Kristy 0:06

Welcome to Unshaken, the podcast where unwavering faith meets real life. I'm Kristy, 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.

Tony 0:44

Today we just wanted to talk through something that is close to both of us. If you've been with us for a while and you know that both Kristy and I have uh ADHD, when you struggle with ADHD, one of the things that you could potentially struggle with is just getting things started. I believe that we are all called by God to do some pretty amazing things, but sometimes it's hard to get going. And the question that I want us to kind of wrestle with and keep in front of us tonight, what are you, what am I, what are we still waiting to know before we begin whatever the task or whatever the calling is that God has for us? Ecclesiastes chapter 11 speaks to this a little bit and says that the one who watches the wind never plants. Sometimes we're not avoiding action because we don't care. We're avoiding it because we care so much. We want certainty first. It's not simply a matter of refusing to act because you don't care or you don't know. I think for many of us, we care extremely deeply. And we're trying to make sure that there's no disappointment or failure or uncertainty before we begin. But I think that ultimately God is asking us that we trust Him rather than wait for everything to be nice and clean and certain.

Kristy 2:19

I think for me, probably the primary thing that that I struggle with, I start to procrastinate, I know I have to do the thing. I'm waiting for things to get easier, for things to get better, for work to slow down, or for kids to go back to school, or for you know, there's always something, there's always some situation. It used to be that I was driving back and forth when uh when Tony and I lived across the state from each other, just there's always something. And when you get to the place where whatever you were waiting for to resolve has resolved, something else comes up. The perfect conditions are continually just moving. It's like chasing a cloud. You you just never quite get there. So I wanted to talk about basing this in Ecclesiastes 11. I want to start with verse 4. It says, Whoever watches the wind will not plant, whoever looks at clouds will not reap. There's two really important things there, right? If you wait for the wind, if you wait for the clouds, if you wait for, you know, you just want it to rain, but not too much rain, if you take it literally and you're waiting for for the perfect weather conditions, in present day, you look at the weather and it says there's an 80% chance of rain. And then you go hour by hour and it says 5%, 15%, 25%. You just never know, right? You never know hour to hour what's gonna happen. And if you use that as a metaphor, I think for the for the bigger life, it's the same, right? We don't know. We don't have a magic looking glass, we don't know what's gonna happen. You can procrastinate all day and all night waiting for a certain situation, or because you're afraid something will happen and you're trying to avoid that. Like, we don't know. We're not called to sit around and and try to be armchair directors, right? We're supposed to just do what we're told. We're supposed to do faithfully the work that God gives us. And so we wait sometimes, sometimes it's until we have more time, until you know, when things slow down at work. Or, like I said, when the kids go back to school, there's always some time piece, it seems like for me. When we have more money, we'll stop renting and buy a house when we make enough money. We'll I'll go do the event with my friends when I've lost enough weight, when I fit in this dress. There's so many things. Health, it could be clarity, there's so many different factors, right? But like I said earlier, when one thing gets better, something else comes up, and it makes me wonder if what we're chasing isn't a state of being ready, if it's just control of the situation that we're looking for. I can tell you for myself, I finished my master's degree in 2007. It was summer, summer of 07. And after that, I tried to start a doctoral program five times. Different programs, different, you know, different schools, different whatever. And and some of it was that I, you know, I just wasn't sure what I wanted to settle into. I knew that I was gonna work in education. You have to specify, right? You have to to narrow it down to something specific. You can't just say, I'd like to work in education and I'd like a doctorate that supports that just in general, right? The all the programs are are very specialized. Maybe it was that, maybe it was parts of it were, well, I'm I'm traveling back and forth, there's you know, there's never enough time. I don't wanna I don't want to start it now because I don't always have control over my schedule. Or the kids are just at such a sensitive age right now, we'll just wait till they get a little older. There was any number of reasons why I kicked the can up the road. Finally, I I did it. And the the reason I did it, I'm ashamed to say, wasn't because I jumped in ready. It was because my employer offered classes for almost free.

Tony 6:34

Whatever the condition is that we're waiting for, may be real, like it may be a real legitimate condition that we're waiting to either happen or change or or whatever. I think an important question to ask, maybe while we're waiting for that condition to either change or show up or whatever, is like, does this condition actually need to change before we can actually do the thing in obedience? Or has it become the thing that we're going to use so that we don't have to risk getting started? There's just that tension there. The condition may be legit, but are we using that as the comfortable excuse almost to not get started and take at least the first step?

Kristy 7:28

We can feel like we're being super responsible, right? I'm waiting until I don't want to squander the opportunity, or I want to give this the best chance I can at success. And so we make ourselves feel like we're being responsible. Like we make ourselves feel like we're doing the right thing and we're being a good steward. And I think a lot of times though, what we're doing is protecting ourselves from being disappointed, failing, letting other people see, taking the risk and making ourselves visible in that and having others see us fail. It's a control and confidence thing more than it is this stewardship and responsibility thing. I want to hop back to Ecclesiastes again for a second, because this is kind of cool stuff. But I want to go to the top to verses one and two. And it says, ship your grain across the sea. After many days, you may receive a return. Invest in seven ventures, yes, in eight, you don't know what disaster may come upon the land. When I first read that, my thought was, okay, diversify. But the more I read it, and the more I kind of have thought through it this week, and the more I kind of kept it, tried to keep it in its context. I think what it's saying is, you don't know. You don't have control, you don't get to vote. Just do the thing. Be obedient, live your life, do the work you're given, and let God handle the unknowns. Like that's his job. That's not our job. I think that's a a piece of the inappropriateness of continuing to kick the can, right? It's it's not being responsible. It's that thing we talked about grabbing control. But we're trying to take control from God because he's the only one who knows. It's not, I'm not saying that we shouldn't mitigate risks where we can or or go with a plan. I think it's important to have a plan. I think it's wise to have a plan. But I also think we have to ask ourselves, what can I know? And what is not for me to know? There's no way for me to know. How can I prepare? What can I put into place that will help me reduce risks? What can I delegate? What can I ask for help with? There's a lot of things that we can do that are within our control that are just plain responsible things to do. But once we get past those things, we've got to give it up because we just can't predict the future. We can, we can, we would wait all our lives waiting until all the conditions were right. That's that's a God thing. Uncertainty is not evidence that God's not guiding. It's it's just being okay, knowing that we don't get to have all the answers. We know that he's leading and and we can rest in that, we can be okay in that and just do our work.

Tony 10:08

I agree with what you're saying. You know, planning is wisdom. Planning is important. Wisdom doesn't ask us to pretend uncertainty is is gone. Wisdom is just preparing honestly with the things that we can prepare for, and then accepting what we can't know, what is not in our control, and letting God take care of those things while taking the responsible steps that we can take. Plan for what you can and know those things, but then accept the uncertainty and go forward.

Kristy 10:48

It's be reasonable, right? Do what you can, mitigate what you can, and trust on the rest. And it sounds so simple. Why is it so hard to do it?

Tony 10:57

If you've got ADHD, it's just hard to get started anyway. For many of us that have ADHD, initiation is just a hard thing. So if you're listening to this, this is not a shame thing. This is we get it, we get you. But I also think that good things can become excuses for not getting going. If we go back to Ecclesiastes chapter 11, verse 4, it says, whoever watches the wind will not plant. Whoever looks at the cloud will not reap. That's that whole waiting for those perfect conditions. That's waiting for just the right amount of rain, looking at the clouds and and looking up at the sky. Well, guess what? The seeds don't get planted into the ground. So when it rains, if there's no seed, there's nothing to grow. And so if there's nothing to grow, there's nothing to reap. Even when the conditions aren't exactly what they need to be, we still need to do what we're asked to do. Should we do research? Of course. Should we pray? Absolutely. That I mean, prayer should be the very first thing. Should we seek counsel, you know, from others? Absolutely. Should we look for discernment to know whether or not God wants us to do these things? Of course, you know, those are all good things. But if we just stay in those phases, it becomes an easy way to postpone actually being obedient to what God is calling you to do. We have to ask ourselves, would one more piece of information actually change the decision that we need to make? Or are we just delaying it for the sake of delaying it? And again, we need to be very clear here. Sometimes a delay is a good thing. Sometimes waiting for wisdom is a good thing. We need to be very clear and honest with ourselves in asking is the waiting that I'm doing serving faithfulness, or is it just a blanket to keep me from any and all risk? And that's not what God is calling us to do. God is never going to be mad and he's never threatened when we have questions. If we have questions, we should ask. That's what communicating with our good Heavenly Father is all about. He wants us to ask those questions. So we should ask those questions. We should be faithful in the waiting and in discernment. But then there comes a point when another round of research or another night of preparation or another, oh, I'll just sleep on it one more night. All of that stuff, it sounds really good, but it's not changing anything about the decision. We just haven't decided to actually get started, and all this prep that we're calling it is just delaying the moment when we have to just act. Like I said before, ADHD can make the starting line feel literally impossible. If you're anything like me, my brain sees the entire project. There's a bunch of open loops that open up right away, and it's easy to get overwhelmed because what paralyzes me so many times is this thought and this trap of perfectionism. When we're stuck in that loop of trying to be perfect, the very first step carries all the weight of actually getting the thing done. I tell Kristy all the time, I just need the momentum, I just need to get started. And once I can get through that step one, then I'm good to go.

Kristy 15:06

I think for me, there's a piece where so a big giant task, a big giant job, and I know that I can work on it today, and you won't even see progress. It won't look like I did anything. So then this huge, heavy thing is still hanging over my head. And it just feels like nothing I can do is gonna make an enough difference to give me relief. So why would I do the work and still suffer? The problem is it's only those faithful days of working at it that are gonna bring relief. That's what's gonna take it from hanging over top of your head to you know something that you feel like you have managed and and controlled better. It's just the toughest thing. Like I can sit there and know the only thing between me and the other side of this is doing the work. There has to be a first step, and you you have to be okay with doing what you can do and walking away from it and coming back at it tomorrow. There's just something in me that resists that. I need accomplishment. I have to be able to check it off in terms of what can help with something like that. For me, you guys should see the cleaning checklist that I have made for myself. And it'll say, clean out the closet. And the next thing on it, clean out the closet. And it's on there like six times. Because what I mean is you can't do that all in one sitting. You have to go at it and go back at it and go back at it. So I keep listing it so I can cross one off every day and feel like I did something. I think sometimes we have to kind of play those games with ourselves in order to be able to take that step and knock it out. How would I know, like, oh, I can keep coming back at it? I can what if something comes up? What if I have to stay late at work? You just have to be all in on it. Trust that God has your back and that if he really wants it cleaned up, he's gonna help me make it happen. It's tough. You can really feel stuck.

Tony 17:07

For people that have ADHD, incremental progress is one of the hardest things to accept and to know that it is actual progress because there's no dopamine with incremental progress. Because the dopamine comes when the thing is done. When there is a task that is so big that it requires incremental progress, it's really hard to give yourself a pat on the back when you do the thing that actually gives you that incremental progress. Whether that be like one bag of trash or one corner of this thing done, it's almost like putting a puzzle together. It's we can see all these pieces, but we're not gonna see that pretty picture until the entire puzzle is put together. It's hard to say, yeah, I've made progress because I put five pieces together versus the entire puzzle together.

Kristy 18:11

Tony, can you talk about pressure? Sometimes pressure helps, right? Sometimes like the pressure of a deadline can get me going and help me get started. And sometimes the more there's pressure, the more I just dig in my heels and push back.

Tony 18:27

Pressure is one of those things that it's a fine line because I work well under pressure as well. But I think it's you work well under pressure when you believe that you are able to do the thing that needs to get done. If you're under pressure but you're looking at it and you're like, there's no way that I can do this, then you're just gonna shut down and curl up into a ball and nothing's gonna get done. I think it really does come down to like creativity because I think when we're under pressure and we're able to be creative, so we get the dopamine hit because we're being creative to get this thing done. There's a project, we haven't figured out how to do it, but now there's 24 hours left, and bing, we have an idea, and we can do this. We have this creative flow. We're able to say to ourselves, okay, here's how we're going to do this, go. And in that case, ADHD really becomes a superpower because we're able to think outside the box and figure out how to get maybe a monumental project done in a way that nobody else would have ever thought of, but because we have ADHD, we think outside the box and we thought of it and we got it done. But if there is something that needs to get done and we're on that deadline and we feel like we can't get it done, then it's doomsday. And that's where I think we need to be able to call in people that will help us. And we really need to lean into those that love us and those that care about us to say, hey, this is what's going on. This is where I'm at. I need some help. Can you help me? Whether that be your spouse, whether that be friends, coworkers, whatever your support group is, in those moments where we can't see a way out, we really need to lean into our support networks so that we can try to get done whatever needs to get done. Because if things are starting to feel overwhelming, we can't measure our faithfulness by whether or not we can see the finish line or see the entire path. We just have to figure out okay, what is the next step? What's the next action that we need to take either in our mind or with our bodies so that we can actually start to move forward, even in the situations where we might need outside help to truly get the thing done.

Kristy 21:13

I think another situation where I have a hard time getting started is if I don't know if I can do it. What if it doesn't come out right? What if it doesn't work? What if I just can't do it? What if I don't have the ability or I don't have the stuff? And so I want to go back to Ecclesiastes again because this is kind of cool. I'm at verse six now, and it says, Sow your seed in the morning and at evening, let your hands not be idle, for you do not know which will succeed, whether this or that, or whether both will do equally well. So I think what we're saying here is try stuff. Don't be paralyzed by fear that it might not work. Try something. And if it doesn't work out, try something else. Or maybe try two things. You know, it they don't have to necessarily be sequential. Although I do think that there's value in iteration. If I don't know if I can do it, a way to start might be to make a draft, to do some kind of practice run or some sort of confidence builder in the way that I'm seeing how it will work. And so it doesn't feel so overwhelming and terrifying because it becomes familiar. That doesn't mean keep making practice pies and never enter the competition. But I do think that there's value in things like drafts, talking it through with somebody, spitballing ideas with somebody that you trust, experiment a little bit. Maybe you have like a soft opening and have people come and give you critique. Like there's any number of ways you could look at it, but we can try things, and if they don't work out, we can try something else. You're not committed for a lifetime to the very first plan that you had. What I will say is this does not mean start a bunch of things and don't finish. Well, I needed to renovate the house, so I started the bathroom, that didn't go well. So I started the kitchen, that didn't go well. So I tore up the tile in the living room. Like, no, it's not a pass on that kind of thing. But there is value in iteration and there's value in practice, right? Practice makes perfect. And I think sometimes practice is how we get a plan together that we really can believe in and have the confidence to just do what we're supposed to do because it's not blind, and we're not setting ourselves up to fail anymore once we've had those practice runs.

Tony 23:43

This point kind of hits close to home for me because in doing this podcast, building this ministry, what Kristy has reminded me multiple times is we just had to be faithful to do our part, be willing to try things from time to time, because like the scripture says, you don't know what seed is going to grow. Faithfulness, I think, just looks like giving several small things, honest attempts, so that we can see what actually does work. That's what this scripture in verse 6 is talking about. Plant the seeds and then give it time and see what actually develops.

Kristy 24:26

There's also value in variety. When we first started this podcast, the things that we knew that we knew something about were disability, marriage, what it's like to have kids, what it's like to live together under less than ideal circumstances. And so we thought, well, if we can make a podcast about all that. And what we find is you can't really put all of the ingredients in every recipe. Sometimes we lead with an episode around the support of someone with a disability or the caretaking of someone with a disability. Sometimes it's around having kids and helping them to handle the situations that they face. And sometimes it's about marriage, some of the highs, some of the lows. And we try to kind of mix it up so that whoever listens, the one constant is that we're a Christian podcast. There's always gonna be that piece. Like I said, you you can't make the same the same recipe work day after day after day. And so I think for us, it's trying to mix it up. It's trying to stay consistent, to stay true to who we are and what we know, and also not say the same thing every week and not try to cram a bunch of stuff in that doesn't necessarily go because every every topic isn't relevant to disability, and every topic isn't relevant to marriage or kids or family life or resilience. But usually two or three of them are there. That's the other piece, right? Is trying to just stay well-rounded. Don't put all your eggs in one basket, is one way of saying it, or plant multiple crops because you don't know what's going to happen. You don't know what'll grow.

Tony 26:16

I think all of this comes full circle to the point of the harvest belongs to God. Going back to Ecclesiastes one more time, verse 5 specifically says, as you do not know the path of the wind or how the body is formed in a mother's womb, so you cannot understand the work of God, the maker of all things. For our unshaken family, it just comes down to control what we can actually control. We can prepare, we can put in the proper effort, we can do things with honesty, we can do the follow-through, we can repent when we make a mistake, we can ultimately just take the next faithful step. And in all of those things, we have to remember that we don't control timing, we don't control growth, we don't control other people's responses, we don't control the ultimate outcome, we don't control how visible things are going to be or not going to be. Those are things that are up to God. When we're doing the things that God wants us to do, our responsibility is not trying to force the harvest, which I think we're all guilty of from time to time. Our responsibility is to release the outcome to God. If we take an honest look at what God is calling us to do, there's still a faithful step that we can take to get things started. Is it gonna be finished in one step? Probably not. But we need to realize and we need to think about what is one thing that we know that we can do, but we've postponed because we've been waiting for those perfect conditions. Are we still looking for wisdom or are we holding on to control? If the steps that we know we need to take, if even those steps are overwhelming, then taking one step and breaking it down into smaller pieces, especially if you've got ADHD, this may be the way to get things going. Take one big step and break it down into smaller baby steps so that you can start to move forward and then give yourself a deadline. If having that deadline helps you, then give yourself a deadline. I want to do this thing by Friday. So this way you have something to make sure that you do follow through and make sure that you are taking the steps that God is calling you to do. Whatever is gonna end up working for you, that's where you need to get started.

Kristy 29:13

While you were talking, I was just kind of thinking, and I wanted to come back to scripture, and I wanted to come back to Proverbs, actually. We're gonna hop out of Ecclesiastes for a minute. Proverbs 16, 9 tells us, in their hearts, humans plan their course, but the Lord establishes their steps. The reason I'm bringing this up is because what I kept hearing in your words was do your best, make a plan, move the pieces that you can, be faithful, do all of the things that you know to do. But at the end of the day, God is in control. He's the boss of us and everything that we're working on. And if we have done what we believe he's asked us to do, if we've been faithful to what we believe is his will, and we've done the best we can to glorify him, if the outcome isn't there, there's a reason. He's the one that's that's in charge, and we're not going to get a wound every time. And nothing is wasted. Like I think as I look back over my life and I see the times when I tried so hard and it still didn't come out okay. Once you get past the sting of not getting the outcome that you're looking for, you can look back at at the process and there's something there. For me, almost always I can I can see like, okay, well, I learned. And it's not like at least I learned, it's awesome. I I know how to do this thing now. I won't do it like that again. I won't, I won't make that mistake again. There's always some outcome there, even if it's not the one that you were striving for, that you thought you would get. And it's because the Lord establishes our steps. We can plan all we want, but he's the one that establishes our steps.

Tony 30:57

Just to reinforce that, and James tells us in chapter four, starting in verse seven, submit yourselves then to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Come near to God, and he will come near to you. That ties into all of this is that we can plan, we can prepare, we can do these things. The ultimate outcome is up to God, and we have to submit our work and all of our effort and and ourselves to God and to his outcome. Not what we think the outcome should be, but actually saying to God, here is my effort, here is the things that I'm doing because you have asked me to be obedient to you. But the outcome is completely up to you. The outcome is your will. Whatever your will is, that is what the outcome is going to be. And if we do that and we truly are obedient to him, and we truly be faithful to what uh he's calling us to do, to just not be stuck in the planning phase.

Kristy 32:06

As you were reading, when you got to verse eight, and it said, Come near to God, and he will come near to you, as we're trusting and as we're asking, and as we're praying for guidance and praying for help and for him to to clear a path, instead of us trying to do it for God, we end up more doing it with God. It's that relationship, it's that sense of trusting and knowing that we need him in every step, right? Not just when we don't know what to do or when it doesn't go well, but just knowing that he directs all of our steps and leaning into him for that constant guidance and that constant camaraderie along the way and the constant even encouragement when it's difficult. It's that relationship piece that I think is probably the biggest win for us. He loves us so much and he just wants to help us, he wants to be with us. Like he's the just the most loving father, and he just wants to spend time with us and help us get through our days, just like we do for our own kids. Like my own dad, you know, wants for me. He wants that togetherness. That's huge. Like that's what we're called to is to plan and do the best we can and also lean into him, knowing that he's the one who has not just the answers, but the ability to direct everything that we do. Father, we come before you today, very, very grateful that you are standing by to do everything with us, that you guide our steps, that you guide our thoughts, that you guide all that we do when we do it for the purpose of your glory and to uh to fulfill the will of you, our Lord and God, and and to try to do anything on our own is just it's folly because we can't see, only you can see, and we can't control, only you can control. So we just ask that uh as we go into this week, that in anything where we procrastinate or where we're looking for a better, better, better opportunity, and when we question ourselves, and that's about control, please help us to just give it up and to take the step and to trust that you will hold our hand and walk beside us and guide our steps and take us to where we really are supposed to go instead of standing on the sidelines waiting to get started because we couldn't control it ourselves. Be with us, keep all of us safe, help us to glorify you and to bless each other. And it's in your son's beautiful name that we ask all these things. Amen.

Tony 35:00

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

Kristy 35:06

Bye, friends.