Pause and Pray: Bobbie Cox's Guide to a Christ-Centered Life

Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
At 65 years old, the Lord rebranded
me, and I'm 69 now. So it's
been four and a half years, almost five years now.
I've started a new path. So I do wanna leave the 1 message
for those in our age bracket. You're never too old. When
you let God be God and do what he has

(00:22):
equipped us to do and I will tell you something. I wasn't equipped to do
this five years ago or ten years ago. I was equipped to
do exactly what I'm doing today.

(00:44):
Can 1 really make a difference in your day? Bobbi Cox, a
biblical counselor and entrepreneur from Grapevine, Texas, champions the
profound impact of daily prayer at
01:11PM. Through her devotional book, Pause and
Pray at 01:11, Bobbie encourages us to embody the fruit of
the spirit in our everyday lives. Each day's reflection is

(01:06):
designed to foster habits that not only deepen our walk with Christ,
but also extend his hope to those around us.
Welcome to seek, go, create, Bobby.
I'm so grateful to be here. I tell you, you're starting my
year off right, Tim. Just speaking and sharing what

(01:26):
God has done through my life, through our world,
it's just an amazing opportunity. So thank you so much for that. Yeah.
We're gonna have fun. We kinda almost got rolling before we hit record, and
that's not what we need to do. We need to cover all this good stuff
so people can listen in. Bobby, my first question, I gave you a little bit
of prep on this. I'm gonna give you a choice.

(01:47):
Which would you rather answer and go ahead and answer it?
What do you do, or who are you?
It's an easy answer for me. Who I am now
is just an empty vessel for Jesus. He has blessed me
in so many ways. And, you know, Tim, when I finally got

(02:08):
out of the way and let God be God, my world changed.
And I can give you a visual for that. I used to say,
okay, Lord, you've got my life. I'm gonna fall off the cliff. And I
know you're at the bottom to catch me. And so I would
start in air, and all of a sudden, I would pull the pair parachute
cord. I say, oh, nothing's happened. I guess I need to get involved.

(02:30):
Okay. Next time. Did it again. Got 3 quarters of the way down.
When my world changed was when I jumped off the cliff
without the parachute. I knew I would be done
if he wasn't there. So my faith just went
into another, stratosphere to say, you know what? My
moments are not my moments. My moments are Jesus' moments.

(02:53):
He knows the future. He wants the best for me. So
why do I ever try to get in his way? I I love that because
what that also means is that you can sail and soar instead of just
fall all the time, which a lot of us in our human lives, even our
Christian walk, we're just falling all the time. And I'm sure
Jesus, you know, he's patient, and he doesn't mind picking

(03:15):
us up and helping us dust off and move on. But I think he would
like for us to soar a little bit more.
Absolutely. Timmy gives us so many opportunities.
We don't listen. It's a noisy world. We don't pay attention, and
I I'm speaking to the choir here. I mean, I'm 69 years old, and
it took me many, many years around the mountain hanging off the

(03:37):
end of the limbs from my fingertips. But you know what? He was always
there with me saying, hey, Bobby. I'm just right here. Just, like, get out of
the way and let me be god. So when you mentioned that earlier and I
I wanna say 1 thing real quick. When you came across our desk,
I'm from Atlanta. I'm not a huge baseball fan, but
Atlanta during their glory years, I'm sure you've heard this, they had a manager named

(03:59):
Bobby Cox, and I went, Bobby Cox? Come
on. So I hope I hope, you I don't wanna talk
baseball at all. I I have a story about that,
though. So way back when Bobby was, and I'm a big sports
fan. I'm a huge baseball and football fan. But I was in Atlanta at a
convention, and I went up to the desk at the convention to

(04:20):
make dinner reservations. So they made me dinner reservations. My
husband and I walked in, and, I mean, we had the
primo table. We had servers all around us, and they
kept saying, when is Bobby Cox gonna show up?
So I I I have a good story about it. Good. Yeah. I mean, if
they don't ask for more details, you know, I don't think there's a,

(04:43):
moral obligation there. I mean, you know, we all have
fame in our own right. We all are equal in the in the eyes of
God and also Amen. Anyway. But I I'm actually excited
to talk about all the things we have. We've got a lot of things to
talk about. First thing I wanna bring up is in the introduction, you said
you're an empty vessel now.

(05:04):
You used the word now. So and you talked
about some things over the course of your life. I'd love to back
up real quick and tell me when
your spiritual walk began. And and I don't know
if it was a young child, but when do you first have
a an understanding or an awareness that there was

(05:27):
something bigger in the world that you were part of?
Well, Tim, as you said, you're from Georgia. My mother and
grandmother were from Georgia. I was born in North
Carolina, lived in Tennessee, South Carolina, all over the South.
Live in Dallas, Texas area now, grapevine, as you mentioned, but I
still make fresh iced tea every day and I drink an entire gallon of it.

(05:48):
So, so I'm still Southern at Root. So I grew up in
a Southern Baptist home. I was in
church the first week of my birth. I was then in church every
Wednesday night, Sunday nights, just just
every time the church doors open, as well as church camp, etcetera,
etcetera. So I will say that I I

(06:10):
was not offered the lesson that Jesus is
a relationship versus rules and regulations.
And so through the course of time, the way
I describe my spiritual growth is that
I I equate it like peeling an onion. I didn't have 1
of those moments, although I did, as a teenager,

(06:33):
go to a Billy Graham conference, and I did go forward. But I
already knew the Lord, but I didn't know him
personally. I think that's what ignited my journey, but it
wasn't an overnight. For me, I mean, I was put
on around the mountain, as I said earlier, many times,
just living life as a teenager. I wasn't a bad kid, but I

(06:55):
wasn't a perfect kid either. And so
I I really have trouble realizing exactly
when that moment started because it was just a
it was kind of I think the Lord was speaking to me, but it
wasn't, allowed audible like so many different people have.
But in my older years, I do remember when

(07:18):
I I finally said, hey. As I said, I fell off the
cliff and let God be God, is
that he he was always part of my life. I would always read the
Bible. I would always pray, but it became like prayer to me,
Tim, is not is not the holier than thou, like, type
prayers that my mother used to have. They're chit chatting with Jesus all

(07:40):
day. That's prayer. And reading the Bible is just like my
cell phone to God. So it was older in life when I began
to kinda realize that, hey. I don't wanna do life without
Jesus. A lot I like some I've got, like, 3 or 4
things that are shooting around in my head right now. Let me see if I
could focus. I've always been curious

(08:01):
about the scripture where Paul says pray without ceasing,
And the way I define it is the way you just did. It's
a conversation that's going on almost twenty four seven
because it's, it's conversing really like we are right here. You know, you
and I, you know, had a short I don't even know if we call it
prayer right before we clicked record. And, you know, I was sort of

(08:23):
joking about we're gonna let the holy spirit have 1 of these frames and all
that. And I I I I think God's okay with that with me. I mean,
I've got a look. He wired me a certain way. Little bit of
sarcasm, some wit. I like to think I'm funny.
My wife tells me I'm not, but that's a whole another issue. And, I
think that is the way we are. And then I wanna go back to

(08:45):
the Baptist upbringing because I was around the Baptist upbringing
too, but I think there's a time where
many of us that grew up around what we'll call Christianity
or Christian culture, especially in first world America, that
we will say we're Christians as a
description. Mhmm. And maybe

(09:07):
we are in a household that they are Christian or
we're in a country or an area or we go to church. But there is
a time where it becomes personal. And I don't think it's always that time when
you raise your hand and you go down front at the altar. My situation was
I went down front a few times. I don't know that it
took with me, but I can recall the time that

(09:30):
I was broken down and in the difficult situation
where it became personal.
And me and the Lord, I just opened up and said, listen, Can't really do
this on my own. I need
you. Can you think of that time for you?
And if so, can you share it, or a time in your life or something

(09:53):
like that related to that?
I don't even know which 1 to choose, Tim, because I've had so many of
those moments that I just you know, I think for me,
I just I had to and I keep repeating this, I know, but I I
just kept trying to do life on my own in making things happen
and not waiting on the Lord. I can I I

(10:15):
I've been through so many experiences in sixty nine years
that literally, in my mind, were totally impossible,
and God came through, but he didn't come through when I
wanted him to come through? He came through in timing when I
was ready for him. I used this a lot. So I went
to women's conference and the Lord said, go unscripted this time. I'm

(10:37):
gonna tell you what to say. And so basically
what I learned through that was that our
lives, we're born a blank color of
thread, a neutral color, and there's a big tapestry,
that Jesus holds the big needle to. And through the
journey of our lives and many of the moments like you just described that

(11:00):
I've said, oh, this is impossible, I would maybe be the
correct color of thread Jesus was waiting for to make that stitch,
but maybe 6 other people around me that he was waiting for,
they weren't ready yet. They hadn't been around the mountain. They weren't that perfect
unique color because when we're in and out of people's lives, Tim, I
I feel like the visual he gave me was we bleed off on each other's

(11:23):
colors. So different life experiences, heartaches,
sadness, joyful times, and and times where we feel
like it's impossible, our color, weaves
into others' lives. So when he's finally ready with those 6
stitches to make that 1 stitch, the thread, then we go out
in life and we become different colors. So I think that's what life's all

(11:45):
about. And then at the end of our life, when our tapestry is complete, he
rolls us up and puts it in the hall of fame of tapestries in heaven.
I use that equation because I I it's hard for me to put
into words how my life has just
unfolded a little bit at a time to become where I am today.
And, hey, I'm not there yet. I won't be there till I hit the pearly

(12:07):
gates, but I'm receptive to it now.
Those times that seemed impossible, now
through my many years, I've learned to
don't try to get through those, just embrace what
Jesus is going to do through those to better equip
me And maybe not just me, other people around me

(12:29):
to allow us then to live the life that he has intended from
the day we came out of the womb. You know, 1
of the things as I checked on your stuff, and we're I I'm
gonna come back to the color. I I want to tell people
that are listening to this, not looking at it. They know that I'm
in my black T shirt that I always wear. If I open

(12:52):
up my small little closet here in the RV, there's about 5 or 6 black
T shirts, and that's it. I I I
appreciate color. My wife probably wishes I would add a little color. We're gonna
talk about color in just a little while because that's a big part of,
your devotional that we have here, pause and pray. And we've got the word
pause. We've got the word pray. We've got color. There there's 1 thing that kept

(13:13):
jumping up at me, Bobby, as I was just kinda, you know,
listening to you on a few podcast and and doing a little bit of research,
and that is someone who has been
widowed twice. It's a it's
very possible that they could
have some disappointment with life. They could

(13:35):
they could have some bitterness. They could have, you
know, why God, especially if you grew up in the culture you did with
God being a part of it and, you know, why God have I been through
this? And my wife and I right now are in a a 55 and older
community, which we're, we, we don't think we're old enough for that, but the
the the the they tell us we are.

(13:58):
What can you share? And it, and, and it might be to someone who
goes, gosh, you know, I've faced disappointment. I've faced challenges.
And, boy, had had I lost 1 spouse, that would be
tough. But to to go through it twice,
what can you give both either practical and or spiritual about how you
made it through that with mindset and attitude that you currently have?

(14:23):
Thank you for asking me that question. You know, I've lost my first
husband. We were, twenty years apart and married twenty five
years and had had a daughter, together that she at
that time was 15. It was very unexpected. Actually,
woke up in the bed with him, and he was not alive. And
to say that, that bitterness

(14:47):
questions and anger, those different
emotions that they that that they
come to us, I I don't feel that I had
those types of angers and bitterness
as some people do because of my walk with the Lord thus
far. Not to say I didn't have a glimpse of them, but I have

(15:10):
ministered and counseled so many people that just have that
deep question and screaming out why God.
The 1 thing that hit me and especially my daughter obviously was
still living with me at the time my first husband passed away, but my second
husband, I didn't marry again for five years. Didn't think I would ever
marry again. Didn't have any interest to marry again. And I did. And

(15:33):
within a year he was diagnosed with, with colon cancer. So we
chased treatments all over the world, which helped me become who I
am through all those journeys, 700000 miles around the world.
But when I lost him, I was alone in the house.
And I think the 1 emotion that struck me the hardest
was loneliness. Both of my husbands and I were partners in our

(15:55):
business. We woke up together. We ate breakfast together, lunch
together. We did everything together. So I was very seldom
alone. So what and this kind of,
reverts back to our chit chatting with the Lord. This is when it all came
to be with me. So the hardest thing for me was eating a
meal without someone. And so I decided to set a place for

(16:17):
Jesus. So he and I would be eating dinner together and just I would chit
chat with him just like I would my husband. And even then
driving down the car, you know, I mean, we've seldom went places,
alone or I, I, I seldom went places alone.
And so I would put my Bible in the passenger seat and I would talk
to Jesus just as visuals Today, I still carry a

(16:39):
wooden cross I got in Israel and pictures of Jesus. One
says, I got your back, or 1 says, yeah. Look what we just did, or
I'm we can you know? I do those visuals just
as a reminder that he's always by our
side. And why wouldn't we wanna engage the 1 that
made the almighty world? And like I said earlier, wants the best for

(17:01):
us and knows the future. So I will just say that
I encourage those that have experienced loss. And I
think that loneliness is something that I learned how to help
minister others. I think Jesus allows us to go through things so that we can
help administer to other people and express what he's shown us
through life experiences. Here's

(17:23):
what we know. We know that loneliness
is very common in our culture. Loneliness is
common for people that are sitting in a crowd. I
love what you just brought up because that really is a message. You
obviously had the physical loneliness, my wife, Gloria and I talked

(17:44):
about just the other day. We're, we're kind of at an age where we're talking
about what were to happen if 1 of us
weren't here, 1 of us left this earth or, you know, whatever before the
other. And, you know, is this RV lifestyle
conducive for just 1 person? And so it's kinda
causing us to discuss a few things. And, you know, we actually had this

(18:07):
discussion. It's like, you know, we're around each other almost twenty four seven in
400 square feet, Bobby. You know what I
mean? I did that as well as I told you. I know. You gotta love
somebody, and they have to love you Different world. Be like
this. She's, while I'm recording, she's up at, I don't know if
she's making jewelry or pottery or something, which she loves to do, and she's awesome

(18:29):
at it. But we've talked about that loneliness and I wanna say
this and I may let you respond to it. I'd love for us to kind
of start moving this conversation to a little bit bigger to
incorporate, you know, almost everyone that
could be listening in. And so let's take
what we just said about loneliness when you're widowed.

(18:51):
And let's talk about how we've got some things we're gonna talk about here
with your book and the fruits and gifts of the spirit and things like that,
and how we can address loneliness at a bigger picture, how it
can handle that. So, so what, any thoughts when I bring that up?
Well, first of all, I do wanna share the 1 phrase that I say so
often is I may be alone, but

(19:14):
I'm never lonely anymore because God's always with me.
And, you know, just because I've been talking to so many people talking about the
word retire, retire, retire, we're talking about in
our older years. I don't think that should be part of our
vocabulary. We don't ever retire. We may
in doing what we've been doing for a lifetime or for a period of

(19:37):
time, There's so much to do. I never have an idle moment.
I mean, I'm up till two or 03:00 in the morning with just the energies
to do life because there's so much to
do. And it's good things, and it's responding to people. It's
encouraging people. It's praying for people. It's studying the Bible.
It's studying different habits and how people have made changes in their

(19:59):
life. It's just so wonderful. And believe me, it's taken me
a lifetime to get here. But, you know, at
65 years old, the Lord rebranded
me, and I'm 69 now. So it's
been four and a half years, almost five years now.
I've started a new path. So I do wanna leave the 1 message

(20:21):
for those in our age bracket. You're never too old when
you let God be God and do what he has
equipped us to do. And I will tell you something. I wasn't equipped to do
this five years ago or ten years ago. I was equipped to do
exactly what I'm doing today. Would you
say now that you are doing exactly

(20:43):
what God created you to do?
I seek to do that every single day.
He has new challenges for me every day, which take me
on journeys that I had no anticipation, but I welcome
them. I don't try to go around the mountain. I
go through the mountain because I know who's gonna go through it with me. And

(21:05):
do you think the things you've gone through in your life were preparation
to get to where you are now? Oh, definitely. I love that word that
you just chose. I'm gonna use it preparation. It was
equipping me, as I say often, for exactly what he knew
I would be going through. Why did I experience this unpleasant
situation with someone? Because I learned from that. You know, the

(21:27):
1 thing that I I do write a lot about is
that too many people continue marinating
their past. Something that someone said on the
playground, for goodness sake, a coach said when you were
young, and they just keep marinating it over and over and
it snowballs and snowballs. And that's why we have so much rage

(21:50):
and anger because people keep living in their past. And,
I'm we're all guilty of it. I'm not saying I didn't do that as well
for a while, but you know what? Just move on because God
can't do what he has in mind in our current state If we're
still, you know, got our minds back in the past or
we're anticipating the future. Live in the moment because Jesus

(22:12):
got all kinds of things for us to do there. The reason that I'm just
kind of smiling at that, I have never been 1
to live in the past. I think we should learn. Right. Where I
have a struggle is the planning strategy looking too far
into the future and not living in the now
and today. Yes. What which the is it been 1 of

(22:35):
those that you struggle with more past or future? Oh, I struggle
with the future all the time because I'm a strategist. I'm
an organizer. I try to think, okay. What's tomorrow? And it
and I'm learning. I'm still learning, Tim. But what
kinda energies that takes up to not allow Jesus
to do in our lives what he has in tune for us to do today?

(22:57):
So I struggle with that every day. So you and I are a lot alike
in that. Yeah. And we've got a double RV here because both my wife and
I are strategist. If we look at strength finders and some of the things
we strategy is top. I'm an engineer by training from Georgia Tech
and all of that. And I I think many times
those personalities want to control the future

(23:19):
is the reason that we're strategy and planning, and
we wanna control. We don't maybe like surprises. We think we're
pretty smart that we can, but
I think it goes back to what you said earlier that you are now an
empty vessel now. You've mentioned that word
Yes. Yes. Now. So so talk about and here's here's

(23:42):
how I'm posing this as a question is I think people that have that
future mindset, sometimes it can become unhealthy because
I think it can be valuable, but it could be unhealthy because we want to
control things. And listen, if you have
Georgia roots and you have North Carolina and you've got Texas,
there is something to that southern culture that they are

(24:05):
sweet, they can smile, but they are wanting to be busy bodies and
control everything around them. So how have you released
some of that, and what can you share that might help someone who's
going through that too? You know, and you
nailed it with the word control. And, again, I'm not totally
there yet, but I've also had trouble with

(24:27):
and I think I did mention earlier that I just kept jumping in the
way. And I think that it it's difficult
to not know the future. But when we
question the future, when we have put our pathways in the Lord's
hands is we don't have faith and we don't trust
him because then we feel like, well, you might tell me to

(24:49):
do this, but maybe I don't wanna do this and maybe I wanna do it
this way. That's not what he's waiting for. He's waiting for our
spirits to say, I don't care if it's rocky roads, you know,
a solid, sheet of glass to walk through. You're
gonna protect me. You've got a reason for all this, and we're
not going I'm not going alone. You're gonna be with me and

(25:11):
carry me and get me through these experiences. So
honestly, I finally I think when I kinda hit the plateau, when
it's not governing me so much is when I realized, like,
Todd, you you make so much better choices than I do. And, you
know, you should be in control because when I'm in control, man,
it sets me back. I can't move forward because he's

(25:34):
waiting for me to get there. I'm gonna put myself on the spot. This morning,
I was listening to something, And they said, patience
is how, how we act in the
wait. You know, how do we wait? And it's
given me some reflection. I'm probably gonna write a blog on that today. How
do we wait on God? Are we impatient? Are

(25:56):
we frustrated? Are we angry? Are we like, why isn't this
happening? I used to be that way, but now it's like,
okay, I know you've got something in mind. You're trying to teach me,
teach someone else. There's, you know, I always say that the
Lord's like a big air traffic control God, and he's
got all these little planes of our lives flying around everywhere.

(26:18):
And if this 1 gets off course, or this 1 goes here, you know, until
they all come together, it it doesn't work in his
plan. So it's kind of funny to look back at how many
things I would it's not funny. It's tragic in a lot of ways that had
I given god control, I would have spared myself from
so much heartache and frustration. So, you know, it

(26:40):
now when I think about the alternative, do I wanna make this decision, or
do I wanna give it to God? I call that my default. Sometimes I have
to pause and think, okay. But that's what I do now. God
deals with me, and I'm sure he deals with all of us in different ways.
And I feel like at 1, God
said, are are you gonna let me be God or you're gonna keep trying to

(27:01):
be God? And I kinda went, let me think about
that. You know? So, Bobby, this is what
my instruction was, and I think is powerful. It's gonna lead us into a good
conversation. He told me
that I need to pause, that anytime
and this is this was my rhythm for the longest period of time. I would

(27:23):
get what I believe were divine ideas, business and companies and
things like that. And I get it. Felt as if
the Lord said, listen. And most things that you
get are from me. He said, but that doesn't mean you have the timing and
things like that. He says, I I need you to pause,
take a breath, and then let's work together. Yes. And and

(27:46):
this was the bluntness that God told me because I'm not an ATM machine. Stop
coming back to me every time you get problems. I love it. I want us
to work together in it. Tell tell us the story of
your pause. When, as I had said
earlier at 65 years old, that was
just at the pandemic. I hosted home church in

(28:07):
my home. And you know, what I say, Tim, is we drank the Kool
Aid and we said, I guess we should meet. So I was
reading second Corinthians one eleven, which says,
help us with your prayers. And I happened to glance at my
watch. It was 01:11 and the Lord spoken to my
spirit. Just send a text to your home church to

(28:29):
pause and pray at 01:11 for each other
in our country. And so I did. Organically
that just started growing to two, three hundred people. And
I was actually texting, you know, 300
more than 300 people. I'd start at 01:11, and it would take me
forty seven minutes. Cut, paste, cut, pause and pray, pause and pray, pause and pray.

(28:52):
And finally, I said, okay, Lord, I think we're being limited here. I can't continue
doing this the rest of my life. And so fortunately, I had a relationship with
some people that created apps. And so I reached out to them to
create an app so that we could have some growth. But let me tell you
something. When you hear what God's done since then, Tim,
and I'll circle back to this, but my

(29:14):
my lesson to myself and my lesson to to
share with others is listen to your moments. Because had I
not listened to that one eleven moment and thought,
I'm not gonna do that. None of this that I'm about to tell you would
have happened because God is the in control of it all.
So after a period of time, as we're starting to work on

(29:36):
the app, the lord said, choose a scripture of the day
based on the date. So say the date is
03/20, March 0 The date would be Ephesians
three twenty. So that when we see the date throughout the day on our
watch, on our our computers, our car dash, we think, let
me just pause a moment and try to engrave that

(29:58):
scripture on my heart and weave it into my conversation. We're speaking the word of
God and people don't even realize it. And then he started
what I say, putting me in a trance and writing a
message about that scripture, because Tim, I wasn't even a
good English student. I consider myself Jesus ghost writer.
He just writes through me. And so I did that

(30:20):
every single day for four and a half years. It was painstaking
to create this app with no more budget than I had to do
it. And so it took quite a while. I was a little bit of the
low on the totem pole there in in in their world, but we got
it done. And and so I have a really good friend. His
name is Joe Battaglia. And Joe is what

(30:42):
I call I told him this this weekend when I was with him. I call
him the kind of the godfather of faith based
anything. Because if you are writing a book or have a radio
station or TV, podcast, whatever you go to Joe. And so
Joe came and, and to Dallas about 4 times a year. And
I said, Hey, I'll clear my calendar and become your Uber because I knew I

(31:04):
would meet a lot of really special people. So 1 time he
came and he says, Bobby, let's just, let's just
not be busy all the time. And I just wanna learn a little bit more
about Branch to Hope, which is what the I don't know if I even mentioned
that. That was the name that that the Lord told me to to
name this this new ministry. And so he read some of

(31:25):
the of the writings for like, as I said, it was four and a half
years. He says, I'm gonna send these to Broadstreet Publishing, my publisher,
and and send me the backstory in 10 samples.
So I did. Didn't think much about it. I mean, I never even thought about
a book. I just thought I would be doing this, which was a delight in
my life to to allow Jesus to write through me. And

(31:47):
before I knew it, I had, a call from Susan
Niles, who I think connected us together, Tim. She is a
prayer warrior. We were praying together before the call was over. And
within a couple weeks, I was on the phone with Carlton, the founder
and some editors, and had a book contract in two weeks, and the
rest is history when it comes to that. But I will tell you to come

(32:10):
back on the pause word. This is kind of a funny story. So we
were just gonna call it Branch to Hope. And and I kept
talking to various people. I said, you know, there's so many devotion books out on
the shelves and in the market. What's gonna pull this off the shelf? And I
said, what do you think about Branch to Hope? And they said, you know, good
good name, but so, anyway, I'm rushing, and I'm trying to figure

(32:32):
out and talk to all these people, focus my focus groups,
and nothing was hitting. Carlton, the founder of
Broadstreet, called me 1 day. He says, Bobby, we've gotta have a title. I understand
that you're trying to change the title because they had already done part of the
cover. I said, okay. I got off the phone. My
daughter walks in, Ashley. And I said, Ashley, we've gotta

(32:53):
have a title before tomorrow. What are we gonna do? And she says, mom,
what do you say? Every time somebody walks in the door, every time you're on
a phone call, what do you say? I said, I don't know. What do I
say? She says, pause and pray. Pause and pray at 01:11.
Pause and pray. Pause and pray. And so I called Carlton. He says, I love
it. So I wanted it to be pause and pray at

(33:14):
01:11 because it all started at 01:11. But he comes back later
and had talked to some people and says, we love pause and pray, but we're
not sure about the at 01:11. And I said, well, you are the
expert, and I'm not gonna go against you, but let me tell you why
I feel that at 01:11 is important. And
I said, you know, I have people call me or contact me all the time

(33:36):
and say, you know, Bobby, I saw one eleven on a my odometer,
one eleven on a house number, and it wasn't 01:11,
but I just paused and prayed. I said, that's grooving into
people's mind that when you see the the numbers 01:11
that you just pray, because we do send out a notification every day on our
app to pause and pray at 01:11 across the time

(33:59):
zones. So I told Carlton, I said, I'm just gonna remind you
that at the end of our first call, you said, I don't see a book.
I see a series of books. I said, I think I know the series of
books. And he says, what is that? I said, well, there
are so many felt needs right now. There's anger, anxiety,
depression, loneliness. I said that my

(34:19):
prayer alarm goes off 8 times a day. It starts at
10:10, eleven eleven, twelve twelve, one one one,
two twenty two, three thirty three, four forty four, five fifty five. There's
no 666. We wouldn't use it anyway. So I
said, so what I envision is we take this core book that
you have named pause and pray and not at

(34:41):
01:11, and now I see what God had in mind because we'll
choose and align 1 of those felt needs with the time.
So at 02:22, we pray for people that are lonely. At
03:33 is people with anxiety. And we take the
basic words in these books, and we tailor the wordage
to reach people that are lonely or in depression.

(35:03):
And at that point, people will not only give them as gifts,
buy them for themselves, if they're going through, a felt need,
but that grooves into people's minds. Okay. It's
04:44. I'm gonna I'm at the grocery store, but I'm gonna pause and pray for
somebody depressed, you know, because there's so many people in my world or or
people I don't even know. So just, you

(35:26):
know, I always say, let let Jesus be in our moments. So he was
in our moments to take that, take that title, take the at
01:11 off, because now we're gonna have an at 01:11 that
has a felt need. So so that'd be the case. And
then after that, we have the app, and now we
have the color of the day challenge. So I'll and that's where all the colors

(35:48):
come in. To the color, but I'll I wanna talk about how you've layered
things in here because I do and I think Susan sent me,
a copy, which was awesome. 1 question I have, this is,
and I'll go ahead and say this just to show that I have some degree
of awareness. Is I'll
say that this could be a sexist question. Okay? And it could be it show

(36:10):
ignorance. Is your audience, is it mostly
female? Is it male and female? And the reason I bring that up is that
we had a conversation a few weeks back with with 2 men, Jimmy
and Dan, and they've written, and it's specifically a devotion for men.
I didn't see anything that said to women, but when
someone asks you that, the what's your response?

(36:33):
This book and from the responses we launched Nov.
5, not planned. It is
ageless. It has no language barrier. It has no
female male barrier. We are reaching people in homeschool
with kids that are hard to get up in the mornings, but now they've got
the color of the day challenge, which we'll talk about, And they run to their

(36:55):
closet and they say, dad, what's the color of the day and how are we
gonna live like Jesus? So I'm giving a little glimpse to that all the way
to, I have a very dear friend, Drew. He's 80 years
old. He's a very high powered financial guy. And he sends
me a picture every single day wearing the color of the day. I
actually have probably equal women as men respond on

(37:16):
things. In fact, I had somebody today, it was a couple, and they
said, we're about to close on our house today. This is right before I got
on this call with you. And they said, but because of the 01:11
message this morning that we read on the app and the
book, we need to talk to you. We need to pray. We're we're we're afraid
that we might be making the wrong decision. So, I mean, these

(37:38):
are things, Tim, that were written four years
ago that are relevant for such a time as
this today for them. It it it's just it it it blows
my mind because it's not it wasn't me. It's all God. Right.
And I was just the the 1 this morning, I wanna kinda talk about the
layout. You've you've got a great title, and let's

(38:00):
live for Jesus. Scripture whisper, which is a great
short scriptural message that has that numbering with it
also, and then a great message. But you've got this QR code
here down here at the bottom. Let me see if I could show it. You
got this QR code Yeah. Which I so it calls me to get my phone
out, and I clicked on it. Yep. Took me to YouTube, and

(38:21):
there was about a five minute or so video. And then I this is my
engineering mind. I got curious. I said, wonder if they have a
different video for every day of the
year. And you do.
So so tell me about I mean, there's a lot of stuff
going on here. Don't get to the colors yet. I wanna address the colors

(38:44):
separately in a second. But but tell me a little bit about
all of this coming together with QR codes and things
like that because that's a lot of work that somebody has to do
with videos. I've got a YouTube channel, and there's a lot going on there.
Well, and let me tell you, we don't have a team of people except for
God and my daughter and me and just a few consultants

(39:08):
because it has been a lot of work. I said, we need an interactive
call to action type devotional book that keeps people coming
back. And so the Lord said, put a QR code on each
page and align it again with the color of the day and
the message that so our message is verbal. If you click on the QR code
so today's yellow day. So you see I'm wearing yellow. I have a

(39:30):
yellow cup. I have a yellow phone
cover. All says kindness, because today is kindness. So every time I say yellow, I
think how can I be more kind? So what our QR code, it
actually reads the message. But behind the
background, it's everything yellow that you can imagine. So
it grooves into your mind to go out on your day and say,

(39:52):
okay. I'm gonna notice the color yellow today because it's
gonna remind me to be kind. Mhmm. So the scripture whip
whisper, as you mentioned, is the scripture based on the date. So
today is 01/23, and the scripture is
Proverbs 01/23. And so we work hard to find the
scripture that is it, that is weevable into your conversation

(40:14):
as best we can, because some particular days don't have a lot of
scriptures to choose from, you know? And then the message I say is
just a little mini message. And then we end with a prayer And we
just ask Jesus to help us to be kind. And so
there is a lot going on here, but what I was gonna tell you is
so when when, I had met a friend, Gene Getz,

(40:36):
he, wrote he has a bible, the essential bible, and he has
QR codes throughout it through his twenty years of different,
sermons that he put on. And so then I kinda had the inspiration
to put a QR code on to be different and call to action.
And so the Broadstreet needed I'm I'm divulging
something. I'm not sure I've told anybody publicly,

(40:59):
but they needed the QR codes, like,
a year almost before for the typesetter,
but I knew I had time to put the content in.
I did that having no clue how I was gonna do it. I was gonna
go to universities and try to get the the students to to do a, you
know, internship doing this, all these kinds of things. And I

(41:21):
will just tell you, my daughter, Ashley, is my
she's the graphic designer. She's the wisdom behind a lot
of this. She helped coordinate getting all of those done, and you
are. Thank you for noticing. I will tell her, Tim. Is that her voice? Because
it was quiet. Her voice reading them? No. It's not her voice.
But she you know, I have the ideas, and I let the Lord work through

(41:43):
me when it comes to techie stuff. Oh my goodness. If she wasn't in my
world, we wouldn't be sitting here. Well, what is the So The impressive thing was
is that you you've already mentioned your age, so I could repeat it. 69 year
old on some podcast I listened to talking about QR
codes. And I'm going, that's pretty darn impressive. And
and and I do wanna say this, everyone needs an Ashley in their life, and

(42:05):
God brings them together. My mine is called Glory, and I you know,
the graphics and all that we do with the podcast here, she
creates all that, and she's super talented. But that's the way God weaves that
tapestry that we talked about earlier. Oh, yes. It is brings yeah. I
wouldn't in fact, I I dedicated a book to her before she even really
got heavily involved, because God knew that she would be very

(42:27):
heavily involved. Yeah. I wouldn't be me without her. Yeah. I I
saw that. And I think that's the way the way the kingdom of God works
is that he he's looking to bring people together. We just have to pause and
be open, open to it. Well, I do think it flows. I mean, it's
a very, this is not a very sexy word, digestible.
It's very easy to consume. And

(42:49):
I think people need that for, for daily
type practices and habits. And I think it needs to be simple.
I mean, was there any discussion about the need for simplicity with
this? Well, actually, let me just tell you. So when
we first created the app, it was nothing like it is today. And
we had some technology issues, and we had to move to

(43:12):
another firm. When we finally got the final app, which is listen. And
I I wanna thank anybody that has endured what we went through on
the app with the glitches to get it to where it is now, but we're
all good now. You know, the complications of an
app that we had versus now the simplicity,
someone told me the other day, they said, Bobby, your

(43:34):
app is now a discipleship tool. And I said, really?
And they said, well, you know, when we bring someone to the knowledge of the
Lord and they accept Jesus in their heart, we can't walk around with
them twenty four seven and just help them and disciple them. But
what we tend to do is say, go pray, go read your
Bible and go act like a Christian. And they said, well, you

(43:57):
have a button on there already that sends a
notification back every day to pause and pray at 01:11. You have
a prayer wall, very simplistic, put your prayer requests on,
put prayer answers on so we can see what God has done. Very
easy, very simplistic. So number 1, go pray.
That's how you start praying. Number 2, read your Bible. Where do you

(44:19):
start reading your Bible? 1 scripture a day with a little mini
message that tells you about the scripture and a reminder throughout the day, when you
see the date to remember that scripture. Number 3, how do
you live like a Christian? One fruit of the spirit
at a time every day. Yeah. That and I I
think that's a great transition into,

(44:44):
we don't beat around the bush here. We say sometimes some of the tough things
here. So I wanna say this and it's gonna lead into this discussion
about the colors and the fruits of the spirit. The problem
with most Christians that people have
outside of Christendom is that they don't see
Christians acting like what we all think Christians should act like.

(45:07):
I heard something the other day. I can't recall where it was, but they said,
you know, there's actually 5 gospels. There's Matthew, Mark,
Luke, and John, and then there's you. And
the problem Yeah. The reason that Christianity is
maligned is because they know someone who calls himself a Christian, and they don't
act like it. So many times, people will take a

(45:28):
devotion, and they will read it, and they'll sit quietly, and
they'll pray, and all of that is good. But then they'll walk out the
door, and they'll give somebody the finger when they're going down in the
traffic. And so you have been able to layer
in this tool, I'll call it. That may not be the greatest
word so that people can take what they're doing

(45:50):
and apply it to their life. And and you've been skirting it, and I know
you've been wanting to talk about it. So now let's talk about what
I think is the most powerful here is that you're equipping people to
actually live like Christians.
Well, that's a beautiful thing. Thank you for saying that. I appreciate that,
Tim. I will tell you it began to over two

(46:12):
decades ago. I was at the University of Ohio speaking
at a conference. It was a weekend event. And
I remember that morning in the hotel room before I was going to speak at
the luncheon, align a color of the day with 1 of the 9
fruits of the spirit found in Galatians five twenty two and twenty three. So for
those that don't know, and we also have a button on our app that tells

(46:34):
you the fruit of the spirit. It's love, joy, peace,
patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self control.
I heard a sermon this morning and I know this without
love, you can't do any of them. That's right. So they are bookmarked in
order for a reason because without love, you can't do them. But if
you don't have self control at the end, none of it works either.

(46:57):
So God had a great design in that. But these are the characters that
Jesus lived while he was on earth. And it's characters I I
had somebody the other day said, even an agnostic would love
people to live more gently and tenderly and and kind.
And before long, you know, if they would weave this fruit of the spirit color
of the day challenge out, they'd be living more like Jesus and say they don't

(47:20):
even believe in Jesus. The Lord gave me that message during that
conference, and I watched some of these, you know, executive guys come
up to me and say, okay. I need to live a little bit more faithful,
so I'm gonna look for purple today. You know? So it was already
tracking with people. I did not know what to do with it, Tim,
for twenty years or more. I would call some artists

(47:42):
and say, let's make a coffee table book or do this and that.
But until the one eleven moment happened, and it
didn't happen at that very moment, but it started
weaving into the whole idea of here's your
platform that I have been waiting to create
all these years of your life. Finally, we're getting here for you to be

(48:05):
able to introduce how easily it is
to, to weave the fruit of the spirit into our lifestyle.
So as I said, today's yellow day, which is kindness day.
So every time I'm out and I see the color yellow, I think, how can
I be more kind? I reflect on ways that I wasn't. I reflect on
things that I said that I I should look down at my at my

(48:28):
bracelet and remind myself to be more kind. And
I say, this is so easy to incorporate into our
lifestyle during the idle moments of our days when we're waiting at a red
light, standing in line at grocery store or elevator. I mean, we don't really
have time to engage in too much. We can look around at
colors and think, hey. I'm gonna I'm gonna be more kind today when I

(48:51):
when I answer what I'm about to do in this next meeting.
So what we've done is we've aligned with a a bracelet
of the day. So we have 9 bracelets. We have packages on our on our
app, and we also have a QR code on the back of
the bracelets. Let me tell you what that's about. So I've
noticed that people will come up and say, okay. You've got a yellow

(49:13):
bracelet on today. Yesterday, you had on a green 1, and last week,
you had on an orange 1. What is this all about? And
what this does is tell them about the fruit of the spirit,
but it also tells us it takes twenty one days to make a
habit. 21 times 9 fruit of the spirit is one hundred and eighty
nine days. If we would start just using the idle

(49:36):
moments of our days to weave these characters of Jesus
into our lifestyle, the world would be a different place in six
months. I'm finding that, you know, there's revivals
going on on college campuses all around, but they can't Bible
thump, but they can wear the bracelets. And just like you
beautifully said, they can be living the character of Jesus and

(49:57):
people come up and say, okay. I know you're going through a difficult experience,
but how are you being so joyful and so
kind? And they'll just say, QR code, you know,
listen to the three minute video, and that'll tell you how. So it's a
great, great witnessing tool without, as I say, you
know, hammer it over the head, which is is not receptive to people.

(50:19):
So and then and so we have different things on our app. We've got
clothing. We've got cups. We've got phone covers. We've got dog bibs.
We've got dog bowls. We've got all kinds of things. For
somebody that that wants to really get involved, give gifts. What
we do is we have gift bags with the color of the day. And so
what we do is we look at the birth date of the of the person

(50:41):
that we're gonna give the gift to and just say it's blue, okay, which stands
for joy. So we have a bag that has a blue Branch to Hope logo
on it. We have a cup. We have mugs. We have all kinds of things.
So give them a bag of what their birthday represents. Do you is
is black in the color scheme at all? That's all I have, Bobby. It is
not. And so your wife and I are gonna have to talk about it. It's

(51:01):
gonna be hard for me to participate here. All I wear is black, which is
boring. I'd love to Well, you can wear the You can wear the
black. How about a person? Here. So so hey. Hey,
Bobby. You know, we we used this is
tying together so beautifully. The holy spirit is involved here. We used the
word preparation earlier, and you mentioned that the lord gave you this years

(51:23):
ago. And then, in in a quiet time that I
had, I was reflecting on some things that were from the
past and all the things I've experienced in all over life. And
I felt as if the Lord told me that
nothing that I've been through will be wasted
for his kingdom in the future. It sounds like that's what's

(51:45):
going on with you right now. Is that accurate?
I can say that is it's amazing.
Yes. It is amazing. And let me just tell you what
else is in store just so you'll see how accurate that
is. So I have been introduced to someone
that has a beautiful business bible produced, and I

(52:08):
met him the other day. He says, Bobby, tell me all about you. Of course,
all I do is talk about the colors of the day. And he says, you
know that you're gonna have a Bible that's gonna sell more than my
Bible branch to hope will. I said, what do you mean? He says,
don't you see it? Every scripture that says love will be
in red. Every scripture that says joy will be in blue.

(52:29):
Every scripture that says green will be, that says peace will be
green and patience, pink, etcetera. And he says,
this will be an easy reference for people to come and have a, a
devotional Bible and really enrich their lives
each morning when they have their quiet time to read the
color of the day and, and include that more

(52:52):
through scripture. So that is in the makings. We're also making
coloring books, fruit of the spirit coloring books for children and children's books and a
children's Bible. We will profess that in the state of Texas,
we just passed a bluebonnet law that says bring God back into
the schools and Bibles back into the school and teach the golden
rule. So we're working to get our bracelets in, and hopefully, we'll have a color

(53:14):
of the day Bible to to be able to introduce to them. The reason this
is so cool, my wife and I have discussed this often. We
are instructed in the scriptures to judge not, and we're not
supposed to judge. However, we
can look at people and
gauge them. Maybe not judge them by those,

(53:36):
fruits of the spirit. We can kinda see. And and, you know, there's scripture that
says, that's how you know someone's a Christian. That's how you know they're a Christ
follower, by the way they're doing that. So you are
helping people apply that. And that is incredible.
Bobby, one of the things we do here at SeekGo Create is we talk about
success and when it originated years ago, it was when I was going through a

(53:58):
time where I was trying to define how success what
it meant for me and what it meant in our culture and our
society that so many things gauge success
at at where you're at right now in your life.
How do you measure success? What does success mean for
you? Oh, success has

(54:21):
been redefined for me. I looked at success much, much
differently. I I grew up in my business world and product
development. I I operated in a man's world pretty predominantly
back in the days, different than today. And I really had to prove myself.
And so, you know, there were a lot of things that success meant to
me, but today success

(54:43):
is watching God's plan unfold in my life.
Every day is successful when God's plan unfolds. And
I see that he takes the moments that I give him
and turns them into a tapestry. Yeah. That is so good, Bobby. There's so
many things we could discuss, but why don't you tell people where they could find,
pause and pray, the app, everything. Go ahead and give

(55:06):
all the info. We'll include it. I showed this. I'm actually showing it for
those that are on the video right now. We will include it down in the
notes, but give all the coordinates for someone who might just be listening right
now. Well, you can, of course, buy
everywhere books are sold, Amazon, everywhere. And if you do buy on
Amazon, please give us a review. That just gets our word out. We have

(55:28):
Branch to Hope YouTube channel. We have an a website,
branchtohope.app. You can reach us at
hello at branch to hope, and we would
just appreciate prayers, appreciate awareness,
appreciate you posting on our app. We're branch to hope on the App
Store or the Android store. Support us just by sharing the

(55:49):
awareness because our prayer is that we ignite a
wave across America. We are going on a campaign to
get these bracelets onto arms and college campuses,
homeschools, retirement centers. I mean, it, as I
said, it reaches everyone. Everyone wants people to live more
loving, joyful, gently, peaceful, patient,

(56:13):
all the fruits of the spirit. And we can achieve that if we just
make a difference in our life. It will be amazing the atmosphere
around us and the people that we will influence to change as well. Yeah. Those
fruits. If people would just apply some of that, the world, like
you said, would change. Bobby, we are seek. Yes.
Seek, go, create. With your background, I'm sure you could guess the origin of

(56:36):
all 3 of those words. But, it'll allow you to choose 1 of
those that just means more, resonates more with you, either after this conversation or
just in general. Seek, go, or create. Which 1 do you choose
and why? I just
seek to never miss an opportunity in any of the
moments of my life. That's all I do now because I know it's

(56:58):
gonna be wonderful in some way. It may be a difficult journey,
but you know what? I'm not alone in it. Every night I put my head
on my pillow. I just I just like to reflect on what God did
and and that I didn't miss a moment or an opportunity for him to
fulfill something in my life that makes it worth worthwhile.
And guess what? It is now 01:11 in

(57:20):
Dallas, Texas. So we're gonna pause and pray that
God will reach people through this beautiful, wonderful
opportunity you've given me to allow people to change their
habits. New habits create change. I pray to the Lord that
everyone will jump on this challenge with us and make people
aware. And so it just takes 1 moment to change

(57:42):
things, and that was proven in the one eleven moment I
had. Everybody has moments that they can make a difference. That is so good. How
timely that we were I don't even think I considered that we would have that.
I'm an hour behind you, but I'm with you. I'm in agreement with
that. Bobby Copps, thank you for all that you're doing. Thank you for your
energy, your passion. Thank you for being obedient to what

(58:03):
God is doing. And I'm just thankful that the Lord has prepared
you for this time, for this moment in so many different
ways, I highly encourage people. I'm holding it up again for those on
YouTube, you to get pause and pray, probably
something you're going to want to pick up and get gifts for others because
it's really nice. Broadstreet does such a good job with their covers and

(58:26):
feels good. It's a good size too, compact. So excellent.
Check down in the notes and get all that information to connect with
her. We are seek go create here. We've got new episodes
every Monday on YouTube and also on all the podcast
platforms. And we are looking to help just get messages out
like you heard from Bobby today. Until next

(58:47):
time, continue being all that you were created
to be.

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Pause and Pray: Bobbie Cox's Guide to a Christ-Centered Life