It's 2022, ya'll! We are both excited and ready for the future and taking a pause/rest stop to reflect how far we've come and the gems that we've dropped on the Truths and Promises podcast so far.
Join us as we dive back into some favorites and leave a comment below on your favorite episode so far! ⬇️
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Show Notes:
Numbers 13:2: “Send some men to explore the land of Canaan, which I am giving to the Israelites."
Numbers 13:25-33: "At the end of forty days they returned from exploring the land. They came back to Moses and Aaron and the whole Israelite community at Kadesh in the Desert of Paran. There they reported to them and to the whole assembly and showed them the fruit of the land. They gave Moses this account: “We went into the land to which you sent us, and it does flow with milk and honey! Here is its fruit. But the people who live there are powerful, and the cities are fortified and very large. We even saw descendants of Anak there. The Amalekites live in the Negev; the Hittites, Jebusites and Amorites live in the hill country; and the Canaanites live near the sea and along the Jordan. Then Caleb silenced the people before Moses and said, “We should go up and take possession of the land, for we can certainly do it.” But the men who had gone up with him said, “We can’t attack those people; they are stronger than we are.” And they spread among the Israelites a bad report about the land they had explored. They said, “The land we explored devours those living in it. All the people we saw there are of great size. We saw the Nephilim there (the descendants of Anak come from the Nephilim). We seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and we looked the same to them.”
Numbers 20:21: "Since Edom refused to let them go through their territory, Israel turned away from them."
Get Caught Up with Episode 7: F.R.E.E.D.O.M. Method Part 2
Rest Stop - Transcription
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Hey, ya'll! Happy New Year it's 2022! Turn up! Turn up! Turn up! Listen, if nothing else this year, I am serious about leaning into rest. Okay. Lord knows the journey's been long. Y'all know that song cause that's an old song. But anyway, when the journey is long, you know, you have to take a rest stop. So this will be the first in a series of rest stops, where we simply recap some of our favorite parts from the previous episodes that we've played thus far.
So if you have a friend that you've been trying to put on to The Truths and Promises podcast, you probably want to send them this episode so that they can hear a little bit of what we've been up to. The types of things we talk about. And I'm so excited for this new year, y'all, because we are about to start having our first series of interviews. All right. And we have some very special, sort of ordinary, but also extraordinary folks coming onto the podcast to share with you their life journey and to have you be a part of that, so before we begin the journey on other people's journey stories, let's just take a quick rest stop, and in all honesty, this is to also give me time to not have to record during the holidays but to also just recap where we've been so far in The Truths and Promises podcast, take a listening.
Say his name, say his name, even if someone's around you say Jesus I love you if you ain't running games, say His name, say His name. I hope I didn't hurt nobody's ear with that. But ya'll, the episode that we have with the Bonnet Prayer Gang was everything. Take a listen to this clip and remember to say his name, say his name.
I mean, reiterating, sharing our testimony, but also they're looking at your life. They see you on a day-to-day basis, whether you're sharing it or not, they're going to see you, like you said when you're down and out and they're going to watch how you react, and they're going to watch how you rely totally on the Lord in those times.
And that is such a testament to your faith, probably even more so than just your words could be. They're watching this thing in action. So I definitely feel that. And I also feel like the accountability that comes with that. And I mean, I don't know about you guys, but for me, honestly, sometimes it's hard to share the gospel with those that are closest to us.
Like, I feel like it's easier sometimes to talk about Jesus to thousands of people on the internet than it is like with my very closest friends and family. And so, I mean, it's definitely something where I have to ask, well, if God put me here and he put these people around me, you know, what is my life saying to them? Or what am I sharing with them? Not just with strangers that I may never actually encounter in real life.
Yeah.
Yeah. I mean, the scripture does talk about how a prophet is not accepted in his own home. And I wonder how much that relates to us in our own little circles sometimes. And honestly, I mean, there are friends that let's be real. Like I'm not actively trying to get them saved. I'm not seeking to evangelize to them, but I do want to live a life in front of them; that is a picture of God's glory because that's me at least planting a seed. Someone else might come along, plant some more seeds. Someone else might water it. Then someone else will actually prune and help them grow in the Word.
Perhaps that's not my role, but my role is just to plant the initial seed, and I've seen that with some of my friends who, "yeah, girl, I read your book" or, "yeah, I thought about this thing you said to me and ended up giving my life to God," like a year later or something it's like, oh, I ain't even know.
Like, you ain't even call me and tell me you were doing that. But you know, the way that you live your life sometimes it's that non-verbal communication that means so much. Cause like you all say, people are looking at how we respond and how we react, and it's not even; I don't think it's only the tough times because I will admit that, you know, I've had some trying times in life.
As someone prophesied to me a few years ago, like God has miraculously given me a pretty peaceful life. I mean, it has not been perfect by any means, but it is definitely been a life of peace. I, you know, I remember as a child looking and searching, I had someone telling me, like, you don't know the real meaning of faith until you've gone through something in life.
I actually resent that comment because then I spent like a number of years searching for things to go through and like went through things unnecessarily, ended up being like Jonah, where I sort of went to Nineveh. Just because, you know, went to Nineveh, like back and forth in between the two, and just looking for something to go through, some reason to have a testimony. But really, my testimony has been how sweet and how good God really is, how faithful he is, and that in itself and giving honor to God and glory to God, I think in itself is its own testimony. I had someone tell me, oh, the only reason you have any of these things is because you worked really hard for them, and even in that moment, I was like, uh-huh no, like I couldn't have worked hard for this, if it wasn't for God giving me the strength to be able to work hard for this, you know like it's still all points back to Him. And I think in the good and the bad, the perfect, the ugly, we can still live a life that always points back to Him that never glorifies ourselves. And that is another way to sort of minister to those who are closest to us. That maybe won't sit down and listen to us preach a sermon to them but will watch how we live our lives out. So that's it. That's a good, a good point to bring up.
Yeah. And I think that's kind of what happened with your dissertation, right?
It's like, that is such a huge accomplishment. And in that moment, you could have been like, You know, I worked so hard...
I hustled...
You know, and people would have been like, yup, she sure did. And that's all her, but you took one of the biggest accomplishments of your life and then pointed it straight back to the Father.
And I do think that even in those moments, that's such a huge Testament to our identity and to our faith. And it's so encouraging to people, in addition to those hard times.
And I guess as you're saying that, Johnna, it reminds me how rare that is for someone to give all the glory to God because even in churches, people are soaking up glory that belongs to God.
Is this that type of podcast?
You know, I think even. Just like our whole society, how it's built out. Like we seek after success after success, and we just soak in all the glory. Look at me. I did this. So it is really beautiful to see you, Shekinah, get to that wonderful place in your career. And even beyond that into, you know, your next steps and still give glory to God.
That's rare. I don't think I've seen that a lot.
Our very first Rest Stop episode would not be complete without looking back at the very first episode on Catching Feelings. The difference between facts, feelings, and the truth. And y'all, this episode right here is one of the main reasons that I started this podcast. To help myself and others recognize the difference between what you feel, what's a fact, and what's the truth, and it's also the basis for the 1140 story. So go ahead and take a listen to this clip.
So here it goes, Numbers 13, verse 2 God is speaking to Moses and says, "Send some men to explore the land of Canaan, which I am giving to the Israelites." Here, we are talking about the promised land; the promised land here is the Canaanite land. All right. This is Canaan that God has promised to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and all of the Israelites. This is the reason that he pulled them out of bondage and slavery in Egypt so that He could deliver them into this land. Now, when he says that He's delivering them into this land, He's saying that "I am giving you this land." There's very little work that He requires of the Israelites. All He requires of them is their obedience and their faithfulness. Like this is literally all that He asked of them, but He knows that they're not perfect. So we see in Leviticus all the offerings that they can make to ask for atonement and forgiveness for their sins.
So He makes all of these things possible. But at the end of the day, He just wants to give his chosen people His best. So he has this promised land for them, and He says, send them up, send out 12 people to go, 12 men to go and see this land that I am giving to you. So the 12 guys spend 40 days there, and then they returned from their exploration in verse 25, and in verse 27, we start to see them giving their account. They say to Moses, "we went into the land, which you sent us, and it does flow with milk, and honey," they're saying to him, it's exactly how God said it would be. Because God said, I will send your children to a land, your children's children, your children's children, children, to a land that is flowing with milk and honey, and then what's happening here?
They're saying it's exactly how God said it would be. It does flow with milk and honey; that thing is nice. Okay. It's it's got a nice spread, everything, but then they say in verse 28, but although it's flowing with milk and honey, the people who live there are powerful, and the cities are fortified and very large.
All right. I don't see anything wrong with this. It's a fact. Okay. This can be a real, real fact. The land is beautiful, but it's also super fortified. All right, whoop-de-doo. So in verse 30, Caleb comes through, and he says, yeah, all right, cool. But we should go up and take possession of the land for, we can certainly do it.
Some people might say he was really feelin' himself, and he was like, oh, "we're mighty, and we're strong, and we could go...". No, this isn't a feeling. This isn't even just a fact, but this is truth. How do we know that this is truth? Because all of the scriptures leading up to this moment, God has continuously said, even as he did in Numbers 13, verse 2, that I am giving this land to the Israelites.
So if he is giving this land to the Israelites, then as Caleb says, they can certainly do it. But the other 10 men were all in their feelings. Okay. And maybe start to spread this bad report among the Israelites about the land that they had explored. They then start to tell them, we see in verse 33, they're telling the people, "we seem like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and we look the same to them."
Can somebody say assume? They were assuming a lot. Okay. They were assuming a lot about what other people were thinking about them. This should seem familiar because unless you're like an amazingly confident person that has no doubts, no fears, no worries, no anxiety, no feelings of inadequacy. Then maybe you won't connect with what I'm saying here.
But for us, other normal people. I think we've all experienced this imposter syndrome. This inadequacy, this, we don't belong here, we're not good enough. Why would God choose me? Why would God use me? That in itself is sort of a whole nother podcast, but at the end of the day, these feelings were taking over them so much so that we see in Numbers 14 that they start to cry. They raised their voices. They do what the Israelites do best. They start complaining at God. Not, not to God, not talking to God like God, please help us understand what you're doing here. No. You should have left us in Egypt because you just brought us out here to die in the wilderness. Now you brought us to die in the promised land, and I want to go back to bondage, and I want to go back to my old sin, and I want to go back to my old ways.
They're going through all of these feelings and emotions. Why? Because they've forgotten the truth.
One of my favorite episodes that I've done so far has been From The Walter's gems, and yes, it's because my wonderful husband was sitting right there with me, but also we've got a lot of great feedback about how we were dropping gems, apparently, during this episode. And I love it. And so I wanted to share this clip with y'all.
The first place I wanted to start was with if you could get any piece of relationship advice given our past few years together; what would that relationship advice be? It could be as many points or viewpoints.
All right. Let me just start off by saying I'm not a relationship guru. I'm still trying to figure this out myself, you know? But, I feel like. Everyone has experiences that the next person can use or use within their lives or within their situations. So this is what I'm do give my opinions and how I feel about relationships and how you should go about it. So initially, I would say, you know, your relationship is your relationship, and it doesn't look; it doesn't have to look like anybody else's. Right? You know, no one person or two people are the same, everybody has differences. God made them differently. Right? So each relationship is going to function differently. Right? So I would say that, especially in this digital age, I would say to a certain extent, you should probably keep, you know, your relationship private, right. Things that don't need to be shared. Don't need to be shared on social media or certain groups within your lives or certain friends, or, you know, to share things that you are comfortable with, with the groups that you are comfortable with, right? , Yeah, and your partner, right? Especially at certain stages in your relationship. I think, you know, there's, there's certain people you want to let in a certain people you want to keep out by. Like, you know, when we first started dating, we had counsel from our pastors up in Rhode Island over in Rhode Island since we're in Minneapolis and out east. So over in Rhode Island. So yeah, we had counsel from them, and I was good at that initial stage because, you know, they have a fruitful marriage, and they have been through the dating stage. They've been through all types of stages. So, you know, they've been married for what, six years or something. So like,
They've been married for over a decade.
But they've been married for a long time, and like, those are people that we felt comfortable with coming to them with advice. And, you know, maybe we didn't see eye to eye, you know, So, you know, just what that being said, going to people where you feel confident that they can give you constructive criticism and unbiased advice and advice that's uncapped, you know, advice meaning that they are not afraid to tell you where they failed or where they could have improved, you know, cause that initially can help you, avoid those situations in your relationship. So, yeah, that would be one piece of advice, you know, keep it private, seek advice from people that you trust and who have fruitful marriages or fruitful relationships. And then also just, you know, be grateful, graceful with each other, you know, nobody's perfect.
You know, nobody has all the answers, you know, you're in this together, you know, it's not you against the world or her against the world, him against the world. She against the world, you know, it's both of y'all against the world, and you kind of need to have this team mentality as opposed to this individualistic mentality, right. Because I think, especially in today's society, we have this individual, like propaganda going on all the media and everything -is about me, me, me, me, me. Right. But you know, life is about love, about relationships, and about people. So you can't get far without relationships and without people, you know, there's, there's a cap on how far you can get and how the quality of life you can have without people or without relationships.
Yeah. No, that's all really good. I like also how you say no two relationships are the same. I think I had to learn that a lot throughout my single season. I think our relationship has taught me that in a lot of ways, you know, sort of checking my expectations at different points while I expect it to look like this, or I expected to look like that, or this is how it worked out for so-and-so. So this is how it should work out for me. But that game of comparison, man, it's crazy. God really does give us our own stories to walk out and to live out fully. And it's so important that we lean into each and every single one of those journeys that we have and accept them as our own unique journey and not necessarily play that comparison game a lot. I think you even touched on, you know, privacy and, and making sure you're not putting everything out there to everyone and anyone, all the time. And I think that's been a large part of our relationship, somewhat purposefully. And I think somewhat like accidentally like I fell off of social media after getting engaged and getting married. I mean, I was also dissertating and trying to get a real job. So there were a lot of things happening all at one time.
But I sort of fell off social media for a little bit, and I realized how comforting that was like; I was able to live in the moment, like when we go out to dinner, or we would go out on random dates like we still do. It's like, oh, I can be in this moment instead of figuring out, is this picturesque, can I get a picture?
Can I do this? Do I need to post it? What should this story say? Like, it's been more just like living in the moment, which has been so important. I think, in the middle of COVID like we don't get to go outside that much. So when we're outside, I like to be outside and away from my devices so that that's been really real.
I don't know that I would add much else to the relationship advice you gave, honestly. That piece on grace that you mentioned that was going to be my go-to because I think that's the biggest thing I've learned. One, grace for myself. All right. I've been managing my own life. Well, not my entire life. My parents managed until I was about 18. And then after that, I sort of was like in control of everything I did, everywhere I went, and like, I'm really good at managing me as an individual, as a single woman, but managing yourself as a married person is a little different, right? And you have to have, for me, I've had to have grace towards myself.
No, I'm not going to be able to cook and clean every day, as well as do all my research and run 1140 Glory or whatever else God might give me like; I have to be gracious towards the things that I can accomplish. Day to day or week to week, but I also have to be gracious towards you in the way that you do things because, inevitably, they're different than the way that I do things.
And so we've learned grace, I think, in so many situations. So I agree with that relationship advice.
His thoughts are higher than our thoughts. His ways are better than our ways. It is such a simple verse but so difficult to remember sometimes, which is the reason that we try to build our visions, dreams, identities, and lives from the ground. Whereas, in fact, we should be building from heaven down. Take a listen to this clip from our Building From Heaven Down episode.
So there are so many times we have good ideas that have so much potential, but if we unplug from our power source and we start building from the ground up, and our own wisdom, knowledge, and understanding, and we stop building from heaven down, that's when a lot of those God ideas can just move to good ideas that don't actually meet their full potential.
The scripture asks us to seek first the kingdom of God and all its righteousness, and everything else will be added unto us. Now, when we started to seek first the Kingdom of God, we stop moving in our own wisdom, and we started moving by God's Spirit first and foremost. That's what it means to build from heaven down.
As I was studying Numbers 20:21, I noticed what I would consider the perfect example and juxtaposition of building from the ground up versus building from heaven down. So in Numbers 20, this is what we see, Moses and the Israelites are asking the King of Edom to make passage through their land. Moses writes this beautiful, diplomatic, very wise letter to ask permission to make passage through their country. The King of Edom responds, "no." The Israelites respond back, saying no, no, no, no worries. We're going to come through. We're not going to touch anything. If we touch anything, we'll pay for it. We only want to pass through on foot. Nothing else. We're not bringing any problems. So they start their journey through the land. Again, Edom responds. No. And then Edom comes out against them as the scripture says with a large and powerful army. And when Edom does that, the Israelites are forced to turn around and take a detour from the promised land.
So they were headed towards the promised land and then because of their diplomatic interactions with Edom. They are forced to turn around and head back. Then in Numbers 21, what we see is one of the Canaanite Kings attacks the Israelites, and he captures some of them as they're traveling along within that Canaanite land and country.
When this happens, the Israelites make a vowel to the Lord, and they say, "if you will deliver these people into our hands, we will totally destroy their cities," which is a deeper conversation but aligns with the commands that God has given them. So the Lord listens to them; it's what the scripture says and hears their plea and gives the Canaanites over to them, allowing them to defeat them.
These two stories are both about passing through foreign land towards the promised land. So they're both about a mission, a vision, accomplishing a particular task, but the first story in Numbers 20 is about building from the ground up, whereas the story in Numbers 21 is about building from heaven down.
The big difference we see here is that Moses and the Israelites decide to seek God in the second story. In the first story, they use their diplomacy, their wisdom, their knowledge, their understanding of how things work. They go about building out the strategy and making a plan without consulting the Lord first.
And so, when they hit a wall, they don't even bother to ask God for help. This is the same as moving from the ground up. Thinking that we can build out the visions and make it to the promised land and our own wisdom, capabilities, strategy, knowledge, intellect. Versus in Numbers 21, we see them as soon as they hit the wall, as soon as they are attacked, they look up to God, and they say "help us." They start to pray. They start to plead, and then they are successful. So this is the difference between building from the ground up and building from heaven down. Building from heaven down requires fearless faithfulness. Fearless faith and fearless faithfulness.
It means you're not afraid of what the future may hold. You're not afraid of success. You're not afraid of failure. You're not worried about the outcomes. You're not worried about the counts. You're not worried about the income you're, you're fearless when it comes to those things, you're worriless, but you're faithful to what God has called you and commissioned you to do.
The truths and promises podcast has been such a blessing for me personally, and I've heard from some of you that it's also been a blessing for you, and I can't tell you how honored and privileged I feel to be able to host this podcast. I hope that you all have enjoyed some of the highlights that we've shared here in this rest stop. Don't worry. Future rest stops will come where you can refresh your memory of all of the episodes or invite others to listen. Thanks again for being here and being present, being a part of The Truths and Promises podcast family, for being a part of the 1140 Glory family. If you are not already plugged into our community, be sure to join the Own Your Journey Facebook group to sign up for our Thank God It's Monday email list. And please, of course, as always, leave comments in the show notes. Let us know what you think. If there's a highlight that you want to hear in our next rest stop, also let us know that. I'm looking forward to continuing to connect with each of you. Happy New Year, and get ready, get ready, get ready because we have so much in store for the journey of faith stories that are coming your way soon and very soon.
So stay tuned to this Truths and Promises podcast, invite one family member and one friend every time you listen, and that way. Others will know God, trust God, and obey God alongside of you. Be blessed, ya'll.
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