Exploring Tiny Steps with Big Impact with Christie Thomas

Exploring Tiny Steps with Big Impact: Nurturing Faith in Your Children and Yourself with Christie Thomas
In this episode of Steps to Trusting, Erin Michele is joined by children's ministry expert Christie Thomas to discuss how little steps, motivated by faith can make an impact. They explore the pressures parents face in discipling their children, the importance of living in one's identity as God's beloved child, and the need to let go of the idol of self-sufficiency. Christie shares insights on the significance of tiny habits in fostering faith and offers personal stories of how small, consistent acts, like praying blessings over children, can result in substantial spiritual growth. They also touch upon the broader implications of relying on God in all relationships, advocating for genuine humility and reliance on God's strength.

00:00 Introduction and Welcome

00:18 Introducing Christy Thomas

00:44 Advice for Overwhelmed Parents

01:53 Pressures in Parenting and Discipleship

04:00 Role of Parents in Children's Faith

06:04 Trusting God in Parenting

15:48 Balancing Grace and Consequences

22:23 Tiny Steps of Faith

23:56 Christy's Book: Little Habits, Big Faith

25:25 Impact of Little Habits

29:38 Personal Growth and Parenting

31:11 Broader Relationships and Reliance on God

33:21 Closing Thoughts and Prayer

34:35 Where to Find More from Christy

35:00 Final Encouragement and Goodbye

Christie Thomas is a mom and writer who has been involved in children’s ministry for most of her life, including working as director of children’s ministry for more than a decade. Christie is a family discipleship coach to many parents who need equipping, support, and encouragement. She deeply believes that every Christian parent can confidently nurture deep faith in their kids through little habits that add up over time. Her devotionals and children’s books help parents cultivate faith-filled moments. She lives with her husband and three boys in Canada.

https://littleshootsdeeproots.com/

Transcript

Hi, I'm Erin Michele. Welcome to Steps to Trusting, where it's our goal to transfer our trust from ourselves and our actions to the God who is enough, even in our lack. If you are like me, and you need to be reminded over and over that you never needed to be enough, but we trust a God who is, then you are in the right place. 

[00:00:18]: I'm joined today by Christy Thomas. Christy is a mom, a writer who's been involved in children's ministry for most of her life, including working as a director in children's ministry for a decade.

[00:00:29] Christy, thanks for joining us today. Thanks so much for having me. I wanted to just kind of start our topic in the middle because often that's where we find ourselves in that middle place. So I want to set up a scenario for us to get started that a lot of us are familiar with. Imagine an overwhelmed parent with goals and ideas, how they want their children to grow up, including the character and faith they want to see in them in this place of overwhelm. What advice do you give these parents who have good desires for the people that they love? I would just say, remember that you are God's beloved child. That is your primary identity. And if you can learn to live in that, then you can learn to rely on God for everything when you're living in your identity as God's child, you can help your child live in that identity as well.

[00:01:22] And it's going to go so much better. I love that idea of just living in your identity being the advice that you tell people because it's not another thing to add to their list of what that they need to do. Because I think that's often where we go, even just in this idea of taking steps of trust, right?

[00:01:43] So we don't want to put so much pressure like, Oh, I have to do all the right steps to trust or all the right things to disciple my, my child. Can you name some of the pressures that you feel like we put on ourselves as we try to seek positive outcomes of discipleship in our children?

[00:02:01] Oh, we put so much pressures on ourselves. The biggest pressure we put on ourselves is trying to make our children be Christian. And I know that when you say that out loud, you're like, duh, obviously I can't make my child be a Christian. And yet we live like we. Think we can, we think, Oh, if I just have the right discipleship plan, We put so much pressure on ourselves to try and do it right so that we're not messing up our kids for eternity because the stakes, the stakes are high, right? We're not just talking about our child, not getting into the university of their choice.

[00:02:33] We're talking about eternity here. So we feel like we have to control that. And we can't. Wish we could. Actually, I don't wish we could. I'm glad I can't. But I have to remind myself of that a lot that I can't and I shouldn't. Yeah, I love that you said that because I think there is that desire in us where we do think I wish that I could. know the outcome. I wish that I could script it to happen the way that I want it to happen. And yet there's so much peace in realizing that like, I can only, I can only do what God calls me to. I can only do what I can in my limited time and my limited abilities. Yeah. Do you think that there is like a false view that we, you've seen people fall into this role of who we think we need to be or what we think we need to do?

[00:03:19] And the expectation of the role that we play in our children's lives. Absolutely. I remember reading a lot of family discipleship books. I felt like it was part of my job to, you know, make sure I was reading the books that were coming out and knowing how to do this for myself and how to, talk to parents about this.

[00:03:36] And I walked away from a lot of them with the impression that I have to do it a certain way. In order for my kids to be Christians, there were books that made me feel like I had to homeschool books that made me feel like I had to memorize certain scriptures, or I had to pray in a certain way, or I had to be in front of my kids a certain way.

[00:03:57] Can't even remember what your actual question was anymore. I think the. False role that we kind of take on that, like, or responsibility that we think, obviously there's lots of responsibility as a parent, but maybe a better question might be, what would you say the role of a parent is in the discipleship of their children? So I believe that God is the only one who can take hearts of stone and turn them into hearts of flesh that is in Ezekiel. And yet we are in this place where he has called us to partner. God could make people be Christians all over the world.

[00:04:27] And yet Jesus said, go and make disciples of all nations. So we do have a role to play in that. But our role isn't the hardest role. Our role is like the sowing seeds. Sometimes I feel like my role is to take my child's chin in my hands, like a gentle parent and just tip it toward Jesus.

[00:04:46] Look, let's look, let's look at how beautiful he is. Let's look at how much he loves you. Let's look at how much mercy he shows to his enemies. Let's look at all the things that Jesus is and does and how he wants to work in you to help you grow. And that is, I guess, how I see my Roll now as a chin tipper 

[00:05:04] I like that. Also was just thinking the idea of being like, Oh, look at that. Just the awe that we have the tips, chins, and I think that plays into what you said earlier. By living out who we are the identity that we are when we live that out, it is a way of directing them.

[00:05:22] And when, when we are praising and worshiping who God is, that how that impacts to tip their chins to look. It's beautiful. I think. Sometimes we have the expectation that we need to provide everything that our kids needs to need to get them to that place of turning to the Lord, right? We need to provide emotional stability and we need to make them happy.

[00:05:48] We need to give them like, obviously there are things we provide for our kids, food and shelter and all that kind of stuff. But that, weight that that becomes that when we think that we have to be all that our kids need I think it's a detriment to our children. How do you see that?

[00:06:04] Do you have any wisdom on trying to step away from trying to be everything that our kids need? This is me imagining I'm cracking my knuckles right now. This is what I love talking about. No, we, I mean, none of those things are bad goals to provide emotional stability and financial stability and like a stable home and a stable marriage for our kids.

[00:06:25] Those are such good things, but there is no possible way that we can provide everything that our child needs. I know so many amazing parents who have kids who have turned away from faith for one reason or another. One thing that I like to remind myself and others is that God never ever asked us to do everything in our own power.

[00:06:44] And he never asked us to do it all. So thinking we need to do it all in order to be good disciples of Jesus is actually Like what got the Galatians in big trouble with Paul. So the whole book of Galatians is Paul saying, stop trying to do it on your own. Jesus is the one who makes us strong, who makes us filled with love and joy and peace.

[00:07:03] He's the one who transforms us. And Paul is pretty good at talking about this in many ways. In first Corinthians, he says, It's not that we think we're qualified to do anything on our own. Our qualifications come from God. He has enabled us to be ministers of his new covenant. And if Paul is thinking, well, I'm not qualified to do anything on my own.

[00:07:24] Well, neither am I really. And in fact, when it comes to, you know, thinking that we can, we even have the ability to know it all or do it all for our kids. Paul was probably a prime example of somebody who could have done it all on his own. He was, he was well trained. He was very eloquent. And yet to keep him from becoming proud, God gave him some sort of thorn in his flesh. We don't know exactly what it is, but God. Forcibly, force him to be weak so that he would have to rely on God. God actively forces people in some cases to become weaker. So think of the story of Gideon, where God says, Gideon, you're going to go when you're going to help release the Israelites from the Midianites. And Gideon blows his trumpet and a whole bunch of people come, like 30, 000 men come and they're ready to fight.

[00:08:14] And God says, no, no, your army is too big. I want you to give glory to me and not to you. And so he whittles down Gideon's army to 300 men, which I calculated at once. His army is now 0. 2 percent the size of the Midianite army.

[00:08:31] There is 0. Percent that they are going to win, that they are going to win this battle and, and yet they win the battle and they know that it's because God did it. So God is like I just want you to give me a little, I will show you what I want to do in your life. So when we walk into our family life and we think I can do it all, I can give my kids the perfect childhood.

[00:08:56] I can. Pointing to Christ on my own, God says, no, that's my, like, I want to have the glory for this, not you. So, I mean, I don't think that God actively throws stuff at us to, you know, whittle down our army in life with Gideon. Maybe for some people he does, but, but I do think that what God is telling me and the other parents who are listening is just give me your five lows, your two fishes, give me what you got.

[00:09:24] And I am going to take it and make it something beautiful for my glory. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, I love that. I do want to just take a minute and acknowledge that in all of this, I think we want to do this in more than just our kids lives, right?

[00:09:38] We want to be enough and we want to fulfill all the needs and stuff like that. And I, I really find that. When all the needs are fulfilled, like you said that we want to give glory to ourselves. And it's in those moments where we feel weak, where we feel we can't do it, where God has to show up right where we have that strong need. Those are the moments that we know that it's God instead of relying on ourselves. There's so much growth then, I think, because we come, we become blinded in the moments where we don't feel like we need God. We need him and he's there, but we don't realize how much he's there. Even, I don't know, when you think of the army that showed up.

[00:10:22] Right? For Gideon. You think of all those people and Gideon could have just been like, God is so good. Look how he provided. But our temptation is to go, look at all these people I got to come together. I must be really great. You know? So instead, God is like, well, if you think, you know, my provision, you're great, you know, instead to kind of say, okay, we're going to do less so you can see how I'm great.

[00:10:51] And I think those moments are so challenging because we don't want to feel the thorn in our flesh. We don't want to feel too weak. We want to feel like I got this, I got it all together. Something I was just thinking of when you were saying that there's a verse from Deuteronomy that shows like God knows this tendency in our hearts and memorize this one a long time ago.

[00:11:11] He says, Beware lest you say in your hearts, my power and the might of my hand have gotten me this wealth. Amen. And God says, remember, it is me that brought you into the promised land. It is me that won all these battles for you. It's me that did this for you. Don't forget is he knows that we're going to forget all the time.

[00:11:32] And I think sometimes when we look back at it, we can see, it's actually a blessing when we can actually see that our need points to God, if we were able to go without him, you know, that's actually a bigger loss.

[00:11:49] Then feeling weak or having disappointment and need. And so I just like a trend when we translate this into people's lives that we love, whether it be our kids or our friends or even just other family members. Spouses. We, when we kind of put this into this, that place, how do you think our lack of ability to fulfill what everyone like those people need from us?

[00:12:17] How do you think that affects their walk with the Lord and our walk with the Lord? If we can't fulfill their needs, well, I hope that it pushes them to God. I think I was just thinking while you were talking that the. We have an idol of self-sufficiency in our society that we just think the best thing that I can do is to do it independently, to be self-sufficient.

[00:12:42] And we teach that to our kids. You gotta be self-sufficient. We wanna push you toward independence. And I think that does a lot of damage. So if we can't, if we acknowledge that I can't do this. And I, but I know who can give me the support that I need. Then I'm going to pass that on to my kids.

[00:13:01] I can't do this. I can't be perfect. I I can't even like keep my temper without God helping me. But if I acknowledge that and I can point my kids to that, then I think that is setting them up for a much better life of knowing they don't have to do it all or be at all. They don't have to be self sufficient.

[00:13:21] They could trust that God is. for them and will aid them when they need it. Yeah, I think that's probably a fault of mine, particularly as a new parent, obviously, I think it's a good thing to want to be the best parent that you can , in that putting so much pressure on My behavior such that I would want to hide my faults as opposed to like realizing now in the maturity, I would think of just realizing that actually admitting my faults and pointing them to the fact that I need God is such as such a witness to our kids.

[00:13:58] in, in their lives. Here we are, you know, disciplining them and directing them different ways. And instead of trying to, my, my own example, which would point them to that idea of do better to You find that maturity and that step stepping into saying I'm so sorry. I couldn't do better.

[00:14:18] And I, I want to see you do better, but yet you can't do it without God. Like this union that we have with Christ and how it changes who we are and it changes how we receive other people's actions as well. There's a study that Lifeway did, and they were looking at young adult Christians, and what kind of family life they had and what were the habits that they had when they were children.

[00:14:43] And one of the things that was fairly consistent across households where the children remained Christians as adults was that their parents apologize to them. So being willing to say, I messed up. I am not perfect. I don't have it all together actually aids your child's faith in the long run. And it's like statistically proven.

[00:15:06] It's not just me guessing that is actually, using the science of today, we can show that what, God's way really is the best way, this way of confession and repentance, even toward our children helps grow their faith. So if we can do that toward our children, if we can humble ourselves and say, I'm sorry, yelled at you. Or like just the other day, I was like, I was really harsh and I'm really sorry. And, and my son and I had a great time.

[00:15:33] short conversation after that. And I think in the long run, those are the things that help build our faith more than having a perfect parent because nobody's a perfect parent. It's better to have a parent who knows how to apologize than a parent who pretends to be perfect. Yeah. Yeah. Just as you were talking, I was just thinking about the tension I often talk about the tension between wanting my children to obey and I'm giving them the grace that I know they don't have the ability to do that.

[00:16:01] I personally just struggle with this and I think it's a reflection of, my faith upbringing and the way that I thought I needed to earn God's love in some way, and I think I understand and understood as a Christian that Jesus died because I can't. Earn God's love but he gave me that as a gift.

[00:16:22] In this tension, how, how do you kind of deal with that tension of the responsibility that you want your children to step into and to walk into? And yet the, the grace or their failure and their inability and their sin, like all of it, how is there something that you, even in your heart, how you deal with that place of tension?

[00:16:50] That is, I think, a tension that almost every parent, not just Christian parents, I remember reading a, just a general market book many years ago, and it was talking about the different kind of parents. You can be a brick wall parent that says, obey, obey, obey. And that's all that matters. And then you have the jellyfish parent who's like, well, whatever, and then I can't actually remember what the one was in the middle, the one that you, it was desired, but it was the one who has boundaries.

[00:17:14] But there are times when. When you say, you know what my child needs right now is actually grace and not a consequence. And I think that just comes down to trusting the Holy Spirit's work in you to know when is the time when you need to just give grace and when is the time when you need to follow through on that consequence.

[00:17:33] And I definitely don't get that right all the time. I have given grace when I should have given consequences and I've given consequences when I should have given grace. But I do think there's no, real, like, cut and dry answers, 

[00:17:45] I think it's It's really just knowing your child and knowing you and trusting that God is going to help you grow and become a more Christ like parent as you, as you grow up too, because, I mean, we grow up as parents as well. I wish there was just like a rule. Here's where you give grace and here's where you do a consequence.

[00:18:06] And I'm sure there's books on that, but then there's always, you know even just I moments that break the rule 

[00:18:11] GMT20240514-170128_Recording: called right 

[00:18:12] GMT20240514-170128_Recording_640x360: Tried to,

[00:18:17] you know, you know, think about taking little faithful steps of like, how do we walk out trusting in the Lord? And, and I think if put too simply, it could become like, here are all the things you need to do to trust God, right? And I'm like, Oh my God. Goodness. Like how, how do you keep it as this, like this place of, I want to obediently surrender to what God calls me to.

[00:18:44] And also know that I just can't do all of those things. I totally get that tension though. I feel like. So many things about the Christian life, our attention, where there's like, you know, if you go too far this way, you've fallen into legalism. If you go too far this way, you've fallen into cheap grace, like, or sometimes I feel like I'm walking on the top of a mountain and I've got to, I've got to balance both things.

[00:19:08] That's like that try hard faith and trying not to err on one side. I'm trying not to err too far on the other side,

[00:19:13] But even in that, like if I fall off the mountain and fall to one side, you know what Jesus does? It just kind of pulls me back up. It's Let's keep walking. I don't know, you're right. Like there are steps to trusting, but then you can't take them to literally. Yeah, there's like, there has to be grace and You know what I was thinking when I think, Oh, I just wish there were rules in the Old Testament.

[00:19:39] There were rules and that didn't really turn out very well. So, you know, even when the people had God in front of them as a pillar of cloud and a pillar of fire, and they were getting water out of rocks and food falling from the sky every morning, even then they didn't really trust God all the time. So I'm not sure that having like specific rules is really the answer.

[00:20:01] Think that this is just this way of trust where we're just hand in hand with Jesus. walking toward him. I, I watched this, the real yesterday, and it was this lady talking about her birthing experience. And in it, she had used that same analogy of pointing a chin to Jesus. But in this case, she said she just had this like vision while she was in like intense labor pains of Jesus just reaching out and grabbing her chin gently and turning It towards his face and she said in the car while she was laboring she had her hand out like she was holding his cheek and they were just gazing at each other in love.

[00:20:38] And I think that is, that's the picture it's not a mountain I'm not walking on the ridge of a mountain. I am. Holding Jesus cheek as he holds my chin and we just look at each other and that's how I move through life. Yeah. Oh, I love that. And actually it made me think as you were talking the passage where Peter walks on water and he's like, Gazing at Jesus, right?

[00:21:02] And he's like doing this huge thing of faith. And then he's like, wait a second, stuff happening around me. And he's like, so distracted. And I think even in that, like, when we think about, we could even think of all the rules that we have to do is like all that stuff around me. And where do I put my foot on this water, you know, and all that kind of stuff, instead of just gazing at him and the relationship that is happening there.

[00:21:27] And I think That's, I think, why it's so hard to put a line and a definition on something because there are things that we should do and yet they should flow out of, gazing at Jesus and the love that he has for us being received and poured back, I'm constantly looking for that line on the ridge, you know, It's like, it's not about the line on the ridge. It's about looking at his face and, and knowing who he is. I'm going to take us back a little bit to kind of think about the idea of faithful obedience. When we think about the idea of not being able to be enough and yet taking steps of faithful obedience and as we're kind of trying to see faithful obedience, that motivation of God's love, right?

[00:22:20] How do you think this plays out in our relationships? As we just aren't going to be able to do all the things that our kids need I'm a huge advocate for taking really tiny steps. Like I know we always talk about, you know, small steps, tiny steps, but like really tiny steps, you know, where we, we back up, we talk to God and we say, what do you want for me in this situation?

[00:22:41] What does my kid need right now? And then we say, okay, God, I just need one tiny little thing that I can sustainably put in my life.

[00:22:50] And then once we do that, something that just takes. 30 seconds. Once that is in our life, we trust that God is going to take that little thing and he's going to bring the increase. So we've talked to God about it. We've said, what is the right thing? The right step forward for me, let's make it small. So it doesn't feel overwhelming.

[00:23:12] And then, and also small because we want to know that we trust that God is the one bringing the results. And then as we just step tiny, step, tiny, step, tiny step, then we, and we're trusting that he is going to cause the heart change in our children. And he is going to bring the fruit.

[00:23:31] Then we walk back. We can turn back and say, Oh, look how far we've come. Because as we're taking these tiny steps, God is just doing something in our child's heart and our heart that helps us move forward. As I hear you talking there, I, I kind of hear the title of your book in there. I mean, just, yeah, it just means you picked just the right title, but Little Habits, Big Faith.

[00:23:56] Can you share a little bit about your book with us? It's really just the whole process of that. What does it look like to do tiny little things with great trust in God? The premise is that we really don't have to do all the things or be all the things or know all the things for our kid. But as we walk in trust with God, he's going to show us what steps of obedience we need to take.

[00:24:20] And it's probably going to look different from the steps of obedience. It's my. best friend needs to take in her family, or even that my husband needs to do. So what is the right steps for me to disciple my kids? And then how do we realistically get these into our lives? So it's got a bit of like psychology, a science base to it.

[00:24:38] Like, how do we actually do this in our life based on actual habit formation research? And then, and then I share stories of how. God has done this in other families. They've chosen to take a small step and look at what God has done in their families. So it really is the story of little habits. Bringing big faith in our families and in our kids.

[00:25:00] Because again, we're pointing to God is saying, you're the one that's doing the hard work. I'm I'm here. I'm being obedient, but you're the one that's actually making the heart change. It's like, where is it again? Paul, he says, you know, I planted and Appolis watered, but God made your faith grow. So here I am planting little tiny seeds, 

[00:25:20] and I can plant them and water them, but only God can make them grow. Yeah. So how did you learn this lesson how these little, these little things have affected your children's faith. I've seen it kind of over and over again, but the biggest, it was like, God gave me this enormous, long lived object lesson.

[00:25:41] I learned about something called like praying Biblical blessings over your kids, even before my oldest was born. So my oldest is 15 now. So like 16 years ago, I learned about this and, and I was the children's pastor. And I was like, I'm going to teach the families in my church, how to do this. And I thought, well, this is a fun little thing that you can do.

[00:25:58] And then year after year, I would teach it. And I would ask parents like, did you do it or what happened in your family? And I started hearing these stories of families whose kids stopped having nightmares. And whose kids started sleeping better. And so they were able to wake up in the morning and they had time to read the Bible and they together in the mornings, or I heard stories of kids whose anxieties were going away and they were learning to trust Jesus because their parents were praying the same Bible verse over them, which took about 20 seconds.

[00:26:27] every night. And I started thinking, what is going on here? What is, why is this little tiny thing having such a big impact? Even one of my friends she has several adopted children. And one of the children was born addicted to cocaine. And so his brain was just like permanently altered. And one of the things is.

[00:26:48] that was happening in his brain was that he was unable to memorize and apply. And one day she calls me, she's in tears. She said, he is memorized the Bible verse and he's preaching it to his little sister in context. It was about do not be afraid for the Lord, your God is with you, wherever you go.

[00:27:06] He'd memorized it and was applying it something his brain was never supposed to be able to do. And I thought, what is going on here? And then I started research into habit formation. And I came across first this idea of the keystone habit, which is something that's really tiny and it starts shifting and moving things in your life, kind of beyond what you would expect.

[00:27:26] And I thought this, This blessing habit is a keystone habit. It shifts and changes things that you would never expect it to do. And then I came across a book called Tiny Habits by Dr. B. J. Fogg, who is a researcher at Stanford, and he's the one who taught me about these little tiny things that make Big, big changes in your life.

[00:27:46] And he's done a ton of research and he has so many examples from kind of all walks, people from all walks of life trying to change their lives in many ways about how the tiniest little things are the things that make the biggest difference. And I thought that's what God is doing here. He's taking this tiny, tiny little thing and he's using it to free children from anxiety and give parents that time and space in their day to even read the Bible with their kids and pray.

[00:28:11] It's helping them grow spiritually. It's helping them memorize scripture. It's helping them apply it. It's doing all these things. That you wouldn't expect it to do, because that's what God does. Jesus says, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, like, the little tiny things in our lives are the things that grow. Because of all the things we talk about. Because God wants us to give him the glory. So we can look back and say, look, I just, all I did was that. And yet, God did something incredible in my family's life. So, I mean, I have seen other little habits have impact as well, but that was kind of the biggest one that kind of got me started on this journey and I thought, wow, God really is doing a lot with our little, that's kind of what Jesus does. I know. I love that. And even like you said, it's almost like this hidden seed, right? It's because you're praying to God, it's between you and God, and these things outwardly are happening.

[00:29:09] So I think even more so that you can see the correlation than if it were to be, Oh, use kind words or, you know, which you should do, right? And you should apologize to your kids and like all of these type of things, but there's still You can see how we're kind of like taken out of the equation that it's not the impact of our relating to them.

[00:29:30] It's the impact of our relating to God on their behalf. Yes. Yeah. That's huge. So I, and I love all that you just said. I love some of those examples and I wanted, I wondered if you would be willing to share how this may have changed you well, it's definitely changed me because I've. I was kind of a try hard person. Like I needed to do the right things. So learning about the little things has really freed me to learn to trust God more with my kids, with myself, with my husband.

[00:30:04] I don't think I can overestimate how much God has done in my life and helping me to trust him and living without fear and God has helped me to release that on my children's behalf and on my behalf, which enables me, I think, to be actually a better parent, because I'm not reacting out of fear.

[00:30:23] That's made a pretty big difference. I feel like just in some little ways, we used to do like a two minute Bible study when my oldest was really little. Actually based on one of my books.

[00:30:33] It's just a preschool devotional. That's just interactive and fun. And it only takes a couple of minutes a day. Yet in that two minutes a day that added up and that was when he was five and now he's 15 and he recently did a profession of faith at our church and it was so beautiful to see him stand up there and say, yeah, like I do believe this.

[00:30:51] I've thought through this. I've seen him wrestle through these questions and I know that he still has some questions and yet he was willing to stand up there in front of the church and say, I choose to follow Jesus.

[00:31:01] Make me cry. I love it. Yeah. Well, that's really beautiful. One of the, we spent a lot of time talking about our kids and I love that. And I also am trying to just figure out in relationship, how our reliance on God in these little ways in our relationships with other people, that understanding that we don't have to be enough, how that translates into just a security in Christ.

[00:31:28] And so is there any ways that you feel like that this not needing to be enough affects all of our relationships? You know, maybe it affects some people more than others, but it for several relationships in my life, I felt like I kind of needed to be a savior.

[00:31:47] Like I needed to fix you. And so I had a friend who lived nearby and I often felt like, like I was swooping in to save her day and then she moved away to the other side of the country and I couldn't save her anymore. I really felt God was saying to me, you are not her savior.

[00:32:03] She has to turn to me. And even, you know, she would call me all the time and I just had to really turn that over to God over and over again, because I could not save her. And now God is reminding me that yes, I can help them, but I can't fix them. And so he's helping me trusting that it's not all up to me to make sure their life goes well. As you were talking to it just made me think of how the help that you can offer can be an extension of pouring out God's love to them, but you can't be the savior. They have to recognize that, that that is really God, even just helping through you. And I think sometimes when we find ourselves in those type of places that, you know it's actually really good for people to see our limits and to see that we can't help them, right?

[00:32:49] Because if we could help them, if we could fix it, then people wouldn't realize how much we need God. And I think I love that you brought that out that you couldn't be her savior, but there is one who is enough to, be everything that she needs.

[00:33:02] I love to think about God as the all sufficient God, the God who is enough because I feel like I constantly am needing to surrender that I'm not enough. Do all of those things, but he is, and he's the savior we all need. Yeah. I was wondering, would you be willing to close us in prayer? Sure, could do that.

[00:33:26] God, I think back to Peter and John in Acts when they've done a miracle and they've been called before the Sanhedrin is just flummoxed because they're saying these are unschooled ordinary men and yet, You could tell that they've been with Jesus and that's what's changed them. And God, we can really feel intimidated by the job of discipling our kids and helping our friends and just being enough in life. But. God, you know, that we don't have to know it all or do it all because you've already done all the hard work and you know, our children, our families, the people around us inside and out, and you're ready and waiting to give us insight, help us to live in that posture of holding your cheek as you hold our chin and just gazing at you.

[00:34:17] That is easier said than done, but I know that. You can help us do that. So help us to turn our thoughts to you and rely on you to give us the strength that we need changes so that we just become a living testimony of your grace in Jesus name.

[00:34:32] Amen. I'm Christy. Would you be willing to tell us where we could find you? If people are looking for your book or just to connect with you further, what's the best way to do that? The best way is just to go to my website, which is little shoots, deep roots. com. And then the, the only place that I'm really active on social media is Instagram that one is the same.

[00:34:54] It's little shoots, deep roots. Great. Thank you. And thanks for being with us today. Thanks for having me, Erin.

[00:35:00] Erin: Thank you so much for joining us today. If you are encouraged, please like, subscribe, and share with a friend. If you want to connect with me, you can do that over at ErinMichelle. net. That's Michelle with one L. There you can find links to my socials, as well as sign up and receive my free gift, What's My Next Step.

[00:35:18] This is a Bible journaling resource. to encourage you to look at places in your life where you could continue to transfer your trust in deepening ways to the God who is enough. I hope you join us back here next time, but until then, I wanted to leave you with this reminder from Ephesians 2 10.

[00:35:34] For we are God's workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. Friends, I'm praying for you as you keep on stepping.