Podcast

How a Life of Humility and Receiving Rescues Us From Being Stuck. Cheryl Scanlan

[00:00:00] Welcome to the Unshakable hope podcast, where real life intersects redeeming love. I’m Kelly Hall, and this is where we wrestle through faith questions such as, how do I trust God’s heart when his ways and delays are breaking mind? We’ll hear from people just like you and me who have experienced God’s faithfulness when life didn’t unfold as they expected my prayers, that God would renew our hope and his word and his love through these conversations.

Kelly: Hey friends. I’m so glad you’re here. Before this conversation, I had an opening recorded, but there’s so much wisdom and so many soul stirring moments I had to rerecord. Before I even introduced my guest, here’s just a couple of teaser segments from different parts of our conversation.

Cheryl: How many times have we heard? Well, under the circumstances, I guess I’m doing okay. And the question I have is, what are you doing? Putting yourself under your [00:01:00] circumstances?

When I was in the wheelchair. We actually had people who stopped being our friends. Because they couldn’t reconcile. Wow. Cheryl was, you know, doing all these things, women’s minister, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and now she’s in wheelchair and it’s scary to think about.

Kelly: My guest today understands brokenness and heartache, and she’s gonna share with us how God meets us and all those places where we live, and leads us into the incredible freedom and abundance of God’s love.

Kelly: So how do we receive that? Some of the questions we’ll answer: why does comparison steal our energy, and how does the Posture of humility strengthen us? Why do some people struggle to be a good friend to those who are walking through hard, unresolved stories?

Kelly: How do we truly believe God will fight for us? There’s an amazing story right at the end you don’t wanna miss, and you can check the show notes for a timeline of some of the other highlights. So let me introduce you to my guest. Cheryl Scanlon is the founder of Promised Land [00:02:00] Living. It’s a large ministry. It expands the globe. It’s for both men and women. She’s an executive coach and has been working in this passion for almost 20 years. She’s served as provost, for a professional Christian coaching institute for 10 years, she’s trained over 3000 coaches.

Kelly: Her experience exceeds 15,000 hours of coaching. She’s also a precept trained Bible study teacher. But what I love so much about Cheryl is her focus is not about growing this big international ministry. The focus of her heart is simply to see lives transformed one soul at a time.

Kelly: I know you’re gonna love her. So Cheryl, welcome to the show and thank you so much for the gift of your time.

Cheryl: Thank you, Kelly. I’m thrilled to be with you and with your listeners today.

Kelly: Would you start by just telling us a little bit about your journey and how you started promised Land Living?

Cheryl: I came to know the Lord when I was 28 years old, and it was really [00:03:00] a. A lightning bolt moment. I was on the kitchen floor and gave my life to Christ I The next thing I did, when I experienced the fullness of that forgiveness, which was incredible, I picked up the phone and I called my mom and I said, mom, I forgive you for everything.

Cheryl: Jesus has forgiven me for everything and I forgive you. And some profanity came outta my mother’s mouth and she said, I don’t know what ity blip are talking about. And she hung up the phone and all I could experience. Kelly was joy because the reality was 15 minutes earlier, I didn’t know what I was talking about either.

Cheryl: And so I’ve been on a journey now of walking in the fullness of who I am in Jesus Christ, learning how to live a fully integrated shalom life. And. At a moment, I started to deteriorate into my old ways, you know, the working girl ways that put my cape on and feel like I can leap from an 18 story building by myself and [00:04:00] self-sufficient.

Cheryl: Cheryl was starting to come out again and I thought something is off. What is it? It was in that time, I, I literally stopped everything to try to sort this out and I came to an understanding, the same understanding that Paul is trying to give to the Galatians in chapter three, you foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you by, how have you come to know the crucifixion of Jesus Christ?

Cheryl: Was it the law or was it by faith? Mm-hmm. I was like, oh, I need to return to faith. I was going back to the works of the law.

Kelly: Oh, that’s so good. I love that you used the word shalom. Could you talk about just the definition of shalom, just a little bit more?

Cheryl: It’s a big word, you know, the Jewish people who observe the Passover from Friday night to Saturday night, they share with one another.

Cheryl: Shabbat Shalom and Shabbat Shalom literally reflects the entirety of the gospel that we have [00:05:00] been grafted into as Gentiles. Shabbat is our rest. Shabbat is our, he has done the finished work. Shabbat is, I don’t have to do that anymore. Christ sat down at the right hand of the father.

Cheryl: And Shalom is this peace. This. Fullness, this health, this integration of the soul, rest and peace. Peace from thinking and wondering and worrying and being filled with anxiety and trying to make up for which we can’t do. If you look through the scriptures and you were to make a column, and I did this,

Cheryl: , i read the Bible every single year and one year, and I pick up on different things and I focus on different things. And many, many years ago I thought about what is God’s role and what is my role? Well, God’s role is to save God’s role, is to offer us righteousness. God’s role is to be holy.

Cheryl: God’s role is to judge God’s role is all these things to offer us [00:06:00] loving kindness, our role. Is to sing and to praise and to worship and to receive. And when I’m on the God role side of things, I don’t have that abundance. Yeah. But when I’m on the, my role side of things, which puts me in a posture of receiving, God help my heart to expand and receive more of you, Shalom grows in me.

Cheryl: Hmm.

Kelly: That’s a beautiful way to explain that. And what you just described is the truth that the Christian life is really a receiving life. Yes. It’s not this invitation to produce, it’s a receiving life and then a following life.

Cheryl: Well, and Kelly, something since you’re picking up on that, thank you for picking up on that, because you’re making me think of something else.

Cheryl: I’m thinking about your listeners right now.

Cheryl: A receiving life is an intimate relationship with God. And somewhere along the line, [00:07:00] and I got caught in this, I stopped receiving and I started proving a. I stopped abiding and I started performing. That’s not the gospel rest, that’s the, the gospel according to Cheryl. That’s the gospel according to the world.

Cheryl: That’s the make more with less spirit of the wicked taskmaster Pharaoh from Egypt. And so I think part of what has happened for us is we’re not sure how to receive. We haven’t been discipled and trained in how to receive, . We know how to pray the sinner’s prayer.

Cheryl: We know how to read the Bible. But what if God tells me something I don’t like? What if there’s something that I don’t understand? What if he shows me something that he wants to change in my life? How am I going to view that? And Kelly, you said it so well in our, in our pre podcast interview. The reality is God works in [00:08:00] us through his compassion.

Kelly: Yeah.

Cheryl: Because we are no longer under judgment. There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. So, so my question for all of us and Me too, is how do we receive from that posture? Hmm. It’s a very different posture to receive from.

Kelly: I love what you described.

Kelly: It really helps us when we’re in a journey to see what our goal is. I think it’s just so helpful to see what does somebody look like, and you’ve already described some of that. Who is really walking out this freedom and abundance? What does it look like to walk into a room? Fully convinced, so confident in God’s love, you’re just receiving who he is.

Kelly: What would that look like?

Cheryl: Your question taps into the entire reason why we created Promised Land living.

I’m gonna get to your question, but I wanna give it a little context. Personally, I have a [00:09:00] mitochondrial disorder, and mitochondrial are the little engines for your muscles and you have millions of these and they reproduce millions per second. Well, mine thankfully reproduce. Properly, but they re reproduce sluggishly.

Cheryl: So I describe what I have as an energy disorder, so I have to prop it up with a lot of supplementation and things. Well, Kelly, I would describe something happening in the church and why we’re so tired is because we have an energy disorder and our energy disorder can be rooted in this. We spend so much time comparing ourselves to one another.

Cheryl: And either I’m above you or I’m below you. So if I’m above you, I’m looking down at you and my pride puffs up, and that’s an energy suck. If I’m below you, I’m trying to prove that I’m as good as you, and I’m doing all these things that God has necessarily not even [00:10:00] asked me to do, and that’s an energy suck.

Cheryl: And the reality is we’ve all heard this, the ground is level at the cross.

Kelly: Yeah.

Cheryl: The only comparison that I’m making is to Christ himself. Am I moving towards christlikeness? Mm-hmm. Or am I moving away from that? And I want us to think about, and I’ve done this, friends, all that energy that we spend comparing ourselves to one another.

Cheryl: That’s a lot of energy. You know, I don’t pray the same way as Susie and I, I don’t minister the same way as, Josie and I don’t host as well as Katie. And I have all these voices going on in my head. Well, what, how do you want it to be expressed through me, Lord? So if we took all that energy that we spent comparing ourselves to others and beating ourselves up because of that, and we, we redirected that energy to receiving, remember we talked about receiving earlier, [00:11:00] building the intimacy with the Lord and having him show us.

Cheryl: You could not stop the fire in the body of Christ, you would not be able to stop the fire.

Kelly: I love that so much. That was a great analogy with the mitochondria, with the energy and I, you know, when you walk into a room and you’re filled with this fire of the energy of the Holy Spirit, you’re able to say, I’m his, I belong, I’m valued, I’m worthy, I’m fought for, so I’m just here.

Kelly: I’m gonna be present.

Cheryl: You have just answered the question you asked me because when I’m walking into the room, think about how we’re sizing ourselves up compared to the other person. Yeah. All this sizing. Well, Christ gets quenched Christ. You know, we think about don’t hide your light under a bushel. Well, you’ve just hit your light under the bushel.

Cheryl: We think of hiding the light on the bushel. As you know. Make sure you share the gospel, my friends. The second you’re with someone, you are [00:12:00] sharing the gospel because the gospel tabernacles in you. Mm. And so if you could be in that rightful position in Christ and you could be operating in your appropriate role in Christ, then you walk in the room, you bring Agape, you share Agape, you receive agape.

Cheryl: And literally you’ll light up the entire room, not because you’re faking it, till you make it. Not because you’re acting like that. You know, you’ve got that I’m in the South, that southern charm, you know, you’re gonna be so sweet to everybody, not because you have the perfect word that you’re, I have a word from God for you and you know, and all of a sudden you become the one with wisdom as you forget all those personifications.

Cheryl: Spend the time knowing Christ in you and you in Christ. As you walk into the room, bring that unclear but [00:13:00] growing certainty into the room and let them help you shape it, and then you let you help them to shape it, that would be an incredible body of Christ.

Kelly: Yes. I wanna just sear that into my brain and into our soul.

Kelly: I pray that we all just sear that into our souls. Thank you. Welcome. We are so deeply loved,

Kelly: and you’re right. One of the things that is a struggle for us to walk in freedom is that we get weary, and you’ve just described the energy issue, and we also get weary from a story that is long and the hardship just goes on and on.

Kelly: And the question is, am I ever gonna break through? Am I stuck here for the rest of my life? And so I’m wondering if you have just some words of wisdom for people that , feel like they’re stuck in a hard story, so what would you say to somebody who’s dealing with that?

Cheryl: Yeah, so, ooh, late stage survivor of neurological Lyme disease. Completely paralyzed on the right side of my body. Didn’t know if I’d ever [00:14:00] walk again, really?

Kelly: Mm-hmm.

Cheryl: , Grew up in an abusive environment and wound up in an abusive marriage.

Cheryl: So as I share with you, dear listeners, I want you to know that this is not a cotton candy response. I want you to know that I’m sharing from the depth. Of my own journey of redemption and my growing clarity around what God can do with pain. I don’t necessarily like to call it pain with a purpose.

Cheryl: Like I’ve heard preachers actually say, you know, everyone’s gonna have pain. So you get to decide if you want to be pain with pity or pain with a purpose. And I get all that, but I, it feels harsh to me. Yeah. It feels, it feels harsh to me. Mm-hmm. And it’s, it’s trying to clean up something that honestly, our little brooms can’t clean up.

Cheryl: Sometimes we just have to. And somehow live in the sitting with it. So I’m gonna share a [00:15:00] couple of things with you, either from my own life or from my ministry. And the first is we tend to try to bargain with God. God, if you do this for me, I promise I will do that.

Kelly: Mm-hmm.

Cheryl: And I want to encourage you. You can’t control God like that.

Cheryl: He doesn’t work that way. Um, so that would be my first thought is, you know, where you find yourself making deals with God. If you could quiet that voice and relinquish that control, that will open the door to something better and something that you will begin to understand. The second thing. That I would say, you know, the scripture says, humble yourself under the mighty hand of God.

Cheryl: Think it’s in Ephesians, and at the proper time, he will exalt you. And sometimes God’s hand [00:16:00] feels very heavy because it’s been sitting on us for a long time.

Cheryl: My thought for that is remain in a space of humility. I might blow your mind when I say this, I don’t know, but here’s what I’m thinking When I’m in a humble posture, God, I don’t know what you’re doing, but I know you love me and I know you are a good God, and I know that you draw near to those who are broken hearted.

Cheryl: So I’m gonna draw near to you, Lord, and I’m gonna wait on you, and I know that my strength will be renewed. As if I Eagles wings.

Kelly: Amen.

Cheryl: Here’s what humility doesn’t sound like. God, I know there’s a lesson that you need to teach me in this, so could you please let me know what that lesson is sooner than later so I can get out from underneath this mighty hand.

Cheryl: Hmm. That’s not humility. We don’t know what God is doing. We don’t know how. Job never knew you read that whole book of Job. Job never knows. [00:17:00] Yeah. At the end. Why God allowed him to be smoked. Mm-hmm. He doesn’t know. We think we know why the blind man was blind because of childhood, because sin is his parents and God says, no, it’s because of the glory of God who’s going to be manifested.

Cheryl: So part of humility is a, not resigning ourself, but accepting God is at work and I don’t know what he’s doing. Yes. That is a posture of humility. A third way where it might sound like we’re being humble, but we’re not. Well, so and so has it worse than me. So, you know, my, my lot in life is not so bad. Ah, guess what?

Cheryl: We’ve just fallen into the comparison trap. What we have done is we have taken comfort by someone else’s hardship.

Kelly: Mm-hmm.

Cheryl: Yeah. I don’t think that’s the heart of God. No, [00:18:00] it is a form of self-soothing to try to help us to make sense of it, but the reality is as I sit under his hand, that mighty hand, I get to just sit and I get to submit my lack of understanding.

Cheryl: The confusion. You know, you’ve said many, many times, Kelly, I can be convinced of who God is, even though I’m confused about my circumstances. Yeah. That is a humble posture.

Kelly: Mm.

Cheryl: And so when you’re on these long roads that are so tiring, we get to continually confess to ourselves these truths without making deals with God, knowing that he loves us.

Cheryl: We may not make sense of what he’s doing side of heaven.

Kelly: Mm-hmm. But one thing we will know, and you’ve described this already, is that we will experience his compassion and his love. He is immensely powerful, but he’s also intensely personal. [00:19:00] And if he were not immensely powerful, his personal.

Kelly: Characteristics would be of no comfort. What’s he gonna do about it? I’m just so grateful for his tenderness, his kindness, that he’s a God who sees, who draws near, who guides, who knows, like Isaiah 55. His ways and thoughts are so much higher than ours. . We don’t know, but we do know

Kelly: that God is good. Yeah. . It blows my mind when I just ask, God, would you just open my eyes to see your presence? Because I feel so alone and I feel abandoned . And then he does just the kindest things to show me that he is with me and for me in this place.

Cheryl: And Kelly, what you’re describing, and I don’t know if I explain this very well, but that’s the opening of the door when we stop trying to make deals with God or we try, stop trying to understand this in our own mind and we release ourselves from that, it opens up the door to what you’re describing. [00:20:00]

Yes.

Cheryl: To God’s ministry to us and, and. Even in the scriptures in two Corinthians, that chapter one I had it opened was it’s all about the comfort. We will be able to comfort others with the comfort we had known. But there’s another part to this passage. Our hope for you is unshaken, for we know that as you share in our sufferings.

Cheryl: You will also share in our comfort. And so I don’t know that the body of Christ knows how to share in the sufferings with one another very well as either.

Kelly: Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Cheryl: So, you know, we tend to go into this commiseration space, uh, which just, uh, grows pity or we tend to go into this shutdown space. I can’t let people know, and I think that there’s something in the middle that.

Cheryl: God has for us where we share in the sufferings with one another, and then we see God in that He meets us there.

Kelly: That is such a beautiful gift. If you can be a friend to someone. Who doesn’t give up on them when they have a long, hard story. Like if you [00:21:00] can say, I am gonna be comfortable being your friend and I’m gonna walk with you through this and I’m not gonna expect resolution and I’m not gonna get mad at you if it’s not resolved.

Kelly: Yes.

Cheryl: And I’m not gonna start to doubt God when, see, this is the part that’s when I was in the wheelchair. We actually had people who stopped being our friends. Because they couldn’t reconcile. Wow. Cheryl was, you know, doing all these things, women’s minister, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and now she’s in wheelchair and it’s scary to think about.

Cheryl: Wait, God, let this happen to her. Look at all the good things she was doing. God let this happen to her. So there’s this shying away because there’s things that they would have to face in themselves. Then you have the other people who come at you so hard, and they’re like, Cheryl, when you have enough faith, seriously this happened.

Cheryl: You’re gonna get up out of that wheelchair. Oh my goodness. So then you have that side of the whole faith equation. And so we like wanna shield ourselves from these, from the rejection on the one hand. And then [00:22:00] from the spiritual abuse on the other hand, it’s like, where do we go? And so we tend to go inward instead of going upward.

Cheryl: And the reality is, God, we want to continue to tend to that vertical and God will take care of the horizontal.

Kelly: Yes. Oh, that’s just a lot of hope that you just wrapped up right there. I’m so grateful for that. Well, I’d like to shift gears just a little bit, and I know you’ve talked about this in parts, but I wanna know how we can trust God to help us instead of being convinced that we have to fight for ourselves.

Hmm. And

Kelly: I know this is a difference of striving and struggling. Contrasted with surrender, but first of all, where does that come from? Where we have this idea that we have to fight for ourselves and we can’t trust God to do it, and then how do we transition that?

Cheryl: Mm-hmm. Well, the genesis is, you know, in the garden, I mean, a sense that God was holding out on me.

Cheryl: Right. Yeah. That’s [00:23:00] great. So it goes all the way back to, God built into us a free will. So there’s two basic human needs that every single person has. The first is, connection with others. Mm-hmm. And the other is self definition, which is free will. Every human being has these things built into their psyche.

Cheryl: God designed it that way, and so you can feel this war going on between. Well, if I get connected with you and then you disappoint me, so self definition starts to take over. No, I’m gonna take care of myself because I don’t want to be disappointed by you. Right?

Kelly: Right. Or

Cheryl: you’re gonna hold out on me, or you’re gonna betray me, and all these other things.

Cheryl: And, Jesus even says, I think it’s John chapter four. I, I don’t think I’m gonna quote it right, but I’ll try to find it. John chapter three or four. But Jesus knew what was in the hearts of man and he would not entrust himself to anyone. Yeah. It’s John chapter two. Uh, now when he was in [00:24:00] Jerusalem at the Passover, during the feast, many believed in his name, observing his signs, which he was doing.

Cheryl: So they were all excited about it, right? Yeah. Jesus on his part was not entrusting himself to them for, he knew all men and because he did not need anyone to testify concerning man, for he himself knew what was in man.

Kelly: Hmm.

Cheryl: So unfortunately, we equate what was in, what is in man with what is in God. Yeah.

Cheryl: Because all we know is man before we know God.

Kelly: Right.

Cheryl: And so, unless we are truly discipled in the truth, thy word is truth. Until we are washed, truly washed in so many ways in the water of the word. And these, narratives that we have experienced in life, we assign to God until we take responsibility and say, this does not add up to what scripture says.

Cheryl: Scripture says there’s no sifting or shadow with God. Scripture says that God cannot go back on his word. He is trustworthy. So it starts, it started in the garden. It [00:25:00] started because of our design, and it started with that tension, I believe, between our desire for connection and our desire to make our own decisions.

Cheryl: And those two things within us are warring.

Kelly: Oh, that is so interesting. Yes. One of the things that happened for me when I was in the most difficult time of my life, really, I was parenting these four very young kids and they had lots of special needs and my husband wasn’t able to live with us for a year and a half because of the Air Force.

Kelly: And I had, I was reading scripture every single day just to remind myself, God really is with me. God really is for me. I’m gonna believe that. But there was a verse that I had never heard before and someone in my mom’s group. She was so gentle and tender, like she came to me in her story and she said, this is a truth from God’s word.

Kelly: That really helped me when I was hurting. So she didn’t bang me over the head with a verse, you know? She just said, this helped me. And it’s [00:26:00] Isaiah 41 10, which says, do not fear for I’m with you. Do not be dismayed for I am your God. I will help you. I will strengthen you.

Kelly: I will uphold you with my victorious right hand. And it’s such a testimony to the truth that God is a God who fights for us.

Cheryl: Yes. Yes, yes, yes. Let’s stay in Isaiah for a minute. So go to Isaiah 30. You know, we’re talking about striving right now. We’ll kind of capstone this in a minute, but,

Cheryl: isaiah 30 15. For thus, the Lord God, the holy one of Israel has said in repentance and rest, you will be saved and quietness and trust is your strength. You are not willing. Yeah. You know, so it, it ties in so perfectly what with what you’re saying God is, is letting us know, quietness and trust are our strength, repentance, and rest is our salvation.

Cheryl: And that is in Jesus Christ. It is His works, not my works. You know, there’s two ways [00:27:00] in the scriptures, the word striving is used. Um, striving, which means war. Warring. Oh, he says, to cease striving and know that I’m God, stop warring with me. Stop thinking I’m something that I’m not. Stop fighting against me.

Cheryl: Cease striving, stop warring and know that I am God. And the other way it’s used is strive against sin. War against sin. And what is sin at its core, it’s unbelief is not taking God at his word.

Kelly: Yeah.

Cheryl: So. It is, honestly, it’s very simple. For those of you who are are tired and you feel like you’re stuck right now, a lot of times we look for an escape route, and that’s why we get stuck.

Cheryl: We’re looking for an escape out of our circumstances, but the reality is. You can’t escape your circumstances. You can live in different relationship to your circumstances. You know? How many [00:28:00] times have we heard? Well, under the circumstances, I guess I’m doing okay. And the question I have is, what are you doing?

Cheryl: Putting yourself under your circumstances? Oh, that’s so good because in Ephesians, Jesus says. Paul wrote Ephesians, but Jesus is seat at the right hand of the Father, and we who are his body are seated with him far above all rule power, dominion, name that is in this age and the age to come. That is where we are seated, and when we put ourselves under our circumstances, we can no longer think clearly.

Cheryl: We can no longer live from the place of his power. His powers made perfect in our weakness, but if we put ourselves under those circumstances, we, we cut off access to all of that because we just, we think it should be different. We demand release from this. We, you know, that’s not that humble posture. I.

Cheryl: Wow. That is such an

Kelly: excellent explanation. So inspiring. I think that’s something [00:29:00] that’s really gonna resonate with our listeners today. Thank you. I hope so. A couple more questions as we’re just wrapping this up. So, this is something you talk about a lot that I’m a little bit confused and I found it so amazing.

Kelly: What’s the difference between being transparent and vulnerable and then how does that understanding and the application equip us for this freedom journey that

Cheryl: we’re on? Ooh, that is a big topic, Kelly, and it is one that I am myself. Entering into, so I’m gonna be sharing from a place that’s very messy and I’m figuring this out for me.

Cheryl: Okay? Okay. Transparency. I see a lot of transparency in the church. Okay. You know, I see people kind of reporting facts. Um, you’ll be able to, if say, how, how is Susie doing? Oh, well, Susie’s kid is sick right [00:30:00] now, and, and she’s got, she’s trying to figure out where to put her kid in preschool and, you know, things are a little rough with her husband right now.

Cheryl: Okay. That’s reporting facts. So Susie has been transparent. So then what? How do we start to pray, Lord, help them find a good school, help her husband to be more understanding, help her son to get well. Okay, so now I have transparency and I’ve prayed based on the transparency.

Kelly: Okay,

Cheryl: so where do you think I’m going?

Cheryl: Let’s dive into vulnerability. Let’s dive into vulnerability. I have three things going on in my life that are reminding me that I am not in control.

Kelly: Hmm.

Cheryl: And I am terrified by that because I’ve worked so hard to create a sense of order for my family that is not there now. And I’m wondering, how am I supposed to be a wife?

Cheryl: How am I supposed to be a mom? As I come to understand, there is so much that I cannot control in terms of outcomes.

Kelly: [00:31:00] Yeah.

Cheryl: That’s vulnerability. Yes. If the church could begin to enter into these realms with one another without fixing, you know, we have this continuum. I work with CEOs all the time, and I have this continuum where you have the person in the middle and you have the word problem on one side and the word solution on the other side.

Cheryl: And when we stop becoming people focused. And we become problem focused. We become diagnosticians.

Kelly: Mm-hmm.

Cheryl: If we become solution focused, we become prescribers. And the reality is the person in front of us doesn’t need a diagnosis. They don’t need a label. They don’t need you to prescribe the solution because then you are actually trumping their relationship with God.

Cheryl: They need to be seen. They need to be heard. And Kelly, I remember our first meeting when I prayed for you at the end. You cried? Yes. And you cried because. [00:32:00] You heard that I picked up on the details. You heard me making the connections. I never prescribed a solution to you. I never defined what the problem was, but I saw you and in seeing you, you experienced a little bit of healing in that moment, and this is what I long for for the church.

Cheryl: If I don’t trust God with my life, how am I gonna trust him with yours? Think about that. I’m gonna trust that what I have to offer to you is better than what God has. And if we could quiet that and quietness and rest is your salvation and repentance and rest, you’ll be saved. And quietness and trust is your strength.

Cheryl: If we could practice that with one another.

Kelly: Yeah, it’s world changing.

Cheryl: That is not hyperbole.

Kelly: No, no. I So long. I know. I know. People [00:33:00] deep down inside, they long for vulnerability. They long for a community of vulnerability. They don’t even know it. But what you’ve just described is so beautiful. Lord, let it be. May we move as a church

Cheryl: it be and let it begin with me.

Cheryl: Yes, let it begin with my vertical. Let it begin with me expanding my heart to receive the kingdom of God that is already resonant. Let it begin with me developing the intimacy through Christ with the Father as I abide and I receive his love. And then. I mean, the Niagara Falls can’t

Kelly: stop flowing. Yep.

Kelly: That just unleashes the river of life over everything. Right? It’s beautiful. Oh, and you’re right. That time we met, you saw me and it is so beautiful and that gives us so much freedom as, as those who follow Jesus. I don’t need to bring a solution. I don’t need [00:34:00] to help this person physically what they need more than anything else.

Kelly: Is to be seen. And that is what you describe in Promised Land Living. That’s what you learn how to do. You learn how to be fully present with God and with other people. And you know, I wasn’t gonna go here, but there’s just this lovely. Moment that you described in another podcast about a greeting that a Zulu tribe has s Bono or something, I don’t know how to say it.

Kelly: Please share that nugget. I’ve shared that with so many people.

Cheryl: Okay, so, first on the Promised Land Living front, if your listeners. Ready to experience what you and I are experiencing with one another. Please visit promised land living.com and explore becoming part of a small group 13 week journey.

Cheryl: Yes, it’s five to eight people and you’ll be seen and known, and you will leave their recognizing yourself. In [00:35:00] a way that you have never experienced before. 98 pers percent of our participants say that they have a deeper, intimate relationship with the Lord because of that journey. Mm-hmm. So consider

Kelly: that.

Kelly: So yes, and I’m so glad that you shared that because that is something I’m gonna do in the fall. I plan on doing that and I just. So excited, so psyched about it. So thank you. It is sore welcome. Worth it. I listened to the testimonies and the depth of transformation that occurs in those vulnerable communities.

Kelly: Yeah. Is, it’s just beautiful.

Cheryl: Yeah. I mean, one woman said, I got the husband, he went through 40 years on and off of counseling and more happened for him in four months than 40 years. And she said, I finally had the husband. I’ve always longed for. That’s just one of hundreds of testimonies.

Kelly: Yes.

Cheryl: Sawabauno when, a person from another tribe enters a tribal

Cheryl: Area of another tribe, they’ll stand at the edge. They will not enterthe Community until someone from the community [00:36:00] comes up to them and says, Sawabauno which means I see you. So until they are seen, they are not seen until they are seen by another person and acknowledged and recognized they are invisible.

Cheryl: And we have so such a beautiful African practice of dignifying one another’s souls. Yeah. And if the body of Christ could begin to say, I see you, like I really see you, and let’s practice this vulnerability for the sake of our vertical relationship with the Lord, like you said it is. It’s a fire starter that will completely they will know us by our love.

Cheryl: Then they don’t know us by our love. My friends. Oh my goodness. Yes, we feed the poor. Yes, we, you know, we have the Samaritan’s purse going off and the Mercy ships doing these things. Yes, yes, yes. But I’m telling you, there is so much more to them knowing us by our love. And it is the way we [00:37:00] discourse with one another.

Cheryl: And I want you to think about what is happening on social media right now and how Christians are communicating with one another. It don’t matter. It doesn’t matter what we are doing. Because the reality is we are symbols crashing, cla and gongs booming right now if we do not see one another.

Kelly: Mm-hmm.

Cheryl: Wow.

Kelly: So good. That’s so beautiful. We could stop right there. Except, except please. Let’s not, I have one more story I really want you to share. I love that. Uh, Matthew 1220. Jesus is talking and he says a bruised readed. He will not break a smoldering wick, he will not extinguish.

Kelly: We can trust him. He’s not gonna trample our woundedness. He’s going to come with compassion and healing and so we can surrender. I would love for you to share a particularly poignant story of surrender that involved your [00:38:00] son and your husband when they were lost.

Mm-hmm. And

Kelly: one thing that you say, I’m gonna add this at the beginning too. You say, each surrender builds trust in God.

So

Kelly: I want to, end our time talking about that truth, but please dive into that story. I was so moved by it.

Cheryl: Thank you, Kelly. So, , my son was in Boy Scouts and they went on a hiking trip to Pisco National Forest and Pisco National Forest is a very rugged, wild area.

Cheryl: There’s not very well marked paths and whatnot. I was still ill, but I was starting to be in recovery. My son Michael was home. He was in high school and I got a phone call from Lisa who was the wife of , the, Cub Scouts lead. And I said, Lisa, , have you heard from your husband? She said, no.

Cheryl: And I said, I think they’re lost. She said, well, why do you think they’re lost? I said, because Tom [00:39:00] knows I’m home sick. And he would’ve checked in, and he hasn’t checked in. I’m pretty sure their lost. She said, well, what do we need to do? I said, we need to let the church know and I think we need to get out there.

Cheryl: So, she started orchestrating that and the next thing that happened was I went down on my knees and I said, God. If you take my son and my husband, you are good. If you let my husband and my son live, you are good. But no matter what, you are good. And I got up, up off that floor and I, my posture was one of humility and humbling, and I was prepared for whatever was gonna happen.

Cheryl: And the same thing happened with my older son. He wound up with, bacterial meningitis. We, while we were on a vacation in Florida [00:40:00] and the nurse came out and basically told us to say goodbye to our son. Wow. Before he was helicoptered to, Arnold Palmer Children’s Hospital. They did not expect him to live, and I was able, I told Michael, I said, you fight with everything that you have.

Cheryl: But here’s why I was able to do that because many years earlier, my older son fell, smashed his face in, and when I saw his face, Kelly, a rage welled up in me that I did not know was there. Wow. And in this place of rage. I didn’t wanna hurt my husband. I didn’t wanna hurt my son, so I had that amount of lucidity, but I wanted to kill something

Kelly: and

Cheryl: I kicked the refrigerator as hard as I could, but I had bare feet.

Cheryl: Oh

Kelly: goodness.

Cheryl: So the pain, the searing [00:41:00] pain, and I’d love for your readers to hear this sobered me the searing pain sobered me and that night. I realized that my reaction was far outweigh the situation. It was very unhealthy. I didn’t know where it came from. And so I started duking it out with God and I was walking up and down our hallway upstairs.

Cheryl: I’m like, Lord, what’s going on? And he kept telling me, surrender your children to me. Wow. And so eventually. I don’t know how long I walked the hall. It could have been five minutes. It could have been five hours. I truly don’t know. But I went into the kids’ rooms and I knelt before each one of them and I said, God, you gave them to me in order for me to give them to you, they are yours.

Cheryl: And with both children in Pisca National Forest and in Coca Beach, Florida, that was tested. Wow.

Kelly: They’re yours. You [00:42:00] completely surrendered them that yes, that is so powerful. How many of us try to control and hang on, and I love how God led you. Here’s what’s true about, I think this is true, you tell me, but it seems like the whole Bible is an invitation.

Kelly: And whenever Jesus speaks, it’s an invitation. Never condemnation. It’s always an invitation. You wanna be set free here, Cheryl, come here. Come on, let’s go. I got something for you. Wait till you experience it.

Cheryl: Yes. We had talked at the very beginning. I know our time is almost up, but we talked at the very beginning.

Cheryl: We introduced that word abundance, John 10 10 and we, the reality is there is always more abundance waiting for us, and there’s this gap that we feel the pain of, and. The love letter of a lifetime is the letter from Christ. I died for you. I live in you now. Let me live through you. [00:43:00] That is the love letter of a lifetime, and this takes our entire life to train to do this.

Cheryl: But if I lose sight of his role and my role, I. I ex expand the abundance gap. If I, if I step into the fullness of my role in repentance and rest, we will be saved and quietness and trust is your strength. His strength is made perfect in my weakness. I close the abundance gap and I see more and more of his abundance playing out in my life no matter what my circumstances are.

Cheryl: And as you said at the very beginning, we are not stuck. We are not stalled. We are living the life that God has intended for us. Exploring the seemingly impossible,

Kelly: exploring the seemingly impossible. Oh, that is so beautiful. I love that scripture in Isaiah 30, but thank you for the additional insights you have shared with us about how to apply that, and then you just tied it all [00:44:00] together.

Kelly: Thank you so much, Cheryl, for being here today. What a gift. What a blessing.

Cheryl: You’re welcome Kelly, and I thank you for your listenership. I do pray that you have been encouraged. And listen, more is coming because Kelly has more messages for you. Messages of hope, and healing that come from that are rooted in the foundation of the love of Christ.

Kelly: So

Cheryl: stay tuned. There’s more to come from this beautiful, beautiful soul.

Kelly: Thank you, Cheryl.

and check out those courses promised land living.com. Is that correct?

Cheryl: Correct. With a d promised land living.com.

Kelly: Right. I love that. It’s past tense. Yes. Thank you.

If you were encouraged in your faith today, it’d be great if you’d help get the word out by subscribing, sharing with a friend, or leaving a review. I’d love to hear from you. You can reach out through my website, kelly hall.org and pick up some free resources while you’re there. Thanks for listening to the Unshakeable Hope [00:45:00] podcast.