Hi. This is Erin Michele. Welcome to steps to trusting. It is my goal here to meet you where you are in your faith journey, and to encourage you to continue to take steps, to trusting the Lord more fully.

[00:00:20] Hi everyone, and welcome to the last episode of season one steps to trusting.

[00:00:27]It has been an honor and a privilege to have these conversations with you each week. And although this is the last one for a while, I hope that it sticks with you. That it’s something that you come back to often. What we are going to be talking about is renewing of our minds.

[00:00:44]We’re going to start talking about this a little bit to go with our emotions, because that’s where we ended up  last week with Emma Woodcock.

[00:00:53] This conversation is for those of you who find yourself stuck in repeating patterns. I’ve been there. I’ve been there in a pattern of yelling often at my kids. And now I don’t want to pretend and say, I don’t yell at my kids anymore. I do. And yet  I have stood in the moments where I felt  I could do nothing but yell at my children feeling like I had no other option than to yell at my children.

[00:01:24]And so I want to start there  by just saying, there is not condemnation for you if you  feel stuck in repeating patterns. If that’s where you are, I encourage you to listen all the more and to think about how truth can stop us in that mindset, can stop us in those thoughts that we have no other good options, no other options at all.

[00:01:51]Let’s actually start us with prayer.

[00:01:53] Dear God. Lord. Sometimes we feel like we fall into a pattern that we can’t get out of. Sometimes we feel  like the actions of others control our feelings and therefore our response.

[00:02:08]Lord God can help us have ears to hear what your word says about that. And help us to have an understanding of what you say about us. It’s in Jesus’ name. I pray. Amen.

[00:02:22]Guys. I want to start out by jumping right in to one of the Bible verses we were talking about last week.

[00:02:29] And it’s Romans 12, verse two, “do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is, his good pleasing and perfect will.”

[00:02:47]When I think of this idea of renewing our minds, I think of surrender. And I think about taking captive every thought and making them obedient to Christ. You know, we talked about this and the show entitled why surrender. They came out two weeks ago.

[00:03:06]Renewing our minds is a process of  taking captive thoughts. It’s an opportunity to look at a pattern that we’ve seen in our lives and to deviate from that pattern. Just like it says in the Romans first to not conform to the pattern of the world. And often the pattern of the world is the pattern that we’ve been following.  So I think these are talking about something very similar.

[00:03:32] It’s taken, captive, the thought it’s stopping to act as the world acts, and it’s starting to act in a new way to renew our minds.

[00:03:41] So let’s think through this just a little bit. What happens in a scenario where you are criticized or disobeyed or inconvenienced or hurt? How do you react? Do you react defensively? Or do you act pretending that you’re okay These are some of the reactions that you might come to.

[00:04:05]Some of the ways that we might protect ourselves from the emotion we’re feeling. Protect ourselves from how someone else’s action makes us feel. Instead of feeling the emotion and saying, why do I feel hurt? Why do I feel inconvenienced? And looking at what do I do with this emotion? As I put that in your mind. I want you guys to take a moment and think about some patterns that happen in your life.

[00:04:36]And I’m going to tell you about a pattern that I have experienced that I have needed to renew my mind in this situation. And as you think about this example, I want you to think about how it might apply to your pattern. For me, my pattern was watching disobedience for my children and reacting in anger, reacting in a way of yelling.

[00:04:58] The verse doesn’t say protect yourselves from all the things that are coming at you. It says ” do not conform to the patterns of this world, but renew your mind.”

[00:05:10] And I think sometimes I have wanted to not renew my mind, but to renew other’s minds. And that might sound silly, about, when I think about it with my children, I think about, I wanted to renew their minds and have them act in obedience to me.

[00:05:29]But that’s not what this verse is talking about. Yes, there’s discipline and there’s teaching my children to act in obedience.  And yet this is saying, even in the moments when disobedience is what I’m faced with, I am to renew my mind and

[00:05:44]to not act in the pattern of this world. Right. We are going to face hard things in front of us.

[00:05:52]Emma and I were talking a little bit  about this last week when we were talking about emotions, right? Things are going to happen that are going to cause an emotion in you  in those moments, we have a choice, if we are going to let those actions lead us in the pattern of this world, or if we will stop feel the emotion, try to see what the emotion is trying to teach us. And renew our minds to act in faith, to step in faith.

[00:06:27]So how do we renew our minds? What do we do in these moments?

[00:06:33] And, you know, there’s not just one answer to that. There are so many answers to that. So many answers of remembering God’s grace, remembering that we’re a child of God, remembering that God tells us to love one another as he has loved us. Or to you remember to love your neighbor as yourself?

[00:06:55]I think a versus like be “quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry.”

[00:07:02] This is some of the wisdom that can wash over us as we renew our minds and try to figure out how we should act.

[00:07:11]This is why I love encouraging people to be in God’s word. I do want to acknowledge that there are places in the Bible that sometimes it feels so challenging to figure out how it applies to us. But I would venture to say that most places in God’s word, there is a daily application for how you live your today. I And part of that might just be looking at the character of God. I’m in Leviticus right now. And I’m looking at how the tabernacle was made and  how the sacrifices are to be given. . And yes, this is a challenging place to find a daily application.

[00:07:46]But even in places like this, we can see the character of God.  We can see that God is a God of order. When you are in God’s word, even in those places that seem challenging,  I encourage you to look at what is the character of God being displayed here? And that will affect us when we get to know more of who God is that will affect and change us.

[00:08:07]But sometimes we act like it’s easier to go on with our day without being in God’s word. We don’t acknowledge that God’s word is living and active and that it changes us.

[00:08:24] When we talk about renewing our minds and we talk about not acting according to the patterns of this world, we have to know the patterns that God wants us to act according to.

[00:08:37]So this is a huge challenge. I want to encourage you guys to be in God’s word. And you guys, as I speak that, I want to remind you, I’ve said this several times, but I have   a free five day journaling resource   that is made to help you look at scripture and ask yourself questions  like, what is God’s next step for me? And maybe looking at your next step of trust means looking more at the character of God and being reminded that God is trustworthy.

[00:09:09]Or The next step might be asking will I choose to love the person in front of me. How will I choose to love the person in front of me? What is this scripture telling me about loving the person in front of me? What is this scripture revealing in me that I have been conforming to the pattern of this world and I haven’t even realized it? What needs to be renewed in me to act in a way that honors the one that I call Lord, Savior.

[00:09:43]Oh, there’s so much.  And yet. 

[00:09:47]It’s the process of taking God’s word and applying it to our lives. And yes, it is a process. It’s not a one day thing. It’s not a change your mind and forever it will be that way. It is a process.

[00:10:06]And see the thing is we’re not going to stop feeling emotions. We’re still going to feel longings, for the things that we miss. We’re still going to feel hurt when there’s an injustice, but we could give in to those feelings we could give in to the hurt and the pain and let them rule our actions. Or we could use our choice. We could choose to renew our minds. According to God’s word, we could choose to act differently.

[00:10:35] We could choose to let, how we feel, teach us something. And to point us to learning more about what God says about this situation.

[00:10:44]I want to flesh out this idea a little bit more. Okay. Last week we were talking about emotions and how emotions can rule us. So when we feel an emotion to act reactively and in the moment, if we feel anger, then we lash out in anger. If we feel sadness, we withdraw and maybe punish the person made us sad.

[00:11:08]But as we renew our minds, as we take truth and set the truth of who God is the truth of how we are loved over those hurt places, we don’t have to act in the pattern of this world.

[00:11:24]The pattern of this world, is to feel the hurt or the pain, and to act out in the hurt, the pain.

[00:11:33]And so we want to think about those moments when we sit with our emotions, when we realize what they are trying to tell us about ourselves, we can take captive the lies, the lies that want to tell us you have the right to act angry and they deserve to be punished. We take captive the thoughts of retribution  from hurt and pain.

[00:11:57]There are so many verses that have deep impact in our lives. And Romans 12, verse two, is a verse that if we focus on and if we learn about this can have a deep impact on our lives.

[00:12:12]  I was speaking with my son the other day and he was frustrated and rightfully so with one of his brothers. And I had been listening to the conversation that I had with Emma as I was preparing to post it.

[00:12:27] And I said to him, you can use your anger as a weapon, or you can use your anger as a tool.

[00:12:33]I think that’s really true. We can let anger rule us. We can let the way we feel, determine how we act. And that is human. That is very, very human. And that is part of the brokenness of humanity or.

[00:12:51] We can renew our minds. We could take captive the thoughts that we have. We could take captive the feelings that we have and surrender them to Christ and make them obedient Christ.

[00:13:02]And we can then in that moment, choose if we want to  use our feelings as a tool to illuminate what’s happening inside of us, to say this is why I feel this way. This is why I feel upset.

[00:13:15] But what am I going to do with that? Am I willing to use my words to speak to the one in front of me and to say, this is what I’m feeling, and this is why. It then invites the other person to know how we are feeling. It invites them to know us.  We can use our emotions as a tool to let people know us, to even know ourselves, to understand why we feel a certain way, or we can allow ourselves to act the way that is merely human to act the way that is ruled by emotion to act in the pattern of this world.

[00:13:53] And we can put our self against situation or the person that makes us feel anger or pain. We could enter into a fight, but that’s not what the Lord calls us to. He calls us to renew our minds to not conform to the pattern of this world. And this takes work

[00:14:11]Last week. Emma briefly talked about brainwaves.   

[00:14:15] She talked about how, when we create neural pathways, our bodies and our brains want to go the way that we know.

[00:14:22] Jenny Allen talks about this in her book. Get out of your head.

[00:14:29]Jenny’s book talks about this idea of stopping the pattern taking captive the thoughts as a biblical need. And also something that we see in science. Because the way our brains are made to go, the way that we know we can spiral in our thoughts and let that control us, or we can renew our minds and we can ask what is the pattern that God wants to work in me? She gives lots of examples on how we could choose to stop these negative thought patterns. She talks about everything from  gratefulness and community to being in God’s word.

[00:15:04]If you have not read Jenny’s book, get out of your head. I highly recommend it.

[00:15:09]I’ll go ahead and link her book in the show notes. And I highly recommend  you are struggling through some of these patterns and trying to figure out how to stop them, Jenny’s book is a resource to help us figure out how do we renew our minds.

[00:15:27] You guys. Renewing our minds is such a challenge because it does question each of our actions. It causes us to stop and to think just because this is the way that I know, or the easy way, is this the right way? When Romans 12 two says do not conform to the pattern of this world. Sometimes that even means do not conform to the pattern that you have conformed to for the last, however long.

[00:15:57]Let me read the rest of the verse for you to not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind then You will be able to test and approve what God’s will is his good pleasing and perfect will.

[00:16:15] You guys, we want to know God’s will we want to know what he has for us? What his plan is for us? And part of his plan is that we stop  conforming. Stop acting as the world would act. But to put on the truth of who he is to put it, to guard our hearts and minds. The truth of how he loves us, how he died for us, how he treasures us.

[00:16:41] He tells us that he sings over us.

[00:16:45]Renewing our mind remembering who God is and what he says about us, remembering how he loves the person standing in front of us will change us. This is the perfect place to close the season because this renewing of our minds will run through season two.

[00:17:05] As I mentioned, this is the last show of the season.  I’m going to miss being with you guys each week. And yet I’m very excited for what’s coming in season two, season two, I’ve made some changes  and I still have some different ideas in the works.

[00:17:19]Some of the changes that I have coming are because of things I learned in season one. Actually  Bethany, Kimsey summed up a little bit of what I’m learning in a recent interview, where sometimes it’s in the messiest moments when we actually can see God working the most, or we can hear him the loudest in our lives. Often when things are going well, we don’t allow ourselves to look for God working. But when we get to the end of ourselves, when we see that we can’t do it. When we find ourselves in those messy places where we are trying, and it is not working, that is when we often see that God is working. He’s working always, but that is often when we notice. And when we see.

[00:18:05]That is something that I have seen run through season one. But season two, I want to bring this down to a different level.  I’ve mentioned recently that often when I’ve asked people where they’ve learned to trust God or how they stepped out in trust. It’s often in these big moments  and challenges where they could do nothing but trust because they didn’t have control.  I think there’s so much to learn from these moments. And I think there’s so much that we need to do to prepare for these moments.

[00:18:35] So in season two, I want to talk about the smaller moments. The moments we have every day, the ones that prepare us for the big moments of trust.

[00:18:46]We don’t want to just wait for the moments where we have big challenges in our lives to trust the Lord. We want to trust him in the small mundane, everyday moments.

[00:18:56] And that’s what season two was about

[00:18:58]You guys, I have this funny story  and I wasn’t sure if I was going to tell you all about it, but here it goes. I had been in a season where I had been praying for gentleness. I had been asking it as a prayer request in my Bible study. I had been contemplating it, reading about it, studying about it, and just wanting to be gentle.

[00:19:20]As I mentioned I was seeing in myself, an anger and a frustration rising up and yelling beginning to be the way that I reacted when things didn’t go my way. And I was praying for gentleness. Now, this is also in a time where I had a potty training child.   And one day I remember kneeling on the wood floor, as I was wiping up a puddle of pee and  out loud saying to myself,  you are asking for gentleness, do you want gentleness right now? Now is your moment to choose. And it seems so silly that I’m crying right now,  but that is a pivotal moment in my life. As I wiped up pee. You know, what had happened was I had a child who had a pattern of using the corner as a bathroom each time they got in trouble. Each time they were sent to the corner. Even I said, go to the potty and then sit in the corner. Even if I knew they just use the potty that was their action.  And it was so, so frustrating, but it was in that moment that I realized this moment, this choice, this is a moment that can affect more than just right now.

[00:20:36]And it has, because I look back on that moment and I remember that was when I chose to trust the Lord that he could make a difference without me acting out in my frustration. You guys, there’s lots more moments like that. And we’re going to be talking with people this season. We’re going to be asking them, how do you trust the Lord each day? We’re going to be asking what are those steps to trusting, right. If you  find yourself at that place.

[00:21:08]That you’re so frustrated, how do you find yourself at that place? With the ability to choose to step in obedience and trust? Right. For me,  it was praying. It was studying gentleness. It was asking my friends for accountability and asking them to pray for me.

[00:21:28]And so I want to look at those moments,  not just the moment of saying in this moment I was successful  in choosing trust, but to say, how do we prepare for those moments where our trust will be questioned?

[00:21:43]You guys, the book of James has been a really important book to me and,  I want to read part of it to you guys. James chapter one, verse two. Count it all joy. My brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds  for, you know, that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness  and let steadfastness habits full effect that you may be perfect and complete lacking nothing.

[00:22:10]I remember the day where I was really impacted by this idea that we will meet trials of various kinds. It doesn’t just say that our faith is tested in those very hard, big life-changing moments. It says counted joy. When you meet trials of various kinds. The trial that we face may be a trial of faith. Have you considered that? The trial that you face, maybe a trial of faith. It might be asking you, do you trust that God loves your child more than you do? Do you trust that God can use your decision of obedience instead of your act to try and control?

[00:23:05]I’ve had to ask myself these questions. Do I trust that God is working in that person’s life and it is for their good? And so as these questions come up, we also need to ask ourselves, are we gonna fight against what God is doing? Are we going to count it a joy? When I sit back and say, God, I trust you. I trust you in what you’re doing. These are moments that we renew our minds. These are moments where we let the truth wash over us. These are moments that we take a step to trusting God more fully. These moments are the big and small moments that we will be discussing.

[00:23:51] And we will discuss how to prepare for these moments. The moments like when you don’t know what to say to the person in front of you. And you have to choose whether you are going to act in anger or act in obedience and show love.

[00:24:07]Like moments when you feel disappointed because plans change. Will you decide to trust the Lord and know that he still has a plan for you?

[00:24:16]In those moments when you can’t get your kids to put their shoes on and get out the door, will you trust that your kindness can make a difference?

[00:24:27] Will you trust? Like it says in James one 20 for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God. We’re going to look at these types of moments. These types of moments that we face every day. And I want to look at scripture to prepare us for being in these types of moments.

[00:24:48] Friends, we will need to renew our minds to be ready for moments of trust.

[00:24:54]As I mentioned, This is the perfect place to close the season because this renewing of our minds will run through season two. Trust is not our normal reaction. Trust is not the pattern of this world. To choose stepping in trust is to renew our minds and to fill it with the truth of who God is, so that we are able to trust him.

[00:25:21]I really can’t wait for jumping into season two.  And yet we have to, because stopping, taking a pause in the podcast is a moment of trust for me. It’s a moment of saying God, I know I can’t keep all the balls in the air. And so this pause is a step of trust, trusting that God knows the plans he has for me, the places where I will minister the people who need me. A time to acknowledge that God is in control.

[00:25:52] He knows the dreams on my heart.  And he knows the plans he has for me. Friends. Thank you for listening to my heart. I really want to hear how you guys are doing, I know I’ve said this a couple of times recently,  but if the show has encouraged you, if there is something you’ve learned, would you reach out to me?

[00:26:11] Would you tell me you can find me on Instagram and Facebook at steps to trusting. I spend more of my time on Instagram.  So start there.

[00:26:20]And guys, I would love to ask you to sign up for my newsletter. That is the place where I make announcements first. So you would be the first to hear about when season two is coming up. You’ll also be first to hear about launch team as well as some opportunities to be on the show.

[00:26:38]All those opportunities will first come through my newsletter.

[00:26:42]And the newsletter also comes with the journaling resource that I’ve been talking about. I would love to give that to you guys. It is created specifically to help you spend time in God’s word, to spend time asking yourself questions. And looking at what are the next steps that God has laid out for me, according to his scripture.

[00:27:04] I’m going to close this in prayer.

[00:27:07] Dear God, you are good. You have always been good.

[00:27:13]We praise you for many blessings and Lord today, I praise you that you have made us have the ability to renew our minds with the ability to take captive the lies that we’ve been believing and renew ourselves with your truth. I thank you for this season where you have allowed me to have these conversations with friends. You have allowed us to learn these things together. And Lord, I pray that these lessons would not be quickly forgotten.

[00:27:44] I pray Lord that they would wash over us, that we would be renewed in our pattern of thinking that we would be renewed in our actions. Lord God, that we would not conform to the patterns of this world, that we would  live as a new creation. Lord God help us to want to know your word. Help us to know your word. Help us to apply your word. Lord, I pray that over each and every one who will hear these words. Help us to set our hearts and our minds on you.

[00:28:18]Give us renewal in our hearts that we would seek after you and   your will for us or God, your good pleasing and perfect will. It’s in Jesus name that I pray. Amen.

[00:28:32]So here we are friends at the last show of season one. And I want to say,  I hope to see you back here next time,  but until then, I want to leave you with this reminder from Ephesians two 10.    For we are God’s workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.

[00:28:56] My dear friends. I am praying for you as you keep on stepping

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