Join Tori and I as we discuss a common struggle of feeling defined by our actions combined with the truth of where God meets us in this struggle.  For many, the struggle within drives us to perform and strive. 

Check out the 4 B’s Tori introduced to help us break this pattern or belief.

Behold

Believe

Behave

Become

I love this reminder that setting our heart and minds on God (beholding Him) will affect what we believe, how we behave and who we become. 

Journaling Questions:

• What circumstance or circumstantial change would give you fulfillment?
• What are you beholding in this circumstance?
• Where is God calling you to work with Him?
• Are you trying to become something from your actions?
• What is God pointing to in your life that you are holding onto or longing for more than Jesus?
• Like the Rich Young Ruler, do you have a misplaced identity?

Connect

 I want to hear from you!
You can find me and join in the conversation on Facebook and Instagram @stepstotrusting.

Hashtag your story of God’s faithfulness and stepping out in faith. #stepstotrusting

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What’s in the newsletter?

Do you struggle to trust God with the big or little things?  Do you want to trust God more but find yourself unsure how to grow your trust?  This is part of my story and my journey.  My monthly newsletter, Exploring Trust, is designed to explore deeper trust and help reveal the places in our lives we are trusting something other than God.  Click here to sign up for the newsletter and receive “What’s my next step?” a free, 5 day journaling and Bible study tool to help explore your next step to trusting God more fully.

You can connect with Tori Hein on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/torimaehein

Check out here Work from Worth Course here at http://workfromworth.mykajabi.com/

Use the coupon code called CALLED to get $20 off your order as one of our listeners.

For more resources and ways to connect with Tory check out her link tree at https://linktr.ee/torimaehein

Verses mentioned in the episode:

• Matthew 19:16-22
• Genesis 2

Ephesians 2:10

Special thanks to Jim Dougherty for creating the music for the show! Check out his Album City of God on Spotify or Apple Music.

See below for a full transcript of the show.

Erin: Hi, this is Erin Michelle. Welcome to steps to try. At steps to trusting. It’s my goal 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.

[00:00:10] I’m glad you’re here. Welcome.

[00:00:13] on this episode of steps to trusting. I’m talking to Tori Hein, I’ve heard Tori say in one of her courses, it’s less about what we are doing and more about how God is changing us through the process of what we are doing. This is a big part of our conversation today. we are talking about how God uses what we are doing to help us become who he has created us to be. And sometimes we get confused thinking. It’s the things that we do that make us who we are or help us become something good or something great. If you felt that tug of trying to do more or be better,

[00:00:55] then this episode is for you. I want to tell you guys a little bit more about Tori. So Tori Hein is a communicator and coach with lots of experience and educational background in coaching and biblical studies. Tori is passionate about helping women of faith move towards God in their story, their choices and their work. She wants to help them to see who God is causing them to become in the process of all that they do. Not by the actions they’re taking. This is something that is intriguing to me. And if it’s intriguing to you, we’re going to jump in and hear more about it in just a minute.

[00:01:34] So I wanted to welcome Tori Hein. Hi Tori. How are you?

[00:01:37] Tori: Hey, Erin. So glad to be here. Thank you for having.

[00:01:41] Erin: I am so glad you’re here too.

[00:01:43] Tori? I love that you desire to teach people. They don’t have to strive to find their value in what they can do for God. Can you tell us how you began to learn this lesson that you now, so passionately are sharing.

[00:01:57] Tori: Well, I’ve been an entrepreneur for the last 10 years. My background is: I’ve been worshiping Jesus since I was in utero. So like, my parents loved the Lord and I was born on a Sunday. So like my very first church service was like day seven of my life, And I don’t think I’ve missed a Sunday ever since.

[00:02:18] And somewhere along the journey of my faith, I adopted this belief that if I performed well, then I can earn love, joy and belonging. Mainly just because I was craving affirmation from any person. And I think every human being does to a certain degree, but for some, there’s just this extra measure of a need for that to feel secure.

[00:02:43] And if it’s misplaced from God and, and placed it onto other people, then that can create a lot of unhealthy motivations. And I grew up and I matured as we all do. And some of those childhood behavior patterns follow us into adulthood. But they’re just masked to look a little bit more mature and definitely more excusable, especially for those of us who are unwilling to allow Jesus, to enter into the depths of our story and heart to bring full healing.

[00:03:17] But I got married when I was really young. I met my husband when I was 16 and we got married, married when I was 20 and he was 25. We dated for three years, we thought that we would be making up for lost time. Long distance relationship for a long period of that time. And we got married with all of these ambitions about what we would do, and we would travel and ministry and these different things.

[00:03:40] And three months after we got married, I found out that I was pregnant with my first son. And I also about a month after finding out that I was pregnant, my husband and I took a trip from Nevada where we’re originally from to Nashville with his band called I AM THEY and God radically changed our lives in the course of a five day trip to Nashville.

[00:04:02] What we thought that we were claiming a prize that we won a music festival to record. One single. Turned into a sitting in all of the five major music labels in Nashville, Tennessee, and God put us on a full different trajectory for where our lives were headed. That was not expected. And I didn’t get to be a part of it.

[00:04:22] At least that’s the message that I kind of adopted instead. I was like, I’m going to become a mom. I’m going to sit at home alone on the sidelines of watch my best friends and my husband do something meaningful and beautiful and impressive for Jesus. And I’m going to fold laundry and balance multiple part-time jobs, taking care of my kids at home so that they could do that.

[00:04:50] And this root of bitterness kind of grew inside of my heart. And I felt like if I could just do enough, if I could just prove myself enough, then maybe God would give me a place that’s more impressive than me sitting here in my living room, raising babies. And although that season was really refining for me. It was extremely difficult and I’m not going to lie that I did it well.

[00:05:17] that was, 10 years ago now. So I’m a whole different person truly than who I was in that season. And I’m so incredibly grateful for the hidden and anonymous season that God brought me into because it had to actually reveal to me that I had misplaced my identity in what I could do for God, rather than just simply it being enough to be with him.

[00:05:43] And with each rejection, it was an invitation from God to redirect me back to him, back to a place where I was always going to be accepted, always going to belong, always going to be the root place of my purpose. And what would it look like if that relationship formed the way that I saw and perceived my life and the purpose there.

[00:06:06] And what could it look like to make a space for other women to know that they have a place to belong as well, even in the, the monotony of their everyday lives, that this is holy ground. And I mean, we’ve been able to do incredible things in ministry, but what I’ve found is that oftentimes the most transformational moments of our lives come in the simplest sceneries. Rocking your baby to bed and cooking a meal or folding the laundry, or being faithful with your small business from home.

[00:06:42] And these quiet, hidden moments are not forsaken by God, but they’re the bed from which all of the beautiful growth comes in our life, in the garden that he’s cultivating in us. But if we don’t make space for the garden of our life in, ridding the weeds and removing the things that are not meant to grow there, if we don’t engage in the process of allowing God to refine who we are and the way that we think and believe about ourselves and about him, then we won’t see the growth that he’s intended to grow in and through us.

[00:07:24] Erin: Thank you for sharing all of that. and I know that I personally, and, and many others feel that same, almost left behind kind of feeling when you’re home with kids and it feels mundane.

[00:07:37] And That’s a lot of what we have been talking about this season, that God is there with us in those mundane moments, right.

[00:07:44] And

[00:07:45] Tori: right.

[00:07:45] Erin: and that we sometimes feel like it’s not enough to be folding the laundry or to be doing the routine. But to turn our eyes to who God is and, and that it’s not about us.

[00:07:57] And so that’s why I love this message of it’s not necessarily about what you do, but about who you are becoming.

[00:08:05] And, So for, for our listeners, you guys, Tori has actually put together a course talking about Working from our worth and not for our worth.

[00:08:17] And so that’s much of the inputs that we’re kind of talking about here. So if you guys are interested in what we’re talking about, if you’ve felt that left behind feeling that Tory’s talking about, I encourage you at the end of the podcast. I will leave all the links and information for you guys to check that out.

[00:08:38] But, we’re going to continue to keep talking about that Can you share with us a little bit about how God has helped you look for this growth instead of focusing on the disappointment you felt in not meeting up to that expectation.

[00:08:52] Tori: Yeah. And sometimes we just put this expectation for what that needs to look like. It needs to look big, it needs to look flashy. It needs to look impressive. It needs to look XYZ in order for it to be good

[00:09:03]

[00:09:03] The story that comes to mind is the rich young ruler in the gospels when Jesus was looking at this young ruler then going, you’ve got the flashy, you’ve got the excitement, you’ve got all the things I’m welcoming you into a better thing.

[00:09:19] Come and follow me. And so I didn’t stay there all alone in my house. Like I built an incredible business over the course of the last couple of years, and I actually found that it was in the moments of my greatest success that I felt the most empty because I had come back to those moments of misplacing my identity and what I do rather than in who God is.

[00:09:41] And so whenever I saw those warning signs in my life raised back up again over and over again, I would have to take a step back and reevaluate in 2020 was one of those years of re-evaluation for me on the other side of a very successful year in 2020, realizing that I was still cycling through broken cycles of behavior and striving and something needed a realignment.

[00:10:06] And I saw it in the lives of so many women around me, and I knew I needed to be a voice of truth for this message.

[00:10:13] Erin: Yeah. I would agree Tori. I so relate to what you’re saying, and I think so many women do. for me I grew up in a Christian home. I very much like identity found in how people saw me and trying to portray I’m a Christian through the things that I do instead of letting God, fill me and letting those things be motivated by who he says I am and the worth that I have.

[00:10:43] And I just, I’m really struck by the fact that you’re saying your high successes are when you realize you find yourself that you need to go back again. Yeah. Can you tell us a little bit about that process that you do to go back when you find yourself in that place of trying to say, Hey, look at the works I did

[00:11:05] Tori: Yeah. Yeah. when you’re, when you are treating your life like a project, rather than a process of becoming, then you almost lay out for yourself, this timeline for, I need to be making this amount of money here and I need to have this sort of influence here. And definitely by the time that I’m 30, I need to be doing this.

[00:11:27] And then definitely by the time that I’m 40, I should be doing this. I used to say this all the time in some of my informational calls for my business. if you envision your life five years from now, where will you be?

[00:11:39] In five years. And how do you feel about that? Now? I would still welcome my friends into a vision for their life a couple of years. Into the mix mainly just because if we’re partnering with God’s vision, then I mean, we should be able to look forward and see potential for growth and change. And vision is, is so important.

[00:12:05] But what I was attaching my five-year plan to was how much money I was making, what sort of influence I was having, what choices I was creating. And it was not really about who I was becoming in the process. It was almost kind of secondary to these things that I would be gaining as results. And when you are casting vision that is directly related to results or measured by human means, then when we don’t hit those, or even when we do hit those, we put such pressure on these things as if they’re going to magically, make us feel incredible and feel like we’re used by God and purposeful and all this stuff.

[00:12:48] And It just doesn’t satisfy guys. Like I, I can tell you so, so plainly that it doesn’t satisfy. And once the veil was torn and I was sitting at a, at tables with influential entrepreneurs who were making 10 times the amount of money that I was making when I was first started in my business, and I’m still seeing the brokenness in their story, and I’m still seeing a lack of contentment, and I’m still seeing this ache of the soul, this ache of the heart.

[00:13:16] Or when we’re traveling around the world with my husband and his band, and we’re seeing the church and all of the different facets and shapes and beautiful forms that the church is. And we’re standing on stages in front of thousands of people and realizing still that the same aches of the heart are there the same needs are there.

[00:13:38] And they can’t be satisfied by doing something impressive or meeting a goal or hitting a milestone or whatever. I remember earning my very first trip to The Bahamas. It was like this, specialty earned trip for my sales company and Got there. And, you paint everything in this like beautiful, shiny picture on Instagram.

[00:13:59] Like don’t, she want to be here, look at how amazing I am and look at how amazing this people are. I’m looking at how amazing my life as And I just like crawled up into my bed and got into my sheets and I cried myself to sleep. Was that on Instagram? No. What was it? It wasn’t on Instagram instead.

[00:14:18] It was painting this picture of don’t. You want your life to look so this way, this is what true fulfillment looks like as if your life looks like this. And it really didn’t Dawn on me that I was, I was perpetuating a lie. Now the results and the trips were fun. The trip was great. It should have been great.

[00:14:39] It was my mindset behind it. It was the pressure behind it. I was living in this pressure bubble that my life needed to look or feel, or be portrayed in a specific way in order to feel fulfillment. And even when I did actually achieve some of those goals, I still felt empty. So it was this realization that I needed a structure to identify my thoughts and my feelings which I mean, us as women, we are, we are very emotional people.

[00:15:10] We’re very emotional beings.

[00:15:12] Erin: I don’t know what you mean.

[00:15:13] Tori: Yeah. I was like, what are you about? Erin’s like, I don’t have any emotions. We’re super emotional, but we also don’t even know how to like. we don’t know how to accurately identify which emotion we’re feeling or just blanket statement.

[00:15:28] Oh, I feel frustrated or, oh, I feel overwhelmed or, oh, I feel excited or, oh, I feel happy. And. I had to do the work in my own story to really acutely identify which emotion I was feeling, and then almost kind of backtrack from there. And so in my course, I teach a biblically based mindset model. And it’s based on four BS behold, believe, behave and become whatever you are, beholding, whatever, whatever holds all of your attention will shape what you believe about what you’re beholding.

[00:16:03] So all through scripture, we see God’s invitation. Behold me fixed your eyes on Jesus, the author, and perfecter of my faith, behold, his goodness, behold, his faithfulness, remind him of his faithfulness, that endures from generation to generation all through the old Testament. All of the new Testament.

[00:16:20] There’s this invitation from God behold, me behold, what I have. And from that stems a true belief about who God is, who we are in him and our belief follows and who we become follows. But when we behold our circumstances, or when we behold our shortcomings, or when we behold a goal that we think will turn us into this magical, ideal self that will never struggle or never hurt and never experienced pain and feel so close and intimate with God and all these different things.

[00:16:51] We behold this, and we believe that that’s going to actually be the thing that’s going to satisfy. And then, our behavior follows and who we become follows. And of course, it’s always going to lead to brokenness. If what we’re beholding is not aligned with truth that God has given to us in scripture, but I am a practical person.

[00:17:08] I need some sort of guide to be like, what am I be holding right now? When, when I know the warning signs are, like, they’re right there, right in front of me. I know that my emotions are all wonky. And I also know that my behavior is off track and I’m like sitting back and thinking through my four BS because I needed some sort of structure to realign back with the truth of his word realign back to right relationship and what my life and my choices and my behavior would look like.

[00:17:39] Aligned with the truth and also the love of God. And so I’m really passionate about teaching women. This, this could be applied to any, anything. Of course I apply it to my work in my entrepreneurial work and in my coaching work, but also in motherhood my relationship with my husband, and my personal life and ministry and all of these things,

[00:17:59] Erin: I want to take some time to focus in on behavior for a little bit. I know a lot of people struggle with the mixing of behavior and identity. Even when we know in our heads that our value is a gift from God, not something that we can earn by our actions.

[00:18:14] It is so tempting to try and do better or be better.

[00:18:18] Can you tell us a little bit more about this idea of becoming in the process of what we’re doing?

[00:18:24] Not based on the actions that we’ve taken.

[00:18:27] Tori: Absolutely. So it’s easy to approach our lives with a project mindset. Like I’m going to click the checked bar boxes off head to church, do good deeds, walk through all of the motions, even, even in approaching work, like I’m an entrepreneur, I’m a mom. I’ve been married for 10 years and in all of these different spheres of influence and work, which it’s all work because God’s designed us for work.

[00:18:58] It’s the very first thing that. Adam was created on day six and he was invited by God to rest with God on day seven. So it was a finished work when Adam entered into the picture. But then on the other side of that, he gives Adam a blessing and he gives Adam a mandate to have dominion over what God had created.

[00:19:20] Why out of relationship, and out of delight, it pleased God to imprint the image of God on to Adam, and then give Adam an opportunity to participate in the creative work with his creator God. On the other side of the brokenness and the sin, and we know what the story ends up unfolding. There turns to this broken nature between us and God in what we’re doing and who we’re becoming, when it speaks in.

[00:19:51] In Galatians about, I am a new creation, behold, the oldest gun, and the newest has come that got his cause this brand new life to come. A lot of this brand new life is actually just returning to the garden and the initial design that God had created us for. And so when we approach work and when we approach relationships and when we approach responsibility with a project mindset, like who I am right now is not who I’m supposed to be.

[00:20:21] So I have to actually become something better or more. And I’m going to take action and do things in order to get me there. That is not a belief that aligns with the truth of the gospel. The truth of the gospel is that Jesus came and did what we possibly couldn’t ever possibly do is bridge the gap between us and the separation of God to cause us to become who we were initially created.

[00:20:46] And it’s this process of undoing and unlearning any contrary message, any shiny, any shiny distraction or any dangling of a carrot that the world could offer to us where our worth and our sense of identity could exist. We have to take our attention off of these things. It’s a long-term process of unlearning what we have been taught our whole lives in order to fix our eyes on Jesus, to behold him and his glory and the purposes that he has for us in who we are becoming, bringing us back to the garden back to right relationship with him.

[00:21:23] So we can pour out from our lives the goodness of God and the glory of God across the entire earth honor on earth as it is in heaven.

[00:21:33] Erin: Tori, you said a ton of good things in there. But when I’m thinking about is this idea of who we are becoming, right. That so sticks out to me and. I think often when we think about who we are becoming, we think about, okay, how do I act now? what do I need to do to become this type of person?

[00:21:55] Right. And,

[00:21:56] Tori: Yeah.

[00:21:57] Erin: where does that come from? often. We think It’s by the actions or we take those actions hoping that we will become something.

[00:22:06] can you speak into the value that we’ve been given? And how, this frees us from the need to behave

[00:22:13] Tori: Yes. So it’s almost like you wake up with this voice of shame hovering over your bedside. Like, hi, are you going to get up out of bed? Because I have a list of things that you need to do that you haven’t done already today in order to become the person that you’re meant to be this ideal self. And that is so not the heart of God.

[00:22:32] Do we ever see Jesus action stepping somebody into right relationship with him now? Like we really don’t what he does is he connects to the story and he connects to the person and he connects to the heart to unveil the broken belief that is keeping them in cycles of striving or insecurity or brokenness, whatever it is. yet again, The story that comes to mind is the rich young ruler in the gospels comes to Jesus and says, what do I need to do in order to enter into the kingdom of heaven, which is exactly kind of the question that you’re asking, what are the action steps so that I could become the sort of person who had earned their way into heaven.

[00:23:15] And the very first thing that he, that Jesus actually says in that is this man comes to Jesus and calls him good teacher. What must I do to enter into the kingdom of heaven and Jesus response to him? Isn’t answering the question that he’s initially asking. He asks him, why do you call me good? No one is good except for the father, which if we just stop there for a quick second.

[00:23:41] Any message. That’s going to give you action steps to right relationship with God directly, directly attacks the message of the goodness of God as he already is. the goodness of God does not hinge on your good behavior, right? Relationship with God does not hinge on your good behavior. It’s given to you out of an overflow of his perfect agape love.

[00:24:07] And we have access to God because of the sacrifice of Jesus, the life of Jesus. And so here’s Jesus in this rich young ruler. And Jesus is asking him really the pointed question, which was this motive of this rich young ruler’s heart is can I trust the goodness of God? I’m seeing this in this person that I’m interacting with this Jesus and I I’m thinking he actually might have the secret sauce ABC 1, 2, 3 steps to be able to help me know how I can become like him so that I can make my way to heaven with him and little does he know that he’s looking at the, the way, the truth, the life Jesus Christ, who is the only way for him to actually enter into that right relationship with God.

[00:24:58] But Jesus kind of entertains a ,little bit with him about, what it could potentially look like. And he’s like, the 10 commandments and this man actually lists off all of the commandments that have to do with action direct directly from him. Oh, I know the commandments don’t lie. Don’t commit adultery.

[00:25:20] Don’t murder. Like I’m a good person. I got it down. Jesus responds to him saying this one thing that you haven’t done, sell all that you have in come and follow me. Which I think if we were looking through this story with the lens of behavior modification as the gospel, then we would look at this and say he had too much money.

[00:25:42] So he needed to sell all of his money in order to have right relationship with God and follow Jesus. But really Jesus was reaching into the broken place of his story and saying, there’s actually a misplaced identity here. A misplaced trust that you have more faith in what you can do for yourself than in what I can unlock in the freedom for you.

[00:26:08] So we have to remove the motive that is keeping you from right relationship with me, remove the circumstance. That’s keeping you in cycles of striving and behavior and adultery really come and follow me, which is the choice. So to answer your question, this belief factor, the belief factor is absolutely essential in the process of who you’re becoming, because whatever you are beholding, you will believe.

[00:26:39] And then whatever you believe will shape your behavior. And then your behavior changes who you’re becoming. So this rich young ruler was looking at the distance between him and God, right? Relationship with God, be holding this and his belief. I need to be able to earn it. And so his behavior reflected that belief and it changed who he was become, and Jesus was offering him a different perspective, behold, this distance between you and God behold what right relationship with God should look like and what the reality of your life looks like.

[00:27:11] Believe in me, come follow me. Believe that I have sustenance and provision for you. And if he had chosen that pathway to believe Jesus, then his behavior wouldn’t have been how the story ends. This the rich young ruler does not take this pathway and he leaves broken hearted and sad and, downcast because he was like, well, there’s no way for me.

[00:27:38] And had he though believed Jesus at his word, his behavior would have been what to follow him. And following Jesus always brings you in a transformational process of becoming

[00:27:50] Erin: One of the things you said Tori was that he had more faith in himself and his money than he did and what God could do for him. And I think that’s part of I know that’s part of the struggle for me that I lose sight and think, okay, what can I do in this situation? How can I fix this? And I love that.

[00:28:12] But talking about what you behold is, and will be what you believe and how that flows into behavior. And I think what we’d be are beholding becomes twisted often in us we’re even beholding thinking like, oh, well look at my behavior.

[00:28:28] We’re having faith in that instead of having faith in who the Lord is and what he can do for us.

[00:28:35] Tori: the invitation to the rich young ruler at that moment by Jesus, come follow me.

[00:28:40] I’m going to bring you full restoration and full healing. It’s the same, it’s the same invitation for us that when we journey on that pathway, where we experience that full, not just experience with God. But also an encounter with God that leaves us changed. And then we choose every day to enter into his presence and allow him to guide our lives.

[00:29:05] It does bring full healing to our stories so that I could sit with you, Erin and I could sit with whoever’s listening to this podcast, or I could sit with someone else and I don’t have to make it all about me, where I can experience hard things in my life. And I don’t have to be derailed from the truth of who I know God is.

[00:29:24] That is not something that happens overnight. It’s also not something that anyone is perfect at, but I believe that the holy spirit wants to bring healing to the hearts of women so that they can boldly and confidently step into the gifts that God has designed them with. And the calling that is placed on each one of our lives to uniquely walk out.

[00:29:43] Erin: I love all that. Friends. I had such a great time talking with Tori and we ran out of time for this one episode to put all of our conversation in it. So we will be continuing this conversation with Tori next week’s episode. I wanted to say a quick, thanks to Tori. If you are encouraged today, would you please share this episode with a friend, a friend that needs to be encouraged that our value does not come by our actions But our value is a gift from God. if you can’t wait to hear more from Tori, I encourage you guys to check out her course.

[00:30:25] I’m going to put the link in the show notes so you can go ahead and sign up for it. There It’s called working from worth. this course gets to the heart of what many of us struggle with is do I have to work to earn something or can I let my work flow out of the worth that I’ve already been given? Tory’s given us a special offer for the listeners to this podcast. And that is to receive $20 off your purchase. if you sign up for the course be using the coupon code called all caps, C a L L E D.

[00:31:02] And that again will give you $20 off your order. Go find the link in my show notes and go check it out. I did the course myself, and it was greatly in encouragement to me. Like I said, join us back here next time, where we’ll be continuing this conversation with Tori, talking about what we be hold and that we want to be hold who God is. But until then, I wanted 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, friends and praying for you as you keep on stepping.