When Faithfulness Feels Like a Party Game

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In Episode 6 of Season 3, Desireé uses a fun party game to describe what faithfulness can sometimes feel like. In this episode she unpacks how confidence, trust and relationships all relate to faithfulness. She offers biblical examples of faith in action and how even Jesus’ disciples sometimes wavered in their walk. In the end, we can imagine Jesus talking directly to us on our own walk.

 Topics include:

•  Something specific about the heart of faithfulness (3:38)
• How do we trust Jesus so we can bear faithfulness? (5:33)
• Biblical examples of faithfulness in action (5:58)

 Join Desireé as she uses her trips around the sun to throw encouragement around like confetti!

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Episode Transcript

Desireé Melfi Bozzo (00:06):
Ciao and welcome to Life Out Loud. I am
your host Desireeé Melfi Bozzo.
We are going to use this spaceto share experiences and help
you find lasting unshakableunwavering unmessable with joy
and gratitude. We're going to bethrowing around encouragement, a
little bit like confetti andgiving you support to live your
very best life.

(00:29):
Ciao Friends! Welcome to Episode6 of Season 3 of the Life Out
Loud podcast. I am a creator ofthis podcast and your host,
Desireé Melfi Bozzo. Thank youfor being here with me in this
space. I am so glad you're here.
And I hope you're pretty gladtoo! This season as you may
know, we are making our waythrough the Fruits of the Spirit

(00:50):
found in Galatians 5 in theBible, the fruits and how much
of them we are bearing are areally good barometer for our
lives. Now if you aren'tfamiliar with them, and you're
like, is this a cooking show?
I'm sorry, what fruit? Are wetalking about cooking here? No,
we are not. Head back to thefirst episode of the season.

(01:11):
Take a quick listen, get astellar foundation, and then
meet back up with us. If youhave been hanging around this
space for season 3, you knowthat Galatians 5 tells us the
fruits of the Spirit are lovejoy, peace, patience, kindness,
goodness, faithfulness,gentleness and self control,

(01:31):
which I lack when it comes toice cream. Also sushi. I
digress. Today we are nearingthe end of this list talking
about faithfulness.
Now, before we can begin to bearthe amazing fruit of
faithfulness, we have tounderstand what it is. So the
fruit of the fruit offaithfulness. Just hang with me

(01:54):
on this one. Okay. It used toremind me of that party game
where you put your hand in amystery box, but you have no
idea what's in there. You haveto feel around in the dark to
guess and sometimes it's a bowlof jello and sometimes it's
uncooked rice and sometimes it'sa hamster. Yeah, I just Yep. I
said hamster. Friends. I don'tknow about you. But I very

(02:17):
strongly dislike that gameentirely. I didn't like it when
I was five. And I didn't like itwhen I was 15. And I definitely
didn't like it at 25. My handisn't going anywhere near that
box if I don't know what's goingto meet me in there. Even if I
know what's in there, it's stillnot going near it because bait
and switch is a real thing. Youpeek in there you see a pile of

(02:38):
sugar cube start to feel okayabout it. And then bam, put your
hand in and it's a bowl ofmashed potatoes, bait and switch
every time. When I when I firstreally started diving into my
walk with Jesus faithfulness,felt a lot like that game.
Right? I told you this was goingsomewhere. It was terrifying

(02:58):
because the unknown can beterrifying. I don't know if
you're one of those peoplethat's like cool with the
unknown, but I'm not, okay. Idon't want to play that game at
a party and I definitely don'twant to play it with my life.
Over time, my understandingabout all things Jesus has grown

(03:18):
and faithfulness no longerresembles the Mystery Box party
game. But I also know that's nottrue for everyone. For some,
it's still the scary thing andyou don't entirely know what
you're going to end up with. Andso it's better to just keep your
hands safe and sound. Iunderstand. Trust me. The more I
studied faithfulness, the more Irealized something really

(03:40):
specific about it. The heart offaithfulness is trust.
Specifically trust in the truthof Scripture. In Hebrews 11:1,
it says “Now faith is thecompetence in what we hope for
and the assurance about what wedo not see.” When we are
confident about something ourminds can't be changed about it,

(04:05):
or beliefs can't be altered. Weare unwavering, unshakable and
unmessable with, right? Right!If we want to bear the fruit of
faithfulness, we have to believewe can trust Jesus. Now, here's
why I have to pause and talkabout trust for a moment.
Faithfulness can be a very hardtrait to bear because its power

(04:26):
is contingent on trust. If wedon't have trust for God, we
have a really, really hard timehaving faith in him. Some
commentary on this says – ohgosh, it's so eloquent – When we
don't trust in the Lord withknowledge and understanding that
He will provide for his beloved,our faith is what lacks. When we

(04:50):
don't believe or trust whatJesus says in his teaching, our
faith is what is deficient. Itold you, it was eloquent. It's
beautiful.
Friends, I want you to thinkabout some of the closest most
important relationships in yourlife. Relationships where you

(05:11):
have the ultimate trust in theperson. Why do you trust them?
We have this level of trust,because we know them. The more
we know them, the higher ourlevel of trust is with them. So
this brings me to Jesus. How dowe trust Jesus so we can

(05:33):
ultimately bear the fruit offaithfulness? My dear ones, we
get to know Him. How do we getto know Him? We read Scripture,
we must know the Bible. We mustknow what it says about the ways
we live this life. We must readthe stories and the history and
see the real things God did forhis people. Through this we can

(05:56):
build trust.
If we keep going and Hebrews 11We see faith in action pointing
us back to Genesis, we see faithchanging the game. Verse three
says By faith we understand thatthe universe was formed at God's
command, and it continues todescribe faith through the

(06:16):
verses that follow. By faithNoah built the ark. By faith
Abraham obeyed. By faith Saraconceived a child though she was
well past childbearing years. Byfaith Isaac blessed his sons. By
faith, Jacob blessed Josephsons. By faith Moses’ parents
hid him so that he would live.
By faith God's chosen peoplepass through the Red Sea. By
faith, the walls of Jerichotumbled down. And there are so

(06:39):
many more instances that byfaith, God's people received
God's best! From Rahab to Gideonand Samson and David and on and
on and on, throughout history.
Hebrews 12 picks up with“Therefore since we are
surrounded by such a great cloudof witnesses, let us throw off

(07:00):
everything that hinders and thesin that easily entangles. And
let us run with perseverance.
The race marked before us,fixing our eyes on Jesus, the
pioneer and perfecter of ourfaith.” It then tells us to
consider Jesus so that we willnot grow weary and lose heart.
Our dear old testament friendsonly got to see part of the

(07:20):
promise. Friends were the luckyones, we get to see the promise
fully. I look at the OldTestament stories, and I think
if they can trust in God, andthey only saw part of the story,
surely we can trust in Him whenwe get to see it fully. I look
to our Old Testament friends,and I borrow their confidence
some days, I promise you that.
The days when trusting andfaithfulness seems hard when I

(07:43):
can't see the inside of thatmystery box, but I know I have
to put my hand in anyway. Weonly need the faith of a mustard
seed. Just a moment, a moment ofcourage to take the first step
and God's got the rest.
There's another story that Ithink about when I think about

(08:05):
bearing the fruit offaithfulness in Matthew 8:23 we
find Jesus and he's getting intoa boat with the disciples and a
storm comes out of nowhere thewaves are crashing over the boat
and Jesus is like fast asleeplike sawing logs totally asleep.
The disciples are terrified theygo to wake Jesus up and verse 26
happens and it literally, likeevery time, like just gets me

(08:30):
right in the heart. Here are thedisciples they're literally
telling him like save us we'regonna drown they're like, Dude,
you have to wake up I mean, theyprobably didn't call Jesus dude
but I I might have I've probablycalled Jesus dude a time or two
but they're like, we're gonnadrown like, literally, this is
it. We're gonna go down andJesus drops the mic with his
reply and says, “You have littlefaith. Why are you so afraid?”

(08:54):
Jesus then got up and he calmedthe storm completely. He had
total and absolute control inthe middle of a storm yet how
easy it was for his disciples toforget and freak out. How many
times has this happened to us?
Our situation seems hopeless.

(09:20):
And instead of standing firm infaith, we waver and we freak out
thinking surely this thing we'regoing through is going to
capsize our life and let's behonest, sometimes terrible
things happen. And they actuallydo capsize our life, taking our
lives, flipping them upsidedown, leaving them absolutely
unrecognizable. In these reallyhard moments, I imagine our

(09:42):
Sweet Jesus taking our face inhis hands. And so lovingly
saying, “My child, you of littlefaith. Why are you so afraid?”
What did we get so afraid offriends? With Jesus in our boat,
we don't have to be afraidanymore. Our faith in Him

(10:03):
changes everything.
Friends, the amount of our faithis in direct correlation to who
God is for us and what he can doin our lives. What are we
believing about the mightinessof our God? We can grow the
fruit of faithfulness when wespend time in Scripture, knowing

(10:25):
what God says to be true. Lifeis going to come at us either
way. And if we don't know thetruth of what God says, we
aren't going to be able to trustthat he's going to do what he
said he was going to do. Knowinghis scripture and His Word and
His truth is foundational tobearing the fruit of

(10:47):
faithfulness. My sweetlisteners, life doesn't have to
be a mystery party box. We don'thave to go through this world
afraid. We have to choosefaithfulness, again and again
and again.
Friends I hope you enjoyedepisode six of season three. I
hope that you begin to feel andsee and taste the incredible

(11:11):
fruit of faithfulness in yourlife. Come back next time let's
throw more encouragement aroundlike confetti. But be careful,
if you get too close, you justmight get some on you. And
remember there is always alwaysalways something to be thankful
for. Ciao!Thank you for joining me,
Desireé Melfi Bozzo, for thisepisode of Life Out Loud. I

(11:33):
would love to hear from you.
Leave me a comment. Tell me whattopics you want to talk about
and how you take your coffee. Ifyou enjoyed what you heard, text
a friend the link share it onsocial media. Or if you're
interested in becoming asupporter, be-bop over to my
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(11:55):
keeps this podcast fueled. Untilnext time sweet listeners!