Faith Talks host: with Christ.

Hello, I’m Jana Faith.

And I’m Anna Faith.

And welcome to episode 19 of Faith Talks.

Well, I am super excited today because we’re doing something that we’ve actually never done before. we’re recording this podcast with a live audience so we’re all here in this room at the tgys and we have a room full of ladies with us so if you hear somebody sneeze don’t worry it was not a mouse in

Faith Talks host: the wall it was one of these ladies so this will be fun and you know what else we if we mess up we can pause it we can’t pause it this time or make any cuts well hopefully not at least we’ll not try

Faith Talks host: to although I do feel like it’s kind of like the true podcast experiences you know having a couple cuts in there or getting your tongue tied a couple times yes we definitely have to keep that tradition

Faith Talks host: going every podcast for sure anyways we are super excited to be here at the youth summit and it’s been a blast so far and a huge blessing I completely agree one thing I really like about the warmax is

Faith Talks host: how they put a twist on the games like this afternoon is tube tug but instead of trying to get the tubes to your side like you normally do for all you war vets out there or Cola Clash or camp or whatever this is you’re trying to get the tubes to the other team’s side so you can strategize like which team you want to get it you don’t want points we’ve learned that in volleyball today you don’t want points so we’re excited okay we’re digressing we’re going to move right into our interview.

Yes and today we’re super excited to have Mrs.

Summer Raines with us and she’s actually our youth director both of ours in high school so I’m excited about this.

Welcome Mrs.

Raines and do you mind just telling us a little bit about yourself?

Okay so Mrs.

Raines is what most people

Guest: call me but the first name is Summer so I’ll give you an acrostic with that okay.

S.

I like speech, drama, the planned, on stage kind.

I teach speech in a high school and college and love being a part of meaningful stories.

You for youth group.

My husband has been the youth director at Falls Baptist for, well, this is our 10th year, and I definitely enjoy being with our teens and very desirous of seeing them fulfilled by God.

And my husband and I are praying about what our role is and seeing breakthrough even in the public schools in our area.

Speaking of my husband, I’m married to David 10 years.

He gave me my poetic name, Summer Raines.

He is my counterbalance in every

Faith Talks host: way, and I love him.

And I will have to interrupt and say he makes an amazing cookies.

Yeah,

Guest: chocolate chip cookies.

He’s like the master of cookies.

And I’m also going to interrupt and say that he made this table.

He did.

Oh, wow.

Jack of all trades, for sure.

Second M, I’m a mom of two boys.

I’m very thankful for Micaiah and Silas, and they are our greatest joy and our biggest project.

E, I enjoy decorating, having people over, autumn, Saturday pizza nights with my parents and siblings, families, a solid history podcast, seeing the fruition of a writing project.

And then R, I can be reticent about certain things like being up high, doing memorized things in front of people, or doing pretty much any kind of adventurous physical activity.

I’m kind of boring that way and it puts me as a perfect antithesis to Jana and Anna, for sure.

Faith Talks host: Well, Jana’s more physical than me.

Faith Talks host: She runs, wait, how long have you run?

I did a half marathon once, but after that I kind of was like, I think I’m going to stop there.

I run one mile and I’m like, oh, oh, oh.

Done.

I’m not even going to say what I’ve done or haven’t done.

Well, okay.

Oh, I did like your, I was going to come and I liked your U for youth group.

That was very clever there.

Okay, so let’s get into your testimony.

Do you mind just telling us a little bit about your growing up years and a little bit about your testimony?

Guest: I would tell you today about the biggest decision in my life that shaped all the rest, but I don’t think I can pinpoint just one.

And I think that’s my theme today through my story.

Even though I’m going to highlight several specific crossroads, even each of those was prefaced by hundreds of other choices.

So I guess through my story today, I want to point out that every choice matters.

So pretty big choice number one that affected me wasn’t even made by me.

Faith Talks host: That’s so true that our choices, even though we are looking at our own life and making them often for our own good or bad, they usually affect others sometimes in pretty significant ways.

Guest: Yep.

And a little before I was born, my mom chose Jesus as her savior and came out of Lutheranism.

And soon after that, we began to attend Falls Baptist Church.

So as a little kid, it was here and from my mom that I heard the gospel and accepted it.

My dad grew up in a nominally Catholic family, and he was fine with us going to Sunday church and supported me going to this Christian school here.

And I never, never have ever doubted if he loved me.

But all my growing up years, he decided he wasn’t going to accept Jesus as his savior, despite hearing the gospel many, many times.

And that dynamic definitely played a role in shaping me and was a big crisis for my faith.

Skipping ahead, when I was in fifth to eighth grade, I struggled a lot with my assurance of salvation.

I remember one summer in particular, I would just be on the couch, just laying there absolutely frozen in fear as a little kid there that the rapture would happen and I’d be left behind.

And I think my main concern was that I didn’t remember much about my salvation moment because I was young and my life wasn’t really that amazingly fruitful.

So had I really trusted Christ and I made the mistake of keeping those fears to myself for a long time.

As seventh grade rolled around, I determined I really wanted to be a part of all things youth group, like all teens should be.

My motivations, though, weren’t all very spiritual.

I like to be with people, with my friends, and we’ll get more on that later, but I also did know that it was a good thing and the right thing.

At this point, my mom and us kids really only went to church on Sunday mornings, so with me being interested in coming to youth group it actually opened the door for my family to come to church even more I think that’s neat just how your

Faith Talks host: decision can have an impact on your family like bringing them closer to

Guest: church yeah so as I said I like to be with my people my friends still true statement but the friends I gravitated gravitated to in my insecurities assurance of salvation being one of them they weren’t so hot now we weren’t I I don’t think even really friends.

Now that I think about it, I remember lying to them about where I shopped, being in certain sports programs, what I wore, just to say what pleased them.

I also became exposed to things that I had no business being a part of as God’s child.

They were friends that weren’t helping me battle sin, flesh, devil.

So having submitted myself to that influence, I was drifting away here, farther and farther from my family, from God.

Though somehow still God kept touching my conscience and I wanted him, but I was just way too flesh and man-pleasing to really pursue him.

God graciously removed some of those friends coming into my ninth grade year.

He knew I wasn’t strong enough to do it, I guess.

And then our first day of school camp, my freshman year, my first year to go, big deal, was September 11th, 2001.

Faith Talks host: So you were a freshman when 9-11 happened?

Yeah, so I was actually 11 days from being born, which shows a little bit of age gap. but I feel like going through that in high school must have left a deep impression.

Guest: It did.

That day I was absolutely scared to death.

And that night I decided I was not playing around with the whole assurance thing anymore.

And for the first time I talked to someone about my doubts, and they wisely pointed me to scripture and time alone with God.

I realized I was going to be forever plagued by my lack of memory of a decision made when I was four.

But that really wasn’t what mattered.

Was I trusting a prayer or the fact that my dependence is in Jesus?

Nothing I can do for salvation.

So I told him, if I didn’t understand that then, then here it is now.

I’m trusting you alone.

And to be honest, from this vantage point, I believe I was saved when I was four.

Satan was just having a heyday with lies and fears and even just my tendency to indecision.

He was saying that the distance I felt with God because of sin I had let go undealt with was because I wasn’t saved.

But I was saved and just needed to dig into that relationship God’s way, not start all over.

Faith Talks host: I can totally relate with that.

I went through a time where I struggled with my assurance of salvation, and I remember we would have travel days on Saturday, and I would be scared that we were going to crash or something would happen on Saturday and that I wouldn’t go to heaven.

But it was, for me, a lot of looking back as well, just looking back at maybe the words I said or the way I did it, if I did the right thing.

But one thing that’s really helped me is to just think about looking inside.

Who am I trusting right now?

Not that it’s some words I said, but that it’s just Jesus.

And I think of John 10, where it talks about if you’ve made that decision to place your trust in Jesus, it’s like God puts you in his hand and no man can pluck you out.

And I think an interesting part of it is like you can’t even pluck yourself out of God’s hand because sometimes you can feel like, oh, I’m having a really, really bad day or I’m going through a really rough time and I’m making a lot of wrong choices.

I can’t still be saved.

But no, once you’ve made that decision, you’re in God’s hand and nobody can take you out.

I also was really blessed by Brother Miller’s message last night. just talking about how Jesus is our advocate, I thought that was neat with the assurance, just how God looks down and he’s like, oh, Jana, I see all these sins, like you’re going to have to pay for them.

And Jesus steps up and says, no, I’ve covered it with my blood.

And I think that’s, it’s just so reassuring that salvation is really nothing about us.

It’s everything about him.

And then you can have that peace because you realize it’s not you trying to do something, but it’s what he’s already done.

Faith Talks host: And one thing that’s been helpful to me as well is just realizing that salvation is a point in time and just realizing that day that you put your, that moment that you put your trust in Jesus, he writes your name down and it’s settled forever.

And just realizing that that actually happens a point in time in heaven, he writes your name down.

And just that visual concept has been so freeing to my thinking as well.

Guest: On the flip side, obviously, if there’s someone who knows in their heart, They’re trusting that they are good enough to get to heaven or that their family goes to church and you’re doubting your salvation.

Well, you should be.

And you can get that settled today by choosing Christ’s work on the cross to deal with your sin.

But for kids who are saved, the assurance battle can be a big one for kids raised in Christianity, I feel like.

And I think Satan really enjoys doing that.

And I’ll say that even another time in high school and even time in college, these fears and doubts came back strongly at certain points.

But I pretty directly sought spiritual help and got my feelings and mind straightened out with God’s word.

Since I did that right away, it made all the difference.

It’s just something that in those years, Satan knew he could throw at me and that if I fell for it, I would wallow in it and freeze and be absolutely

Faith Talks host: useless.

That’s so true that useless is where Satan wants us to be.

But just realizing that assurance is a God thing.

We can just trust the Lord about it.

We don’t have to look at ourselves, look at our feelings.

We just need to look to the Lord.

So interestingly, when I stood up at camp

Guest: as a puny ninth grader and told my fellow students that I had addressed my lack of assurance, that set me up with a better group of friends.

Some girls came up to me afterwards, Summer, that’s really great, you were able to get that settled.

They still weren’t perfect, but especially as we began to mature, there was more God focus and I could be myself around them.

There was actually true friendship happening.

But as the months continued, it was obvious that even with these friends, my friend choice, my friend priority choices were still way off.

Faith Talks host: That’s interesting just how friends can affect everything about you.

You know, you are who your friends are, but then also your friends are who you are.

Like it all connects.

Guest: Yeah.

One of my deepest regrets from my teen years is that I didn’t develop the relationships at home like I should have.

It’s a choice that I made that affected other people and it kills me.

I hate that I did that.

Faith Talks host: I feel like even for me, like even in college, you have to find the right balance between reaching out and even friends in college, but also, you know, just reaching back to your home relationships and realize those are the most important.

And those are the ones that I need to put the most time, most energy into.

Faith Talks host: I thought it was good what Hannah said earlier this morning, Hannah Krauk and her testimony, just that, you know, God chooses your family.

You might choose your friends, but God really chose your family and put you in that family for a specific purpose.

Guest: a course setting choice in my life that came through my friends was agreeing to be in a reader’s theater with them for competition and I had not done stuff like that before at all and I found out I really liked it I didn’t like getting up in front of people but I really liked acting so that sent me on a course to start looking for a college with speech performance or speech pedagogy something like that and we’ll talk more about that later there was something else I was picking up on in high school too.

God was not letting me get away with things I knew weren’t right from God’s word.

And sometimes that actually irritated me.

She flirts and she doesn’t get in trouble.

He watches that.

His conscience doesn’t seem to bother him or she wears that and her parents don’t care.

But why would God not let me go?

And it sounds ridiculous to say that.

But he would put a teacher in the hallway to hear my words or ideas and he’d have my mom find about something I had done in secret.

And at that stage in my life, I didn’t choose to embrace those

Faith Talks host: to accept that light.

And I do regret that.

I think that’s such a human natural response.

When you feel that correction, you just want to buck it when you actually should like hug them because this is like God’s way of guiding you on that path.

Yeah, I wish I would have definitely

Guest: embraced that sooner.

God’s hand was pulling me to himself in other ways too.

One thing I can think of my sophomore year, we had a Sunday school class missionary in Colorado and they were related to a that had reached out to me at my church.

And I had this like unexplainable desire to go spend time with that family in Colorado.

And God worked it out for me to go.

And I’m generally a homebody.

So it’s kind of crazy to me that I went there for like a month when I was 15.

But it gave me a taste of a ministry home and a dad that was saved leading his home.

And those desires definitely burned in my heart.

And I wouldn’t soon forget them.

So now we’re at the summer of my junior, or after my junior year.

Most of my friends were older than me. these friends that meant too much to me.

And I was emotionally traumatized by the fact that they had graduated and I would be at school without them.

I even wrote a song about it.

For real.

I didn’t.

I actually, I actually found it yesterday.

Really?

Yeah.

I considered bringing it.

I guess I wrote in the notes and everything, but it was like my heart breaking.

Guest: Anyway, it wasn’t a very faith-filled song either.

All right.

So also several families in our church were leaving our church, and some other ones went to another school and all this business.

I couldn’t even handle the thought of my senior year without any of my friends because friends were still totally inappropriately prioritized in my life.

I begged my mom to follow some of her friends and mine to a different church, to a different school, not because I had a problem with my school.

I just really wanted to be with those people. my priorities were just so out of whack but my mom had chosen her priorities too and lovingly but strongly she said no god hasn’t told me to go anywhere and I just want to give a shout out to my mom for not being driven like her peers by her peers like I was or like her peers for speaking sanity into my insanity for loving me too much to give in to me in this regard even though I made that choice very difficult for her in my selfishness, but today I can’t thank her enough.

So I started my senior year with a smaller class, people, some of whom I had been in school with since kindergarten, but they had not been my friend’s circle, so I don’t feel like we even knew each other very well.

It was a rocky start, but God was continuing his work in all of us, and we seniors started to surrender in little ways and big ways to God.

Faith Talks host: Was there some areas or, I guess, more things that you did your senior year that made that the case?

Guest: I can think of a couple things.

The fall of my senior year, myself and a few others took my first missions trip to Zambia, Africa, and I led my first soul civil ward.

Faith Talks host: Wow, that’s so special that you got to see your first soul saved on a missions trip.

That’s really neat.

Guest: Yeah, a small group of women.

I can picture them now on a dusty African street, and I’ll never forget it.

God had used me to touch another life.

And that’ll just shake up your whole way of thinking.

Faith Talks host: Totally will.

When I went to Cameroon my senior year of high school, that changed just how I viewed the world and a lot of things.

It just really puts it into perspective when you’re out there in a mud hut.

Faith Talks host: I also went to India when I was in 10th grade.

And it was just me and my dad.

We didn’t see any Americans for three weeks.

So that was definitely culture shock, but that was so good for me.

There’s a little shout out to the Go Mission podcast.

Faith Talks host: You’ll hear about more missions trips there.

Guest: There were also a lot of people praying.

I know for each of us in our class, we had a great environment of truth.

And I think we were all starting to dig into God’s word for ourselves and applying it to ourselves.

I think because we were starting to sense our responsibility to lead, what was coming next in the future.

And I think I can think even of a job that I was going to take, but I realized I’d have to work on Wednesday nights.

And God was just touching my heart. like, no, my house, my word is a priority to you, it should be.

And I think we were also just free of some of the other influences that had been holding us back.

So some good things started happening.

Our friendships that started to develop were based on the right foundation and put in the right place overall.

We were able to have a good impact even on other students.

One of the big surrender choices that I faced, and probably everybody in my senior year, was my college choice.

And so there was this college at our church called BCM.

Where was that at?

Yeah.

I don’t think I’ve heard of it.

But they didn’t offer speech.

And so I didn’t need to go there because I wanted to do speech.

And this is where I had been my whole life.

So I just wanted some new different experiences.

But so whenever God would work in my heart in a service and I’d go forward to deal with that sin matter or something, when I was done, God would always say, okay, that’s great.

Now I’ll go to BCM.

I’d be like, really?

We weren’t even talking about that.

But I was noticing that when I was close to him, that’s what he’d say.

And I kept pushing it off as nothing.

And at college day, Dr.

Jim preached this message about you don’t fight against nothing.

When I went to visit the college that I was planning to attend, a lot of my friends were there.

I was laying in the bunk that night in the campus.

And it was just very clear to me that if I went there, I would be saying no to God.

And it scared me.

I didn’t want to put myself in that position.

And I knew that for me, that place would have been a fight for my faith rather than a place to grow my faith, and I knew I needed that right then.

I didn’t understand all the whys, though.

I wanted something different than BCM was offering, just practically even education-wise.

Aye, aye, aye.

It began to dawn on me that maybe my college experience wasn’t about me.

The next step I took needed to be what God wanted for me so he could best use me.

So I filled out my application with an elementary education minor.

That was a hard thing.

I saw that summer following, though, and all throughout my college years, it was confirmed, college wasn’t about me.

My life isn’t about me.

There are people who would not be saved, words from God to others that would not have been heard if I hadn’t been where God needed me to be.

Faith Talks host: I think that’s such a great really a life lesson for any stage that you’re at like it is not about you but yet the choices that you make are going to affect so many more people than you’re ever

Guest: going to be able to even see yeah plus of course I grew a lot too I grew in relationships at home that had been neglected I grew in dealing with sin I grew in knowing God in prayer oh yeah and partly through my sophomore year I believe it was the school approached me about helping start secondary education program and I could minor in speech and I’ve been teaching speech and writing plays and doing little bits of acting ever since.

I just want to

Faith Talks host: say too like that’s so neat that you had just totally given that up you never thought you’d be doing speech at all and then God gives it right back to you

Guest: after you surrendered that.

Yeah and being where God wanted me to be also put me where my future husband was and that’s a whole nother story another one about following the light you’re given by God even when you can’t fit every piece together yourself but I do want to point that point out that my courtship happening when it did with who it did played a role in the greatest answer to prayer of my life I had begged God for years in tears and went fasting down outside the church office in that building one day my dad a few months after my wedding told me he had just met with pastor and accepted Jesus That was an amazing moment.

And I do believe the decisions I made, my mom made, were a part of that journey for my dad.

And obviously my choices, my journey, didn’t stop 10 years ago.

And I need to remember that myself every day.

The story of choices and the thread of God’s hand continues.

But I’ve chosen to share these today because the experiences and lessons and choices of those formative years are with me today.

As much as they were made in my flesh, they are my weaknesses.

And as much as they were based on my relationship with Jesus and following the light he gave, they are my strengths.

Each choice touched other lives beyond my own, as do my choices today.

And the only choices I regret are the ones that I stepped out of the light God was giving me.

Faith Talks host: I think it’s so neat that God is just so good to use our good and bad choices of our past shape us into what he wants to be as we surrender to him.

Oh, so now as we’ve been doing in our other podcasts, is there any Bible character that has stood out to you that you can relate with?

Maybe

Guest: their faith journey, difficulties they encountered?

Yeah, I was thinking and thinking of what I was going to share today.

I thought of Abraham.

When he followed the light God gave him, he and millions of others were and are being touched in a life-giving way.

But when he leaned on his own understanding, it hurt others and brought about weakness and death.

Yes, and Abraham, in the last couple months,

Faith Talks host: he’s, that just his testimony has been a blessing to me, just realizing that, if you think about it, Abraham was like the only one in his day that chose to follow the Lord, and just realizing that he just made blind choices of faith, and he was doing things no one else was doing, and just had faith

Faith Talks host: to believe God.

I think one thing I really like about Abraham is just how he would hear God’s voice to get up and go.

And he would be like, okay, let’s go.

And he wouldn’t even know where he was going, but he would just take that step of faith.

And then it’s just an encouragement.

Like you might not know what your future might hold, but you always have enough light just for the next step.

I will give one humorous note.

I wasn’t planning on sharing this, but we were going over this podcast and she was sharing about Abraham very serious and I was like yeah Abraham like he followed the cloud of you know fire by night and the cloud in the day he followed the light

Guest: he was given like literally the light you know like the pillar of light they’re looking at him

Faith Talks host: and like Jan that’s Moses and I was like that would have been terrible if I had said that with all seriousness yes so anyway humorous there wasn’t the arc part of that too yeah and then we’re like and then he took those same pillars and he and he pulled them down we just went down a wrong road so start like a kid’s bible story podcast we could mess them up for life okay well let’s move on to any applications or takeaways do you have any just application points that our listeners can walk away with in our live audience.

Okay.

Guest: God is at work always.

Even recounting my story, I see God’s hand in places I hadn’t even before.

And he’s doing the same for you.

And I think there are choices that need to be made in this room right now about friends, dealing with assurance, other definite points of surrender.

And the choices you guys are making right now will impact the future you and other people.

And that can be intimidating, like, oh, no, I got to make the right choice, unless you realize God’s hand is at work in your life, and he’s ready to lead you choice by choice.

And you’ll never regret any decision you make following the light God’s giving you.

Every choice matters because you matter to God.

You are his instrument to accomplish his will.

So if we aren’t making the right choices, God’s will is hindered.

Faith Talks host: Thank you so much for sharing all of that today.

And just, you know, it’s a lie to think that your choices are insignificant as a high schooler.

And I know as a high schooler, I thought like, oh, I’m just, I’m nothing.

I’m no one.

And it’s so important to realize that every choice you’re making right now is building the foundation for your future, for your ministry, for everything.

And also realizing, like we were talking about, that your choices right now are affecting everyone else in this room.

And even something that God wants you to do this week, let’s say even a testimony, And if you surrender to God, you’re going to be affecting so many others.

And God’s going to use your whatever it is, even if it’s something that seems such like a broken part of your life.

God wants to use that, and I’m sure there’s so many others that can relate to you.

So it’s so important to realize every decision matters, and every person in this room listening, everything you do matters, and choices affect all the people around you.

Faith Talks host: Well, thank you so much for coming today, Mrs.

Rains.

I know that was a huge blessing to me and to all of our live audience and listeners out there.

So don’t forget about next month’s podcast, the last one of the year 2022.

And I’m really excited because we get to hear from everybody out there.

So if you’re listening, you can just click the link below and send in your testimony.

And if you’re a live audience, you can go to the iPads afterward.

And really don’t worry about it.

It does not have to be a book.

You don’t have to try to, you know, give a speech.

You really don’t.

It’s just even just a few words, maybe a specific one, specific testimony was really a blessing to you.

That would be just amazing for us to even share it with the people who have come in to share their stories.

So we’re excited about that.

And I go ahead.

OK, I also want to say good job, live audience.

I didn’t hear too much commotion.

There was an eruption of applause from the satisfied room.

But yes, that’s about all.

So you all were fantastic.

Faith Talks host: Good job.

Yes.

Thank you for your amazing cooperation.

And just putting fuel to our application, let’s just think about how we can take a specific action step right now.

All of you listeners that are with us live today, you have that form that you received with that very first question asking how God has worked in your heart and how you were changed.

So if you haven’t filled that out yet, I would just encourage you right now, just even pray and do so right now.

And remember that to make no decision is actually making a decision.

And God has something, even if it’s a tiny little thing that he wants you to do that you can do right now today.

And just obey specifically, no matter what that is.

And for all of you listeners that are not with us live, I just encourage you to take some time and evaluate your choices.

Ask God to open your mind to the kind of choices you’re making right now and determine to follow him with every decision.

And you will see that every choice is a step of faith, bringing you closer to Jesus in your walk of faith.

Let’s all remember as we go about our weekend, Faith doesn’t just talk.

Faith walks.