different than just
22:20
taking a week's vacation or two weeks and sitting
22:22
on the beach. Yeah, there's something deeper
22:24
than that. Because we can go away for a little bit, take
22:27
a vacation, come back, and within 24 hours,
22:29
we're on the same spot we were before vacation. So what
22:31
do you mean by abiding rest in
22:33
Christ?
22:34
Well, I will say, God will never grind your gears
22:36
to the point of exhaustion. So in his rhythm
22:38
for you, there are always exit ramps. Besides
22:41
still waters. And that's so different than
22:43
what David did when he opted not to go to war.
22:45
Because there will be times you want to rest. And he's like, no,
22:47
you got to engage. But this abiding
22:50
rest is being so on the heels
22:52
of the Savior. So in step with him,
22:54
when he leads you to get that nourishing rest,
22:56
you take it and you steward that
22:58
time so your soul gets filled back up again.
23:00
Susie Larson with us. She has written
23:03
the book Waking Up to the Goodness
23:05
of God, bestselling author, talk show host,
23:07
national speaker. And we want to connect you with her
23:09
and with this book. And you're going to find the link
23:11
when you start at our Facebook page, you're just
23:13
Don Steve in the morning or text us, we'll send
23:15
you the link 800 555 7898.
Podchaser is the ultimate destination for podcast data, search, and discovery. Learn More