Foreign.

Hey there friend.

Merry Christmas.

I'm glad you're with us.

Thanks for connecting today.

I'm Brian Del Turco and you are connected with Jesus Marth, the podcast Jesus Knows how this Life Works Best now this is such an inspiring conversation.

Number 211.

Here's the title.

Are you ready for this?

I'm confident you have not heard a Christmas greeting like this before.

Have yourself a very chaotic Christmas with Terry Hoggard.

This, my friend, is a new wrinkle on keeping Christmas well.

Terry Haggard is our special guest.

He's a veteran missionary who has led international churches in Rome and Brussels.

He's a leader of international leaders, a life coach and he's an executive leader in Convoy of Hope, an international relief organization.

Here's an idea.

Why not gift this episode with a friend or two and then can gift it to others.

I think you'll see that this is a gift worth re gifting.

But you get to keep the value when you gift a podcast episode.

Well, I have my chai tea here.

I have an oil filled space heater.

Very Christmassy in the study and Terry really encourages us that it is going to take a whole hearted mindset and heart set.

The strength of our desire, the fortitude of our will.

We have to have an all in approach to engage this Christmas dance between heaven and earth.

You can explore the show notes page for this episode@jesussmart.com Christmasabundance I encourage you to do that.

You can stream the episode there, you can pass that page along and there are links to learn more about Terry and links to dive deeper on some resources if you want to take this further.

Now, before Terry and I engage this, we have a quick new episode feature that we just launched called Jesus Dynamics.

Applying the Jesus Way to All of Life.

Here's the true joy of Christmas.

When we understand that heaven and earth merge in us through the indwelling Christ, all bets are off.

Unlimited potential can be released.

You see, it's more than remembering Jesus as a baby in a manger.

Christmas is a breakthrough merging of heaven and earth and this changes everything.

The incarnation means that heaven and earth are reconnected again in a new way.

A seamlessness between heaven and earth has been re established.

Think of it.

It is the grounds on which we can now pray.

Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

Now.

What can this mean for you?

What can it mean for me?

God wants to be reconnected with us.

Reconciliation is a huge meta theme in the Kingdom of God.

Putting things back Together again.

And a huge part of what Jesus is after is the reunification of heaven and earth.

He desires for us to partner with him.

The dynamic of the incarnation is now available in our lives, relationships, friendships, marriage, family, calling and work, and the legacy that we create and bequeath to those who come after us.

He desires for us to partner with him.

Paul says in Colossians 1:27, what a revolutionary, encouraging word God willed to make known.

What are the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.

This is the true joy of Christmas, my friend, when we understand that heaven and earth merge in us through the indwelling Christ.

Well, welcome friend, to the podcast today.

I'm really excited to bring to you Terry Hoggard.

Terry Hoggard is a special relationship because he married to my cousin Ruthanne on my dad's side.

He's also an accomplished missionary and life coach and administrator in international relief.

Terry, welcome to the podcast today.

I appreciate you carving out some time.

My joy to be with you.

Brian, thanks for the invite.

I'm excited.

Give us maybe just a sentence about a springboard theme for today's episode and Terry and I get into a flow state so it's going to fly.

But.

Give us a sentence on a.

A sentence of theme would be this.

It's Advent and I always have this, some sort of Advent Christmas theme.

And this year I'm kind of thinking in this way and that is celebrating the Christ who changes our barely enough into abundantly more.

I personally need this.

Let me just turn off the recorder and maybe we can go into a private session of counsel.

Okay, tell us about.

Just, just give the listener a sense of your work over the years.

You started out as a missionary with the Assemblies of God in ro.

Why don't you just bring us briefly up through the present?

Well, you're completely correct.

1984, Ruthanna and I, my wife, we answered the call to be missionaries, specifically felt called to Rome at that time.

As often happens, I got my direction from a firm, no, from the heart of God.

That's another story.

But that's really what happened.

So we planted an international church in Rome, which was for our organization, the second international church to be established in in Europe.

I stayed there 10 years.

I then went to Brussels to pastor what was the first church international church established for the Assemblies of God globally.

So I spent my career in Rome for 10.

I spent 25 years living in Brussels, 10 pastoring that church.

And then I spent another 10 working seven years in Sweden, working with a very fine Swedish Pentecostal church who wanted to find a way to reach their community by encouraging diversity and inclusion with regard to these young immigrants, immigrants who were arriving.

And they were really committed to that and a similar thing in Copenhagen, Denmark.

And then after that, I stayed based in Europe for five years working with Convoy of Hope around for them.

I was international program which was overseeing the teams and the partners who drive the international global work of Convoy of Hope.

So that's kind of me in a sentence.

I love it.

Life coaching as well.

Life coaching all the way along the way that kind of came in.

Brian.

When I was in Rome, I became aware.

I started that church easter Sunday of 88.

Remember, there's only one other church on the landscape for our organization and 89 who had any idea that we were these young church planters in Rome in 88.

And the Berlin Wall came down in 89, which literally changed the face of Europe.

Immediately the flow of the nations came our way, especially out of the.

The communist nations of Europe.

And it just changed everything, literally.

So there began to be a surge, sort of a moment, a holy moment of God birthing international churches.

So I felt like we should start some kind of relational network because all these new churches were baby.

They were thriving on the thinnest of margins.

And so we launched Fellowship of European International Churches.

And that's when I knew I need to move off my pastoral platform exclusively and.

And be able to coach these guys through some of these challenging moments.

And that network we started in 2005 and there are now 92 churches in that network in Europe alone.

Yes.

And you have another one in Asia, don't you?

Another network that you have.

Then in 2012, I started a global.

What we thought was.

What we had seen in Europe was nearly a decade old and none of the other regions of the organization, as you mentioned, the Assemblies of God, their world missions stages up in Asia Pacific and Africa and in Eurasia and in Europe and in Latin America and in northern Asia.

All of them had some bubbling of international churches.

Actually, Asia had a lot of great churches, but they had never really come together regionally.

So I launched this idea to inspire regional development in all the regions of our footprint around the idea of international church planting, intentional planting and intentional development of those churches.

Man, Terry, I just.

I'm just so kingdom proud of all of this.

And you know, I kind of joke with Terry.

We talk from time to time on the phone and that I need like an intravenous glucose.

IV for.

For brain Fuel.

After talking with terry, like a 60 minute hard drive and conversation, I want you to know I did take my vitamin before this podcast, Mega Men energy and metabolism and has a lot of the B complex.

So I'm hoping, I'm hoping this is going to be okay.

I have no doubt of your capacity, Brian, none at all.

This theme of abundance and getting past this scarcity mindset and scarcity experience that you're sensing this year in the Christmas theme.

Yeah.

And I just want to kind of add into this reality that this is something that I'm kind of living out looking at my own life, but of course seeing it in the world around me.

And I think without a lot of heavy thought.

All of us have stories of moments in our lives when things were just very hard and times were tough and very likely we know someone right now by first name who's in the same kind of state.

I have family members who are literally, I know, living on barely enough.

And it's to them that I give my thoughts.

Knowing of course, that Christ who invaded.

I like your word about interruption.

He interrupted the world and all the life patterns that were normalized and people who were labeled were labeled and people who were poor were poor.

And that was just not going to change.

But Christ came to turn all of that upside down.

And so I know that it's the possibility of Christ doing his work and providing what he provides, which by comparison, if you only have barely enough, it's going to feel like abundantly more.

Yeah, I mean, Hallmark and eggnog and a fireplace, they're all nice, right?

But I'm really enjoying the notion of Christmas as an invasion.

The King is back.

And you know, like, what are the implications for life, for work, for ministry, for ventures that we're pursuing?

Do you see Christmas as an invasion of sorts?

That the Christ child coming into this earth, the incarnation.

Well, it certainly should be that.

And my desire always, Brian, is that that these days and I actually dial into the Advent as well because I want to redeem all of these days and what our fervent resolve should be to make the most of every opportunity.

A great Christmas is a wonderful gift to give to someone who's in a very difficult situation.

But a great Christmas doesn't compare to the abundantly more that Christ could provide.

If we in the act of kindness or in wanting to make someone's Christmas better, we don't forget to give highlight to the most important thing, which is Christ coming not just to your home or your heart at Christmas, but becoming a part of your everyday is going to change everything.

Yeah.

I love working through the Christmas narratives in the Gospels and trying to tease out, like kingdom dynamics or Kingdom principles that work365 carry throughout the year, this Advent dynamic.

You know who Leonard Sweet is, right?

I don't know if he invented this word, but chaotic.

It's a word that blends chaos and order.

When something is chaotic, it's an opportunity wrapped in chaos.

It seems like the birth of Christ, just the everyday circumstances around it, was quite chaotic, doesn't it?

Oh, absolutely, yeah.

Everything about him, and it began early on, just that there was a clear one.

I think the sense of his awareness at some point, even as a child, that there was some destiny behind him.

How much he knew it, at what point in life, that is a good theological question.

But everything he did actually was to disrupt normal so thoroughly that people could embrace change.

And people don't break change, they don't go to change until they're thoroughly done with the circumstances they're in.

That's the tragedy.

So you need someone to disrupt that.

Disruptive innovation is a business term.

I think it's come into a lot of other, like, fields or applications for personal living and so forth.

Disruptive innovation is an interruption of the status quo, as you say, Right?

Yeah, absolutely.

I'm just seeing the Christ child as sort of like ultimate disruptive innovation.

Yeah, that's so true.

There's nothing about Christ that in reality that cuddles the best world image that can be presented.

I mean, the, the nativity sets in.

Christ is this baby wrapped in these beautiful cloths and he's surrounded by hay.

I mean, it's the best.

The most we can give is not even a glimmer of who the Christ of Christmas really is.

Yeah, he was a king.

And you know, I've been thinking about the Magi recently, Terry.

These guys who probably arrived maybe a year and a half or two years after the birth of Christ, you know, because of their journey.

I think that's a.

Because of Christmas cards and paintings and things.

It's a bit of a misnomer that they were at the Nativity.

These guys came from Persia.

They were probably influenced by Daniel.

And these were powerful kingmakers.

They came and they shook Jerusalem and Herod was terrorized.

It's fascinating to me that right at the early stage of Christ's life that you have these international influencers and king makers and people of wealth and science and history and intelligence coming and paying homage to Christ.

What can that tell us?

He was maybe a Year and a half or two.

Yeah, I mean obviously the, the, the whole narrative of all that would unfold, of course had been foretold by the prophet.

So how much of that was, was, was obviously at his, at that spot, he would not have been aware of that.

But every single thing from the time he earth, every prophetic reality begin to be fulfilled one by one.

And being on the journey was prophetically spoken of and his birthplace prophetically spoken of.

And you know, all those things that, and even looking back a bit, the gifts that they chose were gifts that somehow knowingly or unknowingly, they knew something about this child.

They knew something was special.

Maybe they thought he was going to be another king and the kingmakers arrived for that.

I don't know that we have all the clarity we need.

But certainly from the moment he entered this earth and followed the will of the Father to be born of flesh, everything around him became disruptive.

Yeah, it's like the geopolitical is showing up, you know, the international is showing up early in his life and the wealth, the upper echelons of these guys were feared.

I'm trying to study these guys a little bit.

They were feared because of their king making capacity and their influence.

They were a priestly cast.

There's just so much there showing up.

Right as Jesus is a young toddler, you know, it just, that has to be saying something to us about the reach of the kingdom, you know, the life of Christ, the disruptive innovation of his, of his, of his incarnation.

And you know, it's interesting, Brian, that we kind of have the same thought going because when you change barely enough into abundantly more, that's disruptive.

There are reasons, social reasons, family reasons, health reasons that generally drive why people live on barely enough.

And so practically speaking, in terms of everyday life, what suggestions do you have, what insights do you have about pursuing an abundant life in Christ?

Well, I'm just again, I'm thinking, of course there are many verses we can go to, but I'm thinking about what Philippians says to us and it's very clear that we've been promised that God will supply all of our needs according to the riches of his glory in Christ Jesus.

Big game.

That's why I want to promote this Christ who can change barely enough and abundantly more because there and many other places that has been confirmed.

And we just know that he's able to fully satisfy, to freely sustain.

He can actually flow streams of blessings over us and more than enough love, grace, nearness to carry us to a Better place.

It's just.

It's so powerfully there.

And I just want to say that.

So I guess I kind of wrote down at one point, Brian, some thoughts I thought might help.

And they're more provokers than they are providers here, if I can say that.

Okay, great.

So here's the thing.

The reality of his capacity is only fully revealed to us in times of great necessity.

Necessity and scarcity.

Okay.

That's the only time we get it.

Someone has said that adult learning ready readiness is equals pain.

Yeah.

You know, when we feel the need, when we're tired of it, we're better positioned for transformation.

And it's so true.

I remember.

Well, I'll tell you that later, but it's true for me.

And I remember when this hit my life strong and hard and there were many other moments early on, but this is the one I think about often, is that I was confronted by a pretty at the time.

A pretty not scary.

But, you know, I was told I had thyroid cancer and it had been in my neck for a long time, and it obviously spread.

And we need to take care of this.

Well, up until that time, though, I was a pastor and raised in a wonderful Christian family.

Even not just a family of faith, but a Pentecostal family.

A family of faith, Pentecostal roots, way.

Back, believing in healing and restoration.

Yep.

But the point was I believed he was a healer, preached he was a healer, pray for people to be healed.

But in my life, I had never been in a spot where I needed a healer.

I mean, I don't feel great.

I could use a little touch here alone.

I've got a little cold.

Help me out here.

But I'm 39 years old and this doctor I've.

So how'd this happen?

He said, you know, I don't know, but you're 39 and have already produced one cancerous episode in your.

In your body.

So you probably need to live.

Heads up.

From this point forward, never in my life have I had I prayed this phrase.

Lord, guard over, watch over my bones, my blood, my.

My.

My.

My bones, my blood and my cells.

I never prayed that prayer.

Guard over my bones, my blood and my cells.

Wow.

I never prayed it.

But every morning when I pray my.

Have my morning devotions.

That's the phrase, Father.

Thank you.

Guarding over.

Not just about my heart, but my body, my bones, my blood and my cells.

Yes.

And it came in at times of great necessity.

That was.

I needed something.

I'm holding my wife's hand, walking out of the office she's sobbing.

And you know, of course, at the end of the day, I took out the thyroid, took out two of the parathyroids, did pretty heavy nuclear meds.

In fact, in 2005, I went back for checkup.

They saw a little something, but the doctor said, you know, I'm not giving you any more nuclear meds.

You have.

You have ingested more nuclear medicine than we have in this.

I can't even store as much as you've already ingested.

Oh, my goodness.

But took care of it.

Done.

All behind me.

But in that moment, I felt as if in that I felt so fragile.

I felt like I had just barely enough.

And yet Christ stepped in and changed that into abundantly more.

So like a crisis or a real sense of a felt need or even a season of pain.

Yeah.

It is disruptive.

We need to look, you would say, for the innovation edge.

What does the Lord.

You came into a new season of prayer over your physicality, right?

Absolutely.

In every way.

And it lifted me on many other levels because I can tell you, okay, again, I have a little journal and I remember something.

One of the phrases I wrote down at the time is that faith must always be tested by fire.

The things we.

The things we believe in are not really believed until they've been thoroughly tested.

It's not a fun experience, but it is absolutely necessary.

And I think God awakens something, which is always true here because Christ is ever present.

But the way he moves people from this position of feeling like they're just surviving barely enough into abundantly more is by helping them realize that you're not going to even have a possibility to get there until there's something that confronts you, something.

So the confrontation is really a catalyst.

We should see it as a catalyst.

The challenge to really go deeper, become more resolved.

Right.

More intense.

Yeah.

And that's why people say things that sound ridiculous at the time.

Well, we know it's tough, but it'll get better or something.

But the bottom line is you have to go, you have to be, you have to be, you have to be.

You have to be hammered.

I want to say it that way, not being unkind.

I had a friend who one time was in a hard place struggling with his wife.

And so I let him stay at my sleep on the couch, which didn't get me a lot of points with Ruthann at the time.

But I thought, Dale's, he's got nowhere to go, so I'm going to do this.

And at one point, it just kept getting worse.

He kept pivoting off to another place of just.

I'm trying to bring him closer.

He keeps like he re.

Repels away from me.

He comes in close and he pushes off me and goes back.

And I'm just really frustrated.

And I said, look, I understand this, you know, I am doing my best to help him.

As if God said to me, and that's the problem, problem.

I'm trying to get his attention and you're trying and you're diverting it.

So I said to Daniel, you can't sleep on my couch here anymore because here's what's happening.

I'm getting in the way of what God wants to do.

And my guess is it's probably going to get a lot worse before it gets better.

But that's not because of God, but it's because of your position right now, your spiritual position.

And God is going to deal with that.

And it has to be something outside of my hands and outside of my home.

There has to be something of a.

Of a deconstruction about something that's wrong so that there can be a reconstruction.

We can go to new levels in the kingdom.

Right.

About an issue like if it's marriage or health and wellness, whatever it means.

And the second thing is that you'll never see more of him until you seek more of him.

It doesn't happen.

I mean, you might show up in a dream and a vision, but when that happens, it's disruptive.

But it's intended to take you now beyond this intense moment into an attitude of the heart.

He might show up, get your attention, but he has to.

The thing is you have to engage sincere intentional seeking.

And that has to be done.

Yeah.

He who comes to God must believe that he is and that he is a rewarder of those right who seek him.

Absolutely.

And here's the thing.

Abundantly more has already been predetermined and pre positioned for all of us.

Here's why.

I know that When I was 14 or 15, life was tough for me.

I couldn't find my way, didn't have an identity, Tried to be tough, but I didn't like that.

Tried to be funny, but I wasn't any good at it.

And we were coming home one night, my older brother and his friends.

I was kind of 6 foot and 190.

At 14 or 15, I just almost 15, I suppose.

So I ran with my brother's crowd, but he took me home because they were going to go do some things that I shouldn't be a part of.

And so I went home And I'm just sitting outside on the curb and I thought, you know what?

I have no reason to want to be 16.

I just, I got nothing.

I have tried to have something.

I got nothing.

And in that moment, one of the big moments that happened for me was I ended up in a service where a speaker basically said, he said, here's the problem for most of you.

You have just enough faith to make your mama happy and your pastor proud.

I thought, exactly, that's exactly what I have.

I don't want to break my mother's heart for any reason.

I don't want my pastor to find out all the crummy things I'm doing.

But his challenge was, when Jesus died on the cross, what did he give up?

60%, 70%?

No.

He laid it all down.

And until you lay it all down, you're never going to know him.

You've got to seek him with your whole heart.

And he pushed on us.

And then he added this to make it even more punchy.

He's get the greatest waste of our lives.

It's not the years we spend walking in darkness.

It's all the years that we spend refusing to give him everything.

Wow.

We just lay it down.

And that was transformational from transformational for me.

Brian.

I made a decision.

I'm done.

I'm all in.

That was July of 1970, 72.

I finished high school, went to Bible school.

I met Ruthanne in 72.

I married Ruthanne in 74.

We had a baby in 75.

I started full time ministry in 76.

It's like God had this, you know that white paper you used to cover tables?

It's like God just took his foot and kicked this roll I'm seeing.

All this stuff just destined for me to walk into as if it's all planned here, man.

You just have been on the wrong road.

And it was that moment when I understood I'm never going to move from barely enough to abundantly more.

Unless I really get the fact that the whole hearted seeker has to engage at its highest level.

That changes everything for us.

There's no more.

There's no more, you know, trying to serve two masters.

There's no more, you know, kind of curtsying around the line.

First I'm in, then I'm out.

Then I'm in, then I'm out.

That's never going to work until you're all in.

You just have no chance of abundantly more.

Oh yeah, that's, that's, that's so good.

You would not have met Ruthann.

And married her.

Would you.

Without that experience?

Never.

You know what?

I had my money down to go to another college.

I. I would.

And then I thought, I'm going to spend a lot of money to take courses.

I could take it here at Wichita State, but I'm tired of living in Wichita.

And I.

My heart.

I grew up my.

I drove my mom a little crazy because I was all.

I was all non conventional.

We went to the park and we.

This little youth gathering and we took communion every week.

They passed grapes and we broke saltines.

My mother was freaking out.

Is there a pastor that'll give you communion, Mom?

No communion.

No pastor, no communion cups.

We actually just suck on a grape and break a cracker.

Boy, that was tough.

Mom was battling to understand that.

But it was so where I needed to be.

Yeah.

Raw and organic and transformative and everything else.

Your children, your beautiful family, all.

All of the seasons of ministry that flowed out of that dedication at that time.

Right.

That consecration, that relinquishment.

Absolutely.

That all in move that you made.

Yeah.

I mean, I went to be a missionary when I was 84, 29 years old.

I'm still a missionary and I'm headed to 68.

I mean, it just.

It was.

It was life changing.

There was nothing about me prior to that July 9, 1979, that anyone could recognize.

Some of my Sunday school teachers want to say now, yeah, we saw it.

And I said, no, you didn't.

You always told me we think Gary, my Gary, he's.

He's got.

He's got the magic in the family.

I said, come on, let's be honest.

But it doesn't matter.

My brother's a Christ servant.

He is them.

He is the magic.

He's a wonderful.

He's a leader of our family.

Not my dad's gone, but I love my brother and he does lead us, the rest of us, but you know what I'm saying, It was unbelievable.

It was just unbelievable.

Would you say one of the things that we can learn from the Christmas narratives is that there is a dance between heaven and earth?

I like the phrase that great things, actually the best things happen on Father God's dance floor.

You know, heaven moves, but we need to move.

It's just like a good couple that would dance a good dance with a couple.

There's a synergy.

Right.

There's a lead, but there's also a response and a movement.

So like Mary receives that word.

How can this be?

Well, the Holy Spirit will overshadow you that.

The son of God will come into you.

Simeon and Anna or Zacharias?

Well, yeah, Simeon and Anna in the temple, they're people of intercession and fasting and prayer.

They had a prophetic sense of what was happening.

They knew the Christ child when they saw him.

Most people didn't see it or know it.

Zacharias, the father of John the Baptist, he had to come to learn how to dance with heaven.

And God shut his mouth until he could speak the right things.

Things until the miracle happened, you know.

So what would you say about this Christmas dance between heaven and earth and releasing the miraculous?

Well, actually, I think what you have been focusing on is the reality.

I think every Christmas has to be somehow disruptive.

It just has to be somehow disruptive.

As much as we love the traditions, as much as we like the commonality of rhythms, there's something that we ought to do intentionally to disrupt our hearts and our focus and our mind and literally say, jesus, the fact that you came into this world, into my life, and you're ever present in my family and in this community, I have got to make.

I've just got to awaken something in my heart.

What can we do practically?

What's.

What are some suggestions that you have?

Well, I think, as is always true, I mean, the prize goes to the seeker.

The prize goes to the one who engages this.

And I think it's also true that.

That we're gonna.

We're gonna struggle.

We often linger, particularly at Christmas.

We're either lingering in familiarity or we're frustrated.

It's kind of one of the two.

I mean, I'm frustrated by the way it's going for a variety of reasons or, you know, it's so familiar.

I'm almost droned to sleep here.

Just quit seeing.

Just stop seeing into my life with such clarity.

Okay.

Just.

Just.

I'm uncomfortable.

But carry on.

I wanna.

I wanna hear what you say about this.

This.

Well, I think we have to do something.

I mean, what I'm doing by bringing up these narratives, I am in some ways recalibrating my heart.

I shared this devotion with my team, and we talked openly about some things that we know.

Even.

And we have the risk in a convoy of compassion fatigue, it could just become overwhelming.

Like the knees never end, which is actually true.

Convoy of hope.

Yes.

Do we have to?

I just think what your language is.

There's some kind of disruptive innovation.

And you.

If you think about Christ, look what he did in the days of his disciples, while he did take them to pray and he did sit them down on the mountain.

Everything he did had some disruptive inclusion for them.

He might have healed a multitude, but he prodded.

He made the comfortable guys uncomfortable regularly, practically at every engagement he had.

And I think that's what God wants.

I think he's continually wanting to stir something up inside us.

He doesn't want us to be placid.

He doesn't want us, of course, to be indifferent or certain.

It's not.

We can't come to a lukewarm position.

And I think that if we're careful and if we're wise, if we redeem the time and make the most of every opportunity, I think the Holy Spirit will drop on our hearts some things we can do, some inclusive pieces that are just disruptive enough that they probably will have impact beyond our hearts into the lives of our closer circles.

And I did this little devo and one of my young.

I'm taking note feverishly.

But could you send this to me?

Because I think this is what I'm looking for in this season, and I just think that's what happens.

I think this is the moment to just not allow yourself to avoid or to not strategically include some kind of disruptive encounter where you just invite God to really.

Well, what is it in this season that everything about you says it should be like this, but it's not there in my heart, as I know it ought to be.

And you start driving towards that, whatever that is.

Yeah, just.

Holy Spirit, show me.

See if there's any way of pain in me.

Right.

As David would say, lead me in the everlasting way.

Wake me, shake me, show me what I can do.

I mean, one of the ideas I've yet to execute on it personally, but one of the ideas that I want to do, because we're so deeply scripted, aren't we?

Terri on certain edges in our lives, everybody's unique and our family systems are unique and our history and getting some index cards and getting some prayer pulses or affirmations from scripture and just rehearsing and reviewing and praying and declaring these themes.

Go to the woods, take a walk.

Wherever you go, change your setting and whip out those cars.

Just walk with the Lord.

Something I'm already talking with people about, and I've yet to begin doing it.

I even have a stack of cards I purchased.

It has to penetrate our soul.

Yeah.

It's intentional, it's strategic, and it's aimed on something good because all those cards have written on them things that you have already been keenly aware of, maybe even desiring to Make a commitment to see this happen.

So every step you take, your progressive steps that not just were ordained already, but they've somehow already been revealed to your heart.

This is just.

This is just something.

These are things I've just got to put in play.

I think that.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

How.

How important, Terry, is it for us to have a strong will about these matters and to make, you know, to increase our hunger and our desire?

Jesus seemed to invite people to express their desire, and he wanted them to seemingly intensify their desire.

How important is that, the strength of the will, desire?

Well, I think those two things specifically are what push us.

And with regard to our emotions and to our capacity, those two things are what build capacity inside us.

And again, the best seats are in the front.

I mean, you've got to get to the front of the parade here.

We've got to put ourselves.

When Christ turns and looks that we're guys, right?

If I'm two rows back, I'm elbowing people to get ahead of them.

Not in a negative way, but to know I want to press into him as close as I can.

I'm not looking for a spot in the back.

I'm not sitting in the nosebleed seats.

I'm right down here.

And I think that has to happen, Brian.

I just.

I really do think it's an awakened heart that aligns most effectively.

Yes.

Alignment.

They followed the star, they aligned with guidance, and they aligned with what was sovereignly happening and the design of heaven.

And most people didn't have, were clueless.

The shepherds.

It was revealed to the shepherds supernaturally.

Simeon and Anna had revelation of it.

Zacharias and his wife, of course, Mary and Joseph and others, I suppose.

But it was few.

It was few who were dialed in.

Yep.

And I think that's the point.

I think that's what.

That's the one thing I kind of Learned in that 1970 thing.

My heart, awakened and alive, is going to give me the possibility to align with whatever God is doing at whatever moment he speaks it and have clarity.

You know, there are things I've.

I've not done because it was clear to me if my heart had not been awakened, there were things in there that could have been attractive.

There are things in there that could have been, you know, a great addition to my life.

But my awakened heart kind of.

Kind of quieted.

The fact of attraction and addition awakened drove me to alignment.

I just.

I just.

I felt that I knew this is where the Lord wants us to be.

Even right now.

We're making some decisions.

And Ruthanna and I talk about it and I said, look, when I.

When I.

When I'm sure it's right, I'm on.

I'm pulling the trigger.

I'm good to go.

I don't need.

I don't need a lot of time anymore.

I'm on this now.

And it's about decisions for.

Just for us as we, you know, kind of move forward in our age and look into new seasons.

I'm.

I love that because I know that while some would say your next season is this or that, I know that my next season is not defined by statistics or by my heredity or by my chronicle age.

My future is actually destined, determined, in God's hands.

And he's not hiding it from me.

I can discover it.

Yeah.

So I can align myself to what God has for me.

Amen.

Amen.

Following the Holy Spirit, Spirit, following what's in the stars, so to speak.

It's amazing.

Just look.

Look above.

Look.

Look above ourselves and see how God is guiding.

It's all Christocentric, isn't it?

It's all about coming to Christ.

Just as the magi did.

Just as the shepherds were awakened in the Judean hills and they went to Christ, Simeon and Anna immediately gravitated towards Joseph and Mary in the temple because of who they were carrying.

It's all wrapped up in Jesus, isn't is?

I want to tell young adults, your spouse is in Christ.

For you, your best pathways forward in work and in calling are wrapped up in Christ.

And if you will pursue him and seek Him.

It's like that imagery you had of a.

Of a.

Of a.

Of a white roll of table cover.

Table cover being rolled out before you.

And on that is just over the horizon is great things.

Family and beautiful family and legacy and significance and work and.

But it's, but it's.

It's in that encounter with Christ, isn't it?

And I know when I know the end of my.

The end of my trail is, you know, the paper ends and the gold streets open up.

That's what I know.

Go from paper to gold, man.

Exactly.

I'm trading up, Brian.

It's a constant upgrade with Christ forever.

New heavens and new earth.

Oh, my goodness.

And it's been 50 years since I really had that dramatic encounter with Christ in July of 1970.

And I'm like, I have fun seeing some of these old Jesus people, guys aging out.

I mean, those guys, they were disruptive.

I mean, that was my generation.

They messed people up.

Yeah.

Jesus people.

Yeah, yeah.

So.

And as it goes forward in history, everything was disruptive.

You know, think about the great movement of full gospel businessmen.

That was, that was disruptive.

That changed a lot of guys careers, how they did business.

Some of them even changed their whole life model out of that disruptive moment.

And Promise Keepers did the same.

And to some level, these revivals that we see both in the US and beyond, I mean, if there's anything God has consistently done and will do till the very our, our last days, until there's a new heaven and earth, is he is in the business of leading his people.

And I mean disruptively keeping them on target.

Come on.

Disruptively keeping them on target.

Because when you think you're not disrupted or if you don't want to be disrupted, you're off target, right?

You're off your best target.

Who hid my cheese?

We're about to find out.

Christmas chaotic.

I just love this there you go idea.

Perfect conclusion.

There's a time, yes.

To be chaotic.

It's the Christmas time.

There you are.

Because it, it's all sourced there.

So why don't you give us just a thought about that Christmas chaotic and then if you wouldn't mind leading us in a spirited prayer of resolve and strength of will and commitment to these edges we're talking about today.

And I think the greatest way to say it simply the chaotic for me means, of course, God blesses everything that you as a family and your colleagues enjoy.

He enjoys all that.

But as much as we love the tradition and the order, get ready for some spiritual chaos.

Because this Christmas moment is not just ours to enjoy, it's his to orchestrate.

So I think Christmas Chaortic is exactly what I want to pray for, for myself and for everyone that hears this prayer.

I think that's what we need more than ever.

We need our minds shaken away from what we think 2022 might be.

We need to be kind of, is this done?

Is that done?

Is the virus behind us or is it looming?

The bottom line is in this day, let's focus on what never changes.

God is on his throne.

Christ reigns sovereignly over his sons and daughters.

He's going to order our steps through and chaotic it is going to be.

Father, thank you so much for the wonderful way you use your sons and daughters.

For Brian and his family, for Jesus Smart.

And the ministries that flow and are helped and supported because of all that Brian does.

Lord, I pray most of all that this word that you've dropped into our hearts, though we're miles Apart the speaking of the Holy Spirit, Brian thinking about disruptive innovation and me thinking about your possibility Christ to change our barely enough into abundantly more.

I pray that this Christmas would be special in ways that maybe have oft been overlooked.

Not that there would be less food around the table or a family around the table and food on the table.

I just pray, God, that people would say, you know, there was something dynamic about this Christmas.

It almost seemed as if God was doing something to stir me and at the same time keep my pathway moving forward.

Lord, this word chaotic, may that resonate for all those who hear it and know it's definitely definition.

That is chaos and order coming together.

I pray they would experience something from you, something in their own hearts that would say this was.

Was destined by God.

This Christmas is not the same.

This Christmas is different in this way.

And may the stories be told Amen far and wide.

Yes, may the name of Christ be all the more exalted and lifted up in Jesus name.

Amen, Lord.

Yeah, we agree with that.

That, and we pray that there would be an anointed, chaotic anointing upon us that when we walk into settings and scenarios and even rooms and people come within the sound of our voice, within the proximity of our presence, that there would be a chaotic dynamic, that people would be shaken and wakened and disrupted and aligned with your design.

We thank you, Father.

Father.

Thank you, God.

I just can't take another Christmas, Terry, of the same old, same old.

Okay.

I just want to see something disrupted dramatically.

And you know what's so great about that in many ways is the chaotic thing is that, you know, literally order and discipline and walking straight paths is part of what makes faith also dynamic.

So the order is not at odds with anything that we to be.

Be relative or special in heart of God.

But if the, if the order dominates, then we have really.

We missed that disruptive, disruptive element.

And so as much as there's order, I mean, the disciples, you know, they had all kinds of.

It seems, okay, we can cross over, we're all good.

But then it gets disruptive as they're crossing over.

You know what I'm saying?

Yeah, that's how it always is.

Yeah, we're disrupted from our own natural order to a higher order.

Order.

That's what we want.

The next new season of kingdom order.

And I think it's never ending.

But yeah, as long as we're progressing and elevating and I guess, I guess.

I want to say that this doesn't like, isn't like this Becomes a tradition.

So now then, every Christmas we're going to not watch one Hallmark movie and we're all going to have a great family discussion that might be good for one year, but then it becomes.

It becomes.

It becomes a tradition.

So every year I'm just sticking with Christmas.

You and I want this every day, but every year, man, just say, you know, I just feel like the Lord is just really compelling, telling me, you know, here to share these thoughts with you guys because I think they matter for this season.

And I think you can even be very punchy with that.

Even very, you know, just.

It seems like we've all kind of gone into a funk and we need to.

We need just to be.

Call that out and own it.

And we need to recalibrate some things here in our hearts and in this house and just say it because it's.

I do this.

I mean, Christ has come.

Emmanuel is here.

That's right, man.

Pray it and then say it.

Just.

That's the.

That's the release of it and walk in it.

Advent 375.

I want, you know, Jesus to keep coming, to keep incarnating.

3 or 365.

Yeah, absolutely.

I so appreciate this, Terry.

I've been personally inspired by this and I think this is an important horizon to pursue.

I really do.

And it's something to really pray about.

Take it to the Lord in prayer, get your journal out, write some things down, maybe review some things like I'm going to try to do on cards and things and talk about it.

Talk about it with your wife, your family, your friends.

I love it.

Thank you, Terri, for carving out some time today.

Appreciate all that you are, all that you do and all that you've brought today.

Okay?

It's my honor, Brian.

Thank you.

Pray for you and your family.

Have a great Christmas, but highly chaotic.

I'm going for it.

And we'll hold ourselves accountable.

We'll talk.

We'll do a briefing after Christmas and see how we did.

Okay?

Exactly.

Blessings, my friend.

Love to your family.

Love you too, Terry.

Blessings to Ruth Ann and your children, other adult children, but blessings to them as well.

All right, thank you.

Delivery with you guys.

Bye.

I really appreciate the value add that Terry brings.

He's bringing a life message and content that is highly needed today.

You can see the show notes page for this episode@jesussmart.com Christmasabundance links and additional resources to take it deeper.

You'll find them there.

Now, here's a question for you.

What do you want?

What are you seeking Are you ready to dial up your Christ desire?

You know, the verse says he's the desire of all nations, of all peoples.

I hope you'll tune in next week, the week of Christmas.

I have some fresh content for you on the Magi.

Now this is not your mama's nativity scene, okay?

If you like your Christmas hardcore, you'll want to catch this.

I'm excited about it.

In January we have Mark Rusak of the RUSOC Outlook on the podcast and we're going to to be talking about how giants enter the human bloodline in the book of Genesis.

We have Flaming Hot Takes roundtable coming up with Jason Howard and Bruce Colbert.

Great Kingdom friends.

You know kingdom currency runs on kingdom connections and we really find that in our relationships.

We get all jazz like in that episode and pontificate on some edges.

To be honest with you.

Some may say we bloviate not pontificate, but that's another story.

We have Dr. John Basie of Impact 360 countering this really bad trend line of the world out discipling the church in a post truth era.

And we have some news about some fresh new things at Jesus Smart.

All of that coming up after the holidays.

Thank you for passing this episode along to your friends and contacts.

The best syndication is always your personal connection.

Terri, I want to thank thank you.

I value you and Ruthanne.

Your life, your ministry, your work and keep going.

Jesus is brilliant.

Walk with him and you'll catch his brilliance in a unique way.

Talk soon.