Posts by Brad Miller

Brad Miller 0:01
hello good people and welcome to the pathway to promise YouTube channel with me Dr Brad Miller We are here to help you overcome adversity to be a give you a word of hope and encouragement. And today’s word of hope and encouragement is aunt on the ball and on the ball I like to play golf. Not very good at it. One of the things when you play golf is your good golfing stories. I heard this great golf and story about this golfer was having just a terrible terrible day. And he you know, he knocked all over the you know, all over the fairways and into the rough. And he went over to the roof one time and his ball landed right on top of this good size ant hill. And so he got his five iron out and he took a whack at it and he blasted million ants around. And but he didn’t hit the ball, the ball didn’t go anywhere. And you know, be killing ants and flying everywhere. So he looked sized it up and he took another whack at it. blasted the head Hill again, me and dance went flying, but the ball stayed right there. If you’ve ever played golf, you know what I mean by this feeling. And then he heard one acid and another. Okay, Charlie, if we ever got to get out of here alive, you and I got to get on the ball. And so it is friends. I think I gotta get on the ball and you got to get on the ball. To get things done in life. Now one of the things I’m doing is starting this YouTube channel, where I have a podcast called pathway to promise podcast, and a blog at pathway promise.com where we tell stories and interview people who are doctors and other leaders who have overcome some sort of adversity, like overcoming the loss of a family or dreaded disease or losing your job or depression or divorce, all these type of things that happened. And we’re here to be helpful, here to be helpful. That’s my encouragement and hope to you to give you practical tools that you can hang on to, but you got to get started. So I’m starting here today with this YouTube channel. It’s Soto’s with all of us, there’s a time to think there’s a time to plan. There’s a time to kind of process at all but there’s a time to get on the ball and to do it. There’s a time to make a decision. You know, decision is when you move ahead, you cut yourself off from the past of the lingering thing and you are doing it. It’s been said I’ve heard it said that knowing something doesn’t make a difference. Knowing and doing something does make all the difference. So that’s what I’m doing here with his YouTube channel, my podcast, because I want to be an influencer on lots of folks like you. And if you want to help me be an influencer, just you know, go ahead and you know, subscribe to the channel and give us a thumbs up. That’s always helped, we’d appreciate that. But what’s the decision that you’re putting off? I bet there is one. I bet there is one regarding your family or about health situation or about your job or you know about finances about something. And if you’ve been procrastinating you know procrastinating qu about beginning a project, the only antidote to procrastination is action is action. So don’t just have around to it attitude, have a get on with it attitude. And so when you put when you die or therefore your dreams can be realized, once you start to get after and go into really get on the ball. It’s the only way to really live my friends. So I’m here to encourage you remember the pathway promise calm is as our website pathway to promise is the podcast. And we are here on the YouTube channel. pathway to promise YouTube channel to be encouragement to you to we’d love to hear from you with you comments below. Until next time, this is Dr Brad Miller encouraging you to keep your promises because there’s power in a promise kept

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Brad Miller 0:00
Back on the pathway to promise podcast with Dr. Brad Miller. It is our pleasure as always, to seek to help persons to understand that they all have a god given life of peace, prosperity, and purpose that helps them overcome adversity and achieve this peace in their life. And we’re glad to have you with us here today. And today we have just a great guest with us who’s done a lot of what we’re talking about here overcome adversity to have hope in his life and ability to share that with others. He is from Matt Crump ministries. Hashtag God’s got this His name is Matt crop. Matt, welcome to pathway to progress. Hey, thank you so much for having me today. I’m so excited to be here. It is awesome to have you here and you my audience probably can’t see you but I want them to go to your website eventually and see this awesome, awesome beard you got my man it is really they have to I’ve got so much work involved with so many to look at it you know, you got to get over there to God’s got this or what’s your website again, as well.

corrupt God God’s got this love God’s got this dot love you need to get over there and check him out lots of cool stuff on this website. It’s all about his story though. It’s about his story that mad have which is an awesome story of hope in the midst of, of challenges of adversity of things in his life so mad we I gotta say a lot about you and let’s hear from you what just tell us a little bit about your story about how you got through some really rough patches in your life and created Matt Krupp ministries and God’s got this.

Matt Crump 1:31
Thanks. Thanks, Brad. Yeah, there’s a I could probably talk for five podcasts right now. I’ve had a I’ve had I feel like a cat. I feel like I’ve had at least nine lives so far. He’s He’s really brought me through so much. I think probably where I would start would be most recent in in my life. Back it up. I’ve been a follower of Christ for for a little over 30 years and I don’t claim that I have arrived in perfection at all but

Unknown Speaker 2:00
I’m working on it.

Unknown Speaker 2:02
Yeah. On to perfection on to perfection, right. I’m working on it. I’m working on it.

Matt Crump 2:07
I’m working progress. I think, you know, back in 2011, I had to go in for a hernia surgery, had a botched surgery and had to go back to Duke to get work done. And that’s when a doctor looked at me and my wife said, we just looked at my husband’s back, she looked at and said, Oh, we can’t do the surgery that’s looked at and found out I had melanoma cancer.

had a couple of surgeries and fast forward a few months. They said things look good. I was all clear and started doing my follow up visits every six months then to a year and then finally after about three years it was over. They thought I was good. So I just went with my life. 2015 I ended up on stage at church getting ready to lead worship started coughing and started coughing up blood. That’s not good. That’s not a good now, I said the wall. This is different.

I went through and did worship got it all done. And then I’m pig at it just like I was the first time with with my back stuff. So I just went, went back to church went back to work on Monday and started having some problems started having some headaches and I went back to the house and that night, we went out with the family came home. And all I remember was the next day evidently that entire night. My family we always got together and prayed and they all came together. We all prayed together, talk together. Everything’s cool, except I don’t remember any of it.

Unknown Speaker 3:33
I remember coming home from dinner, and that was it.

Matt Crump 3:35
The next day, I started seeing flashes, lights and everything. You were kind of a blackout state or something like that, or what was going I was having. I was having seizures and I blacked out. Wow. Yeah. And I didn’t know that either. So I ran to the hospital. This is after I’d already been diagnosed with stage four cancer. It was in my adrenal gland. I’m on my leg and I had a lung tumor. So I drove to the hospital and it was a 45 minute drive.

Well, my wife works at a hospital. So I went there to replace instead, they did some work on me and the doc came in and she said, Well, I’ve got bad news for you. And I said, Okay, she said, Well, you have a bleeding brain tumor and the anus is on the way, we’re going to rush you to Duke. And I thought it was kind of a joke that because they work with Robin, that was kind of funny. I was like, Okay, this, she goes, No, I’m serious. This is bad. You have to go right now. Oh, my God. And it was crazy. Yeah. might have been an expletive or two at that moment. And yeah, we were scared and went in I had had the surgery within a day or two and, and,

and the recovery was, was the worst surgery ever had in my life with the brain surgery, it was the worst. And I could understand when people go through things like that, how they would want to kill themselves. And that is, it’s crazy. And people you know, they talk about, you know, in the Christian world, some folks they commit suicide, you go to hell, and I was, I’ve kind of re rethought that process over my life. I think

There’s there’s definitely consequences for things but sometimes people they just aren’t thinking right things just go crazy and you just don’t know me got the job. Right. But I mean, I was to the point where I wanted to kill myself I thought I couldn’t handle the pain anymore. I thought it was over. I was ready to say goodbye my kids, and I just couldn’t handle it. But But God, so he really started speaking life to me and encouraging me and I had friends that were encouraging me and that’s where where that hope button kind of kicked in. I’d already been saying God’s got this at this point. So now I had people tell him I’ll make them and by to tell me Well, you know, God’s got this you know, God’s got in my oh my god, I wish I never said that in the first place. Right? But right did and what it did was it brought a great accountability in my life, that accountability was what gave me some strength to push into to make my fight and that hope that we have on the inside. You know, I tell people all the time when it comes down to to happiness and joy. That’s one of the things I was really needing because I felt very depressed.

Unknown Speaker 6:00
I was on a lot of drugs, a lot of medics and the medicine was really messed with my head. And I felt like

Unknown Speaker 6:08
I understood the difference between happiness and joy at that moment. So happiness,

Unknown Speaker 6:11
there’s happiness and unhappiness, but in the dictionary, there’s no such thing as on joy. Right? So,

Matt Crump 6:18
you know, happiness is an emotion. And I felt like wow, okay, there’s no joy and joy as a gift of the Spirit of God, he’s already in me, that means I have joy. So I had joy even though I was in a bad situation even though things can go sour. I still had this joy and that joy really was what welled up inside of me and one of the byproducts of that was happiness. Happy Yes sir. Right and start writing songs again started digging into life. And before you know it, I’m I’m running 120,000 miles an hour again, like little squirrel that I am. So that really is what gave me some strength at that point in my life to really move into what God’s got me doing right now. And now you are a proof

Fear of hope. And yeah, I love that terminology. Well, thank you. That was definitely enough. What does it mean to you to be a purveyor of hope for others? Well, that’s that’s good question. I never really had thought of the word didn’t even go through my mind in the past. And it really just popped in my head one day it was the Lord totally. I’m just not that good. So

I looked it up in the dictionary, and I thought, Oh, my God, this is this is me. It’s, it’s a person who’s just somebody who really, really is transformed and really pushes into people’s lives and, and helps them to get to that place, right. It’s somebody who’s who Pervaiz, someone who digs in who’s who strives who moves forward who has passion, but that’s me. And my biggest thing at that point was hope. I mean, I’ve always been a type of guy who wants people to to have hope to experience that there is more there can be more.

Unknown Speaker 7:55
Look at me, I’m dying. I still have joy. I still have hope and I

Unknown Speaker 8:00
I believe that somehow, some way I’m going to survive if I don’t, I’m with Jesus. The worst thing for me is saying of mine and my kids and my wife, right. But at that point, I felt like they all know what’s going on my daughter, she says to me, which kind of bums me out a little bit, but she says, I will Dad, you know, whether you live or die, and it’s okay, I just I know where you’re gonna go. So I’m not really worried about it. I’m like, No, you need to feel bad about it.

Unknown Speaker 8:25
I’m appropriate Guild, Tara.

Unknown Speaker 8:29
Go

Matt Crump 8:30
ahead. So I think it’s powerful to have even some of that legacy already working in my family’s life. And my daughter goes after it. She’s She’s She’s an evangelist at heart, my son. He’s coming up in his 80s he followers too, but he’s finding his own. So anyway. Yeah, that’s one of those things that people always ask me. How do I do what I do? Why do I do what I do? Help me do this. Can you help me do that? And I thought, you know, that’s what it is. That’s who I am. I am. I’m a purveyor of hope. Right? Well, actually, that’s not who I am. That’s an identity question. My identity

Is that I am a child of God. I’m a follower of Christ, right. And so the byproduct of that is I get to do things I get to be a pastor, I get to be a worship leader, I get to be a speaker, I get to be an author, I get to be a songwriter, I get to do these interviews, like I get to do all this kind of stuff. I get to be a purveyor of hope. Those are things I do, but who I am, is a follower of Christ. I am a child of God, and He tells me who I am. That’s my identity. So if you lose certain things, that’s what helped me to feel like if I die, I want okay, because my identity is not wrapped up in those things. I can’t go there. So that’s, you know, that’s the thing now you have a sense of purpose and direction and meaningfulness in your life. Whereas if you chose to, you could let you know that cancer diagnosis and all the pain of brain surgery that could beat you up and put you down and out. And the thing is, it does for a lot of people, doesn’t it Matt?

Unknown Speaker 9:51
meaninglessness. Yeah, I have to make the choice. I have to I have to overcome adversity, and we have an adversary. So he will do things to try

Unknown Speaker 10:00
distract and destroy. So things will happen that comes across my path to make me think about stuff I could I could think about death I can think about leaving whatever. And the other the other adversary we have I know a question you’ve got coming my way of I’m skipping ahead to another answer but

Unknown Speaker 10:18
is that we have two adversaries really in life the two biggest things Satan, of course, and and me, you were we are we are our worst advocate. We are the most evil things on the planet, right we we need a transformation through Christ to be changed from from good to bad, a new creation, right? But our nature, in itself is sinful evil, we want to do bad things. We want what we want. So I had to overcome myself. I have to overcome myself to which is one of the biggest obstacles I have. What were some of the things you did were some of the bold actions you took to overcome yourself and to push back against the evil one. What are some of the things you did? Yeah, I think well accountability and personal relationship.

Unknown Speaker 11:00
They’re vital. When people have a vested interest in you, it really, it really becomes intentional transformation at that point. It can be like an iron sharpening iron scenario. It could be a mentor or somebody that’s pouring his life into you. So, I’m all about this, I’m all about this.

Unknown Speaker 11:22
If I don’t have to take the long road or the wrong road, show me how to do it. Right? Always have an adversary, he’ll do anything, like I said, to do to destroy us to take us to a different area. But if you live from a posture of confidence, and faith and accountability and love and all those types of things, it’ll propel you into another. Another area of life that you’re not in one used to come to the other stuff. It’s like a there’s an old song that came out a long time ago. And it says Some Glad Morning, when the witness life is over. Yeah, I will fly away. Okay. I think that

Unknown Speaker 12:00
The craziest song of planet Earth I’m sorry to offend everybody here’s the deal. I don’t want to wait to start flying. I was promised abundant life and it wasn’t for the by and by it’s for right now on this planet I can enjoy life right? So people say, Man, I hear you’re dying of cancer doctor says you got eight months to live, you’re dying of cancer, okay? I don’t choose to die of cancer. I choose to live life and there’s a big difference. It’s a mindset and a decision and I’ve made a decision that I’m going to live life I’m going to live life to the last breath I take whether I die of cancer whether I die of a bus hitting me whether I die because I’m 175 years old my god that’d be crazy but

Unknown Speaker 12:40
but that’s that’s that’s living abundantly, man where to go. It’s how you do it. It’s it’s jet fuel. Those relationships, those accountabilities those moments is a jet fuel to transformation. It really helps you to overcome adversity. But in order to do that, you have to be empowered. And I take it you know, we’ve talked a lot about faith.

Unknown Speaker 13:00
Already but you are empowered by, by your spiritual life by God in your life that’s given you a sense of your purpose and direction. Just say a little bit more about your spiritual life, about God’s place in your life and how that empowers you to do some of the things you’ve been doing to be helpful to other help be helpful and helpful to others. Sure. I told you about the whole nine lives thing a minute ago, which I have to write down because I never said that. That’s a good one. write that one down, man. I like it’s funny. But it’s true. I when I before I knew Christ, I really didn’t know much about him at all. I didn’t I wasn’t raised a Christian. I didn’t go to church when I was a kid, a couple visits here and there but nothing, no intentional and serious.

Unknown Speaker 13:41
And I ended up into a life of drugs, alcohol, women, the whole the whole scene, and I loved it until I got to a certain point where I just felt like I needed more didn’t know what it was.

Unknown Speaker 13:55
I couldn’t get drunk anymore. I couldn’t get as high anymore. All these issues. I wasn’t satisfied.

Unknown Speaker 14:00
With the with the relationships anymore, just whatever. And somebody talked to me about Jesus ended up getting stuck in the desert I was in the military and we were in the desert got assigned on guard duty for all of the tanks in the middle of desert for one week me and one other guy and one other guy was a follower of Christ and I was not so and he was also a former drug addict so God kind of trapped you there sounds like a trap me trap me good and I got a lot of great information great a lot. A lot of great.

Unknown Speaker 14:33
Life ported to be was out there. I did not make a decision to follow Christ what was out there that week. But a few days later, we were back out to a mission. And at that mission, I just could not stop thinking about everything you said. It’s like everything was on blast in my head. I heard every word he was saying over and over and over again. I was ready for a relationship I wanted things change and I read to his to his vehicle as a man let’s do this. I’m ready and hate took me and we started walking

Unknown Speaker 15:00
way from all of our unit and we walked up to this big mountain in the desert. And we got to the top of the mountain, it was literally Have you ever been in the desert before at night time is gorgeous. But we got to tell us a mountain was a full moon and the moon was beaming right down to the peak of the top of this mountain and we stood there and that’s where I gave my life to Christ. So I literally have had a mountaintop experience where Jesus

Unknown Speaker 15:24
changed me instantly. I was a drug addict, alcoholic, womanizer, did all those types of things, smoking two packs of cigarettes a day. instantly. Everything that I had in my life, that was those addiction, those problems was gone. Gone. That is, and it was amazing. Now there was a hole there because there was a lot of stuff that I had going on, on and you know, God’s pretty smart. He’s got some things figured out. He’s way better than we are. And that’s another little statement I can make has ever occurred to you that nothing’s ever occurred to God. Right. So it’s not like

Unknown Speaker 15:54
it’s another good one. I like that one. It’s not like you said, I don’t know what to do here. Matt. Let me figure this out. Now he already knew what’s going on. Right. So

Unknown Speaker 16:00
He gave me a new addiction basically, I just could not get enough of the Bible was written I was writing songs and all these kind of things and, and that was really a core moment for me and my faith with Christ that that he really poured into me and I gained so much from him during that period of my life. I wish sometimes I can go back to that moment and be that good. I’m not as good as I was then. I try you have to come off the mountain sometime don’t you had another real world and you had your Bernie bush experience? And now here you are doing some other stuff. Yeah, he’s he’s given me so many great opportunities have been in the ministry. Almost immediately when that happened. I was. I was a white boy and all in all black church. I was the only white boy and they let me do the announcements.

Unknown Speaker 16:46
In the announcement ministry, it was pretty powerful. I was I had it all down loss up today. Today at 12 o’clock

Unknown Speaker 16:55
lunch today. All right

Unknown Speaker 16:58
down

Unknown Speaker 17:00
Color response stuff down all that good stuff. It was good. So it all started and then just went there. So I was selling God sound like you had some pretty powerful relationship with your buddy in the Army or your military and then you had these relationships in the church or part of Tell me about it. Let me It was great. I moved in with the pastor right? Oh,

Unknown Speaker 17:21
well, I just want to talk about that for a minute. Let’s talk about the power of relationships or about how the power of relationships whether it be you know, family relationships or friends or influencers or things like this. The power of relationships to help people overcome adversity help people to have true life change to have hope as a source of hope to me, but I relationships.

Unknown Speaker 17:42
Yeah, I think starting off with that moment,

Unknown Speaker 17:46
I learned the value of relationships. I really, I had some I passed I didn’t. I didn’t offer myself too many relationships. While I was growing up. I guess I was an angry kid and didn’t have a very good home life.

Unknown Speaker 18:00
A lot of it was my fault. But so I wasn’t really good at relationships. I had some I had some people that were close to me but not you know, I didn’t understand the depth of it until I moved in with the pastor. And I consider her my spiritual father. He passed away Unfortunately, not too long ago, but he was, he was a powerful influence in my life. So he, we lived together, we ate together, we prayed together, we worship together, we were together,

Unknown Speaker 18:25
and he could, he could tell things that were going on in my life and be able to offer suggestions and help and hope during those moments that we’d had some phenomenal conversations that really were really fundamental in shaping the who have me in my walk with Christ. You know, I’ve learned a lot of things over the years, but it was definitely that that moment that he helped me do some things which helped me understand the value of relationships and I value so much. We have people around our home all the time, we got people that we’ve always had somebody live with us, my wife and I we’ve always had a home big enough to have somebody else

Unknown Speaker 19:00
Because we just feel like it’s important to pour into people’s lives and at times we want to be alone you like to walk around your underwear once in a while but

Unknown Speaker 19:09
you know that’s a visual that’s a visual image I could have probably have always had some Yeah, I love the beard man but though you gave me a visual image I could just do without their my man so

Unknown Speaker 19:19
sorry.

Unknown Speaker 19:21
It’s it’s a boxer briefs. So anyway, I feel better now.

Unknown Speaker 19:28
But that’s that’s what I understood. The value of relationship and definitely the core of the difference between religion and relationship. Obviously, you you’re a follower of Christ, you understand, I’m saying but I really, I really learned that religion is really what put Jesus on the cross and killed them. But it was relationship that allowed him to stay there he would, he could have come off the cross, sure, but it was it was the relationship that kept him there. And that’s powerful. I want to be a person that has that kind of relationship with people. I want to offer.

Unknown Speaker 20:00
That kind of relationship to people. I can only go so far because I’m human, he’s the best at it. So for me to be able to introduce people to him and then allow him to work through me as he lives in me as he lives in you it’s we do think you can only do something through us if he first does something in us right so it’s awesome because he did something in me now he could do something through me and I’m so thankful that he took an idiot like me and he’s using me to to bring transformation in this world. I’m flawed that’s the crazy thing is I’ve got flaws, I’ve got issues got problems. I pray I repented those things and he still uses me His grace is so amazing and I’m so thankful for what he is able to do through me and how he brought brought transformation in my life that now to other people, you know, that’s awesome. I’ll let slip the, you know, the primacy of grace that you’re talking about there because without that, man, we’re lost. I know I’m nothing and

Unknown Speaker 20:54
you’re, you know, despite of your underwear, your beard you’re not much either without grace.

Unknown Speaker 21:00
So, but yeah, you got some cool stuff that you’re offering to people. And I was interested in how what kind of things you’re doing now to be to live this out this life of hope and of grace. And again, what are some of the disciplines that you have? Or some of the things you’re offering your website? What are some things that you are helping to, to speak this word of hope into people’s lives? Sure, I guess the first part you said discipline, most important thing is my, my personal relationship with Christ. If I don’t, if I don’t maintain that discipline in my life, then nothing else is going to work. So I, I need to spend time with him not because I have to because I want to. I’ve learned long time ago that I don’t have to punch a clock with Jesus. I don’t have to read X amount of chapters a day and pray X amount of minutes a day to be good before his eyes because I’m no good. I’m his son. He loves me and anytime is good. So I value that with him and he speaks in my life. So I have a chance to read his word, to do studies, to share things with people that he takes to my heart when it hits

Unknown Speaker 22:00
happens. And he empowers me with, with, with faith with knowledge with competence I can share with other people so and as a result of that, I was able to, to move into a different area of my life, which is this is pretty tough. I’ve been a pastor for for almost 30 years. And about a year. Well, let’s see here 2016 two years ago may, I really felt like when they told me that I had eight months to live. I didn’t get scared, like I was gonna die a little bit I did. But the biggest thing that happened to me at that point was if I die in eight months, if I’m dead, do I feel that I have accomplished what I’m supposed to accomplish while I’m here on this planet? And I felt at that point that the answer was no. And it blew my socks off. So I prayed about several things that I wanted to do for God. And where are these ideas? Which one where do want me to go Lord, right. I was a pastor. I could stay at the church I was at. I could, I could put my name in the hat and go pastor someplace else.

Unknown Speaker 23:00
Do Move, move somewhere, I could follow my singing career and follow up through those things and do singing. I wrote all the time. So I could write a book. I have a desire to be with people all the time, I’ve had many businesses, and I had to shut down my last business because of the cancer and it it stopped my opportunity to have an influx of people coming to me that I could talk to all the time. As you can tell, I like to talk. So I thought, here’s what I’ll do. I’ll I’ll do a food truck. I thought that would be a good calling. Now that’s a new what I love it, but that’s

Matt Crump 23:34
the food truck. I was gonna I was gonna cook I love to cook and I got to talk to people and get paid. I thought this is awesome. I’m gonna do that right? Yeah, my wife didn’t like the idea that we got shot down. There you go. So in the in the line of all that stuff that happened one day I email people do things all the time I sent an email to a few publishing companies trying to get some ideas of what the steps to start writing a book. And I got a phone call from a gentleman and within a matter of a few minutes

He had heard my story and, and said that he really wanted to pour into me and then I needed write this book. And that’s when the book for God’s got this was born. And within a matter of a couple of months I had resigned from the church, I just felt as if I needed to take, I’m weaker. Now my body is weaker, I only have ability to do so much during the day, I have chronic fatigue, I’ve got pain issues, I got all kinds of stuff as a result of the cancer. So I didn’t think that I could be effective as a pastor and give everything I needed to do at the church and in the book and and pour my heart and life into that and then possibly go around to speak. So I made a choice to step down. And over that period of a year, God has really been changing me and preparing me for for something else. Everything I’ve been through my entire life gets to this point now with this new ministry called hashtag God’s got this and the new book coming out. Obviously God’s got this has some tools in there that help people identify moments in their life, that God may

Unknown Speaker 25:00
I have been speaking to them about about something, though, identify what that was that God was speaking and find out how that is can give them hope and transformation in their life. We can work through a worksheet and the tools that I provide help to reveal those moments in their life. I call it hope revealed, it gives them a chance to be

Unknown Speaker 25:18
I’m sorry, my speech is jacked up once and I apologize. It gives them a chance to walk in their transformation to own what God’s done, their life is powerful. But give us an example how that might work. If someone was going to read your book, or to apply your principles here to their life, let’s just say that they are going through a divorce or some other bad thing in their life. What are some things that they could apply from your book and for your, from your God’s got this process here? Well, I can give you a How much longer do we have? Oh, good. I’m good, man. Alright, so here’s a little here’s a little story I’ll use as an example in the in the book I wrote a chapter when I was eight years old. So we’ll do a cliff note version of this for the young people out there listening. Cliff Notes is the way you should

Unknown Speaker 26:00
cheated in school. So anyway, before, before you Google that you had to go to Cliff Notes. Yeah, there was no internet. So we bought Cliff Notes.

Unknown Speaker 26:10
Alright, so Cliff Notes is a little book that basically outlines the big book. All right now, you know, alright, so the cliff note version is, what was I talking about in the first place? You’re at eight years old. You had something happened to you? Yeah. And I decided one day that it was fall, and I wanted to build a birdhouse. So I I’m always been a dreamer. I’m always this creative dreamer kind of guy. So I decided to go out there and build a birdhouse. So I go out to the garage, and I found some wood. And I didn’t see a sock or anything, but I found dad’s toolbox and inside dad’s toolbox was this little little hammer about maybe eight inches long and one side had a hammer head on one side. I was an axe head on the other side. I thought axe would birdhouse right, so

Unknown Speaker 26:57
I start, I start building a birdhouse. I get

Unknown Speaker 27:00
piece of wood get lined up. My eight year old mind right I’m getting where I want to cut and I start whacking away at this thing. Well, there’s only one thing that was a hindrance between me whacking away it

Unknown Speaker 27:12
was coming off I keep going

Unknown Speaker 27:14
index finger. Yeah, there’s that.

Unknown Speaker 27:18
And I slammed right into my hand and busted it wide open and I put it in my mouth and I’m running to the house and my little sister was in there and I told her to be quiet. I didn’t want to get in trouble. I’m looking for band aids and I’m bleeding everywhere. Get into the bathroom. I got into the same blood everywhere. I got toilet paper all over it. I couldn’t find a band aid to save. Finally my mom hears all the commotion she comes up she goes nuts. She calls my dad I think I’m gonna die today. This is the day I’m dying. It wasn’t gonna be the birdhouse. My dad’s gonna kill me. There you go. So go to the hospital. Get the stitches right, go back. Alright, so that that’s a story that happened in the book fast forward. There’s a guy in the Bible and the Old Testaments name was Saul and he was a king and

Unknown Speaker 28:00
He went to battle this one time did a lot of battles and used to win a lot of times. But he went out to this one battle and as he was preparing for the fight the enemy the Philistines were coming and they had thousands and thousands of people lining up out there to fight this battle. And Saul had like 3000 people or something like that right so he had this little army they have this huge army but Saul’s taking no big deal God always gives us the victory anyway, so it was go down there and kick the butts and go home you know, big deal. So what happened was the solo soldiers started thinking a little different they saw they said, saw you realize just like 30,000 people down there, right? It’s like Yeah, no problem. So overnight, like everybody went AWOL, was gone. They’re only left with like 300 people, right? Got a few people. So sounds like

Unknown Speaker 28:44
crap. What are we gonna do? So So Saul gets up there? And he says, All right, what we have to do is go to fight but we got to wait because Sam supposed to show up before we can go out. Sam, this guy, this prophet, Sam, Samuel, and Samuel supposed to pray over Saul and give the Lord

Unknown Speaker 29:00
Words word before he goes out and fights. So someone sitting there he’s thinking, well, Sam’s not here soon, but here it’s getting later and later, we’ve got to fight this battle. He said, I know what I’ll do. I know exactly how Sam is going to pray. I know he’s gonna say I’ll do the prayer and then we’ll go get the Lord’s blessing go fight right so sounds like Lord give us the victory Baba blazer afraid it goes in the name of just give me wrap it up in the name of Oh my god, he looks at Guess Who’s there? Sam.

Unknown Speaker 29:27
And Sam says, What in the world are you doing? You know, you went out or this is not the way it’s supposed to happen. Now you’re gonna lose everything you had your kingdom is over. It’s done. Right. So what happened is what had happened was Saul decided to build the birdhouse. He didn’t want to wait for dad to come home with the salt and help him to build the thing and do it right. Instead he wanted to push forward do his own thing. do his own agenda. Not wait not listen, not have patience. Right. So what the Lord did for me was I had a chance to to reflect on that moment. I had a chance to to receive

Unknown Speaker 30:00
Some some thought process of teaching from the Lord and a chance to move forward in my life realizing that wow, that story back then is taught me that I need to learn how to have patience, how to listen how to wait for certain things to happen that I don’t want to rush it but i can i can do things the way God wants me to do and it was a moment in my life that brought some transformation it’s a God’s got this moment. So the book is full of stories like that. And there’s a whole chapter about the tools that I’m talking about reflect receive respond for the three tools about God’s got this moments and there’s a journal at the end of every chapter that will that will help people to go through what story I gave them to find their own help them to think of their birdhouse moment there whatever moment and they can go through the tools that I provide to help them think of their aha moment their Kairos their Wow, this I can’t believe that that’s what really happened in my life what that meant, right? So it’s really fun. That is really awesome information right? That’s good. That’s gonna be helpful to people in that book will be coming out before you know it.

Unknown Speaker 31:00
We’ll put connections to your book in our in our show notes. But one of things we do here in the pathway to promise we were like to talk about living a life of peace and prosperity and purpose. So I just want to ask you, Matt, what brings you peace? Wow, great question.

Unknown Speaker 31:16
Short answer God.

Unknown Speaker 31:19
Good Cop Out For some folks I realized but he is peace himself. He is PC is loving and to have him in my life. I don’t know how I would have peace without him. I told you that that moment where I was kind of out of my mind with the drugs that I was on got all depressed and all those things were happening. I, I had an element of me that was still sound enough to say, snap out of this man, what are you doing? And that was the Holy Spirit. That was the father. It was God in me. That was the peace of the Lord, the love of God that was bringing life to me that I would not have had without him. And he does that over and over and over again in my life.

Unknown Speaker 32:00
It’s awesome. I know when I don’t have peace if I don’t have peace, that’s a big difference do so sure. He definitely provides that to me. That’s great. How would you define prosperity? Well, I think prosperity obviously is way more than finances. I consider prosperity, a healthy life with family and friends that you love. I believe that that is great wealth. I believe that’s prosperity. I believe when you have those things in order when when that life pattern is established, and you know, one of these other things I’m get ready to teach. It’s called the flip which talks about faith, legacy, identity and purpose when you have those four things established in your life. It opens the doors for incredible things to happen in your life. It opens the doors for prosperity and in finances with business in life, I think it’s important to to control your money. My wife and I work very hard for many, many years to become debt free. And we are my wife teaches Financial Peace now and and we have a chance to pour that in other people’s lives. So one of the things that day at Dave Ramsey always says if you want to

Unknown Speaker 33:00
live like you’ve never lived before. You gotta live like you’ve never lived before. And it’s a choice, right? And I feel like to be able to be prosperous in those areas and to go after your dreams. I’m a dreamer. I’m an entrepreneur, I want to do a business and other business plans that I have. And God opens those doors for me to be able to walk in those businesses, even in the ministry, this nonprofit organization that we have now with Matt crumb ministries, he’s opened up some incredible doors for me to do what he’s calling me to do. And equip me to be able to do it it you know, you can’t do it for free, right? So he has to provide a way and that’s just what he does. You gotta follow him where he goes, and he’ll, he’ll provide with it. Matt, what’s your What’s your purpose?

Unknown Speaker 33:40
And my purpose, my purpose is to live for Him. That’s the only reason I’m here. And he gives me all kinds of ways to do that while I’m on this planet. But ultimately, the only reason I’m left here, I could have been dead so many times, Brad, I could have been dead in bad drug deals. I could have been dead. Well, I was in the Gulf War.

Unknown Speaker 34:00
I could have been dead in accidents with car accident. That’s where I almost went off the road in the trees. I could have been dead with I can so many ways with cancer already could have killed me several times. I’m already told I’m supposed to be dead. I’m a dead man walking. So now I mean, he gives me life. Right. So his purpose is in me to live for Him and I’m, I want to do the best I can to do that. Absolutely. Well, we are certainly enjoying you living out your purpose through Matt Crump ministries. Hashtag God’s got this. We look forward to hearing more from you. And if people want to understand what you’re up to these days, man, how can they get ahold of you? How can they learn what you’re up to what you’re working on? Tell us how can people make a connection with you? Yeah, that’d be fantastic. Thanks for that opportunity is very simple. You can go to God’s got this dot love. And when you get there within a couple of moments, the little screen of pop up and asked you to subscribe to our mailing list. And when you do that, we have a magazine that comes out once a week called hope revealed and hope revealed is a

Matt Crump 35:00
Small easing that goes over the men’s ministry that we offer to everybody for free every week, kind of has a theme for every week. So this week’s theme actually is why. So on Monday, you get the magazine Tuesday we have a podcast called hope revealed. And on Wednesday we have a YouTube show called hashtag God’s got this stories. It is it’s video stories about people’s lives and transitions about what they’re God’s got this moment, whatever that situation was some great stories on our YouTube channel. Thursdays the God’s got this blog Friday is another YouTube show called God’s got this meaningful moments where we wrap up the week so we have all kinds of ways for people to get connected great resources on the website, and several things besides the book which get ready to come out. I’m so excited about that. That some other resources that are coming out now that are just going to be so exciting and brings such transformation to people’s lives. We’re stoked so you can get all that information through the website God’s got this dot love. We look forward to doing that with the connections to all that on our website pathway promise. com

Brad Miller 36:00
It’s been our honor pleasure and I’m just jacked up to be I spent some time with with Matt cook with Matt clump and his back crop ministries God’s got this. Thanks, man.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Unknown 0:00
pathway to promise podcast episode number 38 leaving a legacy of purpose with Bill McConnell author of conquer what’s next

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once you can’t hear yourself everything else becomes possible your biggest enemies you

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Hi I’m Patty raucous artist and author from rocks tell stories calm and author of He is risen rocks tell the story of Easter I help empower and transform people by playing with rocks. Dr. Brad Miller helps to empower and transform through the power of stories told right here on the pathway to promise podcast helping you uncover your promise like a peace, prosperity and purpose.

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You’re on the pathway to promise with Dr. Brad Miller. Brad believes every person has a god given promised life of peace, prosperity and purpose and that you must have a plan and a guide.

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To get there the pathway to promise podcast Not only is your guide through the wilderness of depression and disappointment that stand between you and your promise life but also brings you insights and direction from inspiring successful thought leaders who have transformed their lives. Welcome to the pathway to promise now here’s Brad

Unknown 1:20
the pathway to promise podcast is brought to you did today by the legacy of purpose virtual summit led by Bill McConnell from Bill McConnell dot m e during the week of March 18 to 20 seconds. This is a live virtual summit where 12 people from diverse backgrounds and perspectives will present insight and challenge along the idea of living your life of true purpose This is a faith based series that brings into focus specific areas and unique viewpoints pursue in life purpose that everyone wants to discover and live by you could just some this specific areas covered will be

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Marriage and business workplace personal restaurants restoration and having true personal value to connect up with the virtual the legacy of purpose virtual summit you can head over to our our website pathway promise.com slash 038 for more information about the legacy of purpose virtual summit our focus here on this day

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in our process our 40 day way process of improving your life is to have a life of purpose, a life where you thought things out and will you have a life where you are making your life happen intentionally having a plan, having a specific plan, then working that plan in order to make your life better, a whole part of the 40 day way of building your life.

Unknown 3:00
peace, prosperity and purpose is how we can use it plan to in a relatively short amount of time to move through adversity to achieve our promise, life of peace, prosperity, and purpose. That’s what we’re all about here at the pathway to promise podcast with Dr. Brad Miller is helping you move through this process. That’s my mission. My focus in life is to teach the teacher, the coach you and to be helpful to you in your life to move through adversity, marital problems, financial reversals, health related things,

Unknown 3:35
relationship issues, to achieve your life, a peace, prosperity and purpose. I do that through the teaching that I doing here on a regular basis during the month of March and April of 2019, where every day we’re having something to come out to be helpful to you. And one of the great things we can do to be helpful to us also bringing great guests and authors who could help you to find things in your life as well. Bill McConnell is one of those guys

Unknown 4:00
Bill McDonald him he is his website and he is an author and a leader and a teacher and a blogger and podcaster and he is processed a lot of things in his life and but it boils down to this about living a life of purpose. And he’s put together a legacy of purpose virtual summit that you’re going to want to check out. And I hope that you will. But right now friends, let’s learn a lot more about Bill McConnell and how to live a life of purpose as we get into our interview with Bill because right now

Unknown 4:36
the McConnell is an incredible author and leader and teacher and a person who has also owns a Jeep Wrangler and loves to do that type of goes back roading with his with his jeep outdoors guy lives in Colorado and he has a goal of helping you to move from wishing to winning and the most important areas of your life. And in that process, he

Unknown 5:00
As a blogger and a podcaster, and a speaker and author, and he’s written a couple books together surprisingly simple secrets for loving your wife forever and more recent title, conquer what’s next to scheme your dream and get your rear end gear and gain the grit to go there. And he also is having is also has the upcoming legacy of purpose virtual summit lots of things going on your life bill McConnell Welcome to pathway to promise. Thank you Brad. It’s my pleasure to be with you today man. Awesome. I am so glad you’re here today. And we can chat a little bit about what you’re up to and and what sort of things you’re working on, but also what you have to offer to some folks here some great things here. But to me a little bit of background about you, Bill, how did you end up where you’re at right now, what’s a little bit of your history? How did you end up doing all this writing and teaching in podcasting and, and all this other stuff that you’re working on here? Well, after spending a little bit of time in school at a very, very small Bible College in New Brunswick, Canada. I was a youth pastor for 23

Unknown 6:00
years right which and youth pastor terms is a really long time

Unknown 6:05
during that entire time I never want to learn how to play the guitar

Unknown 6:11
you’re using it before where youth pastor myself and usually that goes, you know, useful to have one was attached to your hip because I never had a guitar playing either but I was a disc jockey, that was my thing. So, okay. Okay. So 23 years as a youth pastor, and what happened? Well, I stepped away from ministry. I got into a situation where myself and the pastor where we’re more at odds

Unknown 6:37
that then actually working together and I felt it was just time to do something else. I just I was really getting on the edge of being burned out. Okay, so I stepped out of ministry took a job at at the hospital as a program coordinator. I was there for three and a half years and then they cut 60% of our department.

Unknown 6:59
I was part of that

Unknown 7:00
60% that as we’re all of a sudden your life changed when your whole situation when upside down did it pretty much did

Unknown 7:09
I was unemployed for a little bit of time and then I took a job at a at a State Children’s Home for children that were too

Unknown 7:17
too hard for the for the foster care system really rough kid we’re talking kids from five years to 14 years of age and I was there for a period of time and then the state close the entire facility down there you went one good time to another didn’t you? My goodness I’ve not been fired I’ve just been

Unknown 7:38
cut back

Unknown 7:40
into one into unemployment as it were still does not feel good at all. Yeah, I went through a period of time where I really struggled with finding a new groove like youth ministry was was my my passion, my love I was successful in it.

Unknown 8:00
Loved hanging with the kids I love being with the kids and putting my life and the life of Christ into these kids and and when I stepped out of that I felt a little bit lost and then after one cut back after another cut back I find myself just sitting at home doing nothing and had no clue what to do.

Unknown 8:19
I was

Unknown 8:21
I was a day away from suicide okay I found myself one morning I was I couldn’t wait for my wife to leave to go to work my daughter was was off at university and so I was all alone and I curled up in the corner of the living room name I cried for about two hours uncontrollably, just completely lost and and finally just kind of sat up and said,

Unknown 8:50
I don’t know maybe one more day

Unknown 8:52
and that was that was kind of it maybe, maybe, and then I figured let will let I let me do something. So So let me just be clear for a second.

Unknown 9:00
You were really at a point where you were actually not only having some passing thoughts, you were kind of making some plans are really getting kind of serious about it here. It was at the point where if there was a firearm in the house, it would have been maybe a different story. Okay. Well, but but where I was at the time,

Unknown 9:19
okay, this is what I this is what I feel like doing them. But I had no great way to do it. Yeah. Which is which was very providential looking back and I just decided, I said, I just got to figure out do something and I thought, well, if I can’t find a job and if I if I can’t step back into ministry and be effective in a full time church ministry position then I’m I just got to figure out something to do. So I poured myself into being a host husband okay, but doesn’t sound very very exciting but with my wife making the money at that point in time I gotta make her life easier. Yeah.

Unknown 10:00
So So I started doing things around the house just to make her life easier. When she came home, it was easier for her. I can go into all kinds of detail, but you can. It came to a point where I where I wrote a book about it. My first book called together

Unknown 10:18
actually started that actually started when in year seven where I was pouring so much of my life and youth ministry I almost lost my wife. Okay, which is really scary. And I talked to coming back your job kind of overcomes your your family. I’ve understand that been there myself. But yeah, right. So with that, I basically just said one more day. Let me see what I can do today. One more day, one more day became one more week and I slowly built back into my life as a sense of purpose. And it started with my wife. It started with my family and then it started to spread to how can I help others? How can I help others? That may be a bit

Unknown 11:00
In the same situation me How can I help husbands that are may be missing the point with their wife they think everything’s fine because I thought everything was fine and in my marriage it right up until the point where my wife said she wanted a divorce.

Unknown 11:15
It got your attention apparently yes it did. Yes it did. Wow. And we didn’t we didn’t have children at that time, it would have been very easy for him to walk away you know, we wouldn’t even have thought over the dog I would have had the dog

Unknown 11:28
but we we’ve been married for 38 plus years now. That’s awesome. Everything is going great. Well that’s great. So in part of the process here we want to talk about is

Unknown 11:38
you know, we all of us have these really powerful obstacles and challenges that we’ve that we face and and if you’re at a point of you know, even considering suicide and a female and considering divorce and all the other things that you’ve described there you’re at a different place now apparently I’m in a much much different place. Yeah, thank

Unknown 12:00
We want to talk a little bit about how you got from where you were to where you are.

Unknown 12:06
It sounds like so what would you say? You said you, you know, had to take one day at a time, one day became a week and so on. And you did some specific things regarding caring for your wife. What bill would you say were a couple of maybe the bold actions the things you took that really broke the pattern for you that helped you to move out a word that stuck place that place of that Malaysia or attitude someplace different just to get you started in the process of pathway or some of the things that you did, I started thinking

Unknown 12:38
real specifically, I’m here I am here for purpose and the purpose isn’t a job and the purpose isn’t a position and the purpose isn’t a ministry. There’s a purpose within me. There’s a reason why I’m here. It’s not that I’ve lost it. I just had my eyes blinded to it.

Unknown 13:00
And I started to do some just some basic things I just started to pursue the concept of the idea and what what is my contribution for the rest of my life? What am I going to do and one thing I love to do, I’m a planner I love to plan it’s crazy I struggle sometimes in execution but I am a master planner I’m a master planner to the point where I said I’m going to become a certified project manager okay which I am I love to plan things and so I just started planning my life a whole lot better one of the things that is really kept me solid and kept me going and moving is a morning routine okay good what morning Tell me about it a little bit even go deeper on that you I’m after bold actions that we take. And this sounds like one of these things you did in good a little more discipline in your life. Tell us a little bit about how you actually do your morning routine. I woke up in the middle of the night and decided to stay up It seems a little bit random.

Unknown 14:00
But it gets very specific. I went downstairs and I sat on the sofa and watch TV at four in the morning the dumbest thing in the world. I just started waking up early in the morning and I said well, there’s a reason for me to wake up I’m going to start making it purposeful. So I created for myself a morning routine, my routine that started then and has

Unknown 14:21
and goes even even today, even this morning I get up I take a journal and I write I’ve got two pages two sides of a journalist for things that go on it on the one side, I write down a portion of Scripture and I just kind of right and go a little deep into that portion of Scripture whether it’s three verses five verses or just one verse. Sometimes I stick on one verse for four or five days because I’m just stuck there and I want to get everything out of it. Under that I write down my prayers pressure my wife pressure my daughter, prayers for projects, prayers for myself, prayers for others on the other side of the page.

Unknown 15:00
I’m very specific. I write down the same thing. Every morning, I write down a statement that it evolves. But right now, it’s pretty solid as to how I feel. And to have my purpose is, and I say that to myself every morning, I write it down every morning for very specific purpose. I want it to be the primary thing that drives the rest of my day. Under that I read just a little bit about what happened that hang on a second there. Bill, you said you had this very specific state of that you write every day? Is this a continuous statement or just like one for each phase of your life? Or that has that specific statement? Has it changed over time was just like a mission statement type of thing or affirmation. You could say you could say it’s a mission today, but you could say it’s affirmation. And I’ve got it right here. And I can read it. If you don’t mind. I would love to hear it. Okay, this is what I write this down every day. Don’t just say it but I read it them because writing is it is a very powerful thing. I don’t type it out. I write it out and I’m kind of stuck on that I’m going to stick with it.

Unknown 16:00
This is this is what I do. Every day. I write this down and say I am a speaker, author and life coach who serves growth minded people aspiring to become their best selves. I help them discover their personal life map and embrace the journey ahead. By becoming a conquering spirit over self and circumstances. My passion is to empower a movement of strong fearless conquerors of action, and like the result of which the world cannot ignore. That’s awesome. And I noticed that you turn this your statement of motivation, you know, some people call something like a like a mission statement or a credo or something like that, but you call it your statement of motivation is tell me a little bit about that. Is that to motivate yourself or to motivate your people that you serve, or How’s that?

Unknown 16:53
Well, one thing I love to do is when I was talking about planning right me it has to do with helping other people.

Unknown 17:00
The very fruit Ironically, the very first weekend I was ever a youth pastor in a church fresh out of college, I had all these ideas and all these thoughts and minds. And there was a special speaker the church. I don’t remember her name. I remember she’s a female. No clue. She was she said one thing to me. She said, find a need and meet it.

Unknown 17:21
And I thought that was the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. Because I was just at a school and thought I knew it all. Of course and later in life. The more you think about it, that’s the best thing you can do in ministry, find a need and meet it. And I love I live to serve and help other people.

Unknown 17:40
I don’t have to be the guy up front or anything I live to serve and help others starting with my wife and her job starting with my daughter and moving up to everything else that I do. I want to help other people and that’s become one of the primary driving purposes of my life. Currently. I want to I want to be remembered.

Unknown 18:00
As someone who helps people and made them feel better and made the connected if you have a legacy of helping others that’s pretty awesome thing and you started by being very intentional each day and you sell it either you write out this statement a motivation right that long and did you journals it right every day that’s awesome that’s awesome How do you rely just as you talk about writing a bit of Scripture and studying scripture and using a long form journal or a journal written journal with these four quadrants

Unknown 18:30
part of that

Unknown 18:32
so that’s some taking some some great you know action that is very

Unknown 18:40
oriented towards you know actual physical activities right and trying to get at you getting up early and you know, physically take them in the extra friday so, one let’s talk about your inner life for just a second about what spiritual forces or where do you draw your power from in order to motivate you to

Unknown 18:59
do these changes and

Unknown 19:00
Your life and able to help others what your source of power. My primary source of power is my relationship with Christ

Unknown 19:07
as a believer. I don’t just believe I believe in intentionally unintentionally. I’m committed to to expanding and sharing the love of Christ with everyone in anyone I mean, which kind of comes down to the well serving,

Unknown 19:24
I can get up and I can preach all day long. But I really love I think this is a,

Unknown 19:31
a modified quote. And Francis of Assisi who said in everything everywhere, preach the gospel and if absolutely necessary use words. Yeah, absolutely. That’s awesome. That is awesome. So that that’s great. So

Unknown 19:46
and how do you you find strengthen that that when the when challenging times comes because, you know, you mentioned about how, you know, you had some really bad days and you were considering, you know, suicide and some divorces from

Unknown 20:00
Really bad stuff.

Unknown 20:02
But things don’t just when we have transformation our lives, it’s not just a one time thing. It’s an ongoing process. So how do you utilize these disciplines and these powers are this drawing on a higher power to help you face obstacles or anything that you face. You know, every day in life, the when you have to go, you know, I just me and my wife just did our taxes the other day and we had to deal with all that hassle and and, you know, we have to deal with it, whatever it is, taxes or whatever it is, how do you use these powers? Have you deal with the everyday mundane challenges of life?

Unknown 20:34
I continually remind myself that there’s,

Unknown 20:39
there’s more of a singular purpose to life

Unknown 20:43
then then a lot of people realize a lot of people think, well, I’ve got my job, I’ve got this I’ve got that I get so many different things. And then they pile the worries on top. I worry about the taxes, I worry about the mortgage. I worry about all these different things. And if you take a look at a larger picture

Unknown 21:00
Most of these things I know we got to do them. But are they important?

Unknown 21:05
Not really. I don’t see them as Empire. I see them as necessary, but I don’t see them as important. important for me is maintaining my focus on helping and serving other people and serving Christ. And so drawing drawing on the higher power for me, it’s it’s an exercise in focus. And I mean, an exercise and focus because sometimes it’s just just hard. Yeah, like tired. Nope. Nobody made like, easy.

Unknown 21:35
You know, there’s no Bluebird of happiness that really lights on us all the time. And I don’t know why I’m saying I’m just literally look out my window. My office here, Bill, I’ve seen a blue bird flew right by my window instead, if it’s keeping the markets I’m talking to you about it because stuff. Oh, crazy, crazy stuff. I’m sorry. buffing a tangent here. Hey, let’s talk about people and relationships. Now we talk a little bit about higher power. We’ve talked a little bit about some of the bold action that you’ve taken. You may

Unknown 22:00
Your wife, how she challenged you a little bit. But tell me about

Unknown 22:04
the power or the fuel, if you will, of loving relationships in your life, about how that

Unknown 22:11
comes into play in your transformation or the work you do with other others. Tell me about the role of important relationships.

Unknown 22:22
Well,

Unknown 22:24
I’m an introvert, I’m almost off the scale. I fight every day to overcome that concept in that idea. It’s almost like a challenge. I know I know what I am as far as the test and everything that happens. But I’m at a point in my life where if I start to feel fearful of specific things, I don’t run from them. I just face them head on and

Unknown 22:44
I sometimes end up acting like an idiot. Sometimes I come out on top because it really doesn’t matter but I just face them head on. We have as a family we have some friends that we will we will die for that we’ve been with them through the day.

Unknown 23:00
of their death of their young, their son, a very,

Unknown 23:03
very tragic and sudden thing. He was 25, we miss him to this day we were, we were there from square one with them and, and we will, you know

Unknown 23:13
there’s some people you will lay down your life for and I understand we would probably lay down their life for a stranger in certain circumstances as well. But we had a few very close friends and because I’ve forced myself out of my label of introversion, let’s call it that.

Unknown 23:30
I went to a conference about five months ago, four or five months ago, and I went alone. My wife was, wasn’t able to come with me. She was in Guatemala at the time. So she went to Guatemala went to Ohio

Unknown 23:43
and what to do, what a trade off Yeah, Ohio is a great place. Yeah, I went to this conference and I forced myself to connect with people.

Unknown 23:53
And the more I tried, the better I got at it, I think, but I made some very good connections.

Unknown 24:00
connections from people with people in in rural Alberta, Canada, to Florida to Texas to to Cleveland.

Unknown 24:07
It just didn’t just everywhere. And I’ve made some connections that I’ve and I’ve pushed myself to keep those connections and find out a way to serve them. Okay. And, you know, even across you know, the internet’s an amazing it can be an amazing thing. It can be a dangerous place, but it can be a very amazing when you learn to use it properly like this. Absolutely. So I’ve I’ve just expanding my reach and expanding my opportunity to help individuals

Unknown 24:34
and I found a way to actually do that with with people across, you know, across

Unknown 24:41
a large span of land, I guess. Sure, sure. And you find that

Unknown 24:47
fulfilling for you, or do you find that draining for you when you’re you said, you’re an introvert, that’s one reason I asked that question. Some introverts, fine. dealing with people draining I find helping people fuels me okay.

Unknown 25:00
Gets me, it gets me going to me whether I’m an introvert or not, I, I’m going to, you know, if I get to help somebody that just turns my crank, okay, if I get help, help help expand somebody, they’re reaching their own influence in their own impact. You know,

Unknown 25:16
I’m excited about that. And I’m able to do it because, you know, one of those things that’s in me is I love to plan stuff.

Unknown 25:23
Absolutely. Well, you mentioned couple times about being a planner and how that is a gift that you’re giving to people and part of resources that you’re giving to people and when things aren’t related is the disciplines that people have to help them make their life work and how they can share that with other people and and you’ve read the book among other things could conquer what’s next scheme, your dream, get your rear gear, gain the grip to go there. And so to me, I know that seems like as a part of that process of that book and what you offer to people is some practicalities and how you can get your get your life in gear. So what are some of the things that you might offer to people bill that helps people to

Unknown 26:00
Move on, you know, so people are stuck. Would you agree bill kind of stuck and wherever they’re at might be on their marriage might be in their career might be with their parents or with their finances, whatever. They’re kind of stuck and they don’t think there’s any way out. How are you offering some things that can help people to move from being that stuck stage to whatever’s next

Unknown 26:23
couple of things. One is in the book you just mentioned conquer. What’s next? There’s nine questions.

Unknown 26:30
The book started with question for in my in my mind, I wanted to write a book about keeping good habits. And that’s the fourth of nine questions. The more I went into it, the more I studied it, the more I realized I was missing some things on both sides of that. So

Unknown 26:48
in the book, the first three questions are Why am I here? What do I want,

Unknown 26:53
or with me see, Oh, here we go. Here’s where editing comes in.

Unknown 26:58
Okay,

Unknown 26:59
why am I here?

Unknown 27:00
Here, what do I want? Why do I want it? So you’ve got purpose, goals and motive.

Unknown 27:07
And I love that section. Because it’s planning. Yeah, you don’t have to do a thing. You can sit around all day and talk about those three things and not do a thing. But the next three questions have to do with stepping into daily habits. What am I willing to do daily

Unknown 27:19
to get there? What am I willing to do daily to reach that goal, and not just every week or every in every little bit of time, going after goal is a daily process daily going after something. So what am I willing to do daily to get there?

Unknown 27:36
How am I going to take those, take those habits and put them into routines? And then how do I account for adjustment

Unknown 27:44
because a lot of people get themselves going on a great habit or great routine and then something happens and how you going to adjust and they stopped there and they’re done. And the last is just having the grit to go there. how desperate are you to succeed? No, I wasn’t.

Unknown 28:00
desperate enough to kill myself. But I was close. And I turned it around and said, how desperate Am I succeed? Because the last thing I wanted to do one of the things that kept me from from following through on that thought was, what am I doing to my wife? Hmm. Okay. Yeah. What, what am I doing to my daughter. And that is not the legacy that I want to leave.

Unknown 28:22
It’s not the legacy I want to leave leave on my family and my friends and anybody that I’ve known in a very real a real way it’s choosing to feel the pain over trying to numb it or just ignore it is choosing to feel the pain or the motivation to make those

Unknown 28:41
make those changes. That’s awesome. That’s awesome. And it’s very practical. I think for people they give them advice and and I know that your book is going to be helpful to that as a tool for people to have another tool for people that you’ve got. You’re working on bill it’s a it’s a summit. It’s a summit which is where you get together with other like minded folks.

Unknown 29:00
Have some things to offer. It’s called the legacy of purpose summit. Tell me a little bit. What’s going on with that? What do you what do you hope to accomplish with this summit? And how does it work for people? If people want to avail themselves of that resource? how’s this going to work? Well, how it works is you just

Unknown 29:18
go to a landing page on my website, read about what’s going to happen and save your seat. It means it really is that simple. But what you get, we’re going to have, there’s 11 people and myself, so a group of 12 and it’s over five days, and you can tune in live and watch the live interviews. And these are people from all walks of life. these are these are professionals. These are I have one person who used to live in Montana spent the last nine years in central Mexico.

Unknown 29:49
We have a person in rural Alberta so far as the it’s not the end of the world, but you can see it from there.

Unknown 29:57
Like I said, People all over and all of these people are

Unknown 30:00
I’m not even that most of these people I’ve met in purpose it on met in person but not all of them and this legacy of purpose I’m it came out of how can I serve these people and together how can we serve the people that listen to us

Unknown 30:18
and so these people have been compiled from from from me praying and asking the Lord to see what type of people would be want to be involved in talking about the purpose of their life and talking about how what drives them forward in their own lives It’s not just me talking about my purpose with them we’re going to hear different stories from vastly different people about their purpose and and it’s going to be exciting and it’s going to be all live we do three interviews on Monday and then to for Tuesday, Wednesday Thursday and Friday awesome awesome and then that

Unknown 30:56
will put the in our show notes the connection there but basically once you get

Unknown 31:00
given to us for Bill McDonald, me legacy of purpose is that we’re going to find that they’ll mcconnell.me slash legacy of purpose no spaces or anything in there awesome we will put in our show notes as well bill but it sounds great sounds like you got some some good people some solid people to offer their insights on helping people find their purpose as well now i’m i’m excited about this to the point where I know it’s going to be good but the behind the scenes activity that I’ve been able to create and and connect with this group of other 11 people. That’s the thing that’s just

Unknown 31:42
for like, I guess turning my crank. I just love it

Unknown 31:46
because I see in what I’m doing. I see them getting excited. And I see them wanting to contribute more and more not to the success of the summit. I mean, it’s going to be it’s going to be successful in and of itself. I believe that

Unknown 32:00
very firmly. But I feel fulfillment because I’m helping them. Sure. Absolutely. And and I and I can’t wait to see how as a collective we help those that listen

Unknown 32:13
what sounds like you guys have this passion for helping people and that’s what you say, you know turns your crank but let’s go back for just one second and let’s kind of try to apply your life to the life of someone who may be listening to pathway to promise today who’s having some adversity in their life to handle maybe it is a marriage maybe it is financial problem or a spiritual dry spot or maybe even something as serious as suicide kind of put yourself back in those positions that you may have you been what’s your word of encouragement to somebody today who may be listening today just needs to thank

Unknown 32:47
you know, here’s something I need to do practically in order to move to my purpose. What’s your word to that person today?

Unknown 32:56
Well, for every person,

Unknown 32:58
I’ve got this

Unknown 33:00
One one statement to help a person through things and it’s it’s just something that is that I hold on to. And I repeat this I write this down every day as well. Once you conquer yourself,

Unknown 33:14
everything else becomes possible.

Unknown 33:16
Your big your biggest enemies you

Unknown 33:20
your biggest enemy is in your head and it’s in it’s in your heart. I grew up being taught to be negative about everything.

Unknown 33:29
My father I’m convinced of this my father invented sarcasm and if he didn’t invent it, actually perfected it.

Unknown 33:37
And so I grew up with the concept of negativity and doubt and sarcasm as the foundation for my life and until and until I realized that I couldn’t move forward so no matter where you are in life conquer yourself first look inward yourself first and and find a way to move forward I had to I was a daily

Unknown 34:00
I had to find a way to move forward and they did. When you start to look you’ll find a way forward I believe you’ll find it in Christ.

Unknown 34:09
If not initially you’ll find it in Christ eventually because he’s going to be in there he is the source of life but once you conquer yourself, everything else becomes possible. Once I came to grips with that,

Unknown 34:26
then I started to see everything else it’s possible it’s great that really makes me excited because now I have the opportunity to influence other people and impact other people with the message of God awesome. conquer yourself first and then you’ll find a way in order to have success otherwise great message to leave this on here today. Bill thank you for being our guest today on the pathway to promise podcast with Dr. Brad Miller and we thank you We look forward to hearing more from you the author of conquer what’s next and the upcoming legacy of purpose summit for

Unknown 35:00
summit bill McConnell for Bill mcconnell.me

Unknown 35:08
so that was Bill McConnell for Bill McConnell dot m e he’s all about helping you to move from wishing to winning in your life and that means having a life on purpose his legacy of purpose virtual summit is coming up soon you’re going to want to check that out by going to pathway promise.com slash 038 we can get all the details there and you may want to check out his books for instance conquer what’s next how to scheme your dream and live a life of live your life of a life of purpose why what’s the matter with you though let’s unpack a little bit of what some of the key takeaway points what Bill shared with us today and I think you’re going to be important to you you saw where he was a involved with his career for quite a few years as a youth pastor and then it thanks

Unknown 36:00
With south for him

Unknown 36:02
and they went south and a couple areas in life he lost a couple of jobs through no fault of his own. And he found himself struggling to find his groove. I’ve been there in my life. I bet you have to where you’ve been struggling to find your groove, but his pathway took him down to a dark place where he even committed considered committing suicide. And he had a dark place where his marriage was in parallel. His wife asked for divorce. And he said that he took an extended amount of time and he cried, and he prayed. He thought about it. He just thought something like I gotta find something to do. And he just said maybe one more day give me through one more day and he had a spiritual experience with God and His whole idea was going to be through one more day one more day became a week and week became a year and so on, so forth. And he began to pour himself into how to have his life of purpose and how then he’s now taking his life of

Unknown 37:00
purpose for us and taught it to you it’s so what did he do? What are some of the things that he did? He began to pursue a life of what could he contribute to others instead of kind of walk around in his own misery, Misery, and that meant making a plan a specific plan, including having a daily morning

Unknown 37:20
routine that he had journaling and things he would write down about scripture and prayers and a purpose statement and his statement of motivation that he calls it writing things down into a journal an important thing and I believe that it begins to seek out people who could find that who had needs and seek out ways to meet those needs in various ways. He served others through his writing and through his books and now through his virtual summit and he wants to be remembered his legacy he wants to be remembered as someone who helped other people that’s important thing. What do you want your legacy to be? So how did he do this? So the things he did was drawing a

Unknown 38:00
spiritual power through his servant hood. And he quoted every made the phrase, you know, to preach the gospel and necessary use words. So he’s the man of action do what’s necessary to be helpful to people drawing on a higher power from God is important in his life. And he has to be in terms of people in his life.

Unknown 38:23
He really served his wife very intentionally in the early days of his turning his life around by being a house husband, and by really poured himself into his marriage. And he found some ways to serve her now he finds ways to serve other people through his writing and through his speaking and teach you, but he’s an introvert by nature and has had to find ways to connect with people to get over being stuck. And so he has to find his own ways to do that. And so he’s based a lot of his life and questions he’s asked himself he’s putting some as writing and so on what I want to do.

Unknown 39:00
Why do I want to do it? What is my motivation for doing them? And how do I make a routine then to do this in my life? And how I count for adjustment? And how can one thing is called departure from our success? How do we adjust so that is what he’s about here. These are some takeaway points that I think are going to be important to you as you move forward to achieve your life purpose. So I committed to you his virtual his virtual summit leaving a legacy of purpose it’s happening in March of 2019 and then you’ll be available to you as well beyond that you can go to my path my site

Unknown 39:40
pathway, promise comm

Unknown 39:43
slash 0338 that’s pathway promise comm slash 038 and find all the details there or you can go directly to Bill’s website Bill mcconnell.me get detailed as well. They’ll be 12 presenters there at this virtual summit.

Unknown 40:00
Lots of things happening. It’ll be some great content for you to help you discover and create your own legacy of purpose. We’re here to be helpful to you as well here at the pathway to promise podcast my made my name is Dr. Brad Miller. And I’m all about being helpful to you and your life to help you overcome adversity to achieve your promise life peace, prosperity and purpose. You can head over to pathway promise calm and you can find out more about the upcoming book the promise given life, your 40 day way to live in your life of peace, prosperity, and purpose, which is coming up later on this year. And you can get on our launch team and help being part of the creative process of creating this book. And we hope that you will we’re all about being helpful to you and your feedback is important to us here at pathway promise calm so we’ve done the website and give us a give us a reaction to what we’re doing. Maybe let’s see how we can be helpful to one another. It’s going to be with you through this whole days of March.

Unknown 41:00
In April 2019, everyday we’re putting out some content to be helpful to your life to present some aspect of life to help you move forward a little bit every day and get better every day to come out to a place where you can indeed achieve your life of peace, prosperity and promise. But nothing happens unless you take action. And part of taking action is make a promise to yourself to get better. So my encouragement to you to today friends is simply this to keep your promises because there’s power you know, promise kept.

Unknown 41:35
Thanks so much for taking the pathway to promise with Dr. Brad Miller as a subscriber, you’ll be a vital part of the pathway to promise community visit us on the web at pathway promise.com. Until next time, remember to stay on your pathway to promise

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Brad Miller 0:00
Pathway to Promise podcast episode number 36 Rocks tell Stories with author and artist Patty Rockus with the new book “He is Risen”

Patti Rockus 0:16
I thought it was going to solve all the questions I was going to journal and write and figure everything out. But instead I just became really quiet and became I felt like a piece of moss or a tree. I just became one with nature.

Unknown 0:31
Hi, this is Kevin Murphy, author of the three rooms where I help people change your thoughts to change your life. You’re connected to the pathway to promise podcast with Dr. Brad Miller, helping you overcome adversity to find your promise like

Unknown 0:47
you’re on the pathway to promise with Dr. Brad Miller Bradley’s every person has a god given promised life of peace, prosperity and purpose and that you must have a plan and a guy to get

Unknown 1:00
They’re the pathway to promise podcast. Not only is your guide through the wilderness of depression and disappointment that stand between you and your promise life but also brings you insights and direction from inspiring successful thought leaders who have transformed their lives. Welcome to the pathway to promise now here’s Brad

Brad Miller 1:19
pathway to promise podcast is brought to you by the book The promise given life that Reverend Dr. Brad velour, the 40 day way to your promise, life of peace, prosperity and purpose. You can be part of the launch team and get on the waitlist for this new book, which is coming out later this year by going over to pathway promise.com. This episode is also brought to you by Patty rochas, who brings you a free downloadable resource called Making angels an easy way to make a rock art for children. It’s a downloadable video or author today.

We’re speaking to his Patti Rackus, and she has incredible story to talk to us about the power of the transformative power of connecting with nature and expressing it through art. My name is Dr. Brad Miller. And the pathway to promise podcast is all about helping you transform your life to help you overcome any adversity in your life. And the know that you have a promise, life of peace, prosperity, and purpose. And we bring you teaching and and and ways to help you to overcome whatever things are going on your life, maybe as divorce. Maybe it’s a financial problem, maybe as a health related thing. We all have them, but there’s got to be ways to get through that. That’s been a lifetime in ministry and studied life transformation and like to teach about this area and bring you great guests like Patty rook is today. Today is day three of our 40 Day Challenge. We’re in the 40 days and in March and April 8.

weekday each Monday through Saturday we were teaching a lesson or bringing a great interview which teaches you something about how to transform your life and I made commitments to you and you can make commitments to me and we can be in relationship to one another just connect up with us at our at our website page pathway promised calm or on our Facebook page which is facebook.com pathway promise we’re committed to help life transformation happened for you. And each day we have a theme of today’s theme is nature and the power of the transformative power of nature we have an incredible artist guest with us today, Patty ruckus who has an incredible story to tell and we’re going to get into that with her just a minute just want to share with you that she wasn’t always an artist. She started off her life in her career in the technology field where she was a product manager for for companies like Nike and Microsoft and she was involved with many things in the tech field but however, she

calls herself a recovering Product Manager because overcoming some difficulties in her life, some issues growing up and some other issues, she found herself needed to take some time off. And she went off into on a three month camping trip. And there she discovered the power and the restaurant, restorative nature of nature itself. And among other things, she discovered rocks and she considers rocks to be a love note from God which is irresistible to her and she then turn these rocks and the artwork and she first started off with a book that had on the Christmas themed savior as born which came out last year and her new book is he has risen which is about the last week and the mortal life of Jesus Christ and both these books are artistic wonders that she has a number of

of incredible videos and how to videos and artistic videos on her website. Rocks tell stories calm

And her book is available in bookstores everywhere and we’ll put links to her book and her videos on our on our website pathway promised.com It’s a pleasure to have with us today author and artist, Patty Rockus, Brad thank you so much for having me. I’m really thrilled to talk with you today. Well, you really have a fascinating story that is really, really unique. And my experience at least, that you are an artist and you are an artist who uses a medium that to express stories in your life using rocks and that’s an incredible thing and are what we’re about here is helping people get through adversity in their life through all kinds of means. Sometimes it’s through music and sometimes it’s through therapy and reading and writing and and other things that they’ve done but you’ve done it through this process here but I’d like I want to hear more specific about your artwork here in a minute. But also

Patti Rockus 6:00
Want to hear kind of what motivated you to get started here you’ve had some challenging pieces your life tell us a story about how it came to be that you found working with rocks away to help you process some challenging points in your life goes your story a little bit better. Thanks, Brad. I’m really glad that you’re starting with this piece of adversity as opposed to the art because I’m really not an artist, which is surprises me and everybody else because I couldn’t draw a stick figure if I had to. And I never intended on doing physical art for anyone. This came as part of my healing from the adversity and the struggles that I’ve had in life. And if you’ll just let me briefly start with my childhood so because of my childhood and I was raised in a challenging situation to say the least and with some severe hardships that really shaped how I saw the world and how I felt about myself and that just drug along with

me through the rest of my life, even though it might not have looked like it. You know, I was working for Nike and Microsoft and appeared to have everything under control and looking good on the outside. But by the time I was in my 30s, I really I really fell apart. And it was through I had done counseling and I’ve always been a faith based person. And so I’ve always turned to God and all those things that helped me for sure, but not being healed the very center wound that was deep inside of me until much later in life. And that’s kind of a background to why I needed something a catalyst if you will, to help me through through my beliefs about myself and my struggles. And it wasn’t until my late 40s that I’ve this finally transformed for me and I was able to come across this this wonderland of rocks and pebbles in nature that can be

Like people and places and that specific story I’ll be happy to tell you but I just wanted to let you know that there isn’t this nice fairy tale background I don’t think any of us have that real some real struggles that I needed to so and growing up and in your adult life in your corporate life you had some

Brad Miller 8:20
success but some real challenges that you were less than satisfied so tell us what some of the actions that you took I think you nature was involved with helping you turn things around a little bit tell us some of the actions that you took to to deal with a sense of diversity you’re having yeah well nature she says always been a critical part of me just feeling at peace and I think that’s what we’re all looking for is is peace and contentment it regardless of our life situation, the really the very first story about the rocks was in my 30s I hurt my back severely.

Patti Rockus 9:00
And at the time I was working on contract I was renting. I wasn’t in a relationship. Everything just felt like it wasn’t what I wanted. And then on top of that, I hurt my back so badly. All I could do is crawl the first couple of days. And

the remedy turned out to be a lot of walking, just gingerly walking. And a couple of months into this. I was feeling so crushed by the situation and so depressed and I was barely walking down the street, trying to do my physical therapy and crying. I just said out loud, I said, God, heavenly Father, I need to know that you love me. I need to know you’re there. I’ve always believed that but I just wasn’t feeling it in my life. Circumstances didn’t seem to prove it out. And just as I said that I noticed something on the ground and I gingerly bent down and pick that up it was a half of a pecan shell and if you’ve ever looked carefully it

Unknown 10:00
pecan shell bit inside half. It’s a perfect heart shape. And I looked at that heart shape. And you know, God speaks to each of us very individually. And he spoke to me through that pecan shell as crazy as that sounds. When I saw that hearts after asking that question of him, this love and this feeling of comfort just poured over me. And my tears changed from being completely frustrated, and feeling alone to feeling completely consumed in the love of God. And that was the very beginning of me having a passion for seeing hardships in nature, which transformed immediately into seen heart shaped rocks, which many people I’ve discovered because of my books and the heart shaped box in those books. Many people collect heart shaped rocks and decided that those are love notes from God

Unknown 10:54
messages every time I see one, I just smile and I know that’s God saying, Patty, I love you and it’s all going

Unknown 11:00
Just fine. There’s an awesome story. And so

Unknown 11:05
you’ve now started the process of collecting rocks and kind of getting a message from God’s or the shells and through the, the rocks. How did that transition to you to then being able to utilize that to create art and create processes where you’ve been helpful to others, even therapeutically. Tell us a little bit about how that transformed for you. Yeah, that that began began

Unknown 11:33
that along with some other healing and emotional relief and healing that I had created a passion in me that I wanted to be a catalyst I wanted to be helpful to other people in them feeling the love of God and overcoming the the hurts and the challenges of their lives, but never figured it out. I thought maybe I’d be a counselor, but never did it because I had such a strong career in corporate America with technology and Nike and Microsoft and such and so

Unknown 12:00
I continued on still single until I was 44, which was crazy. I never imagined I’d be single and not have children, which was a great heartache to me. But I finally married a wonderful man. But the marriage didn’t work and after three years when that didn’t work out, I was completely crushed and my self confidence was obliterated and I just could not understand what had happened and why I wasn’t lovable and why he wouldn’t want me and all that so I took I put a tent in my trunk is the day that I left and went to the Pacific Northwest and camped for three months just to figure out myself what happened and to try to heal just on just on your own right just on your own okay, but Okay, yeah, I went to my people at work and said, I just have to take a break and I left

Unknown 13:00
And it was a most remarkable three months. And that’s that was the beginning of this the deepest healing of my life. I didn’t know at the time that just being in nature was so powerful. And I thought it was going to solve all the questions. I was going to journal and right and figure everything out. But instead I just became really quiet and became I felt like a piece of moss or a tree. I just became one with nature. And after three months, I was so frustrated that I hadn’t used the time well to solve my problems. It took me several years later when these rock books came forward. And these images came forward for me to look back and realize that God just needed to calm me down. He needed to create a quiet place inside of me where he could be. I was so noisy and so hurt and so frustrated. There wasn’t a room for him.

Unknown 13:56
He felt like he needed a time of season of listening and he

Unknown 14:00
lean in. And just to be before you could be so you could be filled up in order to do or to share with others. Yeah. And I had no idea. That’s how God worked, you know, always taught in the church, serve others and lose your life so you can be one and God and all this where I just was so outside of myself and so busy and so working so hard. I didn’t realize that I didn’t have room for God, even though I was praying every day and I was trying to make space I didn’t have enough space. So you’re right, I came away from that a much quieter person more reflective and calm and that created the space in which all kinds of miracles came into my life. That’s awesome. But you had to take action, didn’t you? What I’m getting at is that you chose not to just kind of you know, just suck yourself into your own misery whatever that would be within divorce and when

Unknown 15:00
Other things would you do the action of going off of the off into the wilderness and to be self aware enough to take your time to heal? Yeah. And I could have used that time to be miserable, right? I could have most most people do be honest with you, as we well, and I have

Unknown 15:18
plenty of my own pity parties, for sure. But nature is so beautiful that I could not help but rejoice in God’s creations and noticing the beauty and the Wonder from a butterfly to a Trillium flower was just so beautiful. I could not help but be joyful in that space. And that seems like that kind of got your artistic juices flowing. Whether you saw yourself as an artist or not, you became one didn’t you? You became an artist and such a to to have your heart touched by the by nature and then to transform that into art into books into videos that are touching to others.

Unknown 16:00
Tell us what how that happened and how that impact on you as in been impactful to others. Yeah, thank you. Well, two years after that experience in the woods, I really decided that I was really tired of technology just didn’t represent who I am. I couldn’t be creative. I couldn’t be feminine, if you will. And I went on a two week camping trip to Montana and found the most glorious place of these old growth cedars up in northwestern Montana. And as I was hiking through these old huge giant, trumped cedars I thought I was hiking to go through the mountains like always do, but instead, I got drawn to this riverbed. And the riverbed was this dry, huge riverbed full of beautifully colored large stones, and I walked through that riverbed and the rocks was so pretty, I kept pocketing them and I was I don’t know what to do with this, but I got to take it home and pretty soon all my pockets were filled. Fortunately, I had a

Unknown 17:00
Lock it in my trunk. And after two weeks in the woods, I had a bucket full of beautiful rocks. No idea what to do with those. I just thought they’d be pretty, maybe an A path or something. But I had one day left of my vacation. I in my pajamas, I paddled out to my trunk and got that bucket and spilled it out on the porch, just to push those pretty rocks around. And I noticed the one rock look just like somebody kneeling in prayer. And I thought, How interesting. I put a little round rock above it for ahead and there I had Mary as I thought, kneeling before Angel Gabriel and looked around, I thought, could there be an angel in here, and there was a long rock for the angel with a triangle for a wing and a circle for ahead and now was six rocks. I had the Annunciation or the the first scene of the Nativity story. And so I thought, Oh, my heavens. This is kind of juvenile, but so interesting. So I dug through the rest of that bucket and the entire Nativity story was

Unknown 18:00
In that one bucket of random rocks and I completely stunned I took some pictures with my iPhone seven about your friends going isn’t this crazy? And my friend said I want a book and I thought that was insane. Like who wants a book of rocks and pebbles? But I ended up putting one together. I went on Facebook and I’m not a big Facebook person wasn’t before. And but I did a little two minute video just in my little Nike shirt, and that, hey, here’s my story. Here’s my book. Anybody want one? I thought maybe I’d sell maybe 25. But I had to print 54 economies of scale and to my complete astonishment in two weeks I had sold 900

Unknown 18:44
awesome that is so cool. That’s a good thing there for that is a God thing. So now this has turned into something different isn’t it? suddenly you’ve got a not only something for you. You’ve got something that is obviously impacted other people.

Unknown 19:00
Tell me a story Paddy about how your art and by the way there’s a huge story you told about creating things are some really awesome videos you have on your website about your process of doing this the sorting out the rocks and I just think I would commend that to people on your rocks tell stories com site to there’s some really cool stuff there but tell me now about maybe some stories you may have heard reflected back to you about how your work has been transformational to other people give me a good news story thanks I hope I was so befuddled by these rocks because they’re so simple and I had hoped that a life of experience and that I’d have to add something a little more significant to give to the world little more sophisticated but these rocks have turned out to be an incredible blessing because there is something really powerful about stopping everything else we’re doing in life just hunting for rocks.

Unknown 20:00
You know, feeling them playing with them, it calms the brain down and allows us to feel and create that space for God that I had discovered several years previously. But I had no idea that you could do that with the rocks, just touching and playing with them. So I have received all kinds of letters and pictures from from families where they have done their own rock scenes based on my books, then they’ve got a model to go by just an example and the joy that is brought to those families, but I really want to share this one story that just still blows my mind. And I,

Unknown 20:36
I was at a it was just this last summer I was at a retirement party for a dear friend, and they had a whole bunch of people over to their house to celebrate. And I figured they were all believers because my friends and I are and I just assumed everybody came was and I’m meeting a bunch of new people and this really cute couple in their 60s just vibrant. And Darlene we were making introductions and what do you do?

Unknown 21:00
Know what do you do? I said, Well, I play with rocks and off, you know, it was funny is it will really. And I had a prototype of my Easter book that shows the scenes of the last week of Christ’s mortal ministry, those very difficult scenes of the Passion Week. And I pulled that out. And I said, Yeah, here, let me show you. And so we sat on the couch, and they started flipping through the book. And they got that first they smiled and thought it was cute rocks, you know, telling these making these pictures and then they got very quiet, and I got a little uncomfortable and thought, well, gosh, I Why are these and then but they’re flipping through the pages very carefully. And then the wife finally leans over. And she says to me, and this blew my mind. She said, Is this what Christians believe?

Unknown 21:47
And these are educated people. You know, I thought, you know,

Unknown 21:51
what do you believe or not, I thought everybody knew the story at least, you know, profound insight isn’t my goodness I yeah, and I

Unknown 22:00
Got to sit with them for 20 minutes and talk about who Jesus is and why he matters. And that this is about love. This is not about punishment and judgment. This is about love and how it’s about love and their hearts. You know, I could just see them relax, and I could see they’re interesting curiosity. And I really felt like God was there just wrapping all three of us up in his love. And they said, Oh, when the book comes out, we want to copy and I thought, Oh, that’s really neat. Well, Bader the hostess after everybody had left, and I was helping clean up. The hostess said to me, after I told her the story. She said, Patty, those two are atheists. And although we love them, and they’ve been in our neighborhood for 20 years, and we’ve known them all this time, they’ve never allowed us to have a conversation about God with them. And so there is something powerful about these books. That is healing about the rock art. It’s so nice.

Unknown 23:00
interested, non threatening, it just allows people to enjoy the art and consider the whole God’s story in a brand new, fresh way. And it’s relational in a, in a serendipitous type of way. Where comes out of an unexpected way. Sounds like not only older folks can enjoy, but children and families, folks like this can do that. And that’s an awesome thing. But telling you may, you’ve already touched on it here, Patty, but you’ve got a new book out now about Easter story. He has risen rocks tell the story of Easter, and that’s available now, as we talk here in the first part of march of 2019. Tell us a little bit about this new book and about what that’s all about, and how that can be a wonderful addition to people’s lives. Yeah, thanks. I would love to tell you about it. The first book was the Nativity one, the story I told you. And that was just this last Christmas. So Savior is born. And like I said, that was just random rocks, you know, in that bucket, but when Harper Collins said we’ll take it.

Unknown 24:00
Easter book, I thought, Oh, well, I’m going to take this one seriously. And so I, I was pretty deliberate as opposed to random in this one. And this shows the major events of the Holy Week, the last week of what happened to Jesus Christ, and what he did for us, and telling the stories purely in rocks, no other, not twigs, nothing else, your forest just to use whatever shapes are in those rocks to do that. And I have to tell you, I’m not an artist. But I felt like I had angels with me. I mean, I had to because I don’t have the talents that helped me find the rocks and organize them into each of these scenes of telling this and it’s so delightful to see how kids will look at this book. And then they just go, Oh, I never thought of it and they run outside, go get thrown rocks, and they just start recreating the scenes and you can imagine

Unknown 25:00
What that’s doing for families you know three major things I’m thinking of you know first of all the kids I put their devices down

Unknown 25:09
it’s that’s a miracle ended up so friends that is

Unknown 25:14
there is there just touching the things that God created you know they’re finding the wonder of nature which if that’s all it did that’s enough to get people back in touch with their own hearts reconnected to nature, which call it God or not. I think anytime we’re connected to what he’s created where we connect to him, but then they bring the rocks home and they start making their own stories and it can be their story. It could have nothing to do with God. Even just telling their story gives them an opportunity to put on the outside what is stuck on the inside and that’s hugely healing, but they’re often taken. Look at the pictures I’ve done so they have an idea and now they have a reason to think about these stories.

Unknown 26:00
You know, why did Jesus ride on a donkey on Palm Sunday into a whole group of people that were celebrating them. Now we can have a conversation about the story that we may never have had before. Because we were playing with rocks. And it’s easy and it’s not a big deal. And it’s just interesting. So now families are connecting at a deeper level on things that really matter. And so that’s my hope is that people draw closer to God through nature and through their relationships. And they come to know themselves because they’re able to be quiet enough to allow that space to be filled with truth and light that’s awesome. That is awesome. You know, Patty, there is a certainly as a spiritual

Unknown 26:44
historical nature and powerful nature of rocks and rock stalking that you’re you’ve I’m sure you’re familiar with this to some degree and from the Native American groups, but I’m thinking of Israel I’ve traveled to Israel a couple of times and many of them

Unknown 27:00
raised there, they will stack rocks, say on the graves, because in the world, there’s not much grass or vegetation. Anything else. So rocks have a powerful image. And so for an honor of the legacy of your ancestors, and his spiritual power rocks are stacked in such a way that symbolism and Sumo certain Native American groups is that as well. It’s just, it’s just coming to my mind as we’re talking about this year, the power of moving rocks around and it’s I think there’s something to be said for that. Of course, there’s beautiful imagery of the of the rocks will rocks will speak and so on, and returning rocks into bread and so on. There’s lots of imagery that way that I think is powerful.

Unknown 27:45
Toby like Oh, sorry, go. You had something else to say there. Go ahead. Yeah. Well, I I’ve noticed that too, in the scriptures that stones and rocks are kind of a big deal and referenced often my favorite my favorite one though, is

Unknown 28:00
When Jesus reference them, and he actually inferred that he anthropomorphize them, even it was you remember when he was coming to Jerusalem and the people that loved him, you know, the multitudes were just thrilled. And we’re celebrating, and the Pharisees that the priests at the time were not happy with that and told Jesus, that he should silence them. And in Luke 19, verse 40,

Unknown 28:29
he basically tells them, he says, if my disciples if they were to keep quiet, and this is the phrase that just so amazing to me, he says, if they were to keep quiet, then the stones would cry out. Yeah, that’s awesome. That’s why I thought there’s crying out now. You know, they gave him a chance. And now every time some child or family puts a story together, they give them a voice and give them a chance to cry out so that the inanimate in a way becomes animate, or at least preserve provides a message

Unknown 29:00
payouts like to ask my guests two or three kind of consistent questions about process that you use.

Unknown 29:10
What’s one way that you call upon a higher power to God to guide you and what you’re about here? Do you feel like a higher powers at work? Oh, absolutely. I could. I couldn’t do any of this without, without God helping me. So every, every time I start an art project, and every time I’m out in nature, just picking up rocks, I always start with a conversation with this higher power with God. And now as I’ve matured, that conversation doesn’t start stop with an Amen. At the end of the prayer. That conversation just goes on, especially when I’m in nature. And I just talk freely to God as I go and as I make the art and feel like I’m I’m partnering with him That’s awesome. And the second part of what I would ask you about is about the about love but love

Unknown 30:00
I

Unknown 30:01
believe is the kind of the field that helps move things around. And it has to do with interpersonal relationships or feelings of love. How has any support from other people or for some sense of loving relationships been involved here with you in this process? Or how you use your feel supported or can make it a contribution to others? It’s an emotional level. Brad, you have such excellent questions. This is so pertinent to maybe we all have limiting beliefs that we created a different times in our life usually childhood and, and one of my pervasive limiting beliefs is that I am alone in the world and you can see how I’ve lived that out by not married until my 40s and now I’m single again. And so it’s hard for me to allow people to help me and be in my life and that is probably the most damaging aspect of my life and these books.

Unknown 31:00
I think part of the gifts of these books to me from God, why he let me create these was to teach me how severely I need others and how severely I need to serve others. And when when I have these relationships as you say, that’s when life it’s harder to help relationships. They’re complicated, but that’s where the joy of life is in relationships. And I could not have come this far with these books and with these videos and the website and everything I’m doing sharing this message without these beautiful people around me who have supported me and encouraged me and kept me going when I didn’t really think I could do this That’s awesome. They just one more what are some of the anyone who gets anything truly done in life, you know, you got to have I believe you have to have a bias towards taking action which you did when you you know, we’re not satisfied with your situation with your life and divorce and so on.

Unknown 32:00
went off to the woods. And then we all have to, but I believe she had to draw a higher powers for to force the powerful power of loving relationships. But we have to apply it to our lives. And that takes discipline. And I’ll just be curious what some of what some of your disciplinary practices are, what helps you to get things done that make an impact that are transformational for yourself, and others. Oh, gosh, your questions. Brad, where do you get these

Unknown 32:32
and they’re so pertinent to every single person. I believe that because we are children of the great creator, that we’re a chip off the old block, if you will, we are creating chip chip chip off the rock maybe

Unknown 32:47
better. Yeah, sorry. Sorry. Yes, there. Therefore, we are creators. And when we’re not creating, we’re not satisfied. And so your point about taking action and being delivered in life, that’s all

Unknown 33:00
Part of being a creator. And so I think that we are designed, it’s in our spiritual DNA to create and that might be create a relationship. It might be to. It doesn’t have to be a physical thing. But it’s to take action. And when we don’t take action in life, it’s just a downward spiral of misery. So that the ways I take action our first I first I focus on connecting. And I think I’m so distracted because I love being busy. It’s how I feel comfortable in life. But when I just stopped and shut my eyes and breathe deeply, which I do this every day, and then I because I believe in a higher power, then I asked for help, which is hugely helpful. Even if somebody is listening doesn’t believe in a higher power. I say, just ask anyway, because he’s there and he does help then my mind clears it because I’m being silent and a ideas ideas of how I can be in the world how I can progress

Unknown 34:00
How I can develop how I can serve. I do just flow in, I take notes, and then I prioritize. So every day I connect in with the divine by being quiet. Some people meditate, pray, whatever you do, I take notes when I meditate, his ideas come and then I take action. I make things happen and it’s usually means I have to learn something new. Right? So so you have a bit of a process that you have the meditation process you take notes and you find a way to apply it and learn some new skills things like that. That’s awesome. You’ve really got some fascinating is fear Patty with the with the rocks telling stories. And I love that that phrase right there rocks telling stories. And you told some great stories too, because I believe in the transformational power of storytelling through conversations like this and through other things that people people can share. So what what’s one one last word you might share with our audience for people how they can

Unknown 35:00
Take some action and to see see something special out of the ordinary in their life. But how can they be aware and be the

Unknown 35:10
be sensitive to those things in their life?

Unknown 35:13
I highly recommend two things. And sometimes we just have to do them on faith that maybe it will help. And the first is to just take a small seed of belief and believe that God cares about us individually. So just that belief that God cares about us individually begins a relationship he doesn’t. He wants us to be like a close friendship, not this huge Master of the Universe. And little me He wants us to be close. So believing that he loves me individually is huge. And then stepping outside in nature. You know, it causes us to move to breathe and to see beautiful things. Even if it’s cold outside or hot outside. I say go outside connecting with

Unknown 36:00
God and we naturally feel better just by doing those two things go outside connect with God you’ll feel better that’s that’s a good start isn’t it that’s great

Unknown 36:11
well it’s been a pleasure having you with us today on the pathway to promise podcasts are our guest today Patty rochas and she has the new book he is risen rocks tells the story of Eastern you could find out more about her at rocks tell stories calm

Unknown 36:29
awesome was that interview with Patty Rocos the author of rocks tell stories the story of Easter and I just hope you picked up some great things in our conversation that you can use as takeaways in your life and to help you to get perspective and overcoming any adversity that you have in your life. That’s why we’re here at pathway promises to help you overcome adversity to get some tools and some ways to help you to do that. Patty, as she indicated, had some real issues in her life and

Unknown 37:00
hasn’t really she’s been growing up some difficulties there and

Unknown 37:05
divorce which occurred in her life and some real physical ailments with a bad back and she took time out to heal in nature and I think that’s important thing here for transformation to take place to take time out to breathe to turn off the cell phone to get out of the the hullabaloo of our own lives. And the slow down a little bit. And for her taking long walks, going on long trips and do long camping trips into the woods and she began to notice things that we wouldn’t wouldn’t notice. Otherwise ever talking about noticing a a big conch shell that was a shape of a heart and noticing rocks that were in various shapes, which he formed into the artwork and she learned to listen and to calm down. I would encourage you to do that in your own life. Listen, calm down, turn off the cell phone, turn off the TV, turn off the computer. Be quiet. Listen, breathe, take a walk.

Unknown 38:00
In nature, do something like that become one with nature. And that’s a good thing. Find your local park, take a walk in your own backyard, take a drive to State Park, whatever it is, do something where you can begin to notice things that don’t. You don’t always notice not too long ago in my neighborhood where I lived. In fact, I haven’t had any Christmas Eve during the day I was driving down the road just where I live. And right above a flight right above my head was something I have never seen before sense in my community. A bald eagle was right there. It was definitely a bald eagle was flying just just above my own car as I drove slowly down the street. And that was an awesome sight. Any of us made my Christmas a better a better experience, but I would have noticed it if I’d been so absorbed and other things I had to do for Christmas. Pay attention slow down. So I would encourage you to do that and hope you heard how her connection with nature helped her get closer with God in her life and fill or herself up spiritually.

Unknown 39:00
Then she was able to express herself artistically. Even though she didn’t see herself as an artist. Initially, she was able to express herself artistically through her books. Rocks cry out, there’s a story, the Christmas story of the activity and the Easter story which she has right now the Easter story and just to commend those to you go on to her website

Unknown 39:24
rocks, tell stories calm. There are some really awesome videos there, including a video that she’s making available as a downloadable gift for you. And it’s about a guide, a downloadable guide to making angels but how you can start making rock art with children and it’s a cool thing. Just go check that out. You can do that by going to our website pathway promise.com slash 036. That’s our episode number is 0336 was two more things I want to give you as takeaways and that is achieved

Brad Miller 40:00
recommended that talked about how it’s so important when you do this that you believe that God cares about you individually that God isn’t just as some you know corporate thing or some mass think about only the masses God cares about you individually and to be very intentional the second day be very intentional about stepping out into nature some great lessons are Patty ruckus go to get her downloadable book there and it will be helpful to you we also have a gift for you as well here at pathway promise.com you we have an upcoming book called The promise given life your 40 day way to your promise life of peace, prosperity and purpose and you can head over to pathway promised calm and there we have a place where you can get on the waitlist which is also really on the on the list that helps us to be in a launch team to help us put this together and be part of the research on this.

We want to be helpful to you here at pathway promise. I’m Dr. Brad Miller I spent many years in ministry and have studied life transformation and have a doctoral degree in that and just love you I care for you and I want us to be interaction with one another so you can respond to me through the website pathway promised calm or facebook. com slash pathway promise where we look to be helpful to you will be with you each day during during March and April 2019, 40

lessons each. So Monday through Saturday, and we take Sundays off and we will publish an episode each day to give you some teaching and some leadership here and respond to us and tell your friends about pathway promise icon because we know that we can be helpful to you because we’re about the power of a promise, the power promise to change your life. That’s what we call this the pathway to your promised life. So remember, remember my good friends by good good friends to keep your promises because there’s power in a promise.

Unknown 42:01
Thanks so much for taking the pathway to promise with Dr. Brad Miller as a subscriber, you’ll be a vital part of the pathway to promise community visit us on the web at pathway promise.com. Until next time, remember to stay on your pathway to promise

Transcribed by https://otter.ai