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When we walk through seasons of waiting or uncertainty, it's tempting to look at the past through rose-colored glasses. We choose to only remember the good parts and forget the bad.
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:
Hello, friends! And thanks for tuning into 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 friend and co-host, Meredith Brock.
Meredith Brock:
Hi, Kaley. Well, today we have our Marketing Director, Madi Vincent, on the show to share about how sometimes we tend to really misinterpret, maybe misunderstand, Gods provision for us. And I’m telling you, it is a profound teaching, really spoke to me in a new and fresh way. Made me think about some things that I haven’t thought about in a long time.
Kaley Olson:
Yeah, same.
Meredith Brock:
But before we jump in to the teaching, I want to pause to remind you — all of our listening friends here — to download our free First 5 mobile app, because Madi's teaching today is a little sneak peek; it's a little preview on what we're going to be studying from the Book of Numbers, beginning August 29th, and we don't want you guys to miss out. So here we go, here is our conversation with Madi.
Kaley Olson:
Meredith, I am so excited to be in the studio, like in-person right now, with our friend Madi Vincent. Hey, Mads!
Madi Vincent:
Hey, guys!
Meredith Brock:
Y'all, Madi has been on staff with us at Proverbs 31 Ministries for five years and is our newly appointed Director of Marketing.
Kaley Olson:
Yes, she is.
Meredith Brock:
But in Proverbs 31 fashion, we've got some questions here for Madi, so you — our listeners — can get to know her a little bit better before she dives into her teaching. So Madi, are you ready? I've got some questions for you.
Madi Vincent:
I don't think so. I'm nervous. [inaudible 00:01:44].
Meredith Brock:
It's OK. I know, this is going to be so fun. OK. I don't know if this is an easy one to start off on, but I don't care. I'm going to ask you anyway. Question number one, Madi, would you rather meet Taylor Swift or Dolly Parton?
Madi Vincent:
Well, this is just really unfair because I love them both so much and equally, but I'm going to throw a curveball and say Dolly Parton.
Kaley Olson:
Wow.
Meredith Brock:
I was not expecting that.
Madi Vincent:
I think that shocked everyone, really.
Meredith Brock:
I respect you more now because of that choice.
Kaley Olson:
Yeah, I think I would pick Dolly too. OK, next question. Would you rather own a flower shop or a sandwich shop?
Madi Vincent:
I am not going to choose, and I'm going to open a flower shop, sandwich shop combo.
Kaley Olson:
She [inaudible 00:02:26].
Meredith Brock:
I like this distinctive.
Kaley Olson:
I do too.
Meredith Brock:
I'm in, I would go to that place. OK, next question. Would you rather give up your favorite pair of Off-White tall boots or your white Subaru Outback?
Madi Vincent:
OK. Well, I use the Outback a lot more than my white tall boots.
Kaley Olson:
That's true.
Madi Vincent:
So I'm going to keep my car.
Meredith Brock:
Very practical.
Madi Vincent:
Very practical.
Kaley Olson:
Very practical decision there. Good one, good one. OK, last one. Would you rather get stuck in Dollywood or in Paris?
Madi Vincent:
I would rather get stuck in Paris with Dolly Parton.
Kaley Olson:
OK.
Madi Vincent:
That's my answer.
Kaley Olson:
That would be quite an adventure.
Meredith Brock:
Yeah.
Kaley Olson:
That really would.
Meredith Brock:
It sounds like a good time to me.
Madi Vincent:
Kaley, you've been to Paris, right?
Kaley Olson:
I have. I've been twice.
Madi Vincent:
You've been twice.
Kaley Olson:
Yes.
Madi Vincent:
What was your favorite part?
Kaley Olson:
I love all the old buildings and just getting lost, especially at night, whenever you can walk on the river and the moonlight shines down. And it's so romantic and so pretty, and it just makes you want to stay there forever.
Madi Vincent:
I've been to Paris once, and it was just the craziest trip I've ever been on. It started with a text message from my friend saying she found $300 tickets to Paris and asked if I was in.
Kaley Olson:
There you go.
Meredith Brock:
A hundred percent.
Madi Vincent:
Yeah, we booked the tickets spontaneously and I'm probably the most unlikely person to go to Paris, but here I was, Madi Vincent, strutting down the scene. I'm picnicking under the Eiffel Tower, I'm watching the sunset over the Arc de Triomphe. But Kaley, you know what my favorite part of Paris was?
Kaley Olson:
What?
Madi Vincent:
The food.
Kaley Olson:
Oh yeah.
Meredith Brock:
Oh man. All day.
Madi Vincent:
The baguettes, the croissants, the chocolate croissants, which I cannot pronounce. Can you pronounce them, Kaley?
Kaley Olson:
No. And I just don't try.
Meredith Brock:
Yeah, just be American, guys. It's OK.
Kaley Olson:
I just say chocolate croissants.
Madi Vincent:
I was at Paris honestly for the carbs. I wanted the bread, that was my favorite part. And when I talk about Paris, I always talk about the food. It was amazing. But you know what I failed to mention about my trip to Paris? That I ended up with food poisoning the last night I was there.
Kaley Olson:
Oh, from the chocolate croissants?
Madi Vincent:
Not from the chocolate croissants, from some questionable chicken that we had the last night we were there. Yeah. It was not good. I don't know if you've ever had food poisoning the night before a really long flight, but …
Kaley Olson:
That sounds terrible.
Madi Vincent:
... it is not fun. And I know that seems really silly to talk about my food poisoning in Paris on The Proverb 31 Ministries Podcast, but I promise I do have a point. When I always think about my trip to Paris, I always think about the good things. In fact, sometimes I even romanticize the good things. I talk about how beautiful it was, I talk about how fun it was. I tell the story about eating a charcuterie board with my friend, and trying all these fun, different cheeses. And her saying, "I really liked that one." And me saying, "That was just butter." Like it's so fun and silly to remember all of these really great things, but I always forget to mention that my trip ended horribly and I had to get on a cross continental …
Kaley Olson:
Yeah.
Madi Vincent:
Is that the right term?
Kaley Olson:
I think so.
Madi Vincent:
… flight with food poisoning. I mean, it was a long flight. It's like eight hours.
Kaley Olson:
That's rough.
Madi Vincent:
It's a long flight. And I love when I'm having a really tough day, maybe work is hard, maybe my relationships are complicated to kind of escape to Paris. I love to think about all the great things that happened there, but I always forget the bad things. And I do this a lot in a lot of different areas of my life. I love to romanticize the past and I forget the painful parts when I am unhappy in my present. And that's kind of the key distinguisher here. If I'm happy in my present, I don't think about Paris, I think about how great my present is. But when I'm unhappy in my present, I love to romanticize things that have happened to me and go back there and long for those things. I do this a lot when I think about my college experience. I think about how much fun it was to live five minutes away from all of your friends, how easy life was when my only responsibility was my class homework.
And I forget that my entire college experience, my mom was very ill. And she died my junior year of college. And my college years weren't fun, they were really difficult and hard. I think about the time where I had just graduated college and I was starting my life here in Charlotte, a new city. And I think about how fun it was, all the things that me and my friends did to do for fun. When we were just starting out — we had no money, we had no responsibilities really, except for just clocking in at 8:00 a.m. and clocking out at 5:00 p.m. And I forget that in that season, I was in a really difficult circumstance with one of my family members. And I prayed and prayed during that season for God to intervene, and I felt like He was silent. And I forget about the pain.
And so I romanticize those past experiences that I've had and forget about the hard parts that happened too. And I think that this is a pretty common feeling. I think that we can all find ourselves in these situations where maybe we've romanticized what has happened, maybe we've prayed for God to intervene and He hasn't. And we just want to go back to what was, because we're so unhappy with what is. And I think there's this runway between where we thought our life would be and where we actually are, that can be just this runway for insecurity and this runway for us to go backwards. But the thing is, if we go backwards, we're limiting what God can do on our future, and we are limiting the better that He has for us. Do you guys ever experience this?
Kaley Olson:
Yeah. I mean, I can probably speak for all three of us in the room right now because we're on the same team at Proverbs. And Meredith, I think about years ago, you remember when it was just me, you and Allison trying to figure out the Creative Team like 10 years ago?
Meredith Brock:
Yeah. And we were it.
Kaley Olson:
No project management software, nothing. And sometimes when things get complicated, because we've grown so big, it's not that I'm unhappy, but I can think, "Wow, this is hard." I remember the good old days. You remember how much fun we had? But then if I really go back and think about it, I'm like, those were fun because we were doing the really hard work together, but it was so complicated back then. I don't want to go back to that just because right now is hard. Right now is a good thing, and there's new things that God wants to do through what is going on right now, but it's tempting to reminisce and think about …
Meredith Brock:
That, that had to have been better.
Kaley Olson:
Yeah, but it wasn't.
Meredith Brock:
I'll be honest, I think that this is how everyone has their second and third baby — is you forget how hard it is. And sometimes that's a gift, but sometimes it's not. In the case of having, if you want multiple children, it is a gift because you do want to kind of forget how difficult a newborn baby is so that you're willing to do it again. But I think in other life circumstances, it's not so much ... I actually just read a book the other day, and this … I'm going to go kind of business nerdy really quick, OK? But there was a quote in there that I thought was so interesting about how do you create change? And the quote basically was, "If you only use historical data to inform what you're going to do in the future, all you'll do is recreate the past."
Kaley Olson:
Wow.
Meredith Brock:
And I was like, Wow, it's true. It's true, the way that we look, the way that we frame up our past has so much to do with what will happen in the future.
Madi Vincent:
Yeah, that's good. So I was really struck by the story in the Book of Numbers, which side note, did you guys know that the Book of Numbers isn't just numbers? I have been a Christian for a really long time and I have successfully avoided reading the Book of Numbers because I truly thought it was just names and numbers. I was very uneducated of what was actually inside. But you guys, the Book of Numbers, it has drama, it's exciting, it's fascinating. And I'm going to pick us up in Chapter 11.
So in Chapter 11, the Israelites are in a seemingly tough spot. They've been walking around the desert for a while, they're trusting the Lord to bring them in the promised land. And even though they're seeing miracles every single day, they're still carrying around the trauma of their past. And I really don't want us to miss the humanity in the circumstances that they're in, as I go to read the section of scripture that I want to read. Because it's important for us to have empathy for their situation before we judge their kind of whininess. I don't know … I know Meredith and Kaley, you both have kids, so sometimes maybe your kids are a little whiny?
Meredith Brock:
My kids, whiny? Only every five minutes.
Madi Vincent:
But sometimes when your kids are whiny, you lose your empathy.
Meredith Brock:
Yeah. Yes.
Madi Vincent:
They're whining because there's something happening, and you're losing your empathy for their situation because of the way they're responding to it, right?
Meredith Brock:
Absolutely.
Madi Vincent:
So it's important for us, as I read what's happening in Chapter 11, to keep this empathy at the front face of our minds. So Chapter 11 starts with all the people complaining. And the Lord hears everything they say, and He gets pretty upset because He sends fire to rage among them.
Meredith Brock:
Oh, boy. I will say I feel like sending fire on my children sometimes, but I've been able to restrain myself.
Kaley Olson:
You can just [inaudible 00:12:45] their eyeballs.
Meredith Brock:
I'm also not a holy God, and so He has the right to do that.
Madi Vincent:
Yeah. So He sends fire to rage among them. And the Israelites cry out to Moses, and they're like, "Dude, we need some help." So Moses praises the Lord and the Lord stops the fire. And if this was me, if I was an Israelite in this situation, I'd be like, "OK, I'm going to maybe stop complaining." They don't. And so we pick up in verse 4, it says, "Now the rabble that was among them had a strong craving. And the people of Israel also wept again and said, 'Oh … that we ha—'" Oh, sorry. “And the people of Israel also wept again and said, 'Oh, that we had meat to eat! Remember the fish we ate in Egypt that cost us nothing — and the cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the onions, and the garlic. But now our strength is dried up, and there's nothing at all but this manna to look at.'" (Numbers 11:4-6) I mean, that's pretty whiny.
Kaley Olson:
It is, it is. Madi, I do want to stop you right there because you said, "Now the rabble was among them…” (Numbers 11:4). And I'm going to be honest, I thought that you misspoke the word rabbi. So can you tell us what you learned about the word rabble?
Madi Vincent:
Yeah. So the rabble refers to the non-Israelites that left Egypt with them. So these are people that put their hope, stock, all of these things in the Israelites. And they're actually negatively influencing the Israelites with their cravings, right?
Kaley Olson:
Wow.
Madi Vincent:
And you know what's so interesting is that when verse 4 says, "strong cravings," the Hebrew word for this actually deals with an inclination towards something, but what were they inclined towards with Egypt? Why were they inclined towards the food? You and I can flip our pages of our Bible back to the left a little bit and go into Exodus. And we can see what life was like for the Israelites in Egypt. And spoiler alert, it was not good. They were captives working for Pharaoh, their babies were being stolen and killed, they were not safe. And here we find the Israelites literally romanticizing their captivity.
Kaley Olson:
Wow.
Madi Vincent:
That's so crazy. And what is also even more crazy is that in all probability, what they're remembering is not something they actually ate, but something that they saw the Egyptians eating. Their cravings, longings and desires started impacting them and had them create this delusional reality of what their past was. And they started forgetting the most important thing is that God rescued them. And I can do this and you can do this, is all we remember. We all can forget that He rescued them, just like He rescued us. And if we forget that, we can become just like the Israelites.
Every day after that, even in the misery of the waiting for the promised land, the Israelite saw God's provision and they had a choice — they could choose to look at that as a miracle, as it was, or they could choose to become bitter and want to look back and go back towards Egypt. And even when God was angry at them, He still provided for them. And they would give all of that up. They would give their freedom up, they would give the provisions that they had daily up, for fish? Like what? And I just think all the things in my life that I have, all the miracles that I have in my life that God's given me, and how quickly I can be tempted to give them up for something that I perceive as better.
The verses that follow Chapter 11 talk about that tangible, everyday provision of manana and I want to read it. In verse 7, it says, “The manna looked like small coriander seeds and it was pale yellow like gum resin. The people would go out and gather it from the ground. They made flour by grinding it with hand mills or pounding it like mortars. And they boiled it in a pot and made it into flat cakes. These cakes tasted like pastries baked with olive oil. And the manna came down on the camp with the dew during the night.” (Numbers 11:7-9, NLT) OK. So my first thought is why are they complaining? I would definitely love to have a pastry baked with olive oil over fish.
Kaley Olson:
Sounds great.
Madi Vincent:
That sounds amazing to me. And I would love for it to be just like at where I wake up every day. I don't have to go to the grocery store, I got manna from heaven right here, that's pretty amazing. And then I remember there is so much that I have access to in my everyday life that I take for granted. On a physical level, I'm really fortunate to never have to be worried about finding food in my fridge, but on a spiritual level, I have access to so many things that I take for granted. I take for granted the scripture sitting in front of me. I mean, I've been a Christian for how many years. And I've never looked at the Book of Numbers before. Like, what? That's so crazy. I have God's Word sitting in front of me and I actively avoid books of the Bible that I think are going to be too complex for me to understand.
I take for granted that I have access to the Holy Spirit, and that the power of the Holy Spirit lives inside of me to help me and bring me peace. In my wait or deep disappointment, I have access to things that will help me, reminders that will tell me of who God is. I can remember that He was faithful to give the Israelites manna they needed every day to survive, and He will give me the spiritual manna that I need to survive my waiting seasons too. And I'm just curious, do you guys have any spiritual manna that you guys take for granted?
Kaley Olson:
What are you thinking, Meredith?
Meredith Brock:
When I was in college and coming right out of college … And I didn't become a believer until I was late into high school. And when I became a believer, I was on fire for God and I was going to change the entire world. And I remember during that season, longing for when I would finally get done with college so that I could go and do it. And thinking about — I was in Bible college at the time — "Once I get done with Bible college, then I can go and do this." And not recognizing, now I look back on it, and I can easily now at 41 years old, three kids deep, working full time say,, every day feels a little bit like, at the end of the day, I'm like, "Whew, I made it through another one. I survived that day."
And now when I look back, I realize how much I took for granted. Just the time that I had, to where now, y'all, for me to get to sit down and just have lunch with someone and hear about their day, is like moving heaven just because my schedule is so full. And now I look back and I recognize I took for granted that season that I had of where I could just go to lunch with someone and sit down and hear about what God was doing in their life. And that was ministry, like that was beautiful ministry. And I didn't necessarily label it as that, and I didn't label it as like … Well, because in my mind ministry was working in an organizational ministry full time and I wasn't there yet.
When now I look at that and I'm like, "Gosh, the ministry was sitting with that friend talking with her about the breakup that she was going through and reminding her what Scripture said." And I think it puts me in a place now at 41, with three kids deep, I'm like, "What am I taking for granted right now, that at that time, I didn't see time as a gift?” I saw it as not moving fast enough. And now I see time as a gift and I wish I just had more of it. And so, so good to reflect on, Madi, because I think it goes kind of both ways.
Also, I was just writing notes and I wrote down, oftentimes we may not be looking back on I don't necessarily ... Like maybe my college years, I look back on my life and think, "I wish I could go back there," because I wish I had that time, but I don't really look back on other seasons of my life just because I've had a little bit of a rockier life, and wish that I could go back there to get here. But you know what I do?
Madi Vincent:
You look forward.
Meredith Brock:
I look forward and I look sideways. And say, "Whatever's happening to her can't be happening to me?" And I take for granted what God has placed in front of ... The provision He's placed in front of me right now, that I could be missing out on if I'm looking sideways or even forward. So Kaley, what's on your mind?
Kaley Olson:
Well, I was thinking about you talking about having three kids, and now me in this season of getting my time kind of stripped away and thinking like, oh, I don't have like set, quiet time as much in the morning as I used to because my little boy wakes up a lot and I'm tired. But I think about the windows of time I do have, because I still feed him and pump. And I mean, that gives me 15 minutes every couple of hours. And how often do I not see that as God's provision for me to pause and slow down. But like you said about looking forward and looking sideways, when I really should just take a breath. I feel that time scrolling or looking at something else instead of being focused on where I am right now. Because I might not, for a long time, ever get that time I used to have in the mornings or at night back, but I do have provision in a different way now. And I don't see it as that because I'm just trying to get through that [inaudible 00:23:04].
Meredith Brock:
I love it. What you just said is golden. We all need everyone to pause and hear it, “I do have provision right now.”
Kaley Olson:
Yeah. Yeah.
Meredith Brock:
And I think that's what was happening with the Israelites, they did not see the manna as provision, they saw it as annoying. And how much of our life right now do we see as, "This is annoying, this is not the provision that I wanted, God, so give me the provision that I wanted or I'm going to complain"?
Kaley Olson:
Yeah.
Madi Vincent:
And I don't even know if they saw the manna as annoying as much as they felt so entitled to it. They're like, "We're losing the miracle of it," because they felt entitled to it, because they thought, "God put us in this wilderness, we're entitled to His provision." And they didn't see it as the gift and the blessing that it was. And I said this earlier, but I think it's important to repeat, where we are and where we want to be, that distance between those things is the breeding ground for this kind of thinking. It's the runway for us to feel unsatisfied, unfulfilled, forgotten, frustrated, entitled. And that's where we have to really check our character, right?
Kaley Olson:
Yeah.
Meredith Brock:
Yeah. I want to ask you a question.
Madi Vincent:
OK.
Meredith Brock:
What else is that runway right there? Because it is the breeding ground for all of those things, but what else is it the breeding ground for? Character development, intimacy with God, a grateful heart? The manna, y'all … those Israelites could have, instead of seeing it as like, "God better give us this. And He should also be giving us cucumbers, and roast beef…"
Madi Vincent:
And melons.
Meredith Brock:
… And melons. Like, "I should be getting those things too because He'll ..." Y'all, they missed the miracle of the manna. Like it came down from the sky — that is a miracle. And imagine had they embraced that every day, that miracle every day with a grateful heart, what kind of character they would've developed. What kind of intimacy with the Lord they would've developed. And we have that same opportunity right now if we use that time in the right way.
Madi Vincent:
Yeah. That's so good, Meredith. And I think just where I'm left with, with all of this, is I don't want to be like the Israelites.
Meredith Brock:
Yeah.
Madi Vincent:
But I so am.
Meredith Brock:
Yes.
Kaley Olson:
Yes.
Madi Vincent:
Their journey to the promised land, it wasn't just written as historical fact that we can read in the Book of Numbers and get judgy, and scoff at and roll our eyes at. It's teaching that we need to know how to not become that and to check our hearts of what we're not supposed to be doing. And I've thought a lot about what I would say to the Israelites if I could just have lunch with them like you were saying, and do ministry in that way and say, "Hey, can we just talk about this? Because I think you're kind of missing it." And I think that if I were to talk to the Israelites today and say three things to them, this is what I would say, and this is what I would say now to a friend who is struggling in the middle of their waiting.
I would say, "One, remember, remember that God is faithful, remember that God has rescued you. Look at all the things that have happened in your past that He's brought you through so that you can hold on to this Truth and this promise that He will continue doing the same, that He's not going to leave you where you are right now. And that He proves faithful. And that even in these moments where we feel unhappy and forgotten, that He's working, because He worked in the past, and He's going to work in the present, and He's going to work in the future."
The second thing that I would say is, "Look at what God is doing." This is the manna that we were just talking about. Look at what God is doing and get annoyingly grateful and excited and joyful about it.
Meredith Brock:
Amen.
Madi Vincent:
What would it have looked like, kind of like what Meredith was saying, if the Israelites woke up every day and they were like, "Yes, manna, this is so exciting. It happened again. My mind is absolutely blown. God gave us manna for the 35th year in a row. This is crazy." Imagine what their attitude for the rest of the day would've been like if they had taken seriously what God was doing in the moment. And how different would my attitude be now if in my season of waiting of where I am and where I want to be in that runway, I just got ridiculously enthusiastic about what God was doing.
Meredith Brock:
That's good.
Madi Vincent:
And the third thing that I would say is, “It’s probably time for us to readjust our attitude in the wait.” It's probably time for us to think, "Maybe I shouldn't be whinny about this, or maybe as I'm honest with the Lord about my feelings, I can allow Him to actually change my heart." And I think about — I kind of mentioned earlier— in the season of my life where I was praying and praying, and praying for God to do a work in one of my family members' lives. What He ended up doing was changing my heart and my attitude, and my way of reacting to this person. And even though He didn't answer the prayer the way that I wanted, He changed my attitude because I was willing for Him to change my attitude.
Meredith Brock:
That's good.
Madi Vincent:
And so I don't want to become whiny in our seasons of waiting. I don't want that for you, Meredith. I don't want that for you, Kaley. And I definitely don't want that for anyone who's listening to this. I want to look towards a faithful God, I want to see the way He's provided for me right now. And if you find yourself in that excruciating wait, if you find yourself in that place of where your life is and where you want it to be, and you feel tempted to look behind and not give God the chance to even show you what could be better, I want to tell you, you are in very good company. All three of us have been there. I've been there so many times and I've acted like the Israelites more times than I want to admit. And I want to encourage you and say, "It's OK that you're like that. It's OK that you feel this way. And it's also OK to ask the Lord to intervene."
So I want to pray for us right now, I want to pray for everyone in that season of waiting of where they are and where they want to be, and just ask the Lord to come and intervene, and help us in those seasons of waiting. So I'm going to pray. Dear heavenly Father, God, You didn't have to give us Scripture, You didn't have to give us stories, You didn't have to give us the Book of Numbers to show us what life was like, or show us Your history and Your character, God, but You did. And we're so thankful. We're so thankful that even a seemingly unapplicable thing like the Israelites roaming through the deserts can be so very applicable to our life right now.
So God, I just pray for the girl in the season of waiting, God. Lord, I pray for the person that is so unsatisfied and frustrated and feeling forgotten right now in where they are as they look to where they want to be, God. And I pray that You remind them of who You are. God, I pray that You show them that You are faithful. And You've been faithful over and over, and over again. And You will continue to be faithful over and over, and over again. God, I pray that You help us see your miracles in a fresh way. I pray that You help us see the way You provide for us each day. And God, I pray that You just enter into our hearts and readjust our attitudes when it feels hopeless, when we're so done with everything that we're facing, that You can help us and guide us, and change us in the way that You promise to in Scripture. We love You, Father, Amen.
Meredith Brock:
Amen.
Kaley Olson:
Amen. Thank you so much, Madi. That was a great reminder for me to focus on how I should be ridiculously enthusiastic about what God is saying to me through His Word.
Meredith Brock:
That's good.
Kaley Olson:
I mean, talk a lot about waiting. How many of us are waiting on God to speak to us? But we're missing that manna of the provision of His Word right in front of us. Like you said about being afraid to open the Book of Numbers because you didn't think that it would apply to you today. And I know that I've been in that boat too and find myself there a lot whenever I just want a fresh revelation from the Lord. And so, what I want to do right now is invite our podcast listeners to join us to study the Book of Numbers. I mean, this is something we take very, very seriously at Proverbs 31. We believe when you know the truth and live the truth, it changes everything. And that comes from knowing the Truth of God's Word.
And so we are going to study the Book of Numbers in the First 5 app starting August 29. And if you have never opened the Book of Numbers before, let's cross this off your bucket list because I think you will be surprised what God says to you through a book that you might have been afraid to open to. Or a book that you might have opened before and read many times, but He wants to say something new. And so Meredith, will you tell our listeners how they can join us for the study?
Meredith Brock:
Absolutely. We've got two ways that you can dive in with us. First, you need to download the very free First 5 mobile app on your smartphone. Be sure to create an account so you can make the most of the app. You miss out on a lot of stuff if you don't create that account. And starting on August 29, just like Kaley said, you'll receive a short daily teaching from the Book of Numbers in that app, that will just guide you through. There'll be some reading that you do and some teaching that will guide you all the way through the Book of Numbers.
Next, if you're really ready to go dive deeper into the Book of Numbers, we want to invite you to purchase a study guide. You can get that at p31bookstore.com, but there's even further teaching in that study guide apart from that daily teaching in the app. I know that the Lord has something special for each one of us because He promises us that His Word is living and that it's active. And so you don't get to experience the benefits of His Word if you're not really getting into it, so we want to invite all of you — let's do this together.
Kaley Olson:
Yeah, absolutely. Well guys, thanks so much for joining us, Madi. It was fun to have you in the studio with us. And thanks for listening today, friends. At Proverbs 31 Ministries, we believe when you know the truth and live the truth, it changes everything.