Wherever there are shadows, there are people ready to kick out the darkness until it bleeds daylight. This is Bleeding Daylight with your host Rodney Olsen.
Welcome. You can find Bleeding Daylight on Facebook and Instagram. Links and other episodes are at bleedingdaylight.net Please share Bleeding Daylight with others. We all face life decisions that have us wondering which way to turn. How do we determine the direction we should take? Today's guest has been on a journey to discern God's leading for many years. Today's guest describes himself as a country kid from the cornfields of Iowa. He strongly believes that when you walk firmly in faith, the
extraordinary follows He certainly lived what he believes with his own extraordinary life is proof. These days. Shawn Paul lives in Guatemala, but it's been an interesting road to get there. He is the host of the podcast life is Jesus Christ with Shawn Paul, and his life is Jesus Christ website is full of resources for Christians around the world. It's my honor to welcome him to Bleeding Daylight. Shawn, thank you for your time.
Well, thank you, Rodney, it's great to be here. Thank you for allowing me to come on and just inspire people for Jesus.
I mentioned the fact that your life has taken you down some interesting roads, maybe you can give me a thumbnail sketch of just who is Sean Paul,
I'm a guy that just kind of loves Jesus. And everything I've done or am doing is by His grace, His strength, his power. So I have nothing to brag on. I just kind of dare to believe in who God is. And if He leads me in that direction, I'm going to go because I just believe that when you're in his total plan and purpose for your life, there's just going to be peace and joy. So I'm kind of addicted to
peace and joy, and I like to follow it. And that's what I've done, gave my life to Christ in 1990 9093, I started my first business and in that it was just like the Lord kind of helped me learn to follow His plan and purpose for my life. Learn quickly, I don't want the control of
my life. I want the Lord to have that control my life. We sold that company in Iowa and moved to Kentucky. In Kentucky, I was involved in various real estate aspects as well through investing and being a realtor mortgage lending, kind of knew that I had a mistero call my life I was patient allowed to come forth. I knew about missions, I really didn't have an interest in missions. And then in
2007 had an opportunity go to the mission field, which took place in 2008. The Lord said, Hey, you're going to be a missionary. So you know, here I am a successful guy having a great time of my life. A lot of people like comfort. So you know, we were blessed financially, my wife had a great job. And all of a sudden God says, You're gonna go do something you've never done before. So we packed six cases with
a young lady that just graduated from high school and went to the mission field and did something I never done before. So here we are. 10 years later, we live in Guatemala, just have a blessed life. My whole life now is just inspiring people live for Jesus.
I suppose in those days of the business and that going successfully for you? You've probably thought, well, I've got this figured out the Lord wants me to help resource missionaries, rather than being one.
When we got to the mission field, you got that entrepreneurial spirit inside of you. I've been an entrepreneur pretty much my whole adult life after military. It was something I looked at. But here's the funny part. To this day. I still don't speak Spanish. I do Taco Bell Spanish but not full blown conversational Spanish. So that limited to me. And trust me, I
remember the day I stood in my office and scream, why did you put me here? God did allow me to do one online business, which today, it was very successful. And then today, the interest in that and the competition and everybody's written the same book, you know, everybody's doing the same videos on YouTube. It's kind of slowly died down. So now I'm just at the place. Now, I'm not even interested in business anymore. I
just want to run the race. And as far as what he's doing through life is Jesus Christ.
A lot of people would have perhaps an outdated view of what a missionary is or what a missionary does. Tell me what it looks like for you and for your family.
When we got to the mission field, we didn't go through a sending agency and that's a pretty popular path. And that is like you have actual missional organizations that their whole specialty is, you know, placing missionaries in the mission field. I didn't even know of such an organization. My aim was hey, you know, I want to be a missionary. I feel like God's called me a bit being a missionary. I went
to my pastor, he gave his blessing We got to the mission field. So literally, it's a pioneer work for us. We knew what was in our heart, our heart was children's ministry and reaching into the rural areas of Honduras, and the mountainous regions and identifying communities that needed the gospel of Jesus Christ, we connected with a local pastor. For the nine years that we were there, we helped him because it
was more about aligning ourselves with local ministries. It wasn't about us trying to create our own ministry. So we aligned ourselves with him, and then helped him expand into 16 communities. And then along with that my wife developed children's ministries in these
communities, by teaching and training children's ministers and then writing their own curriculum. Just a lot of church building a lot of building homes, teaching, preaching, leadership development, we offered a two year Bible College at that time, while we were in Honduras, there's just a lot of activity in helping grow ministry. And that's predominantly what we what we did in those nine years.
I'm very interested in that whole idea of coming alongside the local church, because there is still this hangover thought that those of us coming from the west have all the answers, tell me about the importance of coming alongside what God is already doing in an area.
Here we are. We've been in Honduras for nine years, let's reverse this and say, hey, you know, I beat my chest and say, I'm an American, I'm going to do it my way, I'm going to show them how to farm how to build houses, how to run their businesses. So I spent nine years and pushing my way through their society through their culture. And then all of a sudden, God says, Okay, you can move to Guatemala. So
what's going to happen to the ministry? So see, today, the ministry is still thriving, you know, as far as our connections to the pastors is still thriving is still growing. So my thing is, this is I just kind of learned to shut my mouth went down there didn't have this note all attitude, because I'm an American. You know, I've heard that many times. And I've seen that flop many times. I'm a former
contractor, remodeling construction. One, they don't even build with wood, you know, they build with concrete, unlike looking at this guy saying, How am I supposed to build this? What am I supposed to do here? When you stop being so prideful and act like, you know, like you said, the West we know everything, actually kind of learn a lot that you never even knew. And then I'll just tell you one other thing. You
know, I'm former military guy, former boss, former barking orders. I go down there with that kind of bravado attitude, in a sense. Now, again, I respect their culture and stuff. We had this medical campaign, these people were standing off the side, they're shy, they didn't really know what they should do. Can they come? Should they come? Are we going to hurt them? Here we are closing up shop, loading up the car
and getting ready to go. All of a sudden, now they want to come and be seen? And I'm like, no, no, you know, they just wasted their time. You know, they stood there stared at us. No, we're not going to do this. And pasture. Fabio, you know, he's just a gentle heart. Good guy. He says, Shawn, you got to understand they were ashamed. They were shy, they really didn't know what we were doing. Now they've made the
decision, why can't we open up the car and help them treat them. So see, I'll never forget that I learned to mirror and mimic their culture, and be respectful and be honorable, and the way they think. And they're very non confrontational people, I stopped being loud, stop being aggressive. When you see somebody, you know, they go through the greetings, you know, us Americans, you know, we're just
like, cut, cut to the chase and get to business. You know, that's not how they do it. You know, when they call you on the phone, they want to know how your kids are doing how your dogs doing. And then they will start to talk. And so anyway, I changed the lie in that in the 10 years that I've been here.
Tell me about this whole idea of being led by the Holy Spirit, because we hear people saying, Oh, God has led me here or there. And oftentimes, there can be an excuse for people to do what they want and put a spiritual tag on it. But when we truly want to be led by God, what is it that you've discovered over the years.
The Bible is very clear that God wants us to live a life in peace. You say, Okay, well, we're not going to have circumstances, we're not gonna have situations, we're not going to have trials. So you really got to kind of like align this and really look at the Scripture. And what that is, to me is in the times of storms and opposition, we can still walk in peace and we can still walk in joy.
Joy is not a product as a result of circumstances situations, like you give me the favorite meal I wanted or you hand me $100 or whatever, that's happiness based on circumstances and situation. Peace is one component of the way the Holy Spirit will lead and guide us when you start following peace. And when you start following joy, you will learn that that's how the Lord is leading you think that God is going
to speak audible Are you guys going to have This authoritative voice that he speaks and then you follow it. No, you follow the word of God and then you follow the peace of God that's in your heart. The other thing too, and I kind of equate it to a stoplight, you have your green light, yellow light, and a stoplight. So when you get these yucky, I call him yucky, because I really can't get the right
terminology that I want. But you get this yucky feeling in your spirit. To me, that's your stoplight. That's a Holy Spirit saying, Whoa, whoa, do not go any further. Don't do that. Now, I'll give you an example. This morning, I was writing my blog. You know, I have a system in place that I follow. I'm very systematic. I got procedures in place and how I develop my content. The next thing was up was to write a blog on
holiness. I pray I say Holy Spirit, I need you to guide me and help me write this. I couldn't get anything really honest. I kind of had that yucky feeling or yucky sensation in my spirit. Like this isn't right. This is not what the Lord wants me to write. There's somebody that
needs to hear a true fresh word. I was like, okay, Holy Spirit, what do I do here, and then it's just like, boom, go to your YouTube channel. So I scroll and there's a lot of YouTube videos I've produced that I've never really actually wrote a blog on, and it was walking in peace, you can walk in peace, because I just think we live in such a turmoil chaotic society today. You know, just all the drama that people
live in. And they it's like they're obsessed with it, they're addicted to it. As soon as I saw that, it was like, boom, a silky perception of my spirit of peace, like this is it. So as I'm writing it, it's like flowing. That's what I need to do is follow that peace. And that peace is your green light. That yucky feeling in your spirit. That's your stoplight the Holy Spirit saying stop, then you got the yellow light
yellow means proceed with caution. To me, it's like you're not getting that silky feeling in your spirit. like, Ah, this is right. But you're not getting that yucky feeling. So it's like coasting, heading towards a direction where you feel like God is leading guiding you to go. But you're just not getting that total peace feeling. So to me, that's your caution light, like saying you're going in the right direction, but
you just don't have it quite right. So it's kind of like a plane, if you're off one or two degrees, instead of flying from New York to LA, you're gonna end up being in Spokane, Washington. So you just got to dial that in through prayer and seek in the face of God. And this see God will show you some adjustments you need to make in your plans. And then as you make those adjustments, that piece will come
forth. And then you follow that piece. What I've been following for many years, I kind of jokingly say that a lot of people would find my life very boring. But see, I don't live drama, I just follow this piece. I have a great life and the Lord, I chase after him, I put him first. I don't want what I want. I want him at full control of my life. The Bible clearly says as we delight in the Lord, He will give us the
desires of our heart. But the key is this a lot of people think all the desires of our heart, there's nothing wrong with things. I like things too. But you know, it's like people become obsessive with things obsessive with a different car, they just got a car last year, but now they want a new car, they just got a cell phone last year, now they want a new cell phone. So see, that's not the desires of the heart, I believe.
I believe as we delight in God and are passionate about our intimate relationship with him. What happens is slowly he starts pulling these fleshly these selfish, self centered desires, we he kind of pulls them out, he starts slipping in his desires for our life. So what happens is, is we delight in him, he starts bringing forth these other desires, like my prayers now is like, I don't care what I want God,
I want what you want, I want to do what you want me to do. I want to fulfill your planet purpose for my life. So see, now this is my prayer is after 30 some years. So see what happens is he starts bringing forth His plan and purpose in my life. Things begin to get presented in my life. So then what I do is as they get presented like opportunities or situations or maybe new ways to do ministry, I'll start praying on
those and I'll say, Lord, is this where you want me to go is do you want me to start podcasting? Do you want me to start doing this? Do you want me to start it? See, as I pray about it, what happens is his plan will start getting magnified in my spirit. I start getting excited. I start seeing vision imagining coming forward. So see, I start following that. But then there are things that come in my life that I'm like, No, I
don't see this anymore. No, I don't really have a desire for that anymore. No, that's not really it. No, I'm not even interested in that. So that's another thing that I do in my life. You know, it's been working, so why change it. You know, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. I'm addicted to peace. I'm addicted to joy. And that's how I follow things in my life.
We know that God often calls us to make the difficult decisions or to go to the hard places in life. So how do we seek that peace? And how do we avoid just saying, Well, I want peace. So therefore, taking the path of least resistance.
That's another thing that I minister on, and I teach people is, you know, it's kind of like most people in society, what they're doing is they're taking the path of least resistance is how water flows. So what happens is, is situations and circumstances literally dictate their life and where they're going to go with life. So see, it's easier just to go get a local job at the factory or become a
salesman or whatever, it's just easier to do that. That's the unfortunate part is because there's a lot of people in Christ is doing things that God really never intended them to do. But we have a free will. So he's going to allow us to do whatever we want. You can be a good believer, you can go to church, you can tend to house a god, you could serve in the community, you can still kind of coast in life and
still kind of get that somewhat sense of peace. But see, for me, I'm just so obsessed of wanting to fulfill the planet purpose of God in my life. And I'm going to give you an example, when I got the call of God on my life to go to the mission field. And, you know, again, we're very successful, very successful, financially 2008 2009, you know, we're making over a six figure income, that's a very comfortable
life in the United States. We're getting into real estate, we're flipping properties. So then when I presented this to my wife to go to the mission field, I got a lot of resistance. My wife felt like she was going to have to walk away from her children's ministry, you know, she's just going to go to the mission field and serve me serve my needs, meaning, you know, I want to minister to pastors, well, she's
going to be behind me and help me in that. But she's going to walk away from children's ministry. And then obviously, you know, what are we going to do with our teenage daughter just kind of going through that five year period of trying to work things out with my wife, my wife, so great woman, gosh, she loves God, she chases god, she's more of a missionary than I am today. My hat goes off to her. She
makes marriage easy. That's how the amazing wife I have, you know, again, she wasn't saying, Yeah, I'm on board. Let's do it. But I'm just getting this pole into the mission field. I just, when I go to church, and I worship, I just see their faces, I just see the mountains, I see where I'm going, I'm seeing what I'm going to do. I'm not saying we got to get there right now. But I felt like I wanted to get going in
that direction. I didn't feel like I was so finalised, like God, you're not getting a hold of our heart. It's not working. I'm done. I've just totally done. Well, that was probably the worst two weeks of my life. Because literally, by the end of the two weeks, I had no joy at all, no peace at all. I was trying to manufacture this all on my own. Finally, I'll never forget, I was going down the road, I threw my
hands up as I was driving, I threw him up in the air. And I said, I get it, I get it. I'm done. I will go to the mission field, I'll do what you call me to do. And instantly, the peace and joy was restored again. So see, I don't want to go out there. I just don't want to live in that. I
don't care about my comfort. I just don't care. Because see, here's the thing, if we look at the life of Paul, shipwrecks, beatings, hunger, whatever it may be imprisonment, you got to read this through the lens of understanding that Paul was empowered by the grace of God, he was empowered to do what he was called to do. So if you look at Philippians 213, it says that God will give you the power and the
desire to do what pleases Him. So see me being an implant of purpose of God for my life pleases Him. So see, he's going to pat Empower Me, and give me the desire to do what pleases Him. So it doesn't matter about comfort. God wants me to be in the mission field. And guess what I
love being in the mission field. I love being here. I love what he's doing in my life. But there may be a day where he pulls that desire, or he pulls that, that love out of my heart, and then I'm going to know it's going to be time to go, and I'll be ready to go and I'll be ready to go and do whatever else he wants me to do.
Where do you feel God is leading you at this stage? Is it a case of just keep going into you hear the next direction? Or do you feel the stirring of God to point you to something new at this point,
Life is Jesus Christ is really the work this before me. I don't want to sit here and say it's a life work. But I would be shocked at it. It's not I would believe that life is Jesus Christ. It's a platform that's utilized to inspire people to run the race and Christ. So it's through podcasts, videos, and blogs. You did mention about the teaching and training people on how to follow the plan and purpose of
God for their life. So I'm in the midst right now developing just a massive online course that there'll be able to take and go through that and then I'm going to offer opportunities for people to actually meet with me one on one, to help them unpack the information after they go through the course to where they Connect started applying it to their own life. So I'm doing a lot of mentorship online, I just
mentored the other day a gentleman in Kenya than with him working with him quite a bit. And there's a lot of mentorship, there's a lot of alignment that needs to go into place. But I said to him, I said, John, next time we meet, what we need to do is we need to start getting you to like actually discern what the Holy Spirit's showing you. I'm not in prayer in your situation. So I can't answer these questions,
you need to answer them. So that's the next step that we're gonna go to is like, what is the Holy Spirit saying to you, and then the final thing would be is our platform is utilized for content distribution to pastors and developing nations around the world. Right now I'm connected to over 700. So what we do is we upload, sermon outline study outlines children's curriculum, we upload content that will help them
so like, I get a lot of pastors from Pakistan, India, saying, will you do a zoom call with me and teach my church? I'm not trying to be mean, but since like, I get probably 10 of those a week. So you know, I don't have that time. Today. I said, Sir, look, I'm just gonna be honest with
you, you can teach what I teach. So you need to go to my website, you need to download the content and teach it, God placed you there to be their teacher, to be the minister of the gospel to them, you need to connect with your people, you need to study and I've got the content that you can study. So I really believe that life is Jesus Christ is really going to meet my life's work. And again, it could change, I could
change locations tomorrow as far as we can move back to the United States. But that's what I believe will be my life's work.
As you've mentored people, as you've had those connections with people, and you're starting to lead them in this idea of following the leading of the Holy Spirit, there must be a point for some people where it finally clicks, they start to understand and they start to walk in that that must be enormously satisfying to you to see them start to follow that path.
An illustration for that would be is like riding a bike years ago, we were in Lowe's, it's a hardware store. And we were going to buy a washer and dryer for our house. And this is kind of when we kind of got into fall on the leading guy in the Holy Spirit. I'll never forget, I'm sure people thought we were crazy. But my wife's like, do you feel peace? I don't know. Do you feel peace? I mean, we're just kind
of like the chipmunks going back and forth, just trying to get discernment of the Lord. And you know, we've made a lot of mistakes in that. So it's kind of like a parent teaching their child to ride a bike without the training wheels, you're gonna drop the bike, you're gonna fall down, you're gonna skin your knees. But see, as somebody that loves to inspire people, I look at my my ratings, and I say, okay,
so many people read my podcasts are so many people liked it, or whatever. Some people like, Oh, you're so vain. You know, you just want to see your numbers, but see that they don't understand, as a teacher in the gospel of Jesus Christ, it has nothing to do about
that I could care less. What I care about is how many people I'm actually charging for the gospel of Jesus Christ. When I see John, maybe six months from now, the gentleman mentoring in, in Kenya, when he says, Shawn, I just don't think we really need to make these zoom calls anymore other than just to be friends. Because I'm really getting it, I will have a just a glow in my heart to see somebody actually now
applying what I've learned over the 30 years in their life. And now see, God can help them run their race that he's put in their lives. It's really rewarding to see people being blessed by what God has been teaching me for all these years.
If people are wanting to get in touch with you, to read the blog to listen to the podcast, where's the easiest place for people to find you?
Everything is on lifeisJesusChrist.com Everything. They can read blogs, they can listen to my podcasts, they can watch the videos, and then I've ventured out this far, to where if even someone says, Hey, I run a men's Bible study, would you do a webinar with us, I will do those kinds of things. I'm not going to do every one, I get a lot of requests, you know, something I have to prayerfully do
but again, they can just click on let's connect. And you know, even if they have a podcast, they want me to be a guest. They can click let's connect. And then at the bottom, they can message me and say, Hey, I got a men's Bible study, would you minister to us? Or, Hey, would you do a three day seminar for our church? I would definitely do that. And then finally, someone might say, hey, we want to fly you here. We
want you to be the guest speaker. Trust me, I've done a lot of ministering as a guest speaker and just something that very comfortable in doing so whatever I can do to inspire and help people run the race that God has for their life. I'm there. And
I will put a link to the website in the show notes at bleedingdaylight.net so that people can find you very easily. Shawn, I want to say thank you for sharing some of your story with us today. Thank you for your time on Bleeding Daylight.
Thank you so much, and it's a pleasure to be here. It's an honor that you would allow me to be on your podcast and I pray that people that are listening today is inspired and say I want more. And that's really what it comes down to is just saying I want more and when you do that, the Holy Spirit will start helping you to have more. You just got to obey and just follow his leading, and I promise you, there's no other life to live other than living life in the Lord.
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