Janna Shoultz: Hello there, I’m Jana Faith, and welcome to episode 46 of Faith Talks. Well, today we are going to be talking about a fear, which has been our yearly theme, just talking about different fears that we all face. And this one, I would say I’ve definitely faced just at different times in my life, but it’s just the fear of wasting your life. And I think it’s easy to, especially when you’re younger, you look at your life, you I feel like it’s such a long time. But as you get older and now I’m in my late 20s, you know, getting close to 30 and you just look at your life, what you’re doing and just you want it to count and you don’t want to get to the end of your life and think, you know, nothing really happened or nothing’s going to last. So we’re just going to be talking about that today. So first of all, let’s think, you know, you ask kids, what do you want to be when you grow up? Or what do you want to do with your life? Or different things. And you get all sorts of answers. And I’ve always wished I had a few lives. I’ve said I would love to have one of my lives be being a doctor. Like to be able to help people and maybe even just like, you know, find a cure for some cancer that is out there. um another I just absolutely think it would be so cool to be a chef um specifically a baker so maybe that’s not called a chef but um specifically like the cakes and the just the gourmet desserts and everything I think it’d be so cool I have watched way too many hours of cooking shows um I just love love the competitions and all the fun things like that um but I would probably spend one of my lives being a chef. Another thing I always thought it would be so cool to do is like be an Olympic skier or you know a trainer or something athletic. I think that would be you know neat to be a professional volleyball player or just stuff different things like that. But ultimately I I’m glad I’ve chosen the life I have. I enjoy teaching. I love teaching. And I love being a mom to Evan and a wife and serving the Lord. That’s really number one. So, you know, but if I had five other lives, I could choose a bunch of occupations. Those are some. And maybe you have your own that you think, you know, if I had more time, I would do these. I was curious I looked up what the top 10 people the top 10 most successful people alive are right now and you know chat GPT gave me boom boom boom here’s the 10 most successful people and really you look at why they’re successful you look at all of them it they pretty much all have something to do with wealth or fame you know might be somebody who’s really famous or somebody who’s just you know really done well with their finances and owns a lot of um different things and really obviously you know this but in god’s kingdom when we reach heaven like none of those things are really gonna matter so are they truly the most successful people not really they might be financially earthly successful but not not in the kind of success you’re gonna want your life to um and I was just thinking about that verse that talks about our life is a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanisheth away that is so so true and I think it boils down to you say okay so that’s a wasted life if you’re just living after fame or wealth or yourself um and I think you could say a wasted life is a life that’s devoid of faith obviously faith in salvation but also just steps of faith and a life of faith. And I just want you to pause and think about your life. Is everything in your life explainable? Or do you live a life of miracles? Think about that. You know, if a lost person could look at your life, would they say, Oh, you know, that’ll make sense. I could do that. I can react like that. I can do, or is your life full of miracles? And my husband was talking on the way home from church today, just thinking about life as Americans is so easy. Like most, most of us, we can buy groceries, you know, things might be tight, but our groceries, we can buy those. We have houses, we have heat, we have the common necessities, we have, you know, health care. there’s just so many different things that we have that makes us not have to rely on God as much and you just think about those who don’t have that how much more their you know their daily bread is provided by the father and thinking of George Mueller I mean he would have never had any of those stories if there had been somebody funding him where he would have never had to need any food and they would have missed all of those miracles you think about that um and just thinking okay do you control every area of your life or are you taking steps of faith that’s the big thing so of course think about your finances but also think about your relationships are you reaching out to the people around you and in that way needing god to intervene in the faith steps you’re taking needing god to lead you and guide you to to say the right thing or to witness even to your family members think about them are you you know just having a okay you know we don’t fight if you’re still growing up um we don’t fight yay or is it okay yeah not just that but i’m actually i’m praying about how i can be a blessing to my sister i’m praying about how i can have a conversation with my younger brother about his salvation are you approaching your even your family or your friends with a faith perspective um and really if you don’t live a life of faith then you don’t need God and my I want to say my father-in-law no my father often says if you can live without God you will and that’s so true um and I’m not just saying to purposefully make your life difficult but purposing to say okay God what is your will in my life what is the faith step that you want me to take next and then here’s the key when he shows you that faith step obey it my husband preached last Sunday and one thing he excuse me that was two weeks ago actually one thing he was talking about is just obedience and he read a quote from a book that was talking about the Great Commission. And it was saying, you know, in order for the Great Commission to be fulfilled, you have to have the Holy Spirit and obedient believers. Okay, so as believers, we have the Holy Spirit. So what’s missing? Well, obedient believers. And the obedient believers part is that you are in tune with the Holy Spirit. Who’s the one who actually knows the harvest? That you’re in tune with the Holy Spirit and that you’re when he speaks to you obey. And I’ve just been thinking about that a lot in the past couple weeks of okay when the Holy Spirit says no don’t get frustrated at your son or go talk to that person about me or take this step of faith do I consider it? You know the moment we consider it we’re not obeying. Obedience says the moment he speaks we obey and even in the past couple days i’ve just had a lot of freedom in that of okay like let’s not go back and forth about it if the holy spirit or if um comes to mind of of something then do it just obey and i feel like even the more you obey the more he speaks um and john 14 21 we were in this morning he that hath my commandments and keepeth them he it is that loveth me and he that loveth me shall be loved to my father and I will love him and I will manifest myself to him okay so what’s this verse saying this verse is literally saying okay if you want to show God that you love him obey him and the book experiencing God that we’ve been going through with the teens has a couple questions in there and I like how it says it okay so you know that Jesus loves you but does he know that you love him and I want you to just pause and think about that you know God loves you but if I were to go up to heaven and ask God hey does Rachel know you or does Rachel love you or you could fill in your blank does Sarah love you or wherever your name is listening i’ll use mine does janna love you what would god say would god say no or would god say oh you know she used to but right now she’s not been obeying me much she hasn’t been showing me she loves me ouch you think about that like honestly what would god say if your name was brought up in heaven um let’s just look at the life of jesus i was um just reading i’ve been reading a lot in john and just been struck this is also in the book experiencing god that we’ve been going through but just been struck with the fact that jesus didn’t do his own will he always did the will of the father and you know if he jesus far above us obviously he’s God but if he had his whole life mission to do the will of the father shouldn’t that be our life mission not to do our own will but to do the will of the father um here’s in John 6 where Jesus says all that the father hath given me shall come to me and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out for I Jesus came down from heaven not to do mine own will but the will of him that sent me and it goes on to talk about that even further so Jesus is saying you know I didn’t come to earth to just do whatever I want I came to do the will of the father and again just if Jesus was keeping that in tune with the father to see where he was working and what his will was how much more should we um and I think about this just in the whole conversation of your life and not wasting your life and having your life count for something if you spend your whole life doing whatever you want or even whatever you think is best you’ll get to the end of your life and you won’t really have accomplished much but if you spend your whole life listening to the holy spirit and being in tune with the father saying father where are you working and following him in that wow you you’re gonna have so much at the end of your life because it’s not stuff that’s going to burn away that was all janna you could say but it’s going to be stuff that was all the father um and you know sometimes we can have in our head an idea how god should work like i’ve even done this before with okay like this person is coming to this service um okay they need to make this decision okay god help me make this decision which it’s like okay yes but like Ultimately, I need to ask, okay, God, would you convict them? Would you keep leading them? Would you keep drawing them? And trust God to do that work. Take all the steps he gives me, but trusting him to work. Experiencing God talks about asking God where he’s working. So instead of trying to serve him, instead of just taking a step back and saying, okay, God, I’m looking for you today to see where you are working. And it gives the story of a college campus. There was a church that was trying to start a Bible study on a college campus and they were just getting nowhere. They were trying to do Bible studies in the dorm. They weren’t having people come. And this pastor said, okay, we’re not going to try that anymore. He told the students that were going to that college he said I want you to pray every morning and say God where are you working and wherever he’s working join him in it and it’s based off the um verse that says you know no man comes under the father unless the father would just let me draw him the idea that if somebody’s seeking after God God’s going to lead them um and he says it was what he had told the college students that on Sunday and Wednesday um a girl came back and said pastor you’re not gonna leave it I prayed and asked God I said would you show me where you’re working and looked and she said you know I was at lunch and this girl or no she was I think was after class a girl came up to her and said you know I think you might be a Christian and I’m wondering if you could help me um me and seven other other Your dorm students are getting together in the dorm and trying to study the Bible, but we don’t understand it and we need help and guidance. Would you help us? Well, wow. You know, they had been for years, for a couple years, been trying to start something, but they spent three days just asking God, where are you working? And following and obeying where he was working. And boom, they ended up starting several Bible studies and hundreds of kids getting saved. It’s an amazing story. um but just saying that to just um encourage you to just ask God where he’s working and then join him in that um and and not put your own which you might think needs to happen into it but just legitimately asking God show me you know show me where you’re working and I’ll join you in that um and if you live a life of faith of following the father your life won’t be wasted and I would also say just don’t underestimate the little things um I’ve just been really struck by the fact that sometimes the littlest things can can actually be the biggest things um and we’ve seen some neat things happen in the youth group in these past couple months and sometimes it’s been the little things but it’s been like wow god like i never thought that would happen in this person’s heart and wow they’re taking a step of faith now um or even just other things of okay this person is really getting on fire for you and sure maybe it’s the you know most nerdiest person in the youth group but like it doesn’t matter they’re they’re following you and they’re obeying and they’re seeing revival and don’t underestimate those small things um there’s a couple that jutsin and i have been working with for over a year now and um they came to church for the first time to when it was last sunday we had a thanksgiving um service and a banquet and they came to church and you know it’s been over a year we’ve done bible studies and different stuff and you know God just drew them out and that was exciting to see we we love them they’re sweet sweet people um but needed to take like that step of faith and it’s just neat to see the long term what God does when you keep taking steps of faith in relationships and I think it’s easy to we talk about building bridges of people I think of especially the unsaved it’s easy to build a bridge and then never cross it And that’s one thing I was thinking specifically with this taking faith steps emphasis is just think about the people in your life. And then just ask God, what faith step do you want me to take? You know, maybe it’s bringing muffins to an elderly person in your church. And that might be uncomfortable for you because you might think, oh, I don’t know what to say. Or, oh, that would be awkward. Or maybe it’s, you know, giving a track to one of your friends. If you play sports or go to a public school or just, you know, maybe your neighbor you see playing basketball all the time and you think, I need to go talk to them. But think about if you’re not living that life of faith, then you are going to get to the end of your life and realize I wasted it. We have such little time really left. I mean, we don’t know how much time the Lord could come back before we release this podcast. And that, you know, it could be soon or it could be years. It could not happen in our lifetime. We don’t know. But if you are living this step-by-step walk of faith, you’re not going to waste your life. And even if, you know, nobody remembers your name, you could say what you did in obeying the Lord will impact generations. It will. And so if you’ve ever had that fear, I just encourage you to talk to the Lord about it and say, okay, God, do you want me to take a step of faith in my finances? Do you want me to take a step of faith with having a conversation with somebody or maybe cross the bridge you’ve been building? I liked how a missionary put it last week. he said um if I could tell I he said if I could tell anything as a piece of advice to teenagers he said I would say read your bible learn your bible and apply yourself in school and he said those are the things I wish I had done more when I was a teenager he said you know I was just like with my studies and he said no I needed to focus and study and he said now I have holes in my life because I didn’t get what I needed for my education. And then he said, also just studying the Bible. So that’s the foundation of your whole life. He said, I wish I as a young person had just really studied my Bible. And I thought those are really good, just simple things of, you know, study your Bible, apply yourself to school, ask God to just show you where he’s working, take steps of faith. So just ask God what that would be, what that would look like in your life this week. So I hope this has just been encouragement to you. I know it’s been a little different than normal, but I was just thinking about it and thought, you know, that is a fear that I’ve had and maybe some of you have had, or maybe you’ll have as you get a little older. But regardless, if you’ve had the fear or not, talk to God about it and just ask Him where He’s working this week. So remember as you go about your week, faith doesn’t just talk, faith walks.

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