I'm going to go ahead and turn it back on.
Hey Steph can you hear me?
How are you?
I'm good I'm having some technical difficulties.
I don't think I've seen that on your profile before.
Your picture of you for your Zoom profile.
It's so pretty.
I finally put it on my phone.
I thought I would try that.
Where are you now?
I'm in Dallas but I'm leaving tomorrow.
I'm still trying to figure out with the time difference
about the weekly calls.
I'm thinking about possibly doing them
not quite as often.
Instead of weekly
I'm doing them possibly monthly.
Hopefully they will be useful.
I'm going to Turkey.
I grew up there.
I'm going there.
It's the first time I've been back in 15 years.
I'm very excited.
I haven't brushed up on my Turkish.
I don't remember what it is I used to know.
I still know.
I've forgotten that I knew.
My dad was reminding me.
Are you staying with someone you know?
I'm staying with a friend.
At least part of the time.
I'm going to go traveling.
After Turkey
I'm going to go somewhere else.
I don't know where that is yet.
I've been traveling.
God told me to start traveling around the United States.
Now we are moving it international.
I'm excited.
I'm taking it to another level.
Have you been outside of the United States?
Ever?
You've got to do it.
It's so much fun.
I haven't been on an airplane.
Really?
I've never been on an airplane.
I've never been on a plane.
I'm good with it.
Years before I had a driver's license.
One day you're going to have to go.
It's just the experience.
I have friends in college.
I've never been on an airplane.
It's a lot of fun.
I've never been on a plane.
You're not as big a fan of flying.
Are you?
Not really.
I teach them about Uber Air.
If they have a bunch of people
from the office,
they will take a private flight.
I don't blame them.
Speaking of Uber Air,
they were going to do that for a while.
They were piloting that in Dallas.
To do Uber Air.
You could take off.
I'm trying to remember what it was.
If it was a small airplane
or a helicopter.
It was a small airplane.
That's what it was.
That's why I'm getting it confused.
It was a hovercraft.
Like a helicopter.
It would take off from the top of a building.
It was within Uber.
It would Uber you to strategic locations.
Like a bus or whatever.
It was going to be done
at least two years ago.
Maybe they had planned to do it.
Maybe that's what the deal was.
They had a whole movie.
They had a whole
.
Not a trailer.
A commercial for it.
It was really interesting.
So you said Uber, and I'm like, there's, there's potentially actually such a thing.
Like they haven't heard that enough.
Yeah.
They, I don't know.
I'd rather stay on the ground.
No, I love flying.
I love flying.
I don't like, I don't like, uh, roller coasters, you know, so I don't like
free falling, but I love flying.
I love controlled flights.
It's a lot of fun.
In fact, I used to get excited about turbulence because if you
could feel like you were flying, you know, as long as you
know that you're safe, you know, you're not being knocked around.
Uh, then, uh, then, then turbulence even can be fun because you actually get the
feel that you're actually flying and there's no danger of falling because
if you have turbulence, it means that you've got air underneath you.
And if you have air underneath you, a plane can't, a plane can't free fall.
It's not like an elevator, you know, because the whole point of it staying
in the air is air underneath it in the particular way that it's using the air.
So anyway, as long as you've got air, you're good.
But Linda, you're in the library.
What are you doing?
Well, they're, they're all at the fire.
So I thought since it's not a formal, uh, place that it's
actually just a fire side chat.
I'm like, I can go sneak in the library.
Oh, that's so cool.
Well, uh, Steph, this library is, um, you remember where I had that, uh,
the inner is rest conference.
So it was at Linda's place.
And so there's a big, what I always call the sanctuary,
but the big conference center.
And then in the back of the conference center, they have this library.
And that's where you can take like all the, uh, if you've got like a little
baby or whatever that you're wanting to still be a part of the, of the
conference or the church service or whatever, you can take a little baby
back there and there's a video.
There's a camera, right?
If, um, not a camera, a television, but if they're that live streaming,
the, um, whatever's going on, but then you aren't disturbing anybody
with, and you can breastfeed your baby or whatever, whatever you need to.
So Linda's back there.
So I immediately recognized her.
There's like eight children and three babies.
So it is overrun.
We should have, I mean, it is, it will take a week to clean it.
Oh,
Cheerios pressed into the carpet.
Oh yeah.
And all the toys that we brought over here, it's like they are thrown everywhere.
So, you know, you just, we just, people are doing spring break.
So they brought their kids from spring break.
So it's from babies to 15 year olds are all here.
That is right.
That's right.
Wow.
Well, you look pretty well.
Yeah.
I mean, so where are you?
Are you in Texas?
I'm still in Texas.
I fly out tomorrow.
Yeah.
In less than 24 hours.
I'm so excited.
So where do you land?
In Turkey?
I'm going back to Turkey where I grew up.
So I decided that was a good place to, it's a good place to
start my international travel.
So after Turkey, I didn't know where I'm going to go.
So probably most likely somewhere in Europe, but it's not guaranteed.
I'd love to visit other parts of the middle East.
So we'll see if I do that.
Now, did you have to do the shot?
The shot.
What shot the vaccine?
Did you have to take the vaccine?
Oh, no, no.
I didn't have to take the vaccine, but I did I did have to do the test.
So they have a very expensive test.
That's a $200 test, by the way, or at least here in Dallas for it
called the RT PCR, RT dash PCR.
And it's like the gold standard of all COVID tests.
So if you have that, then you're good at any country.
Some countries claim that you can do less than that, but
they'll all take the RT PCR test.
How long is it good for?
Oh, well, you have to have it within 72 hours.
Most places say that you have 72 hours before takeoff, but Turkey requires
that it's 72 hours before arrival.
So anyway, so I had it done yesterday and I got my results back today,
which obviously were negative, but yeah.
And then I lay over in Amsterdam, though, and Amsterdam requires a
rapid COVID test within four hours of getting on a plane bound for Amsterdam.
So when I land in Atlanta, which is so weird, so in other words, the RT PCR
test is good enough for them, but it's not quick enough for them.
They also want the rapid one in addition within four hours of getting on a plane.
Within the four hours, you know, right before you get on the plane.
So I have to do that in Atlanta.
So since I land in Atlanta, I have to go to gate E14.
Even though you're not staying there and you're just doing it.
Just traveling through.
And, and somebody questioned me on it.
They were like.
Well, wait a minute, that doesn't make any sense
because that's the country that allows anything.
I mean, how many drugs do they have
filing through that place and whatever?
But it's because from what I understand,
from what I've heard, it has had a very large COVID outbreak
which is not surprising
considering how the country is socially,
how it is and how it's run
or how it's, you know, just how it is socially
that they've had big COVID outbreak.
And for that reason, I think that they're being
especially restrictive.
So that's what I required,
but I got a very good price ticket, you know,
going that way.
So I could have just done,
I could have done a straight flight to Turkey.
It would have been double the price.
And so I asked the Lord, it's like,
well, Lord, you can cover the double price.
Should I do the double price, you know, for the non-stop
or should I just do an extra stop for half?
And cause I was up for either.
In fact, I thought I was just gonna do the non-stop,
but for whatever reason,
I had peace to do the extra layover in Amsterdam
cause I thought I really don't care
if I do an extra layover.
So that's what I'm doing,
but I have to do the extra little rapid test,
but I've heard that you don't have to pay for it
cause they're doing it right there in the airport
and that they're pretty fast.
So anyway, well, I don't know.
The three of us might be the only ones on the call
because it's already 20 after.
So do either of y'all have any questions
or anything that you wanted to talk about, I suppose.
Well, was there anything new that came out
when you did your business stuff
that is different than what you expected to teach?
Oh, I know.
I suppose I could look at my notes,
see if it can remind me of if there was anything special
that I talked about that I wasn't expecting to.
Let me see here.
Where did I put it?
Yeah, because I think that neither one of y'all
were able to, were making that one so.
This one?
No, it's this one.
Here we go.
Wow.
Okay, so.
It keeps getting kicked off.
Oh, what?
I just kicked off leaving my camera off
in hopes of it not freezing up on me.
Oh, okay.
All right, sorry.
Let's see here.
I talked about the fact that provision is not the money
and provision is not that.
And also going further back that business
is not God's means of providing for us,
that God actually provides for us in the spirit
and the business or the money that results from the business
is actually something that manifests
as a result of the fact that we collaborate with the Lord
to receive his word that we actually
already are provided for.
But we're provided for in the spirit,
we're not provided for in the physical realm, so to speak.
Any provision that comes in the spiritual realm
is simply a visible expression of what is already true
and what is already reality.
And we collaborate with the Lord to actually create it
as opposed to sitting there and waiting for him
to thinking that it's something that he blesses us with
or that he gives us as like in the physical realm,
like money or business being what we refer to
as successful or whatever.
And that being God's way of providing for us,
it's not, it's actually in the spirit
in which we're already being provided for
and in receiving his word and receiving that truth
and receiving into ourselves the truth
that we're already always sustained
and we're always provided for,
that actually allows us to come into agreement
with the truth and that coming into agreement
with the truth and receiving it in the spirit
ends up as a after effect that it manifests in the physical,
which is money, success in business,
whatever the world would refer to as success.
So we don't, anyway, so I mentioned that to put money
and business success, whatever we're using in business
to measure whether or not something's been successful,
to put that in the proper perspective,
because if we don't have that perspective
and we think that God is actually,
that our business is God's means of providing for us,
then we can typically attempt.
patch ourselves too strongly to business and what's happening in business or whether employees
are operating a particular way or whatever, because if they don't, well, then it's going to
cost us that we can start to put pressure in those particular areas, thinking that we're
trying to control the way that we believe that God intended to provide for us and that we're
being threatened with not receiving it, that what God intended to supply us with out of his goodness
and out of his promise, that's being thwarted and that's being hindered. And it's not true,
that God connecting with us and giving us whatever he wants cannot be thwarted.
How it manifests, however, and how that truth that's already true ends up actually just showing
in a visible way, that can take on a variety of forms and it doesn't have to even be in money.
So when whatever is being thwarted sometimes is the manifestation, but it's never the actual
provision. That's the same, you know, it's the spiritual warfare aspect. You could talk
about this even related to spiritual warfare, that spiritual warfare only comes into play when
what is true and the spirit tries to manifest itself into the soul or the body.
So I did talk about that. What else did I talk about?
How do we get moving towards it? Let's go back to the basics. It's not learning things.
Oh, all right. Yeah. I talked about that. Oh, okay. This was the big one, that rest is not
just having peace, knowing that God could do something, that it's actually knowing that God
will always be love and good, regardless of how it manifests. So rest is, we are able to shift
into rest when we choose God to such an extent that no matter how he happens to show up or what
it is that ends up manifesting in our business, he can do no wrong in our eyes, regardless of
what ends up happening. Even if it's something that we think of, oh, well, that's thwarting us
or that's hindering us or it's threatening us, whether we're talking about business or some
other issue in relationships or some other issue in finances, whatever that no matter how, no matter
what manifests, he can do no wrong in our eyes. That is complete rest. We're choosing his character
to that degree. That is that disconnected from the results that no matter what happens,
he can do no wrong in our eyes. So he's always loving. He's always good. We never have accusation.
No, I talked about that. Talked about making decisions, talked about creating through
intention. Okay. I don't think that I mentioned this in the conference.
So in intention, sometimes we are very, when we're trying to learn to do something, say,
you know, in business, for instance, we're trying to do something in business. We're trying to think,
how do I be a son of God in business? How do I, how do I send out my intention? We can kind of do
what a machine gun effect and like spray a huge area. And the fact that we're just like, well,
I think this is intention. And so therefore I'm going to do this. Well, we don't realize that
we're not being very specific. We just think that we're, we're trying to learn where is our
intention. And so we're very general about it. Kind of like a child who's learning to use his arm
and he could move his arm in any direction. And so he figures out, okay, I want to move my arm
this way. So he figures out he wants to move his arm in front of him as opposed to up or down or
outside or whatever. So he gets at least this, but he still covers a wide range with his, with
the sweep of his arm, instead of just reaching for something. He does kind of does this. So he's
in a general area, but it's, so he has honed it down to that much, but it's still over a very
wide range. We do the same thing with our intention where we're trying to think, okay,
I want to move my business in a particular direction. I'm telling the, you know, me and
the Lord together, we want, I'm feeling this on his heart or I, or I'm feeling a general idea of
what might be on his heart. So I'm kind of going in sort of a general direction,
but I don't know specifically what it is that I'm doing.
That's kind of like a child doing this.
At least he's not doing this, so he's figured out how to make himself do this as opposed
to this or behind him or whatever.
So he's narrowed it down.
But if we get results by doing this in business or in interacting with another person or whatever,
we get results and we think, oh, I figured it out.
Excellent.
I know how to do this now.
This is great.
This must be intention.
I was trying something and it worked.
And so it might work for the first time or it might work for the first two or three times.
But then all of a sudden, something doesn't work anymore.
And we get very frustrated.
Like, for instance, we think I've been working in rest.
I've been I've shifted into rest and everything is great and things are working now.
And we'll notice this when we first learn about rest, that that things work beautifully.
And we know and we it feels it feels easy.
And we're like, oh, wow, that was so easy.
And I received such freedom.
And we'll do that for the first two or three times.
And then all of a sudden, we'll run into something where it suddenly doesn't work anymore.
And we get very discouraged.
We're thinking, oh, my goodness, I thought I figured it out.
Why is it?
Why?
You know, what is actually going on?
Well, what it is, is it's that wide sweep.
And God wants to let us know, hey, look, yes, y'all were in a generator in the right direction.
But what I'm wanting you to now know, learn is how to hone your intention to hone what it is to narrow your understanding to come closer and closer to the specificity of what it is that I want you to know.
Because when a son of man, son of God knows his will and knows his intention, he can finally direct it.
But until he knows what it is and how to use it, he can't direct it.
So anyway, that's what it is with the way that the Lord interacts with us, with our intention.
We're over time when we continue to do something that used to work no longer works.
All that it is meaning is God saying, look, I want you to start honing it.
So instead of spreading yourself out like this, try to hone it to this degree and just work in this quadrant.
And all of a sudden we discover, oh my goodness, it works.
So this wasn't working, but this is working.
So apparently what it is that is intention or whatever it is that we're learning from the Lord, it's apparently in this quadrant.
So then we get excited again and then again, that works for the first time or the first three times.
But all of a sudden when it doesn't work anymore, all God's saying is, hey, start honing it, start finding it,
start seeking for it so that you've come to a greater depth of an understanding of what it is I'm actually telling you.
But when we're young, he wants to give us encouragement that at least we're going in the right direction.
So things will work. He provides us a protective environment in which to learn things.
So I said all of that so that people would be encouraged when something works for a while that they're learning from the Lord,
and then all of a sudden it doesn't work.
Like something's working in their business, especially related to applying operating and rest in their business,
something is working and all of a sudden it's not working.
So we need to understand what it is that is going on and how it is that we can approach it,
that they were still going in the general direction, but now they just need to understand,
now they need to get more God's teaching them how to be more specific.
The benefit of all of that, again, is the fact that a man, as I keep wanting to say the Son of Man,
but a son of God contributes the seed that he contributes with the Lord.
When the Lord provides his seed, the seed that we contribute is our intention,
that we actually give something of ourselves, and that is our free will, our decision, and our desires.
But how can we give that to the Lord unless we know what it is, unless we've matured it to the point?
You're probably familiar with the fact that Sturgeon talks about this.
He talks in his conferences, because you and I have been in those,
that he talks about the fact that a son of God cannot surrender his will until he's matured it.
In other words, he has to know and own what it is he has before he can give it up,
because if he doesn't own it, he doesn't have anything to give.
The same idea here is that God's teaching is maturing us to actually own our own will,
and to own our own intention, and all of that.
I mentioned that.
Some things I talked about, what else did I talk about?
I think I talked about all of that on the first night,
maybe, or maybe some of that on the first night.
And then the rest of it on the second night,
I talked about prospective clients,
teaching them leadership, things like that.
Did you ask a question, did somebody ask a question?
I had intruders, they're gone now.
Oh, you had intruders, okay.
The library being off limits, it's the playroom.
Oh, that's right, yes, that's right.
Let's see if there's anything
that just like really just jumps out at me.
I talked a lot about leadership.
I think a good, probably half of it,
I talked about leadership,
and then I went through a testimony of my own experience
working with that large team, that large company,
and how I learned that leadership
was providing them a safe place to make mistakes,
and how I covered them in their mistakes,
and how it felt very counterintuitive,
but it actually taught them that they were safe with me,
and instead of giving up responsibility for themselves,
because, well, Ashley just absorbs it all,
I didn't absorb it,
but I gave them a safe place in order to make the mistakes.
So what they ended up doing is they started taking on
more and more of their own ownership
of what it is that they did.
And I affirmed them and gave them room
to contribute their own ideas,
and it gave them more ownership
of what it is that they were doing.
Like media little tasks,
they would take up ownership to the point where,
like over time, because they realized
that they were safe with me with their mistakes,
so they didn't mind admitting them when they'd done them.
Like I didn't even have to approach them about it,
they would tell me when they had done something.
And I think they would even get,
if I remember correctly,
they would get to the point
where they wouldn't even defend themselves.
They would just tell me,
hey, look, I've done this,
and I'd say, hey, you know what?
I appreciate you telling me.
So what is your idea of how,
what is your solution for how to manage this?
Because now there are consequences
that are being experienced.
I believe that you are saying this
because they just got done having Yana Sanders
talk about how children run the Jewish households,
because everything in Jewish culture
wraps everything around the kid,
and the kid is never told to be quiet,
never told to do anything,
but just be a kid,
and can make all the mistakes they want.
And it's honesty, integrity, and openness
is what they're encouraged to do.
And that the culture is all about
allowing people to have a safe place to make mistakes.
So, I mean, and I'm sitting here going,
what about the scripture of spare the rod, spoil the child?
But they said that if you are in trouble,
if you're in defiance and rebellion,
they cut off all like comfort or anything that's nurturing,
but you're right there.
So it's like you have a-
No breaking of relationship.
Yes.
And I mean to tell you,
it was really messing with my mind
when they were saying this,
and then here you're saying the same thing.
But I had to learn that.
You understand that that is not how I believed
until I actually had to walk it out.
That I did not believe that at all, at all.
And then I found myself in a situation,
I asked the Lord how to handle it.
Because these were people that didn't respect me.
I went from being the lowest man in the totem pole,
not being respected.
Everybody liked me, thank goodness.
But it liked me as a person,
but it didn't respect me professionally.
And for them, professionalism was very,
very, very important.
So when I was elevated to actually their manager,
they really struggled with respect to me.
They knew that they were supposed to, but they didn't.
And so I asked the Lord,
this is a very difficult situation
and I don't know what to do.
So I asked the Lord what to do
because I couldn't think of anybody else in my life
that I'd known that had been in that type of a situation,
that I had known how they handled it
and admired how they handled it.
build it to be able to ask it up.
So I was like, okay, Lord, it's just you and me.
I don't know what to do because I, there was something in me that knew that the
way that I would be advised, if I would ask my boss or if I were to get the HR,
or if I'm going to do anything that they would not give me the right, the, the
answers to actually bring life into the situation.
So I just asked the Lord.
And that meant that I was my own, I was sacrificed because I don't
know how this is going to affect me.
And so I, I, I didn't know this.
And so the Lord taught me it by having me walk it out in real life.
He didn't teach me it.
And then I was to draw by fire.
Now he prepared me enough in through other situations where I at
least had something to go in with.
But every time I was all of those other situations as well, he was the one who
was teaching me because people around me were disagreeing with how I would
handle the situation.
So when I got to this very, very extreme one where it was like 45 people, then I
just, I was just thrown into it.
I'm like, okay, here we go.
So anyway, I just say all that to say that I didn't learn this outside of the Lord.
And I, and I learned it from him when I asked him, Lord, how do I handle this
situation?
And it, the answers that he gave sounded very counterintuitive.
And I'm telling you what, they worked with all 45 of them.
It was wild.
It was just wild.
And these were adults.
These weren't even children.
But the point is that they were under me and they needed that kind of
leadership and guidance.
It really is shocking.
It really is shocking because it sounds counterintuitive because it sounds like,
you know, like what you're talking about, spare the rod, spoil the child.
It sounds like you're actually, um, what, uh, what's the word that we use for it?
Uh, enabling, giving them a license.
Yes.
It's that it's licensed to sin that it's enablement, but there's still guidance
within the system or not a system, but there's still guidance within the
relationship.
And they knew that I didn't agree.
And they knew that I, what, that they, they shouldn't have done it, that the
quote unquote shouldn't have done it.
But the way that I, I always ensured that no matter how I, I would, the way that I
taught to them is that I is from a place where it was always safe for them to be
them.
And when they knew that it was safe for them to be them and that they were safe
with me, then I could bring correction because it, I, I made sure that it never,
ever, ever was to the point where they questioned my absolute unconditional
acceptance, love, and enjoyment, big one enjoyment of them themselves.
And that I would not change the way that I treated them, even in the moment, then.
If they had done it perfectly without any mistakes, the difference is that if
they'd done a particular thing that I thought that they needed to do it
differently, then I would give guidance to it.
And there were, um, sometimes, uh, just natural consequences of the fact that
they would have to correct their mistake, that they never relationally had to be
punished in their relationship with me or the way that I treated them or talk to
them, um, for how it is that they acted.
But I did still bring correction and they still did have to like correct the
mistake.
Um, and they didn't like that, but, uh, I would always, I found that they, that
the more that I did that, the more they took ownership and responsibility for
what it is that they were for, for things that they would do where they would come
up to me and they would, uh, they would, uh, admit things.
They would point blank, tell me mistakes that they've made.
Um, before I found out about them and, and I was like, okay, because they knew
that they were safe with me to make mistakes, they, they made fewer and fewer
of them because they got to own it for themselves.
It's very interesting.
So it's neat that you said that she was talking about that.
I know.
And it's makes it, I mean, cause I am so dictatorial.
So just like Steph said, there's a balance and I agree there's a balance, but it's
like, for me, it's like, I've never even thought of doing something like that
because, you know, the Bible says you spank a child so that they will grow up,
you know, and, and understand the admonition of the Lord.
So it's like, I haven't ever thought of doing anything but that.
And so they talk about how in Jewish families, the more you did wrong, the
closer you were to the parent, but the less, I mean, like you were grounded to
your father, so if your father went out to mow the grass, you were going
out to mow the grass with that.
I mean, it was just, I mean, so I'm thinking, oh, I don't, that would be a
lot more work on my part as a foster parent to be that committed to the.
troublemakers, I would have troublemakers in my house all
the time.
Yeah, but though, it's also, you know, with your situation, you
know, you have, you have delegation, you have other
people, you know, kind of like Moses, Moses had all these other
people, he had those over 1000, those are 1000, those are
hundreds, those are tens, or whatever. And, and so everyone
has their particular responsibilities to help, to
help not divide, but to delegate the responsibility.
But yeah, that that it's fascinating how they do that,
because it's very important that in disciplining that relationship
is never used as a bartering chip, that relationship was
never held for ransom for a mistake. And anyway, so I think
that that's really neat that the Jewish culture does that. But
yeah, what we've what we've done is and we do this with the
gospel as well. We, we use, we use pain and shame, as a
motivation for doing good, is always like making the bad
really, really, really bad to help to motivate someone to
escape. So we learn to motivate ourselves when we start
motivating ourselves, and we don't need to be motivated by
our parents anymore, or, you know, send to school or
whatever, that we we learn to motivate our own selves by
shame, and by pain. And that's one of the reasons why it's hard
for people like and I'm just throwing this one out there
because this has come up multiple times people have asked
me about this. It's why people struggle with like diet, it's
always in order to escape the way that they currently feel or
the way that they currently are, as opposed to something
that they want for themselves and something that they want to
be. And it's a lot more difficult to approach life like
that. And no wonder we get frustrated with with diets and
Oh, you mean I can't eat this and I can't eat do that. It's
the we've we've trained ourselves to motivate ourselves
by what it is that we're trying to avoid or escape from as
opposed to something that we're moving towards. So and that's
the whole point of the relationship and disciplining
from that, that perspective, is instead of telling someone
instead of shaming one, the one who's done wrong, to the point
where they they feel ashamed enough, in order to be
motivated, they what we want is for them to be motivated by
love. And that's part of that, that requirement of even closer
connection and relationship with the father because at
Well, then you're there you are going to because that motivates
one to look more like their father, as opposed to not be
like what it is they were doing. By being closer to their father
and being like their father, they're moving further away
from this instead of having to exert the effort that's required
to push themselves away from this, they can naturally be
drawn and attracted to something forward. So I think that's cool.
I don't know that I knew that about Jewish culture.
Well, I sure didn't know it, because I would have thought
they would be a lot stricter than then. But they said, in
Israel, if you hit a child, you can go immediately to jail. And
if you hit a child in Israel, the law says that the person who
saw you hit the child can take the responsibility of raising
that child. And so if you go over there as a foreigner, you
can have your child taken away from you if you show any level
of abuse. Wow, it's a serious crime. And that's why it's, I
mean, frowned upon so much because you don't ever you
there's lots of other ways to discipline a child, but yelling
or striking them is not anything allowed.
Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. And like what Steph was saying,
let's see, what was she saying? She's saying there's definitely
balance. I grew up terrified of messing up. Yes, that makes
sense. Again, that increase of shame and pain for something
that someone has done that is that is believed to be, you
know, that's believed to be wrong, and incites more shame
instead of a closeness of relationship. So that's why it's
thing. It's just people can just be so absolutely terrified of
messing up, it increases the shame and condemnation. Somebody
was asking me, this is like a year ago, somebody was asking
me, so Ashley, how do we tell teach our children to know about
the gospel, and the wonderfulness of the gospel? If
without teaching them how bad of a sinner that they are.
And I was like, oh my, I was like, well,
that's that, and then I mentioned the whole thing of like,
well, we want, the reason that the gospel is wonderful
is because of what it is.
It's because of the love.
It's because of what we're moving towards.
It's not because the other's bad.
And therefore the gospel is the better alternative.
The gospel is not a better alternative.
The gospel is wonderful just being what it is.
So we don't need the presence and the existence
of darkness in order for light to be wonderful.
And I'm using light and darkness as just an example.
There's nothing wrong with darkness,
but just the fact of like referring to the evil, evil.
So good isn't good because it's not as bad as evil is.
No, it's good because it's just good.
It's good because of what it is.
There is a philosophy referred to as deconstructionism
that I was absolutely horrified about
when I heard this in college.
And the idea of the philosophy of deconstructionism
is the idea that A is A, you know, like the letter A.
The letter A is A simply because it's not B.
So in other words, everything receives its value
because of everything that it's not.
Well, that means that nothing has value
because it can't have any value
unless everything else exists and it's not that thing.
It's not all those other things.
It's horrible.
I mean, it actually made my skin crawl
when I heard about such a horrible, horrible idea.
And that's what the idea of motivating people
for the gospel or to live in,
can't think of the word, but to live non-destructive lives.
In other words, lives that are not destructive to them,
but actually are very enriching lives.
Excuse me.
Where was I going with that?
But just that all of that is,
that to motivate by the shame
and by everything that it shouldn't be,
as opposed to it being beautiful and wonderful
and being attractive,
that is something very positive to be drawn towards.
Everything else is a very destructive,
very demeaning way to push someone towards
or to encourage someone towards something.
They should be encouraged towards it
as opposed to be shamed from it.
But anyway, so we use that in the gospel as well.
It's just really weird, very sad.
But I've noticed that people,
when they learn about rest
and they learned about all of the freedom,
I mean, because the things that we talk about
in rest and in freedom are all wonderful.
They're all, oh my goodness, this is great.
And wouldn't you like this, and dah, dah, dah.
And you would think that it gives people,
makes people feel like they now have a license to kill
because oh my word, everything is just so free.
It's so wonderful.
And it doesn't, it does the opposite.
It makes them not want to do the other things
because they now no longer have a need to,
because the only reason that they were doing
all those other things was to get what this can get them.
And now that they realize that they have this,
they no longer need this to get them this.
So it's really, really fascinating.
But yeah, we did the same thing with our children
because we think that that's what the Lord
tells us to do with us or our employees or whatever.
So when I had to handle,
learn to handle my employees like that
and learn to risk very, very big things,
very big projects, very big deadlines
on what could potentially be their mistakes.
Then, and then I took the fall for it.
You know, those were really big decisions
that I had to make.
And I chose it because I believed
that what I was hearing was from the Lord
and that the Lord always speaks the truth.
And I actually saw it manifest and work out
to the point where they didn't want me
to leave that position.
And after I left that position,
everything kind of started, everything tanked.
I mean, like really bad tanked.
And I really tried, I don't remember how many pages
that I wrote of encouragement, instruction,
whatever to the guy who was taking it over.
But I not only explained to him,
hey, look, you know, this is how the process.
So when you step into my position, this is how it's not just how the process works, but this is how I recommend handling the people, handling them like this, because it will, this is how they're used to it, you will get more out of them this way.
But he had no grid, even though he was a Christian, he had no grid for what it was that I was talking about so he just very kindly received it from me, but I don't, but he didn't seem to implement it.
So, everything just really, really changed the, they didn't get the same quality of product, they didn't, they didn't have the deadlines.
It was they didn't get as much done.
Yeah, whatever.
I just wanted to empower the people, and I knew that they had, they were the ones who could deliver.
It wasn't me micromanaging things in such a way in in wisdom and all knowledge that can actually make it work. It was me, giving up the control to them.
That would actually make it as the most successful.
If I micromanaged everything, it could have been successful, but it would have been a lot of work, a lot of work, and it would not have been as successful because I would have had to be doing it from the tree of knowledge of an evil and that's just at least 10 times
harder, and I'm very limited, but doing it in spirit, it's unlimited.
So, anyway.
That's really cool that she talked about that.
But anyway, and also talked about in providing people a supportive environment for them to rise up, not to be raised up that we don't raise up people, we provide them and a leader provides them with when they're putting the power and the authority that they
They then provide them with an environment that that protective environment that's different than if they were out from under that environment, they provide them with a protective environment for them to see who it is that they are and to be safe enough to rise up to that position and choose to do it on their own, as opposed to micromanaging and controlling and trying to raise them up a lot less effort on my part, but it does require more sacrifice.
So, giving up more control, but then they also choose to do it for themselves in that type of environment.
Instead of being convinced.
That's another thing I talked about talked about not convincing people.
And anyway, those are some things that I talked about.
Thank you. I am so busted in both those areas, I'm going to have to rethink how I lead.
And well, yeah, I mean we were taught a particular way and we were led a particular way.
And so that's all we know.
And that's what that's where we saw not only success, but that's what was rewarded.
And that's what everybody else agreed with. And that's, those are the peak type of people that were promoted were those that led like that.
So it's no wonder it was fostered in us.
And so, you know, how we were raised and whatever but I just realized I was in a very difficult situation, and I didn't know how to handle it. And so it's like okay Lord you have something new, different.
I'm supposed to try. And it worked. So, and it wasn't just that situation I did it and a whole bunch of other situations I just use that one because it was a very extreme one that just highlighted it a lot.
But there was something else I mentioned.
Say something about
what that was.
I said something just now.
You have any questions.
Yeah. Do you have anything.
It's just the three of us online it's interesting. You're good.
What time is it. Oh wow, it's almost time.
Oh, there was something else I was going to say.
So are you going to still plan on doing it on Thursdays or is it going to rotate around depending on where you are in the world.
Yes, a good question. So I was just telling stuff I'm not even sure it's going to be weekly.
Their time difference between here in Turkey is is eight hours. So, eight o'clock Central Standard Time is four o'clock in the morning. I'm sorry I'm not going to get up.
Every Thursday.
Or I should say for me that would be Friday morning.
So I would just, I don't really know. I think I'm going to get over there and make a decision about what to do.
I thought about the fact that I might just pick a time and then just post it so it's not going to
be regularly scheduled and just mention, hey, by the way, you know, planning to do it on such and
such a time and anybody has any questions or so it may be more random or it might be
scheduled but once a month or something. So hopefully, the fact that there's only two on
here tonight means that people, you know, and even y'all, you know, aren't always on here.
So sometimes y'all miss weeks. Hopefully, that means that people are more, I don't know, just
owning this and their relationship with the Lord and that I'm not as needed, which is wonderful.
So I can, like, spread out the times that I provide people opportunities to jump on and
ask questions. You could have a forum that people ask their questions on that Facebook page
and then you just answered the questions that in that way on the Facebook page. So then anybody
could read the different questions that they would have and then you could just answer them
whenever you were available. Yes, yes, thank you. So I, that is what is currently available for
people to do in the Facebook group so they can ask those questions and I answer them there.
The reason that I have, and then yes, Steph, I do still have Marco Polo. The reason why I had
these particular calls is it gave people an honor, an opportunity to see each other and kind of like
have an aspect of community where we all get on but I may, it might just be one of those times
where something ends up changing and I'm thinking, oh but Lord, I don't want this part to change and
he's like, no, but it's time for this to change. This might be one of those things. I just run into
them every now and then where Lord say, okay, I was thinking that we've been doing this for a while
and it needs to change. So it might be one of those times, this might be one of those things
where we don't do them anymore or do them as often. So and then in between times, like you said,
people can ask questions in the forum. People can ask questions in the Facebook feed.
By the way, FYI, I am moving the group, I plan to move the group off of Facebook and I'm working on it
on, excuse me, I'm doing that actually right now. I was hoping to have it all done before I left,
but that didn't happen, but I'm still literally in the middle of it. Even as we speak, I have
something running on my computer that is part of the process of trying to move things off of
Facebook and onto a website. So anyway, if you like this, yeah. Oh, I'm glad. I'm glad that
y'all enjoy it. See, I think it's nice. Maybe we just need to continue to do it and just do it like
once a month instead of once a week. So then we can have the benefit of both. We have the aspect of
I'm available to answer questions in the group and then we get the community aspect about once a month.
You just be led of the Lord and we will all be okay. Sweet. I appreciate the affirmation.
I appreciate that. Yeah, but I always look forward to it every Thursday, getting together with all
y'all. Excuse me. So it's really fun for me to get to interact with everyone, especially people
that I'm not in the private consultations with anymore. It's fun to get to see and interact with
everyone. Yeah. Well, that is all I had for tonight because I can't think of what that other
thing was that I was going to get. I was going to. Oh, that's what it was. Go ahead. My
youngest came in and said, I'm missing the fire, so I better get going to the fire. Okay. All right.
Well, you have fun. Roast marshmallows or whatever y'all are going to do out there. All right. Bye-bye.
Bye. Is there anything else from you, Steph, before you leave?
I think I'm good. Hiding in the dark here. Good.
Everybody went to bed on me, so I'm like hiding out.
Oh, but just one second. Let me turn this off.