Jesus Never Said… Your Worth Comes From Your Productivity

- Hey friend, it's Laura. Welcome to a new season of the Girl Talk Podcast. After this conversation, I'll be back for the Girl Talk Group Chat. So stick around for that. This is the Girl Talk Podcast. Things Jesus never said. - Hello there, you're listening to the Girl Talk Podcast. My name is Carol. - I'm Kelly. - Hey, I'm Trisha. - And we're so glad you've joined us for the fall season of Things Jesus never said. And you're like, wait a minute. Are you actually gonna talk about what Jesus said? Yes, we'll get there. But we're gonna talk about some of the things that we maybe grow up with, maybe a cultural thing that we hold fast to and we allow to stress us out when that's not what Jesus actually said to us. And we're gonna start with this one. Your worth comes from your productivity. Now, when you talk about worth, we're essentially getting down to the heart of the matter with identity, right? About who we are in Christ. So let's start by talking about why we took the summer off. And I have to tell you that it was my fault. So if you've been miss the Girl Talk Podcast, it was my fault. But I was feeling like I was getting a little crispy around the edges and I just came to the girls and I was like, would y'all be offended if we took the summer off? Because I'm just feeling like I don't have any margin. And come to find out we were all kind of feeling that. - Yeah, 100%. - Carol asked me, she goes, she goes, how do you feel about taking some time off Girl Talk? And I was like, just me? (all laughing) - All of us, okay, is it showing you? - Yeah, yeah, and here's the thing that that revealed to me is that oftentimes when we feel we're getting to that point of burnout, we don't often say it. - Right, right, yeah. - And why do we have to get all the way to the point of burnout before we actually slow down and say, okay, I need a break. I think what we did was really, really important and it was super healthy for me. - It was, yeah. - It felt really good about it. - Here's something that enters my mind whenever I start saying, okay, I think raising my hand and saying, I think I might need a break is I'm afraid that people are going to think that I'm not pulling my weight, that I'm not doing my job, all those kind of messages. Because I don't know about y'all, but I grew up with, you wanna be the most valuable player, you wanna do all the things right, you wanna put every, and I totally believe in that. - It's the American way. - Right. - You know, we have to earn everything that we get, we have to strive, we have to produce. If we don't produce, we're not gonna get the job. If we don't get the job, we're not gonna get the promotion. If we don't get the promotion, we're not gonna get the raise. And so it's, this constant need to be better than we were yesterday for productivity. - Yes, and do more. - Yeah, and I think there was like a business book out, maybe even read it as a staff, 1% better. - You know, you wanna get 1% better. If you get 1% better every day, you're 365% better at the end of the year. But that can transfer over into our relationship with God and we get in that hole. I'm doing this for love instead of from love. And I think that's kind of where I found myself. Have you guys ever had another season of burnout when you were afraid to say, hey, I might need a break? From even the good things. - Yeah, yeah. - Good things and bad things. - Yeah, yeah, true. And even from the serving, from serving God, you know, there's been multiple times in my life, especially in my church life, where I found myself over committed. You know, I served as a women's minister. I served as a children's minister. I felt like I was doing all the things at all the times and needing to be here for this event. And I needed to show up for every single mission's opportunity we had and I needed to be at church 30 minutes before everybody else got there. And you know, it just gets to a place where like, I just need to throw my hands up. - Yeah. - I am way overwhelmed. I'm doing too many things. And then you also feel like people are looking at you sideways when you don't show up to something. - Right. - And you go, hey, wait, where were you? I weren't you here on Saturday when we did the missions thing. - Yeah. - So yeah, I definitely went through a season like that when I was in a previous church where I had way too many things to do. How about you, TK? - Yeah, I mean, I have definitely felt way burned out but I'll be honest, not for good things. I'm not necessarily serving or doing all these good things. I find out that I get burned out by just doing too many things that aren't that great. Filling up my schedule with the wrong things can still cause burnout. Doesn't have to be just good things. - Right. - Can be not in the things on the other person. - I remember Jenny Allen said, you don't recover from burnout by trying harder. But that's always what I'm trying to do, trying to do more and not necessarily serving. But just more things to feel good about myself. And that, it just doesn't fill you up. It just pours you out. And so I have felt poured out a lot. And then when I think back on it, I'm like, I'm not even doing the right things. I'm doing not so great things. Scratching an itch. - Well, I think we get to a place where we hit a wall. And all of a sudden, you're like, I can't do any of it anymore. And I don't want to. - I can't do it well. - Yeah, I'm going to choose to do nothing. And that's where I found myself with the serving. I'm doing nothing right now. Because I got to that wall and I hit it with my face. And I'm like, I don't like the way that feels. I think I'm going to stop doing all of this. And so I haven't done anything. - Why do we do that? That is that all or nothing thinking. - And we either do all of it or we do none of it. Because we can't figure out how to manage the in between. - Yeah, I wish I had an answer to that. 'Cause I think it could solve a lot of problems in my own life. - We're looking at you. - Come on here. - Because you're looking at me. You may not have the answer. - But I think for me, it all goes back to identity and approval and what I think other people expect of me. Because from a very early age, I can remember, you know, my family was all about how things looked about perceptions, you know, and perception is reality. - Yeah, that's, I don't know who said that, but perception is reality. And so, you know, it didn't matter how you acted on the way to church, as long as when you got to church, you were just on your best behavior and well-dressed, you know, all the things. And so I think a lot of that comes from my perceived expectations that someone else has of me, which, I don't know who said it, but they said, you know, what other people think of you is none of your business. My friend, Don, he says, that looks a good way to think. - Yeah, yeah, and but I think we get a lot of our approval and needs met by what other people say about us, you know, because if you serve, you want people to say, oh, she's a good person, she serves all of them in church, or, you know, whatever the case may be, whether it's good things or bad things, we kind of get something additionally from that experience. - Yeah, for me, I know I struggle with this like perfectionistic mindset. And it's not that I'm trying to be perfect, it's just I'm trying not to feel so badly about myself. And filling up my schedule with behaviors helps me not feel so badly about myself. It's really shame. Honestly, shame is underneath like a perfectionistic mindset or obsessive behaviors. I've been doing a lot of reading about this because I realized that I'm really struggling to understand God's love. And when you don't understand God's love, you have to try to earn God's love. And I feel like I've been trying to earn God's love through doing things. And then when I feel that sense of shame, it's just do more, do it better, keep going. And I feel like that burns me out every single time. And it never actually makes me feel like I've earned his love. I'm really struggling about that right now. I'll be honest with you. This is a tough season for me right now. And we don't have to earn God's love. It's easy in our heads to say that. It is so hard in our bodies to live it because we all of it. Yeah, we all want that. You know, we all, it's a cultural thing. I mean, if you do good things, people love you more. If you do bad things, people love you less. That's right. Yeah, yeah. It is what you do. It's the way the world is. And the God said that he is completely counter-cultural. And it's hard for our brains to totally grasp that and understand it. But all every single bit of the earning, Jesus did on the cross, right? Jesus did all of the earning. Like we don't even have, we don't have to earn, we don't have to earn any of it. We just have to rest and we have to worship. I've been reading this book, this one, so after I hit my wall, I started doing some real research on anxiety and chronic anxiety and this chronic need to have other people's assumptions, for me to filter other people's assumptions and other, like to be approved, to be approved. Yeah, well, and to have people have false expectations of us and so I bought this book. This book is called human-sized, a journey toward a well-self by Steve Cuss. And the book's really all about these chronic anxiety, anxiety generated by assumptions, false expectations, false beliefs, false needs. And so when I went on vacation a couple of weeks ago, so this is one of the things that I did while we were taking our girl talk break, is I bought this journal and I started going through it. Oh my, the ways that it has been that has opened my mind to some of the other things that I have been dealing with because one of my biggest needs is I want to do things so that I can earn God's love but also earn my sanctification process. I want to earn looking more like Jesus. It's my job to make myself look more like Jesus in my own head. That's what I think. I need to try harder to look like Jesus and then I'll look like Jesus. Well, that's not what the Bible says and it's not what God means. So as I was reading, I found this is on page 94 for anybody who has the book human size. I know I have to read this whole thing to you because it's really critical, I think, to what you just were talking about. Trisha, it says, there's a clear division of labor in the human sanctification process. God has a job and we have a job. God's job, no, our job, our job is to die to self and worship God. We have one job, die to self and worship God. Actually, that's two jobs. So two jobs, that's all we have to do, die to self worship God. God's job is to form us into his image. Being transformed into the image of Christ is not something we do to ourselves. It is something done to us. God resurrects us in his power and forms us in Christ likeness. We die to self. We follow Jesus and we worship him with our whole life. When we try to reach into God's job and make it our job, we end up exhausted and pressured and anxious. Yeah, Kelly Brandon right there. When we die to self and fully surrender our lives to a sovereign Lord, we can experience true freedom and peace in Christ. Yeah, that's good. His power changes us not our efforts. And that wrecked me. Yes. And I'll tell you why it wrecks me in this moment is because the inverse of that is we can't we're worshiping self by trying to get those things in a counterfeit way to give us approval to give us we're doing all those things. You know, dying to self is is the hardest piece of this. I don't want to call it a puzzle, but the hardest piece of growing in your relationship. God, I think because all the things that I or counterfeit, I use to worship me because I want to feel good because I want to feel I want people to think I want I want I want what's the subject of every one of those statements is I and so I have to die to sell. That is that's why it wrecks me because I realized I'm the problem. It's me. Right. Right. Right. Yeah. Well, let me ask you because I 100% agree with everything that you're saying. And here's my stumbling block. I don't know that I'm able to do the dying to self and to understanding what you said until I really believe I'm loved by God. Because you can't surrender. You can't die to self unless you really believe that you're loved by God. And I think I think what I believe other people think about me is what I think God thinks about me. So if I think other people don't think I'm good enough is because I don't think God thinks I'm good enough. And I think that really a big key to doing any of this is understanding God's love being unconditional. And that is okay. Because until I get that, I can't do that. I feel so badly about myself that I have to keep doing things. Right. I can't die to self. I'm already killing myself. I'm already feeling badly enough about myself. Yeah. So how do you do that? So I think it starts by faith believing God's word. Making the choice. Making the choice. I mean, I can go out here and take off in my car and not follow the speed limit. And there will be consequences to that most likely, right? I'll get pulled over and I'll get a ticket, right? Well, just because I ignored that doesn't make it any less true. And I think we get in this. Yeah. I think we get in this hamster wheel of feelings. Yeah. And we want we think we need to feel loved by God when he's actually said, this is the truth. I've given you the truth in my word. And just because we ignore it, like I don't think we can feelings are very valid. I agree with that. But I think at some point you have to say by faith, I'm going to believe what you say in your word is true. And that I am worthy because you made me word. It's not because I have anything to offer in and of myself. And I think that's why, you know, it says, take up your cross daily and follow him. I think it's something we do every day. We choose to get up and say by faith, I believe that I am who you say I am. Not what I do. Not what I can God didn't choose me to be on his team because I have something to offer. I mean, the truth of the matter is he don't need me. And the fact that he chooses to use me is a complete blessing. And I want to live my life and gratitude. But until we start believing the book. Yeah. Right. Like I just have been very convicted to go back to the book. Like I love reading books about the book. But Jesus said to me very clearly, okay, you can read books about the book. But make sure that your time in the book is more than your time in the books about the book. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Um, or the Facebook or the Facebook. Um, I've just been so my heart has been so hungry for God's word. Yeah. Um, and I think it's because the longer I live and the more that I look at culture, I think the gospel is upside down living. Like if I look at the world and I see something, I'm like, okay, I need to be doing the opposite of that. Yeah. Because Jesus said, you know, they hated me. They're going to hate you, right? I just think that it's time for us to start believing that God has never given us any reason to doubt his word. Right. He's never broken a promise. Yeah. Everything's coming through the way he said, you know, look at the world today and see it. And if, you know, he created us, he put us together. Yeah. And so I think we need to kind of move away from thinking that we're always going to feel loved by God. Right. Yeah. You know, yeah. I don't always feel loved by my kid, but I know she loves me. Right. Right. We're not always going to feel it's what I'm trying to say. And that's at those times when we don't feel it, I feel like those are the times we need to go back to the word and say, you know what? My feelings aren't lining up with this right now, but I believe your book. Yes. I believe this is a God that you inspired this book and that what you say is true. Yeah. Again, I feel like a lot of times our feelings can be a tool of the enemy to get us away from it. Oh, it always is a tool of the enemy. Yeah. That's the very first place where we're vulnerable is in our feelings. I want to bring us back to scripture. Yeah. And one of the things because this is my absolute favorite Old Testament scripture. And it's one that I repeat to myself a lot when I'm in that time of I don't feel loved by God. It's from yeah, Isaiah 43. So Isaiah 43, he's talking, God's talking to the Israelites here. And remember, the Israelites, I mean, they had all kinds of reasons for God to be like, oh my gosh, I am done with you. So is real. I made a fantastic comparison. Yes, they were, you know, they broke God's heart over and over and over and over and over again and disrespected him and disobeyed him a ton. So anyway, and this is what he says to them, he says, I am the Lord who formed you Israel. Do not fear for I have redeemed you. I have called you by name. You are mine. Amen. I will be with you when you pass through the waters, Trisha. And when you pass through the rivers, they will not overwhelm you. You will not be scorched when you walk through the fire and the flame will not burn you for I am the Lord your God. I'm going to skip down because you are precious in my sight, Carol, and honored. And I love you, Trisha. I will give people an exchange for you and nations instead of your life, do not fear for I am with you. I love you, Trisha. It's what he says. He says in here. I love you. Well, let me ask you that. You are precious in my sight. So if you take a passage from the Old Testament, huh? Is that a promise for us today? When it lines up with the rest of scripture, absolutely. So this I love you. We are God's chosen people. We are God's children because we have been adopted by him, because we have given our lives to Christ, because Christ came and fulfilled the law. We are now under that new covenant. And so we are the same when it comes to stuff like this that also lines up with his word in the New Testament. And he's the same God, the same faithful God. Yes. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. You're welcome. Same God. Is the Old Testament and then in the New Testament? Do you ever feel just so disappointed in yourself that you keep going through the same struggles over and over again? Well, and here's the thing. I don't remember who said this to me, but I struggled for a long time with shame. I've made that known here on the podcast. And somebody said, you are elevating your shame to a point where it's almost an idol, because you're saying what you're saying. Now, I wouldn't have said this as gospel, but what my life was saying was that Jesus sacrificed on the cross was not enough to cover that shame. And I remember that moment when I was like, oh my word, like, Jesus is enough, like, and he can help me conquer that shame. He can help me conquer that. He can, I'm an overcomer because of him because what he did is enough. I will never be enough. I will never be good enough. I will never be smart enough. I will, all those things. And we're talking about producing, never producing. Right. But because of Jesus finished work on the cross, I can submit my feelings to him and say, Lord, this is what I'm feeling. And here's the thing. I read this, he doesn't come to us with cross storms and wagging fingers. He's coming to us with open arms. And when we say, I'm not good enough and I don't feel like you love me, would you show me in some small way? Look out here to sunrise every day, Carol. Look out here to sunset every day, Carol. Look out here at the pine trees and the squirrels and how to, you know, all those things. We just, we blow right by him. And we refuse to acknowledge that. So I think it's just, once again, get back to the book to get back to what God says about us. I mean, I go to Psalm 139. He knit us together in our mother's womb. He knew that Carol Davis was gonna be what Carol Davis is today. Now, he's still working on me and I'm so thankful for that. But he created me. So he knows what I need. Do I trust what he did on the cross and what he's doing in me enough to let that be my identity and let that be who I go to for a real, to let that be who I go to and what I want to do that. How do you do it? I want to do it. I'm dying to self every single day. Yeah. I don't have some kind of magic prescription that I, but I think more and more, I'm realizing that that death to self every day, that death to my feelings, I form crucified with Christ. And I no longer live, but Christ lives in me, right? And the life I live, I live by faith. And the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. Scripture, scripture, scripture. I mean, you look at Jesus's life when the devil tempted him, what do you do? He quoted scripture, yeah, right? And so why would we believe that it's any difference? We have got to get our identity straight because here's the thing that happens. When you get your identity straight, we raise up kids who get their identity straight. Right? Good point. If it's been, you know, played back to me a lot of, a lot of times in raising my kid, like I see in her some of the things that I so desperately didn't want to pass on to her. And yet because my theology and my life were on two different levels and what played out in front of her was not right theology, right? And so I see that in her now. And so part of my parenting journey's been going back and trying to reinforce those things in her. But I just, I believe that we have got to get our identity right. If we don't, we will struggle with those things our whole life. That mean we won't struggle with them when our identity is right. It means we will know where to go when the struggle starts, not wait till it's going down the path. Going down the path, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, and I think a lot of it too comes back to surrender. And it comes back to knowing our place and knowing our job, that our job is to surrender. Our job is to worship. Our job is to trust him and to love him. And his job is to do the work in us. He's the one who will help us remember our identity. He's the one who brings the Holy Spirit. When we give our lives to Jesus, when we submit, when we surrender to him, we get the gift of the Holy Spirit. And so we have the Holy Spirit in us, reminding us that you are, that we are loved, that we are his, that we are constantly going to be formed into the image of Jesus, but not through our own works. But rather through the works of, the work of Jesus on the cross is what paved the way for that. But the work of the Holy Spirit in us is what sanctifies us. It's what changes us into the image of Jesus. I think what the concept that you're talking about is what John 15 calls abiding in Christ. Yes, right, yeah, living, making our home in Christ. It's a, I made a note here, it's complete dependence and constant connection. It's complete dependence and constant connection. You know, going back. This makes a lot of sense to me because when I go down the wrong path and I allow the feelings to guide me, the first thing I want to do is avoid God and avoid God. Oh, yeah, sure, right. And fill my mind with distractions and even like what we're talking about productivity. Hey, the more I do during the day, the less I have to confront the fact that I'm not, I'm not leaning into God right now. And here's why I think, I mean, I don't want to take us down another rabbit trail, but here's why I think silence and solitude so important because we can get in that mindset of keeping ourselves so busy that we never take time to just sit and let God speak to us and put his finger on those things. That's a symptom, I think, when we avoid that. Oh, for sure, symptom. And so I think that silence and solitude piece, you know, Jesus went away from the crowds and took time to pray. So if Jesus did that, I think probably you and me ought to make a habit of doing that. It's so hard for me because I'm not a silent person. Like silence and solitude, it's uncomfortable and it was meant to be, right? You go to a place and you let those things bubble up and that's when you don't, you don't come to a God with cross-arms and wagging fingers. You come to a God with arms open wide, saying, I'm ready to help you with that. All you have to do is come. Come to me, come to me, come to me, come to me, come to me. It's an invitation, the gospel's an invitation to us. Every day, you gotta keep going back to the gospel. No, it's not an entryway, it's a place to live. The gospel is something we need to revisit every day of our lives. - Yeah, yep, absolutely. - And so Jesus never said that our worth was our productivity. Let's remember that today. Let's remember what He did say. We're beloved, we're chosen, we're a royal priesthood, a holy nation, set apart for good works, we're His workmanship, we're knit together in our mother's womb. You, my friend, are precious in God's sight. - Thank you so much for joining us for this edition of the Girl Talk podcast. We love you and we're gonna save you a seat right around these microphones next time we gather up for the next Girl Talk podcast. (upbeat music) - What? (laughing) We've been having a party over here in the chat. - Okay, good. - No, chat party. - It's been so fun. First of all, I love this community. Like, this is so cool to see girls talking back and forth. And I would just like to say, if you see somebody who is discouraged in the comments and you feel like you could give them a word or a random of scripture encourage them or pray for them, then do that. We are a community here and just to hop on in and encourage a sister. But we do have, let's see, I wanna, I think I wanna address three questions. It's really four, but we're gonna combine a couple and try to get through this in about five minutes. - Okay. - Okay, look. (laughing) - So many questions. - So many questions. - So many questions. - We're talking. (laughing) - Okay, so Allison asks, I think this is really good. This is just like, just what would y'all individually do? If we're experiencing burnout and want to recover from that, how do we communicate that to those who expect a lot from us? Especially like mainly our families. - Yeah. - So how can you do that? - So here's what I have a friend who is not, not in any way, we're in different ministries and we meet on a regular basis. She can see it in me before I see it in myself. And so I would encourage you to find somebody who can hold you accountable to that because I am terrible at seeing it myself. And so I would find someone who can help you see that in yourself and community is so important in that because I think that's where you find that somebody can hold your feet to the fire and say, okay, what do you do about this? When people expect a lot of you, it is okay because you are human-sized, not god-sized. So it's okay to say, notice some things. For me, it's been accountability. - Yeah, also think that it is, it's really important to model this for the people in our lives. So model it for our littles, model it for our teenagers, model it for our spouse, model it for our parents, whoever we need our friends, and be open and honest and transparent by actually having those conversations and that communication to say, hey, I'm really to the place of burnout, I'm really to the place of need to take a break. Can I just, you know, especially if you have littles? Can I please just go to the bathroom myself? Can I please take a shower without you knocking on the door? But that hope that being honest and transparent about with yourself, I mean, yourself, being honest and transparent yourself with what your needs are and advocating for yourself is so important. - I was gonna say, 'cause she asked about how do you approach those people in your life that expect a lot from you? And I would say, starting with prayer, asking them to pray for you. Because when you do that, you're showing them that you need this break. And you're asking them to join you in prayer and then they will join you in prayer. And God will probably do a miracle in their hearts to help them understand a little bit more about where you are and what you need. Pointing also to scripture. I mean, we've been looking at Elijah at our church and help. You know, he needed a nap and he needed a snack and you know, that's just another another Example of of Understanding that we have needs and we can't do it all and so Starting with prayer. I think my friend asking those people in your life to pray for you And then maybe helping them see that need through scripture Realizing that you are indeed modeling healthy behavior. Yeah. Yeah, that's those are all really good And I think y'all did a great job of being an example of that by taking the summer off and just like taking a minute Oh, we're so busy, but it kind of I feel like y'all are a little bit more refreshed for this So that's sure like it's okay to take a step back Karina says how do we stop the noise when we do slow down like the noise in your mind like how do you get away from that Help us stir out. Yeah, you know for me the reason why I have the noise is because I Use this thing right here and it distracts me So I don't turn the noise off and so it just keeps bubbling up And then all of a sudden more there's more and more and more and more and more and more things to think about And so it's gonna be hard at first. It's hard to put down the phone It's hard to just sit in silence and let whatever bubbles up bubble up But once it starts bubbling then you can start dealing with it. Yeah, the more you deal with the things the more You deal with the things. Yeah, and so then you have less of the things because you've dealt with the things right because you've let them bubble up My thought would be similar to that and sometimes been thinking about with therapy and working on is stop trying to avoid So when you stop trying to avoid the feelings the thoughts the experiences They lose some of their power. So leaning into whatever is bubbling up like you said and giving it to God in prayer That's what I've been trying to do answering it with scripture from God's word. These are the things I'm trying to do I'm still in the struggle obviously, but but stop trying to avoid the noise Because it just gets louder and and allow it to be there and then give it to God. Yeah, I would say start small Start with five minutes start with two minutes Whatever it is that you have don't feel like you have to spend hours in silence because that's In practical for most of us. Yeah, but just start with five minutes leave your phone in another room for five minutes And you will find that People not being able to get a hold of you for five minutes is okay that the world did not burn down and everything is not going crazy So start small start with having start acting like the world depends on God and not that's right Yeah, I did that yesterday. I worked from home yesterday, which I highly encourage if you can ever do that Work from home for a bit. I just learned I worked from home and I took my chair and I sat outside in the sunshine And I just breathed and that's you know It's also something you can do as a son of saturday. Yeah, but I just I Just breathed. I just sat in a chair without a phone without anything. I just sat there I forgot my watch and my phone went dead yesterday So I have a forced moment Yeah, we love it. Yeah, that's great. Okay. Um, let's see Kimberly and Lea ask very similar questions and I I want us to make this next episode is kind of going to address this because we're going to be talking in the next episode a little bit more practical steps Right, but just as kind of a preview here in a minute What are some practical steps to die to self and seek righteousness? So Lea is saying like I want to I want to seek righteousness and I want to die to self But like to not I think we're trying to get it like not earning It not being better not trying so hard, but like how do you how do you do that? And then Kimberly said what are steps to die to self? How is this accomplished? I think you touched on it really well when you said complete dependence and constant connection, so maybe Dive into that a little bit more John 15. Yeah. Yeah I've always been kind of mesmerized by that whole passage about abiding in me You know, because he goes on to say apart from me you can do nothing And so if we think of okay, oh if I get disconnected if we unplugged these lights right now the place would go dark, right? If we get disconnected with God, that's where I think the darkness comes right um and and for me Constant connection. I Don't ever say amen to my prayers because I just keep them all going all day long that constant connection You know if you have a spouse or if you have a best friend, you know, you get good news You want to share it with them you get bad news you call them. Hey, I you know all those things that Constant connection that that prayer a piece of just staying in constant connection with God and the complete dependence of realizing It's not up to me. It's not up to me. It's not up to me repeating that daily And I we had to be careful here because I think we can say okay, here's three easy steps to die to self I think it's different for everybody because we all struggle with the different things Pride is a big one for me. I have to die to myself and in pride And I think that's at a lot of those identity issues as well. So that's for me. I don't know Um, mine is more of a cautionary tale kind of what not to do because as I've gone down the road of struggling. I have um Not died to self by prioritizing other things above God. So I think the answer At least for me and maybe for you is Prioritizing God above other things and that can be the distractions or that can be the The things that we use to scratch the itch apart from God I know that The more I've struggled is when I've spent less time with God and more time trying to do those things So I'm personally trying to turn that around I think along those lines of what Trisha said that Making that list of things that we where we aren't dying to self is so important because we know Here are the ways where I'm picking that up. I'm here are the ways that I am Trying to control here are the things I'm trying to own here are the things that you know Are gods that I'm trying to take over and then Even I mean for me it's writing it on a piece of paper and putting it on my computer Or putting it someplace to just say what is my job and what is God's job You know, this is not my job. This is God's job and having that constant reminder in my face to say Stop it stop it let that one go and Kelly just stop it stop it But I have to have that constant reminder even to myself. Yeah, um to say I have one reminder right I have a physical I have a tendency to go too fast and and speed up with my life And so I literally have scripture on my computer that's talking about Standing in the crossroads and look for the ancient way and walk in that path and then right next to it I have slow down and walk yeah Because I have to remind myself to slow down and walk So it's that constant it's that constant reminder to say this is gods and not mine This is gods and not mine my job is to slow down and walk and be still and know that he is God and I am not Well, that was a preacher five minutes We told you we could do it in five minutes So