On today's episode Kristin has a conversation with Marnie Swedberg, an author, speaker, and the founder of Christian Women's Speakers Directory, about getting to know the heart of God.

This conversation is full of personal stories about living life with God and walking alongside Jesus in our everyday lives. If you've felt distant from God or not sure you can trust him to provide for your needs and peace, this episode is going to help you see who God truly is and just how much he wants to have a personal relationship with you.

Connect with Marnie at Marnie.com or if you are a Christian Women's Speaker or looking for a speaker check out WomenSpeakers.com

Do You want to feel less frazzled, more joyful and at peace in your daily life? Are you ready to put more focus into what God has promised us and how to talk to God and hear from him?

Are you ready to be encouraged as a Christian mom, wife and friend? I know how easy it is to let life get busy and not put God first.

I have been there and I continously have to keep checking back in to make God and following Jesus my focus. It's not always easy but I keep working on following God's plan instead of pushing my own. And I want to help you do the same.

How can we choose to do life a little bit different? To accept the invitation we've been given to step into the Adventure of pursuing God and what he has for us.

Learn about Kristin Fitch and her podcast Faith Fueled Woman and to sign up for her email and 7 Day Faith-based Encouragement Challenge (7 days of Encouragement sent to your inbox)- click here.

Buy Let Us Worship Christian Encouragement Card Packs (20% off & free shipping in Jan)- here

Reach out to Kristin to have her speak at Your Event, Summit, Church or Group - Go to KristinFitch.com/contact

#fellowship #connection #faith #christianinspiration #bibleverse #scripture #followinggod #trustGod #truthofGod #letmetellyouaboutmyjesus #jesus

Beautiful friends and welcome back to Faith fueled woman. This is your host Kristin, I am so excited for today's episode, I have an amazing interview with my guests who she just loves Jesus, she really is going to inspire you to have a relationship with God to do every day with Christ. She's going to inspire you to truly get to know the truths of God. And she is going to inspire you to really understand that we can let God interact with us in our everyday lives, and we can trust that He will provide and he will be there for us. We talk about a peace barometer and how our days should be so much more peaceful than so many of us are living. Hi, beautiful friend and Welcome to Faith fueled woman. I want to ask you, are you ready to accept the invitation we've been given a step into the adventure of pursuing God and what He has for us. I am Kristin, I am an encourager. I'm a Christian, inspirational speaker, author and podcaster I help women grow in their faith, purpose and business so they can have lasting legacy and impact in their homes and in the world. If you want to partner with God to design your life, to be less hurried, less stressed, be more excited and feel alive and your purpose and commitment to God and your family. This is the podcasting community for you favorite beverage, your prayer journal and your pen. Let's be encouraged. And I did just want to let you know if you haven't signed up for my email newsletter yet, just go to face fueled woman.com. And there is a place to sign up at the top. But I'm going to be doing giveaways. I'm going to be giving away books and other amazing resources and things that have inspired me and my faith. So make sure you go sign up because I'm going to be sharing each week for a while some people that have signed up what they're going to get. So if you're in the US, it may be mailed to you. If you're not it may have to be an electronic option. Hi, today on the show, I would like to welcome Marni Swedberg. She is a speaker and author, a coach and entrepreneur. She is also the founder of the Christian women's speaker directory. And she has been serving faith filled Christian women for over 20 years in their faith and stepping out through messages to share it with churches and Christian organizations and just people all over the world. And I'm so excited to have this conversation with her today, because she's such an inspiring and encouraging woman, a businesswoman but also just such a woman of strong faith. So welcome Marnie. Hey, thanks. Good to be here, Chris. And thanks for having me. Oh, absolutely. Oh, Marnie. Can you start off with just telling us a little bit about just your background, and how you've got into all the work you've done over these years, and being an author of many Christian books? And then what are you doing now? And what is your faith journey? What does that look like?

So I think I want to just start by saying that I'm kind of not the person you would think that could have written 14 books, because when I was a kid, I didn't really know how to read until I graduated from high school, I kind of just memorized words, and slogged my way through sounding out all the rest of them. And it didn't really come to me, I was dyslexic. And it was just a long time ago. And there wasn't a lot of help for that. And so I just really kind of struggled my way through school. Then as an adult I out from under the pressure of school, I was able somehow to relax enough to be able to learn how to read and read for enjoyment, which is an I read basically, everything I can get my hands on, I would sometimes read 200 books in a short period of time.

Friends of the Library president and I mean, just all kinds of juggling all kinds of balls. So people started asking me, how are you doing that? How are you able to entertain, serve such great food, because we were a single income family, and do all this. And so I just what I did is I went to the library, and I started interlibrary loaning books that would explain to people what I was doing in the kitchen, and I couldn't find one after interlibrary loaning hundreds of books, I just couldn't find one. And what was funny was that along the way, I came up to some books that were really not very well written, that I really thought, you know, if these people could get published, maybe I can publish what I'm doing. So I began the four year journey of writing a cookbook that's called Kitchen shortcuts. And it's still available in multiple printings and revisions today. But that's how my book writing started with a good book. And then it went on. And now I've done several things, including women's ministry guide, How to start one and run one out retreats for women. Bible studies, my most recent one just came out a couple weeks ago called spiritual growth. And this is the craziest book, because it is for people who don't know about Jesus who've ruled him out or who are hostile toward him. And so in this particular book, there is no plan of salvation, there is no call to salvation. Instead, there are 31 days 31 chapters that call you to actually ask deeply in your own heart, what do I really want from spirituality. And then at the end of there's a comparison of 20 top religions that help you identify how you get in what your life is, like, when you're in it, how this religion deals with forgiveness, what happens to after you die. And so it allows a person who doesn't even know they need Jesus or has ruled him out to look at the options and go from there. Oh, that's amazing. Wow. So good. Oh, my goodness. So yes, so I love that you shared that, because some of that, of course, I hadn't heard that yet, from you. So I love what you shared, it is really encouraging. Because to your point is I think often that happens in life. And it definitely happens when you're, you know, a Christ follower, which is, okay, I know, sort of this is the direction or this is what I'm being called to, but I don't really know how I'm gonna make it happen, right. But that's not, that's not really what we're being asked to do. It's just to take that next little step, right. And you've continued to do that, with all the new things you've done all the things that put on your heart to show women well, this is how you can, you know, invite people in and have, you know, be show hospitality or show,

you know, how to give, you know, and then how to, you know, raise your kids the way you wanted to raise them and give them what they needed. So, it's amazing. I love that. So were you always was your faith, always strong from the time you were young? Or did you? What did that look like for you?

So I came to trust Christ, when I was four years old, I was raised in a Christian family, my mom and dad loved God loved each other, and loved us. And that was really an amazing childhood to have. And so I came to Christ early, and then kind of just did Jesus, you know, all along. And then as a young adult, really had a revival in my heart, and, you know, started spending a lot of time with Jesus, you know, praying and just talking with him, getting to know him. And then again, in my late 30s, had another kind of revival, where at that point, it was so radical that I thought, wow, it's almost like I never even knew him before. And so, once again, this to those of you listening, there's always going to be more of Jesus for you to comprehend more for you to embrace and to know and to enjoy, actually. And I think that that's one of my favorite parts about God is that he's way too big for us to get our heads around. And so when we put them in a little box, that's the box actually, that he stays in, in our mind.

But he's way bigger than that. And so just to continue to grow in your journey and hang out with people who love Jesus and who are living Jesus, no, look for the fruit in their lives, hang out with those people and learn from them how they're getting to know Jesus better. Absolutely. And one of Pastor Mark Madison's books, he talks about that concept, and I think it might have been AW Tozer that, that maybe you mentioned it as well, but it's that how big is your God and most of the time we see him from our human construct, right instead of from his, you know, all powerful Almighty. And what can happen though is we think, Oh, our problems are bigger than God. Right are our prayers. What we're asking for the miracles we're, we're thinking, Oh, but but I don't know if God will do it or if he can do it in that's the problem, right is that we have to remember, he is so much bigger and so much you know more than we could even comprehend, you know, and we have to keep remembering that God

God is bigger than all these things, right? All this, you know, maybe you lost your job or you're struggling in your marriage, but we have to remember it's is your God bigger than your problems, you know. And I love that idea because I think we do have to realize, we often put him in a box, we see him as too small or not as capable, you know, as, as he is.

Hebrews 11 Six is one of my favorite verses in the Bible, it says that in order to please God, you must believe that He exists, and is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him. And I pray that prayer almost every day, I am diligently seeking you, God, I am looking for good from this. And when I find myself being faithless, because we can either be faithful, or we can be faith less, you know, those are the two options. And when I find myself being faithless, I actually kind of have this humorous thing I see in my mind. And I kind of sometimes say, Well, God, I'm just not sure if you're up for this one. You know, like, It's so dumb. why would why do we even ever have that question? But again, it's back to what you were saying earlier, he's calling us into the to walk on water. And it's like, we don't know how to walk on water. And we know that actually, physically, humanly, we can't walk on water. And so we have a hard time to say yes to him, when he asks us to walk on water. But that's exactly what he wants, he wants us in that position of dependence. You know, the Psalmist says, By My God, I can run through a troop. And by my god, I can leap over a wall. He wants us right there where we'll say yes, no matter what he's asking us to do. When I do intake interviews with the speakers for women's speakers.com. These are often gals who are very skilled

communicators, they've probably many of them have written books, there have been out speaking and sharing God's message sometimes for decades before they come to women's speakers.com. And a lot of them say the same thing to me, even though they've been walking with God watching him do miracles through them their whole lives, or for many, many years, a lot of them will say, you know, but right now God's asking me to do blank, and I just don't even know how to do it. And we all share this in common when we're living on God sized life. And I love the verses in Psalms that says Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path. So it's that you have this picture out in the future. It's like, maybe it's if you say the analogy of you're walking through the woods, and you know, the cabin is over there to the west. So you're going that direction, you can't see the cabin, it's dark at night, all you've got is your little flashlight, and you're walking through the woods. And basically all you can see as the next step or two, that's all you actually need to see. But what we want to do in order to feel very safe and in control, and comfortable, is we want to be able to see the whole path and make sure it's all going to be okay. And when we're walking with God. That's what makes it hard as he's like, nope, walk by faith, not by sight walk by faith. It's very difficult for us to say yes to that. Absolutely. And, you know, that's the truth of it, right is that once we sort of have this prompting whatever it is, or this call, or just, you know, maybe this

feeling like oh,

yeah, which whatever. Yeah, it depends, right? It's sometimes it's small things like, oh, I should go do something for this person that I came upon, or my neighbor and other times it's a bigger like you said vision on our lives. But to your point is God might give us these things. But then he's he is looking for us to step out of faith, like you said, take one little baby step at a time, right? It's not that we need to know, oh, wait, you're supposed to go write books, or you're supposed to homeschool your children, you only have to take the next step or the next thought, like, oh, well, what could I do with this just like you all these women asking you about? How do you do this with the food and make it financially feasible for you to bring all those people into your home and welcome them and show them? You know, this, this way of loving them, right? This, this Christian loving them, you realize, one, this book doesn't exist, this information doesn't exist in a way that I can give it to them. You just kept doing learning you were learning you were figuring it out. It wasn't like you said, I'm just gonna write a book, you know, 90 handed to you. You weren't even thinking that yet. But then you look, all these small steps finally got you to the first book, and then the next book and the next book, right? And you didn't know when you started you were going to write 14 Plus books or keep writing books. It was just the first step of saying how can I how can I help these women give them what they're asking for? You know, right? I still remember when I still remember when the first my first editor at St. Martin's Press. She said she said you've got more books in you and I was thinking probably not you know, I really feel like this tapped out

everything that was in there.

But in when God put women's speakers.com on my heart I

So good. And, you know, I find this all the time for myself, you know, I sort of have that big vision that's been put on my heart. And often though, I can get stuck in the day to day weeds, right? And I have to stop myself and pull myself back. And remember the big vision that I'm moving towards, right? And yes, I don't know exactly every piece of it. But I know, I know the call, right? And so I have to be careful because I can get in the busy. And then I can lose sight of hold on how does this tie back? What is you know, what is this? What am I doing? What am I trying to build? What are we been called to do? And so, you know, to your point is we don't always know the pieces, but if we can remember what he's calling us to do, and being be willing to try it be willing to just do something towards it. You know, I think it's so important.

Yeah, and I think the other thing is, you know, for someone like me, I'm I'm such an organized person, I love to have all my ducks in a row, I make sure I know what's gonna happen next, and when and who's doing it and all that. So it's really hard for me to,

to just trust at this level is just, it's just a constant learning curve for for 10 years I had a Girls Club in my home called Alma L. It's in Hebrew, it means servant girl of the Lord. And it was for 11 to 15 year olds, they would come into my home three afternoons a week after school, and the bus would drop them off at the front door and up to 12 of them would come hustling in. And we would make a meal or meals for families in need that would go out and they would actually need to eat this food. So it was really intense.

When they would come we're I'm teaching 11 year olds how to cook. And a family who's going through a hard time is planning on it for supper. So it was a lot of density. And I had a it was just such a learning curve. And I remember one of the very first times I had plans for what we were going to do, we were going to make meals for a couple of families. And right before the girls were due to come, the phone rang two times in a row and the families both said something had come up and they didn't need the meal that night. But thank you very much. And I was like, Okay, God, I've got all these girls coming in a couple minutes. I've got food. And that's all I have prepared for us to do. So what are we going to do? And I thought, oh, I can call and I called a friend. And she's like, Oh, not tonight. And I called another friend with seven kids. And she's like, Oh, tonight, my father's taken us out for supper. And it was like, I remember I was so frustrated with God. I was like, What am I going to do with these girls? And I remember I slammed my hands down on the counter in front of me. And I looked straight up and I'm like, God, this club was your idea. And you're gonna have to fix this. And then I went up my stairs and I'm watching the girls come off the bus. And I'm like, I don't know. So we go in the kitchen and welcome them and we have a little snack for them. And then I said, Well, you guys, here's the deal. We were gonna make all these meals tonight. But now the people are going to make them for don't need it. So I'm not sure what we should do. And one girl she says, Well, our teacher our one teacher just had back surgery, do you think we could send her a meal? And I said, Sure, in our name we can try to cut find her and another girl said there was a family and needed her church and could we send them a meal today? And that's what we ended up doing. And it was such a lesson to me because you know I'm in the fire basically, I always say you know I hate those Midnight Hour answers where God waits till the midnight hour and I hate worse the ones where he lets you go in the fire and then he pulls you out of the fire. You know those I really really hate. Yeah, it's like, I really liked the advance notice stuff. But when we're walking with God and we want him to do

he doesn't get to do miracles when everything's going well.

Hmm, miracles only happen when there's a huge mess. That's right. There's no miracle when you can do it all by yourself. He doesn't need to show up actually, exactly, you can just go ahead and do it all by yourself.

Right. And there's a time and a place where we are supposed to do that. And then there's a time and a place when it's well beyond our ability and our effort, right without his ability and power. Right. And so you're right, and we have to be looking for and plan for both, you know, what to expect. And DuBois? Can I loop back around on that? Just a second? Absolutely. So there came a day see, I'm such an independent person. And because I struggled so much through school, I think I became more independent, and I found ways to survive, right? You find ways to make it work. And so I became very, you know,

ingenious at finding shortcuts and different pathways around the blocks that I hit as a child. And so as an adult, Christian, I would be like, Okay, God, I don't understand, like, I remember one day standing in front of my closet saying, like, do you want to pick what I wear today? Like, how much involvement do you actually want in my life? Right? You know, because he honestly, I think he does want involvement in every piece of my life. And so I just couldn't identify what the difference was. And I remember that day he said, Well, Marni, when you're standing in front of the closet, and you're you have any leveling of anxiety at all, then I want to be part of the decision. But if you're just going to your closet, and confidently by faith, pulling something out and putting it on, and moving on with your day, you're fine, just go forward. But the thing is that he really wants to be intricately involved with everything we do. And, and I like First Corinthians 13. If we use the word agape for love there, because there's four kinds of love, three are humans and one aren't God. Agape love is God's love. And First Corinthians 13, is talking all about God's love. So if I sell everything I have, and give that to the poor, but I do it without God's love flowing through me. It only does as much as it can do in the moment. But as soon as God's love flows through me to accomplish that task, then it does it for eternity. And when I understood this person, it changed my life, it changed my motivations, it changed how I think about everything. Because I can spend my whole days doing good feeding the pool, or doing whatever. And it counts for nothing more than it accomplishes in the moment. Or I can live my whole life. And God taught me this changing diapers. I can live my whole life with Jesus and have every last thing count for eternity. And this is the difference, you know, so I think he really does want to be part of every last thing we're doing. But that doesn't mean that he wants us to be ridiculously consumed with chucking in May I take the next breath, right, just go ahead. But when you cannot breathe, cry out to Me. Now I call it the air of prayer. So like a dolphin. A dolphin doesn't breathe constantly because a dolphin can go underwater for up to five minutes without taking a breath. But as soon as the dolphins body starts quaking, shaking and needing air, it goes up for air. We are we are earth dwellers, but we're prayer breathers that's how we were designed. And if we feel ourselves shaking, quaking in any way I say my my piece shoelaces have come on tight. If I noticed that anything is a little upset. That's God saying Come talk to me about this go up for air through prayer. And that's the Pray without ceasing that it's talking about in Thessalonians and that used to make me nuts because I'm like, I can't do it. I can't pray without ceasing. I just keep getting interrupted. But the reality is, is that when we use our peace barometer, which talks about a Colossians 315 Let the peace of Christ rule in you acting as an umpire. Are you at peace? Or aren't you at peace because as soon as you're not at peace check in because he's is available to you because God is at peace right now.

Yeah, so go sit with him. Absolutely. I think that that's a well said and it's 100% true and I often talk about it on the podcast or other things I've done is you know, you know when you start your day, you know and you make time for God and throughout the day when you do the same you take those moments to breathe to pray to You know, welcome in the Holy Spirit you know, whatever the things all the things those days when I do that, the peace the joy upon my day is so much right or then the days or the moments or maybe something got off and I didn't take the same amount of time Yes. It's not that I'm it's not crazy frazzled, necessarily, but it there is a different sense about my day and

about me and my interactions with people, you know, and so to your point, that's a great example of how we can keep checking in with ourselves. And, you know, when and how do we need to keep reaching out to and being in relation and connection with God. So that's really great. I love that.

Instead of it being a pressure thing, which I always felt it was like, I should pray more like that pressure feeling. Instead of that it's this opportunity. Really, yes, it's this. It's this invitation, both to have a closer relationship with God as well as to be used by God. There was a day I was just working in my kitchen. And I was going back and forth between the counter I was working out and another count cupboard, where I had some of the supplies I needed. And I would walk back and forth. And I'd be like, I'd get over them and like, what did I need, and I walked back over, looked at the recipe, walked back again. And I got there again, and I couldn't remember what I needed. I walked back and I did it a third time. I'm like, God, what's going on. And he's like, just come away. So I just walked left my recipe on the counter, and I went to my bedroom. And as soon as I shut the door, I just was I laid flat down on my face on the floor and started to sob. Now, this is not normal for me at all. In fact, I kind of think that's crazy. But that's what happened that day. And I cried, and the only word that would come to my mind was Kathy, somebody named Kathy was in trouble. And so I just laid on my floor and I just prayed and I cried, I just cried for Kathy and I didn't even know what it was about. And about an hour later. I got up as if it had never happened. And I went back and I completed the recipe in the kitchen and I was just like, what was that? That was so bizarre, you know, I just, I you know, come come take me away people in white robes.

I'm ready for the loony bin here.

But then the next day at church, a lady named Kathy, who was a childcare provider. A baby had died in her home. Right then.

And God needed somebody to intercede for Kathy, right. And I got to be the one. You know, and I changed it fakers. And because you think all it's so interruptive it's so much work. I feel so much pressure. But it's really the somebody simply put God see, I invite you to come be used by me. Come, you might flow through vessel come. Yep, I have something special for you. Yeah. Oh my goodness. Wow. So how powerful. Yeah, and I think it's really that we just have to be opened, and paying attention to those promptings into those, you know, those feelings, the intuition that we're getting, because, to your point, often, whether it's something that's so immediate, or, I mean, whether it's in my own life, and people that you know, you just I just felt called to go give something to or do something with or have a conversation later, right? You don't, you don't always know it in the moment. You normally won't do it. And you may never know it, right? How you did a life, because you felt this color, this color, this urge to go take action or speak in love or, or do some Kinect. But when you do that later, often you will find out that meant so much to me that really changed something where, you know, it just you just have to listen. And there's so many beautiful stories that people have about, you know, I was driving down somewhere and but I pulled to drive further. Right and right, the interaction they had, they could have never known they could never, you know, but it's like it's miraculous, you know, that the two people connected. It was one moment where had this person just gone where they were supposed to originally go. But I think that's why we have to

pay attention and then listen, as best we can, you know, to these polls on these promptings. And I do believe I do believe that the our, our willingness and availability, like that comes in direct proportion with how big and how personal we think our God is. So as long as we just think he's great and big, well, then he's off somewhere in the distance. But if he's big and also personal, then we know that he's right here with me. And I mean, this is the thing that takes our breath away, right, is that the God of the universe wants to have a relationship with me, to the point where he cares if I lose my car keys. Right? How could he care? Why would he care? Except that when we have a human relationship that's very close, they care. If my husband loses his car keys, I go help him fine. That's right. Because I love him and he needs them. So why wouldn't God want to be that intricately involved in our lives? And then, you know, to that point again, when my husband is doing something and he calls me and will you come help me

With this, and I can, why wouldn't I? Right? Right, right. So when you're in a loving relationship, and you truly trust the person,

you trust this God, then you want to say yes, you find that they're available to you as well. And this is where the love just grows into this thing where, you know, the stories you're talking about these should be happening every day. Yesterday, I was talking with a new friend in Palestine or in Pakistan, rather. And she said to me, after we had spoken, she was going to take my spiritual growth survey, and she was excited about it. She's Muslim, she's excited to take the spiritual girls survey. And she said, she said, and I want it, I have to just ask you, What is your religion? And I said, Oh, my religion is Christian, I believe in Jesus Christ, and that He died for us. And she said, What did you learn when you studied the 20 religions? And I said, well see, that's the thing. I learned that I learned that it's the only one that makes any sense. And she said, I can't wait to read this book. And I can't wait to do this. She said, Because you're the most alive person I have ever spoken to.

We don't have to go out of our way. I mean, I was I was on a plane, one day, I went to use the bathroom, literally, I had to stand in line for the bathroom, got in a conversation with one of the flight attendants. And it looked led to Jesus, you don't have to go anywhere, just go to the bathroom, go to the store.

You don't have to do anything special. Just talk to the people that God is putting in your life. And you will find that he loves them so much that He sent you. And when you start to really believe that it changes everything. And when you start to believe that he's flowing through you, and that he's not going to ask you to give anything he hasn't given to you. He has to give it to you first before you can give it to somebody. Right? So he's never gonna ask you for too much. If you don't have it, just ask him for more. Because he's, he's always got more

soldiers who could? Yeah, and I think it's definitely true. You were sort of saying earlier that you've had multiple times where you had this, I don't know if this is word to use, but like a revival, right. A Yeah. A reconnecting right to a deeper a deeper insight into God. Yeah, yeah. And I've had the same thing happened, you know, because I grew up in a faith, you know, home Christian faith. And so that was something I knew from the time I was tiny. But I, you know, I always just felt this cool for more, you know, to have more of a relationship. Constantly in college, I studied religion and Christianity. I mean, I still was going to church, but it's like it constantly, right, I just was having this pool, this pool this, I couldn't get enough information, right. The number of books I buy, that are Christian based, you know, pastors writing them. But But I continue, the more that I've time I put in right relationally, but also learning right out, and then just doing showing up and in taking action, showing up in love, the more I feel, right, that closer connection, I feel that, like you said, a resurgence or revival or a deepening, you know, and it's, it's amazing, right? The more time I put in, the more that I put into the relationship, the more I get out of it. You know, my, in my book flow through vessel, I have this chart, and it's called a trust level test. Basically, it's kind of a little analysis you can do and how much you're trusting God. Because a lot of us, what we tend to do is we tend to have 100% on the I trust God that my eternity is secure. But then we have a very low score on that I trust God that he can help me pay my bills this week.

And it's so weird. It's like which of which of those two is the most important or the most difficult?

Certainly the eternity piece, right? If we should be freaking out about anything, it should be that part. Yeah. But we tend to limit God to the stuff that we can't affect. Right? But where God becomes real to us, where our faith and our trust actually grow and develop into this gigantic shield of faith is when we start letting him interact with us in the daily. Everything's in the little stuff in the the sorrows and the paints that I have today. And I just, you know, I just want to confess, to be really honest here just two days ago, I was so out of sorts, and I was like, I couldn't find the peace. I couldn't find like, where, what's the matter? I kept saying, What's the matter with me? What's the matter with me? Maybe some of you can relate to that. What's the matter with me? And finally, it just came back to your thinking about yourself instead of thinking about God. Yeah, and as long as I'm thinking about me, Christian mind

My life is not doable. I simply can't do this with without God I can't, I'm at I'm at a level of intensity here. That unless God shows up, I crash and burn and I take everybody around me with me. Yeah, I don't want to do that. But I want to live at this level, right?

The same the same just last week, I was sort of in the same predicament for myself, you know, and I just, I wasn't, I wasn't feeling productive. I was starting to stress myself out, you know, like, what, why can't I get the work done? Why can I start a normal problem for me? But on occasion, right, there's a lot going on sometimes. Right? Yeah, the day and age we live in. So of course, that's expected if you're having a family crisis or something. But you know, there was nothing. There was something

over the top, like emergencies, right, but yet, and I kept having to remind myself, yeah, well, it's because I'm being called to not sit at my computer or do this work, I need to go do other things. So that I can let go of, well, I need to get this done. And I have to get this in an income. And that right, I was getting so stuck in the TierPoint the details, I was losing sight of the purpose in just showing up in my day, you know, to serve and not worrying about other things, you know, and so sometimes I didn't realize if that's where I'm stuck, it's because there's work being done in me, right? There's change that needs to happen, yes, in that moment, or in that day, or in what's going on in my heart. And I need to step away from what's not working, because otherwise, it just wastes my whole day. And I feel even worse, you know. And so I had to just say, You know what, maybe this week, I was meant for other things for me to be doing or to happen within me, instead of sitting here and getting all this production work, right, or these to do lists done. And so I have to honor that, when that happens and realize, you maybe it's that I need to go out in my garden, or I need to go to wherever I need it, right? Because maybe I'm supposed to hear something or have a lesson taught or something. And so, and it's hard, right when you're used to certain structure and plans. So the same thing has was happening to me last week as well actually even ended yesterday. Like, why do I not feel like I'm getting everything done?

Right, right. And there's, I mean, I think I think what you're talking about there is making enough space to be able to hear from God, whether that's just taking a nap, or going like you said God garden, take a little walk, go get a drink of water, or whatever it is, I actually have a little timer that I keep in on my desk for 20 minutes. And I've experimented with different amounts of time. But for me, 20 minutes is just the sweet spot. And every 20 minutes, like not obviously when I'm on a live show like this, I don't turn it on. But when I'm just working projects, which I do a lot of the day, I have that timer and every 20 minutes when it dings I just check in with God and like Thank You, Jesus, Am I doing the right thing? You know? Or how are we or I'm so grateful or something, just check in with Jesus give a pause point. And what I find, especially with computer work is very, it can suck you in. And especially like if you're writing or if you're doing a longtail project like that, that involves a lot of deep thinking or a long process. You can get lost for four or six hours without ever looking up. Yeah, you know, and, and we're built, we're built to breathe prayer. And when we stop breathing, we start feeling stressed out, you think of the dolphin. If it stops going up for air, it starts to literally suffocate. And our souls our spirits, indicate that to us if we're tuned in, right? And if you're not tuned into that, then you're not even noticing how stressed out you really are all the time.

Because you're just used to that level of stress. But honestly, God really wants us to live in a lot of peace even when things are intense. Absolutely. I so agree with that. And, and I've learned that I definitely over the years have have come to that place much most of the time, you know, but I think still is the stress of like, oh, well, I need to by this date, bring in more money, right?

Even though

they don't work out, we can still get stuck in our own mind sometimes. Right? And so that I 100% agree with you. And I definitely step away from my desk or the work I'm doing regularly, you know, constantly because to your point, I couldn't do it otherwise, right? I couldn't do it and stay calm and stay peaceful. And so I find the same that I have to get up and walk out back or go in the kitchen for a minute or you know, whatever it is I'm doing so I think that's that's really good advice. So let me ask you this, what other just what else might you want to share with the listeners just about halfway step into more of what God wants for us whether those are opportunities or just the adventure of the life he's built for us and the beauty around us but what would you just want to share?

are encouraged women in their Faith Journeys? What else? You feel? You know, what's coming to mind, as you ask that question right now is is just a call to learn more about the heart of God. And you can do that by going online and just searching for

character qualities of God or who I am in Christ. And to just start to fill your mind actually with the truth of who God's to see us, not who others say he is. It's like That Good Good Father. So I'm, you know, I know what others say about you. But I really want to experience you for myself, that's really, you're really not going to be able to grow in your spirituality in your Christian faith in your walk with God, unless you trust him. And trust is different. I don't know, it's this, it's just this amazing. Like, it's my chair that I'm sitting on. When I come up to my chair, I don't look at it every time and say, Wow, I wonder if it'll hold me up this time. But I don't have any pause, I just come up to my office chair, and I sit down, and I just trust that it's just gonna hold me up. And it is that level of trust that God is calling you to and when you grow, more trusting, because you actually believe he's trustworthy. And I have to just tell you that there's so much wrong thinking about who God is. And even when I read through the Old Testament myself, I'm like, God, you know, you seem so harsh here. Sometimes it's like, what are you doing? Why? Why would you do those things, but in the Old Testament, before Jesus, we see that God is a just a loving father. And when he is punishing his, his children, is because he loves them. And he realizes, unless I do something pretty major right here, you won't come back, you're gonna keep going into destruction. And he's calling them back for the sake of love. He's a jealous God in the best sense of that word, that he does not want you to get hurt. So he's going to keep you from going farther into destruction. Then when Jesus comes, he says, Now you get to see who I really am. I am the one who says to the woman caught in adultery, where's anybody, I'm not going to condemn you either. And to the woman at the well, sweetheart, you've had so many husbands, but you are still my girl, you know, this is God's heart. So instead of paying attention to the people saying, He is the only the God of the Old Testament, you know what I've come to understand, I read through the Bible two times last year, and I was just like, God, you have to show me something more about this Old Testament thing, because it's so hard to read some of that, you know, it seems like he's just really upset all the time.

You know, it's like an honestly, without the blood of Christ to cover to pay for our sins. We're pretty, we're pretty awful to God. Right? If if we had a human relationship that we treated like God, sometimes going days without even talking to him, or, or trying to do everything without him when he's just wants to help. And, you know, I mean, it's like, we have offended him in every way we can even not imagine.

His grace and His mercy just cover it all. But what I understood last year when I was going through it was that if we didn't have the Old Testament, we would have a really hard time imagining that God is righteous. Because when Jesus came, He was so compassionate and loving. And he, you know, is so forgiving, that we would have a hard time to really believe that God had it in him

to actually call for a righteous standard. But knowing the Old Testament, we can see oh, no, no, no, that is God also, right. God is also just and he will not tolerate, someone just going through assuming that they're going to get off get off of everything without any kind of a compensation without any payment for that sin. The sin has to be paid for. And so ladies, I am calling you and even guys who are listening, I am calling you to learn more about who God really is, instead of the god you're afraid of. And maybe you had a bad dad, or an absentee dad and you can't relate to the god dad thing. I just say, imagine God as the best dad you have ever dreamt of. He's the one who loves you enough to protect you to set boundaries. So you don't get hurt, to pick you up after you fall. To love you and keep loving you and keep loving you to provide for everything you need. That is who God is. And as you come into more of a, a really deep down

belief, that is who he is. Then you come into the relationship with Him daily, running up to the office chair hopping on it and going for a ride because that's who he really is. You know, I always say if somebody were to

Get on a roller coaster and not have a safety belt, you would be insane because you would know you were gonna die. Right? But if you get on with God and you don't think he's your safety belt, why wouldn't you do that you have a hard time to say yes, because you just know it's gonna be a twisty turny ride. And so you better, you better trust him. If you're gonna get on the ride, then trust Him and keep growing and your trust of him. And how you do that is you learn about who he really is. And when you get to know him better, you will love him more. So, so well said, Yeah, and I think like you said, getting in the word, but also learning about him. There's so many amazing books, there's people's testimony, there's people's relationship, you know, but find those things out, go, Listen, go here, because it does change you, you start to say, that hasn't been my experience, because you read because if you're not there, or you're you're like you said you're not fully trusting or believing or, or allowing, right the relationship to grow. And so I think when we hear more of this, it gives us a little more like, Well, okay, maybe maybe I'll like, what my defenses down a little bit more. And so I think that's one reason why, right? We talked about getting in fellowship, or going to a church or all these things, it's because when you start hearing more of the way he transforms lives, you want more of that. And so I think that's that's really good advice is to keep learning more about who God really is. It was really interesting, as though as God had me write the spiritual growth book that is such a different book, right? Yeah, I really had a hard time to write it. Because I don't do anything without talking about Jesus, I'm just talking about Jesus all the time, because he's the greatest thing ever. And so it was hard for me to write a book without a call to salvation in it, when I'm talking about spiritual growth, it was just about killed me actually took a lot of just surrender to be able to do that. But what was interesting is that as God poured this book through me, one of the things that kept coming up was, there were two things that kind of apply to this conversation here. One was that a lot of times we will talk ourselves out of a deeper faith in God, because of someone's example, in our life. They were, they said, they had all this faith, but then you look at their life, and you're like, not the life I want. No, not not what I'm looking for in a god. Right. And the concern there is that we would never ask a bank robber which bank to use, right, we would never go to the worst source and say, Your advice is what I'm going to take. Don't Don't do that. Don't worry, we've got out because somebody was a terrible example to you, because they were not living a life of Christ. And no matter which religion you go into, I mean, you're gonna find that in any religion, there will be people who abuse the system who abuse it. The don't let that person make the decision for you. But the other one was, in several of the daily

contemplations, God had me write down, who do you know in your life? Who is whatever super gracious, like they just keep forgiving you and loving you? Who is that person in your life? Ask them what religion they are.

Because you actually don't want to follow a religion. You want to follow a Christ follower. I mean, you're following Christ. But then, you know, we're falling, we're under each other, which actually, you're choosing who is putting input into your life who you're listening to, to give you counsel, make sure that their life is the life that you want, like, have, I need so many of the people who I really trust their lives are a disaster as far as they've been through so much stuff, you know, handicapped children, diseases, loss of ministry, due to crazy stuff. And yet their peace, their joy, their love, their, their, their grace toward me and toward others make me just long to know more about their Jesus. Right? So it's not actually are you looking for the money? It's, it's the heart, the soul stuff that you're looking for? And who is modeling that? Follow them fall go where they go to church? Absolutely.

Yep. Yeah. So great. So great. Well, Marnie, thank you so much for being with us today. And can you share with us? How can people connect with you online and learn more about everything that you have going on with your books and your speaking and everything else? Yeah. So the main hub is just my name, ma r n i e marni.com. Just go over there. If I have a coaching mentorship program, you can do group coaching with me or one on one plus, there's tons, tons tons, literally tons of free trainings over there with over 500 experts on pretty much anything in leadership that you would ever want to know. And then also, if you are a Christian woman, speaker, or no one, send them over to women's speakers.com or if you need one. If you're looking for a speaker for your event, visit women's speakers.com.

Well, Marnie, thank you so

much for being with us today, sharing your faith journey, but just sharing so many tidbits on how can we keep just, you know, connecting with and having a relationship with God and just doing everyday life, you know, you know, following Christ in so I appreciate it and I thank you for everything you shared with us today. Oh, thank you so much, Christian. Well, I finally had Yes, thank you so much. Thanks again for listening in. If you would like to be encouraged and lifted up, I have a seven day encouragement challenge. If you'd like to sign up go to faith fueled woman.com and just enter your email address and you will be sent seven days of Christian encouragement inspiration to your inbox. Thanks again for listening to faith killed woman. If you enjoyed the show. We would love it if you would share it with a friend. And if you would leave us a rating and review on Apple podcasts because it helps us get this number and follow more people to spread more hope as well. Thanks again for listening in.

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SUMMARY KEYWORDS

god, books, called, faith, people, life, women, jesus, christian, walk, trust, christ, day, love, big, person, talking, feel, speaker, girls