117 - Navigating Life's Challenges: Spiritual Guidance from Blake Barbera

00:00:00 - Blake Barbera

Some people are saying, I don't even know what that means. What does it mean to orient my life the way God would have it? Have it oriented or have it pointed? Look, start small. If you're having trouble connecting with God, start with whatever you can do, whatever time you can give him in whatever way you can. This might sound like something that we already said earlier, but if it starts with you just sneaking away for 1 minute, going into your bathroom if you have to your closet if you have to your car if you have to go somewhere and sit down with God and just share your heart with him and say, Lord, I want to connect with you.

00:00:39 - Rasean Hyligar

What is going on guys? Welcome back to Motivate Grind Succeed, the podcast where our goal is to help you improve your life in the four foundational cornerstones of faith, fellowship, fitness and finance with practical tips and takeaways in every single episode. If you like what you hear, guys, don't be afraid. Leave a rating and a review as it goes a long way. I promise that box will not bite you. I promise you. Also guys, sign up for my email list as well where you can get access to new episode releases, merch drops, upcoming events and much, much more. I said before, we're going to be having a live stream at the end of this season, so you're going to want to stay tuned for that. You're on the email list, you've already been seeing information about that. If you haven't seen any information, you should probably be on that email list. Just saying. And finally guys, if you want to support the show, I greatly appreciate you. You can check out the links down in this episode's description. You can support me on fourth wall and you can go ahead and check out all of those things. Again, everything that you heard me say in this intro down in this episode's description with all that guys you guys see, we have a guest today on the show. Now, I know you're probably wondering who is this guy? I don't know who this guy is. Well, you all probably should know who this guy is. This is Blake Barbera. This man is Jesus follower, husband, father, ministry leader, and Christian content creator, in that order. Man, it sounds like you're really living your best life out here. I'm kind of jealous. Speaking of content creator, he is also the host of the that you may Know Him podcast. It's for anyone who's interested or intrigued about genuine biblical truth and how to apply it to your own personal faith, daily life and culture. And with over 170 episodes, there is bound to be at least one thing that resonates with you guys. And with that, Blake, welcome to the show. How are you doing today? Good sir.

00:02:29 - Blake Barbera

I am doing well, brother. It's good to be here with you. If your audience is in fact, wondering where you found this guy. I want to encourage everyone that my wife's parents were asking her the same question the first time she introduced me to them. Where did you find this guy? So, hey, maybe we'll get into how you and I met, maybe we won't. But I'm blessed to call you a brother and I'm blessed to be here, man. Thanks for having me on the show.

00:02:55 - Rasean Hyligar

Absolutely. And why not we just spill a little bit of the beans? Why don't we spill the beans for anybody who is listening? We both met at Podfest, which was an event that happened depending on when you're listening, in January of 2023 this year. And we were able to meet up, we were able to click and we just chopped it up as if we were like good old buddies. Like, the entire time we met, networked exchanged information and bam. Now here we are, we're having a podcast interview and it's absolutely going to be a blast. I 100% guarantee you're going to get some value out of this. Blake, I don't know about you, but I am pretty stoked for this interview. How about you?

00:03:30 - Blake Barbera

I am, too, man. I've been looking forward to this ever since we first chatted. Definitely since we scheduled it, especially since every time I've talked with you, our conversations have flowed so easily. Yeah, man. I'm looking forward to letting people in on two brothers talking about the Lord and whatever else we feel inspired to talk about today.

00:03:50 - Rasean Hyligar

Absolutely love it, man. And so for you guys who are listening, you guys are going to definitely want to take some notes. So either get out your pen and paper or if you're more electronically savvy, take out your tablet and stylus because you're all going to want to take some notes for this one. So, Blake, as we start with every single guest, give us some background to you wherever you want to start to get to where you are now. If you want to start from, like, tiny Blake, from when you just popped out of your mother and saying when or to maybe start from teenage years. Wherever you want to start. Give us a little bit of background to you.

00:04:19 - Blake Barbera

Okay, man, golly. Where do I start? Well, I was raised in a Christian home. It was a loving Christian home and in many ways a very solid Christian home. Although I was a part of a church as a child growing up, that I would say definitely had some issues, as many churches do. But when I was 17 years old, god really started to get a hold of my heart. It's not that I wasn't a believer before that because I always felt a sense of closeness to God. But when I was 17, I think that was the time when I realized that I had been living really with my feet in two different worlds, going through high school, wanting to fit in, wanting to be like the cool people that I saw and looked up to, and then also wanting to really serve the Lord. The Lord really started getting a hold of me and nudging me to make a serious commitment to following Him. And so that's what I did. And man, ever since, ever since I was 17, really, and the Lord started really getting a hold of my heart, life has just been an incredible, amazing journey. I've spent time abroad as a missionary. I've owned a contracting business that I had for nine years. I've planted several different house churches in different parts of the country. I've been married for twelve years now to my amazing wife, who congratulations. Thanks, brother. Thanks. She's other than the Lord himself, the biggest blessing in my life. And then this past year in 2022, we welcomed our first son, who's now actually he's eight months old today. Rasean, believe it or not.

00:05:59 - Rasean Hyligar

Double congratulations.

00:06:01 - Blake Barbera

That's a huge blessing. Yeah, and there's all sorts of things in there along the way. I mean, I ended up going to school after I was a missionary, not before. Ended up moving to North Carolina from my home in California to go to grad school years later. And now after spending four years working in traditional pastoral ministry at a church, I was led by the Lord to start a ministry about two and a half years ago. And my wife and I got back into the house church movement. So I'm currently staying very, very busy. I'd say the Lord's keeping our life full with a small community house church that we have here in North Carolina and then that you may know him, which is our ministry. And we have a podcast and we create online videos and Bible studies and devotions and all sorts of biblically faithful resources to help people grow in their faith. So that's sort of the nutshell version of the last, well, 17 to 35, the last almost 20 years of my life.

00:07:03 - Rasean Hyligar

Wow, look at that. Look at that. What a nutshell, perfect summary that was. And guys, I'm telling you right now, if you all have not checked out the that You May Know Him podcast, you're going to want to check it out. I've heard a couple of his episodes, I've seen some of the posts that he makes as well on social media. Fantastic post, fantastic information, very high production quality. You guys definitely have to go check it out and definitely give it a listen if you're intrigued in this. And so I'm glad to bring Blake on here because now we're going to be able to pick his brain a little bit. We're going to be able to talk about some topics that I really wanted to pick his brain on. And so the idea behind this episode, Blake, and for all the listeners here, the idea that I had picked behind this is that a lot of the questions that I picked here are going to be pretty much around two main topics here. It's going to be around living a spirit empowered life and being able to connect with God on a deeper level. And so because I have phrased the questions around this, I want to start with a relatively easy question. And then we're going to, as usual, we'll go conversational wise and we'll go ahead and dive in a little bit deeper into the information that we have. So I don't know if you're ready. I'm ready. I think the audience is ready.

00:08:11 - Blake Barbera

Those are two great topics. Let's do it.

00:08:14 - Rasean Hyligar

Let's do it. So starting off with the first question here, how would you describe your personal journey in connecting with God on a deeper level?

00:08:23 - Blake Barbera

Man my personal journey on connecting with God on a deeper level. That is a great question. So one thing that the church I grew up in and my parents really gave to me, I'd say it's one of their most important gifts that they gave to me was my parents really taught me that I could trust the word of God, the Bible. Not that every time I picked up an English translation, everything was going to just be perfectly laid out for me, but that the word of God itself was trustworthy. And that if I really wanted to know the Lord, I could open my Bible and I could draw near to Him. And he would meet me there and he would begin to transform my life. And so when this change started to take place in my life when I was 17, one of the things that happened was the Bible started really coming to life for me. And it's not something I can really explain reasonably because I was a 17 year old kid. And when I look back now, I think to myself, how could I possibly have been getting that much out of my Bible reading? From where I am looking back, I didn't really even know anything about the Bible. But that's the power of the living Word and the power of the Holy Spirit is when you are hungering and thirsting for truth, god shows up and he makes that inspired word of his come to life. So I really started reading the Bible a lot and praying a lot more and really seeking time with the Lord. When I was 17. I remember there was a time I was a senior in high school and I was just so kind of fed up with trying to fit in with the world and go the world's way. And I was really growing in my hunger for God. And I remember this period of days and weeks where I just couldn't wait to get home so I could go up to my bedroom and just spend time with the Lord. Over the years, that's grown into a very, I would say, disciplined and systematic devotional life. So I've always been a big Bible reader. When I was a missionary, obviously we spent a lot of time reading the Bible and teaching the Bible. When I was planning house churches, we did the same thing. But it wasn't until I went to grad school about six years ago and I was in a very intense academic setting studying theology, and specifically the New Testament, where I realized, man, if I don't make reading the entire bible a regular part of my life as a Christian. I'm going to be leaving myself open to getting deceived and to maybe getting led astray by ideas that don't really come from the heart of God. And so it was about six years ago, I made the decision in one of the busiest times of my life that I was going to make time every year to read the Bible all the way through. And so I've been doing that ever since. And that has changed my life again in a way that I can't even explain because I went from being someone who really just focused on the passages that I was comfortable with to embracing the whole story of Scripture and the whole picture of God that we see in the Bible. It's not only changed my understanding and it's helped me grow in my relationship with God, it's just opened up my eyes to going deeper. And I think the Lord's used it to really make me a more mature Christian in the way I respond to the trials and the difficulties that life can sometimes throw at us. So in my journey and growing deeper with God, that's sort of where it's landed, where my mornings are pretty sacred. And the most important, best part of my day are the early mornings when I wake up and sit in a chair. It's actually right behind me. I don't know if you can see it in the camera shot. And I just meet with the Lord and I spend time reading His Word, and I spend time praying for others and asking Him to really open my eyes and draw near to me.

00:12:24 - Rasean Hyligar

I absolutely love that. Yeah. And I was just taking a couple of notes here and so a couple of things I would definitely wanted to piggyback on. Three things specifically that I wrote down. So if you see me looking down, I'm taking notes here. But number one, what you're talking about, the word becomes more alive the more you become involved with it. And I realize that too, especially when creating these episodes for people or reaching out to guests or doing anything like that. Just generally in order for me to come out with these episodes and to be able to generate these shorts and to do things like this, it involves research. A lot of the stuff like yeah, a lot of stuff is existing knowledge in my head. And that's why I can pretty much speak from very minimal of a script however, a lot of it still requires research. So that way I know what it is that I'm talking about, and that way I'm saying something that's not false. And so what I've realized throughout time is that the more that I continue to make these episodes, the more that I continue to just read, even if it's just maybe like five or six verses that I'm reading to prepare for an episode of whatnot I still find myself still wanting to read more, still wanting to say, this is new information. Sometimes, honestly, even struggling with some of the information, because some of it might not be something that really resonates with me very well. It might be something that says, like, for example, for example, when it says to love your enemies. I'm sorry. You said to do what you want me to love who? So it's just like, let me make sure I read that right. Pull up another translation. You need to love your enemies. Pull up another translation. Love your enemies. Okay, so obviously there's a consistency thing here. Love your enemies. I don't want to do that, but the Bible says I got to do it, so how do we do it? And that's where we start off with other things. I won't get into that whole thing, but I just wanted to piggyback off that and say that it is true that the more you become involved with the Word, honestly, the more that it becomes alive, the more it starts to jump out at you. And not everything will jump out of you either, but what needs to jump out of you in certain time will jump out of you in certain time. I've noticed that a lot while growing up, too, is that a lot of things that my mother or my father would tell me while growing up, maybe when I was maybe, like, 8910 things I probably don't even remember now what they exactly said, but the concept of what it is jumped out to me literally. Maybe when I was 21, 22, 23 years old, it jumped out, and I was like, oh, that's what they meant when they said, you'll understand when you get older. Oh, that makes perfect sense. Now I see what they mean. One example I can remember specifically is when my mom would always tell me when I was in grade school, I believe I was in, like, third or fourth grade, she would always tell me, sean, make sure you watch out for who your friends are, because not everybody who smiles at you is your friend, right? She would always tell me that. And, like, both my parents are from St. Kitts, so they so they would always say it in their accent, in their certain type of and in their certain type of way with their certain language and everything. But that was the meaning behind it. Like, watch for who your friends are, because not everybody who smiles at you is your friend. Yeah, whatever you say. Whatever you say. That was in like fifth grade or so, and that's when it clicked. She told me that maybe in like third grade. It clicked in fifth grade because then I had someone who I had called my friend, I had listened to their advice, and it got me in a world of trouble, which I will not say on this podcast because people might want to call DCFS. But let's just say that I got in a world of trouble, and that was when I had the mind sticker of saying, yes, I will watch forever who my friends are. Second thing that I wanted to pick on well, not pick on rather, but definitely piggyback on here is when you said reading the Bible daily and continuously, one thing I want to touch on with this as well is that a lot of people say, well, I don't want to read the entire Bible. I can't read the entire Bible. Yes, you can. Number one, because I'm working on doing that myself, actually, very slowly but surely. And one easy way to do it, just go on to the Play Store or to the App Store. If you're Android or iOS, get the Bible App, and there are plans on there to help you read through the Bible. If you don't want to do that, they have an hour daily bread app, where it also allows you to get the entire Bible in a year, where you read both Old and New Testament. So it guides you through that entire process. That way you can be able to do that and be able to draw closer that way. So those are things that I'm going through as well, just to try to get through the Bible, get through it, understand it. And I won't understand every single thing. I'm not going to claim that I will, because like I said before, some things will just simply click later. Things won't click now. The idea that I'm getting right now is that I'm just trying to get the knowledge in my head so that way when it does click, maybe in the next month, two months, year, two years, two decades, who knows? It'll click then because the information is already there. And then the third thing that I wanted to touch on, too, that I really, really liked, and I want to create this really good analogy is that you said the Bible helps us to mature. And once you said that, I was reminded of the Bible verse where we were supposed to put on the full armor of God, and it talks about how the Bible is the sword of the spirit. And so I was thinking of the analogy of someone who is someone maybe like a samurai or someone who does fencing or anybody who uses some kind of blade or pointed weapon of anything of that nature. The only way you're going to get good at using that weapon is if you practice with it. That's the only way nowadays. You can watch all the videos you want, you can talk to as many gurus as you want, you can read as many books as you want about it, but until you go and pick up a sword and actually practice your strikes on things, you will never, and I repeat, never build up that muscle memory. You will never be able to do the exact same kind of things you see people do all the time because you simply aren't practiced with it. So in the same way, you can read all the commentaries you want, you can go to church all you want, you can talk to all the pastors and evangelicals and all these kind of people that you want, but until you actually go and open up the Bible yourself and actually start reading things and actually start trying to honestly fight with the Bible a little bit to really try to understand what's going on. You're not going to get good at using it and you're not going to be able to understand it fully to the capacity that it is. So I just want to drop those three little things there. Those are three little things that I definitely picked up on while you were talking.

00:18:33 - Blake Barbera

Awesome, brother. I couldn't agree more with all three of them. And it's true. The first time I read the Bible all the way through, there were so many things I didn't understand that if I were to read them now, today, I do understand them. Not because I did some deep dive and some twelve day Bible study on Greek words, but just because the more you get a sense of the entire story of Scripture, the more the whole picture starts to come together. And by the same token, I've been reading the Bible for six years continuously, and I've read it I don't know how many times, because I now am at the point where I read it more than once a year. And there's things I read all the time where I go, man, Lord, it's like I've never read this before. Man used his specific things in our lives just when we need them. That's why he calls it his living word. He breathed life into it the same way he breathed life into Adam. And he literally uses it like a living thing to come and to get a hold of our hearts at very specific times just when we need it. There's nothing like it. There's absolutely nothing like it in the world.

00:19:43 - Rasean Hyligar

No, there is nothing like it, honestly. And one of the best things that I've actually realized, too, about walking this walk of faith, actually two things. Number one is that it's always continual growth. Me being a very performance driven individual, like, I'm all about numbers and metrics and how well am I doing in comparison to XYZ. It's very nice to be able to see like, oh, I can see myself growing and becoming more knowledgeable of things and I can say, oh, I was able to understand this concept that I wasn't able to understand last year. That means I'm growing, I was able to get smart, I was able to get more knowledgeable, I was able to understand things more. So that's one big important thing for me as I continue to learn is that it's never ending growth. Just like life, it's never ending growth, never ending learning, and it's absolutely fantastic to be able to do that. And the other thing that I wanted to touch on too is that one of the best parts about it is that some things we simply just have problems understanding and no matter how much we wrestle with it, we just won't be able to understand it fully. But however, I have found there is almost like a caveat air quotes to that and that's you can just talk to God specifically. You can just go to Him in prayer and just say, hey God, I need help understanding this. Now, this doesn't mean you have to all this. You have to go on your hands and knees and say, abba Father, we come to you today. You don't have to do all that, okay? It's not necessary to do all that. But you do have to still. That doesn't mean you can come to Him any old how either, because you still have to come to Him respectfully and with a humbled heart. As long as you do that, then you'll be good to go. But don't come to Him all arrogant wise with that. Speaking of prayer, that actually leads us into the second question here in that, what role has prayer actually played into your spiritual life? And then as a secondary question to that, as you already said, you're incredibly busy with family and then the podcast and everything that you're trying to build out with the house churches, how do you make time for it in your busy schedule?

00:21:38 - Blake Barbera

Wow, okay. Was the first one, how have I learned to pray more or to have prayer be a central part of my life?

00:21:46 - Rasean Hyligar

Yeah, it was what role has prayer played in your spiritual life?

00:21:50 - Blake Barbera

Okay, awesome. Are you familiar with John Newton by any chance?

00:21:56 - Rasean Hyligar

I am familiar with the name, yes.

00:21:58 - Blake Barbera

Yeah. John Newton is the guy who wrote that amazing hymn that's called Amazing Grace, right? It's actually, I think, the most familiar popular hymnal that's ever been written. He also was the pastor and discipler of William Wilberforce, who is probably more than any other person single handedly responsible for ending slavery in England in the 18th century. So those two were tight. And John Newton used to say that an hour spent in prayer with the Lord is worth more than a week's time spent in the best company of another person in the company of the best people that there are 1 hour in prayer is worth a week with even the best person that you can imagine. So imagine, close your eyes and think of someone that even someone that's really Godly and how great it would be to spend a week straight with that person. He believed just an hour with the Lord is worth more than that. And it's because God is God and he transforms us from the inside out when we are face to face with Him. Prayer is something that I'll be honest with you, brother, it was not easy for me to learn how to pray deeply. I learned how to pray as a kid, and so I could always say prayers. And what I remember as a kid laying down oftentimes in bed, and I prayed probably every night, but I would usually just repeat my own little prayers that I had made up in my head. Maybe I repeated something like the Our Father, but we didn't really do many liturgical prayers as a kid, so I always had a prayer life. But it wasn't until I became an adult that I learned to pray deeper. And to be honest with you, the last couple of years have seen that grow exponentially. I've told several people, nothing will make you pray more than having a kid if you're someone that really wants your kid to grow up to love and fear the Lord. And so this last year, especially my wife and I say our prayer roots have been going down deeper and deeper and deeper, but it's not something that I think comes naturally to our well, it definitely doesn't come naturally to our flesh. And so it's something that takes, I think, discipline and really asking and seeking the Lord's help. I'm at the point now where I keep a prayer journal. I wish that it's behind me. Maybe I'll grab it at some point during the interview and I can show the listeners if they're watching what it looks like, but I just keep notes. And I actually have a list in my prayer journal of things that I pray for every day. And that includes people who I love, people who are my friends, and it also includes people that I think really need it. I mean, there's been times where I've been listening to people talk who I don't necessarily know, even, like, politicians or world leaders or faith leaders, and I'll hear them say something and I'll go, Man, I feel like I really need to pray for this person. So they get on my list as it goes. But, yeah, that's been really helpful for me, keeping a list and just making it really a routine part of my time with the Lord. I don't know about you, but I really believe in the power of the Holy Spirit. So first thing I try to do when I wake up in the morning is start praying in tongues and praying in. The Spirit. And that usually leads me into a time where I then pull out my prayer journal and I start praying for specific things, people, situations, for God to open the eyes of our hearts and help us see the gospel and see what he's done for us more clearly. And then I'll start praying for our house, church community, for the state of the world, for the redemption of the world, for the kingdom of God to come, all sorts of things. But it's definitely something that takes time and it takes persistence. But it's sort of like Bible reading once you get into the flow and the habit. Man, there's times now, and I never thought I would be able to say this where I could spend an hour in prayer and it feels like I've only been there for five minutes. It really is an amazing thing. And I believe, Rasean, there's no better way that Christians can spend their time than in prayer. If we spent even half the amount of time praying for our world as we do, going out and trying to do things in the name of the Lord for our world, I think we would see our impact grow exponentially.

00:26:24 - Rasean Hyligar

I agree. Yeah, I agree. Time and persistence, I couldn't agree more because I know that I really wanted to ask you this question because I'm in that stage of my life where I'm still very like I feel like I can understand things without a lot of external assistance. And so for me, one of my struggle spots would be prayer in that I don't pray nearly as much as I should. Full transparency is that a lot of times I'll just see like, well, because my mindset a lot of times would be like, well, if I read it in the Bible and then it makes sense to me that this needs to happen a lot of things, just like I would need to bring this in prayer. For example, let's say somebody's hurting for something and I'll say, well, I know how to help them. I'll just rush straight into action and then go help them, versus saying let me pray for you and let me help you with this. And the second thing that I've also noticed with own personal prayer is actually kind of actually from what I just said as well, it's actually that when people say, I'll pray for you, I found myself actually saying that. Less because and let me say why I found myself saying that less because what I've realized a lot of times is that it's a little morbid. But a lot of times at funerals, especially, people will say, oh, thoughts and prayers to you. Or I'm praying for you. That sounds good, but we're all selfish people by the time that that funeral is done and then everybody has already left and gone on. Everybody else has gone on with their day and chances are they have. So much other stuff going on, they won't remember to pray for that individual. So what I have found myself doing, in fact, is instead of saying thoughts and prayers to this individual, I have instead just said, I'm just going to pray for you right here on the spot. Because that way I'm still giving you the thoughts and the prayers. However, I'm not going to say that I'm going to do that and then not follow up on that because that was one, number one, to me that sounded like empty words. That's not going to help anybody. And then number two, I also made a promise to somebody that I broke and I did not keep that promise. So what does that make me look like now? So I decided to say I'm just going to cut that out of the vocabulary completely and just take action right then and there and just do it right then and there.

00:28:34 - Blake Barbera

Absolutely.

00:28:35 - Rasean Hyligar

That's another thing I wanted to touch on there. And also talking about getting into the flow of prayer as well. That one is always impressive. I was always impressed when I heard people say they can spend, like what you just said, I could spend an hour in prayer and it feels like five minutes. I'm just like, how in the world do people do that? And then I realized I could talk to my friends for like two or 3 hours sometimes if I have the time allowing, and it feels like it was like 20 minutes. And then I realized I need to get to that stage. So I guess going off kilter a little bit here, what are some tips you can give us to be able to start getting to that stage then of being able to get us to that stage of prayer? Maybe not to the stage where we can pray for three, four, 5 hours. Because even if that is the end goal, we want to take actionable mini steps in order to get there. So what will be one of the first steps that you would say we could definitely implement to be able to get to being able to implement prayer like that and being able to have that feeling of, like, we can just spend all the time in prayer?

00:29:33 - Blake Barbera

Great question. The first piece of advice I would say is don't think that prayer requires you to talk. So many times people think that if I pray, I have to sit down and I have to just start talking to God, who I believe in, but I can't see and he's not going to talk back to me. People say that, right? They think that. So they assume that air quotes. Air quotes. They assume that they have to basically monologue with God. For how long? I don't monologue with God for an hour straight. One of the things that helped me immensely was somebody telling me there's actually two things, and this answers this. First, point, which is don't think you have to talk the whole time and then leads into another one. One of the best ways to pray is to listen and to pray through listening. So to sit down with the Lord and tune out all distractions. I'll tell you what, brother, one of the things that will inhibit your prayer life more than anything is this old boy right here, this dog right here, this phone, right? If you are trying to cultivate a prayer life and your phone is sitting right next to you, I could tell you it ain't going to work. No, it's not going to work. And even within the last several years, I noticed that if I picked up my phone in the morning before sitting down in my chair, so I have this chair I sit in every morning and I actually call it La Cafe Prier, which in French is the prayer cafe.

00:31:11 - Rasean Hyligar

Nice.

00:31:12 - Blake Barbera

It's sort of like a double entendre because it's also brown chair. So cafe is brown. Anyway, so I sit in this chair and I pray. If I pick that phone up before I sit with the Lord and pray, man, there is a really good chance that it's going to start creeping its way toward me, right? I saw that text message I got to respond to. I saw that email that somebody sent me last night when I was in bed. I saw that ESPN box score. Oh boy, I wonder how many points Steph Curry had last night. Right, I better go look. And all of a sudden, this time I've set aside to be with the Lord and to seek Him starts getting inhibited by these outside forces. So limiting distraction is huge. Someone told me that you can start your prayer by just sitting and listening to God. And brother, the first times I did this, it was really hard to keep my mind from wandering in a million different directions. But as I did it more and more, it became this amazing, almost heavenly experience where I am intentionally unplugging from everything, including my own need to ramble on in my thoughts and with my words. And I'm just sitting and listening and waiting for God to speak to me. I don't know if you've ever heard of interrogatory prayer or interrogatory prayer. Like to interrogate is to ask questions. This led me into learning about what it looks like to actually ask God questions and to then be able to sit and wait for the answer. I started practicing this about a year ago and there's times all the time now. I might be sitting in my prayer chair or I might be at the gym or out for a run or on a walk or doing something, and I'll have a question come into my mind and heart and I'll just give it to the Lord and say, lord, I am asking you this question. It could be anything from Lord, will you show me what you think of me to Lord? Will you show me what you think about this situation? Or will you show me what you think about these people? Or have I missed something in this Bible study that I've been preparing for? Folks, it could be anything. And you know what, brother? So often the Lord responds to those questions when I least expect it. I've had responded right away, but oftentimes he responds when I least expect it. And you know what happens? It leads me into more prayer because I end up going, oh, Lord, thank you. I asked you that question a week ago and here I am, and you just gave me an answer when I least expected it. One other thing, brother, is like I said, I didn't really grow up with a lot of liturgical prayer. I used to sort of have angst against, like, saying the Our Father, because it's like, well, we're not just supposed to pray with a formula, but I've learned that there's actually nothing wrong with that. Jesus taught us to pray that way because it's a great template and it's a great on ramp. If people are having trouble praying, you can pray the Our Father. You know, there's certain prayers that we know for certain that Jesus prayed as both a child and an adult because he was a Jewish man and he lived by his devout Judaism. Of course, he was the Son of God and the Messiah, and he came to show the world a better way, which is the way of the kingdom that he brought and introduced to the world. But we know for certain that Jesus probably prayed what's called the SHMA. Have you ever heard of the SHMA?

00:34:29 - Rasean Hyligar

I have not know.

00:34:31 - Blake Barbera

It's the most prominent prayer in Judaism, and it's taken from Deuteronomy Six. And it's just a very short liturgical prayer that says, Hero Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is oneness, or The Lord alone is our God. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children and shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk, by the way, and when you lie down and when you rise up. That's a prayer. That's a prayer that Jewish people have been praying for thousands of years, and Jesus most certainly prayed it. And oftentimes when we put our son to bed, we pray that prayer with him, or we'll pray the ironic blessing from number six, or we'll pray another sort of Old Testament liturgical prayer. There's a lot of different great things in the Bible that can be used as prayer. Paul, the Apostle Paul, has tons of prayers in the Epistles and using those as sort of on ramps to get you into the spirit of being able to commune with God on a regular, ongoing basis I think is awesome. That's why the resources are there for us in the Word.

00:35:42 - Rasean Hyligar

Absolutely. Love that, man. I mean, pray through listening. Blake that's a fantastic point because I know a lot of times I'm with you right there. Like me being a busy person myself. Like I said, I'm an engineer, podcast host. I'm working on working on coaching programs and everything, and course creation. So fitness obviously is very important to me as well. So I'm a busy guy a lot of times. It's so easy, as you said, to just pick up the phone as well. And I also got to you know, I saw you had the the flip phone. I got to fold my phone too, just for you.

00:36:16 - Blake Barbera

Oh, yeah. You understand what this is? Most people are like, Is that a pager? You know what this is?

00:36:23 - Rasean Hyligar

Yes, sir. That's the flip phone. I got the folding phone. And it's ironic, I almost had a little bit of a moment when you said to because I wrote it down here, and it said to limit distractions. And I was like, well, the phone technically is a distraction. However, I make sure actively that when I'm working on things or especially for the podcast or working on anything like that, even right now, I actively put my phone on Do Not Disturb, so not a single thing will come through. So all that's on my phone right now, you can't see it, but also on there right now is just an empty an empty pad. And all I'm doing is I'm just writing notes as you're talking. So no calls will come through, no text will come through, no nothing until I turn it off when we're done here. So that's another way you can help to limit distractions. However, for people who that's still too much distraction, who still say, well, I could just turn it off. That's a good point. Turn off your entire phone. Don't just turn off the notifications. Turn off the entire phone. I guarantee you, you're probably not going to miss something important. But Rasean, what if the world starts coming to an end? Then look out the window. You'll see the sky getting dark, okay? That's your alert. That the world's coming to an end. You don't need to see it on your phone because I guarantee if you go to Twitter or Instagram, it's going to be too late. But that time you would have already done looked out the window. So I guarantee you, oh, yeah, the.

00:37:34 - Blake Barbera

World'S always coming to an end on Twitter, bro.

00:37:36 - Rasean Hyligar

That happens every day, man. Look, that's not even the topic of this thing. We can make a whole nother talk about Twitter in and of itself. But still, like I said, with the phone, guys, just turn it off. I guarantee you, the chances of someone actually reaching out to you and having some life or death situation. Slim to nut. Okay. Slim to nut. It's okay. You can turn off your phone for like, five minutes, and just as I say, empty your and the roads are Bruce Lee. Empty your mind. Be like water flow. Just flow with things. And that is a big challenge point for me as well is because even from the moment I wake up, once I get the little bit of the grogginess out of the system and everything, I'm just like, okay, time to hit the ground running out. This. So my mind is racing from the time I'm like, I'm pretty much like five minutes from after I get up to right when I'm going to bed, my mind is just going. So a big thing to do is that I need to work on myself personally is to do the whole pray through listening, just to sit and listen in quiet. I think what I'm going to do, I'm going to steal your chair idea because we do have a brown sofa out in the other room in the basement here. And so what I think I'm going to do is I'm going to probably just start sitting on the sofa and just sitting there and just listening and just waiting. Probably going to turn on a light so I don't fall asleep. But I will make sure that I'll definitely take that tip from you. And the limiting distractions was great. And using the template prayers, I know a lot of times I want to say when I was growing up, I want to say the common one that I said a lot of times was, oh, now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep. If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take. That was like, a very common one that was said. And children a lot of times will say that. And once you really start looking at it, really is actually a lot going on in that prayer. But nothing's wrong, like you said with using a template prayer, especially if you're just starting out or you want to be able to use something, just start with something that like that. Start with something super simple and then just combine that with sitting and listening, you probably won't hear something. And also that's another thing to another side point on that, too. You probably won't hear something right away because even though it is a conversation, like you said, Blake, even though it is a conversation, the answer might come like a week later, and when you lease it, you could be sitting on the toilet, and next thing you know, you have an answer to the prayer that just happened. You're like, oh, my gosh, it makes so much sense. And a lot of times it sparks even more questions, which is normal because that means you're thinking, you're trying to ponder, you're trying to actually make sense of these things. And also I keep going all these side points, one more side point and the last side point I'll make on this so we can move on to another part of the question as well, is that when we have all these extra thoughts, these extra questions and everything, it's okay to not always have the answer to every little thing. In fact I expect that there will be some things you will never ever get the answer to. Because here's why. If you did know the answer to them or if you did understand everything, what would that make you? That would make you all knowing. Because you know everything. And we as humans are not all knowing. So either there's a contradiction there or you simply can't know everything. And since we know the Bible does not contradict itself obviously, and we are all continuously learning, that naturally means we will never know everything. So also don't go into prayer and go into all these things expecting to get the answer to everything. Because sometimes some things are just not for us to know. For example, like the day when Jesus comes back, that is not for us to know. Because if we knew that day, let's say he's coming back tomorrow and we all knew he was coming back tomorrow don't you think every single person on earth or whoever was scared of going to hell would then accept, like right before they would do all the sinful stuff they want up until May 5? Because they know May 6, oh, boy, jesus coming back. We have to act, right? No, that's not how that works because we don't know when it is more into that. But yeah, totally up with that.

00:41:38 - Blake Barbera

Hey bro, Christians would be doing the same thing. We'd be maxing out credit cards. Hey, I'm going to get those Jordans I've been wanting for years, right? I'm going to eat twelve pizzas tonight because the Lord's coming back tomorrow. Yeah, there's things that we don't know for a reason, for our own benefit. And you know Raseana, I'm teaching through the Book of Revelation currently on our podcast. And one of the things that we learn from Revelation, chapter eight is that there are prayers that the church has been praying for literally 2000 years that God is not going to answer until the last days, until the very last days. And that right there teaches us that sometimes the answer that we receive from the Lord is not yet. Hold on a minute, wait. Just be patient. And he'll give us what we need when we need it. And sometimes he doesn't answer right away. Sometimes the answer is hold on, not yet, just be patient. But then when the time is right, we hear an answer. If it's okay. Before you ask the next question, encourage your listeners. If you are a follower of Jesus, there is nothing, nothing more important that you can do than making time every day to pray, because what you're doing when you pray is inviting the Lord to work in and through you as you go about your day. And we all know that if we can choose between working in our own strength or working in his strength, his strength is exponentially better than us doing it alone. So to say that we don't have time to pray, that makes no sense. If you're a Christian, you don't have time to not pray if it starts with just five minutes. This is how I started several years ago, really trying to focus on prayer. It starts with five minutes. Can I give the Lord five minutes this morning where I limit distractions and just sit with Him whether I say anything or not? Pretty soon, that five minutes starts going by pretty quick, and then it becomes six minutes, seven minutes, eight minutes. Some days I'm quiet most of the time. Some days I'm talking. Most of the time. Some days I'm singing and he's talking and we're doing it at the same time. It takes on a life of its own. But beginning small and being faithful in that, if it's five minutes, if it's two minutes every day, being faithful in that will lead to greater things. I don't know if you're familiar with the missionary named Brother Andrew. He actually passed away last November or December, but he was in his 90s. There's a famous book called God Smuggler that's about Brother Andrew. He smuggled Bibles behind the Iron Curtain during the Cold War, when it was illegal for people from the west to bring any type of Bible or religious literature behind the Iron Curtain into the eastern part of Europe. He would smuggle thousands of Bibles at once in a VW bug to the church that was behind the Iron Curtain because they didn't have Bibles and they were desperate, desperate, desperate for copies of God's Word. But he used to say, if you make time to visit with the Lord first thing in the morning, you are much more likely to bump into Him again during the day. If you make time to visit with the Lord first thing in the morning, you're much more likely to bump into Him again during the day. In other words, if you make that first part of your day all about seeking the Lord man, you're going to find Him showing up at various points and moments in your life, invisible ways all throughout the day. Whereas if you don't make that time, the chances are your eyes aren't going to be looking for Him when they should be.

00:45:23 - Rasean Hyligar

Absolutely. I 100% agree with that. That is completely factual. Because how you start your day, like I said, when you wake up in the morning, the first thing that you're thinking of is just like that's. When your brain is the freshest, it's the most refreshed, it's the most rejuvenated. Of course, assuming you got your proper sleep. It's the most refreshed, most rejuvenated. You're just ready to go. And those first few hours of the day are critical because that is the freshest your brain will be all day. So that's the best time to get your most important task or MIT completed. That's the best time to get them done, because you've just woken up, you're ready to go, you're on fire, you're good to go. So why not start it off with prayer? I want to bring also up, I referenced this a lot on the show, but there's a guy there, his name is Jim Quick, and he brought up this point of what was called small, simple steps. And you actually alluded to it. I don't know if you know about Jim Quick, but he alluded to it. You actually alluded to that with the small, simple steps and that you want to make the steps so small that it's almost physically impossible to fail them. So let's say, for example, let's talk about fitness first, and we'll bring it back to the Bible just for extra examples here. Yeah, so, for example, for fitness, let's say we're back in January, everybody and their grandma wants to go to the gym because they want to lose some pounds or something. So everybody says, I want to go to the gym and I want to lose, I don't know, ten pounds or something. Okay?

00:46:48 - Blake Barbera

Yeah.

00:46:48 - Rasean Hyligar

So what do most people do? They go crazy. They get a gym membership, they go get new clothes. They go get all kinds of athletic straps. They go get resistance band, they go crazy, and they go get a whole bunch of stuff. In January, the gym is packed to the brim. You can't find a free machine for miles. And then by February, everybody's gone.

00:47:09 - Blake Barbera

That's right.

00:47:10 - Rasean Hyligar

Why is that? They bit off more than they can chew. They didn't do small, simple steps. What could have been more successful is if they said, okay, what I'm going to first do is instead of going to the gym first, let me try doing maybe some calisthenics. Let me just try doing some push ups. Let me try doing some sit ups or some crunches. Get used to the habit of exercising first. Then when I get more comfortable with that, then I'll go to the gym. Because the gym by itself is a massive stimulus for someone who's never gone before, because there's people of all kinds of different fitness levels in there, and it could be very intimidating if you've never been before. And so add on to that. This is being brand new. You see why a lot of people will drop off. And so a small, simple step would then be, let's say you're not even doing that. Let's say you want to start doing running. A small simple step would not be get up in the morning at 05:00 a.m., wash your face, brush your teeth, go for a five mile run. No. A small, simple step will be something like put on your running shoes, put on your Running clothes, turn On A light, walk Out The door. Those Small steps like that, and those all add up to tiny little victories in your head, tiny Little spikes of dopamine and serotonin. And that allows the reward mechanism to be like, oh, I did this, now I did this, and now I did this. And you see how it will start to have that snowball effect of saying, oh, man, I did this, then I did this, then I did this. Same thing. Works for the whole thing with prayer. If you can't pray for an hour, you can't pray for five minutes. I'll just take Blake's word here. Pray for two minutes. Once you pray for two minutes, then you'll realize, oh, I'll try just two minutes of prayer. Prayer and supplication I will say for two minutes. Some days you'll realize I might be struggling to get to two minutes. That's all right. Some days are going to be like that. Some days you'll find, whoa, I just went for like, seven minutes. Congratulations. See, now you're seeing you're able to continue to progressively do that. Now when you start seeing yourself, just like in the fitness world, we start seeing yourself. This weight is getting easier and easier to lift or to move. Now you want to up the intensity. So Instead of two minutes, now go for three minutes or five minutes and the next thing you know, now you're at the hours worth of prayer. Again, this will not Happen overnight because these things take time. And people, people, listen to me, please. You need patience, okay? In The Same way it did not take you one day to gain 20 pounds, it will not take you one day to lose 20 pounds. In the same way, if you want to get good with prayer, it will not take you like one day to go from not praying at all to becoming an Evangelical who can pray for hours. Same thing, you Got To take it step by step, piece by piece.

00:49:43 - Blake Barbera

That's right, brother.

00:49:45 - Rasean Hyligar

Throw that part in there.

00:49:47 - Blake Barbera

Good word, man. Good word. I love it.

00:49:49 - Rasean Hyligar

Absolutely appreciate it, man. Speaking of prayer, prayer is one of the most important things that we can do as a Christian. And my dad, for example, being the elder of a church, he said prayer is not one of the most important things you can do. It is the most important thing you can do.

00:50:05 - Blake Barbera

Amen.

00:50:06 - Rasean Hyligar

As somebody who is a Christian. And so even though it Is the most important thing, that's not the only thing that we should be doing as Christians. So that leads me into another question that I had, and that is what other spiritual practices have you found yourself doing that are extremely effective for helping to cultivate a deeper relationship with God?

00:50:25 - Blake Barbera

Wow. Good question. Definitely for me. Prayer and Bible reading are essential. Those are can't miss. Those are the North Star of my life and of my day, so I don't miss that time in the morning. And since having a baby, I found that I learned pretty quickly that even on the days that I give myself to sleep in, which is usually one day a week, my son isn't going to sleep in. And so if I'm going to have my time with the Lord, I'm still going to need to before the hustle and bustle of the house gets going, I'm going to need to still make that time, set it aside and really make that time special and important. There are a lot of spiritual practices that I think are helpful, but if I was going to say one besides prayer and scripture reading that I think is really important, that a lot of nondenominational or Protestant Christians miss out on, it's confession. And I don't mean confession in the sense of I'm going to go see a priest or a pastor and I'm going to sit in a booth and I'm going to say a sin that I committed and then I'm going to be told to say it, do a certain penance. What I mean by confession is the Bible does say that we're to confess our sins to one another and to share our faults and to be honest about where we're at. And in First John it says if we confess our sins, our Father God, who has adopted us into his family, is faithful and just to go on forgiving us and to go on cleansing us from all unrighteousness. And actually it says if we go on confessing, all of those verbs in that verse in First John are in the present tense in Greek, which means they're all continuous. So we're always supposed to be confessing, being honest about where we're at. And God will continually be shedding his forgiveness upon us and cleansing us of unrighteousness. And I found that having accountability partners in my life, having particularly other men in my life throughout my faith journey there you go. Who I can share things with, who we can share what we're going through, be honest about our burdens. Rasean there are so many people struggling in the world today, and there are particularly a lot of Christian men who struggle with secret sins that they just don't want to talk about. And one of the main reasons that people don't want to talk about their sins is because of shame. Shame is one of the most difficult things to overcome when you're a Christian because, hey, I know I'm a Christian, I know I'm supposed to be better, and I know God's called me to live a holy, set apart life, but I've still got these things going on that I'm having a really hard time overcoming. And I don't know what people are going to think of me if I share them guess what, friend? Pretty much everybody else around you has the same thing going on. We've all got things we're struggling with.

00:53:29 - Rasean Hyligar

Pro tip right there.

00:53:30 - Blake Barbera

If you can find one or two or three solid people in your life who you can share your struggles with, I think that that just exponentially expedites your spiritual growth and it creates an environment where you are going to want to really hold the line. Because you're accountable to other people doesn't mean you're not going to make mistakes. The Bible says we are always going to be no one's going to be perfect as long as we are still living in this corruptible flesh. One day we're going to be living in incorruptible flesh and we won't have to struggle with sin at all anymore. But as long as we're in this body and we're in this period in time before the return of Christ, we're always going to have struggles that we have to overcome. But when you have people in your life that you can talk to about them, that you can confess to and that will hold you accountable and be there to sort of buttress you and call you back to God, man, it makes a world of difference.

00:54:35 - Rasean Hyligar

So people of the audience who are listening to this show right now, let me tell you how many times have I told you all on shows, whether it be in this faith season or whether it be us talking about fitness fellowship or finance or whatever have you how many times have I said accountability partners are absolutely crucial. How many times have I said even if you can't find a person, get some kind of an app or a reminder or some kind of thing to hold you accountable to doing something. I'm not just blowing smoke, guys. I'm telling you, it actually works. Accountability works. Which is why I'll even also say as well, getting yourself a coach as well is man, I'm telling you because I used to be a person who said, I don't need a coach. What do I need a coach for? I could do this myself. I don't need a coach. What? Coaches are stupid. Who needs to be a coach? You know what I'm saying? I always thought myself, I don't need one of those. There's no point to do that. But then I realized, you know what, I don't know everything. And even though because I'm going through a coaching process right now and then what I'm realizing is, yes, I don't know everything. And what my coach is helping me to realize what we're talking about and everything, I could have figured it out on myself, yes, but man, it would have taken me years to figure out all the stuff that's going on. And honestly, God is like the best coach. You all know I was going there, right? You already know I was going to go. I was going to bring it there. God is like one of the best coaches ever. All you got to do is just open your Bible, read it and you'll realize this is the instruction manual. Actually it was funny. In one of the men's groups that we had a long time ago, somebody actually said bible is actually an acronym and what it stands for is biblical Instructions Before Leaving Earth.

00:56:20 - Blake Barbera

Amen.

00:56:20 - Rasean Hyligar

Biblical instructions before leaving Earth. I was like, that is really good. It's actually an instruction manual for Christians to follow before leaving Earth. What we are tasked to do before we leave this earth. Because as I've said many, many times before, the chances of us being on this Earth, of you listening to this podcast, or of anybody doing anything, the chance of you being on this earth is so minuscule small. And yet you're going to say, well I'm just kind of here, I'm just going to kind of winging in life. No, you have a purpose on this earth. There's a reason why you were put on this earth. And as I keep saying before, it sounds morbid, but the reason why you have not gone into the next life yet is because you still have purpose, which means you still have not fulfilled the purpose yet. Meaning that you still have more work to do, you still have more people you need to impact. You have more lives that people that you need to touch, you have more impact to make in this life. So what in the world are you doing sitting on your butt wasting your life away? That's where accountability partners help and that's where they come in. Another thing that I want to touch on too, when you said about the confession, that confession is different from repentance, a lot of people just say, oh, confess and repent, yada, yada, yada. There's a difference. Confess on a very high level, confess basically means a I did wrong. I'm saying that I did wrong. Repentance means I am now going to make a 180 and not go down that path I was going down before and try not to do it anymore. That's the important, which is why the Bible says to do both. Okay? It says to do both. You can't just say, hey God, I'm sorry, because God will forgive. Yes, you will forgive for what you did. Because as long as we're living again, as Blake says, long as we are in this corruptible flesh, we will continue to do wrong things. So we will always need forgiveness and God will continue to forgive, however comma. There is a clause. You need to have repentance as well. You need to have discipline and the ability to be able to say, I will try my best not to do it again. And actually show don't just say but do. Because actions speak louder than words. So it's important that you actually do. You have to actually show signs and say, hey, the Bible says not to lie. So what can you do? Be truthful in whatever it is that you say. But that's going to get me caught. That sucks to suck, doesn't it? The Bible said to tell the truth. So that means maybe next time you shouldn't do what you did. Good life lesson there. The Bible says just look at any of the basic Ten Commandments don't steal, don't be covetous, don't be envious. Oh, but that person got a real nice car over there. I really like what they got. Why are you looking? Here's the other thing I like to say with that one. When people say, oh, they got such a nice car, they got such a nice house, they got such a nice this. Do you know how they got it? You have no idea how they got it. Do you know how much debt that person is probably in? When you look at the stats, the average American has less than $1,000 in their savings account. Do you really want to know how that person is financing that stuff? And yet you're jealous of what they got? Do you really want to do that? Do you really want to put yourself in the same potential bind that other person might potentially be in? Now, I'm not saying everybody's going out and putting themselves into financial binds to get things, but why are you keeping up with the Joneses? This is one important life lesson I learned when I was growing up too, that I'm glad I learned this and I really hope this sinks home for a lot of people too. When you do things in life, you have to realize you have to do them because it's the right thing to do. God would be proud because most people don't care. You get a new car. Sure. The people like me who like cars, we will be interested for all of 5 seconds until a newer shinier car comes out the woodworks. You have a nice Mustang. Oh, that's a nice Mustang. Oh, my God. Is that a Supra? That's exactly what happens. It's something newer, something shinier. That's how we work. People will pay attention for all like 5 seconds and that's it. Most people don't even really care. Most people just will see it like, oh, that was nice. But as I said way back before in the episode, we are all self centered. We're very selfish people. We care about me, myself and I. So that car, that shiny new object, didn't really have anything in it for me. So while it looked nice, it doesn't really impact me in any way, shape or form. So most people continue going on about their daily life. They don't really care. So when you do things, are you doing it for other people's validation? Or are you doing it because God said, this is what is for you? Are you doing it because it would please God? Or are you doing it because you want to please other people. So I want to leave you all with that question there.

01:01:04 - Blake Barbera

Great word, brother. We are supposedly the richest country in the world, but we're actually one of the poorest because people mortgage so much away in order to have things that they can't afford. Are you much of a Dave Ramsay guy?

01:01:19 - Rasean Hyligar

A little bit, yeah, a little bit?

01:01:22 - Blake Barbera

I don't listen to him a ton, but I always remember something I heard him say once, which is, you spend money you don't have in order to buy things you can't afford to impress people that you don't even like. And it's pretty sobering to hear that. But it's so true. Why not care more about what God thinks? And God looks at the heart and he cares about character. And why not focus on the true riches, which are things that can't be seen, but, boy, they can sure be felt and enjoyed, like love and joy and peace and long suffering. And why not take those extra resources and put them to something that would really make God smile? I think you're always going to be better off going that direction. Well said, man.

01:02:04 - Rasean Hyligar

Absolutely love it. And I see we're starting to we're creeping up on time. We're a little over our hour here, but I do have a couple more questions that we can probably try to rapid fire through here as we start closing out.

01:02:16 - Blake Barbera

Okay, brother, sounds good.

01:02:18 - Rasean Hyligar

All right. One of the questions that I had here as well is that we've been talking a lot about so much stuff that we've been talking about here, about how to be able to live the Spirit empowered life, how to connect with God on a deeper level, practical ways to be able to stay mindful of God's presence and all these kind of things. Now, this one's going to be more geared for the people who are saying, yeah, cool story, bro, but I don't know where to even start. I know you all talked about prayer. I know you all talked about confession or repentance. This is for the person whose brain is just exploding, right? So let's break it down even more for them. What is a piece of advice that you would give to someone who is struggling to connect with God on that deep level? How can they start to be able to start to formulate that relationship?

01:03:06 - Blake Barbera

Well, to be honest, in the Bible, when the disciples of Jesus went and preached the Gospel to people, they always said what you said just a few minutes ago, which is repentance, was always an essential part of their message. If you go look at all the places where the Gospel is preached in the Book of Acts, which is sort of the story of how the early church got started, they always told people to repent, which is to turn to God to stop going the direction you're going and turn your face toward God. And reorient your life in the way that he would have it be oriented. Right now some people are saying, I don't even know what that means. What does it mean to orient my life the way God would have it oriented or have it pointed? Look, start small. If you're having trouble connecting with God, start with whatever you can do, whatever time you can give Him in whatever way you can. This might sound like something that we already said earlier, but if it starts with you just sneaking away for 1 minute, going into your bathroom if you have to your closet if you have to your car if you have to go somewhere and sit down with God and just share your heart with him and say, Lord, I want to connect with you. Can we begin? Will you meet me right here where I am? And will you begin to reveal yourself to me? Will you bring people into my life that will help steer me toward the narrow path that Jesus said is the path that we walk when we follow Him? Will you send resources into my life? Will you help me build these good habits of making time every day to seek you? Just begin. Just begin in any way that you possibly can. If you're laying in bed and you can't sleep, get up and step away. If you're married, go somewhere where your spouse isn't going to be disturbed and just talk to Him and say, Lord, will you meet me where I am and will you start to change my life? And he will. I promise. If you pray that prayer from the heart and you keep asking Him, he will not fail to answer that heart cry. Jesus said that people who seek the Lord are like a guy who comes and knocks on your door late at night and you might be asleep with your kids in bed. This is an old parable, so right. People would get their little kids and they'd all lay down in the family bed and go to sleep. Hey, this guy's knocking on my door at two in the morning and he just keeps knocking and he just keeps knocking and he just keeps knocking. And this guy don't want to get out of bed and go answer, right?

01:05:47 - Rasean Hyligar

Right.

01:05:47 - Blake Barbera

Not saying God doesn't want to answer our prayers. What it's saying is, hey, God is looking for that person who's going to just keep knocking until he answers. He's looking for those people that are really hungering and thirsting after Him and want to know Him. If you've got five minutes, four minutes, 1 minute in your day that you can set aside to just saying, lord, will you meet me and begin to transform my life through Jesus Christ, your son, he'll do it. He will do it. And so my advice to someone who's struggling to connect with God is just start small. Wherever you're at, give Him whatever you can give him and see how his spirit comes into your life and begins to expand your abilities and your desires and the time that you have in order to focus more and more thoroughly and more deeply on him throughout your day and in your life.

01:06:45 - Rasean Hyligar

That is beautiful. Well said. And I 100% agree. And as you said, we did talk about a little bit before, but again, repetition, it helps a lot. Guys, start small, start very small. 1 minute, 30 seconds. In fact, in fact, let's even do this. I challenge every single one of you listeners right now that once you finish listening to this episode, if you've made it this far, once you finish listening to this episode, take 1 minute and do just that. Meet the Lord where you are at right now, unless you're driving. And then, of course, then I hope that you could get to where you're going safely, obviously. But if you are doing anything else, if you're just listening to this while you're cooking, listening to this while you're just walking the dog or something, take that time, take that minute and just say, lord, meet me where I am right now. What would you have of me to do? And enlighten me as to what it is you would have me to do next? How can I continue on with being able to be the best child of yours and just leave it, let it sit there and wait? Like I said, will you get an answer in that minute? Who knows? I can't tell you. Blake can't tell you because we're not in a place to tell you how God works. As I said, it might happen in that minute. It might happen in a week from now. And chances are the answer will probably not show up the way that you're expected. Chances are it will not show up the way. I make the joke all the time of saying that if I'm going to get an answer from God, I need to see a turtle with wings flying backwards in the sky. That's the answer to your prayer right there. You don't expect to see that at all. And you're like, oh, there's the answer to the prayer right there. When you least expect it, you're going to see it. Thank you so much, Blake, for that, for that answer. So let's go ahead and close out here with two more questions here. Again, there's just one piece of advice that you would like to give to the listeners, right? So let's say we have a listener who, for example, just woke up and they realize, oh, my gosh, I fell asleep for the past hour, which I don't know why you did, but hey, I forgive you because the Bible says to forgive, okay? But let's say someone just woke up after this long hour conversation that we just had, which was absolutely a blast. What is one piece of advice that you would give to any listener that they could be able to take away from this episode.

01:09:06 - Blake Barbera

Boy, can I make it something different than anything we've covered so far. Even though they've been asleep and they missed the last hour, they should go back and listen to that, and I'll make it something different.

01:09:16 - Rasean Hyligar

You can make whatever you'd like to be okay.

01:09:19 - Blake Barbera

My advice to someone who's been asleep, who just woke up, is go back and listen to the rest of the episode that you missed. But also, if you are a follower of Jesus, remember something that he said. My kingdom is not of this world. And if you follow me, if you follow me and you really, really follow me, not just like, hey, I'm a Christian, like, no, you are following me. Jesus said, the road that leads to life is narrow and it's full of pressure. If you follow me, you will be hated by the world in the same way that I have been hated by the world. Jesus was hated and rejected by the very people that he came first to save. His own people, his own countrymen, his own family, in a sense. And look, we're living in a time now where I think we've had this amazing opportunity in America as Christians. Not perfectly, obviously, but if you've been a Christian in America, for the most part, that's been looked at as a good thing. For most of our history, Christianity has been more or less respected. It's been revered, in a sense, and that really is starting to change before our eyes. And that's not to say that I'm telling you, if you're a Christian, you're definitely going to be persecuted. Actually, Jesus is the one that said that if you follow me, you will face hardship for doing so.

01:10:46 - Rasean Hyligar

The people in the back, man, because I don't know how many people will say, well, I'm a Christian, why am I having hardship? Show me in the Bible where it said you were going to have an easy life as a Christian, arguably your life will be harder because you're actually going against the grain.

01:11:01 - Blake Barbera

America, in the sense that America has been a welcoming place for Christians, is a historical anomaly. Throughout most of church history, being a Christian has meant being set apart from the world. And if you look at Hebrews chapter twelve, which a lot of people call like the hall of fame of believers, right? It goes through all these Old Testament saints who walked a walk of faith. It more or less goes into all the things that they had to endure in staying faithful to God. And again, this isn't meant to be doom and gloom, but my advice is this if you are following Jesus, gird up your loins. Be prepared to stand on your convictions. Be prepared to follow Jesus even if and when it gets uncomfortable, because I think if you really follow Him, it's going to get uncomfortable. I'm not saying you won't be blessed. I think you will live the most blessed life you could ever possibly imagine living. But it might not be in the physical sense. It might not be in all the ways that our society and the world considers something to be blessed, right. It might not be because you're the richest, you have the most followers on Instagram, you have the nicest car in the biggest house. Jesus said it's more blessed to give than to receive. When you die, you live, and when you lose your life, you find it. And so my advice is, if you're following Jesus, just know that his blessings and the life that he has for you, it's going to be amazing. He's going to give you joy and peace and hope. That's going to make your life amazing. But, Circumstantially, maybe it won't be easy, but brothers and sisters, be encouraged, because following Jesus is the best choice you could ever make, and it will so be worth it both now and in the future. When you enter that kingdom that he is setting up that will go on for all of eternity. And you enter as a son of the Most High, as a child of the king. And you are a prince or a princess in God's everlasting kingdom. I promise you, you will not regret whatever sacrifice you made in this life to follow Jesus.

01:13:21 - Rasean Hyligar

Well said, Blake. I don't think that I have anything to add on top of that, man. That was very well said, and I agree with everything that you said there, man. That's great. Guys, you need to write that piece of advice down 100%. Write that down. If you didn't get it, rewind. Rewind a couple of minutes. Listen to that entire thing. So, last question for you, Blake, as I ask all the guests on the show, of course, obviously with this great amount of information, people are intrigued or interested to find out more about you. I know I mentioned it more at the start, but is there any place that you would like people to go to find out more about you? Anything that you have that you like people to read or anything you want people to sign up for? This is your space now to go ahead and promote yourself.

01:14:00 - Blake Barbera

Oh, man. Well, thank you for that. Yeah. Our ministry is called that. You may know him. Our podcast is the that you may know him podcast. But you can find all of our resources and you can learn about me and our ministry on our website, that You May Know Him. You can read my biography, how the Ministry Got started. You can learn specifically what we do and how we do it and why we do it the way we do it. You can read about our beliefs. You can listen to all of our podcast episodes. Our podcast has been going for about two and a half years now, we're, I think, 170. We're almost 180 episodes in, and right now we're teaching through the Book of Revelation. So it's another book in the Bible that it's just as important as all the other ones, but oftentimes it's either highly revered or it's highly neglected. We're treating it as we treat all the other books in the Bible. They're all equally important and they're equally the word of God. Every week, we put out a Bible study that goes with the chapter and the verses that we go through on the podcast. So you can check out our blog. We have Bible studies. We have helpful articles there. We have devotions that come out every week, if you like that sort of thing. Devotions are often a great way to enhance your time with the Lord. I write devotions usually every week. You could check out our YouTube channel, which is that you may know Him all that's right there on our website. So, look, all the resources are there. I hope people are blessed by them and get built up and encouraged by them. And, yeah, that's it. I am always here for anybody who wants or needs a friend, a prayer partner, a listening ear, a counselor, a pastor, and people can, of course, find out how to contact me or anyone from our ministry on our website that you may know Him.

01:15:50 - Rasean Hyligar

Absolutely fantastic. Blake Barbera, thank you so much for taking the time out to come on the show and divulge all of your fantastic wisdom, and I hope you had as much fun on this show as I did, man, because this was a fantastic episode, and I had a lot of fun diving into this topic today. So, guys, that's where we're going to leave it, here. And Blake, of course. Obviously, we got to leave Blake, guys. We got to leave Blake, unfortunately. But, hey, if you want him back, let me know. I'm pretty sure, Blake, you'd be open to coming onto the show.

01:16:24 - Blake Barbera

Once again, Rasean, thanks for having me, brother. I really appreciate it. I'm so blessed that the Lord caused our paths to cross, and I would be honored to come back on the Motivate Grind Succeed podcast anytime at all. It's been a privilege, and thanks for having me, guys.

01:16:44 - Rasean Hyligar

You heard it here first, so if you want Blake back on the show, let me know, guys. Hit me up on Instagram or Twitter, wherever you want, let me know. We want Blake. We want Blake, and we'll make it happen. But as always, guys, we're going to end off with some ending reminders here. Again, guys, remember, I'm always accepting questions on the website as well as voicemail. So if you want to go ahead and leave a voicemail of whatever it is you want to hear, if you have a question about anything you want to leave some constructive criticism for the show or anything, guys, just go to the Motivate Grind Succeed. Succeed website that's motivatedgrindsucceed.com again, link in this episode description, it's going to be a tab on the right hand side. It's going to say Open me. Go ahead and click on that or tap on if you're on your mobile device, open it up. Got 45 seconds to leave whatever it is that you want to right there. I go ahead. I listen to every single one of those that come through and if it's a good question, we'll go ahead and answer it on the show. Or we might even save it for the live stream so we can give more people even more impact. And lastly, guys, if you're listening to this episode, the fourth wall site for the merchant memberships is almost done. It's almost there. However, I'm not going to drop the date that it's going to open yet. So if you want to know when that date is, you're going to have to enter in your email. And I promise you guys, I will not spam you because I'm the one sending the emails and I hate email spam myself. So if you go ahead and put your email on that website, guarantee you you'll be with the first to be notified when that new website opens and you'll get a special discount on anything that you purchase on there as well. And we also have some freebies too, so don't worry, you don't have to purchase anything. Just definitely check out the website when it opens up, guys. That's what I have for you this week. Thank you so, so much for listening. And before you go, don't be afraid to leave a rating and review as it really does help to go a long way. Again, as I've said multiple times, there's that email list that if you want to sign up to be able to hear about these new episode releases, such as the one we did with Blake before they even drop, merch Drops, Upcoming events, all that kind of stuff. You're only going to find out about it on that email list. So get subscribed today, guys. And finally, if you're so inclined to support the show, I just mentioned, fourth wall. So go ahead and enter your email there and you'll be the first to be notified once that website is open. Take care of yourselves guys, and I will see you all next time.