2020 has fundamentally disrupted our lives and society as a whole. We will never go back to a pre-March 17th life. We are more vulnerable now than we have ever been before, but maybe we are more powerful than we can imagine. To survive and thrive in this new abnormal, you have to bounce back differently. Those who make gains versus those who experience losses will be evaluated by how quickly they are pivoted.
In this crucial episode, we will cover the indispensable topic, supernatural resiliency, the art of getting your bounce back. And stay tuned to the end as we give you five ways to tap into your God bounce back. We have a surprise guest, Wisdom Window and a giveaway contest with instructions at the end. Welcome to Keep It 100 Podcast with Sean and Christa Smith. Join us in this space where we take on real issues with real insight under real inspiration.
This podcast is for those not looking for temporary relief to change circumstance, but revelation to forever change lives. Hey everybody, welcome to Keep It 100. I'm Sean and I'm Christa. We are super pumped to bring you this episode. We believe that this will be one that will be memorable. I know. I'm so excited about this topic because I feel like it's so needed for right now.
You know, I don't know about you, Sean, but I was looking at different words and I like to sometimes look in the urban dictionary at current slang or a new verbage because the world is ever evolving, technology is ever evolving, so we get new verbage all the time and I'm curious about it. Have you ever heard of the word techspectation? Before you know. You heard it from me. I heard it from you. Okay, okay. Because I thought it was such a great word.
Techspectation, many of our Keep It 100 tribe, they'll know exactly what I mean when I explain the definition. The definition of techspectation is those three little dots after you send a text message and you're waiting for the response of the text you just sent. You know those three little dots? Oh, totally. Right? And then if you're having kind of an intense or maybe a vulnerable conversation, the three dots appear and then they go away. It's like, oh my gosh, like, are we okay? Are we good?
You know, techspectation, it's the anticipation one feels when waiting for a text message. It's hilarious, right? So what I think was thinking about in this current season, we have been in such a crazy time. These last five months have just been so unpredictable, known whatever we called it. And we have to learn sometimes new words or we take some old words that take on new meanings. So let me give you some examples. Come on, bring it to us. So we've heard the word shelter in place.
Now I know that I knew each of those words meant separately, but you put them together. Or actually had to look that up to find out what does that mean, shelter in place, right? Boo. We're so tired of shelter in place. And then second set of words that we've heard and become so familiar to the whole COVID and everything we've been in is quarantine social distancing. I don't like that one. As you well know, I'm normally an affectionate person. Right?
But now it's awkward to walk up to people and like, can we hug? Can we handshake? Not right. What can we do? Where are you at? Some of these people become germaphos, but I seen y'all kissing your dog. You can't pass me some of your germaphob on me. Right? It's so interesting. And then one of the best examples of this at this time is the verbage essential and non-essential. True. Right? Everything became so about is this essential or not essential?
And then there was a period of time where we were having to evaluate what was considered essential. And what was really hilarious if you actually look at it, we can all agree food, water was clearly important to Americans and what became surprisingly important to Americans was toilet paper. Right? I mean, I remember when we came back, there was no toilet paper. I had to call Costco and actually go stand in line at eight in the morning to get a toilet paper, which was crazy. That was apocletic.
It was. And so we focused so much in this time about what is essential and non-essential. And I don't know about you, but for me, it was like the salons couldn't open up fast enough because I was like, hello, my roots need to get done. And I know that might sound vain, but girl, I mean, I am a girl that wants to have her stuff handled.
And so that quarantine for a hot minute was brutal because, you know, there were girls walking around with unibrow's and we're all looking each other going, we feel you sister, because there was like, who's going to do your waxing? I mean, you know, thank God we had a mass sometimes because some of our mustaches were like creeping out, you know, I'm serious.
Okay, you know, the reality is we're talking about, we had such a focus on what's physically essential, but today we want to talk about the most important essentials and that's what's spiritually essential because there's been so much focus on the practicals. The spirituals actually are more important. Yes, I agree with you. Spiritual essential.
I tell you what's spiritually essential right now is this word and the meat of what we're wanting to bring to our Keep Your 100 Tribe, it is the word resiliency. It's interesting because in Act 17, Paul quoted a secular poet to illustrate a spiritual truth. So I'm going to follow Paul's lead on that. I like it. I'm about to quote Tupac, y'all.
Tupac was not just a hip hop artist, but he was also a poet and Tupac had a poem that was called The Rose That Grew in the Concrete and it's particularly fond in my heart because he saw this rose in Oakland, California, y'all. As he was talking about this rose, he thought it was interesting. He grew up where it didn't have any soil hardly. The concrete was merged together. It was just a crack in the concrete.
There wasn't other flowers around it that could have helped given it shade or anything like that. And so he looked at this rose that grew up out of the concrete and he wrote this poem and what he alluded to in his poem is that the seed must grow regardless of the fact that it's planted in stone.
And I think this whole poem is a metaphor for resiliency because I believe that God puts something in the seed of who we are as sons and daughters of the most high that allow us to be more prepared for the tragedies, trials, and tribulations that hit us. God puts the seed inside of us of a comeback even before we step into a setback. To define resiliency, it's really to understand that life is full of trials and those trials carrying experience that can set you back.
And your ability to bounce back is resiliency. Resilience comes from a Latin word, which literally means to recoil. And we're talking about resiliency. We're talking about the ability to spring forth or come back. And I think the scripture of all scriptures for this topic is Proverbs 24-16 that says, Though a righteous man falls seven times, yet shall he rise again.
I love that because the concrete represents hard circumstances, hard ground, and we can all agree this has been such a hard ground time. This has been difficult circumstances. It's not easy to grow in the midst of trials and tribulations. And we're seeing people have such a struggle at this current time. We're five months deep into where we're at. And we don't know when all of this is going to end, when life is going to get back to normal. There is not a timeline on that.
And so we're seeing some real deficiencies in people's ability to cope right now. Online gambling is up. Alcohol sales are up. Pornography online sales are up. Domestic violence, unfortunately, is up. Divorce rates are up. So all of these breakdowns and people's ability to cope and to deal with uncertainty is so clear because people have lost their resiliency. And I believe that when we are in uncertain times, it triggers a search for what is security, what stability.
But what we have to understand is when we have God in our lives, we have the God bounce back, which we're calling the God bounce back is our resiliency. And it's our resiliency that gets triggered when we face uncertainty. And so when we lack certainty, that is our opportunity to build the resiliency. When we go through hard times. It shows us really what our life is built on.
And I believe this moment currently where we're at COVID-19 and all the other stuff we're dealing with, this is the moment that's calling for supernatural resiliency. This isn't just sheer will. This is getting your God bounce back. And psychologists tell us that resilience is the process of adapting well in the face of adversity, trauma and tragedy. Another definition is an ability to recover from or adjust easily to misfortune or change.
Another one is the capacity to recover quickly from difficulties and toughness. You see, I think so many of us have lost our resiliency or maybe some people never fully matured or developed it. But here's the cool thing about resiliency. And it's something I kind of want to bring to the table today. When I studied it out, you studied it out. We found out that resiliency is actually something you can learn. So everyone can learn to become resilient. That's true.
They actually did a study with young kids and they found out that the difference between young kids with resiliency and without it, it was as psychologists would term it, the lotus of control, which is a sophisticated way of saying the kids that develop resiliency believed that they can make choices to come back from whatever tough circumstance they faced. I love that.
We're believing that you are empowered to make choices and we know in Christ we're empowered to make decisions that can alter our destiny. You know what I love, Sean, is you are such for me a picture of resiliency. Your life and people know parts of your story. I know all of your story and you have dealt with a lot of adversity, personal loss, tragedy, and yet you do not carry a fragrance of any victim.
You are genuinely joyful, genuinely happy, like you are so full of the love, the kindness, and the peace of God. And that's because God does such a work in you. But to me, I've asked you so many times, how are you so resilient? So I would love for you to share with the Keep It 100 Tribe, what is a story that you saw where you had to consciously tap into the God resiliency in your life?
Back when I was in college and people that have listened to our earlier podcast on origin stories that they would have recognized that I got saved on a college campus, right after I got saved, I completed my degree and I was offered a position at Intel in Silicon Valley, San Jose, California to work as an engineer. But in that time, God gave me a series of visions about the call of God in my life and so I said yes to God.
So when I said yes, I joined an internship, I was the first class of internship to train for campus ministry. In that process, there was one other gal, there's actually two other gals in our internship and one other guy. One of the gals I developed a relationship with and we got engaged. I spent like at that time my entire savings to get the wedding ring.
And so in the process of that, all of a sudden in the midst of starting my internship in the very first week, my fiance gives me the ring back and says, I can't do this. So this engagement breaks up with the girl that I thought I was going to build my future with. So that same week, my last living grandparent passed that I was close to.
And then on top of that, my own mom, not approving of the decision I was making by not accepting the position to Silicon Valley, but essentially in her eyes, taking a vow of poverty by going into ministry, she disowned me, which I might mention to our listeners temporarily. And at that time she didn't know the Lord. She has since come to know the Lord and she's very proud of what her son does. But in the midst of it, I felt like my entire bottom fell out. I was not anticipating this.
I thought when I said yes to God, I remember in prayer time saying God, I said, yes. I didn't say no. I thought when I said yes, everything would work out great. But in fact, all HE double hockey sticks broke out. And I remember every day I'd have to get up and we'd have our quiet time with the other interns in different parts of the church. So I would see my ex fiance every single day and it goes through entire internship. And she and I had a partner with the ministry that was on the campus.
So I literally cried so much that I a rash formed down my face. And many times my prayer was simply just saying Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. And I remember the other, I later found out the other interns were talking amongst each other, we don't think Sean's going to make it. We don't think Sean's going to make it. But in that time, something began to happen inside of me. And that thing that happened inside of me was that God began to put His purpose, His strength, His grace upon me.
And day by day, I felt myself getting stronger. And I knew this quitting was not an option. Somehow some way I'm going to get through this thing because God has a purpose on my life and I'm going to fight for my destiny. And so in that, I learned Christa, three principles or characteristics of resilient people. The first thing I recognize is that resilient people anticipate that there will be valleys and storms. So true.
Resilient people also have perspective on problems because the problem is not that there is a problem. The problem is thinking that having problems is a problem. Jesus said, in this life, you will have tribulation, but take courage. I have overcome the world. And Isaiah the prophet says in Isaiah 10, 27, that on account of the anointing, the yoke will be destroyed.
And so as you are the anointed, you have to know that you will encounter yokes, meaning obstacles that you are called to be the solution to. The second point about resilient people is that resilient people identify what is under their control and what isn't. There's some things that are out of your control and you could spend the rest of your life spinning out of control over what's not in your control.
But in doing so, you fail to be empowered by the things you can do, the decisions you can make. And I began to realize that I had control over my attitude. I had to encourage people in their walk while I felt at that point in time, discouraged, that I could identify what was under my control. And that's what resilient people do. And the third thing I discovered about resilient people is they recognize they can transform their pain into power.
And I believe that although I felt a level of pain, it actually empowered me to minister to the people that I was called to. Because there are a lot of people that go through life where maybe in this season we're at, they have unexpected illness, financial woes, situations going on with close friends of family members, maybe even an internal struggle, they can't even begin to articulate.
But now I feel like having gone through that, God turned that pain into power or another way of saying it, He can turn your adversity into ministry. Now Christy, I know you got a story. What is your story? Can I just tell you before I jump into my story that although my heart hurts, that you went through the pain that you went through with the breaking up of that engagement, can I just tell you that I am so grateful that you didn't get married to her because I got you? Amen, amen.
That was the will of the Lord. My story. Okay. I love that question. My story. You know, I was reminded of a story when I came back from Australia and I had all these prophetic words and I had actually even had a job offer over in Australia to stay there and work there and be a part of a great organization. But I prayed about, and the Lord said, you're called to the U.S.
So I moved back to the U.S. with all this expectation, unfulfilled prophetic words that I believed were going to come to pass and I was a part of a church plant in the San Francisco Bay area that was just a volunteer position. There was nothing paid, but I had all these hopes and dreams moving back to the Bay. I had dreams and words and so I was so excited.
So I came back in August 2001 and I moved back and I'm in the Bay area and I'm staying with my sister and her brother-in-law and they're three little kids and I'm sharing a room with my nephew and they're being really gracious, opening up their home to me and I'm praying for opportunities and seeing what God wants to do, but I'm believing for a position of ministry because that's what I've just come back to school.
I'd already worked corporate, but I was expecting to go back in to possibly corporate, but my heart was to do ministry. So I just opened and I was looking for jobs and whatnot. And then a very key day happened in America that all of us are forever marked by and that was September 11th, 2001.
So September 11th, 2001 happened and all of the job offers that I did have were taken off the table because obviously majority of America and corporations went into job freeze because it was totally unpredictable. And so in that unpredictability, I found myself sitting at my sister's house in Livermore, California, not having a job, moving back from Australia, not sure what's ahead and just really unsure about my future.
And so like anyone that's in California and you don't know why you're there, I did what anyone would do and I went back to Oregon. I was like, I'm going to get the heck out of California and I went back to where I'm from, which is Oregon. I met my parents' house this many times with God and God's like, Hey, I didn't call you to Oregon. I called you to California. I called you, but to the bay and he's like, I didn't have you move back from Australia so you could come back to Oregon.
So I call my sister, I ask her, Hey, can I live with you guys? They're incredibly gracious and generous and they said, Of course. So I drive down, I have nothing, I have no job, no money, 9-11 has taken place. No one's hiring. I mean, it's like not a great time to be unemployed. Actually the worst time to be unemployed. And I found myself just in a very uncertain time. And then my sister said, Hey, I got a job. And of course I'm praying any job, any job.
And then I get the any job that I'm not excited about. You know, when you, you know, we all know you're saying, God use me, I'll do anything. And then the anything comes, you're like, That actually wasn't on my list. I actually don't want to do that. And the reality is it wasn't a bad job, but because it didn't meet my expectation, right? So I found myself working at a mortgage broker firm and the people were wonderful, but my heart wasn't in it.
But I found myself in this place of day in and day out. What I viewed was kind of a mundane job. And I remember having this come to Jesus moment where he was like, Your heart's not in this job. And either you choose to embrace this because I was not a witness to the people around me. I was not an example of a great employee. I was not owning the opportunity. And all I wanted to do was get out of there and get on with my life and start fulfilling the prophetic words that I prophesied.
And I wasn't honoring or stewarding what was given in my hand because I didn't like it. And we often don't steward what we don't like. But the truth is God sometimes allows things we don't like into our life to develop our character and to develop us. I had an aha moment when my boss called me to a higher place. I'll leave that story for another day, but it's the first time I'd ever been confronted by a boss and in Jesus name the last time that I'll be confronted by a boss.
But I had a come to Jesus moment where the Lord said, You can stop hating where you're at and start embracing the assignment in your hand. And it was in that moment, Sean, where I really just begin to lean into what God had for me. And I found myself for a year, if not a little bit more sleeping on a couch, sharing a room with my 10 month old nephew, working on what I viewed as a mundane job, nothing I was passionate about just serving the local church. No opportunities were happening.
The church plant that I was a part of, the group fell apart. I mean, everything that I moved back from Australia didn't exist. And I found myself in a completely contradicting wilderness time. And yet the rest of the story is at the end of the year and a half working there. Then I got an opportunity. It was my first opportunity to run a school of ministry here in the Bay Area. And I was given my first position in ministry.
And from that point on, every door began to open that I walked in and now I pastor, or I pastor for years and now I tinerate with you. And I get to do what I call, what's called to do. And I get to do what I love and what I was created to do. But it all came from staying the course in an assignment. I didn't like, I remember day in and day out choosing to honor God because I knew although I didn't like it, I was still smack dab in the middle of his will. And here's the reality.
You know, so many of us, because we're in opposite circumstances of what we like, if we don't kick into our resiliency, we'll kick into our setback. That's right. And it's so true because, Kristin, so many people sit back in their setback. Ooh. And I think it was a metaphor. That's so good. That here you were on the couch. Yes. You know, sort of speaking. So many people, you could see them just eating hog and doze, torquing out, watching their movie subscription streams.
But you decided, no, I'm going to get up, I'm going to work. You went back home to Oregon, but you said, no, I'm going to get back to the place where I'm called. And you did a great example that you didn't let the little things become big things. That's right. You kept perspective. Sharing a room with a 10 month old. Yes. You know? And you're right. It was just, everything about it was out of my comfort zone.
Everything about it I didn't like, although of course, I love my family, but it was so opposite of what I thought. And we can so bounce and we're like, hey, this isn't what I signed up for. But yet if we stick it through and we kick into the resiliency of, you know what God called me here and I'm going to see it through till I see the God promise, that's when the good stuff kicks in. And sometimes we bail too early to see the good stuff.
Yes. You have a great scripture you were talking about before in Psalms. Why don't you share that with our Keeper 100 Child? You know, this has been a really a life scripture for me. I think because just through the valleys of life and through the unpredictable storms, we walk through so many of those in life. And one of my life scriptures, which I think so connects with resiliency is Psalm 125, one and two. It's out of the passion translation, which is one of my personal favorite translations.
It says, those who trust in the Lord are as unshakable as mighty Mount Zion, just as the mountains surrounded Jerusalem, so the Lord's wraparound presence surrounds his people protecting them now and forever. I find such comfort in that knowing God creates a resiliency. His presence is my cloak of resiliency because he protects me now and forever. Love that. And the word that jumps out is I love that those who trust in the Lord are unshakable. That's it.
There's the resiliency, trusting God. And I think about unshakable, I think about a character in the Bible that he had the most inauspicious beginnings, but yet this guy would make Hebrews 11, the Faith Hall of Fame. And his name is Jeffna. Now, Jeffna in Judges 11, I told you that he made Hebrews 11, but his origin story is in Judges 11. We find out that Jeffna is the son of a harlot. He is an illegitimate child. Then his father dies. His brothers rejected him. He's denied inheritance.
They ran him out of the city. He runs from home. He begins to hang around. The Bible says, worthless people in a place called Tobbe. And the guy, we would look at it and say, he began gangbanging, but he's kind of like a Robin Hood. He would steal from the rich and give to the poor. And in the midst of all of that, he's chased out of Gilead, but a neighboring enemy begins to attack Gilead. So here's how the story goes in Judges 11.
While Jeffna is running around with gangbangers and hitting up folks and pulling off heists, his hometown is being hit by terrorists. So the leaders of the town recognize Jeffna has developed a bit of a reputation as a guy who can fend for himself and a leader of a small group of renegades that they ask him to come back and be a leader. And here is this thing of resilience.
Here's a guy, son of a harlot, illegitimate child, father died, rejected by probably the same guys who are coming to him now, but he has to make a decision. And I think resilience always has a trigger event. Like you don't develop resilience when everything is going great. You develop resilience in a time of vulnerability. That's when resiliency is forged.
And so for Jeffna to have his bounce back, because we're talking about the art of a bounce back, he had to learn how to ship to satellite dish. You can have a hardship, but you can also use it to allow it to take you higher. And in that moment, he chose that in that moment, I could be mad at these people for rejecting me, or I can find purpose in the fact that when they rejected me, I developed a skill set on how to be a leader and how to fight for what matters to me.
Now the rest of the story goes, of course, he goes back, he defeats the enemy, and he actually becomes a judge. There's only so many judges in the book of judges. And then the Bible says in Hebrews 11, the time would fail for me to speak of Barak, Samson, and Jeffna. So he's mentioned in the faith hall of fame. And I love this because Jeffna's name means to open and to release. So the adversity actually released what was inside of him all along.
And his resiliency was the catalyst to release what God had planted in him as a seed. That is so good. Listeners, are you catching that truth right there? What a perfect picture of resiliency in the Word of God. I love that. Hey, as always, through the Keep It 100 Tribe, I want to shift us to one of my favorite parts of what we do every episode. And that is always to give you practical takeaways. And we call them the Keep It 100 takeaways.
And today we want to talk to you about the five ways to tap into your God bounce back. Number one, be aware that you have a choice. I'm going to say that again. Be aware that you have a choice by knowing you have a choice. It shifts you from feeling like a victim to being an empowered person. That's good.
And what I love about this is just real quickly, even if you don't like the choices that are available to you at the moment in the circumstances in the midst of uncertainty, even if you only change your attitude, sometimes it's just shifting your attitude that shifts your atmosphere.
And by shifting your attitude, you tap into resiliency because you recognize that you may not feel like you have a choice, but friends, you always have a choice and begin to phase out phrases like, I have no choice or I can't. And you begin to replace them with, I choose not to. Take an empowered position. You are not a victim to uncertainty. You have a resiliency within you. Number two, second takeaway for our Keep It 100 Tribe is to invite people you trust into your coping process.
I love this. This is about not isolating and leaning into your community. So many people when they find themselves, Sean, you, we know this. We've seen people do this when you're going through hard times. You tend to isolate. You tend to want to get alone, but nothing could be worse than doing that. Get your community around you because I know so many times when I'm in uncertainty and I'm not sure and I can feel maybe anxiety or panic or things trying to creep in.
I'll bring people that love me, have my best interest in mind that are materialistic. Have my best interest in mind that are mature in their walk with God and I'll process with them what's going on. And they're able to see things from a different perspective. It gets me out of my tunnel vision because when we isolate, we sometimes get out of our head and I believe God's saying, in order to tap into your resiliency, you got to get out of your head and into his spirit.
That's so good because I believe that victory always has a vicinity. Victory never happens in a vacuum. It's because you're in the vicinity of other people that can encourage you, other people that have been through and the experience of getting knocked down, but they got back up again. People that have gone through the valleys and they've gone through the storms and they made it and so they can tell you, hey, just get back up. You could do it. You can make it. You got it in you.
We need people like that. The third principle is watch your confession and your self-talk. So many people talk themselves out of coming back. They talk themselves out. Imagine a coach going in with a team at halftime because they're down and saying, well, guys, you're down. You've given up too many touchdowns with too many points. We're not going to win this game. You guys are awful. You're sorry. Just stay down. Game's over. That coach would not have a job. They're gone.
But we recognize that sometimes we allow the voice of the wrong coach in our head because we got to understand that the Bible says that the Holy Spirit who is prophetic is a spirit of encouragement and the thief comes to kill still and destroys. You have to understand that the right coach needs to speak. So you have to recognize what is your confession? What are you saying to yourself? It's so good.
If your self-talk is negative, you have to understand that the Bible says that your tongue is like the rudder on a ship. So if you're always talking negative, your life is going to become shipwrecked in negativity. So your self-talk needs to be, hey, I'm more than a conqueror in Christ Jesus. Hey, greater is he that's in me than he that's in the world. Hey, I'm ahead and not the tail. Hey, God says I'm righteous.
And if the righteous fall down seven times, that means they're going to get up eight. You have to understand that that attitude of negativity is bringing more stress in your life so it makes it more difficult for you to get up. And I feel like your verbal confession is connected to your internal atmosphere. Number four is resilient people don't let adversity define them. And they do it by reframing the experience.
Many times I've had things where things have completely floored me, completely knocked me down, but the way that I've been able to get back up, obviously the answer is Jesus. But in the same way, God always brings a purpose or prophetic promise. And that purpose of prophetic promise becomes a goal that I can move towards. So it causes me to reframe the experience. And in this thing of resilient people don't let adversity define them, they accept reality, but they're believing for a breakthrough.
It's not that they're unrealistic, it's that they have a reality from above and not a reality that's bound by earth. And in that, they recognize, hey, trials and tribulations may play a part in their story, but it doesn't have to overtake them permanently. And no matter how bad you feel right now, it won't always feel like this. You'll begin to feel better the moment you say, I'm not going to let the devil have the final say, I'm not going to let adversity define me. So good.
And the fifth way to tap into your God bounce back is to avoid the offense buildup. Offense builds a case against your bounce back. You're actually giving yourself a reason to stay in a setback when you choose to be offended. And when you think about it, the verbiage of an offense is the narrative of a victim. And when we stay in a place of victim, we're not only disempowering it, but we're giving, we're empowering the wrong thing, which is offense.
And I believe that your future is so tied to forgiveness. You and I have to daily walk in forgiveness and refuse to be offended because resiliency is rooted in knowing your heart is clear and free and walking from a place of love, not blame and taking ownership where you need to take ownership, but also letting go where you don't have control. And I think often when things are uncertain, we want to naturally blame people. We want to get offended and we're looking for who's fault it is.
And in actuality, there may be some external factors that are not anyone's fault or maybe there are some factors that are very much some people's fault. But regardless, you have to guard your heart and refuse to allow offense to become your narrative. I think it's so true and even back to Jeffna. If Jeffna doesn't forgive, his future was tied to forgiveness. I think it's very much the scene that we see today.
We see that there are people that are angry, whether it's this race against that race, whether it's this political party against that political party, whether it's this side of the socioeconomic level to that side. And in the midst of it, like Jeffna, maybe our destiny is tied into actually being a solution and a help towards the people that have hurt us.
And I know that's crazy thinking, but it's really kingdom thinking because if Jeffna doesn't forgive those who rejected him, those who cast him off, those who took his inheritance, he would have never made the faith hall of fame. We would not be talking about Jeffna today, but in that moment when a tragedy hit that nation, he decided to rise up and fight for what's right and God put him in the faith hall of fame.
There may be somebody listening right now that you must avoid the offense buildup because your destiny is called in being a bridge builder. And I think obviously we're in this place where my heart is even sad over it, but the actor Chadwick Boseman died and he played Black Panther and he was also a strong follower of Christ. And he has that classic line in Black Panther. He says, in times of crisis, the foolish build barriers, but the wise build bridges.
And your last point is the bridge builders in this season are going to be people that will not give into offense. DeHavilland Ford is one of Sean and I's dearest friends. She's a woman I personally so deeply respect. Her and her husband Will lead the movement 818, The Sign, which is a powerful ministry focused on racial reconciliation, pro-life and so much more. DeHavilland walks in a profound wisdom and she carries straight fire. So y'all get ready.
Here's the question Sean and I asked her, what has been the secret to you finding your God bounce back? Thank you so much, Christa Smith. You know, when I think about a bounce back or comeback, when I think about my own life and I've been in situations where it felt impossible, I didn't know how I was going to bounce back from a situation, it was in my times of weakness that God's strength was actually perfected.
You know, oftentimes when we think about somebody who has, who's had a comeback or a bounce back, we picture someone super strong or who's able to overcome every obstacle. But what I found, it's quite the opposite. It's in my weakness. It's in that place of acknowledging God, you're God and I'm not. And if you don't come through, if you don't break into this situation, I'm not sure how I'm going to get through.
It was in those times where I leaned in to my weakness and leaned into God's strength that I was able to find the courage to move forward. Oftentimes when we think about a bounce back or comeback, we think that that doesn't involve fear. But I want to tell you today that sometimes, even in the midst of your fears, God will give you the courage and he'll give you the strength to face your fears, to break through, to bounce back in every situation.
You know, I love the scripture that says that in my weakness, God's strength is perfected. So maybe you're listening to this and you're in a situation where you're not sure how you're going to get through. You're not sure how you're going to get to the other side, how you're going to bounce back, how you're going to come back. But I want to say that you serve a bounce back God.
You serve a God who's able to take your pain, your weakness, whatever situation you're in and cause it to work together for your good. And so I just want to encourage you today, God is able to bring you through to the other side. Keep it 100 tribe, grab a hold of this truth today because we believe if you grab a hold of the God bounce back, the supernatural resilience that is available to you, it can shift your circumstances.
Most inform us your attitude, but we want you to know you have a hall of famer in you. Hey, thanks so much for connecting and tuning in today. We hope that you are getting a lot from this podcast and we pray it blesses you. Make sure you subscribe and you're alerted as new episodes drop. Don't forget to rate, review and refer us because we want as many people to hear about Jesus as possible.
And check us out at www.SeanandChristasmith.com and find us on our Facebook at Sean and Christos Smith Ministries and all social media platforms. Stay connected because you're a part of the Keep It 100 tribe. Hey, Keep It 100 tribe. We also have an exciting announcement. We're having a giveaway as a celebration of our 10th podcast being released.
We're doing a giveaway and we're going to be giving away one of my books called Epic Lifestyle in which I will personally sign a message for the winner as well as an audio teaching by my beautiful bride called Heavens Prophetic Prescription, a powerful message. You want to hear it. Now here's how to enter. We want you to rate and leave a podcast review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play, Charisma Podcasts, Network or whatever platform you're listening to.
Then go to our ministry Facebook page called Sean and Christosmith Ministries and comment that you have done these steps. And once you have done that and that you've completed it, we're going to have a drawing and then the deadline for this giveaway is September 15th at 11.59 PM and we will make an announcement on September 22nd who the winner is and we'll be mailing you the surprises.
So again, rate and leave a podcast review wherever you're listening to this podcast and go to our ministry Facebook page called Sean and Christosmith Ministries. We just want to thank you for all your love and support. We're so excited about the podcast continually to impact your life and others. So we wanted to bless you with this fun giveaway. Make sure you tune in next week as we talk about revolutionizing your relationship status. It's not that complicated.
And remember, relief can change your circumstances, but a revelation can change you. Keep it 100. We hope you enjoyed today's episode of the Keep It 100 podcast with Sean and Christosmith. Keep up with us on Facebook and Instagram and SeanandChristasmith.com where you can discover more resources. If this podcast has impacted you, please subscribe and review wherever you listen to your podcast. Keep it 100. We'll see you next week.