Rick Warren - Maximizing Your Strengths - Part Two

Hey, everyone, thanks for joining us today on Pastor Rick's

Daily Hope.

This is the place.

Where Rick Warren brings you uplifting messages from God's Word

every day to help you grow deeper in faith and

live a life with purpose. Today we're continuing in a

powerful series called Toolbox for Life. In this series, Rick

teaches us four essential skills that you need to succeed

wherever God has placed you, whether it's at home, at work,

at school, or in your community. These are tools that

every follower of Jesus absolutely needs. I can't wait to

get right into today's message. So here's Rick with the

final part of a message called maximizing your Strengths.

Now, how do I discover how God shaped me for

my purpose in life? Two things? Write these down. Number

one First, by examining my past. By examining my past,

one of the ways to know God's will for your

future is by looking at your past, not at the

events that happened to you, but at the things that

you work good at. Galatians three, verse four in the

Bible says this, you have experience.

That's what we're talking about.

You've experienced many things where all those experiences wasted God says,

I don't want you to waste your experiences.

I want you to learn from them.

The fact is God has been working in your life

since your birth. Actually even before you were born. God

started working in your life long before you knew there

was a God. He started working in your life long

before you accepted Christ into your heart. He's been working

to shape you for the purpose He made you for

your life mission from the very beginning. And so you

need to go back. And here's what the Bible says

Galatians six y four. Everyone should examine circle the word examine.

Examine his own conduct, not somebody else's, not your parents.

Examine your own conduct. In other words, what are you

good at and what are you not good at? Then

he will be able to take the measure of his

own worth with no need to compare himself to others.

God says, you don't compare yourself to o this. What

did my sister do? What's my brother good at? What's

my dad?

My mom?

Gonna forget that, You look at your own past, You

examine your own conduct, and then you can take a

full measure of your own worth. Here's my homework for you.

Pastor Rick's homework assignment this week. I want you to

take half an hour this week and sit down with

a piece of paper, just a blank piece of paper,

and make a rule it off by every ten years

the first ten years you know, grade school, second ten

years junior high and high school, third years, your twenties

and then forties for how many you know, decades you've lived.

And then I want to ask you to try to

do a life inventory.

Now what does that mean.

It means you do exactly what that versus examine your

own concept. And what you do is you look and

you say, what was I good at at each stage

in my life? And what did I enjoy doing at

each stage in my life? Here are the two things.

I'm good at it and I enjoy doing it. Now,

there's some things that you're good at and you don't enjoy.

Don't worry about that, okay.

And there's some things, by the way, that you enjoy

and you're not good at. I mean, many of you

don't know that before I was a pastor, I was

a worship leader. I've played guitar and drums all my life,

had garage bands all the time growing up, junior high,

high school, and college, and I actually started off leading

worship because I have a passion and I love to sing.

The only problem was nobody liked to listen to it.

So I love to do it, but I wasn't good

at it and I didn't have the skills for that.

So the key thing is to say what am I

good at and what do I love to do? And

I want you to look for patterns in your life

because if you were good at it at an early age, you're.

Going to be good at it later on in life.

A kid who's good as a soccer player at ten

is going to be a good and even better soccer

player at twenty because there's just natural ability that's coming

out there even at an early age.

Look for the patterns in your life.

When I was a little boy and I was called Ricky,

I was a collector and I loved to collect things.

I collected coins, I collected stamps, I collected rocks, I

collected shell seashells. I collected chicken bones.

I'm not kidding.

I made a necklace out of wishbones. It looked like

some tribal chief or something. I collected different kinds of horseshoes.

And you know when I look back on all. And

I used to call it my mom and dad called

Rick's valuable property. And my room was filled with all

kinds of collections of stuff as a little boy. And

what I liked the most about that was not the

collecting part, but the categorizing that goes with that, and

that goes with that. And I could see things or

in line, those four things go together, and those five

things go together.

And I was in an early I didn't know the words.

I was a synthesizer, a simplifier, and a categorizer, and.

I was going that goes with that. As a little boy.

I was doing this today many many decades later. I'm

still doing the same thing, only I do it with ideas.

And so what I do is I look at what's

going on, and I read deeply in the world. I

read the sciences. I read botany and zoology and physiology.

I read psychology, I read history, I read the arts,

I read behavioral sciences, I read politics. Of course, I'm

in God's word, reading it constantly, over and over and over.

And then what I do is I see all these ideas.

I go, oh, that idea goes with that one, and

that idea goes, I'm now a collector and a categorizer

and a synthesizer and a simplifier of ideas. And so

then I come to church and say, here for these.

Now you know that looks pretty simple. You try that,

You try and making that every week for thirty five years. Okay,

because you may hit a home run this week, next week,

you're at bat in six more days. And it's hard

in making something simple. Einstein said, you don't really understand

something until you can simplify it.

But that's what I was wired to do.

I was wired to take very complex things and make

them sound very very simple, and it showed up in

my life since as a little boy. So you look

for the patterns in your life. Now look at this

verse on the screen. The Bible says, try to have

a sane estimate of your capabilities.

Now, a sane estimate.

Says, I don't think I'm the best in the world,

but I'm not the worst in the world either. I'm

just good at this. And the Bible says, you do

it and say I'm good at this without comparing yourself

to anybody else. So the first thing you have to

do in discovering is to examine. The second thing Tommy's

are alluded to.

This is by.

Experimenting, by experimenting with different tasks. If you're in your twenties,

my biggest advice to you, more than college or anything else,

is this, try as many different things as you can,

as early as you can, to see what you're good at,

because you're not going to know you're good at it

until you try it and you go, oh, that didn't lie.

I didn't like that. I didn't like that. That wasn't good.

Oh that's good.

But I really like this and I'm good at it,

and I'm fruitful and I'm fulfilled. And so you just

start trying stuff, and you just look for in church,

you look for a place to volunteer God. Some people

are sitting waiting for God to say, I'm waiting for

God to tell me what to do with my life.

It isn't gonna happen. It isn't gonna happen. You just

got God does not steer a part car. You gotta

be moving. You can't steer a part car. You can

only move. So just start moving, do anything, volunteer for anything.

And as you start volunteering, then God will go, hey,

this is what I want you to do with your career.

This is what I want you to do with your life,

and you'll start understanding and by experiment and just try

out a.

Bunch of options.

There is no test that you can take that will

explain your sahape, how God wired you how there's no test.

The reason why is because every test is standardized and

every human being is unique. The whole idea of shape

is there's nobody else like you in the world, so

you couldn't take a standardized test and find out what

is your unique shape? Now years ago, I remember back

in the seventies they had these spiritual gift tests. I

don't have anymore because they don't work. And I remember

as a teenager, I took a spiritual gift test to

find out what my spiritual gift was and the only

thing that came up with was that I had the

gift of martyrdom. Oh, great, martyrdom. You get to die

for Jesus. That's great, that's the gift. You only get

to use one time and it's over and you only

get to use it on the last day of your life.

What kind of gift is that? You know?

I could have taken a thousand tests, and I would

have never known that I was good at teaching.

Why I'd never done it. I'd never even tried it.

And one day somebody asked me to fill in for

some youth Bible study and I go, okay, I'll try that.

And my knees were knocking and I was scared to death.

And I mean I planned that like five hour sermon

and it was done in four minutes. And you know,

and I go, well, what do you guys want to

talk about? Anybody read Mad magazine this week or you know,

just and watch me.

Nay, nay, you know, here we go. So, you know,

I didn't know what to do.

And so but but as I began to just try something,

people would come up and go, hey, you know, Rick,

when you talk it makes sense. I get it. I

understand it. You make something complex simple, I get it.

Now.

Here's an important thing in discovering your shape. Other people

will see it before you do. Other people will often

see how God shaped you before you do. Because when

you're naturally good at something, you think everybody's good at it,

they're not.

You think it's easy for everybody, it's not.

And when you're good at something you just think it's

a normal thing. Well, anybody should be able to do that.

Well they don't, and so other people will actually have

to point it out in you. Some of you, for instance,

as Tommy pointing out, you're very, very organized.

And if I were to go to.

Your clothes closet, it's color coded and all of the

blue shirts or blue dresses are all in the same area.

And you think everybody's organized, are you kidding?

Of course not.

But because you're good at it, you think. Parents one

of the most important thing you can say to a

young person is you know what you'd be good at,

Not telling them what you want them to be good at,

but saying you know what you're good at, and it

releases people. We have to experiment and oftentimes other people

will see it before you do, which, by the way,

the fastest way to discover your God given shape is

getting a church, because other people will see it in

a church, and particularly in a small group. And as

you talk in a small group week after week, people

go like, you know what you're God be good at,

and it'll come out there. So I've got to discover

my shape. Second thing you got to do to become

who God wants you to be. I have to accept

my shape, and this is a hard thing for many people. Unfortunately,

many people reject what God made them to be, and

they spend their entire lives trying to be something they're not,

and then they wonder why they're so unhappy and so unfulfilled.

You were made to be you, not anybody else. And

if you try to be somebody else that you're not

shaped to be, you're gonna be miserable. Now, there are

two barriers that keep you from fulfilling your unique shape

in life, Comparing and conforming. Comparing with other people. I

want the gifts he's God. I like what she's got,

and I want to be like that person. There are

two problems comparing and conforming. Comparing. Never never, never, never, never,

never compare yourself to anybody else. Why because you're one

in a billion. No, you're one in a zillion. God

doesn't make clones. You have a unique thumb print, voiceprint

I print. Nobody's ever gonna be like you. So never

compare yourself. And when you get to having, God's not

gonna say why weren't you more like Moses or your sister?

He's gonna say, I made you to be you. I

didn't make you to be your dad. I didn't make

you to be your mom. I made you to be you.

And so he says, don't compare, by the way, if

you compare your entire life, you'll be miserable because you'll

always find somebody that you're doing a better job. Then

and you get full of pride, and you'll always find

somebody who's doing a better job than you, and you

get full of discouragement. Either way, you're dead in the water.

Pride and discouragement puts you on the sidelines. And then

conforming is when you feel like I've got to be

like somebody else. And the two myths I actually wrote

two more chapters, you know, and when we revised purpose

of in life, I must be like you or I

must be liked by you. These are envy and people

pleasing are the two things that kill God's purpose in

your life. And so you got to stop being preoccupied

with I wish I was like that person. I wish

I was like her, I wish I was like him. Now,

anytime you reject the shape God has given you, you're

really rebelling against God. You're rejecting your creator. When you

reject the way He created you. Let me show your vers.

It's here on the screen. The Bible says in Romans

chapter nine, what right do you have as a human

being to cross examine? In other words, to question how

God made you? Cross examine God? He said, you're like

in a pottery shop. You got the potter making the pot.

The pot has no right to say to the potter,

why did you make me this shape? A potter can

do whatever he likes with the clay as your passion,

who loves you and wants you, wants to coach you

to succeed in every oar of your life. I would

encourage you to spend more time asking what do I

do well?

And less time on what do I do wrong?

Stop spending so much time in your life going what

do I do wrong? And instead say what do I

do well? That is the key to maximizing your strengths.

And it's the key one of the keys to this.

You know, skill will bring success. Now one of the

areas you're gonna have to deal with. And I'm going

to say this because we're saddlebacks United Nations. I've told

you many times in our church we speak sixty seven

different languages because we want our church to look like

Heaven's going to look like.

And in Heaven, it's not.

Going to be all white people, black people, brown people,

or any other color. It's going to be a God

loves variety. If you don't believe that, look down your row.

God loves variety. He does not want us to look alike,

act like, talk alike, sound alike. And so we say

we want we want to be an all nation congregation.

We want every nation in our church. One of the

areas that many people struggle with is their heredity. And

God sovereignly selected your parents, when you would be born,

where you would be born, how you're born, your ethnicity,

your race, the color of your skin, all of these

things are sovereignly decided by God, and accepting your heredity

is a part of finding God's purpose for your life. Today,

in our society, we have an epidemic of depression. People

are depressed, and the reason why is because they have

confused identity. They don't know who they are, and because

when you don't know who you are, you're going to

be depressed in life. And more than that, they don't

not only don't know who they are. They're trying to

be something they're not, and that doesn't work, and they're

denying the truth of God's word. They're denying what God

made them to be, listening to culture instead of the Bible.

And the culture says this is what's beautiful. That's all

what God says beautiful. But they say this is what's beautiful, Well,

I better be like that. And we have people with

curly hair want to have straight hair, and people with

straight hair when I have curly hair, light skinned people

want to get darker with a tan, and dark skinned

people want to get lighter, and people want to be

taller and shorter. And God said, wait a minute, Wait

a minute, who set up that standard of beauty. You're

listening to the world. We're trying to be something you're not,

and that causes all kinds of confusion. Now the other

trap is, I said, it's conformity. Have you noticed that

many people have a plan for your life? And if

you want to be what God wants you to be,

you're gonna have to tune out what other people want

you to be. You're gonna have to say, wait a minute,

I got to be what God wants me to be,

not what my parents or anybody else. Stop fulfilling roles

that God didn't assign you. Some of you are still

trying to He's parents who are dead, and you stop

fulfilling roles. You got to go back to the first

skill we talked about, ignoring the naysayers. Let me read

you some famous quotes. You are hopeless as a composer.

Beethoven's music teacher. You are so stupid you will never

learn anything. Edison's teacher. You are never going to be

good at math, and he flunked him. Einstein's teacher. Here's

a guy who was fired by a newspaper editor because

he said the guy had no creativity. Walt Disney. You

got to quit listening to the wrong people. You got

to start listening to what God says about you. The

Bible says one Corinthians seven seventeen. On the screen, each

one should retain the place in life that the Lord

has a to him and to which God has called him.

God's calling on your life. God has called everybody to

a purpose. God has called you to a specific life mission.

And the only way you're going to know that, remember,

function falls form, is look at your shape.

Now.

Part of that as I said, is your experiences, and

sometimes even those experiences will be painful. So let's give

Tommy a warm welcome.

God will never ever waste a hurt in your life.

He wants to take all that makes you this shape,

and he wants.

To use it.

He wants to use it for his good and his glory.

So how do we continue on maximizing our God given shape? Well,

number one, we have to discover it. Number two, we

have to accept it. And then number three, God wants

us to enjoy it. God wants us to enjoy the

shape that He has given us and how He has

made us. Ecclesiastes five tells us this, to enjoy your

work and to accept your lot in life.

This is a gift from God.

People who do this rarely look with sorrow on the past,

for God has given them reasons for joy. God wants

you to accept and to enjoy who He's made you

to be. He's made you to be something wonderful and

unique and beautiful and amazing. And because He's made you

that way, and he is the creator and the maker,

just like Pastor Rick was talking about, he wants you

to enjoy and to accept that gift. He doesn't want

you to be anybody else except for you. He's not

going to compare you to anyone else. And when you

do that, there are three benefits that happen in your life,

and Philippians two thirteen talks about these three benefits.

Let's take a look at this next verse.

It is God who is at work within you, energizing

and creating in you the power and desire to will

and to work for His good pleasure and satisfaction and delight.

When you are living in your shape, when you were

doing what God made you to do, there's three things

that happen in your life according to this First you

might want to write these down. The first thing is

that you will feel energized. You will have energy like

you've never experienced before. And it's not just energy to

get up and go in the morning, like physical energy.

It's that you feel alive inside inside of you.

You feel like this is what you were born to do,

this is what you were made to do. It resonates

in the deepest part of your heart and your desire,

and deep down in your soul, you know this is

what God has made me to do, and.

So you feel alive.

You'll be the first one to show up before anyone else.

You'll be the last one to leave before anyone after

everyone else is gone, because you know this is what

God has made you to do.

A second benefit is that you get more confidence.

There's more confidence that comes with knowing that this is

who God made you to be.

Do you know where the word confidence comes from?

Comes from two Latin words can and fee day con

and fi day and Latin ming with faith. You don't

get confidence from self help books or from listening to

see three's or.

The radio talking about how great you are.

You get confidence with faith from God. It's with faith

that you know that you are doing exactly what God

has made you to do. And when you're in with

faith in God in the process and He is showing

and revealing who you are in Him, that becomes who

your identity is. And you have confidence because you're doing

what God has called you to do and He's made

you to do. The third benefit is that you have

significance and.

Satisfaction in life.

You feel fulfilled and fruitful with what's going on, with

what God is allowing you to be able to do.

A lot of us live at the survival stage of life.

We're just trying to get by. We're trying to make

it from one day to the next, one paycheck to

the next, just trying to get done with our day.

And then we get our to do list done, and

then by the time we go to bed, we're so

exhausted we collapse into bed and we think, oh, my goodness,

dear Lord, we got to do it again tomorrow.

How are we going to do that?

And we just live with the survival stage of life,

and God doesn't want us to live there. And a

lot of us we try to move into the success

stage and we define it by the world standards, not

by God's standards.

And God doesn't want us to live there either, because.

Once you get to the success stage, whether it's by

the world standards, you'll realize that it's still empty.

That you might be not.

Living by survival, but you still feel empty. And it's

because God wants all of us to live at the

significant stage of life. He doesn't want you to drift

through life. He wants you to know that he can

use you in ways that you've never possibly imagined, that

He's got great plans for your life.

And he wants you to feel significant and whole.

And you do that by discovering who God made you

to be, which comes to our fourth point, which is

how do we maximize our God given shape?

Number four? We need to develop it and use it.

We need to develop and use the shape that God

has given us. Shape is like a muscle. If you

don't use it, you lose it. You know, if you

don't work out your muscles, you don't exercise your muscles,

the muscle becomes atrophied. And God doesn't want that to happen.

In your life.

You look at these amazing musicians in our vocal team,

our worship we have up here on stage every single week,

and you look at them, You're like, Wow, they're so amazing.

They're so good. I didn't start out that way. They

weren't any good when they first started, right. They had

to learn years and years and years ago.

They had to learn and practice and do this talent

that God has put in them and work on these

abilities and work on what God has made them to

be and develop those muscles and to grow them to.

Where they're at today.

Oftentimes we look at people, we're like, man, I love

where they're at. I wish they could be there because

I can sing, I could play a musical instrument, or

or whatever. It is that ability or gift that God's

given you, and the way you get there is by

developing it, by serving, by growing, by giving it to

the Lord. Two Timothy one to six says this, keep

using the gift God gave you. Let it grow as

a small flame grows into a fire shape. Is just

the beginning. It's the starting point. It's not the end game.

It's getting you to understand where you are at today,

where God made you. But you are going to be

different and you are going to grow throughout the years.

So I view this as something that's going to be

a life long journey for you. Not you just you're

right starting out today. Some of you have been on

the journey for a while. Some of you this is

brand new to you. But you are starting out looking

at what God has done in your life and how

He's made you. Now here's the beauty thing about. Let's

say you've taken class three or one years ago, or

whenever you took or maybe I haven't taken it.

That's okay. The spiritual gifts that you have.

There might be some you don't even give an unwrapped,

yet you're still need to unwrap them. You have presence

that God has given sitting you, sitting on the shelf

that He's given you. You have different passions you're going

to develop throughout the years. You have experiences happened ten

years ago. Think of all the experiences you've had in

the past ten years and all the experiences you're going

to have in the future that God wants to use

for his glory and he wants to use in your life.

One Peter four to ten tells us this God has

given each of us special abilities. Be sure to use

them to help each other, passing on to others God's blessings.

Will you circle that phrase at the end of this verse,

passing on to others God's blessings, your spiritual gifts, your shape,

your spiritual gifts, your heart, your abilities, your personality. Those

experiences happen in your life, the good, the bad, the beautiful,

the ugly, all of those things. God wants to use

them for his glory. He wants to make you and

me a visual aid to a lost world, a visual

aid of Jesus power and love and compassion and forgiveness.

To a world that is dying and lost.

He wants you to be the light bearers for him

as you go into your homes, as you go into

your neighborhoods, you go into your businesses, as you meet

with family and friends that you have. Now the greatest

blessing you're ever gonna experience, ever an experience, is knowing

Jesus as your personal savior. That's the starting point for

all this. It's asking God to come into your life.

It's saying to Jesus, Jesus, I want to get to

know you. Help me to get to know you. I

want to start a relationship with you. I don't want religion.

I want a relationship with you, and I want to

start that with you today. Pastor Rick's going to give

you an opportunity later on in just a few minutes

to do that.

That's the starting point.

And then the second greatest decision you can make is going.

After and finding out who God has made you to be.

As parents, these are the two greatest things we can

do with our kids.

Introduce them to Jesus and then help them discover who

God has made them to be.

God has got a place for you in this world.

You are not an accident and you are needed and

God wants to do amazing things in your life.

Okay, let's wrap this up.

What's the one thing that keeps you from becoming who

God made you to be. What's the one thing that

keeps you from using your shape?

Write it down. Fear. That's the word. It's fear.

It scares you to become somebody that other people may

not understand.

It is fear.

There's a story in the Bible where Jesus calls it

the Parable or the Story of the Talents. We actually

get the word talent from this Bible story. In Bible times,

a talent was actually an amount of money. It equaled

like an entire year's salary. And Jesus tells the story

of a businessman who gives his employee one. He gives

several talents, another of ten, another he gives five, another

he gives one. He says, invest this. I'll be back

and I'm going on a trip. When he comes back,

one guy and another guy have both doubled their money.

The third guy says this here on the screen. He says,

I was afraid, so I hid the talent you gave

me in the ground.

Have you done that?

You were afraid, so you hid the talent that God

gave you in the ground.

The Bible says, we're made of ground, We're.

Made of dust. Some of you are hiding it inside

of you. It's time to stop hiding your shape. It

is fear. Now. Why must I maximize my shape? I

can give you lots of reasons. You'll be more fulfilled

and old. He'll enjoy life more. You'll be more fruitful

and successful in your life if you're doing what your

shape to do, not what you're not shaped to do.

But the bottom line is this, write it down because

I'm accountable to my creator. I am accountable to my creator.

God decided your shape. God created you.

God made an investment in you, and he expects a

return on the investment. The Bible says this in Psalm

thirty three. From where he sits, God overlooks all of

us on earth. He has shaped each person, and now

he watches everything we do.

Somebody has said, but nobody sees what I do. Well.

God does never mistake anonymous with insignificance. And as Tommy

mentioned earlier, one day you're going to stand before God.

He's going to ask you two questions, and you're not

going to miss this exam. First question, what did you

do with my son Jesus? Hope you know the answer

to that one. I invited him into my life. I

trusted in him. And the second question is what did

you do with what I gave you? Your spiritual gifts,

your heart, your ability, your personality, your experiences. Oh, God,

had a great time, made a lot of money, retired

and die wrong answer, You better be ready for that

final exam. It's why you're here on earth. God puts

you here to fulfill your shape and fulfill your purpose.

Every wonder you look around in the world. There's a

lot of cool things in the world. Every wonderful achievement,

everything of beauty and created in this world was done

by somebody's God given shape. Everything that's cool was done

because somebody God shaped somebody to do it in business, health, whatever, education.

On the opposite thing and the other hand, all of

the destructive things in the world are because so misused

their shape and misused their talent. The difference is what

God has given to you, you must give it back

to God. God has given you your sahape. Now you've

got to give it back to God and then he'll

use it in a great way. Closing verse on the screen,

offer every part of your body to God to be

used in doing good. That verse right there, I made

that one many many years ago in my life. I'll

close with this in my heart of hearts, at the

core of my being, I want to use my shape

for God to serve God by serving other people. And

to my best of my ability, I have tried to

do that with my life, to use my spiritual gifts,

my heart, my abilities, my personalt, and my experience to

serve other people by serving God. And it is produced

fruitful in my life and it has made my life

very fulfilling. And as your pastor, I deeply want that

for you. I want that for you, for every one

of you. I want your life to be fruitful, successful,

and I.

Want it to be fulfilling.

But it's not going to happen if you're trying to

be something you weren't meant to be.

You gotta be wired for your shape. That's bow our heads.

God, you gave us a mind that we might know you.

You gave us emotions that we might feel your love

and even express that love back to you. And you

gave us a free will that we might choose to

follow you. Now you pray, say God in your mind,

say God today, I dedicate or rededicate my life to you.

I want to be what you made me to be.

I want to discover my shape. I want to accept

my shape. I want to enjoy my shape. And I

want to develop and use my shape to serve you

by serving other people. I ask you to make my

life fulfilling and fruitful as I become what you made

me to become. Jesus Christ. I invite you into every

area of my life. You know the good, the bad,

and the ugly, and I turn it over to you

as best I know how. And I ask you to

make the rest of my life the greatest period of

my life.

And I humbly ask this in your name. Amen.

Wow, some powerful words from Pastor Rick today. And now

this is really one of my favorite parts of the broadcast.

This is letters from our listeners and now here's Rick.

Friends.

If you're having trouble staying consistent in your Bible study

and quiet time, one thing you can do is have

the Daily Hope devotional and podcast emailed to you every

single day. Did you know that now each devotional, each

daily devotional gives you a Bible verse and both a

written and an audio teaching about that verse. Now I

mention this because that's exactly what one of my listeners

has done. Marla wrote me, and she says that getting

Daily Hope devotionals have helped deepen her relationship with the

Lord and helped her be more consistent. Marla writes this, Hello,

Pastor Rick, I've been a Christian all my life, but

I felt lost for the past few years. But a

friend of mine told me about your Daily Hope emails

and I've been getting them for about a month now.

I read them every morning, and my meditation and prayer

practices have become more regular and definitely more meaningful. My

relationship to God has grown because of you and the

Daily Hope Ministry. I now listen to your podcast every

day on my way to or from work, and.

I love it.

So I felt compelled to tell you that I've gotten

so much from your Creating Life Shaping Conversations podcast. They

have really helped me as a mother, as a wife,

as a boss, and as a friend. So I'm going

to share them with my oldest daughter, who's nineteen. She's

trying to find friends and find her way in college.

So thank you, thank you, thank you well, thank you, Marla,

thank you for writing. I'm so encouraged to hear how

God uses Daily Hope to change lives and help people

just like you grow closer to Him. You know, I

think it's great that you are sharing your Daily Hope

podcast with your daughter, and I would invite all of

our listeners to do this. I have no doubt that

she is going to learn to lean on the Lord,

and as she does that, she'll develop biblical discernment that

means knowing which way to go and who to relate to,

and it's going to help her find her way in college. Now,

Marla mentioned the Creating Life Shaping Conversations podcasts. Some of

you have heard that, some of you haven't heard it.

They're part of a series called Talking about Stuff That Matters,

and I think you'll find the whole series very helpful

for starting conversations with your family and with your friends

about the most important things in life. Now, you'll find

the Daily Hope podcast on my website pastorick dot com.

All of these podcasts are free, and the reason we're

able to do that is because the generous gifts from

listeners like you. So those of you who are supporting

us financially a million.

Thanks.

You're making a difference, You're changing lives. Your gifts are

causing people to come into the Kingdom, grow in Christ,

and become all God intended for them to be.

Hey, if you'd like to let Rick know how this

broadcast has blessed you, he would love it.

Please feel free.

To send him an email at Rick at pastorick dot com.

That's Rick at pastorick dot com. Be sure to join

us next time as we look into God's word for

our daily hope. This program is sponsored by Pastor Rick's

Daily Hope and your generous financial support.