[SPEAKER_00]: Welcome to the Way Community Church Podcast.
[SPEAKER_00]: Our mission is to show people the way to life with Jesus.
[SPEAKER_00]: My name is Darahal and I am the pastor of the Way Community Church.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you would like to join us as a member or of you simply need prayer,
[SPEAKER_00]: or if you want to worship through giving, you can find the links and the transcription of this podcast.
[SPEAKER_00]: Today we're going to hear a message from Alicia Walker who is a licensed professional counselor and leads the Karen counseling team at the Wake Community Church.
[SPEAKER_00]: She's going to continue our emotionally healthy spirituality series and help us to wrestle with the question, are you ready to heal?
[SPEAKER_00]: Alicia's going to help us look at our sales and ensure that we really know who we are and who got it, shake us to be.
[SPEAKER_00]: And to appreciate that, to know self is to know God and to know God requires that we know self.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's study God's words together.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I do want to make a plug for the Rhythm or Rest Fest of 2026 because this year we're talking about flourishing and all of the things.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so what that really means is being able to
[SPEAKER_01]: live well in spite of everything that's going on in our country and your homes and your personal lives.
[SPEAKER_01]: So Flourishing has six different categories, but the ones we're going to focus on are mental emotional, physical, spiritual, and relational, like how you interact with other people.
[SPEAKER_01]: Flourishing just means that you live life well despite of whatever is going on.
[SPEAKER_01]: that despite all the things that are going on in my background in my life, that you all have no idea about, I still believe God and I still believe that we're flourishing.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I say that to say, I know you all remember when Greg talked to us earlier this year, and he was talking about Philippians 413, where is this?
[SPEAKER_01]: I can do all things through Christ and strengthens me.
[SPEAKER_01]: We used to believe it meant like I can do all things through crisis, strengthens me from just everyday trials and tribulations.
[SPEAKER_01]: You say that one stuff was hard, but it really means when you're doing well, when you're not doing well, when you're in crisis, when you're not in crisis, when you are welcoming a new baby, when you lost a child, when you are going through divorce.
[SPEAKER_01]: Whether you've lost the spouse, whether you are going today, later to celebrate a birth that you can do well, or you can do all things through Christ who strengthens you.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's what that means, and that's what we're gonna talk about and deal with on June 6th.
[SPEAKER_01]: So if you haven't already registered, please do.
[SPEAKER_01]: You can text peace to that number, whatever it is.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then you can join us.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you so much.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I want to share with you all a little story.
[SPEAKER_01]: Not earlier, my husband said I was walking in and not at the frame, but I can't help it.
[SPEAKER_01]: I can't just stand right here.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I want to share a little story.
[SPEAKER_01]: When I was in elementary school, like everybody else, at Easter time, we had to do our little Easter speech.
[SPEAKER_01]: You get one line to line, or whatever.
[SPEAKER_01]: I had my little one line.
[SPEAKER_01]: I thought I was ready.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was time to say the Easter speech, my one line.
[SPEAKER_01]: I couldn't remember it.
[SPEAKER_01]: I froze, like a deer headlights.
[SPEAKER_01]: Miss Allen was right there trying to coax me and to say what I did to say I couldn't hear her.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like my brain was completely shut off.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was frozen.
[SPEAKER_01]: From that moment, I developed a certain type of fear and like running when it came to standing up in front of people, having to talk.
[SPEAKER_01]: And anytime after that, I would be just like this.
[SPEAKER_01]: You couldn't have caught me up here.
[SPEAKER_01]: You couldn't have paid me a $0.00.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's not even a real number.
[SPEAKER_01]: But you couldn't have paid me a $0.00 to be up here because that's how fearful I was.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, fast forward, high school college, I was like, you can't live like this.
[SPEAKER_01]: You gotta figure this out.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not okay to be afraid of everything.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I took toast masters.
[SPEAKER_01]: I got in the speaking class, it's all the things.
[SPEAKER_01]: It helps some.
[SPEAKER_01]: And for things that I was comfortable talking about, I could do it with no problem.
[SPEAKER_01]: Back at Elizabeth, Baptist Church, our mother church, my husband and I did a pre-marital.
[SPEAKER_01]: We had to be in front of crowds, we did conferences.
[SPEAKER_01]: That wasn't that bad because, you know, he was with me.
[SPEAKER_01]: I didn't have to do it by myself.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I was comfortable with that topic, comfortable.
[SPEAKER_01]: But a couple years ago, I was invited to speak at, to the classic city conference, thank you.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I started getting nervous.
[SPEAKER_01]: Class of City Conference is for preachers and leaders.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not a preacher.
[SPEAKER_01]: Haven't been a seminary.
[SPEAKER_01]: I read my word.
[SPEAKER_01]: The Lord is my friend.
[SPEAKER_01]: We talk, we pray.
[SPEAKER_01]: We do live together.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I was really concerned.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like somebody was going to get up and be like, Girl, you'll know she'll talk about us around verse.
[SPEAKER_01]: Told you that was the right verse to do that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like freaking out.
[SPEAKER_01]: So the night before, I'm in my room, polishing, repolition, polishing again, because you can't look stupid, crazy.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like you did that time when you were in elementary school and froze.
[SPEAKER_01]: Everything I did was so I didn't look crazy like that again.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I'm polishing, trying to draw things, and past the halls said to me, if you need help in the morning, I'll come help you get your things.
[SPEAKER_01]: Sure, cool, that's great.
[SPEAKER_01]: Toast and turn on night did not sleep well whatsoever.
[SPEAKER_01]: In the morning, I felt like I had run over by our truck.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like the whole night, my mind was racing.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that morning, Pastor Hall called me.
[SPEAKER_00]: I said, the voice mail.
[SPEAKER_01]: They called me again.
[SPEAKER_01]: I said the voice mail.
[SPEAKER_01]: I said, I should be finished, I need to make it better, I gotta do it right, you know, I can't look crazy.
[SPEAKER_01]: So then he text me, I still didn't respond.
[SPEAKER_01]: So now I have to go downstairs with all my things, I packed all my things up, and then my head all is like, if you put this stuff in your car, you will keep going.
[SPEAKER_01]: You can say you got sick.
[SPEAKER_01]: You could say something happened.
[SPEAKER_01]: You could say you failed now on the elevator shaft.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know.
[SPEAKER_01]: You could say whatever you need to say, I was ready to run.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's how afraid I was.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I said, how long do you want to go around this mountain?
[SPEAKER_01]: How long do you want to deal with this fear?
[SPEAKER_01]: How long will you allow this fear to stop you from doing what I called you to do?
[SPEAKER_01]: Not for some people, but that's all you need to hear today.
[SPEAKER_01]: You ready to go like, she, she good, I'm done.
[SPEAKER_01]: Cause that's your story, too.
[SPEAKER_01]: Some of us have allowed fear, stress, anxiety to rule our lives.
[SPEAKER_01]: We've even begun to identify with it, like, yeah, girl, I have anxiety, I'm anxious, I'm scared all the time, I'm fearful, it's okay to have a diagnosis, it's okay to have those feelings.
[SPEAKER_01]: except it as that is who you are because that's not who God called you to be.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the reality of it is I know that if I have kept going and left that day, first of all, they would never invite me back.
[SPEAKER_01]: And second of all, I wouldn't be up here.
[SPEAKER_01]: I would not have been strong enough.
[SPEAKER_01]: to lead our counseling ministry here at the church.
[SPEAKER_01]: I wouldn't be strong enough to invite a team of people to work with me to lead this ministry at the church.
[SPEAKER_01]: I wouldn't be strong enough to have done something last year that doesn't happen in church.
[SPEAKER_01]: We blended ministry, worship, dancing,
[SPEAKER_01]: We had a ball, but it was all done in a way that's not typically done in church.
[SPEAKER_01]: And if I had doubted it myself, the way I did that day, we wouldn't have had that.
[SPEAKER_01]: And we wouldn't have this ministry.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I decided then I wasn't gonna run.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was gonna show up.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I stood up and did it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Was it perfect, course not?
[SPEAKER_01]: Was I huffing and puffing?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, I was, because it's only a few years ago, so I'm a woman of a certain age.
[SPEAKER_01]: Don't try to guess what it is.
[SPEAKER_01]: But you know, who's ever gone through that season of your life?
[SPEAKER_01]: You get hot real easy.
[SPEAKER_01]: If y'all saw me, I had that fan just like this.
[SPEAKER_01]: They're my face.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's why I got a few little clips in here because my hair would have been puffed up.
[SPEAKER_01]: You had a been like, she got half afro, half stray.
[SPEAKER_01]: What's going on over her?
[SPEAKER_01]: So this, you can't see that it's a full home afro in there because I am hot.
[SPEAKER_01]: I got there that day and just like I said earlier, God knows like little touches to make me know that he's present.
[SPEAKER_01]: That day my husband was supposed to be at work.
[SPEAKER_01]: They have his big comrades on Thursdays and Fridays and he showed up.
[SPEAKER_00]: Pastor said, I had somebody to come get your bag.
[SPEAKER_00]: I told you that I was going to come get your bag.
[SPEAKER_01]: That was just what I needed to hear.
[SPEAKER_01]: I felt like that was God's hand to me.
[SPEAKER_01]: I told you I had you the whole time.
[SPEAKER_01]: You just had to trust me.
[SPEAKER_01]: People was like, that was great, that was great.
[SPEAKER_01]: In my head, I was like, hmm, got it.
[SPEAKER_01]: But what it showed me was, when you're as position between old and new, there is like a pressure.
[SPEAKER_01]: You feel like you're in a pressure cooker.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's a shaking that's your body.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know those old school pressure cookers, when it started getting really good, it was a shhh shhh shhh.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's how it felt.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like the pressure cooker was on and I was about to explode.
[SPEAKER_01]: But when I did it, it was tissue paper.
[SPEAKER_01]: When you push through that hard thing that you know God is trying to make you go to it's tissue paper.
[SPEAKER_01]: You can have all the fear leading up to it, but when you walk through, it's like, I got this, I'm doing this, it's tissue paper.
[SPEAKER_01]: Whatever season in life you are, God has something for you to do, and that thing that you've always wanted to do, no matter what your age is, and he's calling you to do it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Press your way, it's tissue paper, it's tissue paper.
[SPEAKER_01]: So my question for you is, are you living faithfully to the life God asks you to live?
[SPEAKER_00]: Are you doing what God says you should be doing?
[SPEAKER_01]: The major key here is healing begins when we stop hiding behind armor, labels, masks,
[SPEAKER_01]: and survival patterns and allow God to reveal who he truly created us to be.
[SPEAKER_01]: That day I was behind all of that.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was hiding behind the mask of, I got it all together, but I'm freaking out.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was hiding behind a survival pattern of fear and running.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was tired of running.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like I didn't want to run from something hard anymore.
[SPEAKER_01]: I didn't want to feel like every time something came up.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like I couldn't handle it.
[SPEAKER_01]: I didn't want to feel like I was continuing to circle that same mountain.
[SPEAKER_01]: And some of you were feeling like that right now about something.
[SPEAKER_01]: Don't keep circling that mountain.
[SPEAKER_01]: So our annual theme is ready.
[SPEAKER_01]: The key verse is first Peter 315.
[SPEAKER_01]: But sanctified Christ is Lord in your hearts, always being ready to make a difference to everyone who asks you to give an account for the hope that is in you, but with gentleness and respect.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's basically saying what I said to you earlier that we want to do at the Rhythm and Rest.
[SPEAKER_01]: We want to show you how to give an account for the hope of Christ.
[SPEAKER_01]: Why are you hopeful?
[SPEAKER_01]: Why do you see him?
[SPEAKER_01]: What is he done for you?
[SPEAKER_01]: Our big idea for the year is God develops readiness through repeated obedience.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's not asking you to do it tomorrow.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's asking you to continually take one step.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, we all know a change is not a straight line.
[SPEAKER_01]: Come back up again.
[SPEAKER_01]: I got knocked down, but I'm going to get back up and take another step.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's repeated obedience.
[SPEAKER_01]: Even if whatever that thing was, you're like, I can't get up from this.
[SPEAKER_01]: I can't get up from this.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I know some people's stories in the room.
[SPEAKER_01]: I know my own story in the room.
[SPEAKER_01]: You feel like I'm going to tell you it's right quick, it's not funny, it's funny.
[SPEAKER_01]: My youngest was born with sick and still, people who've been here, they know that.
[SPEAKER_01]: And at one point, they found out that she was basically what they call aspirating everything, meaning whatever she ate or drank, will come back up and then we'll go in her lungs.
[SPEAKER_01]: So they wanted to put a feeding tube in her nose.
[SPEAKER_01]: Then they were like, you are the one that has to know how to do it, if it comes out at home.
[SPEAKER_01]: One of y'all is going to be in my pocket because I'm not doing this.
[SPEAKER_01]: Long story short, they asked me this and that was one of the times, just one of the many times.
[SPEAKER_01]: I felt like I couldn't get up from that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, that means that I have to take this thing and put it down on my baby's nose.
[SPEAKER_01]: Make sure she's getting fair properly because if I don't, she could have pneumonia and that's a whole another thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: I literally, like in the movies, I slid down the wall, like, please, why would they?
[SPEAKER_01]: I thought I literally couldn't get up from that, but I took one step at a time, and another step at a time, and that baby is over there.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right now, 15 years old, the older sick is still.
[SPEAKER_01]: And yesterday at the Wild Conference at EBC, she was with my sister, selling her,
[SPEAKER_01]: crochet items.
[SPEAKER_01]: The same baby that I thought I couldn't get up off the wall with.
[SPEAKER_01]: Get off the floor with.
[SPEAKER_01]: I thank God that that was a moment in time and I kept getting up.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's all he's asking you to do is keep getting up.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's all he's asking you to do is keep open your eyes and keep getting up.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's all.
[SPEAKER_01]: The emotional health and spiritual maturity are inseparable.
[SPEAKER_01]: It is not possible to be spiritual mature while remaining emotionally and mature.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's a quote from Pete Scazaro, who wrote the book and emotionally healthy spirituality.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is the book series that will start in August.
[SPEAKER_01]: So in the month of May, we'll talk some about it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Jewel, we're talking about all about the man.
[SPEAKER_01]: Everybody give a hand, proper praise for that, please.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm a part of the women's ministry and I'm a part of the court team and I love all that yes.
[SPEAKER_01]: But we need our men just like the women if we're getting in position to be ready, we need them to be ready because they're on the front lines.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I'm excited for the men.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm probably going to have some things to say in clown just because that's what I do, but I'm excited.
[SPEAKER_01]: that you all have a space separate from us.
[SPEAKER_01]: So yeah, I could talk about us if you want to.
[SPEAKER_01]: I know my husband never talked about me.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know about us if you want to, but moreover, talk about the things that you need to support one another.
[SPEAKER_01]: So in this emotionally healthy spirituality, there are seven pathways.
[SPEAKER_01]: Know yourself that you may know God, going back in order to go forward, journey through the wall, enlarge your soul through grief and loss.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's a big one.
[SPEAKER_01]: because a lot of people have trouble with that.
[SPEAKER_01]: They run from it, don't want to deal with it, but compound it, it can make things worse.
[SPEAKER_01]: The scudder, the rhythms of the daily office and Sabbath grow into an emotionally mature adult and developing a rule of life.
[SPEAKER_01]: Today, we're going to talk about know yourself that you may know God with two people.
[SPEAKER_01]: King David, woman at the will.
[SPEAKER_01]: David was not King at this point though.
[SPEAKER_01]: So the major key is, you can deeply know God while we're manning disconnected from your authentic self.
[SPEAKER_01]: Some of us really don't even know who we are.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like we've been playing this role for so long.
[SPEAKER_01]: Something that somebody asked us to do, something somebody told us to do, something we thought we should do, we were playing a role on a long time.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's hard to fully know God of being known by him.
[SPEAKER_01]: if we're hiding.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I was queen of hide, and I told you, I'm also before I set in the back, don't call me to the front, I'm good.
[SPEAKER_01]: I will stay back here because I'm tired, I'm exhausted.
[SPEAKER_01]: But that also is what comes along with hiding.
[SPEAKER_01]: Exhaustion, you're tired from wearing a mask.
[SPEAKER_01]: So many of us know church language, we know we're supposed to do, blessing highly favored, all of that.
[SPEAKER_01]: But we don't know what we feel, what we fear,
[SPEAKER_01]: what wounded us, what shaped us, and who got truly created us to be.
[SPEAKER_01]: The reason I can connect this story between me and elementary, and meet a couple of years ago, because me and God did a lot of work together.
[SPEAKER_01]: We talk, we pray, I journal.
[SPEAKER_01]: My husband, Amy, and this morning because I got books everywhere journals.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I can go back and see what God told me before,
[SPEAKER_01]: And if I did what he said or if I didn't, I could see something that he and I've been trying to work out.
[SPEAKER_01]: And if I did it or if I didn't, but if you never take the time to be in the book emotionally healthy, contemplative or really take inventory of yourself, you thank you all good.
[SPEAKER_01]: Somebody that told you it was me.
[SPEAKER_01]: Somebody told you, like, fix your attitude.
[SPEAKER_01]: Somebody is told you, like, you could say that nicer.
[SPEAKER_01]: Somebody is told you, like, things that they think impact you in relationship with them.
[SPEAKER_01]: But you have to take responsibility to make those changes.
[SPEAKER_01]: The truth is, healing requires the courage to remove what no longer fits your God given identity.
[SPEAKER_01]: that fear that I had no longer fit for where God was positioning me like, I couldn't live in that.
[SPEAKER_01]: I would be tortured.
[SPEAKER_01]: Ready people must remove false armor.
[SPEAKER_01]: First Samuel 17, 38 through 40.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you have your Bibles, you can open it up.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then verse 45 in the New American Standard.
[SPEAKER_01]: 38 says, then Saul, Klo David with his military attire,
[SPEAKER_01]: and put a bronze helmet on his head and outfitted him with armor.
[SPEAKER_01]: And David strapped on his sword over his military tire and stole what it walking for he had not trained with the armor.
[SPEAKER_01]: So David said to Saul, I cannot go with these because I have not trained with them.
[SPEAKER_01]: And David took them off.
[SPEAKER_01]: Then he took his staff in his hand and chose for himself five smooth stones from the book.
[SPEAKER_01]: That is, in his shepherd's pouch, and his slain was in his hand, and he approached the Philistine.
[SPEAKER_01]: 45 says, but David said to the Philistine, you come to me with a sword, a spear, and a saber.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I come to you in the name of the Lord of armies.
[SPEAKER_01]: The God of armies of Israel, whom you have defied.
[SPEAKER_01]: How many of us need to say that to our own gullies?
[SPEAKER_01]: You come to me with a sword, a spear, a sapper.
[SPEAKER_01]: You feel like you've been stabbed up, cut, shanked, all the things, and you could say, back, but I came in the name of the Lord.
[SPEAKER_01]: You have to have relationship with them though to believe that.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's what David had.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I'm going to just quickly tell you the story about David and how he got here.
[SPEAKER_01]: So on 1st Samuel 17, it talks about Goliath
[SPEAKER_01]: doing his big one.
[SPEAKER_01]: Being the one to say, I said this in the first service.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm gonna say, Yena, a couple of times, so y'all feel like Pastor Hall is here.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was like, Yena gonna say here, you know, big man over here to fight me.
[SPEAKER_01]: Essentially, he was challenging them, but he was also trying to intimidate them.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's what our allies do, they intimidate us.
[SPEAKER_01]: They make us feel like we can't defeat them.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is what he was saying to the men of Israel.
[SPEAKER_01]: There are me.
[SPEAKER_01]: He was saying, like, I'm going to beat you down.
[SPEAKER_01]: And when I do, you all are going to be my servants, bow down to me.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then he was like, well, if you got somebody that can fight me and beat me, then I'll be your servant.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I'll believe you got somebody.
[SPEAKER_00]: So you're going to be my servant.
[SPEAKER_01]: And when the men of the Israel army heard this,
[SPEAKER_01]: They were dismayed and very fearful.
[SPEAKER_01]: The Hebrew word for dismayed means shattered and broken of spirit.
[SPEAKER_01]: Is there something in your life that is one of your gulyas that has you shattered or broken in spirit?
[SPEAKER_01]: Shattered and broken of spirit, but do you know that that's one of the reasons why Jesus came?
[SPEAKER_01]: to heal the broken hearted, and to set the cap this free.
[SPEAKER_01]: So even what that thing is, whether it's current date or past, because we think, if I don't think about it, if I don't talk about it, if nobody knows about it, it's not affecting me, it doesn't bother me, it doesn't impact me.
[SPEAKER_01]: But it still has you shattered and broken of spirit.
[SPEAKER_01]: Have you ever been confronted by your own Goliath?
[SPEAKER_01]: This is how the fear that I carried as a little girl continued to show up for me.
[SPEAKER_01]: And psychology calls it, learn helplessness.
[SPEAKER_01]: Sometimes that happens outward in the world.
[SPEAKER_01]: Sometimes that happens in your own family, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not gonna ask somebody to raise your hand.
[SPEAKER_01]: How many got that family member that says all kind of stuff?
[SPEAKER_01]: It's mean, because everybody else just do all the things.
[SPEAKER_01]: And everybody's like, hmm, that's just how it is.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's how it's always been.
[SPEAKER_01]: I said don't worry, Jane.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's how it's always been.
[SPEAKER_01]: You learn how to not respond.
[SPEAKER_01]: You learn like, I'm just going to go this way because nothing I can do about it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Or I'm just going to let that happen because that's how it always is.
[SPEAKER_01]: And for us as a people, let me just get on this vote and thing right quick.
[SPEAKER_01]: Some of us have learned or feel like we've learned.
[SPEAKER_01]: They ain't gonna count my vote.
[SPEAKER_01]: They're just gonna let somebody else have it.
[SPEAKER_01]: But do you guys realize if every last one of us came in there and voted, we could flip all kinds of things?
[SPEAKER_01]: And I was thinking about this, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: So back when my grandparents were given the opportunity finally fought for the opportunity to vote, they had to pay a poll tax.
[SPEAKER_01]: distinguished between paying up all tax or how they're going to feed their family.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I was thinking like sometimes we incorporate language and things based on experiences and make it true.
[SPEAKER_01]: So if we had to pay a tax then and it was costly to vote to stand up for ourselves, it feels
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't have the time, I can't afford to take off work, I can't afford to go in.
[SPEAKER_01]: Not in the game was a hundred years of early voting and people still have the same, because it's been normalized or ingrained that it's costly.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm gonna just get that one to y'all for free.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you're not registered, you missed this one.
[SPEAKER_01]: Nobody be you a registered for the next one.
[SPEAKER_01]: Everybody need to be in that number.
[SPEAKER_01]: We all need to be ready.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's one of the ways to be ready.
[SPEAKER_01]: So as we move into this story, David has three older brothers who followed Solomon to battle.
[SPEAKER_01]: David was back tended to his sheep of his father's flock.
[SPEAKER_01]: And while he was doing this, the fullest theme is taking it up.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, he's talking a whole lot of junk.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, I'm gonna fight here by him to do all the things.
[SPEAKER_01]: And during this time, Jesse's dad says today, but go down there and check on your brothers.
[SPEAKER_01]: Take this little march to them.
[SPEAKER_01]: Check on them and see how they were doing.
[SPEAKER_01]: I hope my sister don't shout or something out, but I'm the little sister, it's just two of us.
[SPEAKER_01]: And my mom is to do it some all the time.
[SPEAKER_01]: Go down and see what your sister did during the comeback and tell me what's going on.
[SPEAKER_01]: Go check on her and make sure everything is cool.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like I'm worried, I'm concerned.
[SPEAKER_01]: Go check on her, she over there making faces.
[SPEAKER_01]: She just said the thing, anyway.
[SPEAKER_01]: But David went out of obedience.
[SPEAKER_01]: He went out of obedience.
[SPEAKER_01]: He left someone in charge of his flock
[SPEAKER_01]: When he got there, he left his baggage with the baggage keeper.
[SPEAKER_01]: When he got there, when David got there, he left his baggage with the baggage keeper.
[SPEAKER_01]: When he got there, where the battle is, he left his baggage with the baggage keeper.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's no way for you to fight some of your battles holding on to all of the baggage.
[SPEAKER_01]: It will weigh you down.
[SPEAKER_01]: Are you okay, fight?
[SPEAKER_01]: Hold it on to other people's battles, either.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is something I say all the time.
[SPEAKER_01]: If somebody is drowning, and you get into save them, if they are intent on trying to save their life, what will they do to you?
[SPEAKER_01]: Make you drown too, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: You can't get in with them.
[SPEAKER_01]: You gotta be from the shore.
[SPEAKER_01]: Here's the stick, here's the thing you can't drown with them.
[SPEAKER_01]: Get rid of your baggage and give it to the baggage keeper.
[SPEAKER_01]: Goliath saw that when he got there, he greeted his brothers, he told them he came there to check on them.
[SPEAKER_01]: Goliath saw this and said the same thing, I'm okay, who you bring, I'm fighting all of them, I'm gonna beat them, they're gonna be my servant.
[SPEAKER_01]: Who is this on circumstance, Philistine?
[SPEAKER_01]: Who dares to defy the armies of the living God?
[SPEAKER_01]: Nothing about whenever you've been in the battle, argument or somebody.
[SPEAKER_01]: Who you think you is?
[SPEAKER_01]: Who are you talking to?
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not one of your girlfriends, and neither is my dad.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's stop playing with us.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not happening.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's what he said, essentially.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then David asks, what will be done for the man who kills him?
[SPEAKER_01]: Then they tell him, the man who kills Goliath will be made rich.
[SPEAKER_01]: The king will give him his daughter, all the things.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, as David hears this, his older brother, Iliab says, what you doing here?
[SPEAKER_01]: Why are you here?
[SPEAKER_01]: You just came here to be nosy.
[SPEAKER_01]: You can't fight that man.
[SPEAKER_01]: You're overconfident.
[SPEAKER_01]: You don't know what you're doing.
[SPEAKER_01]: What you love, she's bad anyway.
[SPEAKER_01]: Do you menishing him?
[SPEAKER_01]: Make it him, think he shouldn't be there.
[SPEAKER_01]: Tell him he doesn't belong there.
[SPEAKER_01]: How many of us have a voice in our head that does the same thing when it's time for us to confront our galious?
[SPEAKER_01]: That was my voice, that was my iliab when I was at the classic city conference.
[SPEAKER_01]: Gary, I don't know what you're doing.
[SPEAKER_01]: These is preachers.
[SPEAKER_01]: They know the Bible better than you.
[SPEAKER_01]: What if you say the wrong thing?
[SPEAKER_01]: What if you misinterpret it?
[SPEAKER_01]: What if they came you after the fact and said, go sit down, little girl.
[SPEAKER_01]: We all have that voice, just like a little brother.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm a little sister, Dave was like, what did I do?
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, I just came here.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's what Daddy said.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is not worthy, just because when you're about to face your battle, old messages show up.
[SPEAKER_01]: Eventually, the people told Saul, Saul asked him to go forward.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he told me, you're not able to go against the giant.
[SPEAKER_01]: You're too small, too young.
[SPEAKER_01]: You can't handle it.
[SPEAKER_01]: The giant has been doing this for years.
[SPEAKER_01]: David told Saul that while I was tending my sheep, I was confronted by lions and bears, and he said, he killed both when they rose up against them.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he said the same thing would happen to the un-circum-sized Philistine, because he said he was coming in the name of his father.
[SPEAKER_01]: He was saying that you can bring whoever you want.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, I'm gonna beat me,
[SPEAKER_01]: Soligree and put his armor on David.
[SPEAKER_01]: His military entire, his helmet, his armor, his sword.
[SPEAKER_01]: He struggled to walk in and David was like, I can't do this.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is not the armor I'm used to.
[SPEAKER_01]: I've worked with God.
[SPEAKER_01]: I've done this thing with God before.
[SPEAKER_01]: We have defeated other enemies.
[SPEAKER_01]: We've taken steps to defeat enemies.
[SPEAKER_01]: So in this time for you to show up for your assignment, you've already been practicing it.
[SPEAKER_01]: You've already been getting ready.
[SPEAKER_01]: You've already been doing the things necessary to show up in that assignment.
[SPEAKER_01]: Major key, what protects one person may suffocate another.
[SPEAKER_01]: David took off Saul's armor and then got his own stones and soared.
[SPEAKER_01]: Saul's armor looked good, it represented status, it was conventional strength, and it represented another man's identity.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it was essentially
[SPEAKER_01]: Saul was putting on his pretentious like a some type of armor.
[SPEAKER_01]: I ain't got no armor.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is a guard.
[SPEAKER_01]: Pretend that this hat is a helmet.
[SPEAKER_01]: He don't put the helmet on.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now I can't see some put these shades on just for a little minute.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then I'm going to take him on.
[SPEAKER_01]: But pretentious is a part of Saul's armor that he put on David.
[SPEAKER_01]: Do y'all see how ridiculous I look?
[SPEAKER_01]: Some might even say, crazy, take a picture, the last time you're going to see me looking as great.
[SPEAKER_01]: But take a picture for yourself to remind you of when you remember that you're putting on the armor of somebody else to remind you to say, girl, this is how you look, oh man, why are you doing it?
[SPEAKER_01]: Take that off, it doesn't fit you, it doesn't suit you, it doesn't look good on you, it's not yours, stop carrying it, take it off, take it off.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I'm taking it off, just this day we did, I hope you got your picture, because it's off.
[SPEAKER_01]: In modern version, solves armor.
[SPEAKER_01]: People wear perfectionism, hyper-vigilance.
[SPEAKER_01]: People pleasing over-teagement.
[SPEAKER_01]: Emotional suppression.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm blessed and high-lifed, but having a church face, church smile, and then getting to your car and being said, coming to church like, hey girl, but you go home mad at everybody because you live in a life that you don't want to live.
[SPEAKER_01]: That is Saul's armor.
[SPEAKER_01]: The armor helps them survive, but it prevents us from connecting with one another.
[SPEAKER_01]: If I'm pretending to be somebody else, how do you know the real me?
[SPEAKER_01]: If I'm pretending to make sure I look good at all times that I can't make mistakes, I remember one time I was doing this training in the lady who was doing it said something and we're supposed to correct.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I was like, I don't need to credit because I don't make no mistakes.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, we need to work on that, because that's not true, but some of us will not go out, will not present ourselves, will not show up unless everything is in place.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's not realistic.
[SPEAKER_01]: We'll say I'm fine, but we're really not.
[SPEAKER_01]: You cannot defeat the giants of sound to your future while dressed in someone else's identity.
[SPEAKER_01]: I told you, I can't even really see too good.
[SPEAKER_01]: So if I kept them glasses on,
[SPEAKER_01]: I won't be able to defeat nothing kind of my way because I had on somebody else's identity.
[SPEAKER_01]: I have some questions for you all, and these will be at the end, we have a QR code, and I know some of you are like, I hate them dang old QR codes, I'm sorry.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're gonna put the other resources in there, and if you can't do QR code, we don't have a young person volunteer to help you, or an older person volunteer to help you to get it open, because it's a document that I'm gonna ask
[SPEAKER_01]: so that you can answer.
[SPEAKER_01]: The question is, what armor have I normalized?
[SPEAKER_01]: What version of me am I performing?
[SPEAKER_01]: What coping mechanism once protected me?
[SPEAKER_01]: But now limits me.
[SPEAKER_01]: What are some inherited giants?
[SPEAKER_01]: And what giant am I organizing my life around?
[SPEAKER_01]: I was organizing my life around that fear.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was refusing job opportunities, contracts,
[SPEAKER_01]: ability to go speak in front of crowds who could question question me because I was organized in my life around that fear.
[SPEAKER_01]: God never asked us.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is point two.
[SPEAKER_01]: God never asked us to become someone else.
[SPEAKER_01]: He wants you.
[SPEAKER_01]: I told the story earlier.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was listening to one of Pastor's messages from before.
[SPEAKER_01]: He was talking about when he was a kid and he grew up in the hood and he said he had to go to, um,
[SPEAKER_01]: the jail for the scary straight program and how those people were saying, you don't want to be in here because of this isn't that.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I knew other people's stories in the room.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I knew there was some people in the room who would experience or would be the one who was on the other side telling past the hall not to be there.
[SPEAKER_01]: But there are other people in here that could also use that story.
[SPEAKER_01]: But if you're too afraid to show up, you believe that you can't show up or you're not good enough to show up.
[SPEAKER_01]: you're showing up as someone else.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're not saying that you should be embarrassed by it.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're saying that somebody else in here knows your story.
[SPEAKER_01]: Somebody else experienced what you experienced.
[SPEAKER_01]: Somebody else was a former dope, Dillettoo.
[SPEAKER_01]: Somebody else was pushing weight before too.
[SPEAKER_01]: They don't do it anymore, but they can tell you how they got out and how they live the life they live now.
[SPEAKER_01]: Psalm 139, 13 through 16, the NASB version says, for you created my innermost parts.
[SPEAKER_01]: You woke me in my mother's womb.
[SPEAKER_01]: I will give thanks to you because I am awesome and wonderfully made.
[SPEAKER_01]: Wonderful all your works and my soul knows it very well.
[SPEAKER_01]: My friend was not hidden from you when I was made in secret and skillfully formed in the depths of the earth.
[SPEAKER_01]: Your eyes have seen my formless substance and in your book were written all the days that were ordained for me.
[SPEAKER_01]: When as yet, there was not one of them.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to jump down to Ephesians 210, the NASB version, and it says, for we are his workmanship, crafted in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared
[SPEAKER_01]: so that we would walk in them.
[SPEAKER_01]: I love this verse because it underscores the previous one that God knows you through and through.
[SPEAKER_01]: He knows you from the beginning to the end.
[SPEAKER_01]: He knows every hair on your head or no hair.
[SPEAKER_01]: Fuzz on people.
[SPEAKER_01]: But he also knows he knows the things that have happened to you.
[SPEAKER_01]: the things that you pray for, the things that you cry about, he knows all of them, he knit you together.
[SPEAKER_01]: This version says, we are his workmanship, but in other versions, it means masterpiece.
[SPEAKER_01]: Masterpieces take hours and hours and days, sometimes months, sometimes years to create.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's how intricately detail God made you.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's how much he loves you.
[SPEAKER_01]: That he took the time to give you like them curly eyelashes that everybody paid for.
[SPEAKER_01]: Versus somebody else that might have, you know, hair that I bought, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: He knit us together.
[SPEAKER_01]: He has created us for his good works.
[SPEAKER_01]: Many of us confuse adaptation with identity.
[SPEAKER_01]: I said that earlier about the voting,
[SPEAKER_01]: Adapted is too hard.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a struggle.
[SPEAKER_01]: I can't go with identity of black people just don't vote.
[SPEAKER_01]: I do every election.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm one of them super voters.
[SPEAKER_01]: Survival with calling productivity with words.
[SPEAKER_01]: You got to be doing something.
[SPEAKER_01]: You can't sit down.
[SPEAKER_01]: You can't rest.
[SPEAKER_01]: You got to be always moving performance with purpose.
[SPEAKER_01]: Emotually immature spirituality says,
[SPEAKER_01]: Ignore your feelings, suppress your story.
[SPEAKER_01]: Don't tell people, don't tell nobody I business.
[SPEAKER_01]: What goes on in this house, stays in this house.
[SPEAKER_01]: I know somebody else said that to your kids.
[SPEAKER_01]: I know you did.
[SPEAKER_01]: My mama said it to us.
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, and avoid weakness.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now for the men I want you all to hear that means you're emotionally immature.
[SPEAKER_01]: So you no longer have to accept that.
[SPEAKER_01]: We have a pastor that I guess up here.
[SPEAKER_00]: I want to say every Sunday telling his business.
[SPEAKER_01]: He says often, he's vulnerable, and it used to be if you're vulnerable, you're considered weak, but it is not.
[SPEAKER_01]: Emotionally healthy spirituality says, tell the truth, acknowledge grief, embrace limits.
[SPEAKER_01]: You can't do everything.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's okay to say no.
[SPEAKER_01]: Confront your fall self, surrender your masks.
[SPEAKER_01]: I surrendered them glasses, and I don't look foolish.
[SPEAKER_01]: And surrender and gives you a sense of freedom.
[SPEAKER_01]: I told you all early that after I did that classic to the conference, I felt like once I broke through it felt like, oh, that was just tissue paper.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I can't tell you the amount of freedom I have on the other side that all of the fear that I had built up in my head, it wasn't real.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, it really, really, really, really wasn't real.
[SPEAKER_01]: I made it like, oh my god, they're gonna see right through me.
[SPEAKER_01]: They're gonna know, they're gonna say, what is she talking about, all of that?
[SPEAKER_01]: But once I pushed through, it was tissue paper.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was Jello, it was mush to get to the other side.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's the sense of freedom, and I cannot tell you how good it feels to be up here, being myself.
[SPEAKER_01]: Being able to be up here as a mental health therapist in a black church, when this was taboo to even talk about like,
[SPEAKER_01]: five years ago, not even 10, but five.
[SPEAKER_01]: People wouldn't even talk to me in the hallway.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, we've got to talk on her air, but I didn't know she my therapist.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm trying for her to be my therapist, and I'm not going to even look at her, because she's going to think I'm crazy.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, let me look the other way, all of that.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I'm up here talking to y'all, engaging with you, people tell me that stuff, and we keep it moving.
[SPEAKER_01]: But that's only because I stopped doubting myself, and I stopped being fearful,
[SPEAKER_01]: to have me organize my life around it.
[SPEAKER_01]: I didn't want to keep avoiding that thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: I didn't want to keep avoiding Goliath.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was no longer going to continue circling that mountain.
[SPEAKER_01]: Davis, emotional honesty, is part of what made him a man after Goliath's own heart.
[SPEAKER_01]: David Mado, Lament, Vulnerability, Repentance, Dependence,
[SPEAKER_01]: Many of us live fragmented.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm one way in public, but another way in private.
[SPEAKER_01]: I got a full-on mask if you see me out here in these streets.
[SPEAKER_01]: But my family got a whole different version of me.
[SPEAKER_01]: And if you actually asked them how I was, I have a client who's a parent was mask in all the time in public, but in private, given them a problem.
[SPEAKER_01]: So you know how teenagers are as they eventually get older.
[SPEAKER_01]: The teenager was like, how's that parent?
[SPEAKER_01]: They don't drugs, and they overhear, and they don't know the thing, cause they were tired of wearing a mask.
[SPEAKER_01]: They were tired of pretending.
[SPEAKER_01]: They were tired of allowing the parent to make them pretend.
[SPEAKER_01]: They were tired of being somebody other than, and co-sign in the parent being somebody other than.
[SPEAKER_01]: They were living fragmented, and they didn't want to anymore.
[SPEAKER_01]: Living fragments, it means we're living lower on the spectrum of mental health.
[SPEAKER_01]: and it is called languishing.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm gonna just pause right here for a minute.
[SPEAKER_01]: Because a lot of us live there.
[SPEAKER_01]: Languageing is, I'm here, but I'm not really here.
[SPEAKER_01]: She's talking, but I sort of hear it, but I don't, I'm sitting in this chair, but I'm actually back there because she said something that made me go all the way back to when I was five.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm present, but not really.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm doing life, but I don't enjoy life.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm doing life, but it feels like I'm doing somebody else's life.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I feel like it's one person over here.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the real me is like, looking down on them like this, because I don't even know what that is.
[SPEAKER_01]: There is no high, there is sometimes lows, but I'm just getting going along to get along, fairly middling, making it do what it do.
[SPEAKER_01]: All the things we say, but I want you all to know that that, you don't have to live like that.
[SPEAKER_01]: You don't have to live where you're just, ah, ah, so once somebody asks you how you're doing,
[SPEAKER_01]: You don't even really have a answer because you're like, man, blah, I'm here.
[SPEAKER_01]: I made it.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's not the life God meant for you.
[SPEAKER_01]: He meant for you to flourish.
[SPEAKER_01]: He meant for you to live in Shalom, which means nothing missing, nothing broken.
[SPEAKER_01]: That means he wants for you to live in abundance like we lived in the garden before sin entered in.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that is the reason why Jesus came.
[SPEAKER_01]: So give you life and give you life abundantly.
[SPEAKER_01]: But we have allowed the enemy to still kill and destroy.
[SPEAKER_01]: And sometimes the enemy is in between our own two years.
[SPEAKER_01]: Sometimes the enemy is our own L.I.D.
[SPEAKER_01]: Sometimes the enemy is, and you have to say against that enemy, I rebuke you on circumstance, Philistine.
[SPEAKER_01]: You are not going to tell me who I am.
[SPEAKER_01]: God knows me, God wants me to do something else, God wants better for me, He wants me healed and whole.
[SPEAKER_01]: And when you start moving differently, what people say you're acting funny style.
[SPEAKER_01]: You think you better than everybody, I might do.
[SPEAKER_01]: I might do.
[SPEAKER_01]: What it really is, sometimes our people are so used to accustomed to, and I call it living in drama, trauma, and chaos.
[SPEAKER_01]: and confusion.
[SPEAKER_01]: So when you decide to get out of that girl, what are you going to do?
[SPEAKER_01]: You notice what we do?
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't want to do that in a moment.
[SPEAKER_01]: Why not?
[SPEAKER_01]: This is how we live now.
[SPEAKER_01]: That don't feel good to me anymore.
[SPEAKER_01]: That lady on Sunday at church said, I don't have to live like that.
[SPEAKER_01]: That lady's name happens to be Alicia Walker.
[SPEAKER_01]: I didn't say my name earlier, he did.
[SPEAKER_01]: But you don't have to live like that.
[SPEAKER_01]: You don't have to live where your body is disconnected.
[SPEAKER_01]: You can be a whole person.
[SPEAKER_01]: You got your sad days, your good days.
[SPEAKER_01]: David did, he told God all about it.
[SPEAKER_01]: He told David, I mean, he told God, please go kill my enemies.
[SPEAKER_01]: All the things, I want you to be able to come together as one whole person and let go of those things that may have been passed down, that we have accepted, have said as a part of our identity,
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a part of just who we are.
[SPEAKER_01]: Stop it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Healing is the process of becoming whole.
[SPEAKER_01]: I have some questions for you.
[SPEAKER_01]: What hidden seasons has God used to prepare me.
[SPEAKER_01]: What emotions have I ignored or suppressed.
[SPEAKER_01]: Is there a part of my story God is asking me to heal?
[SPEAKER_01]: A major key.
[SPEAKER_01]: God cannot heal the version of you that only exists to keep everyone else comfortable.
[SPEAKER_01]: today's the last day for that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Three, Jesus heals us by telling us the truth.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm gonna share this story quickly.
[SPEAKER_01]: The culmination of it for us is John 4 28 through 29.
[SPEAKER_01]: So the woman left her water pot and went into the city and said to the people, come see a man who told me all the things that I have done.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is not the Christ, is he?
[SPEAKER_01]: This woman is saying this because she met someone at the well.
[SPEAKER_01]: She came with her water pot to gather water for her family, for herself.
[SPEAKER_01]: Then God told her, you know, you've been married five times in a man you live in with Angel Man.
[SPEAKER_01]: What?
[SPEAKER_01]: If he ain't how man whom man is it, where should get him from?
[SPEAKER_01]: And what does that mean, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: But what it means is back then, that was scandalous, that's scandalous for our time too.
[SPEAKER_01]: But the truth is, she shouldn't have been there at that time, and the fact that Jesus was there,
[SPEAKER_01]: But she went at that time, because she was trying to get away from other people talking about her.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know it, like, if they have no TV, they have no movies.
[SPEAKER_01]: Somebody had to be the talk of the town.
[SPEAKER_01]: Somebody had to be the one that was gossiping about.
[SPEAKER_01]: She was the one.
[SPEAKER_01]: But once she realized that she met them as sia, she left her water pot.
[SPEAKER_01]: She left it.
[SPEAKER_01]: And she went to go tell everybody about him.
[SPEAKER_01]: Her leaving the water pot symbolized old survival patterns, old identity, shame, emotional burdens, old coping styles, someone you're not anymore.
[SPEAKER_01]: Leaving the water pot behind was costly, inconvenient, and life changing.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that culture, the pot, represented survival.
[SPEAKER_01]: Responsibility, identity, and routine, what are some things that you need to leave behind in the water pot?
[SPEAKER_01]: She carried water not only for her stuff, but her family, and it was the water for cooking.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was the water for cleaning, it was the water for drinking bathing.
[SPEAKER_01]: She carried the water for her family.
[SPEAKER_01]: Imagine if you had to do that today.
[SPEAKER_01]: Drawing water was labor intensive and time consuming, and that water pot was valuable because she used it for so many things.
[SPEAKER_01]: So leaving it behind meant something to her, leaving it, she interrupted her normal survival pattern.
[SPEAKER_01]: This month, we're asking you to interrupt your normal survival pattern.
[SPEAKER_01]: Our patterns tell us, I don't have time to stop responsibilities come first, I'll do it myself later.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't have time to come on June 6th.
[SPEAKER_01]: I barely made a detour today.
[SPEAKER_01]: You asked me to do all these things.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't have time for it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Be constant productivity got to keep moving.
[SPEAKER_01]: I got to make sure I look good at all times taking care of everybody else But not you You don't feel good the doctor told you got how blood pressure diabetes autoimmune arthritis all the things
[SPEAKER_01]: You still are not taking care of yourself because you're taking care of everybody else.
[SPEAKER_01]: Perfectionism, hustle, I sleep when I'm dead.
[SPEAKER_01]: I gotta go get it, who else gonna get it?
[SPEAKER_01]: Nobody is gonna do it like me.
[SPEAKER_01]: A emotional self-suppression and their routines that keep life functioning, but you're exhausted.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like you're tired, you're tired, you're tired, you're tired.
[SPEAKER_01]: Leave me the jar behind, symbolize leaving old identities and burdens.
[SPEAKER_01]: In many ways, this jar represented her old life of shame, isolation being gossiped about.
[SPEAKER_01]: Talked about repetitive cycles, survival, coming to the well alone.
[SPEAKER_01]: She was by herself, where was that man that was not her husband?
[SPEAKER_01]: Why would he let her go there by herself?
[SPEAKER_01]: If he knew everybody, my mom was talking about her.
[SPEAKER_01]: Managing how others viewed her.
[SPEAKER_01]: Once you encounter Jesus, she runs towards the people.
[SPEAKER_01]: The same people she run from before.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's every one of us.
[SPEAKER_01]: We have an assignment that once we meet him, we have to go back and tell those people and go get them.
[SPEAKER_01]: We have to go back and tell people like, I know I used to be this way, but this is how God changed me.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is how I took one step forward, another step forward, and another step forward.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's how I am ready.
[SPEAKER_01]: Let me help you be ready too.
[SPEAKER_01]: We are here to make disciples.
[SPEAKER_01]: You can't show people the way to life with Jesus if you are not working on you because you are showing them the life to you.
[SPEAKER_01]: You're asking them to repeat your cycles if you're not dealing with the stuff on the inside.
[SPEAKER_01]: The major key here is when you encounter Jesus authentically, you stop hiding and start witnessing.
[SPEAKER_01]: You cannot heal while protecting your false self.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I have some questions again on the QR code when you get up there, you can scan it.
[SPEAKER_01]: What armor do I need to move?
[SPEAKER_01]: What job do I need to leave behind?
[SPEAKER_01]: What truth about myself have I avoided?
[SPEAKER_01]: Where has God inviting me into authenticity?
[SPEAKER_01]: Now these are some signs that God is inviting you to be healed.
[SPEAKER_01]: Exhaustion from performing resentment from over-functioning
[SPEAKER_01]: Anxiety from image management.
[SPEAKER_01]: The resentment from all, you do all the things for your family, but then you complain about it.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm doing all this for you.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm trying to make your life better, but you matter about it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Numbness from suppression, fear of disappointing other people.
[SPEAKER_01]: Fear of letting other people down.
[SPEAKER_01]: An inability to rest, chronic striving,
[SPEAKER_01]: and this connection from emotions.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is how you know God is calling you.
[SPEAKER_01]: Some of us are exhausted because we have spent years carrying armor.
[SPEAKER_01]: God never asked us to wear.
[SPEAKER_01]: He never asked you to wear a cape.
[SPEAKER_01]: He never asked you to get on the cross for your people.
[SPEAKER_01]: Get off.
[SPEAKER_01]: Get off the cross.
[SPEAKER_01]: He never asked you to take a bullet for your kids.
[SPEAKER_01]: He never asked you to give them the life you never had.
[SPEAKER_01]: So much so that they don't even know how to live.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm gonna stop yelling.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm saying this, because I say this, if I see five, 10, 25, 35, clients, I'm saying this all the time, because somehow we have misrepresented parenting to me, let me get on the cross for you.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's not yours to bear.
[SPEAKER_01]: Healing begins when we lay down the fall self and stand before God fully-known, fully surrendered and fully authentic.
[SPEAKER_01]: On that note card, I want you to write the thing that you want to put down, lay down, leave at the altar.
[SPEAKER_01]: At the end of service, we're gonna do the call to the Cypresship, we're gonna ask everybody to come up and who wants to join all of that.
[SPEAKER_01]: And we're gonna do the benediction.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you feel so led and you have something that you want to leave, leave it there.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you come and look, there's someone there from the first service and it is a lot.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not going to change overnight.
[SPEAKER_01]: Romans 12 and 2 says, renew your minds daily.
[SPEAKER_01]: Because you do, that thing you left, you might try to pick it up tomorrow, because somebody else wants you to pick it up, because it makes them feel better.
[SPEAKER_01]: But at the end of service, we're going to leave whatever you wrote in this water park, just like the woman at the well.
[SPEAKER_01]: And we're going to walk away from it.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're going to release it.
[SPEAKER_01]: And we're going to pray to God to give us the tools to never pick it back up again.
[SPEAKER_01]: Surrender false identities, release their rival patterns, acknowledge emotional exhaustion, confess hidden wounds, receive God's love without performance.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's your invitation.