Stepping Out of Comfort Zones with Pastor Zach Prado

Welcome to another uplifting episode of the Relentless Pursuit Podcast! 🎙️✨

In this inspiring installment, we are thrilled to welcome Pastor Zach, a dynamic young adult pastor whose passion for faith and personal growth is truly contagious. Join us as we dive deep into a rich conversation about faith, overcoming fear, and the importance of stepping out of your comfort zone.

Pastor Zach shares his personal journey, offering heartfelt stories and powerful biblical examples that illustrate how to navigate life's challenges with unwavering faith. Whether you're navigating your own spiritual path or simply curious about the life and experiences of a young adult pastor, this episode is packed with valuable insights and practical advice to help you move forward in faith, even when the road gets tough.

But that's not all! Stick around until the end for our fun and engaging random fact game that’s sure to bring a smile to your face and add a touch of light-heartedness to the conversation.

Don’t miss out on this opportunity to gain inspiration and encouragement that could make a real difference in your life. Hit that subscribe button, give us a thumbs up, and leave a comment below with your thoughts or questions for Pastor Zach. We love hearing from you!

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00:00 Introduction and Guest Welcome
00:17 Random Facts and Social Media
01:38 Pastor Zach's Journey and Ministry
03:28 Stepping Out in Faith
04:27 Biblical Examples of Faith
08:00 Personal Testimonies of Faith
13:04 Overcoming Fear with Faith
20:40 Dealing with Anger and Frustration
23:29 The Impact of Attitude on Life
27:56 The Role of Community and Accountability
29:41 Helping Others with Love and Grace
33:01 Taking Steps of Faith
35:37 Closing Thoughts and Random Fact

Transcript

0:00

What's up, RP family? We are back at it again. We are here with another episode and another guest. I'm so excited for this episode because we have a very close friend of mine, Pastor Zach. How you doing, Pastor Zach? Doing good, man. Excited to be here. It's an honor to be here. Thank you for having me today. Man, you know what? Some person that has very I don't want to say dumb because it's not dumb, just a wealth of knowledge of random stuff. Just crazy random facts. Yeah, you are definitely that person with that. Like I'm jealous. I'm jealous. It'd be the randomest thing and you know it. Yeah. I just, I don't know. I'm just that guy. I like looking up just random facts, random things. Just always, making myself laugh by myself. And my wife is Hey what's so funny? I don't know. I just found this random fact, I think I'm gonna share it with somebody one of these days. Yeah, so do you like go purposely looking for random facts you type in Google random facts or do you like just stumble upon something? I'll just be on like Instagram, I'll be on YouTube, just looking at whatever, I know I'm aging myself out, but just, yeah, just, youTube is now the cool thing. People are watching YouTube shorts. Oh, it is? Alright. Yeah, people watch YouTube all the time. Apparently, that's like the, for the, for Gen Alpha? The ones that are coming up, they watch YouTube all the time. So I don't feel so old. Yeah. If anything, you're ahead of the curve. Okay, ahead of the game. You skipped the generation. You skipped Gen, what is it, Z? Gen Z, yeah. And you went to Alpha. Jumped to the next one. There you go. Yeah, no, it's Yeah, no, I'll just be on social media just looking up random facts about food, nutrition, fitness. The Bible, of course, and just, yeah, and then I just store it up here and I'm like, I think I'm gonna use that next time I'm like in a small group setting or just hanging out with someone so Yeah so there one of the reasons why I wanted to invite you on the podcast is one, you're very very good communicator and then also you have a heart for people. And being a youth pastor or a young adult pastor, what, tell me about some of who you are, like what do people, what should people know about you as you walk into a room? So naturally, so I've always grown up just being like an introverted person. Growing up throughout school, I've always been just the shy kid, not wanting to talk to people, not wanting to really engage because I just having that fear of What are they going to say, what if I stutter, stumble over my words, but as I grew up, getting established in career and then stepping into ministry that change. So now when I see people, when I walk into a room I just have a heart for people. I love to connect with people. I love to make people laugh. I love to hear people's stories and that translates into ministry too. So just over the years, I've just, I'm passionate about reaching people, learning more about people. And that kind of goes into our topic. Being, being a young adult pastor, being a pastor in general, it requires a lot of faith. And obviously it requires you a lot of times to take the step when no one else would. And it requires you a lot of times. To almost take the step of faith when it's almost rejected by many people or even looked at as the wrong decision. Yeah. And I know that there's a lot of those times where even in people who, ordinary people like myself, who You're not, man. You're not. Hey, man, we're all nuts. We're all supernaturally gifted by the Spirit of the Lord. Taking that step can be scary sometimes. Yes. And so what does it mean to step out of your comfort zone from a Christian perspective? Man, stepping out of your comfort zone, it is not an easy thing. If it was an easy thing, everybody would do, would be doing it. And I feel like, To me, that's what separates like a fan from a true disciple in Christ. A disciple in Christ, they're willing to step out in faith even if they're uncomfortable. There's nothing easy about stepping out of your comfort zone. And, it's just a matter of, okay, God bless you. I don't know what I'm doing, maybe in some cases, but I know that you're in it. So I know that you're going to walk with me. So I'm willing to just take it a day at a time, a step at a time. And later on down the road, you're you'll reveal it to me. And different times and season of my life where I've had a situation. step out of my comfort zone, me knowing me, I've wanted to know the answer. God, give me the facts. Like God, I want to know like right now, like what's going to happen. What's the end result? But God's no, you need to take that step of faith and I'll show you along the way, but I just need you to be active in your faith. And with that being said you reminded me of a story of Abraham. I feel like that's, he's the father of our faith, right? Abraham, when God said go at that time, he, his name was Abram. When God said go, he was like, it was almost like a burden for him. Like where it was a heaviness. Where he was like, oh yeah, I have to go do this. Yeah. Leave What's comfortable, leave what's around me, leave my father. And go to somewhere I don't even know where. There's a lot of times where God I feel like where God calls you to do something that's irrel not realistic. Because it's testing a faith. It's testing your faith that you have. And it's also growing the capacity of your faith. Yeah. With that being said, a lot of these stories in the Bible, they encourage us. To take that step of faith to encourage us to get out of our comfort zone and so How does the Bible encourage us to embrace these challenges of discomfort for spiritual growth? man just Knowing that God's in it, you know knowing that God's in it. I think of going back to Abraham, when God, he put on his heart to just step out in faith, to leave everything he knew, right? Leave his land, what was familiar to him and just to take that step of faith and go into a different land, a different region, right? Step into something that's brand new. And he could have easily said along the way, you know what? I don't need this. Like I'm comfortable where I'm at. I can stick with what I'm doing. I can stay where I'm at. Yeah. Yeah. But he didn't. He continued to allow God to speak to him and take him through that process. I think of him, I think of Joseph, right? I think of Joseph in the Bible, where he was taken to another land, another one, right? In Egypt. And this is someone that literally, And just carry that weight on his shoulders of being betrayed, being sold into slavery, being imprisoned, waiting for his miracle just year after year. And but along the way he didn't lose his faith. He always knew that God was there. And even if he wasn't promoted, like he was still faithful along the process. And that is just inspiring to me because it's okay, God, like it's uncomfortable, but I know that. Even if there is no promotion, if there is no breakthrough right away, if there is no miracle right away, gotta know that you're still there. That's more than enough. Yeah, and I think about one thing going back to Abraham is that nobody would have hurt him or nobody would have said anything otherwise if he stayed. Yeah. He's not in a land of God fearing people. And so nobody would have been like, oh, you disobeyed God, oh, there's no accountability where he was. And so that's the crazy part, is there's a lot of times where people don't have that pressure of accountability. They have to not only overcome that, Where it's I, it's okay it's acceptable if I stay home and don't go to church. Yes. But, they have to, they have that pressure from the Lord no, I love you, so I'm willing to do this. Do it. Even if it's okay to stay home. Even if it's acceptable. Even if it's something that, that seems comfortable. I'm still willing to do something in love for you, out of faith for you because you have done so much more for me, and it's almost like a gratitude that comes with it. And just to piggyback off of that, I know in our personal lives, there's been so many times where we had to respond out of faith, when it was almost like going with the flow. It was out of habit where you could have continued on this path where it was cookie cutter. It was like everybody was doing it. The world was pushing it and it seemed acceptable. But what are some personal testimonies in your life where you've had to take a step out of the comfort zone, take a step of what out of what's normal and into A faith where it activates your faith. Yeah. This year. Yeah. This year, actually. So I just shared it recently. But a dream of mine and a dream of my wife's is we've always just have this goal and dream to become homeowners, right? We've been, for me, like this was a dream of mine since I was 16, I would dream and dream and dream and, fast forward. We have a plan. We, we're like, okay, we're praying. We're fasting. We're, believing we're active in the church and it just, it feels, it felt like that dream just became, hard to accomplish. But we always stayed faithful. Okay, God look, maybe it just requires us to fast a little bit more to pray a little bit harder, right? To stay more intentional. And a few years down the road we end up signing paperwork for a house. And then information that was told to us in the beginning wasn't the same Information told to us towards the end So we had to make a decision and we had to walk away because we just couldn't afford it Yeah, you know so in that process it broke me god reminded me. Hey that dream never expired like you can still step into the new Yeah, you can still be faithful to me, and i'm with you just continue pursuing that right? so then Few years later, right? I'm just giving you like a quick overview. We we ended up getting to an apartment. We're in that apartment for two years and we love it. It's for us. It fits. We liked the area. Yeah. And just earlier this year we get a letter in the mail asking us to renew our lease. And with the lease, it was like, They were trying to like just wheel and deal us, right? So they're like, yeah, we're going to take money off your rent. A few hundred dollars, because if you renew your lease, we're going to give you like this nice new TV, right? Yeah. So there was a state, bro. They were like, I was thinking about, I was thinking about, yeah, they were just like trying to sell it, so I'm like, man. So then. We have that conversation and we're like, you know what, as good as that sounds, I know the goal. Like we, we still want to just make that pursuit and take that step of faith into the house. So we did that. So may of this year we signed paperwork and we took that step of faith and then we got our keys earlier this month. So let's go, but along the way, it wasn't easy because we've never been in the same. We've never been homeowners before, but God is good. And God is faithful. Yeah. This is something we've been praying for declaring for over 10 years now. Yeah. And I think that's a Testament to how God's promises never expired. Like to what you were saying, they never run out. Then his word is true. And a lot of times where even in my life where I was in, I think Las Vegas, I was at a church in Las Vegas. And it was for a conference and I was in that conference and the Lord told me, you're going to be a pastor one day. And later on down the line, I was 20 at that time, I, 26. He said in six years you're going to be a pastor. No. Yes. Am I 27 now? Months ago. I forgot. Okay, so I'm 27. In 26 he told me I was going to be a pastor. Yeah, I know. He told me in six years to be more exact. But I couldn't do math. Anyways. Me too, bro. Me too. You're good. You're good. But, and I was like, okay, so I'm going to start a church when I'm 26. And at that time, I had this like idea of that's what was going to happen. And now fast forward to when I was 26, I was like, okay, so this is not looking exactly how I expected it to. The funny thing is back in that conference, he told me you're like a David. And then it was like a mixture of you're like a David, you're going to be a pastor and in six years, fast forward to when I'm 26, I'm like a David, not the good part. I'm like a David that fell. So it was like, I understood a different aspect to that story. Yes. And it's almost like my perspective of what God said was what I wanted. Now, your perspective of what God was saying at that time, the first house was that God wanted you to be a homeowner. Yes. But the thing is that promise that he gave you was just a different outcome that he was going to get there. There was a different point B that you needed to get to. There was a process in this point A to point B. And sometimes we think point B is in the middle of the process. Yes. When really, Point B looks completely different from our perspective. He said I was going to be a pastor. I got married at 26. I am now a pastor of my house. Come on. And so there, it was like these fulfillments just in different ways than what I thought they were going to be. I wasn't expecting to be, a David where that got jacked up. I wasn't expecting oh man. I wasn't expecting to fall like that. I wasn't. It's these different perspectives that, that life begins to teach you, that God begins to teach you that's still there. Faith stepping out of your comfort zone and understanding that God's promises will always remain. And with that being said what role does faith play in overcoming this fear or even uncertainty in life through these challenges? Yeah, I don't know if I'm, like, butchering the saying or not, but I think it's You know, you have to feed your faith and you have to, if you feed your faith you drown out or you suffocate your fears because, it's either, it's gotta be one or the other, right? It's either you're fearful or you're faithful. Yeah. And for me, like I want to be faithful. I always want to be faithful. So what does that look like? That's. Just if you're reading, it's reading the word of God, it's being more intentional. You got to go deeper. If it's fasting, maybe fasting a little bit longer. If it's praying a little bit deeper, more powerfully and more intentional continuing to surround yourself with people that are going to lift you up, tear you down. And along that way, it's not something that happens overnight, but the more that you get into this and develop that discipline for yourself. You'll look back and be like, man, like that fear that I had that insecurity, that feeling of intimidation. I don't even think about that anymore. That doesn't even affect me anymore because of where I've been and what God has taken me through and how I've just been feeding my faith and growing in my faith. Yeah. And I think even at that too, there's a, there comes a time where you have to rely on what God's Word says in the sense of He has not given you a spirit of fear, right? Of love, power and sound mind. But there's a portion of where I, I feel like my definition or my, I guess the opposite of victory to me and what I've gotten to know is fear. Because anytime you walk in faith or you walk in the victory that God already has given you. You're good. You're in his will. Perfect will. But if you're now afraid, you lose automatically. Exactly. You automatically lose if you're afraid of going to be back to that example, if you're afraid of going to be, you lose, you're out of the game. You completely take yourself out. You put yourself on the bench. But God wants you in that starting lineup. God wants you to be at this spearhead that, that apostle like figure where you are pushing the plow. So to speak. And being the one that's willing to say, Yes, Lord, you can send me. Yes, Lord, whatever it is that you want. Even if people are saying these things about me, even if, I have a little doubt in myself, am I willing to overcome and keep that sound mind that is willing to say, You have not given me a spirit of fear, but of love, power, and a sound mind. And it's these challenges that are, that we face throughout our day that we can either use them as a hindrance or a roadblock or a stepping stone. Exactly. And how can we discern though? Because that there's point B, but there's also many other point Bs. Yes. You get what I'm saying? And How do we discern which point B or which way to go according to God's word? Is the best way for us. There's that doubt, but there's that also that stirring of faith that gets you to that point B, how do you utilize that in the best way? And how do you discern which B is the right B to go to? Yeah, just, a lot of times we can get our own, get in our own heads. Yeah. We start to doubt ourselves. It's who do we know? Who can we go to? To hold us accountable. Or to, maybe intercede for us. Or pray, with us about it. And then also too, just get in a routine of just learning to hear the voice of God. Like going back to the, The story that I shared about the house if that was me, I would have said, let's just stay in the apartment. Let's just ride this out, as long as we can, 5, 10 years. Cool. If they're dropping rent. And y'all know like inflation, right? Yeah, everything. Yeah. Let's just keep doing what we're doing. Like we're comfortable. We're fine. That's not the plan of God. Yeah. That's calling us to greater. So if God is calling us to that dream, to start that business or to step into a role of leadership or whatever that is, however, that looks like if it's us in the flesh, we know that we're going to be afraid. We know that we have every excuse to just count ourselves out. and not do it, but that just that stirring that we feel like, what if I stepped into that? What would it look like? How would my life change if I were to pursue this or God, what would it, what would happen if this dream did happen, and I did take it a step forward or a day at a time. What would that look like? That's the spirit talking right there, and that's that. That point, where we have to say, okay, am I going to stay comfortable or am I going to step into what's unknown? Get out of my comfort zone and again, it's not an easy thing, but along the way, it's worth it. It's worth it. I just would encourage anybody that. If it's that dream, if it's that position of leadership, if it's that promotion, if it's doing something you've never done before and you can tell, and you just know that you know that the Spirit is just stirring you, take that step. It doesn't matter Who criticizes you doesn't matter who doesn't believe in you doesn't matter who does or doesn't support you Because God has given you that he's planted that seed within you So now I'm just take that step walk in it and just see what God does and if you fail It's okay if you fail, but fail forward, don't quit don't have a quitters mindset You're writing that down right there, but there was a quote from Kobe Yeah, if you're gonna, if you're gonna fail, it's okay to fail, but fail forward, right? Because that tells me that you're being intentional in your pursuit in, being faithful to God. You're failing forward. If you fail, get up, dust yourself off, keep moving forward. But if you have the mindset of this is too difficult. I'm just going to quit. I'm going to go back to what I did. Then that's not the plans of God for you. Cause he calls us to greater. Yeah, there is a quote from Kobe. Oh my goodness. And you just reminded me of it. And it was just so powerful, but I can't remember here's one that that I really liked too, is it, if you're afraid to fail, then you're probably going to fail. At the end of the day, at the end of the day, whether you are Like you said, going wanting to be a leader, whether you are wanting a promotion, whether you are wanting that next breakthrough. If you believe you're going to fail, you are going to fail. And it's coming into this, the same declaration. And it's hard to say you're a prosperity gospel preacher or whatever. Because that's such a tainted on word. People don't, Yeah. Once you hear prosperity gospels, people turn you off. Yeah. But at the end of the day, we all should be prosperity gospels because at the end of the day, God is the prosperity, like God is our prosperity. He prospers us. Yeah. Yeah. He, without him, we are nothing, but with him, we have access to everything. And with that being said it's also renewing your mindset. And I think that's a very slept on key is that people don't believe they can change. And so they allow what the same old to be the same old, they allow what is a habit in their life to, to be the habit that they don't Conquer or don't kick out because I've I've seen this in my own personal life. I had a habit of being angry at everything, but that anger, it hurts you. And a lot of times, especially with rejection or especially when you see a door open to you and it shuts. And so you get frustrated, you get angry. A lot of times where back in the day, this was years ago, I used to punch things. Never anybody. Never anybody, but like walls those are my worst enemy man. How many brother? How many? More than I could get at this point. No, the funny part is I punched a door. This was a metal door I lost. I lost. Let's just say that. And the funny thing is it was, I was in the middle of a basketball game, right? I somebody found somebody and my coach took me out. I was mad. I was livid. And I came off the sideline and I was so mad that I went over, boom, right into a metal door. Dummy, dummy! Cause then literally, that, the person shot the free throw, and he put me back in, because I was a shooter, so you gotta put me back in on offense. But he took me out for defense, put me back in on offense, and I caught the ball. And it hurt, but I was like, oh my gosh, and so I ended up breaking it. But yeah, so I got it and I still shot it. I didn't care. I didn't care if I had a broken head. I still shot the ball. I missed it, but that's details. Details. Anyways, my point of saying that was a movie, bro. Man, I can remember it like it was yesterday. But anyways, my point of that is that there are a lot of times where we have these habits that hurt us. Like that shot. I could have shot to help save the game, to help motivate the team, encourage the team, but because I was almost in a way selfish, and that anger consumed me, I let it get to me and I punched a wall where then I was then staying at the same level that I was Before the game. I stayed at the same level, but we have to allow our faith to motivate us to ex to elevate ourselves, to elevate us, I shouldn't say ourselves, elevate us to the next level where we can, alright, I get the ball, I take the shot, boom, we win the game. I'm the hero. No, I'm just kidding. God's a hero. It's praise God. I knew there was something. I was getting there to a point. I was like, ah, I'm going to win this game, baby. I love this guy. But anyways, back to what I was saying is, so what are some practical ways we can overcome these habits that we've developed over a lifetime and we can break them today? Good question. Very good question. I don't know why every time you ask me a deep question, I take a deep breath. Deep breath for every deep question. You should get the little Never mind, let me not say that. I was going to say the top hat with the monocle and the little pipe thing that they have, like with the bubbles, I've seen Spongebob and they had it. They had a bubbles with the pipe. Oh yeah. Anyway, sorry. Off topic. All right. Practical things. Practical things. So I would say it, it starts with our attitude, right? So I don't know if you're familiar with John Maxwell. Oh yeah. And there's this quote that I had read and it just just hit me like right here. He said, people hear your words. But they can feel your attitude and that's huge because if my attitude is wrong, if my attitude is off in any way, then that affects everything. That affects my speech, that affects my actions, that affects my thinking, that affects the way that, I interact, I treat people and it's your attitude. So that's something that God's been working on me on this year, January this year. I'm like, okay, God what do you want to. See in me, what do you want to work on me about, and it was just attitude. Not saying that I was walking around like just this horrible attitude, when it came to certain things, there's always room for improvement. Yeah. Always room for improvement. Yeah. And attitude, I would say your attitude, work on your attitude. If you feel like, Hey, you know what? I think my attitude's good. We'll take it from good to great. Or Hey, my attitude is great. Then take it from great to excellent. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, my wife punched me the other day, and I got mad. No, I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. She didn't punch me. If she watches this. No. Alright, Lord. I'm going to get in trouble when I get home. She's gonna cut this right now. Attitude. Yeah, definitely your attitude and then I would say your heart. Yeah, your heart. So you gotta make sure your heart is is softened. Can't walk around with a hardened heart. I know these are simple things. These are things that we tend to hear like on a Sunday morning or maybe like in a smaller group setting. But it's the simple things. It's those small tweaks that take you to higher peaks. Amen. A wise man says that. Pastor George told me that. I didn't come up with that. You should have been like, ah, yeah, it was on me. It was on me. But it's true though. It's your attitude. It's your heart. And I would say too, just having a mindset of humility. Humble yourself. Humble yourself. Thank God for everything. I know that a lot of times when you're We can be our own worst critic, if something goes wrong or something is off in some way, we tend to just in our thoughts, just shut down. We tend to discourage ourselves. Sometimes it's not even an enemy. Sometimes it's ourselves. Like we do the work for the enemy, but that's where, we got to humble ourselves, be mindful of our attitude. We have to be mindful of our heart, the positioning of our heart, because if any of those are off, Then we can't receive anything. There's no room for growth. Yeah, we can't step into the next. And now when we should be taking those steps of faith, getting out of our comfort zone. Now we're caught up in our feelings. That was me. That's how I was. For a while for a season and now we're hindering our growth, and that's not what God wants for you. God wants you to continuously grow. And I would say this too. Another thing is we self compare, right? Compare. We look at the success of other people. We see the blessings of other people. And then now it's we see that we go to God and God, how come they're blessed and God, how come they're prospering? I'm not like, but God, what is this? Yeah. And we don't know what it costs, for that person to get that lesson. But I would say, we're not in a competition with anybody. In fact, if we're competing with anybody, it's ourselves. The competition for me, like my lifestyle, how I live the competition is not with others. It's with myself. So I'm consistently thinking and asking myself what can I do to improve as a person, as a man, as, a husband, as, a son, or whatever. A leader, whatever it is, right? What can I do to improve? And I just start there. I think that's awesome. I think it's awesome. There's a lot of people that have been stuck in that fear, in that lack of faith just because they don't do the small details. They don't follow up when they need to follow up. They don't pay attention to the small things, to the little things, to the details. Because there's a lot of times where we can overlook. We, we have such a great. Massive God and that we overlooked that, Oh, God's going to not going to worry about these little seeds that are my life. And I think that's one of the things that we can understand as Christians that God knows the amount of hairs that you have on your head. He's not going to miss a single detail of your life. And so how does a community of of believers, of like church people help us when we are taking, getting ready to take that step into the unknown. Yeah, they, the church people, they, other believers and followers in the faith they hold us up, when we, maybe things don't work out. Maybe plan A didn't go as expected, we're just, we're stuck and we feel discouraged. They're the ones that will pick us up. They're the ones where I imagine it like in a ring, right? After that round, maybe we took more punches than we should have, right? In that round, in that, that one minute time or rest time, right? They're in our corner just telling us like, alright, come on get up you can do this. Hey, look, we're here with you. Come on, you're better than this. Lifting you up. And every, we all need people like that in our lives. We all need people that are willing to hold our hands up or if they see something that maybe we don't see, right? We all have blind spots. Maybe they see something in us that we don't see, they're there to say, Hey Hey let me help you in this area or Hey come on, like you're better than this or Hey, what's going on? Just that accountability. And a lot of people don't like that. A lot of people just want to. Check in, check out and leave me alone. And, have walls up, but you got to take the walls down. You have to let people into your life. You have to let people speak into you. Yeah. And it's not an easy thing, but it's, you have to. Yeah. And vice versa. How would you say that you would help somebody who's who you can whether it's discernment or whether they've told you something, how do you Help someone that's in that same place that you could have been previously and that yo this is how I got out of it or this is what I did These are some of the things that I've done How would you go about that? If you were trying to help someone? Yeah, I always approach in love Always approach in love. So if it's someone that, of course that we love people that, we care about them, approach it in love, approach it in grace and, say, Hey, what's going on? I want to be here for you. I want to help you. I see so much potential in you. I want to help you and be there for you. How can I help you? What can I do to be there? And some people Are drawn to that and some people aren't, but that's where as a leader or someone that you're trying to speak into, you have to be more intentional with it. And you might have to ask those difficult questions and you might have to say, Hey I noticed that you don't want to really open up to me. I know you don't like to open up to me either, but. No, I'm kidding. That was wild. I was like, me? I'm kidding. No, to be fair, I'm pretty sure I'm an open book to everybody. You are an open book. But yeah, that's what I would do. Just approach it in love, approach it in grace, but. Also, just approach it, just having that belief in people. See the potential in people, see see what they can't see. Ask God to show you maybe what they don't see. Yeah. God, what do you see in them that you can help me pour into them? Yeah. And I think as a person that's on the other side of it. Make sure you don't get offended. Yeah. Cause I think offense will root and then hinder what God wants to do in you. I think that's it's so easy when somebody whether a pastor or leader comes up to you and says, Hey, listen, buddy I know. I don't know why I said buddy, but nobody ever calls me buddy. But anyways, wow. I know that kind of like now I hit a sensitive spot. Yeah. I don't have any. Anyways buddy. So I forgot my train of thought. Lord Jesus. Oh, yeah. So if a leader or a pastor comes up to you and says, Hey, I think you should go with this idea of yours, or go take a step of faith in this or stop doing something in faith. It's a lot of times it's okay, am I going to be like offended with something that you're telling? No, I'm not going to do that. Or I could do it a different way. Or I don't want to stop doing this or what. And there's a lot of times where we can get offended by that. And it's not necessarily that they said anything wrong and it's not even the delivery of the message. It's just how are we receptive to the message? And it's, it works the same way with God. Are we going to receive what he has for us in faith, or are we going to be offended with him saying you're not gonna tell me the plan and how I'm gonna do this, how I'm gonna get to B, you're gonna make me go through a process? Oh, you kidding me? Are you serious right now? Are you serious right now, God? Getting all pressed, getting all upset. Yeah it's these things where we can get offended with God. And don't get me wrong, it sounds silly when you vocalize your offense, but at the same time, it's still rooted in you. And there's a lot of times where we've got to figure God. Not because he offended or not because he did anything to us, but because we took an offense to him. And so we have to release that so we can take that step of faith, that step out of the uncomfortable. But and any last thoughts that you have for us? You're just a well of knowledge and I was hoping for a random fact, but guess not. Gosh. All right. Oh, okay. So two things. Okay. So this guy So closing thoughts. Just my prayer for anybody, watching this podcast, I, my prayer for you is that if you've been struggling, stepping out in faith, if you've felt intimidated in any way, if you felt like you're struggling or just really frustrated like we had talked about, just frustrated with life, frustrated with people, or even in some cases even with God, remember, reflect and examine your attitude, examine your heart, examine your outlook on life, and just allow God to just soften your heart. When those three things are you know, are in right position, take those steps of faith. Yeah. Take those steps of faith. And again, if it's that, if it's a dream, if it's stepping into a new career, if it's, whatever it is, whatever it looks like, take that step of faith. Because here's the thing. Okay. You can eat. Anyone can easily say, you know what? I'll just wait till 2025. I'll just wait until, two years from now. Shoot. And I'll wait till 2030. No, come on. Yeah. Or you'll be like, Oh, I'll just wait until I shoot it. So I turned 30. I'll wait till I'm 50, but you're going to keep saying that. And then you're going to get to a point where you look back and you're going to be like, man, what did I do with my life? What did I do with my time? My God. And you can't blame anybody else. So again, getting out of your comfort zone, it's not an easy thing to do, but everything within the Bible is about everyone getting out of their comfort zone. Look, you have Abraham, you have Joseph, you have David, you have Solomon, building the temple, you have the prophets, right? Going to different towns and regions with aggressive and violent people. And they took those steps with aggressive and violent words from the Lord. In boldness, my brother, in boldness and then you have the New Testament, right? You have the disciples and you have Paul, right? You have all these people, all these different people in the Bible who took that step of faith, who took that step of faith and stepped out of their comfort zones. And I think when we look at the Bible in its entirety, The takeaway for us is, okay, just how they stepped out of their comfort zone. It's no different than today. God, you want us to step out of our comfort zone. So take that step of faith, and again, a day at a time, give it all to God. Your emotions, your heart, your attitude, and along the way, allow him to just speak to you and just stay intentional. Surround yourself with people that are going to lift you up, not tear you down. Yeah. And that's what I would encourage. And then I know you said I think a random fact too, this is the part we've been waiting for. A random fact, okay. All right, what has many teeth but it can't bite? Teeth, hold on. I got this. I got this. Oh my goodness. Oh teeth. I want to say a clock, but that's not teeth, that's hands. My clo go no, wait, hold on. I want to, maybe a piano? No, cuz keys, no, doesn't work. Okay. What? Dang it. It's a comb, my brother. Oh, I knew some of that. Gosh. I wasn't even close. Yeah. So yeah. Any, anybody that try to start a conversation with, just ask him, Hey, what has a many teeth, but can't bite? It's a comb. God, what a pickup line. Not for me. I'm married and so are you. For those, we don't buy single questions. For those single Christians out there. Anyways praise God. Amen. Thank you so much, Pastor Zach. You're awesome. You're an amazing person. Your personality is infectious, contagious, and all those other words like that. But yeah, thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you for having me. It's an honor, man. And yeah, definitely look forward to doing it again. Amen. Amen. And so to everybody else, this is like a perfect segue to our next episode. That's going to be coming out and it's going to be the last episode of the season. It's, we're going to discuss a little bit of the vision of what Relentless Pursuit is. We're going to dive into some of the things that we are getting ready to do. And some of the stuff I'm so excited about. And we're taking a step of faith. We're taking a step of faith. We're doing yeah, we'll talk about it next episode. But anyways, thank you so much for joining this week's episode of Relentless Pursuit. We have Pastor Zach on and we are so happy that he decided to grace us with his presence. No, this guy. Somebody get this guy. I know you guys. from this episode and so make sure you tune in to our next episode of Relentless Pursuit. And don't forget to follow, share and subscribe to all our social media platforms and leave a comment. Send us a message. We'll make sure to reach back out to you. See you guys soon.