When God Says Not Yet: Learning to Trust the Wait with Pastor Kyle Prichard

0:00If you've ever worked with someone who creates chaos, plays the victim, and blames everyone else, then this podcast is for you. So here's your host, Adam Holbrook.

0:19Welcome to the Managing Difficult People podcast. I am your host, Adam Holbrook. The reason I created the Managing Difficult People podcast, I was noticing there's so much division in this world, so many people arguing and fighting. And I said, I want to create a place, a safe place where leaders, teams can come and listen and listen to my story, listen to my guest stories, and maybe gain awareness of how they can move forward in their own life. I work with schools and organizations that want to change culture. Because when we stop actually talking about changing culture and actually do something about it, that's when everything happens.

1:03Relationships improve. People are more excited to show up. And the bottom line increases too. If that's something that you're interested in finding out more about, go ahead and email me at info at adam-holbrook.com. Or reach out on the website, www.managingdifficultpeoplepodcast.com. Today, I have to tell you, today we're talking about God's timing, because God's timing is a lot different than our timing. And I have been thinking about this episode for quite a while right now, and I had a whole criteria that I wanted to be able to empower. And as I'm getting ready for the episode, last week I reached out to Kyle, Kyle Pritchard, Pastor Kyle Pritchard.

1:51And I said, hey, this is the idea for the podcast because I'm recognizing a lot of people are speaking about God's timing and why is it taking so long? Or I'm just sitting around waiting for God to tell me my direction. Or I'm working so hard to where I want to go in life and nothing is happening. And I invited Kyle to come on today and he graciously accepted. He's been on the show now three times, and I want to do a formal introduction again for him. Kyle Pritchard is the lead pastor of Bethany Church in Tadswell, Tennessee, where he has served since launching the church in 2017. He's also the founder of Unbound Ministries, equipping churches and community leaders to respond to addiction, mental health challenges, and recovery with compassion and practical strategies.

2:44Kyle serves as chairman of Live Free Claiborne, a nonprofit dedicated to reducing stigma and expanding recovery support in rural communities. A graduate of Lee University with a degree in Bible and theology, he has trained faith leaders across Tennessee, presented at national conferences, and is passionate about helping people experience lasting transformation. Whether speaking in churches, community settings, or leadership events, Kyle brings a blend of biblical insight, real-world experience, and practical encouragement that inspires people to live with purpose and hope. Please welcome to the Managing Difficult People podcast, Kyle Pritchard.

3:31Hey! Man, I'm getting used to this. This is three times now. You're my favorite. You're my favorite. You're my favorite. I gotta admit it. Don't tell everybody else that, though. The reason why you're my favorite is I'm learning a lot as we do these together. And, you know, I'm beginning to find God more regularly, enter God more in my life more. And today's podcast means so much to me because, you know, I have been actively working on my dreams and goals. And sometimes they happen quicker. in my first two businesses, they took about five years to achieve those goals. And then there's other businesses, there's other things that I want.

4:15And I'm asking God, why are you holding out? Why aren't you giving me these answers? And I don't know exactly how it works, but there's a lot of talk around the community about the same exact thing. You know, we're trying to trust God. We're trying to believe in the God, but at what point do we say enough is enough? I have to change directions. Yeah, that's really good. So really, I think it's important that we, I want to just start out with this premise. And I want to read a verse of scripture. It's Jeremiah 29 11. And this is what God says. Now this is Old Testament prophecy and prophecies talking about God's people in his time, but it's Old Testament prophecy can also be talking about the future, like our time as well.

5:01I believe this verse is for us as well. It says, for I know the plans I have for you. This is the Lord's declaration. He says, plans for well-being, not disaster, to give you a future and a hope. So I think it's really important for us to start with that premise that God has a plan for us. It's not a plan for disaster. In other words, it's not a plan for things to go wrong. It's a plan for a future and a hope. And actually, prosperity, a lot of translations, it'll say plans for prosperity. The Hebrew word that was used there is shalom. So shalom is peace. But we in our Western culture that are English speakers that don't speak Hebrew don't really have a good understanding of what shalom peace is.

5:48Shalom peace is not absence of war. I heard it described this way one time, shalom is everything is as it should be. And so God has this perfect plan, not disaster, but of shalom. Everything is as it should be. Ephesians 1.11 says God is working out everything according to his goodwill. Romans 12.2 says God's will is perfect. And so it's really important for people that are, have a desire to follow God and have a desire to live out God's plan and God's way in their life to have that understanding that God is not just God, creator God of the universe. God is the good father. Because of Jesus, we can call God father and he's our good father and he wants to give good gifts.

6:38And so it's important for us to start from that aspect. Does that make sense? Yeah, and I wanted to spin on that because I agree with that statement. And I know a lot of times for the people I talk to, even myself, you know, I struggle with mental health when I'm trying to serve greater and more on an ongoing basis. And knowing that I want to do God's work and then God is not giving it to me, whether it's preparation, whether it's really learning more until that blessing comes. But what I recognize, scooting away from the Bible and God for a second, is that for my own mental health, I need part-time consistent work.

7:24Because when I have that part-time consistent work coming, that paycheck coming in, regardless of how much money we have in the bank, and this is not about money because I know this is not about money. But when I feel like I got a consistent job where it's five to 10 hours a week, it feels great. It feels like I'm serving. Now it's still going after my God-given purpose. But in the meantime, I feel like this part-time job has given me the mental health clarity as I work on the God's timing. So this is me just saying to Kyle, I recognize we want to have hope and change. But if we're in a business that's failing and we're praying to God every single day, you know, we're in a business that's just costing millions and millions of dollars and just saying, God, please give us this.

8:12Please give us this. This is so we can serve. And if we're not doing it, what do we do in those situations? So I want to answer your question with a story, my story. So in 2014, my wife and I started dating and I'm going to leave out a whole lot of details here just for time's sake we started dating and let's see we started dating in february early march and by may we had made a decision to go into business together and by august 1st 2014 we opened up a florist in our very small town here in east tennessee and my wife was a florist she's very creative and i was going to run the business part of it and then so we opened up on August the 1st 2014 a year later in July we got married we thought well if we can run a business together then we can surely be married anyway and so we got married and really had a tough time in this business because it was a florist that's a specialty shop we're in a community that doesn't is not very well off economically so now we have people that don't necessarily have money to spend on the specialty items in a florist and so we struggled it was a very big struggle for us our kids joke about eating peanut butter off of a spoon you know because that's just where we were in life so that was we opened in 2014 had this rough 20 2015 2016 2017 getting into so in 2017 we started our church so i was basically full-time pastor at our church not making any money at all.

9:50Because that's not why you start a church to make, well, we shouldn't start a church to make money, right? And then we had the florist. We were just scraping by, I mean, paycheck to paycheck and robbing Peter to PayPal and all that good stuff. And so then 2018 rolls around and man, it was summer of 2018. It was bad, Adam. It was really bad to the point of, by August to September that month, like I started having suicidal thoughts and just really struggling with depression, really struggling with my mental health. In all of this, and I'm just throwing this in, I'm just, I'm sharing my story. And so that's important.

10:28I want your listener to understand that this is just my story. Okay. I'm not, everybody's got their own story. I was a 30 year smoker. I started smoking cigarettes when I was 16 years old. And I smoked cigarettes about a pack a day for 30 years. And on October the 26th of 2018, I said, okay, I'm done. And I put down my cigarettes and I quit smoking. It's something that God had, God still loved me. God wasn't mad at me, but it was something that all along God was saying, hey, this is not healthy. You're spending money. You don't need to spend. This is a bad habit. A pastor doesn't need to be smoking cigarettes, this kind of thing.

11:06And again, I'm just sharing my story. This isn't judgment toward anybody else. And so I got there and I'm like, okay, God, I want to quit. So October 26, 2018, I quit smoking. I haven't had a cigarette since then. Within a month of that, we had sold our business for enough money to pay ourselves out of debt. And I started as the full time pastor of Bethany Church on December the 1st, 2018. And that was a big step in faith too, because again, the church didn't have money, but that's for another day. So my whole point of sharing that story is a couple of things. One, God's timing is important. Two, it's important for us to stop and ask the question, have I got something going on in my life that's keeping God from either moving in what I feel like he's called me to do or moving me out of what I feel like he's called me to do?

12:01Is there something that's blocking that? I word it this way to people a lot. Is there something I'm doing that I really don't need to be doing? In my case, it was smoking cigarettes, right? It's my example. Or is there something that I'm not doing that I do need to be doing? And again, I don't have that answer for everybody. That's between a person and God of what God is wanting us to do. But it can be tough. Like, I get what you're saying. And again, you're talking about the mental health stuff. Like I got that big time in the summer, early fall 2018, Adam. Like I was, man, I was struggling hard and I didn't have an answer.

12:42Do you think that if you didn't stop smoking cigarettes that the business wouldn't have sold? I don't know. I don't know. I know that there have been multiple times in my life that I've felt, I'm going to use a Christianese word, conviction from the Holy Spirit. conviction from God's spirit, this voice in my head or audible, whatever, however people hear from God, of God saying, hey, I want you to start doing something or I want you to stop doing something. And in the midst, when I've been obedient to that, something has happened in life. He's blessed me in some way or protected me in some way or guided me in some way or whatever.

13:19That's, again, I'm just sharing my story. So this was over your head of not smoking cigarettes for a while and this was kind of maybe in your subconscious mind that, hey, look, this actually may be affecting my business. This could be affecting my well-being. And there's a lot of truth to that. I tell people a lot, you may come to me for advice and I may be like, Adam, man, you got to put some skin in the game. That's not a Southern saying, is it? Do you understand that? You got to invest in this, right? Earlier, prior to this in 2018, man, I was having a rough time. Again, finances were bad and all this.

13:56And my wife said to me, out of the blue one day, she said, maybe you need to put some skin in the game, which is my words that I use. And I'm like, what? Wow, that's pretty cool. Yeah, she said, maybe you need to put some skin in the game. I said, what do you mean? She said, well, maybe you need to just step out in faith and trust God and quit smoking. And so I even got that message from my wife that this is something that I probably need to do in my life. And so again, here's what I'm not saying. I'm not saying that I don't want to get into legalism. I don't want to get into, well, God loves me more because I listen to him.

14:29That's not. Yeah, but where is it in the Bible that says that we shouldn't smoke or what was it that was going on in your brain that you thought that you were not being sure fulfilling his message with that? I mean, so first of all, let me say, you know, first Corinthians six, chapter six, Paul says, don't you know, you're the temple of God. So, you know, you and I were talking before we started the podcast about both of us get up about the same time every morning and go walk or whatever. Right. And so we're trying to take care of ourselves. But when it becomes more than I'm just trying to take care of me for my health and I'm trying to treat my body as if it's God's because we could get in.

15:09I won't trail down that road, but because Jesus died for you as a purchase on the cross is what Jesus did on the cross. And so that's one thing is I wasn't treating my body like God wanted me to treat my body. And again, I'm not preaching to anybody that smokes. I'm just sharing my story. I just want to really emphasize that. And the second thing is we were having financial problems, but I was spending$5 a day on a pack of cigarettes and five times 30 is 150. That's$150 a month. And 12 times 150 is I'm not good at math. So I'm not even going to guess at that, but it's a lot of money that I didn't need to be spending.

15:42And so it's like, I want to jump over here real quick because I want to share a verse. That makes sense, Kyle. That makes a lot of sense. So Proverbs chapter 1 verses 32 and 33 say, For the apostasy of the inexperienced will kill them, and the complacency of fools will destroy them. So let me bring that into English. So apostasy is not caring. So if we just don't care and complacency is just like, I'm just going to rest here and be in where I am and not do anything. And this proverb, this wisdom that we get in the Bible says this apostasy will kill them and complacency will destroy them. But then the very next verse says, but whoever listens to me.

16:26So God speaks to us in many, many, many different ways. So whoever listens to me will live securely and be undisturbed by the dread of danger. And so. And the whole time you're talking about this, I'm like, man, you know that Bible so well. Like, how did you just like, where did you just pull that from? Like, I want to know the Bible that well. That's so impressive. So good. So can I digress just a moment? Let me steer away. just a moment. So the reason is because I'm in the Bible almost every day, sometimes multiple times a day. And yes, sometimes, well, a lot of times it's to prepare for a sermon, but I'm not just in the Bible to prepare for a sermon.

17:13I'm not in the Bible just because I feel like that's what good Christians do. I'm in the Bible because I need to know these promises. This Bible, this is God's revelation of who he is. And so I need to know these promises. I need to know, here's what I tell people. And here's what I, any of your listeners, all of your listeners, if you really want to know the Lord, here are the two things you need to know. You need to know who God is. It's all right here in the Bible. And you need to know who you are in God. It's all right here in the Bible. And so, yeah, I make it, I write things on my heart.

17:47There's another verse close to that that says, never let loyalty and faithfulness leave you. Now he's talking about loyalty and faithfulness to wisdom. Never let the wisdom lead you. And he says, tie them around your neck. So it's literally as if we were taking a placard and writing God's word on it and tying it around our neck so we could carry it and pull it up and read it to remember what it is it says. Because God says, I'll never leave you or forsake you. God says, I promise and I fulfill my promises. God says, I don't count the sins against those that belong to me. I could spend the rest of our time just quoting promises of God that are important to me that help me remember who God is and who I am in God.

18:31Because everything else that we're talking about is going to fall into that. All the faith in God falls into that. And the timing and the plan and all that falls into that. Who is God and who am I in God? So what I'm hearing is that to our listeners that are listening right now that if you are not within God, if you know that you are doing something on an ongoing basis that's not within God, right? God is not punishing you, but he's welcoming us to live in accordance of what is in the Bible. And by doing so, he will guide you. Whether that's stopping smoking cigarettes like Kyle was talking about, which then guided him to selling his business and being able to pay off the debt and start his ministry to serve God more.

19:22But what is it for you? And it's not a punishment. God's not punishing us. The way I'm seeing it, it's not a punishment. And we do think, now there is some people that are out there that are living God's message every single day, and they're just trying the same things over and over, and they're trying to change it up. But sometimes they're not trusting God's timing where it's affecting their mental health and they're just constantly grinding and pushing and pushing and they don't know how to slow down. So let's, we're going to transition from trusting God's timing and recognizing we have to live within God.

20:00We have to be on the best we can and doors will open and we'll gain insights to how we live. But now we're moving into the trust. One thing I want to say that I just want to clarify and specify is that it's not just doing the best that we can. I want everybody to understand the gospel is about grace that is a gift to us, and a gift is not something you earn. And so God loves you. It's that God's got a perfect plan, and we need to understand and realize these things. So I flipped over as you were saying that, and another scripture that popped into my head. Psalm 16, verse 6 says, the boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places.

20:43The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places. So it's like God has created this boundary and the boundary is pleasant. It's a good place to be. But if you go beyond the boundary, it's not a good place to be. So let me put that into parental terms. That's a good way for us to look at this. Parental terms for us. So you say to your child, hey, don't go out of the driveway into the street. Well, you're telling them that because if they go in the street, they might get run over by a car and you don't want them to get hurt, right? Like we place these boundaries on our children, not because we're mean, not because we want to punish them, but we as parents are supposed to know what's best.

21:21And so we keep our kids from doing that. Which the same thing with timing of the Lord is, listen, Adam, God knows, for example, when we sold our business and I went full-time at our church, God knew prior to that, I wasn't ready to go full-time at our church. I wasn't, he was not finished preparing me for that. You know, you think about Jesus in the 30 years before his public ministry. So it was, Jesus was born and 30 years later, that's when he started public ministry. John says the first miracle, John chapter three was, or two, whatever, Jesus turned him water into wine. And so he was about 30 years old when he did that.

22:00And so what was Jesus do in those first 30 years? Well, I believe there's no written history really about it. I believe God, the father was preparing Jesus for his earthly ministry. Don't ask me what that looked like. I have no idea, but I believe that's what was going on. It is God was, the prophet Jeremiah talks about going to the potter's house and the potter mold something and God was molding him. And so Adam, I would say to you right now, anything that you're experiencing, God is molding you. I say to everybody listening to this or everybody watching this on YouTube. Right now, God is molding you.

22:38And tomorrow, he'll be molding you. The next day, he'll be molding you. And he's making you, he's taking, if you're anything like me, a broken, nasty lump of clay and making it into something beautiful is what the Lord is doing. Now, let me, because you started talking about, we don't tell our children to go out in the street because we want to keep them safe. But I thought where you were going to go with that one, And I don't know if it's an incomplete thought or you kind of just wrapped it around a little bit was if we go out in the street. Right. So we're not credible for the messages that we're speaking.

23:11And I think this is a lot harder to do than we actually think we think it is to do. You know, like when I go on stage, one time somebody asked me if I could speak on mindfulness. And my response was, I'm the least mindful person that you've ever met before. You don't want me speaking on mindfulness. this. And if you ever heard the story about this woman that goes to the Buddha and he's with his child and he says, Buddha, can you tell my son to stop eating chocolate? And the Buddha says, come back in three days. And the woman takes the child away, comes back in three days. And I don't know why you made me come back in three days, but I'm here.

23:51Can you now tell my son to stop eating chocolate? Stop eating chocolate. Why did you tell him that now and not three days ago, because three days ago I was eating chocolate. Yeah. Right. The point is, are we credible for the message that we're speaking and living? And that to me might have been where you were going with the out in the street, maybe not. But I think that sometimes I struggle with that, but it's I want to be able to live that message that I'm promoting each and every day. Well, so again, if we're going back, I mean, I'm always going to come back to a Christian worldview and the Bible.

24:28And if that message that we're have a desire to live out, like that's our goal. Like I want to live out the gospel and Jesus commands, Jesus commands are simple, love God and love people. So I want to live this out in everything that I do. It doesn't matter what gender you are, what race you are, what ethnicity you are, what your sexual identification is. None of that matters. I'm just going to love you because that's what Jesus told me to do. I think it's important for us to remember that it is completely impossible for us to just love everybody. Because some people get on my everlast nerves.

25:03I try to love them, but they just annoy me and they get on my nerves. And so I have to remember that any love that I pour out to that person is not going to come from me, but it's going to come from the presence of Jesus that lives inside of me. As a matter of fact, in Galatians 6, Paul's going to call that a fruit of the Spirit. Love is the fruit of the Spirit. It's the spirit that produces the fruit, not Kyle that produces the fruit. So I think I hear what you're saying most definitely, but I think it's important for us to remember we put too much focus on effort when it comes to our walk with God and being good and being a Christian and being righteous and holy and all that.

25:38We put way too much effort on being good. We are not good, period. The propensity of mankind is not good. We're, okay, if you take the word anthropocentric, which is human-centered, and the word Christocentric, which is Christ-centered, on our own, we're going to live anthropocentric. I'm going to be all about me and self-centered about me, not living my life for Jesus, because for Jesus, me living my life is about everybody else. Love God and love your neighbor. Does that make sense? Yeah. Yeah, that actually takes a lot of pressure off. Absolutely. 100 % of it because the pressure's no longer on me.

26:21My only thing, and you asked me, why are you able to go to the scripture just like that? And look, I say that, I'm repeating what you said. So I can't find stuff in the Bible sometimes. I'm glad I've got a Googler on my phone and I can Google, where does the Bible say this? Anyway, I do that all the time. But you're asking how I'm able to just remember these scriptures is because those scriptures are what is important to help me go back to God. because when I'm going back to God constantly in my life, every day, all the time, living a life, we call that repentance, living a life of repentance.

26:54When I'm doing that, I experience that outward transformation. I experience that through God working in me, not me doing anything. Okay. So Kyle, what do we say to somebody that's been praying, that's been doing everything that they're supposed to be doing, been working, but God just keeps saying not yet, not now. And it's affecting their well-being. It's affecting their family's income. It's affecting the food that they eat. What would you say to that? Well, I would say a lot of things. I mean, I would have multi-layered answers to that question. So number one, am I really doing, going in the direction that God wants me to be going in?

27:44I think we have to deal with that probably first. Like, is this really something God has called me to do? Or is this something that I'm interested in, that I want to do, that I feel like it's going to be good or whatever? And look, nobody can answer that question but you listening to God. And so I would start with that and be prayerful about that. And look, I believe if you'll get along with the Lord and pray that question, God, is this what you want me to be doing? You're going to get that. I hate the word feeling. You're going to get that message from the inside. That's a lot of times going to come out in a human feeling.

28:16It's going to affect you in a human feeling and you're going to get an answer. You're going to feel good about it or you're going to be like, I know this is probably not the direction I need to be going. So how do I figure that out? So let's say that it's, okay, I prayed about it and God has said, yes, I definitely want you to keep going in this direction, but I'm having this obstacle and this obstacle and this obstacle and it's not happened fast enough. And it's causing me to, my kids are eating peanut butter out of a spoon, kind of like me and my wife went through. And so Lord, like, what am I doing?

28:46What I need to be doing here. And so some scripture, I'm always going to come back to scripture. All right. David in Psalm 27 says, wait for the Lord, be strong and let your heart be courageous. Wait for the Lord. So two times in one verse, he starts it with wait for the Lord. He ends it with wait for the Lord. And so we can go, oh, OK, well, that's a simple answer. I'll just wait for the Lord. Well, but what does that mean? How do you wait for the Lord? What does it look like to wait for the Lord? And this is where we go wrong. I spent most of my life going wrong in this area, Adam, trying to be patient with God, trying to wait on God, trying to hear from God.

29:22But I wasn't necessarily resting in that. I was more out, okay, God, I'm going to ask you for some direction. And then I'm going to go do some stuff to try to figure out this direction. Well, that's not waiting upon the Lord. Earlier in that chapter, and I remind us again, it's Psalm 27. David says, I've asked one thing from the Lord. It is what I desire. So more than money, more than success, more than making my business grow or more than getting this education, more than being in a happy marriage, more than anything I can imagine. This is the one thing I desire. He says it's to dwell in the house of the Lord.

30:02He goes on. He says to dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life. So every day of my life to dwell in the house of the Lord or we could say dwell in the presence of the Lord. He says, gazing on the beauty of the Lord and seeking him in his temple. So David says, look, wait upon the Lord. Here's what you do when you wait upon the Lord. You just have a desire. God, I just want to be with you. I want to be in your presence. I want to worship you. I want to give you glory. Psalm 149.6, I've been studying on this lately, says that exalting the Lord. So exalting is lifting something up.

30:37It says exalting the Lord is my weapon or is my sword. It uses the word sword, but exalting the Lord is my weapon. So if you have a battle to fight, and I would be bold enough to say that I've got a battle to fight. You've got a battle to fight. Anybody listening to this or watching this has got a battle to fight. God is saying, look, just exalt me. What does that mean to exalt God? It means set your eyes upon him. This is the one thing I desire is to dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, gazing on the beauty of the Lord and seeking him in his temple. I just want God. Use that as your weapon and let that fight your battle.

31:11I don't even know if that answered your question because I don't even know what your question was. What I'm hearing in my world is curb your ego. Curb your ego. It's not about money. It's about who's inside, who you are as a person. And you are as you are that person. It's not that you're not living. You have food. God will make sure that you follow him. And if you follow him, that you're going to be needed. When God sent out, when Jesus sent out his disciples into different communities, they went out and Jesus said, we're not going to bring any food with us. And we're going into these other areas where these are enemies.

31:51They don't like, they don't like our people. And they were nervous, but they found a way. And although we think that we're at our rock bottom, we are struggling. We are in a place where we're not eating great food. We're not happy with our careers. We're not happy with our life because it's great to be able to follow God, but we live in and I follow God as much as I possibly can. But in our world that we live in, it requires us to balance both business, well, finances and work as well. And when we do everything in the name of God, that pressure lifts off of you. And I don't know exactly how to get there, Kyle.

32:34I'll be honest, I don't know exactly how to get there, but that's how I understand what you're saying. So I think that's a very fair question. I mean, again, I've got different answers that I could give you that. I mean, again, I'm going back to scripture again. Psalm 23, three or four, somewhere in there. It says that Psalm 23 is the shepherd. The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want. We see that on walls and on everything. So Psalm 23, either verse three or four says, he leads me on paths of righteousness for his name's sake. And he goes on and says, even when those are in the valley. So I think a big part of the answer is, okay, God, I'm really struggling right now.

33:14And I'm really in a deep spot right now. But what I want to do is I'm going to go back. I just, again, I want to wait on you. I want to hear from you. And a lot of this, Adam, I'm not even, I keep going to scripture, but it's my story. If we don't have, there's no way we have time for that today. Like it would take way more than one podcast for me to share all the different times in my life that I've made that choice to, I'm just going to submit and surrender to God. And he's led me in the right direction and begin to bless me and give me the things that I need from him. Kyle, I got to stop you there.

33:49So how do you know what to do every single day? If you've kind of given yourself over, but yet you want to build your ministry, you want to be able to serve him more? How do you know what to do? I know you're speaking at conferences, you're applying for conferences. How do you just know like, hey, today I'm going to write from conferences? How does it work? I don't. I don't. I really don't. I pray a lot for what I call divine appointments and really they happen. So for example, I mean, I'll give you a really good example that actually affects you, affects me and affects everybody listening to and watching this is like when I went to the conference in Chattanooga, I don't remember the name of it right offhand, but when I went to that conference - Yeah, Passive Recovery Conference in Chattanooga.

34:34Like I prayed multiple times leading up to that conference, even while I was at that conference of God, give me a divine appointment. And God said, okay, here, meet Adam Holbrook. Like, you know, God answers those prayers when our prayers, I'm going to go back to those big words again. Anthropocentric, it's all centered around me. Christocentric, it's all centered around Christ. When my prayers change from God, this is what I want, this is what I want, this is what I want, this is what I want, to God, I want you to give me everything and anything that you can to help me grow your kingdom, to live out your commands, love God and love others.

35:18Just give me those things. Just let me grow in your spirit and you begin to produce fruit. Lord, and I'm not bragging on me. I just want you to hear a way for people to pray. Lord, I'm watching Kyle and I'm listening to Kyle and listen to how he's going to those scriptures. Like, God, will you teach me how to do that? Will you show me how to take those truths and write them on my heart? And so to answer your question is those are the types of things that I I pray every day and I am 100 % confident that God answers those prayers and leads me in the right spaces within those boundaries, those pleasant boundaries that he created for me.

35:56He leads me where I need to go in those. And sometimes it's in the valley, but he never leaves me even when I'm in the valley. Wow. That's so good, Kyle. That's so good. Let's keep going. I love it so much. You're a life changer. You sat with me that day at the Paths to Recovery Conference, and I had just gotten done speaking, and I'm sitting there, and I'm exhausted because speaking is exhausting, as you know. And I'm sitting there, and you're sitting next to me, and I don't even think you have a booth next to me. You're just sitting, hanging out. And I'm like, why is this guy just sitting with me?

36:35It was my initial... Now, I know you came up to me afterwards, and we had a small talk, but we sat there hours just hanging out. And it was like the most special moment that somebody actually stayed with me and stayed with me in talking about God and the scripture. And it just really meant so much to me. And I was like, I felt so special that not only am I going to go down to Chattanooga, Tennessee and meet Kate Parsons and meet you and hang out with my buddy, Brett Kamenez, who lives there, but I'm also going to be able to get to have the space where I get to learn about God. And you introduced me to so many things.

37:10And I look forward to getting to know the Bible as much as well as you do. And I know it's going to take a lot of time and a lot of effort, but I'm willing for it. I'm willing and able. Yeah. Yeah. So it's funny. I mean, that day I go back to the divine appointment. I go back to God just working on operating. By the way, big shout out to Kate in Chattanooga. Hey, Kate. All right. She's our friend, guys. So anyway. Oh, you had her on your podcast. Yeah. Your listeners know who Kate is. Okay. And so she's awesome. Kate's awesome. So that day, somebody else got up to speak. You'd already finished.

37:41And I was sitting there in a breakout session or whatever. I don't really remember now. And as soon as they started, I'm like, oh, man, I got to go pee because I've got old man bladder, you know. And it was right out of nowhere. And I'm like, okay. So I get up and I walk and I'm sitting toward the front of everybody. And I walk out and I go to the restroom. And I come back in and I look through the window. And I'm like, I don't want to walk back in there and interrupt her. And so I walked out and I saw you sitting over there. I'm like, okay, God, like I knew God was leading me and directing me in this direction.

38:10And because that's what he does. And look, you and I are friends. We text each other a lot. Man, how are you doing? How's your family doing? Whatever. Like we've become brothers. And that's how God works when we're paying attention to him. And again, living life for him rather than living life for us. And it's a battle. It's a battle. Galatians 5, 16 says that the flesh battles against the spirit. The spirit battles against the flesh. And it goes on in me all the time. I have to fight it all the time. I'm not holier than thou. And every day, like there's days that I don't get up and pray to God and like I normally do or not get in the Bible or whatever.

38:45And the enemy says, hey, what's wrong? You suck as a Christian. And I have to go back and shut the enemy up and go, no, you shut up because that's not what my father says to me. God doesn't say that. God says, hey, God looks at me and you through the lens of Jesus. That's how God looks at you right now. Now, if you cheat, if you steal, and I'm talking about those that belong to him, those that have given their life, those that have confessed Jesus as Lord and say, I believe you, forgive me of my sins. It doesn't matter if you've cheated, cussed, stolen, whatever, God still looks at you through the lens of Jesus.

39:18That's what mercy and grace is. That's the love of Jesus. Wow. Now, John Maxwell says this quote, because while you're speaking, and this is what's coming to my mind, John Maxwell said that we're all naturally egotistical. We're all naturally selfish people. Now, there's trusting God's timing, but also what is our purpose of doing it, right? So when I have three speakings next month, I'm really excited. I'm so excited. I'm pushing my book to get out. My new book is coming out and I'm so excited to be pushing this book and trying to get it done on time for these speaking so I can sell these books so I can get my message.

39:58But there's a part of me that's doing it because of my own ego reasons to be able to share my message on an ongoing basis. And I don't know what that balance is. And just like I was asking you earlier, like, what do you do on like, how do you know what to do each day? How do you know what days you're going to write conferences or just sit back and just take the breath of God and just slow down a little bit? Well, so, I mean, one good thing about it is I also have a full time job as a pastor of our church. So I'm not necessarily getting up every day and seeking out conferences and applying to speak at a conference or whatever.

40:34Most of the ones I go to end up coming to me. And I don't mean that to sound as egotistical as it just I just sit back and wait on them, Adam. Come on, man. No. So good. Yeah. And I mean, I probably will get more into doing that, but I also get everything that you just said. So I'm working on a book right now too. And part of me writing that book is we sell our book, right? Now we've got a message. My book, I can't, I'm so fired up. It's 90 scriptures in 90 days. And it's going to be for people that are struggling with drugs and alcohol, because when you get out of rehab, out of treatment, they say you need to go do 90 meetings in 90 days.

41:08So I'm doing 90 scriptures in 90 days. I'm excited about it. It's going to be life changing for those that read it. It's a message that I believe God is giving me for other people to grow in him. But on top of that is I'm going to sell my book because that also supports my ministry and that supports what God has called me to do. And so, yes, yes, there is a balance that we have to find in that. And more it's about I want to share the message that God's given me to share. but yeah, I also have to not procrastinate writing. You know exactly what I'm talking about. You know, like, I just don't want to write right now, but having to sit down and do it anyway or whatever, like, yeah, we have to do those things.

41:53Kyle, I have to tell you about my book because trusting God's timings makes perfect sense in my three books that I've written. So many times I'm like, I try to push this out there. Well, last night, something happened in the middle of the night, I woke up and I started writing. I rewrote my entire introduction to my book, which has been written for almost a year. And it was given to me. And when I look at my two other books, they were given to me. And sometimes when I try to plow through and try to just write endlessly, and I do agree, we should be able to be in a creative space every single day and be able to write every single day.

42:35But when you're so open-minded and trusting, things just come through me and I just start writing. And afterwards, I read this and I'm like, how the heck did I just write that? That's incredible. Yeah, Adam, I'll tell you, I pray for crazy things like that. I literally ask God, wake me up in the middle of the night, give me a message, or wake me up in the middle of the night, give me a vision, come to me in my dreams tonight. You know, you got to have something to write because the crazy thoughts come to me at like three o 'clock in the morning And if I don't get it down right there, it's gone It's gone even on my morning walks They come to me as I just try to meditate for the first like 15 minutes after I say my prayer I just try to meditate and then all of a sudden a crazy idea comes in I got to write it down and later.

43:21I'll look at it. I'm like, oh wow. This is great Yeah, I totally agree and you know even we're talking about writing So, I mean, I pretty much do, I mean, there's seven days of the week and I spend at least four to five of those days out of the week doing sermon prep for an upcoming message that I'm going to preach on a Sunday. And that takes creativity, but it's not creativity as in I'm writing a story. It's creativity of, again, letting God just flow through me. And he does that. That's how God operates. He operates in that fashion. You know what's going to make your great book? And I can't wait to get my hands on it, even though I'm not going through recovery.

44:00And I think it probably would be really great for me is that you're a master storyteller. And stories are what connects the audience to the Bible and to making their own lives better. Gaining the awareness of where they're at. And you're a master storyteller. So that's why I think it's going to be a great read. I can't wait to get my hands on it. And we got to have you back on the podcast once it's written to promote it. Absolutely. Yeah. So you can grow your ministry. Yes. My wife loves it. And curb your ego. No, I'm just kidding. My wife loves it when I use her in stories when I'm speaking in front of our church on Sunday morning.

44:36That was sarcasm, by the way, in case you didn't.

44:42Fantastic. Kyle, thank you so much for being here today. I know we covered a lot. We always can talk a lot more, but let's just leave it where it's at right now. Now, so grateful. If you want to reach out to Kyle, Kyle, why don't you go ahead and tell them where they can reach you? Or you can go on to the managingdifficultpeoplepodcast.com. You could do a voice recording to myself or Kyle with a direct question and myself or Kyle will respond to you. But if they do want to reach out to you directly, how do they do so? So a couple of ways you can go to our church website. It's www.bethanychurch.me.

45:17That's M-E. Or you can email me. It's Kyle, K-Y-L-E, at unbound-ministries.com. I had to think about it a minute. Yes, Kyle at unbound-ministries.com. And yeah, shoot me an email. I love to answer questions. I love to help people. I'm absolutely connect with me. I love building relationships and making new friends anyway. Kyle, can maybe we leave? I'm feeling, can you pray for us for a minute before we go? Would that be okay? Yeah, yes, yes. Oh, I love it. Oh, I'm getting goosebumps. All right. Father, it's just awesome how you work. I just want to start by giving you praise and glory for my relationship with Adam and the way that you work to bring us together, to bring us to a place to where he can have me on as a guest a few times now on his podcast, Lord.

46:09And I give you all the glory for that. I know it's you working all things out for good. Your word says that we know all things work together for the good of them that love the Lord and are called according to his purpose, Lord. And we don't just love you, but we realize that you have a purpose for us in this world. And when we sync those two things up, loving you and living out our purpose for you, God, you just move in crazy ways. And I praise you for that. And I praise you for sending Jesus, Lord, to die for my sins and to die for the sins of the world. He gave his life up as a sacrifice to purchase us so that we could be your sons and daughters and call you father.

46:48We get to call God the God, the creator of all universe, father. And so we just praise your name for that. Father, one simple request as I close us out in prayer today. Will you be with Adam? Lord, will you give him supernatural guidance that Lord gives him testimony of your greatness? And I want to pray that same prayer over every one of his listeners of this podcast that are listening to this podcast right now. If you're listening, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter if you're in your car, if you're at home, if you're in your office, what you're doing, listening, listening or watching this podcast.

47:23If you just, this is for you. Like I pray for a movement of God in your life that opens your eyes to new light, to new healing, to deliverance in the areas of your life, addictions or struggles, financial struggles, stewardship struggles, job opportunity struggles, whatever they are that the Lord delivers you and that you don't take credit for it, that you don't give me credit for it, but you remember this moment in the Managing Difficult People's podcast that we prayed this prayer and God heard us and God loves you and God moved on this. And so, Jesus, I just pray that prayer in your name and I pray it with anticipation and excitement to hear some testimony about it.

48:11And so we pray all this in your name and through your name and to you, Jesus. Amen. Amen. So grateful for you, Kyle. I love you, man. It's awesome. I love you too, man. I love all your listeners. And God's got big plans for you all. They're good. They're good. I'm so excited. Till next time, everyone. Thanks for listening.

48:35So that's it for today's episode of the Managing Difficult Pupil podcast. Head on over to Apple Podcasts or iTunes wherever you listen and subscribe to the show. One lucky listener every single week that posts a review on Apple Podcasts or iTunes will win a chance in the grand prize drawing to win a$10 ,000 private VIP day with Adam Holbrook himself. Be sure to head on over to managingdifficultpeoplepodcast.com and pick up a free copy of Adam's Gift and join us on the next episode.