SPEAKER_00: 0:16

Welcome and thanks for joining us on the Blue Chair Podcast, brought to you by Fresh Wind Church. Each month, we discuss the latest sermons from the perspective of the Blue Chairs.

SPEAKER_02: 0:27

Welcome to the Blue Chair Podcast. This is Alison Persinger, and I have with me today Erica Magyar.

SPEAKER_01: 0:33

Hey guys, it's Erica Maggiar, and we're the host today of Blue Chair Podcast. We're here with our guests, Charles Maggiar and Jared Persinger. Woo! Our hubbies are on here today. Valentine's Day. Happy Valentine's Day.

SPEAKER_05: 0:49

Thanks for having us.

SPEAKER_01: 0:50

Of course. Anytime.

SPEAKER_05: 0:51

I feel like a good idea with the Blue Chair Podcast is just kind of win haywire with that one. I'm not gonna lie. Yeah. We said, hey, it's Valentine's Day. Let's have our wives on and like, I don't know, do the Blue Chair podcast with them and and because this is gonna be released on Valentine's Day. And they took it over and now we're the guests.

SPEAKER_02: 1:08

Yep.

SPEAKER_06: 1:08

Yep.

SPEAKER_02: 1:09

We're so glad you guys are here today. Yeah, we are.

SPEAKER_05: 1:11

It's an honor, honestly.

SPEAKER_01: 1:12

And honestly, this is gonna be great for your guys' numbers. I'm really, really excited for you guys.

SPEAKER_06: 1:17

We are too.

SPEAKER_05: 1:18

Yeah. Frankly.

SPEAKER_01: 1:18

Thank you.

SPEAKER_06: 1:19

Yeah, something's gotta get our rating up.

SPEAKER_01: 1:21

Yeah. Allison and Erica are gonna do it for you.

SPEAKER_05: 1:23

We've got a few faithful listeners. We do. Yeah, there's a few. There's a few. Um, but my wife asked me a few times, what's it what do you how do you start it again? And I so I don't think she's one of the faithful listeners.

SPEAKER_06: 1:38

Uh okay. That's fair. That's fair. And it hurts.

SPEAKER_02: 1:41

I get to hear all your good ideas outside of the podcast.

SPEAKER_05: 1:44

So nice save.

SPEAKER_01: 1:46

We usually have kids screaming in the background while we're listening to your podcast. So sometimes we miss things.

SPEAKER_05: 1:51

Well, that's fair. That's fair. Thanks. But all right, guys, this week we are going to cover the first half of the Marvel series, all of them in January, um, where we talked about faith, faithful obedience, righteousness, and compassion. Um, this Marvel series is uh kind of awesome. I'm feeling it. What do you guys think?

SPEAKER_06: 2:12

No, I liked it. I think uh everything in here is powerful in its own way.

SPEAKER_02: 2:18

It is. Ryan and Tim have been doing a really great job. Yeah. I'm excited to see what the rest of it me too has to come. That's great.

SPEAKER_05: 2:25

Yeah. This concept of God seeing, it is going to be hard to keep a straight face with you guys. I'm not gonna lie. This concept of God looking at people and marveling is is wild to me because he's the creator of the universe. Like, we could never do as good as he does, right? Like you see someone playing sports or whatever, and you see it's like Tom Brady watching a quarterback and being like, wow, he's pretty good. Like that's a big thing to get that compliment from somebody who's, I mean, I'm broke the Patriots, and now I'm sad, I'm not gonna lie. No one just hurt. But someone so good giving you a compliment means so much. And so in scripture, when we see God marveling after or marveling at people doing stuff well, that's awesome. We all hope to have that. But let's jump into it. Erica, you're on the hot seat. You were giving me some good stuff. Oh what's the first thing that stuck out to you from the whole month? Pick anything.

SPEAKER_01: 3:27

Yeah, so um actually week one was really good when we uh talked about Matthew 8. Ryan did an amazing job. Um, but one thing that really stuck out to me was um sometimes it's one thing to have faith when the sea is calm and things are going well. Um, but there's also, you know, there's that's another thing when the waves are crashing into the boat. So you still have you know, it's good. Thank you. Um so like, you know, things obviously pile on, waves crash in the boat, bills, health issues, family stress. Um, but and it's you know, it's also good to know that the disciples who were literally on the boat with Jesus got scared, so it makes me feel less alone about my own doubts.

SPEAKER_05: 4:14

Yeah, we we tend to think in like the moments of anxiety or the moments of um fear or the moments of big emotion.

SPEAKER_01: 4:22

Like right now, yeah. Talking into this microphone, sweating.

SPEAKER_05: 4:26

You're doing great. Things I threw it over to you with absolutely no warning, and you just carried it away. So keep it up. Um, but we feel like it's we're the first ones to feel this. We feel like our emotions are exponentially worse because they're our emotion, um, our emotions. But the disciples literally saw Jesus do miracles and they were like, Well, these waves are awfully big, and they're faith wavered. And so not to look at that and be like, oh, it's okay with your faith waivers. It's we don't want that to happen, obviously, but there is a there's an amount of reassurance in that that there is they were human and they were really cool and they did great things. I'm human, I could be really cool and do great things.

SPEAKER_06: 5:13

Yeah, no, and I like that, and I like that whole section and in week one.

SPEAKER_05: 5:17

Of course, she liked it because you're her you're her husband. You have to.

SPEAKER_06: 5:20

Well, the whole that whole section is like on the the centurion, right? That being outside of the faith had more faith in Christ than his own disciples had. So, you know, one of the points on here was um like me personally or anybody stop looking at God like a spiritual vending machine in the sense of when I go to God, I should be um how did I word it? Uh it's like the God, if you do this, I'll do that kind of thing. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 5:52

So make a deal.

SPEAKER_06: 5:54

We should be putting the trust in him without needing proof in proximity, and in the sense of even in those moments of silence, we should still be having faith that he's going to pull through, he's gonna make things happen, instead of just going to him and saying, Hey, I'm not seeing anything, I'll do this, but only if you accomplish this. No. Um, and you see with the centurion, like he didn't have that mindset. He all you have to do is say the word. You don't even have to come to my home, you can just say it. So it's I don't know, I that is such a powerful one for me.

SPEAKER_05: 6:27

Yeah. Oh, go for it.

SPEAKER_01: 6:30

I was just gonna say it's uh like reassuring and makes me a little more comfortable to know that um, you know, like like the disciples on the boat, you know, you can have faith in Jesus, you love Jesus, but you can still be terrified of the wind and waves. But knowing that Jesus is there, it's it's just a good feeling to know that you can pray.

SPEAKER_05: 6:48

And yeah, scary things are still scary, right? Like it's it doesn't make like having faith in Jesus isn't like the end all be all, you're never gonna feel any of this stuff. All this emotions are still there because at some level we're human and we have those emotions to help keep us safe, right? But it is can we capture those emotions? Can we um can we can we control our emotions when it is needed?

SPEAKER_01: 7:19

Um and also transfer like control to Jesus too. Oh, good. Yeah, good. Thanks. I have that written down.

SPEAKER_05: 7:28

Look at you. Have I ever told you my crazy fate story?

SPEAKER_02: 7:33

No, please. So well, that's just this is something that I have struggled with for a long time.

SPEAKER_05: 7:39

Well, no, I don't think it was, and I'll explain why. Yeah, since after you you'll it'll make sense in a second. So I left a job with zero planning whatsoever.

SPEAKER_02: 7:49

I was a stay-at-home mom at the time.

SPEAKER_05: 7:51

Yes. So we went from making good, like not great money, but enough money to get by, being able to pay our bills and whatnot, to having no income.

SPEAKER_01: 8:00

Zero. Yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_05: 8:03

And it was, I had I was working at the church already, I was deciding what I was gonna do, and I go to Alice and I said, Alice, I know what's gonna happen. If I get, I think it was like 25 people, 25, maybe it was 30. Do the math again, I don't know, to give me 20 bucks a week, support raising a salary, I could work at the church full time. I love how Erica instantly laughed at. She's like, You're an idiot.

SPEAKER_01: 8:28

And I'm like, Oh, it's a great idea.

SPEAKER_05: 8:29

If God wants me to be a pastor, if God wants me to do this, like I can do it. I trust him, it's great. Now, Allison, the wisdom, was like, Jared, no, this is not the plan. We've got two young kids. Um, go find a job.

SPEAKER_01: 8:43

Allison is so smart, she is, she's just so smart. She said, Go find a job.

SPEAKER_05: 8:48

Pretty much. She said, I'm taking care of the kids, dibs, you go work.

SPEAKER_01: 8:54

She's so good at that, too.

SPEAKER_05: 8:55

She is.

SPEAKER_01: 8:56

Thank you.

SPEAKER_05: 8:57

But Allison, what you started to say was that like you've struggled with it because you don't have faith. Or like you don't have that type of.

SPEAKER_02: 9:05

It's just really tough for me to not think through the logical, like now, that's not wrong.

SPEAKER_05: 9:12

Faith isn't necessarily doing something dumb and then saying, Jesus is gonna help me through it, which I feel like I was on the border of. Um, I'm not gonna admit that I did something dumb, but like it was borderline.

SPEAKER_03: 9:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05: 9:25

Um you did what we all wish we could. I know, and then it doesn't high five for that. I mean, yeah, but like so.

SPEAKER_01: 9:31

How's it going for you though? Like you're still not working, right?

SPEAKER_05: 9:33

Yeah, no, it's been four years and still just unemployed. Unemployed change, sitting around and all that.

SPEAKER_01: 9:39

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_05: 9:41

But the there is wisdom in planning, so don't mistake faith for your foolishness. Like, you can have faith that God is going to get you the job and God is going to um provide for you in the way that He you want, so you can do the career that you want, maybe. However, Moses wanted for 40 years. It took Noah a long time to build the Ark. Yeah, absolutely. All these things happened, and that ties into one of Ryan's points of there needs to be, I think it was in week two, he brought it up. Um God before he worked for God. Doing doing the legwork, doing like getting never mind, that didn't work, that didn't work together quite as I was thinking it was when I initially thought of it. But doing the legwork for God and preparing for the situation where you're gonna trust God with your salary or you trust God in an area of your life, but doing that with wisdom and being prepared. Do you need to be perfectly prepared, have everything, have a trillion dollars set aside so you before you take the leap? No. But do you need to do it with wisdom and discernment and guidance? Yes.

SPEAKER_06: 10:52

Yeah, and I think that goes back to like previous um podcasts we've done with like stewardship. So, like we should be stewarding what we have for those kinds of moments. Like, we should have that fallback in order to be able to progress on to something else or for sure.

SPEAKER_01: 11:09

Yeah, Noah didn't see the rain before he started building. He he started building um with faith. And I think you were kind of going along with what Ryan said that night or that day, that morning when he um whatever time of day it was.

SPEAKER_05: 11:25

What was my point? Because I lost it when mid-sentence.

SPEAKER_01: 11:28

Um, he said faith will look foolish before it looks obedient.

SPEAKER_05: 11:35

Yeah. So, yeah, exactly. Like you can stockpile some money aside and not go buy the nice car, not do the big thing, and not do all of the things that you want to do, maybe miss out on vacation or two because you're setting money aside to take a year off just pursue that career you want, or something like that. But making a leap with absolutely no preparation can easily be mistaken as faith, but it's not necessarily faith. And so there is when we discuss faith and when we discuss what we should do and um the idea of like taking this leap for God, we need to be sure that this is one from the Lord, right? Test the Spirit, make sure that what you're feeling like you should do isn't from a place of this is just something I really, really want, right? It needs to be from hey, God's telling me to do this. Talk to people, seek guidance, seek some discernment from other people, bring people in on the fold. That's why it gives us a lovely wife. Because I'm a smart dude. Allison's far more practical than me.

SPEAKER_01: 12:34

And she said, get a job.

SPEAKER_05: 12:36

You bum. And I did.

SPEAKER_01: 12:40

Yes, praise God for Allison.

SPEAKER_05: 12:44

But I'm gonna switch off this without making me look like a fool. I loved it in week two when Ryan said, Noah walked with God before he worked with God. Worked for God.

SPEAKER_01: 12:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05: 12:57

He's also said in the past, our level of knowledge of the Bible is higher than our level of obedience.

SPEAKER_06: 13:03

Yeah, I mean, I can see that.

SPEAKER_05: 13:04

So we know all these great things about scripture. We know all the rules, we know all this stuff, just like the Pharisees and the Sadducees did, they knew everything, right? But we just don't listen to them.

SPEAKER_06: 13:16

Yeah, and that's something that I think about even with going to school right now, is it's like I can pile on knowledge upon knowledge upon knowledge, but what does that knowledge get me if I'm if I can't walk it out? Like I I can learn as much as you know the college shoves down my throat, but ultimately if I'm not reflecting that in my life and I'm not you know reflecting it to everyone around me, ultimately that knowledge is pointless.

SPEAKER_01: 13:40

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_05: 13:40

So I'm gonna soundbite that and make it Charles just always say knowledge is pointless.

SPEAKER_01: 13:46

It's pointless if you don't use it. So yeah, right.

SPEAKER_06: 13:52

You got anything, Allison? Put you on the hot spot now.

SPEAKER_02: 13:55

I don't like that. I'm I I realize that you you can't pick up the nodding along on the podcast. But I am nodding and listening. That's okay.

SPEAKER_06: 14:05

I do a lot of nodding too. I mean, if not, I have another point. I mean, I was just putting it out there for you.

SPEAKER_02: 14:13

I yeah. I'll take it. Okay. You go ahead.

SPEAKER_06: 14:16

So there was one and it was in week one, and then it actually for me it also ties in in week three, but in week one there was uh where is it? Do I trust Jesus' authority over my relationships, finances, health, and future, or do I only trust what I um what I can manage? Um, and then in week three, there was a point in terms of what part of my life is out of alignment. And I actually put those two together because I think as I go to school, even for for all this stuff, I I wonder if my life is out of alignment in the sense of in what hierarchical scale do I put my relationships in terms of like, am I truly making God first? Um your wife second. And like where it all falls in the sense of like, I feel it's hard to explain, but I was sitting there thinking about it today, and it's one of those things where it's not like a bad thing in my life, but I it's more so I'm trying to prioritize them correctly in order to be able to honor God and my family, but I feel like if I'm not prioritizing God in the right way, I can't correctly honor my family. Yeah, so it's yeah, it's kind of hard to word it, but it's no, I've been I know what you mean.

SPEAKER_02: 15:37

I've been thinking about like where my priorities are at a lot lately, too, because like I've struggled with like my job and all that stuff, and I've been spending a lot of like energy into like disliking my job or going either way, and that's not where my priority needs to be. God needs to be my priority, then my family and so on, you know. Right.

SPEAKER_06: 15:56

But I think the reason I'm struggling with it is we've talked in the past, like my job right now, the schedule's crazy. I've been actively looking to try and get out of the job, but it's it's kind of like a catch 22 because my job makes it easier for school because I have a week off every month and I can focus on schoolwork during that week off. But at the same time, like it tears me down mentally and everything else, it pulls me away from the church two weekends out of the month. So ultimately, I don't feel like I can prioritize and serve God in the appropriate manner that I should in that job. Um, and then I'm so exhausted when it comes time to do it that I am I even in the right heart posture when I'm doing it.

SPEAKER_02: 16:36

Right.

SPEAKER_06: 16:38

So, like those two together, like it's this has been the hardest thing for me over the past couple years, and I'm still struggling with it so bad right now.

SPEAKER_05: 16:45

So that's a balancing act that everyone does, right? So, like you work full time, crazy schedule, swing shift, things like that. Allison works um part-time and doesn't have swing shift, relatively steady schedule. It doesn't matter what our schedule looks like, we're gonna struggle with making sure that God's always a priority because life is life. There's so many influences on us all the time that they're gonna be pulling for our attention constantly. Like we took we talk about it with the youth group that when we have youth group, like we want to make it fun and engaging and entertaining because on a Monday night they could go anywhere else, but for some reason we have to convince them to come back here. And as a teenager, that reason isn't always going to be like, I want to hear Jared preach. Like, that's not gonna be it most of the time. They want to go there, they they might come for the friends, and then while they're there, we have that opportunity to discuss the gospel with so what we struggle with as people is just being able to quiet the noise around us. One of the best things I heard when it comes to making sure we're spending time with God and making sure we're studying scripture, um is that I think it was Darlene, she said like a verse a day. Have a verse and then chew on that verse, right? We always think we need to have like some big long um devo and have a nice big paragraph explaining it and all this stuff. Let the Holy Spirit be the devo. Yeah, have a have a verse and chew on it for a day. And chew on that verse, and then move on to a different one, move on to the next one, go to a different book, however it looks at different times. We're gonna have different amounts of time available to sit there and study scripture, but it doesn't mean we stop, right? And so I think it's important to have that tension because that tension means hey, I'm trying, right? If we just I think Tim made a joke on uh his podcast a couple days a couple weeks ago where he said that he doesn't struggle with sin, he just jumps right into it. There's no struggle with it at all. It's the funniest thing I've heard in a long time.

SPEAKER_06: 19:09

Well, I think like with what my point was, is like it has to do with my alignment in terms of if things are being prioritized correctly, because I feel like if my if I'm not prioritizing God in the correct way, ultimately, like it it's you know the old saying how Charles' about to quit his job too. Everything rolls downhill, right?

SPEAKER_05: 19:31

Get ready to tell him, tell him not to be a bum, get a new job.

SPEAKER_01: 19:34

Allison, I'm gonna need your pointers, please.

SPEAKER_06: 19:36

Like my thing is, is everything rolls downhill. So if I'm not prioritizing God right, is that ultimately negatively affecting all my other relationships?

SPEAKER_05: 19:45

100%.

SPEAKER_06: 19:46

You know, we've talked about like how does the phrase go? Like, you gotta fix your vertical relationship before you can do your horizontal or the other way around, horizontal before vertical. I can't remember. But my thing is is there were lines involved and directly. Yeah, there's lines, whether up, down, left, right, it doesn't matter. Um but my thing is is I don't I don't feel like I can make my relationships here right until I can prioritize God right. It's I don't know, it's that catch 22.

SPEAKER_05: 20:20

We are I go back to we're always gonna have that attention. We're I and I it's not a cop out and it's not a like a release from that. Like genuinely we could almost always prioritize God better and we could almost always have better relationships with people because we are broken, because we are people who sin, because we have when we have five minutes and we can jot down a note we had about the verse we read for the day, we'd rather scroll through TikTok or do something. Right? There's a because there's always something pulling our attention, we can always do better. And like very few people I've seen you seen dive in and study scripture like you have in this last year or so, where you you started going to school, you started doing these things, and that's all good stuff. But at the same time, you are right. It is like, how do I manage that? How do I do that? And there's really not a great answer sometimes. And sometimes there's obvious ones like, hey, how do you have a better relationship with God? You stop doing this, and then it'll draw you closer, right? Like you're doing this thing that's separating you from God, eliminate that. But when you feel like you're doing all the things you should be, but there's not enough time in the day because of a job, because of a schedule, because of something, it gets really difficult.

SPEAKER_06: 21:38

All right. Um Did you have another point? Or Alison, you got something.

SPEAKER_02: 21:44

No, you made a lot of really good points though, babe. Thanks. I like the priorities thing that like that word has just been like in my head a lot lately too. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05: 21:55

So jump into week four with compassion. Right? I'm not gonna recap the whole thing, listen to it online. But one thing Tim says that makes me that I just loved was that compassion flows from understanding grace. Which is in some ways controversial, right? If you don't understand God's grace, compassion is different. Right? From a worldly perspective, compassion is caring for people, but there's always like a catch. There's always this caveat that they have to be innocent and deserve it, right? But when you understand the grace of God, you can look at somebody who is doing something dumb, destroying their life, choosing sin, and then maybe even choosing sin and doing something hurtful to somebody.

SPEAKER_01: 22:46

On purpose.

SPEAKER_05: 22:47

But you can see that you can have compassion for that person because you can you understand what they're missing out on. Right? Like if you are causing people pain, more often than not, you were caused pain. And so you have this like, oh don't do that. But people are like, man, I'm I'm I'm so sorry you went through that. And Tim goes on or before this, at this point, he talks about how it's like a gut feeling. Like it's it's just like it wrenches you. And he he in reading through his notes, he like builds this tension of it's almost reactive. Like you can't help it but have this compassion. And I don't know about y'all, but I remember the first time I felt that towards somebody who didn't deserve it. The compassion, unwarranted compassion, like it literally clocked me, and I was like, I don't want to feel bad for this person. Like they're no good, they had it coming, right? Like, play stupid games, get stupid prizes. But at the same time, it's like, dude, that's us.

SPEAKER_06: 23:52

Yeah, it's almost like the idea of you know, I've tried talking to Charlie about it with school, is like having compassion not just for the one being bullied, but for the bully himself, because you don't know what he's going through at home, you don't know what kind of troubles he has in his life that ultimately is leading him to the choices he's making. So it is it is hard to have compassion on both the afflicted and the afflictor. So it's I don't know, that is a tough one to treat.

SPEAKER_01: 24:18

And it's difficult to teach your children that too. Um, but it is definitely an important thing. And um, like you said, just kind of having that conversation with Charlie. Um, you know, the bully, you know, that you know, he may have done this, but this is probably what's going on at home. Like let's kind of put it, let's put it, let's put ourselves in their shoes for a minute. Let's get in there their perspective. Like, why do we think we he did this? What can we do to help him from doing this next time? How can we show compassion over him? And I think it's important for our kids to see us doing that too.

SPEAKER_06: 24:49

Right, right, right.

SPEAKER_01: 24:50

Right, yep.

SPEAKER_06: 24:54

I do have uh do you have one that you want to talk about before I bring up another one? Um so courteous.

SPEAKER_01: 25:01

Go ahead, babe.

SPEAKER_06: 25:02

I had one from week three. Uh one of the points that I had was God works in silent seasons. And honestly, all this reading that I've been doing in preparation for class on Monday, you know, if anyone's coming, um, is like the meditation stuff. So when I think about silence, I don't think about it in such a negative view anymore. I think in my early Christian walk, I saw silence as like God's ignoring me kind of thing. Um, but as I've read more on meditation and even a book I'm reading personally, my idea on the silence part has totally changed. Because you look, you know, you had the 400 years of silence, you had no miracles, no prophetic voices. Um and if I was alive during that time, I would be like, oh, God gave up on us, right? Um, but now 400 years ago. It was 400 days.

SPEAKER_05: 25:58

I haven't heard from God from the last year, like generations went by.

SPEAKER_01: 26:02

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_06: 26:03

But like for me, uh it's remembering that sometimes those silent moments are moments God's placed you in for personal training. Um, and when I think about it now as in that silence, God's shaping our um our structure in terms of like even faith. Um it's can you hold and maintain that faith in structure while being in a moment of silence? So I don't know. There's um meditation. I had to I just had a note on here that meditation is like the discipline of um staying before God long enough for silence to become trust and trust to become stability. So I don't know, this the study on meditation right now is actually it goes so much deeper than what we can do in these classes, but that that whole thing on silence speaks to me a lot more now than it ever has before.

SPEAKER_05: 26:54

Their class is Monday at 6 30 or 6. 6 6 Monday, 6 p.m. Yep. Charles is teaching a class. Not all of them, but this Monday. Yeah. Monday the 16th. I think this is gonna be released on the 14th. It is.

SPEAKER_01: 27:07

But way to plug that.

SPEAKER_05: 27:08

I got you. I got you.

SPEAKER_01: 27:10

There's also youth that night if you want to drop off your kids sixth grade and up.

SPEAKER_04: 27:13

Yes.

SPEAKER_01: 27:14

Before you go to class.

SPEAKER_05: 27:15

So you guys want to hear another embarrassing story that's related to these topics? Uh-oh.

SPEAKER_01: 27:19

Go for it.

SPEAKER_05: 27:21

So um I have a tendency in my life to um not love authority. I blame my mother entirely.

SPEAKER_01: 27:31

You don't say.

SPEAKER_06: 27:32

But I hope she can hear you on the other side of the door.

SPEAKER_05: 27:35

I hope she does. But I had a boss one time that um it was oil and water. I didn't like what was happening and I didn't like how it was happening. And I think Ryan just got tired of hearing me talk. But Ryan finally said, you know what, Jared? You need to obey. I feel like the Lord's telling me to teach you how to submit and to listen and have obedience. I was like, nope, not hearing that, Ryan. You're probably wrong. And he said, give it 30 days. 30 days, whatever he tells you to do, however he tells you to do it, whenever he tells you to do it, whatever. He's like, everything you've said, like, yeah, that's annoying. Like, I could see why you're frustrated. But at some point, like, there's there's a lesson to be learned, right? Like, at some point, you're all you gotta think, like, why does this keep happening, or why is this like this? Maybe God's teaching them something. And so that's what Ryan spend 30 days and practice obedience and have obedience. And this isn't necessarily faithful obedience, what we're talking about here, but being able to obey somebody because God has put them over you, God has given them authority, even it's a boss if it's a boss. Your job, God has allowed that person to be the authority over you, your boss is allowed to have authority over you because he is your employer. Does that mean no holds bar or anything like that? No. But that does that mean when he says, Hey, I want you to stop doing the task, you just spent 20 minutes starting and go do this instead? You say, Okay, yes, are you gonna do it? It does. And so that's what Ryan told me to do. And guess what? The first week sucked. It was no fun at all. I called Ryan nearly every day. I'm like, Can I stop yet? Like, you're my boss and I respect you, so I have to, but like, can I stop? And he's like, No, keep it up. And genuinely, like, when you get to the point where it's just like this is what I'm gonna do no matter what, it doesn't suck nearly as much. When I knew there was no out, when I knew that what I'm going to do is obey, day 30, it's a breeze. I went home way happier. All of this, like all of the stress and stuff was just like, look, it's not my call. Live and let live, right? Just do the job and get paid the same regardless. And when we incorporate that to God, not only is it not a crappy boss, but the the benefits are exponentially better. Our God is the creator of the universe who's knows no wrong and is perfect. So when we say, Alright, I'll do what you say, everything is the right choice. Always.

SPEAKER_01: 30:15

Yeah. You could be, especially when you trust the blueprint even when you don't understand the architecture. I love that quote. Thank you. I wrote it down.

SPEAKER_04: 30:25

Was that a quote from you?

SPEAKER_01: 30:27

I wrote it down. It's in my pink pen right here.

SPEAKER_04: 30:29

Did you come up with that?

SPEAKER_01: 30:30

It says obedience isn't just about doing what we're told, it's about trusting the blueprint even when we don't understand the architecture. Look at you go. So I came up with that. Also, I have another thing that I wanted to add too that I thought was pretty cool. Is that you need faith to start, obedience to keep going, and righteousness to keep your heart aligned with God's so it flows all of the weeks together. Isn't that nice?

SPEAKER_06: 31:00

I like it. It is funny that you brought up that topic though, because I just watched a video on this the other day. And it's so hard to adopt that mindset of accepting and being more willing and just saying yes and going along with it because ultimately you do know that the job you're doing isn't just a worldly job, like you're doing it for God. Yep. And for me, uh I just it's so hard. I watched that video and I just like white knuckled the whole time because I'm like, I loathe my place of employment so much, and it's like when I hear that, I'm like, how can I do that at this place? Like, how? But at the same time, like I know ultimately like I have to um to be able to honor God in the right way. But it's just interesting you brought that up because I was just watching somebody on this the other day.

SPEAKER_05: 31:50

Yeah, Charles, just obey.

SPEAKER_06: 31:53

Yeah, I know.

SPEAKER_02: 31:55

All right, Jared's been sharing all this embarrassing stories tonight. I just like I don't have a specific story, but I do have to say that that um Jared and I are opposites in the way that like I don't have an issue with authority. I'm very much a pushover, and I will like accept for when I know that it's God telling me to do something, and it's something that I have struggled with for a long time, and I feel like I'm still trying to kind of figure out my place there, but it's not enough.

SPEAKER_05: 32:22

Every time I ask her to do something, God tells her to do something different. Like that's him teaching you.

SPEAKER_01: 32:28

That must be actually telling her to do the opposite of what Jaren does.

SPEAKER_02: 32:32

It it really is, and it's just like some stubbornness like if I can admit that, I mean happy Valentine's Day. Um, yeah, like it, it's like the stubbornness in me and everything. It's just no, I don't, I don't want to do that. In fact, I think I'm gonna do the opposite. And so I think I don't know, this just talking about the obedience of it and everything. I Jared and I were having a conversation the other day about like, I don't even remember specifically what it was, but it was like the steps, like I I have not been realizing like the steps that have been taking place and leading me into the moment until like recently when I'm looking back, like oh sitting here on this podcast and being quiet. Like I'm I'm still trying to like work on speaking and all that, and I'm getting there, I feel like, but this is just a personal like experience, I guess, that I'm sharing. Yeah, it didn't really make sense. I kind of just did a little roundabout thing, but like the obedience part of it is something I'm like, yeah, I've struggled with, right?

SPEAKER_01: 33:33

But it's like as you move forward, you get more comfortable doing other things that exactly are gonna help you grow more, yeah.

SPEAKER_05: 33:40

And when you're a um introvert and less far less inclined to be more outgoing and stand on stage and preach a sermon or something like that, like it is naturally the pace is gonna be different, right? But to Allison's defense or whatever, yo, we I've decided, like, I've thrown her to the wolves. Like, hey, I need you to do this this week. You got it? Great, awesome. See you later.

SPEAKER_02: 34:07

And she's just like, and behind his back, I'm like, no, I'm I don't want to do that actually.

SPEAKER_06: 34:12

And then she steps up and does things, and it's awesome. Um, I mean, outside of what we've talked about, I just there's like three reflection points that I don't really have like good ideas on yet, but it's things that out of these sermons that I'm gonna take and kind of chew on. And one of them was in what from week two, you know, the whole idea with Noah and and everything, but there's a reflection that I have for myself of am I do I obey God out of gratitude or of guilt? Um oh yeah, and then there's another reflection from that same week that says, Would my faith look any different if no one else could see it? Um and then am I walking with God daily or just doing things for him? So it's these are points that like I after listening to everything and and just my own personal walk right now, like these are things that I need to chew on. Yeah. And really, and that goes back to the alignment. Like, am I aligned right? Am I doing am I doing everything for the right, you know, mindset? Um, am I going into it uh wholeheartedly or am I kind of just doing it halfway?

SPEAKER_05: 35:25

But when are we walking with God? That idea of walking with God is so important. We're not trying to sprint ahead, we're not trying to like get all the knowledge, right? That's when you that's when you have more knowledge than you have obedience. Yeah, or not walking with him at all and just lagging way behind and just trying to catch up to him and like just not worried about keeping the pace. But when we're walking in step with God, God is revealing stuff to us, and that stuff affects us like more like instantly. We hear the sermon, we're like, ooh, God's growing me in this area now, and you dive right in, and your obedience is matching it. And it is such a good and holy thing when you're walking with God, when you are in step, because you're not pushing, waiting for more, and like chomping at the bit and feeling like you're being held back. You are walking step by step, knowing God's plan, having discernment, having those things that bring you the like, yeah, you see the room to grow, right? You know that there's there's areas where you're gonna move up and there's areas you're gonna expand, and God's gonna do awesome things, but you know you're not you're not there yet, or God's not calling you to that yet. And so you get this sense of peace. You understand that hey, God's gonna give me there one day, or God's gonna have me do that one day. It doesn't matter because I'm walking with God and what he's doing right now, I'm happy with this. Is good stuff.

SPEAKER_06: 36:49

I'm glad you focused on the walking part too, because in in the reading I've been doing with the again going back to the meditation stuff, is in when you drill down into like the Hebrew meaning of walking, like even in the some of the Psalms, it's not the idea of getting from point A to point B faster. The whole idea behind the words that are used when talking about walking with God is more of like a leisurely stroll, like you're walking through the garden with God and just enjoying things. It's not I need to get from here to there and I just need to do it as fast as I can. It's their thought process behind that word is more of a leisurely stroll. So I'm I don't know, I like that you focus on it because that's I don't know. I think in our minds today it's just such a busy world that when we think of you know walking with God or just the word walking, we're thinking of how can I get from here to there as fast as possible.

SPEAKER_02: 37:42

The instant gratification thing. Yeah, patience, yeah. Patience is a virtue.

SPEAKER_06: 37:50

I feel like I say it every time, but there's so many points in these sermons that just like kind of punch you in the gut a little bit, yeah. Make you think and chew on it.

SPEAKER_01: 38:00

Yeah, and um I do I do want to make a point because you brought up this, you know, talking about Noah in week two. Um how like funny is it that as like a child listening to the story of Noah, or when you tell the story of Noah to your children, um, you're talking about animals and the boat, and he brought them two by two, and you know, they they you know, it rained for you know many, many days, and you know, they they found the you know, the bird came, you know, the bird flew out and all this stuff, you know, and you think about it, that's the story. But then nowadays, now that we're adults and adulting and out here in the real world, it's more like I think about the the book of Noah or the um the story of Noah and the long-term grit that he had and the social pressure and how he had obedience before understanding, because he's building a giant ship in um in the desert, and all of his neighbors thought he was losing his mind. Um so I just think that it's just funny to like kind of think about the story now as an adult, and it we have a almost like a completely different meeting than it did when you're a kid, you know.

SPEAKER_05: 39:07

Oh, yeah. Yeah. When you're a kid, you have this like fairy tale idea of it where it's all like he's like just swinging a hammer majestically and everything's going to be a little bit more.

SPEAKER_01: 39:15

It probably, yeah, it probably only took a couple of days to do it. Yeah, for me, it was the oh my gosh, all the animals. All the animals, yeah. They all came and two by two. Walked up the ramp, it was beautiful. There was a rainbow at the end.

SPEAKER_05: 39:31

How many times do you think he swung and hit his thumb though?

SPEAKER_01: 39:34

Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_05: 39:36

Like that's faithful obedience. When you're like, why am I building this boat?

SPEAKER_06: 39:40

Well, I mean, he was ancient at the time. Like he had to have arthritis going on for you.

SPEAKER_01: 39:46

Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_05: 39:48

And it's like those times when, like, you like you said, when you look at it as an adult and you get a sense of what's what we should really be focusing on. That's where like I joke and I say, like, how many times you should have stunned, but like, really, like, how many times do we follow God or try to obey God? And the smallest thing goes wrong, and we're just like, it's all ruined. Scrap it, get the bonfire going, we're burning the boat, we're staying warm.

SPEAKER_03: 40:13

We're burning the boat.

SPEAKER_05: 40:14

Like to do that, and I think Ryan has a note in his notes that it was 75 years. I couldn't, I knew it was 70 or 80 or something like that. But 75 years you wrote about uh build a boat. And 75 years of your neighbors mocking you.

SPEAKER_02: 40:29

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_05: 40:30

75 years of oh, look, more animals I gotta feed.

SPEAKER_03: 40:34

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_06: 40:35

Well, and it's crazy too, because I think it was in I think it was in Glenn's uh uh first class, the sprint through the old testament or whatever, the the question came up. But in this whole time period, and I've even talked with Erica about it, there was no up until Noah in the Ark, there was no biblical account of rain. Water always came up from the ground, it was never a rainfall. So, like this whole time he's building the boat and he's explaining to them that the flood's coming and the floodgates are gonna open and it's gonna rain. And I'd be like, listen, dude, I've only gotten dew drops and water that's come up from the dirt. Like, where's this great flood coming from that you're talking about?

SPEAKER_01: 41:10

For 75 years, yeah.

SPEAKER_05: 41:12

We gotta talk about his kids' obedience. If my mom told me to do the same thing for 75 years, after two months I quit. Sorry, mom, you're crazy. You go build your boat.

SPEAKER_06: 41:23

It's just it's crazy to see the faith that he had though. For you know, if the if the span was 75 years to sit there and build this thing for 75 years with the idea of the fact that it's never rained before, but you're like, hey, God told me it's coming, so I'm building this boat for 75 years. I don't care how crazy I look.

SPEAKER_02: 41:41

Yeah, this crazy dude over here. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06: 41:44

It's just, I don't know, it's mind blowing. It is like a whole different way of looking at it now, like you said, um, than when we were kids.

SPEAKER_01: 41:51

Yeah. Well, you're building a boat right now, going back to school. Yeah. Yeah, that's your boat.

SPEAKER_06: 41:57

You know, it's all be there for some flooding.

SPEAKER_01: 42:00

Not 75 years.

SPEAKER_06: 42:01

The flood's coming early, though. Yeah. Gotta get that boat done.

SPEAKER_01: 42:05

But I I I'll be, I'll be I won't, I won't be a mean, nasty neighbor telling you you're you you're losing your mind. I think you're doing a great job.

SPEAKER_05: 42:13

And that's your Valentine's Day present. She won't be mean to you.

SPEAKER_01: 42:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05: 42:17

All right, everybody. We have uh about two and a half minutes left. We can go. We try to put a cap on 45 minutes, and we're almost there. Final thoughts. Last thing you want to leave people with.

SPEAKER_06: 42:34

Don't worry, he can cut the silence out. So take your time. If you have anything.

SPEAKER_02: 42:45

Don't quit your job unless you know it's from the Lord. Amen. Good point. That's a good point. Amen, Charles. Yes.

SPEAKER_06: 42:53

Oh, I oh no, I think that's one of the things I've been fighting him on.

SPEAKER_02: 42:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06: 42:58

I think I should be quitting my job, and I just I don't I don't have the uh I don't have the strength to do it at the moment.

SPEAKER_02: 43:06

All it took was for us was our kids getting the stomach flu at the same time. Well, okay. A newborn in the stomach bug.

SPEAKER_06: 43:17

That was the wrong sound. You're gonna have to do it.

SPEAKER_05: 43:20

Goodness, why are you pressing the buttons on the board?

SPEAKER_02: 43:24

Somebody has to. You're not using them.

SPEAKER_05: 43:27

This is an adult podcast. This is by the way, this is Allison's return to podcasting.

SPEAKER_06: 43:32

Thanks for coming out of retirement for this.

SPEAKER_03: 43:34

Yeah, congratulations.

SPEAKER_05: 43:35

If you ever want to see the prime podcast, like the best podcast you've ever seen. You think Joe Rogan's good? No. I got nothing on Freshman Youth Online. You think pick a podcaster, go to the app, go to messages or sermons. I think it's messages, and then if you click me for sermons I've preached and scroll all the way down to the bottom, you'll you'll get your sermon. Seeing like the same picture four times, those are the fresh Reneath online.

SPEAKER_01: 44:03

Are you gonna are you guys gonna start that podcast up again? I think you should.

SPEAKER_02: 44:09

I mean, uh okay, give us some feedback to those who are listening if you would be interested. Yeah, let us know. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06: 44:16

I did feel kind of special because when I was wandering through there editing videos and whatnot, I came across and it was like bringing like historical podcasts.

SPEAKER_01: 44:27

What the ones that we recorded at the old church, yeah, like up in that little lofty.

SPEAKER_02: 44:30

And every week we would be like, what can we put on this table to make it look festive? So there's like a pumpkin, a plant.

SPEAKER_01: 44:38

I like that you guys like video recorded it too. We should you guys should do that here too for the blue chair podcast. No?

SPEAKER_05: 44:44

It's uh it's an idea. Okay. It's a very, very what's the word I'm looking for? Um time consuming idea. Oh to get it all set up and to edit it and all that.

SPEAKER_02: 44:56

I guess, okay, fair. That's all right. People would be able to see the nodding though, like instead of the yep, uh-huh.

SPEAKER_06: 45:02

I do a lot of nodding too.

SPEAKER_01: 45:04

You do, I've noticed. That's okay.

SPEAKER_05: 45:06

All right, we're rambling. Let's wrap it up. Guys, thank you for listening to us. Well, they this is their podcast today. So I'm sorry. We have to thank everybody, close us out, wish everyone happy Valentine's Day.

SPEAKER_02: 45:20

Thank you, Jared. Thanks everybody for listening. Um thanks for being on the podcast with us, Jared and Charles. You two were great.

SPEAKER_05: 45:28

Um I'm again honored to be here. Yeah, yeah. This is the first one I've ever done. I'm surprised this uh wow.

SPEAKER_01: 45:33

Yeah, I did. Everyone have a happy Valentine's Day and have a great weekend. We'll see you Sunday at church. Come say hi.

SPEAKER_05: 45:41

Remember, if you're listening to this in the morning and you have not bought your wife flowers or chocolates or whatever, oh, yeah. Run out of the house and go get what you need.

SPEAKER_01: 45:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05: 45:51

All right. You're you're already buying the A-ball. Go catch up.

SPEAKER_01: 45:54

Hope we can find some. Right?

SPEAKER_05: 45:56

All right. We love you guys. We'll see you next month, or we'll see you on Sunday, hopefully. Yeah. Talk to you later.

SPEAKER_02: 46:02

Bye. Bye.