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Zach shares three passages of scripture on what it looks like to strengthen yourself in the Lord.
Show Notes
- 1 Peter 5:6-11
- 1 Samuel 30:66
- Jude 20
Creators and Guests
What is You Can Mentor: A Christian Youth Mentoring Podcast?
You Can Mentor is a network that equips and encourages mentors and mentoring leaders through resources and relationships to love God, love others, and make disciples in their own community. We want to see Christian mentors thrive.
We want to hear from you! Send any mentoring questions to hello@youcanmentor.com, and we'll answer them on our podcast. We want to help you become the best possible mentor you can be. Also, if you are a mentoring organization, church, or non-profit, connect with us to join our mentoring network or to be spotlighted on our show.
Please find out more at www.youcanmentor.com or find us on social media. You will find more resources on our website to help equip and encourage mentors. We have downloadable resources, cohort opportunities, and an opportunity to build relationships with other Christian mentoring leaders.
You can mentor is a podcast about the power of building relationships with kids from hard places in the name of Jesus. Every episode will help you overcome common mentoring obstacles and give you the confidence you need to invest in the lives of others. You can mentor.
Speaker 2:Hello, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, children of all ages. Welcome to Podcast Land. I'm your mayor, Zachary Garza, and with me is my podcast queen.
Speaker 1:Caroline Tidwell.
Speaker 2:Miss Caroline Tidwell. Guys, it's been a while. I know that y'all have been, busy with Steven and his mustache.
Speaker 1:Well, I I did pop in at some point.
Speaker 2:Oh. What? Well, you get me. It's been a while. I know that y'all missed me.
Speaker 2:My DMs have been blowing up with, fan mail. Just kidding. No one's ever sent me anything. But we're back today talking about this current season and strengthening yourself in the Lord.
Speaker 1:I think that's a big thing going on right about now. Zach, it's August 2020, the year of our Lord. Thank you, Lord, for this year.
Speaker 2:This is the year of the cat, Chinese calendar?
Speaker 1:It is? No.
Speaker 2:I just Oh.
Speaker 1:Not just yet. Up. Okay. Zach, what's going on in your life right now?
Speaker 2:Guys, I'm not gonna I'm not gonna lie. Things are hard. I'm I'm a I'm a little stressed out. You know, you got the whole COVID thing. School's about to start.
Speaker 2:We, as mentors, were trying to build relationships without seeing kids. It's, proven to be quite difficult. You've got the political realm, right, of just all that stuff going back and forth. There's a lot of division. Just every time I get on social media, it's like people are just yelling at each other with words and emojis.
Speaker 2:You know, you've got the whole race thing, which there's that's a good thing. Like, finally, we're addressing this issue, but there's just a lot of tension, and that's all on top of, like, family and work and kids and everything else. And I've I've been discouraged. I've been down. Like, I was I was talking to one of my buddies last week on on the phone, and he's like, dude, it sounds it sounds like you're about to cry.
Speaker 2:And and I was like, yeah. Well, yeah. I think I am.
Speaker 1:I am.
Speaker 2:And I don't cry because men don't cry. Just kidding. But then, like, kinda out of nowhere, the Lord kinda transformed my heart. And it happened because of 2 things. 1, the show on Netflix called Alone.
Speaker 1:The best show on Netflix. Truly.
Speaker 2:Oh, man. It's such a good show. I'm on season 6, and just Jordan's just out there just chopping up wolverines and
Speaker 1:Killing a wolverine with a hatchet.
Speaker 2:Oh, my gosh. That's a great show. This is a plug. If you guys haven't seen Alone on Netflix, it's pretty good. Caroline and I both like it.
Speaker 2:Mhmm. But I started watching this show called Alone. And for those of you guys who don't know, what it is is it's 10 people who are left alone
Speaker 1:In the Arctic.
Speaker 2:In the Arctic with only 10 things. So you can bring any 10 things that you want.
Speaker 1:Have you looked at the list? Yeah.
Speaker 2:It's crazy.
Speaker 1:It's crazy.
Speaker 2:And so people are bringing, like, hatchets and, like, fishing nets and, like, this thing called a ferro rod, which you can start fires with. Anyways, the whole point of the show is the last person standing who doesn't tap out wins, and they win, like, $50,000, 500,000? 500,000. Yeah. 500,000.
Speaker 2:And as the season goes on, like like weeks weeks, months months, people start to tap out. And every person has a camera, and so they're out there isolated alone, but this camera's picking up their every thought, their every word, and they have to, like, withstand hardships, like starvation and, like, animal attacks and, like, super cold weather. And as it goes on, you can kinda tell who's gonna win. Mhmm. And you can tell who's gonna win based on one thing, and that is their attitude.
Speaker 2:It's like the people who have joy, the people who have a positive, optimistic outcome outlook, sorry, like they are the ones who are doing the best. Mhmm. And those who get down on themselves and who are frustrated, they tap out almost 100% of the time. It's those those who have joy in the Lord last longer, and it's it's just super interesting. So that's the first thing that the Lord did.
Speaker 2:The second thing was I talked to my mentor, Steve. And, I talked to Steve. He's my spiritual father, mentor. He's the man. And, I talk to him every Monday at 4:30.
Speaker 2:And every time I call, he he is always so excited to hear my voice. Man of God, how's it going today? Zack Garza, the man, the myth, the legend. And I'm like, Steve, like, it doesn't matter what kind of day I'm having. If I talk to Steve, I'm automatically encouraged.
Speaker 2:And there's one thing that Steve always says at the very end of our conversation, and he says, Zack, be sure to make it a great day. And every time I hear that, I I start to smile because I'm like, Steve, that's that's the corniest thing I've ever heard. Like, make it a great day. I'm like, yes, dude. Whatever.
Speaker 2:But the more I think about it, the more I think that Steve might be onto something. Because your outlook is a choice. You can choose to focus on the things that aren't going right, or you can choose to focus on the things that that are going right. And when I think about Steve, for those of you guys who don't know, Steve has ALS. And in the last 5 years, he's gone from being just this outgoing, like super enthusiastic, full of life and energy and passion, to he can't move his lower body.
Speaker 2:He can't move his arms. He's stuck in a wheelchair. He can't walk, he can't feed himself, and Steve pretty much sits in his office all day in his wheelchair and yet I talk to him and he still has a positive attitude. Because for Steve, right, Steve has to make it a great day.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Because his circumstances will never allow a great day to happen. But he has a choice. He can choose to focus on the good things in his life, having a conversation with me, his wife, his children, or he can choose to focus on ALS and the challenges that that disease brings him each and every day. And for Steve, it's like he wakes up every morning and says, am I gonna choose to have a good attitude? Am I gonna choose to have a bad attitude?
Speaker 2:Charles Swindle has this quote. It says, we cannot change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have and that is our attitude. I'm convinced that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% how I react, and so it is with you. We are in charge of our attitudes.
Speaker 2:It's a good quote. What do you think about whenever you hear that quote, Caroline?
Speaker 1:Well, it makes me think a lot of the situations that I have chosen not to have a good attitude. I'm like, if only I had reacted the exact opposite way of how I did, that issue or that circumstance probably wouldn't have lasted as long. Yeah. Or I don't know. I just think that the the 90% of how I react to it, it's pretty convicting.
Speaker 1:Yeah. You react to a lot of things in one day.
Speaker 2:And, like, we're in this season where circumstances are really difficult. Like, if you're in charge of a business or a nonprofit, like, for most people, you've had issues with employees or issues with funding or creating revenue. I mean, if you're trying to spend time with a kid that you mentor, like it is hard enough to spend time with a kid when things are great, but now you have to deal with COVID. Mhmm. And as a mentor, our attitude has so much to do with our attitude has so much to do with the way that we invest into the lives of our children.
Speaker 2:And like that quote, that 90% of life is how you react to it, you know, like that sounds so cheesy to me, but it is so true. Oh yeah. Like it really is. Like if that's one thing that the Lord is showing me is your attitude makes up so much of how you see the world and how other people perceive you. Because a bad attitude is, it's a lot like a cancer.
Speaker 2:Like, first it's a bad attitude about the kid that you're mentoring. Then it's a bad attitude about work. And then it's a bad attitude about your marriage and your kids. Like, if if you want to, you can find something wrong with anything. Mhmm.
Speaker 2:Right? But but also on the flip side of that, you can also find find the good in almost every situation. It's the same thing with your mentoring relationship with your mentee. You can either focus on the good or focus on the bad. You can focus on how he's not calling you or how it's hard to get a hold of him or how he's not doing well in school or how he's not respectful.
Speaker 2:And it's those things. It's that negative attitude that can destroy your relationship with him.
Speaker 1:Oh, yeah. And if if you just think about how easy it is to get into the cycle of negativity Yeah. And how hard it is to get out of that. I mean, it's near impossible to get out of a cycle of negativity when you start to look at everything all around you, especially right now. When, like, when you just look at it objectively, it seems like there is absolutely nothing going right.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:But what is so it's way harder. It's not as natural to look for the good. But I I like that of the it can destroy a relationship part. It's not a good thing. But if you think about it long enough, if something's going bad, you just wanna give up on it.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And that's the exact opposite of what we wanna do with the kids that we're mentoring. So we have to start at the at the root of it, which is the choice of how we react to life.
Speaker 2:And just, like, fixing your mind on the things of heaven, like, seeking first his kingdom, like, that that is gonna give you everything that you need to fight this battle, because make no mistake, we are in the middle of a battle. Like we are in war. I was talking to one of my friends, and he spent some time fighting overseas in Iraq. And we were just talking about what it was like over there and what his day looked like, and he told me, he's like, man, Zach, like, I had to wake up at 5 AM, and the first thing that I did was I put on my kevlar vest, and then I put on my fatigues, and I put on my boots, and then I put on my helmet, and put on my gun. And those are all the things that I had to do first thing when I woke up, because I knew that I was heading out into a war zone and to not prepare to go outside into this war would have been beyond foolish.
Speaker 2:And that got me thinking and it's the same thing with us as mentors. Like waking up in the morning and spending time with the Lord and filling up our tank and setting our minds on the things of heaven and being thankful and being grateful. Those are the things that we have to do because we're in a war. And if we don't do those things, then we're entering into this battleground without our helmet, without our gun, right?
Speaker 1:Mhmm.
Speaker 2:And so, so yeah, so that's that is what we're here to talk about today, about strengthening yourself in the Lord, how you can't give what you don't have. And if you're gonna mentor a will during the season, we've gotta fix our eyes on Jesus and be filled up so that we get ready to face whatever this world throws at us with a good attitude, with joy, with positivity. So how do we keep a good attitude, especially in the midst of COVID, of a pandemic, in an unpredictable economy, in a chaotic political climate, in this social justice race movement, how do we do it? Gotta strengthen yourself in the Lord. That's right, Tidwell.
Speaker 2:We gotta strengthen ourselves in the Lord.
Speaker 1:That's so exciting.
Speaker 2:It is, man. Like, it it is it is like I'm going to boot camp each and every day.
Speaker 1:Oh, yeah.
Speaker 2:And so, like, I was I was in I was in the book of James this this morning in James 5, and it says in James 5 just these things, right? Be patient. Establish your hearts. The Lord is coming. Remain steadfast.
Speaker 2:The Lord has a purpose. He is compassionate and merciful. If there is suffering, then pray because the prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.
Speaker 1:Mhmm. Amen.
Speaker 2:So today, we're gonna talk about 3 passages that focus on strengthening ourselves in the Lord, on establishing our hearts in King Jesus. So the first passage is this, 1st Peter 5:6 through 11. Caroline, do you mind reading that?
Speaker 1:I'd love to. Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time, he may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on him because he cares for you. Be sober minded. Be watchful. Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.
Speaker 1:Resist him. Firm in your faith, knowing that the same kinds of suffering are being experienced by your brotherhood throughout the world. And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you. To him be the dominion forever and ever. Amen.
Speaker 2:So does anyone have anxiety right now? Like, is anyone feeling like they're going through a season of suffering? Have you felt the devil roaring around like a lion in your life? And if so, then what do we do? Well, we humbly cast our anxieties on him.
Speaker 2:Mhmm. We be watchful and we resist. And after we have done those things, the Lord says that he's gonna restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish. And I just think that those four things, Caroline, are are just so powerful. What do you think of whenever you think of the Lord restoring you?
Speaker 1:Well, it I mean, it gives me a lot of hope for tomorrow because God does not abandon us. Yeah. And so when there's a promise that he is going to restore and confirm and strengthen and establish us, it means that he is not yet done with us. Like, I may feel like I'm done. I may feel like I am just ready to tap out and leave the Arctic, like, in the show alone.
Speaker 1:But God has promised that he is going to establish me. He is going to restore me. And so I have that gives me hope for even, like, my next breath that God has not yet done in me and what he's gonna do through me. So I that gets me a little pumped up. I'm excited about that.
Speaker 2:And, like, restore, confirm. Like, I love that. Like, confirm. Like like, god's like, Zach, I chose you. Like, this wasn't on accident.
Speaker 2:Like, yeah, you might suffer for a little while, but I didn't mess up whenever I put you in this role.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:Right. You have what it takes to succeed in whatever I've called you to. Mhmm. Whether it's being a a husband, a father, a leader, or a mentor. And, like, that that encourages me.
Speaker 2:And when I get encouraged, I get strengthened.
Speaker 1:Mhmm.
Speaker 2:Because we've said this a bunch, but to encourage someone is to open up their chest and to insert courage. And when I feel full of the Lord, when I'm confident in the call that he has for me as a mentor, as someone who's investing into the next generation, I feel like I can run through a wall. Like, it doesn't matter what the enemy puts in front of me, whether it is negativity, whether it is unfortunate circumstances, whether it's COVID. Like, I think about Steve. Like, in his outer man, Steve's about as weak as they come.
Speaker 2:But his inner man, I've never met anyone who's as strong. And that strength comes only from the Lord. And I just think that that's so powerful.
Speaker 1:That's good. We had a in a church small group that I was in, when last night, actually, one of the questions that was asked was, when what were you doing when you felt most in Christ? Most firm in your relationship with Jesus. And everyone's answer was, I was worshiping or I was surrounded by believers or I was speaking about who God is. And very rarely was it.
Speaker 1:I was succeeding at my job. I was, you know, I was, like, crushing it, playing a sport. Like, it wasn't any of those things. It was all when when our eyes were fixed on the things of heaven. That is when we start to feel the most strengthened in who God is because the reality is is that he wants our praise, and he wants us to look to him.
Speaker 1:He needs us. He wants us to need him, and we do. Like, we can't function without him. And so I just that was an encouragement to me of just I know now it's been confirmed even by my friends of, like, I feel most strong in the Lord when my eyes are fixed on things above, and God is gonna promise to restore me when I'm when I'm looking to him Yeah. And not trying to trying to find that restoration in the things of this world because, clearly, that is not gonna come.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And, like, God God's faithful, and he will use this season to establish us, to build our house on a firm foundation If we don't quit, if we don't give up. Right? So mentors, if this is a hard season for you, stay encouraged. Stay near His presence.
Speaker 2:The joy of the Lord is my strength. Be near to Him because if we draw near to Him, then He'll draw near to us. So after you've suffered a little while, restore, confirm, strengthen, establish. God promises to do all that. Mentors just don't quit.
Speaker 2:Next verse. 1st Samuel 36. I'll talk about this. So King David is my favorite Bible character probably because I can relate to King David. Like, super passionate dude, then just makes terrible mistakes.
Speaker 2:Like, I'm just like David and I are the same person. And in 1st Samuel 30, I'm just gonna set this scene up. David and his mighty men, they came to this place called Ziklag, and they found the city on fire and their wives and children kidnapped. Like, things weren't going well.
Speaker 1:Chaos.
Speaker 2:And David and all of his men, they were freaking out. Well, for good reason. Right? Mhmm. And David was in charge.
Speaker 2:And the verse is this, and David was greatly distressed, for the people spoke of stoning him because all the people were bitter in soul, each for his sons and daughters. But David strengthened himself in the Lord his God. I just think that we can learn something from that. Like whenever all hell was breaking loose, whenever everything was going wrong, whenever the city that he was in charge of was burning, whenever his wives and children were kidnapped, what did David do? He strengthened himself in the Lord.
Speaker 2:That's so good. And I just think that that's a word for today, especially for us as mentors. If you can't see your kid, if you're having a hard time contacting him, whether it's through social media or through his phone or things like that, maybe it's the kid that you've been mentoring had to move because this economic season has just been too hard for them, for their family. No matter what obstacles are in the way, let's strengthen ourselves in the Lord because, like, this is a season of stress. Like, this is a season where things might not be going well.
Speaker 2:Like this might even be a season where people are starting to turn on you, just like David, and David had his men turn on him. Right? Mhmm. But the one thing that we can do is we can run to the Lord. We can strengthen ourself in his presence.
Speaker 1:It's so good.
Speaker 2:And like there in his presence is everything that we need. It's there that you're able to think clearly. It's there that you're able to come up with a plan, that you're able to be creative and overcome the circumstances with a positive attitude and with a grateful heart.
Speaker 1:That's so good, Zach. Our last scripture is in Jude 20, and it says, but you must remember, beloved, The predictions of the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ. They said to you, in the last time, there will be scoffers following their own ungodly passions. It is these who cause divisions, worldly people, devoid of the spirit. But you, beloved, building yourselves up in your most holy faith and praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life, and have mercy on those who doubt.
Speaker 1:So powerful.
Speaker 2:So, like, whenever I look out on today, I see a lot of division.
Speaker 1:Oh, yeah.
Speaker 2:Like, you kinda have to pick a side. Either you're for this, and if you're not for this, and you're against this, and I just feel like there's so many things that wanna pit us against each other. Mhmm. And just like so many, like, opportunities to act out in your flesh, right, devoid of God's spirit. And just how do we handle this?
Speaker 2:How do we handle this as leaders? How do we handle this as mentors? And I think the answer is just building ourself up in prayer. Mhmm. It is keeping ourselves in the love of God.
Speaker 2:It's waiting. It's having mercy. Right? It's choosing mercy over judgment.
Speaker 1:Mhmm.
Speaker 2:Filling our hearts with compassion of Christ. It's
Speaker 1:so good. And just understanding that Jesus has already won. Jesus has the veil has been torn. Death has been defeated. Jesus has won.
Speaker 1:And yet, even though it seems like Satan is winning, and in a lot of ways, he totally is. He is totally causing division and strife and pitting people against each other. And if you say one wrong thing, then this person's gonna get mad. But if you say another wrong thing, this other person's gonna get mad. And it seems like there is just confusion and chaos.
Speaker 1:But waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life is so good because Jesus has already already won. And as believers, we are promised eternal life. And as mentors, we can have mercy because of the promise that we know is coming. Like, we have faith in something so much greater than today. Yeah.
Speaker 1:And as mentors, when we start to focus on that, when we start to focus on, how can I have mercy on this person? How can I be praying for this person? Someone told me years ago, you can't hate someone that you're praying for. And I was like, well, okay. That's conviction.
Speaker 1:Because when you actually, like, start to pray for someone that you dislike, the Lord really does start to do a work in you where you start to see them as God's child and not just the person that you hate, and when you are truly giving them to the Lord. And so we can have mercy on the ones who doubt because we know that there's this eternal hope in Jesus, but others don't know that. And so we can start praying with a positive attitude and focusing on what is coming.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So those are those are our three things. Those are the those are our 3 verses with the foundation of that being those those scriptures out of James 5, and why we're talking about this today, like why it's important that we as mentors strengthen ourselves in the Lord is because for some of our mentees, you're the only person that they have in their life that they're looking to, to see how how should I navigate this season. And so the phrase that we say often is you can't give what you don't have. And so you you have to give Godly instruction, Godly guidance, Godly wisdom on how how to follow Jesus during these times, because you better believe that your mentee is looking at you and he's asking himself, how should I handle everything that's going on?
Speaker 2:How do I handle these political conversations or these race conversations or the what should I do during COVID? And you, as a mentor, have an extremely incredible opportunity to be a godly example for your mentee during this time. You get to be different. You get to be the opposite of how most people in the world are acting or how most people that our kids are seeing on the news are acting, and you get to give them, it's almost a light in darkness. And for some of our kids, they don't have anyone who's willing to pick up that mantle and say, hey, follow me as I lead you through these chaotic seasons.
Speaker 2:Follow me as I myself navigate these waters in a Godly way. So that's why we're doing this podcast. I know that we didn't really talk about like mentoring practicals or anything like that, but so much more is caught than taught. And if you are dealing with these these issues, if you're going through this season in a godly way, I promise that's gonna have a profound impact on your mentee and Jesus is going to use that to transform his life. So that's all that we got for today.
Speaker 2:Mentors, be encouraged. Just know that that God's doing something. Just know that if you continue to show up, if you continue to fix your eyes on him, if you continue to to be positive and have a good attitude, that the Lord is going to work during this season. He is working during this season. And I just believe that in the years to come, we're gonna look back and we're gonna see what the Lord was up to.
Speaker 2:And it's gonna be good because everything he's got is good. Right? Mhmm. So that's all we got. Remember, you can mentor.
Speaker 2:You can mentor.