A Force To Be Reckoned With
A Force To Be Reckoned With
239. The Success You Never Knew You Wanted : Obedience Over Outcome
Whether you're questioning your current definition of success or feeling the tension between cultural expectations and God's calling, this conversation will encourage you to embrace a kingdom perspective on what truly matters. Join us as we discover the freedom and fulfillment that comes from pursuing obedience over outcomes.
We are at war. It's not against our neighbors, spouses, children, politicians, or whatever else we feel like we're battling against.
SPEAKER_01:So the questions are, who's to fight against? And are we winning or losing? We're the advice, and we are a force to be reckoned with. Are you ready to join the force? Welcome back, everybody.
SPEAKER_00:Hola, senhora.
SPEAKER_01:Welcome back to another week of a force to be reckoned with. We hope that you guys are having a good day. Today we're talking about what does success look like? Redefining it. Obedience over outcome. I don't know. We were just, you know, Corey and I go on these walks and talks and we talk about these different things we're wrestling through, and this was one of those topics, and we were trying to figure out what to call it. So that's what we came up with.
SPEAKER_00:And how to take all of the random thoughts in our brains and organize it.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Redefining success, obedience over outcomes.
SPEAKER_00:We'll see how this goes.
SPEAKER_01:Right. So what what's even the heart behind this? I think one night we were talking about just how our I think as you get older, as you grow closer to God, your um aspirations shift, and that's okay. Like some of the things that we wanted when we were newly married and you know in our early twenties are no longer things that we really desire anymore.
SPEAKER_00:You know what I wanted in my early 20s?
SPEAKER_01:What?
SPEAKER_00:A brand new car.
SPEAKER_01:So maybe some things never changed. No, but I mean, like what I really mean is I don't know. And some of it could be twisted, like, oh well, you've just given up on yourselves. But remember, we would have these crazy audacious dreams like I'm not just gonna be a millionaire, I'm gonna be a billionaire. And and here's yeah, go ahead.
SPEAKER_00:Here's the thing. That's not necessarily that's not bad in and of itself.
SPEAKER_01:No, no way.
SPEAKER_00:Here's the thing like if we look at it, I think as we've gotten older and as we've pursued our relationship with Christ more, like with age and pursuit of Christ and being in God's word, and wisdom because we're oh so wise, it does give you more wisdom. It doesn't mean that we're the wisest. No, because we're not, or that we're wise at all. But we're wiser than we were, I will say that. But uh if you look at it in two different a couple of different ways. One a lot of culture will tell you to strive to work hard, grind it out, build the business, you know, have achieved have success, or go to we used to be, you know, go to college, get a degree, you know, all these things. Then there's another side of culture that's like, don't pursue those things. Like that's not success, and you know, whatever, spend spend more time with your family, or take it easy and go on the vacations and who YOLO, you only live once, get into debt, it's fine, all this stuff. The key thing that both have in common is that it's culture, it's the world.
SPEAKER_01:And yeah, we live in a world that glorifies hustle, accumulation of things, material stuff, platform, and at some point you take a look at that, and you maybe have some of it and realize, oh, this actually doesn't fix the gaping hole in my soul. This doesn't actually fix the desires that I have. And so it's like you at some point you look at that stuff and you think, so if this isn't it, like what is real success?
SPEAKER_00:Right. And that's where when uh Jesus talks about money in the Bible, is that money in and of itself isn't the root of all evil, it's your heart. It's where you you put your if you just follow your your own fleshly heart in these things. And in reality, if you choose obedience to God and you pursue the relationship with God, he could lead you down any type of pathway. Like God uses billionaires, God uses stay-at-home moms, God uses people that have social media platforms, God uses people that nobody knows. Yeah. And it so any one of those things doesn't truly matter in and of themselves. It's the heart behind it. It's are you following God? Are you being obedient to what he is calling you to do?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. So basically how we outlined this episode is you know, we're rambling and talking through all these things, like, you know, isn't it crazy how our perspectives have shifted, how our desires have shifted, and even the striving that we were doing two, three years ago, that's even pivoted because at some point you find this kind of gray area where, like, you're like, yeah, I mean, financial freedom, great, being financially stable, great, being able to go on vacation with my family, great, but time and intentionality, that stuff matters too. So it just was this big conversation. And so we just outlined four kind of truths or takeaways that we pulled out from what we were saying that we think show success from more of a kingdom perspective. Yeah, things that we've realized in our lives, I guess I would say.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:So the first was going off of what you were saying is success is obedience, not outcome. So being obedient to where God is calling you, even if that goes against what the world is calling successful, right? So that might mean so.
SPEAKER_00:I mean, we have a note here that that sometimes obedience will lead to visible wins, and sometimes it'll lead to quiet faithfulness in the dark, and that's the thing, God uses all people in different ways, and you can see that in stories throughout the Bible, right? And God often uses the least likely of people, right? And so, like, even like David, like I've been watching um The House of David that's on Amazon, and that was one of the things is that like David was a very unlikely choice. He was just when Samuel anointed him because God chose him to become king, he was a boy, and his dad didn't even have him come initially when Samuel got there, and he was a poet and a shepherd, and he wasn't like this outward-looking, likely person. It was um God see I think it I'm trying to remember exactly what it said, but it's God sees what the world doesn't see, right? And so there may be visible wins, there may be people that have big social media platforms, like I was saying earlier, people that are billionaires, people that run businesses, people that are well known throughout the community, and then there are also people that God is calling to be a custodian at the school that has an impact on people that no one even really knows about. It may be a coach, it may be a foster parent, it may be just a stay- uh, and I don't mean to say just a, but it may be a stay-at-home mom that no one knows what she does faithfully just to raise her kids and family.
SPEAKER_01:So the second one that we have is success is often found in surrendered seasons. And this is one that a lot of times you don't even realize it till you're after that or like you're beyond that season. But sometimes success actually looks like letting go of something that you were clinging on to too tightly, and it seemed like maybe a good thing or the right thing, but then you feel maybe this restlessness in you, and so you feel like I'm being asked, you're being asked to surrender this, and maybe it even feels like you're taking steps backwards, but again, that's what God's calling you to do. So you're stepping into obedience, but then we're taking it a step further here, and it's like, oh, I'm actually being asked to surrender this thing.
SPEAKER_00:Right. And honestly, a couple of just examples in in our lives, in my life, is I specifically remember when we were newly married, we had Carter, we didn't have liberty yet, but I remember uh very clearly that God called us to uh start doing, remember the MLM we were doing with life leadership? I remember God calling us to do that, and then in my mind, in my own young mind, I'm sitting there thinking, oh, this is what I'm doing, this is where I'm I'm gonna have success here. I'm gonna build this huge business and da-da-da. And we did that and pursued it like that, and then God was like, Okay, this season is done. I so we surrendered in that season, but I was like clinging on to it still, and God was like, Nope, okay, now it's time to move from Ohio to California.
SPEAKER_01:It can look like, well, what was that for? But then I look back that MLM, which I it that is what it was, but I hate that word. I know the whole thing was like we weren't selling, you know, beauty products, we weren't selling protein, we were it was like personal development, like it was books and podcasts, C D it was CDs at the time. So you were basically rascal radio, yeah, like reading and consuming personal development, really popular personal development books, leadership, going to you know, like seminars where people were pouring into you. And so while we didn't grow like a massive team because we moved on from it, that season actually was pivotal in the next season where God took us, which was to go out to California and run a business and manage a team. And so much of what we learned through that first business, we we would have been prepared us. Yeah, we would have been lost without that personal development.
SPEAKER_00:And some and actually most of the uh most impactful books that I've read came from being a part of that group, which then led us to California, which was honestly my second example in that God called us to go to California, and we that was very clear, and so we were obedient and disrupted our lives and moved across country with a young family to California to run a business. And I felt like, okay, this is it, planting my flag, I'm gonna be here forever.
SPEAKER_01:This is it, this is this is the thing. This we talk about purpose a lot, and I think for a long time our belief was once you figure out what that thing is, like that's it for the rest of your life. And what we've learned along this journey is that it shifts, and every season looks really different. And I love that. Like the older we get, I love that because it's never boring, you never know what's next, and you can embrace the change and feel like, well, this is what worked for me in this season. And actually, I'm feeling a restlessness in my heart and in my family and the way things are working now, and that doesn't mean that I'm failing, it means that we're being asked to pivot, and God is leading us to a new chapter.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, and just to button that part up, like I remember having a conversation with God where I was like, You called me to this, and I'm out here and I'm doing this for you. And God's like, Not anymore, you're not like you're no longer doing this for me, you're doing this for you, and I don't want you here anymore. Now go home. It's like that was hard, it was really hard. But again, we chose obedience in in that case, and side note, we don't always choose obedience, and sometimes it takes us too long to figure it out, and I'm sure God gets a little is like, Come on, man, come on, like, dude, I'm trying to like show you this here. It's like, all right, all right, all right. If I get beat over the head enough times to finally get it.
SPEAKER_01:Just reiterating point two, success is often found in the surrendered seasons. We just kind of wrote down some notes and said sometimes God's call is looking looks like stepping back. We just kind of wrote some of our examples, stepping back from something, downsizing, saying no, or letting go of something. And again, to the outside world, to the outsider who is not inside of your life, those things can often look like failure. And if you put too much weight into what other what other people might think, they might even feel like failure to you. But that's where clinging to Jesus and what he calls for us, that's where our relationship deepens with him, our trust deepens with him, and that refinement and pruning takes place. That's where we grow.
SPEAKER_00:Right. And what do you think it looked like for the disciples that followed Jesus? They left everything behind and went and lived this like nomadic lifestyle, living in tents and bouncing around with following Jesus.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. So just a little reminder: God does not waste our obedience, even if other people don't understand it, even if other people don't see it, those invisible seasons are often the ones that shape us the most. Another point that we had was success often looks like doing hard things for Jesus. I've been hearing so much recently, and I do feel like sometimes like when you hear things over and over, you're reading a book and you hear it, and then you're I see a listen to a podcast and it's there. I've just been hitting over being hit over the head with the word comfort. And just how we I can't even remember like where I was listening to. It's little pieces here and there, but where we oh, it one of them was a real where we live in a world that if we're uncomfortable, that's like a bad thing. Like at all costs, we want to avoid discomfort. And we just live in a world where if we want a Starbucks, like we can go get a Starbucks if we because we have the means to do so, and the copy is right there, and that's not really the life that God intended for us, right? To just have immediate gratification.
SPEAKER_00:I just saw um a section from um sermon where they were talking about work, and in some way you could look, I mean, work is often hard, like when you're working at something, and it was talking about how pre-the fall, God created Adam and put him in the garden to work it. And so before sin entered the world, Adam was there to work the garden, and so doing hard things isn't even like a thing of sin. You know what I mean? Because that's like doing that hard work was Adam fulfilling God's plan and purpose for him, and so often we run in when things get hard, we feel like it's the wrong thing, like it's it's failure, or we're heading down the wrong path. When in reality, most of the time when you're doing hard things and you're being obedient to Christ, when you're being obedient to Christ, it's almost always hard. It's almost always whatever he's calling you to do is hard, right? Pick up your cross and follow me. Uh leave all your possessions and follow me. Um, we were just talking about Noah building the ark. God called Noah to build an ark when he was 500 years old and he spent a hundred years building the ark, being ridiculed and mocked because he was building this ark for a reign when the world had never seen rain, asking David to step into a tumultuous situation where Saul is being uh is no longer God's chosen king, but David is now his king and Saul wants to kill him. Most of the time stepping into obedience is going to be hard. And I think there's a lot of times where even Christians mistake comfort and peace. Because if we seek comfort, like are we really doing anything good? Are we really it are we are we seek truly seeking?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, like change and growth never happens in comfort when you're working out. That's not comfortable, and that's what grows you. I mean, we've talked about this before, right? It reminds me of the verse in Romans, Romans five, three through five. Not only so, but we glory in our sufferings because we know that suffering produces perseverance, perseverance produces character, character hope, and hope does not put us to shame. It's that pruning. It's that was God's design. I'm actually reading, that's what my book is about right now. I'm reading um The Deepest Place by Kurt Thompson, and he's super, super smart, but that is what the book is about. It's finding hope through suffering, and that when we avoid suffering, we're actually avoiding the hope that God wants us to deeply, deeply understand. And that hope can only be found in him. Right. And we only find that hope through suffering and through the pruning that comes through suffering. And so that's yeah, that's what real success is. If we're have this mansion and we're watching TV every day and we can Uber Eats$300 sushi order every day, and our kids have the nicest clothes and$200 shoes, and we have a nice car in the driveway, but we're not doing anything impactful, we're not doing anything hard. We just that's it. We just exist. That's not success, that's existing, and and it's honestly kind of a waste of life, right?
SPEAKER_00:Pouring into others is hard. Having a marriage is hard, it's work. Parenting kids is work, having friends, you have to put work into it. If you're building a business, it's hard work. Us foster care, that's hard work.
SPEAKER_01:Like now, I want to say, like, does that mean you can't have these things? You can't have a big house, you can't have a nice car. No. I mean, we hope one day to have a house double, triple the size of what we have, but the purpose in that, the heart behind that is is to use our home as a ministry to serve others, to host others, to welcome people in and you know, show people God's love through what we have been given, because at the end of the day, nothing belongs to us.
SPEAKER_00:And it yeah, some of these possessions and things that like they're again, they're not bad in and of themselves, but are they in God's plan for you if you're following his obedience and you're you're being obedient to what he calls you to do, specifically in the calling, but then being obedient in what the Bible just tells you to do and how to live in general, how to be a good steward of your money, how to pour into friendships. Yeah, you know, all of these things, how to prioritize. There's there are some things that naturally can come from doing those things, but it's are you following God's plan? Are you being obedient?
SPEAKER_01:So just to reiterate point number three, success often looks like doing hard things for Jesus. The reminder in that, the encouragement in that that we've kind of learned is to not mistake discomfort for failure. You constantly have to check yourself. And and you can get it twisted both ways. You could say, Oh, well, this is so hard. And so I know that this is the right thing. And then you can become a martyr to your circumstances and you're like completely off track, which that actually happened when we were out in California. It for a time it was hard and we knew that it was the right thing, and then it became like it was still hard. We were still doing it, we were still working long days, putting in long hours, but something shifted, and the only way you can really know, like whether you're still doing what God is asking you to or you're not, is by seeking him and staying close with him, and you will know, right? There you will know.
SPEAKER_00:And and just like you shouldn't mistake discomfort for um failure, you shouldn't mistake comfort for peace, like I was saying earlier, because you can have peace through the hard things, yeah. So just because something's like comfort doesn't mean you have peace. Yeah, right. And I think that's a lot of times Christians mistake those two things.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Yeah. So then the fourth one that we wrote is true success is stewardship, not striving. And this is something that I've really had to wrestle with because I am a striver, like I'm an achiever. That's my personality type. I don't like to sit still, I don't like to like watch TV and do things unproductive. Like I'm a striver by nature. But something I've had to realize is that you don't that striving, doing, taking action, that doesn't equal success. God is not asking us to be everything to everyone. He is asking us to be faithful to the few things that he has placed in our hands. And so sometimes that looks like being honest with yourself and saying, have I overcommitted to things and am I striving outside of God's will and more for accolades? And what do I need to let go of so that I can be a good steward truly of what God has called me to? And so that's when you have that balanced, that's truly what is successful. Because if you're striving, striving, striving, but you're have you have a family and you have kids and you're neglecting your family, that's not success. You need to steward well what God has placed in front of you. He at He's asking us to be faithful with what He's placed in our hands, whether it's a podcast, a classroom, a kitchen, a mission field.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, and we don't mean for the title of this to be absolute, like true success is always stewardship and never striving, because I think it honestly is a combination of the two. It's striving with stewardship. Because if again, like you said, let's go to the money thing. Let's say I strive and we build this business and it's and it's super successful, but we're just blowing all the money and you're not spending time with your family, like that's not good stewardship for what God, you know, the maybe the financial blessing that God brought upon you, now you're just blowing it and you're in debt. Like that's not that's not a good thing. And so I think you know what we're trying to convey here is that striving in the sense of being spread too thin, like you strive to do too many things, too much, and and try to do things that you on the surface look good, but God may didn't call you to go do that. And so just because you're capable of something, and maybe even you can on paper, you could do it better than somebody else doesn't mean that you should, and that God has that in plan for you. Yeah, right. And I think we talked about this a little bit on a different podcast, but oftentimes people will just spread themselves too thin, and then you're no good to anybody, right? So stewarding the things that God has put in front of you, right, and has clearly called you to do, then he will equip you to be able to do those things.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, and just some ways to stay in check with that. I mean, truly it's a daily surrender and just waking up and saying, All right, God, like it's you and me today. What do you have for me today? What do you want me to do with this day, with this schedule in front of me? I surrender it to you, you know, have your way with it. And it can be that with your day, with your job, with your family, and just truly surrendering that to him and asking for him to give you the clarity that you need to truly be able to focus on what is in front of you, what he is calling you to, and to steward it well. The Bible says that we will either hear, Well done, my good and faithful servant, or turn away from me, for I never knew you, and how tragic that would be. And so the striving should be that's the end goal. That's what we want to hear, that we stewarded well what he put before us, and that we'll hear well done, my good and faithful servant.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, and that's why, like in all of this, I truly am a big proponent of personal development, of reading physical books and listening to podcasts, but discerning it through your Christian worldview, discerning it through the Bible, discerning it through what God is calling you to do. Because some, you know, when you read those things, there aren't, you know, not none of them are the Bible. So none of them are perfect, but there are pieces that you can apply to your life and then running it through the filter of how can I apply this to what God is calling me to do right now? Because some of the books, you know, may tell you, hey, go be a millionaire, and maybe God doesn't want you to be a millionaire, right? Some of the the books may give you just relationship advice, and it's like, okay, well, how do I filter this through God's lens? And you can glean and then pick out things that that are good. And then the last thing I just want to say is that, and we kind of touched on this, is that oftentimes when you're being uh obedient to what God is calling to you to do, you will be misunderstood. And you'll be misunderstood by the world for sure, but sometimes you're miss misunderstood by other Christians. And you have to have confidence in what God has called you to do to not care what other people think.
SPEAKER_01:You know, sometimes people have confidence in reality checks. So, like seeking God, being in your Bible, praying, having a good relationship with Him, and having people who you can trust who are gonna pour into you. Right. So mentors, a trusted person, like Cory and are always bouncing ideas, and like I know Corey will share hard truths with me, and he'll be like, Yeah, no, that's I don't know. Like, but you're not gonna do it in a manipulative way, like out of selfish, you know what I mean? Yeah, but it's also good to have people outside of your marriage too.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, but like here's a perfect example again. I was watching the show, I really like the show, the the House of David is really neat. Um, but when David was get in the in the show, when David was getting ready to go out onto the battlefield, he's the he's a boy, he's a shepherd. He's like, I don't know, he looks like he's probably like 18 or something in the show. And like the soldiers that were all too scared to go out and face Goliath are like mocking him and like, why are you going out there? And he's so confident that God has called him to do. And his brother, who's this like warrior, is like David, like, aren't you scared? And David's like, I'm terrified, but I know God's calling me to go slay Goliath, and I because he's calling me to do it, he will take care of me. And so he was even misunderstood by other believers of God in that in that range, and so some it's difficult, and this is where you have to be you really have to pursue God and and be close to him because sometimes you may even you like you, I think you were trying to get at is that there are to have a well-rounded face, right? But like David also had Samuel pouring into him and saying, like, God is calling you to this, like, yes, go down to the battlefield, right? It like don't I think sometimes people can use God as a crutch and just say, Well, God's calling me to do this, but like, is he really? Yeah, you know, and so but we we don't know, and that's where it gets it's challenging because we're not that other person, we don't know what God is truly speaking to them and calling them to do, right? But like as a whole, like sometimes. you just you'll get a Christians like a group where like they misunder you're misunderstood even with other Christians. Yeah I'm not talking about like individual people that you trust that are close to Christ but like as a whole you often be misunderstood.
SPEAKER_01:So that's what we have for this week. Read it redefining success. Obedience over outcome when you know what God is calling you to just be confident in that trust him even if it's not the most shiny or glamorous season trust that his plan is better than your own and yeah on that note.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah and just final thoughts we're reading the I'm reading the slight edge you just finished it and I was thinking through this and like where I'm at in the book he was talking about being consistent in the mundane and how like the slight edge is literally just doing the small not glamorous daily disciplines that compound over time and you'll see like hockey stick growth in whatever in different areas of your life and as I'm reading it I'm just sitting there thinking like you know what is the non-glamorous mundane daily task the most important ones is reading your Bible and praying because that is how we have conversations with God and hear from God. It's not glamorous. Most people don't like to read and quite honestly a lot of Christians don't even enjoy like opening their Bible but when you you apply the slight edge to your life in that sense of just every day praying to God seeking him out and then hearing from him through reading his word that will compound over time and if you do that if you just simply seek God pray and then read his word like you will he will show you what he wants you to do and he will show you what he wants you to be obedient in. And it's really that simple and the slight edge says that the slight edge things the disciplines are easy to do and they're easy not to do and they're simple and it really is that simple guys I mean we could if there was one thing once you're a Christian that could just change your entire life is that simple mundane task of reading your Bible and praying.
SPEAKER_01:Not rocket science all right well we hope you guys have a good week we will catch you next week and