Podcast ep 7

The Wisdom Workshop is a podcast hosted by Stephanie Oliver, focusing on timeless truths from God's Word for everyday life. The main theme is about trusting God wholeheartedly and relying on Him completely, rather than leaning on our own understanding or compromising in our faith. Stephanie emphasizes the importance of surrendering to God, seeking His guidance, and breaking down barriers like divided loyalty, leaning on human understanding, and compromising in our relationship with God. Trusting God fully leads to a life free from fear and filled with blessings. Welcome to the Wisdom Workshop, the show that brings you timeless truth you need for everyday life. Join our host, Stephanie Oliver, for a fresh perspective from God's Word on the topics that matter. Whether you're facing cultural confusion, financial pressure, relationship challenges, or just trying to grow in your faith, you're in the right place. Proverbs 24 says, The wise are mightier than the strong, and those with knowledge grow stronger and stronger. In the same way, wisdom is sweet to your soul. If you find it, you will have a bright future, and your hopes will not be cut short. So grab your journal, your coffee, or just a quiet moment, because in a world full of noise, wisdom wins every time. Hello, my name is Stephanie Oliver. I'm an author, speaker, pastoral counselor, and your host for the Wisdom Workshop podcast. I'm so glad that you are joining me today. Today, we're diving deep into a single powerful word that I believe can change everything about your walk in your relationship with God, and it's the word trust. I'm not just talking about this casual belief, but this wholehearted capacity to completely rely on God, and I think this is the revival that God's calling us to in the body of Christ. I think he's stirring us up to get to a point where we not just know him and know about him, and we recognize him, but that we fully rely and trust in him. I think that it's important that we recognize that the entirety of our capacity for faith sits in our willingness to let God hold our lives. In other words, we have to be willing to accept his will, his way, his word, his leading, his guidance above any and every other influence in our life. One of my favorite scriptures is Proverbs 3, 5, and 6. It says, trust in the Lord with all your heart, I'm sorry, and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways submit to him, and he will make your path straight. There's also Isaiah 12, 2 that says, surely God is my salvation. I will trust and not be afraid. The Lord himself is my strength and my defense. He has become my salvation. I don't believe these verses are just nice promises that we can lean on when things get hard. I really think they're an invitation for us to live a life free from fear and to live in the guidance and the direction of God and his character and really recognizing that our life is bigger than just the difficulties we face and our relationship with God and our ability to trust God has to be bigger than that. One of the things that kind of started me down this deep dive into this concept of trust was a few weeks ago. I was just in my home and the song by Andre Crouch came up and it's a song that's come up over and over throughout the years but it talks about that through it all we've learned to trust in God. I don't know if any of you've ever heard it. If you haven't go look it up. It's an amazing song but the lyrics literally say I've had many tears and sorrows. I've had questions for tomorrow but in every situation God gave blessed consolation. Through it all I've learned to trust in Jesus. I've learned to trust in God. I've learned to depend upon his word. One of the things about this song that hits me is that he doesn't say instead of it. He says through it, through every mountain, every good situation, through every valley, every storm he learned to trust in God and then there's a lyric that says if we never had a problem we might never know that God could solve them or what faith in him could really do. So that song sent me into this like personal inventory and evaluation of how well am I really trusting God. So today I want to unpack three big things that came out of that and what it really means to trust God. I want to just talk a little bit about the barriers that hold us back and I also want to lean into the incredible blessings that come when we let those barriers fall. So first what does it mean to trust in God? In Proverbs chapter 3 the Hebrew word for trust literally means the idea of lying down confidently or resting securely on him. Like you're reclining on something solid. You know that it's going to hold you. It's not this partial tentative you know maybe this will work out. You're all in. You're trusting with all your heart. You don't have any divided loyalty. You're not keeping one foot in your plans while tipping the other towards God. You are fully surrendered to the thing that God has before you. Jesus echoes this same sentiment in John 14 1 when he says don't let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God believe also in me. That word believe is the same root as trust and it's the word in Greek it's pisteou and it really just means to be fully persuaded. It means that you have enough knowledge and access and understanding that there is nothing that's going to make you think otherwise. That's so important that God wants us to not just be in intellectual agreement. I spent some time in law school years ago and there was this whole conversation about is mental assent enough and in most contexts mental assent is not enough to mean anything and it's the same way in our relationship with God. Just mental assent is you just acknowledging that he's there or you just acknowledging that he's involved. When you trust someone or you trust God you're not just giving mental assent you have this deep soul level conviction that he's right and that he's worthy of you listening to and following and that he is able to save you to guide you and to sustain you and so trusting God really looks like you have devoted attention that you accept his word and his answers as enough that you're humble and you're surrendered. You're able to admit yes God knows better. There's a lady out of Texas who used to say God is smarter than me and she would have all of us repeat that God is smarter than me and just remembering that you know trusting him means you actually acknowledge he's smarter than you he's better at life than you are and then learning to go to him first about everything. So I think too often we get in pickle we get in situations that we might define as a pickle and we go to God last like we call we call Susie over here to see what she thinks we call our mom to see what she thinks we call our dad to see what he thinks we even call our pastor sometimes thinking you know they're going to give us this word and all of that's wise counsel and the scripture encourages us to do that but really we have to get to a place where ultimately we go to God and we rely on him and really mature people go to God first and then when they seek wise counsel it becomes a confirmation of what God's already said trusting God also looks like letting him direct our path and controlling the next move even when it doesn't make sense to us. So let's be honest there are barriers that keep us to living like this there are barriers that keep us from this kind of trust I experienced them you probably experienced them and I believe that today the Lord wants us to break those barriers down in Proverbs chapter 3 we see clearly that one of the barriers to trusting God is divided loyalty when we try to trust God with most of our heart but we hold back areas or we hold back things that we're not ready to change or give up it can be anything our finances our relationships our future plans we're not allowing the truth of that scripture to be realized in our life it says trust in the Lord with all of your heart what is really saying with everything that matters to you trust in God with everything that matters to you what part of your life that matters to you are you really not seeking the Lord in like you almost might say I don't really care what God has to say this is what I want this is what I want to do you've got to have loyalty to the Lord it can't be divided it can't be one foot here and one foot there it has to be both feet facing towards him the second barrier I think is leaning in our own understanding remember that scripture Proverbs three five and six it says lean not to your own understanding as humans I think we develop this arrogance that we know best we analyze things we plan I always say we're smart humans are smart creatures but usually when we are planning something it leads us into a place of assuming that our logic is better than God's wisdom and we know especially here at wisdom workshop that's never going to be the case scripture tells us not to lean on our own understanding now he doesn't say don't get understanding as a matter of fact there's a scripture in Proverbs that says in all you're getting get understanding so do the research learn what you need to learn but ultimately lean on what God says even over your own understanding the third barrier is compromise I think this is a big one you know we submit to God in some ways but not in all of our ways scripture remember in Proverbs three five and six says that we're to submit to him in all of our ways and what does that look like it looks like Sunday and Wednesday or Sunday and Friday we've got God on our brain we are focused on what God has to say we're going to church we're going to prayer but come Monday Tuesday Thursday Saturday he's not a big part of our decisions we don't practice a lifestyle that depends on him what if we treated our relationship with God like we treat our need for food what if we treated our relationship with God like we treat our body's need for hydration now some of you that might be an issue you're walking around dehydrated but for most of us we know that when we're thirsty we got to go get something to drink and we're not going to be able to live more than three days without some water so I think that some of it is a priority issue right we prioritize the things we see and the things we feel over the things we know are true and we compromise and that becomes a barrier to trusting God when these barriers stay up we stay stuck we stay stressed we stay fearful and we wander I want to take a short break and go to our wisdom wind for the day and I will see you on the other side a person may have many ideas concerning God's plan for his life but only the designs of God's purpose succeed in the end proverbs 19 21 there's something disorienting about realizing your plans didn't work out especially when you're trying to do the right thing you had good intentions you saw a path you moved forward in faith and still things shifted proverbs 19 21 offers a perspective that's both humbling and freeing you can have many plans and that's not wrong but God's purpose is what ultimately stands that means your story isn't off track it's being redirected what feels like a disruption may actually be divine protection what feels like a delay may be God refining your heart your timing or even your desires his purpose is not fragile it doesn't fall apart when your plans do so instead of asking why didn't this work try asking God what are you establishing here instead you are not behind you are not forgotten you're being led sometimes in ways you wouldn't have chosen but always towards something better than you could have planned now let's get back to the episode well welcome back we are talking about what it looks like to trust God we've identified some of the barriers that keep us from trusting God and those are divided loyalty leaning on your own understanding and compromise but I want to focus now on what it looks like when those barriers are removed when the barriers to trust are removed according to Proverbs chapter 3 we get direction we have straightened paths meaning things become easier and better for us and then we have protection and we have peace these are all things that in my opinion are worth us putting forth the effort to walk and to live a lifestyle where we're able to trust God the benefits of trusting God they're huge trusting God opens the door to the miraculous the unexplainable and the life-changing power of God to heal and to help us we actually make room for him to come in and move on our behalf when we trust him I think this all is it is part of a revelation that we have to receive about God's character God's character is what makes him trustworthy he is really a good God so many times we evaluate who God is based on man's behavior and man's sin and all the bad things that we see happening in the domain of man when really in God's word he reveals that he's bigger and he's greater and he's more capable than any man ever could be if you think about God's character and you really do a deep dive to study it you will find out God is merciful exodus 34 6 tells us he's slow to anger and abounding in love you'll find out in Zechariah 2 8 that he's protective he calls us the apple of his eye he is there to protect us he's joyful over us Zephaniah 3 17 says he rejoices over us with singing he's relentless in his demonstration of love for us look at the good shepherd in Luke chapter 15 or just look at the reality of Jesus there is not one of us that he desires for us to we are trusting a God that that is trustworthy he's not some distant force that just puts you in the earth and then winds up the your life like a clock and lets it go he's a loving father who sings over us and pursues us and he never lets go so why is trusting God so important for us as Christians well without it we miss that internal experience of revival that God desires for us we live in fear instead of faith and we lean on ourselves instead of leaning into him when we truly trust him we experience all that his salvation provides for us Isaiah said I will trust and not be afraid there's peace when we trust him like I said earlier there's protection there's provision there's healing there's hope all of these things are the result of a heart that's fully willing to trust in the Lord you know God's not asking us to trust in him perfectly he's not asking us to do anything for him perfectly he's just asking us to be willing and to be present with him in doing that so I want to ask you today where are the barriers in your life is it divided loyalty or maybe it's that you have a lot of pride in your own understanding or maybe you struggle with compromise in certain areas bring them to God today surrender them and make room for the miraculous I want to leave you with this one last encouragement as from that song that I mentioned earlier with Andre Crouch it says through the tears the questions the loneliness through it all God is teaching us to trust him more to depend on his word and when we do we find that he is faithful every single time Lord I thank you for inviting us into a deeper trust Lord I'm asking you today to break off every barrier every barrier of divided hearts every barrier of self-reliance and every barrier of compromise help our listeners to trust you with all of their heart to lean not to their own understanding but to acknowledge you in all their ways and Lord to experience the direction that only you can bring I pray this for our listeners in Jesus name amen thank you so much for joining me today if this spoke to you I want you to take a minute to reflect on one area where you can trust God more fully this week so until next time remember that wisdom wins every time thanks for joining us today on the wisdom workshop remember as Proverbs 24 reminds us victory comes through wise counsel and strength is found in wisdom so whatever you're facing this week seek God's insight approach it with faith and walk in truth until next time stay grounded stay growing and never forget wisdom wins every time