"Your Why Has To Be Bigger Than Your Disappointment"

0:00 This is Jimmy and Annette and of course, Sevvie coming to you from the United States. I almost wanted to say live, but we're not live yet. This is living up in a down world. We're live in this moment. We are.

0:40 We're not like dead. We don't edit. Well, at the very beginning we edited, I think two times, but not anymore. So I had a major faux pas at the end of the last show. You did. And I decided to leave it in. You did. Because life is messy and I made a mess, didn't I? You did. I had a glass just like this one. I probably should not have brought that in here. No. I'm going to put it way over here. I didn't even bring a glass of water. No way. I got to have something to drink. My throat gets dry. But you got the water on the actual... No, no, no. It got on the... Okay, so I've got a Rodecaster Duo and I've got it elevated for that very reason because if you ever knock anything over, it won't get on it.

1:22 It just made a mess on the desk. It did. I grabbed the glass, my hand hit the mute button on the Rodecaster, and we just went dead air. Yes, we did. It was really hot. I thought, oh my God. But we were at the end of the show and I was like, oh man, we're there. So we decided to leave it in because life is messy. It is. We have had such a wonderful... I was going to say week, but it's only Tuesday. I know. What? But it's amazing. It feels like Sunday night. I know. It's been... We've had a week and two days. It's just wonderful. It really is. So what's so wonderful? Why are you saying it's been so good? Gosh, because there's so much growth going on in us, in our church, the people that we're surrounded by.

2:06 And it's just... It's fun to do life with people that are on a growth path. And we got to spend time with Tina and Adam last night with Craig and Calvin, his son. Craig does the artwork for Curry and the Keeper and does he do it for No Agenda as well? I think so. Yeah, I'm sure he does. He and his son are golden. Two of the coolest people just to hang out with. And they brought us gifts from South Dakota. I know. His wife... She's an artist. Is an artist and just brought us... She just gave us this amazing, amazing portrait that she did.

2:48 And then her son is a guitar player and you got to spend lots of time talking about guitars. You know what happens if you start talking guitar talk. You might as well forget it. You weren't even in all of our conversations. I know. I was like, the adults can hang out over there. I'm hanging out with a 17-year-old because we're talking. He built a kit guitar like a Les Paul and it's fantastic. And he brought it with him. So he... Of course, I had to look it over and it was looking great and amazing. He did some art on the guitar. I know. It was beautiful. Very cool. And then he comes over to the church and he brings us these beautiful wooden bowls that his father made. Yeah. He made on a lathe. It turns and they're absolutely stunning. Oh my gosh.

3:28 We're so blessed. We really are. I mean, first of all, we spent how many hours together last night? We went over there at what? 4.30? Four o'clock. We were there at four. We were there at four? At four. We got home at what? None. Past our bedtime. That's for sure. Yeah, it was really past our bedtime. It was late. It was so wonderful though. But we, it's like no time passed. We were in beta mode. When your brain goes into beta mode, if you've ever been in conversation and you feel like, wow, we're already done and it's been three hours, that's beta mode. That's your brain and it's just, and it's really, it's optimum functioning. And that's how it was last night. It was like, oh my gosh, it's already nine o'clock. What I loved is I was talking to Craig.

4:08 He has been listening to Adam's podcast with John DeVoret for 15 years. He said, I've been, I said, you've seen Adam go through this big life journey change coming to Christ. And he said, I've been praying for him all that time. I knew something was going to happen. 15 years, Craig has been praying for Adam Curry. He comes, he sits in the dining room where we're talking for hours and he's just amazed hearing us talk about our journeys and especially Tina and Adam's. It was, I loved watching him because I was just going, he's greeting from ear to ear because this is all he's been praying for for them.

4:49 And he's, he has seen such a huge transformation. It was beautiful to watch. It was stunning. Absolutely stunning. It really was. And he's like a kid watching, you know, just watching somebody he's admired from a distance for a long time. And as he said, a few times that they've gotten together, but just to be able to sit in his home and hear Adam talk about Jesus, talk about what God's doing and how God's got his hand on everything. And Tina just starting to tear up because she's talking about her love for Jesus. Oh my gosh. I was tearing up when she did that. I do. Tina can make me cry. She always makes me cry. She didn't even realize how much she makes me cry. She just reflects and radiates Jesus, especially when she starts, I'll try to get my English correct here.

5:33 I'm in a hurry for no reason. We're excited. I'm just excited. Two, I just killed off a big old steak. That's good for me. It makes me happy. I feel like a lion who just killed a water buffalo. When she starts talking about the love, the revelation of love that she's gotten from God as a father. Because she didn't have that so much at home. Your parents were just, you know, they were either there or not. And when she discovered the love of God and it became a revelation, the word revelation just means to peel back a layer and reveal, right? So it was revealed to her by God of how much he loved her as a child, as his daughter. Even while she was going through challenges in life.

6:15 Absolutely. He was always there even though she didn't know him. You know, Adam and Tina have a similar walk with God in that there were times when they felt like they weren't walking with God, but they look back on their life now and they see his hand on them on all these hard things and the successes and the difficult times. They see that God's hand was on them all the way for such a time as this. For the now. For the now. So when we get to hang out with these guys, which we try to once a week at least get together and do life together. I mean, we get to hang out at church now that Adam's coming to church. Coming to our church. We will pastor a church called Bridge Church.

6:56 And check us out online. BridgeFBG.com. All the messages are there. Worship everything. And there's a lot of tools on there and resources that will help you. But we want to help you. But that's where, you know, to see Adam on the front row. I think this was his fifth Sunday? Fourth? Fourth, maybe. Fourth, I think. And to see him, you know, he's what, six-five? Sitting on the front row with his arms stretched out. I'm wondering how tall he is when he raises his hands up. Oh my gosh. Because he's probably. Nine feet, maybe? Yeah. Three feet. At least. He's beautiful though. And he's very vocal in church. You can really hear him. Oh, I love him. He's got that booming voice. He's got the spirit of Mel on him. I love it. I love it.

7:36 Yeah. Mel is one of our, every church has a Mel. One person that's very, it's Emil Mel, who is very vocal and loves Jesus. Amen! Jesus! No, he says Jesus constantly. And he's just excited because he's got a real comeback story, you know, because God has been doing a great work in his life. So every church has a Mel, right? Somebody that's a little louder than everybody else. And so Tina said, she told Adam, she said, you're becoming a Mel. He's excited. She didn't mean that in a good way. Yeah, yeah. I love Mel. It's funny. And we're like, it's okay. It's okay. He's excited. He's excited about Jesus and God's just doing so much work in both their lives.

8:17 Their life has changed trajectories. Think about it. The last show, Curry and the Keeper, was all about wine and now it's a little bit about wine, but it's mainly about their spiritual journey. And I love that we get to be part of that. And it's so much fun to be part of someone's journey that they're actually moving the ball down the field. Not, that's something you would say, not that I, but I'm just hearing you saying that. And it's just, it's fun. It's just fun to watch. It's joyful. And it reminds me of as a new Christian, because I was 18, 19 years of age, and it reminds me of how my growth trajectory was real steep.

9:00 I mean, I grew very fast. And so that's why I think Adam and I click on a lot of levels is because he's on that same kind of growth path, super fast, where he's getting a lot of understanding, revelation, things are happening all around him. He sees God's hand at work and it's just beautiful to sit with both Adam and Tina. And just, I love it when we're with other people and they're telling their journey. It just makes me feel like a proud daddy, but really more of a proud best friend to see my friend thriving. And usually new Christians don't become close to us because, you know, I mean, we're the pastors. And so it's really refreshing to be around people like them who just love Jesus and they're growing and it's, you hear them say a lot of the same things they hear in the pulpit.

9:49 It's just, it's beautiful. It's okay. It's all public domain as far as I'm concerned. Exactly. It is. It is. So we have a great show today because we're sitting at dinner going, okay, what are we going to discuss today that's going to help people? And I just, we have been on this carnivore diet, how many days? Oh, we've got it right here. I'll pull it up. It's like 131 days. And we're not going to talk about that diet, but we're going to talk about something that... A principle. A principle that people have asked, why are you... What made you decide to turn to a carnivore diet? And it got me thinking...

10:30 Well, think about how it came up. Adam Lacey. Yes, you were on a podcast. So I was interviewed by Adam Lacey. He's a great guy and he's in the carnivore space on YouTube and he's one of the influencers and one in that space. And so we connected through a website and I shared a little bit of my journey. I was like, would you mind me interviewing you on the show? And so I did that last week. It aired yesterday at 2 p.m. It's under Carnivore Today. If you want to watch it, just go to Carnivore Today on YouTube and you'll see a picture of me in the net on one of the... And it's just sort of this thing's taken off. In fact, he just wrote me a few minutes ago, listen to what he said about... And let's preface this.

11:12 You're not just talking about carnivore. You're talking about our faith in conjunction with carnivore because we don't want to do anything and leave Jesus out of it. And that was part of why he wanted to interview me. How is faith, how's my spirituality and a way of eating or a lifestyle taking care of your body, how are those intersected? And so that's really the whole interview was about that. He just wrote a few minutes ago, he says, Jimmy, our interview is one of my top performing videos on YouTube and I have no doubt why. And he just said some beautiful things. I hope it equates to many blessings for you, much love to you and Annette. Can't wait to write him back and just celebrate with him.

11:53 So that thing just took off. And what's exciting about it is he asked me a lot of questions. I fielded some questions and one of them was, if you were to introduce somebody to the carnivore diet journey, what are the first things you would tell them? And I said, well, it actually doesn't have anything to do with the diet per se. The first thing I would tell them is you need to get your why. You need to know why you are doing what you're doing. Because if you don't have a why, you will not stick with it. That's it. And so you and I were talking about that and I said, wait, this goes along with our faith. Oh, absolutely. So what is your why in going to church?

12:34 What is your why in following Jesus? What is your why in having, continually following Jesus and not falling away? What is your why? That should be universal. Oh, yeah, that supersedes a diet or a lifestyle or it's anything you're involved in in life, but particularly about following Christ. Because there's going to be a lot of things that will try to get to be bigger than your why. The way it is, your why has to be bigger than your what. So the what is the issue you're doing. So let's talk about faith. Yes. We have a lot of people. We've received some beautiful notes this week.

13:15 I won't read them all. There's just some that are personal and I don't ever want to air those kinds of things, but there's some beautiful things that have come through. People are really beginning to open their hearts to us and trust us. And for those of you who wrote in, I want to say thank you for trusting us. And I want to honor that trust and your dignity by not necessarily sharing those online or sharing those. Especially if it's too personal. Yeah, there's some personal things, but I want to encourage what is helping me understand is where people are coming from. We have a lot of people that are involved and listen to Living Up and a Down world that maybe had faith at a younger age in their life or another season of their life and then life happened. The wheels fell off.

13:57 They went through some hard things. And then they grew distant in their fellowship with God. Or the quote unquote church hurt them. Right. They were damaged. So they leave the church because their why was not clear. Well there it is. So that's what I want to get to is we see a lot of them coming back to their faith either through Curry and the Keeper with Adam and Tina and people relating and connecting to their journey or our journey, which is a different journey, but at the end of the day it ends up being the same thing. God saving our lives and then saying, now I have a purpose for you. You know, there's a pulse, there's a purpose, right? I've got a purpose for you. Here's your assignment.

14:37 And so having said all that, we have a lot of people out there I know for a fact that are in that place of I love God, but I don't have a why. I don't have a, my why is not bigger than the storm that has come along. For one, maybe they forgot how they met God in the first place. True. If you forget your first love, it can take you away from your why. When God was speaking through John on the Isle of Patmos in the book of Revelation, there's a series of seven letters to seven churches. And to one of the churches, he said this, I have this against you. He said, you have lost your first love.

15:20 And that's something that we've seen happen through the years. Over and over and over with people. People who come into either our church or we meet them out somewhere and they're so alive with Christ, they're so on fire. And then something comes along. They get hurt, they get disappointed, they get offended. Or a prayer does not get answered. They want it to be answered. There's the disappointment for you. Disappointment. Or something happens in their own life, they lose their job or whatever. But what we've realized through the years, and even talking about the carnivore journey kind of got me talking about this, is that my why has to be bigger than everything else. And it has to be bigger than my what. The what's will come and go, but the why's got to be bigger. Now in faith life, in Christianity, your why has to be bigger than everything.

16:06 It has to be bigger than your failure. It has to be bigger than your success. It's got to be bigger than your poverty. It's got to be bigger than your wealth. It has to be bigger than everything. Because if it is not bigger than your career, if it's not bigger than your relationship, because life happens and relationships can end, even the best, not to scare anybody, but the reality is it happened to us, both of us. We've been through divorces because our whys were not bigger than our situation, at least to our other spouse. And in both our cases for the most part. So your why's got to be bigger than your what.

16:46 Because if it is not, the storms will come, the winds will blow, and you may be bent, but if you're not broken, you can survive the storm if your why is bigger than your what. And so you have to go back and begin to drill down a little bit and say, so what is my why? And that's a question that everybody should be asking themselves. And I would encourage our listeners right now, what is your why for following Jesus? Because if your why isn't big, if it isn't bigger than your situation, because your situations will change, then you may not last, you may not stay the course, you may not be able to run the race. It doesn't mean you're not saved, it just means you won't live up in a down world.

17:29 You won't have the fellowship with Christ that he wants, that intimacy, because you're the one walking away. He never ever walks away. He won't leave us. There's nothing more tragic than seeing someone who names the name of Christ, who's had an experience or an encounter with God at one point in their life, but lives a defeated Christian life. So they wallow in the mire of life. They're negative, they're down, they're critical, they're in pain. They don't seem to ever be able to live up above the line of this world. So they're constantly drowning in the stuff of this world. And so that's because they don't have a clear why. A lot of times we've had through the years, gosh, we can count them.

18:12 I mean, you need a calculator of how many people have come to us in all the churches we've served through the years. And they are so excited. Oh, Pastor Jimmy, Pastor Nett, this is the greatest church I've ever been to. You guys are amazing. I love your stories. And when I hear people like that, I get nervous for them. Because a few weeks later, they're gone. Well, and here's why. Speaking of why, it's because their why has gotten in front of Jesus. Their why is the church. Their why is how they felt in that moment. Their why is I feel tingly. I feel the presence of God. Or I love that worship song. Or I feel good because I feel like I prayed and I was forgiven of my sin.

18:53 So I feel good. And so that becomes their why. And the problem is this, or the real issue is this. Let me put it this way in simple terms. The why is not a what. The why is a who. Oh, I love that. The why is the person of Jesus Christ. And it's not you or the church. Oh, my goodness. When people come and flatter me, I learned a long time ago, do not believe anybody else's press about you, especially flattery. Because they may mean well. And it's always kind. And I always say, thank you. I appreciate that. But here's the thing. My concern with that is if they're enamored with me as the pastor, or they're enamored with our worship team and our music.

19:35 On the pedestal with them. Enamored with the church itself and what they feel when they're in our church. That won't last. That's too small of a why. No, because we'll disappoint you. Because we're human. It's a little why. And we need a large, we need a capital Y. A capital W, capital H, capital Y. And that is, it's got to be the person of Jesus. And so we, I'll often say, and I've had many times from the pulpit say, don't fall in love with the bride, the church. Fall in love with Jesus. Because if you get Jesus, you'll get the bride. But if you fall in love with the bride, you may not get Jesus. It's not the same. And so people who fall in love with your church, when they're not happy anymore at your church, they will leave.

20:19 They'll go find another church and they'll do the same thing. And they'll cycle. Yeah, it becomes a pattern where they just end up in a church and get disillusioned, frustrated. The problem is their why is not big enough because their why is not a who. It's a why. So it needs to be settled. So how do we, I mean, this is talking practical terms. If we recognize that maybe that's something that I'm prone to get excited about a moment at a youth camp experience or I was at a retreat or I was at church one Sunday. Or a concert, a Christian concert. Christian concert got me. I was crying real tears, you know. Is that a big enough why to carry you through the storms? Is that a big enough why to take you through a divorce? No. Is that a big enough why to take you through adultery?

21:00 Or like I said, an unanswered prayer. Just the disappointment, disillusionment. Is your why bigger than that? Bigger than that. And so how do we get that right? What are you thinking out loud in a conversation here? Well, it has to do with, you've got to get to know Jesus. It's not about going to church and opening the Bible at church. It's about every day, your everyday life. I mean, we wake up, good morning, Holy Spirit. We go to bed, you know, good night, Holy Spirit. Everything we do, the grid is through the power of the Holy Spirit. You know what I mean? We live our life on purpose, not just however we want to live it.

21:45 There's, you know, take for instance our marriage. If I didn't spend any time with you, we wouldn't have any kind of marriage. If I just got in the bed with you and slept, but I never said a word to you, I never complimented you. I never had a conversation. I never listened to you. We just were in the bed sleeping. We went to work and came home. There would be no relationship. It couldn't sustain. Yeah, you're right. And so we have to build on that relationship. And if we're bored with the Bible, find a translation that is, that you can understand. Find a devotion that you can read that gets you closer.

22:29 Get around eagles who soar, who love the Lord, where you can grow. If you get around people that don't know God, that's all you're going to, they're going to pull you down. You know, that is true. That's that negative peer pressure. Peer pressure, we used to talk about it in high school, junior high, right? Peer pressure, beware of peer pressure. But the thing is, it happens to us adults. It can happen to a 70 year old. Because we're high school, we're still in high school. We're perpetual kids for real. We just look older, but inside we still think we can jump and run. But if you think about it, who you hang around is who you will become like. And so in terms of a why, of course our why is Jesus, but there's what's involved in maintaining the why.

23:14 So what is a what? One of the what's would be get around people that have gone further down the track than you. Find people who are spiritually mature, who are joyful. Yes, not negative. Yeah, there's life in them. They're not complainers and whiners and moaners, grumblers. No, they're people that are living up in a down world. You find those people and you get around them. Because there is something happening. Why I married you honey. Honey. It is. Because I had been around most of the men in my life, which started with my father and then my ex-husband, were negative, negative, negative. And just the world is going to hell in a hand basket.

23:55 The sky's always falling. The other shoe's about to drop. Yes. You know all these clichés. Just always. And when I met you, it was like, what? You introduced me to a whole new world because I had become that negative person. So would you say I was living up in a down world back then? You've always lived up in a down world. It's because I got this title in college when I wrote a paper. I mean, that's how far this thinking goes back as a young Christian and get doing this assignment and they said you can pick any topic you want. And you chose that name. Somehow that just popped into my mind. Literally, living up in a down world. And I love that because when you've lived in the type of childhood and family life I had where everything, I mean my dad talked about suicide daily.

24:42 He never wanted to live. And there was an incident where he put a gun to your head as a child. He did. Two incidents. I was six months old. When you were a baby. Which my mom told me about that one in the crib. Six years old. And I'll never forget that. Can't imagine what that would do to a child. Oh, it brings fear. It's a stronghold of fear on your life that took me years and years and years to get over because I didn't know how to... You don't know what you don't know. There it is. And I didn't know how to release that and to get rid of that bondage. So how did you... I mean, this helps somebody. How did you finally get where you could shake that off and get past it?

25:25 Well, for one thing I had to get rid of everything in my life that would promote fear in my life. Which was one of the things that we did was we turned off the TV. Turned off the TV from things that were all negative. So let's get transparent. What were we watching? All the ID channel was my favorite channel. The investigate discovery, is that what it's called? Yes. And it's all about the serial killer next door. The neighbors, the psychos. I mean, it was all those shows which are fascinating. But what I loved about the shows were getting the bad guy. I wanted justice because I'm black and white. I want justice. But on the road to justice, all this fear got introduced.

26:06 You became paranoid. I did. I was like, we've got to shut our shutters. Oh, you freak out. Are all the doors locked? Have you checked all the doors? Yes, honey. Go check them again. It really, what you have go in your mind, in your eyes, in your heart. It literally... It amplified the fear that was already there and was getting... It triggered it. Yes. Even though... But you couldn't stop watching it. I mean, you were literally like an addict. Totally. Totally. And so, and then obviously getting in the scriptures that fear is a spirit. It is. And we don't have to live in the spirit of fear. We can live with love and a sound mind.

26:46 I just had to rearrange my brain, literally. And we had to go on a lifestyle, an elimination diet in our life, not just carnivores. Our life. What are things that are not adding value to our life? And we got rid of those things this year. I mean, okay. For our listeners... So talk about the freedom. Okay, go ahead. Well, think about it. We're pastors and we were allowing things to come into our life that were not uplifting. They were bringing us down and bringing fear. And no wonder we didn't have the fruit from our lives that we craved.

27:27 We wanted that fruit. We wanted people to be drawn. That's a good way to say it. I think it minimized our potential and our capacity. And I think God is saying, if you will follow me and get closer to me and let go of the things that you don't need, that aren't adding any value to you, which are not necessarily sin. Well, for me, I was thinking, okay, well, this is all restriction and we're free in Christ. We can do whatever. No. If it's not profitable to me, why would I keep doing it? And what I found is I have more freedom now with the boundaries we've set into our life than I ever did before when I said, I can watch whatever I want because it doesn't matter.

28:09 It's why we got TV watching things that are immoral. I mean, oh, well, it's just a little sex scene or a little... Yeah. You know how people will say, hey, Pastor Jimmy Net, y'all should watch this movie. No, there's some cussing in there. And there's a sex scene and there's some blah, blah, blah. And then there's this and it goes on. And we'd be like... Okay. So let me ask you a question. If I gave you a cup of water and I added some dirt in there, would you eat? Would you drink it? No. So we had to really evaluate, okay, you know, we as pastors should be living at a higher level because we're more accountable. I disagree. Okay. We as Christians... Okay, you're right. Christians. The position is irrelevant. No, I agree.

28:49 I agree. But there is an elevation because of being a teacher of the world of work. Well, the Bible does say there is a stricter, higher accountability. Exactly. And that's what I'm talking about right there. Not... Yeah, to say living at a higher level, so... Okay. That's what I'm saying. Yeah. Because we're accountable for what we teach. Totally. And our teaching is not necessarily what we say. That's right. It's what we do. It's what we do. And so I think that's so important. And so we just... So can we pull it back? Okay. Pull it back to the why. Because we love God. Okay. There we go. Now, cue Bible verse with the dramatic... Okay. Wait. Play some music.

29:29 Is there some kind of music? You've got all these effects. I know, but... I've got to find something. Even if it didn't work. Here we go. Oh, wrong jingle. My bad. Wrong jingle. Wow. Okay. So here it is. Oops. So Mark chapter 12 verse 30. Listen to this. Talk about getting the why right. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength. That's called the Shema in Hebrew. I love that. I love that. And it's the first command. Actually, the first command. So getting your why bigger than your what means you go back to the very first command, the Shema.

30:10 And it is to love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul. Your soul is your body, by the way. Sometimes people think that the soul is the spirit. It's not. It's actually the whole of who you are. It's your mind, body, and spirit connected. That's the soul. It's the whole person. So anytime you hear soul, they'll tend to think it's spirit. We default to that. It's not actually correct. The soul is the fleshly earthly self of who you are. It's who Annette Pruitt is. It's who Jimmy Pruitt is. It's who Adam Curry is or Tina. It's who you are. So that's the soul with all your heart, with all your soul, your whole person, with all your mind, with all your strength. So it's the whole package that loves God more than anything.

30:54 And this is what I ask. If what I'm watching, would Jesus be in the room watching this with me? He might, but he might be weeping. Or he may be turning tables over like he did one time in the temple. And so we made that decision. But everybody has to come to their own revelation. That's right. In fact, I would never tell anybody to do what we did. In principle, I would say maybe there are things that are not getting you to where you want to be, that are holding you back or hindering you like a bungee cord attached to your back. It just keeps snapping you back to where you were. You can start getting going and then you get pulled back. And so we would never say, hey, you shouldn't watch what we watched. You know, you should do it like this.

31:35 No, we say this. Do the next thing Jesus tells you to do. If you don't receive the revelation, but you just hear it from us, you'll just go back to your old way of living. For me, that was me. I knew God for years. I mean, I told you a year, but it was probably a lot longer than that. I just wasn't paying attention. You felt like God was saying, stop this. You need to stop this because if you want to get rid of the fear that has been embedded in your life since you were six months old, then you're going to have to make some changes. My comfort, my entertainment was so much more important. And now I've got my why.

32:15 I love Him so much that I want to please Him. Instead of being afraid of making a mistake, it slips. Yes, because He's not going to thump me off the planet when I make a mistake. That would be living down in a down world. I'm just afraid that I'm going to make a mistake and blow it up. He still loves me in spite of me. That's the thing. He always wants to take us to a new place, but we have to be open to that new place. We have to say, Lord, I want to get to this place. Help me get to that place. And He will. He'll start knocking things off of your life, taking things away that you thought you just had to have.

32:56 And now you don't. Can I say something here? This is really important. And just so if you're listening going, I could never give this up. I could never let go of this. Let me tell you what God does. He loves you so much. He doesn't just tell you to just crucify it and nail it to the cross. He actually takes and begins to diminish your desire for it. That's grace. That's the power of grace. And when I talk about grace, I mean God's power, God's strength, God's ability, God's favor to do what you cannot in and of yourself do. That's grace. And that's what He does. It's power. When we're in sin and you're a Christian, He gives us the grace to overcome those besetting sins. And that, I feel like, is what He did here.

33:37 And now I have no desire. So let me ask a question. How does a why get a person through a massive disappointment or a storm? How does that work, practically speaking? Well, because when you know who loves you no matter what, and you love them, it can get you through anything. Love is the key. The board says God is love. And when you get a…it's like what Tina, just talking about the love of the Father. She was tearing up. That's what God wants of all of His children is to tear up when we talk about the love of God.

34:18 Because it's so deep. Because it's so deep. It's not just, oh, God loves me. It's a true revelation of His love. That it's not about He's going to thump us off this planet. It's about He loves us so much. He will allow us to go through things, but try to teach us through those things to get us to the next place. Because we're on a journey. It goes back to Romans 8.28. It says, God causes all things to work together for good. He doesn't cause all things. He causes all things to work together. For those who are called according to His purpose. So you know what I'm saying though. He literally…a situation that could be bad, He'll cause it to work together for your good.

35:02 That's the power of walking with God. It's the power of grace. It's the power of knowing Him. It's the power of having your why. Your why solid. But you've got to let go. I'm trying to think of what…if I were talking to people, which I am, but talking to people that were like, I don't know how to get there. You've got to let go of the things of the past that are hindering you. Those voices of religiosity from your past. Maybe a church that was very legalistic and put the hammer down. You've got to adjust yourself to do what the Bible really says about who God is.

35:47 Think about that. Because so many people grew up in denominations that are just so strict. And God is not like that. I mean God is…He's such a loving, caring God. Where are you going? I see that you're getting some…your mind is going. I can't help it. So listen to this. We talked about this a long time ago. But when you said what you just said, it brought me back to this. To those…this is Jude 1. To those who have been called, who are loved by God the Father and kept by Jesus Christ. Just that scripture alone. I want to encourage you. That is Jude 1 verse 1.

36:29 And so look that up. It's at the end of the New Testament. Right before Revelation. Jude 1 verse 1. To those…and this is in the New International Version, NIV. To those who have been called, who are loved by God the Father and kept by Jesus Christ. Called, loved, and kept. If you can get a revelation of that… I'm bringing you back to that. Because that's…but here's how it works practically for me. When I'm having a day where I forget my why, when I'm not leaning into my why, who is a who, Jesus, I have to go back to God's Word. I go back to Scripture because Scripture gives me that foundation. Scripture is an anchor for me. It's an anchor for the soul. Where if the waters are choppy or, you know, the storms, the winds blowing hard, I cast my anchor.

37:15 I mean that anchor is the Scripture. It's the Word of God. And this is one that I go to, to remind myself who I am in Christ. And so I'll say, in Christ I have been called. In Christ I am loved by God and in Christ I am kept. I love that. Called, loved, kept. If I'd say that to myself about three times in a row, I start to elevate something inside. You stand up taller. Absolutely. You feel stronger. You receive that strength. He says the joy of the Lord is our strength. And so He gives you strength when you start to quote His Word and you get it in. A lot of times you have to say it quite a bit out loud.

37:55 Speak it out. Declare it. And then He gives you strength when you start to do it. So that you can then live it out. If you think about it, I used to love like old war movies and submarines, you know, the old submarines and stuff. And in old black and white war movies, they would drop these and they took this in real war. The movies were about war. But they would roll these barrels off the side of the ship. And what they're called, they're called depth charges. They would roll this barrel off and splash into the water. And then it falls down through the water and here comes a submarine, you know, unsuspecting. And here's this barrel floating down in the water. And when it gets to a certain depth, it explodes. And what is called a depth charge.

38:35 But I've always had this metaphor, this picture in my mind of those old war movies and these depth charges that our words are power containers. Because with a word, you can change an atmosphere. With a word, you can lift somebody up or you can tear them apart, tear them down. And so I find if I believe that my words matter and that my words are power containers, then I believe that when I speak the Word of God, then the Word of God has power. It does. So I can read a verse out loud. You don't even have to get fancy. Just read it to those who have been called, who are loved by God the Father and kept by Jesus Christ. And let that, lean into that as your identity.

39:18 I'm called, loved, and kept. But even just saying it right now, just here, you and me and whoever's listening, it builds me up. The book of Jude talks about building yourself up on your most holy faith. And we've got to do that. It's powerful. When we have down days, we shouldn't go to alcohol, to the bottle, go to TV. It's so easy to escape. Go to something that's going to escape. We really need to, as Christians, we need to learn to go to God and let His Word bring life because His Word is life to our bones. It's to our… That scripture says it's life and health. Health to our bones. Yes.

39:58 I want healthy bones. Yes. That's why I'm doing carnivore. I do too. So this was good. I love this. This is one of my favorite topics that we've ever had because it just gives me such life. So let's recap. Okay. We're talking about the why behind the what and that your why has to be bigger than your what. It has to be. You're walking with Christ, walking in faith, being part of a church, a community of faith and believers. Your why has to be bigger than the church. Your why has to be bigger than your love for the music of the church. Or you will walk away. Or you will fall away when the wind blows too hard. We talked with a couple yesterday. Oh, this is good. That has been away from the church for 20 years.

40:40 20 years. They came to our church for the very first time. A church in 20 years, a couple of weeks ago. And they came to us and introduced themselves to us. And they are just two of the nicest, coolest people. But they were so hurt. And I'm like, 20 years of your life. 20 years, but they're not hurt now. They are on fire. But they've got to have their why or it'll be just a wonderful church. But we will let them down because someone will say, you've got my seat. Or anything. Can I appeal to our listeners? Yes. You know, you may have gotten offended in a church. You may have been abused and are treated terribly.

41:21 And there are pastors that have abused people. Oh my gosh. There are gazillions out there. And it's tragic. And we've served under some hard pastors. I won't go into any detail on that because I want to protect the guilty. And so we've served under hard and sometimes abusive pastors. And when I say abusive, I don't mean any weird stuff. Not physical, but just... Spiritual abuse. Yes. And controlling, narcissistic. Narcissistic. All that stuff. And so we know how hard that can be. But here's what happens. In fact, let me just mention last week's show. And if you didn't listen to last week's show, which is number 43, this is 44, you need to go back and listen to number 43.

42:01 It's what do you do when you get disappointed? What do you do when you're doing the right things and it doesn't work out? What do you do when you're believing God and it doesn't turn out right? Because I got fired in a church situation. And you were doing all the right things. I was doing the right things. It was very unrighteous. It was dark. It was petty. It was controlling. It was narcissistic driven. And the only reason I survived that is because... And we stayed in church. And we... Yeah. Never left church. The only reason that we were able to do that is because our why, our who was bigger than the situation. Because we made a commitment to Jesus Christ that no matter what our situation is, whether we're winning or losing, whether we're success or failure, whether we're in the good times or the bad times...

42:52 Wealth or poverty. Wealth or poverty does not matter. That is irrelevant to our why. And our why is anchored in a who and that is Jesus Christ. So I want to encourage you to get your how, your why. I'm getting all my words. I'm so loving this. Your who, why, how, everything. Get it all. Like Dr. Seuss. Get your why clear. And think about it in this term. Am I not going back to and giving church another chance because church was my why and my why wasn't bigger than the church? Am I going to hold something that happened to me 20 years ago, 15 years ago, 10, 5, at a church somewhere else in another city or in another time because that's still bigger than my why?

43:46 So I want to, and we want to lovingly, lovingly encourage you, get your why clear. Write it down. What's that verse you quoted earlier? Habakkuk? It's Habakkuk. I have it right here. Habakkuk 2. Oh, you got it. Then the Lord replied, write down the revelation and make it plain on tablet so that a herald may run with it. In other words, write down those things, that why that you have. Write it down. Make it plain. He wants you to run with a vision that God's called you to do. But if you don't write it down, you'll just forget.

44:28 So can I read it out of a different translation? So this translation, this is New King James. Yeah, and I read it out at NIV. I love this. Write the vision and make it plain on tablets, on parchment. Write the vision and make it plain that he may run who reads it. So whoever reads it sees the vision is clear. And so my encouragement to you today is get your why clear. What is your vision of a why? Get that clear. And if you as a follower of Jesus, and maybe you're coming back to faith, we've had so many people write in and say, we're coming back to faith because of you and Tina and Adam and you two.

45:09 We're coming back. But if you're coming back and you're on that journey back, we want to help you with this. Get your why clear. Write the vision and make it plain on tablets that he may run who reads it. And that will help you as you navigate disappointment, offense. Because it's all going to happen. It just happens because anytime you're around another human being, as good as they may be, they're never a human being will never be bigger and better than the one can live up to our own exact. Exactly. You can't even lower your expectations. Yes. So give people the same grace you yourself need.

45:50 Right. Yes. And so anyway, we're 45 minutes in. Wow. Yeah, we're doing good. Well, we're on fire. This podcast is bringing value to you, I encourage you to go to our website, livingupinadownworld.com. Give us feedback. Write down. Yeah, leave a review. Leave a review. Value for value. Subscribe. Treasure. Yeah, sign up for our newsletter. We take PayPal or Bitcoin. But really, it's your words mean more to us than anything. Yeah. Time, talents and treasure. We love hearing from you and just getting feedback. Give us ideas of things that would help you if we brought the subject up because literally we weren't sure exactly what we were going to talk about until we had dinner tonight and said, this is it.

46:41 Because we've been talking about our while with carnivore because we're doing a carnivore channel. But this is more important than carnivore. So tell them about our little carnivore channel. So yeah, we started our own carnivore channel. Can you remember the name of it? Pray. Nope. I know. I knew you were going to do that. Meat. That's why I did that to you. I know. What is it? Meat. Pray. Love. Meat. Pray. Love. I knew you were going to put me on the spot. Don't ever do that. That was a setup. It's basically, there was a book and a movie called Eat, Pray, Love. So we named it Meat, Pray, Love. And it's on YouTube. You can find us on YouTube. You can look up the carnivore rev or at carnivore rev or look up Meat, Pray, Love.

47:24 And we're going to be in it. You did it yourself. I did our first introductory video. By yourself. Kind of sharing our journey and what it's going to be about. And then you'll be coming in with me and because we're learning a new system. It's like anything. It's brand new. So we're newbies. And you just did like a 10 minute introduction. Yeah, it's just a 10 minute video introducing that. But I would encourage you to go listen to my interview with Adam Lacey. So it's Carnivore Today. I mentioned that earlier. Carnivore Today on YouTube. And you'll find it. It's phenomenal. Thank you. I was pleasantly surprised. Not that I don't trust that you're going to be great, but it made me say, wow, I need to do carnivore. Oh yeah, I already am. But it was really enlightening.

48:06 And what we're going to do on our channel is we're hoping to interview. We know we're going to be interviewing some influencers. We want to interview some doctors that have influenced us, given us some good information. But we also, obviously, we're going to infuse our faith in the whole thing because everything about what we do has to do with the Lord Jesus Christ, period. Total life, wellness, mind, body, spirit, all of the above. So listen to this. Mr. Adam the Podfather Curry, we got a little... Strapper. Another one. Every beast. Strapper Boost. He says, hearing Sir Patrick Goble, Duke of the South, words filled my heart with love and joy.

48:49 He has provided me time, talent, treasure to know agenda and me personally, than I could ever repay. Knowing that he is my brother in the kingdom means we will be having meetups in heaven together. God bless him and my friends, Pastor Jimmy and Dame Annette. Speaking of meetup, we have a meetup in Austin. Where's it at? At a restaurant? Somebody's bar and grill. Oh my gosh. I don't know. You have to know. It's a Adam and Tina's thing and they just invited us in. It's a meetup with no agenda. Curry and the Keeper, living up in a down world. So me and Adam went to one of the meetups together to represent.

49:29 Now we get to have the girls with us. It's going to be an awesome time. And meetup, tell them what that means. Well, meetup is where you get together with people who listen to the show and who contribute or are involved and you just get to talk in person. Get to find out a little bit about their life. You get to put a face with the names because I love all the handles are awesome. I wish you could remember where we're going to meet. Well, ask Tina, text her right quick. And while you're doing that, Julie Herbert wrote in, so sweet. Oh, I got to pray with her on Sunday. Her precious family is going through some hard stuff. And she just wrote, thank you. God loves me. God loves my family. And God's got this. Absolutely beautiful. And that is so, so true. So proud of you.

50:10 Also, I'd like to read it. We got a new review, a couple of them actually this week. And no, a new one this week. This is from Martha. Martha goes to our church. She is a beautiful, beautiful soul. Today I was looking for your podcast. It's not. I said we had, we're doing it tonight. It's always Tuesday evening. Yeah. So she writes this encourage five stars. Thank you. Encouraging and uplifting best podcast yet. I haven't missed a one. You guys are doing such an amazing work sharing your testimony and your love for Christ. This really hit home with me today. I love listening to the reviews at the end and how many lives you guys have touched. It is so encouraging.

50:51 Keep up the amazing work. Love you guys. Stay the course. Isn't that beautiful? That just makes my heart go pitter patter. Also have, and I'm waiting for my computer to pull it up. On our, listen to this. Gosh, we got lots of new subscribers. Wow. Really? I'm loving up in a den world. Loving what? Living up in a. Up in a den world. A down world. Sorry. I was going to say two things at one time. You've had way too much club soda. This has to do with our carnivore channel. I know. Yeah. That's what it is. People are jumping on and subscribing. Wow. I'm blown away. Listen to this. Great.

51:31 This is a note that came in from Robert Ludwig. I like this guy. He's written before. Great brother in Christ. Thank you, Robert. He says, pastor Jimmy and Damonette, I came to your podcast via Curry and the keeper. Yay. I have a lot I want to say eventually. But now, need to keep it short. I just started listening eight days ago and just got through the Easter episode. Oh my goodness. Easter was my late wife's favorite holiday. She loved the idea of Jesus coming back and His promise. When she was in sixth, in the sixth to eighth grade, her Sunday school class was in charge of the Easter service. They sang a song, quote, every morning is Easter morning from now on, end quote. She sang that often. After she passed at 47 from leukemia, heartbreakers.

52:14 On the back of the headstone, I had them put every morning is Easter morning, tonight makes me want to cry. For her, it faces the East to catch the sunrise daily. Thank you for your podcast and for reading Robert. My fountain name is Boober that you may have heard on Curry and the Keeper. Robert, thank you for sharing that piece of your life with us and that beautiful, beautiful moment. I can imagine just the beautiful weight of memories that you have when you remember her singing that song. God bless you, my friend. That's so encouraging to us.

52:55 I just want to say thank you. You're a blessing. Huge blessing. Just beautiful. Then also, I have a card. An actually physical handwritten card. This is from another one of our favorite people, Renee Sechrist. She wrote this a few weeks ago in October. I had it laying here because it's not digital. I kept forgetting it. I want to share it because such a blessing. Listen to this. She says, I've once shared that I completely appreciate Jimmy's rawness from the pulpit. I am that. Very raw. Raw, real. And hopefully relevant. It is so authentic and relatable.

53:37 I seriously believe my high school days were very similar. It could also be described as lost. With all the typical small country town shenanigans. Oh yeah. I often joke that I went to college to straighten up. College is where I met Jesus the first time with early morning devotionals at the Wesley Foundation. Did not even know what a devotional was. College is also where I went to my first Christian concert, Michelle Pilar. Oh wow. That was one of your favorites when I met you. We're friends on Facebook. Of course you are. Me and Michelle Pilar. Of course. She says, I have been so blessed with several raw conversations with Annette during drives to and from San Antonio. Which I miss.

54:18 And others scattered throughout here and there. We love that family. The whole family is golden. They are. She says, now with the podcast, the two of you together bringing your full authentic selves pow. Like, you know, when the bold Batman show. That's what I was picturing. So powerful. I'm fairly certain your words are not falling on deaf ears or into the deep black abyss. So please keep going as long as our good papa leads you. I've heard every episode and have collected so many nuggets. I haven't even heard every episode. What? Well, I know. I'm kidding.

54:59 Onward Christian soldiers, many blessings Renee. And she says she no longer has your phone number. Remember we changed it in sabbatical. You need to give her your number. Thank you Renee. You're a blessing. I'm sorry I waited so long to read that. I literally, it was sitting there and I just, because it's not digital, I kept not noticing. So thank you so much. And we just want to say thank you to all of you who write, all of you who encourage. Tina's not writing me back. They must be out to dinner or something. I bet they are. We can't say where we're having a meetup. Go listen to Curry and the Keeper. They'll bring it up there. There you go. Curry and the Keeper, one of our favorite shows. Also. There's this on tomorrow night. Yeah. They'll get it produced tomorrow night. And then No Agenda with John Dvorak and Adam, the Podfather Curry.

55:44 I'm telling you the world we live in right now, that's a show you need to be listening to because they are deconstructing all the media lies and the media silliness. We've learned so much. I love having dinner with them and hearing them just give more and more information. Somebody asked me if I listened to No Agenda because that shows three and a half hours two times a week. And I said, no, Adam is my best friend. No, I said Adam's my best friend. I just asked him. We were hanging out. Give me the notes. Give me the down low. He does. He just and it's such a joy. It really is. We love our friends. Obviously we have so we're so blessed with friends and amazing people. Too blessed to be stressed.

56:25 We shouldn't be stressed. I know. All right, guys, we love you all. Thank you for listening to the show and being a part of this. We want you to live up in a down world. Remember get your why straight because once you get your why who's a who, then everything else will work out. But what will work out? God bless you. Have an amazing week on purpose.