[COVID Crisis Series 11 of 25] Trusting God
Summary
- Overcoming doubts in our faith
- “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.” John 15:5
- What place in your life do you need more Jesus?
- Abide in Jesus
Quotes
Transcript
The following is a full transcript of a Facebook Live, where Susie is speaking extemporaneously – she is unscripted and unedited.
(00:01):
Hi friends. It is Friday, our fry yay. As we used to call it, maybe you still call it that today. I’m calling it fry yay. Excuse me today. I’m calling it Fry Yay because my day started, I had a great morning, just a quiet time with some coffee and some time with the Lord. And then right in the middle up popped a video of my darling grandson, granted to dancing. And it said Friday equals dance party and he was jamming and dancing. And I watched that thing three times. It made me smile so big then I of course did all the whole grandma thing and shared it with my mom and my sisters and my friends. And I might just share it on here because man, it is a whole lot of happy. Alright. So we’ve been doing these lives every day for four weeks and next week I’m switching to doing them just once a week, stay tuned for you’ll get a, if you’re in my email list, you’ll get an email reminder.
(00:55):
Hey Jen, good to see you. You’ll get an email reminder. They are going to be Wednesdays at noon or one. I haven’t quite figured out whether which is better. So I’m going to ask a survey noon or one, which is better for you. If you will pop in the comments below noon, noon Eastern or one Eastern. Those are the two times I’m working on for Wednesday morning. Just because I’m trying to figure out the best time to do it, and I’m going to hop to a one a week so we can all gather together and do those dive a little deeper and maybe a bit longer. And then I’m going to do some other fun things. So stay tuned on my Facebook page, if you are, I’m not on my list. Like I said, hop over to Susiemiller.com.
(01:36):
There’s a free relationships tips you can get and you can make sure we’re email friends. And from now on, they are going to be over on my business page where I did them last week. I know that’s all confusing. I’m going to try to put it out, you know, in like, Hey, Facebook lifers. Here’s what’s happening in a little post, but it will be over on my better relationships with Susie Miller page because that’s what my business coach, my Facebook business coach is telling me to. Do. You know what folks, this has been such an interesting time. I really want to put out content that helps you. I love the interactions we’ve gotten, but what I’ve been told recently, and this is not my field of expertise, is that with all the stuff going on with all the stuff, inundating Facebook, there’s just too much.
(02:18):
And it would be better to have like, okay, this day, at this time, I’m going to show up at hanging out with Susie for 20 minutes and we’re going to dive deep into a topic and that’s how we’re going to go forward for now, because I don’t know about you, but my inbox is full. My Facebook live Facebook feed is blowing up. I’m not sure what to listen to, who to listen to. There’s so much, you know, there is a lot of good stuff out there. I’m not saying that, but there’s also just stuff. That’s just stuff. And so I’m trying to cut through the noise and give you some tips and tools that will help you create better relationships, better communication, and thrive in the relationships that matter most and today on faith Friday, hashtag I think I’m so cool when I do that.
(02:54):
And as I’ve said before, my kids laugh at me, but today we’re going to talk about trusting God in the day to days. So if you struggle with trusting God in the day to days, just write Yup or me or yes, in the comments, because I sure do. I was meeting with my spiritual kind of father mentor today and we were talking about trusting God in the day to days that I have been walking with God for a long time, over 40 years. And there are still days when I wrestle with how to trust. And we talk about how to, we talk about trusting God, and when we say we do, and I did a whole training on, you know, three points to trust God and I will that will eventually make it over to my business. My what’s it called website.
(03:39):
It’s Friday grace upon grace. But there are times when you know how to trust God or, or trusting God in the moment to moments that is tough for me. I don’t know if it’s tough for you, but I said to my spiritual mentor, I said, you know, here’s the thing I say, I trust God. I believe I trust God. But sometimes in the quietness of my heart, I think I doubt or I think I’m not sure. And I don’t doubt big. I just, we, we all fall into, if we’re honest, doubting the goodness of God and remembering that he is for us and remembering that we can be honest with him about even those little doubts. And I paused and I thought about this and I thought, you know I want to trust him. Like my children trusted me when they were little, you know, as they got older, it was a little harder.
(04:22):
They had more questions and they did that teenage angst thing. But I want to trust God with that childlike, faith and belief that he is there and he will take care of me. And he will be with me in the moment to moment. And so today in my quiet time with the Lord, I came across this verse and this is what I want to share with you. I’m going to hop on my glasses here and read this first. But in John 15 five, it says, I am the vine and you are the branches. If you abide in me or remain in me, you will bear much fruit for apart from me, you can do nothing. And the verse before that in four talks about God making his home in us and our making our home in him. It says in the message version live in me, make your home in me just as I do in you in some way, the same way a branch can’t bear grapes by itself.
(05:12):
But only by being joined to the vine, you can’t bear fruit unless you are joined to me. I’m the vine and you are the branches, this relationship of intimate and organic connection. If you have this, the harvest is short to be abundant, separate from me. You can do nothing. You can not produce a thing. And I thought about that with respect to being in the midst of all that we’re doing in this Covid crisis at home. If you are home with your kiddos if you are home trying to be engaged with your kiddos and be a patient mom. And I think about the fruits of the spirit, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, and self-control. And God says that fruit comes from having that abiding in him. And I love the way the message says, make yourself at home. In my love. The passion version says remain in life union with me for, I remain in life union with you.
(06:05):
And so we always hear the verse. If you’ve been around the scriptures for a while, you, we abide in me and I will abide in you, and abide isn’t a word we use these days. And so I started looking up what that could mean, and it really is this idea, okay, remain, Terry, you know, hang out, you know, spend time, wait, that’s a favorite word of mine. Wait, but stay, remain. And then I love this live in life union with me, make your home, make yourself at home in my love. Have you ever been in a place where someone says, come on in and make yourself at home? Or you just know when you live there and you hang out with them, you have full access to their, you can slump on their couch. You can go to their fridge, you make your home with them.
(06:47):
And Jesus says, make your home your life union with me. And I will make my life union with you. And this is how you’re going to bear fruit. This is how I am the vine. If I’m God, God is the vine. We are the branches, this life union with him that all the time with him, that in it with him, that making our home with him in his love is how we’re going to bear fruit. And I was like, Oh, okay, well, that makes more sense to me. Maybe I can try doing that in the day to day, in the moment by moment. What does that mean? What does that look like? And I started thinking about some of you who’ve been watching with me. Hi Cindy. Hi Justine. You know. Hi Ruthie. Hi Karen. Hi John. Hi Laura. I’m so glad you’re all here.
(07:30):
I would love to know in the comments, what is a place in your life that you need more? Jesus, I need more Jesus. When I’m being patient with my kids, I need more Jesus. What I’m trying to deal with unemployment and filling out forms online when the money’s gone or when the, you know the system goes down the other day, I needed more Jesus. When I was dealing with the zoom person who was telling me that there was going to be a problem with my zoom and it might not be fixed for days. I need more Jesus when I’m trying to wait and not bother my daughter because I would love to talk to my grandson every single day, all the time. I need more Jesus for the love, the peace, the patients, the kindness, the self-control in the, you know, emotional eating that comes up in the snapping at my husband that comes up.
(08:14):
I need to be in this vine, in this love union life union with God. I need to make my home there because if I don’t, I am not going to be patient with my kids. I am going to snap at my husband. I am probably not going to practice good self-care. I’m going to fall into self-sabotage or I might push myself too hard and not rest like I should. I might snap at the zoom person. I might, you know, start getting sunk in deep in the fear of, you know, am I going to get sick? What about this COVID? right now, I’m in the, I need more Jesus. So I’m not judging all the ways different people are getting back out there because everybody has their own story and their own needs and different States are doing different things. I don’t know about you, but I need more Jesus.
(08:55):
I need to be living in a biding. And in that life union, make your home yourself at home with me, Susie, Jesus, Jesus is saying to me, make your home with me, abide in me and I will abide in you. And that’s the way you’re going to bear fruit. That’s the way you’re going to get through this day moment by moment trusting in me. So what does that look like in each of these places? I will tell you the other day when I was on with the zoom guy, I was really annoyed because he was not helpful. He was telling me things like, I’ll take your name and number and I will take your, your invoice number. And I will pass this on to the people who could help you. Well, sir, when can they help me? Well, we don’t know. We’re so overburdened and I could feel myself just getting annoyed with this person.
(09:35):
Like, why am I even talking to you? You can’t even help me. And in that moment before, thankfully that came out of my mouth. I remember that if I abide in Jesus, I don’t need to be mean and unkind, and I can have his peace to handle this well, I can love this person who I don’t feel very kind towards right now. And so I actually kind of stood up straight and went. Okay. okay sir, you know could you let me know, you know, what my timeframe is for waiting? And he’s like two to three days and I realized what this little voice in the back of my head, Susie, you’re getting ready to shoot the messenger. That is not bearing much fruit. That is not living a life that is born of love, joy, peace, patience, the fruits of the spirit. And so, you know, just having that abide in me, have a life union with me, make yourself at home in my love.
(10:21):
Jesus says, and when we’re at home in Jesus’s love, we can stop striving. We can stop being cranky. We can call on him to help us have patients with our kiddos who are, you know, either asking us for something for the 17th time or, you know, interrupting or bothering or struggling with all of the things that come and crash up against us. And we just don’t know how we’re going to handle it. Well, this has been something that I’ve really tried to sink into today, as I have had, you know, some, some moments this week where that abiding has been less than full and I’ve gotten caught up in my own fears in my own questions and, you know, to handle it, I just added a little more to my, to-do list or I did a little bit of emotional eating with some good, a good chocolate.
(11:05):
And you know, none of those things are bad in and of themselves, but we can’t sustain unhealthy behaviors long-term. We will pay for them. And I am a person who wants us to thrive in our relationships with ourselves, with God, with others. And so we have to step up, we have to make the hard choices to say, you know what? I am going to choose to abide in Christ. I’m going to choose to lean into him instead of leaning on my own understanding or trying to figure this out on my own or getting busy in the worry and the doing. And I’m going to pause and I’m going to be, I’m going to come up next to this Jesus who says to me, make yourself at home in my love. I’m going to plot myself down on the couch. Literally like I’m metaphorically, picture myself in Jesus’s arms and go, okay, I’m abiding in you.
(11:49):
You got to help me bear some fruit today. You gotta help me be patient with my coworkers. You got to help me be kind to my kiddos when they’re on my very last nerve, you got to help me be open and honest and courageous with my spouse. When I have hard things to talk about, you got to help me when I want to shoot the messenger. You gotta help me. When I get sunk in these spheres, you gotta help me have strength when I am feeling like self-sabotage or when I am, you know, not having good self-talk in my brain. I need a whole lot more Jesus to help me in these times. If you can relate to this, put help me in the comments I need, help me, Jesus. In the comments that actually is my paraphrase of, I could do all things through Christ who strengthens me.
(12:28):
That’s a great verse. And I kind of have translated that into the Susie version, which is help me, Jesus, help me, Jesus. So if he is the vine and we are the branches and in him, we bear much fruit. I think sometimes we think about the fruit of you know, mission work or the fruit of our life as a long term. I was reading this morning and I thought my fruit are very today. My fruit in the moment to moment of today, my fruit of love of patients with myself and with my people of kindness of self-control. You know, those are the fruits that God will give us moment by moment by moment, if we abide remain, stay Terry, what did I say? Live in this life union, this life union with him, and as Eugene Peterson said in the message make ourselves at home in his love.
(13:16):
So I’d love to know for you when you think about making yourself at home in Jesus’s love. The image that comes to me is kind of being held at his arms and leaning back and resting, taking a deep breath, and just leaning there. That is what I think about. And then in that place, I can find rest and strength. What do you think of what comes to mind when you hear life, making yourself at home, in the love of Jesus, you know making yourself at home in the love of Jesus for you. That’s what this is translated as abide in me. I’d love to hear what you think about that. So on this faith Friday, I really want to challenge you. I want to lend you my translation of help me, Jesus. I want to challenge you to think about abiding in the moment by moment, by moment parts of the day, because you know what folks that’s where the rubber meets the road.
(14:04):
We, you know, can have a great time with the Lord in the morning. We can say our prayers and gratitude at night. We can do church on Sunday, but it is in the dailies in the moment to moment. How do I get through this situation? How do I handle this person in front of me? How do I talk to myself in this struggle that that really we can abide and Jesus can be with us. And he’s the vine. We are the branches. We can bear the fruit of his presence in our life of his sustaining, us of his carrying us. That is what my prayer is for you today. We have our one week, I don’t know, 75 of, you know, coronavirus, quarantine. It feels like it. And it is hard to find peace and strength in the midst of all the chaos, but we can find it by abiding in Jesus.
(14:50):
So I hope you do that today. Hope that encourages you. As always, if there is something you want me to talk about, if there is a question about your faith journey, if there is an issue with communication relationship building with God, yourself or others, DM me, PM me, private message me, and or pop it in the comments below and I will cover it in the upcoming live videos. Again, next week, they’re moving to Wednesday. I asked this question at the beginning, I’m finishing it at the end. Wednesdays, I’m trying to decide between 12 and one. So if you have a preference, let me know watch for the updates in my Facebook feed, but Wednesday next week is when I’ll be going live and we will, we will kind of go a little bit deeper a little bit longer once a week to kind of walk with you through this.
(15:36):
If you are not on my email list, if we are not email friends, please, please, please go over to Susiemiller.com and grab my relationship tips. So we can be email friends because that is where most of my stuff’s going to come from. I’m really trying to be a good learner from my business coach. And I’m trying these new things. Thank you for joining me for so many days. Thank you for being here with me today. I am in your corner. I am cheering you on and we will get through this together. Have a great Friday, have a blessed weekend with your family. And when you’re on your very last nerve when you’re struggling, help me, Jesus, try that. It really has helped me stay close, tucked up to Jesus and use him and his presence, and trust him and his strength to get me through the day. Love to y’all. I’ll talk to you soon.