So, there's something in us, all of us have it,
that is built on our childhood,
it's built on our background,
and we just keep doing these dumb things.
And so, embracing hard means that you're gonna
do the hard work, building a new you.
Totally.
Because if you don't build a new you,
then the enemy's gonna build the old you
really deeply, really fast.
Hey, welcome to the Steve Holt Podcast.
I'm Ryan Steyer, Executive Pastor of The Road.
I'm here with Pastor Steve Holt,
Senior Pastor and Founder of The Road,
and we're here talking about the book,
Breakthrough Courage, Steve's book that he wrote,
and the nine habits to conquer fear
and build a brave heart.
And today, we're gonna be discussing
habit number two, embrace hard.
Aren't you excited about this?
Oh, it's great, and I think it hits it.
You just put it out there,
and I think it hits it.
Yeah, it's great.
Oh, it's great, and I think it hits it.
You just preached on it.
I did.
So, I thought you were perfect for that,
because over the last five years,
you've had so much to embrace,
that's hard in so many different areas.
And so have I, but I mean, I wrote the book,
so people, they hear mine,
but cool to hear it from you,
and I've got Andy, one of our other staff,
he's gonna speak on it to our wholehearted men
on Tuesday morning from his perspective.
Absolutely.
And his is a very, very devastating perspective
of what he's been through.
Yeah, you know, interesting title
in that hard things happen to us
that we either create or by their very nature
are just organic and happen to us
by the way life comes at us.
Totally.
I like creating hard on a fairly regular basis
by not thinking through what I say and what I do.
Absolutely.
Right?
Yeah.
No, it does.
All of you do that all the time,
and if you don't think you do,
then you're just a big liar,
because you do.
And I think about it all the time,
like, okay, do I really wanna say this?
And then I say to myself, don't say this.
And then I say it.
And then I go, what an idiot.
So I'm always struggling, you know,
with like creating, I like the way you said that.
It's like we create our own hard.
Yeah.
Way more than we need to.
Probably there's a little bit of this mindset
that we have where we live in denial
that we are the creators of our own chaos oftentimes.
Right?
And then we say that we're like kingdom of God people
that are bringing order to chaos.
And then we come into a situation where there's order
and we create chaos.
We create chaos.
In our marriage, in our family, in our job.
So embracing hard.
Yeah.
It's like constant.
Yeah.
Well, your first illustration in the habit number two
is with Jersey Gregorak, the weightlifter
and just his backstory.
And you set the chapter up beautifully.
And the quote that you enter with is where he says,
easy choices, hard life, hard choices, easy life.
It captures, well, really what it does,
I think it brings us to the fork in the road.
We've both shared, you've said it where you grew up.
It's a slogan of, are you a two knock, one knock
or three knock guy?
And the reality is, okay, at some point,
the fruit of my decisions are still equaling
the sum of nothing.
Yeah.
So I've got to start making different choices,
different habits.
And some of those decisions are going to be hard.
Yeah.
Because you've built up negative habits.
You've built up habits that are self-destructive.
To begin to reorient our thinking every day
that I'm going to embrace these bad habits,
embrace these bad choices that I continually make.
Part of that is going to be what I talk about actually
in the next chapter with Blood, Stained Allies
and in the next chapter, which is facing shame.
So there's something in us, all of us have it
that is built on our childhood.
It's built on our background
and we just keep doing these dumb things.
And so embracing hard means
that you're going to do the hard work building a new you.
Totally.
Because if you don't build a new you,
then the enemy's going to build the old you really deeply.
Really fast.
It's interesting.
And I love how you said that the family of origin,
all of us have one and we come out with that playbook.
Yeah.
And rightly, wrongly or otherwise,
some people get a better playbook than others.
Some people are just born into the hard
and then we have to pick up from there.
And so stepping out of that,
I think that's really where we embrace the hard
because the familiar is easy, right?
And so the hard thing is to,
what you're saying here,
we're talking about the study on neuroplasticity,
some great stuff from Shawna Core in the book,
really where we have.
of the ability God has given us in our own system
to rewire and rework our brains.
But that's hard, man.
I mean, like, I'm thinking about my decision-making
up to a certain point in my life
was all based from the narrative and filters
of the family of origins that was surrounding me.
For sure.
I think that some of us come out of Mayberry RFD, you know?
Some of us come out of Gotham.
So we, you know, if you got a little bit more Mayberry RFD
than Gotham, then you've probably got
maybe some foundations that are better.
And then others of us come out of, you know,
we were gang, our parents seemed like
they were gang leaders in Gotham.
So you might've gone through a divorce.
You might've gone through, you know,
parents who had extramarital affairs or whatever it is,
maybe even mental illness.
I hear that a lot, where people come out
of bipolar parents or something.
That's tough.
Because their familiar is very unhealthy, very unhealthy.
And some of us have a familiar that's healthier than others.
But either way, when we come into the kingdom of God
and God comes to invade our life
and his spirit comes and moves in our soul
and in our spirit, we begin to be transformed and changed.
And now we have this new identity
as sons and daughters of God.
We still face this familiar hard
that's been self-destructive.
And we begin this new life of renewing our mind.
Yeah, and that's huge.
And so just that, even that mental kingdom discipline
of renewing your mind, in thinking about that,
it was interesting for me when I was reading this chapter
and I was reminded of a study I had come across
from the National Institute of Health and Science
related to kind of the natural default
of our mental system.
And that is one that we're going to seek pleasure first,
preserve energy and avoid pain.
And that's just, that's like our,
that's our default setting, right?
That's right.
So then to step into these things.
Is painful.
Oh man, yeah.
Difficult.
Unfamiliar.
Yes.
It's hard, man.
So it's like, I remember as a kid,
how hard it was for me, probably wasn't for you
because you were a collegiate swimmer,
but it's hard for me to learn how to swim.
That was like one of my first obstacles
that I remember that it seemed like was easier
for everybody else except for me.
That's interesting.
So it's funny because I was playing,
I was playing sports, some other sports and everything,
but in swimming, I just, I couldn't get that natural,
you know, stroke and everything.
I think it'd be interesting,
since dad's still alive, I should ask him,
but I think it might've been like eight years old,
which is kind of late for kids.
A lot of kids are, some are swimming like at three.
Throwing them in the water.
But it was a long time for me.
And finally, I dove into this deep end of a pool
and dad moved away from me to make me come to him
and so I dog paddled.
And that was just so exciting to finally get it.
And I think that's sometimes what habits
with embracing hard can be like,
is you keep embracing it
and you just don't see any progress.
You don't see it working.
And so you sink again.
And then there's some point,
maybe it's even just you become so scared,
so fearful of where your life is going
if you don't embrace the hard and then you do.
For me, it was like drowning.
Now dad was gonna catch me,
but I remember that feeling like,
whoa, dad's not here.
And then he kept moving away and I kept going,
dad, I'm swimming.
And we were so excited.
It's interesting the analogy that you're saying.
And even as you're talking,
I remember my father working through that.
I remember he would come home from work
and I lived around the corner.
My grandparents had the pool
that we could always use and access.
In the summertime, we'd go out there and we'd have fun
and he'd throw me in
and then have me kind of like dog paddle to the edge.
But I remember every moment
and every time it got a little bit easier
in those initial trials,
it was like full of fear.
The training wheels had been removed
and I'm in a foreign land.
I mean, I'm built to be on the land
and now I'm in a different environment altogether
in the water.
And it's something that we had to learn
and press through.
We're not amphibians by nature.
And I was thinking about even the correlation
of those physical things that we go through
to develop a deeper skillset,
to encounter and embrace the hard,
how that impacts our spiritual walk,
the faith that's needed.
Because I'm pressing into,
okay, I know that if I don't make the wall
or I can't reach my dad,
ultimately, being the father,
he's gonna come in and give me the rescue.
But trusting that moment.
But he's gonna let me struggle for a minute, right?
Do you remember writing,
do you remember?
or learning to ride a bike. Do you remember that?
I do actually. Yeah. And that was fear there too. It was like, stay with me,
hold, hold on. And then the next thing, you know, in my mind,
memory recall of that is, you know, dad, I don't know how it was for you,
but dad's holding the back of the seat. You don't see him.
You're focusing forward and you're just trusting he's there.
The next thing I know we go through that a couple of times and I think he's
still holding the back of the bike, but I'm doing it on my own.
And somewhere in the process, his hand has left, you know, the stable,
destabilize me. Right.
I remember that so vividly being in the
grass and Huntsville, Alabama,
and dad being behind me and kind of, I think he kind of pushed me.
If I recall, and there were these dogwood trees nearby, I can still see it.
And then I would just remember that I was,
I was pedaling and he was way back. And I was like, Oh, I just,
I just did that. I was so happy. Oh man. I was just that, you know,
I think those things are important in our development and I think we need to
keep, we need to keep those,
those memories of victory in
embracing hard because you can,
you can embrace hard and get through it and start having new
muscle memory and new muscle memory of re of reacting to hard things
with much more of a unbreakable, uh,
in a breakthrough and unshakable challenged viewpoint of courage.
This starts to get birthed in you. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Those like,
those early foundational discoveries of
confidence for us. And I don't know where you were at in your pack of friends.
I wasn't the first of my friends to be on the bike.
I had some other buddies who had started to ride a little bit earlier and you
kind of start to measure yourself and you're like, well,
I want to keep up with those guys. I need some wheels. You know,
I'm not going to keep up as fast on foot.
And then there's that natural desire that builds in us to try and now risk
something that seems, okay, I need to learn this,
but how foundational those early confidence building steps are that probably
play a huge role in us now as adults, stepping into the hard,
stepping into the unknown, taking the risk. And so it's so wild. Um,
the things that we discover build on and then give us that foundation of courage
that we're absolutely going to draw on our whole lives. Right. Yeah.
And I think there's this mentality in our nation.
I actually think it's worse in our nation than other nations because they have it
so much harder than we do,
but we have it so easy these days that there are kids
growing up today that never experienced hard.
They're so their helicopter parents just so protect them of anything.
And I think it's so good for a kid to,
to skin his knee and to go through a breakup, you know,
with a girlfriend or whatever, and, and just experience those,
those hard things because, um, that's building,
that's building a spirit that can build. Now, sometimes it doesn't,
it builds bitterness,
but if we can learn to embrace it more than I think it builds a
spiritual sinew of muscle memory in our brain,
that begins to set us free actually.
So true. Um, and I know you're familiar with the quote,
there's something that said, and I'm not going to maybe quote it perfectly,
but the value and how much we grow and learn from our losses or failures
than we do from the big wins in our lives. Right.
So there's something about our ability to go back,
pull from the failure,
the loss that just intrinsically gives us more strength, more power,
more courage to grow, move forward. Yeah.
Then the times where we had the big windfall or it was a huge success, you know,
the perfect score and a Jimmy where you were absolutely accurate and perfect,
or, you know, I hit the Mark and, you know,
had a good race versus I got smoked by that guy.
I didn't see him coming in the pool. Right.
Or you didn't perform to the level that you anticipated the things that we take
into our, um, processing and we leverage into growth from that place.
So I think so.
And I think that the reason I, in my study felt like breakthrough courage,
one of the habits had to be embraced hard was I just saw it everywhere.
Everybody that has some element of success,
some effectiveness in their life,
some victories had a lot of failures in the process.
And it seems like the failures were actually the setups for the victories that
would come later.
Huge. And I love the order of it because, you know, it's like,
let's get first things first. Are you a kingdom of God? Are you a Jesus disciple?
Are you going to follow him? Let's make that decision.
And then now number two out of the gates, we're saying, well,
even from
Christ himself, we're hearing that the hardcore truth about life is that it's gonna be hard.
That it doesn't change from maybe the hardships we're gonna face, but then we tap into a deeper
strength and an ability to overcome because we now are Christ followers.
It doesn't make us immune, right, to the hard things.
And so just the order of the layout of the habits in the book.
But Jesus seems to say that.
Right.
Like right there, up front, you wanna be my disciple?
Take up your cross and follow me.
So Jesus is saying this is like habit two for you guys.
You know, if you're not gonna be taking up your cross, which was the most heinous form
of torture in ancient times, they knew exactly what he meant.
And this is pre him going to the cross for our sins.
But they understand.
They've seen crucifixions before.
He says, take up your crucifixion.
Take up your cross and follow me.
He was not painting some kind of easy life.
He was painting actually a very, very difficult life.
And those men, those early disciples, they knew what they were getting themselves into.
Yeah, I've loved the order of him even laying that out.
I mean, we have the benefit of knowing how the whole story ends and comes to fruition.
But in that moment, right, he hasn't even faced Calvary yet.
But he's given in this illustration of, yeah, this is gonna be a challenge.
And probably so many people that got disappointed thought they were gonna follow him into the
palace.
He was gonna take his throne and it was gonna be an appointment, you know, in the royal
family of some of some position.
But the people that were following him closely were like, this is gonna be an enduring hardship,
but there's so much life to be found in the journey.
Yeah.
So, yeah.
So, if you look at even, okay, so Christ is crucified, he's risen, he's made himself manifest
physically for 40 days.
Acts 1 begins, you got Acts 1 and he's making his final comments about the coming of the
Holy Spirit.
And he's talking about, he says he spoke of the things of the kingdom of God.
And then even then they said, you know, Israel is going to take over.
They even try to turn it into a political thing there in Acts chapter 1.
And then he says, you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you.
So, they still don't completely get it.
Yeah.
I think they still think that the reward is gonna precede any kind of suffering.
Even after all the things that he said, and they're soon going to find out that that's
why they need power from the Holy Spirit is because it's getting, it's going to get really,
really hard.
So, Peter preaches 3,000 get saved.
He's filled with the Holy Spirit, 3,000 get saved, but immediately they're arrested for
a healing like the next day or the next week or something.
The chronological order is not clear, but it's just one persecution situation after
another.
And I think that's part of the Christian life.
That is a part of breakthrough courage is to just realize that there's going to be a
lot of suffering on the way to victory.
There's going to be some getting nailed to the cross in your life before you're going
to see a resurrection.
So sometimes the tomb, I like what I heard a guy one time say that the tomb is the womb
of the resurrection.
So you got to get in the tomb, which becomes the womb in you of the resurrection that God
wants to bring.
And that's what we're calling here breakthrough courage.
Absolutely.
You know, as you're talking about it and you're describing it, and then, and then the next
habit we're going to talk about kind of companions for the journey, how we start to build on
this foundation to achieve breakthrough courage and live from a brave heart.
But some of what you're saying, and even how Jesus is picking those 12 disciples, at
least initially, he's looking for grit, right?
And there's a beautiful quote in here.
I was just trying to...
That's a great one.
Yeah.
Her quote is so good.
She's working with those inner city kids.
Yeah.
From Boston.
And like, they're thinking, okay, what's, why do certain kids make it?
Other inner city kids don't.
That's right.
And it's not IQ.
It's this factor called grit.
Angela Lee Duckworth.
One characteristic emerges, the best predictor of success.
It wasn't social intelligence.
It wasn't good looks, physical health, and it wasn't IQ.
It was grit.
And she says grit is having stamina.
You know, I think about, oh my gosh, I'm going to space it right now on the guy along obedience
in the same direction.
Yeah.
Eugene Peterson, thank you.
Just that idea of, at least as a youth,
I don't know how you would say this.
I mean, there's a certain point or shift in life
where I'm like realizing, okay, this walk,
this journey is gonna be a marathon.
And that takes grit.
How would you say, I love what she says about grit
and the equation to stamina.
How would you define grit?
That's a great question.
Why didn't you tell me ahead of time?
You're gonna ask me that question.
I think grit is this mindset of
I'm expecting it to be hard.
I expect hard.
I don't expect easy.
I expect hard.
And so I'm mentally and emotionally prepared for hard.
And then it comes and it's not a shock.
It's not overly surprising.
And then you press through it without complaining.
You just kind of keep doing it.
And so I think it's a mindset that a kid has
or a leader has that they just already know
it's gonna be hard.
So it's not like, oh, I can't believe it's hard.
And they're all mad at God or they're mad at people.
Blamers, people who blame don't have grit.
They're anemic of grit.
That's right.
And you see a lot of blaming people around.
That's someone who is either going to decide
at some point, I'm gonna take full responsibility
for my life.
Or it's someone who's just gonna continue
to be in the cesspool of mediocrity.
Man, I love that because when we think about the culture,
at least in the United States and what we face today.
Victim mentality.
Victim mentality and entitlement.
Oh yeah.
And this ease, I want convenience.
Come on.
If we wrap up this cultural narrative
that we all have access to and can embrace,
then even more challenging the concept of embracing hard
because we have to forego.
We have to say, listen, I'm gonna have to own
my side of the street on this.
It's interesting growing up,
and I know you probably had friends,
and I would say you're absolutely this way,
is that you just can see grit inside of people.
For whatever reason, they've just reconciled
within themselves that the goal, the prize,
the thing I wanna strive for,
my desires inside myself are the driving force
that kind of create this grittiness in us.
I think so.
Yeah.
That's really good.
And you can tell after you've been around a person
for a little while if they're kind of,
I mean, it's an overused word, but they're kind of wimpy.
They're just kind of, it's like they get toppled over
so easy.
Yeah.
I feel sorry for them, you know?
And then there's other people that just have
this ramrod, steel, spiritual, emotional spine
that can take it, and they may get knocked back
a little bit, but they've got something in them
that just keeps showing up.
So I don't, I really agree with Duckworth
that it really isn't EQ or IQ.
It's really this resilience that's been built
into them that says, I'm not gonna quit.
I'm not gonna quit.
Yeah.
I would say, would you say grit is,
it's gotta be one of the core DNA.
If you were lining out like aspects of leadership,
the great leaders that we've looked to,
even the great heroes of the movies that draw us in,
you see that manifested, you see them model that.
I'm thinking of, you know, I don't know why,
I cannot remember.
Braveheart, or Gladiator, or even,
I always, I think boxing is such a interesting metaphor
for us because you just get pummeled.
Yeah.
You know, MMA's like that too.
You see some of these guys.
I was looking, I was watching a match.
Oh, I know what it was.
I was looking at, there was like a montage
of the 2024 comebacks in MMA.
So to just look at these guys that have just gotten,
I mean, they're behind in the score.
They've just been getting pummeled.
They've maybe been knocked down several times.
They pull up something within,
and they go into that final round,
and they knock the guy out, or they win, you know?
And I think life is like that a lot,
that people with grit probably have been hammered
a lot of times, but they just won't quit.
They keep getting back up.
I'm thinking of Churchill, Lincoln.
Absolutely.
Those guys would have all modeled that.
Absolutely, lots of losses in their life.
Lots of losses.
In some cases, very personal losses.
Absolutely.
Struggles, but they just have this never die,
never quit thing in them.
That's so good.
Well, I was gonna ask, in the end of habit number two,
you outlined kind of five tips,
how we can kind of model this.
kind of pivot from or pivot really into embracing the heart in our lives and just kind of want to
touch points and see it's all really great and practical. I love this because coming right out
of the gates you know we're talking about let's not compare ourselves and then in that you have
this challenge to challenge yourself like I'm going to compete with myself I'm not I'm done
comparing myself to others to what's on social media to what culture says I should be should
look like should talk like etc yeah so habit number one right just quit comparing yourself
right it's the it's what Brene Brown calls the swamp land of the soul yes that so good
comparison is just it's a killer because nobody's I mean if you even look at some of the most
handsome some of the most beautiful people on the planet you know movie stars and models and
everything and then you see and hear these interviews with them they're so messed up
I mean dude they're like so messed up yeah they're they're like constantly saying well
I don't look like her I don't look like him or I wish I could have landed that contract that so
they're in this comparison game and so it's just it's a swamp land of the soul
it kills you man it just it kills it and so all of us struggle with that but you got to get over
yourself and start realizing that my character and who I am inside is more important than where I land
in the pecking order of everybody else yeah and it's really freeing I know it's for me it's been
really freeing to not think that way yeah but more look at okay looking at Christ looking at me
how am I doing and realizing I fall short but it's it's me working on my character and who I am yeah
and again I feel like of the tips that are going to follow just like the book does even tip number
one in this and barely in the ability to embrace hard is you're now renewing your mind reframing
your mind with that I can't accomplish what I need to do for God's kingdom when I'm comparing
myself and I've said that comparison is the death of identity that's right and which leads us into
number two and that is we're unique right each one of us has a unique assignment from God right
in this world to accomplish yeah and I think that's so important because when you quit comparing and
you start looking at the uniqueness of your life and the way God crafted you and it's another
it's another breakthrough courage moment because then you can begin to be the best
that God's created you to be absolutely yeah I think that's that's true I think for me
renewing my mind to say that you know me being unique the way that God sees me
it's very empowering revelation when I can just connect and attach to that truth
I am unique right and so I have something special that nobody else has an assignment to do that's
right in this world that's right the way that we're going to parent differently or I'm going
to speak something into my kids that only I can give them that's right yes I love that and then
from that stepping into have like tip number three where we're talking about being hardwired
God built us to be wired to embrace hard and I'm thinking when I read that I was taught I was
brought back to the place and you would absolutely probably able to relate to this too coaches that
have called out things in us where we were at we thought we were at a limit but we had somebody
else in our lives that could see us the ability something greater something deeper and they would
call that out in us and we pressed through and we faced hard and we reached new limits yeah new
levels right yeah yeah so that's what's so great about team sports oh huge team sports are so good
in that regard because you're you're not just playing for yourself but you're playing for the
whole team and everybody's working hard and I think that can be such an encouragement to you
because we are driven to to win for the team yeah and we don't serve a God that you know is a couch
potato kind of God kind of just up there just wants it cozy and easy and just us bring everything
into the storehouse but no he modeled that in the flesh and really modeled what hardwired looked like
and how he embraced that's good I think so yeah amen to that that's such a good good thing for
me to pull from and be encouraged in the hard parts of life yeah um tip number four kind of this
idea of focus in a new direction where we get distracted in culture that pulls us off looking
up looking to the cross being encouraged that way um you know one of the challenges that I've tried
to fast encourage my family from let's fast from the things that are pulling our distraction where
we're looking down or around mostly from our phones
Yeah, and really that can pull energy. I think it stifles our focus for sure. And here it's now it's like, let's refocus. Where's our azimuth? Maybe share what in this maybe immediate season for you, where you've had to renew your mind in an area of focus. And I have an I have an answer for you if you didn't, but I know there was just something that you had accomplished.
Something for me. Well, I saw you saw with me. I did. I saw you do something where you readjusted. It was a pretty quick. Well, you know, you're on this trip with your family over the holidays and you're thinking, well, at a pit stop, a gas station, you start throwing down some pushups and then you're like, I'm going to change your focus here. And you step pretty quickly into that. Yeah. So I thought that was awesome, man. Yeah, I was tired, man. I've been driving for like 10 hours. And so
my future son in law's in there. And so I said, you know, it's cold. It was really cold and windy. Where were we at? I think we were in Missouri or Tennessee somewhere. I was just like, I was smoked. And he was going to take over. OK, so I knew he had been asleep. Oh, because we were sharing that driving. And so you're tired. He goes, yeah, a little bit. I said, man, man, I'm so tired. So let's just go do some pushups.
So we went over there, did some pushups on the side of the road, and we both kind of got ourself refocused. So it was good.
Super good. Yeah. And then from that, right, that spawned this idea. Well, you know what? I mean, I did this after driving all day. Why not take on the world record? I love it, man. I love it.
Yeah. Maybe I can do that. You know, conjure up the 21-year-old that's still within me.
No, I think it's great. And I think the Holy Spirit uses those moments where we're willing to work through us to, again, continue to build that confidence for the things that he has for us to face in this immediate season.
So I think for my own life, it's staying flexible, staying open to the sensitivity of the Holy Spirit to say, you know, where is my alignment? And even that first check-in about not comparing myself, those questions, you know, am I telling the truth? Am I a truth seeker? You know, am I a guy that I would want to follow?
Can I be flexible enough to align my compass back to true north, back to kingdom north in my own life and take my own medicine, essentially? So I love that. And then tip five, kind of closing it out. And this, I think this is the optimism.
This is the point where we leverage and pivot to say that our failures can be the next rung in the ladder of success that we're climbing to God's purpose in our lives. And that is setbacks are setups for comebacks.
Yeah. Yep. That's it. The big choice you have to make. It's easier said than done. And it's easier said after you've done it than when you're in it.
Cause we're just, we're going to go through layoffs. We're going to go through injuries. We're going to go through broken relationships. We're going to go through our hopes being dashed of something.
And so I hope by putting that in there, it's a reminder to someone to remember that little, little Maxim that setbacks are setups for comebacks because you don't think that when you're in it, you just think, oh, yeah, my whole world's falling apart.
And you got to quickly pivot out of that and go, okay, what, okay, what can I learn from this? What's God up to? And it even might be because of something that you did that set it up.
I'm going to come back. I'm not going to quit. I'm not going to leave. I'm going to come back. And that's different than most people want to think.
What I would say, at least being a part of and being a part of the journey where, you know, maybe your biggest setback and being able to watch you model, take posture, step back from the battlefield, reorient yourself and say, where am I going to pivot from here?
Because clearly there's still energy. There's still desire. I've got work for the kingdom of God to do. And what does that look like? And being patient and then watching God lead you, you respond in obedience to a road less traveled. That was awesome, man.
What a privilege to be a part of and witness you walk in so much humility and obedience in God, then deliver this next season.
But Ryan, that wouldn't have happened without the next habit, you know, blessed and allies.
There it is.
I did. Habit one was seek the first thing first, which is a kingdom.
Yep.
Second, embrace hard.
Yeah.
Because when you're embracing hard, you start to see your own incapacity or lack of power.
Yeah.
To do this individually, to do this in the silo of being a solo sort of person that you actually do need a team.
There's a corporateness to this Christian walk.
Absolutely.
And so that's why the next habit, habit three, is develop blessed and allies.
Absolutely.
We want to whet your appetite a little bit with kind of what's coming up in habit three.
And as we close out habit two with embracing hard, probably just encouragement from me and Pastor Steve.
And that would be just that whatever you're facing right now, whatever you're in the middle of, you're not alone.
There's a purpose for it.
And if you're willing to be obedient, be patient, God's going to pivot or allow you to pivot from that and go another rung up on the ladder of success and purpose that he has for your life.
Yeah.
Final thoughts on embracing hard from you, brother?
I think that, again, I'm just fired up about the importance of embracing hard corporately with others.
So I'm excited about habit three.
Amen.
Well, if you haven't, you can find a link in the description below to pick up your own copy of Breakthrough Courage, Nine Habits to Conquering Fear and Building a Brave Heart in Your Life.
God bless you.
Thanks for tuning in.
We'll see you in the next episode.
Bye.