September 3, 2024 • 23 mins
Have you ever felt the crushing weight of running a business while grappling with personal hardships? Matt and Joe have been there, and in this episode, they open up about their journeys of balancing immense responsibilities with faith. Through poignant personal stories, they reveal how turning to scripture and prayer provided them with peace and strength during times of severe family illnesses and business unpredictability. They passionately share how focusing on the present and trusting God's plan has been their anchor, offering listeners a heartfelt message about finding true resilience by walking with Christ.
Imagine the freedom of letting go of the need to control every aspect of your life and business. Matt and Joe discuss the incredible transformation that happens when we surrender to faith, allowing a higher power to guide our steps. Through engaging anecdotes, they spotlight the importance of living in the moment and viewing life's uncertainties as part of a beautiful dance. Reflect on the legacy you want to leave and the values you want to embody. By letting go and letting God take the lead, Matt and Joe highlight that we can achieve a level of success and fulfillment that transcends our own capabilities.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Hey guys, welcome back to the Certain Success
Podcast, Matt and Joe.
Here and today we're talkingabout one of the most important
things that any human needs tolearn about their relationship
with the Lord.
But for business owners, I thinkit's even heavier, because as
(00:26):
business owners, we try to carrythe world on our shoulders and
if you're a business owner,you're probably also the
breadwinner for your family andall that stuff, and so it's so
easy for us to walk around inthe mindset that all of that's
(00:48):
on us and if we fail, if wedon't perform, if we're not good
enough at everything, that it'sall going to fall apart and
it's our responsibility.
And I know I lived a lot of mylife with that mindset, that
(01:09):
worldview, and only in recentyears, in my 50s, did I really,
at a soul level, start tounderstand that that's all God's
to carry.
That's all God's to carry.
And you know there's adifference between understanding
(01:31):
that in your, between your ears, and having it resonate at your
soul.
And it just for me, justchanged everything.
And Joe and I were talkingabout this this morning in the
context of business, but it alsoflows over into personal and,
joe, I know that you've had alot of that.
(01:51):
Well, you probably had it both,but you certainly were using
examples in the personal side.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
Yeah, from business to our personal lives, there's
those moments where it's notjust a speed bump, it's a giant
crater and we can go crashingquickly.
If we're trying to hang on fromour own strength and I can't
(02:17):
and I know you can't do it onour own we always find scripture
to be calming and the absolutefirst place we need to go to to
find that peace, and I know thatI can do all things through
Christ, who strengthens me.
But that doesn't mean that, inthe midst of being hit with a
(02:39):
storm that we didn't expect,that was the first thought that
came through my mind.
It's usually the third orfourth thought that comes
through my mind.
You and I were talking just aminute ago and I've heard this
term used before and with mywife 17, 18 years ago, when she
(03:00):
was diagnosed with breast cancer.
Cancer is a horrible diseaseand I'm not certain who said it,
I'm just very familiar with it.
Disease is when the body is atdis-ease, something's wrong,
(03:21):
something's amiss, and and thenhere we are and you know we, we
hit COVID, everyone's gettinghit with COVID and my wife, who
already beat cancer, now she'sdiagnosed with Parkinson's
disease.
And you just look up at God andit's like, why has she got to
(03:42):
go through this?
Up at God and was like, why hasshe got to go through this?
And uh, just like in in ourpersonal lives and in business,
and we've we've we've had theseconversations that that, that
crater, that we hit thatuncertain wall, whatever,
whatever term you want to giveit Our first knee jerk reaction
(04:06):
is to try to take it onourselves.
And I'll be the first one toraise my hand, matt, and say I
can't do it and I don't know howanyone can do it without Christ
.
I just don't see how they cando it.
They may pretend that they'redoing it and put up a good front
, but it's been through prayer,it's been through scripture,
(04:30):
it's been my wife and I holdingeach other and embracing each
other and holding each other'shands on the drive home from
that doctor's appointment, withtears flowing off of our faces,
saying, all right, here we goagain, but we do it, walking
with Christ, and we know that wecan do all things for him, who
(04:52):
strengthens us.
It's not a thing, not astrength that we have.
It's not a muscle we can godevelop on our own in a gym.
Speaker 1 (05:01):
It's through his word in a gym, it's, it's through
his word well, and you know itit.
We talked, I think, onyesterday's podcast about how,
over time, you develop thatmuscle of okay.
It's another, another challenge, another moment, another thing,
and every time you go throughthose things, you learn a couple
(05:26):
lessons, that it's like anotherlayer of the same set of
lessons.
So you learn that it's allgoing to be okay, god's going to
work it out.
You're not going to die Likethere is.
You know, it's going to resolveitself and God's got a plan to
bring you through it.
You learn that, oh, he waswalking us through this too.
(05:50):
We're becoming something betteras we walk through this
together.
And I think one of the bigthings too, and I always think
that everything's amplified forbusiness owners because we do
more, faster, bigger, all thetime, and so I think it's easier
to see it for me for businessowners, but I feel like one
(06:13):
everything's going great andyou're running ahead and your
thoughts are about a year fromnow or 10 years from now and
about all these great thingsyou're going to go, do and
whatever.
And God hits the brakes onemore time and says wait a minute
.
I thought we were just talkingabout today.
I thought we were going to stayfocused on today, and when you
(06:34):
hit another wall, that's thefirst thing that happens is well
, I'm only thinking about today,Like, how do I get through
today?
I love the phrase the nextright thing.
What's the next right thingthat I need to do?
Cause that's all I gotheadspace for, um, you know, and
I was telling you, joe, about,uh, my uh event business that I
(06:58):
ran for 10 years up until COVID,and um, that ended rather
catastrophically during COVID.
But that that isn't actually thestory.
The story is all the years thatI was running it and the stress
and the pressure of, you know,event contracts and you know
(07:19):
having to fill rooms full ofpeople in order to make a profit
and you know all of theintensity of what that business
was.
Um, and even though Iconsidered myself a devout
Christian, even then, I ran thatbusiness.
When I look back, I ran thatbusiness on my power and my
(07:41):
effort and I never really, at asoul level, understood that oh,
god's doing all of this and I'mjust here for the ride, and I
(08:06):
think that's the piece that Iwant people to hear.
If you're listening to this, isthat the faster.
You're just walking in whathe's doing and he's the one
who's going to make it all, makeit all happen, bring it all to
closure or not, whatever he,whatever he has in mind, but you
were never in control of itanyway, and I think it took me,
(08:28):
unfortunately, decades to tounderstand that, to you to
understand that.
Speaker 2 (08:32):
Yeah, and here we are .
You know, we.
We talked about uh, age, uh,earlier in the week.
Uh, where I'm at, I'm at 60 orat 56.
And if we could just go back toour youth and whisper in our,
in our, in the ear of theyounger versions of ourselves
and say, hey, when this happens,this is what you need to do.
(08:56):
It's almost like when MartyMcFly looked at his parents in
Back to the Future and he'sstanding there.
He says, hey, if your kidsshould ever set the carpet on
fire in the house, go easy onthem.
You know, and and that'sprobably the message we should
(09:17):
give ourselves is one go easy onyourself.
Don't, don't beat yourself up.
This is, this is a.
This is a marathon, and there'sgoing to be times.
You know.
You get to the third mile andyou get a cramp.
And you get through that crampand you're like, okay, I'm doing
better now.
You get to the 10th mile andyou're like, okay, I'm in a good
(09:37):
cadence.
You get to the 15th mile andyou're like what in the hell did
I decide I wanted to do amarathon for Stacey and I?
One of the first scriptures thatwe leaned into in our marriage
going back almost 40 years agois Jeremiah 29, 11.
And I think for the majority ofmy early fatherhood of raising
(10:04):
my kids and trying to be in thatwalk with Christ, I fully
didn't understand what Jeremiah29, 11 meant.
And it's for I know the plans Ihave for you, declares the Lord
.
Plans to prosper you, not toharm you, plans to give you a
hope and a future.
And I can tell you that duringa diagnosis of disease you're
(10:28):
like what happened to that partabout plans not to harm you.
Why is that not playing in andplans to give you a hope in the
future?
And I believe it was probably uh, thinking back on it, there's
(10:49):
probably rick war who wrotePurpose Driven Life, who talks
about this scripture and said,when Jeremiah wrote that,
remember, he's being fed theword of God from God.
And hope in the future doesn'tnecessarily mean our time here
(11:10):
on earth.
Our hope and future is eternal.
We're going to spend trillionsof years in eternity compared to
the 80 years we spend here onearth.
There is going to be disease,there is going to be failure,
there's going to be the hardtimes, there's going to be the
great times, there's going to bethe thriving or kicking butt
(11:33):
and taking names.
But when Jeremiah is being fedthe word of God and he's sharing
it with you and I, that hope inthe future is an eternal glory
that far outweighs them all.
So I think early on I didn'tunderstand that verse.
Speaker 1 (11:49):
As I understand it today, yeah, when you were
talking about that, I wasthinking too that when you I
love the examples in scriptureand they're just all throughout
scripture of people goingthrough these crazy seasons, and
it's decades.
It's not oh, I want this fixedin the next week, right or next
(12:13):
month.
It's like decades of strugglethat took them to the place that
god wanted them to go to.
And you know there's no way,during those decades of struggle
, that they understood that it'slike maintain their faith, and
some of them did, some of themdidn't, um, but it's like
(12:35):
there's just no way that you cansee it in the, in the present
tense.
And you know it's so mucheasier to see God in the rear
view for all of us to look back.
You know, when you take somebodythrough an example of, you know
like what are name five timesthat you were in an incredibly
(12:55):
difficult situation and Godshowed up and saved you, and he
obviously did, because you'restill here, you're still
listening to this and we allhave those stories and in the
rear view they're much easier tosee.
And but just being able to finda place of knowing like he's
he's going to do it again, Likehe's going to save me again, I'm
(13:18):
not going to die, you know,when I don't know what, what's
happening or why in this, inthis weird season that you might
be in when you're listening tothis, but it's going to be
absolutely going to be.
Okay, god's got the ball.
You also have to let him havethe ball If you want to keep
wrestling the ball away.
(13:39):
It's going to be a difficultwrestling match.
Speaker 2 (13:44):
Yeah, I think we can read several examples in the Old
Testament of individuals whoreally wrestled with God, and if
there's anything that anyonewho's listening to this could
(14:04):
take from anything that you andI are sharing right now about
God, your successful businessover a 10-year period, you
really I mean there's not a lotof people in this world that can
say that they've had a businessthat lasted more than a year.
Most of them are gone within ayear.
But that entire time Christ waswith you and I know that you
(14:31):
acknowledged him in prayer.
But during the tough timeswhere things were overwhelming,
where you and I and the majorityof people that walk this earth
sometimes we forget in themiddle of the storm, christ is
there, in front of us.
He's there.
He's not behind us, he'salready in front of us.
(14:53):
He's already done all of this.
The devil took him for 40 daysto challenge and try to swipe
away.
You know the reason.
Christ came in the first placeand tempt him and say all this
could be yours and Christ wasour example of no, my God is
(15:18):
enough and I know we're going tocontinue to be tempted by the
evil one, that's that he's beendoing it for thousands of years.
He's very good at tempting usand our first knee jerk reaction
is to go to self oh, I got this, I can do it.
Speaker 1 (15:38):
Yeah Well, and you know that whole idea of trying
to control stuff so that youknow you can call that wrestling
with God and that's one of thethings that I experienced during
that 10 year run of thatparticular business, the event
business, um, in the early yearsI was constantly wrestling for
(15:59):
control and in the middle ofthat season probably five, six
years into that, um, uh, aremarkable human came along in
in the middle of all that andyou know, sometimes somebody
says something to you and itjust hits right, you know, and
like.
So here comes along a person.
(16:19):
I build a relationship withthat person.
The person says to me this isall going to go so much better
and so much bigger if you juststop trying to control it.
And for some reason it was.
It was literally god speakingto me through this human and it
just hit me in the chest of like, and and the business literally
(16:45):
took off.
In the few years that followed,because I let go, because I I
had a new level of freedom ofallowing it to happen and
allowing God to control it andnot freaking out every time
(17:06):
something bad happened and notworrying as much.
And there were reasons why.
You know, in the early years ofthe, I would worry and worry
and worry, like not going tomake this happen, this event's
going to fail and we're allgoing to die.
And over the years you learn,oh well, it's probably going to
work, you know.
And then, but that became, ohwow, okay, god's doing this.
(17:29):
And the more I let go, the moreI let him have control, the
bigger and better the businessis going to get.
And so there's these reallypractical realities be better if
(17:58):
I do these things that are inscripture, if I'm like, oh, I'm
letting him control it, oh, I'mnot going to worry, like what
the practical reality of that is?
Things start to flourish whenhe's free to move and you're not
trying to control it.
Speaker 2 (18:14):
I agree, and I wrote this recently and, as you know,
I do a lot of journaling.
I love to write and talk to God.
But if God could show me a mapof my future, I don't want to
see it.
I don't want to see it.
(18:35):
I don't want to see it.
Do you want to see yours?
Speaker 1 (18:39):
No, I think what you're getting at and I
completely agree now, I wouldn'thave agreed 10 years ago, but I
agree now.
It's just that I want to livein the mystery of today, Yep,
and I want to give him completefreedom to move.
And you know, I love that, I'vecome to love that dance and I
think that maybe that's all oflife here on earth is to learn
(19:02):
to love that dance of themystery, of not knowing.
Speaker 2 (19:06):
Yeah, Not knowing leads us to the one thing we're
certain of, and the and I didnot really mean for that to
happen just now, but certainsuccess is is what, a what a
(19:28):
great name of a business thatyou know was laid on your heart
when you, when you came up withit, and I'm humbled to be part
of it because it reallyresonates with what I want to be
for my wife, for my kids, formy seven grandkids.
And when someone walks into aroom and they meet us and they
(19:55):
get a chance to learn a littlebit about us, and then we walk
out of that room, it's like Itaught my oldest grandchild what
are they saying when you leavethe room?
What are they saying about you,the human?
Are they saying, god, I want tobe more like them or like I
don't want to be near thatperson ever again?
(20:16):
It's the mark we leave on thisworld.
It's what Christ told hisdisciples and he told them.
He says you guys are going todo more than I did.
You're going to have moremiracles than I did.
You're going to go to the endsof the earth.
You're going to do so much morethan I was able to do in my
(20:38):
time on earth and they'relooking at him like cross-eyed
and he's still saying it to us.
He's still giving us the keysto go do it.
He's just letting me be theengine.
You know you've got a beautifulFerrari, but you're not going
anywhere without me and that'swhy he's he's such a important
(21:03):
part of our walk.
And, without trying to, youknow, yank people into a
conversation with us and sayingthis is the way I think you
should go.
I want people to approach usand say listen, I love where you
(21:25):
are, help me, guide me, andthat's what's exciting about the
balance of my life is I want toget to heaven and I want to
hear him say thanks forlistening.
Speaker 1 (21:44):
Yeah, I mean, I think we, as business people, and our
friends who are listening here,as business people, and our
friends who are listening here,you know it's, it's just.
I think the message for todayis is to let let go.
You know that you, you areenough, you are everything that
(22:05):
God made you to be.
You already are it, you alreadyare doing it.
Everything that you do today isgoing to be sufficient.
And he's carrying all theweight.
If you let him, he's carryingall the weight and all you have
to do is show up and abide andlisten to that still small voice
(22:31):
.
And it really is not more thanthat.
Right everybody wants like,well, okay, I'm going to listen,
but then I have to go do, andif I don't do, it's going to
fall.
And and that's not it, it'sliterally just his voice.
You said how many times thisweek have you said he's enough,
(22:55):
he's enough.
Guys, have a great day.
Thanks for listening to thecertain success podcast and
we'll see you back here againsoon.
God bless.
Hey guys, welcome back to the Certain Success
Podcast, Matt and Joe.
Here and today we're talkingabout one of the most important
things that any human needs tolearn about their relationship
with the Lord.
But for business owners, I thinkit's even heavier, because as
(00:26):
business owners, we try to carrythe world on our shoulders and
if you're a business owner,you're probably also the
breadwinner for your family andall that stuff, and so it's so
easy for us to walk around inthe mindset that all of that's
(00:48):
on us and if we fail, if wedon't perform, if we're not good
enough at everything, that it'sall going to fall apart and
it's our responsibility.
And I know I lived a lot of mylife with that mindset, that
(01:09):
worldview, and only in recentyears, in my 50s, did I really,
at a soul level, start tounderstand that that's all God's
to carry.
That's all God's to carry.
And you know there's adifference between understanding
(01:31):
that in your, between your ears, and having it resonate at your
soul.
And it just for me, justchanged everything.
And Joe and I were talkingabout this this morning in the
context of business, but it alsoflows over into personal and,
joe, I know that you've had alot of that.
(01:51):
Well, you probably had it both,but you certainly were using
examples in the personal side.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
Yeah, from business to our personal lives, there's
those moments where it's notjust a speed bump, it's a giant
crater and we can go crashingquickly.
If we're trying to hang on fromour own strength and I can't
(02:17):
and I know you can't do it onour own we always find scripture
to be calming and the absolutefirst place we need to go to to
find that peace, and I know thatI can do all things through
Christ, who strengthens me.
But that doesn't mean that, inthe midst of being hit with a
(02:39):
storm that we didn't expect,that was the first thought that
came through my mind.
It's usually the third orfourth thought that comes
through my mind.
You and I were talking just aminute ago and I've heard this
term used before and with mywife 17, 18 years ago, when she
(03:00):
was diagnosed with breast cancer.
Cancer is a horrible diseaseand I'm not certain who said it,
I'm just very familiar with it.
Disease is when the body is atdis-ease, something's wrong,
(03:21):
something's amiss, and and thenhere we are and you know we, we
hit COVID, everyone's gettinghit with COVID and my wife, who
already beat cancer, now she'sdiagnosed with Parkinson's
disease.
And you just look up at God andit's like, why has she got to
(03:42):
go through this?
Up at God and was like, why hasshe got to go through this?
And uh, just like in in ourpersonal lives and in business,
and we've we've we've had theseconversations that that, that
crater, that we hit thatuncertain wall, whatever,
whatever term you want to giveit Our first knee jerk reaction
(04:06):
is to try to take it onourselves.
And I'll be the first one toraise my hand, matt, and say I
can't do it and I don't know howanyone can do it without Christ
.
I just don't see how they cando it.
They may pretend that they'redoing it and put up a good front
, but it's been through prayer,it's been through scripture,
(04:30):
it's been my wife and I holdingeach other and embracing each
other and holding each other'shands on the drive home from
that doctor's appointment, withtears flowing off of our faces,
saying, all right, here we goagain, but we do it, walking
with Christ, and we know that wecan do all things for him, who
(04:52):
strengthens us.
It's not a thing, not astrength that we have.
It's not a muscle we can godevelop on our own in a gym.
Speaker 1 (05:01):
It's through his word in a gym, it's, it's through
his word well, and you know itit.
We talked, I think, onyesterday's podcast about how,
over time, you develop thatmuscle of okay.
It's another, another challenge, another moment, another thing,
and every time you go throughthose things, you learn a couple
(05:26):
lessons, that it's like anotherlayer of the same set of
lessons.
So you learn that it's allgoing to be okay, god's going to
work it out.
You're not going to die Likethere is.
You know, it's going to resolveitself and God's got a plan to
bring you through it.
You learn that, oh, he waswalking us through this too.
(05:50):
We're becoming something betteras we walk through this
together.
And I think one of the bigthings too, and I always think
that everything's amplified forbusiness owners because we do
more, faster, bigger, all thetime, and so I think it's easier
to see it for me for businessowners, but I feel like one
(06:13):
everything's going great andyou're running ahead and your
thoughts are about a year fromnow or 10 years from now and
about all these great thingsyou're going to go, do and
whatever.
And God hits the brakes onemore time and says wait a minute
.
I thought we were just talkingabout today.
I thought we were going to stayfocused on today, and when you
(06:34):
hit another wall, that's thefirst thing that happens is well
, I'm only thinking about today,Like, how do I get through
today?
I love the phrase the nextright thing.
What's the next right thingthat I need to do?
Cause that's all I gotheadspace for, um, you know, and
I was telling you, joe, about,uh, my uh event business that I
(06:58):
ran for 10 years up until COVID,and um, that ended rather
catastrophically during COVID.
But that that isn't actually thestory.
The story is all the years thatI was running it and the stress
and the pressure of, you know,event contracts and you know
(07:19):
having to fill rooms full ofpeople in order to make a profit
and you know all of theintensity of what that business
was.
Um, and even though Iconsidered myself a devout
Christian, even then, I ran thatbusiness.
When I look back, I ran thatbusiness on my power and my
(07:41):
effort and I never really, at asoul level, understood that oh,
god's doing all of this and I'mjust here for the ride, and I
(08:06):
think that's the piece that Iwant people to hear.
If you're listening to this, isthat the faster.
You're just walking in whathe's doing and he's the one
who's going to make it all, makeit all happen, bring it all to
closure or not, whatever he,whatever he has in mind, but you
were never in control of itanyway, and I think it took me,
(08:28):
unfortunately, decades to tounderstand that, to you to
understand that.
Speaker 2 (08:32):
Yeah, and here we are .
You know, we.
We talked about uh, age, uh,earlier in the week.
Uh, where I'm at, I'm at 60 orat 56.
And if we could just go back toour youth and whisper in our,
in our, in the ear of theyounger versions of ourselves
and say, hey, when this happens,this is what you need to do.
(08:56):
It's almost like when MartyMcFly looked at his parents in
Back to the Future and he'sstanding there.
He says, hey, if your kidsshould ever set the carpet on
fire in the house, go easy onthem.
You know, and and that'sprobably the message we should
(09:17):
give ourselves is one go easy onyourself.
Don't, don't beat yourself up.
This is, this is a.
This is a marathon, and there'sgoing to be times.
You know.
You get to the third mile andyou get a cramp.
And you get through that crampand you're like, okay, I'm doing
better now.
You get to the 10th mile andyou're like, okay, I'm in a good
(09:37):
cadence.
You get to the 15th mile andyou're like what in the hell did
I decide I wanted to do amarathon for Stacey and I?
One of the first scriptures thatwe leaned into in our marriage
going back almost 40 years agois Jeremiah 29, 11.
And I think for the majority ofmy early fatherhood of raising
(10:04):
my kids and trying to be in thatwalk with Christ, I fully
didn't understand what Jeremiah29, 11 meant.
And it's for I know the plans Ihave for you, declares the Lord
.
Plans to prosper you, not toharm you, plans to give you a
hope and a future.
And I can tell you that duringa diagnosis of disease you're
(10:28):
like what happened to that partabout plans not to harm you.
Why is that not playing in andplans to give you a hope in the
future?
And I believe it was probably uh, thinking back on it, there's
(10:49):
probably rick war who wrotePurpose Driven Life, who talks
about this scripture and said,when Jeremiah wrote that,
remember, he's being fed theword of God from God.
And hope in the future doesn'tnecessarily mean our time here
(11:10):
on earth.
Our hope and future is eternal.
We're going to spend trillionsof years in eternity compared to
the 80 years we spend here onearth.
There is going to be disease,there is going to be failure,
there's going to be the hardtimes, there's going to be the
great times, there's going to bethe thriving or kicking butt
(11:33):
and taking names.
But when Jeremiah is being fedthe word of God and he's sharing
it with you and I, that hope inthe future is an eternal glory
that far outweighs them all.
So I think early on I didn'tunderstand that verse.
Speaker 1 (11:49):
As I understand it today, yeah, when you were
talking about that, I wasthinking too that when you I
love the examples in scriptureand they're just all throughout
scripture of people goingthrough these crazy seasons, and
it's decades.
It's not oh, I want this fixedin the next week, right or next
(12:13):
month.
It's like decades of strugglethat took them to the place that
god wanted them to go to.
And you know there's no way,during those decades of struggle
, that they understood that it'slike maintain their faith, and
some of them did, some of themdidn't, um, but it's like
(12:35):
there's just no way that you cansee it in the, in the present
tense.
And you know it's so mucheasier to see God in the rear
view for all of us to look back.
You know, when you take somebodythrough an example of, you know
like what are name five timesthat you were in an incredibly
(12:55):
difficult situation and Godshowed up and saved you, and he
obviously did, because you'restill here, you're still
listening to this and we allhave those stories and in the
rear view they're much easier tosee.
And but just being able to finda place of knowing like he's
he's going to do it again, Likehe's going to save me again, I'm
(13:18):
not going to die, you know,when I don't know what, what's
happening or why in this, inthis weird season that you might
be in when you're listening tothis, but it's going to be
absolutely going to be.
Okay, god's got the ball.
You also have to let him havethe ball If you want to keep
wrestling the ball away.
(13:39):
It's going to be a difficultwrestling match.
Speaker 2 (13:44):
Yeah, I think we can read several examples in the Old
Testament of individuals whoreally wrestled with God, and if
there's anything that anyonewho's listening to this could
(14:04):
take from anything that you andI are sharing right now about
God, your successful businessover a 10-year period, you
really I mean there's not a lotof people in this world that can
say that they've had a businessthat lasted more than a year.
Most of them are gone within ayear.
But that entire time Christ waswith you and I know that you
(14:31):
acknowledged him in prayer.
But during the tough timeswhere things were overwhelming,
where you and I and the majorityof people that walk this earth
sometimes we forget in themiddle of the storm, christ is
there, in front of us.
He's there.
He's not behind us, he'salready in front of us.
(14:53):
He's already done all of this.
The devil took him for 40 daysto challenge and try to swipe
away.
You know the reason.
Christ came in the first placeand tempt him and say all this
could be yours and Christ wasour example of no, my God is
(15:18):
enough and I know we're going tocontinue to be tempted by the
evil one, that's that he's beendoing it for thousands of years.
He's very good at tempting usand our first knee jerk reaction
is to go to self oh, I got this, I can do it.
Speaker 1 (15:38):
Yeah Well, and you know that whole idea of trying
to control stuff so that youknow you can call that wrestling
with God and that's one of thethings that I experienced during
that 10 year run of thatparticular business, the event
business, um, in the early yearsI was constantly wrestling for
(15:59):
control and in the middle ofthat season probably five, six
years into that, um, uh, aremarkable human came along in
in the middle of all that andyou know, sometimes somebody
says something to you and itjust hits right, you know, and
like.
So here comes along a person.
(16:19):
I build a relationship withthat person.
The person says to me this isall going to go so much better
and so much bigger if you juststop trying to control it.
And for some reason it was.
It was literally god speakingto me through this human and it
just hit me in the chest of like, and and the business literally
(16:45):
took off.
In the few years that followed,because I let go, because I I
had a new level of freedom ofallowing it to happen and
allowing God to control it andnot freaking out every time
(17:06):
something bad happened and notworrying as much.
And there were reasons why.
You know, in the early years ofthe, I would worry and worry
and worry, like not going tomake this happen, this event's
going to fail and we're allgoing to die.
And over the years you learn,oh well, it's probably going to
work, you know.
And then, but that became, ohwow, okay, god's doing this.
(17:29):
And the more I let go, the moreI let him have control, the
bigger and better the businessis going to get.
And so there's these reallypractical realities be better if
(17:58):
I do these things that are inscripture, if I'm like, oh, I'm
letting him control it, oh, I'mnot going to worry, like what
the practical reality of that is?
Things start to flourish whenhe's free to move and you're not
trying to control it.
Speaker 2 (18:14):
I agree, and I wrote this recently and, as you know,
I do a lot of journaling.
I love to write and talk to God.
But if God could show me a mapof my future, I don't want to
see it.
I don't want to see it.
(18:35):
I don't want to see it.
Do you want to see yours?
Speaker 1 (18:39):
No, I think what you're getting at and I
completely agree now, I wouldn'thave agreed 10 years ago, but I
agree now.
It's just that I want to livein the mystery of today, Yep,
and I want to give him completefreedom to move.
And you know, I love that, I'vecome to love that dance and I
think that maybe that's all oflife here on earth is to learn
(19:02):
to love that dance of themystery, of not knowing.
Speaker 2 (19:06):
Yeah, Not knowing leads us to the one thing we're
certain of, and the and I didnot really mean for that to
happen just now, but certainsuccess is is what, a what a
(19:28):
great name of a business thatyou know was laid on your heart
when you, when you came up withit, and I'm humbled to be part
of it because it reallyresonates with what I want to be
for my wife, for my kids, formy seven grandkids.
And when someone walks into aroom and they meet us and they
(19:55):
get a chance to learn a littlebit about us, and then we walk
out of that room, it's like Itaught my oldest grandchild what
are they saying when you leavethe room?
What are they saying about you,the human?
Are they saying, god, I want tobe more like them or like I
don't want to be near thatperson ever again?
(20:16):
It's the mark we leave on thisworld.
It's what Christ told hisdisciples and he told them.
He says you guys are going todo more than I did.
You're going to have moremiracles than I did.
You're going to go to the endsof the earth.
You're going to do so much morethan I was able to do in my
(20:38):
time on earth and they'relooking at him like cross-eyed
and he's still saying it to us.
He's still giving us the keysto go do it.
He's just letting me be theengine.
You know you've got a beautifulFerrari, but you're not going
anywhere without me and that'swhy he's he's such a important
(21:03):
part of our walk.
And, without trying to, youknow, yank people into a
conversation with us and sayingthis is the way I think you
should go.
I want people to approach usand say listen, I love where you
(21:25):
are, help me, guide me, andthat's what's exciting about the
balance of my life is I want toget to heaven and I want to
hear him say thanks forlistening.
Speaker 1 (21:44):
Yeah, I mean, I think we, as business people, and our
friends who are listening here,as business people, and our
friends who are listening here,you know it's, it's just.
I think the message for todayis is to let let go.
You know that you, you areenough, you are everything that
(22:05):
God made you to be.
You already are it, you alreadyare doing it.
Everything that you do today isgoing to be sufficient.
And he's carrying all theweight.
If you let him, he's carryingall the weight and all you have
to do is show up and abide andlisten to that still small voice
(22:31):
.
And it really is not more thanthat.
Right everybody wants like,well, okay, I'm going to listen,
but then I have to go do, andif I don't do, it's going to
fall.
And and that's not it, it'sliterally just his voice.
You said how many times thisweek have you said he's enough,
(22:55):
he's enough.
Guys, have a great day.
Thanks for listening to thecertain success podcast and
we'll see you back here againsoon.
God bless.
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