"Inciting Incidents:The Fuel of Reformers" S1 Ep2

0:00 The role was on point when he said that the massive men live lives of quiet desperation. But what of what was hindering you could become unhinged in you? What if God wanted to detonate in you what is lying dormant in you? In this episode we want to reveal what is the secret sauce for explosive exploits. And stay tuned to the end for some Keep Your 100 takeaways that will shatter the litter of limitation over your life.

0:44 Hey Christa, how you doing? Hey, I'm excited to be here. I am really excited about the topic we're going to be talking about today. I am too. I feel like this being our second episode, I feel like hopefully that we're getting better at this. I'm hoping. We always are aiming to get better. But what I love is we're talking about things we're passionate about. And I feel like that's really going to come across today because our heart is to really help people go deeper in their walk with God. And where we're taking them today, I feel like it's going to really do that. I'm super excited about it. So hey, you ready? Let's jump in. Let's do it. Now, things were already unstable, unsettled, and uneasy in terms of what we're seeing in our world today.

1:25 We've seen our entire nation become unhinged. And then after the eight minute, 46 second video of George Floyd, it seemed like the bottom fell out. I mean, we have seen, at least I can say in my lifetime, I've never seen our nation the way it is. I was talking to my parents because obviously my parents are in their 75. And they were there, they got married the year of the sexual revolution, 1967, the year of summer of love. They were obviously JFK when he got killed, Martin Luther King Jr. when he got killed, when Malcolm X got killed, Bobby Kennedy got killed. And they said, this feels similar to those days, but still different, of course. But in my lifetime, I've just never seen our country unhinged and divided the way it's divided as we're seeing today.

2:10 I totally agree with you, and obviously from our first episode podcast to our second, we've seen episodes of civil unrest, situations where even in Seattle, there was like a overtaking of the Capitol, police precinct as well. And that video. On Capitol Hill. In Seattle, yes, absolutely. They claimed it was their own country. I mean, this is true lawlessness. So we are really in unprecedented times. It is. One of the things that often happens in unprecedented times is that God gives us special catalysts, special events that are meant to prompt us towards action. So true.

2:51 And the George Floyd video was an inciting incident. Absolutely. An incited protest. It's incited a movement. It's incited a revolution that I believe will change the way we see our nation. And hopefully this will be a turning point year. I so agree with that. When you had shared that, that the Lord spoke to you that 2020 will be a turning point year. And then all of this stuff has began to unfold as much as the unhinging. And we've seen a lot of like negative stuff. We've seen a lot of positive. And the positive, as I feel like people are actually speaking up against racism, the positive people are caring. They are seeing the evil of racism.

3:32 And there actually, there is this beautiful unified voice of people going, no, we're not okay with this. That gets me excited because people have been incited for kingdom justice. And of course, not all of it has played out kingdom, of course, because not everyone is serving the kingdom. And even some people that are serving the kingdom aren't necessarily operating kingdom. However, I am so excited that there has been an awakening, right? Like you said, the people that have been woke are still getting awakened to the things of God. And I love this because we are talking about inciting incidents today. And I love that we are seeing this play out in current culture today.

4:14 Yes. Let's take a minute, Christa, for all our listeners to define what an inciting incident is. It's funny in the cinematic world, an inciting incident is the event that thrusts the protagonist, whoever that person may be, into the lane of being a hero. It is a special turning point that jolts you out of the status quo. I love that. And I was thinking about some practical expressions of that. One of it was in the great movie Black Panther. Come on now. When the superhero T'Challa saw his father T'Chaka assassinated by Winter Soldier. It's from that point that we see the evolution of T'Challa becoming the Black Panther and becoming the hero.

4:55 I love that. Another example is David in 1 Samuel 17, when David is standing on a sideline bringing food to his brothers and he sees Goliath taunt the armies of the living God. They retreat that day and David stands there holding the lunch. And of course he turns around and says, what's going to be given to the guy that takes his giant out and is there not a cause? I love that because I love that you brought up David especially because I mean, I love the Black Panther. Come on. That's so awesome. I mean, I think almost me and everyone else stood up in the theater. We're like, yes. You know, when his mom's like, tell him who you are. We're like, yes. It was like that inciting moment where he had to step into who he's called to be and this ownership of actually what was in him.

5:42 And David the same thing. Like all of a sudden you just step into this place of you, you see an injustice, you see something wrong and then something in you rises up and it's that whole revelation of hold on. It's like I was created to defeat what's coming against my people, myself or the situation at hand. That's true. And you make a great point. Insighting incident, it reveals divine intention. It begins to launch you into who you were meant to be. That God gives us that as a gift for us to freshly discover our purpose and to have the fuel to carry out the exploits he's called us to do. I love that. Why don't you tell us about your inciting incident? You know what, mine is, it was cool when we started talking about this, you know, you have to reflect on your life.

6:25 You know, like what is my inciting incident? And when I went back and I kind of pulled everything apart and I looked at my life and I thought, you know, mine was my freshman year. I was at a university in Seattle actually. I'm from the Northwest and I had gone to a public junior high, public high school and I'd love God my whole life. I could serve God. I had just followed after God. I wasn't a party girl. I just went for the things of God. I had a deep conviction for the things of God and I got tired of being what felt like, not necessarily was this true, but in my sphere of friends and the people I hung out with, it felt like I was kind of the only one serving God. And I found myself feeling really alone in my pursuit and my relationship with God is in junior high and high school, whatnot.

7:10 I decided to go to a Christian university, Seattle Pacific University, and I was so excited. I mean, I was like, okay, cool, like I'm going to be around all these people that love God, pursuing God. This is going to be awesome. I mean, it's like going to be summer camp. It's going to be like, and because I went to a Christian summer camp every year. So my only, you know, experience and reference for being around a lot of the Christians was summer camp, which was like amazing. It was like full of encounters and everyone going after God. So I thought, you know, college is going to be summer camp. It's going to be, we're going to be on our faces for God. We're going to be prophesying. This is going to be awesome and encounters for God. And then I go there and my roommate, who's awesome? I mean, she's a, she was a great girl.

7:52 We got along well, but our convictions and our lifestyles were polar opposite. And I found out really quickly being there that a lot of people would go over to UW because UW was like 10 minutes away, University of Washington for those that don't know that. And there's Greek row, which is all the fraternities and sororities and everyone was partying over there because there's no drinking or partying allowed on the, on our campus. And everyone was just partying and coming back to the campus, wasted, high, whatever, living crazy, sleeping with each other. It literally was high school all over again. And I found myself at 18 years old going, hold on, I'm at a Christian university. I thought everyone was going to be Christian and I'm in the exact same situation I was in in high school and junior high.

8:35 And it was this inciting moment, baby, where I just began to look around and go, hold on, I can't wait for anyone else to go after God with me. I have to pursue God and I can't allow my atmosphere to dictate my pursuit. And so I realized right then and there, there was a resolve that I was going to serve God and I was going to look and live different than those around me. And there was such a poll on me during my college years of who was I going to serve? There were, I didn't go to the parties. I didn't, you know, I just didn't participate in the drinking or the sleeping around or whatever. And there was opportunities to participate in all that. And at times, even within me, I was like, man, you know, but I kept going back to that inciting moment of no, God's called me to live for him and I gave him all of who I was.

9:23 So there had to come this point in my life where everything was God and nothing was off limits. And when I hit that place, obviously, which was the recognition of other people's standards cannot be my standards. And when I came to this place, I realized when we were talking about what is my inciting moment, it was my freshman year college because from that point on, either was a distinction that God put in me to live fully surrendered to him like everything in my life he had access to and it was surrendered. It was like your inciting incident, Christa, was God showing you the contrast. Yeah. And in that contrast, it caused you to in that moment, be awakened to the fact that you needed to live the difference.

10:08 You needed to be different. It kind of comes as our inciting incidents due to shake you out of complacency. Right. Totally. So would you say this? Would you say that your inciting incident was something that was more by recognition or by revelation? It's a great question. I think it was by recognition because I think some people have these incredible, powerful God moments. I mean, I know you've had so many of those. It's interesting. I think that my life and some of the most significant God moments are really quiet. There are these really simple everyday moments where I'm actually having a powerful encounter and transformation in God that aren't loud or boisterous or even catch the attention of anyone else and actually might slip by my acknowledgement for the moment.

10:56 And then I look back and I'm like, whoa, that was the moment where everything changed. And it was just me acknowledging the contrast that God was putting a distinction, He was putting His mark on me and it wasn't this big, powerful revelation. It was merely me coming into agreement and acknowledging who God called me to be. That's so profound, boo. And I just want to say to our Keep It 100 tribe, that even as you're listening right now, people can have their lives changed in what seems at the time to be the most innocuous of encounters. I love that. I underestimate that when God gets in a moment, that moment becomes a divine moment in which your life can be transformed from that point on.

11:38 I love that. You know, it's interesting. And I just want to share this because I think it really ties into like current events and what's happening and what we're talking about. When I looked at, again, this George Floyd and just this racism, which again, isn't new. It's just being filmed. Let's call that for what it is. It's just being caught. And because we're on a global pause, people aren't busy. They aren't distracted. There's this like awareness like never before. Everyone's looking at the same thing at the same time globally. I mean, there was mass protests around the world after the George Floyd incident. This wasn't just an American thing. It was a worldwide global impact about racism. And what's interesting is when I began to see all these protests and I saw all these people begin to gather and I saw the inciting moment and I saw the draw to respond.

12:27 There was a compelling in the generation. I'm not just talking young people. I'm talking anyone that has breath in their body. Current generation today was looking and going, what can I do? Something must be done. There was a draw to get outside, to hold a sign, to come to a protest, to gather. And I looked at that and the Lord spoke to me when I saw all these pictures going across my phone, a protest and whatnot. And I heard the Lord say, Chris, this is a Moses generation. And I said, Lord, what does that mean? And he reminded me, and of course, many of us, even the listeners today, we know this story, but it's like Moses was born with justice within him. God created him to be the deliverer of the children of Israel.

13:09 They're enslaved. They're in captivity. And he's saved in the midst of a genocide. He's spared because God knew he was ultimately going to be the deliverer. Here's this Hebrew kid that's raised in the Egyptian culture and he sees the people whose blood is in his veins being bullied, being enslaved. I mean, there's so much injustice happening. And one day, he doesn't even recognize fully what's in him because he's still in self-discovery and he's a bit of a paradox. He's Hebrew, but he's living Egyptian culture and the luxury of his family, which is royal. So it's so different than his Hebrew brother and sisters because he was raised in such a different way. And he sees an Egyptian guard bullying a Hebrew slave and he's compelled.

13:52 Once again, the same word compelled is like he has to respond. He can't help but intervene with the bullying and this interaction that's happening between this and in that verbal argument turns into a physical altercation and he kills the person. And then fast forward, he runs and he flees for his life. He creates a whole other life. He forgets about it, but we have to stop and pause and look at why he responded to the Egyptian guard and why he ended up killing him. He ended up intervening and sticking up for the Hebrew slave because literally deliverance was in his DNA. It was woven in him in the womb. That's good. Say that again.

14:32 So he had the DNA to be a deliver. God literally created him in his mother's womb with the destiny that he was going to be the deliver. It was literally engrafted into who he was. So here he is intervening. He's compelled. He doesn't even know why he has to, he just has to because it's who he was created to be fast forward. So again, he has this cry for justice, right? He literally has justice in him, but it's immature. It's not fully formed. He runs and creates his whole other life because he acted, he acted era, you know, irrationally and he ended up making a mess because he killed someone. God wasn't asking him to kill someone. I got it. He didn't want him to deliver someone, but that moment of revelation hadn't come yet.

15:17 He just still was carrying the justice. He didn't understand it, but he makes a mess. It's in an immature form. This is what God's downloading as I'm watching these protests. And then the Lord's like, Chris, remember he goes to the desert and then there's a burning bush moment and that's where I prophesy over Moses and I begin to tell him who he is. And it's after the burning bush, most moment that Moses shifts from being someone that just carries a cry for justice and that's when he becomes the deliverer. So I felt like the Lord baby was showing me as I'm watching these protests and inciting incident for America and the nations. And I'm seeing all these people gather and I hear God saying an inciting incident just like Moses, they carry a cry for justice, but I didn't just call them or create them to be ones that carry just a cry for justice, although that's important, but I've actually called them to be delivers.

16:11 And the deliverer comes when you've had an encounter with God and what's immature now becomes mature because it's encountered God. It's encountered the Creator. It's encountered who created you to be who you're called to be and it gets surrendered. It gets refined, right? And it comes this place of encounter a collision with the presence of God. And that's what had to happen with Moses and that's what's going to happen now. And I'll end with this because I know I've been talking for a moment, but... You're doing great. God is going to raise up people because I feel like predominantly this Moses generation is the younger Gen Z millennial, but Gen Z, this Gen Z is a Moses generation. He's going to raise people up to disciple the Moses generation.

16:54 And I feel like this is an inciting moment, but we have to help them. Steer them to the burning bush moment because we have a bunch of Moseses that need to become deliverers, but in the deliverance, they've got to have the burning bush. You know, I think about in the hands of a doctor, a scalpel can save someone's life, but you put that same scalpel in a predatory guy that wants to jump someone and all of a sudden they can use that as an instrument to kill someone. And so an inciting incident, you awaken to your scalpel. Your life is a weapon, but what you're saying is it's so important to embrace the disposition of the Father in your wake up inciting incident a moment so that you can carry out what God's intended for you to do to have the intended God outcome.

17:40 Yes. You said it so well. Exactly. Cause we want the God outcome. We carry things within us that he created and put within us, but it's often in the immature, unformed state. We encounter God, boom, he releases it and that's where we come to deliver. But I love that. You just said what gets awakened in us. You have a powerful inciting moment and I would love for our listeners to hear what shifted you and what, when you look back in your life, baby, is an inciting moment. You know, I think the thing that I think about Christa in that is that one of the definitions for inciting incident or one of the things that it brings about is it the worst possible thing gets catalyzed and it becomes the best possible thing.

18:25 My inciting incident is right after I'd given my life to Christ. There was a girl that had gone through freshman orientation with me. Her name was Susie. She was from central California. I'm from inner city Oakland. She's blonde here, blue eyed. I'm inner city Oakland. She was recruited by the fraternities to become a little sister. And so when she was recruited, we had become close because we went through orientation together. We were in the dorm. She was in my dorm hallway, which she made me chocolate chip cookies. Anybody that makes me chocolate chip cookies gets on my automatic good side. So when she was being courted by the fraternities, they would make signs for Susie and they would have other girls' names on it.

19:06 We appreciate you. We think you're the best. You're the most awesome. They would serenade the girls underneath the dorm room, which we were trying to tell them to shut up and keep that stuff down. We're trying to sleep. They would send them flowers, but I began to suspect some things. So I talked to Susie and, you know, I'd give my life to the Lord. And it's so funny because I always say that, hey, once I gave my life to the Lord and my eyes were open, I began to see things that, and she didn't know the Lord. And so I said, Susie, these guys are giving you flowers. They're singing to you. They're making signs for you. But I've learned something. Guys don't do that for nothing. I don't think they just want you to be a cheerleader for their frat. I think those guys are onto something. She goes, oh, Sean, you're just too worried.

19:46 And I'd always tell her, I say, you know, you're from that central California girl. Let me help you now. I'm trying to bring some street smarts. And she would tease me like, oh man, you've been on the streets so long. You're suspect, suspective of everyone. She goes to their party one night that is the inauguration of the little sisters. They put at that time, this is before the date rate drug. So the date rate drug of my college years was Everclear. And Everclear was 100% alcohol. You put it in the punch and it was 100% proof. You couldn't smell it. You couldn't taste it. You didn't know it until it was too late. And so they kept giving her this spike punch. So she's at the party that night. I don't know what I was doing.

20:27 It was a weekend night. I went to bed in about two something in the morning. I hear someone whimpering down the hall and I knew it was God because, as you know, I'm a heavy sleeper. Nothing wakes me up. And then I opened up my dorm room in the hall and it's funny because no one else did. And so I could look at that and go, was that accidental? Was that coincidental? Maybe that was providential. The providence of God is simply, it's the hand of God in the glove of history. That inciting incidences, what you may think is accidental, what you may think is coincidental is really providential. So there was a reason why I was the only one that heard Susie whimpering in the hallway.

21:08 Open up the door. I looked down the hallway and I go, Susie, what's happened? And I immediately see this white dress she had is filled with red stains and they weren't all punch stains. She looked disheveled and she explained to me basically these guys gang raped her up in the top room at this fraternity and fraternity circle. I am a baby believer and I still got a lot of Oakland on me. You know what I mean by that. And so I put on my clothes and I'm fully going to go out. This is my inciting incident, but in my inciting incident, I still needed to get some air sanctified. And so what I did is I put on my clothes and I was going to go fight the guys.

21:48 I was going to find the guys responsible at the frat house and I was going to fight them. So I'm going out and this is a frat house. I don't know, probably a 60 dudes. So I'm thinking I'm probably going to get hit. I'm going to get punched, but you don't do that to a girl. My grandma taught me better than that. You don't do that. Take advantage of this girl. So I'm going to, I figure I'm going to get pain, but I'm going to do it out some pain too. And so I get to the steps of this fraternity house and I'm going to barge in the middle of the night and just start trying to go up to the top room. That's where she said it happened. And I heard the Lord speak to me and he spoke to me. I didn't even know this scripture until God spoke to me and he says, the anger of men does not accomplish the righteousness of God. And in that moment, I don't know if you ever been so upset.

22:30 I just collapsed on your stairs and I start crying because I had all this anger and I couldn't release it. And the Lord says, if you're fully surrendered to me, I'll show you how to be an answer to this injustice on your campus. And that is probably what God used to cause me to join and become not just a part of campus ministry, but to be trained to become a campus pastor is when I saw that inciting incident. And so when I think about that, if you look at what my story is about my inciting incident, it begins as an extrinsic dynamic, but it's got to move to an intrinsic dynamic. Like the inciting incident is an event, but it can't just be an event.

23:13 It must translate into a lifestyle. Right. And you know what I love is because obviously I know your story. You led 25 people to the Lord the first month you were saved. It was like you led a revival on your campus. You ended up being such a witness. So many people came and you always say this, you're like, it wasn't that I was that good at, you know, witnessing. It was that they were shocked that I was saved. That inciting incident, you became one of the greatest evangelists and catalyst for the move of God on that campus because you allowed an inciting incident to propel you into who God called you to be. And so many lives got saved and so many people got impacted and encountered God because you got incited and you saw God encounter your campus where there was so much, there was demonic activity, there was evil activity, but it's like you just kept punching the enemy in the face every time you led someone to God.

24:09 I love that. So true. And you know, for our listeners, when I talked about the inciting incident begins as an extrinsic dynamic, that's the inciting incident, but the intrinsic dynamic, there's a word. And this word, Christa, is one of the hundred rarest words at one point in the English vocabulary is the word conation. God gives us an inciting incident so that we would reach conation. And the best way I could describe conation is anyone that has seen the movie taken. And you remember Liam Nilsons character. Oh yeah. He's just a security guard. We know he has some sort of past because he gets together with some guys he did a tour with.

24:49 But when they kidnap his daughter, that classic line where he gets the cell phone, he says, I don't know who you are. I don't know what you want. If you are looking for a ransom, I could tell you I don't have money. But what I do have is a very particular skill set. Skills I've acquired over a long career skills that will make me a nightmare for people like you. What that was is here's a guy that's a security guard, but he conates. And what conation means, it's the power whereby an intent becomes inaction. It's the mental faculty of purpose and desire that triggers exploits. So really what conation is Christa is once you've had the inciting incident, it's that part in you that translates that event to a life change force that you begin to bring the reformation that God has done in you that you begin to bring around.

25:40 You're of course taking his fictitious and he's not necessarily doing kingdom of God work. He definitely not. But I think of the burning bush as you spoke of as Moses, that was conation. Because when Moses saw that burning bush, he saw a picture of himself and a guy who was hesitating, a guy that was in confident, a guy that stuttered, would stand in Pharaoh's court and he knew he had a mission of saying, you got to let God's people go. So the burning bush was an exciting incident, but he had to conate as a response. It's like an exciting incident knocks on your door, but you have to open the door and respond. It's the first domino that falls, but now it must set off a chain reaction of inward transformation.

26:23 Ooh, I love that, that is so good, so good. Now with that, I think that a lot of our listeners would maybe agree with me on this. I have found that maybe even during this period that's been very unusual for us, that many of us have struggled to find at times inspiration or another way of saying it how to defeat the demotivators. Because I believe when God is in you, it's God who causes you to will and act according to his good purpose, the Bible says. So I believe that when God is fully, God our attention and we're in that presence of God, we're motivated to act and we're motivated to do what God's called us to do.

27:04 But I believe that there are things that are demotivators. And so I want to talk real quickly about how to defeat the demotivators. One of the demotivators comes that there is the demotivator that comes by a lack of challenge, that some people are not motivated because they simply haven't found a big enough cause. David said, is there not a cause? Some people, there's a lack of challenge. We're finding out a lot of people in this generation that they would rather be paid less in a job that they're more challenged by than to make more money in a job they're not challenged by. Has that been your experience as well? Sure. Yeah. You know my story.

27:44 I worked in the fashion industry and I was getting promoted and making really good money. And I just got to this place where I really love clothes. I love fashion, but I just knew for me personally it wasn't going to be the fulfillment for me. And I went into ministry and ministry isn't always the best pain. And you know, especially entry level, you're not getting paid a lot. But my motivation was, hey, this is what I was created to do because when I began to preach and when I preached for the first time, I literally felt like I was doing what I was created to do and it wasn't about money. Amen. And so one of the ways to defeat the demotivator by a lack of challenge is to step into the God challenge for your life. Right. That's right. Another demotivator occurs by overwhelming crisis.

28:25 When a person is exposed to overwhelming crisis trauma, fear comes in and they're demotivated because fear is a constricting spirit. And we have seen this. We've witnessed this in the time that we live in that there are people under such fear. And there are rational fears and they're irrational fears and I get the rational ones, but we've seen it now kind of exceed the rational fears and move into a place of irrational fears. And we hear stories about that all along. And then the final demotivator is not knowing what to do next. And I really feel like a lot of listeners in our world for that matter, Christ is at the point of what do we do next?

29:05 Like is this COVID-19 going to continue? Is it going to be something that will be revisited? Is this the first in this series of many viruses is going to hit us? How will this impact? And then of course we'll hit this topic of racism on a later podcast, but even right now the civil unrest and what does change look like that could bring about the equality? I feel like right now we are living in so many inciting moments. I mean, you're looking across the board and there is an awakening that is happening with people and for our listeners, they might personally be going through one. I feel like I've gone through some. I mean, I think all of us have been hit and triggered, God triggered in a great way where we've been awakened to some things that are within us that God's like, I created you for this moment.

29:51 I created you to speak to that. I created you to stand up for truth and righteousness, to stand up to be a deliverer in this area. And what I love is we are seeing kind of a collective inciting incident in a global pause, a moment in the world, but specifically in our nation. And so, you know, we've been prompt, we've promised as in the take, you know, keep it 100 podcasts, we want some people to go away with some takeaways. And so as promised, we want to just hit as we're kind of closing this episode out, what are just some takeaways for this area of an inciting moment for you to step into who you're called to be. We really believe that as you, you apply these takeaways, something's going to shift in you because yes, we're talking, but we also want to, you know, really disciple, but also give some really practical things because we believe if you're listening to this, it's not by accident.

30:44 God has you listening to this episode because you're about to encounter him in a new way, because there's something in you that's about to get awakened. Okay, first takeaway that we want you is to recognize, and I'm speaking to you as a listener, believe that you are a person of destiny, believe that you're a person of destiny. That could sound generic, it's anything but generic. You know, I was talking to Sean about this before we jumped on this and I was saying, isn't it interesting that one of the highest grossing movies today are superhero movies? And I don't have the stat as to how many, I just know so many more superhero movies are being made today than ever before. And I really attribute that to all of us want to be a hero. All of us want to have that question answered within us of, man, was I created for more than just the everyday mundane?

31:29 And the answer when God is Jesus Christ, Lord of your life, he's savior of your life. The answer to that is an astounding yes, you are not only created for more, you actually have a God destiny on you. And I think we're attracted to the superhero concept because every one of us actually has a hero in us and the hero is Jesus. And I know people are like, Chris, that is so cheesy. No, it's not. Jesus is the answer to racism. Jesus is the answer to the division. Jesus is what incites you and actually what who created you to be who you're called to be. It's anything but cheesy. Everything about who you're about to encounter, how Moses became from justice to deliver was God.

32:10 And so I believe that we're in a superhero moment, so to speak, because God is awakening within us the need to be more than who we are in this moment, to not settle for that status quo, but to actually be greater than even we think we are because we've tapped into one that's greater than us and it's who dwells within us. And they've proven that people who have the belief that they're destined for something, they discipline themselves differently. So true. That the belief that you are destined, and I was thinking, Christa, about for a rocket ship to break the geographic pool surrounding our planet, it requires that that rocket ship reach 17,000 miles per hour in order to break the gravitational force of the earth.

32:54 I believe it takes the belief that you are destined to break the gravitational force that causes a person just to be ordinary because God can give an inciting incident and put passion on an ordinary person and then they become extraordinary. And I'm convinced that those that are listening right now, you're reaching that point of this 17,000 miles per hour and you're going to break a gravitational force to become this person of destiny. You'll walk different, you talk different, you carry yourselves different, you'll have conviction which leads me to number two. The number two, hashtag keeping 100 takeaways is you should never try to dumb down yourself through mindless conformity.

33:37 And one of the things I was thinking about that is just the odds of you being born. Recently a person did a TED talk and they said the odds of you being born is one in 400 trillion. Think about the odds of your parents meeting, the odds of your parents then getting married and then believing they want to start a family and then the right TED poll connecting to the right egg and when you put all that together, you have to understand how wrong it is to try to become a Xerox copy of someone else when God has gone through this miracle of creation to make you so unique. No one has the same fingerprints and that God purposely, He gives us an inciting incident to highlight and launch our distinctives so that we don't attempt to blend in but we recognize that our gift is to stand out.

34:24 It's so true. It's an old phrase I used to hear growing up but it was like if you believe in everything, you know, you'll stand for nothing. And the reality is we have to know who we are and recognize that we were always called to live in a contrast state. And if we want to just blend in and be a chameleon, that's not actually authentic to who God created to be. He literally called us to be a contrast and to stand out. And what I love is what you're saying that mindless conformity in a world where there's so much peer pressure, we have to have and be a people that step out from the crowd. And I tell you what, when we see someone break the status quo, step out from the crowd, do it different.

35:07 We can all agree it encourages us and I would even go as far. It feels like it gives us permission that we can step out from the crowd. And I think in the moment where we're at right now, because there's so much division, there's so much opinion. There is so much rhetoric on politics right now and the social issues and the things that are happening in this moment. And you just have to recognize what is God saying to you in this moment and who are you in Christ? And that's your safe place. That's where you stand in. And you might be alone in that. But I tell you what, as you take that step forward, other people will join you. I promise you, you'll not always be alone, but sometimes you have to take that initial first step and be the lone soldier standing out there.

35:50 But people will come alongside you. They just need that person to take that step. So good. I love that. All right, last one. Can't just say what's in your head. You have to say what's in his word. Ooh, I'm going to say that again for the people in the back. You can't just say what's in your head. You have to say what's in his word. Friends, we live in a time where there is so much expectancy and pressure that you may quote unquote, your truth, your feelings. God did make us emotional people. He created emotions. I am an emotional person. But yet my emotions have to be surrendered to Christ. And I tell you what, just because you feel it, just because you think it doesn't mean it's your truth and it doesn't mean you speak it.

36:34 We have to come to this place where we walk in a greater place of maturity, a greater place of surrender and discernment, that we are peacemakers in polarizing times. That's when we recognize just because we think it doesn't mean it's truth. And I think there is this very self-focused gospel, self-focused living that we have given way to that isn't kingdom. And it doesn't mean that we are important, but it simply means we have to be surrendered and encountered. And there's the difference because I think if we don't have those burning bush moments going back to that place, what we believe, we think in all our thoughts and feelings and emotions which are fleeting and change constantly, that becomes our foundation.

37:19 Friends, that is fluid and that will not give you a place of stability and that is not building your house on the rock. That is what we call building your house on the sand. You have to get into the Word of God and make the Word of God your opinion. There's this word veritas which really means truth, but the bottom line is truth isn't found in our feelings. Truth is found in Scripture. And so I love this point that you brought up to our listeners. You can't just say what's in your head. You have to say what's in his word. And the reason why that's so important is that I shared how my grandmother got delivered from alcoholism. And one of the things that I noticed is that when she gave her life to Christ, that process of just re, for lack of better words, reprogramming her thinking, transforming her mind by meditating on the Word, she modeled that for me that when I got saved, I recognized I want to be a Word person.

38:13 That's right. And people say, well, I got to argue, man, I just found this on Google and I'm like, hey, I'm not going to build my life on what you Googled last night. I'm going to build my life on what delivered my grandmother off alcoholism and won't feel sweet. Say that. Hey, we want to thank you so much for being a part of the Keep It 100 tribe. We love that you're tuning in. Keep tuning in. We're going to keep bringing it to you week in and week out every Tuesdays, a new podcast coming out for you. We have you in mind as we create these because we want to continually pour into you because you matter. If you want to stay connected to us during the week, check us out on social media. Sean and I are both on Instagram. We're both on Facebook, Sean and Christa Smith Ministries. You can also check us out on SeanandChristaSmith.com on our website, on our homepage at the bottom of our website.

38:56 You can actually find our social media handles and click there. It will take you directly. But we want to encourage you. Check us out. Stay connected. We want to build relationship and community with our tribe. Yes. Subscribe to our podcast, which obviously you found us and just click subscribe and you will continually catch us on all the major platforms that are out there. You want to stay tuned because next week, a two-part series on the genesis of a voice. We want to talk about what prepares you to become God's mouthpiece to influence people. We want to give you principles of communication, how we found our voice, how God can put the mic to your movement. Join us next week. We're so glad that you joined us this week and we love you guys. Until next time, keep it 100.