The Reality Is
Welcome to "The Reality Is," a podcast where the pastors of Crossroads Community Church gather to discuss the practical application of biblical principles in our daily lives. Join us as we explore how faith can guide us through the challenges and triumphs of real life. Whether it's relationships, work, or personal growth, we're here to help you live out your faith meaningfully. This podcast's premise is about how to apply biblical principles to our everyday lives. Tune in for insightful conversations that inspire and empower you to pursue Christ with every moment of your life.
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The Reality Is
Balancing Modern Life with the Timeless Teachings of Christ
Our latest episode invites you into an intimate conversation about refocusing your life on Jesus. Pastor Richard and Pastor Joey laugh about our their own distraction-prone habits and share wisdom from Christ's teachings on love, digging into the Biblical perspective on maintaining a clear vision for what truly counts.
We all know life is a balancing act, but how often do we prioritize our loved ones and faith above all else? Our discussion takes us through the guiding light of Ephesians 5 and 6, as we ponder the delicate dance of keeping God at the forefront, followed closely by family, with personal anecdotes that highlight the real-world challenges of this endeavor. We're candid about the pitfalls of confusing ministry work with our own spiritual growth and the art of saying 'no' to find that perfect harmony between duties and devotion.
Let's face it, technology can be as much a blessing as a distraction, and we don't shy away from tackling this modern-day dilemma. In this episode, we reveal how unplugging can not only reclaim our attention but also enhance our relationships and personal well-being. Inspired by the biblical principle of Sabbath rest, we explore the profound impact of setting boundaries around our digital lives, ensuring we prioritize moments of true connection and reflection. Join us for this heartfelt exchange that promises to leave you with strategies for simplifying your life and focusing on what really matters: faith, family, and community.
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When, when I'm preparing sermons um, I'm preparing sermons to feed others. Um, I worked on a farm for years, uh, growing up, and lived on a farm before moving here. Um, I, I tended to, hey, I fertilized, uh, I watched and tended and then bailed and put it up. Um, that wasn't for me to eat, that was for, that was for the cow's tea, um, but if I didn't eat before I went out there, I would not have been able to work the hay and pick the hay up and put the hay up. Okay, so I have to go first to God's word. In my personal devotional time has nothing to do with my sermon. Prep time has nothing to do with what I'm going to preach or or preparing to preach. This is purely me spending time with God, and and so, um, that that's the first thing is is you got to? You got to get along for with God? For you, not for others?
Speaker 2:Welcome to the reality is podcast, where we're here to talk about real life and real faith, and missed having you last week. I know you were gone, we weren't able to be here, but we had Ed gravely here with us last week talking about the New Testament. So if you guys missed that podcast episode, be sure to go back and listen to that. You are just going to be blown away by some of the things we were able to talk about. But before we get started, what was your week like?
Speaker 1:You know it was. It was a good week. I was actually away at a pastor's retreat for the pastor and his wife and it was a refresh retreat. It was an opportunity to get away and and to kind of think through ministry issues, how it impacts me as a pastor, how it impacts my wife and and it was really good it brings us to the topic today of keeping our focus where it needs to be, and so learned a lot about that last week.
Speaker 2:Good, it's funny you and I talking about focus because we were joking. You picked two of the most distracted people.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the two of the most distracted people in this church. Yeah, we're going to be talking about focus, but I think we can do it. I think we're going to be able to get through this. But I looked up the definition you know definition in the dictionary and it says it's the center of interest or activity. It's also the state or quality of having or producing clear visual definition. And I looked at that and I said, man, the center of interest, right, and it made me think where is my center of interest and where should it be? What is it supposed to be on? And if that's, what focus is, what am I really focusing on?
Speaker 2:Ok, and as we were talking, I know we were looking at this crazy season. You know we talked about the crazy season before being Thanksgiving to Christmas, and now we are once again approaching Easter. Easter is approaching real soon and here we are. A lot of people focus on the egg hunt, the chocolate bunnies and all the other things about Easter and they're missing the true focus of where it's supposed to be. The focus should be on Jesus. And so, once again, we're going to be talking about focus. I want to talk to you today about what does the Bible have to say about focus. What does it mean to focus?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think there's so many things in our life today that takes us off focus. Of course, as you said, we're coming in on the Easter season and it's it's about the death, the burial and the resurrection of our, of our redeemer. It is our redemption story and it truly has been lost in the commercialization Absolutely, although category eggs are a good thing, but that's a different topic for another day, or chocolate bunnies. Exactly but. But I mean seriously. There we go on our focus.
Speaker 1:That's so hard but, but it is so easy to get off track and and even as we just did there and literally unrehearsed, one statement outside the topic and there there we go, and and that's also the way it happens in life, and so we we start out in a good direction and we quickly lose that direction. You know, as we were talking about this, I found a very interesting story that I don't know how I've missed it. I'm a baseball fan, like to like to watch some baseball go to baseball more than I like to watch it as far as on TV. But you know, there's a statue of Babe Ruth outside the Baltimore Orioles Stadium. It's an 800 pound bronze statue that stands nine foot tall.
Speaker 1:The creator of that statue took months of interviewing people, talking to people asking questions about Babe Ruth. Did he, did he wear his hat straight? Did he cock it one side to the other? Was his belt button right to left, left to right? Just things that would be the detail of who Babe Ruth was? Everything on the Babe Ruth statue is spot on, except he's leaning on a bat and he's holding a right handed fielder's glove. The problem is Babe Ruth was a lefty, all right. So they got everything about Babe Ruth right, but they missed that.
Speaker 1:You know where was the focus in that? And I think just that simple illustration begins to show us how quickly we we can get hung up on details of which way the belt buckle was and we forget the most important thing about Babe Ruth he was a lefty, he was a lefty, and so I think little things like that remind us. And so we go back to Matthew 22 and Christ gives us our focus. It's really interesting when you read that story, because there were some people asking questions, but they were not asking questions, called, they cared. They were asking questions because they were trying to distract Christ, yeah, and and he reminded them. They say, hey, what's the greatest commandment? And he said, real simple love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, your soul and your mind, and then love others as yourself. So he gave us our focus love God and love others, and I think we have to remember that, yeah, and it's a good focus.
Speaker 2:And I'm just going to admit, while I was preparing to do the topic of focus, I got so distracted, like everything was distracting me, I couldn't focus on anything at all. But it's like you said, we've got to bring our focus back to the Bible, the principle of what we're supposed to be doing loving God and loving others. I've got the Bible verse here, romans 12, 2. And I love it. Out of the new living translation. It says don't copy the behaviors and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think, think. The other translations say the renewing of your mind, and then you will learn to know God's will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.
Speaker 2:And I looked up that verse and I said man, it's so hard for me sometimes to allow my mind to be focused on Jesus, on the Bible. I mean, you probably I don't know if you are distracted as I am, but I'll be in the middle of praying if my mind goes off some place completely different. And then after a few minutes I'm like, oh wait, god, no, this is what this is. I'm sorry, I'm back, I'm back, but that's just how distracted I get, and I know because of the things of this world. The things of this world allow me to be distracted the customs of what other people are doing, I'm distracted by my phone, I'm distracted by the news, I'm distracted by driving, I'm distracted by there's so many things that allow me to be distracted. I'm supposed to be keeping my focus on Christ, and so I want to ask you, like, what does it mean to keep your focus on Christ?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think. I think obviously you brought up a great point when you, when you said so many things. So many things interfere with what it is. I know we get so called up, worrying about a thousand good things, that we miss the best things that God has for us. So when we're talking about being focused on who God is, being focused on who Christ is and what he calls us to do and how he calls us to live and the things that are before us, I think that we have to first of all realize that loving God and when we say love God, that means spending time with God. Yeah, If I'm not spending time with God, it's absolutely impossible for me to do anything else. I it's impossible for me to say that I'm focused in any aspect of my life If I'm not focused on on who God is, and it's easy for us to be blinded to that. Years ago, I would sit and strain trying to read something. I was just commenting on. How tiny your print is yes, you did.
Speaker 1:And I would honestly stand up on Sunday mornings to read the scripture. And I mean I sounded as if I had never read that in my life or had never read in my life, and because I was trying to make words out and people would say why don't you have your eyes checked? And I would say I don't need glasses, you know. And so when I finally went to the doctor and of course I wear contacts now, but I finally went to the doctor and the doctor said you're right, you don't need glasses unless you want to read or drive or you know you know, live life Right.
Speaker 1:And, and so I think what happens is we get so used to living out of focus that we just learn to deal with it. I learned to function with blurry eyes Yep, because I could still see distance, and so I learned to make it out. I learned how to push my book further back, you know, and because I can make the words out, and so I think our relationship with God turns into that. Many times we get so blurred vision that we accept mediocre as the standard, absolutely.
Speaker 2:It's purposely allowing yourself to throw away everything else and say this is what I have to focus on. I remember when I first got glasses it's a whole new world, right, I thought I was able to see it because I was making things out, but then I was actually able to see what I was missing. And I think a lot of times our relationship with Christ is like that. It's like oh yeah, I have a relationship with Christ, I read my Bible or I go to church on Sundays, but I haven't tuned in, I haven't focused in on Christ to really see, hey, this is what I'm supposed to be doing. But when you focus in, it opens up a whole new world.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think one of the most important things we're talking about, first of all, that whole idea of our focus on God, and the enemy loves to attack us in our Bible study, in our prayer, in doing those things God calls us to do.
Speaker 1:I will tell you, if you want to be absolutely certain for major distraction in my life, let me be trying to prepare for a message, or let me be trying to prepare something that I need to be ready for or, more importantly, that time of personal devotion.
Speaker 1:If I don't do it first thing in the morning, before anybody else is up and about, then my text messages start coming in my phone calls, which I'm thankful for. So I hope nobody hears this and says, well, I shouldn't call him. No, absolutely I mean that's, but I've got to spend that time with God and that's what's going to give me my focus. And if I start out with a cluttered life and not allowing God to have that first moment of my life, then I can tell you right now it's just going to get worse from there. It's not going to get better. And so when we're talking about focus on God, I think it absolutely starts with that morning devotion, that morning focused prayer that morning time, that we open our life up before God and that's not for the pastor, that's for every person and so focus on God in that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I love that, because one of my questions I was going to ask you is how do we overcome these daily distractions? And one of the ways I said was first thing in the morning, praying. So I love that you brought that up. But there's another thing that you have actually preached and said to everybody what you need is intentional quiet time. You really have to be intentional about hey, I've got to get rid of these distractions in my life because it's so easy for us to just allow things to continually happen.
Speaker 2:You and I were just sitting talking in your office, not even about this, but saying, hey, this is a good idea. If you just take a day and say I'm not going to answer any work emails, I'm not going to answer, like, literally, take a day. But here's what I would kind of hope to add to that is, I'm just not taking a day to not do anything. I'm taking the day to spend time with Jesus, spend time focusing on him, and so you. Earlier it sent me an acronym of the word focus and I thought, oh man, these are, these are some great ways to help us focus. Take the word focus, put the acronym to it and give us some ideas about how to focus, so I just want to allow you to take us through those.
Speaker 1:Right. Well, as we were studying about this, this acronym popped up on three or four different websites and I thought you know what that really is, and so I think it keeps us in focus.
Speaker 2:At least it'll try yeah.
Speaker 1:And so, for the F, they just simply said faith and family first. Okay, so when we're talking about our focus, we got to keep our focus in the right place, and it starts with God. Again, christ said love God, love others. And if I do not love God with all my heart, my soul and my mind, I can assure you of this, I'm not going to love others in the way I should. And so I think we need to understand that. And then Ephesians five reminds me that I love my wife, my wife loves me, we, we. It gives us that layout. And then Ephesians six talks about our kids. And so we understand that faith and family, our faith, has to come first, so my walk with God and my family has to be next, and if I have my job or my hobbies or anything else ahead of my family, then I've totally out of work, out of line, out of foot, yeah, and I'm glad you brought that up because you and I had mentioned that.
Speaker 2:So sometimes we can allow work to become our focus and we have put that ahead of family and that's out of order. That's wrong. I remember when I was young I would be going to work and AJ, my oldest, when she was very young, said I don't like that place because that's the place that takes my daddy away from me. And it just helps you open up and realize where has my focus been, what has my attention been on? Because if it's not on the Lord first, and if it's not on family second, like you said, my focus is completely out of line and I'm out of place, I'm out of order and I really need to get that in place.
Speaker 1:But you know, it's when I was in Bible College I'll never forget. One of the professors said if God uses you to grow the largest church in America and you lose your family, you've you failed at what you're doing. And so it absolutely is our faith. First, I have to spend time with God. It's impossible for me to feed the sheep, as Christ commanded, if I'm not being fed, and so I have to spend that time alone with God. I have to, and that's not me as a pastor, that's me as a man, as a husband, as a father. That's for every man, woman and child listening to us. It's faith first, and anything else is out of order.
Speaker 2:So I want to ask you something. I know there's a lot of people that are listening to this podcast who are involved in ministry and a lot of times it's hard to distinguish ministry from God. So a lot of people say, hey, I'm in ministry, therefore I'm loving God, I'm putting God first. But are you really putting God first, or are you putting the ministry of what you're trying to do? Because sometimes God didn't even ask you to do that. God's just telling you love me with all your heart, soul, mind, strength. And now all this other busy work that you're doing for the Lord has gotten missed a line somewhere, miss focused, and now you're putting your family aside so that you can do ministry, claiming that you're loving God and I know you've been in ministry for years. How do you distinguish the difference between I'm doing ministry, I'm doing work for God, and now I'm loving God?
Speaker 1:Well, I think the first thing you have to remember is when I'm preparing sermons, I'm preparing sermons to feed others. I worked on a farm for years growing up, and lived on a farm before moving here. I tended to hey, I fertilized, I watched and tended and then bailed and put it up. That wasn't for me to eat, that was for the cows to eat. But if I didn't eat before I went out there, I would not have been able to work the hay and pick the hay up and put the hay up. That's a great point. So I have to go first to God's word in my personal devotional time has nothing to do with my sermon. Prep time has nothing to do with what I'm going to preach or preparing to preach. This is purely me spending time with God, and so that's the first thing is you got to get along with God for you, not for others, and so that's again, that's for all of us. That's not just a preacher thing. You may be a life group leader here in our church, maybe in your church you're a Sunday school teacher, whatever that discipleship role would be. But if all your Bible study time is committed to what I'm going to teach someone else, that has nothing to do with personally being faith. And now there's people that would argue differently, and they can be wrong if they want to. And so you got to spend time with God for you first, and so that's our faith first. And so I think you say how do we lose that?
Speaker 1:Well, I heard it well, put very well, last week at that conference I was at, and one of the leaders in the conference made this comment. He said ministry's about people, not projects. And I mean, you're talking about several hundred pastors of churches sitting in there, and a lot of those guys are like us in a growing church, and suddenly they hear you know what? It's not about buildings and budgets, it's about people. Yeah, and I think that's where that God first has to come in. And because if I lose sight of that, then I'm going to spend all my time worrying about things that need to be worried about, but not things that need to be my priority. And so it's God first, and out of that obviously flows keeping the order, god, family. Then comes ministry, your job, whatever, whatever that may be, and then comes the recreational activities that I want to do, and a lot of times we get that way out of order. Don't get that out of order.
Speaker 2:Man, I love that. All right, thank you. So that's the F faith and family. All right, what's O?
Speaker 1:Well, that's others before yourself. Okay Again, love God, love others. And so if we fail to keep that order, then we're totally missing so many aspects of what we're called to do. If you go and you look at 1 Corinthians, chapter 13, and it's what we call the love chapter and really and truthfully what the apostles do, and he's been talking about spiritual gifts and he's leading into all these different ways that you can serve, then he hits chapter 13 and he goes all of these things are just a great, big, loud noise. Without love, you don't have love, and literally he's anchoring it. None of these gifts that he mentioned are for the good of the individual, and if any individual is utilizing those for their own good, their own benefit, their own self-gloring, then he's saying you're a loud noise, it's all about other people.
Speaker 1:None of us are gifted by God to benefit us. We're gifted by God to benefit others. None of us are ever to be in a circumstance or situation where selfishness rules the day, and so it's a matter of putting others first and thinking about what that looks like. Our culture is selfish, toxic, I mean. Everything about our culture drives us to care more about us than someone else. Absolutely does All you have to do is and it may sound silly, but just think about it If you're sitting at a red light and your light turns green, count five cars before you try to go.
Speaker 1:Because, they're coming, man. Now let me tell you something. To consciously, intentionally run that red light is about the most selfish thing that individual can do. They're a wreck looking for a place to happen. Yeah absolutely.
Speaker 1:And if they were conscious that somebody sitting at the green light may go when their light turns green, like the law says. And I know that may sound silly, but you see that you hear every year at Christmas where fistfights break out over the last toy on the shelf, and on and on. We could go about the selfishness that our culture breeds. We joke about it, but it's the truth. The first word a child learns is mine.
Speaker 2:Mine, and you don't have to teach them that word. It's true.
Speaker 1:They learn that one.
Speaker 2:No, mine, yeah, okay, all right.
Speaker 1:And so it's learning to put others. Put others out there first.
Speaker 2:Well, the Bible does say somewhere in there consider others higher than yourself, right? Like it's like I'm supposed to. Whoever I encounter, I'm supposed to go, wow, this person is more important than me, right? But how often do we do that? I mean, how hard is it to do that? Like the society tells us, no, they aren't, it's all about you. This is a me society and I need to have things done my way and I need it done now my way, right?
Speaker 1:away. But when we think about others before us, I mean, let's think of some very practical ways. All right, we walk into the store and we won't help and we get frustrated because we can't find it. We find someone to help us and then we unload on them Like they're the one that owns the store and they're responsible for everything, were you following me?
Speaker 2:yesterday Exactly, I was at the store.
Speaker 1:No, that was a personal illustration. Wow, we think about the courtesy of just trying to be mindful of the needs of others, others before self. It's just a simple matter of just ask somebody how their day is and then take the time to listen.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I love what you say, Cause you're like somebody asks you how you're doing, you say oh great, Do you have 10 minutes for us? To talk Like, like, do you really want to know how I'm doing, or it's so. So I did that to somebody the other day. They say how are you doing? I said do you have time? Yeah, no.
Speaker 1:All right, I'm fine, thank you. And then you watch the panic on their face because we say it, but we don't mean it, of course. Right, and if others are truly first, then we have to build margin into our life. You know, one of the things that most of us have in our life is zero margin. We've become very successful at cramming 28 hours into a 24 hour day, and so we have zero margin in our life, and so if someone actually does need our help, we have no time whatsoever to give it to them.
Speaker 1:If I'm trying to engage you and I say, joey, how are you today? And you go, do you have a minute? Panic doesn't have to flood over me, because now I'm actually going to give time to others, and so we have to learn to build some margin into our life. That time that we say in my prayer time, as I'm with God, then I'm actually asking him God, put someone in my path today, but, lord, make sure they don't need more than 30 seconds because I have no margin in my life and look, we're all busy and I don't take away from that.
Speaker 1:But others are our priority and we have to learn to make room for that.
Speaker 2:I love that Faith and family, others before self. What do you have for us for seed?
Speaker 1:Well, I think we have to learn and, in order to do these things, cut the distractions out of our life. That's it, and man.
Speaker 2:And again, I said this earlier, you're talking to two of the most distracted people on this church property, so we understand. It's not like, oh man, these guys look at them. They are so focused. No, we're not, trust me.
Speaker 1:Well, I'll tell on us. We were sitting and we were going over some things that needed to be done, and so we kind of went through several things that needed to be done and you stepped out of my office and you poked your head in and you go, hey, what was? Yeah, sure, and there was one thing about one person you were gonna talk to and I'm sitting there going I don't know. I don't know. You're like both like totally lost, but at the time it was very important and when we remember it it'll be because it didn't get done that it was very important. But we get so distracted and we let so many things crowd out those things that are important.
Speaker 1:And Philippians, chapter four and verse eight I love that verse. And the apostle is telling us you know what your focus has to be, in the right place, on the right things. And he just says I want you to focus on this. And he says whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, just pure, whatever's lovely, whatever of good report, if there's any virtue, if there's anything praiseworthy, meditate, focus on these things. And so you know if we would cut the distractions out we're in the middle of a national silly season. Okay, we're in the middle of election Now.
Speaker 1:I'm a hundred percent belief in our republic. I'm a hundred percent. We need to be voters, we need to be involved, we need to know what's going on in our country. But let me tell you something. I heard it best said years ago and I love it Our redemption doesn't come on Air Force One, and so we need to be focused on what's important God and others and sharing our faith, not allowing this silly season to pull our focus. It happens to the point that that's all we want to talk about, that's all we want to argue about, that's all we want to now. Again, it's important.
Speaker 2:Please don't.
Speaker 1:It's very important, but when you're putting that above Jesus, it can't be, or above relationships, and I know whole families that can't even sit at a table and you know, at that point in time haven't we allowed the distractions of this world to pull us away? And I know that that's probably going to rub someone the wrong way and certainly not my intent, but it does become a reality of saying I need to focus on the things that are true, on the things that are noble, on the things that are just, and I need to focus on those things that I can bring encouragement into someone's life. It doesn't mean that if there's a political issue or something that you and I as adults can't discuss, but let me tell you, if that becomes our whole conversation every day, all day, and that's all you see on my social media, then I probably have some distractions in my life, absolutely guarantee you do.
Speaker 1:And so we need to learn to cut those out. Another thing we need to learn to do you know one of the most valuable words in the life of any of us that's man, woman or child. One of the most valuable words that we can learn is no, you know what?
Speaker 2:I think my wife was given a book years ago that was something entitled, like the art of saying no. Or you know the good in saying no, Because a lot of times we get and we do it because we want to do good, we want to help other people and we don't want to leave somebody hanging. So you're always saying yes, but the more I stretch myself and say yes to people, I'm actually doing a disservice because I'm not able to give you the full attention that I should be able to give you, because I've pulled in all these different directions, because I've said yes to everybody.
Speaker 1:Well, if you're saying yes to everything, then you're going to do it all poorly, exactly.
Speaker 1:At best, and that's again. That's. Rather, your job is what we might call secular in nature, or rather it's religious, it doesn't matter. You can't do so much Exactly and it's impossible to maintain focus. That needs to be maintained when you have divided yourself to the point where you can't. I mean even in my study time. I have to limit my distractions. I don't come to the church to study and people will ask me they'll say, oh, does people keep interrupting you? And the answer to that's no. I mean people, don't. You guys, I mean the staff, pastors and myself. I mean we honor each other's time, we don't just bust in on each other. But at the end of the day, I'm sitting in my office and I hear someone laughing down the hall. I gotta go find out what's going on. You know, I mean it's not their fault, it's mine. That's again.
Speaker 1:Two of the most distracted people here I mean my desk faces out a window and every time a car pulls in I'm up trying to you know, or?
Speaker 2:every time somebody walks down the sidewalk, you know.
Speaker 1:I mean, and so it really is that we have to learn to cut those distractions out. I have a little noise machine, you know, and I turn that thing on and it try to maintain my focus. I have to turn my emails off and my text off because I'm sitting there working and an email pops up and boom, there I go. And so I think there's a number of things that we can learn to do to cut the distractions out of our life. Now my question is is do you sit on your job, wherever that is for those listening? Do you sit on your job and play with your phone when you're supposed to be working? If so, you're probably not gonna work there long. Or do you sit there and play video games while you're supposed to be at work?
Speaker 1:And yet these are the things that distract us and eat our time, and so it's learning to cut these things out. Now, there's nothing wrong with these things, but the distractions, you know, one of the things that we look at today, and different soapbox for a different day but just look at the distraction social media itself brings into our life. Oh yeah, the depression, the anger, the frustration, on and on. We could go. I mean, I love it because you get the picture of the clean house that is clean for the only three seconds.
Speaker 1:it's been clean all year, yeah that picture Because we're trying to raise kids and live life in that same house and I think we have to recognize these become distractions because there we are or they're very distracting.
Speaker 2:I mean, it amazes me and I'm sure you've seen this too that you will go into a restaurant and you will see a family sitting around a table that's supposed to be having a family dinner out together. And what's happening? This kid's on an iPad watching a movie, and it's not like I'm watching anybody focus on something to pay attention. I'm watching fingers do this, like they aren't even focused in on anything. The fingers are just scrolling and nobody's talking to each other. I know you have a rule at your house, yeah, which is a great rule.
Speaker 1:When you come in, you drop them on the bar. They're just. We're not gonna live on the iPhone, ipad or whatever Love it, and it doesn't always work as planned.
Speaker 2:Now the phone in and of itself is not a bad thing. No, it is.
Speaker 1:If you're allowing it, well, if you're allowing it.
Speaker 2:We need our phones. We need phones. No, we can do smoke signals.
Speaker 1:There's a lot of different ways we can do it, but anyway.
Speaker 2:Wilderness, man City Boy, there you go.
Speaker 1:The example right there. The Pony Express got the message around just fine, and so we do need them, and I understand that. But I was sitting again. I sat last week in a room full of and I'm just gonna tell them pastors, okay.
Speaker 1:A room full of pastors that were there because it was an opportunity to make sure that our families are strong, that our marriages are strong and that we're leading strong, and so phenomenal opportunity to go and be part of something like that.
Speaker 1:But I noticed a lot of different guys with that phone in their hand through the whole time and I noticed guys in the hallway the whole time on the phone rather than in the room. I'd be a nosy because I was distracted. I actually got up and began to kind of look around because I'm distracted and I was looking and, as you said, I was noticing. I mean, I wasn't close enough to pay that close attention, but the stuff they were looking at had nothing to do with the conference and so you know, why do we allow ourselves to become so distracted and lose that focus? I could go on and on about it. I cut the distractions out of your life, If I have not fully, but I'm learning to disconnect from that thing we call the phone, to the point that I'm actually finding myself forgetting it and having to go back for it Six months ago. There's no way.
Speaker 2:I would have done that that's not that.
Speaker 1:And now I'm like where's my phone? And so you probably don't need to get that bad with it. But learn to cut those distractions out and learn to say technology has made our life so much easier and I am so thankful for it. Our technology here, just even in our church. Probably 70% of the visitors that come into our church say I found you on the internet first and so thank you so much for that kind of technology, thank you for the ability to find us and learn about us. But those same technologies can also be our downfall, and so whatever is good, whatever is true, whatever is noble, we just have to learn to put that focus where it belongs. I could go on and on about distractions.
Speaker 2:Cutting out distractions because we are so easily distracted. We could go forever on that. So we've got faith in family, We've got others before self cutting out the distractions. What else do you have for us?
Speaker 1:Well and unplug as often as you can. And if look the Sabbath, the idea of the day of rest is not a principle that applies to others. Okay, in Genesis we read that God worked six days and he rested on the seventh. Well, let me tell you something. God didn't need rest, he wasn't tired.
Speaker 1:He was giving us an example. He didn't say I need the seventh day off because I'm just exhausted. What he was saying is I want you to learn from me that you need that day, and so you have to learn to unplug. And there are things that come up for everyone, I mean for us as pastors. There are things that come up that have to be dealt with on so-called day of rest, and we still have to deal with them.
Speaker 1:If you're an engineer or whatever, it doesn't matter. There's things going to come up in your life, in your work, in your career, that are going to demand overtime or they're going to demand extra effort, but you have to learn to to unplug. You know this, this iPad, it, it, it works great. It's. It's a great asset, it's a great tool. I keep my notes on to keep, but you know what I have to do. I have to plug it in, yeah, and if I don't plug it in, it's good for about 12 hours and and it goes dead. Well, guess what? I have to plug this in, but I have to unplug me.
Speaker 1:Yeah and, and, and.
Speaker 2:If I don't I'm good for, and then I go dead, and and so it you got to recharge, yeah, and even as an example in your own life, because you and I were just talking, we have specific days off, but what happens in those days off? Things happen. We still have to actually do things. But what you also said was well, because I worked on this day and this day and this day, guess what I did on this day I unplugged and I took a rest and I refreshed myself. That's an extremely important thing. That I think a lot of people miss out on is saying, okay, I have a day off from work and so now I'm going to busy myself doing this, and it's like well, no, don't, don't keep busying yourself. Unplug, relax, pull back, be.
Speaker 1:Refresh. Well, you know, our Lord even demonstrated that to us. He rose early to to get away and get alone. But he also we find him often unplugging from the crowd, yes, and taking the apostles, and, and unplugging from that, and, and so it. You have to learn to do that, you, and again, it doesn't matter what your career is, it doesn't matter what, what you do, you have to learn to unplug and, and if you don't, then people's demands on you, will, will take you down, and because I mean, I have a lot of friends that are retired, and, and and. I tell them all time I'm never retiring everybody, I know this retired is way too busy, because Everybody says to anybody retired, the first thing I hear is, since you're retired, will you and, and and? Here we go, and, and so you have to learn again. It goes back to one of the most powerful words you'll ever learn is no, now.
Speaker 1:That has to be exercised within reasons and and that can't be your go-to on everything I'm not context these, but but if you say yes to everything that comes into your life, then where are you gonna unplug? We began with saying that it was faith and family. Yes, is where we started, mm-hmm. Well, if I'm not unplugged from all these distractions in my life, then where am I gonna spend time with faith and family? Exactly, and and so it is. It is absolutely so important that we we recognize the importance of that yeah, absolutely Okay.
Speaker 2:I'm trying to remember all these right faith and family, others before self. Cut out the distractions, unplug.
Speaker 1:Last one is the s and then simplify your life, mm-hmm, and you know what in instead of, instead of trying to add more stuff, then Maybe recognize it. Contentment right. First Timothy, chapter 6, the, the apostles dealing with the, the greed in life, mm-hmm, and. And he tells us that the love of money is the root. Not not money, not things, it's the love of. And in first Timothy 6 and verse 6 and 7 and 8, he says now Godliness with contentment is great game right. Contentment, key word. And and for we brought nothing into this world and for certain will carry nothing out. And having food and clothing with these, we shall be content. Simplify your life, and I tell you what we, we create for ourselves. I Would argue we create the majority of the hardships we endure on ourself. I think so, you know. I agree with us and and and we.
Speaker 1:Just part of that is by accumulating so much stuff that we we'd have nothing else to do. It's. It's amazing to me when you and in North Carolina, where I lived, everyone had basements, so so we, we had a bunch of junk, but we could hide it in the basement. No one knew it right. So I had all my stuff and it was it. When I moved here I'm like what am I gonna do with all this stuff? And because I didn't have anywhere to hide it, yeah, yeah, and no basements in the low country and you drive by and you see all these garages, you know and, and and you're like Okay.
Speaker 2:And and storage units, because they're building them like at every corner here right now.
Speaker 1:We're in big trouble on this one, right? You know that we're gonna get some comments on this one because they're gonna tell us how important that stuff is. Of course it is. They haven't laid eyes on in five years, but they need it.
Speaker 1:And, and I'm in trouble with my own family on that comment, but, but I mean seriously, we gotta learn to simplify our life. We've, we've got to learn to, to recognize and understand. I have good friend of mine that that I fished with, and, and Lord's called him home and, and, but Before the Lord called him home, we'd go fishing and, and, and I'm telling you, man, there wasn't a cracker crevice in his boat that didn't have every, the latest, the latest in the greatest, the stuff, the fishing stuff that he has, that that you know, trying to figure out what to do with, and and all that, most of which would never get used. Now, I'm not talking about him, I'm talking about me. Right, I'm in the same boat I Got, I got more stuff than I could ever think about, but yet you know what I do? I basically use three times three things every time I go to like.
Speaker 1:But, but you have the other stuff. You know it's there, yeah, I just never use it, and and so I think we we keep adding that stuff to our life, yeah, and thinking somehow someday will use it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, wait up. My wife is so good at like throwing things away, like I'm the one that keeps everything, I'm like, oh, I need this. This is important, this means something to me, this has sentimental value, blah, blah, blah. So I have all these things and so then my wife will go around and start cleaning things up, and this is what she does with me. She gives me two seconds to tell me where it's from and what I need it for, and if I can't answer her, it's trash. And I get it. It's like harsh. For me it's like wait, no, hold on, because I remember that one time, it no. And for her it's like it's gone right and I need that. Like I need that because I will hold on to a whole lot of things Unnecessarily. I've got quartz that I know I'll never probably use again. I mean it's, it's the plugs that you don't even see, like VGA wires, like who's using VGA wires? Nobody joy. Why do you still have ten of them? Because one day I might need this gourd.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm sure they're coming back. You know, history repeats itself, thank you. So I'm sure it's coming back, but probably not in your lifetime though. But hang on to. Yeah, you know your, your kids one day will be millionaires because they'll sell all those antiques that. You have it. It really is just a simple fire life, you know you. It's needed, so otherwise, if you need the iPhone plug that you actually use, you have to dig through 40 quarts that you don't to get to.
Speaker 2:I still have the old.
Speaker 1:That's right yeah. Yeah so it is focus, and and I mean man, we could go on and on.
Speaker 1:We're going to look at it, I know it's it's but wow, but it is putting our lives in focus. And you know, let me just Kind of wrap up with this and in my from my side, and and I think to stay focused, we have to look at what lies ahead, not what's in the past. I was watching a TV show last night and and, and I mean the, it was a line in a TV show and and I went, okay, that's a sermon illustration. But the the question was asked of do you know why the rear view mirror is so much smaller than the windshield? And the person he was talking to said no and he said because what's out front is a lot more important than what's behind you.
Speaker 2:That isn't a good illustration.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and, and you'll hear that one again one day. You know what? Let's, let's stay focused on what lies ahead and on what's behind us and love that. And we clutter our life Worrying about what's behind us and there's nothing we can do about that. Yeah, very true. The Isaiah 45, 9 Says shall the clay say to him who forms it? What are you making? And the answers no, and and then Isaiah just again reminds us in Isaiah 55 that his thoughts are not our thoughts. Yeah, and so let's quit worrying about what we think needs to be done and start focusing on what God said needs to be done.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. I love that. Reality is we're all distracted, right, we all get distracted by something, and so many times we allow the distraction of this world to take away our focus from what it's supposed to be on, and so I want to go through the acronym for focus one more time so people can can remember this focus, faith in family, others before self, cut out the distractions on you, unplug and Then simplify your life, and if we can do those things, we will truly be able to focus and put our attention on the things that need to be put on, which is what you gave us before. So we want to say thank you, thank you so much for joining us on the reality is podcast. We're talking about real life, real face and focus was one of those things.
Speaker 2:I didn't know if we would actually be able to focus enough to get through it, but we did and I thank you. I thank you guys for joining us to being a part of it. Hey, go on like subscribe, let us know that you're there, let us know some of the topics that you would like to hear us talk About, and we would love to talk about them. For now, we will say God bless you and have a great day you.