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Coffee & Clarity with Dr. Kish is your weekly refill of faith, hope, and love created especially for Christians who pour out daily but need to be poured into. Whether you're navigating burnout, wrestling with purpose, or simply craving a quiet moment with God, this podcast offers spiritual encouragement rooted in Scripture, justice, and grace.
Hosted by visionary educator and faith-rooted leader Dr. Kish, each episode blends biblical truth with real-world insight to help you reconnect with your calling, restore your soul, and rise with renewed strength. From devotional reflections to justice-centered conversations, this is your space to be still, be brave, and be filled.
Come for the coffee. Stay for the clarity. Leave with a heart refilled.
Kish Price (00:00)
Welcome to another episode of Coffee with Dr. Kish, and I know that this is the season where people start to feel the stress of all the things. And I'm recording this end of December, right before Christmas. And I think it's the perfect time for people to be in this place of wondering what is next, right? Because you know, it's the end of a year. You're going into the beginning.
of a new year, but you start getting really somber sometimes when you think about what you didn't get to accomplish or people who are no longer here to enjoy life with you. You start to reflect a lot, hopefully on the good things, but a lot of times it's on what's missing, what you don't have, what's not been settled, what you're still trying to process. And so I want to lean into that today, if it's okay with you.
And I hope you'll join me on this journey and be in a place where you really seek God and say, God, what is it that I need to do to be in a better place right now? We're not even going to talk about the rest of the days in this year or the next year, just right now. What do I need to do to be in a better place right now? So let's pray. Lord, please help my words to come out.
the way that you would have them to. Thank you, Lord, for fixing our gaze upon you. I pray right now for my friend that is listening, that you will bless, lead and guide, that you will heal hearts. I thank you that you will renew minds. And I just praise you right now in the name of Jesus for the mighty work that you will do and are already doing. It's in Jesus' name, I pray. Amen. Okay. So I know
A lot of times we talk about like favorite scriptures, like what's something that leads you, guides you, helps you to be in a better place. If you just quote the scripture that you memorize, that you say you live your life by. And for me, it's been Proverbs three, five and six for quite some time, right? And the element of trust is a small word, but it's such a big practice. Okay. So when that scripture,
And Proverbs three talks about trust and trusting in the Lord. I think sometimes I've, over the years, I've understood the meaning, but I've come to understand it even more as I realize what it's not. Right? So a lot of times we trust in ourselves and we won't, we're not even willing to admit it. Right? So you're probably wondering what I mean when I say that. So let me just explain.
A lot of times we think that we have a lot more control than we do. So we think that we can make plans and all of our plans are going to happen just the way that we plan them. That's just not life. That's not how God works. And so when he says to trust in him, it means that he wants us to really submit.
our lives, our plans, our thoughts to Him and say, God, what do you see about this? What do you say about this? What would you have me to do about this? And that takes practice. You know, that is a process over time where we just continue to realize just how trustworthy God is and how we can't really control anything anyway. You definitely can't control people, right? So
unless you're planning on doing something that is in complete isolation, that does not involve any other person, you're going to need to rely heavily on the Lord. And even if you were trying to do something in isolation, you would still need to rely heavily on the Lord for support. And I think sometimes we don't realize all of the unknowns, all of the things that kind of trigger a change. And if you are that person who's been planning, who's been trying to control, who
once you know, you, you know how to make a good plan and you know how to work a good plan, right? I'm there. I'm with you because that's how I've been. But God literally blew up my world. If you, if we can say that, ⁓ that's, that's what it felt like. And on a lot of fronts, almost all fronts, right? Where I just was like, Whoa, like what's happening, God. And when that happens, you have a moment where you can decide, do I trust God here?
Or am I going to trust in myself? Do I need to take a different path? Like what you can have all of those thoughts if you are his child. And if you have submitted your life to him, you're not going to stop with just what you think and what you want. You are going to lean in and ask God what's happening and what do I need to do about this? And how do I need to change? Because life,
hits, it hits. And I remember when everybody's like, life be life. And I'm like, yes, it does. Right. But God be Godding too. Right. And I'm so glad that he does. Right. He, that he helps us to see him in the situation, in the circumstance, even if it doesn't make sense. And so I want to focus on this passage. I'm reading it from the English standard version, which is a different version than what I remembered it by, but
I think it's helpful to hear it this way. So if you have your Bible available and want to read along with me, I'm reading from Proverbs three and I'm looking at verse five. I'm going to read through verse eight. So it says, trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding in all your ways acknowledge him and he will make straight your paths. Be not wise in your own.
eyes fear the lord and turn away from evil it will be healing to your flesh and refreshment to your bones my okay i'm just gonna read verses seven and eight again just to make sure we got that be not wise in your own eyes fear the lord and turn away from evil it will be healing to your flesh and refreshment
to your bones. Okay. So the reason why this passage is so convicting, but also refreshing is because it's basically giving us a free pass to chill, like to get into a place of rest in trusting God. Because on the flip side of him saying to trust in him, right?
to trust in the Lord, it says, do not lean on your own understanding. That's the very next statement, right? So if you're trusting in the Lord, and then the caveat is with all your heart, because sometimes we can have a little bit of trust in God, right? But then it's like a moment where you just decide, I need to do something here, don't I, God? Like, don't I need to take control of the situation? Don't I need to say something? Don't I need to do? And I will tell y'all, like, I know that I have...
been convicted by God a lot of times where he's just like, I've got this, you know, I don't need you to say, I don't need you to do. And if we're not careful, sometimes we can venture into the space of being controlling, right? And, manipulative, right? And, and really thinking that that's God, thinking that God supports it, right? It's like we have Godly intention.
So we think because we have a Godly intention, it's okay, but it's not, it's not, it's still not. And if we're not careful, we could be influenced by the spirit of Jezebel. That Jezebel spirit is controlling. It is easily offended. It operates in a way that seems to hide in this spiritual cloak.
but you're actually wanting somebody to do what you want them to do, in kind of hiding behind like God, right? Like, well, God, you know, wants you to do this thing, but that means you're not trusting God. Listen, it says trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding. So it's different when God is telling you to do a thing. It's very different when you know, he's telling you to do a thing as opposed to you inserting yourself and doing the thing that you think you should do.
just because because you think you know better, right? Let's be careful about that. It can happen with our loved ones. It can happen with our kids. It can happen with our friends. It can happen with our spouses. Like we don't ever want to be in a place where we are inserting ourselves into a space that is not what God wants us to do. Or we're saying things that he does not want us to say. Okay. We have to be
very, very dedicated to that understanding what God, what do you want me to do here? Right. And that he would, he just loves for us to trust him that much that you're like, I don't, I'm not even going to say anything, Lord, unless you want me to say it. I'm not going to do anything unless you want me to do it. I trust you that much. And it's so difficult when it's somebody we really love, right? I hope my son's okay with me telling us, but I remember
He was ⁓ dating a young lady and I was just like, I don't know. Like I just didn't, for whatever reason, call it, know, mom distrust, whatever. I was just like, no, like this is not good for him. He's not in a good place in his life where he needs to be doing this. It's not healthy for him to be in the relationship. I had my thoughts, like my reasons, you know, you could call it spiritual discernment too, right? Like it was all these things that I felt justified.
and trying to let him know how I felt about the situation, the relationship. And God would just keep arresting my tongue like, no, like don't say, you don't need to say anything. Don't say anything. Now I may have slipped up a couple of times. I know I did. I just, you'd have to ask him, but I remember saying, you know, things he probably knew like mom's not really feeling this relationship or whatever, but God just stopped me, right? Because the reason why I was so concerned was because I had a dream.
And in that dream, it didn't lead to good things. So I was just really concerned. I never told him about the dream, but it was pressing enough that I was like, I don't want this thing to happen. So I was prayerful and I just started, God just led me to be in a place of seeking him, praying and asking him to bless my son with wisdom, to bless her with wisdom, like and to increase their relationship with him.
That was my prayer. I know that that was a work of God because that's not Kish, that's not me. Like I, I fight for my loved ones, right? Like I will listen. It, I've had this conversation before, you know, some people are just fighters. They fight anybody, any day for anything. That's not me. I am big on justice though. And so I fight for my family. I fight for people I don't even know. Like I'm ready.
And for myself, that's where I kind of pause sometimes because I'm just like, whatever, it's not worth it or whatever. So even then you have to be submitted to God and know when to fight. Right. Because sometimes he is saying, yeah, I need you to fight for yourself. I need you to fight for that time that you need. Right. I need you to fight for your self to be better. If you need space, if you need some time, fight for it. Ask for the time off from work.
Ask your spouse, can I have some time to step away? Like you, we fight for these things because a lot of times people like you are good about doing for others and then not so much for yourself. And God needs you well, right? He can't, we can't make our lives into a drink offering. We can't pour out our lives as a drink offering unless we are in a healthy state.
We won't have anything to pour out. Right? So that's why God wants you to take care of you. And it starts with trusting him. And I know that sounds so like easy or cliche, it's, it's, it's kind of difficult. Like if we're being honest, because we can be like, yeah, I'm just going to trust the Lord until you start seeing things happening that doesn't seem like the Lord's intervening.
and fast enough. And so then you start trying to insert yourself into the situation, even though he hasn't given you permission to do it, or you're like, let me say this, Lord, like I need to just say this thing. Sometimes we don't even ask permission. We're just like, I'm going to say this thing or I'm going to do this thing. And the more that our posture really can be that of trusting with our whole heart, not just a piece of ourselves or whatever is really, really beneficial for us and for the other people involved is healthy.
That's how God wants it. That's how he has planned it so that we can actually have refreshment so that we can actually operate in peace and be able to really exude the power he wants us to operate in. So the next thing here is says, and all your ways acknowledge him and he will make straight your paths. Okay. Breaking that down. There's so many times that we don't acknowledge him. There's so many times that we don't.
think we don't even think about asking God because we think we've got it. We think we already understand. We think we already know how to do the thing. Right. It may even be like in parenting, you were raised a certain way. So you just do what you know. But God may be saying, Hey, no, I need you to hear what I have to say about this situation. And I love how he does that. Right. I just remember very, very, very clearly that he did that with me.
with my second son that I just, you cause you can even get to a place of pride really of thinking, okay, I got this, right? Like I know how to parent now. Like I've been parenting. I got my first son and I figured it out. Like, okay, I cracked the code. I know what I'm doing here. And then you get another child, completely different personality, completely different makeup, completely different way that you need to interact with that child. It's not the same.
And God really showed me that. Like he had to arrest my thoughts really ⁓ by showing me that what I had done in terms of acknowledging my first son, disciplining him, like that strategy was not going to work with my second son. Completely different. Same with my third and my fourth son. Like, and that's why we have to just stay close to God and not ever get in a
conceited or cocky space where we feel like we know what we're doing. Just always err on the side of, really don't know what I'm doing here, Lord, but I'm trusting you. Even if you think you do, right? Like even if you think you do trust him because it says that
Do not lean on your own understanding. And I think that's the point. A lot of times we're leaning on our own understanding. We're leaning on the limited perspective that we think we have about a thing and we've formed a judgment. We've, we think we know exactly what needs to be done and how it needs to be done. And most of the time we only have about 20 % of the information, maybe 25%. So even if you think you know, you don't really know. Let me give you an example of that.
Have you noticed how the news cycles like you just, it's false information. It's just crazy stuff out here everywhere. And you can form an opinion. I just saw this circulating recently where, you know, there's this new, I guess, way of, you know, getting people to believe that a story is true. It's giving a lot of good information. They'll even attach a celebrity to the story saying the celebrity said these things, quoting that celebrity.
There may be a day goes by you see the same post, but it's with a different celebrity with the same quotes. Then next day, another one. And then you're like, okay, yeah. I mean, you knew it after the second one. The first one you may have even been like, what? But you could have formed a whole opinion about what the person said about that particular celebrity. You might have texted or sent the link to some friends or family. Like, can you believe this person said this?
And da da da, you informed a whole opinion and you've gotten people involved in forming judgment with you. Only to find out it was all a lie. Like you didn't even have all the information. You may have made a good assessment about what was said, but that person didn't even say it. You see what I'm saying? That's how life is though. And a lot of times we think we know what's best, especially when it comes to our loved ones. And we really do have to trust God.
Okay, like we really have the responsibility to step back and say, God, what are you saying about this thing? What do you want me to do in this situation? So let me go ahead and get to this next verse so we can have our next point here. So we know that we have to trust in him with all our heart and that we need to not lean on our own understanding. Those are the first two points. The third is in all your ways, acknowledge him.
which we just touched on a bit, right? It's all your ways, not just some of them, not just inviting God into the equation when it's convenient. In everything, acknowledge Him, invite the Lord into the situation. What does that look like? It means instead of me getting into my own mind about a thing that I stop and I think, God, what do you have to say about this? Or what do you want me to do in this situation?
Like speak Lord, like I'm practicing his presence. We've talked a lot about that in our last session if you didn't catch that. ⁓ And I'll just pause here for a minute and say, hey, if this blesses you, please share it with somebody else. I don't have to know. You can just copy the link and share it with somebody else. But we're trying to spread the good news, help people to live better lives and know they're not alone. Like, no, you're not crazy because you think that thing and you've been feeling this way.
and you're questioning your relationship with the Lord because of it. Like that's what we're here to do. That's why we're having our coffee moment, right? Even though I've learned that now that I'm talking during this podcast a lot, I don't get to have a lot of coffee, but I hope you do. So the next thing here is acknowledging that when we acknowledge him, he will make your path straight. So it says, in all your ways acknowledge him and he will make straight your paths.
What is that saying is basically saying that you are going to have some crookedness before you. We are going to have situations where we don't quite understand what's happening. You're going to have situations where you're just like, okay, what is this? Okay. Why did this thing happen? It's so weird. It's just out of the blue. This thing happens. Or you didn't, you couldn't call it. You didn't know that something was going to happen in the way that it happened to you, to your loved ones. mean,
It's just things that happen, the life, right? When life is life in and it's going to be crooked. But what does it say? It says, all your ways acknowledge him and he will make straight your paths. So when you have that big thing out there that you're trying to figure out that you don't know how to approach it, you're like, this situation is not what I thought it was going to be. Now what Lord? It's crooked. How do I get out of this? How do I move to another location? How do I?
move forward in what you're telling me to do now that we've identified that this thing is crooked. Well, this is your answer in all your ways acknowledge him and he will make straight your paths. Notice it says he will make straight your paths, not you. That's not your job. Let's remember what let's go back to it. What are, what is our responsibility? I think it will be good to read this passage and identify where we come in and where the Lord comes in.
Okay, so it says in all your ways acknowledge him. So that's our part in all our ways We are to acknowledge him and he will make straight your paths. That's his part I'm gonna go back up trust in the Lord with all your heart. That's our part And do not lean on your own understanding. That's on us In all your ways acknowledge him that's on us And he will make straight your paths. That's on him
So remember the parts that we are responsible for and trust him with the parts he's responsible for. Because a lot of times we do set our little, you know, calendars, our little time, you know, reminders, if you will, of when something's supposed to happen. We have our own little, you know, timeline and God will literally disrupt that thing and be like, no, that's not what we're doing. We, we, have a different plan in mind.
And we got to trust that. Right? Like I, I have my mind set that, Hey, this matter that I've been dealing with for two, three years, it's about to be resolved by the end of 2025 is over and it's done. Did God say it? No, that was just me being like, I'm tired of this. So I wanted, I want it to be done. But acknowledging him is saying, I'm trusting you to make the path straight and you do it on your own timetable. Right? I had to submit that to him.
Cause I literally cried at one point when I was just like, why is this happening? Like, why is this lingering on? Like I really just want to be done with this thing. But then God said, are you going to trust me or are you still trusting in your own limitations? Your limited thinking of what you want a thing to be. And I'm like, yeah, you're right. That is what I've been doing. Like I just want.
it to be wrapped up and be done. So it's in the past past for real, for real. Like it's not active, it's not alive, it's not haunting me, it's not whatever, it's it's whatever. And he's like, but if you trust me, it's not going to be doing that anyway. So just trust my timing and stop seeing it in the way, in the light that you're seeing it, because that's not what I presented to you. I don't give you fear. I don't give you like this way of seeing things through
dark lenses. Like I give you clear vision and the vision is I got it. Can you trust the I got it? And I can and I will. And since I have my peace, have so much more peace because I'm just like, whatever happens happens. Like, and it's funny because there are things that have happened since I made that decision to truly trust him with all my heart about that situation that could have brought on more fear. Like I actually felt
that old pattern trying to rise back up. like, well what about that? I was like, no, we not on that ship anymore. Like we are literally following the Lord. We're not on that ship is what I said, because I know the enemy will play with your ears sometimes and think I said something else. You can rewind it if you want to. We're not on that ship anymore. And if you needed to hear it a different way, I hope you did. Okay. We're not doing that anymore. We are following the Lord with all our heart. We're trusting him with all our hearts so that
We can be refreshed. So let's get to that part and we'll go ahead and close out So it says be not wise in your own eyes. That's on us be not wise fear the lord That's on us and turn away from evil. That's on us It will be healing to your flesh and refreshment to your bones Doesn't that seem a little like extra for what was just read like
Is it going to do all that? Yes, it will. It will be healing to your flesh and refreshment to your bones. When you learn to truly trust him, when you learn to turn from evil and not be wise in your own eyes, not think you got it all figured out, not think you need to plot and plan and scheme and devise and no, let it go. Let just let him do what he needs to do. Trust him with it.
And I know, I know it's easier said than done. Trust me, trust me. I'm telling you, because I've struggled with this. It's very difficult to be like, okay, God, you got it. You said you got it, you got it. And I'm letting it go. Hands off. I'm not coming back to pick it up and like, no, you got it. But that's what he's calling us to do. And that and only then is when you truly receive the peace of the Lord. That's when you receive the refreshment. That's when you receive your healing.
Okay. And I'm going to go back to that story. I told you about my son when I finally released it to the Lord in prayer and truly took my hands off of it. Stopped trying to figure out how I needed to, you know, influence or whatever. I just let it go. Guess what? I didn't even tell my son any of this. And he tells me that God led him to share exactly what my prayer had been, which was that
both of them would seek the Lord and get in a place where they truly desire his relationship, relationship with him so that then they can determine if it's supposed to be a relationship with them. Okay. And I know that all too well because that's the season that God has me in. Right? It's always that at any point in time, relationship with him to figure out relationship with them, anybody, whatever.
Who are the people in your life you need to have in your life? What do you need to be doing in terms of business deals and all this? And who do you need to be linked up with? God will show you that, but you got to prioritize your relationship with him. Trust in him, trust in the Lord. He didn't say trust in your friends, trust in your family, trust in the Lord with all your heart. So I'm closing with that. I pray that helps you to relieve some stress and know that you're not alone.
We have been here together, you and I, working through this trust thing and truly admitting when we have missed the mark and we didn't truly trust God and it's okay. It's okay. It's okay to admit that. But if you want healing for your flesh and you want refreshment for your bones, I'm signing up for that. So here we go. Let's trust him with all our heart. Love you and I hope to see you next time.
or talk to you next time. All right, love you.