0:11

Campbell Soup podcast

0:13

Rachel Campbell Soup

0:16

and Israel Campbell Soup . I

0:18

would be Chicken Noodle . That

0:21

would have been my nickname when I was in

0:23

high school , because I was so skinny . What

0:25

would your flavor be ?

0:28

Oh , with Campbell's soup . Yeah , why do you ask

0:30

me these pop-up questions ?

0:31

That's what makes the show so good

0:34

Okay let's see .

0:34

You know , what I really like is

0:36

I just like a good Campbell's

0:39

tomato soup , the old school

0:41

dip your sourdough grilled

0:44

cheese sandwich inside . It's almost lunchtime

0:46

and I'm going to make us all very hungry . I

0:49

love it .

0:49

Well , welcome to the Campbell Soup podcast

0:52

, which actually is nothing

0:54

to do with what's

0:57

the right way of saying . It has actually nothing

1:00

to do with the

1:02

Campbell Soups .

1:03

It's not a cooking show .

1:05

It's not a cooking show .

1:06

Although it could be .

1:07

It is actually everything that is going

1:09

on in our crazy minds when it comes

1:12

to discipleship , when it comes to

1:14

living life , when it comes to , maybe

1:17

, some of the things that we can't say on Sunday morning

1:19

and we want to say to you , hopefully

1:21

to equip you , hopefully to make you laugh

1:24

and hopefully to give you some

1:26

um , maybe just some advance

1:28

where , wow , we're just a few years older

1:31

than you and so maybe it'll kind of help

1:33

, or maybe we've experienced a few things that you're

1:35

now experiencing and it'll help . So that's

1:37

the podcast , that's the soup , and

1:39

I think about our um .

1:41

You know how much I would have loved to have Campbell's

1:43

soup when I was younger , because sometimes you're just like

1:45

not that this is only for younger people , but just

1:47

while you're on your journey , sometimes it's

1:49

good to hear other people's conversations

1:51

and everyday life . You

1:54

know things that are going on and how they're

1:56

relating the word of God in their , in their Christianity

1:58

to it . I think it helps encourage us that

2:01

we are all very much on this

2:03

journey and it's fun .

2:04

It is fun . So

2:06

this week , or this

2:09

episode , I guess , is we are

2:11

doing our

2:13

podcast on switching

2:15

fuels and powering

2:18

your life with purpose and not pain , and

2:20

you titled it , but it really

2:22

started with me and I'll tell the background

2:24

story and then Rachel , we can just

2:26

jump into it . But I was

2:29

working out listening to a podcast

2:31

actually not a podcast , an audio

2:33

book that was recommended actually from

2:35

a pastor , and I actually had

2:37

it kind of for a while Rach in my podcast

2:40

because it was a book on strategy

2:42

, business , all those kinds of things , and as a pastor

2:45

and as a leader , I think strategy

2:47

is so important . So I was just it was a New York bestseller

2:49

yeah , a New York Times bestseller , I think it's your

2:52

next five moves , and the premise

2:54

is in chess , a chess

2:56

master never responds

2:58

by what the opponent does , but they're always

3:01

thinking five steps ahead . That's why

3:03

when somebody is like I got you in checkmate and

3:05

four moves , well , that doesn't just happen

3:07

, it was because they pre-planned everything and it happened

3:09

. So great book , all of that . But as

3:11

I was listening to the book and I wouldn't throw away

3:13

the book because of this , but when he , the author

3:16

, said something , I bristled in

3:18

my spirit and I was like no

3:20

, and I don't believe . This guy

3:22

is a believer , and so I don't think

3:25

it was like heresy , but I did think it was

3:27

the wrong intention

3:30

and the wrong thing that the world would say

3:32

is actually really

3:34

bad . What has hurt you and

3:37

who has hurt you ? To motivate you , to

3:39

prove them wrong , to be successful

3:41

. And

3:49

I just was like no

3:51

, no , and

3:54

it really put me on a short

3:56

little journey of

3:58

like no , no , no , no , no , no . And

4:01

then also , but what do I believe ? And so that's

4:03

what kind of birthed this ? No , no , no , no , no . And then

4:05

also , but what do I believe ? And so that's what kind of birthed this

4:07

? And

4:11

you and I actually were doing our walk , having a coffee together , our little mini date

4:13

, and we started talking about this and then you were like we need to do that as a podcast

4:15

because it's so true .

4:17

Yeah , and the reason why we are

4:19

calling it Switching Fuels is because

4:21

I recently have

4:23

just been trying to get a hold of my

4:25

new health and you know , being

4:28

at 47 years old , it's just my

4:30

mind , my body , everything . I'm trying

4:32

to just figure out the new rhythm of my life

4:34

and it's just been a little bit of a journey . I could

4:36

do a whole podcast on that but some of the guys would get

4:38

bored . And one of the

4:40

things that I've been doing is this weird diet

4:43

it's the carnivore diet , where you

4:45

basically only eat meat

4:47

. It sounds so bad but it's supposed

4:49

to reset your body

4:52

and your balance and all of these things

4:54

. And actually it's been amazing . But there

4:56

was this brackish water where

4:58

you stop eating all vegetables

5:00

, all fruit , all carbohydrates

5:02

and you go back to the basics

5:05

of basically what people used to do is hunt

5:07

for their food and eat it and , um

5:09

, and that's what you're doing Carnivore diet

5:12

and it makes you switch your fuel

5:14

. But until your body learns how to switch

5:16

fuels from burning your fat to burning more

5:18

, or burning your muscle and everything to burning

5:20

the fat , um , you're

5:22

feeling so off and it's

5:24

this really murky place because

5:27

it feels like you're doing harm to your body

5:29

instead of resetting your body

5:31

. But the whole the book of

5:33

you know , when you're doing a keto diet or anything like

5:35

that , you have to . Your body has to

5:37

switch . What it's burning and spiritually

5:40

we want to speak to that today is the

5:42

way of our self

5:45

nature . The way of the world is

5:47

to always preserve and so

5:49

, like Israel said , this book it

5:51

sounds right and the Bible talks

5:53

so much about that right when it says

5:55

the way of the wicked sounds

5:58

good in their own eyes , but the

6:00

way of the spirit seems

6:02

foolish . Until you know the Holy Spirit and

6:04

I'm so thankful for the Holy

6:06

Spirit that bristled inside of you . It

6:08

wasn't you just being so knowledgeable

6:11

, which you are , you're so smart , but there was

6:13

the Holy Spirit inside of you was like don't

6:16

accept that as wise teaching

6:18

. That's the teaching of the world . That seems right

6:21

and I just I really love that . But

6:23

yeah , I want to read a scripture first and then I'm going to pass it

6:25

to you because I love this conversation . Ephesians

6:27

4 , 26 through 27 . In the

6:29

message Bible says go ahead

6:32

and be angry . We're talking about

6:34

how we can be fueled by

6:36

the right things and not the wrong things . We don't want to

6:38

be fueled because someone made us angry , and

6:40

that's why we do what we do . We don't want to

6:42

be fueled by bitterness , and I love what

6:44

it says in Ephesians go ahead and be angry

6:47

you do well to be angry but

6:49

don't use your anger as fuel

6:51

for revenge . Don't stay

6:53

angry . Don't go to bed angry

6:56

. Don't give the devil

6:58

that kind of foothold

7:00

. This is the message Bible . But I love

7:02

when the new Testament talks about giving

7:05

the enemy a foothold , and usually

7:07

it's talking about offense or

7:10

things that um , unforgiveness

7:12

, things that are happening to us

7:15

from other people . And

7:17

Paul is teaching he's like use

7:19

it as fuel , but use it as the right fuel

7:22

. Be angry , but sin not . And so

7:24

we want to talk about that . How do we

7:26

change fuels where we're not living

7:29

revenge lives ? You

7:31

know there's like Princess Diana

7:33

has a revenge dress when their

7:36

marriage broke up and everybody knows the famous revenge

7:38

dress . But we don't want to be

7:40

the people that live our lives in

7:42

revenge because , like you said

7:44

, that's always responding instead

7:47

of being who God's called us to be .

7:48

Yeah , and I just love that so much because

7:50

there is this part of like you just

7:53

read the scriptures , be angry , so we're not

7:55

trying to tell you that nobody's ever hurt

7:57

you and to not you know , uh

7:59

, realize that , but don't live on

8:01

that . And that's kind of what this guy was saying . It was like

8:03

you know , here's a list of

8:05

people that he could list that

8:07

have done him dirty and you

8:10

know , and then that's what fuels him now

8:12

is that now he can

8:14

go and look at them and say , look what

8:16

I did . He even gives a story of it and

8:18

I for a millisecond , I went there

8:20

for just a second , was thinking of all the people

8:22

that hurt me and

8:24

I just was like that

8:27

is not the way to live . And it is

8:29

like you said , rachel , it's the world's wisdom and

8:31

it gives the

8:35

devil a foothold . And the problem with that fuel is

8:37

it does work but it's not efficient , and

8:40

that's the problem is the world's fuel

8:42

. It is a fuel there . It can

8:44

fuel people . Michael Jordan when

8:47

he got the Hall

8:49

of Fame in

8:52

the Basketball Hall of Fame , he invited

8:55

the guy who took his spot

8:57

in high school , who

8:59

got picked over , michael Jordan

9:02

, he invited to bring

9:04

to his hall of fame induction

9:07

, he still wasn't

9:09

over it . And so

9:11

that's what happens is , if you use

9:13

that fuel , you have to continue

9:16

that fuel all your life . And

9:18

so , yeah , so you prove

9:20

the one person , and now you've gone

9:23

five years , you got to find somebody else that you're

9:25

mad at so that you can prove again

9:27

, and so you're consistently

9:30

looking for somebody

9:33

to prove wrong . And

9:35

so it might be a good fuel in

9:37

the beginning , or at least you think , because it

9:39

maybe brought some kind of a success

9:41

, but it's not sustainable . It will

9:43

wipe out your world , your

9:45

relationships , your children

9:48

, your friends , your church

9:50

. Everything will fall apart , because everything

9:53

is looking to be mad

9:55

at something , to use it as fuel , and

9:58

what we're talking about today is don't let

10:00

pain fuel you . Don't

10:02

let pain be the fuel , let

10:05

purpose be the fuel . And so I'll read

10:07

this verse and go back to you .

10:08

Rachel , it's so good Israel .

10:09

It's Acts , chapter 13

10:12

, verse 36 . And this is what I went to immediately

10:15

after I was like bristled in

10:17

my spirit . I was like I got to look up this verse , okay

10:19

, and it says now , when David

10:21

had served God's

10:24

purpose in his own generation

10:26

, he fell asleep , he was buried with

10:28

his ancestors and his body decayed . And so

10:30

I just love the fact that

10:32

it's described to us that David

10:35

died fulfilling

10:37

God's purpose

10:39

for his life . And I , just right

10:42

there , because I was at the gym

10:44

and right there , took out the earbuds

10:46

and just went . God , I do not want

10:49

what has happened to me to fuel

10:51

me . I want your purpose

10:53

to fuel me . And

10:56

so there it is .

10:57

Yeah , and here's the simple truth

10:59

is that the world's fuel , it is fuel

11:02

, and you know , I meet with these girls whose moms

11:04

literally taught them from a young age

11:06

you need to go to college and you need to

11:08

be able to provide for yourself because

11:10

that man you marry might fail

11:12

you . And it's like you're basing

11:15

everything that you build off

11:17

of the fact that somebody

11:19

might fail you , and that is

11:21

the biggest burden to

11:24

carry . It's a worldly burden . It's not

11:26

a burden that's life-giving . And

11:28

so there's this always in the back of

11:30

your mind . You have a way out

11:32

, you have a way to make

11:35

it work for you if other people fail

11:37

you , and it is a way of living . But it

11:39

is not God's plan , it's not God's best

11:41

for us . And you know , Israel and I , when

11:43

I look about our life , when

11:46

I think about all of the times

11:48

that we've done this right and then the times

11:50

that we've done this wrong , there've definitely

11:52

been moments where we were fueled by

11:54

the wrong thing and , um , I'm

11:57

going to prove them wrong . Or

11:59

, you know , we've had men and women

12:01

of God speak things over us

12:03

that were not God's heart , and then

12:05

we would be in this response mode and

12:08

literally I can mark in my life

12:10

the times where I tried to prove

12:12

people's words wrong or I

12:15

tried to write their wrong in my

12:17

own strength . I've never

12:19

ended up on the track God

12:21

had for me and it took learning

12:23

that of , of just realizing that the

12:25

enemy that scripture verse in Ephesians

12:28

four says don't give the enemy

12:30

a foothold and a foothold can

12:32

become a stronghold . And we and

12:34

we wonder how these people that

12:37

we love and admire in the Christian world

12:39

end up where they ended up . And I just

12:41

want to maybe say it didn't happen

12:44

overnight . It happened because somehow

12:46

the fuel that they were fueling

12:48

their life and purpose on somehow

12:50

got off , and it probably got off through

12:52

their pain . That really did happen

12:54

, through disappointment , through

12:57

unforgiveness . There's these things and those

12:59

footholds . The enemy knows . If

13:01

I can just get you to begin to be fueled

13:04

by something that's not God

13:06

, fueling your life and his purposes

13:08

, it will become a stronghold and

13:11

then it's harder to get out of .

13:12

Yeah , and just saying that we

13:14

were talking about one of the stories

13:17

, for us at least , one of the bad

13:19

stories is we had been

13:21

in Seattle and had moved

13:23

, really felt the moving of God

13:25

to move from Seattle to Orlando

13:27

, and we just knew it was a new

13:29

season , it wasn't a better season , it just

13:31

was a new season .

13:34

And same problems , new place .

13:36

Exactly , we were there Right

13:38

, and so I just

13:40

there was some words that were said

13:42

from our senior pastor

13:44

and they were not great words

13:46

. There's some words over you , some

13:48

words over even you , about me

13:51

. I mean there's just some really insecure

13:53

leadership things . And I really

13:55

did go to

13:58

Orlando and I do remember

14:00

in my mind I'm going to prove them

14:02

wrong , I'm going to prove them wrong , I'm going to prove them wrong

14:05

, I'm going to prove them wrong , I'm going to prove them wrong . And

14:07

to be a real transparent ministry

14:09

did not start out well

14:11

in Orlando . It was like

14:14

it just was not going

14:16

and I can just remember , like almost

14:19

even then , thinking , oh well , now , how am I going to prove

14:21

them ? You know what I mean , but we would do these things and

14:23

I don't know when the light bulb went on , but

14:25

somewhere in that

14:28

moment I just God

14:30

, I don't want a youth pastor

14:32

to prove in

14:34

Seattle that we

14:37

made the right choice or to prove to that church

14:39

that this was a God thing . I really

14:41

want these students that we're dealing

14:43

with , their lives , to be transformed

14:45

and just do it . And it was almost like an

14:48

overnight switch of

14:50

the success and

14:52

the transformation

14:55

and it was like there wasn't any

14:57

new gimmick , there wasn't any new strategy

15:00

or system that we put in place

15:02

. I just really remember it almost

15:05

being just a prayer of God . I'm so

15:07

sorry for trying to prove them . I

15:09

just want to be present

15:11

, successful now . And

15:13

it was , like you know , and we really

15:16

did have some incredible moments

15:18

with those students and

15:20

I think it had a lot to do with , obviously

15:22

, god's love and stuff , but also being able to use

15:24

a vessel that wasn't trying

15:27

to validate himself

15:29

or prove through pain that he was

15:31

right . What about right now

15:33

? And it really was fueling purpose

15:36

rather than pain . What about you ? Bad

15:38

or good , you got one .

15:39

That's so good . I just love

15:42

that because it's so true . And I look , I

15:44

think back at those days while you're talking about it and

15:46

there was a lot of striving

15:48

and exhaustion and disappointment

15:50

connected to trying to prove

15:53

and be fueled by the wrong thing , and

15:55

I remember the surrender and tears . It

15:57

did not come through good days . It came to really

15:59

hard realities for us and

16:02

I just remember us together , um

16:04

, surrendering to God and saying

16:06

God , it's not our reputation we're building , it's

16:09

really yours . And those

16:12

are easy words but harder decisions in

16:14

your life , because it takes humility

16:16

, it takes being willing to be wrong , it takes

16:18

all those things and I just

16:20

yeah , it's so true . I

16:23

think that you were talking on

16:25

Sunday about this really

16:27

hard moment that shaped my life as a young

16:30

girl . I think I was 14 and my parents

16:32

had been kicked out of our church

16:34

that they were pastoring and they voted out , and

16:36

it was a really pivotal moment where my

16:38

relationship with the church got really

16:41

hard . But

16:43

you were talking about it and while you're talking

16:45

about it , I was thinking that the

16:47

sting of that is not there anymore

16:49

and I'm so thankful

16:52

for the grace of God that I haven't fueled

16:54

my life by not trusting

16:56

elders in churches , by not

16:58

trusting the house of God , and I'm so thankful

17:00

that I don't really remember

17:02

, like , while you're telling the story , it's , it's

17:05

a story that I'm hearing , but it's not

17:07

this big , huge gape in my heart

17:09

. And that's the goal

17:11

is that we're all going to go through hard

17:13

things . We're going to have people that their

17:16

names cause pain inside

17:18

of us . You know where somebody

17:21

brings up something and all of a sudden that knot in your

17:23

neck comes back . Does anybody else ? know what I'm

17:25

talking about the tension

17:27

of being failed by humans

17:29

and that is

17:32

always connected . It's the foothold of

17:34

disappointment , bitterness and then

17:36

striving . And

17:38

when you take on that yoke

17:40

, that's easy , the burden's light

17:42

, when you're fueled by giving God

17:44

the glory and him alone . There's

17:47

so much redemption in relationships

17:49

in that because no elders have

17:51

ever apologized to me , the guy who

17:53

split your parents' church and had the affair

17:55

that ruined the church your mom and

17:57

dad started he has no

17:59

foothold in your life . There's no resentment

18:02

and we've actually talked about that man and you

18:04

have so much compassion now for him

18:06

and I don't know . I don't want a list

18:09

of people I need revenge with and people

18:11

I'm trying to prove wrong . I want a list of

18:13

God's faithful healing in

18:16

every relationship of my life .

18:18

Yeah , and I would say you know me on the

18:20

practical . I think that that

18:22

is so helpful , rachel is you

18:24

know ? The book said almost like write

18:26

a list of you know who

18:28

you're going to prove wrong . And I think it's more

18:30

vital to write a list of what

18:33

is God's purpose for you , and so

18:35

that's what David did . It says that David

18:37

fulfilled the

18:39

purpose of God on his life , and so , you

18:41

know , going on a journey

18:44

of what

18:46

is what have I been created

18:48

for ? What's my why , what

18:50

, what is that ? And that's not an easy

18:52

thing . I don't think that that's a five minute deal

18:54

. I think that's something that we're now . I'm

18:56

52 and I'm still wrestling and

18:58

trying to bring the complete

19:01

um , maybe not

19:03

the complete , but just even to be able

19:05

to articulate what some of that is

19:07

is pretty crazy . But

19:10

I can look back and start looking

19:12

at what are some things that God's used me in

19:14

, and so I can start oh , that was

19:16

his purpose . Oh , okay , this

19:19

is part of it . So for me , some

19:21

of my purpose is anesthesiologist

19:24

, and what an anesthesiologist

19:26

does is it helps you deal with

19:28

pain so that they can

19:30

then do the surgery to heal

19:32

, and so I feel like I am a

19:34

spiritual anesthesiologist

19:37

. I want to make you laugh and

19:39

then deal with some

19:41

of that pain and then God heal

19:43

you and then do that , and so that's

19:46

just who I am . I mean , I'm making jokes

19:48

all the time , sometimes inappropriately

19:50

, maybe the wrong fuel , but

19:53

I think that that's . So I look back

19:55

and see that I have always done that , since I

19:57

was a little kid I would entertain my family

19:59

. When I was in high school and junior

20:02

high I was the class clown . Well

20:04

, what was all that ? I think a little

20:06

bit of my purpose in

20:08

life is tied to that . And

20:10

so now , if I can figure

20:12

out what my purpose is and I'm fueled

20:14

by that , oh

20:17

my goodness . But

20:28

a life of longevity because I'm even in my hospital bed dying I'm

20:30

still can find fulfillment in that purpose . I can

20:32

make the doctors laugh , the family

20:35

laugh . You know all my great grandkids

20:38

laugh because grandpa

20:40

is still doing jokes and pulling

20:42

pranks and you know , unhooking

20:44

his IV and hooking it up to the IV to

20:47

the person next to him and sneaking out

20:49

. I mean , just , I don't know what I'm going to do , but it's

20:51

going to be fun , but I can do that

20:53

all my life . But if you're at your deathbed

20:55

and you're still on the wrong fuel

20:58

, you're still mad looking

21:00

to try to prove somebody .

21:01

Yeah , and the thing about operating

21:04

on the wrong fuel is you'll spend

21:06

your whole life perfecting something you might not have

21:08

ever even been called to do . We can

21:10

so run in our wrong the

21:12

wrong lane when we're trying

21:14

to prove somebody wrong and

21:17

instead of spending your energy and faith and

21:19

time trying to prove people

21:21

wrong , trying to redeem your name

21:23

, all of these things that it's part

21:25

of living in this broken world , unfortunately

21:28

, is that you're not going to make everybody happy

21:30

. There's going to be people that if you're doing

21:32

anything worthwhile in

21:34

this life , you're going to have haters

21:36

. It's just , it's human nature . But

21:39

God can give us the grace and

21:41

the ability , like you said , to be a

21:43

spiritual anesthesiologist . That is so

21:45

who you are . You've never said this to me and

21:47

it's exactly who you are . You've always

21:49

said that you're an encourager , but you're more than

21:52

an encourager because you have this anointing

21:54

on you Israel , for people

21:56

in pain , and anyone who knows you

21:58

knows that that's true , and what's

22:00

so beautiful about that calling is that

22:02

first you went through pain , you were anointed in

22:04

the pain , and I'm not . I know I'm just talking

22:06

to you , but it's true . But all

22:08

of us need to find that . All of us

22:10

need to stop listening

22:13

to these worldly books that tell us to

22:15

draw bigger boundaries . And

22:17

you know , if , fool me once , fool

22:19

me all the things that they say . It's like you

22:22

can live that way . But there is a better

22:24

way . It's the way of Jesus . Jesus

22:26

, while he was on this earth , what did he do ? No-transcript

22:31

. He was just being the Savior . He was healing

22:34

, he was teaching , he was providing

22:37

for , and he could have easily

22:39

spent his 32 years

22:41

31 years , however long that was . He

22:43

could have spent that time arguing

22:45

and winning arguments with the Pharisees

22:47

and doing all these things . He never did

22:50

, and I think that that's our number one

22:52

role model . And here's a scripture verse that I

22:54

love so much 1 Corinthians 10 , 31

22:56

. We love the word of God . So whether

22:58

you eat or drink or whatever you do , do it

23:00

for the glory of God , and

23:03

that's what Jesus did . He lived his life

23:05

for God's glory . He glorified his

23:07

father , and we are called to do that

23:09

. But the enemy wants us to be so distracted

23:11

through our pain that we start using

23:13

the wrong fuel , we start living for

23:15

the wrong purpose and we miss the

23:17

plot of our life .

23:19

I love that . And you just said something and I was like

23:21

whoa , um , you

23:23

were kind of describing something to me , so I'm not

23:26

trying to make it about me , let's go back to talking about

23:28

me . It's not about that at all . But

23:31

you like , the thing is

23:33

, um , we're not saying that

23:35

you throw away your pain and

23:38

like , just , you know , you don't even acknowledge

23:40

it or deal with it or get healed

23:42

from it . We're not saying that at all . And you

23:44

kind of mentioned something . Sometimes

23:47

we have a hard time finding our purpose

23:49

, but we actually can use pain

23:51

as a starting

23:54

point to sometimes finding our purpose

23:56

. And I

23:58

don't know how to necessarily fully

24:00

unpack that , but sometimes pain

24:02

can show us or

24:04

give us a direction that

24:06

our purpose is . It's almost like

24:10

the enemy tried to kill

24:12

you in that because

24:15

you've been called to lead

24:17

that . And so sometimes we can find

24:19

some purpose in our pain . And the

24:21

story that I would find is Joseph was

24:23

like , hey , what you meant for

24:26

evil ? Actually God has turned

24:28

to good and so I have found purpose

24:31

. You left me in the

24:33

pit , you sold me to

24:35

the Israelites , I was thrown in jail

24:38

from Potiphar's wife . But

24:40

now I'm saving

24:42

nations and I'm finding

24:45

purpose from my

24:47

pain . But the fuel was

24:49

not to revenge , or

24:52

when he would have first saw his brothers , he

24:54

would have just killed them , thrown them in jail , done

24:56

whatever . You know what I mean . But

24:58

instead he found purpose in it . So sometimes

25:01

you can find some purpose in

25:03

your pain . Rach any other

25:05

practical ways of maybe trying

25:07

to find your God purpose , and it's

25:09

kind of hard sometimes when you are in pain

25:11

right .

25:12

Yes , you know I

25:14

probably do have an answer for that , but I

25:16

do want to say something . You know me , I'm like Dory

25:19

and I have to say something while I'm thinking about it

25:21

. So I'll wrap back around to that , but I'm thinking

25:23

of this instance in our life where we

25:25

were pastoring in North Carolina and

25:27

there were 13 very influential

25:30

elders of the church that we took over

25:32

. They were the ones who voted us in and

25:35

um , after about a year they did not

25:37

like us pastoring .

25:38

They didn't like me . No , they didn't like me either

25:41

, but they didn't like me . They

25:43

just didn't like both . They didn't like us .

25:45

And we didn't know why . And now we

25:47

have a clearer view of what was going on in the spirit

25:49

realm . But we were . We were really

25:52

blown away Like whoa . They were really coming

25:54

against us . And I remember that we

25:57

had made some decisions in the

25:59

church . We were leading the church and they

26:02

decided they didn't like it and so they had a big

26:04

, huge church split . I think I don't know . Hundreds

26:06

of people walked out on a Sunday morning with them . It

26:08

was really painful for us but

26:10

they had said to an elder that had stayed

26:12

and stood with us they said they

26:15

won't be able to financially make it

26:17

as a church even till the end of

26:19

this month without our financial support

26:21

. And in the natural it was 100%

26:23

true that they had financially

26:25

carried that church . But I

26:27

remember when the elders that stayed came

26:29

and told us that and I got the biggest

26:31

smile , I had Holy Spirit

26:34

confidence rush into

26:36

me and I know that came from God . But

26:39

I just looked at Israel . I was like we

26:41

are about to be so blessed because

26:44

God does not like man

26:47

saying that they

26:49

can curse his people and

26:51

God doesn't like it when they say that they're

26:53

the source . And because of those

26:55

two principles . I know that God is

26:57

about to bless this church , not because of

26:59

us . It has nothing to do with Israel and I . It

27:01

has everything to do with . God does

27:04

not like people talking

27:06

bad , gossiping and slandering against

27:08

his children and against

27:10

his church . And so what happened

27:13

? By the end of that month , we started rocking

27:15

along without these controlling

27:17

elders , and God began to bless

27:19

and God began to grow and we saw

27:21

the hand of the Lord provide every single

27:24

step of the way , and it would have been really

27:26

easy to fuel success

27:28

on making sure they

27:30

knew every time God did something good in our church

27:32

. But we had this holy awe

27:35

of we can mess this up just

27:37

as much as they can mess this up , and this is

27:39

about giving God glory and surrendering to

27:41

Him and because of that that

27:43

church today is such a beautiful and

27:45

thriving organization and

27:48

we're just so . I think back

27:50

at that and it reminds me don't

27:53

be deceived . God is not mocked

27:55

. He does not like it . When his children are attacked

27:57

or slandered , he doesn't like it . And

27:59

we either solve those things

28:01

on our own by unforgiveness and fueling

28:03

our lives to get back in revenge , or

28:06

we surrender it to God and let him fight our battles . Vengeance

28:08

is the Lord's . You know , if you're in a

28:10

business deal and somebody's

28:12

ripping you off or talking bad about you to other

28:14

businesses and you feel like you're in

28:16

this fragile place , can I just encourage

28:19

you that when someone comes

28:21

against God's children and when we

28:23

really allow him

28:25

to be our fuel of , I'm just going to keep doing

28:27

what's right . I'm going to keep pleasing God

28:30

. I'm not going to have revenge . You wait

28:32

and see what God does for you . It will

28:34

be mind blowing . That's just who he is

28:36

.

28:37

Amen . Well , that is a wrap .

28:39

That was my mini message .

28:40

Good , good , good . I think it was so good

28:42

. So that is a wrap . Find

28:45

your purpose .

28:47

Switch your fuel .

28:49

Get your God's purpose . Switch your fuel

28:51

and I do think even with some

28:53

of the business teachings and stuff we do need to make

28:55

sure , because I think people would even say find

28:57

your purpose , but more important , find your God purpose

28:59

. Use that as a fuel , not

29:02

just trying to figure

29:04

out what you want to do . Figure out what God wants

29:06

you to do and that would help . But

29:08

a fuel change will revolutionize

29:11

your life . So , hey , share

29:13

this with somebody . Maybe you see somebody

29:15

struggling with this , maybe

29:17

you are struggling with this . Whatever it

29:19

is , we hope it helps . Give us some comments

29:21

. We've been having feedback on

29:24

the podcast . We absolutely love

29:26

that , so make sure you continue to do that and

29:28

we will see you next week . You