¶ Find Your Joy Through Prayer
Hey guys , welcome back to the Certain Success Podcast . This one's called Find your Joy , and I think it might be . It certainly could be a long one .
This is being recorded and published , I think the morning after the presidential debate in 2024 , which this is not going to be a political podcast at all but I woke up just like not feeling great about a bunch of things in my spirit , and at least a part of that was like . I stayed up late . I listened to this debate .
Doesn't matter which side you're on , it's just like , uh , it's all , it's all not my joy . And so joe and I were talking and and I'm like explaining it to him and I'm like man , uh like I woke up feeling yucky , and but we were also talking about how really nothing changed from yesterday Today . Nothing really changed in the physical reality .
It's just how I felt about it . And he was like , yeah , he's like , let's , let's find our joy , which we want to do every day , but sure is nice when your friend Joe reminds you , yeah , I think we get tripped up by the world .
It's so easy . I mean , every single day , we are taught to put on the full armor of God , and it's , it's , throughout scripture . You know , be careful what you think about , be careful what you focus on .
And you know just seeing the angst in your face this morning talking about the presidential debate between Kamala and Trump yeah , it's on either side , it doesn't matter everyone's yelling at the tv liar .
That's not true it's like , it's like the , it's like the super bowl , right , if you're passionate about the team on one side of the super bowl and then you know there's a play , uh , in the end zone , and you know the call is made and , and no matter , like what has actually happened in reality , like you're going to call , you're going to see it your way .
And anyway but here's the . Here's what I , what I think we wanted to get to with this is that , uh , for me there's always this challenge between yeah , yeah , we know those scriptures , yeah , be careful what you think about . You know all those things and but I don't know that we always translate them to our actual right , this minute reality , right .
So I wake up in the morning , I open my eyes , I'm tired , I don't feel great , I'm like yuck , like , uh , the world is yuck , things are bad . Like that . When I'm being honest , like that was the first that you know the .
If I had to embody the thought into a couple of words , or the feeling was like , oh , like , things aren't good today , and what I was saying to you before we recorded was like , thank God , I have learned to dismiss those thoughts because , like , okay , you open your eyes , that first thought hits you and now you have that decision tree that's going to unfold
for the rest of the day . Like , did I get up and kick the dog and be like things are bad and then keep going ? I did not like . I immediately arrested that . Thought the dog and be like things are bad and then keep going . I did not Like . I immediately arrested that thought and I was like wait a minute , lord .
Like I asked the Lord , I gave it to him . I'm like and I think he gave me this new clarity this morning of like look how nothing changed from yesterday to today , really . And you just it's a decision Like am I going to go seeking my joy or am I going to embrace this Like yuck .
I know I was telling you yesterday and you know how I love doing this on my walks . I I , if I pass someone walking , I have gone into this . It's a good habit , I love it . I take my earpiece out , I turn around , I look at that person . I say I'm in the middle of my prayer right now . Is there anything you need prayer for ?
And , matt , it's such a cool feeling when they say yes . And then I walk over to them , I put my hand on their shoulder , I said what are we praying for today ? And that's finding your joy . And I shared with you yesterday that there was four people on my walk that I had that prayer with . That's finding your joy .
I mean , if I can go the rest of my life . And Stacy said goodbye , honey . And I went walking for eight hours a day and that's all I did . I'd be in pure . I'd be a grin from ear to ear .
I'd be just Well , I think , I think , if you did that , I think you'd be actual Jesus . Right , like that's all he did . Right , walk from place to place and get distracted by the people that wanted to talk with him . Right , right .
Sometimes there's the ones that you want to pray with that aren't the ones that you want to spend the next hour with , because they'll make it difficult .
You mentioned was that also yesterday . I think it was the day before . A couple days ago that you called me and you were like , hey , I asked this guy if he wanted prayer and it turned into a train wreck . But you know , that was . That was just as important .
It maybe didn't feel all that great to you because you're like you know , couldn't I just give you the two minute prayer and move on , but that guy wanted it to be a longer engagement .
¶ Embracing Joy in Entrepreneurship
It was really interesting how that played out . It summed up his life that the world needed to revolve around him and as tears were flowing off of his face , genuine tears , as I prayed with him and I think it was a realization of he was his own worst enemy .
He made some pretty bad decisions in his life , but then it went from that to hey and get make me a sandwich . Uh , go home and do this , give me your phone number so I can call you . It went , it went . It was like yeah , this went from me praying for you to what can I do for you ? It was a little odd , but I digress um well , that's actually .
It's not a . It's not a digression , and I want to like my confession . There is because one of my thoughts this morning , when I was sort of unpacking this with the Lord , was like I'm like , I don't know , I want to , I don't want to explain what a and B were , but I was like rattling around in my brain Like what about this and what about that ?
And God was like both of those things are about you , right ? Like maybe you'll feel better if there was a C that wasn't about you , yeah , yeah .
Yeah , I , I , there was a sea that wasn't about you . Yeah , yeah , yeah , I , you know , and I I know that a moment ago we're talking about the scriptures that we can point to , and as you land your feet this morning from last night's debate , your first feelings were ugh , just , you want to shake it off .
But I had already gone to sleep last night and one of the last images you sent a text to me was of a sign in the yard that said Jesus 24 , vote Jesus .
And I woke up this morning to see that and , of course , I laughed , and I really know that's what it brings us to is our knees at times to say , okay , you know what we got , to put our focus back on Christ . He's our joy and that's how we find our joy . Because that's what you went to . I know you ended your night with sending me a funny text .
You woke up this morning still feeling like your team was just , it was a I don't know , it was a cage match last night .
I think you know , I think that the the world is is getting harder and harder and harder world is is getting harder and harder and harder and if and if you focus there , it's going to get harder and harder and harder and you're going to be , you know , more in trouble and there there is , there's no joy , there there just isn't .
Do all , you know all those things have to happen and like we have to , you know , care and we have to , you know , have care and we have to , you know , have one eyeball on that a little bit .
But if it's your focus , you know , you said when I was talking about this and you were like man , there's so much scripture about being careful , what you focus on , what you put your mind on , and of course that's true and I , like , I say I think it's the struggle is actually translating it to your life .
So you wake up , you have that thought everything's yucky . I didn't like how the debate went , blah , blah , blah . And so the choice is am I going to turn to the Lord , am I going to turn to my joy ?
Am I going to go find somebody to serve Whatever , go find somebody to serve whatever , or am I going to turn on XYZ news and continue to just like grind on . You know the negative , and I don't know about you , joe . I know a bunch of people that that's their day is like let's get up and grind on hell again yeah .
Man . I can't tell you how that's such a bad path to take every day , and because you know what we struggle with in our household . You know , during COVID , stacy was diagnosed with Parkinson's and one of the things Parkinson's is just not a fan of is stress . So one of the things we stopped during COVID was we stopped watching the morning news .
It was just .
It was like well , it's like anything else , it's a habit . And then you know cause I we had that happen for a long time . We're like , bam , the news is on in the background and whatever , and you know , and we don't do it at the house at all anymore . But I you know where I noticed it is .
If I'm in a hotel room , sometimes I'll find , oh , I have the news on , like just in the hotel room , and and after a while I'm like , ah , like , why am I doing that to myself ?
Right , you know I love sleeping , stacey , and I need to sleep with white noise at night . We need that background noise and I think that there's a lot of times people have their TV on with that background noise . And that is noise . If it bleeds , it reads , it sells .
That's how all of those news channels keep their doors open and selling ads , because of the audience that they turn that TV on every day and that's it . It's stuck in that same bad channel , same bad time .
Yeah , yeah , that's right to business and entrepreneurship and you know the , as entrepreneurs , we have this freedom to decide what we're going to create with God , like we want to partner with the Lord , we want to go create something new in the world . Today , this month , this year , always , always , always , we're like what's what's new ? What , what , what ?
Can we look out into the future and think I want that to become real and then make it a physical reality . So so , as entrepreneurs , we live in the spiritual world . We , even though we might not call it that , we live in the spiritual world where we're like I want to bring this into the physical world and then we go do it .
Well , so what I want to create , I want what I create to be full of joy and love and wonderful this , and there's no way I could create from fear , sadness , that you know that Right .
And so you know , for entrepreneurs , when we talk about , find your joy , like obviously it's going to make your day better , but there's this practical reality of you can't go create anything great until you find that mindset .
¶ Shift Focus to Tree of Life
I know I , I know you know , but I was thinking about that nice silent pause there . I was , I was . I was just thinking about my granddaughter when she was a little girl and she always say I'm stuck , really , yeah , because she's trying to figure out how to get out of something .
You know , I'm stuck and I think we get stuck and , as cute as it was for her to be in those stuck positions and Papa joke , come over and rescue her from being stuck , our Papa , our father , he's there to unstick us and help us , say , okay , did you have enough of that pain ?
Let's shift and pivot from where you're focusing on and and focus on me , let's get back to what you really need to put your energy towards . So I I think it's uh , you know , using my granddaughter as an example is just , sometimes that's life . We get stuck in that stuff and we just need to be in the we talked about this the other day .
We need to be in the right boat , with the right people that are going to help us in those moments of being stuck well , you know , and I think the the difference is , I got two metaphors rattling around in my head .
One is the the tree of life versus the tree of the knowledge of good and evil .
And so if our focus is the tree of life , like everything wonderful and just philippians 4 , you know , everything wonderful in the world is our focus like something that we're trying to create , something , some ideal that we're chasing , and like wonderfulness , like you're going to be full of that , and the opposite , the tree of the knowledge of good and evil .
And in our current world would be like let's focus on politics and like all the bad things in the world and what like . If that's what's holding your attention , then you're living in the knowledge of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil versus a tree of life . Man , I'm so focused on that .
And then the other metaphor um , um , you know we gosh how many times we reference jamie winship on this podcast , but he , um , he talks about kingdom versus empire and so all of the evil empire of the world , you know , from the romans on down to like , now , right , it's like , uh , I'm focused on the empire or I'm focused on the kingdom of god , like , and
I don't know . For most of my life I had this difficulty imagining what jesus is saying . The kingdom is here , the kingdom is at hand , and I think this is at the root of what he meant . It was like it's literally just turn your eyes this way it's right there , or you can focus over here if you want .
Right it is if we , if , if , uh , if we still have your attention , you're still listening to us and this you're in . You're digging this , dig this part . My buddy , matt , just brings up philippians 4 and he doesn't know what I'm looking at on my side of the screen and on on my screen , I have Philippians 4 opened up .
There's so much cool stuff in Philippians . I challenge you , go grab your Bible . Go grab your Bible app . Open up to Philippians 4 and read it . So much cool learning there . And I had opened up because that's where , when , when you and I originally spoke this morning , I opened up the philippians 4 , 8 read .
I was gonna say well , 19 is what ? Well , read a little bit just a little bit .
I'll do . Um , let me , uh , let me do so I can get the whole chapter in there .
I think it's eight , eight , nine or or 19 . I'm blanking on which one .
I'm going to start with the one that I've started with . I'm going to go six and seven and eight six , seven and eight . Okay . So six , seven is do not be anxious about anything , but in every situation , by prayer and petition , with thanksgiving . That's the tough one People don't realize .
Gotta have thanksgiving in there , even in our , in our struggles , in our , in our stuckness . Present your request to God , and the peace of God , which transcends all understanding , will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus . That's six and seven .
Of Philippians , four , eight is what I had open to before you brought up Philippians and it says finally , brothers and sisters , whatever is true , whatever is noble , whatever is right , whatever is pure , whatever is lovely , whatever is admirable , if anything is excellent or praiseworthy , think about such things .
Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me or seen in me , put it into practice and the God of peace will be with you . So I had that open and you want me to go to what verse ? What ?
No , I think it was eight and nine is what I uh yeah , but now I want to know
¶ The Lord Will Meet Your Needs
what night . Just tell me what 19 is , oh 19 .
Let's go to 19 . And my God will meet all of your needs , according to the riches of his glory in Jesus Christ .
That . So yeah , I mean this thought of like , no matter what's going on , you're like I'm going to die , I'm going to die , I'm going to die . Everything's terrible . Whatever , the Lord is going to meet your needs and if you can , if you can actually believe that at a , at a soul level , it's like , well , it's all going to be okay , dude , so good .
So so , guys , if you're still with us after that crazy rant , let's go find our joy today . Let's find somebody to serve , let's take our eyes off of the empire and refocus on the kingdom for one more day , amen .
Amen , see you guys .