At 65 years old, the Lord rebranded

me, and I'm 69 now. So it's

been four and a half years, almost five years now.

I've started a new path. So I do wanna leave the 1 message

for those in our age bracket. You're never too old. When

you let God be God and do what he has

equipped us to do and I will tell you something. I wasn't equipped to do

this five years ago or ten years ago. I was equipped to

do exactly what I'm doing today.

Can 1 really make a difference in your day? Bobbi Cox, a

biblical counselor and entrepreneur from Grapevine, Texas, champions the

profound impact of daily prayer at

01 00:00:54

11PM. Through her devotional book, Pause and

01 00:00:58

Pray at 01:11, Bobbie encourages us to embody the fruit of

01 00:01:02

the spirit in our everyday lives. Each day's reflection is

01 00:01:06

designed to foster habits that not only deepen our walk with Christ,

01 00:01:10

but also extend his hope to those around us.

01 00:01:14

Welcome to seek, go, create, Bobby.

01 00:01:19

I'm so grateful to be here. I tell you, you're starting my

01 00:01:22

year off right, Tim. Just speaking and sharing what

01 00:01:26

God has done through my life, through our world,

01 00:01:30

it's just an amazing opportunity. So thank you so much for that. Yeah.

01 00:01:33

We're gonna have fun. We kinda almost got rolling before we hit record, and

01 00:01:37

that's not what we need to do. We need to cover all this good stuff

01 00:01:40

so people can listen in. Bobby, my first question, I gave you a little bit

01 00:01:43

of prep on this. I'm gonna give you a choice.

01 00:01:47

Which would you rather answer and go ahead and answer it?

01 00:01:51

What do you do, or who are you?

01 00:01:57

It's an easy answer for me. Who I am now

01 00:02:01

is just an empty vessel for Jesus. He has blessed me

01 00:02:04

in so many ways. And, you know, Tim, when I finally got

01 00:02:08

out of the way and let God be God, my world changed.

01 00:02:12

And I can give you a visual for that. I used to say,

01 00:02:15

okay, Lord, you've got my life. I'm gonna fall off the cliff. And I

01 00:02:19

know you're at the bottom to catch me. And so I would

01 00:02:23

start in air, and all of a sudden, I would pull the pair parachute

01 00:02:26

cord. I say, oh, nothing's happened. I guess I need to get involved.

01 00:02:30

Okay. Next time. Did it again. Got 3 quarters of the way down.

01 00:02:34

When my world changed was when I jumped off the cliff

01 00:02:38

without the parachute. I knew I would be done

01 00:02:41

if he wasn't there. So my faith just went

01 00:02:45

into another, stratosphere to say, you know what? My

01 00:02:49

moments are not my moments. My moments are Jesus' moments.

01 00:02:53

He knows the future. He wants the best for me. So

01 00:02:57

why do I ever try to get in his way? I I love that because

01 00:03:00

what that also means is that you can sail and soar instead of just

01 00:03:04

fall all the time, which a lot of us in our human lives, even our

01 00:03:08

Christian walk, we're just falling all the time. And I'm sure

01 00:03:11

Jesus, you know, he's patient, and he doesn't mind picking

01 00:03:15

us up and helping us dust off and move on. But I think he would

01 00:03:18

like for us to soar a little bit more.

01 00:03:22

Absolutely. Timmy gives us so many opportunities.

01 00:03:25

We don't listen. It's a noisy world. We don't pay attention, and

01 00:03:29

I I'm speaking to the choir here. I mean, I'm 69 years old, and

01 00:03:33

it took me many, many years around the mountain hanging off the

01 00:03:37

end of the limbs from my fingertips. But you know what? He was always

01 00:03:40

there with me saying, hey, Bobby. I'm just right here. Just, like, get out of

01 00:03:44

the way and let me be god. So when you mentioned that earlier and I

01 00:03:47

I wanna say 1 thing real quick. When you came across our desk,

01 00:03:52

I'm from Atlanta. I'm not a huge baseball fan, but

01 00:03:56

Atlanta during their glory years, I'm sure you've heard this, they had a manager named

01 00:03:59

Bobby Cox, and I went, Bobby Cox? Come

01 00:04:02

on. So I hope I hope, you I don't wanna talk

01 00:04:06

baseball at all. I I have a story about that,

01 00:04:09

though. So way back when Bobby was, and I'm a big sports

01 00:04:13

fan. I'm a huge baseball and football fan. But I was in Atlanta at a

01 00:04:17

convention, and I went up to the desk at the convention to

01 00:04:20

make dinner reservations. So they made me dinner reservations. My

01 00:04:24

husband and I walked in, and, I mean, we had the

01 00:04:27

primo table. We had servers all around us, and they

01 00:04:31

kept saying, when is Bobby Cox gonna show up?

01 00:04:36

So I I I have a good story about it. Good. Yeah. I mean, if

01 00:04:39

they don't ask for more details, you know, I don't think there's a,

01 00:04:43

moral obligation there. I mean, you know, we all have

01 00:04:47

fame in our own right. We all are equal in the in the eyes of

01 00:04:50

God and also Amen. Anyway. But I I'm actually excited

01 00:04:54

to talk about all the things we have. We've got a lot of things to

01 00:04:56

talk about. First thing I wanna bring up is in the introduction, you said

01 00:05:00

you're an empty vessel now.

01 00:05:04

You used the word now. So and you talked

01 00:05:08

about some things over the course of your life. I'd love to back

01 00:05:12

up real quick and tell me when

01 00:05:15

your spiritual walk began. And and I don't know

01 00:05:19

if it was a young child, but when do you first have

01 00:05:23

a an understanding or an awareness that there was

01 00:05:27

something bigger in the world that you were part of?

01 00:05:31

Well, Tim, as you said, you're from Georgia. My mother and

01 00:05:34

grandmother were from Georgia. I was born in North

01 00:05:38

Carolina, lived in Tennessee, South Carolina, all over the South.

01 00:05:41

Live in Dallas, Texas area now, grapevine, as you mentioned, but I

01 00:05:45

still make fresh iced tea every day and I drink an entire gallon of it.

01 00:05:48

So, so I'm still Southern at Root. So I grew up in

01 00:05:52

a Southern Baptist home. I was in

01 00:05:56

church the first week of my birth. I was then in church every

01 00:06:00

Wednesday night, Sunday nights, just just

01 00:06:03

every time the church doors open, as well as church camp, etcetera,

01 00:06:07

etcetera. So I will say that I I

01 00:06:10

was not offered the lesson that Jesus is

01 00:06:14

a relationship versus rules and regulations.

01 00:06:18

And so through the course of time, the way

01 00:06:21

I describe my spiritual growth is that

01 00:06:25

I I equate it like peeling an onion. I didn't have 1

01 00:06:29

of those moments, although I did, as a teenager,

01 00:06:33

go to a Billy Graham conference, and I did go forward. But I

01 00:06:37

already knew the Lord, but I didn't know him

01 00:06:40

personally. I think that's what ignited my journey, but it

01 00:06:44

wasn't an overnight. For me, I mean, I was put

01 00:06:48

on around the mountain, as I said earlier, many times,

01 00:06:51

just living life as a teenager. I wasn't a bad kid, but I

01 00:06:55

wasn't a perfect kid either. And so

01 00:06:59

I I really have trouble realizing exactly

01 00:07:02

when that moment started because it was just a

01 00:07:06

it was kind of I think the Lord was speaking to me, but it

01 00:07:10

wasn't, allowed audible like so many different people have.

01 00:07:14

But in my older years, I do remember when

01 00:07:18

I I finally said, hey. As I said, I fell off the

01 00:07:21

cliff and let God be God, is

01 00:07:25

that he he was always part of my life. I would always read the

01 00:07:28

Bible. I would always pray, but it became like prayer to me,

01 00:07:32

Tim, is not is not the holier than thou, like, type

01 00:07:36

prayers that my mother used to have. They're chit chatting with Jesus all

01 00:07:40

day. That's prayer. And reading the Bible is just like my

01 00:07:43

cell phone to God. So it was older in life when I began

01 00:07:47

to kinda realize that, hey. I don't wanna do life without

01 00:07:51

Jesus. A lot I like some I've got, like, 3 or 4

01 00:07:55

things that are shooting around in my head right now. Let me see if I

01 00:07:57

could focus. I've always been curious

01 00:08:01

about the scripture where Paul says pray without ceasing,

01 00:08:05

And the way I define it is the way you just did. It's

01 00:08:08

a conversation that's going on almost twenty four seven

01 00:08:12

because it's, it's conversing really like we are right here. You know, you

01 00:08:16

and I, you know, had a short I don't even know if we call it

01 00:08:19

prayer right before we clicked record. And, you know, I was sort of

01 00:08:23

joking about we're gonna let the holy spirit have 1 of these frames and all

01 00:08:27

that. And I I I I think God's okay with that with me. I mean,

01 00:08:30

I've got a look. He wired me a certain way. Little bit of

01 00:08:34

sarcasm, some wit. I like to think I'm funny.

01 00:08:37

My wife tells me I'm not, but that's a whole another issue. And, I

01 00:08:41

think that is the way we are. And then I wanna go back to

01 00:08:45

the Baptist upbringing because I was around the Baptist upbringing

01 00:08:49

too, but I think there's a time where

01 00:08:52

many of us that grew up around what we'll call Christianity

01 00:08:56

or Christian culture, especially in first world America, that

01 00:09:00

we will say we're Christians as a

01 00:09:04

description. Mhmm. And maybe

01 00:09:07

we are in a household that they are Christian or

01 00:09:11

we're in a country or an area or we go to church. But there is

01 00:09:15

a time where it becomes personal. And I don't think it's always that time when

01 00:09:18

you raise your hand and you go down front at the altar. My situation was

01 00:09:22

I went down front a few times. I don't know that it

01 00:09:26

took with me, but I can recall the time that

01 00:09:30

I was broken down and in the difficult situation

01 00:09:34

where it became personal.

01 00:09:38

And me and the Lord, I just opened up and said, listen, Can't really do

01 00:09:42

this on my own. I need

01 00:09:46

you. Can you think of that time for you?

01 00:09:49

And if so, can you share it, or a time in your life or something

01 00:09:53

like that related to that?

01 00:09:57

I don't even know which 1 to choose, Tim, because I've had so many of

01 00:10:00

those moments that I just you know, I think for me,

01 00:10:04

I just I had to and I keep repeating this, I know, but I I

01 00:10:08

just kept trying to do life on my own in making things happen

01 00:10:12

and not waiting on the Lord. I can I I

01 00:10:15

I've been through so many experiences in sixty nine years

01 00:10:19

that literally, in my mind, were totally impossible,

01 00:10:23

and God came through, but he didn't come through when I

01 00:10:26

wanted him to come through? He came through in timing when I

01 00:10:30

was ready for him. I used this a lot. So I went

01 00:10:34

to women's conference and the Lord said, go unscripted this time. I'm

01 00:10:37

gonna tell you what to say. And so basically

01 00:10:41

what I learned through that was that our

01 00:10:45

lives, we're born a blank color of

01 00:10:48

thread, a neutral color, and there's a big tapestry,

01 00:10:53

that Jesus holds the big needle to. And through the

01 00:10:57

journey of our lives and many of the moments like you just described that

01 00:11:00

I've said, oh, this is impossible, I would maybe be the

01 00:11:04

correct color of thread Jesus was waiting for to make that stitch,

01 00:11:08

but maybe 6 other people around me that he was waiting for,

01 00:11:12

they weren't ready yet. They hadn't been around the mountain. They weren't that perfect

01 00:11:16

unique color because when we're in and out of people's lives, Tim, I

01 00:11:20

I feel like the visual he gave me was we bleed off on each other's

01 00:11:23

colors. So different life experiences, heartaches,

01 00:11:27

sadness, joyful times, and and times where we feel

01 00:11:31

like it's impossible, our color, weaves

01 00:11:34

into others' lives. So when he's finally ready with those 6

01 00:11:38

stitches to make that 1 stitch, the thread, then we go out

01 00:11:42

in life and we become different colors. So I think that's what life's all

01 00:11:45

about. And then at the end of our life, when our tapestry is complete, he

01 00:11:49

rolls us up and puts it in the hall of fame of tapestries in heaven.

01 00:11:52

I use that equation because I I it's hard for me to put

01 00:11:56

into words how my life has just

01 00:12:00

unfolded a little bit at a time to become where I am today.

01 00:12:04

And, hey, I'm not there yet. I won't be there till I hit the pearly

01 00:12:07

gates, but I'm receptive to it now.

01 00:12:11

Those times that seemed impossible, now

01 00:12:15

through my many years, I've learned to

01 00:12:18

don't try to get through those, just embrace what

01 00:12:22

Jesus is going to do through those to better equip

01 00:12:25

me And maybe not just me, other people around me

01 00:12:29

to allow us then to live the life that he has intended from

01 00:12:33

the day we came out of the womb. You know, 1

01 00:12:37

of the things as I checked on your stuff, and we're I I'm

01 00:12:40

gonna come back to the color. I I want to tell people

01 00:12:44

that are listening to this, not looking at it. They know that I'm

01 00:12:48

in my black T shirt that I always wear. If I open

01 00:12:52

up my small little closet here in the RV, there's about 5 or 6 black

01 00:12:55

T shirts, and that's it. I I I

01 00:12:59

appreciate color. My wife probably wishes I would add a little color. We're gonna

01 00:13:02

talk about color in just a little while because that's a big part of,

01 00:13:06

your devotional that we have here, pause and pray. And we've got the word

01 00:13:10

pause. We've got the word pray. We've got color. There there's 1 thing that kept

01 00:13:13

jumping up at me, Bobby, as I was just kinda, you know,

01 00:13:17

listening to you on a few podcast and and doing a little bit of research,

01 00:13:20

and that is someone who has been

01 00:13:23

widowed twice. It's a it's

01 00:13:27

very possible that they could

01 00:13:31

have some disappointment with life. They could

01 00:13:35

they could have some bitterness. They could have, you

01 00:13:39

know, why God, especially if you grew up in the culture you did with

01 00:13:42

God being a part of it and, you know, why God have I been through

01 00:13:46

this? And my wife and I right now are in a a 55 and older

01 00:13:49

community, which we're, we, we don't think we're old enough for that, but the

01 00:13:53

the the the they tell us we are.

01 00:13:58

What can you share? And it, and, and it might be to someone who

01 00:14:02

goes, gosh, you know, I've faced disappointment. I've faced challenges.

01 00:14:06

And, boy, had had I lost 1 spouse, that would be

01 00:14:10

tough. But to to go through it twice,

01 00:14:14

what can you give both either practical and or spiritual about how you

01 00:14:18

made it through that with mindset and attitude that you currently have?

01 00:14:23

Thank you for asking me that question. You know, I've lost my first

01 00:14:27

husband. We were, twenty years apart and married twenty five

01 00:14:31

years and had had a daughter, together that she at

01 00:14:34

that time was 15. It was very unexpected. Actually,

01 00:14:38

woke up in the bed with him, and he was not alive. And

01 00:14:43

to say that, that bitterness

01 00:14:47

questions and anger, those different

01 00:14:51

emotions that they that that they

01 00:14:55

come to us, I I don't feel that I had

01 00:14:59

those types of angers and bitterness

01 00:15:03

as some people do because of my walk with the Lord thus

01 00:15:07

far. Not to say I didn't have a glimpse of them, but I have

01 00:15:10

ministered and counseled so many people that just have that

01 00:15:14

deep question and screaming out why God.

01 00:15:19

The 1 thing that hit me and especially my daughter obviously was

01 00:15:22

still living with me at the time my first husband passed away, but my second

01 00:15:26

husband, I didn't marry again for five years. Didn't think I would ever

01 00:15:29

marry again. Didn't have any interest to marry again. And I did. And

01 00:15:33

within a year he was diagnosed with, with colon cancer. So we

01 00:15:37

chased treatments all over the world, which helped me become who I

01 00:15:40

am through all those journeys, 700000 miles around the world.

01 00:15:44

But when I lost him, I was alone in the house.

01 00:15:48

And I think the 1 emotion that struck me the hardest

01 00:15:52

was loneliness. Both of my husbands and I were partners in our

01 00:15:55

business. We woke up together. We ate breakfast together, lunch

01 00:15:59

together. We did everything together. So I was very seldom

01 00:16:03

alone. So what and this kind of,

01 00:16:06

reverts back to our chit chatting with the Lord. This is when it all came

01 00:16:09

to be with me. So the hardest thing for me was eating a

01 00:16:13

meal without someone. And so I decided to set a place for

01 00:16:17

Jesus. So he and I would be eating dinner together and just I would chit

01 00:16:21

chat with him just like I would my husband. And even then

01 00:16:24

driving down the car, you know, I mean, we've seldom went places,

01 00:16:28

alone or I, I, I seldom went places alone.

01 00:16:32

And so I would put my Bible in the passenger seat and I would talk

01 00:16:36

to Jesus just as visuals Today, I still carry a

01 00:16:39

wooden cross I got in Israel and pictures of Jesus. One

01 00:16:43

says, I got your back, or 1 says, yeah. Look what we just did, or

01 00:16:46

I'm we can you know? I do those visuals just

01 00:16:50

as a reminder that he's always by our

01 00:16:54

side. And why wouldn't we wanna engage the 1 that

01 00:16:58

made the almighty world? And like I said earlier, wants the best for

01 00:17:01

us and knows the future. So I will just say that

01 00:17:05

I encourage those that have experienced loss. And I

01 00:17:09

think that loneliness is something that I learned how to help

01 00:17:12

minister others. I think Jesus allows us to go through things so that we can

01 00:17:16

help administer to other people and express what he's shown us

01 00:17:20

through life experiences. Here's

01 00:17:23

what we know. We know that loneliness

01 00:17:29

is very common in our culture. Loneliness is

01 00:17:33

common for people that are sitting in a crowd. I

01 00:17:36

love what you just brought up because that really is a message. You

01 00:17:40

obviously had the physical loneliness, my wife, Gloria and I talked

01 00:17:44

about just the other day. We're, we're kind of at an age where we're talking

01 00:17:48

about what were to happen if 1 of us

01 00:17:51

weren't here, 1 of us left this earth or, you know, whatever before the

01 00:17:55

other. And, you know, is this RV lifestyle

01 00:17:59

conducive for just 1 person? And so it's kinda

01 00:18:03

causing us to discuss a few things. And, you know, we actually had this

01 00:18:07

discussion. It's like, you know, we're around each other almost twenty four seven in

01 00:18:10

400 square feet, Bobby. You know what I

01 00:18:14

mean? I did that as well as I told you. I know. You gotta love

01 00:18:17

somebody, and they have to love you Different world. Be like

01 00:18:21

this. She's, while I'm recording, she's up at, I don't know if

01 00:18:25

she's making jewelry or pottery or something, which she loves to do, and she's awesome

01 00:18:29

at it. But we've talked about that loneliness and I wanna say

01 00:18:32

this and I may let you respond to it. I'd love for us to kind

01 00:18:35

of start moving this conversation to a little bit bigger to

01 00:18:39

incorporate, you know, almost everyone that

01 00:18:43

could be listening in. And so let's take

01 00:18:47

what we just said about loneliness when you're widowed.

01 00:18:51

And let's talk about how we've got some things we're gonna talk about here

01 00:18:54

with your book and the fruits and gifts of the spirit and things like that,

01 00:18:58

and how we can address loneliness at a bigger picture, how it

01 00:19:02

can handle that. So, so what, any thoughts when I bring that up?

01 00:19:06

Well, first of all, I do wanna share the 1 phrase that I say so

01 00:19:10

often is I may be alone, but

01 00:19:14

I'm never lonely anymore because God's always with me.

01 00:19:17

And, you know, just because I've been talking to so many people talking about the

01 00:19:21

word retire, retire, retire, we're talking about in

01 00:19:25

our older years. I don't think that should be part of our

01 00:19:28

vocabulary. We don't ever retire. We may

01 00:19:33

in doing what we've been doing for a lifetime or for a period of

01 00:19:37

time, There's so much to do. I never have an idle moment.

01 00:19:41

I mean, I'm up till two or 03:00 in the morning with just the energies

01 00:19:45

to do life because there's so much to

01 00:19:48

do. And it's good things, and it's responding to people. It's

01 00:19:51

encouraging people. It's praying for people. It's studying the Bible.

01 00:19:55

It's studying different habits and how people have made changes in their

01 00:19:59

life. It's just so wonderful. And believe me, it's taken me

01 00:20:03

a lifetime to get here. But, you know, at

01 00:20:06

65 years old, the Lord rebranded

01 00:20:10

me, and I'm 69 now. So it's

01 00:20:13

been four and a half years, almost five years now.

01 00:20:17

I've started a new path. So I do wanna leave the 1 message

01 00:20:21

for those in our age bracket. You're never too old when

01 00:20:25

you let God be God and do what he has

01 00:20:28

equipped us to do. And I will tell you something. I wasn't equipped to do

01 00:20:32

this five years ago or ten years ago. I was equipped to do

01 00:20:35

exactly what I'm doing today. Would you

01 00:20:39

say now that you are doing exactly

01 00:20:43

what God created you to do?

01 00:20:47

I seek to do that every single day.

01 00:20:50

He has new challenges for me every day, which take me

01 00:20:54

on journeys that I had no anticipation, but I welcome

01 00:20:58

them. I don't try to go around the mountain. I

01 00:21:01

go through the mountain because I know who's gonna go through it with me. And

01 00:21:05

do you think the things you've gone through in your life were preparation

01 00:21:09

to get to where you are now? Oh, definitely. I love that word that

01 00:21:13

you just chose. I'm gonna use it preparation. It was

01 00:21:16

equipping me, as I say often, for exactly what he knew

01 00:21:20

I would be going through. Why did I experience this unpleasant

01 00:21:24

situation with someone? Because I learned from that. You know, the

01 00:21:27

1 thing that I I do write a lot about is

01 00:21:31

that too many people continue marinating

01 00:21:35

their past. Something that someone said on the

01 00:21:39

playground, for goodness sake, a coach said when you were

01 00:21:42

young, and they just keep marinating it over and over and

01 00:21:46

it snowballs and snowballs. And that's why we have so much rage

01 00:21:50

and anger because people keep living in their past. And,

01 00:21:54

I'm we're all guilty of it. I'm not saying I didn't do that as well

01 00:21:57

for a while, but you know what? Just move on because God

01 00:22:01

can't do what he has in mind in our current state If we're

01 00:22:04

still, you know, got our minds back in the past or

01 00:22:08

we're anticipating the future. Live in the moment because Jesus

01 00:22:12

got all kinds of things for us to do there. The reason that I'm just

01 00:22:15

kind of smiling at that, I have never been 1

01 00:22:19

to live in the past. I think we should learn. Right. Where I

01 00:22:24

have a struggle is the planning strategy looking too far

01 00:22:27

into the future and not living in the now

01 00:22:31

and today. Yes. What which the is it been 1 of

01 00:22:35

those that you struggle with more past or future? Oh, I struggle

01 00:22:39

with the future all the time because I'm a strategist. I'm

01 00:22:42

an organizer. I try to think, okay. What's tomorrow? And it

01 00:22:46

and I'm learning. I'm still learning, Tim. But what

01 00:22:50

kinda energies that takes up to not allow Jesus

01 00:22:54

to do in our lives what he has in tune for us to do today?

01 00:22:57

So I struggle with that every day. So you and I are a lot alike

01 00:23:00

in that. Yeah. And we've got a double RV here because both my wife and

01 00:23:04

I are strategist. If we look at strength finders and some of the things

01 00:23:08

we strategy is top. I'm an engineer by training from Georgia Tech

01 00:23:11

and all of that. And I I think many times

01 00:23:15

those personalities want to control the future

01 00:23:19

is the reason that we're strategy and planning, and

01 00:23:23

we wanna control. We don't maybe like surprises. We think we're

01 00:23:26

pretty smart that we can, but

01 00:23:30

I think it goes back to what you said earlier that you are now an

01 00:23:34

empty vessel now. You've mentioned that word

01 00:23:38

Yes. Yes. Now. So so talk about and here's here's

01 00:23:42

how I'm posing this as a question is I think people that have that

01 00:23:45

future mindset, sometimes it can become unhealthy because

01 00:23:49

I think it can be valuable, but it could be unhealthy because we want to

01 00:23:53

control things. And listen, if you have

01 00:23:57

Georgia roots and you have North Carolina and you've got Texas,

01 00:24:01

there is something to that southern culture that they are

01 00:24:05

sweet, they can smile, but they are wanting to be busy bodies and

01 00:24:08

control everything around them. So how have you released

01 00:24:12

some of that, and what can you share that might help someone who's

01 00:24:16

going through that too? You know, and you

01 00:24:20

nailed it with the word control. And, again, I'm not totally

01 00:24:23

there yet, but I've also had trouble with

01 00:24:27

and I think I did mention earlier that I just kept jumping in the

01 00:24:31

way. And I think that it it's difficult

01 00:24:34

to not know the future. But when we

01 00:24:38

question the future, when we have put our pathways in the Lord's

01 00:24:41

hands is we don't have faith and we don't trust

01 00:24:45

him because then we feel like, well, you might tell me to

01 00:24:49

do this, but maybe I don't wanna do this and maybe I wanna do it

01 00:24:52

this way. That's not what he's waiting for. He's waiting for our

01 00:24:55

spirits to say, I don't care if it's rocky roads, you know,

01 00:24:59

a solid, sheet of glass to walk through. You're

01 00:25:03

gonna protect me. You've got a reason for all this, and we're

01 00:25:07

not going I'm not going alone. You're gonna be with me and

01 00:25:11

carry me and get me through these experiences. So

01 00:25:15

honestly, I finally I think when I kinda hit the plateau, when

01 00:25:19

it's not governing me so much is when I realized, like,

01 00:25:23

Todd, you you make so much better choices than I do. And, you

01 00:25:27

know, you should be in control because when I'm in control, man,

01 00:25:30

it sets me back. I can't move forward because he's

01 00:25:34

waiting for me to get there. I'm gonna put myself on the spot. This morning,

01 00:25:37

I was listening to something, And they said, patience

01 00:25:41

is how, how we act in the

01 00:25:45

wait. You know, how do we wait? And it's

01 00:25:49

given me some reflection. I'm probably gonna write a blog on that today. How

01 00:25:52

do we wait on God? Are we impatient? Are

01 00:25:56

we frustrated? Are we angry? Are we like, why isn't this

01 00:25:59

happening? I used to be that way, but now it's like,

01 00:26:03

okay, I know you've got something in mind. You're trying to teach me,

01 00:26:07

teach someone else. There's, you know, I always say that the

01 00:26:11

Lord's like a big air traffic control God, and he's

01 00:26:14

got all these little planes of our lives flying around everywhere.

01 00:26:18

And if this 1 gets off course, or this 1 goes here, you know, until

01 00:26:22

they all come together, it it doesn't work in his

01 00:26:26

plan. So it's kind of funny to look back at how many

01 00:26:29

things I would it's not funny. It's tragic in a lot of ways that had

01 00:26:33

I given god control, I would have spared myself from

01 00:26:37

so much heartache and frustration. So, you know, it

01 00:26:40

now when I think about the alternative, do I wanna make this decision, or

01 00:26:44

do I wanna give it to God? I call that my default. Sometimes I have

01 00:26:47

to pause and think, okay. But that's what I do now. God

01 00:26:51

deals with me, and I'm sure he deals with all of us in different ways.

01 00:26:54

And I feel like at 1, God

01 00:26:57

said, are are you gonna let me be God or you're gonna keep trying to

01 00:27:01

be God? And I kinda went, let me think about

01 00:27:04

that. You know? So, Bobby, this is what

01 00:27:08

my instruction was, and I think is powerful. It's gonna lead us into a good

01 00:27:11

conversation. He told me

01 00:27:15

that I need to pause, that anytime

01 00:27:20

and this is this was my rhythm for the longest period of time. I would

01 00:27:23

get what I believe were divine ideas, business and companies and

01 00:27:27

things like that. And I get it. Felt as if

01 00:27:31

the Lord said, listen. And most things that you

01 00:27:35

get are from me. He said, but that doesn't mean you have the timing and

01 00:27:38

things like that. He says, I I need you to pause,

01 00:27:42

take a breath, and then let's work together. Yes. And and

01 00:27:46

this was the bluntness that God told me because I'm not an ATM machine. Stop

01 00:27:49

coming back to me every time you get problems. I love it. I want us

01 00:27:53

to work together in it. Tell tell us the story of

01 00:27:56

your pause. When, as I had said

01 00:28:00

earlier at 65 years old, that was

01 00:28:03

just at the pandemic. I hosted home church in

01 00:28:07

my home. And you know, what I say, Tim, is we drank the Kool

01 00:28:11

Aid and we said, I guess we should meet. So I was

01 00:28:15

reading second Corinthians one eleven, which says,

01 00:28:19

help us with your prayers. And I happened to glance at my

01 00:28:22

watch. It was 01:11 and the Lord spoken to my

01 00:28:26

spirit. Just send a text to your home church to

01 00:28:29

pause and pray at 01:11 for each other

01 00:28:33

in our country. And so I did. Organically

01 00:28:37

that just started growing to two, three hundred people. And

01 00:28:41

I was actually texting, you know, 300

01 00:28:44

more than 300 people. I'd start at 01:11, and it would take me

01 00:28:48

forty seven minutes. Cut, paste, cut, pause and pray, pause and pray, pause and pray.

01 00:28:52

And finally, I said, okay, Lord, I think we're being limited here. I can't continue

01 00:28:56

doing this the rest of my life. And so fortunately, I had a relationship with

01 00:28:59

some people that created apps. And so I reached out to them to

01 00:29:03

create an app so that we could have some growth. But let me tell you

01 00:29:06

something. When you hear what God's done since then, Tim,

01 00:29:10

and I'll circle back to this, but my

01 00:29:14

my lesson to myself and my lesson to to

01 00:29:17

share with others is listen to your moments. Because had I

01 00:29:21

not listened to that one eleven moment and thought,

01 00:29:25

I'm not gonna do that. None of this that I'm about to tell you would

01 00:29:29

have happened because God is the in control of it all.

01 00:29:33

So after a period of time, as we're starting to work on

01 00:29:36

the app, the lord said, choose a scripture of the day

01 00:29:40

based on the date. So say the date is

01 00:29:43

03/20, March 0 The date would be Ephesians

01 00:29:47

three twenty. So that when we see the date throughout the day on our

01 00:29:51

watch, on our our computers, our car dash, we think, let

01 00:29:54

me just pause a moment and try to engrave that

01 00:29:58

scripture on my heart and weave it into my conversation. We're speaking the word of

01 00:30:01

God and people don't even realize it. And then he started

01 00:30:05

what I say, putting me in a trance and writing a

01 00:30:09

message about that scripture, because Tim, I wasn't even a

01 00:30:12

good English student. I consider myself Jesus ghost writer.

01 00:30:16

He just writes through me. And so I did that

01 00:30:20

every single day for four and a half years. It was painstaking

01 00:30:24

to create this app with no more budget than I had to do

01 00:30:27

it. And so it took quite a while. I was a little bit of the

01 00:30:31

low on the totem pole there in in in their world, but we got

01 00:30:34

it done. And and so I have a really good friend. His

01 00:30:38

name is Joe Battaglia. And Joe is what

01 00:30:42

I call I told him this this weekend when I was with him. I call

01 00:30:45

him the kind of the godfather of faith based

01 00:30:50

anything. Because if you are writing a book or have a radio

01 00:30:53

station or TV, podcast, whatever you go to Joe. And so

01 00:30:57

Joe came and, and to Dallas about 4 times a year. And

01 00:31:01

I said, Hey, I'll clear my calendar and become your Uber because I knew I

01 00:31:04

would meet a lot of really special people. So 1 time he

01 00:31:08

came and he says, Bobby, let's just, let's just

01 00:31:12

not be busy all the time. And I just wanna learn a little bit more

01 00:31:14

about Branch to Hope, which is what the I don't know if I even mentioned

01 00:31:18

that. That was the name that that the Lord told me to to

01 00:31:21

name this this new ministry. And so he read some of

01 00:31:25

the of the writings for like, as I said, it was four and a half

01 00:31:28

years. He says, I'm gonna send these to Broadstreet Publishing, my publisher,

01 00:31:32

and and send me the backstory in 10 samples.

01 00:31:36

So I did. Didn't think much about it. I mean, I never even thought about

01 00:31:40

a book. I just thought I would be doing this, which was a delight in

01 00:31:43

my life to to allow Jesus to write through me. And

01 00:31:47

before I knew it, I had, a call from Susan

01 00:31:51

Niles, who I think connected us together, Tim. She is a

01 00:31:55

prayer warrior. We were praying together before the call was over. And

01 00:31:59

within a couple weeks, I was on the phone with Carlton, the founder

01 00:32:02

and some editors, and had a book contract in two weeks, and the

01 00:32:06

rest is history when it comes to that. But I will tell you to come

01 00:32:10

back on the pause word. This is kind of a funny story. So we

01 00:32:13

were just gonna call it Branch to Hope. And and I kept

01 00:32:17

talking to various people. I said, you know, there's so many devotion books out on

01 00:32:21

the shelves and in the market. What's gonna pull this off the shelf? And I

01 00:32:24

said, what do you think about Branch to Hope? And they said, you know, good

01 00:32:28

good name, but so, anyway, I'm rushing, and I'm trying to figure

01 00:32:32

out and talk to all these people, focus my focus groups,

01 00:32:36

and nothing was hitting. Carlton, the founder of

01 00:32:40

Broadstreet, called me 1 day. He says, Bobby, we've gotta have a title. I understand

01 00:32:43

that you're trying to change the title because they had already done part of the

01 00:32:46

cover. I said, okay. I got off the phone. My

01 00:32:49

daughter walks in, Ashley. And I said, Ashley, we've gotta

01 00:32:53

have a title before tomorrow. What are we gonna do? And she says, mom,

01 00:32:57

what do you say? Every time somebody walks in the door, every time you're on

01 00:33:01

a phone call, what do you say? I said, I don't know. What do I

01 00:33:04

say? She says, pause and pray. Pause and pray at 01:11.

01 00:33:07

Pause and pray. Pause and pray. And so I called Carlton. He says, I love

01 00:33:11

it. So I wanted it to be pause and pray at

01 00:33:14

11 because it all started at 01:11. But he comes back later

01 00:33:18

and had talked to some people and says, we love pause and pray, but we're

01 00:33:21

not sure about the at 01:11. And I said, well, you are the

01 00:33:25

expert, and I'm not gonna go against you, but let me tell you why

01 00:33:29

I feel that at 01:11 is important. And

01 00:33:33

I said, you know, I have people call me or contact me all the time

01 00:33:36

and say, you know, Bobby, I saw one eleven on a my odometer,

01 00:33:40

one eleven on a house number, and it wasn't 01:11,

01 00:33:44

but I just paused and prayed. I said, that's grooving into

01 00:33:47

people's mind that when you see the the numbers 01:11

01 00:33:51

that you just pray, because we do send out a notification every day on our

01 00:33:55

app to pause and pray at 01:11 across the time

01 00:33:59

zones. So I told Carlton, I said, I'm just gonna remind you

01 00:34:02

that at the end of our first call, you said, I don't see a book.

01 00:34:05

I see a series of books. I said, I think I know the series of

01 00:34:08

books. And he says, what is that? I said, well, there

01 00:34:12

are so many felt needs right now. There's anger, anxiety,

01 00:34:16

depression, loneliness. I said that my

01 00:34:19

prayer alarm goes off 8 times a day. It starts at

10 00:34:23

10, eleven eleven, twelve twelve, one one one,

10 00:34:27

two twenty two, three thirty three, four forty four, five fifty five. There's

10 00:34:30

no 666. We wouldn't use it anyway. So I

10 00:34:34

said, so what I envision is we take this core book that

10 00:34:38

you have named pause and pray and not at

01 00:34:41

11, and now I see what God had in mind because we'll

01 00:34:45

choose and align 1 of those felt needs with the time.

01 00:34:48

So at 02:22, we pray for people that are lonely. At

03 00:34:52

33 is people with anxiety. And we take the

03 00:34:56

basic words in these books, and we tailor the wordage

03 00:35:00

to reach people that are lonely or in depression.

03 00:35:03

And at that point, people will not only give them as gifts,

03 00:35:07

buy them for themselves, if they're going through, a felt need,

03 00:35:11

but that grooves into people's minds. Okay. It's

04 00:35:15

44. I'm gonna I'm at the grocery store, but I'm gonna pause and pray for

04 00:35:18

somebody depressed, you know, because there's so many people in my world or or

04 00:35:22

people I don't even know. So just, you

04 00:35:26

know, I always say, let let Jesus be in our moments. So he was

04 00:35:29

in our moments to take that, take that title, take the at

01 00:35:33

11 off, because now we're gonna have an at 01:11 that

01 00:35:37

has a felt need. So so that'd be the case. And

01 00:35:40

then after that, we have the app, and now we

01 00:35:44

have the color of the day challenge. So I'll and that's where all the colors

01 00:35:48

come in. To the color, but I'll I wanna talk about how you've layered

01 00:35:51

things in here because I do and I think Susan sent me,

01 00:35:56

a copy, which was awesome. 1 question I have, this is,

01 00:35:59

and I'll go ahead and say this just to show that I have some degree

01 00:36:03

of awareness. Is I'll

01 00:36:06

say that this could be a sexist question. Okay? And it could be it show

01 00:36:10

ignorance. Is your audience, is it mostly

01 00:36:14

female? Is it male and female? And the reason I bring that up is that

01 00:36:18

we had a conversation a few weeks back with with 2 men, Jimmy

01 00:36:21

and Dan, and they've written, and it's specifically a devotion for men.

01 00:36:25

I didn't see anything that said to women, but when

01 00:36:29

someone asks you that, the what's your response?

01 00:36:33

This book and from the responses we launched Nov.

01 00:36:37

5, not planned. It is

01 00:36:40

ageless. It has no language barrier. It has no

01 00:36:44

female male barrier. We are reaching people in homeschool

01 00:36:48

with kids that are hard to get up in the mornings, but now they've got

01 00:36:51

the color of the day challenge, which we'll talk about, And they run to their

01 00:36:55

closet and they say, dad, what's the color of the day and how are we

01 00:36:58

gonna live like Jesus? So I'm giving a little glimpse to that all the way

01 00:37:02

to, I have a very dear friend, Drew. He's 80 years

01 00:37:05

old. He's a very high powered financial guy. And he sends

01 00:37:09

me a picture every single day wearing the color of the day. I

01 00:37:13

actually have probably equal women as men respond on

01 00:37:16

things. In fact, I had somebody today, it was a couple, and they

01 00:37:20

said, we're about to close on our house today. This is right before I got

01 00:37:24

on this call with you. And they said, but because of the 01:11

01 00:37:27

message this morning that we read on the app and the

01 00:37:31

book, we need to talk to you. We need to pray. We're we're we're afraid

01 00:37:34

that we might be making the wrong decision. So, I mean, these

01 00:37:38

are things, Tim, that were written four years

01 00:37:41

ago that are relevant for such a time as

01 00:37:45

this today for them. It it it's just it it it blows

01 00:37:49

my mind because it's not it wasn't me. It's all God. Right.

01 00:37:52

And I was just the the 1 this morning, I wanna kinda talk about the

01 00:37:56

layout. You've you've got a great title, and let's

01 00:38:00

live for Jesus. Scripture whisper, which is a great

01 00:38:03

short scriptural message that has that numbering with it

01 00:38:07

also, and then a great message. But you've got this QR code

01 00:38:11

here down here at the bottom. Let me see if I could show it. You

01 00:38:13

got this QR code Yeah. Which I so it calls me to get my phone

01 00:38:17

out, and I clicked on it. Yep. Took me to YouTube, and

01 00:38:21

there was about a five minute or so video. And then I this is my

01 00:38:24

engineering mind. I got curious. I said, wonder if they have a

01 00:38:28

different video for every day of the

01 00:38:31

year. And you do.

01 00:38:37

So so tell me about I mean, there's a lot of stuff

01 00:38:41

going on here. Don't get to the colors yet. I wanna address the colors

01 00:38:44

separately in a second. But but tell me a little bit about

01 00:38:48

all of this coming together with QR codes and things

01 00:38:52

like that because that's a lot of work that somebody has to do

01 00:38:55

with videos. I've got a YouTube channel, and there's a lot going on there.

01 00:39:00

Well, and let me tell you, we don't have a team of people except for

01 00:39:04

God and my daughter and me and just a few consultants

01 00:39:08

because it has been a lot of work. I said, we need an interactive

01 00:39:12

call to action type devotional book that keeps people coming

01 00:39:15

back. And so the Lord said, put a QR code on each

01 00:39:19

page and align it again with the color of the day and

01 00:39:23

the message that so our message is verbal. If you click on the QR code

01 00:39:27

so today's yellow day. So you see I'm wearing yellow. I have a

01 00:39:30

yellow cup. I have a yellow phone

01 00:39:34

cover. All says kindness, because today is kindness. So every time I say yellow, I

01 00:39:38

think how can I be more kind? So what our QR code, it

01 00:39:41

actually reads the message. But behind the

01 00:39:45

background, it's everything yellow that you can imagine. So

01 00:39:48

it grooves into your mind to go out on your day and say,

01 00:39:52

okay. I'm gonna notice the color yellow today because it's

01 00:39:56

gonna remind me to be kind. Mhmm. So the scripture whip

01 00:39:59

whisper, as you mentioned, is the scripture based on the date. So

01 00:40:03

today is 01/23, and the scripture is

01 00:40:07

Proverbs 01/23. And so we work hard to find the

01 00:40:10

scripture that is it, that is weevable into your conversation

01 00:40:14

as best we can, because some particular days don't have a lot of

01 00:40:18

scriptures to choose from, you know? And then the message I say is

01 00:40:21

just a little mini message. And then we end with a prayer And we

01 00:40:25

just ask Jesus to help us to be kind. And so

01 00:40:29

there is a lot going on here, but what I was gonna tell you is

01 00:40:32

so when when, I had met a friend, Gene Getz,

01 00:40:36

he, wrote he has a bible, the essential bible, and he has

01 00:40:39

QR codes throughout it through his twenty years of different,

01 00:40:43

sermons that he put on. And so then I kinda had the inspiration

01 00:40:47

to put a QR code on to be different and call to action.

01 00:40:51

And so the Broadstreet needed I'm I'm divulging

01 00:40:55

something. I'm not sure I've told anybody publicly,

01 00:40:59

but they needed the QR codes, like,

01 00:41:02

a year almost before for the typesetter,

01 00:41:06

but I knew I had time to put the content in.

01 00:41:10

I did that having no clue how I was gonna do it. I was gonna

01 00:41:14

go to universities and try to get the the students to to do a, you

01 00:41:17

know, internship doing this, all these kinds of things. And I

01 00:41:21

will just tell you, my daughter, Ashley, is my

01 00:41:25

she's the graphic designer. She's the wisdom behind a lot

01 00:41:29

of this. She helped coordinate getting all of those done, and you

01 00:41:32

are. Thank you for noticing. I will tell her, Tim. Is that her voice? Because

01 00:41:36

it was quiet. Her voice reading them? No. It's not her voice.

01 00:41:40

But she you know, I have the ideas, and I let the Lord work through

01 00:41:43

me when it comes to techie stuff. Oh my goodness. If she wasn't in my

01 00:41:47

world, we wouldn't be sitting here. Well, what is the So The impressive thing was

01 00:41:51

is that you you've already mentioned your age, so I could repeat it. 69 year

01 00:41:54

old on some podcast I listened to talking about QR

01 00:41:58

codes. And I'm going, that's pretty darn impressive. And

01 00:42:01

and and I do wanna say this, everyone needs an Ashley in their life, and

01 00:42:05

God brings them together. My mine is called Glory, and I you know,

01 00:42:09

the graphics and all that we do with the podcast here, she

01 00:42:12

creates all that, and she's super talented. But that's the way God weaves that

01 00:42:16

tapestry that we talked about earlier. Oh, yes. It is brings yeah. I

01 00:42:20

wouldn't in fact, I I dedicated a book to her before she even really

01 00:42:23

got heavily involved, because God knew that she would be very

01 00:42:27

heavily involved. Yeah. I wouldn't be me without her. Yeah. I I

01 00:42:31

saw that. And I think that's the way the way the kingdom of God works

01 00:42:34

is that he he's looking to bring people together. We just have to pause and

01 00:42:38

be open, open to it. Well, I do think it flows. I mean, it's

01 00:42:42

a very, this is not a very sexy word, digestible.

01 00:42:45

It's very easy to consume. And

01 00:42:49

I think people need that for, for daily

01 00:42:53

type practices and habits. And I think it needs to be simple.

01 00:42:57

I mean, was there any discussion about the need for simplicity with

01 00:43:00

this? Well, actually, let me just tell you. So when

01 00:43:04

we first created the app, it was nothing like it is today. And

01 00:43:08

we had some technology issues, and we had to move to

01 00:43:12

another firm. When we finally got the final app, which is listen. And

01 00:43:16

I I wanna thank anybody that has endured what we went through on

01 00:43:19

the app with the glitches to get it to where it is now, but we're

01 00:43:22

all good now. You know, the complications of an

01 00:43:26

app that we had versus now the simplicity,

01 00:43:30

someone told me the other day, they said, Bobby, your

01 00:43:34

app is now a discipleship tool. And I said, really?

01 00:43:38

And they said, well, you know, when we bring someone to the knowledge of the

01 00:43:42

Lord and they accept Jesus in their heart, we can't walk around with

01 00:43:45

them twenty four seven and just help them and disciple them. But

01 00:43:49

what we tend to do is say, go pray, go read your

01 00:43:53

Bible and go act like a Christian. And they said, well, you

01 00:43:57

have a button on there already that sends a

01 00:44:00

notification back every day to pause and pray at 01:11. You have

01 00:44:04

a prayer wall, very simplistic, put your prayer requests on,

01 00:44:08

put prayer answers on so we can see what God has done. Very

01 00:44:11

easy, very simplistic. So number 1, go pray.

01 00:44:15

That's how you start praying. Number 2, read your Bible. Where do you

01 00:44:19

start reading your Bible? 1 scripture a day with a little mini

01 00:44:22

message that tells you about the scripture and a reminder throughout the day, when you

01 00:44:26

see the date to remember that scripture. Number 3, how do

01 00:44:30

you live like a Christian? One fruit of the spirit

01 00:44:34

at a time every day. Yeah. That and I I

01 00:44:38

think that's a great transition into,

01 00:44:44

we don't beat around the bush here. We say sometimes some of the tough things

01 00:44:47

here. So I wanna say this and it's gonna lead into this discussion

01 00:44:51

about the colors and the fruits of the spirit. The problem

01 00:44:56

with most Christians that people have

01 00:44:59

outside of Christendom is that they don't see

01 00:45:03

Christians acting like what we all think Christians should act like.

01 00:45:07

I heard something the other day. I can't recall where it was, but they said,

01 00:45:10

you know, there's actually 5 gospels. There's Matthew, Mark,

01 00:45:13

Luke, and John, and then there's you. And

01 00:45:17

the problem Yeah. The reason that Christianity is

01 00:45:20

maligned is because they know someone who calls himself a Christian, and they don't

01 00:45:24

act like it. So many times, people will take a

01 00:45:28

devotion, and they will read it, and they'll sit quietly, and

01 00:45:32

they'll pray, and all of that is good. But then they'll walk out the

01 00:45:35

door, and they'll give somebody the finger when they're going down in the

01 00:45:39

traffic. And so you have been able to layer

01 00:45:42

in this tool, I'll call it. That may not be the greatest

01 00:45:46

word so that people can take what they're doing

01 00:45:50

and apply it to their life. And and you've been skirting it, and I know

01 00:45:54

you've been wanting to talk about it. So now let's talk about what

01 00:45:58

I think is the most powerful here is that you're equipping people to

01 00:46:01

actually live like Christians.

01 00:46:05

Well, that's a beautiful thing. Thank you for saying that. I appreciate that,

01 00:46:09

Tim. I will tell you it began to over two

01 00:46:12

decades ago. I was at the University of Ohio speaking

01 00:46:16

at a conference. It was a weekend event. And

01 00:46:20

I remember that morning in the hotel room before I was going to speak at

01 00:46:24

the luncheon, align a color of the day with 1 of the 9

01 00:46:27

fruits of the spirit found in Galatians five twenty two and twenty three. So for

01 00:46:31

those that don't know, and we also have a button on our app that tells

01 00:46:34

you the fruit of the spirit. It's love, joy, peace,

01 00:46:38

patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self control.

01 00:46:42

I heard a sermon this morning and I know this without

01 00:46:46

love, you can't do any of them. That's right. So they are bookmarked in

01 00:46:50

order for a reason because without love, you can't do them. But if

01 00:46:53

you don't have self control at the end, none of it works either.

01 00:46:57

So God had a great design in that. But these are the characters that

01 00:47:01

Jesus lived while he was on earth. And it's characters I I

01 00:47:04

had somebody the other day said, even an agnostic would love

01 00:47:08

people to live more gently and tenderly and and kind.

01 00:47:13

And before long, you know, if they would weave this fruit of the spirit color

01 00:47:17

of the day challenge out, they'd be living more like Jesus and say they don't

01 00:47:20

even believe in Jesus. The Lord gave me that message during that

01 00:47:24

conference, and I watched some of these, you know, executive guys come

01 00:47:28

up to me and say, okay. I need to live a little bit more faithful,

01 00:47:31

so I'm gonna look for purple today. You know? So it was already

01 00:47:35

tracking with people. I did not know what to do with it, Tim,

01 00:47:39

for twenty years or more. I would call some artists

01 00:47:42

and say, let's make a coffee table book or do this and that.

01 00:47:46

But until the one eleven moment happened, and it

01 00:47:50

didn't happen at that very moment, but it started

01 00:47:53

weaving into the whole idea of here's your

01 00:47:57

platform that I have been waiting to create

01 00:48:02

all these years of your life. Finally, we're getting here for you to be

01 00:48:05

able to introduce how easily it is

01 00:48:09

to, to weave the fruit of the spirit into our lifestyle.

01 00:48:13

So as I said, today's yellow day, which is kindness day.

01 00:48:17

So every time I'm out and I see the color yellow, I think, how can

01 00:48:21

I be more kind? I reflect on ways that I wasn't. I reflect on

01 00:48:24

things that I said that I I should look down at my at my

01 00:48:28

bracelet and remind myself to be more kind. And

01 00:48:32

I say, this is so easy to incorporate into our

01 00:48:36

lifestyle during the idle moments of our days when we're waiting at a red

01 00:48:40

light, standing in line at grocery store or elevator. I mean, we don't really

01 00:48:44

have time to engage in too much. We can look around at

01 00:48:47

colors and think, hey. I'm gonna I'm gonna be more kind today when I

01 00:48:51

when I answer what I'm about to do in this next meeting.

01 00:48:55

So what we've done is we've aligned with a a bracelet

01 00:48:59

of the day. So we have 9 bracelets. We have packages on our on our

01 00:49:02

app, and we also have a QR code on the back of

01 00:49:06

the bracelets. Let me tell you what that's about. So I've

01 00:49:10

noticed that people will come up and say, okay. You've got a yellow

01 00:49:13

bracelet on today. Yesterday, you had on a green 1, and last week,

01 00:49:17

you had on an orange 1. What is this all about? And

01 00:49:21

what this does is tell them about the fruit of the spirit,

01 00:49:25

but it also tells us it takes twenty one days to make a

01 00:49:28

habit. 21 times 9 fruit of the spirit is one hundred and eighty

01 00:49:32

nine days. If we would start just using the idle

01 00:49:36

moments of our days to weave these characters of Jesus

01 00:49:39

into our lifestyle, the world would be a different place in six

01 00:49:43

months. I'm finding that, you know, there's revivals

01 00:49:47

going on on college campuses all around, but they can't Bible

01 00:49:50

thump, but they can wear the bracelets. And just like you

01 00:49:53

beautifully said, they can be living the character of Jesus and

01 00:49:57

people come up and say, okay. I know you're going through a difficult experience,

01 00:50:01

but how are you being so joyful and so

01 00:50:04

kind? And they'll just say, QR code, you know,

01 00:50:08

listen to the three minute video, and that'll tell you how. So it's a

01 00:50:12

great, great witnessing tool without, as I say, you

01 00:50:15

know, hammer it over the head, which is is not receptive to people.

01 00:50:19

So and then and so we have different things on our app. We've got

01 00:50:23

clothing. We've got cups. We've got phone covers. We've got dog bibs.

01 00:50:27

We've got dog bowls. We've got all kinds of things. For

01 00:50:30

somebody that that wants to really get involved, give gifts. What

01 00:50:34

we do is we have gift bags with the color of the day. And so

01 00:50:37

what we do is we look at the birth date of the of the person

01 00:50:41

that we're gonna give the gift to and just say it's blue, okay, which stands

01 00:50:45

for joy. So we have a bag that has a blue Branch to Hope logo

01 00:50:48

on it. We have a cup. We have mugs. We have all kinds of things.

01 00:50:51

So give them a bag of what their birthday represents. Do you is

01 00:50:55

is black in the color scheme at all? That's all I have, Bobby. It is

01 00:50:59

not. And so your wife and I are gonna have to talk about it. It's

01 00:51:01

gonna be hard for me to participate here. All I wear is black, which is

01 00:51:05

boring. I'd love to Well, you can wear the You can wear the

01 00:51:08

black. How about a person? Here. So so hey. Hey,

01 00:51:12

Bobby. You know, we we used this is

01 00:51:16

tying together so beautifully. The holy spirit is involved here. We used the

01 00:51:19

word preparation earlier, and you mentioned that the lord gave you this years

01 00:51:23

ago. And then, in in a quiet time that I

01 00:51:26

had, I was reflecting on some things that were from the

01 00:51:30

past and all the things I've experienced in all over life. And

01 00:51:34

I felt as if the Lord told me that

01 00:51:37

nothing that I've been through will be wasted

01 00:51:41

for his kingdom in the future. It sounds like that's what's

01 00:51:45

going on with you right now. Is that accurate?

01 00:51:49

I can say that is it's amazing.

01 00:51:53

Yes. It is amazing. And let me just tell you what

01 00:51:56

else is in store just so you'll see how accurate that

01 00:52:00

is. So I have been introduced to someone

01 00:52:04

that has a beautiful business bible produced, and I

01 00:52:08

met him the other day. He says, Bobby, tell me all about you. Of course,

01 00:52:11

all I do is talk about the colors of the day. And he says, you

01 00:52:14

know that you're gonna have a Bible that's gonna sell more than my

01 00:52:18

Bible branch to hope will. I said, what do you mean? He says,

01 00:52:22

don't you see it? Every scripture that says love will be

01 00:52:26

in red. Every scripture that says joy will be in blue.

01 00:52:29

Every scripture that says green will be, that says peace will be

01 00:52:33

green and patience, pink, etcetera. And he says,

01 00:52:37

this will be an easy reference for people to come and have a, a

01 00:52:40

devotional Bible and really enrich their lives

01 00:52:44

each morning when they have their quiet time to read the

01 00:52:48

color of the day and, and include that more

01 00:52:52

through scripture. So that is in the makings. We're also making

01 00:52:55

coloring books, fruit of the spirit coloring books for children and children's books and a

01 00:52:59

children's Bible. We will profess that in the state of Texas,

01 00:53:03

we just passed a bluebonnet law that says bring God back into

01 00:53:07

the schools and Bibles back into the school and teach the golden

01 00:53:10

rule. So we're working to get our bracelets in, and hopefully, we'll have a color

01 00:53:14

of the day Bible to to be able to introduce to them. The reason this

01 00:53:18

is so cool, my wife and I have discussed this often. We

01 00:53:21

are instructed in the scriptures to judge not, and we're not

01 00:53:25

supposed to judge. However, we

01 00:53:28

can look at people and

01 00:53:32

gauge them. Maybe not judge them by those,

01 00:53:36

fruits of the spirit. We can kinda see. And and, you know, there's scripture that

01 00:53:40

says, that's how you know someone's a Christian. That's how you know they're a Christ

01 00:53:43

follower, by the way they're doing that. So you are

01 00:53:47

helping people apply that. And that is incredible.

01 00:53:51

Bobby, one of the things we do here at SeekGo Create is we talk about

01 00:53:54

success and when it originated years ago, it was when I was going through a

01 00:53:58

time where I was trying to define how success what

01 00:54:02

it meant for me and what it meant in our culture and our

01 00:54:05

society that so many things gauge success

01 00:54:10

at at where you're at right now in your life.

01 00:54:14

How do you measure success? What does success mean for

01 00:54:17

you? Oh, success has

01 00:54:21

been redefined for me. I looked at success much, much

01 00:54:24

differently. I I grew up in my business world and product

01 00:54:28

development. I I operated in a man's world pretty predominantly

01 00:54:32

back in the days, different than today. And I really had to prove myself.

01 00:54:36

And so, you know, there were a lot of things that success meant to

01 00:54:39

me, but today success

01 00:54:43

is watching God's plan unfold in my life.

01 00:54:47

Every day is successful when God's plan unfolds. And

01 00:54:51

I see that he takes the moments that I give him

01 00:54:55

and turns them into a tapestry. Yeah. That is so good, Bobby. There's so

01 00:54:58

many things we could discuss, but why don't you tell people where they could find,

01 00:55:02

pause and pray, the app, everything. Go ahead and give

01 00:55:06

all the info. We'll include it. I showed this. I'm actually showing it for

01 00:55:09

those that are on the video right now. We will include it down in the

01 00:55:13

notes, but give all the coordinates for someone who might just be listening right

01 00:55:17

now. Well, you can, of course, buy

01 00:55:20

everywhere books are sold, Amazon, everywhere. And if you do buy on

01 00:55:24

Amazon, please give us a review. That just gets our word out. We have

01 00:55:28

Branch to Hope YouTube channel. We have an a website,

01 00:55:32

branchtohope.app. You can reach us at

01 00:55:35

hello at branch to hope, and we would

01 00:55:39

just appreciate prayers, appreciate awareness,

01 00:55:42

appreciate you posting on our app. We're branch to hope on the App

01 00:55:46

Store or the Android store. Support us just by sharing the

01 00:55:49

awareness because our prayer is that we ignite a

01 00:55:53

wave across America. We are going on a campaign to

01 00:55:57

get these bracelets onto arms and college campuses,

01 00:56:01

homeschools, retirement centers. I mean, it, as I

01 00:56:05

said, it reaches everyone. Everyone wants people to live more

01 00:56:09

loving, joyful, gently, peaceful, patient,

01 00:56:13

all the fruits of the spirit. And we can achieve that if we just

01 00:56:16

make a difference in our life. It will be amazing the atmosphere

01 00:56:21

around us and the people that we will influence to change as well. Yeah. Those

01 00:56:24

fruits. If people would just apply some of that, the world, like

01 00:56:28

you said, would change. Bobby, we are seek. Yes.

01 00:56:32

Seek, go, create. With your background, I'm sure you could guess the origin of

01 00:56:36

all 3 of those words. But, it'll allow you to choose 1 of

01 00:56:40

those that just means more, resonates more with you, either after this conversation or

01 00:56:44

just in general. Seek, go, or create. Which 1 do you choose

01 00:56:47

and why? I just

01 00:56:51

seek to never miss an opportunity in any of the

01 00:56:54

moments of my life. That's all I do now because I know it's

01 00:56:58

gonna be wonderful in some way. It may be a difficult journey,

01 00:57:02

but you know what? I'm not alone in it. Every night I put my head

01 00:57:05

on my pillow. I just I just like to reflect on what God did

01 00:57:09

and and that I didn't miss a moment or an opportunity for him to

01 00:57:12

fulfill something in my life that makes it worth worthwhile.

01 00:57:16

And guess what? It is now 01:11 in

01 00:57:20

Dallas, Texas. So we're gonna pause and pray that

01 00:57:24

God will reach people through this beautiful, wonderful

01 00:57:27

opportunity you've given me to allow people to change their

01 00:57:31

habits. New habits create change. I pray to the Lord that

01 00:57:34

everyone will jump on this challenge with us and make people

01 00:57:38

aware. And so it just takes 1 moment to change

01 00:57:42

things, and that was proven in the one eleven moment I

01 00:57:45

had. Everybody has moments that they can make a difference. That is so good. How

01 00:57:49

timely that we were I don't even think I considered that we would have that.

01 00:57:52

I'm an hour behind you, but I'm with you. I'm in agreement with

01 00:57:56

that. Bobby Copps, thank you for all that you're doing. Thank you for your

01 00:58:00

energy, your passion. Thank you for being obedient to what

01 00:58:03

God is doing. And I'm just thankful that the Lord has prepared

01 00:58:07

you for this time, for this moment in so many different

01 00:58:11

ways, I highly encourage people. I'm holding it up again for those on

01 00:58:14

YouTube, you to get pause and pray, probably

01 00:58:18

something you're going to want to pick up and get gifts for others because

01 00:58:22

it's really nice. Broadstreet does such a good job with their covers and

01 00:58:26

feels good. It's a good size too, compact. So excellent.

01 00:58:29

Check down in the notes and get all that information to connect with

01 00:58:33

her. We are seek go create here. We've got new episodes

01 00:58:37

every Monday on YouTube and also on all the podcast

01 00:58:40

platforms. And we are looking to help just get messages out

01 00:58:44

like you heard from Bobby today. Until next

01 00:58:47

time, continue being all that you were created

01 00:58:51

to be.