Are You Living Your Truth or THE Truth? Lysa TerKeurst with Steven Furtick

The thoughts we listen to will become the truth we live by. But can we really control what we think about? And what do we do with negative thoughts that get our minds stuck in a spiral? Is it really possible to reject untrue thoughts and replace them with the Truth of God’s Word?

Let’s discover how!

Listen to Lysa TerKeurst and special guest Pastor Steven Furtick in this conversation called “Are You Living Your Truth or THE Truth?”

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If nothing changes, we won’t change. Whether it’s a thought pattern you keep ruminating on, a habit you haven’t been able to kick yet, or a part of your life you have so much vision for but you just can’t seem to get there, with God’s help, change is not just possible but probable. The improvements may be slow, but perfection isn’t the goal — progress is. Interrupt the lies the enemy throws at you, by learning how to take charge of your thoughts with Truth from God’s Word using our free resource: “Why Can’t I Get Over This? 5 Steps To Get Unstuck in the Areas You Can’t Seem To Make Progress In.” Download here

I’m sitting here with a dear friend, pastor Steven Furdick, and I wanna make a confession.
Are you ready for my confession?
I don’t know.
I feel like we’re sitting on the psychologist couch right now. You’re leaning in, and I’m like, here we go.
Tell me everything.
So my confession is I definitely struggle with overthinking. I get my thoughts caught on a loop.
And what’s so hard for me is I’ll have a thought. I don’t even see the thought coming.
It just hits me and or it’s from a conversation that somebody has, and then I start overthinking what was really meant by that conversation.
I mean, it can happen in so many different ways, but then my thoughts get caught on a loop and I can’t quite get out of the loop.
And oftentimes that loop is taking me in a negative direction. So does this ever happen to you?
Does it ever happen to me, like, even while we’re talking right now?
It’s it’s it’s a it’s a loop in my head right now.
Tell me the loop.
Uh, the loop goes like this. Um, don’t talk too much. Um, you’re gonna say the wrong thing.
Um, you’re not gonna connect with the audience. Um, you’re gonna disappoint Lisa.
She wants the interview to go good today. You’re not gonna hit the standard that she wants for it.
You’re gonna give bad advice. You’re not gonna be able to remember your best stuff.
And the thing about those loops are they feel true to you And over time, you begin to call whatever you loop the most, your truth.
And and there’s this saying in culture that we use. And I don’t know if it’s a good saying.
We say, live your truth. And, um, for that, if your truth is, I’m a child of god called by him, to do things in his name for his glory, and I can do everything he calls me to do, then live your truth because that’s god’s truth.
But sometimes what you call your truth really is a trap or as you call it a loop.
And those loops can become traps because they can actually sound real because they’re in your own voice.
So it’s you talking to you.
So then you assume, well, if I’m hearing this inside of myself, it must be me.
So how do I get free from something that I think is me? Because I’m stuck with me.
That’s what’s so confusing about the loop, whether it’s a loop of limitation, like, I can’t do this because I never have.
Uh, whether it’s a loop of I would even say a loop of lack thinking because I don’t have this, I can’t do that.
And everybody else has that, and I don’t.
So the loop of limitation, the loop of lack, and then there’s the lord’s voice, the voice of the lord that interrupts that loop and speaks a different reality.
So every day we’re choosing which loop to get into.
It’s really not a question of do we have the loop. It’s whose loop Are you going to live in?
That is a great point. You know, I think you mentioned the phrase about, you know, like, being true.
I hear women often say, Like, I I just have to be true to myself.
And to that, I say, okay. You wanna be true to yourself.
I understand the sentiment of that, but we need to make sure that we are being true to our most healed, healthy, and holy self.
Surrendered to god’s self. Yeah. Because otherwise, part of the issue is we develop narratives.
And if we keep telling ourself the same narrative, we start to believe our narrative rather than being set free from god’s truth.
Right? We’re being set free with god’s truth. And so, you know, I think it’s really important.
The lines that we believe will soon the or the lines that we speak to yourself will soon become a lie that we believe if we’re not careful And then that will become a liability in our life.
So that’s the loop. Right?
Yeah.
It’s like we’re thinking something But without checking those thoughts against something other than our own opinion.
Yeah. You
know, it it becomes a lie, we believe, and then it becomes a liability.
In how we think about ourselves, others, and even god.
Like, all I wanna do right now is preach this for, like, 3 hours because it is the it is the secret to our life.
The the loop that you live in determines the life you experience.
And somebody’s gonna hear that go, no no god’s word determines the life experience. No. No. No.
Because god has spoken some things over me that I’ve chosen not to believe.
And the enemy has spoken some things over me and inside of me that I’m choosing to believe.
So my life is not a reflection just of what god speaks.
It’s a reflection of what I come into agreement with. And take action on.
That’s good. Yeah. I like coming to agreement with.
Yeah. So I heard this quote.
I don’t know if you’ve ever heard this, but it says if you argue for your limitations, you get to keep them.
And I thought that was a great quote, right?
Cause it goes back to the loop, the the limitation loop.
So let’s say you’re thinking today, well, I don’t have time to get the degree, so I will never advance in this area.
I don’t have time to write the book. So I’m never gonna write the first paragraph or the first chapter.
I don’t have the education to apply for that So I’m just gonna stay here and tread water and survive.
Whatever it is, I’m never gonna be free from this addiction. You could substitute any limitation. Okay.
If you argue because some people are like great lawyers for their limitations.
It’s like you’ll start defending that and start collecting evidence and start kind of supporting the thing that you suppose.
Like, I suppose that since this is the way it’s always been, this is the way it was with my dad, This is all I ever saw in my community.
This is how I feel emotionally. This is the way it’s always going to be.
So now you’ve created a loop. Now you’ve created a trap for yourself.
And and you call it truth, but it’s a trap.
Now now the second thing I wanna say If you argue for your limitations, you get to keep them.
But if you agree with god about your potential, you get to grow into it.
That’s good.
Which means I get to start a new loop.
That’s right. Do you sometimes feel like we have more faith in things not working out, then god actually coming through for us.
Oh. Oh.
Because I feel like sometimes if we tell ourselves narratives, I’ll tell you some of the narratives where I can get caught on the loop.
Okay.
Like, um, a relationship. This relationship is never gonna get better. Okay.
So if I have more faith in the fact that this relationship is never gonna get better, it’s gonna limit what I actually do to try to make that relationship better because I already feel defeated.
Right? But if I actually have faith, like, what if it did What if it what if it could get better?
What if what if my prayers did work? What if god did come through for me?
You know
what I mean? And so those are 2 very different narratives that I’m telling myself.
And the reason I use this is because, um, I have a friendship that I I was working on so hard.
And I found myself wanting to give up because I thought I don’t think god’s gonna be able to change this one.
And so I stopped trying with intentionality.
Now sometimes relationships do hit a spot where it’s, you know, you’re just you’re being foolish to keep trying the same thing, expecting different results.
Mhmm.
But I that wasn’t the case here. And so I really started praying. God, give me ideas.
Any good idea that I have that I can invest in this relationship I’m actually gonna do.
I’m gonna be obedient. I’m not gonna let disobedience block me, and I’m not gonna say, oh, that’s just a dumb idea that I thought of, but I’m gonna attribute every idea of something intentional I can do for this relationship, I’m gonna attribute it to you and I’m gonna be obedient.
And it took a year But I’m telling you when I did that, those acts of intentionality that I know were from god
Mhmm.
Made a huge difference Now I wouldn’t say that the relationship is like stellar at this point, but it’s so much better.
Yeah. Yeah.
And it’s, I think, in other areas of our life, when we actually believe that god can interrupt our thoughts, give us a different way of thinking.
We develop a new narrative, and the narrative is like, yeah, but what if it could?
Yeah. I love that. It’s like you flip the what if, you know, and and that’s a good strategy for somebody.
The the what if of the enemy is what if they reject you? What if it doesn’t work out?
What if you invest everything and they still walk away? What if this time is just like last time?
What if you look like an idiot?
I think faith enables you to flip the what if What if, even if they do reject me, I learn something I can take for forward into the next relationship.
What if they reject me and it wasn’t even about me, it was just something that I was supposed to give to them for that moment.
And then I’m going to move forward with that wisdom. What if I try it?
You know, I I’d go through this every time I show up for a songwriting session. I’m a songwriter.
And I start thinking, what if we get together and these people flew in to write with me and, you know, the loop starts going, right?
What if we don’t get anything? What if we fail? What if our creativity has hit a bottom.
And and then I think, but what if we get a song today that that that we like that helps people connect with god?
What if we’re singing it in church a year from now?
What if somebody in a hospital room 3 years from now hears that song?
But, see, If you don’t water the seed, you never see what it is.
That’s right.
So I’ll use this mentality in my life, and I think everybody can use it, not just for songwriting, you can use it for conversations you wanna have or, you know, something you wanna step out and try or maybe god has been prompting you to start a journey of therapy or healing or anything you’d need to apply it to.
But this is how I flipped it, and I hope this is not inappropriate to say Lisa, I wanna be on my best behavior, but my dominant loop is, what if it sucks?
What
if I say an idea and it sucks?
And everybody in the room’s like, was the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.
What if I go to, you know, Holly will pick on me all the time because she’ll have an idea to go do something and I’ll be like, Yeah.
But we gotta like go and get dressed and put shoes on and there might be a line and you know, it might be boring and it might be long.
So I’m already building the case for why it might not be fun.
So it’s just like my dominant loop. What if it sucks? What if my idea sucks?
What if it what if it sucks? And I added something onto it because I love wordplay.
And I realized that if you add just seeds to the end, what if it succeeds?
What if this is the seed of something that starts off really terrible.
It may be uncomfortable right now. Mhmm.
But what if it’s the seed of something that you’re gonna see later in the future that’s actually amazing?
And a lot of the reason that we get stuck is because we don’t see the potential in the seed of what we’re doing, that the action you take today, yeah, the first time you do it, is gonna feel uncomfortable.
It may feel inappropriate. It may even feel like it’s not you.
And that’s why I wrote the book, Do the New You, because I think the reason it’s easier for us to put our faith in what if it doesn’t work is because it feels more natural or more normal.
And we can control it.
And we can control it. And it lowers our expectation.
The Jen Blossom had a song in the nineties that said, if you don’t expect too much from me, you might not be let down.
And I think that’s where a lot of us are living.
Like, I’m trying to manage my disappointment by lowering my expectations.
So then you go in already expecting that they’re not gonna like it, already expecting that you’re not gonna connect, already expecting that you don’t belong here, you don’t fit, you don’t have what it takes for it, And then you’re right.
It becomes self fulfilling. But the other reason is that a lot of times when something is new, you think it’s not you.
But it’s the seed of something.
You you you have to you have to think about this in the area that applies the most to you in your life.
I I used to think that whatever was the most automatic was the most authentic, and that’s not true.
Wow. Yeah. I thought that Well, I’m just doing me. I’m just I’m just gonna say what I feel.
I’m just this kind of person. I’m just not able to control myself in that way.
That’s just not who I am. I used to say I’m not an exercise person.
Like it was a blood type. Do you know what I mean? Like it was my height.
Like, well, I’m just not six foot 6. But you can grow in that.
That’s right.
And that’s what I want you to know today.
You can grow into it, but the growth starts with groaning. There’s there’s there’s there’s pain to it.
There’s discomfort to it. There’s messiness to it.
That’s right.
And all of the best stories are born in messy moments.
And so if you feel like right now okay. I’m listening to you. You’re talking about the loop.
You’re talking about What if it doesn’t work out? What if it does and flipping it?
Really what this comes down to is agreeing with god about what he sees in you that you might not see in you yet.
And just because you don’t see it in you yet, doesn’t mean it’s not there.
Just because you haven’t discovered it doesn’t mean god didn’t deposit it.
It might just be waiting for you to act on it, to make a decision today.
And that’s usually how we get out of the loop, not by thinking our way out of the loop, but by obeying the next thing
Yeah. And interrupting the loop. I know for me, it’s really important if I want the power of god to activate in a situation where I feel powerless, then I have to get intentional about going into his word and finding empowering verses that I keep going and going going.
Mhmm.
And it’s not just about the moment.
It’s I start playing into the future and trying to manage things today to try to control where the future goes.
And so it’s always been important to me. Like, I’m not powerful enough sometimes to do this.
But if I interrupt with god’s truth, then it makes a big difference.
For example, Matthew 58, blessed are the pure in heart for they will see god.
So I’ve started every single day I pray this prayer. God, I wanna see you.
God, I wanna hear you. God, I wanna know you. God, I wanna follow hard after you.
Therefore, I’m declaring today. God, you are good. You are good to me.
And god, you are good at being god.
So I’m safe enough to trade my will for thy will because I’m so confident you will, god.
Now today, give me someone to forgive, show me someone to bless, and show me evidence all around me of your goodness and your faithfulness.
So I pray this every morning. What happens is instead of getting up stuck in an old loop.
I start expecting to see god. I start expecting to experience god.
And every day, god answers his prayer because every day, somebody bumps into my happy every single day.
And
I’m like, oh, you’re the person that I prayed for this morning.
I have already forgiven you just because you laid down an offense doesn’t mean I have to pick it up and carry it with me everywhere I go. I actually learned that from one of your sermons.
Right? Remember the fence?
Yeah. I’ve built a big fence on the stage. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
And So but it makes a big difference because otherwise, I can feel like a victim to whatever thought lands on me.
I can feel like a victim to whatever people do to me all kinds of events that I can’t control, but instead, I can feel empowered.
No. Today, I’m living in expectation of seeing god.
And
it creates a purity in my heart. Bless her the pure in heart, for they will see god. Right?
Yeah.
And then show me someone to bless every single day.
God brings someone for me to bless a little bit of my time, a little bit of my encouragement, a little bit of whatever resource I have that might help them And when I make that connection reminds me, the presence of god is fully with me right now.
Yeah.
Because god has arranged all of eternity for person to be here right now in this moment, which then helps me continue the rest of that day to look for evidence of his goodness and his faithfulness because I’m so assertive as presence in my life.
Mhmm. That’s one of the reasons I really like your book because Doing the new you can sometimes sound like, oh, that’s impossible.
But when you understand you’re connecting it to the possibilities that exist, because of god in our life, of his truth, operating of of his ability to help us get past our limitations.
So I wanna read a couple of quotes that I love so much. Okay. Um, okay.
One thing is I love this. You have to embrace the process.
The point is constant progress, not instant perfection, real transformation comes by making countless, small, right choices that align with who you are in Christ rather than making small wrong choices that align with who you used to be.
Man, if we could just do that Mhmm.
Like, if we could you know, got we are holy and dearly loved children of god.
If we could just live from a place of that kind of love, rather than being so desperate to seek the love and the acceptance of other people.
But if we live if we live loved, then we’re living from our identity in Christ rather than being desperate for other people to affirm that.
Yeah. Yeah. So I I put it in 3 different ways, like, the first way I call the trap, which is the loop we’ve already talked about, which is just do you.
Like, just do you. And I know that’s a good saying if you’re talking about like a hairstyle, like, I’m growing my hair out in the back right now.
I may cut it by the time this actually airs I don’t know what I’m doing back here.
I’m just gonna see what happens. I’ve never grown my hair out this long in the back.
And I asked, uh, one of my kids the other day, um, do you like my mullet?
And they’re like, uh, I mean, do you. It’s fine. Whatever. I don’t care. I don’t like it.
I don’t, you know, just like a teenager would answer that. And so that’s fine, right?
That’s find for a mullet. Do you grow it out, cut it off, it doesn’t really matter.
Souls aren’t gonna perish based on your decision with your hair.
Do you wear the shoes, wear the But if you mean that not just when it comes to like a haircut or a mullet, but with your habits and your mindsets, that’s a trap, doing you as a trap, and here’s why.
You don’t fully know you yet.
That’s right.
You haven’t met all of you yet.
Not only because you’re gonna experience more in life, but because okay.
I I take my I take my do the new you title from Jeremiah 15, because I know it sounds a little like rahra, like, do the new you.
Get up, get up, get after them.
You know, you’re it’s a little it’s a little pep talkie on the surface, but it’s much deeper than that to me because god was calling Jeremiah to be a prophet.
And he said before you were born, I knew you, k n e w. I knew you.
So the the new you is the you that god knew before you were ever born, which means it’s not something I have to strive to be is something that he already sees me as And that is why I love that you said daily because, you know, if you do live your life daily thinking, okay, I’m not at that level financially.
I’m not at that level relationally.
I’m not at that level in my own, you know, my mental health, whatever it is.
Then you get out of the trap and then you get onto the treadmill. And the treadmill is future you.
And everybody knows what I mean when I say future you Mhmm.
Because it’s you with all of the features and none of the bugs is you out of beta completely into the pristine version, the final version of you that you’re gonna be.
And you’re gonna be that when you die, and go to heaven with Jesus, but not until then.
So then what do I have if I have do you, and that’s a trap?
Because I’m just going to the level of my current habits, which may be far beneath the life that god has for me.
And then if I’ve got this chasing, this Okay.
I’m gonna be happy when God will be able to use me when I’ll be able to breathe when that’s future you.
That’s a treadmill. And I called the first one living cheated, and the the second one is living chasing.
And I think there’s a third option. Live chosen.
The new you, k n e w, the you that god already called to be that mom, the you that god already called to be in that position.
The you that god made that exact size, that exact specification made to order, the you that god positioned, I don’t believe that you have to chase something that you were already chosen to be.
And That sets me free because you talked about confessions, Lisa.
I am so guilty of this chasing thing.
It’s like I see this guy out there that I know I can be when I I mean, you we’re the same.
We talked about this so many times. Like, I’m chasing this guy that I think I need to be.
And I have a god who says I already am.
And I already am accepted and already am loved.
And living out of that, it doesn’t mean living down to a lower standard. Well, take me as I am.
I’m not change, and I just go off on people, and I don’t have patience, and I don’t have discipline, but you can change.
Not chasing god’s acceptance, but realizing He has chosen you and nothing can change.
That’s exactly what I’m talking about. That’s so powerful.
In a motherhood sense, something that god taught me with this whole dynamic, is when I was raising, my kids are all grown now.
My my youngest is 25 and about to have her first baby. Okay.
I don’t know if that makes me old or mature, but either way,
we’re
at that stage.
Okay? It’s called legacy.
Legacy. Um, but I remember so many times my kids would make a mistake which is a very normal thing when you’re growing up.
And I would be so tempted to draw a straight line from their mistake to some kind of weakness or flaw I had in my parenting.
Oh.
But one day, I was really wrestling through this, and I realized god chose me God chose me to be this child’s mother.
God chose me to 2 of my kids through adoption.
God chose me 3 of my kids through birth, but god chose me to be their mom.
Therefore, I have to know that it’s not my weakness that should be a that should be tied to this child’s mistake.
It should be. God must have seen some sort of unique strength in me to be able to handle and properly guide and lead and help this child navigate the weaknesses god already knew this child would have.
So god chose me as a mom because I am a good match.
So You know, it’s it’s that kind of thing. And it’s it’s not puffing myself up unnecessarily.
You know, I made plenty of mistakes as a mom. I’m not a perfect mom.
But also when I flipped that script, when I decided to live from the place of being chosen like you just said, like, I chose me to be this child’s mom.
It helped me to rise up and tackle those issues using gifts that god gave me rather than being caught on the loop of what I’m not.
Mhmm.
Okay. Let me read you another quote because there are so many in this book, and I know and we could sit here for hours.
I know we could, but we’re not. Okay. Uh, remember with god, there is always a way.
And by faith, you will find it, not by self doubt or self ridicule.
Now the reason why I liked this so much is because because sometimes I think we get in these negative thoughts and we think if we ridicule ourselves enough, it’ll be some kind of motivation for us to get better.
Oh, yeah.
But that’s not how it works? No. Right? No. Okay. So talk to me about that.
Well, it goes back to what you said earlier, and that’s actually one of the 6 mindsets.
I I break it down into 6 mindsets to become
Unless mentioned the book again. So do the new Do
the new you. And the 6 mindsets are kinda like 6.
Without your mullet.
Yeah. That’s a pre mullet. That’s the old me.
A I need a new cover with the with the new mullet, 6 mullets to become who you were created to be.
No.
No. It is 6 mindsets, though.
We’ll put that on the Spanish version. Yeah. The 6 mindsets are like 6 loops. They’re like 6 truth loops.
Like, they’re like 6 songs that you can get.
And I wrote them in a way where you can say them to yourself.
And I give them to you so you can put them on post it notes and they can become the song of your soul.
I think your soul needs a song.
And we have great songs that some of them get get us pumped up to go, you know, go go run or go lift weights.
Some of them help us calm down.
But these are to help you for the moments when you feel like there is no way.
So I wrote a mindset with god, there’s always a way. Mhmm. And by faith, I will find it.
So back to what you said, I have started with an assumption, like you said, god is good.
And he he was so good, Lisa, everything you shared, he is good at good to me and he is good at being god.
Yeah. So if I think he’s good at being god and he’s a waymaker, well, then he didn’t fail to make a way in this situation.
I just don’t see it yet. Now I’m looking for the way he’s making.
I use a, um, illustration that kind of reminded me when you were saying you had a relationship that you thought it’s over.
I felt that way about my relationship with my dad.
He was a very good dad, but he got sick with ALS, Lou Gehrig’s disease.
And you remember walking with me through that.
And, And I don’t know if you remember, we were working on another book during that time, and you were helping me flesh some ideas out for one of my other books.
And I was sharing with you how he had really isolated himself from my mom and they were still married and he became, in many ways, unsafe for her to be around and she had to move out and we tried everything to kind of reconcile, right?
And I would have told you at that time there’s no way.
In fact, one of my old mentors called me and he had talked to my dad and he goes, um, hey, Steven, I just talked with your dad because my dad was living alone.
We would send people to try to help care for him. Yeah.
And I had already moved him here to Charlotte, and he left and and nothing seemed to work.
And I’m not saying I was innocent, but I was exhausted of ideas to help him.
And and I felt terrible terrible about what he was going through, but I didn’t see a way forward.
And this guy calls me and goes, and I respect this man too.
He said, I just talked to your dad.
And I thought he was gonna say, I’m sorry what you’re going through, but no, he goes, And, uh, I just wanted to ask you a question, Steven.
I’ve been thinking, what would Jesus do?
And I I thought I didn’t say this, but I thought Jesus would heal him, and I’m not Jesus.
So what is your point? Like basically implying that I should be able to fix it, right?
And then my my father-in-law told me, remember all the things your dad did right.
And, you know, when people are giving you this advice, it’s so annoying because It’s not that I don’t want to reconcile with my dad.
I just don’t see how every time I try, it ends badly.
And that’s where a lot of people are right now.
It’s not that I don’t believe god can make a way. I just don’t see it right now.
But sometimes god will show you that small thing.
And just like you described, I was I was driving home from vacation on Father’s Day.
And I had a, um, a prompting, I call it that. It was just an idea.
I didn’t know if it was god’s voice. Sometimes you don’t know.
It’s just that seed, that little seed like that. What if? Right?
And the ways that god makes often start with a what if, not the what if of the enemy, but the what if of god.
And I I just asked Holly to drive. I was driving.
I said, will you will you drive for a minute? And I started making a list.
I didn’t even tell her what I was doing.
And we were by the exit for the town where my dad was living, and I said I need to go see my dad for a minute.
And what I had done is I started writing down like my father-in-law said, um, one good memory for every year that he had been my dad, not that Matt that year, but just like, he’s been my dad 32 years.
Let me think of 32. And Lisa, when I say my pen was moving so slow when I started, I was so mad at him and so frustrated and so depressed that I couldn’t figure out a way to do it.
And I felt like a failure, like a bad son, that I could barely get the first one down, but finally, I did.
And I wrote down, uh, bunting because he had coached one of my baseball teams, and we were horrible.
And so he didn’t let us swing the bat.
He made us all bunt every at bat because he figured that’s all we could do, and we bunted all season.
So I wrote down bunting. And that’s all I could think about.
And that would be a pre preaching moment too.
Like, sometimes all you can do is bunt, but anyway, um, I can appreciate that too.
But but I started making the list, and then I started remembering things.
I remembered when he took me to, uh, revival out in the country at a independent fundamentalist Baptist church.
And the preacher was, I think, walking over pews, and everybody was shouting him down, and this little boy stands up.
And instead of shouting a men or you know, preach it or that’s right.
He goes, let the wild hog eat. Let the wild hog eat.
So I wrote down, let the wild hog eat. Uh-huh. And my pen started moving. Wow.
And I had 32. And I pulled off and I knocked on the door.
I didn’t tell him I was coming. And I kinda shoved the list at him.
I’m like, here, happy Father’s Day. Thirty two things. And We didn’t even hug that visit.
We couldn’t yet. I didn’t stay for dinner.
We didn’t pray together, but god gave me a way that he showed me once I had faith as my perspective.
And when you started to open that file by faith that that the enemy had opened by fear, that the enemy had opened by bitterness, by disappointment, I think our faith opens a new file to allow god to begin to fill us.
And a a lot of people may be feeling like right now I don’t see a way.
I don’t have an idea. There must not be one. That’s the wrong conclusion.
I want you to begin to say, with god, there’s always a way
That’s right.
By faith, I will find it. And sometimes the ways that he makes are muddy.
Sometimes the ways that he make. It’s like
They may not make sense to us.
Oh, they really do. That’s why his ways are higher than our ways.
And sometimes if it doesn’t make sense to us, that should be almost confirmation that it has to be.
Yeah. Yeah. This makes no sense to me. Exactly.
And so if we get paralyzed in, okay, this, I I don’t know every step to take.
I don’t know the destination. God will often not give you the destination, but he’ll give you direction.
And and he’ll tell you, okay. Do this now. And so
And it’s almost like day by day. It’s not like this big spotlight. Like, all the way in the future.
Yeah. But that’s why it requires fate because if it’s daily, you may not see the payoff today. Yeah.
Like, I don’t think you saw a big payoff when you handed your dad the list.
No. It took weeks.
But you were being obedient to god.
Yeah. And months later, when I was by his bedside when he did go to heaven, and we got to be there together and and god did a miracle.
I’m like, wow. You know, talk about what if what if I didn’t pull over and let Holly drive?
What if I told myself there had to be this big, this dramatic moment?
And I’m not saying that reconciliation is always possible for everybody.
I’m using it as an example to say sometimes the way that god makes will seem so strange to you.
So small to you. But if there’s an impression that god is giving you that moves you forward by faith, step out and see.
I mean, that’s why I love about the Bible. Peter steps out. He’s like, hey, Jesus.
If this is you, tell me to come. She’s like, come. He just come.
And everybody always likes to point out, well, Peter sank. He didn’t make it. It didn’t work.
It’s like, It didn’t matter. Jesus caught him.
That’s right.
And he got a lesson out of it. So god is close to you.
When when he makes a way for you, it’s important to realize he is the way So even if this doesn’t work, god is still working.
And the important thing is to keep your heart steeped in faith and grounded in his word.
Thank you so much. I needed to be reminded of you doing that list.
Wow.
That’s so good.
You’re welcome.
What are your 2 favorite? I know you present 6 mindsets in the book, but I wanna end with this.
What are your 2? I shouldn’t even say 2 favorite.
That’s like asking me which is my favorite kid to which I would respond to whoever’s being nice to me that day.
Right? That’s right. So I don’t wanna say 2 favorite.
But what are 2 of the 6 mindsets that have personally mattered so much to you right now in this season?
Well, the first one says I’m not stuck unless I stop.
And I needed that because even writing this book.
And I thought I’d bring this up if the if the chance came that you watched me for 8 years uh, not write a book.
And I don’t believe that I was being disobedient to god.
I was pastoring the church god’s given me being the husband and dad. He’s called me to be writing songs.
It’s not like I was running a meth lab for the last 8 years running from god going to Nineveh.
That’s a
good thing.
Yeah, no, I wasn’t. Um, but at the same time, how many conversations did we have about, um, I just can’t do it.
I’m not an author. I don’t know how to get my words to the written page and All of those things were true and I had a conversation with Holly and it was one of those pivotal conversations.
You know, I call her the Holly spirit. And I do it jokingly and some people don’t like it.
They think it’s offensive, but, uh, god uses her to speak to me.
And she said, I believe god has more in you. Um, I’m not giving up on that.
And then she stopped talking to me and started praying about it.
And it’s not that I think, oh, this book is you know, Pilgrim’s progress, and it’s the most important book that was ever written.
But the fact that I started the book with the mindset that said, Sometimes you think you’re stuck when really you just stopped, you stopped asking questions, you stopped asking people to support you, you stop believing what god said about you or what god is speaking to you.
And I think that’s really important because a lot of people feel like, you know, there there is no way forward in this situation And a lot of times, I think stuck is a real thing.
Like, there are situations where I can’t change this right now.
I don’t mean that circumstances are always under our control.
But I believe that I’m not stuck unless I stop.
Let’s me see it’s not over right now unless I decide to stop moving forward.
And I want somebody to know that for their life that The only way this is the end is if you make the decision that it’s the end and you become bitter and that way of seeing my life is is so life changing.
And and the other one, Lisa, that I think I use the most goes like this God is not against me, but he’s in it with me, working through me, and fighting for me.
Wow.
And I developed that little mindset mantra, if we can call it that that little loop, that little song for the soul, when I was driving up to preach one Sunday at our church and secretly kind of feeling like I’m probably gonna blow it, and I’m not gonna do that good.
The loop was going in my head. You’re speaking for god today. You feel qualified to do that?
Of course not. Who is, you know?
And so what do you fill that space with when you feel like you can’t?
And I had this sudden feeling like the lord was speaking to me, why do you assume that I don’t wanna help you do this?
You’re going out there to preach my word the best you can to help people in the way that you’re called to do it.
Don’t you think I want that? Don’t you think I want to use you?
Do you really think I’m against you.
And so I started just saying to myself, and I’m literally sitting in my car at this point.
I haven’t even gone in the building yet. It’s like 6:30 in the morning.
And I’m like, god is not against me. Well, if he’s not against me, then what is he?
Well, he’s in it with me and he’s working through me. And he’s fighting for me.
And I say that to myself all the time because I walk around feeling sometimes like I know so much about me why god shouldn’t use me.
Or even sometimes I feel like why god shouldn’t love me.
And that is the starting place to know that he’s for me.
Whatever I’m in right now, he’s not waiting for me to get to the other side before he embraces me.
Or before he hears my prayers, he’s in it with me, working through me, it’s not just about me getting through it.
It’s about what god wants to do through me. And he’s fighting for me. So he’s got my back.
And I think that is the basis of me believing that I can face whatever comes my way, if that’s true.
You know, one thing that I appreciate so much about your book, do the new you, and you can see I have highlighted it, marked it up.
Um, I like that you have written it from a place of deeply understanding the angst of how hard this can be at the same time with the hope of what it can be as we as we grow as we develop.
You know? So you have the angst of deeply understanding the hardship But you simultaneously are living the hope of this message, and I appreciate that.
If you came out and were like, yeah. Like, I did this, this, and this.
And now I never get stuck in those negative thought loops. Right?
Right.
But it helps me to know you still this still happens to you.
So this isn’t like a 1 and done. You know? Yeah.
But this is a resource that we can return back to over and over.
Because there’s always gonna be that propensity for us to lean toward the I can’t.
But I love the hope of, yeah, but what if you could? Mhmm.
What what if you really believe that god is for you, working through you, helping you to accomplish what he already has seen, the new you.
And
so I appreciate that. So much. Thank you for taking time.
Thank you.
Have this conversation, um, to have equal confession time.
Yeah. I I feel like we have only begun the confessions. We’re gonna part 2, part 3, part 4.
But, uh, seriously, Lisa, thank you for for allowing me to share the message.
And I wanna say one more thing. Okay?
When you were saying daily decisions and the daily, basically, the daily prayer that you pray, which is I think that’s what the Bible means when it says put on the new self created to be like god.
Right.
It’s like getting dressed. And I don’t even know.
Maybe you pray that while you’re getting dressed or maybe you pray it after you’ve gotten dressed or maybe you pray it.
You’re like still laying in the bed like, oh, lord Jesus help me today because I need this Well, that should give us a picture that there is something that we have to take off, and that doesn’t mean there’s something wrong with you.
That’s what I want people to realize is that just because you may have started might be negative.
I am not a naturally positive person.
That’s why I wrote the book because I’m like, I wanna prove to you that even though you may not feel like I’m the most positive person, I’m the most hopeful, optimistic person, you can put on this new nature that Christ has given you just like we chose what to wear today.
And I think the most powerful realization is god chose you And then the decision is will you, which you will you choose?
You’re deciding that in every moment.
And I’m praying that more and more in my life I choose the me that god sees the the me that I get a glimpse of from time to time that god knew all along and and I wanna grow into that man and be that person.
Well, I think this interview itself has been an exercise of showing people how this message work and how it worked in you because remember at the beginning, you said, I don’t know if I’m gonna be able to say the right things.
I don’t know if I have anything to really encourage people, whatever, you know, all the confessions that you made and, uh, look at what happened.
You stepped in. Yeah. You didn’t listen to the negative thoughts. You have the conversation.
You admitted where you were struggling. And at the same time, look at all the wisdom that came.
Look at all the fruit that came throughout this interview.
And I know So much of what you’ve shared because you didn’t stay stuck in that negative thought pattern, but you stepped out.
You’re obedient to god. You watch god work through you.
And I guarantee you this interview is gonna be exactly what so many people need to hear. So thank you.
Amazing. Thank you, Lisa.