Fully Present

Fully Present

Episode 5 • 23rd May 2026 • Loveshaped Life • Bob Hayes and Nathan Stearman

0:00

And you know, Mother Teresa said that the world is not starving for brand, it's starving because of loneliness. You know that the US Surgeon General has declared loneliness an epidemic. You know, at least a previous US Surgeon General cared loneliness is an epidemic in the United States. England has declared it an epidemic. People are starving for just human communication, human

0:26

touch.

0:27

So we can bring that to somebody's life. So it's a blessing to us to be present right with somebody, but it's also a blessing to somebody else,

0:42

you welcome back to the Love Shaped Life podcast. This is our final episode of season eight, episode five, and it's called Fully Present. By the way, before you forget, make sure to hit that like and subscribe button. I'm here in the studio with Bob. I'm Nathan, by the way. Jan has joined us for this season. It's been really good to have you for season eight. Thank you so much for joining us.

1:07

Thank you, guys, for having me.

1:09

Yeah, thank you for coming. You've been a great blessing, inspiration to

1:13

us. Yeah, it's good, good, good. So we're going to pick up the passage we were in last time, and I'm going to read that. Well, actually, Bob, you want to read it 24 but go all the way to the end of the chapter. This time we're in chapter six, so 24 Start with the therefore I tell you, don't be anxious, and then go all the way to the end of the chapter. Okay. Yeah.

1:40

Therefore, I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat, or what you would drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not more value than they, which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature? So why do you worry about your clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow. They neither toil nor spin. And yet I say to you that even Solomon, in all of his glory, was not arrayed like one of these. Now, if God so clothes the grass of the field, which to day is, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? Therefore, do not worry, saying, What shall we eat, or what shall we drink, or what shall we wear? For after these things the Gentiles seek, for your heavenly Father knows that you have need of all these things, but seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you. Therefore, do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.

2:56

Big chunk of text, big trunk of text. This quick review from the earlier, the previous episode, where we thought about this passage, what was kind of the big takeaway that you remember from the previous episode?

3:11

I think that God's commands are also His promises, right? So when Jesus is saying, therefore do not. It's the power he's offering, the power to do it. So, when he's saying do not worry, he's offering the power for us to live a worry-free life. That's awesome. That doesn't mean that worries don't come our way. I'm talking about worries that control us, right? Right. So, it's not dominating our life,

3:38

I guess. Piggybacking on, piggybacking on that, it's this, I think, a fear, worry, fear, and so we know that perfect love casteth out all fear, so they can't coexist. So maybe doing a self-assessment. Am I being driven by fear? Am I being driven by love? Going to God for that healing and living and not human being

4:02

and just to add to that, piggyback to that, that space that God is love, right, and so God is inviting us in to live in His presence and in that space, and like you said, the quoting the text that says perfect love casts out all fear, that God wants us to experience this perfect love, just being loved in such a way that we never could have dreamed or thought it possible that we are so precious in the eyes of God, but actually living that reality, right, that fear is cast out. God wants to cast fear out of our life. He doesn't want us to have dominion over us, and you know, as human beings, we're fearful,

4:40

so, so part of Jesus' way of enabling worry-free living is telling us the story of His radical love for us. Well, because you said perfect love casts out fear, so, so part of this worry-free living, how we get there is immersion this. Story,

5:01

beautiful. It's the seeing part, right, seeing the beauty and the truth about God and what He's offering to

5:09

us. Yes, so we're continuing in this passage, and one of the places Jesus invites His audience to turn is to the natural world around them as evidence for the compassionate care of God, and one of the places is lilies, the flowers. He said, think about, consider the lilies, think about how lilies grow. They don't toil or spin, yet even Solomon, in all his gore was not clothed or outfitted like one of them. I love flowers. We have these beautiful, I think they're called wood lilies. They're a, they're growing like old blueberry fields, and they're bright orange, kind of like a day lily, only they're there. Anyway, there's different kinds of lilies, but they have just like a single stalk, and they're just bright, bright orange with some, I think, some speckling on them. And Jesus says, look at the flowers, think about it. How much work we talked about control. We're not going to go over our pre-podcast conversation, but in that, we talked about the fact that we really don't have control. We have the illusion of control, like trying to put everything in our life so it works out well, but that really actually robs us. That whole hovering over our life so it works out the way we want it to actually robs us from the joy of living right in the day. So, anyway, think about the flowers.

6:42

When we think about the flowers, you talking about a lily or any other flower starts off with a seed, right? And then that seed germinates and it begins to grow. It's really a miracle before our very eyes. And then it produces this beautiful flower, and oftentimes there's a fragrance that's given off is flower, and we can just be in awe. You're like just talking about that flower that grows in the blueberry fields, you can see it in your eyes. Then you're just like in awe, the beauty of it, right? This orange, beautiful flower, and God is saying, just look at all of these, look at all of these. He had Solomon, and referring to Solomon, Solomon was, if you're not familiar with the story, if you're listening, Solomon was a king in Israel, and so he's talking about the robes, or the clothing that a king would wear, often this beautiful, finest garments that money could buy, right material that money could buy, and just put together, so the king could wear it and display it before people, yet that Jesus is saying is nothing compared to the flowers of the field and their beauty, right? And he said, then he goes on like he said, he goes on, he says, now if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is thrown in the oven, how much more would he clothe you, oh you have little faith. Listen, those flowers only last for a season, right? The very short season. And he's saying, just think about it, reflect on it, and you're of more value than they are. And I will close out. In other words, I'm going to take care of your needs.

8:16

And so that's the grounding. And I think this is huge. So during the break, when we were getting ready for this podcast, you mentioned, and it's right in our title, fully present. You mentioned Bob, how valuable it is, how meaningful it is to be fully present in this moment, that if we're consumed with worry. If we're consumed with what happened yesterday or what's going to happen tomorrow, we can pass the people in our lives, whether it's at the grocery store or whether it's a friend three hours away. We can, we can just take people for granted, because we're consumed with holding things together with what happens next, and you were just highlighting how valuable a gift it is to be fully present.

9:11

Yeah, and I want to add to that list the whole concept of social media, and that they're seeing people's minds are actually looking and thinking about what's happening in their social media platform or on their text, instead of being present, even with their own families, right. And so, and so, the value Jesus is trying to tell us what really matters, right? What really matters is a relationship with the God and our relationship with each other, and that relationship with each other, the value of being fully present, right? Just being fully present, you know. Mother Teresa said that the world is not starving for brand, it's starving because of loneliness. You know that the US Surgeon General has declared loneliness an epidemic, you know. Know least, a previous US Surgeon General cared loneliness is an epidemic in the United States. England has declared it an epidemic. People are starving for just human communication, human

10:13

touch.

10:14

So, we can bring that to somebody's life. So, it's a blessing to us to be present right with somebody, but it's also a blessing to somebody else, right? So, Jesus is trying to say, "Hey, don't worry about all these things. Yes, you need to work. This is part of the journey. This is part of the blessing of life. But I'm going to.. I'll take care of you.

10:35

So, what you're telling me is that rest in God's love sets me free to be fully present, fully living now, because I'm not my time is not consumed by my survival or my acquisition of stuff,

10:54

correct, but what I'm also adding to that is that living in that space of being fully loved by God

11:03

11:04

a, is a rhythm of life, right? It's a daily rhythm of life that I'm living daily in this relationship with God, and allowing what He's offering me to be my experience. See what I'm saying. So, it's not just this set of beliefs I have that over here, right? No, this is an experience that I'm having, and it's becoming such a part of my life. It's a rhythm, you know, I'm saying,

11:28

it's a daily rhythm that allows me to live, yeah, rather than exist.

11:35

Yeah, that's why you had mentioned it prior to the podcast, the value of the Sabbath, and that's a whole nother topic in itself, but the value of a seven day, and the seven day coming apart and finding special time, stop ceasing from our weekly toil during the week, and spending special time with God, and perhaps others as a rhythm, right, like recalibrate, recalibrate, it's resetting us. We weren't designed to just keep going and going. It's not the way God created us. So, if we want that experience, what I'm saying is we have to learn to live in the rhythm of this relationship with God. You have any thoughts on that?

12:14

No, I concur with that. And I, something I've seen for myself is like time with God, or God the Father being like this power source, and I have found that my relationship with God is often a reflection of my relationships with others, so it's like with God being the source of strength, power, and so on. If I'm not vulnerable with God, or I'm not, I'm not getting love, believing that God loves me, and accepting that love, I don't really have any love to give others. It's, I can't be vulnerable with others, so it's almost like this reflection. I maybe something similar would be parents with children, right? You, you have these ideas of how you want to raise your children, but a lot of times that child will be a product of what they were around, whether it was within the home or within the school community, and so on. So it's like, whether you realize it or not, we're all sort of developing some type of thing, so we're taking in certain things, and I think of loneliness, which is just heartbreaking, but also just maybe simple truths of like, if you're an unfriendly person, you're probably not going to have any friends, so it's like we're sort of reaping these different things, you know? If you're not pouring into, if you, if you plant something and you're not watering it and nourishing it, the fruit is probably not going to be that great,

13:43

right? Exactly,

13:44

and so I think of those things as well. Yeah, it's you. Just reminded me of a story of Jesus. It was at the end of a festival, you know, one of the festivals in Israel, and he stood up and he said, "If any man thirst, let him come to me and drink, and he that believeth on me, as the scripture has said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. Right, so if you're thirsty, come to Jesus, drink, and then out of you will flow these rivers of living water. So you mentioned that you know you have to receive from God in order to give, and that's the way God designed us, that rhythm of receiving life from the source, and then giving it to others, and we experience the joy, the greatest joy in living by by living that space, right, thirsting, come drink, flow, right, so the drinking is that communion with God? That's right, we're talking about, we've talked about that before.

14:44

So we're wired for relationship, that's what's kind of come to mind. As listen, it's good, is we're wired for relationship. What Jesus is doing is, he's, is he is telling the people how to live in a space. Where relationships flourish, first relationship with God. When that's kind of as you talked about, your relationship with God affects how you relate to other people. So, when that relationship is in sync, then we be able to, we are enabled to engage the people around us, being fully present and with an attitude of giving to build up to give life rather than to see what we can get out of it or to be so absorbed in existence that we miss the people close to us,

15:34

so just a question, then are we taking on responsibility that is not our responsibility when we're worrying and fretting about everything, like we're worrying and fretting about, as the passage says, our food, our clothing, whatever, have you, we're worrying and fretting, are we taking on a responsibility that is not ours when we do that? Yeah, I mean, I think so, because God is the one who's saying don't worry, right? Then I'll supply these for you, but yet if our minds are occupied with worrying and fretting about all of these things, we're not allowing God to be to take his position, Morris, right?

16:17

I think it can be a distortion, right, because it can be like, oh, it's good because I'm caring, but like, if you sort of unplug that with truth, like, I think there's a Bible, a Bible verse about thinking things too lofty for me, so it's like you're putting yourself in God's place, but when we go to the Word and we see His truths, or we look around us, we know that there's plans in place to take care of all those things, and then you could focus on what he's actually asking you to focus on. Around,

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do you? That's good.

16:51

It's like, you know, at work, if you give somebody a task to do, and then they're thinking about all this other stuff, it's like, I actually need you

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to do this. It's

17:00

sure that's beautiful,

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and the fact carpet needs vacuum. Yeah,

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that's all true, but actually,

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and it's good, like, oh, okay, maybe you have a caring personality. I'm glad that you are cared about those things, but that's not what I,

17:17

you know, raising children, I've never once heard my kids saying, Dad, I laid awake last night wondering if I'm gonna have food today. Sorry. Well, I waited. I laid awake last night wonder if I was gonna have any clothes left in my closet, right? They never thought like that. Yeah, and I'm not saying that's not the unfortunate situation that some children find yourself in. I'm not saying that, I'm just saying that from my experience with my children, they weren't worrying about something that we were supplying for them, right? You didn't think that was our responsibility as parents to make sure they were fed, you know, they were taken care of, that was what we do, right, as parents, and and they didn't take that role, so they just lived laughing and playing and whatever, having

18:04

right, and that's what God's wanting for us. I think of natural disasters and how, whether it's massive flooding or whether it's a hurricane or whether it's an earthquake or a fire, remind us that our life is here on earth is much more tenuous, you know, the date much more tenuous than we like to admit. The day to day, you know, I've got this job lined up, and that'll give me the money to have groceries, and then I can pay my bill. And then a disaster strikes, and we're reminded that all of that scheme of surviving isn't as robust and dependable as we think it is, so Jesus is saying just abandon your whole being consumed with putting your life together, just don't worry about it. I will have your best interest, I do have your best interest in mind. It doesn't mean that we don't like you're working on next career steps, right? You're working on next career steps. I go to work at the local hospital, so we do things right. It's not this isn't have a job or don't have a job. It's where are we depending on for our stability in life, the income that I generate through my job, or is it through, or am I resting in God? And then doing what I can with what's at hand. You see what I'm saying, like this isn't an excuse for me not to put energy in, but it's also recognizing that my fundamental sustainability is dependent on the goodness of God.

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I think it's time for a commercial break. Is

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it time for a commercial break? No. All right, we'll be right back.

19:49

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20:46

Hey, we're back, and we had a really good conversation over the podcast break about this question that sometimes people read scripture, and we want to be careful, because we have a couple really important lines to take from the text, but I think it's worth pausing for just a moment, because we had a really animated conversation about how individuals can see something written like this concept of trusting God, because He takes care of the animals and, and the flowers, and then what we can see in real life is kind of some real warped applications of this. Just want to ask, just to really like, what do we do with that? What do we do? What is our response in this conversation when we hear the words of Jesus. How do we respond to that idea that sometimes there's really bizarre even applications of a text of scripture? What protects us from, on the one hand, what we're saying is Jesus is inviting us to fully rest in God's love, and that I don't need to be consumed with worry about today or tomorrow, because God's caring for me. What protects me from going to kind of a weird place with that?

22:07

Yeah, I can. May I go first? So, you know, I think it's really important for us to look at the whole story of scripture, and looking at the whole story of scripture, He's going to give us a balanced picture.

22:17

Okay, so let's just puddle. I think that's huge, and I am interrupting you, just because I think just what you said is really, really important to take. So, what we're advocating, and what Bob is advocating, is that when we encounter scripture, we do so in a bigger story that no single passage or single story should become its own kind of little instruction on how to live without being taken with a larger story that there's there is balancing power in taking in the whole narrative of scripture. I know I interrupted your train of thought, but I thought that was like super, super important.

23:03

Back to my train of thought, so, so, so, so, you know, looking at the whole story, right? Yep, so we know that Jesus is inviting us not to worry about what we'll eat, what we'll drink, but He'll provide for us. But when we're looking at the whole story, we see that God has given us certain gifts and talents and abilities to use to create and develop. This is how we are as human beings. So, so using our gifts to, if you're a farmer, you're going to plant the seeds until the soil, till the soil, then plant the seeds. You're going to make sure it gets the seed gets plenty of water, right? And so that it grows and it produces a harvest for you. The farmer has a part to play in producing this harvest. We have a part to play as far as managing our finances. The Bible has a lot to say about money management. The Bible has a lot to say about being diligent.

23:58

Jesus, there's a couple of parables where Jesus affirmed the diligence of characters in a parable, where their diligent labor, their diligent and thoughtful care of resources they had.

24:13

Yeah, I was trying to find that text, anyways. It's in Proverbs, where it says, 'Go to the ant, you sluggard, consider her ways and be wise, having no guide over seed or seer or ruler provides for herself in the, you know, for the winter time, basically. That's what it's saying. Sorry, I'm missing the final point, but, but looking at the ant, the Bible saying, look at the ant, the ant is diligent, the ant wears hard, the ant provides for knowing that a winter is coming,

24:42

right,

24:42

right, so we need to realize there's planning ahead as human beings in regard to financial management, or whatever the case may be. This is what God's calling us to do, but at the same time He's saying don't allow your mind to be so worrying and fretting that. That you won't see a harvest, right? That I will take care of you, you know, even if everything gets wiped out in a disaster. God is still saying, "Don't worry, I'll take care of you.

25:11

So I can live and rest, but at the same time I am engaging in life, I'm using my resources, I'm managing. It's not an either or.

25:22

Yeah,

25:23

it's I don't need to worry and be anxious and try to control everything, but I'm also being diligent and thoughtful. No, and, and wise,

25:32

yeah. I happen to do financial coaching, and I just love doing that, because I get to dive into people's finances. It's like tearing it apart, and see how they spend their money, which is really interesting, and I help them get out of debt, right? But once I line them up with God's ways for financial management, and see them getting out of debt, peace comes to them, right? The oftentimes tension between the spouse is together it's simmering down right, because why they're following the ways of the Lord. So, as far as having a balanced mind and restfulness that comes from following the principles of God, and in looking at scripture, and the best place to look at what a balanced life look, I like is the life of Jesus. He spent time communing with his Father. He spent time serving to other people, right? That's what he did,

26:30

right.

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And so that's the example: time in the Word, time in God's presence, time in God's presence, whether it's time in prayer, time and time in the word of God, feeding upon the word of God, and then serving, living life from a servant's perspective, right, living to give balance, living, God will give you a sound mind. Yeah, we get, we get imbalanced when we only take a portion of scripture and we focus on it, right, and we don't look at the whole picture,

26:57

right. And the other thing I would say is there's also a place for letting other people walk with God at their pace, and, and how, and the path that I take in following God. So, just because somebody else gets what I think is a really weird take on it doesn't mean that I have to sort of try to police them or correct them. It also doesn't mean that I need to follow or approve of it, so there is also that space of America. You have grace to live to follow God as you believe, and I'm also going to, and I'm not going to take your life as a commenter at who God is. I don't know if that makes sense, kind of like that separation between someone else's behavior and my behavior. I wanted to see if you had any observations or questions or feedback on this before we move on. I just wanted to kind of throw the ball.

27:50

No, I think that I think you guys's discussion leads nicely into the following verses, where it's talking about seeking first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, because you talked about this knowledge, right? You have this knowledge, and then you can live in harmony with that knowledge, right? You're not, you're not sort of.. you're not in constant resistance to doing things the way they weren't created

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to be,

28:15

right, which can alleviate a lot of the pain and suffering

28:19

that's great

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that we see around us, whether we're inflicting it on ourselves or inflicting on others, and I think that's what makes sense so devastating, because it never happens in isolation. Right, you are harming others,

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harming

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generations to the third and fourth generation, and so I like how this sort of plays into the next verses.

28:44

Yeah, so we do spiritual wellness coaching, and I love Shape Life. So one of the people that I'm coaching, they have a tendency, because they're learning, they're learning the ways of God, right? So they have this tendency to worry a lot and

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friend a lot,

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and and this is the verse that they have to mention to me that they are learning to apply to their life, seeing first the kingdom of heaven and its righteousness, and all these things will be added unto you. They mentioned to me as they put God first by spending time with them first thing in the morning, instead of running through the day, right? If they put God first, then they have a peace and the strength to be able to deal with the situations in the day when they haven't learned to put God first, and they just rush into the day, they find themselves getting anxious and worried and fretting just over daily living, and I just, that's just a beautiful practical application of the value of putting God first, is by making Him first thing that day, when you wake up, make your time with God first, right?

29:52

So, maybe that's part of the answer to the balance, is that what Jesus is not talking about is kind of the. The where we were talking about people having crazy conclusions and doing things that are just kind of out there, but about priority, don't make your priority your survival, but start first with centering the kingdom in your life,

30:20

and remember the kingdom of heaven. I had mentioned earlier what Paul had wrote is not as righteousness in joy and peace and Holy Ghost. So learning the ways of God's kingdom is by looking at the life of Jesus, looking at his teachings, seeking to apply those ways to our life, looking at the other stories in the Bible, the other principles in the Bible, and learning the ways of God's kingdom, and applying those things well in the financial coaching realm. It's really interesting how people are sincere as can be. They're praying, they're asking for God for for help in the matter, yet they're they lack the knowledge from from the scripture to apply to their financial journey, right. So you can pray all you want, but if you keep swiping a card, you ended up, you're going to keep getting a dent, right. And then you end up playing the rob Peter to pay Paul scenario, and you're praying, and you're wondering where God is, but yet you're failing to follow what God says, yes, yes, see what I'm saying, and oftentimes I found in my dealing with them, a lot of people just don't have that knowledge because they haven't been educated on on that, so once they apply that knowledge and get things lined up, then the peace comes, right,

31:36

so the same as spiritual relationships, right, if we, you know, we're praying, please help this relationship to come together, help us to reconcile, but we keep doing things that violate the relationship, or that correct, throw the relationship off balance. Jesus saying, put the kingdom first, start, let me start shaping your life and forming you into someone who loves like I do, amen, and then your relationships, your finances, etc. will start flowing from that rhythm rather than self interest,

32:12

like it's like Bible. Let's just say with Jen, let's say we had odds with each other, and I'm choosing not to forgive her, I'm not applying the principles of God's kingdom, so I'm reaping the results, right, which is a division in our relationship, the strange aspect of the relationship. But if I apply the principle and say, hey, Jan, will you forgive me because I did such and such, or I said such and such, she forgives me, there's reconciliation, you see. I'm saying we're, we're moving forward, right? So, seeking first the kingdom of God and His righteousness is about putting the principles of God first in your life, following what you're learning and applying, right? Do you have to practice what you're learning? It's that, that's where it becomes part of you. It becomes, it changes your character, becomes part of your life, right? Because we're, if we've been living in an old way, which is my own ideas and my own thought turns, I reap the result of that, but now I'm learning a new way, and it requires practice, just like anything.

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I don't argue, I think about with exercise, exercise, you're, you're, you're working those muscles, you're not doing the same thing every day, like maybe some days I run a long distance, some days I sprint. I still have to do weight training, because I think another thing is you can have this knowledge but not have wisdom, right? And that's why it requires this constant relationship, because there's timing aspects, not to make it complicated, but when the Holy Spirit's leading, maybe that's something you should share with that person, but it might not be the right time to share it, and that's that, that relationship, and I think of in the Bible, there's a king in the Old Testament, Nebuchadnezzar, and he gets this knowledge, and he's excited, but then prematurely he says, "Oh, I'm making them worship God,

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but

34:00

we know that that's not a principle of God, because He gives us free will. You're never imposing religion on another person, and so you see this journey that He takes with God, where He's sort of constantly having to backtrack, because He's prematurely applying that knowledge, and not sort of in that relationship where he's cooperating with God. What the beautiful side of that is, we see this character of just grace and mercy on God's behalf, where he is just wooing him and constantly sort of working with him. But I think in that seeking first the kingdom of God, it's like this, it's this deep connection and experience where you're growing and learning and applying, and just it's this living relationship, so there's.. it's not this terminal point, it's just constantly growing.

34:52

And I think by putting God first, we're giving God permission to do what He's promised to do in our life. You see what I'm saying, because when we're not. In God, first we're just still running our own thing. God's just like, here you go, you know what I'm saying. Good luck, good luck, and waits for us to wear ourselves out. Realize, oh, I should have turned to God,

35:11

right?

35:12

It seems like where Jesus is seeking to lead them in this, you know, this public speech that he was giving. His first public speech that he was giving is introducing a God that cares for them.

35:23

Yes, right. Yes,

35:24

and trying to help them to see that they, that they can rest in His care, right. So, trying to bring them to the point where they realize that God really loves you, right? Right. And if you will allow Him to love you, you'll learn to not worry about tomorrow,

35:40

that's right,

35:41

because you're gonna rest in His care. That's beautiful.

35:45

Yeah, and I think that's the big thing, is Jesus is introducing the big idea that life is more than survival, and that the key to living a life that's focused on more than survival is resting in the care of God, right? That's the big idea. That's

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the big

36:02

questions about how does it flesh out. What does planning look like? Those details, he's not dealing with those details, he's dealing with the basic disposition of our lives, the basic orientation of our lives, the basic framework, and that is rest in God's care, and and don't be anxious for today or tomorrow,

36:22

and that's where he wants to bring over. You mentioned the word rest, right? So we talk about these four principles: seeing the beauty of God, meditating upon what you see, accepting it as your own, and learning to rest in the daily rhythm of that love. That's a learning process, you know, because we're so used to worrying and fretting about things that it's just part of our life, right? Like the nor, right? So shifting and being set free from that, and learning to live in a new rhythm of resting, please, and the cares of God, and realizing I believe it was you mentioned earlier when we were off the air of how much you have a tendency, and we all do, to control

43:27

right,

43:28

and letting go of that, just to rest right in the care of God,

43:29

because I, God is showing me how we rob ourselves, because if we take ourselves back to this audience, the disciples were there, and they had some lofty dreams, right? Oh, we're gonna beat the Romans, like I'm gonna be on your right side, and God wanted to do so much more. That's right, that's right. So they cannot fathom the role that they played, that we would be reading this word today, and you know, like, so we confine him into our little boxes, and it's like we are just robbing ourselves. That's

44:08

right. Stop robbing ourselves. I love

44:12

this beautiful God who just wants to give us the world,

44:16

right? Want to give us world, you know. I think of, you know, I was reading the other day how there's the astronomers believe there's like 2 trillion galaxies, right? It's crazy. Yeah, 2 trillion, and the universe is still growing because they see it still growing, and that there's there's inside those galaxies are billions of stars, which is exciting, which is insane. And then you take it to a next level, that we're in one of those galaxies, but we're like smaller than a grain of sand compared to the rest of the universe, right? And yet God sees when a sparrow falls to the ground, God has the ability to know every hair on her head, right, and God cares for you and. For me and for everyone else, yes,

45:02

yes.

45:03

What a god. We can't fathom the size of the universe. We can't even mind giving us dress like high tech. Oh yeah, you start talking about light years, and we know inches and feet, and yeah, but light years, it's just.. it blows our mind. Yet this God is inviting us to rest in Him. Yes,

45:24

and wants to spend time with you. No, you, it's mind blowing. It's mind to talk to you, like you know what is this? This love is foreign, it's

45:33

right.

45:35

So, what's still ringing in my mind is you mentioned friends, and maybe I shouldn't make that reference, but and individuals that I've talked about who, because they see some person who claims to follow Jesus, use their religion to do things that look really weird, they say I'm just going to stay back because that's crazy. So, what I want to say is, don't let someone else's practice of religion or practice of scripture rob you of your own experience of this God that makes sense.

46:25

Yes, and I would like to add to that to say that let Jesus be your models.

46:30

Yeah, yeah, just like give God a chance and see what He does in your life, right? See what He does in your life. Yeah, because you wouldn't want to miss out on a million dollar prize just because everybody else who got that million dollar prize committed suicide, that's like kind of dark, right, but you wouldn't want to miss it out just because it didn't work for someone else, so that's what I'm saying, is

46:50

like all about Jesus, right, it's all about Jesus,

46:54

so wrapping it up, what do we see,

46:56

what do we see, I think for me what I see is the big idea two things? No, one thing I'll just say one thing. Big idea is at the end of the day seeing that God loves and cares for me, and yeah, that's the big C, is that God loves and cares, I mean, for everybody, but it starts with believing that that's true for me.

47:21

I'm gonna ditto that.

47:22

Okay, so what about the experience part? Number two,

47:26

I would say that the experience is seeing that God cares for me and loves me, is allowing myself to be loved by Him, and which just seems to be a different level, right? Yeah, allowing myself, with all my imperfections, to accept the fact that I'm fully known and fully loved, and that He is my father,

47:53

right,

47:54

who will plan the best for me, will give everything for me. That's my experience, part allow, right?

48:03

I love it, and I would, yeah, I think I would go with that.

48:08

Yeah, I'd say, as someone who struggles with doing, allowing yourself to just be like, who, who were you, who created you, what were you created for, and I'm having confidence in that, and then going forward in that with God.

48:25

Beautiful, good. All right, that's the end of season.

48:31

I want to go with Liv. Oh, you want to

48:33

go slip? Okay, let's hear Liz. I was thinking you had it's wrapped it up with Liv, but let's hear what you got. Let's go for it.

48:41

No, I would say that learning to live in the daily rhythm of resting in God. I love it. I love it. This is a daily.. sorry, I didn't realize you did.

48:56

I just like, hey,

48:58

that sounds good. No, thank you. That's a great, a great piece to add on. So, that is the end of season eight. Thank you for joining us. And we'd love for you to like, subscribe, and send, share this podcast with that friend you've been thinking of. And until next time, lean in to a love-shaped life.

49:22

Ever wonder what it's like to truly experience God's love at Love Shaped Life. We're here to guide you on that journey through our weekly emails, podcasts, blogs, coaching, and more. We're helping people just like you discover the transformative power of divine love.

49:39

Join our community at Love Shaped dot life, and be part of a movement that's changing lives. Love Shaped Life, your partner in the journey of seeing, experiencing, and living God's love,

49:52

you.

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