Your ambitions aren't bad. Your ambitions aren't evil.
Your ambitions should be directed towards serving God.
So many of us have been made to feel guilty for flourishing, and
I believe this is a podcast that's going to give you
permission. To flourish.
When I came to faith in Jesus, there was not a lot of
conversations about work ethic and dignity.
Hey, one day you're going to marry a woman, and that woman,
generally speaking, is probably going to want to stay home when
she has babies. We know selfish ambition is bad.
We know it's not helpful to just build your own castle.
Now, do I work those things out in a way that doesn't build my
own castle, but builds God's Kingdom and equips me to be the
husband, the father, the leader that I'm supposed to be?
What is the thing you're the most excited about right now?
I think honestly like telling young men about.
If you are looking for a practical, if you are tired of
just a sit back life waiting to figure out your calling, I
believe this is the message that you need to hear today.
Welcome to the podcast today. I am so excited.
This is a book that I believe is going to give permission to
young men and even women to flourish godly ambition,
unlocking your full potential of your time, talent and treasure.
You know, so many of us have been aid to feel guilty for
flourishing. And I believe this is a podcast
that's going to give you permission to flourish because
we fight by flourishing. We don't fight by division.
We don't fight or win by shrinking.
We fight by becoming everything God created us to be.
And I'm so excited because I've got Ruslan today with me.
And Ruslan is a man's man. And I told him, I said, I travel
and speak to women, but I always carry men in my heart.
And so I'm so glad you could join me today.
Let's talk about why you would write this book because you're
kind of a rapper. You're kind of a little bit of a
fringe edge wild card. And I love that.
Yeah, thank you. Thank you for having me.
What a what an amazing intro. I am originally a refugee from
Azerbaijan, Baku in the Middle East, just north of Iran.
So me and my family are Armenian came to the United States and
after my dad left, I really struggled coming to the faith.
And then after coming to the faith, walking out what God
worked in. And that was the, the tension in
terms of like I understood that when I came to faith in Jesus,
yes, I had some traumas, yes, I had some issues, but there
wasn't really a conversation about like now what there was a
conversation about like, hey, you got to, you got to go to
church, you got to read your Bible.
OK, I, I got that. I'm going to read my Bible.
I'm go to church, I'm going to join a men's group.
OK, great. Hey, you got to stop looking at
porn. You got to stop sleeping with
your girlfriend. OK, I, I got that part.
Yeah, but but, but now what? Now what am I supposed to do?
What? What?
What am I created to do? There was not a lot of
conversations about work ethic and dignity through work.
There was not a lot of conversations about
responsibility, about like, hey, one day you're going to marry a
woman, and that woman, generally speaking, is probably going to
want to stay home when she has babies.
And you need to think about that when you're 20 because that's
coming when you're 25. When you're 30, those
conversations weren't had. And so as I went down this
process of becoming a full time artist, traveling the country,
having my first son, my wife coming home, we paid off a ton
of debt. We we had a completely different
life than we were brought up with both broken families,
single parent household. And I just saw this void of not
a lot of conversations equipping people for godly ambition.
We know selfish ambition is bad. We know it's not helpful to just
build your own castle. But how do I pursue those things
that God worked in? How do I work those things out
in a way that doesn't build my own castle, but builds God's
Kingdom and equips me to be the husband, the Father, the leader,
the the entrepreneur, the creator that I'm supposed to be?
Yeah. And I do feel like people have
been so jaded by, oh, prosperity gospel and and what you're
saying is, hey, we are building for Kingdom.
We are building for life. Because when you have the
ability to get out of debt, when you have the ability to provide
for your family, then you have the ability to be generous,
Amen, and build Kingdom things. And it sounds like your heart is
really to give men permission to do this.
Yeah, absolutely. And I think sometimes, you know,
the the that teaching sprouts when there isn't good teaching,
that's being pushed forward. And so instead of just railing
against the prosperity gospel, which I think there's a time and
a place to do that, I think we need to teach people biblical
prosperity and say, well, what does that look like?
What do the Scriptures say about finances, career, calling?
How do we navigate these things? And I think anyone that I know
in the West where we're not persecuted and we're not under
the Roman Empire, who follows biblical principles to live on
less than what you make, save, give generously, have a plan,
tends to do well, right. You get out of debt.
You, you tend to do well. And what my frustration has
been, we serve a supernatural God, but we don't talk about the
Super practical of serving a supernatural God.
And so that's what I'm hoping to to get people to say like
there's a practical side to our life, to our ambition, to Our
Calling, to our marriages. Let let's get after it.
What was the turning point for you?
There are so many turning points, OK, the the initial
turning points, I come into faith in Jesus.
I, I was very angry at God because of the things that
happened to me in my childhood, experiencing sexual abuse, my
father not being in my life. I was arrested at the age of 11
for breaking into a home. So there was I had to have been
the youngest atheist that walking around at like 1011 like
I'm an atheist, God doesn't. Exist.
I was in the United States. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
God doesn't exist. And if he does, he doesn't love
me. And that was four or five years
of wrestling through that, going from atheist to theist to theist
to finally surrendered Christian when I was 17 years old.
So that was the first turning point was like, I'm giving
everything over to Jesus. I would say after that, me and
my wife went through a debt free journey following the principles
of Dave Ramsey, the first babe, three baby steps, which I still
think anyone that's struggling financially should follow those
first three baby steps. We got out of debt and something
interesting happened when we got out of debt.
All the sudden we could afford for my wife to stay home with
our first son, Levi. And then I was working at a on
staff of the church doing all the media, all the cameras, all
this stuff that we see. I was the guy behind the scenes
doing it. I communicate from the Sunday
morning platform as well, maybe 6 * a year.
And I remember I was starting to sense this, this tension because
I was traveling so much that I, I couldn't keep doing church and
keep pursuing music in my music career.
And, but at the same time, we were out of debt.
My wife was a stay at home mom and we had saved six months of
living expenses and we were praying about someday
transitioning and doing this full time.
And after years of praying, years of following God's
principles, I was coming back from South by Southwest, a huge
music festival in Austin, TX. We were in New Mexico and I'm
talking to my wife and I go, hey, like I think we should keep
praying. I think we should pray about
maybe putting in my 2 week notice to, to transition into
doing this full time. And I remember my wife who is
young, you know, we're not even in our 30s yet, right?
And I remember her saying to me, I don't think there's anything
else to pray about. You need to come home and put in
your two week notice. And those, those words like I
still remember the, the smell. I remember the diner we were in.
I remember what the other guys were doing.
That moment to me confirm that like my wife actually trusted me
because we had walked through a system of getting our house in
order and getting our finances in order and getting Our Calling
in order that she was the one that was like, there's nothing
else to pray for. Did we pray?
We prayed and prayed until we couldn't pray anymore.
And then we got to go out and we did it.
Not that was 10 years ago. Till this day I've been a
primarily self-employed full time entrepreneur doing ministry
doing music. I want to share with you about a
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start your free trial. And you know, I, I was listening
to something yesterday and this guy was saying that if a woman
is not in a soft state in her marriage, if she's always like
high drive high, it's because she doesn't feel safe.
And that when the husband takes a leadership role, which it
sounds like you had taken that you had said, I'm going to
provide, we're getting out of debt.
We're going to take action steps.
So that your wife basically said, I'm ready to jump off a
Cliff with you because I believe I can trust you.
I believe that you can lead. I love that.
And I I'm hearing so many young men waking up and taking back
their masculinity. Are you seeing that?
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, even in this may sound
silly, but like even in the rise of like young men going to jiu
jitsu, young men going to the gym, young men just wanting to
go outside and hunt and fish and like all these things that that
are good, like these are good masculine things to empower us
to be providers, protectors, priests of our homes.
I have seen a huge just jump in attendance in our local Church
of just men coming back to church.
I think this is the first time where young men are more likely
to be going to church actively than young women like in the
history of our country. That is correct.
Which is incredible. And so I, I, I see it and I go,
this is awesome. And now I'm like, OK, you guys
are going to want to get married in five or ten years.
Let's, let's get your life in order now, because you're going
to, you're going to have a wife. She's she's probably going to
want to stay home. She has little ones initially
And let let's get your, your, your finances in order.
Let's get your mindset in order. Let's get your ambitions aligned
with God's. Ways and godly ambition is going
to give them the practical to be able to walk this out.
You know, I, I do feel like so many people don't know that I
stayed home. Like they think I was always, I
was not traveling. I mean, I, I breastfed all my
boys until they asked me to stop.
I was like 2 1/2. And so I was not leaving my
children. I wanted to be home.
And most women, they have that angst when they feel like they
can't have that as a choice. Now, of course there's women
that are single parent and not necessarily by choice.
Your mother would have been one of those where you, you have to
work. But ideally, God has always
meant that the husband would be the provider and the wife could
be the nurturer and the grounding of the home.
And that is not a less than position.
That is, that is a powerful position, but it's going to
require powerful leadership on the male's part and
responsibility. And sacrifice like you.
You got to sacrifice short term comfort.
You got to sacrifice maybe eating out as much going out as
we didn't do anything for the 18 months we spent getting out of
debt. We did nothing.
We went nowhere. You're lucky that it only took
18 months. Yeah.
And and we technically had six figures of debt, like we were
$100,000 in debt. I had Co signed on a condo with
my mom. The second mortgage ended up on
my credit. And so it was, it was a grind
up. And this is before YouTube,
before I was making any real money with music.
This was, this was a lot of work.
But my wife trusted me because I had shown improved, repeatedly
shown improved. And then when it's when it's
time to put our head down, she's not because I think sometimes,
and I and I'd love to hear you speak into this.
I think sometimes we're in this idealistic view of work life
balance and I'm going to shut my phone off for four days at a
time and call it Sabbath and be unreachable and like all this
kind of stuff and, and listen, like Sabbath is predicated on
working hard for six days. And so and now I'm hearing young
men talk about Sabbath in their 20s, and it's like, did you need
to put your head down? You haven't even worked.
You haven't worked six days to have it right now.
I think you should take a day off.
I think you should rest. But I think we, we kind of want
everything like we want perfectly at work life balance,
but we also want to be providers.
And it's like, hey, man, when you're young, you just, you just
got to put your head down for a season and work hard.
And I think that the thing that I heard Dave Ramsey said this as
well, the thing that is scary to, to wives is that they start
thinking this is forever. This pace is forever.
And it's, and that's where communication comes in.
So I'm we're about to have our third child.
I think I told you that we're expecting a boy in November.
Congratulations. I'm working very hard right now.
I'm traveling a lot, but there's communication, hey, Dad's going
to be gone for three sleeps and I come home and I'll be gone for
four sleeps and then I'm at home.
And then after mid-october, dad's not going anywhere for
months. I'm home, I'm home, home.
When there's communication, I think wives then go, OK, we're
in a season where he's going to work really hard for a season,
not forever. And then that will give us the
flexibility to have more of the, of the work life balance that
we're going at. But but I think we get the
sequencing wrong. I, I think absolutely.
I think I overheard a conversation between my husband
and another pastor and he said it's shocking to me that all
these millennials are like resting and they don't work.
He said they're already not working enough.
And then they're they're like exhausted.
And I think when you have purpose, like you're saying, OK,
I'm just going to, I'm just going to grin and bear it for
the next three months. I'm going to do this Then, you
know, there's a reward on the other side of it.
And so I absolutely I, you know, we, we come from the mindset of
work is what you do play is a privilege.
That's right. And yeah, I, I found this, and
you probably have seen this in the culture.
When we had COVID, everybody began to think that
entertainment was their right. Like we deserve every single day
to be entertained. And and like my husband and I,
when we pioneered the ministry, we put those kids to bed.
We were either, you know, folding, you know, batching mail
or praying or cassette tape duplication.
I mean, we, we were working and we didn't think of, we've
already worked six hours. We worked whatever it took, we
stayed up as long as it took. John's first book that he wrote,
I, I would, I would edit at night from 10:00 to 2:00 AM now
forever and ever. No, but for two or three months
I did do that. And I think people don't know
how to count the cost. And so I'm really excited that
you're telling people. Plus there's reward.
Yeah, that's right. And there's dignity.
There's dignity at work. You feel good.
I think the latest data that I've seen said the average
American watches 7 hours hours of media a day.
So when are they working? Well, if you're spending seven
hours watching stuff, and that's not counting work, that's just
you're passively consuming Netflix, you're on social media,
you're on YouTube 7 hours a day and you're sleeping, let's just
say 7 hours a day and you're working and in the commuting and
the meals, you don't have any time that that averages out to
50 hours a week almost, right? And so I'm not even saying, hey,
get off of social media. I'm not, I'm not saying I'm
saying, hey, what if that 50 hours a week you spend passively
consuming stuff? How about you cut that in half?
25 hours of like deep work, go learn a new skill.
Go go, go, go make yourself more of an asset to your current
employer. Because instead of, hey, how can
I get the most amount of money for the least amount of work?
How about you give the most amount of work and effort and
then see what happens within the institution you're already in
while developing yourself so that you can do something on the
side and potentially that side hustle turns into a, a, a full
time thing. I think these are like
uncomfortable things because I think we're so scarred from
hustle culture of like just work endlessly.
And that is not good when you identify yourself with the stuff
you do for money, right? We can't, our identity has to be
anchored in Jesus, right? You.
We are not what we do for money. Our purpose can't be and what we
do for money, our purpose as followers of Jesus is to know
God and make him known. That's every single Christian's
purpose. Our assignment may change,
right? Your assignment when you had
little ones was is very different than your assignment
right now. You you have an incredible
podcast. You're speaking all over the
world. It's a very different
assignment, but your purpose never changed.
Your purpose was to know God and make him known and calling in
the book I, I explained how calling is discovered.
Calling is not static. We're like I'm at this fork in
the road moment and if I go left I'll ruin everything and I'll
miss the will of God for my life.
No, no calling is from your purpose of knowing God and
making him known to understanding the current
assignment of what's in front of you.
Calling is in the process of discovery through being faithful
with our time. Talented treasure.
So it sounds like you're giving people permission to make a
mistake. Oh yeah, make lots of mistakes.
Exactly, exactly. You know, I, I had this
interesting story where my husband had just turned 60 and
he had all of his friends in from golfing and I flew in from
California. I'd done a women's conference
and I ended up in the spa because this husband was like, I
don't want a facial. You could have my facial.
So I end up in the spa and this young girl sees me and starts
crying and pushed and she opens up her arms and she has my book
in her hands. And so I sit down with her and
she's like, I, I just, I, you know, I just got married.
We just moved. We just this, and I thought this
all sounds great. You know, why is she stressed?
And she said, I'm just so afraid I'm going to miss God.
And I thought, I wish I had a dollar for every time I've heard
that. But I said, well, listen, you
know, first of all, the enemy will use your desire to please
God against you. He will freeze you.
He will say, don't take a step. You might make a mistake.
And I said, I'm going to tell you this right now.
You're, you're guaranteed you're going to make a mistake.
You're going to be misrepresented, you're going to
be misunderstood. But you need to take a step
anyway. And I went back to my hotel room
afterwards and I heard, you know, when I was pondering in
this question, I heard tell my children, I'm a really big
target. And the only way they don't hit
me is if they don't move. Like, where can we go?
And every, every mistake I've ever made, everyone, any mistake
John's ever made, I'm sure any mistake you've ever made, it
became a teaching opportunity. As long as you, your purpose is
to love Jesus, to make up, make him known, God will take it all.
Even the worst things I've ever like in a moment where it was
either the marriage or things I did, God has always redeemed
those things. And I do think we have a
generation that froze during the pandemic.
It's not a fight and flight. It's a frozen.
They don't want to take a step. They don't want to take a
misstep. So they're doing nothing.
And God says when you walk, you'll hear a voice behind you
saying this is a way not when you sit and so.
That's so good. And I think I think something
practical that might help people is the idea that God it God's
will is this permanent destination that you got to go
through. And it's like a scavenger hunt.
And that is how. We were raised right.
That is how we were raised. It's it's very stressful.
Yeah, and, and, and the way I I frame God's will for my life, as
I say, God's will for our life is in God's ways for our life.
And so if you want God's will for your life, you have to ask
yourself the question of how am I doing this?
Am I, am I going about building this ministry, this nonprofit,
this job this season? Am I going about it in a way
that God would go about it? Or am I doing it from a depleted
selfish place? Right.
And so I think God's will for our life is in God's ways for
our life. And God's ways for our life is
in God's word. And so if we stay aligned with
God's word, then we can always be doing God's ways, whatever
we're doing, whether you're a stay at home mom, whether you
are leading a podcast and a staff of people.
And then that will always keep us in God's will that it's not
the static thing. And I think that the how often
matters much more than the what, right.
So when you say make mistakes, I don't know, or I'm saying I
don't, I'm not, we're not saying be flippant and just jump out
the window and be reckless. We're saying as you go through
the process, you should be concerned about the how and, and
the way you're doing stuff because even if it's not the
thing, sometimes it'll lead to the thing.
I thought I was going to be a famous Christian rapper for
Jesus and I had the songs with Lecrae and I had all the thing
that the who's who and Christian music.
But I'm so grateful where I am now and, and, and how I've been
able to pivot and go into YouTube.
I still do music, but sometimes it's the thing that leads to the
thing. And then it's that process of
just faithfulness and discovery. I love that.
What is the thing you're the most excited about right now?
I, I think honestly like telling young men about this concept of
godly ambition and, and just getting to the point of like,
hey, your ambitions aren't bad. Your ambitions aren't evil.
Your ambitions should be directed towards serving God and
loving God and serving people. And if, and if we could figure
that out, I think we'll see a lot more men leading, a lot more
men financially stable, a lot more men getting after it.
And that's a good thing, right? Like I, I, I think I'm tired of
society telling people, hey, if you want to change your
trajectory, if you want to change how your life is going,
that's bad and you're a bad person.
You're not a bad person. You see the opportunity that
this is the best time to ever be alive in the best country that's
ever existed. And we look at the scriptures
and we'll like, romanticize like martyrdom of Paul or martyrdom
of Stephen. And it's like they were under
Roman occupation that hated Christians and made it illegal
to be a Christian. This is not our.
Concept that is not our, that is.
Not ours. And so if you, if you think Paul
or Peter were to land in 2025 and open up and, and look around
and say, you guys got cameras and this is being broadcast and
millions of people, we're so interconnected and you're,
you're worried about if like you're going to make a mistake.
And not like, I think they would be alarmed with how much we
waste the opportunities that are in front of us.
And so I'm, I'm saying, Hey, take inventory.
Where are we? Who's are we?
What is the things that are in front of us?
And in that man, we can usher in so much good.
And, and, and the book is based on the passage in First
Thessalonians 411. What it says, make it your
ambition to lead a quiet life. Work with your own hands so that
your daily life may win the respect of outsiders and so that
you may not be dependent on anybody, right?
So the idea of like working with your own hands, minding your own
business and our daily life is what wins the respect of
outsiders. It's the it's caught and not
taught. We could have the greatest
polemics and the greatest theology and apologetics and all
that. I love all of that.
I love preaching, but it's your daily life.
It's the Pagan looking at you and saying something different
about that. You love your wife.
You lead well.
Yeah, You're not angry. You're not.
Yeah. No, people are watching and
waiting for us. And I, I do think right now when
I, when I got the preview of your manuscript, I was like
which? By the way, thank you for an
amazing endorsement. Absolutely.
I was. I was so excited that you were
taking this on because it's one thing for a woman to give men
permission to flourish. It's completely different thing
when a father and a brother and some somebody who has come out
of being a refugee, which my father was a refugee.
So I understand that. And my dad, he never spoke
against our country. He saw this as a land of
opportunity. He he you know, and he rose.
He was the president of the Home Builders Association if Indiana,
but he didn't start there. He started on the roof roofing,
which is the worst job in construction.
So we have to have people in a place where they understand
doing hard things now doesn't mean you'll do hard things
forever. But if you are not willing to do
the hard things now, you're, you're never going to see the
things you really hope for. And I, I do think so many people
think, well, you've taken this out of my account.
You flourishing means that I didn't get to, you know, your
success means my failure. And instead of saying, wait a
minute, if you can do it, I can do it.
And then I know for me, you know, the balance on the
prosperity missing was the whole idea of God is the one who gives
us the power to create wealth. And wealth isn't just money
wealth, it's legacy wealth is what you're talking about, a
life of respect, a life of consistency to establish a
covenant. And you know, for me, being from
generations of non covenant people, I wanted to establish a
covenant and it had nothing to do with money and more to do
with wealth. And I, I love that you're saying
to these men, because I, I'm hearing more and more women
saying I'm tired of being a boss babe.
I'm tired. This is, this is ill fitting.
I'm tired of treating men like they're nothing.
I'm tired of the, the Barbie Ken dynamic.
I actually really want to be soft again.
I want to be feminine again. I want to to have a man that I
can respect, who respects me, who I can dream with.
I I watched Lila talking about how, you know, Erica Kirk was
under submission with her husband.
She was under his mission. And that is not domination.
That means that she understood that her and her husband were on
assignment. It sounds like you and your wife
know this is our assignment. And I'm loving that you're
activating. Yeah, generation of young men,
what is your greatest challenge right now?
You know, I think I, I look at challenges as seasonal, yes,
windows into what God is doing with me and through me, right.
And so for me, I, I don't, I don't, I think challenges right
now it's, it's simple stuff. It's like I miss my family right
now. You know, I, I would really
love, I love my 4 year old. I love my 10 year old.
I love my wife. We have a really fun rhythm at
home when I'm home. And so it's like the next couple
weeks I'm traveling. It's hard, but we understand,
Hey, this is for window of time and then dad's going to be home.
You know, I don't I don't do any travel through January, you
know, so I'll be home from mid-october to January.
We're doing our summit in March. I'm doing some tour stuff after
that. So I would say that the practice
was like, I just miss my family. I think the YouTube side of
things is really interesting in the broader.
This is a macro conversation and I would actually really love
your inside on this is something that I'm noticing that I've
heard from the I would say let's just call it the radical left
right for to simplify it is this idea that the system is rigged
can't get ahead. It is hard and it's about fill
in the blank this injustice or this structure.
I'm concerned now that I'm starting to hear that from
pockets of the right, the system is rigged.
You can't get ahead. It's the immigrants and it's
the, it's Israel and Israel derangement syndrome on the far
right. It's immigrants, it's the black
people, it's these people and it's the they're saying the same
thing. It's hyper racialized, right.
The left focused a lot on race. Now the far right starting to
focus a lot on race. And I'm, and I'm, and it's the
same demeaning message of you have no agency because Israel's
bad. You have no agency because the
immigrants are here. You have no agency because the
black people. And it's so debilitating because
the worst thing you could do from young men is rob them of
their agency is to tell them that you're a victim.
You can't get ahead. And it's because of they of them
versus saying, Hey, there's all sorts of things that are unfair
about the world and what none of us are the same height.
None of us have the same, you know, attributes.
But by the grace of God, we're all image bearers and goodness
gracious. If you apply God's principles to
your life over a long enough time horizon, you'll be fine.
Yeah, those are people, that one excuse, you know, to be honest
with you, I really had an awareness that you cannot give
away your power to excuses one way or the other.
And you're right. I mean, I, I am starting to see
that it's, it's almost like white men have become the, the
horrible person. So now they're saying, well, you
guys have shut us down. Well, here's the thing.
We are not subject to this culture.
We are subject to a Kingdom. And so you either can bow down
and make excuses and live in the lesser, or you can rise up and
say, hey, I'm, I'm of Goshen. I'm not in Egypt right now.
I'm not going to live under the parameters of offense and racism
and anger and unforgiveness and victimhood.
For me, I have 0 tolerance for victimhood.
Like I said, my dad was like, heck no.
And, and I, and I'm not trying to be disrespectful, but my mom
was a victim her entire life. And all I saw was weakness.
When people make themselves victims, they're looking for an
excuse to opt out of God's covenant on their life.
And for me, I was like, no, no, I'm not going to do that.
I'm not going to say that anybody outside of God has the
right to define me, has the right to limit me, has the right
to, to say what I can and cannot do.
And I'm, I'm not going to get in strife with other people.
You know, there's this division right now on both sides.
I mean, to me, it's, it's definitely more prevalent on the
left, but we are starting to see it begin to turn.
What I loved and you know, when I watched the memorial, I felt
like where it was healthy was when everybody pointed to Jesus
and not to, you know, the left or the whatever the other was.
We do not need to get entangled with the enemy schemes because
we have a, a God who has a plan and his plan remains hidden.
I love how Isaiah says he was sits in the heaven and laughs.
I mean, he, he knew that you would go through something hard,
but he also knew that you would rise above it.
And you know, I've, I mean, I had cancer when I was 5 and
it's, you know, it's much when I was young, I thought it's not
fair. I have one eye.
It's not fair. But that actually made me
stronger than probably if I'd had two eyes, there's a.
Resilience in. You there's a resilience that
hardship works into our lives and and also it punctuates your
life and too many people's lives have been punctuated with
question marks when God is like enough this chapter's oven.
You need to put a period in this and you need to flip the the
page and stop making this about you.
Yeah, well, you know, the interesting thing is we don't
always have a great theology for suffering, right?
We, we, we, we want the easy path.
We want pleasure and dopamine. You want to just numb ourselves.
But but when we talk about calling and purpose, there's an
interesting fact that I looked up.
I don't know if I share this with you when you were on my
podcast, but I looked up the word passion and in the Oxford
Dictionary, the word passion is uncontrollable emotion, right?
This person is a man of passion, uncontrollable emotion.
But the second definition for passion in the Oxford.
Have you ever like this up the suffering of Christ?
I mean, there we go, right? The movie, yes.
The movie. And so and so the word passion
is not just that uncontrollable emotion.
The word passion comes from Jesus being willing to suffer.
And I wonder how many folks when they're thinking about what am I
supposed to do? I just want to follow my
passion. If you find something to do so
much, you know, you love it so much, you'll never have to work
a day in your life. And it's like, wait, wait, no,
no. What if your passion was more
oriented about what you're willing to suffer for and what
if and sacrifice for? And what if you're willing to
suffer and sacrifice for? The bad things in your life are
actually equipping you to be more resilient to suffer and put
your head down when it's difficult.
And I think if we reoriented our our clinical passions around
what are you willing to suffer for?
What are you willing to go through?
And the more we suffer and, and hardships come, the more likely
we're to be Brazilian and to go through that suffering to refine
ourselves in the fire. And I think that's, that's the
part that like, I don't want to do that.
That's, that's uncomfortable. It's like, it is uncomfortable,
right? Jesus says, hey, he wants to
follow me and wants to save his life.
We'll lose it. And he wants to gain his life
for my sake. We'll find it.
And that word life means psyche. Like it's a different Greek word
than Zoe life. And John 10-10.
You have to lay down your psyche, your mentality, your
ways of doing things so that you can walk through that refining
fire. And that happened to you as a
child, happened to me as a child.
Sometimes it keeps happening to us as.
AI feel like I go through stages.
I mean it's a whole James one. I mean it's just kind of pure
joy. You know when when you go
through this intense fire and you know one of the things when
when I was reading it, the whole book of James chapter, you know,
chapter one it in the message paraphrase.
It kind of sets it up where it says the text come from all
sides. And I was reading it and God
said, I will put you in seasons of ambush without any means of
escape to show myself strong. And so he like it's when your
whole world falls apart, you turn to him.
That's right. And then when you turn to him,
you and I both know first step of any spiritual warfare is
submitting yourself to God. It's a it's a posture of
humility. Then we resist and and then he
flees. But too many people skip the
suffering time. And I have found in my own life,
anytime I pulled myself out, God's like, OK, you know, if
this is too hard, you can pull yourself out, but there'll be a
retest. And the retest is always harder.
I've just learned stay the course, Don't, don't opt out,
don't skip out. I mean, I remember in college
being like, I don't really want to get up and take a test.
And the first time I did that and then I showed up for the
retest, I was like, this is wait, this is way harder.
He's like, absolutely. The retest is always harder.
And so God wants US, has set us up with struggle as
strengthening, he sets up obstacles to actually develop
us. And too many people avoid the
very thing that's going to actually propel them forward.
And so I, I love that you're setting this up of, hey, yeah,
do what you love, but probably you're going to have to go
through a lot to get to that place where you even discover,
you know, and one of the things I also loved about the message
translation, and I don't know if it's in Matthew 5, but it, it
basically said that when we help others find out who they are in
Christ, that's who we discover who we are.
It's not always about me. That's right.
It's about others. I mean that that is the the
ultimate example. When I'm when I open the book,
we talk about helping others. I open the book with the idea in
Luke chapter 22 where the disciples are arguing about
who's the greatest. It's the greatest right You
have. He just washed their feet.
He tells him he's dying and tells him.
He's going to go to the cross, he says 1 of you guys is about
to betray me. And then in Luke 22, he says.
And then a dispute rose among them about who was going to be
the. I love the humanity.
It's so crazy. It's so he's just trying to have
a final meal. He's trying to demonstrate
what's about to happen, washing their feet.
And then they would argue about who's the greatest.
Now the, the interesting part is in that moment, Jesus never
rebukes their desire for greatness because he had rebuked
Peter, he rebuked the Pharisees, he rebuked Judah.
He had no problem rebuking people, but he never rebukes
their desire for greatness. Instead, he redefines greatness
as service and and redirects them towards hey, you want to be
great, Don't, don't be like the the gentiles who dominate and
who domineer and and and and. It's about status and clout and
power. The greatest among you should be
like the biggest servant, right? And so when you're talking about
discovering it, it is absolutely a through line to how can you
serve people? And, and sometimes, like if you
struggle, I was, I was with a, a friend of mine.
That is I, I didn't, I didn't know he, that he did he deal
with this like, hey, like I'm naturally a selfish guy.
And I said, I would have never thought you're naturally a
selfish guy because every time I'm with you, you're the guy
that's willing to do anything. You're you'll stack chair and
it's a pretty high profile person.
I'll tell you who it is off the record, pretty high profile
person. He he's like, I just want to
serve. I want to stack chairs.
I want to do whatever and I said you identify as a selfish
person, Therefore you put things in your life to take the
attention off of yourself by serving right?
And that's a good thing. Sometimes it's the remedial
tasks of putting our head down and saying, Hey, I'm going to
show up and I'm going to serve because I don't, I, I, I don't
like this part of me, right? So it's creating those
boundaries and those frameworks to say, let me serve people.
But sometimes serving people might mean you are on a platform
and you're sharing something that you are able to articulate
that you've made simple, that's complicated for other people,
that's actually also serving people.
And so I think once we figure out what is that process, then
we can go, OK, now I, I, I, I can start to refine the skill
set that I have. So I have a a chapter in there
about talent stacking. Something's coined by Scott
Adams. Many people think that, like,
you need to be the greatest at one thing, right?
So, like, am I I graduated class of 2003.
LeBron James graduated class of 2003.
I wanted to be a professional basketball player.
LeBron was on his way to being a professional basketball player.
But I'm not sure if you know this.
There's never been an Armenian that's made it to the NBA,
right? Never.
Yeah. Fun fact, I had to discover this
little thing called genetics, right?
Like it's not, it's not the cards for me.
So many people view this process of like, I want to be the best
thing at one thing. And the idea of sound stacking
is Scott Adams says it's like, you don't want to be the best at
one thing. You want to be top 10%, top 20%
at like 5 or 6, seven things. And then then you're a Unicorn
and you're, you're valuable. So the folks here on your team,
I've met a lot of them. They wear different hats.
Many of them can edit. They know how lighting works,
they know how audio works, they know how copy works, they know
how social media works, they know how to do it all.
And so now they're a greater asset to you and, and you as
well. You've taken certain skill sets.
You started as an editor for John, then you wrote your own
book and you stacked learning to communicate and speak.
Now you're doing a podcast. So we're stacking these
different things that I think most people were like, well, I
just want to do the one thing. And it's like or build on top of
your current skill set to create a, a Unicorn like approach to
what you present to the marketplace and to your church
and to your community. And that's the more direct way
to success. It's not I want to be LeBron
James. I'm not going to be LeBron
James. It is just not in the cards for
me right you? Can practice all day long.
I'm not going to grow another foot.
It's not in the cards for me, right?
And our by the way, our birthdays are a day apart.
So wow, same Goodyear. Does he know this compare?
I'm going to tell him. Same year and so same year, year
of high school, a day apart, not the same, will never be LeBron
James. But that's what I thought.
I wouldn't be a professional basketball player.
And so when we start saying, OK, wait a minute, what are the
things I'm already naturally good at?
What are the things God's already kind of using?
What are opportunities to serve, serving my local church, serve,
serve my local community. And then you start putting this,
this link of skills together. And that is actually the pathway
to say, OK, now you're an asset. Now you could be a blessing and
you can go and work for Elisa Revere or you can over the next
10 decades, 5 decades, 3 decades to become a Lisa Beer.
Listen, I I want new improve no, and I always say that when young
girls come back to me and they're like, I'm going to be
like you one day, I'm like, I hope not, I hope, I hope, I
know, I hope I have paved a way that you go further and farther
and it's not it's not me, you know, being false humility.
I'm just like, I did not work for you to be me.
That's right. I worked for you to be you And
and I want you to take all of that my mistakes and all of the
right things. You know, I want to close with
this. I I love that you did
practicalities and I know one of the things that changed my life
was when I first married John, I worked in bookkeeping and I'm
like, what? I mean, I was doing the ten key
at our church. I was, you know, batching
deposits and hated it, hated it because more because of the
people in the accounting department and stuff like that.
And so John said, you know what, Lisa?
Why don't you write down, like, what you want to do?
And I'm going to tell you, writing a list for me.
At that time, I was newly married.
I hadn't finished my degree. I mean, like, I had all of these
strikes against me. I was great with like, oh, I
want to go scuba diving. Oh, I want a snorkel.
Those things were fine, but I remember when I wrote down I
want to write a book, I heard who do you think you are?
When I said I want to travel, who would send you?
Who would pay for you to go? You don't.
I mean, I wrote down I want to do television makeup.
I want to be a television producer.
Everything I actually wrote down, just writing it down was
like a battle but within like 4 years.
I'd done all of those things and it was a clarifying and I did
pray. I said, God, I want to scribe
the things that you have for my life and I am going to be very
specific. And then when I was very
specific, when opportunities came, I recognize them or that's
something I asked. Like I literally said, I want to
do television makeup and and two weeks later I get a call and
they said we need ATV makeup artist, we'll pay for you to go
to school. And so I got trained and paid to
do TV makeup in Dallas for Christian broadcasting things
and it was just crazy. But if I was just all over and
do I do that now? No, but did that watching, you
know, and I'd get bored. And so I would say, do you know
that plant's coming out of their head?
Can I move that? So I started to get a mindset
about, well, that they're taking a long time to say that, you
know, and I, then they, I started becoming an associate
producer and then I, and it all worked together.
And, and too many people aren't willing to come in at the lower
level and then do more than required.
Like I used to literally say, I am done with all my work today.
Can can you give me something else?
And, and literally they said, wait, you're done.
I'd be like, yeah, everything you guys have asked me to do,
I'm done. What else would you like me to
do? And I ended up taking over and
creating a whole different job. And so you want to become
irreplaceable and whatever job you're at.
And that's, that's godly ambition.
That's right. And it, it wasn't because I
wanted approval. It was because I knew I was
working as unto God. And I knew that it was wrong for
me to be at a job being paid full time and not working full
time. That felt really wrong.
And some of the other employees were OK with that.
And so I ended up changing things.
So can you do this? We believe in prayer and would
you just pray and give people permission under the sound of
your voice? Wives, I believe wives need to
buy this book for their husbands.
I believe mothers and fathers seem to buy these for graduates.
I believe this is a book that God is giving keys to people and
I just want you to pray a blessing and an opening and
breaking any stronghold in their mind that would fight against
this. All right, let's do it.
Father, I thank you so much for this conversation.
We thank you for just the team here, Lord, everyone that is
that is getting after it. And I thank you for every single
person that's watching this conversation that you have them
right where you want them, Father.
And I pray right now, just a lifting of the mind battles,
Lord, the lifting of the, the cognitive dissonance in the
indecision and the, the, the, I don't know what to do, Lord,
That there would be clarity after this conversation that,
that the apathy would be gone, but that ultimately there would
be the next step for them that you have for them, Father.
They would not be stuck in any sort of analysis of paralysis,
but they would go to first you and your word and your
scriptures, take inventory of who they are, whose they are,
and what you have for them to do.
Lord, and to step into the next season of their life.
Lord, whether that looks like starting that ministry, starting
that nonprofit, that podcast, whether that looks like
developing more useful skills, whether that looks like having a
honest conversation about where things are at in their finances
within their marriage. Lord, that they would take that
next step and that they wouldn't be afraid.
Lord that we, we, we just give them permission to go after it.
Lord we thank you, Lord we love you and we pray these things in
Jesus name, Amen. Amen, Amen.
OK, So guys, the book we've been talking about Godly Ambition and
it's available now, correct? It's available now.
You guys can get this on Amazon. We will put it in the show
notes. This is a perfect book.
I think this needs to be Christmas gift because so many
people are going to have some pause and they have a lot of
questions. And so I believe this is a gift
that will actually produce clarity and and move people from
a place of inactivity, inactivity to a place of
assignment. And as you said, agency.
I love that. Thank you so much.
Thank you. Thank you for joining me.
It's amazing. Thank you.