Finding value in our success, our business and our life can create a position of constantly wanting control and failing to trust God in the process. We need to establish our core value in the Creator of all things, even in our businesses.
In this two part podcast, Brian Alex and I talk about what it is like to let go of control, finding our value in Christ and how to continue the patterns of following Him when that may look like letting go of our current situations.
For full transcript, continue reading here:
Introducing the new, old guy.
Welcome to the show folks. Today we are talking about how to let go of control and joining me on the show is the new guy. Is that funny? It’s funny because it’s funny to me because we say to everybody, you’re the new guy, but you’re actually the first, the first team member with me, uh, to start the business. And so, uh, having been gone for six years, eh, on missions and back for, uh, this upcoming year, it is fun to say that you’re the new guy because most everybody here, nobody, nobody really knew you. What are we can be the new guy. You are the new guy, but you’re the old guy too. You’re the, you’re the number one. I like that. You’re never one. You’re always number one with me, Brian. So Brian Alex is joining me on the show and, uh, he has been back in the States now for how long? Geez. Wow. Two months. Two whole months. Two whole months and back here at the office, which is very fun and exciting for all of us to have you here. And today we are talking about, uh, something that, uh, we have both experienced a lot of in life and that’s how to let go of control, how to kind of detach ourselves from, uh, outcomes. Where. What we talk about in the next level life is so many people. Whenever we have like a trigger event and we feel out of control, there’s one of two ways we normally go and that’s either we try to control people or we try to control outcomes. And so many of the times we’re focused heavily on controlling, outcomes.
What does it look like if you are struggling with where you are?
So kinda just looking at this today, like what does that look like? What does it look like if you’re struggling with where you are? What does it look like if you’re struggling where you know, with work, God has you right now, and some of you, I know I’ve experienced this, I believe you have as well. There’ve been times in my life earlier on where I knew God had me somewhere and it was tough. It was difficult, it was painful. It was, I know I’m supposed to be here and I’ve got to, I know he has a better plan for me, and I’ve just gotta surrender me in that process. I have. I’m sure you’ve experienced that. That’s fun. That’s fun. God’s laughing right now. He’s going, yep, it’s fun for me. So, so you may be struggling with where God has you right now. Maybe it’s not where you want to be. Um, but it’s where he has you. And I think a lot of folks listening to this, so if you’re listening to this and you’re saying, Chris, I actually don’t know if God has me here.
Um, so that’s great. Um, the bigger piece of what we’re going to be talking about today is what do you do with that? How do you, how do you handle that time? Some of you are going, yep, I know he’s got me right where I am and I don’t like it. I hate it. This sucks because it’s not where I want to be. So how do you make sense of that? Some of you might be seeing that as just completely senseless. Um, some of you might be seeing that as having absolutely no purpose whatsoever. I, uh, I know that when I was in logistics back in the 90s, I stayed, I, I’m really good at logistics. So in the early nineties, early to mid nineties, I was doing logistics, doing ministry. And the thing is, is that the logistics put the food on the table. Surprisingly, the ministry did not put the food on the table.
That’s a little bit tougher. Uh, but I knew that I was supposed to stay exactly where I was. I knew that I was supposed to stay doing a job that I didn’t enjoy, because I knew God was telling me that I wasn’t freed up from leaving. And, uh, at one point, uh, a gal that was in the office was just having a horrible day. And I just asked her what was going on and Oh, I, I think I had made some comment about God or something like that. And she’s like, there is no God. And I said, let’s go, let’s go talk. We talked for two hours, two hours, and she was bawling. I was balling. And she had re dedicated her life to God. There’s times in life where you can experience something so painful or so disturbing or so what seems counter God like this?
How could this possibly be? And that can be the very time that you decide I must take control. Forget it. There can’t be a God in a situation like that. God cannot possibly exist. And so after having talked through a bunch of understanding more God than understanding the horrible son-in-law, um, then she was able to recommit her life to God. So interestingly, the moment I walked out of that conversation, I literally got a phone call at my office and it was a job offer. I had been at that business for years knowing that I hated it. I didn’t enjoy it. I didn’t like it, but I knew God had me there in the moment. I picked up the phone. I knew this is the release, this is the time for me to, uh, you know, I was here for, I’m sure more stuff than that. But definitely I was there for that conversation. But you didn’t know that until that moment. Not a clue. like literally in the moment, it’s like, aha, this is it. And I would tell people, you know, people would say, why don’t you just leave? And I’m like, God, doesn’t, God wants me here. God wants me to stay right here.
Trusting God.
And so there’s kind of this here, there’s this there, but there’s also this in between. You’re not here or there. And as I talk to my friends, going through tough times, that feels like the worst places. I don’t know if it’s limbo, purgatory in between. Um, if they don’t feel like they’re in disobedience there, they don’t know for sure that they’re being obedient, but they’re just in between. And so whether you’re here or they’re somewhere in between, there can be a sense of yes, Senselessness purpose, less ness in that. What do you do with that? Yeah, so, so that’s why we’re hitting guys. Uh, you know, if you are dealing with some struggles like this, uh, you might be trying to control that outcome if you’re dealing with that in between. I like the fact that you use purgatory in there. If you’re feeling in that, you know, I don’t have purpose, therefore, or it seems as though I don’t have purpose, therefore, yeah, this is just crap. Uh, what do you do about that? Now I can tell you a lot of folks will try and control, you know, how do I, how can I trust God? So for me, when we talk through Next Level Life, there’s a couple of things that I say everything comes down to now what I say that people like to be like, Oh, you’ve got this here, Chris, I’m just going to tell you what I think. I think everything comes down to two things in life.
Not trusting that God has our best interest at heart and where we get our worth. And we talk a ton on the show about where we get our worth and how we try and get our worth from people. And you know, we’re constantly doing that. And because of that it’s, we can’t, you literally can’t get worth from another human being. You can only get worth by the one who created you and tells you what your worth is. But we try it anyways. And if you look at the, I’m out of control. So what do I do every single time we take control, we’re saying that God doesn’t have our best interest at heart.
Right? We’re, we’re pulling every lever, turning every dial trying to get leverage on that situation because we feel out of control.
Yeah. We feel out of control. We may never have even trusted God with whatever the thing is and saying, it just feels, I think a lot of people feel stupid to say, well, I’m just going to trust God on this. It doesn’t mean you’re not diligent. It doesn’t mean you don’t continue to work hard towards it. It doesn’t mean that you aren’t spending a lot of time in His word and in prayer, but it does mean that you’re letting go of the control piece of it. Um, so if you are manipulating outcomes, what does that like, you know, what does it mean to just be still and know that he is God, right? You know, one of the things we talked about earlier was the, uh, you know, let go and let God, like how does that play out? Like what do you, what do you, how do people experience that, that phrase, that thought,
right? It’s a nice trite little saying, uh, that we’ve used in the church for, you know, decades, but in actuality, is it is a completely passive posture or is it an active posture? What does it look like? Um, you know, because every activity seems to be an attempt to gain control. So how are we actively still that’s, that’s the crux of it, right? Yeah.
How do we let go? Who teaches us how to let go while I see you’re struggling with something? Hey, just let go and let God, well, thanks. Hey, thanks. I appreciate that, pat on the back. How do I do that? Right? Well, you just gotta you just gotta trust. You just got to pray more. Right? You just got it. Okay. Well thank you. I appreciate that. So what does that mean to be still? Um, for me, one of my favorite scriptures of all times is Psalm 62:5 , which is “Let all that I am wait quietly before God for my hope is in him, every bit of me, all of my being.” Wait quietly on God. All of me. Yes. Don’t, don’t take control. Don’t let your, don’t let your mind take control. Don’t let your desires take control. Don’t let your heart take control.
Let everything wait quietly before God because He is my hope. There is no hope beyond Him. That’s the crazy thing and I think you know, even as Christians, you know we have a bunch of people that listen to the show that are Christians. We have a bunch of people who are not Christians, but let me say, especially to Christians, your hope is not in what you accomplish in life. Your hope is not in having the best spouse. Your hope is not in, in having people approve of your kids and your parenting. Your hope is in the transition. We’re only here for a breath of time. So your hope is in what’s going on. What is it going to be like when I transition? And I think one of the things that a lot of folks don’t understand, and we preach this like crazy. Hey listen, if you want to send me an email, feel free. Go ahead and send it to [email protected] but let me tell you something. One of the things we teach in a Western culture that is incorrect is that all you have to do is have faith. And that’s it. Say the say the prayer. Say the prayer of salvation that doesn’t exist and you’re good. Go on living your life. That is absolutely not what God wants from us. He wants every bit of us, he wants all of us, he wants all that I am to wait quietly before him. And a big piece of this is, it’s not just me. It’s not just, you know, my being, it’s my obedience. If, if I’m not being obedient to him in the process, then he’s gonna allow things to, to cause me to be obedient.
But this is so counter cultural, counter intuitive because our GoTo is where are those levers? Whereas the dials, the buttons I can push that will give me a desired outcome, that the context that I’m coming out of a, in Europe, everything’s built around that. And so if you can’t get your answer from here in this religious system, you go to a, a system of superstition or you go to doctors or you go to and it’s just right down the line trying to get that leverage. And, and I liked the verse in Proverbs that echoes from Psalms, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart do not depend on your own understanding.” Well that, I mean that punches me in the gut every time. Seek His will in all you do. He’ll show you which path to take. But that, that is so counterintuitive. I want to lean on my own understanding. I want to figure it out. Do the deal, get the you don’t get it done. Get the results I want and move on because I feel that I’m in control and I get my worth from that. And having the results that I want seems to be an objective that will make me happy or put me at ease or give me peace, but does it that way. Yeah, it always does. Right? And until, until there’s the next thing and then you’re a hamster in a wheel.
That’s exactly it. The moment I start grabbing the levers to take control of what I want the outcome to be, and I’m not seeking the One who created me, the One who has pursued me every second of my life, the One who wants me to realize His blessings. And that’s another thing is that again, in a Western culture we teach, don’t worry about the obedience side, even though Jesus himself, God himself said, guys, I’m, I want your obedience. I Matthew 5: 17-19 I expect that you be obedient. It’s not just enough to have faith in me that’s getting you in the door, that’s getting you into heaven. But Hey, take a look at how you’re going to live in heaven. You know, Paul talks about plan out your salvation with fear and trembling. And when I look at that, it’s a, hey, what is life gonna be like when I get through the transition, if I’m trying to control everything on this? And that means I’m not being obedient to him or are we trusting that we’re not, we just can’t be.
So then what does trust look like? I mean, it’s a, it’s arresting. Yeah. But it’s not exactly passive either.
Right? Right. So we are going to talk about that. That is a fantastic, I’m so glad you brought that up, Brian. Thanks. Let’s talk about that in the notes. I’ve read it somewhere. Uh, so we’re going to talk about that. Uh, right after this:
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Be still without the control.
So we are back and we are talking with the new guy, the new old guy, Brian Alex, he’s on the show with us today. Again, we started this business on my back patio, two laptops in a bottle of wine. We considered naming the company. That was such a great day. That two laptops in a bottle of wine, uh, actually, uh, creating, uh, everything that we get to have fun with today. Uh, and before you went on your missions trip, so we were talking about, uh, you know, letting go of control. What does that look like? What does it look like to be still? What does it look like to rest when there’s so much restlessness inside of us? What does it look like to, you know, when we have our desires when we have, you know, isn’t it good Chris? The whole world, by the way, some of you are following some thought leaders out there right now and I’m going to tell you this is, you may not like this, but there is a lot of thought leaders right now that are telling you to go stand on the mountaintop and scream to the world who you are, that it is up to you to go tell other created beings, other human beings who you are. It’s about you- take care of you.
Let me tell you that’s really bad teaching because what that’s teaching you is it’s not about God, it’s about you. And some of these folks are coming from what they say as a Christian perspective, and then talking about how you need to throw your stuff out into the universe and see what it throws back at you. It’s just beyond ridiculous to me. It is not about you. It’s not about me. It’s about the King of the Universe. It’s about the God that created 95 billion light years of space. You know, a God that can create that is way bigger than anything I can possibly imagine. And he’s the God who’s amazingly, incredibly in love with me and I don’t get it. But he’s also the God who has a plan that is way better than mine. And so as we’re talking about this, what does it look like to sit and wait? What does it look like to be still? What does it look like? You know, we live in an age when focusing on outcomes is an endeavor of the highest value. Where, if you’re not controlling the outcome, you’re stupid. You know, you, what are you doing if you’re not the one who’s forcing, you know, the gaining the most money you possibly can. If you’re not the one who has the best house, the best car, the best, whatever. If you’re not controlling that, then what are you controlling?
Right, And all of our culture is screaming back at us reinforcing that same value that, I mean, and that’s why everything gets so frenzied and fast paced because we have to be producing, we have to be getting to a desired outcomes, getting things done, rendering results. And the moment that we stop doing that, we stopped being quote, productive. We look, you know, useless in our, in our society, in the context of our society. And so it is really counterintuitive to pause and think and reflect and observe where we are, what’s going on around us and being present. Nobody’s doing that because it doesn’t have a quantifiable, measurable, you know, results or productivity.
What is my worth if I’m not, if I’m not producing, if I’m not creating, what is my worth? And so as you may be sitting in a place right now where God has you, that doesn’t feel good. It doesn’t feel purposeful. It has, you know, it feels purposelessness that there is this, you know, you’re lacking. Then as we’re all tied in, listen, I was taught, I praise God for the work ethic that I have. I have a great work ethic. I have no problem getting up and busting it and making something happen. But I also praise God that through the years he’s caused things to happen for me to stop. The funny thing is, you know, I pray for it all the time. I always pray the early on in my early days of Christianity, I’m, I remember praying for patience and somebody said, you’re praying for patience?
I’m like, yeah, well that’s why all of these things are going wrong in your life. And I’m like, well, that makes sense. That totally makes sense. It wasn’t a deterrent. It wasn’t, well, I mean, well maybe for five minutes maybe there was a reprieve. I’m not going to ask for patience for right now. You know, I pray all the time, Lord, help me to be still help me to do your will, your will over my will help me to be more Christ like help me. And it’s so funny that over the decades he has allowed things to happen that have caused that. And as James talks about, you know, Hey, when you go through trials, when you go through this stuff, don’t pray for it to be over with, which we do all the time. God, would you please take this? Wait, wait a second. You literally just prayed this morning that I make you more like this. You literally prayed this morning that I draw you closer to me. You literally prayed this morning that I make you more Christ-like and now you’re asking me since I’ve allowed something to happen in your life that is uncomfortable. It’s painful. It’s suffering as far as you’re concerned, which I think a lot of the stuff we consider suffering is not nearly as bad as we think it is now. You’re asking me to take it away. What’s going to happen when the real tough stuff comes? What’s going to happen when the real attacks come.
We don’t have any endurance built up, but I noticed the pivot there. Either we’re focusing on ourselves and the productivity and not being useless, how would you call that? Useless in the moment. I want to be fruitful. I want to produce, or we look at the circumstances that we’re in and if the circumstances appear to us not to be producing something, we’re just as discontent. Because again, the culture that we’re in, prizes, productivity over every other value. And maybe that’s a product of our culture. Maybe that’s, you know, kind of the human condition. But that is not where scriptures pointing us. That’s not where Jesus is calling us, uh, into relationship with him, into rest with him. And so there’s this under, under current of discontent,
Tom Rath, uh, in his book, StrengthsFinder 2.0 talks about how we as Americans and I, and I didn’t really have a good basis to understand this until I went to the middle East too, until I went to Israel and you know, spent, you know, two weeks going all over that country doing a phenomenal Bible study and excited about our, we’re going with our clients and you next year. So we’re super excited about that. But to be able to see that there are cultures that don’t have that same productivity drive as we do now, we believe as Americans. While that’s, that’s our greatest, you know, our greatest virtue is that we are people who work like crazy and I can tell you over and over and over again through Next Level Life, what we have in and we discover is four inch Stratline. My gosh, we see this all the time and Stratplan we see it all the time in
The bottom line.
The Next Level Mastermind, we see folks who are, who are on that rat wheel of produce, produce, produce, produce, produce, produce, produce. Because that’s where your, your values, that’s where your worth is. And every time I say this, every time I say, Hey guys, you’re never going to get to heaven and God’s going to go, I’m so impressed with your bottom line, the faces, the looks that some people immediately do, like you just did this. They just laugh at it because they get it immediately. And some people really, Oh my gosh, I’ve never thought about that. I’ve never, I’ve, I’ve never thought about God is not so focused on my bottom line. I’m the one because who taught me and who taught me that productivity. And don’t get me wrong, I am somebody who produces a lot. I achieve a lot. It’s just, as I say at the top of the show, you know, when you guys listen to the beginning of the show, business is what you do.
It’s not who you are. It’s a piece of who you are. I’m a Christian, I’m a teacher, I’m a friend. You know, I, there’s so much more to me than just this, the producing side of stuff. So what happens when I’m stuck? What happens when I’m, you know, I can go through, jeez, I could go through half a dozen probably off the top of my head situations where all of a sudden something is not the way I want it to be. Something’s not right. Something’s not exactly how I desire. Something’s not exactly in my control and I don’t know what to do- because of so much of the suffering that I’ve walked through in struggle that I’ve walked through. What I’ve learned is don’t try to get out of the struggle. What is God’s showing me? And because of that, I’ve learned to trust, to look at a situation and go, it doesn’t matter what I want. It doesn’t matter what I want, what outcome I want. What does God want? It would be ridiculous for me to think that the King of the universe who knows, you know, knows the number of hairs on my head, which is not difficult for him to do, knows, you know, created the 3.2 billion bits of code instead of my DNA
doesn’t care. What if we’ve got it all wrong? Exactly. What if my worth and my value doesn’t come from the productivity or what I produce, but rather what he’s making me to be. What if the work that I do isn’t as valuable as the work that He’s doing in me to make me a masterpiece that reflects Him. But that is not something quantifiable in our culture. And so it’s very difficult for us to kind of backpedal on the culture and swim countercurrent towards not just that destination, but the transformation that comes along the way because we’re on pilgrimage going to God.
It’s tough for us in the culture that we live in, to think that our, us being a masterpiece is God’s design as opposed to what we design. It’s, it’s, it’s tough for us to believe that God has, and again, if I go back to the middle East community, hospitality is a lack of hospitality, a sin. I mean, we read it in the Bible and we don’t get it. We don’t understand it until we actually go and experience hospitality from a culture that has known it since the beginning. That’s all they’ve known. You know, that they understand that to not be hospitable is horrid. It’s, it’s ungodly. And for us here, we think that the ungodly thing is you didn’t make more money this year or you didn’t produce this thing or you didn’t do, you know, your kids aren’t in 17 different types of sports, you know, as you’re hauling them all over the place. So kind of talk about that reflecting the Master, right.
Reflection of the Master.
So I mean, the moment that we can transition mentally from the, the work that I produce is my value and where I get my worth from to understanding that it’s His work done in me that assigns the value to me. I mean, the whole idea of worship, for example, comes from the root word worth in the English language. And so we were assigning to Him in worship, His value, well, our worship is to reflect that beauty, the beauty of the, the, the Master, the, the creator. And, and He designed me to reflect that. And so, yeah, I mean, we have, uh, we cooperate. We have a a work to do at the end, if I’m able to give any glory back to God and worship Him, it’s because I understand that his assigning of a value to me is the only real intrinsic value that I have, not from what I produce.
And I, I love some other metaphors that are kind of helpful here to wrap our heads around. Um, I was reading, uh, one author, Stephen Lawhead, at the end of some fiction series, he’s got a, I think it’s called Bright Empires. He wrote an essay about pilgrimage and I’ll stretch our patience here just to read a little bit of a quote, but he, he talks about how the destination was important, right? We all, we all kind of look towards that destination as being the prize or the objective. Um, but he goes on and says, but it was the journey itself, the physical act of going that transforms pilgrims. But gosh, that pilgrimage is drudgery. There is so much monotony. It’s the mundane, it’s the, uh, the work and the labor that goes through it. But he’s saying that’s kind of the, the transformative process.
Um, I mean, we see this from other writers as well. Uh, there’s the Nietzsche quote, never in a million years would I have thought that I would have a Nietzsche quote, but this is great. This is good stuff. Yeah. So he says the essential thing of heaven and earth is that there should be a long obedience in the same direction there thereby results and has always resulted in the long run, Something which has made life worth living. And I love that Eugene Peterson. Uh, it had to been 25, 30 years ago, uh, wrote a book by the title the same, uh, the same little sentence here, that long obedience in the same direction. And he picks up on this idea and just fleshes out what obedience looks like. But it’s not the, the way that we frame things. I mean, even in the church, we frame things in terms of heaven and hell, or would you rather be make a decision right now, let’s go. And it’s just that end result, end result. But this is not the way of Jesus the rabbi.
This is not the way he taught his disciples. Right? Yeah. I think that’s probably one of the most difficult things. And so I want to be very, very insanely clear when I say this because again, in a Western culture, if I say this in an Eastern culture though, like yeah, totally. But in a Western culture, we have screwed this up for 1900 years now where the, you know, so let me be very clear when I say there is no salvation by obedience. Faith is what gets us transitioning into heaven. The opportunity that Christ gave us, um, is that we could spend eternity with them if we choose it by faith. But we stopped there in a Western culture. We stop right there and we go, that’s all you need. And so like you’re saying, we give these two options, either choose faith or choose how, and then we stop.
And Jesus says himself again. Matthew 5:17-19, “Do not believe that I came to abolish the law or the Torah of the prophets, I came to fulfill it.” There is no abolishing. There is none of that happening. That’s not going to happen until heaven and earth pass away, which this is really difficult for a lot of Christians to understand that God’s going to wipe away the universe and then start over again. Until that happens, those who are disobedient and teach the same thing will be considered the least in heaven and those who are obedient will be considered and teach the same will be considered great in heaven. The piece that I think we keep missing on this journey is believing that we are so in control of our own lives and as long as we have a faith, nothing else matters.
Why? No, I’m going to heaven. There is so much more than that teaching of just going to heaven. Jesus himself says, and there’s a lot that it’s funny, there’s a lot of scripture that people try to use in bend and say, why? Well, this is what Paul says. Listen, first off, if Paul ever contradicted Jesus, who would you listen to? Which he doesn’t. People take it out of context, but if he did, who would you listen to? God or disciple. Whoa, I’m going to still go back to the God piece, but he still doesn’t contradict that. But we use stuff that contradicts that and so that we can have control of, well, I don’t want to do that. I don’t want, you know, one of the things is like we talk about the 10 commandments, you know, you go to any church in America, but as I say that, I’m questioning, you go to almost any church in America and you say, Hey, do you believe in the 10 commandments?
Yep. Do you follow Sabbath? Nope. What? But it’s moral law. Yup. But Nope, it’s not. It was taken away. When was it taken away? And the scriptures used for that are actually ridiculous. There are things that in no way, shape or form so that, that, that ever happened. Now please feel free to email me if you want to talk about this. This is great. The bigger focus that I’m trying to point to is God set up the obedience side for us of seeking him and the blessing, that is the obedience. When you follow me, there’s more blessing that comes. There’s more stuff that comes from me that is more of a blessing to you. If you follow what I’m saying. If you start grabbing levers and start taking control, guess what? That’s where you’re going to struggle. That’s where you’re going to have pain. That’s where you’re going to be out of control thinking that you’re gaining control by grabbing those levers.
That’s where you’re going to be more out of con, I’ve set this up, I’ve got a path for you. Follow this, go this direction, and unfortunately we teach people. Don’t worry about that. Just make the decision and then you’re done. You’re good. You know, go to church every single, which by the way, folks, you cannot actually go to church. You are the church. You going to go to church every week and then you’re golden. That’s that’s, that’s the key. Otherwise you’re going to hell, right? All of these ridiculous pieces that puts control back in our hands.
And it’s just that focus on on outcomes and heaven and hell, that’s important. How do we get there from where we are? There’s, and again it’s, it’s not a works mentality. It’s by grace alone and faith alone in Jesus Christ. But there is a process that He’s wanting to work out in us all along the way. And so when we, if we pivot back to a business side or a leadership side with this concept, what we find is that control and these, these levers in a, in a focus on results, these are poor masters. They’re poor motivations. And one thing that you pushed back on all the time with we, each of the personality types is, is that just another way for you to feel like you have control, which may in the end be more of an illusion than anything else. But it, it gives you a sense of stability, worth a value, all of that.
But again, these are poor masters. And so what we’re trying to point to is what’s underneath that. And if we can speak to what is the motivation, it’s going to transform our sense of being, our sense of value, our sense of worth. It’s also going to transform how we treat others because we’re not pressing towards that outcome necessarily, but we’re pressing on the value and we’re pressing on this deeper understanding of I’m being transformed and He’s working in and through me and He’s producing me into something. Not the works of my hands, but he, I’m the work of his hands. Right? And I think that’s where we get so messed up in this is that we keep thinking that we must create what our life is, that we must listen.
Chris’ story of letting go.
It was difficult for me to step what people considered down from a very large platform when I felt God calling me saying, this is what you’re going to do. You’re going to go work one on one with individuals, with, you know, companies working directly with them deeper, you know, much more focused on the things that I want you to focus on. And people thought, well that’s just ridiculous. It’s all about being, being back on that stage in front of 10,000 people, man, that’s the place to be. What was it about? What was for you? For me it was, I could be on a stage loving it, loving, because I’m a teacher. The stage for me is a happy place.
So I can be on a stage teaching people, you know, if it’s a hundred people, if it’s 10,000 people, doesn’t matter. And I love that moment. The place I struggled was I could step off that stage and somebody say, Chris, can I ask you this one question and I could’ve been teaching for hours and they go, um, helped me with this and I helped them. They go, man, that was, that was the most powerful thing that I just experienced. It doesn’t mean that everybody didn’t get their life’s change. It doesn’t mean that that’s not a great, uh, mode to get people great information. Please do not hear that incorrectly. Fantastic. But what I felt in those moments over and over, and I can’t tell you that dozens of times I would be in those conversations and I would just hear while I’m talking to somebody, you’re going to be leaving and doing this, and I’d be like, that’s just ridiculous.
That can’t be you got, because all of this is great and fantastic, but the great thing is that I never cared about being, I didn’t care about the celebrity, I didn’t care about the fame side of it. I cared about changing lives. And so when I pushed back for the longest time and finally he’s like, you’re going to leave, you will leave is literally what I heard. I realized I’ve just got to trust you. Want to talk about one of the most difficult faith moments and the great thing is is that while it was tough, I was making it. I was making this decision. I know this is right, I’m going to do it. But man, this is scary. This is faith and obedience, right? And it wasn’t. I had made plenty of money. I had plenty of things in life. There’s plenty of stuff, plenty of accomplishments.
It wasn’t that it was what’s going to happen to my purpose now? What’s going to happen with my, you know, and I didn’t, I didn’t need to take control. I had done that for three years when he told me that I was going to be leaving and cause, cause worth and value feel jeopardized. And so you seize control. Exactly. Yeah, exactly. And so I just finally said, forget it. Just trust and just step away. Difficult, painful. Uh, you know, plenty of tears between me and Dave and all kinds of stuff, but I knew it was the right thing goes against everything in our gut. Everything. Yeah. Everything in my gut, the heart side of me that was going, you’re telling me to do something that is just trust you. What’s gonna happen? What do you, what am I gonna do? What am I gonna do for a platform? How am I gonna how am I gonna get clients?
How am I gonna you know, and so do not lean on your own understanding. Yeah. Oh my gosh, that’s so difficult because every thought, every tape that plays is, is looking for the, the, the levers and the, the strings that are going to keep the boat upright, keeps sailing in the direction that we think we should go. But there’s, there’s a way that seems right to a man. Yeah. But it may not be the end that he’s calling you to.
Yeah. This, this isn’t like you say in my own understanding. I don’t understand this. Yeah. I know you’re saying it. I know I’m going to do it. I just don’t get it.
So we know it’s right there and there’s, you know, there’s something inside of us. I think that, that depending on how close or how far away we are from the Lord, um, I feel like there are, there are times in our lives where we know to do something. We don’t really, we can’t rationalize it. It doesn’t make sense, but it just, there, there’s something that I know this is something I have to do. And there’s, there’s this element of faith and obedience that then comes in and, and even some of the values that we build in our businesses, about treating others right, even when it hurts the bottom line, it’s counter intuitive. But what we’re saying here is that if we will be faithful to something bigger than us, to God, to His word, to His law, He is faithful. And so all of a sudden taking our eyes off of that objective, the target, the goal that we’re shooting at and thinking about how we’re doing it is so helpful.
And you, you talk about this all the time in your events, that it’s not really getting to that bottom line as much as it is taking care of people. Right? Right. Yeah. That’s a huge value here. And, and we see that it does affect the bottom line. Eventually it has results that are good for us and good for other people. Even when it hurts as a leader, you’ve seen people come and go. Yeah. And at the end of the day, what you have to be faithful with is God. Did I steward the souls well while I had them here? Yeah.
And again, people coming in here that all the time, you know, we are helping businesses to grow their bottom line. We are helping businesses leaders to have more profitable businesses. We’ve had helped tons of businesses to grow immensely. Eh, but one thing that everybody will hear me say is, listen, I want you to make as much money as you want to make. But understand at the end of the day, God is more focused on how you take care of his people. Take care of his people. He’ll take care of your money. I don’t remember, I’ve got to go back and look at this cause I can never remember who the King was. Uh, that the prophet comes to them, that that paid a serious 700,000 silver pieces for their fighters to come down and protect them. And the, the prophet that comes along and says, do not receive them.
It’s like, what are you talking about? I paid them 700,000 silver pieces and the prophet says, do you not think that God can replace that? Well, just that powerful thing of going, you know, we teach no, the bottom line, the bottom line, the bottom line, the money, the money, the money. And as we say around here, profit is not our number one motivator. Worshiping God is loving people is number two. Profit is at best, number three. Now that makes it a little sticky on how to, you know, you gotta, you gotta make sure that you’re making, I’m never gonna operate on, you know, a business that’s not profitable. But if it’s my number one motivating factor than the other two, definitely are not, it’s never a good master. It’s never a good motivator that people become just a means to that end. Right? Yeah. So, uh, we, I said on the last break that we’re going to talk about stillness and we’re going to get to that and we’re going to talk about that right after this.
