(The following is an abbreviated transcription from a video Linda and I recorded. Please excuse any typos or errors.)
I think a lot of us believe lies that we’re told growing up. By friends, inadvertently. I think by family accidentally. Even jokes that are made.
There’s so many different things that shape our beliefs about ourselves. And I think it’s time for it to change.
I think it needs to change. These lies that so many of us believe are holding us back from the potential, from the things that God has for us to do.
We hope to encourage you to stop believing the lies people tell you about yourself.
Now before we get into our answer, I recorded our discussion that you can listen to our Podcast below, or, if you would rather read the full transcription, you can do so here in this article!
I’m reminded of…
Bob: One of the things I was reminded of with this is, all throughout grade school, English was my worst subject. English and writing grammar, all that stuff was my worst subject. I was pretty good at math, but English was just terrible. In high school. I went to a pretty challenging high school academically and I was really bad in English and it was definitely my worst subject.I got A’s and B pluses and pretty much everything else in English consistently a C.
Linda: Really?
Bob: Yeah. And my teachers were not encouraging and pretty much that writing’s “not for you, boy.” And so anyway, through this, I just developed a belief that I’m not a good writer. Like I probably shouldn’t write. Probably shouldn’t become a full-time blogger.
God has a plan for us
And so all of this is really interesting because that’s what God called me to do. And he’s called us to write this book that we just finished (Simple Money, Rich Life).
My point in saying all this is, is that God has helped me tear down some of those lies about myself. Which that’s a whole other thing. And the education system and the grading and the scoring of people by these man-made metrics.
Linda: Oh boy. We’re gone off on a tangent here.
Bob: No, it’s like, I’m not going to tear down the modern education system completely, but I think there’s something there that I think we can all acknowledge.
God’s worth in value and what he puts in us, can’t be measured by what a teacher says with a scoring on a sheet. You know what I mean?
Linda: Well, and also that your education doesn’t end in 12th grade. Or even in college. You can still get better at things as you get older and as you’re out of school.
Bob: And you should. We should be developing them and trying to move those forward.
Overcoming the lies that hinder you
Bob: But anyway, in terms of my situation as a writer, I definitely had some stuff to overcome because I built up these beliefs just thinking that I’m not a good writer. And when you don’t think you’re good at something you don’t perform, you don’t try as hard as if you actually think that you’re gifted to do it.
So God had to show me that he put something in me, in order for me to really start walking fully in it. Do you know what I mean?
Linda: Yeah.
God has a plan
Bob: And the reason I’m bringing this up and I’m tying all these pieces together is because we just got this email that was really interesting in how God tied all this stuff up together.
So the gist of it is, I sent an email out to our email list. If you’re on our email list, you would have seen this email. And it basically it’s a story from the book. I think right in the beginning of part three of the book. And I ended up reading this story in a previous podcast and it was about my career failure, my biggest career failure. Really just my journey through being completely stuck, passed over and in a hopeless situation. And so I shared this email with our email list. And I got this email response back from a reader and it says this:
“Bob, thank you so much for being the voice of God in my darkest season. I’ve been struggling with giving up so much. Trusting God’s will and purpose for my life has never been more difficult. This email you sent today might just have saved my life and I’m weeping as I write this. Thank you so much. Thank you for sending this at the exact time you did today. Thank you and Linda for sharing your story. Every bit of it resonated with everything I need.”
I see that. And it’s interesting how God works and ties these pieces together. Because I shared a story of my most difficult thing and thing I was struggling with. I wrote that email, you know, I typed keys on a keyboard and communicated my story. And it resonated with this other person, and had a significant impact on them. And, you know, I’m not the best with grammar and I don’t always put the comma on the semi-colon in the right place.
But for me personally, I care a whole lot less about that and a whole lot more about connecting with real human beings.
I’m just really thankful that I stopped believing these lies that I was telling myself that I’m not a good writer and I have nothing to share. And I shouldn’t write. Because even if no one else was impacted by something that I wrote, but just this one person and this one email, it means so much to me. It carries so much weight to me personally.
And so this is one of my struggles and one of the lies that I believed for a long time.
Showing up and obeying God
Linda: I think there’s something here, in kind of showing up and doing the thing that God asked you to do. Even though you’ve had all this backstory of: you’re not a good writer, this isn’t for you kid, etc. You know? And you’re thinking, “I feel like I’m just supposed to start this blog.” And so you start the blog.
Nobody’s really reading it. It just continues and continues to the point where you’ve written a book now. And the story in the book is having this type of impact on somebody. Because it’s not, oh yeah let’s look and see how good of a writer Bob is. That’s not the point of any of this.
The point is actually that you showed up. You obeyed to do the thing that God was asking you to do. And this is the impact that God is wanting to have in some people’s life. He just needed a person to get the job done.
Bob: Yeah.
Linda: I think that’s really encouraging because I think all of us have an area in our lives where we feel like, man, I’m not adequate. And why are you doing this?
I remember just the other day I was having this thing where my brain, like when I was talking, I would have a string of sentence. And then it was almost like a CD was skipping. But it was in my brain. And that night we were teaching our class and I was like, “Bob, you have got to pray for me because I can’t finish a full thought without the skipping thing happening.”
It was really, really weird. And we went that night to teach the class. And it was actually really great, but I thought…
Bob: It was a great class.
Linda: I thought this is kind of, I don’t know exactly how Moses felt, but it felt very similar to me where he was like, are you kidding me? I can’t even get out a full sentence and you want me to go speak for your people?
Bob: Yeah.
Linda: It was a similar feeling to me. It reminded me of that. Of how am I supposed to do this thing that you’re wanting me to do.
God takes care of the rest
But it’s funny when you show up, because you’re doing the thing God has for you. He takes care of all those other things. And honestly, it doesn’t matter if I sound like an idiot or not, as long as he’s communicating. And his point is getting across to the person that needs it.
I’ll stand there and look like an idiot all day long. You know what I mean? It’s kind of like, who cares? If God’s going to use it that’s all that matters, right?
Bob: Yeah.
Our encouragement to you
Bob: So I think the encouragement if you’re reading this, just analyze. Like, look around, see if there’s some lies that you’re still believing that are holding you back. And you might know this, you might be well aware of what those lies are. But if you don’t, just know they might be there.
Pray
I would just prayerfully dig into that because. You know, because this is a big part of what God has called me to do, is to write. And for such a long time, I was bound up by these lies that I was believing.
I think that’s a ploy of the enemy that he’s using for a lot of the church right now. Getting us to miss and not believe that there’s a gifting inside of us. Gifts that God put inside of us. For us not to believe that it’s there. I think that it’s not good. I think that’s not good enough for us to think any of these things.
The reality is that the church needs you. We need you to be doing what God has created you to do. So whatever that is, chase after it run after it keep seeking God and don’t give up and do what you were created to do!
Linda: Yes.
Bob: All right. So as always, thanks for joining us today.
Linda: Yes.
Podcast Reviews
Bob: And I just want read a couple of reviews we’ve gotten on our podcast. This is from Guy Smith. And he said,
“Bob humbly shares as he learns. I’ve been reading Bob’s blog for many years and always respected his authenticity. Seems laid back…”
Bob: Do you think I’m laid back?
Linda: Yeah.
Bob: I am laid back, y’all.
“… and sharing to help what he learns as he grows himself. Thanks Bob, for all you.”
Linda: Yeah. I think this is one of those things too, where it’s like, we’ve walked through this and you know? That is the goal. But I think that’s the goal of the body of Christ, to share stuff as we learn it so that we can help others.
Bob: Yeah. Yeah. So this is from H. Schiesher:
“Love it, Bob and Linda. I love listening to your podcast as I’m getting ready for work in the morning. They appreciate that your message of finance is always Christ centered. Thank you for sharing your message!”
Linda: Awesome.
Bob: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you everybody. Yeah. See, this, this jazzes us up! Like this is what we do when we get bored. We just go read iTunes reviews.
Linda: And then we get all jazzed up.
Bob: Yeah. So, yeah, if you want to leave us an iTunes review, we would appreciate that. Maybe it’ll make us excited and tear up. And maybe we’ll read it on the next episode. But anyway, that is all we have for today. Be blessed, be a blessing, and we’ll see you soon.
