LFL E12 Can I Trust You To Hear Me?

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Can I Trust You To Hear Me?

Where do you go to be heard? When you have something on your mind that’s so private, so personal, and so vulnerable, where do you go to be really heard? When simply sharing just won’t do. Now, the church answer would be to Proverbs 3:5-6 trust the Lord and don’t lean on your own understanding and He will direct your path. And that would be right. But sometimes it’s difficult and not the reality we see.

The reality that is mostly seen is that we’re in a plugged-in world. When we need to be heard, accessibility is not the issue. We’re connected to computers, our phones, gaming consoles, TVs, and we can speak to all of them, but are we really ever heard? I’m talking about the things that really matter.

Do you stuff it down inside because you feel like you have nowhere to turn? I’ve gone to social media before, and it didn’t turn out well. Sometimes our emotions get involved and we lose sight on what’s appropriate to share publicly, when we want to be heard.

Well, now that begs the question, do you have anyone in your life that you can trust?

In order to trust someone, you have to get to know them. In order to do that, you must be vulnerable with them. They get to know you, and now, depending on how they handle the information about you, they will earn their trustworthiness.

How many of you have ever thought “Man, if you knew the real me, you wouldn’t like me.”

Remember, trust is not given, it’s earned.

Being vulnerable is not easy but it has great rewards. It’s the foundation of many a wonderful friendship. On the other hand, being vulnerable with someone that you know is emotionally abusive or emotionally unavailable, can steer you into the oncoming traffic called self-abuse. That’s dangerous.

I have someone that’s very important in my life and it has taken me several years to figure out that they are not emotionally available. Some situations may not be obvious as to their trustworthiness. But you have to make your–self available in order to find out.

You may be asking “How do I know?” Well, let’s break it down into simple steps as much as we can.

It’s kind of like dating. The first time you go out on a date with someone, you’re not supposed to just mug down on them. Open the door, say please and thank you, be considerate, honor her.

Remember what we said earlier? Trust is not given, it’s earned? Well, honor is given. And if you expect to go on a second date, you need to learn how to honor people. Maybe we’ll cover that in another episode.

On those first few dates, you share personal things about you with that other person. As the relationship builds, so does the trust level. Because they have handled that personal information about you with care.

A very important question I’ve asked a lot of couples is, how do you fight? The question is not whether you fight or not. Because it will happen. The question is how.

Even in a disagreement, does the other person use your vulnerability as a weapon against you later?

In other words, will that person handle your vulnerability delicately? That is a very important relational question and strikes at the very core of many relational issues.

Can I trust you to hear me? It’s a very important question. And it can be only answered over time. All of us need to be heard.

God knows this about us and He wants an opportunity to build your trust with Him.

Share some concerns, fears, worries that you have with Him. Be vulnerable with Him. See how He handles that information.

Let me give you some pointers on this.

If His answers ever include “what you need to do” that’s not Him. If He ever says “In order to get this, you need to …”

#1. That is under the Old Covenant

#2. If you have confessed with your mouth and believe in your heart that Jesus Christ is Lord then you shall be saved. That is the end of it. It is Finished.

#3. When you start hearing Who you are as He created you, that is the beginning of your freedom.

When you begin to hear those things, they start to build your trust in Him.

Without focusing on it (Episode: We Steer Where We Stare), you will begin to experience wanting to spend time with Him.

Through that, you’ll start Living the Freedom Life.

LFL E11 God Works in Mysterious Ways

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God Works in Mysterious Ways

Have you ever heard someone say God works in mysterious ways? He actually doesn’t work in mysterious ways. He doesn’t want to be mysterious to us. Quite the opposite, he wants to be very well known to us. Why then, would he work in mysterious ways?

God does work in ways that we don’t understand, but this saying is most likely a simplified paraphrasing of some verses that we’re not supposed to have confusion about.

Let’s put it this way, I don’t want my daughter to just blindly dismiss something she doesn’t understand because she thinks it’s mysterious. I want her to understand the ways that I am guiding her, teaching her, and equipping her for life. I don’t want any of it to be mysterious to her.

God doesn’t want that for any of his children either.

Jeremiah 33:3 Call to me, and I will answer you, and show you great and mighty things, which you do not know.

That doesn’t sound mysterious, that sounds inviting.

Isaiah 55:8-9 My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.

That doesn’t sound mysterious either. That sounds like I can really trust him with him guiding me.

Ecclesiastes 11:5 Says, as you do not know the way the spirit comes to the bones in the womb of a woman with child, so you do not know the work of God who makes everything.

Although I may not understand how He does this, I’m glad that He does because He makes everything. I don’t want that responsibility.

God works in mysterious ways. What about bad things happening to good people? We could open up thousands of ethical questions about God working in mysterious ways and why does He let those atrocities happen across the globe. That’s a mystery, right? I can tell you that I don’t have that answer.

But we look down our noses at God and judge Him for the limited amount of information that we have on the situation. We usually don’t have a fraction of the information needed to make a judgement call, on claiming that God is working in this mysterious way.

It would be like sentencing someone to life in prison because they said the phrase “I’m killing it” when describing their day. We don’t have near enough information about that situation, to make that type of a judgment. But we do about God.

Matthew 5:37 Let your yes be yes, and your no be no.

We have a saying in our family, Say what you mean, mean what you say. But we certainly don’t say that it’s from the Bible. Let’s make sure and not make the assumption, and find out for ourselves.

In this case, it’s not saying this saying is wrong, it’s just simply not in the Bible.

1 Corinthians 2:14 May shed some light on this subject. It says the person without the spirit does not accept the things that come from the spirit of God but considers them foolishness, and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit.

That’s like me trying to explain the number purple with your nose. Exactly. It doesn’t make any sense. How can I explain the number purple with your nose? It doesn’t make any sense because you are trying to figure it out with the equipment you have. The equipment that you have is not even designed to compute it. This scripture explains that God gives us a decoder ring through His Spirit.

God doesn’t want us to think of Him as some big mystery in the sky. Because he’s not, he never leaves us or forsakes us. He’s right here.

He wants me to understand his ways. So that when I see the life around me differently, I can still choose what he puts in front of me. He always puts in front of me life or death. Remember? We have the power to choose. When things start to become no longer a mystery, but I see them as guidance to perpetually choose life, that will be the beginning of Living the Freedom Life.

LFL E10 God Will Not Give You More Than You Can Handle

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God Will Not Give You More Than You Can Handle

I wish I had some confetti cannons, because it’s time to celebrate. We made it to the double digits! Welcome to Episode 10.

You know, when we first started this podcast it seemed like a pretty large task. But if we are to Live the Freedom Life, we need to submit ourselves to what the Bible teaches.

Proverbs 11:14 says “There is safety in the multitude of godly counsel”. So before we started Living the Freedom Life, I sought out some guidance. This was a new way for us to minister that we believed, God was calling us into.

Someone very lovingly said to me, “You’ve got this. God will not give you more than you can handle”.

And that intrigued me. I heard that statement quite often and I didn’t want to be confrontational because this person was trying to offer encouragement, but inside, my heart was screaming “NO! That is not true! That’s not true at all!” God does give you more than you can handle. And I don’t say that with gritted teeth. There are many areas in which people try to apply this misinterpretation and call it scripture.

Then I began a journey of introspective study through scripture.

I first landed at 1 Cor 10:13 “No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to Mankind. And God is faithful; He will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, He will also provide a way out so that you can endure it.”

I guess when it’s left up to me in my comfort… of course, I don’t want God to give me more than I can handle. I want to have everything the way I want it, decently and in order (If we want to apply 1Cor 14:40 to this).

God won’t give you any more than you can handle.

We say this because we think any good Father wouldn’t want His son or His daughter to be overwhelmed and feel defeated. I believe that I know what is best for me. But we’ve already talked about that in an earlier episode. (LFL Episode 8 link)

God will not give you more than you can handle, is false. He does give us more than
we can handle because it drives us towards depending on Him. We are not intended to
carry burden or be able to be self-reliant apart from Him. It is considered counter
productive towards the Kingdom.

There were some people in Babel that tried to build a tower, that didn’t work out well for them. They were trying to be self-reliant when posed with a problem larger than they can handle, which was getting to themselves to heaven.

You can find countless cases where someone faced something they couldn’t handle, but God could and did. Paul was writing to the church in Corinth and told them that God will provide a way of escape from temptation.

All of us love a good comeback story. In fact, I have my own comeback story. If you would have known me several years ago, well, let’s just say, you wouldn’t give me the time of day.

LFL E9 Your Supply Line

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Your Supply Line

How many of you feel like life is sometimes a war? That there’s some type of strategy that you’re missing out on, and is definitely being used on you.

In a war, the opposing generals they carefully study the weaknesses in order to find just the right way to exploit them.

They study when and where is the enemy most vulnerable? That is where their attack will come.

This strategy can allow a smaller Army to do considerable damage to a larger, well-equipped Army.

In the same way, it’s good for us to know our own strengths and weaknesses. If we know when we are strong and when we are vulnerable, it will help us guard against temptations and failures.

Think about it, when everything’s going great, where are you most attacked? Pride.

When it seems that the wheels are falling off, where are we attacked? We feel isolated.

As many of you are subscribers, we can show just as many examples of this.

In other words, when we know what areas we feel weak, we will be able to identify where the attacks are coming. We know where we feel weak, and that is where feel the attack always comes.

Looking deeper, this will be ultimately where we find our true strengths that the enemy is trying to prevent from developing.

Let me say it this way, your enemy is more strategic than that. He doesn’t just want to conquer you. He wants to completely destroy you. Where do you feel like you’re getting attacked? Why would you simply get attacked in an area where you are weak? Your enemy wants to prevent you from being the conqueror you were created to be. Because that will affect how you influence others.

There, I said it. Every one of us, without fail, has influence. And that influence is powerful. We will have more on this in a later episode.

One of the best military strategies is to cut off the supply line. If an army runs out of supplies of what they need to be engaged in the battle, they will run out of strength, ability, and can no longer be effective. If the supply line is cut off where the army cannot develop into the planned effectiveness, we are no longer talking about the battle, we are now talking about the war.

Lamentations 3:40 Let us examine our ways and test them.

1 Corinthians 3:16 asks Don’t you know that you yourselves…

If we don’t examine ourselves, if we don’t know where our weaknesses are, if we don’t know the strengths in which God made us, we will not know how to develop, grow, and strengthen them.

We believe that the Lord ask us to start Living the Freedom Life.

What if I didn’t hone the skill of speaking? Of Writing? What if I didn’t study? What if I didn’t spend time with Him? What if I chose not to have counsel in my life? Healthy people whom I trust. This would not be what it is today.

I understand, I appreciate you listening, but God’s hand is on this. There is a part of this that is my responsibility. It comes through my obedience. But it is through His part that makes it all effective. He is my supplier.

As my pastor says, there’s my part, and then there’s God’s part. My part usually comes first.

There is a natural part of this and I operate in the natural. But there is also a supernatural aspect of this, and He operates in the Supernatural. Hey don’t get me wrong, He can surely operate in both. Why would I try to cross over into the supernatural when that’s His realm?

There are no limitations to what He can do. But this is usually how He works. There’s my part, in the natural. And then there’s God’s part, in the Supernatural. My part usually comes first.

Let me say it again, God is my supplier. I can run around, and move around, but he is my supplier. I need to make sure that I am still connected to my supplier. The enemy will do everything it can to keep me from my supplier.

We want to be here as a part of your supply team. We want to provide a connection to a source of power and strength for you.

LFL E8 What Do You Want?

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What Do You Want?

What would be your response if someone came up to you and asked what do you want? What would be your response? Yes, anything in the world. What would you want? Do we even know how to answer that question? Do we sometimes think we know what we want, and it truly not be the best thing for us? Of course.

What are you asking God for right now? What are you praying about right now? Or better yet, what have you stopped praying about? Because you feel like He’s just not answering.

If we took the time to think about it, how much different would our lives be, if we always got what we thought we wanted?

There are many times that I want dessert after a meal. But there are also times that I don’t want to look of feel like the guy who always eats dessert. There are times where I don’t know what I truly want. What I want, deep down. What I need.

You may think to yourself, “Wow Kyle, You’re not doing too good of a job describing this Living the Freedom Life, now are you?” It depends on what you’re listening with. It depends on you listening with something deeper than the things that are on the side of your head.

I may want to eat an entire plate of brownies, for example. That desire may have little to do with Hunger for food… and much to do with the hunger for satisfaction, comfort, affirmation or a sense of peacefulness. God wants to provide those things for us but it rarely looks like a full plate of brownies. God knows what we want.

In the opener we say the phrase “all of us want it, all of us need it”. What is it that we are talking about? It is Living the Freedom life. All of us need to Live the Freedom Life. And deep down, all of us want to Live the Freedom Life. Weather we realize it or not, there is a deep down hunger, that you can’t satisfy. There’s an old song that says there’s a god-shaped hole in all of us. Some people spend their entire lives, searching for all sorts of things to fill that need, and don’t find it. All of us have a desire to Live the Freedom Life.

So we usually don’t know how to answer the question, what do you want? Why?

Because of the truth that’s in Isaiah 55:8-9 My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, says the Lord. Then He gives an example in verse 9, saying as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts.

So He knows what we truly need. He’s the one that made us, He should know, right?

I am thankful for the truth that is in these verses.

Psalm 103:5 Who satisfies your desires with good things… God’s desire is to do this for YOU.

But we have to get the what we want out of the way so that we can see what we need. What we need will always satisfy both our need and our want.

How does He give us those things? How does God provide those things that we need, those things that will satisfy our wants?

Well, the church answer is in His presence.

The Living the Freedom Life answer, is in His presence.

You see, for those brownies to become something desirable for dessert, it has to get into the presence of an oven. The oven changes the batter into something it was designed to become. A brownie. The batter didn’t have to DO anything, except get into the oven.

We are designed for greatness. Do you realize that today? You were made specifically for your version of Awesomeness. So the answer the question what do you want? Everyone wants to be awesome. And if his thoughts are higher than my thoughts, that’s even awesome-er.

I hope you are hopping into the oven through this podcast, I hope that you’re spending time with the Lord, in prayer, reading his word, in a small group, maybe even in a church. I hope you are even taking some notes, writing down some things to remember. Whatever it takes, spend time with Him today and go be awesome.

If you feel like He is not answering while you are talking to Him, start asking different questions. Remember, you may not know what you want but He knows what you need.

LFL E7 We Always Have the Power

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We Always Have the Power

Jeremiah 17:9 Says that above all else, the heart is deceitful and it is beyond cure. Who can understand it?

In other words, beyond all else, beyond this podcast, beyond you and I having coffee, beyond any of my cognitive abilities, my heart is deceitful.

As it turns out, that story about the Garden of Eden isn’t just a story, it’s truth. Our concept of Truth may be for another episode, but here’s what I want to point out.

Romans 5:12 Tells us that through Adam, sin entered the world and death was passed on to everyone because all have sinned. This passed on sin, is known as inherited sin. Just as I inherited physical characteristics from my parents, I inherited a sinful nature from Adam.

What is sin? Anything that separates me from God. Let me explain it this way. In the Spanish language those same three letters s i n, are pronounced a little differently but the word means “without”. So when I sin, I am without God.

Above all else, if my heart is deceitful, then there’s no doubt that I will have a tendency to do things, and think in the ways that point me away from, or without God.

So, on days where I just want to be left alone, or I’ll wake up angry and really not knowing why, or the overly happy guy just really makes me a little more irritated than I should be, I’m just falling towards the temptation that my heart is deceiving me.

To go further, that same scripture in Jeremiah asks the question, who can understand it? (Meaning, my heart.) Well if we’re being asked the question who can understand it, doesn’t that imply that no one can? So what’s the point in trying to understand it?

I once had a boss that would say you only have 3 minutes to explain the problem, but I’ll give you the rest of the day so we can talk about solutions. How am I doing on time? Okay, let’s move on from the problem.

Here is the solution. You ready for this? We always have a choice. One thing we always have, is the power to choose.

Genesis 2:16 God told the man, you are free to eat from any tree in the garden.

Deuteronomy 30:19 On this day I call the heavens and the Earth as Witnesses against you that I’ve set before you life and death, blessing and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live.

Isaiah 55:6-7 Seek the Lord while he may be found; call on him while he is near. ⁷ Let the wicked forsake their ways and the unrighteous their thoughts. Let them turn to the Lord, and He will have mercy on them.

Joshua 24:15 Joshua says but if serving the Lord seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourself… But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.

There have been many times, when life has just dealt us a swift kick in the gut. Tammy and I have looked at each other and made the decision we’re going to serve the Lord in this situation. It has to be a choice. And every time, without fail, God has proven himself to be faithful. He has given us joy.

There’s a distinct difference between joy and happiness. Happiness is only temporary, and we can choose it. Joy is eternal gift from God. You can search for happiness and you can choose happiness but it will only last temporarily. But if you make a habit to choose happiness, that habit will turn to a lifestyle of choice. In that discipline, from that obedience, He is faithful to give us one of his main attributes, Joy.

LFL E6 What’s Eating You

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What’s Eating You

My dad lives on the lake and I remember seeing quite a bit of driftwood. Now if you’re on the lake, driftwood can be dangerous. You hope that it gets washed to the shore, and out of the way. A lot of driftwood doesn’t make it to the shore, it just drifts out in the middle of the channel. When it continues to drift, it usually gets eaten away by bacteria and organisms and over time, eventually disintegrates while it drifts.

There have been times where I’m a lot like that driftwood being eaten away. When I have doubt, my stomach churns and I can feel as if I’m being eaten from the inside out. It’s a great way for the enemy to render me useless when I doubt, especially in my faith.

How many of you are drifting where we even question if we were ever faithful in the first place. Is this Christian Life really worth it? Is it worth the struggle? Maybe God let us down and we’re angry with him, to the point that we’re not even speaking to him. I believe that is the main root from which atheists come.

Or we may be drifting away because life is really going well, we’re distracted by our new promotion, our new opportunity, our new home, various things can keep us busy enough to distract our focus.

“If the devil can’t distract you, he’ll make you busy.” Brady Boyd – Addicted to Busy

It may get to the point to where we think we’re doing something right and then we can lighten up on living out our faith.

Being busy has a tendency to make us feel important. Remember, “Pride comes before a fall.” Proverbs 16:18

We drift because of one of three reasons, The first is when we feel like nothing has happened the way we want it, we question what’s the use. The second is when we’ve been doing okay and we feel that we don’t need him for everything after all.

The third reason we talked about it a few episodes back. It’s God’s people, or those who appear to be God’s people. Sometimes all it takes is one person saying something a little abrasive at just the wrong time, it can be someone in the parking lot, in the lobby, even from a leader, or a judgement from a church click to send us packing and on our way.

After all, why would we want to follow a savior who’s followers act that way? Aren’t they the ones that are supposed to represent him? If that’s what a follower looks like, I definitely don’t want to eventually look like that.

While I can tell you, that scenario plays out in a lot of churches across our nation, it’s not always true. There are healthy, caring, and compassionate people in the church. We just have to be willing to search them out. Once we find them, there is no greater healing than finding people to Live the Freedom Life.

You will eventually drift, all of us do, if we’re honest. If you feel like you’ve drifted, don’t lose hope. Talk to Him. That’s called prayer. Ask him for opportunities to be healed, ask him to shed light and to give you clarity on how He sees the situation.

1 Corinthians 1:8-10 says, and I’m paraphrasing on this,

It says that He will sustain you to the end so that you will be blameless. God has called you into fellowship with his son Jesus and he is faithful.

I beg you that all of you agree together, in other words, get along so there will be no divisions among you, that you may be united in mind and conviction and receive healing.