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Tomorrow can be different from today.
Our lives often leave us feeling hopeless—like nothing will ever change. But perspective is everything. When you know where to look, hope can be found in the spaces and places you least expect.
Join Jason Gore (Lead Pastor of Hope Community Church) for a fresh perspective, practical steps, and weekly encouragement that hope really is possible… even in real life.
Raunchy reality show on Netflix
that I just can't get enough of.
There's a cliffhanger on the drama,
and I wanna see how this fight blows up in the next episode.
Or I wanna see, oh, this person cheated on this person.
How are they gonna respond when they find out?
Like there's a part of me internally that gets excited
and drawn into that, and I hate it.
Welcome to The Hope and Real Life podcast with Jason Gore.
Our team is passionate
and committed to bringing you more hope in the everyday
real areas of your life.
If this conversation and content is valuable for you,
please do us a favor, like, subscribe, and even share.
You never know how valuable it could be
to share a little bit of hope with someone else.
Let's get the conversation started.
What's going on? Hope in Real Life family.
We are here this episode with some great friends of mine,
Aaron and Morgan Nelson.
And, uh, we're gonna talk, uh, about, I don't know,
maybe a lot of things, and this could end up being one
episode, could be end up being two,
could end up being three things like spiritual
goals, emotional health.
We're gonna talk a little bit about marriage,
but we'll see where the conversation leads.
Yeah. But why don't the two
of you just tell us a little bit about yourself? Yeah.
Ladies first. Go for it. Oh
Man.
Uh, I'm Morgan Nelson.
Um, I, that's it.
There is more to you than that.
Um, I have the joy of being married to Aaron Nelson.
Um, yeah, we've been married for four years now.
Um, I guess pre getting married. I'm from North Carolina.
North Carolina, born and raised.
I feel like that's bragging rights.
You don't run into a lot of North Carolinians. Um, yeah.
Grew up in Wilmington, uh, Wolf packer,
Tar Hills, Wolf Pack all the way.
Yes. Go pack. That was the next step.
That's what brought me to this area.
I went to NC State, studied civil engineering,
loved the area, graduated, stayed, got a job, fell in love,
and now we're having a baby.
Okay. The rest is history. That's it. That's
A lot. Yeah. Yeah.
Aaron? Uh, I am Aaron Nelson.
I'm also joyfully married to Morgan Nelson.
Made a note to include that
after she included it first time around.
Um, yeah. I, uh, uh, in full-time ministry,
been doing ministry since I was in high school.
Uh, felt a call from God around the age of 14, um,
to start kind of pursuing and going down that route.
And, uh, yeah. So that's been it.
I am not nearly as educated as my wife is, um, but I try.
Um, yeah. And, um, yeah.
Together we host the True Discipleship Podcast.
That's something that we do together,
that we thoroughly enjoy.
Uh, it's really all about helping see people, um,
just grow in their walks with Jesus.
Yeah. Um, and, and what does
that actually look like in real time,
not just kind of hypothetically.
And so, uh, yeah, we talk about that on a, uh,
somewhat weekly basis, depending on when you catch us.
And, uh, I'm sure that all stay the same
once the baby's here, but, you know.
Yeah. And we'll make sure we drop a link to
that down in the show notes and everything so folks can show
That you don't, I wouldn't check it out if I,
And also, uh, an LA Dodgers fan.
Something else the two of you do together, apparently,
from what I hear, is watch baseball. Very
Recent development. Yeah. Yes.
I have always loved baseball.
Uh, I grew up playing softball, um,
gosh, probably since I was like eight.
Played in like a rec league
and then played in middle and high school.
And, um, I, that that skill
or like knowing the rules translates
to baseball really well.
So I don't have to ask questions constantly.
Like when we watch football, I'm like, what just happened?
I don't who, what's the difference
between a cornerback and a quarterback?
They sound the same. Um, so I know the positions,
I know the rules, um, in baseball,
so I've always loved watching baseball.
And Aaron hated it up until
Literally a few weeks ago.
We went to, we had friends who bought,
here's, here's what happened.
We had friends that gave us tickets to a Dodger game,
and they were way nicer than any tickets
we could have afforded on our own.
And I'm like, oh, this is how the other half lives.
And so ever since then, I'm like, I like baseball now.
Uh, but yeah, we've had a good time.
Enjoyed watching the game.
Only problem is, is us living in North Carolina
and being fans of the Dodgers, like,
we fall asleep to their games every night.
Right. 'cause they start at 10:10 PM
right here on the East Coast.
But, uh, yeah,
I fall asleep to that national anthem. That's
Great.
And do you, and so you're not watching much
of the Olympic wrestling going on right now?
Is that what you're telling me? Because
you're watching baseball?
That's the only reason we're
Watching baseball.
And then I inhaled Olympic gymnastics. Okay.
And now it's done. And I'm sad. I'm actually in mourning.
'cause for me, like the Olympics go on
until the 11th for everybody else.
Yeah. But they ended yesterday for me. Alright.
Well good for our listeners
to hear a bit about the two of you.
Yeah. Let's jump in. Uh, we're talking about, um,
what does it mean to grow spiritually?
I mean the, the podcast hope in real life.
How do we find a bit more hope in
the everyday moments of our life?
And in this case, we would say through spiritual growth,
but we decided to fine tune that
and kind of narrow that down.
Like, hey, a, a good thing to have is a spiritual goal.
And so I, let's just start
out just hearing from the two of you.
Like, what, what's the importance behind having
a spiritual goal in our lives?
Yeah. Uh, I'll go ahead and kick it off.
You know, I think, you know, I actually think a lot
of this conversation stems from us having a kid on the way.
Uh, I've been like, enamored with the idea of like,
how does a human become a human?
You know, like you just think about the things
that you do every life, every day
that you don't even think about in life of, I mean,
from your brain being able to identify colors, to knowing
how to read, knowing how to
walk, and all these different things.
And I think we both kind of feel this weight
and this pressure of like, oh, that's on us.
Like, we've gotta raise up a person to do that.
Um, and so, you know, with me,
I did middle school ministry, but Morgan did as well.
She was a small group leader, um,
with middle school girls for a really long time.
And I remember we sat down a few weeks ago
and we were like, okay, look, we, we knew a lot
of middle school kids and we definitely have our favorites.
Like if we're honest, oh yeah, they're the cool kids.
Those kids who were like, man,
maybe they're not like super socially adjusted yet.
Right. And that's not, that's like, not a knock on them
or anything, but literally we had the conversation of like,
when our kid's, a middle schooler,
You're not talking about my kids.
No, no, no, no, no. We're
fine. Of course not, not good. You
Don't get to hang out with your kids enough.
Okay. And that makes me sad.
Um, but, but we had the idea of like, man, like how does
this, this newborn, who's gonna be here in a few weeks,
what are they gonna be like when they're 13, 14 years old?
And, you know, it's all a dream.
And you, you can't, there's nothing that we can do
to completely manipulate that.
Right. Obviously there's certain gifts and talents
and abilities and just natural, uh, inclinations
that they're gonna have, um, kind
of nature versus nurture stuff.
But man, I think the more that we think about that is like,
you can put, you know,
we were just talking about the Olympics.
You look at these kids who are in the Olympics right now,
and you think about what the trajectory
of their lives have looked like to get them there.
Mm-Hmm. And that's a special breed of parent
that is willing to put in the work Yes.
And the time and the effort Yep. To get
their child to the Olympics.
Mm-Hmm. Um, no one gets there by accident. Right.
And I think in having that conversation, we also recognize
that when it comes to who a person is going
to be just on a spiritual level,
when you talk about their character,
when they talk about their integrity, when you talk about,
uh, what are the issues in the world that they care about
and that deeply move them
and deeply concern them, no one stumbles into being
that type of person as well.
Um, I think you can,
but usually it's not the type of person that you wanna be.
Right. That's the reason why therapy is Yeah.
A booming industry right now.
Because people are like, man,
I didn't care about this enough.
Or maybe my parents or whoever my caregivers were,
didn't care about this early enough in my life.
And now I'm trying to undo all of that, go back to
that point so I can almost rebuild those things over again.
Right. Yeah. And so, um, I think when we talk about the idea
of setting spiritual goals, it's, man, what can we do
to kind of get ahead of the curve a little bit to say,
you know, who, who is the type of person that I want
to be on a character level, on an integrity level,
5, 10, 15 years from now?
Um, and then what do I have
to start doing now in order to become that sort of person?
And so what I'm hearing is, um, the importance of it
for you is because you're going to be raising kids
and or at least a child Mm-Hmm.
And so, um, who you are is going to be
play some role in who they become.
Yeah, exactly. And, and you asked that question, you said,
what are they gonna be like when they're 12, 13 years old?
And as a dad of three, I'm gonna tell you exactly
what they're gonna be like.
They're gonna be, um, a mixture
of the absolute best things about you
and the absolute worst things about you.
Mm-Hmm. And you're gonna know, man,
what in the world, uh, have I done?
Yeah. So I, but man, I think that's beautiful though,
to say like, how can I invest in myself
now spiritually Mm-Hmm.
So that I can be the man
or the woman that it is that I need to be for my kids.
Yeah. What, what is a spiritual goal?
I'd say it's like any other goal, um,
when you're looking at either your physical health,
your mental health, um, in your career, uh,
in your marriage, um,
when you say there's somewhere I wanna be
and I'm not there yet, and you name it
and say, this is, this is where I wanna be,
and I'm engineering is my background.
So like, goals have to be smart
and, you know, measurable and yeah.
We have to have a timeline.
And, um, so in x number of months, this is
where I wanna be spiritually.
Whether that's I've been consistent in my prayer life,
or, um, I'm in the Bible X number of days per week.
Um, yeah. It's like any other goal.
You just are looking at prayer and reading your Bible
and what does my relationship with God look like right now?
And where do I want it to be
and what do I have to do to get to that point? Yeah.
Yeah. I think it's, uh, I, I agree.
I think that the only difference is that when it comes
to like a, a physical goal
that you may have on yourself is you may say, like,
my goal is to climb Everest.
Like, you know, when you did it right? Right. Yeah.
When you say, I wanna become a person of integrity,
It's a little more fuzzy. Yeah.
I wanna love my wife better. Yeah.
Well, do you reach a day where
you're like, nah, that's enough.
I'm good. Right. I've loved her to the max.
I don't need to invest
anymore in there for like, you know what I mean?
So it's in a, in a way I do think it,
it requires the same level of intentionality
that you just talked about, but at the same time,
it's a little bit fuzzy in the sense
of you never truly arrive.
That's actually something you talk about a lot. Yeah.
Um, you never truly arrive, um, to that place.
But it's being able to take an inventory
and recognize where are the deficiencies in my life?
Like, where are the areas in my life
where I can lean into this more, um, where I desire more
of this as opposed
to just being like, nah, this is the way I am.
This is the way I'm always gonna be. There's actually,
I don't know if you want to kind of get on that soapbox
for a little bit, but you, you have a big issue with
that phrase, just in general.
Like, this is the way we've always done it,
or this is the way things have always been. Yeah.
Yeah. I, I hate it.
I, I think it's, um, just a, a trap of
why, like, we can think out of the side of the box
and we can do things or really just unearthing the why
behind we do, behind why we do the things that we do.
Yeah. Um, I don't want to say like,
we're just gonna keep doing something
because we've always done it this way
and not know a reason behind it.
Yeah. Um, we actually talked about this, um, one time
of like, the importance of tradition.
Like I value tradition
and that, um, like in our faith we have things that we do
because we've always done it that way.
Um, but there are whys behind those, not just, oh,
this is the way we've always done it,
and so we're gonna keep on doing that, doing it that way,
especially if it doesn't have like, um,
just like a fruitful outcome. Mm-Hmm.
Right. Yeah. You, so you said fruitful outcome.
I was thinking earlier. So you,
we talk about spiritual goals
and to your point, they're, they're
often difficult to measure.
Um, the Bible does paint a picture of fruitful outcome.
Mm-Hmm. The fruit of the spirit. Yeah. Right.
Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness,
faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.
Mm-Hmm. That's right. I have 'em all memorized.
We, uh, I memorized them
because I don't have them all inside of me. It's
Just a checklist of what you need to work.
You have them memorized in the same order
that I have them memorized.
Aaron swaps two of them. And I'm always like, oh, you
Missed one. That's not, well
then that's just the way it's written. Oh.
So I love that you
Swap two of them and it always messes me up. And two,
So my point is though, like that is a,
you can look at your life
and say, um, you often don't know, am I patient enough
until you get in a situation Yep.
And your mm-Hmm.
15-year-old, almost 16-year-old daughter Mm-Hmm.
Tells you, Hey, that didn't seem all that patient.
And you're like, oh, okay. So I don't have that now. Right.
But that, those are to a degree, like, you know, I mean,
you mentioned engineering,
and those are to agree what we would call like lag measures,
things that you measure after the fact.
Mm-Hmm. But when it comes to goal setting,
you can also have, uh,
I think four disciplines of execution.
Four Dx a book.
It talks about the importance of lead measures. Mm-Hmm.
So, I mean, I've seen, like, when it comes to spiritually,
like I can't guarantee my outcomes,
but there are probably some things
that if I get these lead measures right,
if I get these inputs right, it's going
to create a greater opportunity for me
to move in the direction that I want to.
Yeah. Um, on the other side. Yeah.
Let's talk about those for, so like,
I know we didn't talk about this before,
but what would you say, like
what are some good lead measures?
What are some things to do on the front side
to make sure we're moving in the right direction
towards our spiritual goals?
I'll just use this as an example
because you brought it up earlier of saying like, oh,
I have a goal that I want to be in my Bible X amount
of times a week, or whatever like that.
Right. So we just recently talked about this.
We were on vacation, uh, is when we went to la,
went to the Dodgers game, stuff like that.
We're off, you know, on vacation for three weeks.
And we were having this conversation about how, you know,
always, I always packed my bible, always, uh, ready to go,
you know, whenever we're out on vacation of like, yeah,
I'm gonna spend all this time with the Lord
and all this sort of thing, whatever.
Uh, and that just wasn't the case.
I was sleeping in, spending time at the pool,
you know, all sorts of stuff.
Not, not, uh, not being my, my best devotional self, but,
but, um, there was a situation, um,
that I'm not gonna go into detail in it,
but, uh, there was, uh, a guy that we saw on the side
of the road, and there was a particular passage of scripture
that came to mind for me, um, that didn't leave me alone.
And I knew that because of that I had to step in
and help this person out.
Um, and so what we realized was is, man, I,
I didn't hit the mark as far
as spending time in my Bible this week,
but, uh, when, when I got pressed, the thing
that came outta me was the result
of all the time I had spent prior.
You know what I mean? So, um, yeah.
I, I think there are certain things that you do, um, where,
you know, I, I know you, I mean, you're a fit guy, right?
If, if any situation ever arises where you
or your family is in danger, like, I don't think you train
with that scenario in mind,
but like, if somebody rolls up on you in the street,
you're not like, Hey, lemme get a quick pump real quick.
Right? Right. Right.
It's all the, all the muscle that you've been working
to build is now being put into action in this moment.
Um, and that's the way I think a lot of these things work.
I was just thinking about setting yourself up for
success when you're setting your goals, uh,
being the engineer kind of type a person.
I want to set these really elaborate goals
that are honestly unrealistic.
Um, you laugh,
Is that why roads take so much longer
to build than people think they're going to?
Is that what it is? My, it's all my fault. I have
Unreal. She's like, on
paper goal, this is gonna take six months.
But in reality,
The hope in real life is that it will take.
So I want like my bible time to have,
like, in six months, I wanna know
what somebody who's like got their doctorate in
theology knows.
And it, it's like, okay,
well spending five minutes in the Bible app every morning,
you're not gonna get there in six months.
Um, so setting realistic goals is def I mean,
that's preaching to me.
Mm-Hmm. Um, and consistency, um,
or Yeah, just like the knowing what you're capable
of when you're setting those goals.
Um, not that they're easy, like don't set goals.
I don't know. I'm somebody who will add something to a list
that I've already done, just so I can check it off.
Yeah. So I feel that sense of accomplishment. Mm-Hmm.
Um, so set your goals a little bit further than
where you are now, but not so far
that you just constantly feel defeated every time
you're, you're missing the mark
Hope in real life family.
I want to take a moment and let you know about a resource
that we have for you, for your own personal development,
spiritual enrichment, and really a way for you
to find a bit more hope in real life.
We have a tool for you called the Hope in Real Life app.
It offers things like parenting tips, financial resources,
marriage insights, uh, if you're looking for it,
there's even Bible reading plans in there.
And there's a community
where you can even share prayer requests
and know that someone is praying for you for whatever it is
that you have going on in your life.
It's available right now in the Apple App
Store or in Google Play.
You can search hope in real life in both stores,
or you can use the download link that is in the show notes.
Remember, tomorrow can be better than today
and hope is possible even in real life.
What are some of the goals that the two of you have?
You wanna go First? I can, I need to think of mine.
Yeah, I can. Um, so for me, so
phy, so physical fitness is one of those things
that I have on the list that I'm not doing great at.
So I just recently turned 30
and I told myself, I want
to be healthier on my 30th birthday
than I was at any other point.
You don't look like in shape. I, well,
the all you can eat Korean barbecue place we went
to on my 30th birthday would probably disagree.
I was like this. I was literally sitting there eating all
you can eat Korean barbecue on my 30th birthday.
And I'm like, you know what? I think I messed this one up.
I don't think I did it right. Um, but yeah.
So, so that's one.
Um, and a big part of that, even more so than any sort of
physical goal that I have for myself, what I want my body
to look like, any of that sort of stuff.
I, the mindset behind that was, is I never want
our future child to know their dad unhealthy
as much as he can do something about it.
Right. God forbid if there's any disease that afflicts me
or anything like that, you, you know, whatever.
Um, but as much as I have control over it, I want that
to be, um, a thing.
Uh, another one is, um, man, we actually just finished,
we just finished watching a video the other day that,
you know, talked about, um,
this guy was saying something along the lines of,
uh, I'm gonna butcher it.
But he was like, uh, you know, don't,
don't wake your kids up angry in the morning
and expect 'em to have a good day.
Yeah. You know? Um, and,
and so I wanna be the type of person that, um, even when
that that reaction does come out, uh, I'm mindful
of them, you know what I mean?
I don't wanna be so out of touch
or out of control of my emotion, um, that I act
and then don't review it.
So, something that I try to make a natural habit
of mine is actually thinking back over the course of the day
and looking at how I responded to certain situations.
And they'll bug me, man. They really do.
But I think that's a good thing.
I think that's supposed to be a part of that process of, uh,
yeah, there, there are certain things in your life, none
of us are perfect, that when you look back on your day,
it should bug you about the way
that you naturally responded.
But then do you just apathetically
say, well, that was Tuesday.
Maybe Wednesday will be better.
Or do I actually go back and make amends?
Do I apologize for the spaces where I messed up?
Um, am I taking those things to the Lord in prayer?
Am I actually stopping to say,
Hey, God, what was that about?
Like, what's, what's going on inside of my heart?
And actually trying to assess some of those things.
So, um, I would say those are two simple ones.
Um, one of the other ones that I would throw out there,
you know, we recently sat down
and we wrote out, uh, our family values.
What are the things that we wanna say are important to us?
And one of the things that we wrote down was, uh,
we don't celebrate sin.
And the idea of that is, is, um, man, just, I think part of
where that comes from is, uh, just think about, you know,
raunchy reality show on Netflix
that I just can't get enough of.
There's a cliffhanger on the drama
and I wanna see how this fight blows up in the next episode.
Or I wanna see, oh, this person cheated on this person.
How are they gonna respond when they find out?
Like, there's a part of me internally that gets excited
and drawn into that and I hate it.
Yeah. Like in hindsight, like, I can enjoy,
Like, like after you watched the Wolverine Deadpool movie
Exactly. Like when I watched
the Wolverine
and Deadpool movie, it's like, why did I find that so funny?
You know what I mean? Not necessarily not saying like, oh,
I gotta be boring and I can't enjoy anything
and I gotta, you know, wag a finger at anything
that doesn't look whatever.
But it's like, okay,
but why am I more fulfilled by
that than being a loving husband?
Yeah. Or why am I more fulfilled by that than the time
that I spend with God every day?
Why do I run to these things that I hope will numb me
or, uh, pacify me long enough as opposed to things
that actually do give me life and
that give life to others around me?
So, uh, trying to be mindful
of those things too has been super helpful for me.
I'm just gonna start out with one that I have failed at.
Um, I had set a goal, so, um, we found out
that I was pregnant on New Year's Eve of 2023.
Um, and so all Happy New Year. Yeah. Happy New Year.
That's everyone's like, is this flying by for you?
And I'm was like, is 2024 flying by for you?
Because that, that is essentially like, you know,
the time that we've been dealing with.
Um, but on that day, I set a goal for myself that I wanted
to have read through the whole Bible by September 12th,
which is our due date.
Um, I am nowhere on track.
I think I'm back in Exodus,
so there's no way I'm gonna make it through. It depends
On, you know, never say never, but,
Uh, I do not have, If
You were reading backwards chronologically, there you go.
You're doing a great job. You're doing a great job.
You're almost there. Just keep it up.
But I set this goal of like, I wanna read the Bible
by the time the baby gets here.
And I don't know if it came from like the healthiest place.
I mean, you mentioned a little bit of like this idea
of arriving Mm-Hmm.
Um, do we ever really arrive at these goals?
Like spiritual goals are tough
because there's always room
for, I mean, and other goals too.
There's always room for improvement,
but I felt like September 12th is the deadline.
I have to know everything, like the bible in
and out, so I can explain to my one day old child
The mysteries of the universe. Yeah.
Like the foundations of our faith. Yeah.
Because on day one, they're going to look at me and ask,
You know, yeah. Start deconstructing.
They need you to teach them how
to use a real potty before they
Right. Just so you know, that
comes first. So you got
Time. Yes. So
my, my mind has now shifted a lot to sleeping
and eating and all the things to sustain life, you know?
Yeah. Like, let's try to keep them alive for a year
so then I can teach them the foundations of their faith.
Um, so that was just a really unrealistic goal.
And then I let the, um, like just the excuses
and um, you know, I just tell my,
oh, like it's fine.
And, but there's still like value in that. Mm-Hmm.
I can still pick my Bible up
and read a scripture, not with like,
the deadline of September 12th.
I have to be done with the whole Bible. Mm-Hmm.
But I just was like, oh, well I'm not gonna meet that goal,
so I'm just not gonna do it at all.
Yeah. And, and that's where we are now. Mm-Hmm.
I just gave up
and stopped reading chronologically through the Bible.
Um, and then another goal I have, I guess I,
like you were talking about just your response in
like situations.
Um, I am trying to be more patient
and mindful with our dog that she's been,
um, good practice.
I know having a child is going
to be way different than having a dog,
but there are definitely moments where, um, she is,
She does not bring out the best in me.
Um, I, I can get really impatient and it's because I,
Can I share one story really quick?
This scared when we were back in the apartment scared,
you know exactly which one I'm talking about.
Probably. Is this the one on the front of the porch?
No, no. It wasn't about a porch. Okay.
Uh, we were in our apartment, I'm trying to think of how
vegans close your ears, but we were, uh,
I was sleeping one day
and this, I mean, I mean, she was a puppy.
That too. Yeah. She was a, I mean,
she was a puppy a few weeks old.
And, uh, I woke up out of my sleep to,
to Morgan shouting, I can fit both
of my hands around your neck.
And I'm like, you might wanna work on that a little bit.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You don't wanna
Get, yeah. You can't do
that with kids. No,
You can't. No, you can't
do that. No.
It's like the first course is don't shake a baby. Know.
Let's go back to goal setting.
Just kidding. But she's come a long way since then.
She was like, yeah, that wasn't a bright spot.
It wasn't good. But, you know, we turned
things around and course corrected
And it's this, uh, like, it stems from this like need
or like desire for control.
And, um, so Erin
and I are actually in, uh, a married small group.
Uh, but recently I think the last study we did,
we split off, guys did one study, girls did another study.
Um, and the, we were walking through, um, the cost
of control, which I,
I can give you a link to drop in the show notes.
Okay. Yeah, that Sounds great. Um, it was amazing
'cause it talks about like the different areas of your life
that you're trying to control.
And with our dog specifically, it's just like I've,
I'm trying to control for the sake of my convenience,
you know, you're, you're really inconveniencing me right now
by barking and whining or whatever she's doing.
Um, I just want you to be a well-behaved dog that sits next
to me and I can pet you when I want to.
Um, and then just like knowing her needs as well, like,
I'm definitely, um, sometimes
put my own needs before hers.
Like, I wanna sleep for 30 more minutes,
but it's nine o'clock and that's her breakfast time.
Um, so just using that as a reminder, like,
a child's not gonna let you sleep for 30 more minutes.
Like when they're ready to eat, they're ready to eat.
Um, so yeah, just that, that desire for control, um,
and patience.
Yeah. Yeah. I think for me,
my overarching spiritual goal is a, a I try
to keep things as simple as I can.
Mm-Hmm. But to be more like Jesus
today than I was yesterday.
Yep. Like, that's just, that's kind of Mm-Hmm.
If I can hit that and,
and I, I appreciate you saying earlier, lemme start
with one I failed in,
uh, 'cause I don't get it right every day.
Mm-Hmm. But then that takes me down to like, okay,
what things are going to help me do that?
And for me personally, it comes down to like be mindful of
what I put in my body.
Mm-Hmm. Be mindful of what I put in my mind.
And so that's physically and spiritually, right? Mm-Hmm.
And I, I joke around with people sometimes, like, so
how do you decide what to eat?
Just ask yourself, would Batman eat it?
I mean, at the end of the day, I mean,
but I mean, you gotta be thinking like
what we put in our bodies physically has just as much
or more impact on, you know,
our bodies than even going to the gym Right.
And working out. And so, um, you know, I have to battle,
like Batman would not eat cinnamon toast Crunch the way I
want to eat Cinnamon Toast
Crunch. He just wouldn't do it. Right.
There's a lot of growling involved I'm sure. Yeah.
If he doesn't Yeah. Can we need
A bracelets? We
need have, need milk. Gimme the milk Jeffrey give,
We have wwj D bracelets, but like,
What would that mean? What would
that wwb? So,
So you gotta be mindful of it, right?
Mm-Hmm. Physically it's the same thing spiritually.
Like what am I going to expose myself to? Yeah.
Because it has a huge impact. Mm-Hmm.
And for me, um, I was talking
to someone the other day just even about sermon writing.
It is more important for me to make sure
that I'm taking care of my own quiet time
with the Lord Mm-Hmm.
If I'm preparing for a sermon than it is
to actually sit down and try to write a sermon.
Yeah. Because it's the things
that are gonna come out when you're not thinking about it,
when you're not trying to force it
because of that actual time.
Yeah. So, um, so it's what do I, what is it
that I make sure I say yes to?
And then what is it that I sure
as heck make sure, uh, I say no to?
Yeah. 'cause that's what's gonna help me become more like
Jesus today than I was
Yesterday. Yeah. That's good.
I heard somebody describe following Jesus
recently as, uh, stumbling forward.
Yeah. Like, you fall, but when you get up you're like, oh,
I'm closer to him than I was Yeah.
When I was back there. You know what I mean?
Hope in real life family. I wanna pause for a moment
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You're gonna find practical messages
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Hope you'll check it out. How can our listeners start today
to make meaningful progress in their walk with Jesus?
Yeah, I'll start here.
I think the first thing is you have to take inventory.
I, I really think that's something that's really important.
Um, I mean, it's the same thing again, I I,
I keep using this as an analogy
and scripture uses it analogy for a reason.
Uh, but when you go in, if you have a physical goal,
you go into a gym one day, you sit down
with a personal trainer, that's the first thing I'm gonna
ask you is what your, what's your goal?
Do you wanna lose? Do you wanna lose fat?
Do you want to add muscle? Do you want, you know, whatever.
Do you wanna get your eating? And, you know,
they start to look at all those things.
And I think that place of inventory
is the lack thereof is the thing
that gets us in the most trouble.
Yeah. Uh, it's just the result of, yeah, this is who I am.
This is who I'll always be too late.
Can't teach an old dog new tricks. That's just it. Right.
I think to take an inventory of this is who I am,
this is how I got here, this is who Christ says I should be,
where's the, where are the gaps?
Where are the deficiencies?
Where are the areas where, uh, I'm missing it?
Um, this is way outta left field,
and I'm not gonna go into detail about it,
but there's a, a podcast I listened
to recently called the Radical Empathy Podcast.
And this guy does a fantastic job. Mm-Hmm.
I feel you on that, of meeting of, he talks to people
who are on the fringes of society
and he's like, listen, I'm not gonna judge.
I'm not gonna, and I just want to hear,
how did you get to where you are?
His first episode was, uh, with a flat earth actually.
And I went in, I'm like, I got it here.
This is gonna be good. Right.
And by the end of it, I'm
like, you know why she's not that great? But
I was like, maybe we haven't been to the
middle. I dunno. I dunno.
It's, it might be an exact text that I sent to Mark, but,
but what I love about it is, is, um, uh, there was one guy
that he was talking to, um,
and I won't go into detail about it
because outta context, it's, you're going
to judge, I know that for a fact.
But he went to, um, he went to jail for a crime
that he committed, and he was gonna serve
a, a sentence of four years.
And they told him, listen, you're gonna be in jail
for four years, the last six months, so after three
and a half years, we're gonna put you together with a,
with a psychiatrist before we send you back into society.
And he goes, why are you waiting that long?
He's like, can we actually start now?
Because I don't know why I'm in here in the first place.
I don't see how what I did was wrong.
And so for him, he had to go through this entire process
of learning that what he did, why it was illegal,
why it was not okay to do,
why it was inappropriate behavior.
Um, and I just, I, it, it really caused me to look at myself
and realize like, there are things now, um,
after X amount of years of following Jesus
that like I look back at my old life or when I was younger
and think, man, I, I was okay with that then,
and I'm not now.
And there's something that's happened in the middle
of that process, right.
Which I'm grateful for that God,
by his grace has gotten me to this place.
But now I wonder, man, when I'm 40, when I'm 50, what type
of things I'm gonna look back on in my thirties
that I'm like, why did I ever think that was okay?
Yeah. You know, so, uh, scripture talks about the renewing
of the mind, and that's exactly what it is,
that there's a certain type of life that seems right.
Um, in and of itself. Yeah. I'm great.
Why do I need any correcting?
Why do I need to work on myself?
Why do I need to improve anything?
Um, there's a way that seems right.
But then in light of how God has wired us and designed each
and every one of us to live, we start to realize, man,
there's some work that needs to get done.
And it can be very overwhelming if I feel
like I had to do it all on my own.
Yeah. And so instead, it's just a, a daily to your point
saying, all right, what you got in store for tomorrow.
Yeah. You know, um, yeah.
Morgan, uh, anything that our listeners can start today
to help them build a more meaningful
relationship with Jesus,
I think in the, this particular, um, aspect
of like setting spiritual goals, um,
and Aaron, you like led me right into it of
that like assessing of where you are right now.
I think there's also an importance
of bringing in other people and community
and having somebody else say like, point things out
because we're blind to our, some parts of us Mm-Hmm.
That we could be just really failing it and not,
and maybe not even willing to admit,
maybe we know we're failing in that,
but I would never set a spiritual goal in that area
because I know I'm never gonna meet it.
Mm-Hmm. I don't want to deal with that ickiness.
So, um, I don't know if we like,
talked a lot about the discipline
and like the accountability
that goes into setting spiritual goals,
but I think there's an importance
of having like a physical person that can get in your face
and say, Hey, you set this goal
and you're like, somebody's gonna hold you to it.
Like having somebody who's committed to, um,
holding you accountable.
I think in, in a marriage context you have some of that,
but then there's also just that level of grace too
that we're willing to give each other.
So there are goals that I, I've had, um, where
I don't even know if I've had the humility to ask Erin
for accountability for like keeping those goals.
Um, but yeah, there's sometimes there's just a struggle
of like holding your spouse accountable.
Um, so, you know, finding someone outside of your, your
marriage, uh, if you are married
or finding a friend, a, a mentor, um, people
who are older than us are great at,
at holding us accountable
because like you were saying, you know,
what am I gonna see when I'm 50
that I was doing when I was 30?
Well, let's find a 50-year-old who has walked with Jesus
and can say, Hey, like, I was doing that when I was 30
and I learned from learned from that,
and I don't want you to fall into that same trap.
Yeah. So I would say find
accountability in that goal setting. That's
Great. Clearly
plenty more we could talk about.
We're gonna wrap this one up.
Uh, probably gonna end up needing
to do a follow up on this at some point.
Uh, Erin Morgan, greatly appreciate you being Yeah.
Thanks for having up on the show this, Tom. Absolutely.
Hey, listen, uh, to our listeners, if,
if this has been beneficial to you, uh, and,
and you know, someone else in your life
that would benefit from this idea
of setting spiritual goals, hey, it's like, I love
how you said at the beginning, Morgan.
It's not about going from zero
to having a doctorate in ministry, theological in theology,
or in ministry right outta the gate.
It's about how do we stumble forward?
How do we make sure that at the end
of the day we're making progress?
If you know there's somebody that would benefit with that,
please share this with them.
You never know the difference
that you can make when you're sharing a bit
of hope in the everyday moments of other people's lives.
Thank you again for being on the show for listeners.
We will see you next time. Let's keep sharing hope.
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