Ep 025 || Your Next Step

Well, hey there, Pando family, welcome to the exclusive SE Online podcast. We are so glad to be with you here today. My name is Brandon, part of the SE Online team. This is Steven. I know, you know what, Brandon, I've gotten to do this a couple of times and uh, just want to say to the Pando crew, uh, how much we love getting to be a part of what's going on and uh, so there you are, uh, we love getting to be a part of this and you matter to us. If you're wondering, I wonder what Southeast Christian church thinks of, um, those that are joining us through Pando. Uh, we love you and we're thrilled that we get to be a part of this. Yeah, we actually, so no, this is no joke. We just had a campus pastor talk to us here a couple of minutes ago to talk about, uh, how they had a Pando viewer come to their campus and, uh, introduce themselves and talk about their story. And he was talking about how great it was to welcome them and help them get set up at the campus. So I just want to encourage you, like if, if you, uh, you know, when you're released, if you end up around a Southeast campus, we'd love to have you be a part of what we're doing. Let me say for just a second, since we cracked the door on that is, um, I think in these types of moments, it's tempting to wonder how will a campus of Southeast, right? And we've got a lot, you know, in and around the Louisville, Kentucky area, one in middle Tennessee, one in southern Indiana. How will I be received? What kind of church is this? So like, can I show up there with my story? And the answer is yes. Like, and not only that, we love opportunities just to see how the grace

of God is breaking through in anyone's life. And so if you're finding yourself in that season, you know, uh, where you're being released and you're in a situation where you can go to one of our campus and you want to know, campuses and want to know, will Southeast receive me? The answer is yes. You go find that campus pastor, tell him you're from Pando and, uh, you'll probably be greeted with a hug and be welcomed in, uh, into the life of Southeast. So that's my little shameless plug. We'd love to serve you in any way. Yeah. And we love as part of the, the SE online team and doing that, we love hearing stories of that and people getting connected to campuses. Like it's, it's just super cool for us to be a part of that. So, well, this week we had, uh, Carl cool with us, uh, delivering a sermon on Genesis chapter 12, which really overlaps with his experience. Uh, as Kyle announced this week, we're looking at, uh, you know, Carl is, is being, feeling called to go back into a full-time preaching role. And, uh, you know, we're, we're sending him out with our blessing and, and excited to see what God has in the future for him. But there's that kind of journey of the unknown, right? Like, you know, this is where God wants me to go. Uh, but I, I, what, how did Carl put it? When I know, uh, when, when obedience is clear, but the journey is not like when I know this is the step God wants me to take, but I don't know exactly how I'm going to get there. And I think Abraham's a perfect example of that. We'll talk about that here in a minute. But as you kind of think about what Carl shared this weekend, right? What, what jumps out with you?

What, what part of the story really resonates? Yeah, I think on the human level, I think the, the first thing I would say is Carl's story that I'm, I'm glad we got to hear, um, from someone in the middle of it is all of our stories. We're all going to have a moment in life in moments in life where, where that's true, right? We're going to be caught in that in between. So one, as an encouragement, when you find yourself in the in-between, um, that's just, that's human is what I would say, right? Like that's just the human experience. It's part of, of what, uh, of what that journey is. So don't be discouraged, right? When you find yourself in an in-between season, don't be discouraged with that. The second thing is it reminds me a lot, you know, um, early on in my church experience working here at Southeast as a pastor, one of the things I used to say all the time that this weekend's message reminded me of is be obedient to the next step. And what I mean by that is there's a lot of times we know what God's calling to us to next. Yes. We know the next step. And the problem we have with that is we want the next, next step and the next, next, next step. We want to see the whole thing lay out, uh, and then I'll take the first step. And that's not what faith is. Faith is we take the step God's called us to next, and we have faith, we trust that when I get to that place, God's going to declare the next one after that. And so just in general, uh, what I would say is take the step that's in front of you. A lot of times what I've learned is people know the next step, um, and they're

just afraid to take it and they lack the obedience to step through the next thing because they don't know what it turns into. And so for some people, what that looks like, like we were just talking about, maybe they're up on a release day and they know they need to show up at church, whether that's Southeast or another church near where they're located. Well, you know, your next step is to find a church family and you have all these questions like, where will I plug in? Where will I be? What will they do? What will they think with me, with my story, my history? That's the next, next step. Just first begin by stepping in faith and saying, God, what have you, what have you called me to? And it's not. lost on me that right now in the Pando app, right now, some of you, that this is that step, like literally opening this up, clicking on this thing, and Pando has been one of those steps, and that's where we're grateful to serve in that way. And I know all different facilities have all different ways to engage with God and with chaplains and different programs, but it's exploring that. And take that first step that God's laid out for you, my encouragement to you is step through that door and trust that God's gonna show up on the other side of it. I love the way you put that, because I think it is so, it's so ingrained in us for whatever reason to want to think like five or six steps ahead, right? To kind of get an idea of, well, this is what I want this to be, rather than kind of seeing that first step and jumping out there and being like, hey, I know to do this, and then I'll just trust that God shows me the next step as I get going. It's interesting to think of that image in Psalm 119, where David talks about God's Word being a light into his feet. If you're holding a light, if you have a light down at your feet, you're not seeing way out in the darkness, right? You are seeing just this next step, this next obstacle, this next thing to hop over, and if I do that, then I'll have enough light to see what's ahead of me there. Well, and a lot of times what I've learned is we use that as a tool to not do something,

right? We use it as a tool to delay, and so we're like, oh, wait till I see the whole thing laid out. Well, it's never gonna happen. Or you make the mistake of, I'll wait for the perfect time. I'll wait till everything just lines up and the universe conspires to make this possible. Well, it's just not gonna happen. And so what you have to do is defiantly step through that and say, I'm gonna choose to trust God in this area of my life. And so maybe it's just asking, where is God calling me? Because I wanna return it to that. Where is God calling me to trust Him and take a step of faith to leave behind something that's probably destructive or sinful or lacking wisdom and to step into something new and to do that? There's a lot of areas that we can do that with where we've just gotta trust that God's gonna show up, and no step of faith will be lost on God. He'll know. And so that's my encouragement. Oh, that's a good word. That's a good word. I actually feel like we could end there, but let's talk about Genesis a little bit and Abraham's story and get into there. It's interesting. Carl hit on Genesis chapter 12, and we'll just call him Abraham for the simplicity of it. I know he's going by Abram here in Genesis chapter 12. Can I tell you something? Yeah, go for it. I don't know if you can find it quickly. I don't have my Bible in front of me. I had forgotten until Carl read it that God's promise to Abraham was that his name would be famous. And I had forgotten that as... I knew it, and sometimes you reread something and you're like, it just stuck out, because what was fascinating is I was hosting with SE Online, one that we broadcast onto YouTube and the other channels, and I'd said on there, even if you've not been to church, Abraham, because I knew that's what we were preaching about, Abraham is one of those people you've probably heard of. And I was saying that, and then I was sitting in service, because I hadn't connected it yet, and I watched that verse play out, and I'm like, huh, without even realizing it, I was trying to connect with folks that are new to our church and say, yeah, you've probably heard of Abraham, today we're gonna teach you about Abraham. That was essentially what I was saying at the opening segment. And then he reads that verse, and it's like that promise being true, that God said, Abraham, I will make your name famous. And it's one of those things I don't think about, and I'm like, yeah, well, sure enough, his name is famous.

Yeah, there you go. I actually, when you did that on broadcast, I thought, I really want him to bust out into Father Abraham. And sing that old Sunday School song. Yeah, there's a song on that one. You actually can sing. Y'all don't know this. This man can sing. He has a voice, an angelic voice. You do not want me singing, though. Angelic voice. That's way too far. All right, you dive back in. So anyway, so there's an interesting peculiarity in Genesis 12, verse 1, right? Because it picks up with Abraham's story. It says, the Lord said to Abram, leave your, or the Lord had said to Abram, leave your native country, your relatives, your father's family, go to land that I will show you. What's interesting there is the verb tense. The Lord had said to Abram. So when we pick up with Abraham's story, we're already told like, hey, God has said this to you. God has already commanded this. And if you backtrack a little bit into Genesis chapter 11, is where it gets a little bit more complicated when we, to kind of set up what Abraham has been doing. So 1127 introduces us to Terah's family, and Terah is, I believe that he's the father of Abram. And so it sets up the story of their family. It says he has a brother named Nahor, and he has his wife named Sarah. And Sarah is unable to become pregnant and have no children. So we already have this set up in Genesis chapter 11, that this is the tension in Abraham's family. But then in verse 31, 1131, it says, one day Terah took his son, Abram, his daughter-in-law, Sarah, his son, Abram's wife, and his great-grandchildren. grandson Lot, Haran's child, and moved away from Ur of the Chaldeans. He was headed for the land of Canaan, but they stopped at Haran and settled there. Terah lived for 205 years and died while still in Haran." So you get this weird kind of idea that Abraham has been called before Genesis chapter 12 to pick up and go, but instead of going all the way to where God has called him, he stops in a place called Haran, and we'll talk about the name of that place here in just a little bit, but it's just interesting that Abraham senses God's call, he senses like, this is what God wants me to do, and he gets up and goes, but he doesn't go all the way, right? He doesn't kind of get there. So it kind of ties in with what you were saying about the next step and

all that, but what do you think that is in us that makes us think like, hey, I can take those first couple steps, I can get... at least I got partially there. Why do we talk ourselves into that? Yeah, I've always heard it said that we judge ourselves by our intentions, not our actions, but we judge other people by our actions. In other words, I know my heart's pretty good, and so if I say something to you that sounds rude to everybody involved, in my heart I didn't mean to be rude, so I judge myself as not really that rude, I was just being honest, where you know, you two that are in the room would hear that and say, that was rude, right? Because the action said that. And so I think there's some things where, you know, maybe within his heart he was trying to be an obedient and didn't quite get there, even though the actions, the evidence shows us he wasn't fully obedient. But I also think it speaks to, you know, the condition of the human heart to do the minimum on hard things, right? Like you want to get just enough to have a passing grade. I think about my kids in that regard. My kids are older than yours, and so one of my favorite things I've discovered is sending them little video memes, and recently I sent her one about how kids don't like cleaning their room, and like how I know you didn't really clean your room, it's just all in the closet door, right? So her desire in that moment is to get me off of her back, and so she's gonna find the quickest way. And I'm not dumb, right? I'm a dad, right? Like I just want to be able to see the floor, pass through it, and that there aren't like, you know, creatures living amongst all of the items on the floor. I'm not dumb, I know it's all behind the closet door. I know it's under the bed or, you know, piled up somewhere else. But I think there's something to that, right? Like I think there's something to the human nature that, you know, Brandon, we want to get enough to get over the threshold. Her goal wasn't to have a clean, organized room. Her goal wasn't to go, man, I bet if I took the time now, it'd save me time later, and if I had a strong organizational system in my room, I would be happier, and it would help me be functional on all the levels. It'd probably be easier to sleep at night. Like, no. She's thinking, what's the least amount of work I can do to get dad to

stop pounding me? Oh, that's good. Yeah. And so maybe that's what Abraham's trying to do. I don't know. Well, it kind of makes me think about the rest of the Old Testament, where it talks about, you know, you are doing these sacrifices and making these offerings, but your hearts are far from me, right? This idea, like, I want to appear obedient when really I'm still... I'm only halfway there in my heart, right? Like I haven't really gone exactly where you want me to go. And there's a little bit of a hint, I think, once Abraham kind of packs up and leaves. In verse 5, it says, he took his wife, Sarah, his nephew, Lot, and all his wealth, his livestock, and all the people he had taken into his household at Haran. So you get this idea maybe that Abraham and his family stopped because it was, well, life is good here. Yeah. Like, I'm comfortable here. I'm happy here. We're accumulating wealth. We're accumulating... We're growing the household in the sense that we're getting more servants and things like that. And it just came to a point where he's like, no, like, everything's great. Why would we go any further? Yeah. And I think we can kind of convince ourselves of that too. Like, well, obviously, I think Carl spoke into this with don't script God's plan, the idea that we can get ourselves to a place where it's like, well, things are going well, things are going good, and I'm happy, and obviously, God wants me to be happy, so maybe I'll just stay here for a minute. Yeah, I think that that's true. I think when we're in a good season of life and we're feeling in control, it's easy to become our own God in those moments, easy to not need God, not need salvation, because I am everything I need to be. And I think life happens in such a way that we have to be reminded and trust ourselves. And in this one, God's saying to Abraham, you've literally got to trust me with this journey, that I'm gonna lead you exactly where you need to be, and you are not your God. And I don't know exactly what... We don't know what

he was thinking at the time, but you're right. We know he had a measure of wealth and measure of family, a measure of good things, and so it's easy to want to stay in that season. Yeah, yeah. You make me think it would be nice to have a version of the Bible that was, I want to know what was your thought process in all of this. Why were you there? Why did you refuse to go any further? So God gives Abraham this promise. He says, I will make you into a great nation. I will bless you. I will make you famous. And it's interesting, we talked about... this last week a little bit on the podcast. The contrast with Genesis 11 is, in Genesis 11 when they were building the Tower of Babel, that's exactly what they said, is let us build a tower so we can make our name famous. And it's to Abram that God makes this promise and says, no, like, let me, let me make your name famous. And it's kind of interesting, we have no idea, of all the people who helped construct the Tower of Babel, we have no idea any of their names, right? Like, they wanted to make a name for themselves, they failed completely, they messed up everything. That is funny, I've not really thought about that, just a chapter over, I got it up here on my phone, and we legit don't know any of them. No, like, not a single person. But it's this one man that God kind of hones in on and says, I'm gonna bless you, I'm gonna make you a blessing. And ultimately, as Carl told us, that promise is about Jesus, right? That, sure, Abraham is going to see blessings, he's going to see some great things, he's going to be blessed with a son, Isaac, and then a grandson, Jacob, and his family is going to become a nation. He's going to see some incredible blessings, but ultimately, how God is going to bless the world is in the person of work of Jesus. And that's what God is honing in on here, that this man is going to be the man from whom the Messiah promised in Genesis 3.15 ultimately comes from. You know what's interesting is, I contrast that, and I think this has been true forever, I think it's especially true in the age of the internet. It's fascinating now where, I think if you... Like, when we were kids, before the internet... Yeah, pre-internet days. Pre-internet days, if you asked someone what they wanted to be, you had a lot of astronauts and police officers, and really the people they'd been exposed to, that they kind of looked up to as a kid, right? Like, you'd be exposed, the teacher,

things like that. The only thing in pop culture that might pop up is, you would wanna be a baseball player or basketball, things like that. Now, what's fascinating is kids wanna be internet stars. And it's fascinating as you talk that through, they want a great name. And I look at that now at 41, and I think to myself, I can't think of anything worse to have no privacy and to have every ounce of your being analyzed. And it's interesting where you see that contrasted here, that's the desire of, I guess, the human heart going back to the Tower of Babel is what I was thinking about, when really it's all about making Jesus's name great. Yeah. You got me thinking, one of my daughters right now is working on her end of year project, and it's called Faces of History, where they have to research a historical figure, and they write a paper on the figure, and then they have to dress up and pretend to be that figure as their final presentation. And you think about the famous people through history, and it's not that they were influencers. They influenced things, they did great things. It wasn't that they set down that path, it was that they just made the right decision over and over again in the times they were in. For example, my daughter, her Faces of History project is Corrie Ten Boom, who helped rescue Jews during the Holocaust, who lost her sister in the concentration camp when they were found out, and things like that. And you think, here's this woman who was completely unassuming in almost every way, and yet had an incredible impact in saving lives. But then also on the other side of World War II, had an amazing testimony to share of forgiveness and God's grace, and how she was able to move past some of the horrible things she saw. And it just makes me think, when we aim for making our name famous, it's all gonna fall apart. It's gonna be miserable. But when we focus on who Jesus has called us to be, what He wants us to do, then it's in that that we actually make, not a name for ourselves, I guess, more a name for Him. Yeah. Yeah. If you seek out to make everything about you, it falls apart on every level. Yeah, for sure. So one, kind of going along with Carl's final challenge to us is one of the interesting textual things that's going on in this account in Genesis chapter 12, is the town that they get stuck in. It's called Haran. And in the Hebrew language, the town name of Haran actually means crossroad. So Abraham goes out of Ur, he makes most of the trek to the Promised Land, he comes to this place called Haran, he comes to the crossroad, and he has to make another decision. Like, well, I've come this far, do I continue to go down the path that God has for me, or do I

stop here? So what would your word be to someone who finds themselves, I think there are multiple times in our lives, as you said, we find ourselves in the crossroad, we find ourselves at Haran, literally. What would your words be to someone who finds themself in that location today, in deciding, which way am I gonna go at this stage in my life? Well, one is your purpose in life cannot be so focused on just you, that you miss the picture of what God's trying to do through you. That's good. And so if it's all about you, your comfort, and what you want, and you know, it's fascinating how people's theology, or things God's called them to do, magically line up with what they want. So I know Brandon, for example, you are called to be a multimillionaire, and you also know God's called you to be a multimillionaire. I wish that was my theology. That would be awesome. You know, it's amazing how that's an easy calling. I mean, it must be difficult, Brandon, to have that calling upon your life. It's obviously not working. God's calling you to go on vacation to Hawaii, right? Like, it's not generally what it is, but it is fascinating. I use that as a silly example, but it is fascinating how people can find ways of doing that. And so the first thing I'd say, when you're finding yourself at the crossroad, is recognize that it's not about you. It's ultimately about what God wants to do through you. And you know, Abraham, God was speaking to to raise his eyes up to recognize, Abraham, this is not about you. This is about all genera... This is about everybody on planet Earth forever being blessed because of your obedience today, because I've got a grander plan that you don't get. And so I need you to step through this crossroads and trust me. And I know that that's not always true of us, but it's still always true of us, is realizing that there is something, if we open our eyes up, that God's gonna use for us, or use us for His good through us. And if we're at that crossroads, it's to zoom way out and recognize in the scope of humanity, what's God trying to do through me to accomplish His work and His good, and how do I sacrifice towards it? It kind of helps it, because if you focus just on you and the impact you have at a crossroads, then you know, you're not gonna be happy, right? Like, you're not gonna be happy. You've got to be able to zoom really out. And so that'd be my first thing I would say, is get a

really wide-angle lens, zoom out, see the whole picture, and ask that question and pray that prayer, God, what are you trying to do through me at this situation? And what does... Like, just ask God, what does obedience look like for me in this situation? The other thing is to take the next step. I think I mentioned at the jump here is, what is the small step that you know God wants you to do? A small step could be, I know I should be fasting and praying about this. Small step should be, I know I need to talk to them. A small step could look a lot of different ways, but what's the first small step of obedience that you could do to trust God in that crossroads? I don't know what it is, but His journey out of that crossroads to what lies in next and His calling to go to Canaan is a step. Right. And so what He needed to be obedient with was the next step. One of the things I've learned is, I'm a runner, I know you can't tell. I'm not a fast runner, but Brandon, I do run. You do. I do run. That's pretty impressive. Yesterday, I did not want to run. I don't know if you know this, but as a runner, I don't run around every time. And what I have learned as the small step to making myself run is, I don't normally wear my seven-inch, very short running shorts. Don't really have the legs for that, Brandon. But what I've learned is, if I just put them on, I put on my running shoes that are an obnoxious highlighter color that I don't normally wear. If I put on all the running things and I sit downstairs, I'll eventually get out the door and go running, because otherwise my wife will go, why'd you put all that on? Yeah. And so my point on that is, I've identified that sometimes leaving the house and going running is a hard step to take. I have to find that first small step that I can take, and that includes putting on all the stuff to go running. If I do that, my chances of running go to almost a hundred percent. If I don't do that, I'm rolling the dice a little bit later. Yeah. And so if it's an afternoon, like it was a little bit chillier in Louisville yesterday when I went to go run. It was just slightly chillier than it's been. It's been nice and warm in the spring. Not the seven-inch short weather, for sure. Yeah. And so you kind of catch yourself going, oh, I don't want to feel that. You know what I did is I did just that, and I wasn't thinking of

this moment. But that's what I would say to do is, one, get the wider picture. So for me, with running, the wider picture is I know that it helps me. It makes me feel my mind. It clears my mind. It helps me deal with stress. It helps me pray. I don't wear headphones. There's a lot of good that comes out of it. I know I'll feel great when it's done. That's the wide picture. The narrow picture is take that small step, which is just put on the running clothes. And so that's a silly example. In our lives, it looks like a lot of different things. So when you're at a crossroads, get the wide picture. What's God trying to do throughout your whole life? And then what is the small step? Put on the shorts, put on the running shoes, and just take that small step. I know for me, sometimes when I was establishing a new habit, it's just make it really easy to do the new thing. And so find a way to do that and take that next step. And then trust that God will show up in the next one. Very cool. You know, I love that because as you were talking, it made me think of like Abraham and Sarah packing up their tent in Haran, you know, to be like, well, we're packed up now. Well, there's probably some truth in that. You might as well. Or it may look like just they packed up an auxiliary... Do they have auxiliary? I'm sure they had auxiliary. The auxiliary mule tent or something. Like you just gotta begin somewhere. And that's what I've learned is do the next small thing of obedience, and it makes it a lot easier to do then the next thing. And so, if you think about those types of journeys, maybe it begins with like, you know something, and so I tell you like, like, hey, Brandon, could you pray for me? I think God's asking me to take this step

to forgive my dad. And I'm not sure I'm ready to do it. I know I need to forgive my dad. Will you pray for me to find the courage to forgive him? Well, now I've made it where as a brother in Christ, you're gonna be like, what have you done about that? And what will happen is I don't know how I'm gonna communicate that I'm gonna forgive my dad, but now I've engaged someone else and I'm making it possible. I'm making the impossible now possible because I'm taking those steps. And so it looks like a lot of different ways of how to do that. Okay, you're very cool. I love that. So Pando family, we just wanna encourage you, you may find yourself in here today, you may find yourself at a crossroad, not knowing what that next step is, not knowing where you need to go next, but a couple of things you might think of, like maybe one is to have a conversation with your chaplain to talk about, hey, this is what I've been feeling God wanting me to do. This is the next step of obedience in terms of baptism. See what maybe what that looks like in your situation. It might be a conversation or writing out a letter to somebody and offering forgiveness, extending that hand and just offering them

what you've been withholding for these years. It may be writing a letter to us. In the description below, you'll find the address for Southeast Online. We'd love to hear from you to know how we can pray for you, know how we can step alongside you in your story and just encourage you in the midst of your journey, of the journey you're on. But whatever journey God has you on, we just want to encourage you, take that next step. No matter how small it may seem, no matter how trivial it may seem, every big journey begins even with the smallest of step. And we would just encourage you to take that today. Put on your running shorts, I think. Put on your running shorts. That's a good... Yeah, that's what I do, it's my secret. I like it. So on behalf of Stephen, thanks for joining us here today on the Pando Podcast, but thanks for being with us and we'll see you next time.