Kristy 0:06

Welcome to Unshaken, the podcast where unwavering faith is real life. I'm Christy, and together with my husband Tony, we dive into authentic conversations, offering biblical insights and sharing stories that inspire resilience, especially for families navigating the unique challenges of disabilities. Join us each week as we explore faith family and the journeys that keep us grounded in Christ. Don't forget to subscribe so you never miss an episode. Let's stand firm together. Hello, friends. Welcome back to Unshaken. The theme that we have in mind today is around building something beautiful in this new year and doing it alongside God. For starters, I don't know how many of you guys have New Year's resolutions. I think a lot of people do. And from time to time across my adult life, I've had not so much resolutions as just sort of general hopes. A few years back, the kids and I committed to having theme words for the year. Tony got on board with that. And that's kind of the direction that we as a family, we just sort of lean into that. What we have in mind to talk through today is building something beautiful, dreaming with God, dreaming alongside God in this new year. There's always all these voices that are telling us what we need to fix, where we need to hustle, what we have to finally repair or get right, encouraging us to join a gym so we can fix our health and lose weight, or we should go on Indeed or LinkedIn like right now and change our job because now's the time to make a career move. Or it's just sort of all of these goal-oriented behaviors. I mean, it's not that they're bad ideas, but where is the lead up to that? Like if someone has been feeling like they want to make a change in that direction, the turn of the new year is it's not a switch to flip, right? Um, and if you haven't, why would you make a commitment to something that just came up, you know? Particularly when God is with us standing by with a perfect plan, and all we have to do is walk alongside him to make it so. I think God doesn't ask us at the start of the year or any other time to build a perfect year. He wants us to build a beautiful year with him. It doesn't have to be impressive, it doesn't have to be flawless. But if we do it with him and we do it the way that he has for us, it will be beautiful. Going that other route, that more traditional human route, New Year goals can really feel heavy. It can feel very, it can feel like a lot of pressure, it can feel kind of overwhelming. It takes a bit of the joy off the holiday, a bit of excitement off the clean slate, new possibilities thing to feel like, and now I've made this decision and now I have to be in this rigid routine. And if that's what you want, right? If that's if it's something that you chose, you know, with intentionality and and you've prayed through it and God's with you on that, there's no shame in it. There's nothing wrong with that. There's nothing wrong with having goals and achieving and making that kind of progress. It's awesome. I think that can be very beautiful in itself. Kind of what Tony and I have been talking about this last few days is that it doesn't have to be like that. When we focus on beauty and we focus on building a beautiful year, it just feels a lot gentler, certainly more relational, potentially more sustainable than when we start the year looking for a specific achievement or a series of achievements that will lead us in a direction. You know, some of us are coming into this new year a little worn out. Some people already feel behind. Some people have been chasing for months, or particularly through this holiday season. I mean, if if you came into the holidays struggling, a little beat up, a little tired, having had a hard time, my guess is that you're not feeling a whole lot better by now, just on the other side of the celebration, which is great family time and all that kind of stuff, but exhausting. Some people feel like they're just behind. Some people are just hoping for relief as opposed to transformation or achievement at this time of the year. And if that's you, if that's where you are, please just know and just carry with you that God meets us where we are. He doesn't meet us where we think we should be. He's not waiting for you at the gym. You know, it's nothing like that. God meets you where you are and he takes you by the hand or picks you up and carries you in his arms if that's what he needs to do. He wants to go on this journey, this new year's journey with us. The scripture anchor for this episode is Psalm 37, 3 through 5. Guys, this is really intentional stuff. So it says, trust in the Lord and do good. Dwell in the land and enjoy safe pasture. Take delight in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the Lord, trust in him, and he will do this. I think we should talk through this because, like I said, it's very intentional. Some of these words are very, very specific. So for starters, um, dwell in the land. What does it look like to dwell? For me, when I think of dwelling, I think about when I was a kid and we used to have friends over for dinner, or we would go to somebody else's house for dinner, and my parents would dwell over coffee for what seemed like hours. In that state of dwelling, though, they were happy, they were content, they were just very much at peace to just sit there and, you know, chat with the with the friends that we were with. And they weren't conscious of spending, you know, the time where they should have been doing something else. Or it was just really all of that pressure was off, and they were just enjoying being in the moment. They were happy and still and dwelling over coffee, much to my five, six, seven, eight-year-old frustration. I think there's a peace in dwelling. I think there's something restorative about dwelling. Some people might consider it living, and maybe that's the case. Maybe dwelling is just doing your quiet living, you know, in a in a particular space. Delight, I guess that's kind of the next phrase. How does delight impact the way that we dream? When we think about taking delight in the Lord, what a cool word. It's gotta be a really intentional choice. It's not take joy in the Lord or find happiness in the Lord. It's not talking about peace or, you know, anything. It's delight is not necessarily a quiet emotion. Like delight is, wow, it's it's delightful. Finding that joy, that Christmas morning feeling to me is delight in the Lord. You know, that's just awesome. That's that's what he's there for. Like he's not meant to just stand by and and be like our quiet guardian or whatever. He means to be up in our business. He means to be actively living our lives with us. And he wants us to take delight in his nearness, in the ways that he makes a path for us, that he clears a way for us, that he loves us, that he fights on our behalf, like all of these things that God does for us, we're meant to take delight in that, not take it for granted or just be grateful, but to delight, to take a celebratory note. Tony, do you agree with that?

Tony 8:27

Yeah, I do. One of the things that that I I love about this passage, look at the first word in these phrases. Trust, dwell, delight, commit. All of these words, they give a signal of like proximity. You have to be close for all of these things. If you're not close with God, you're not going to trust. If you're not close to God, then you're not gonna dwell. If you're not close with God, you're not gonna delight in him. If you're not close with God, then you're not gonna commit to the things that that he wants you to commit to. Yeah, it's just a beautiful way of just saying, Hey, come near. How often does God say, Come near, come to me? You know, come with me. I mean, how many times did Jesus say, Come and see, come and be a part of it, come, you know, come with me. It comes back to that you know phrase in in John 15, it's abide, just that proximity, just that intimacy that God just desires and wants for all of us. It's a beautiful way that it shows up in this passage.

Kristy 9:43

The other thing that I'll say in verse five, he asks us to commit your way to the Lord. When we commit, we are all in. Commit means hand it over. Turn your way over to the Lord. Once it's committed, that's not a halfway thing. That's not a don't worry, God, I'll help you hold it. You know, that's not a, ah, I feel like there's something else I could be doing here. So um, I'm just gonna pick that back up again for a few minutes. It's not like that. Once it's committed, it's gone from you. Commit your way to the Lord, hand it over to him, trust in him, and he will make it work. And I just really love the intentionality of that. It's hard, right? It's so hard to turn your stuff over, to, to commit it, to lay it down, and to not pick it back up again. I, this is something we talk about a lot, just between Tony and me. Just it's something that's hard for both of us. I think it's hard for everybody. Um, and I know we've talked about it on other episodes too. Commit, be all in on whatever he has and be all in on it without knowing what it is. That's the trust part, trust in him. But if we do, in this same verse, he says he'll do this. And and what that refers to is from verse four, he will give you the desires of your heart. He knows what your heart desires. He knows what you want to and and feel like you should be achieving in this new year. He knows what your heart needs to be happy. He knows everything about it. He's known it since before you could even form words around what you yearn for, what your heart aches for, what you just so urgently want to want to have, want to get to. If we trust in him and do good, dwell, stay where he is, take delight, he will do this.

Tony 11:36

As we are staying close, God is able to reshape those desires that we have and those things that we want. Because as we stay close, we're starting to desire the same things that he desires. You know, when it says, you know, he will give you the desires of your heart, it's because uh he's been able to transform your heart into the things that he desires. So it's almost like a no-brainer that of course he's going to give you the desires of his heart because it's the desires of his heart. Such a beautiful thing. But the key is stay close. Stay with him.

Kristy 12:17

If we're gonna stay close, if we're going to dwell and if we're gonna commit, that implies a letting go. We can't trust and and dwell and commit and still hold on to these goals that we have or these ideas or these wishes that we have, these pressures that we put on ourselves to achieve, to make specific progress and hit this milestone and whatever, those are good things, right? I'm not trying to say that having goals is a bad idea or that we shouldn't pace ourselves or that we shouldn't work hard, you know, and make the best use of what God gives us in terms of resources. We should be good stewards. But having goals that make us feel guilty, putting ourselves in a situation where this culture of being productive, this culture of constantly striving, it's just pervasive.

Tony 13:11

It's a trap of comparison. I think that's why a lot of times we get caught up. We see others achieving so much more, and we're like, if I would just do that, or if I would just work harder, I could get that too, or get that promotion, or it may not be your lane, it may not be the race that that God wants you to run. Like we all have our specific lanes, we all have our specific things that that God wants us to do, and it's always in gonna be in God's timing as well.

Kristy 13:45

I think everything that you said is accurate. I also think sometimes it's not so much comparison as is what we're holding ourselves accountable for. We have this idea, I'm going to lose 50 pounds this year when it comes time to, you know, to go to your kiddo has a birthday party, or you have friends over, or some fruit that you love is in season or whatever, where we're saying no, right? We're prioritizing this goal that we made, this sort of thing that we made up for ourselves over joy, over living, over enjoying the moments that God puts in our path, right? That's not dwelling to me. Dwelling is eat the cake, man, like and be there. And it's not to say that we don't do smart things, we don't make good decisions, and it's a good plan to be healthy, but it's not a good plan to torture yourself with shame over an arbitrary goal that you set for yourself. That's that's not how God rolls, and it's not how he wants us to live. I think it flies in the face of dwelling and delighting and committing. In addition to God not motivating us by comparison or guilt, like that's never what he has for us. I think there are times when we set goals and they just become burdens that we carry. They exhaust us, they make us feel terrible. And sometimes disability, grief, illness, burnout, detours, job loss, family moving. There's so many things that really change the shape of the road that we're on. They change the trajectory that we're on. If we're doing what God asks us to, we're able to flex with that. He's gonna over and over again refocus us on what matters to him as opposed to what matters to us. And when hard things happen, what matters to him is that we lean into him. It's that we let him fight, that we let him do the hard part, that we just trust him. We trust him to pick us up and carry us over that broken glass of a situation that we dwell, that we commit and let him handle it. In this time of year when we're all, you know, setting these goals, we just have to be really smart and really careful about where we're putting our sights, what we're aiming for. Because what we should be aiming for is closeness with God, as Tony was saying, so that we can go where he takes us.

Tony 16:34

Thinking about this, and as we're thinking about the new year, let's ask an interesting question. What does it mean to dream with God? Even in asking that question, there might be some of you out there that hear that question and you flinch because you're scared to hope again. There's been so many things that have hurt, and so many disappointments and and things that have happened, maybe even in the last year. And so you're scared to to hope, and you're scared to to dream again. And I want to tell you, that's okay. This is not something about doing it overnight. This is something about walking with God, and God is never going to rush people that dream with him. Many of the dreams that we dream with God are going to become clear through obedience, they're going to become clear with a steady rhythm, they're going to become clear because of just that intentionality of being with him, and prayer is listening, it's not pitching ideas. Prayer is a time where we can get with God, we can express our hearts, tell him what you know what we're worried about, what we're scared about. But when it comes to dreaming, prayer is about listening for his heart. Going to God and saying, God, what do you want me to do this year? And if you can't even think in the terms of this year, maybe it's God, what do you want me to do this month? What do you want me to do this week? What do you want me to do today? And you know what? If that's your prayer, if your prayer is, God, what do you want me to do today? That's enough. It is enough. We need to make sure that we have the distinction between dreaming for God versus dreaming with God. If we're dreaming for God, what we're doing is we're going to God saying, God, here's the things that I want. It's like a we just got done with Christmas, it's like a Christmas list. Here's what I want to happen this this year. That's not dreaming with God, that's dreaming for God. That's that's you telling him, you know, what you want, that's not dreaming with him. Dreaming with God, we're asking God, how can we serve in a way that that brings you honor and brings you glory? And those things, it's not about me, it's not about Tony. How can I bring you glory? How can I bring your name praise through the things that I do? Like, what do you want me to do that's gonna shine a light in your direction, not my direction? Prayer is one of those things where we can lay down our resources, lay down our gifts and talents at God's feet that he's given to us and say, What do you want me to do with the gifts that you've given me?

Kristy 19:51

I think God doesn't need our help, right? He wants us to stay near him, not so that we can facilitate for him, but so that he can facilitate for us. He has a plan. He like he's going to accomplish that with or without us, but he wants to do it with us, right? He wants us to be in that relationship space with him. He wants us to be in that life space, he wants to be part of our everyday. He wants us to want his plan, and he wants us to want to do it alongside him. God is not about sending us out on our own to, you know, to figure things out. Um, and like I said, he certainly doesn't need our help. He wants our partnership, he wants our relationality, he wants our attention.

Tony 20:44

Bottom line, he wants our obedience and he wants us to serve out of our love for him. We should be serving out out of our love for him, not because of anything that we will get from it, but because we we love him so much and we want to be in his presence so much. We're just gonna lay down our own ambition and we're gonna say, God, here I am, send me. To do whatever it is. That doesn't necessarily mean that you're gonna like fly halfway across the world and be on you know a mission trip in a faraway land. I mean, he might, if God's tugging on your heart to be a missionary, go for it. But there's a lot that you can do right in your backyard, and there's a lot that you can do within your own community.

Kristy 21:34

I think that you guys every week come along with Tony and me, sort of on this journey, on this unshaken path that we're we're kind of building as we go, right? Tony and I have been kind of reviewing things and going back over the websites and going back over our social media strategy and all this stuff. And what we've been finding in the last I don't know, maybe two, three weeks, is that the stuff that we did first, like the website that we built first and the notes that we have from when we first started, you know, thinking about this thing and and dreaming it and feeling like God had a plan for us and and we were being called to this to create this ministry. When we look back on that, what is it, like nine months, 10 months later, kind of what we're realizing is that it's really changed. It's my hope, like my heart hope so much that that's because as we have reached out and as we have tried to be faithful, as we've we've tried to stay with him, you know, we pray constantly and just ask for discernment and ask for guidance and ask for him to light up a path so brightly that even we can't mess it up. And I think as we have striven to be at his side and to have him at our side, we keep touching base. Is it, is it this? Is this what you want? Is this what you want? How about like this? I don't know if the issue was that we heard his voice, we heard his call, and we didn't quite have all the details right, or if it's in walking with him that maybe he has refined this process. He's kind of refined the plan, refined the shape of what we're building. But what I can tell you is that Tony spent this weekend overhauling the ministry's website because the the direction that we have come in this past nine months is so very different from where we thought we were gonna go when we started.

Tony 23:42

Part of what's happened is we hear from God and we hear, you know, God giving us a direction, and so we start doing something, and we think, okay, this is this is the shape of it, this is what we're gonna do. And so often, uh at least in my experience, so often God says, Go bigger, and he brings ideas and a structure to my mind or to Christy's mind, and then and you guys heard a little bit of that when we did our um Burn the Ships episode a few months back, and even from that point, as we have continued to seek him and to seek his direction and his guidance, there's been more and more refinement and more and more clarity as we've gone forward.

Kristy 24:36

Continuing with the same example because it's because it's handy for us. We're we're, you know, as we live it now. You know, God said build this ministry, and we said, okay, we're on it. And now I feel like he might be saying, you know, not exactly like that. And we're like, well, that's what you said. He's like, no, but that's actually not exactly what I said, you know, listen more closely. And I think to a large extent, I think that that is one of the ways that he causes us to have to lean in more and listen more closely and just draw even more near him. We want to hear it and we're we're getting it a little bit wrong. It's because we're not close enough. It's because however much we're seeking him and and seeking, you know, his direction and asking for clarity and discernment, we're still not close enough. And he keeps pulling us closer and closer to him. And I just think it's one of those neat God things that he, you know, that he does it like this.

Tony 25:38

This also reminds me of the parable of the guys with the talons. A master gives three servants talent, goes off for time, and he comes back, he asks for a report from each of the servants. The first servant did what he had to do, he doubled his money basically. The master says, Well done. The second servant does the same thing, and the third servant does nothing with it. The third servant just kind of buries the money. Here's what you gave me. I just didn't do anything with it. And the master gets really mad, and I think sometimes you know God will show what he wants us to do, and then he's gonna see what we do with it. Are we going to step out when the dream isn't fully formed? Are we going to trust him? Right, going back to our anchor verse, are we going to trust him even without all of the details? Are we going to say, Okay, you said it, we're gonna go do it? Knowing that he's going to reveal more details as we go. And it's like Christy said, as we do this, I know for me and uh and I'm sure for Christy, the more and more we do this with Unhaken, the more I feel a need to cling to him because this is completely outside my comfort zone. The things that we are planning are completely outside of our comfort zones. But it's also exciting. And what we know and what we've c what Christy and I have talked about, especially in the last couple weeks, is hey, we're gonna cling to him more, and we're just gonna do the thing. It's scary and exciting, but we both know we need to cling to him more, and I think that's what he wants.

Kristy 27:38

I can say with absolute certainty that I would never in a million trillion years have picked this. And it's not because I don't love it and because I'm not, you know, learning and growing and excited about it. But if I had a a million chances to pick a path forward, it would never have been this. It would just never would have occurred to me. We need him. When you're this far outside your comfort zone and your knowledge zone, you're this all in, you have no choice. That's by his design. Like we have to hold his hand, we have to stay close, or we'll be lost.

Tony 28:20

I think this is a good point to say that as you're going forward in this, we also have to make sure that we are staying present in the current moment and recognizing the beauty that is in our everyday lives. And and I want Christy, I want you to talk through this because I think you are much better at this than I am as far as just naming and and seeing the beauty that's already here beyond just thinking about what could be.

Kristy 28:54

Don't know that I'm better at it, but I I mean, but I can tell you in this on this path that I've just very, you know, openly admitted that I would never have been on if not for God. We have gained so much, I mean, across the board in terms of knowledge, in terms of people that we've met, like really good people, things that we've learned, richness in our own relationship. We've looked at things together that we we might not ever have really discussed at such length. We've really been able to examine different facets of the life that we live and the life that we believe that a lot of you also live, and just a lot of the things that just are part of our existence here. Um, and just really, I think found appreciation. We've grown, we've connected more deeply with partners in our community. The list just goes on and on of the richness, the riches, really, the spiritual and mental and emotional riches that we've gotten by virtue of being on this path that I don't know how else we would have gotten. I really think we could have gone our entire marriage and not really examined some of these things that have become so integral to our daily processes right now. And like you said, there's so much beauty. I mean, truly, there's so much hope and there's so much knowledge. My gosh, Tony, like you have committed yourself so completely, so into you've just immersed yourself in learning. It is staggering to me to think of the hours, just the countless hours that you and God have put in overnights. There have been nights where Tony didn't sleep and not just one or two, but just it's just been a regular occurrence. And he's not exhausted. He's like he's in a in a zone, he's in a place, and he and God are working it out. You know, he's learning coding that it's different than it was back in the 90s, you know, the last time we were doing some of this stuff. He's learned all of the editing and all of the technical pieces of podcasting and just built some incredible websites and, you know, reached out and talked to some people that that maybe we wouldn't have, you know, have ever even known. We've we've been, God has made us mindful of other podcasts. We listen to people, I think, sort of aspirationally, you know, trying to learn, trying to just find, sort of discern the path, right, that God has for us. And there's just so much information, there's so much richness. And for myself, it's been about the people, which is always like the sweet spot of life for me is people. And not that Tony doesn't feel the same way, but when I look at your path, I see your absolute devotion and the absolute transformation of your um your knowledge base. Like it's just mind-blowing to me. It's good on you and it's good on God. Oh, I'm just so proud of you. And I I it's just so cool. Like you are the best example, and you are leading with such just absolute you're committed. It's it's that word commit again. You're so all in, and it just inspires me.

Tony 32:32

You are far too kind to me and far too gracious than I deserve what I have seen and what I obser what I have observed in you throughout this process is just your incredible writing. You have always been a good writer, always been blown away watching watching your academic writing, being able to like read all of your doctoral work when you were working on that, and and just blown away by your brilliance in that project. But seeing the blogs that you have written, guys, I'm gonna say right now, if you have not read that the blog about neurod neurodiversity and leadership, don't walk. Run to the blog and read that thing right now because it is brilliant. I just am blown away by your level of writing, and I just know that I need to step up my game as far as writing goes because you are you're not just laughing at me, you're you're like blowing me out of the water.

Kristy 33:46

It's not, but it's not, babe. It's the dreaming, right? It's the dreaming with God. He puts, he gives it, he puts the passion there, he makes it so compelling and so exciting and so inspiring. And I feel like we've kind of gone down like a little path here, but it's just so cool to watch this happen. And I I would never like hold up, you know, Tony and myself and say, like, oh, we're doing it right, you should do it like us. But what I can say is that as we have have striven to cling to God and to, you know, to get the right answers on this thing that we somehow committed to. It's just been so, so neat to see the growth and just to see the way that God has given us information and given us so much just richness as part of the education.

Tony 34:39

When we think about from a practical perspective, let's look at building a year with purpose and with joy. I want to start this by just saying that you don't have to do everything. You don't have to pick some lofty, you know, thing. Think about this framework as trust, it's not control. So the framework that I want us to work with is let's think about one thing to build, one thing to release, and one thing to celebrate. I need you guys to hear me so clearly. One thing is enough, releasing is just as holy as building. Celebration trains us to recognize God's faithfulness, and we need that. We need to celebrate the moments because those celebrations are going to give us the fuel that we need to keep building and to keep releasing. It's all connected. When we celebrate, we're able to build more, we're able to release more. When we release more, it frees up that emotional energy so that we can celebrate more, we can be present in the moment, we can build more because we don't have that emotional baggage from the thing that we've released. It is so important that we recognize the value of the one thing. Because if we can do the one thing well for each of these areas, it's gonna free us up for the next thing. For Christy and I, it started with the idea of Unshaken. It took us months to to even come up with the with the name. Hundreds of possibilities that Christy and I talked through, and we had a list of favorites, and then we would exchange those lists, and we would cross out things, and then we would go back and try again. And we finally landed on on Chicken and it's worked, but it's also evolved from what it was on day one. When you do one thing, when you build one thing and you release one thing and you celebrate one thing, you're going to see and you're going to find that as you walk through each of those things slowly, it's going to evolve, it's going to take shape, it's going to form because of the habit, because of the relationship, because of the rhythm that you develop with God as you're getting closer and closer to him. It's more of God, I want to be near you, and then letting the process of being nearer to him direct and shape how you go forward each day.

Kristy 37:44

I think if God builds, right? God has a plan, God knows what he wants when he draws us near, and when we go near and we dwell and we do those things that he's asked us to do, he builds through us. We become truly his hands and feet. And however bizarre it seems, you know, at the time, maybe he's asking you to do something. Um, maybe he's just asking you to love your family. Maybe he's asking you to hunker down and have a season of closeness with your spouse or your kids. Maybe he's asking you to start a you know a business, or maybe he's uh who knows, he could ask you to do anything. But what I can say for sure is that he enjoys the journey, God enjoys the process, and he enjoys having us, his kids, as close to him as he can get us to teach us, to equip us. I think God, you know, as our heavenly father, he has this idea and he wants to impart it to us and through us. He brings us along, he gives us, you know, that knowledge, he gives us that experience, he gives us the contacts or, you know, whatever we're gonna need to get it done, he's gonna make that happen. Like he loves the process of building with us through us. He he loves it. I think that's his favorite part. My guess is that God's favorite part is the having us close and doing it together, even though he doesn't, you know, doesn't need us. It's that it's the relationship piece. That's you know, I think to him that's more valuable than whatever the goal is.

Tony 39:24

The same can be said with release. Release is a mindset. Release is thinking about and naming what God might be asking us to let go of. Like Chrissy said earlier, that this is hard for both of us. There are things in our lives that God will ask us to let go of because it is for our benefit for us to release these things.

Kristy 39:53

And that might be the whole goal right now. Like it may not be that he wants you to build or do, it may be that he would the whole goal is for you to let go of something. And it may be a whole process that he walks you through just to let go.

Tony 40:09

In that process, one of the reasons why he wants you to let it go is so that you make room for the things that he wants to give you and that he wants you to build. Sometimes we're holding on to so much that he's not going to give us the thing that he wants us to build because our hands are full. We're trying to carry too much, we're trying to juggle too much, and he's saying, Hey, you need to let these things go so that we can build together, so that we can celebrate together. That's why releasing like is just as important as building and and celebrating, because it gives the space for those things that to happen. It's not about perfection, it's about progress, and it's about celebrating God's faithfulness in the process, not just the finish line. It's important that we celebrate the small steps that we are taking through the day, through the week, through the month, through the year, whatever it is, like celebrate the the progress because it's meaningful. When you're thinking about your three things, remember one thing to build, one thing to release, one thing to celebrate. When you're thinking about these three things, write them down. Write them down on a post-it note, write it down on a on a sheet of paper, but write them down and then put it somewhere where you're going to see it. Put it on your bathroom mirror, put it put it just somewhere that you're gonna see it every day. And then pray over it. Pray over it. You know, if if you're married, pray over it with with your spouse. You know, if you have a family, pray, pray as a family together about you know, what is the one thing we're gonna build? What is the one thing we're gonna release? What's the one thing that we're gonna celebrate? You know, throughout the year, just look at that list, think about and pray about. God, am I doing these things? Am I releasing the thing that you want me to, you know, release? Am I celebrating you know, these moments? Am I building the thing that you want me to build? Look back and and think through that. Part of all of this, I don't want to make too big of a deal of it. We want to come alongside you in this. When you listen to this episode, we have a website that we've been working on. It is unshakenpodcast.org. Unshakenpodcast.org. There will be resources, there will be devotionals, there will be worksheets, reflections, where you guys can go deeper with us. We're gonna go on a journey with you. And one of the most exciting things for us is there's gonna be a way for you guys to one submit questions so that we can talk about them on these episodes, but also there's gonna be a way for you guys to submit topics so that we can talk about the things you guys want to hear about. We want to hear from you guys. We we want you guys to to be able to share the podcast, to share these episodes, find us on social media, we're on Facebook, we're on Instagram, we're on YouTube, find us, comment, share, like all of those things, because all of those things mean something to us because we get to hear from you guys. Um, but they also help us uh to be able to get in front of more eyeballs and more ears as we are trying to get this um out and build this community of our unshaken family.

Kristy 44:02

I would just reiterate what you were saying that we just so appreciate um the people that are listening. And, you know, if if you listen more than once, you know, we hope it's because you know this message is resonating. And if that's the case, then that's it's confirmation that we're getting it right. Like we're we're hearing God accurately and you know, and saying what needs to be said, because it might be you, dear listener. It could be any one of you who needs who needs what it is that he has to say. We just appreciate that you're giving us a chance and you know, we hope that it blesses you. We hope that we're getting it right. So let's pray. God, we come before you so very grateful that you want us to draw near to you, that you want to draw near to us. We ask for your help in just surrendering what you want us to lay down. In particular, that pressure to perform, to meet goals that's just sort of artificially um inflated at this time of year, you know, in particular. God, we ask that you shape our dreams, that you dream with us, that we dream with you and not for you. Um we're so grateful that you want that sort of relationship with us. Um we're so thankful for all that you are, for everything that you do for us, for the just countless ways that you bless us, you know, the opportunities that you provide and the knowledge and just the beautiful people, the world that you made for us. We're just so very grateful. But more than all of it, more than all of it combined, we are so grateful for Jesus, for the gift of your son and the the hope, the eternal hope that we can have because of that, because you made that sacrifice for us and because he did. Please let us be brave, God, in in taking whatever the next step that you have for us is. Please let us be courageous, uh, courageous enough to take this step, even if we can't see where we're stepping. Please just help us to trust you more and just to lean into your promises so that we can just fulfill the plans and hopes and dreams that you have for us. God, we would just so appreciate a sense of peace around us, all of us, our listeners, our friends. Just a sense of peace around this new year and just the trust and knowledge that it's all going to go according to your plan. Um, and please just help us to allow that pressured feeling, that stress to just fall away and just rest in the knowledge that you have us. We love you, Father, and all these things we ask in your son's beautiful name. Amen. Amen.

Tony 46:57

Thank you so much, guys. Hope you guys have a great rest of your day and a great week, and we'll see you next time. Thank you, friends.