For over 25 years Proverbs 31 Ministries' mission has been to intersect God's Word in the real, hard places we all struggle with. That's why we started this podcast. Every episode will feature a variety of teachings from president Lysa TerKeurst, staff members or friends of the ministry who can teach you something valuable from their vantage point. We hope that regardless of your age, background or stage of life, it's something you look forward to listening to each month!
Kaley Olson:
Hi, friends. Welcome back to The Proverbs 31 Ministries Podcast where we share biblical Truth for any girl in any season. I'm your host, Kaley Olson, and I'm here with my co-host, Meredith Brock.
Meredith Brock:
Hi, Kaley. Today, our listeners are going to hear a teaching from our new friend Ann White. She's got a really unique story about what God has done in her life and how it has driven her to start a ministry to equip women not only to understand God's Word but to apply it to their life and live it out courageously. Does that sound familiar to you?
Kaley Olson:
It does, Meredith. It does.
Meredith Brock:
It sounds a lot like what we do here at Proverbs 31. So we just love Ann. I loved hearing from Ann and couldn't help but think about how connected she is to us. I love it so much. I also love that there is really no competition in God's Kingdom. We're all in this together to help listeners like and apply God's Word to your life because it truly does change everything when you do.
So we can't wait for you to hear Ann's practical and encouraging teaching about how God's Word equips you to find the courage you need to live confidently in Him.
Kaley Olson:
Yeah, it's so good. And Ann's going to mention a brand-new Bible called the Courage for Life Study Bible that would be a wonderful resource for you to grab for yourself or a friend as a gift, because each page of the Bible that's in this Courage for Life Study Bible includes a Bible study resource to help you dig deeper and apply it to your life, which is what Ann is going to talk about today.
Also, we have linked a free resource from Proverbs 31 ministries called “3 Bible Study Basics You Must Know” that's available in the show notes below. All right, Meredith, let's go hear from Ann.
Meredith Brock:
Well, we are so excited to welcome our new friend to the show. Ann, hi and we're so glad you're here.
Ann White:
It's so great to be with you.
Kaley Olson:
Well, Ann, I believe what you mentioned earlier is that you're joining us from Florida, which I would love to be in right now because it's hot here, but I would rather be hot and on the beach, so I'm a little jealous right now. But I do need to introduce you formally to our friends because you're new to the show, and you're a pretty cool woman. So let me introduce you to our friends.
Ann is an internationally known author, speaker, TV host, passionate Bible teacher, founder and CEO of Courage for Life, and she's also a wife, mother and grandmother. Her passion is to equip and encourage people from all walks of life to embrace their God-given courage for life. And so Ann writes, publishes and provides emotional health, discipleship and Bible study resources to help people grow in their relationships with God, themselves and others.
And wow, I mean, Ann, you have done so much in your life, and your ministry is so amazing, but what I would love to know is how did you get started in Courage for Life 10 years ago?
Ann White:
Oh goodness. I think it started way back before the 10 years. Ten years ago, God told me to birth a ministry, and that's an interesting story, but I think it all began really back right after I was saved at 19 years old. I spent the next 20 years not being discipled and didn't even really know what discipleship meant at that point in time in my life. And all I knew is that as a Christian or as a new Christian, I was to take my Bible into church on Sunday mornings and open up or try to find the passage that the pastor was talking about, and of course half the time I didn't find it until he was almost done teaching. But anyway, that was just kind of that. You just don't know where to start. You're like, what's next when you're a new Christian? So if you're not being discipled, which I was not for 20 years, I just kind of thought, OK, that's what being a Christian is about.
You go on Sunday mornings [to church], you take your Bible, you listen, you get encouraged, and then you go home, you put your Bible on the nightstand or on the shelf, and it doesn't come back out until you get up and go to church again the next week or so. So it took me until I was in my early 40s, and I really kind of hit a crisis in my life where I really needed hope and encouragement. And so that's when I began going to God's Word. I knew that there was something about the Lord's Word ... I knew that there was something about the Bible that was special. I knew it carried encouragement and hope, but I just didn't know really how or why.
So I began searching in God's Word for that encouragement. And as I did, I had a friend recommend that I go to Kay Arthur's teaching. And so I sat under her teaching for a while, learned how to study God's Word for myself, and it really truly changed my life. And so my passion for discipleship has been there for years. But 10 years ago, I really began as I got deeper and deeper and I was teaching — I was a Bible study teacher — but as I got deeper into the Word, God really hit me that I really needed to minister to other women who were hurting and broken — just always had a passion for that.
So 10 years ago, God put it on my heart to birth a nonprofit ministry that is a discipleship ministry. And so we have spent the last 10 years creating resources that help people deal with any of the barriers that keep them from approaching the Lord and approaching His Word. And so from the all-female-voiced audio Bible that really has changed the connection between women who are incarcerated and the Word of God and women who are hurting or have been wounded in the Word of God, we've done that, and now we're getting ready to release the Courage for Life Bible that has practical teaching on every single Scripture page.
So it's been an exciting journey that the Lord's had us on. I love being a Bible teacher, and gosh, I just can't wait to see what He does next.
Meredith Brock:
Wow, Ann, that is an amazing story and I can just tell you are a kindred spirit, a heart like ours, because that's what we do here at Proverbs 31 Ministries; we have a passion for the Word of God and seeing it grip people's hearts and then seeing it change their lives. And so I can't wait to hear your teaching today. And so, Ann, why don't you take it away?
Ann White:
Thank you, Meredith and Kaley. I'm very excited to be here with you today, and I'm really super excited to be teaching and discussing “Courage for Life” today with your audience.
The first thing I really want to talk about is: What is courage, and what's the difference between courage and confidence? I think I learned that because I was always confident that I could handle any situation. I thought if something difficult comes along in my family or my profession, I'm going to plow through it. I'm going to be able to handle this. And I thought I was courageous. I thought that because I really wasn't afraid of tackling anything or doing anything, that was a form of courage. And it certainly can be. But there's a big difference in being courageous and having God-given courage. And I want to talk a little bit about that for just a moment.
To me, confidence is something that we acquire. That's something built up over time due to either our abilities that we've learned how to do something or through our experiences; we've experienced another person's behavior or a task that they're doing, so we're confident. We have confidence in their ability; we have confidence in our ability to do something.
Courage, on the other hand, is being afraid and doing it anyway. I know for me through the years, I was dragging around a lot of baggage, and I think God had to allow me — about 12 years ago — to get to the end of my self-sufficiency, to the end of where I thought I could handle all my problems myself. I was struggling in my marriage. I was struggling with my family. I was dragging around past pain from my childhood and teenage years that was hindering my relationships. It was hindering my decision-making process.
I was really basing most of my decisions on fears: fear of rejection, fear of failure, fear of abandonment, fear of embarrassment, any kind of fear that would come into play when I was thinking about a particular decision that I needed to make — important ones and even some small ones. But when God allowed me to get to a point where I could no longer handle my situation, I was at a place where I didn't know what to do next. I didn't know how to move forward in my relationship with my husband, and I really just got down on my knees and said, God, You’ve got to take over because I can't do this. I don't know what to do next. I need your wisdom and your guidance. And I think He was saying, Thank the Lord you finally got here. You finally got it.
And so when I began to turn my problems, my concerns, and even my future over to God, things really truly began to change for me. I went through several years of counseling. God led me to a godly pastor counselor who helped my husband and me tremendously and really helped me unpack the obstacles that were in the way of my relationships. As I worked through that counseling, I drew closer to the Lord, and I drew closer even to His Word. Even as a Bible teacher, I could go and teach His Word, but there's a big difference in being able to teach the Word, to have it up here in your head, and allowing it to get to your heart and infiltrate and affect your life in practical and powerful ways.
So at the time, although I was a strong Bible teacher teaching on Sunday mornings and teaching on Wednesday nights at my home, I really wasn't applying God's Word like I should have been to my life. And so as God allowed me to go through that crisis and I went through the counseling and I drew closer to the Lord and relying on Him for wisdom and guidance, I really learned a lot, and He took me through seven practical steps that I want to share with you today as well.
These I call the “Seven Steps to Courage,” and they're part of all the resources that we produce in our ministry. They are the foundation. And they're very practical steps, and we'll go over those here in just a few minutes. But I want to talk about a passage that was very meaningful to me when I started going through this process. I talked a little bit about fear and how fear can be polarizing. It can stop us in our tracks. It can keep us from following the calling on our life that God has.
And so the Lord brought me during those early years to a passage in 2 Timothy 1:7 where God says, "I did not give you a spirit of fear and timidity but one of power, love and self-discipline." God doesn't give us fear. He doesn't give us the kind of fear that polarizes and stops us in our tracks, that stops us from doing what He's called us to do. Now, He'll give us fear in the form of caution so that we don't make crazy mistakes — although sometimes I still do — but God will give us a little bit of fear just to help us be cautious in some areas, but He didn't give us a spirit of fear. In other words, we don't need to walk around afraid to speak to other people about our faith, even unbelievers or those who might reject us. We don't need to walk around with a spirit of fear to not be able to trust Him with our future and the outcomes of our circumstances.
He wants us to make courageous changes in our lives, and that brings me to that first step in the courage steps, the “Seven Steps to Courage,” and that's the C step: Commit to change.
So I want to ask you today: Is there something that God's calling you to do that you need to commit to but you're afraid? Or you've got some kind of baggage that's keeping you from putting your yes on the table and saying, Yes, Lord, I will do this?
Well, if that's the case, I want to encourage you to step forward. I've always heard it said — and I'm sure you've heard this as well — God doesn't always call the equipped, but He always equips those He calls. If He's calling you to do something in your life you don't feel qualified or you don't feel ready to do it, that's OK. You just need to take faithful steps forward, and let God put all the pieces together.
It reminds me of the story of Abraham and how when God called Abraham to go to the land of Canaan or the Chaldeans, Abraham had no clue where he was going to go or how he was going to get there or what he was going to experience along the way. In other words, God didn't tell him, "Abraham, you're going to go here first. It's going to take you this long to get here. You're going to run into some enemies, and you're going to make some mistakes, but it'll be OK because I'll be there to help you. And then you're going to run into a famine, and you're going to want to go to Egypt, but don't go there." God didn't tell him all of this in advance, and I think sometimes if He does tell us the steps that we're going to go through, many times I know for me I would've turned around and said, "OK, no, Lord; I can't do that. That's way too much to ask."
So I want us to think like Abraham did and just start taking those first steps in courage to trust the Lord and have faith that He's going to work out any of the details along the way and that if we make mistakes — like Abraham made mistakes and like others in the Bible who've gone before us have made mistakes — God's going to use those mistakes and turn them into something good. He will turn us back on track if we'll continue to seek Him every single day.
Now, that first step in courage, that commit to change, I want you to think about that, and I want you to make that commitment right now. Write down what the Lord is telling you that you need to change in your life. Maybe it's your attitude. Maybe it's that unforgiveness you need to get rid of. Maybe you need to change a relationship: get into one [or] get out of one. Maybe you need to change something more physical like your job or your current living circumstances, or maybe there's a habit that God wants you to stop because it's not healthy for you. You need to commit to that change today, and then begin seeking God's guidance on how you're going to go forward from there.
Now, let's take a minute, and let's just go through the “Seven Steps to Courage.” The C step and each one goes by the letters in the word “courage,” so the C step was commit to change. That's our first step. The second step is overcome obstacles. No matter what courageous change God's calling us to make, we're going to have some obstacles. They could be obstacles in the form of other people who don't want us to change — they're comfortable with the way we are — or it could be our own fear that's keeping us from making those changes.
We need to identify the obstacles that are in our way of courageous, godly changes. And then as soon as we do, we've got to figure out how are we going to overcome those obstacles. That's our second step in the “Seven Steps to Courage.”
Then there's the U step. I love this step because this is our identity step: Uncover your true self. When we go into God's Word and we begin to read that we're fearfully and wonderfully made and we begin to see how He loves us unconditionally, we begin to see that God has a viewpoint of us that's very different from what the world says and sometimes very different from what we even say about ourselves. A lot of times it's our own stinking thinking and critical thinking of ourselves that gets in our way.
And so the U step, we really want to focus on adopting God's view of us, uncovering the true person that God sees us as and letting go of what the world would say about us or what we would even say about ourselves.
Then we would go to the R step, which is an awesome step, that is: Replace worldly lies with scriptural Truth. This is Bible engagement 101. It is getting into God's Word, letting it penetrate your mind and go down to your hearts and then applying it to your life in practical ways so that you're replacing what the world tells you that you should be doing or you should be thinking or what marriage is [or] who God is.
You want to see what Truth has to say in God's Word about these particular topics, and begin replacing those worldly lies with the Scriptures.
The next step is the A step, and this sometimes can be a really difficult one: Accept the things you cannot change. I always thought I could change my circumstances or I could change other people. I could change my husband; I could get him to do things differently. I could change my kids. But what I realized over time is there's really only one person that I can change, and that's me. But when I change, things around me begin to change. When I make positive changes in my attitudes and in my behaviors and in my decision-making process, things around me change, the people respond in positive ways, my family responds in positive ways, and it makes a difference all the way around.
So that's the A step. We need to accept those things we can't change, which might be our past [or] it might be people in our lives, but we need to change the things we can.
Then we have the G step, which is grasp God's love for you. This is a beautiful step because sometimes we are unable to truly understand how unconditional, unfathomable, just amazing God's love is for us. We need to stop for a few minutes and just say, Thank you, Lord, for loving us unconditionally. No matter what happens in our life, no matter what mistake we make, You're going to be right there with me along the way, and You're going to love me no matter what.
And then the E step is our last step in the word “courage” and in our “Seven Steps to Courage.” That is embrace a life of grace. Grace is an important step, and it is kind of a concluding step in many ways because that's where we've worked up our courage. Now we're ready to embrace God's grace. We're ready to give grace to ourselves. And now we're ready to extend grace to other people. Because after all, we're all broken. We're all sinners in need of a Savior.
So is there some of these steps that you need to take today? Do you need to make a commitment to change? Look for those obstacles you need to overcome? Uncover who you truly are in God's eyes? Replace those worldly lies with Scripture and Truth from God's Word? Accept something that you can't change, but change what you can? Grasp God's unfathomable love, or embrace some grace or give grace to someone else? I want to challenge you there to have the courage to begin taking those practical steps.
Now, let's talk a little bit about why Bible engagement matters, and this is really what I want to talk to you about today: how we get courage. We've talked a little bit about what is courage [and] why do we need courage? Now, let's talk for just a minute about why Bible engagement matters to get courage.
For me, I got into God's Word, and it began to make me bolder. I began to become stronger. Because when you're putting Truth in, it does something in your life. It does make a difference. I don't know if you've ever heard of the Power of Four Effect, but the Center for Bible Engagement did research on a lot of people, and those that they surveyed, they found that their behaviors, their attitudes, everything changed when they were in God's Word four or more times every week. So the more we're in God's Word, the more it's going to bring out good stuff in our lives.
And so Bible engagement is critically important. Many of us own Bibles, and I think one familiar question we could ask is: Why do so many people own Bibles yet so few in America actually read them? Well, Center for Bible Engagement did another research, and they found that a lot of people or the majority of people said they were simply too busy. But another reason, another significant reason, why a lot of people say that they don't open their Bibles is because they don't believe they would understand it even if they read it.
That brings me to kind of where I am today. I began and birthed a ministry Courage for Life back in 2014 with a passion for discipleship. I had personally experienced God's life-changing power through His personal relationship with me, with the Holy Spirit and through His Word, and I wanted to reach other people. I thought, I can't be the only one out here who hasn't really gone deep and found how transformative life can be when you're in His Word and when you're closer to the Lord.
And so I began to reach out ... God put it on my heart to really reach out to at-risk women, women who had struggled with abuse, abandonment, neglect, or were just going through difficult times. Through the process of the last 10 years, God has allowed our ministry to create some incredible resources such as the first all-female-voiced audio Bible, New Living Translation, that we recorded and released back in 2017.
The Courage for Life Audio Bible, we did it in women's voices because many of the women that I was working with and that we work with today, they have been traumatized by male voices; they've been traumatized in the past by a man, so that male voice is a trigger for them and is difficult for them. So we wanted to get God's Word into a format that made it more receptive to our women.
In addition to that, many of the women who we work with are incarcerated, and we also ... now our ministry has expanded; we're working with men. We're finding men love the female-voiced audio Bible, but also that they're very intimidated often with the Word of God. They often feel, these men and women that we work with feel, I don't think I would understand it even if I read God's Word; I don't think I would know how to apply it to my life.
Have you ever felt that way? Do you feel that way now? If you do, I've been there, and that's the very reason that we created the Courage for Life Study Bibles: a Courage for Life Study Bible for Men and a Courage for Life Study Bible for Women. Bibles that inspire you to engage God's Word in practical ways. We have 82 courageous women of faith articles scattered throughout the women's Bible that inspire us to embrace our God-given courage and pursue God's will in our life, and 82 courageous men of faith stories throughout the men's Bible that do the same thing.
Those who have walked this journey before us are an inspiration to us. And in addition to that, there's practical everyday teaching on every single Scripture page. There's great content here that you can dive into God's Word, open it up at any place, study a particular book, and have teaching at the bottom of every page that's going to encourage you to pray and invite the Lord into your study. It's going to encourage you to observe the text on the page and then interpret it. Ask that question: What's the timeless life lesson that God's trying to teach today? And then there's application points that encourage us to bring that head knowledge down to our hearts and into our lives in practical ways so that we can apply God's Word, and we can begin to see the transformation take place.
I pray that you will dive into God's Word. Today, we've talked about what courage is. We've said that courage is being afraid but doing it anyway. Courage is a choice. It's something that we choose to do. When we wake up in the morning, we are going to choose to be courageous in God's will for our lives. And then how do we get that courage? We get it by our relationship with the Lord and by being in His Word, by Bible engagement.
That is extremely important because when we're putting that Truth in — as we talked about before — we can begin to replace those worldly lies, we can begin to gain more courage in our life, and we can begin to pursue the things that God's calling us to do, the changes He wants us to make, the opportunities He wants us to embrace.
I pray that for you today. I pray that the Lord has placed something on your heart, and even if you feel unqualified and it feels extremely difficult, that you'll put your yes on the table, that you'll say to the Lord, I'll pursue Your will. I'll take steps in that direction. And then you'll allow the Holy Spirit and the Word of God to give you wisdom, guidance and courage for life.
Kaley Olson:
That was such a good and practical teaching from Ann. Meredith, she really unpacked courage on an achievable level. I feel like sometimes I hear courage talked about from this 30,000-feet-off-the-ground perspective, kind of like a poster you would see on your high school cinder-block wall in your counselor's office or something that talks about courage. And it never really feels attainable, but Ann really helped me understand where courage comes from. It's not just a one-time deposit that God drops from heaven when I need it, but something that comes out of an overflow of a relationship with Him. And that was really freeing for me. I'm sure [it is] really freeing for a lot of people who listen to this podcast.
But what I want to ask you, Meredith, is now that you've heard Ann's teaching, let's talk about what God might be teaching you about courage right now in your life.
Meredith Brock:
Well, honestly, the timing of this is so interesting. That's how God tends to work. He loves to weave things together in multiple areas of our lives to make it really clear what He's trying to teach you. But just recently, I did 10 days of praying and fasting and really felt like the Lord had led me to the book of Joshua to study. And so during that time, I was spending a lot of time in there. And wouldn't you know, Kaley, in Chapter 1 of Joshua, God is speaking to Joshua and calling him into this new season of life where he is going to be leading the nation of Israel to go take the Promised Land. And when I say take the Promised Land, I mean, He's saying, like, OK, go and start a war. And what does God say to Joshua? None other than “be strong and courageous” (Joshua 1:6, ESV).
And if you are listening to Ann's teaching today, and you feel a stirring in your heart that God is saying, I am calling you into a season of courage; I'm calling you to be brave, be strong and courageous, I'd really encourage you to go study the book of Joshua as I went and studied it. Goodness, there are so many moments where you can see that Joshua over and over and over again ... God called him into some pretty radical obedience. At one point, they go and they conquer the northern kingdoms of Israel, and what does God tell them to do? After they've conquered, He says, "When you go in and you conquer this village," I guess they would call it, "then I want you to go take all the horses that you've just captured and hamstring them all, and find all the chariots in the village and burn them all."
Now, guys, that makes no sense strategically. Joshua is trying to win a war, and now God has told him to get rid of all the things that could actually put him at an advantage. And instead he puts himself at a disadvantage by destroying all those things. And that takes courage. It takes courage to follow and obey God's calling, God's commands in your life. But ultimately, that courageous act led the nation of Israel, Joshua and the nation of Israel to actually occupy the Promised Land, which is, I mean, a huge historic event.
So I don't know, I just couldn't help but think maybe one of our listeners today is thinking about or feeling God prompting them into a season of courage, and where do you start and what does that look like? And I'd encourage you, go read the book of Joshua because I think you're going to find a lot of incredible illustrations of a man, like a real man, who was incredibly courageous in his walk with the Lord.
Kaley Olson:
Yeah, Meredith, that's so good. And what you just mentioned, the words “walk with the Lord,” I think have so much to do with courage. Because like I said at the beginning, courage is not just this one-time deposit God makes in you only when you need to do one extra really difficult task.
Meredith Brock:
Wild thing. Yes.
Kaley Olson:
Courage is a result of self-discipline in daily obedience to God. And what's interesting to me was Ann's mention of the verse 2 Timothy 1:7 that says God doesn't give us a spirit of fear but of power, love and self-discipline. So she talked a lot about [how] we don't have a spirit of fear. We can be courageous. But to me, God is teaching me about the word “self-discipline” right now in a lot of areas, but specifically self-discipline in being OK with the everyday routine of obedience and letting that be the catalyst for not an easy yes. Sometimes the hard things are never easy. But I think it sets a foundation when I show up and I'm consistent in the daily follow-through for God to give me courage and honor that and deposit even more whenever He's asked me to take the next step. Because if we go back to the Joshua thing, he wouldn't have hamstrung the horses if he didn't trust God. He would've thought he was crazy.
Meredith Brock:
Hold on. I got to drop a little nugget in here. Y'all, where was Joshua before the book of Joshua started? I'll tell you.
Kaley Olson:
In the wilderness, right?
Meredith Brock:
For 40 years.
Kaley Olson:
That's a long time.
Meredith Brock:
But what's even wilder is the first time you hear of Joshua is, he was one of the original spies that Moses sent into the Promised Land to go check it out. And everybody, if you went to Sunday School, if you didn't like myself, this was new news to me. But if you went to Sunday School, you may know that there were a bunch of spies who said, "We can't do this. This is crazy. We're going to die over there if we try to conquer that land." And then Joshua and Caleb said, "No, no, no, we can do it." And what happens? God says, "Man, I'm not going to take these Israelites who don't believe me into the Promised Land. You get 40 years in the wilderness."
And for 40 years, Joshua walked around in that wilderness. He was laying a foundation to be courageous enough to go into the Promised Land and start a war and win it. So you're absolutely right, Kaley, those foundational ... we all have them. We are laying a foundation of: Did I wake up and read my Bible today? Did I pray throughout the day? Was I conscious of my Savior as I was driving and trying to work out that hard thing in my mind, the argument that I had with my friend, or whatever; those small things lay a foundation for those moments.
Kaley Olson:
And it makes it so much less of a task that we have to do. And so Ann mentioned something that I kind of want to wrap up on together. It was called the “Power of Four Effect,” and I thought it was very interesting. She said people who read the Bible at least four times a week see a difference in their life. And I resonate with this because I'm proof, Meredith; I am truly proof of this. Because sometimes, especially working in ministry, it can kind of feel like, Oh, I have to because I'm setting the bar. And in a way you are. But when it's done out of obligation, that doesn't really set the right foundation. But when you do it, and the more you show up and the more you just say yes, then that creates that foundation of trust with God and what He says in His Word. And that's what we're all about here at Proverbs 31. And so we want to end and point you to a few resources before we let you go.
Meredith Brock:
Don't forget to grab the Courage for Life Study Bible, or if you're smart like me, you're going to send links to the people that you love, or I should say the people that love you ... for your Christmas list. And so this is a great link to send to your mom, your spouse, your friend, whatever —
Kaley Olson:
Amen.
Meredith Brock:
— so that you can get what you really want for Christmas in life.
Kaley Olson:
Amen.
Meredith Brock:
Right? So also download our free resource called “3 Bible Study Basics You Must Know” to feel more confident today as you open up God's Word.
Kaley Olson:
Both of those are linked in our show notes below. And that's all for today, friends. At Proverbs 31 Ministries, we believe when you know the Truth and live the Truth, it changes everything.