Episode Transcript
[00:00:20] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:00:20] Speaker B: Welcome back.
I'm so glad that you are here. This is Shannon Williams, and I'm your host. This is the Grace and Grit Mindset podcast, where we jump into all things that have to do with your mindset and how. And how do we, you know, create or how do we align our thoughts with God's thoughts?
Because if we don't do that, we're not ever going to enter into the promised land that God has for us, and we're not going to really, really cross over into those things that he has for us. We're just going to keep circling mountains of fear and anxiety and comparison and jealousy and insecurity and all those fun mountains that we find ourselves circling over and over and over. He has so much more for us, but we have got to fix our thoughts, and we have to think like him.
And so that's where this podcast came from. And so if you've been listening, you understand that I talk about that kind of stuff a lot. And the past few weeks, well, we started a little series on the parables of Jesus. And the first week, we talked about why Jesus spoke in parables. So if you didn't catch that, go back and see. You know, why did he even do this? And then last week, we talked about the parable of the Mustard seed, which was a blast. And I had so much fun. And I told you why that parable was on my heart. And so if you didn't catch that, go back and listen, because it was so super duper honest and real. And if you know me at all, one of the things you'll find out about me is I'm ridiculously honest, y'. All. I don't. I don't sugarcoat things, but I also don't cover up and hide things about myself.
You know, I am not one of these people that pretend what you see is what you get with me. And I'm honest to a fault. I've actually been told before by.
When I was really pursuing songwriting and music, a career in Christian songwriting and being an artist, a Christian artist. I was told your songwriting is just too honest.
And I was like, what? I didn't know you could be too honest, but apparently I am. So I don't try to pretend like I'm okay when I'm not okay. I don't try to pretend like I don't have problems. I don't try to act like I'm just always okay. And I talked about last week, how I was a little devastated when I released my book, my second book, and just my, my sales were not great and how hard it is to continuing put it, continuing to put one foot in front of the other with doing what I feel like God told me to do when there's just not a whole lot of evidence that it's working or that anyone even really is, you know, getting anything from it.
Especially when I see what, what appears. Did you hear what I said? Appears that so many other people have the same type of ministry I do or the same type of calling.
And on the surface it looks like they are just so blown it up, blowing it up, man. They are so they've got a huge following. They've got, you know, according to their post, they have millions of followers, they make tons of money. It's just amazing.
So that can really make you feel like you're a loser and a failure.
And so I had to, you know, I have to stop looking at other people first of all. But I'm super honest about my struggle. And I want you to know that you're not alone and that everybody struggles. They just don't all talk about it. They just. A lot of people like to pretend like they are elevated and, and so much better than everyone else because that's how they keep the gravitational pull to themselves.
Because people naturally want someone else to kind of look to for leadership and guidance. And they think if, if certain people don't have problems or if they just got it all together, then, oh, I must follow. I need to follow that person. They want somebody to follow.
Just like how they kind of lifted Saul up in the Bible and they wanted to have a king. It's the same type of thing. We think that everyone else has it together.
Instead of just looking to God for everything, we have to have someone to follow and almost worship. And so I think we even do that in Christian circles, to be honest. And it's really sad, but I just want you to guys to know I'm a mess. I don't have it all together all the time.
I wake up some days feeling like a failure. I have to struggle my way through life just like you.
Without Jesus, I don't know, I wouldn't be alive right now. I'd be in a mental institution. I have no doubt of it. So anyway, that's my intro. Yay.
So today I want to. This is a great.
What do you call it? Sequel to the mustard seed parable, which is what we talked about last week.
This week we are talking about the kingdom of heaven is like hidden but working.
We're talking about the leaven in the dough or the yeast in the dough? That sounded so country. The yeast. The yeast in the dough or the leaven that was hidden in the dough.
So this, this actually comes from.
I'm gonna read from Luke this time. He says it in Matthew and Luke, but I'm going to read this one from Luke in the Passion translation for you.
And this is what Jesus says in this.
This little scripture here. Jesus taught them another parable. How can I describe God's kingdom? God's kingdom is like something as small as yeast that a woman needs into a large amount of dough. It works unseen until it permeates the entire batch and the loaf rises high.
I want you to hear this phrase. It works unseen until it permeates the entire batch and the loaf rises high.
So this is a sequel to last week, because when you're talking about the mustard seed, what we saw there was that the mustard seed represented visible growth.
Okay?
And there were some cool things that we saw about that. But it was visible. We could see the growth. Right? But it did start with a tiny seed. What we see here is, it's another tiny ingredient, but it's invisible transformation.
So he's. He's saying this is another small thing, but the transformation is invisible.
So the correlation that I see here is this is an internal transformation. So he's talking more here about the transformation that happens in a person.
This is the way that I, when I read this, this is the way I understand it. To me, and I'm sure it could probably correlate to other areas. But when I read this, this is what I gathered and what I felt in my spirit.
So I was. It's crazy because I don't know if any of you have watched, and I'm actually watching it right now. I think it's called the Great British Baking show or the Great British Bake off or something like that. It's on Netflix.
And it's so. It's so funny because, you know, they. They gathered these little group of.
Group of wannabe professional bakers and breast bless their little hearts. They're nervous wrecks. And for an entire, I don't know, eight or 12 episodes.
And they're just running around trying to bake cakes and bread and biscuits and whatever and trying to impress these. These famous bakers, you know, and. And so they say funny words that we don't really use here in the United States. You know, we talk about letting the dough rise. They call it proving over there in the uk they call it proving the dough.
And so that. That really, when I was looking at this parable, that really stood out to me, right?
Because the thing is, when you're talking about dough and you're talking about this idea of this parable of the. The yeast or the. The leaven needing to permeate the entire dough, we're talking about invisible transformation. Here's the deal. I don't. I don't think we struggle with God not working, but I think we struggle with not being able to see it, right? The transformation that's happening.
So that. That to us often feels like seasons that feel slow or repetitive, unseen, and like nothing is changing.
And so it Often it's like we look around and we think nothing is different.
And so I'm going to get to what that means in terms of proving and what I just mentioned a minute ago.
So it feels. It feels like hidden.
It feels like hidden seasons or seasons that just don't feel right to you.
So leaven. Think about leaven. It's small, it's invisible once it's mixed in. And it doesn't show immediate results, right?
Which, you know, we don't like that because we want things to happen quickly, but it is working through everything, even though we can't see. See that it's working through everything. And this is what the proving aspect is.
When they work the dough in and you can watch it on the show or you can watch anyone who's a baker when they're manipulating or moving that dough, or we just kind of. I don't know what we call it here, but we are. You know, when you see a baker, they're kneading the dough is kind of what we call it here. They're. Man, they're pushing that stuff around, kneading it, beating it up. And they're. What they're doing is they're working that leaven around through the dough.
Because if they don't do that, it doesn't spread out the way that it needs to, right? It would just be in, like, one spot.
So the dough gets worked, it gets stretched, it gets pressed.
So I just want you to think about you right now. Put yourself in this, the kingdom of heaven, in order for God to be able to work.
Work it in you.
This is you.
He's got to.
In some regard, he's got to work some things. He's got to stretch you. He's got to press you a little bit.
That's why.
That's why things happen the way they happen in your life. That's why you often feel stretched or pressed or worked.
That's why you find yourself in. In the same situation over and over sometimes. And you go, why am I always in this stupid situation, Lord, why does this keep happening to me? Or.
And I've said this, and I've said this recently, why is it that when one thing gets fixed in my life or like, let's just say. Let's just say financially, you have a problem and oh, my gosh, we fixed the problem. We're on our feet again.
The very next day, something else happens and takes the place of the other problem. And now you have a new problem.
How many of you get. You guys can relate to that? So that. That is.
Yeah, that is the stretching and the pressing, right? So I think a lot of us, we keep asking, why does this keep happening? We keep. We're asking the wrong question.
Maybe we need to maybe say, lord, okay, what are you trying to teach me? Because this continuing. And sometimes it's just being in a broken world, but sometimes there might be an underlying thing that God is trying to work in us.
Proving aspect, right?
What is the proving aspect? What is he working in the dough? We. We are the dough. What is the.
He's the leaven. What is he working in us?
Is he trying to teach us to. To trust him?
Is he trying to teach us to have faith?
Because that stuff is more important to him than us getting the answered prayer, then us getting convenience, than us getting whatever it is we think that would solve our problems. The, you know, the 50,000 doll out of the sky into our lap. We think that might fix the problem, but it probably won't fix the problem because we would just have another problem the next day to take its place.
Maybe it's the trust he's after that he wants you to learn. The kingdom of heaven, it has to be worked through us. And the only way. There is no magic pill, there is no easy way for him to work it into us. It has to be. We have to be stretched and pressed. Just like that dough is worked by a baker, the same thing has to happen to us.
And then the step, the next step that a baker does with this dough is they place it in a warm place. A lot of times there's like a proving oven. It's not like necessarily the same oven, although it might be. Sometimes they just stick it in the oven and it's not on, but it's kind of a warm place and they leave it alone. Sometimes they leave it in there for hours and. Or 20 minutes or whatever it is, and they Let it rise.
That's when the rising actually takes place. And that is so hard, you know what I mean? Because that's the season in our life where that's when it really feels like nothing's happening.
And that's when you want to just jump out of the ship, you know, that's probably when God has you in a situation that it doesn't make sense, it's lasting too long.
It you, you're like why am I here? You know? And I can, I can tell you all about seasons like that in my life. I.
That one that comes to mind for me was ongoing seasons of working at, at a bank or two that I hated. Well, it wasn't, the first one wasn't too bad. I just didn't want to be there. My heart wasn't there. My heart was to be doing music and full time ministry and couldn't understand for the life of me why God had me at this bank. Then the second go around I was at another bank and I really hated that bank. It was a terrible place to work and I just couldn't understand like why am I here? My heart's not here. I felt like I was a caged in bird, you know what I mean? So I don't know. I mean, but those moments, it felt like I was an approving oven. Like God just was letting that leaven needed to rise. And it just, just made me so angry, you know. But there were things that needed to come to the surface. There were things that God was working in me and that only time, only time would, would allow that process to happen. And that's the truth with the kingdom of God unfortunately is I wish that it was an instantaneous thing. Like you know, I wish it was fast like the mustard seed parable. But in this parable leaven takes time and we can't see it. Because the thing about this dough is you can't see it. Think about it. Even if you don't use a proven oven proving oven, you actually like my mom the old fashioned way. I remember she would like put a towel over it and set it on top of a countertop or something by a window so that the sun could kind of warm it. But you couldn't see it like because you had the towel over the top of the dough so that it would get warm, right? It's the same concept. You can't see what's going on with the dough and the leaven and it rising.
So the rising happens and we can't see it.
So just because you see you can't see it doesn't mean it's not changing everything. And that's what. So that's what makes it so hard for us, is that we, we want to constantly check. We check too early or we quit too soon or we assume nothing's happened. We want visual progress, but God is doing internal transformation oftentimes in our life, and we can't tell. That's the thing, is that we can't tell. We want to be the judge of.
Okay, I'm pretty sure I'm done now. Thanks, Laura. I'm gonna go ahead and jump out of this situation.
And. And we think that we're the judge and we're not. We're not capable of determining when we're ready.
Only God can do that. And I cannot tell you how many times I would just run around telling people, yeah, you know, I think it's time for me to go ahead and move on to the next phase of my life.
Like I was some kind of. I don't know, like I was so wild. This wise sage who knew it was time, you know, I mean, like, really just shut your mouth and just get back in the proven oven, you know, like, who. I didn't know and you probably don't either. And I would just say in a very nice way, if you find yourself in this situation, the best thing you can do is just let it happen. Just let it happen. I know it hurts, I know it's uncomfortable, but this is the way of the kingdom. If it's easy, it's probably not the kingdom.
If it's easy, it's probably not the kingdom. Until you learn how to surrender. When you learn how to surrender, things become easier.
But if you arm wrestle God, it is not going to be easy for you. And he always wins.
So just keep that in mind. Tuck that in your back pocket. Just remember that the mustard seed last week was visible growth, but the leaven that we're talking about this week is invisible transformation.
It's slow growth, but it is, it is still working even when we can't see it. So if you, if you try to rush it. And this is something else that I noticed in the. The Great British Bake off.
And I just, I encourage you to watch the show. It's so much fun. But what. One of the things I noticed, several things, honestly, is if they tried to.
If they didn't work the dough enough, it would.
The judge would always say things like, you know, do you. You. This dough isn't. It's not.
They would say, you didn't prove the dough enough. Like, they didn't work it enough. There would be certain characteristics about it, but if they overworked it, they would. They would say things about that, too. But sometimes they say the dough is just too heavy.
The. They would say stodgy would be the word and whatever that means. Or the dough is dense and thick. And I mean, like, it has to be perfect. Like, the amount of working the dough or proving the dough had to be perfect to make the bread. Exactly right. And it was crazy. And out of all the things that they make on this show, because they do cakes, they do cookies, they do biscuit, they call them biscuits. They're kind of like crackers to us.
They do all kinds of, like, caramel. They do all kinds of cool desserts.
Everybody has the worst and the most trouble with bread. It seems to be the hardest thing that they make on this show.
And I see why. There's just so much involved with it. So I can see why Jesus chose bread to talk about this, But I just want to say, you know, when we're talking about bread and we're talking about Jesus using leaven to talk about this parable, if you rush it, you stay heavy.
If you rush this print, this parable, this concept, you stay heavy because if you try to rush proving the dough doesn't get the air it needs. Because a lot of the reason that you work it and prove it is that it. It gets the air into the dough, and even when it rises, it gets more air into the dough.
And so if you don't let it do that, it doesn't get. It doesn't get the air that it needs. And so it's too heavy and dense.
So if you try to rush this season that you're in, you're not going to get everything you need. And therefore, you won't be ready to walk into or step into the next thing that God has for you.
And then that would be a wasted season. Like, everything that you just went through would be wasted.
And you don't want to do that.
You want God to control the times and the seasons of your life.
The worst thing you could do is to cut something short or to try to take control of it and to try to move it forward before it's time.
You know, I've done that so many times. I can't even.
I've lost count of how many times I have tried to push things forward before it was their time.
Because I knew. I knew my heart, that where I was at was not like the destination, the final destination of where I was supposed to be. So I would just take things into my own hands. I think it was kind of like a Sarah thing, you know, with. With Hagar and Ishmael. I think I was trying to create an Ishmael and I think that's kind of a woman thing, to be honest with you. Please don't get mad at me. I think as we often try to take matters into our own hands and we just try to create solutions, you know, and that often really messes up.
It's not that it. Well, I want to say it creates issues for us.
We try to create a plan B and God's like, well, you know what? I had a plan. If you'd have just waited on me, it would have been. Would have been just fine.
But we don't like to wait.
And in the, in the waiting is the character development that we need to sustain us for the promise that God has for us.
Don't shoot the messenger, guys.
So what if, you know, what if the season you're in right now isn't empty, isn't wasted, but it's actually the part where everything is changing?
What if the season you're in right now isn't empty, isn't wasted, but it's actually the part where everything is changing and you don't see it yet, but that doesn't mean it's not working.
So, friends, you know, this, this episode is actually kind of short. I don't know how I got through that so fast, but I hope that this encourages you.
I know what it's like to be in a season that you just hate. I'm just going to flat out say it. I have been in three or four of those seasons that they were so hard and I did everything I could to just get out of them. I begged God, I cried. I would come home and cry because I hated my job so much. And I did everything I could do to escape it.
And it didn't matter what I did. I could not get out of that proving oven, man, you know, And I just finally had to come to a place of surrender.
And it took me years to just surrender to the Lord.
And I'm not going to say it was ever easy.
And I think that I finally had to just get tired enough that I just stopped fighting and stopped arm wrestling him for control of my life and just said, you know what? I got to distrust you, that you know better than me. And, you know, I'm so glad that he didn't let me have my way. I mean, honestly, he could have. He could have let me have my way, but he didn't.
And that was kind of him because I could have created all kinds of ishmaels and. And I did a few times, honestly. But even in his kindness, he saw fit to block. Block a lot of my.
My efforts. And it made me mad at the time. But I see now that it was his kindness to block those things because they weren't his will and they weren't his best for me. And you can't see that at the time. And that might be your case too. You might feel like, you know, okay, sorry about that.
You may just feel like this season is something you want to escape. But you know what? Obedience is better than sacrifice sometimes. And it just may be a place where you just have to obey and trust the Lord, that he knows best. And I get it. I get it. And I just pray for you, friend, that, you know, you just can settle into that and learn that surrender is.
Is. It's not as hard as you think. Once you do it, it actually does get easier. And there is freedom on the other side of surrender that I think you'll look back and realize. I'm so glad that I did surrender.
So that is this week. I hope that this encouraged you. Please go find me on my social media channels.
I'm on. I'm on Instagram, I'm on Facebook, I'm on YouTube everywhere. Tick tock. Also, you can find my book on Amazon. It's Choosing Better Leaving the Mountains. We were never meant to Circle. I would love for you to have a copy of that. I think it could potentially really help you with some of these mindset shifts that we all struggle with sometimes. And I guess, until next time, I pray that you have a great week and I'll see you soon. Bye.
[00:26:55] Speaker A: He's faithful to his shining light
[00:27:01] Speaker B: not
[00:27:02] Speaker A: even death can hold his beloved handle hey, here he comes again Riding on the clouds he's shifting the wind
[00:27:19] Speaker B: he's
[00:27:19] Speaker A: bringing new light and no hey. His fire is burning right? His L is breaking through the night he's coming for me Saying death always comes alive.
[00:27:45] Speaker B: Love.
