Visionary Huddle
We are living through a crisis of meaning. Young people especially are more confused than ever about who they are and what they were made for.
Visionary Huddle exists to bring clarity.
This podcast helps young leaders, entrepreneurs, students, professionals, and creatives make sense of a rapidly changing world through a recovery of Christian anthropology and the theology of work, seeing humans as image-bearers of God, called to build what is good.
Hosted by Lucas Cecilio, working at the intersection of vocational formation, leadership, and entrepreneurship.
If you’re ready to be challenged, and to become the kind of person who can endure pressure and build something meaningful for the glory of God and the good of others: this is for you.
Welcome to Visionary Huddle!
Visionary Huddle
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You can't inherit an encounter. Jacob grew up wealthy, comfortable, and covered by a promise that wasn't his yet — the God of his father, not his God. So he did what all of us do when the promise feels delayed: he cut corners.
In this episode, Lucas Cecilio and D'Marcus Hardcastle trace Jacob's story from mama's boy to patriarch — the deception, the 14 years under Laban (a deceiver on steroids), and the night God ambushed him and changed his name. Along the way: why God makes high achievers lie down, what the Desert Fathers knew about comfort, and why silence might be the hardest spiritual discipline in our culture.
Also in this episode:
- Why third-generation heirs blow the inheritance — and what that means for your habits
- The difference between living off your parents' faith and having your own encounter
- Lucas's actual shutdown rhythm: the backpack ritual, the 9pm cutoff, and deleting Instagram every single day
- Why you can't Amazon Prime character — and why AI doesn't exempt you from formation
- What wrestling with God practically looks like (hint: it starts with 15 minutes of silence)
God wants to make a cathedral out of you. But cathedrals are built brick by brick — and the wrestling isn't a one-time event. It's every day.
It's a little bricks, man. God wants to make a cathedral out of us. Yeah. But we are refusing the very habits that will turn us into man he wants that we want to become. We want to become this person that's building accomplishing things. But we are refusing the very habits that will get us there. And here's the reality. But people might be listening around and they're like, no, but now I don't I don't need to take all of that work because I got AI. Let me just tell you something. Like, do you want to bet your life on this? Because AI might make all the automation great, and I don't have any problem with it. I use AI. No problem at all. I'm excited to be here with my friend for the first time with the mic, DeMarcus Hardcastle. How are you doing?
SPEAKER_01Hello, hello. I'm well. I feel encouraged and I'm ready to go.
SPEAKER_00I'm ready to go as well. It's a it's a beautiful cloudy day in the state of Oregon. Uh I'm excited for where we are. Interesting thing about this episode is that perhaps in order for us to get to where we want to go, it will be a wrestle. And the interesting thing is that that is what we're gonna be talking about. We're gonna be talking about wrestling with God in the trajectory of the timeline that we've been working from. We are in Jacob now, technically Isaac, but we're gonna aim specifically at Jacob. Even more specifically, the Jacob who wrestled with God had his identity changed, and now can be the person that God has called him to be. Before we begin our discussion, I don't think we've ever done this in the beginning of the podcast. Maybe we've done and I forgot, but either way, I would like for you to pray for us, my friend. Pray for us, pray for whoever right now is listening to this and they are about to wrestle with God or have been.
SPEAKER_01Okay, Lord God, we thank you for your word. We thank you for your correction. We thank you for your discipline. We thank you for your guidance. I pray for anybody that's listening to this, including myself and Lucas, that we would be open to receive what you want to say here today. And Lord, as we go forward and talking about wrestling with God, I pray that some practical things would be landed on us. Um, and I pray that the words that are spoken would be encouraging to your church and to anybody that wants to pursue a life of work and worship. I thank you for this in Jesus' name. Amen.
SPEAKER_00Amen. Amen. I have a desire for my daughter, Amelia. I want her to experience God on her own. You know, and you have kids too. I do. Praise and honor.
SPEAKER_01Praise Yeshua and honor Yeshua.
SPEAKER_00May they praise and honor Yeshua because of their walk with Jesus, not the walk of their father, of their father and mother only. That is my desire for my daughter now and for my future children. That's good. Whoever listening to us now, you are a parent of young kids or older kids, or you want to have kids. That I would propose that that is must be the biggest thing a father has to instigate in their children. What do you mean? I don't want my daughter to feed. I don't want my daughter to live off of my encounter only. I want her to have her own encounters with God. Was very proud of her yesterday, although she's 20 months old, almost heading towards two years old. Uh, every time she's she hears music, right? She, if you remotely sound like worship, she puts her hands in the air. She's doing because she's watching, right? Uh Laura and I uh doing it. But we are intentionally creating liturgies in our house, such as at night for during her her her bedtime, whereas as we are preparing her to go to bed, I sing the doc solid, as I think I mentioned before in a previous episode, and we pray the Lord's Prayer with her. Yeah, now she can say the Holy Ghost, and she says amen, which is very cool. But I'm preparing her to have her own encounters with God. Here's why. Until a human being have an encounter with God, they will they are going to live their entire lives from a place of a made-up identity or and an identity that is rooted on just something else rather than God. And it can even be a good identity, it can even be inherited good morals, good values from their families. What if that's not enough? That's what I mean by I don't want my children to live off of my encounters only. I want my encounters to empower them, I want them to look back in their in both their mom and their dad and be like, I want to have the faith of my parents, but I want to have that faith for myself. I want to walk with Jesus on my own. Isaac, son of Abraham, yeah, was a man that it's really interesting how when the Lord called Abraham, Abraham changed his name as we talked about it before. From that moment on, everything that Abraham, every everything that Abraham is touching turns to gold, is prospering. Same thing happens to Isaac. Isaac was the boy that I mean the Lord gave to Abraham and Sarah, and then the Lord asked back. Abraham proved his allegiance to God in trusting the God that could raise the dead, as we talked about it before. And from that moment on, Isaac, of course, is not sacrificed, right? God ultimately provides the sacrifice, which points to Jesus. Isaac lives off his life, he's almost like an in-between character. God doesn't change Isaac's name. Uh Isaac's living off of the encounter of his dad. He has his encounters, he right, he builds altars. He he's walking with God, yes. But he's almost like Isaac is an heir, right? He's a man, he's under the promise. I mean, he's under the promise of God, he's walking with God, he's one of the patriarchs, man of honor. I'm sure had his I'm sure that he had his struggles. One of his biggest struggles, for example, was the same as his mom Sarah. She was barren, and so was Rebecca. Yeah, Rebecca was also barren, and then they prayed. Uh Isaac prayed on behalf of his wife, and she conceived. The interesting thing is that there is a battle, there is a wrestle inside of Rebecca's womb, and she inquires of the Lord. I think that's in Genesis 22, 23, I think. She inquires of the Lord, and the Lord tells Rebecca, Rebecca, you have two nations in your womb. Here's the caveat: the younger will rule over the older. So God, from the beginning, He from the moment the babies are in the womb, God already sets their destiny in motion. He says that the older one will actually serve the younger, although he's also gonna be powerful, both will be nations. The promise of the continuation of the promise of that was upon Abraham for what Israel would be in the future, and from where the Messiah would come from, would not be with Esau, you will be with Jacob. But outside of that struggle, Isaac seemed to be just uh living his life until Jacob comes along. Why? Here's the thing. I am I believe the Rebecca, because the Bible says Rebecca inquired of the Lord for what was going on in the womb. The Lord responded to her, I assume she told Isaac. So let's assume that Isaac knew what the Lord had told Rebekah, that the younger would rule over the older. Why did Isaac name his son Jacob? Jacob means deceiver. Well, it seems like the reason he named him Jacob is because that Hebrew are I'm not gonna try the Hebrew is not my forte, so I'm not gonna try to get to that. But there is something on the wording of Jacob when they when Rebekah was giving birth, the first one that came out according to scriptures is Esau. But Jacob came right behind Isa, holding on to his heel. Yes, and he was named based on that is like he's trying to get ahead from the beginning. Now, is he trying to get ahead because he's trying to deceive? Of course not, he's a baby, he's not thinking about that. However, for his lack of encounter, because he's living off of the promise of God for his fathers, he yet did not have his own personal encounter, so now for some reason he has developed an identity around getting ahead, around trying to get to the promises of God out of his own means instead of a place of trust. Yeah, and there's a lot of things that we can go from there. I will pass the ball to you. Do you have anything you want to say, comment, ask before we continue?
SPEAKER_01I was just saying something about when you said when you when you were mentioning that the younger, the the older shall serve the younger. Don't know if there's any correlation, and I'll I'll let you just continue to paint the picture of Jacob, if not, but it makes me think about what happens to Israel um when Jesus comes, and that the promise was for Israel, but they almost forfeited the promise, and then the the the salvation was extended to the the Gentiles. I don't know if there's any correlation there, but as you're speaking, it makes me think about that and what what that could mean. If there's nothing there, continue to paint the picture of Jacob.
SPEAKER_00That's a very interesting topic. And by the way, guys, I I mean there is no paper Bible around me right now except for my phone. I am not gonna open there. We don't have a video, so I don't want to waste the time, even though it's not a waste, but I don't want to use the time to go to the by to go to the my app and find it. But uh you guys fact-check me on this, but I believe it's in the in the letter of Romans, I think it's Romans 9 or Romans 10, where Paul is I mean, describing this whole idea of uh predestination, and he uses Jacob and Esau as an example, and there's something that he ties to Israel and the Gentiles. That's why, like, I'm not reading the text now, but I think the correlation that he's making is in God knew that Israel would be hardened for the sake of the other quote-unquote brother, if you will, so we could rescue the Gentiles, and then Israel is merged back. But it's a whole thing there. The interesting thing is that throughout the Bible, there's a lot of patterns that repeat itself, yeah. Right? Like you see Jacob and East, the fight between brothers, Jacob and Esau. I mean, is a play on the very first family conflict ever, which is when Cain and Abel, I mean, it's brothers that are fighting against each other. And what does Esau want to do to Jacob? He wants to kill Jacob the same way that Cain, the same way that Cain killed Abel. So this there's this repetition on the story, right? So there's something there, 100%. There isn't to that later. Yeah, there's something that's that's a very deep question, my friend. The interesting thing is that Jacob he seems to uh have built an identity. Yet he seemed to have been building an identity around cutting corners. And in the beginning of his story, at least, it seems that his mom Rebecca is kind of helping him. She helps him, she even is the one that prepares the food to give to Isaac when Jacob is asking for the blessing. And then I mean Jacob he puts on the Isa's clothes. Uh Isaac, he was blind, he couldn't see it, right? He touched the the the the hands, the arms of Jacob. He was wearing this code, the type of clothes that Isa would wear. So the smell was the smell of Isa. The the the his skin felt like Isa because of the clothing he was wearing, although his voice was the voice of Jacob. I don't know, isn't it interesting? Because back in that culture, the giving of a blessing over the firstborn was so significant. Yeah, if Isaac is like, because Isaac said, the hands are the hands of Esau, the smell is the smell of Esau, the voice is of Jacob, but he blessed him anyways. Did he bless him because he couldn't hear well? But now we are over we are over stretching this because the Bible says he heard a voice and said it is the voice of Jacob, so we have to stay by, we have to stick to that.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Why did he bless him anyways? Could it be that he actually Rebecca told him back when she was pregnant? She told Isaac, her husband, what the Lord had told uh her. And Isaac he just kept the matter in his heart. And when the situation arose, and it's this interesting thing that seems like it's Jacob, but uh, I think it's Isaac but he blessed him anyways. If he was me, I would I would test it. Like, I you know, like, where is Rebecca? Like, is is I mean, is he actually Jacob before giving the blessing? Why does he bless him anyways? Maybe because in the back of his mind he remembered what Rebecca told him. Maybe, I don't know. Which makes me even think like, perhaps, why did Isaac wait so long to demonstrate that he knew something by giving the blessing, even though he was confused if it was even Jacob, which is a nothing, because I think if he wasn't so I think Isaac could have raised those two boys differently. If he if he knew that God's blessing was upon the younger one, like maybe he could have raised them in that way, you know. I don't know. This is me, this is me overthinking now. Because you have Esau that thinks that the blessing is upon him. Isaac could have either done something different or he was just keeping the matter in his heart and waiting for it to happen. Regardless, it seems that Isaac is passive about it and Rebecca is active. So Rebecca seems to be, I mean, not seems she is creating the environment for Jacob to come and deceive his father and get the blessing. But the interesting thing is that the Bible says that Esau is a man of hunting, you know, is this big guy just going about it. And Jacob is a seems to be a mama's boy, you know, seems to be at home all the time, kind of, you know, like doing his thing there. It seems that beef it seems that all of his life prior to being threatened by Esau, it seems that Jacob had a pretty easy going, had a pretty easy going. Because his his dad was rich, Isaac had money, Jacob was in the house, it seems like. I mean, it seems that he grew up his mom made the food. Yeah. His mom was the one to make the food for on his behalf. So it seemed that he it seemed that he was he was comfortable for most of his life until he received a life threat. And uh now he runs for his life. And even on the running for his life, it is his mom and his dad that tells him go to Laban. He doesn't he doesn't even know where to go. Now he's instructed to go to a certain place and he goes there because he doesn't know where to go. Now he works 14 years, seven years for Rachel, seven years for Leah. And he finds out that Laban, I think is his uncle, is even more of a deceiver than he was. Which is nuts. So now we have a guy that lived a very comfortable life, it seems like, but now he's not in so much comfort. Now he's gotta learn on his own to accumulate his own stuff, and he's seeing, and God is blessing him because the blessing that was upon his father and his father's father, Isaac and then and Abraham, it's on him. And now he's prospering. Laban is watching Jacob's prospering. Here's the issue, and I'm gonna pass this to you. Here's the issue: Jacob is living his life and prospering, he's reaping the benefits of the relationship that his dad and grandfather had with God, not the relationship that he had with God. That's why he has this that's why he personifies this guy that cuts corners, this guy that you know lives in comfort, and now he's in a place that, I mean, he just grew up trying to get ahead by his own means. And every time he refers to God, he refers to God as the God of his father. It's not his personal God. And you can clearly see his life playing in that way. I would propose that every time we are trying to achieve something, but are try but we don't have our own encounters with God, and God has not marked us, we always got we always gonna cut corners, we always gonna uh deceive, if not other people, we're gonna deceive ourselves.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So why what do you think it is about pursuit of self-glorification or to get ahead? What do you think it is about that that causes deceit? Why do you why do you think that is? Why do why is it do you think and maybe this is not maybe I'm reaching and and thinking this is a broad statement when it's maybe more specific to Jacob, but why do you think it is that he had to deceive in order to get the things that were already promised to him? Why did he think that?
SPEAKER_00Because usually things take time to get built. And when there is delay and if our trust is not rooted in God, we are going to try to rush to get it. And in the r and when we rush to get things on our own, we enter the go-getter mode that is disconnected from the Lord, which in high achievers, it will lead to cut some corners, it will lead to step on some people, it will you will it will. So it's self-focused. When it's self-focused, you will do whatever it takes in order to achieve whatever you want to achieve. We don't want to slow down if we are not focused on the Lord. And again, this applies to it's it's I'm talking to achievers, high achievers. We want to move forward, we want to move fast. And God, He will have to He will slow us down. You think about how God created mankind, He creates mankind on day six, gives us a tremendous job to be fruitful, multiply, subdue, and all that. On our first day of work, Adam and Eve are getting up to work. You know, the Lord is like, actually, no, no, no, no, no. It's rest, Sabbath. Think about it. Like, yeah, our or Adam, right? Because Eve wasn't created yet, it was created later when Adam is already doing some things.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_00Adam, he gets up for work, the Lord, no, no, no, it's Sabbath. Why is it that way? Because God is teaching us from day one that we work from a place of rest. And the rest is not a it's not easy going. Rest is a picture of trust. We work, we must work. It's not a it's not we're not bashing on achieving like that. Why am I even recording a podcast if I don't want to achieve something? Sure. So it's a it's the truth, it has to start with trust. Because if it doesn't start with trust, we will think that we are alone in this world. And if we don't find and then it's Survival mode. That's what happens. We we turn into it's survival. Now it's the survival of the fittest.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00We gotta fight because there's nobody, because there's no messiah. And that's a problem. When we fight thinking that we are alone, that is a problem.
SPEAKER_01Just a minute ago, you had said that God will slow you down. Where we're at right now in the story of Jacob, he's running from his brother and he goes to Laban's house, and he's slowed down beyond what anyone would desire. Yes. You know, he he's searching for a wife in that situation. He has to wait seven years uh to get the wife that he didn't want. Yeah. I know. And then Wild has to wait another, was it seven years? Another seven years. Another seven years to finally get Rachel. Yep. That in that time, that's if if I've ever seen someone getting slowed down, that that looks like a hard stop to pursuit. 100%. What do you think is happening to Jacob in that situation? Do you think that's God God's doing something there? Is that God's slowing him down and what's what's being prepared? It seems as though something's being prepared there.
SPEAKER_00Interesting thing about scriptures is that scriptures as patterns, right? And often there are numbers that repeat itself. Isn't it interesting that Jacob had to work seven years times two? Seven is a number of completion. I would propose there were things that God needed to do in Jacob in order to perfect him, in order to complete the work in him. So the 14 years, seven perfection times perfection. I think it was definitely God's instrument to slow him down. Remember Psalm 23? He makes me lie down.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Why does he make me? Because I don't want to lie down. He needs to make me lie down. I think one of the ways to make Jacob lie down was for him to work 14 years for a master he did not enjoy. And he's work isn't it interesting that he's working for a deceiver? Yeah. Is like he's been faced, he's been he's been intentionally positioned to work for somebody that is himself on a steroid. How often God will have to do the same thing to us.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Some of the people that shapes us the most have very similar personalities than we do.
SPEAKER_01As we do, yeah.
SPEAKER_00So we are faced with the shortcomings of our personalities by watching somebody else behaving in a way that we don't like, and we are like, wait a minute, that's just like me. Yeah. I think Jacob for 14 years he saw himself in Laban. I don't think he realized in the beginning, but I think he definitely I think he realized it later. And he was a different man afterwards. It doesn't mean he was he was not fully perfected because you need an encounter.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And it's coming, we are coming to the encounter in this in our episode trajectory. But that did something to him because God, I he makes me lie down in Green Pastors. He had to make Jacob lie down, stop, full stop work. And the interesting thing is that in the midst of that, he's prospering, he's you know, he's accumulating things, he's accumulating wealth, he's learning a bunch of skills. And by the way, he's learning skills that it seems that he didn't have before.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that's a point. That's a point I was just gonna ask. Because beforehand, he had achieved a lot of things that were by his mother's will, and things that you like you were saying before, it seems like he didn't really receive anything on his own. He was kind of just going through, allowing his parents, their faith to carry him and their decisions to carry him, and then it gets him in a situation where he has to run. And then so now it's like he's slowing down, and it's a moment to to actually work for something. And now he's he's working for something that is you know, he's working for a wife, yeah, but he has to learn something, and I think that kind of work, that kind of long-suffering, there's a there's a lesson there that was necessary. What do you think on that?
SPEAKER_00Jacob seems to me he's the classic third generation heir. Abraham, his grandfather, first generation, had his name changed. Uh, great-grandpa, uh Tara, uh Abraham's dad, pagan guy. God's trying to get them to Cain for a long time, even with Tara. But Tara is a pagan, is not listening. God encounters Abraham and all that story. Isaac's the clear second generation. He's, you know, he's very tied to his dad, of course. He's he's the heir, he's running things, and he's prospering, has a relationship with the Lord, but he was not Abraham, right? He didn't have the marks of uh having a clear name change. He did have the marks of his childhood of almost being sacrificed, yeah, which you better believe that that dad did something to him.
SPEAKER_01For sure.
SPEAKER_00But his walk was different than the walk of Jacob, and he was different than the walk of Abraham. So now when Jacob comes along, he's third generation, so he's the grandson of Abraham, he's living off of his parents' wealth, and it doesn't seem like the boy has too much skills, you know. Like, I mean, the skills that he did master were the skill of talking. So he could talk people into doing stuff. It seems that he talked Esau in selling his birthright. Here's what Jacob seems like. He seems he seems like the guy that wants to behave like the visionary CEO without the patient to learn the skills of the builder. So he wants to be this massive, this influential, you know, and I don't know where his mind was at, but he wanted to take on the promise. Yeah, but he wanted to take on the promise, he wanted to take up on that mantle of promise without the skills necessary to make it happen. Perhaps maybe that's why Isaac liked Esau more, because it seems that Isa that Esau was more active. Maybe that's it. Maybe Isaac was he was waiting for the kids to grow up. Once they were growing up, Isau was a stronger guy. The Bible says that Isaac, he I mean, Isaac liked Isau more, it seems like. Rebecca liked Jacob more. Maybe he liked maybe Isau liked Esau more because Isau he maybe reminded Isaac of who he was. He was more, he looked more like his dad, hunting and going about it. So maybe, maybe that's what Isaac, where where his mind space was at. Now Rebecca kept the promise in her heart, like Jacob more, but Jacob seems like he had no skills. He was in the comfort of his of his house, living off of his parents' wealth. Like often third generation heirs. No wonder there's a lot of grandparents that one of the things that are that freak people out, people with money nowadays is is inheritance because the grandchildren don't have the same work ethic that the grandparents that built all the wealth have. So that's a big problem. Uh, in especially right now, we're living through the largest transference of wealth in history, right? So right now, but the problem is a lot of the grandchildren they just don't have the work ethic. So maybe you're listening to me right now, and maybe you are somebody that will inherit money. Let me ask you something now. Uh, how are your habits? How are your practices? Are you building something of your own? Because if you are not, I think you might blow that money away. So, and that's a huge that's a huge problem. So that's how Jacob seems to have been behaving. But then God forcefully, I say forcefully because nobody would choose to work for a deceiver for 14 years. Like, I mean, but God does put something in his heart that causes him to be like, Yeah, I'm gonna work for in the midst of the working for Laban, his learning skills, and that's an important thing for us. God will often uh place us in places that's not where we are supposed to be. Oh, sorry, it's not where we are supposed to go, but it is where we are supposed to be because we don't have the skills necessary for the places where we are called to go. Jacob works for 14 years because he needs to learn under a deceiving boss like Laban. He needed to learn both the character and the skills in order to become who he was called to become.
SPEAKER_01All of this ordained by God, by the way.
SPEAKER_00That's a that's that's a that's a that's an interesting question.
SPEAKER_01Why it's it's not a first choice for anybody to sit down with it. It's not and do that. It's not.
SPEAKER_00You know how much of circumstances are God ordained?
SPEAKER_01That's a good question.
SPEAKER_00Could were there different pathways for Jacob to become who God had created him to become? I would say so. I think I think God uses natural circumstances to form in us what he has destined, what he had destined to form in us. Yes. I I'm not a deterministic person. I am not, I am not, I don't, I think there's a lot of pathways. I think that I think that God can intervene however, whatever, whenever he would like. God's not bound by anything. Uh, but I believe that there's a lot of possibility and a lot of freedom. And I think God sees it all. Uh I think there were multiple pathways for Jacob. But even as I'm processing this out loud, is interesting how Isaac found his wife from the same family that later on his son Jacob would work for.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_00So God is God is working a particular way in that story.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00If it's full, I don't I'm not a deterministic, so I don't think every detail is ordained, yet the outcome is ordained, and uh and the individuals within the story are clearly true. Jacob was chosen before he was even born. In the womb, the older will serve the younger. It was not in his merit at all.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00But how the situation went about, I I think it's almost like you are dry as it's almost like you are driving a car and you have a destination to go, and the destination has already been set in the GPS, but there are different ways to get there.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Let's just let's say the formation that took place was of God.
SPEAKER_00For sure. It's like sometimes we put ourselves in circumstances of our own. Like we've, I mean, it's our own, we are choosing to walk into circumstances. But God can use any circumstance to form whatever he wants in us.
SPEAKER_01Right, right.
SPEAKER_00So I think with Jacob, it's kind of the same thing, except for we are not Jacob, and Jacob is literally the one of the patriarchs of Israel from where the Messiah would come from. I think God's more involved in that story, right? So I think there's more that's another thing about God too. Like for the majority of the time, God can act a certain way, but in very specific times in history, he can just overwhelm the story completely and just do exactly however he wants. The energy, yeah. I think those two things are necessary and true.
SPEAKER_01So let's keep moving forward. Yes, he he's there with Laban, yes, learns long suffering against maybe against his will, but you know, he sits, he sits there and he learns something. Yes, and then he deceives again. Yes, he takes his family, he takes his belongings, and he leaves Laban's house. He deceives again, so okay, he didn't learn his lesson. He didn't learn any, he didn't learn much, maybe. But something was uh maybe um the soil was softened, let's say.
SPEAKER_00I think after 14 years you better believe it. I think so. What maybe what God was trying to maybe what God was doing to Jacob was the whole leave your household in order to unify to your wife, in order to become who I'm calling you to become.
SPEAKER_01Expand on that.
SPEAKER_00A lot of people want to build a lot of young people are dreaming about getting married without doing the hard work to be in a position to leave their father's house, both financially and emotionally. Jacob was a mama's boy, he needed to be out working on his own in order to be able to manage things. What if God was trying to get him to a place of now he can work on his own and now he can be his own man? Because perhaps even the very act of leaving Laban's household is Jacob being like, I know the promise that is upon my family. I'm getting the heck out of here and we're gonna make this happen. I have the skills necessary to build, anyways. What if that was necessary too? The deceiving was it's bad news. Again, God God could have used if I mean there were other choices. Sure. He didn't have to choose that way. That was not, you know, was the deceiving a part of the plan of God? Of course not, right? You know, but can God work even with people's mistakes? You better believe he can. So I think he learned the skills that he needed to learn, and I think the very fact that the story is not over points to the fact that the formation in Jacob is not over yet.
SPEAKER_01Yes.
SPEAKER_00So God, he will use human beings are multifaceted. There's so many different facets to our character, so many dimensions to how we think, our vision, our practices, our uh feelings and motivations, uh, our integrity and the lack thereof. God will use a variety of things to lapidate, to you know, like to polish the stone, the jar, the vase, however he pleases. And he will use whatever circumstance is necessary, uh, or whatever circumstance presents itself, he will use whatever means necessary in order to take care of his people. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So and oftentimes he'll allow the mistakes to cancel themselves out.
SPEAKER_00Oh, for sure. In a sense, yeah. I think so.
SPEAKER_01Like he'll he'll God does this thing that's very interesting, he'll allow evil to consume itself. You know, he doesn't he doesn't always confront the the evil as it just destroying it, you know. He has a plan for those and he does intervene in that way, but a lot of times he sets something up for evil to just consume its own self, you know. Wow. So in a way, I like that. In a way, Jacob's decisions to to deceive was just leading him into the hands of God.
SPEAKER_00That's the thing. That's the thing. That's the thing. What happens is that often our own decisions become a setup. Yeah, it becomes a yeah, our entire our whole thing becomes a setup. I remember one day. I remember one day I was driving, and I I mean I had a great devotional time. So I was, I was, I think I was driving to church. It was a few years ago, and I remember telling the Lord, Lord, I think I got to a point that I'm never gonna leave you. And I felt the Lord telling me, it's like Lucas, the only reason you're not gonna leave me is because I'm not gonna leave you. Uh-huh. Oh, I started weeping. I think there is something to be said about when the Lord takes hold of somebody. Oh boy. Come on. Right? The Lord takes hold of somebody. And by the way, I mean, I'm not, I'm no Calvinist. I I mean, I'm not, but we really got to talk more about the sovereignty of God. We really have to, because at the end of the day, man, I've heard somebody saying, if we could lose our salvation, we would. Yeah, yeah. Which I I'm not even gonna get to that, but but there's it's so loaded. But and again, I'm not a confidence. I believe we have freedom, I believe we I believe it's important that we choose to be faithful to Jesus. I think it matters, I think he takes that into consideration big time, but I think at the same time, there is a whole lot of sovereignty that we don't see.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and I mean, and this brings me to a good point. Is this is all um this is everything that's taking place right now in Jacob's story is because of a promise that God made. Ah, that's it. You know, this is this is not God's not here like, oh, if Jacob does the right thing, I'm gonna continue my promise. I'm gonna fuck he's not saying if Jacob does everything right, I will come through it on my on my word. That's it. He's he's he's doing what he he knew he was gonna do from the beginning, you know. So he's faithful to Jacob. And here we go. Jacob leaves Laban's house, and he, you know, there's this, there's the part where he paints the animals to deceive and take his lot. Let's say, you know, I don't know if there's anything right there is that you would want to expand on.
SPEAKER_00I would just say that I thank you for bringing that up. I would just say one thing. Like people, people there are debates on what Jacob is doing. Like, is he is is it a is it doing like a godly thing? I don't think it is. I think it's a very pagan practice. I think he learned some pagan practices from the household of Laban.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, maybe.
SPEAKER_00I think he's being very pagan, and I think he is, I think it's they do live with idols. Oh, yes. Jacob is a we make no mistake, Jacob becomes extremely pagan. He refers to God as the as he like he refers to Yahweh, our God, as the God of his fathers. So God has yet to become his God. He's living off of promise that's still that it must still become his promise. Because it's only now, for now, is only the promise of his grandfather and the promise of his dad. It's not his promise. God has not become his personal God. So he's uh because God has not become his personal God, as a deceiver, he's using all human strategic means that he knows in order to increase. Little does he know God has been increasing him all along. Yeah, he doesn't need to create this pagan ecosystem in order to side note even deeper. If you love the Lord, you don't have to give your you don't have to count on the luck of horoscope. Right?
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_00A lot of Christians flirting with some new age stuff in order to find luck, in order to become, you know, this enlightened. Wait a minute. Why are we trying any other means? Is it because we don't want to lie down in green pastures and be fed and be trained? Is it I would propose that yes, yes, when we don't want to submit, well, we enter Jacob mode. We want to get whoa, yes, yes, we want to get by whatever means necessary, we are going to do in order to hold on to a promise, promise that the Lord made, but because we have yet to have a personal encounter, we don't know that he's our God. Yeah, so now we live off of other people's experience, other people's promise. We live off of what we've heard, but still has to yet materialize in us, in our personal walk with them. Until that happens, we'll do whatever it takes by our own means to get to the blessing.
SPEAKER_01Very good, yeah. And and here we go. They he they're on their way back home, they rest for some time because the family and the cattle is all tired. Yeah, all tired. And in the middle of the night, Jacob is ambushed, ambushed by by a man. An interesting man, an interesting man, and the wrestling takes place. Oh boy.
SPEAKER_00I how how did you imagine that beginning? Because I mean, like in Jacob's perspective, is he seeing like is this man, quote unquote man, shining? Does he think it's I mean uh or is or is it a shadow?
SPEAKER_01Like it's in the night, in the middle of the night. How yeah, I say ambushed because did he he did he pick a fight with this guy? I imagine this guy probably jumped on his back out of the poor. You know, some crazy.
SPEAKER_00Person comes because it's the man that starts. Yeah, the man that initiates it. It's not Jacob that initiates it. And that comes an important point. The Lord is the initiator. He is the promise giver and the promise keeper. He is the one that invites us in.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And again, I'm not a Calvinist. I think we have a choice. We have a choice to engage. But make no mistake, we don't initiate.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_00He does.
SPEAKER_01And then he wrestles all night long. All night long. All night long. And we spoke about this a little bit before we started recording. But one thing I had said, and I think we we we both agree is that in the Bible, it says he prevailed. Yeah. Right? That Jacob prevailed. But I don't think he didn't beat God. We end up finding out that this man was was God. And Jacob is the first to acknowledge that. Oh my goodness, I have wrestled with but he didn't beat God. I think what how could you? Yeah, how could you? I think what happened is Jacob didn't give up. He didn't win, but he didn't give up. What if?
SPEAKER_00What if prior to working 14 years for Laban? He would have given up because his discipline was not there. He he lived in comfort zone. Mama's boy. He didn't have what it takes to a fight for a fight. Now he's 14 years working slash fighting for a woman or two women, which is messed up. Now God initiates the fight. I think now there was a time for it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Providentially, God has worked in him what was needed in order for him to stay all night.
SPEAKER_01That's an interesting what if. Isn't it? It might be, yeah. I mean, I think you're onto something, but it's an interesting.
SPEAKER_00It is interesting. And I think God does that to us, though. I think God uses some random things in our daily lives to build in us what is necessary for all sorts of things, including spiritual capacity.
SPEAKER_01Yes.
SPEAKER_00It says it says that Jesus learned obedience from the things that He suffered. What things did Jesus learn to obey? I thought that He was born morally perfect. He was, He's perfect. Yeah, He's the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world. Of course, He's perfect. What kind of obedience did He need to learn? The kind of obedience that would keep Him on the cross. That would be the it's the obedience for the calling. And what was this calling to die on the cross and raise from the dead?
SPEAKER_01And and let's talk about, I mean, we can just mention Jesus in the wilderness. Oh my gosh. That kind of that was a wrestling with that was a wrestling with the devil, but it was led by the spirit. And that kind of that what he was doing in the wilderness, fasting, resisting temptation, that wouldn't have been achieved if he had not suffered. Have you heard of the Desert Fathers? I don't think I have.
SPEAKER_00Okay, the Desert Fathers, they uh uh in the beginning, a little church history thing from the first century up into I think the third century, fourth century, whenever Constantine became a became a Christian. Constantine was a Roman Emperor. He supposedly had a vision, converted to Christianity, and declared Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire. Okay, that was when the Roman Empire became Christian. From that moment on, Christians they gained influence in the empire. So there were a group, there were some Christians that were terrified of the easy-going life because now there's no persecution. And because there's no persecution, a lot of people were just giving themselves up to the pleasures of you know, like not being persecuted. Like now it doesn't really matter. Like you're chilling, and a lot of people were calling the whole empire was Christian. Do you really think the whole empire was Christian? Of course not, but they were calling themselves Christians, right? So a group of uh Christians they started deliberately uh living in deserts for the sake of making their lives harder on purpose. Wow, we call them the desert fathers. They will go to the desert on purpose, and many of them had this uh this understanding of going to the deserts the same way that Jesus went to the desert to fight the devil.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_00So now they are deliberately choosing to go to the desert to fast and pray in order to confront the spirit of this world, the spirit of the demonic spirit, and in order to submit their own spirits to Jesus. Why do I say this? Because I think we have to restore a little bit of this mindset in our culture. We are not really persecuted. There are levels of stuff, especially in our day and age, in our current cultural moment, but doesn't compare to we not, you know, at all. We are not really persecuted in the West. Yes. Yeah, criticizing. That's it. I mean, maybe we are yeah, we are not really persecuted, and our lives are there's a lot of ease, right? In fact, we love comfort. I think one of the most necessary spiritual practices that I'm thankful, the many voices, including Dallas Wheelard, Richard Foster, more contemporarily John Mark Humber, and these guys have been talking about spiritual practices of abstinence, fasting, solitude, silence. I think uh things like that, they are necessary in order for us to intentionally surrender to the God that is inviting us to a wrestle.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00I think it's I think because of what Jesus did on the cross and because of his resurrection, now the Holy Spirit is inviting everybody. It's almost like he's trying to write, he's he's inviting everybody to wrestle with him. When we forsake our daily comfort, even for a period of time, to engage with God, in our current cultural moment, it might be the most, or at least one of the most important spiritual practices. And the practically, what that would look like would be something like once a week you choose to fast and you you you pray, you said, I remember when I would, I gotta go back to this though. I remember when I was younger, I would set up my alarm in the middle of the night, three in the morning. I will wake up at 3 a.m. I will pray from 3 to 4 a.m. I will be that tired. You better believe that God did some crazy stuff in my heart. Why? Because I was, oh my god, Lucas waking up at 3 a.m. No, no, no. I was doing it because I was weak, not because I was strong. I could barely stay awake for 15 minutes. I was like, I remember one day that I literally fell asleep on my knees. I woke up like I think an hour and a half later, my knees were destroyed because I fell asleep. I'm like, oh my gosh, how weak I was. And then I felt the grace of God upon me. And I felt the Lord telling me, Lucas, you gotta realize that you literally fell asleep trying to pray. You're trying to. Yeah. What if that is that's huge beautiful? What if that is the wrestle? What if the wrestle is to put ourselves constantly in position to be in this in this in this in this wrestle with the Lord?
SPEAKER_01And I would add to that because you talked about fasting. Yes. What is the fast that the Lord desires? Tell me. I forget exactly. Isaiah, Isaiah 28, I think. Well, there's the specific one. I don't know if it's Isaiah 28, and I I don't know the exact passage that it's from. Yeah. But it talks about serving. I take it. Taking care of the widows, taking in and serving people. Yep. You know, I don't overbate them, but I think that is a suffering, and I would argue that that's probably the suffering that Jesus learned is bearing with people that you have to love them. They don't deserve it. You know, they don't deserve it. And there's you're you're you're learning to put up with something that is against what you desire, you know. You're learning to sit with people, learning to sit in circumstances that are not your ideal.
SPEAKER_00Wow. And in doing that, you learn the kind of obedience of being willing to die for your friends, and and and and not only die for your friends, but to what does he say?
SPEAKER_01You know, not love your own life. Yes.
SPEAKER_00Yes. And what if y'all begins with the wrestling? What do you think? What do you think God actually? I was about to ask about God touching his hip now, and there's the he has the limp, now he's walking uh slower, which there's a lot there, right? It seems that God has been trying to slow down Jacob for a really long time. Yeah, he's trying to get places on his own, and God is telling him to slow down, you know. Uh, but before God is the one who engages Jacob in the wrestling, yeah, Jacob stays engaged, right? And in the staying engaged, a question is asked to which he responds, his name is Jacob, right? There is this inquire, and he's Jacob, in other words, he speaks his identity. Jacob means deceiver. What if in the fight, in the wrestling with God, the first thing that will pop up is exactly who we are, what we were made of? God will reveal exact God will reveal the depths of our identities to the very surface of our awareness in order for that to be eliminated and our identity is renewed.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00What do you what do you think about that?
SPEAKER_01I think you're right, and it makes me want to ask a really important question. Okay. This this is something we kind of touched on earlier. Okay. But let's get practical. What does wrestling actually look like? What does wrestling with God actually mean? Because you're you're mentioning uh bearing our identity before God, you know, allowing that to be acknowledged, the truth of who we are. Yeah. If I'm somebody who is coming to the realization for the first time, maybe in my life, that I have never wrestled with God, what do I do? How do I how do I if I have that desire? We we know the Lord initiated this thing. So I think if someone is having that desire, they're listening to this right now, and the Holy Spirit is working in them to seek God, what next?
SPEAKER_00God created the world, God created everything via speech, and he chose to save people via speech. You it's by faith that we are saved, and faith comes by hearing the word of God. How can we hear God if we never stop to listen? The first thing that comes to my mind practically about how to wrestle is in creating space to shut up. That, my friend, in our culture might be the hardest thing to do. We live in Portland, which is one of the most progressive cities in the world, least Christian cities in the United States. You go to a coffee shop, there's a lot of people journaling. No, people don't have problem with journaling. People like it, right? Like you get in touch with yourself, right? Like it's easy to journal. People don't have a time praying. You can pray, you can, I mean, you can open your mouth and talk and process your feelings out loud. People don't know Jesus. People don't even know Jesus exactly. People you can talk, you can think, you can read the Bible. Try to sit in silence with no music, with no stimulation for 15 minutes. It's easy. Try it. You can do 15, try to do for one hour. I would propose that there is no spiritual growth if we are not able to sit in silence. Because God will speak out of silence. We must it's I I He makes me lie down in Green Pastors. How do we engage with the wrestling? I would propose that God is already see, He's already knocking on all of all of our doors. Is going all over you? If you are hearing this word right now, guess what? You are hearing the word of the Lord speaking to you right now, inviting you in. In other words, he is initiating right now. What is your response? You gotta wrestle with the thought. How do you wrestle the thought? If I could propose one discipline, it would be silence. You sit and you stay in silence, put a piece of paper in front of you with a pen and just be there and just say, Lord, speak to me. Why is it a wrestling? Because silence is uncomfortable. It's very hard to be in silence, it's very hard to abstain from uh interaction in a culture that is pulling us into all sorts of interactivity. Yeah, it's a hyper culture everywhere. It's very hard. It's like it's like shutting down your Instagram for 21 days. It's so hard to do. So hard. I would propose start there.
SPEAKER_01I will can I get personal first. Please. Personal in your uh please in your life. As an entrepreneur, as a overachiever, let's say, not an overachiever, as a high achiever. Let's better believe it. If it part, you know, we believe it's part of our our our job to research, yeah, be involved, and be surrounded around people that are on the same path, definitely be constantly consuming ideas and and trying things out. And definitely, and you know, we that's a whole nother form of wrestling in itself, is the 100% the lifestyle of somebody who's trying to build something. 100%. You know, how do you find like where do you turn that off? It's good.
SPEAKER_00The Bible says that God created the world in six days, rasted in the seven. Not because he needed to, but because that's how he is. He is a God in rhythm. And he creates us, he created us in a rhythm for a rhythm. The way that I personally, you asked personally, the way that I personally do it, imperfectly, but I've tried to do this every day, is a clear beginning and shutting down rhythm. And one day every day, and then one day a week where everything's shut down. Another thing that I do is that every week, every day, there is a clear segment of that day. There's a clear I'm trying to not name this in public yet because I'm building. But I have I'm working on a personal system for me. That I I won't I won't give the name yet. But it is it's a it's a way of going about my day with the mindset that I am building a cathedral, and cathedrals are built brick-brick, and I cannot over I cannot forsake the very habits that will make me a builder and then will make me the man that I want to become. And a part of those habits, rest is it's like the same way that the voice comes out of silence, work comes out of rest, and it's not just weekly, it's daily too.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00So one thing that I'm trying to do is to shut down my social media consumption, all of that, uh, TV, all of those things by nine o'clock. So that is really huge. Because one thing that I've noticed about me is that I can be thinking about work so much. And even when I'm watching something on a TV, I'm I'm often watching like podcasts or documentaries about business people. So my mind is constantly going. So for me, turning off the TV at 9 p.m. 9:30 p.m. sometimes, but just turning it off. One thing I've started doing, for example, is uh on my my table, I have a uh shutting off routine, which is once I'm done with work, I have to put my laptop in my backpack and close the backpack and take my backpack away. So if I was some for some reason working uh uh in a hotel or something, I have to I have to put the backpack somewhere that I'm not seeing it. So that is a that's my routine. It's very simple, but I take the computer, I put it in the backpack, I close the backpack, and I put it somewhere that I'm not gonna see it. I have no idea how how much that brings rest to my mind. Because if I see my computer just kind of left there on the desk, uh I'm gonna be a I'm gonna be tempted to go back and start something. So that's something that I am that I am doing. Another thing, it's in the morning. So I've realized that if I it's very simple, but if I go to bed too late, I'm gonna have a hard time waking up the next day. And even if I wake up earlier the next day, like the next day, I'm not gonna be able to work properly because I'm mentally tired.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00So if I go to bed, if I go to bed earlier, and earlier for me, like 10:30 is early. If I wake up, if I go to bed at 10:30 p.m. on the next day, I can I can wake up at 7. I can literally be uh working or working on whatever I'm gonna be working at 10 a.m. That gives me three hours where I can pray, I can have breakfast, and I can go on a little walk, or I can go to the the the apartment gym, you know. So that that for me, it's honestly is as much of a spiritual practice as anything else. I need to go to bed a little earlier, I need to wake up just a little bit earlier, and I have to have time with Jesus in the morning, and I need to go at least on a little walk, you know, in the morning to kind of like think and stuff like that. Another thing that I do too with social media is I delete the in I delete my Instagram constantly. Almost by constant, I mean almost every day. Every time you use it, you reinstall. Exactly. So my philosophy for Instagram is this if I don't have anything to say, I have to turn off the the the app. So I it's that's a good that's a good rule. That's my that's my that's my rule. I am being faithful to it at least 80% of the time. Almost, I mean and you're posting every day, and I'm posting every day, and I turn it off every day. Wow, I delete the app, I delete the app every day. I'm gonna see if the app is installed right now. It's not look at this. There's no Instagram on my phone right now.
SPEAKER_01It's exactly it takes two minutes to reinstall it.
SPEAKER_00I reinstall it and I delete it every day, pretty much. If I'm posting every day, why not? Exactly. That's good, and that's a part of my wrestling, yeah. That's a part of my fight.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that makes me think about how a lot of people like us, they want to have a word from God that gives them the big, grand scale idea that's gonna carry them into their calling and and their vocation is gonna be this huge empire. And I think so much of what really builds the temple, so to speak, and in the the brick by brick that we're talking about is everyday the details, the small little expressions of faith. In in being intentional in that way that you're talking about right now. It's easy to oversee.
SPEAKER_00Jacob had a huge promise hovering upon his head. Huge promise, and he had the money, his dad had money, he grew up with tremendous wealth. So the boy was affluent and had the promises upon his family. Yet, what does he need to do? He needs to work for Laban for 14 years. Not no mistake, he is a hundred percent God and one hundred percent man, no mistakes, still had to work as a carpenter. From 12 years old to 30 years old when he started his public ministry, we don't hear anything about him. Well, a lot of people wonder what was Jesus doing? Jesus was working that we are so fascinated with the show, with the with the big, and we forget that the big work that God wants to do in us is in obscurity. If Jesus, that technically he didn't need any work done, except for the God that doesn't need rest, still rests because it's his rhythm.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Obscurity is not a problem, it's important, it's necessary. And the word and the interesting thing about Jesus is that the Bible says he's a carpenter, right? So in our modern minds, we think carpenter is people that work with wood. Except for in that region of where Jesus was, there was not as much wood. There was wood, but there was more stones, bricks. So Jesus was more like a carpenterslash like a like a stoned person, Frank Mason, like a not is that Frank, Frank, not Frank Mason, is it Frank Mason? The pure the person that works with stones and bricks. Do you know the name? A Mason. A Mason, yes. So Jesus was more like a the mix of like Mason and Carpenter, because he's working with rocks. Isn't it interesting that he's working with stones? And his biggest mission is to turn the hearts of mankind, the hearts of stone, into hearts of flesh. So he's doing that in obscurity, doing something that doesn't look spiritual. Yeah. He does that not because he needs to, but he does it because that's the that's the pattern to everybody. Even God did that. What about us? A lot of people, dude, the internet made everything seems easy and it made a lot of things easier. Except for we cannot Amazon Prime, we cannot microwave character, right? We cannot speed up the process. All of this AI, all of this automation, all of this stuff, we gotta be very careful and we gotta teach people. That's one of the reasons I'm doing this podcast, by the way, which is to inform people and not just inform, but bring the the practice the understanding of the practice of formation, because it doesn't matter how fast one can grow wealth, if they are not formed on the inside, they will lose it overnight, they will lose their families, they will lose their marriages, they will lose themselves. Yeah. And the wrestling with God is not a one-time event, is an everyday event. Yeah, primarily through this practices that keeps us aware of the one that has been inviting us to wrestle with them for the rest of our lives, you know, is this dance with him.
SPEAKER_01Very good. If the formation doesn't come unless you understand the small grueling process of what it takes to form something, it's the little bricks, man.
SPEAKER_00God wants to make a cathedral out of us, yeah. But we are refusing the very habits that will turn us in the man He wants that we want to become. We want to become this person that's building, accomplishing things, but we are refusing the very habits that will get us there. And here's the reality people, but people might be listening around and they're like, no, but now I don't I don't need to take all of that work because I got AI. Let me just tell you something like, do you want to bet your life on this? Because AI might make all the automation great, and I don't have any problem with it. I use AI, no problem at all. That's fantastic. You can you can use it for this simple automations for work, but you still can't that needs to free time for you to do even harder work, primarily in yourself, so you can sustain all of the ease that may come with all the automations that technology can bring.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, we cannot forsake the word the hard work of formation. What you're talking about right now, I have one more question, and then we can represent it. Would you say that what you're describing is not an option for a cr follower of Christ, but a function?
SPEAKER_00Elaborate the question.
SPEAKER_01Would you say what you're what you're describing right now? Would you say that that's an option for like it's one of those things where it's like this is a life path that you could take if you want to? For Christians? Yeah. Oh, it's not. Would you say that's a function of being a oh no, that that dude because many people might hear this and think, this is for entrepreneurs, this is for people who are trying to build something great. I'm not that. I just want to live a simple life, and and I can achieve that by just going to church, reading my Bible, taking care of my family. I don't have to worry about what you're talking about because I don't want to do anything great.
SPEAKER_00Here's the thing Jesus cursed the fig tree for Jesus cursed the fig tree for not producing fruit. Why did he curse a fig tree for not producing fruit? Why? Well, because bearing fruit it matters. Because bearing fruit is a sign of life. Everything alive will bear fruit. How can somebody who claims to walk with the Lord not bear fruit, neither desire to bear fruit? This has nothing to do about building a company, about building anything. It has to do about being fruitful, multiplying, and creating good culture for the sake of people. I'm not gonna get too deep into this, but I will just say one thing about vocation. What is vocation? Vocation is when you figure out the uniqueness of who you are in order to serve your neighbor better. That's vocation. What's calling? A calling is when God calls you and awakens within you your unique voice so you can uniquely serve your neighbor. How can somebody that claims to walk with Jesus not desire to serve their neighbor better? How can you serve your neighbor better if you are not formed and actively being formed by Jesus? All that the wrestling is, is God through an encounter with Him that for us in the side of uh uh on the post-cross and resurrection for us is available every day. If we are not willing to submit to the Lord every day, how can we be formed? And if we are not formed, how can we figure out the uniqueness that God wants to use to contribute to the world? There's no way for Christians, this is not optional. This is what it means to live in the kingdom of God right here and right now. So it's huge. And with that, I think we should wrap it up. This is good. Thank you so much. 71 minutes. This has been it's been good, my friend. Uh, thank you everybody for listening to this. Subscribe to it, like the episode, send to a friend, email me, uh, send me a DM. Love you all. May the Lord bless you and keep you, not just today, but for the rest of your life. Have a good one. Bye.
