Navigating Life's Transitions

In this heartfelt and deeply personal episode, our host is joined by his wife for an intimate conversation about the many transitions they've experienced in their first year of marriage. From adjusting to married life to the incredible news of expecting their first child, they open up about the joys, the challenges, and the powerful spiritual lessons they've learned along the way.

Together, they reflect on how faith has been the anchor in uncertain times, and how learning to trust God's plan—even when it's unclear—has shaped their relationship and individual growth. Through raw and honest storytelling, they explore themes of obedience to God, spiritual growth, and the transformative power of surrendering to His will.

Whether you’re in the middle of a major life change or simply seeking encouragement in your walk with God, this episode is a reminder that you’re not alone. There is purpose in the waiting, strength in obedience, and peace in trusting the One who sees the whole picture.

✨ Key Topics Covered:

• The realities of the first year of marriage
• Growing together spiritually as a couple
• Navigating the unexpected with faith
• Finding peace in God’s promises
• The beauty of trusting God during transitions

We pray this episode encourages you to lean into God during your own life transitions and to keep Him at the center of your journey.

👉 Subscribe for more Christ-centered conversations, and don’t forget to like, comment, and share this episode with someone who might need a word of encouragement today.

Transcript

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Welcome back, RP Family. I'm so excited to be here with you. I have, thought about this episode since we started this season, and I'm excited to finally be here because it's with my lovely, gorgeous, beautiful, stunning, spectacular, amazing wife, me. They I love you. Welcome me there to the podcast. Thanks for having me again. Yeah. Yeah. I'm so excited. So last time we talked about, and it was funny because we got back from our honeymoon, was it? We got back from our honeymoon, the last podcast we did. Yeah. We were like married for two weeks. Yeah. We were married for two weeks and then did a marriage podcast, which. Praise God. Yeah. We knew we were such experts at two weeks we decided to, we had to run it back, but, let's stay away from marriage'cause we're only a year and some change. And now but I'm just happy that you're on the podcast. I'm happy that we're here. For you, I know that our family. Has been through a lot as of late, and when I say a lot, a lot of change, a lot of transition, a lot of healing, a lot of breakthrough, a lot of miracles. God has done amazing things in just the year 2025 alone. And one of the biggest things that we've had, which is a little announcement and that kind of Josh alluded back to the previous podcast is my beautiful, amazing, sexy, hot wife is, I'm really pregnant. That part you are. My wife is pregnant. And so we're so excited about that. And so with that, there comes a lot of change. Your body goes through a lot. Your surroundings go through a lot. Your sight senses are heightened because every time I walk into a room, for some reason you gag but you're. Your senses are high and so there's a lot going on. So how does one, I know that this whole thing is different for you, but how does the different, or how does this pregnancy change your perspective on, on certain things in your life? Yeah. I think the biggest thing that it changed my perspective on is really giving God control and having faith. Yeah. And not letting the little things in life trip me up. Yeah. Because life is so much bigger than materialistic things or just bills or things that come up that can stress us out, god has all of that under control, and that's not where my worry is at because my faith has had to grow. Yeah. So much bigger in this season to know that our baby, essentially, like in my womb, that we don't see internally is okay. Yeah. And growing and healthy and that God is forming our baby together to be a healthy baby. Yeah. And when small things have come up in our life that have, may have worried me in the past or concerned me, or I may have spent more time dwelling on, I don't dwell on those things anymore because I'm like God, if you could do this. For me, if you could be working in my body, like I know you have everything else under control. Yeah. And that fear that fear of the unknown really is like where a lot of people find themselves in, in, in a lot of seasons of a life. And I'm not just saying pregnancy in the physical because. There's a lot of times where we're giving birth in the spiritual. Yeah. Whether we're giving birth to ministries whether we're giving birth, to a new ideas or the dreams that God has planted in Ls or whatever the case may be, whatever we're giving birth to. There is a lot of sensitivity where your sensitivity is changing and everything is changing around you and transforming around you. Where we feel like we don't know what's going on and we don't know what's coming. We don't know. There's a lot of unknown that's come and that. Fear could grip you in what and how you make decisions or that fear could grip you or influence you on what's next. Or you can get that anxiety or that, that pressure that's over your life. And so how have you been able to encourage yourself or strengthen yourself in the Lord in this season of really just you're walking into the unknown. Yeah. I think that. God was really like, I wrestled with God a lot about all of the change that was coming. Yeah. But it got to the point where I knew I couldn't fight it anymore, Uhhuh. And that I was just gonna block blessings for my life. For your life, for family for other people that were around us. Yeah. By not being obedient to the word that God had for us. Yeah. And God is always giving you encouragement. He's always giving you strength every single morning. Yeah. And his word, he, it says his mercies are new every morning. Yeah. But in addition to that, God has shown us that he is working in our lives. Yeah. And so how can I question God? How can I? Not be encouraged to move forward after seeing all that the Lord has done in our life. And you're getting to a place of being too stagnant in your walk with God and you're becoming too comfortable and too lackadaisical in your walk. And you if, when you're sensitive to the spirit and allow God to work in your life, you can start to feel like the ground shaking or the waters are still, and they start to a big wave is coming and a big change is coming. And that was something that God had put in my heart at the end of last year that we needed to prepare for the change that was coming. And there was no choice. We had no choice but to be obedient because of what? Was coming. And one of our really big prayer requests for this year was that we would have a child Yeah. And that we would conceive and we would grow our family Yeah. And have two children. And that was something we were praying for a really long time. Yeah, absolutely. And I think there's a lot of times where. Where, and even recently I think the biggest thing is trusting the Lord as your shepherd. Or for me, I should say, the biggest thing for me has been trusting the Lord as my shepherd and I go back to this idea of sheep bite. And so when you get too close to the sheep will bite you. So a lot of times we as people, act up as that sheep. And we, when the shepherd tries to get close to us we have a tendency to bite back, say, but God wants to provide for you, but we bite'em and say, but God, I don't, I have this unpaid bill. We, we have a, we bite back and say, oh, but God wants to lead you to your promise. But. God, I don't have control in that. And so we try to bite him as he's trying to provide for us, or lead us or guide us or whatever the case may be in whatever season we're in. And a lot of times when he's trying to lead us to the, what he has for us we have a tendency to rely on our flesh, rely on our strength, rely and bite back the hand of God. But what I. Learned recently is in Psalms 23. It says, after it says the Lord is my shepherd. I lack no thing, or I lack nothing, or I shall not want. What it means is that there is no other satisfaction that I could ask for if the Lord, except for in His presence. Because we see at the end of Psalms 23, it says, my, my heart's desire is to dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life. And we see this journey of life through David's Psalm. In Psalm 23 of, he goes by still waters. He's going in green pastures. He, but then he goes into the valley and it's like you go from this heavenly experience to this hell hellish encounter, and then you move forward. But even through that, he says, the Lord is overfilling my cup. And then he says, my heart's, one desire is to dwell in the house of God. And it's okay, David, that's a dramatic change, or that's completely off topic, but no, it's being the sheep that is being led through the shepherd in every transition of your life, whether you are in the pastures or by the still waters, or you're going through the valley, whatever transition you're going through, your desire still has to be the Lord. Yeah. And your heart posture still has to be. I want to dwell in the presence of God. I think of Psalms 27. And it says this one thing that I ask, and the funny thing is that there's been this song that I've had on repeat over and over again where it's Psalms 27 and it's the first opening. It's they're just quoting a scripture. The first opening words, it says, the one thing I ask this, one thing I shall seek is to dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life. And then it says, why? It says because to gaze. On the beauty of the Lord. And I think that's so impactful because no matter what season you're in, no matter the transitions, no matter what you're going through externally, I feel like our biggest desire should be to gaze at the beauty of God. Because in the beauty, he turns the ashes into beauty. He turns our graves into garden. He turns our mourning into dancing and it, and we don't see that when our perspective is only our issues or our only our transitions. We don't we don't see what our promise when we're stuck in our wilderness. Yeah. We don't see God's promises or God's word when we're looking at Egypt. We don't see what God has ahead of us when we're look so busy looking at what's behind us in our past. And so we have to learn. As people to accept God's grace and accept his mercy, while also having a desire. And really your only heart's true desire is to be in the presence of God because he supplies all our needs. Yeah. And is there anything you want to add to that? Something that like came to mind while you're speaking also is we don't put our trust in man. Yeah. And what we see in the physical and what someone else can offer us. Yeah. And sometimes the decisions that we make or what God is telling us to do isn't gonna make sense to other people. Yeah. They're not gonna see the fruit of it. It takes time to see the fruit of your obedience and what God is calling you to do. But as Christians, we have to have that confidence that, you know what, it's okay if not everybody sees or everybody agrees because the fruit of my life will eventually be evident, and that has been. Our whole journey together is us knowing our, the fruit of our life will be evident. Yeah. I know we are like saying we're from marriage, but just even the beginning of us getting in a relationship, it didn't make sense to a lot of individuals with everything you were going through and your life and the storms and battles you were coming out of the last thing you need to do is go get a relationship with another girl. That's, that was the perspective that man can see because that would, that's what would seem realistic. Yeah. But we knew that this is something that was ordained and anointed by God and that people would eventually see the fruit of it, and now they do. Now they see the fruit of it and the restoration of our family. Oh yeah. And the in the marriage that we have and seeing God's hands upon that. That's just gonna be our journey continuously. God is continuously calling us to step out and step out in faith, and we often pray. God, do something new in my life. God send a revival. I want fresh oil, fresh anointing, but God, I don't want change. Yeah. I don't wanna be uncomfortable. Yeah. I don't wanna be in the unknown. That's actually our heart posture. But what we're saying with our mouth is that we want fresh oil. We want something new. We wanna go deeper with God, yet we're pushing back on God. God's okay, you wanna go deeper. You want fresh oil. Then step here, move here, do this, do that. Yeah. And we're not doing it. We're wanting to stay in the same routines. We're wanting to say in the same thing that we've done over and over again. And it's not producing what God has called us to. Yeah. I. Also having the discernment to know that God's grace has lifted and he's calling you to move somewhere. Somewhere else. Yeah. And he's calling you to step out. He's calling you to grow, he's calling you to mature. And through that, we're not gonna always be perfect in every situation. And that's something that God has recently shown me like. It's not my grave that is sufficient. It's his grave that is sufficient. It's not. Me that does everything right. It's not me that makes all the right decisions. It's just I'm leaning on the voice of God and doing my best to hear his instructions as clearly as possible. Yeah. And if I fall, if I make a mistake, if I don't handle things properly, then I know that God's grace is sufficient. Absolutely. And that he has forgiveness on the other side. Yeah. And through that we learn in our journeys and we grow. And that's the only way we've been able to really grow together. Yeah. As well. Yeah. And I think it, I think that's so there's a few things that you said that I've been wanting to hit on.'cause, so you said first hidden just because the things that were unseen by man. Doesn't mean it didn't happen essentially. And so I think of. Jesus as one example, but I think of John the Baptist for the most part, because one Jesus himself said, this is the greatest man born of women. Yeah. And we see no signs of miracles. We see no miracles recorded in the Bible through John the Baptist. We see nothing of what we would take as this is the greatest man born of women. We would see none of that. But what we did see. Was a short glimpse into his life that he was at the Jordan River baptizing people and he, there was crowds around him. Yeah. So that means during that time, whatever he was doing, whatever God ha was hidden. Because there was a season where he was just living in the wilderness, like, why do you live in the wilderness? Why do you wear camel skin and eating locust? Like why, what is the significance or what is going on back there that we may not see? And even today I was like, I wonder, and I'm not endorsing Stephen Furtick, I just want that to be clear. But at the same time, I wonder Stephen Fur's leadership courses or classes or teachings are probably so much more impactful and so much more debt deep because of what I know. He knows and I know this from a very far distant perspective because I've known that he's just a learner. He, you see the fruit of his ministry. Yeah. You see the fruit of his, he's a learner. He gets something, he gets an idea. He just expands on it. He, it's amazing to see the backstory to see behind a little bit of what he's been through, but also learned and to see what he's learned in the hidden place. Or to see what he's learned in the quiet space of his life and that nobody else has the access to except for certain people within a circle. And so I think of that and I think of John the Baptist, that nobody had access to him, but his cousin, nobody had access to him. And in the same way, nobody had access to what we know except for us, because God spoke to you. God spoke to me, and then we came together. And because we are so intimate and close to each other, obviously we're married. But because you have access to me and I have access to you, what's hidden from others. Isn't hidden from us. And in that I believe God wants to have and share access, the Bible actually says that he wants to share mysteries of heaven with you and mysteries of who he is with you. And so I think he wants to have an intimacy with people, but people have been so distant because they think Jesus is a genie. Yeah. And they treat him as, I want this when our one thing that we should want is his presence. And be developed in the secret place. Yeah. And be refined in the hidden, we don't go and aim for the platform, we aim for his presence. Yeah. And I think that it, so many people miss that. And then the second thing that you hit on was, we have grace in the transition. I, I remember when I hit junior year of my, in high school, I went from about five six to six through six two. And I sprouted. My knees were hurting, like they were hurting like no other, obviously I pushed through, I still played basketball, whatever the case may be. They were still hurting. My knees were hurting, my, my legs were hurting and you could feel the tension of my body as it was beginning to grow. And sometimes we have those growing pains in the physical while also having them in the spiritual. Yeah. And so they manifest in the physical. They manifest in what's going on around us. But there is grace in the transition, and I think a lot of people don't understand this. Is that just because you make the mistake in that transition, whatever? And I'm not saying like a dramatic mistake, but I'm saying like, let's say you take a step to the right when you're supposed to take a step to the left, but then you correct yourself or you get corrected and you get back to the point of where God gave you this word. The grace in that is God is gonna give you favor. That God is gonna give you a supernatural unmerited favor, and then he's gonna strengthen you to overcome what's around you. And if you can you expand on that? I just feel like there are so many people that are afraid of transition, afraid of the growing pains, afraid of the pressure that growing has, or even they fill the weight and they run from it. What is that to you? Like how do you embrace the pressure? Also getting to the other side. How do you embrace that? How do you overcome what's coming against you? Yeah. I think the biggest thing is to know that what God has for us is greater than what we could ever plan for ourself. Yeah. And God has. Shown up and showed out in my life personally, time after time for me not to be obedient to him and to his word. Yeah. And as you grow in your faith, as you grow in your walk, God gives you assignments to like, not necessarily to test you, but faithful. If you're faithful with the little, he'll give you much. Yeah. And to whom much is given much is required. And so as you are being obedient to God in your walk. God's gonna continuously ask you to be obedient, and it's gonna get bigger and require more faith and require you to lean on God even more and not have that fear. But we the fear that we want is a reverence to the Lord. God, I have no room. To be disobedient to you. The cost of being disobedient to you is too high. It's me losing my life. Yeah. And I only wanna lose my life in Christ. Yeah. And so through that. It gives us that confidence to be obedient and to not be shaken by external things. Yeah. And if I'm gonna make a decision and say that God is calling me to do this, I'm standing my ground on that. If those words are coming outta my mouth, I'm not backing down. Yeah. Because I am speaking that with authority of God, I'm speaking that with God's name on it, so I better be sure that this is what God called me to do. Yeah. And leaning on that and that confidence and knowing, okay, God, you'll show the fruit of my life. Yeah. I have nothing to prove to anybody but my. What my assignment is to do, Lord, is to please you and to let your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. And that's what we're called to do. We're called for God's will to be done and God isn't a God of that's going to punish us or make us make a decision or go into a place of being uncomfortable. To punish us. It's for his will to be done here on earth. And he gave us the greatest example of that By sending Jesus. Yeah. Who was punished in the eyes of man on the cross who was beaten. And through that was God's will being done. Yeah. But it's so hard for us to sometimes wrap our minds around that but God, I thought you were a good God. I thought you were a God that wanted me to have abundance and prosperity and be happy and be blessed. Yes, God does want all those things, but he is good no matter what. Yeah, he is good in every single situation, but his plan is so much bigger than we could ever imagine, that we just see ourself in our little scenario that it's hard to step back and see God. What you are doing is bigger and greater. Than what I thought was gonna be. Yeah. And I just want to, again, two things. What you said, all three things. So sometimes your idea of what transition isn't what actually is. You alluded to this, but sometimes your transition looks like going through the fire. Sometimes. And then I think of the Hebrew boys and their transition didn't seem like a transition in the moment because they were obviously slaves, and they were promoted to like really just like an ambassador. And what ended up happening is they didn't bow and they were thrown into a fire. Their transition wasn't normal per se. Their transition looked. Yeah. I went into the fire and I came out someone that's being more empowered than what I was before. Yeah. That, that transition didn't look like a transition in the moment unless you want to talk about transition to death. But their transition was like, okay, you went in one way, bound and chained up and. A prisoner and you came out freed. You came out empowered by the king because he made a declaration to the nations and was like, yo, this king is the, or. This God, their God is the only God that will serve or whatever. And so I think about them and sometimes your transition, their transition didn't look like what they wanted or didn't look like what was best for them, but because they went through it and did it, God was. Glorified. Yeah, and I don't always think it's necessarily just, it's not the transition that, or what you would think the transition would look like. It's in sometimes in general, what you thought your life would look like. What you thought your future would look like, what you thought your family would look like. Yeah. And it's it's so crazy because what we. What I went through when we were getting into relationship and what I thought my future was gonna look like as far as marriage and a husband like that was nothing to what I've seen. Sorry, to just point that in the moment, and that's something that again, I wrestled with God about like in my prayer time. I would just cry out to God, like, how is this your will for my life? Like how is this a situation that I'm walking into God? Like how is this a husband that you have for me? But God, every time like, check me, like this is not about you right now. Come on somebody. And this is for my will to be done in the plan that I have is greater. Shout out God and like you, like God reminded me like you will get your moment. Like you will get the marriage, you will get the family, but it's okay if it's not how you thought. It was gonna look. Yeah. Because what I have is so much greater. So in that season, I grieved what I thought it was gonna look like. Yeah. While still being grateful that God was working in the midst of us. And then we get married and then I'm like, Hey God, this is like what you're gonna do in our life. This is what our future's gonna look like. This is what's gonna happen. And God was quickly like, Nope, nope. That's not what it's gonna look like. That's not what I'm gonna do. And so then now I'm in the process of grieving what I thought. Our marriage and our family would look like in the future going forward. Yeah. But God is such a good God that in that he allows us. And gives us that space to grieve and also be grateful. Yeah. Thank you, Lord, that your plan for me was so much greater and so much bigger, but I'm so grieving that this is what I thought it was gonna be. Yeah. That this is where I thought you were gonna send me that this is what I thought you were gonna do in my husband's ministry, in my ministry and our ministry together in the future for our family. But thank you that you had something that was so much greater, and I know that. That is something that God allows because every time I'm in the presence of God. Every time I'm spending time with him, he's constantly like bringing that back to the surface of my heart. It's okay to grieve what you thought was going to be. Yeah. And I think we have to understand that because then we get ourselves into a place of confusion and that's where the enemy can come in and make you feel shameful or make you feel guilty, or make you feel ungrateful for what? The Lord is doing in your life. If you're grieving or if you're mourning. Yeah. But you can give that to God. You can give that brokenness to God. You can give that hurt or disappointment even. Yeah. To God. Yeah. And I think a lot of times we envision a marriage, a white picket fence, family cookie cutter household, amazing wife for you, amazing husband. You have that. But but I just think it, we have this ideal image of what. I should even say a perfect image of what we think our life should be. And sometimes when God breaks that idea and he does something his way instead of our way and what we think is best for us and that's what you're for referring to. It's that mourning of our perfect ideal image that we have in our head. And I think with that there, there's one thing that I wanted to add is that God is the author. And the finisher of our faith, meaning that as he's writing our story, even though he already read it, I'm not saying that he's not, he's done. But my point is that God is writing our story as we're making decisions and as we are obeying his word and as we are walking on his path, he's writing our story, though the story is done. I'm not trying to harp too much on that. My, he is the alpha and the omega. He knows the beginning. From the end. Yeah. And what's crazy is that God will knows every decision that we're gonna make. What's crazy is that he can see when I say yes to him, or when I say no to him, he can see the pressures and the things that come in my life. And he knows like the obstacles that I'm gonna face and the times where I'm gonna be overwhelmed. The times where I'm gonna feel like I can't do it on my own or I can't do it at all the times where I'm stressed and the times where I feel like, okay. I can't do this. And he's writing those stories. And the thing that he, that, that is crazy to me is as he's writing those, he's he's I just envision in this he's grieving right now and he has a teardrop coming'cause he loves us so much that though he has to write this part of our story where it's hurting. He knows that it's the best thing for us because what's on the other side? Yeah, what's on the other side is so much more beautiful than what we're. The current trap that you feel like you're going through the current pressure, the current weight that you're going through, he knows. What is coming is something that you can't handle on your own, and you need to be strengthened and equipped with his presence. And I think that's so powerful because yes we're grieving and I think we miss this, is that we go through these emotions and we grieve who we were. And, but walk towards the new, but we have to understand that just because we're grieving in that process and just because we're feeling the weight and pressure in that process doesn't mean God doesn't understand where we are. And you're not looking back and you're not looking back. You're keeping your eyes on God. Yeah. And I think that sometimes we make God such a, a deity. Meaning that we see him in this version of, that he's at this distance that we can't bring him into our process. Yeah. But he's the god of the middle. And I think of he's the God of the transition. He's the God that's in the middle with us. And I think that we forget that there was three crosses on gha, on the mountain that he was. My point is that there was three crosses is he was in the middle one. He loves to be in the middle with you. Yeah that in the decision making, whether you're gonna choose the good path or the wrong path, whatever cross you decide to bear, he's in the middle with you. And he feels, the way he feels, the pressure he went through, the pain he did the suffering, he had the sin on his back. He carried that. And I think we, we make him such a deity, a god almighty, and that we forget that he was he's with us. Yeah, he's with us through this process. And do you have anything to add to that? Something that I was thinking about. While you were talking is when God tells you to do something or to be obedient to a word, it's typically because he is sending someone or something, or someone in your path either to encourage or to encourage you or for you to bring change to their life or. For them to bring change to your life. And something that we spoke about and that I spoke to you in our transition season was that we weren't going to conceive a child Yeah. Until we were obedient to God's word. And God corrected my. Mindset in that after we did conceive a child, it was the same month we made that decision and it wasn't that he was gonna reward as far obedience that he was sending our baby to this earth. For his will to be done. Yeah. Like he was sending our child no matter what, he needed us to speed up to be where he needed us to be. Yeah. And so he put that urgency that I need you to be obedient because this is what I'm sending you and I need you to be in this place at this time. And I postured in the right place. Yeah. For you to conceive and not for me, not for my benefit. Not for your benefit. Yes. We were blessed through that. Yes. It's a gift for us, but it's for the benefit of our child. Yeah. For our grandchildren. And for the generations that is to come. Yeah. And that's the fight that you are up against says that the enemy doesn't just want your life. He wants the generations that are coming after you. The enemy attacked us so hard before we stepped into marriage because he didn't want the generations that were gonna come from. From us. Yeah. Yeah. And I think with that, there's a scripture in Isaiah 66 that says that the throne or the. Heaven is God's throne and the earth is his footstool. But he searches for a place where, or he actually before that it says, but how can you prepare a place for me to dwell? And then he says, it says it searches the earth seeking for those who are humble, contrite, and spirit and treble at his word. Yeah. And I, I think so many times we have this idea of what that means of trembling at his word. Specifically what trembling his word means is that even through the process, even through the transition, even through the hurt, you still have to understand that God's word will last and his word will not return to him void. And that in that we have to be the sheep that know the voice of the shepherd. Because so many times we. Push our narrative, what we want, our desires, our fleshes desires really of what we want and we manipulate to say this is God. Yeah. But when we know the voice of God, when we know the shepherd, because we spent time with the shepherd we will then have that, that trembling at his word that. This is life or death. Yeah. That, but your flesh doesn't even want this. Yeah. Yeah. Your flesh doesn't want this, but I know I have to do this. Your flesh doesn't want to get whipped 39 times, but. But Jesus is like, I still gotta do this'cause we, by my stripes, you're gonna be healed. Yeah. I, my, my God or Jesus' flesh didn't wanna go up on the cross, but he know what is it? The cursed is the one who get hangs by a tree or whatever. He's I don't, I didn't wanna get pierced by my hands, but I know there's gonna be a doubting Thomas that's gonna say, I need you to touch your wounds to know it's you that I know I didn't. I didn't need to get pierced on my, or, I don't wanna get pierced on my side, but I know that I need to be pierced for your transgressions and I need to be bruised for your iniquity. I need to be pierced on the side. There, there's so many things where God had to do what he did because it was his will. But at the same time, your desire or the narrative of what you want isn't what you think is ideal, and you manipulate it to be the voice of God, even though it's not the voice of God. And what happens is when you're in the presence of God. That he then begins to direct and tune your ear to what his voice sounds like, because his voice can be a still a still whisper like it was for Elijah. Or he could come like a mighty rushing wind as he did in Pentecost. It's so different what God can speak to you, and if you don't know the tone of his voice or the level of his voice or the frequency of his voice, then you won't, you'll miss his word. But if you miss the word. Your transition will be a lot more harder. It would be harder, but not only that, you might miss your transition. You might miss your door of opportunity. You might miss the season that should have been ended a few months ago. But you're still in that same season just because you don't want to hear the voice. And I think so many times and I, what the funny thing is that you get faith by hearing his word. And so when God says to go and we stay it's because we didn't hear his word. And we have to take that step of faith in order to take the step of faith. We have to hear, we have to hear the word go. Yeah. And so we have to go, we have to hear to go, we have to go to hear. We ha it's just it's, oh God is so funny.'cause it's like a circle and a loop. But yeah. I just think that's I just got passionate. All of a sudden I was starting to preach. I was about to stand up. But yeah, no, I think that's crazy. I think how God has been working in our life is a message not just to us, but I think to so many, and I think there's so many people that, that are like, but God, I want this in my life, or I would've thought I would've been here already. I thought, what? And we have this or we already went through the hard things. Yeah. My life is gonna be smooth sailing in here. Yeah. But that's just not how it wa how it works when you're walking with God, like you said, it's life or death for us. Yeah. And we being obedient to God is life or death for us. Oh yeah. No, absolutely. I think it should be life or death for everybody. But the problem is that we don't reference his word, but whatever. I'm not gonna get into that part. But yeah, and I think of Paul. When he's, when the Lord said to Paul that you're gonna get to Rome, but in the midst of getting to Rome, he had to go through a shipwreck. He had to get bitten by a snake. He had to almost potentially get killed by people. He had to be prisoner. He went through so many, but the word was, you're getting to Rome. But why did I get shipwrecked to God? I'm supposed to get to Rome. Yeah. Why would I be on this island that I don't know and get bit by a snake? God, I thought you said I was going to Rome, but I'm. Have a snake hanging from my hand. Yeah. God, you said I was going to Rome, but I'm stuck here on an island without a boat. Look, why don't you go speak to the people and speak to the king's father and lay your hands on him. And because he's sick, he's terminally ill and he might die soon. So good thing you're here because you can pray for them and then they can all the whole island except Jesus, and then they will provide what you need to get to the place where I said you're gonna go. And so it's oh, I needed to go through the shipwreck. I needed to get bit by the snake. I needed to get threatened by people in order to get to the place where the people will provide for me. Because you assign them, you assigned me to the people. Yeah. And so it's okay, God, you, I went through a lot of zigging and But ultimately your words still never failed. Yeah. And so a lot of times we go through the zig or the zag and we give up in the middle. And we're like, okay, this isn't what God wanted because I'm obviously way off course. So then let me try to direct myself back to where I think God wants me to be. Because we think trials and tribulations aren't the will of God. And as soon as things get hard or as soon as things get uncomfortable, we think it's not God anymore. Yeah. Or we get confused or other people get confused at that. Other people think. Things are dark, but that should be an alarm in our spirit that if this was a word that God gave to me and now I'm starting to feel like this isn't of God, or I'm starting to feel a away from him or fearful, then maybe you are distant from him. Maybe you do need to be in your word more. Maybe you do need to be in your prayer time. More because that's where you encourage yourself. That is where God encourages you. That's where he builds you up. That's where he deals with the things that you are going through in your heart, in your mind. You give it to him. Yeah. And through that you come out stronger, but that's in your secret place that God is able to do that. That's not just going to church. On a Sunday or during the week. That is your. Time with God where he can truly work inside of you and you can allow that vulnerability to be there with God. Yeah. Your watch distract me. Sorry. I didn't mean it, I just but yeah, I a hundred percent and I think I think of Mary. Jesus's mother. When the angel Gabriel, was it Gabriel or Michael? This was Gabriel, right? I think it was Gabriel. I could be completely, you're pretty sure it was Gabriel. Pretty sure it was Gabriel too, but I could be. I just, anyways, my watch distracted me. But I think of Mary when the angel told her that you're gonna have a baby, and she was like, but I've never been with a man. And the angel was like, but it's gonna be the Holy Spirit girl. And so what she did was she hid the word in her heart. I think there are so many times we want to display what God spoke to us and we're at fault for that. And sometimes like Joseph, we can display the word that God had for us and be thrown into a pit and we can have people that are envious and jealous of what the word that God spoke to us and say that we're wrong. Even when it was a God-given word. Yeah. And so I think there's a lot of times where we have to hide the word in our heart. Knowing and having faith that it's gonna come to pass. Yeah. But people don't need to know about it. Yeah. And so many times we have to display that. But don't get me wrong, there are those. Cases that, that we still have to display the word. Because we have no other choice. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. Obviously in where we are, we had to display the word and I just feel like God is doing some great things. And do you have any last comments or last statements that you want to make before we get into I was about to say the time of prayer. Get into a closing. Like we're at church. I know. I was just, sorry. Just to be obedient, what God is telling you to do. Don't fear man's reaction or look for the approval of man. If you're confident that this is from the Lord, you've prayed about it, you've fasted about it. You've matched it up with the Bible and you're like, yes Lord, this is you. He will instill in you and give you a confidence that is unshakeable. Yeah. The world will try to shake it. Man will try to shake it, but it will be unshakeable. Yeah. And you won't look back. Sorry, I have to go to the scripture real quick because you've said it and I had to, I have to find that definition. Hold on. Let me get to Hebrews. Hebrews 11. We're open the next page because I can't remember now. Faith. And I'm reading from the a MP, so it's extra sanctified now. Faith is the assurance the title deed, confirmation of things hoped for, divinely guaranteed, and the evidence of things not seen, the conviction of their reality. Faith comprehends. As fact, what cannot be experienced by physical senses. So I think confi faith is the evidence of things. Hope for the confidence of things unseen. I just think about that and we may not see it in the moment, but we're confident in God. That he is faithful to his promises, faithful to his word. And, I just think that the, what the Lord does, he does not for just for the betterment of us, but also for his kingdom and for him to be glorified and magnified. But yeah. Thank you so much baby girl. I love you so much and you're amazing. Thank you so much for this time where you shared and you had no other choice but I love you for it and you're amazing. Anyways, so enough of me admiring my wife, but not ever gonna be enough of that. But anyways thank you so much for joining us this week on this episode of Relentless Pursuit. We are so excited for what's coming next, so next. Episode, we're gonna get into some of the vision casting, some of the things that we have going on. It will be the last episode for this season. I know there was only, I believe it's six episodes. And so I know it's not normal, but I. Once we join into the next week, you'll understand why. And I'm so excited that you decided to join us this week for this episode. And make sure you follow us on all our social media platforms. Oh, Lord, I was about to say lifeway Church. Relentless Pursuit. And we will, thank you so much. I, oh lord. I threw myself off. Bye guys. See you.