Christine Caine | Girls Gone Bible

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And I've been walking with Jesus longer than you've been alive, and it just gets better.

Wow.

Thank you, Jesus.

It's just a stressful

story.

He's got a great story, and you girls have helped him.

He's

how you guys got here.

How you guys have helped me and kind of like let me find my path to help you encourage me to do it.

Oh, Jess.

Can you imagine a year of him being our producer?

He's sitting right in that room.

Two years.

Oh my gosh, two years.

Look at him.

Says my first guest.

We were the first ones.

That makes me so happy.

You and Neil are my first one.

I don't think we're going to be quiet.

Hi, I'm Anne.

And I'm Ari.

And this is Girls Gone Bible.

And you guys know when I'm sitting on this side of the table, it's a really good day.

And we just have the greatest guests here on Girls Gone Bible.

And I think we're so grateful today because we have one of the greatest women of faith that we've ever even had the opportunity of watching preach a sermon or speak at a conference.

The fact that we get to sit here across from a woman that we admire so much is like truly proof of the goodness of God.

Christine, Kane, we love you and we honor you today.

We thank you for being here.

I am so fired up.

We need not stop talking already.

Amen.

We are so excited to have you today.

Listen, I'm pumped.

I really am.

Thank you for inviting me.

It's awesome.

We had, I didn't know that you lived in California.

Yeah.

I don't know why.

I thought that you were somewhere else, but you live really close to me.

So I'm going to be hitting you up for dinner probably quite often.

Really?

I don't cook, but I do order in really well.

Oh, my God.

That's perfect for me.

Yeah, Christine, we're so...

Excited to talk to you today.

You have lived an extraordinary life.

You love Jesus so much.

You preach the word of God with truth, with conviction, with clarity.

And from what I do know about you is that you're just so highly respected in this space.

And yeah, I just know that there's no compromise in you.

Yeah.

You know, girls, one of the greatest things about being my age, you know, I'm old enough that I was here when the dinosaurs still walked on

that I got saved before there was an internet or before there was social media.

So you, you,

I so encountered Jesus and I never had an option of like going online to kind kind of scroll through everybody's life and kind of go oh I would like to do that for God like you know you you you got into a prayer closet with the Lord to get a download from what God wanted you to do so it was not like you were ever signing up for like a career and in fact for me it was so the opposite I came from a very strict Greek Orthodox background girls you know I'm older than you girls women did not do what I'm doing.

There was no like precedent that I really could see or a paradigm.

I just got save-saved.

And so

eventually someone shoved a microphone in front of my face to do what I was just doing non-stop, which was leading people to Jesus, and which is really what I keep doing now all over the world.

So special.

Can you please just get into your story a little bit from childhood to meeting Jesus and then to where you are now?

Oh gosh, I wish it was just linear.

But you know, I was born the daughter of Greek immigrants in Sydney, Australia.

Have you guys been to Sydney?

No.

I have not been to Australia, but we're upset.

Oh,

I went years ago.

It's awesome.

It is.

Have you seen those big spiders?

Yeah, I have.

I'm so scared.

I don't know.

Every American on earth thinks Australia is full of just snakes and spiders.

Are the spiders this big?

Well,

they're

tarantulas, but I think the myth is a bit more.

The legend is a bit greater.

I did survive 45 years later.

I survived.

That's all I'm saying.

But yeah, they were pretty ugly.

Yes, yes, they are.

Huntsmans, they are, like as big as your hand.

That's what you're freaking out.

They'll be really hairy.

Yeah, okay, so that's freaking you out.

Yeah, exactly.

And yes, I did see a few in my time.

But, you know, so I grew up and back then there were,

you know, we just had our own version of like

being very marginalized because of my ethnicity.

You know, there wasn't in my community a lot of Greek kids.

It was just kind of you were on the side there.

I

grew up in an environment where women were definitely not encouraged to go and live for your dreams.

It was, you know,

and especially to be an ethnic kid, like the goal was just get married, have kids, you know, don't think outside the box, stay within these lines.

And, you know, my parents were great, but my parents allowed people into our home whom they should have been able to trust, but proved really, really untrustworthy.

So for a lot of years of my life, I was sexually abused at the hands of four different men men that were just kind of in and out of our house.

And as you can imagine, that messes with you big time, you know, so I was

really

very broken.

And back then, I mean, nobody was talking about it in the 1970s, 1980s.

I didn't even have a word for what was happening to me.

You know, it was like, thank God for where we are today in terms of, you know, Post-Me Too and people being aware and people having tools to speak up and say something.

But then there was nowhere you kind of just buried it and you buried the shame that except you lived in that shame.

So I would say that I was so shame-filled and that drove me to try to get my significance and security from just all the stuff you do, from looking for love in places that, you know, we're never really going to deliver or

trying to achieve and accomplish stuff academically or try to somehow

find my value because there was this.

And shame obviously is different to guilt.

Guilt is kind of, I did something wrong.

Shame is, there's something wrong with me.

So I can tell you as long as I've ever remembered that I always thought there was something wrong with me.

No wonder in Genesis 2, 25, it says the very last verse before the fall.

The Bible says Adam and Eve were naked and they knew no shame.

The one thing God wanted us to know is that we were designed to never know what that felt like.

So if you were the enemy and you wanted to take out a generation, you're going to try to put on them the one thing they were never designed to carry.

And so of all the things God could have said, the last thing he said, Adam and Eve were naked and they knew no shame.

Bang.

Then Genesis 3, we get into the four where shame enters humanity.

And so the enemy has done the same thing ever since.

No, you know, there's nothing new in that.

And so, and with that, you know, question, the three questions then in Genesis 3 where the enemy, the very first question in the Bible, he comes to Eve and he says, did God really say?

Because the issue is if you don't know what God said, you're going to believe, in my case, you're going to believe what the abusers said.

You're going to believe what the kids at school said that mocked and ridiculed you because you weren't, you know, of the same ethnicity.

You're going to believe what your culture and tradition says, that women shouldn't do this, you know.

Did God really say is the first question in the Bible and the single most important question still today.

We're recording this in 2025.

There is no more important question because if you do not know what God said, you're going to believe what everybody else says and culture, society, worse, what you say.

So, you know, God says, Adam and Eve were naked, they knew no shame.

Then did God really say?

You just, it just, the pattern repeats itself.

And God comes into the garden with the very first question and he says, where are you?

God's first question to humanity is, where are you?

Because when they ate of the tree, they ate of the fruit of the tree, what's the first thing they did?

They went into hiding.

And Adam says to God,

you know, I was naked and afraid, and so we hid.

So fear, shame, hiding was in the first conversation between God and man.

I'm saying all that to go, that was my whole experience.

So I grew up in church in a three-hour liturgy in ancient Greek, in a Greek Orthodox church, that I never understood.

But my heart, my little tender heart, wanted God, but I didn't understand any of it.

I used to see pictures of the saints on the walls.

And I remember saying to my mum when I was a kid, mum, I want to get my picture on the wall.

But she told me like you had to die and get martyred.

So I didn't want to do that anymore.

But it was like, it's me.

But I had this sense that I wanted God, but I thought truly, there is no way.

God could love someone as dirty as me, as used as me.

You know, I didn't have language for what was happening, but there was there's something wrong with me.

And then there's that invitation from God, you know, where are you?

And I think he's asking us,

where is the you that I created?

Where did you go into hiding?

Who said what to you?

Or who did what to you that caused you to run from me, which is why humanity runs from God, I think.

And then, you know, two weeks before my 33rd birthday, I got a phone call from my brother George.

And he was 35.

I was about to be 33.

And my younger brother, Andrew, was 30 at the time.

And George called me and he said, Chris, I just got a letter from the government in Australia.

This department is the Department of Community Services.

He goes, I just got a letter from Docs and it says that I've been adopted.

Now, when he first said that to me, I started laughing because, you know, when you grow up, you say to your siblings, we're not related, like you're a die.

But then suddenly, I mean, I go, George.

They've obviously made a mistake.

They've sent this to the wrong person.

You know, call them and tell them that they've sent this letter to the wrong person.

Now, he called me about 10 minutes later, because this time, like, he was sobbing.

And he goes to me,

he said, Chris, it's true.

They tell me the name of my biological mother, my biological father, when I was born, when I was immune.

They have a whole file on my life.

And

I was like, oh, my gosh.

And he goes, I'm going to go and confront mum.

Now, my dad had died when I was 19.

At the time, my mum was home alone.

And we're from a Greek background, so Greeks are really crazy.

So I'm thinking anything could happen now.

I jump in my car.

I drive to my mum's house, I walk into the front door at the minute my brother is giving my mum this piece of paper and my mum's face, I saw her take it, I felt like I was watching a movie and the blood just drained from her face.

She starts crying and she goes, George, I am so sorry.

All of the adoption laws in Australia 35 years ago, they were all closed adoptions and we never thought you would find out.

And the last thing I promised your dad before he died was that I'd never tell you.

So I tore up all of the paperwork and

I never thought you'd find out.

So girls, you can imagine, like my mum's crying, my brother's crying.

I'm thinking, what am I going to do?

So I thought, you know, I'm a good Greek daughter, go to the kitchen, make food, do something.

So I go start making some food.

And then my mother walks in behind me and in Greek, you know, she spoke to me in Greek, she said to me, Christina, since we're telling the truth today, do you want to know the whole truth?

And with that, I turned around so i'm two weeks after my 33rd birthday i went i've been adopted too like i had no idea and she's bawling and um just

just nods her head and says um yes and i was stunned like just stunned you know it's a shocking thing to find out you're not who you thought you were like it's shocking and so if you want to talk about the the crux of your identity being challenged oh there you are and um you know the first thing i said to her well the very first thing I went, am I still Greek?

Because I thought I'd been so ridiculed at school for so many years.

There had to be a reason for it.

But then, so this is the power of really, I think, where we're going to go today, maybe, but I,

so I had.

Imagine how broken I had been with all of the abuse, the abandonment, you know, growing up kind of in government housing in the outskirts of Sydney, very marginalized because of my ethnicity, my gender, and then the shame of the abuse and just feeling like not enough.

So when I came to faith in Christ, and it was, you know, I'd love to say it was a straight journey, but it wasn't.

It was, you know, two steps forward, three steps back.

There were a lot of people that the Lord brought into my life in his grace and mercy to lead me to himself.

But what I will say is from when I turned...

22, someone invited me to a local church in Sydney, Australia in a warehouse.

And from that day, it was the 29th of January, 1989, six o'clock sunday night service from that day i've never looked back because i walked in i found home and

began to really be discipled and and went forward so from that time 1989 january and then i find out i'm adopted in 1999 so that would be 10 years wow 33 23 just about so about you know for that 10 years because i was so broken when i came to faith in christ so shamefilled and full of anger and

bitterness and unforgiveness and all the things that come with just the brokenness of my past,

I,

this is why I love this podcast, this word, like, you know,

Jesus Christ saved my soul, but this word saved my mind.

Like it saved my mind.

So I am this young girl in my early 20s, totally messed up, encounter Jesus, but I don't know which way is up.

I don't know how to think about myself.

So I begin and I'm discipled in the Word of God.

And this is why I'm so big on Bible memorization and because it literally changed my life.

Like,

did therapy help?

Yes.

Did friends help?

Yes.

But nothing helped like internalizing this word of God in the very marrow of my bones, like replacing the lies I believe about myself with the truth of what God said about me.

There's no greater force on the earth.

I'll go to my grave with that passion because I know that I know that I know.

So,

and this is, I'm saying this, and I'm hoping some, this is going to help someone watching today.

At that moment, after I said, am I still Greek?

But the next thing, so this is 10 years after I'm saved, daily renewing my, sorry, I'm like, daily renewing my mind.

And I'm talking stick, I'm old school, you know, we didn't have these trendy things.

So I would stick at notes everywhere in my car.

I didn't listen to radio, didn't watch television.

Bible verses?

Yes.

Like what God says, you are the right, I am the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus.

Therefore, there is now no condemnation.

You know, I would just put every, remind myself, who does God say I am?

That I am his workmanship created for good works in Christ Jesus.

I mean, I would just, and I would declare and decree it.

day in, in my breaks at work, I would be just, I would just have this.

I was one of those old school, you might say obsessed, yes, but I had had enough of the world.

I needed to turn it all off.

You know what I mean?

I needed to turn it all off.

And I would just have worship music day and night, renewing my mind and reminding me that I'm a daughter of the king, that I'm a beloved daughter of the king, that I'm created in the image of God.

I'm filled with God-given purpose and God-given destiny, that I'm the head and not the tail, above and not beneath, a leader and not a follower.

Like I would just say things that God said about me.

And for the first year, I didn't believe any of it.

But I kept saying it until it so internalized that it became,

you know, that

coming to that point of elevating God's voice above everybody else's voice.

So in that moment in my mum's kitchen, so I'm not in church, there's no worship music, there's no, you know, angels dancing on the duvet, it's just me and my mum in the kitchen.

But because of all of that, in that moment where I could have unraveled, and who knows, you know, still be sort of in a fetal position now.

What came out of me, because my mum was so crying, I grabbed her hand.

I went, mum, it's okay.

Because before I was formed in my mother's womb, God knew me.

Whosever womb I was formed in, God knew me.

He knitted together my innermost parts.

He fashioned all of my days.

This is coming out of me in the kitchen.

He fashioned all of my days before as yet.

There was one of them.

I went, mom, no matter what, I am fearfully and wonderfully made.

And that day, every fact that I thought to be true about my life changed.

And still, I'm talking to you girls today.

I don't know the facts surrounding my conception.

Was it a one-night stand?

Was it an ongoing adulterous affair?

Was it a rape?

I don't know.

But although I don't know the facts, there is a force on the planet much higher than the facts, and it's called the truth of the word of God.

And Ephesians 2, verse 10, does not say I'm the workmanship of a rape or an affair.

It says I'm God's workmanship, recreated in Christ Jesus for good works that God prepared before I ever got to earth to fulfill.

And there's not a demon in hell or a person on earth that can thwart the plans and purposes of God for your life.

So about a year later, I got my birth certificate, which is so weird getting a birth certificate, you know, when you thought you had one.

And on that,

it says child's name, and then typed in is the word unnamed,

number 2508 of 1966.

And that was like a knife in my heart.

So you've got this no name, just 2508.

And numbers are numbing.

Numbers are very dehumanizing, very desensitizing.

You know, it's so easy to ignore suffering when it's nameless and faceless.

So, you know, we rescue the victims of human trafficking.

And if I go, there's 50 million slaves in the world today, it's almost like the number's so big you don't think about it.

But if I say to you 2508 of 1966, you kind of think, oh, well, but the minute I say, oh, that's me,

it changes everything.

So to God, that's not just 50 million.

statistics in slavery.

That's 50 million human beings created in the image of God.

There's no statistics to God.

There are only people.

And so he made sure when I saw that that no one would ever be a number.

No one would ever be a statistic.

nothing is just an issue.

It's people created in the image of God.

And so when I saw unnamed, I remember I was weeping because it said unnamed 2508.

And then of course the tape recorder starts in my head.

See, Christine,

no wonder you're abused.

You're not even worth having a name.

And it had a social work report from

an assessment on my biological mum.

And in that, it said, it is evident that she wants to get this over and done with and return back to work as as soon as possible.

And so, you know, if I had those documents here, I'd show you.

I often show that to people because it's like so shocking because it's like you've got unnamed, you've got unwanted, unvalued.

It's right there, you know.

And as I was bawling, my Bible was sitting there on the living room table.

My husband wasn't home yet.

And I'm holding this paper and I'm crying because it just says unnamed 2508.

And then a document from the Royal Hospital for Women that says unwanted.

And I just, in my heart, not anything out loud but in my heart i felt the holy spirit say to me open the word to isaiah 49 1 so here we've got a whole bible 66 books why you know i'm like bawling and i just i don't even know why but i opened it to isaiah 49 verse 1 and in there literally it has the words from the womb of your mother i have named your name So I'm holding in this paper, unnamed, 2508.

And here, from the womb of your mother, I've named your name.

And just in my heart, I felt the Holy Spirit say, It's going to take you as much faith to believe this black and white income paper as this black and white income paper.

And where you put your faith in this moment will determine your destiny.

And I may, and I remember dropping that on balling.

I dropped unnamed 2508, and I just grabbed this.

And I just kept saying, I'm balling.

I'm going, from the womb of my mother, you have named my name.

From the womb of my mother, you have named.

And I mean, I mean, I'm going to cry now, but yes.

But it was like something broke like that.

And then, you know, who would have known?

After that, I would be, you know, another seven years later standing at an airport to speak at a conference in Thessaloniki, Greece.

And

I see these posters of these missing women and children.

I just traveled nearly 40 hours.

I had just birthed my second child, Sophia.

And, you know, when you're 40 and you pop out a kid, I was not asking the Lord for any new thing.

I'm like, here I am, Lord, send that.

But as I was standing there, I went in to look at the little faces of the little children that were missing.

And one of the little girls' names was Sophia.

And I had just, you know, had my Sophia.

And I would say this is when A21 was birthed because I went from looking at someone else's missing child to seeing my own daughter.

And when you look, you can look away.

But when you see, you can never, ever unsee.

It changes everything.

And, you know, that began what is now A21.

But wouldn't it be just like God to take an unnamed, unwanted, abused, adopted chick from the back of Sydney, Australia, and say, you know what?

I'm not only going to rescue you, but I'm now going to use and I'm going to redeem every part of your broken story for you to open the prison doors for those that are bound and set them free.

And could I just tell you, I'll just finish with this, but every time we rescue a young woman or a child or put a trafficker in jail, I think,

you know, Satan, you you can stick that in your pipe and smoke it.

But then you wish you left me alone.

And then, you know, I just, I feel like Joseph in Genesis chapter 50, verse 20, he looked at his brothers, he said, you meant this for evil against me, but God meant it for this very purpose.

And that's why, you know, why am I so passionate when I preach?

Because Jesus saved, not

only saved my eternal soul for when I die and go to heaven, but gave me a brand new life here on earth, here on earth earth today.

And because of his redemptive work on the cross and the fact that he rose from the dead and defeated hell and death, we all have an opportunity to have forgiveness for our past and a brand new start today.

No other religion offers you this, a brand new start, a redeemed life.

And so God had good works for me to do.

before I ever got to the earth.

And I believe A21 is part of that and helping people.

But the enemy, when I was still in my mother's womb, tried to still, kill and destroy.

That's what he does, John 10, 10, tried to still, kill and destroy that purpose.

When that didn't succeed, you know, he sent someone into my bedroom before I ever got into kindergarten to try to destroy that future.

And when that didn't work, you know, God sent his son, Jesus, to die on a cross and rise again from the dead so that all my brokenness was absorbed by Jesus.

And then he filled me with the same spirit that raised him from the dead.

And it's like, let's go game on.

Let's make our life count.

Chris, Jesus, stop.

Don't stop.

Jesus, the redemptive nature of God,

it's nuts.

I mean, only he writes stories.

And my favorite thing about God is that he's not just here to like make things a little better.

He wants us to know that it's him.

He wants us to, like, he's creative and he writes beautiful stories.

He takes the horrific things that have happened to you.

And then he literally is like, let me show Satan what I actually am about.

Like I'm going to use all of the things that happened to you and I'm going to literally redeem it through your life and you save so many people.

This is.

That's the gospel.

This is what, you know, we've got to not buy into the narrative of this generation that says you have to stay a victim of your past or that your history defines your destiny.

No, the cross defines your destiny.

We've got to learn to make what Jesus did for us bigger than what anyone did to us.

And that is where you have a life beyond the cross because so many of us or beyond your past, so many of us get stuck.

You know, we were talking about don't look back.

I'm so urgent about this message because I'm just seeing in the last decade so many people stuck.

Valid, I'm not minimizing or dismissing trauma, pain, suffering.

I mean, I deal with injustice and suffering every day.

My whole life background is that.

But I don't want to just get stuck there.

I'm like, there is a life beyond it.

I want to shout it from the mountaintops to go, Jesus did not shed his blood for nothing.

Yeah, he did not rise from the dead for nothing.

We need to preach a full gospel.

He rose from the dead.

There's resurrection power.

Why are we quiet about this?

This is my whole point: I want to shout it from the rooftops to a generation.

Oh my gosh, you are so, this is amazing.

You're amazing.

Thank you for saying that about you just, you're never a victim.

You don't have to be a victim.

And that's not invalidating no no anything that anybody has gone through but you're not you don't have to be a victim when you're in this

final chapter it might be a chapter in your story but it's not the whole story because Jesus he is the author and the finisher of our faith not what happened to me and you know the devil I try to tell people you know I was abused for a good number a lot of years so the enemy already stole at least 10 years of my life

I'm now 59 you know I'm about to enter my sixth decade of life.

He stole 10.

Why would I have given him the other 50?

Like, why?

Just by living in that all the time.

I'm like, no chance.

I'm not giving him one more second than what he took.

And not only that, God has promised to give me back double for my trouble.

So I'm like, oh, I'll take it all.

Thanks very much.

I'll take it all.

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We have, did you want to ask a question?

There are just two things that are coming to my mind that I feel would be so helpful for people to talk about.

I'll just say them now.

Shame

and just brokenness

within families and like how moving forward I think something Ari and I have experienced is like yes we're not a victim to anything that's happened to us Jesus the blood of Christ has redeemed restored saved delivered

and you enter into relationships You enter into friendships, you enter into all these things and you see brokenness come up.

And just yeah, first let's start with shame.

Can you talk to us about shame?

And not just, I think a lot of people think shame is just feeling guilty feeling bad about your past oh I used to have sex and I have shame about that but shame is something so much deeper it's a mask it's can you just talk about because it's it's it's the root of your identity it's like you think

fundamentally there's something wrong with me so it's you know I think I said earlier that guilt we confuse those two guilt is like I did something wrong like you know I shouldn't have done that wrong and I feel guilty about it it's about your do shame is about your who.

Who I am is wrong.

And I think so many people get into patterns of destructive behavior, not because they're bad, but they feel bad about themselves.

And so that's why, you know, you're trying to numb your pain, either through just like one sexual encounter after the other, because you're looking for love or somehow some value or significance or security, or you're abusing substances, or it could be anything.

You're just,

you know, trying to climb up a corporate ladder and forsaking everything else, getting your value from position, title, achievements accolades when that thing is driving you it's really shame that is at the root of that because somehow you want something or someone to tell you that you're worth something and jesus did that at calvary and until you can get to that place where you know what he has done for you is what actually validates you and that there's nothing more you can do because while we were yet sinners christ died for us he's never going to love us anymore and now it's easy to say this it took me so long to believe this and that that that six inch journey from your head to your heart is the challenge of believing God so a lot of us believe a lot of things about God but we don't truly believe God you know first John says God is light and in him there is no darkness I got to tell you girls it took me maybe two years of saying that nearly every day to really believe it, to really believe that God had no dark side because every man I met had a dark side.

And so for me to get to God is light and in him there is no darkness and to work through, well, if there's no darkness in you, why did you let me get abused?

Why didn't you stop it?

Which would be the thing of so many of us.

Why did it go on so long?

Why did people would be thinking that now for all the tragedies in the world?

It's the age-old.

issue and it's a real issue and most of that is like if I really was worth something you would have stopped this if you really did love me, you would have stopped this.

And I think so many people listening to this, deep down, it's almost like you don't want to say it out loud, but it is what we think.

And you go, I can't really trust you because

you would have stopped it.

And it took me a long time to get to that place to go.

That was the enemy.

That was a fallen world.

It is not because you didn't love me or there's something wrong with me or I deserved it or I'm collateral damage in someone else's story.

We live in a fallen world.

You have no dark side.

You are good and you do good and you weep.

And when there was a moment that I went down, you know, in my heart where I could just, I really saw Jesus like weeping over the abuse and that he bore that pain on the cross.

And because he bore, and Isaiah says, he bore our shame on the cross.

It took me a while to get there, but when I understood, he bore it.

So I don't have to carry it.

And And that is the deal.

You know, we talked about Genesis 3, like Adam and Eve were naked and they knew no shame.

Most important thing,

the one thing God said, I'm going to let you all know, you're not supposed to know what this is.

This is crazy.

And then Genesis 3, the 4, did God really say, because if you don't know what he said, you're going to believe the abusers, the teacher that said you're dumb, you're stupid, the parent that said, I wish you were never born, the boyfriend or the girlfriend that said, no one could ever love you, you know, you're a loser.

The agent that said, you're never, you know, you're going to believe that if you don't know what God says, right?

So did God, and then God's asking us, where are you?

Where'd you go?

Where's the you that I created?

And then to me, the saddest, the third question in Genesis 3, saddest question in the Bible, because

I'm imagining the Lord like crying in the garden, looking at Adam and Eve and going, who told you?

Who told you?

Whose voice did you elevate above my voice?

What lie did you believe?

And I think to us, it's the same thing.

Did God really say, where are you?

Who told you?

Who told you you're dumb?

Who told you you're stupid?

Who told you you're ugly?

Who told you God will never forgive you?

Who told you?

Who told you?

Whose voice did you elevate above the voice of God?

And that is what keeps us in shame.

You believe that lie.

And somewhere in that, we've all got it.

Some teacher said to someone, an offhander comment, you'll never graduate.

You'll never this.

Some parent.

You think a whole generation has grown up.

You should be ashamed of yourself.

Shame on you.

And then it just came.

I feel part of my call is to declare and decree shame off you in Jesus' name to a generation because the enemy wants to keep us crippled and paralyzed through something that Jesus died on the cross for.

He bore our sin and shame.

He bore it.

You know,

it's so serious.

Listen to your crowd.

No, seriously.

I think that's so crazy.

I've never realized that.

I've never heard anybody say that.

The one thing he said before the fall is do not be,

they knew no shame.

He didn't say they didn't know anxiety.

They didn't know depression.

They didn't know

addiction.

He said they knew no shame.

So it makes you think.

It makes you think, does every issue that we all deal with stem from shame?

I just think there's so much of that because shame

disrupts and violates the core of who God created.

It's saying you are fundamentally flawed.

And yet the creation narrative, you've got to go back Genesis 1, 20, in his image.

He created, there it is, right at the beginning, first chapter of the Bible.

We're created in the image of God.

We are image bearers of God.

We're created to not know shame.

So the enemy and the lie to Eve, he's like, you know, did God really say, she said, well, God said, this is why it's very dangerous to only read the Bible, but not apply the Bible.

She knew what God said.

She said, God did say, don't eat and eat.

She knew exactly what God said, but she didn't do it.

So obedience is what keeps us out of shame.

So she says, God did say, and he said, and the enemy replies back to her and he says, oh, no, God doesn't want you to be like him.

It's so sad because Eve forgot who she was.

She already was like God.

Genesis 1 tells us she was created in the image of God.

She forgot she was created.

And oftentimes when we act out or

it's again, I say it's not because we're bad, we forget who we are.

So when you forget you're a daughter of the king, you're going to act like a daughter of the world.

That's good.

That's all.

Most of the people that do this, you forget, because if you remember, if you know, my daughters know, you are my daughters, you're a princess, they're not going to go and act like they're not.

But if the enemy can make you forget who you are, oh.

you're going to slip into acting like who you're not.

How does he do that?

Well, he just lies to you.

I think you just get distracted.

You get out of the presence of God.

You get, he'll make you feel guilt and shame over a mistake, a failure that we all make.

So rather than quickly repenting and being right with God, immediately you start to spiral.

And I think that's the biggest thing.

He's just got everyone sucked in with, you couldn't come back to God.

You knew better.

You shouldn't have done that.

And it takes them down a spiral.

Whereas here, she forgot.

And then you start to forget.

You start to even like, yeah, I really am bad.

Yeah, I really don't deserve it.

I knew better.

I shouldn't have done that.

I shouldn't have slept with him.

I shouldn't have done this.

I should, you know what I mean.

And then instead of it's God's kindness that leads us to repentance, quickly repenting and getting back on track, changing your mind, turning around.

You just end up spiraling until you end up.

You know, I think how many people I drove past to get here today that I thought they just don't know who they are.

They just have forgotten that they're a son or a daughter, or they've never been told that they are a child of God, created in His image.

Because you kind of act like who you really are.

You know what I mean?

There's a spring in your

shoulders back, your head's lifted up high.

Yeah, because you know.

You can act

how you feel.

And what you truly believe

about yourself.

And that's where shame, it could be subtle.

I mean, externally, you could look awesome and be highly successful, but still full of shame.

Oh, sure.

Well, you would know, think of the world that it's in.

You're masking something because you don't really want people.

Because you think if they really got to know me, they would know.

And God's like, oh, I really did get to know you.

And you're awesome.

I made you.

So, you know, like, it's so, it's such a subtle thing, but it's the thing

because the result of it, of course, what the enemy's after is your faith.

It caused Adam and Eve to go into hiding.

Right.

You know, I was naked and hid and I was afraid.

Fear, shame, hiding.

That's, it's the modus operandi that still operates in 2025, which is why people have these fractured relationships with God.

It's, it's rooted in fear, shame, hiding all the time.

What does your day-to-day time with Jesus look like in your secret place?

You know, I've had to create it because we travel, we're on the road.

You know, with A21, we've got offices all around the world.

And

I mean, just here, I've come into here from 10 countries, seven weeks, which is our normal kind of rhythm.

So it's not like I have a favorite chair.

I do have one when I'm home.

I sit in that.

But I've had to learn to make it work, which is, I'm really glad.

I think that's how the Lord's kept it very real in my life.

And it's how most people are.

See, most people don't have the luxury, truly, of saying,

you know, the single mum that's working three jobs to try to get her kids through school or to survive.

I'm sure she'd love to be able to get up at the same time and have this extended time with the Lord.

And so because of what I do and

the people I work with,

I want it to be able to work for a girl that's growing up in a township in South Africa or a slum in Brazil.

So it's got to work for everyone.

So my thing is, wherever you can connect with God.

So do I have some seasons of real extended time?

Yes.

Part of my vocation is tied into teaching this.

But it wouldn't be realistic for me to try to say to people, okay, you need to do what I do, because that's not even practical.

You know, I want the mum that's trying to just survive or the woman that's, you know, on her career path.

And she's just like.

My advice is always,

whatever it is, just make sure it's something that you authentically connect truly connect with God that you know in your spirit you're breathing that you've got the word I've got everything like I've you know I've probably got a hundred thousand people that I give them one verse one paragraph because truly if you could do that every day I'm with you that I will

meditate on this verse right here's a thought that maybe I'm going to help you spark your explanation to to do this because I just think

that is awesome.

Now,

would I love to encourage people to go,

maybe stop scrolling for 15 minutes and get in the Bible?

Yes.

I mean, because everybody, most people listening to this, you can make time if you want to make time.

So, of course, I'm doing that.

And you just literally have to make a decision because I know you do.

People say to me, I don't have time, it's not true.

Like, if I check your time on your phone, and you know how it tells you how much time you've spent on,

how would that compare to your God time?

So, if you're asking me a measurement where it's got here on your phone, and it will tell me, even when I want to lie to myself, how much headphone time I've had, how much social media time I've had.

Oh, gosh.

If my God time is not higher than that, I have a problem.

Do you remember you said something about Goliath in a conference?

And do you know it's stuck in my head and it still repeats in my head?

Do you remember what you said in the conference about like the Goliath is your phone?

Oh, yeah, in the morning.

But you've got this here and this here.

And this is what my...

That's what we do.

It's so true.

And all you have to do, number one, don't put it by your bed.

That's probably how you're not going to pick it up.

But if you do, because I'm telling you, 99 out of 100 times, even when your intention is to pick this thing up first, you're going to go there.

I know.

I know.

So you've just got to do it.

So I know everyone can do 10 minutes.

So do I like extended time?

Yes.

So am I going to sit on a plane?

Yes.

Because I travel,

you know, I'm in hotel rooms with my husband a lot.

So is one of us going to go downstairs and find a quiet room yes and i'm really blessed it is worth waiting for the right one because you know my husband's up and in his word before i am what do you say that's helpful what do you say so i grew up in massachusetts and it's

like i just came back from there and it's really heavy yeah oh definitely and so i just I even talk to younger girls that I try to minister to and they just have such a hard time being in these environments where it's so godless, where they just, there's no believers.

And they're just like, they're just trying to find Jesus, but they're around so much depression, negativity.

Yes.

Can you speak to that?

Yeah, I think it's, because this is where we have to learn to flourish.

This is why I've written my Olive Tree Bible study, because most of the world is like that.

And we are supposed to be exiles in Babylon that can flourish.

So where you're, this is where practices become really important.

So you have to create your own environment.

I think like when I said when I, you know, first got saved and I shut everything else out, I had to.

So I would create, and I only had my bedroom.

So that became my altar, my haven.

In that room, there's only worship music happening.

So I create my own environment with the Holy Spirit, with the Lord.

And then I would just, and

you will be absorbed by the culture if you don't intentionally develop practices to fight it.

No one is strong enough.

But the Lord's always sent us into dark places.

See, we're supposed to be salt and light

in the world.

But if you do not stay fueled with the word of God, the spirit of God, you're not going to make it.

Like, I don't care who you are.

Like, no, the pull of the world will take you.

And whether it's, and it doesn't necessarily have to be, you know, sex, drugs, and rock and roll, it can be anxiety, depression, defeat.

The children of Israel died in the wilderness because of murmuring, grumbling, complaining, negativity, fear.

They died, didn't even go into their promise.

And there's so many Christians.

They're not not in Egypt anymore in slavery, but they're not in the promised land either.

They're just doing laps around Mount Sinai, murmuring, grumbling, complaining.

And you go, there's a better life here.

Jesus came, John 10, 10, that we might have life and life more abundant.

But your root system is important.

So where are you rooted?

And today, thank God, this is where to me, technology is a great supplement.

So in areas like the Northeast, where there's not, you know, a major, like, there are pockets of revival, but there's not a huge population of Christians, what you do is go, okay, things like this podcast, things like that, that supplements, that keeps you kind of hopefully, you know, fueled.

But you have to go, I am going to intentionally go out of my way to find.

even if it's a handful of believers that really are.

And then I'm into, and that means you're going to have to not do other stuff.

Right.

I mean, there's no, you know, you think about sisters in

countries like Iran or Afghanistan or what they have to go through to be able to even, you know, be a Christian and function.

Like what we call,

we often call inconvenience persecution.

So we think it's just so hard.

And really, what it is, is no, it's just inconvenient.

You are not being persecuted.

People that are losing their lives for the faith, that's called persecution.

But the fact that you might not be able to go get that latte with your friends because actually you should probably be sitting in your room with some worship music and a Bible to that's that's not persecution.

So I'm just just kind of going, okay, in our world,

if you really want to make it work, there's no excuse actually.

That's good.

Because we have got so many great preaching.

Again, I'm saying supplementary to supplement, find a community that unless you're sort of some out in some country town where really there is nobody.

But even then, you're going to have to have great intentionality to go, how do I stay rooted and grounded in the word?

What do I not need to be doing?

As much as what we're doing, which is reading the Bible, you know, being in worship being with a community believers equally as important is things that you decide I just will not do that others may I won't think that's right and I still have that in my life at 59 it's not that I'm even thinking it's bad it's probably okay for them it's just not for me right period that has been instrumental in my life I think for a long time I

was living as a Christian being like okay, well, you know, if things aren't necessarily sinful, they're not necessarily bad.

I feel like my true awakening was the day that the Lord started speaking being like, just because it's not bad doesn't mean you need to do it.

Like,

these things aren't necessarily sinful, but they're not for you.

Yeah.

I have something different for you.

I have something greater for you.

And like, we talk about the secret place so much because

everything

that we need to operate in the world as someone who is like Christ-centered in a world that is so the opposite, You get in the secret place.

There's no other place where you can get your fuel from.

No, no, it doesn't.

You're not going to zap yourself into it.

This is not Dorothy, Kansas.

You've got to actually create it.

And again, I do understand the challenge with your generation.

You know, like I said, I grew up without an internet and without social media.

So you had to go to the prayer closet.

You couldn't scroll through everyone else's life and tell God what you wanted to do.

Or you couldn't,

you know, you had to get in a prayer closet and get a download from heaven about what was happening you you hung on to the lord and again if you want anointing because it's only the anointing that breaks yokes chains and bondages not gifting our gifting is often about us and so we're like how am i going to build my brand or build my platform

like you know when they built the tower of babel it said come let us build a name unto ourselves how did that go for them not well so the i don't think the lord's into that ministry is very different you can only minister when there's an anointing because anointing breaks yokes and chains, but anointing only comes from crushing and crushing only comes from the secret place.

So you don't get that in the public place and the public thing should only ever be an overflow.

I could not have done this.

This is my 38th year of full-time vocational ministry.

You don't fluke that.

You know what I mean?

You do not fluke it.

You become a target for the enemy.

There are things you have to contend with, your own self, stuff that comes externally.

So if there was no secret place, there's no real ministry because the fruit that is produced is only produced from that place because you abide in the vine.

And, you know, I have intimacy with my husband.

That's not there for the whole world to see.

So if I'm having intimacy with the Lord, why would all of that be there for the world to see?

So if all you're doing is, you know, taking little shots of your Bible with your coffee mug, but you haven't opened your Bible, I don't want to see it on Instagram.

Hashtag blessed, my most authentic, natural, spontaneous self.

I've just had to take it 500 times from the right angle and put the right filter on it and crop it and upload it at the right time.

Hashtag blessed.

I'm like, are you kidding me?

I'm like, could you open it rather than post it?

So if you're not, if you're posting it more than you're opening it, we've got a problem.

And so that's what I think we're just like, who do you think you're kidding?

Who do we all think we're and the only one that's happy about that is the enemy.

And so to my deal is that when, and here is the other side.

When you've really tasted of the secret hiding place, you don't want anything else.

That's right.

I'm like, like,

number one, you don't even want anyone in there but you and the Lord.

And number two, you're not, that's not out there for public consumption.

My intimate life with my husband is not out there for public, that's ours.

So I've got an even deeper place,

obviously not as physical, but a deeper place with the Lord.

Why would I ever?

I mean, you'll get

the overflow.

Not even the, there are things that are just me and the Lord.

So good.

What else would I want?

That's what keeps me in this thing.

Yeah.

That's what keeps it.

You know, you don't don't get to 60 and I've had a, you know, quite a visible and public life as if that's going to keep me.

That actually, you know, and I mean, I say this so often, if the spotlight that is on you is greater than the light of Christ that is within you, it will destroy you, which is why a generation is.

burning.

They're like shooting stars,

popping up there and then disappearing.

Because that thing's going to kill you if the light of Christ in you is not stronger than that.

I'm so happy you just said that.

It's so true.

And I think in an age right now where

like Christian content is being pushed so much and this, we're like in an era of just virality that's mistaken for favor.

And that's something that I've been sitting with God a lot recently and being like, what's the difference between favor and going viral on the internet?

And I even look at like Girls Gone Bible, which like we didn't know what ministry was.

We didn't know what was going on.

This was an accident for the most part, you know, truly.

And then I think like I've spent the last two years personally like playing catch up with God like hours upon hours in a secret place being like I actually I'm very aware that I don't have the character to carry this and I will be crushed and it's felt like it's been crushing me at times

And so in a world I think where everyone is like God give me my dreams make my dreams come true like give it like they should be praying Lord make me the type of person give me the character that can carry the weight of the dreams that you've given me you know because what if your dream isn't about you so you know Joseph had his dream in Genesis 37, but in Genesis, you know, I'm saying this because I quoted that verse, which is a life verse for me in Genesis 50, 20, when he said to his brothers, you meant this for evil, but God.

So he had the dream and he thought it was about him, but it was actually for the nation of Israel that he would feed them in a time of famine.

But to get there, he...

had to be thrown into a pit.

He was sold into slavery.

He served as a slave in Pharaoh, in

Potiphar's court, and then he was falsely accused.

Then he went to prison.

This is what favor does.

And at all the time, God's favor was on his life.

And then the dream is realized when Joseph got to the point that, oh, the dream wasn't about me.

That's what happens.

Okay.

Do you know?

Okay, this is amazing.

Jeremiah 29, 11.

For I know the plans you have for me, not to harm me, but to prosper me, to give me a hope and a future.

My pastor, Darren, recently at Garden,

he's doing like a Bible study with me and a couple of people.

And he basically taught me I'm obsessed with like anti-prosperity gospel like it's just like I feel like it's the message of my life Darren was telling me that everybody takes Jeremiah 29 11 out of context and they use it They don't like know the full context which is and I don't remember exactly what he said But I'm sure you know where the Lord wasn't speaking like I'm giving you favor in this situation He actually was giving a blessing that would skip over the person he was talking to to the next generation and he basically was talking about how like the favor that God is offering is oftentimes like something people wouldn't choose because it doesn't look like the instant gratification that they're looking for.

No I mean a whole generation I'm thinking do you understand that we all want to be Joseph second in charge of Egypt?

I'm like you do realize that at 17 he got the dream and then He was sold into slavery by his imagine the betrayal, the pain, the family.

I rescued the victims of slavery.

So I'm like, imagine that.

And he's not let out of prison until he's 30.

And then he's not over his brothers, he doesn't see them again until he's 37.

So from the dream at 17 to the fulfillment at 37, he has been in a pit and in prison.

And it was 20 years.

And we forget that.

Or David is anointed in, you know, 1 Samuel chapter 16 to be king over Israel, but he's not appointed until 2 Samuel chapter 5.

It's 20 years and 20 chapters.

He was 17 and 37.

And most of that time he was being chased by Saul and tried to be killed.

So I'm trying to say

everyone, this is why this sort of like, I'm scrolling, man, I want to do, and I'm like, that's not even ministry.

That's not even about the Lord.

That's about you.

Like, we don't use Jesus to do what we want to do.

That is really dangerous.

It is really dangerous because at the core of it is us, not the will and the purpose of God.

And so, you know, as I just went around all of these countries and found believers, you know, your age and younger,

they're giving their lives for the gospel.

No one will ever know their name.

No one will ever, but heaven records it.

God knows.

And if you don't remember that this is all about an eternal purpose, not temporal gratification, this is not like

we're building our career path and we're using Jesus as kind of a leverage for my life to go forward.

We're laying down our lives, denying ourselves, taking up our cross and following him.

That's the gospel.

That's discipleship.

Thank you.

I am

overwhelmed.

I am wrecked right now.

I'm wrecked.

You're amazing.

Yeah, I think...

Did you want to ask you?

Well, yeah, could you?

I just wanted you to talk a little bit about purpose because, you know, we all want purpose and people are, they're like, I don't know what to do.

What do I, could you just talk a little bit about purpose?

I know this is one of your really good things because you have so many things on Instagram that I have screenshotted that I go back to.

Well, I think because I've had to fight so hard to understand it.

And again, I want to go back to Ephesians 2, verse 10, because to me, that is the purpose verse.

So purpose isn't about

just what I want to do.

Now, does God give us gifts and talents?

Yes.

Are they more than likely going to be woven into the story of our lives?

But ultimately, our purpose here on earth is to glorify God.

That is our purpose.

However, that is outworked.

But Ephesians 2.10 says, we are his workmanship.

So Ephesians 2.8, we're saved by grace, you know, through faith, not works, lest any man should boast.

Of course, we are saved by the grace of God through faith.

That's it.

But it goes on, 2.8, you're saved by grace through faith.

But then 2.10 says, for we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus.

So what are we created for?

For

good works.

So, okay, there's that he prepared beforehand in eternity that we should walk out.

So you go, okay, I'm saved by grace through faith for

good works that God prepared.

Before I got to the planet, there was stuff that God had earmarked with my name on it for me to do.

That's the thing I want to do, whatever that is.

Now, the enemy, like in my life, sent an assignment to try to steal, kill, and destroy that.

And many times he succeeds.

People just never rise above what happens to them.

But did God, do I believe that part of the good works that God had beforehand prepared for me in eternity was helping to rescue the victims of human trafficking?

Yes.

Being married to Nick, yes, you know, raising my daughters, yes, proclaiming the gospel and seeing people set free and seeing them fulfill their God-given purpose, yes.

Does it look different?

Like today, is that outworked sitting on a podcast with you?

Yes.

When I was in Bulgaria, was it sitting in

new houses we built for the families that were, you know, literally the Roma communities that were living on the streets and the government bulldozed all their houses down?

And so we built, yes, did it look like that?

Yes.

When I sit in our aftercare facilities with the victims of human trafficking, yes.

When I'm sitting in the courthouse and we're prosecuting, you know, our lawyers are prosecuting a trafficker to put him away to make sure he won't do it.

So what I'm saying is, when you get too caught up in the detail of what it needs to look like, you're going to miss your purpose because your purpose,

in different seasons, it looks different ways.

And I've never really been caught up with the task.

I've always been on purpose when nobody knew me, when I'm,

if I wasn't, I'd be at Trader Joe's packing shelves, leading the people to Jesus next to me.

I'd be in purpose.

Like I'm here to lead people to Jesus, to be salt and light.

Anybody would tell you that.

Like I just, it's, I wake up and it's not, it's not a career.

Because if you think of it as a career, you think everything's got to go up and to the right, measured as the world would measure success.

So then I'd be obsessed with algorithms.

My team will tell you.

I mean, I'm not making...

Do I, I wouldn't even know.

I'm like,

my,

my things apparently that do the best are the things when I'm sitting and I feel like I've got a little prophetic word and I go into my notes app and I do it.

I don't even, and I'm your favorite.

Well, I would say all over the world, that's what people say to me.

And I laugh.

I'm just like, I could be sitting anywhere.

I'm going to sit in my car and get inspired along the way.

And

like, not driving, don't panic anyone.

I mean, like, just when I leave here and sit, it will come.

I'm not even thinking about it.

I'm thinking of ministering to people.

Yeah.

Do you know what I'm saying?

Like,

so will I always have a place?

Yes.

Because ministry is just needs-based.

Find a need and meet it.

So while more people are trying to, where they get confused about the purpose thing is they're trying to build a career, not meet a need.

So if you think I'm here to meet a need, do the next right thing in front of you and it will come.

Like, so at the moment, they might see you girls.

I would imagine you've inspired a lot of people, but you've got to ask yourself, is that what God called me to do?

Or hang on, what are they really doing?

They're telling people about Jesus.

So, in my world, could I tell people about Jesus?

Yes, you probably could.

And will you, you know, ever have a podcast that probably not, that does this because that's what you're called to do.

So, the person watching this, I'm going, but in your sphere, only you can do that.

But when we associate more value and significance, when we confuse visibility with significance, we have a problem.

So we think because something is more visible, it's more significant.

This is significant, but no more significant than the person that's being faithful and maybe helping their grandmother

go to their doctor's appointment every week faithfully in the name of Jesus or picking up their kids in the

carpool, you know, with in carpool after school or faithfully

being integrous at work when everyone else is compromising.

Just because that's not visible doesn't mean it's not significant because the thing that everyone forgets, God is not checking my Instagram account today to see how I'm doing.

Thank you.

My heart is visible to God 24-7.

So's yours.

So's the person that doesn't even have a social media account.

So when you think just because the world is scanning our public posts to determine how they think we're doing privately, the Lord's not doing that.

He's fine.

He quite knows how we really are.

And the Lord said to, you know, Samuel, right from the beginning, when Samuel thought Eliab was God's chosen next king and the Lord had picked David, and he said, I don't look at the...

at the outside appearance like man does.

I look at the heart.

And God still does that today in 2025.

God's not scrolling anybody's TikTok, TikTok account, TikTok, TikTok.

So you're not going to have a TikTok.

God is not scrolling.

And you can tell I'm not on TikTok.

So that's how my kids will be mortified.

But you know, he's not looking at our Instagram or TikTok to see how we're doing.

So, that's right.

Thank you so much.

And

I'm so happy that you say that because I think it's so, I feel like so often Ari and I come on here and we're like, guys, you don't need a podcast.

You don't need a podcast.

Trust me, you don't want to be famous.

Trust me, you don't want this.

And it can probably sound so silly coming from two people with a big podcast sitting here with cameras, but like we try so hard to let them know, no, we're telling you.

Like the greatest ministry moments that I have had.

This is amazing.

One of the greatest moments of my life, truly, is I'm sitting here.

We're recording an episode.

Our amazing producer who's been with us now for two years, who you just met, who God has been chipping away at his heart for two years.

He's sitting in that booth all this time and God is just like slowly working in his heart.

We have an episode and he literally comes in the room at one point and he's like, I can't believe this.

Like, I literally just read what you're talking about this morning.

God is speaking to me.

So we we see him have this like experience and encounter where the Lord is like we're doing all this sure but like he's working right there and then everybody leaves I'm sitting we record an amazing episode that a hundred thousand people are gonna watch and that's beautiful and significant but I get to sit right there with our producer lead him to the Lord pray the tangible presence of God is in this room and it is like the closest to heaven I've probably ever been in my life.

And I remember leaving that day calling everybody probably I know being like I've done so many cool things and still even after the last two years of our life where we've been blessed beyond belief to do the things we do it's moments like God

I'm telling you that's what happened and girls what you've done and Mark Sayers wrote a book called platform or pillars which is really fantastic most of this generation wants to build a platform now you're you did you're being a good steward of it.

You're stewarding a platform that God built for you.

The only time platform is mentioned in the Bible is in the book of Nehemiah.

And the Lord said to Nehemiah, I have given you a platform.

So that's what he's done in your life.

So he didn't say, go build one.

He said, I've given one.

And this is what a generation has to understand.

We don't get to go and build.

If you build it, you got to keep it.

Here's my thing.

If you put yourself there, you got to keep yourself there.

If God puts you there, God will keep you there.

So stewarding is wisdom.

You're stewarding wisely what God has given you.

That is a very different thing.

And it's God that enlarges the place of our territory, not us.

I don't have like a marketing plan.

How am I going to?

God,

I put in a structure.

to be a steward of what God has given me.

And I don't want anything outside of what God hasn't given me.

I only have grace for my field.

I don't have grace for another field.

It's not my goal to be the biggest and the best at what?

I want to be the most faithful at what God's given me.

So there's no biggest or best.

There's faithfulness.

He doesn't say, you know, well done, good and biggest and best servant, well done, good and faithful servant.

Everyone can be faithful, whether God's given you.

He says he gives to each according to his ability.

You know, to one, he gives one a talent, to one he gives two, to one he gives five.

And what you do with what God's given you is what matters.

But when you go and try to take what God's never given you, you get into a lot of trouble and your life unravels.

And then you think God's let you down and you end up deconstructing when God never gave it to you in the first place.

So it's like, you know,

it is a dance to go, how do I be a wise steward and a good steward of what the Lord's given me?

But I, and to this day, I don't want anything outside of my field.

I want what God's given.

I want to be a good steward over that.

But other than that, I don't build it.

But everyone is called to be a pillar.

in the house of God.

And so what we have, and Mark Sayers argues this, is we have everyone wants to build a platform.

No one wants to be a pillar.

But if you're a pillar in the house of God,

you've always got a job to do in the kingdom.

And you always have space.

Wow.

So good.

That's so good, Christine.

Y'all also,

I am.

I'm going to watch this back like this.

Me too.

Y'all are hilarious.

Is there a time up?

Yeah, we could go a couple more.

Can I just ask you one more?

Because it just keeps coming to me.

How do you know if it's from you or if it's from God?

Yeah, my big thing is, and I don't think you have to freak out too much because what happens is people get paralyzed because they're like, oh my gosh, what if it's me?

And they end up doing nothing.

And it's like 20 years later.

So here's my deal.

I am a big believer.

I'm always going to encourage everyone.

Okay, so

we've been a bit full on in this episode, but it's true.

What I'm saying to everyone is true.

And also, I am the biggest of encourager that sometimes you just got to step out to find out.

So you just course correct quickly.

If you go, oops, that was me, not God.

It is okay.

Don't live in guilt, shame, and condemn.

You've got to try some stuff.

Nobody gets it right all the time.

I just say if you've got a pure heart you're going to quickly go oops no sorry lord that really wasn't to me

and i am certainly going to be your biggest cheerleader on the side of okay have a go i really am that person it's not like i don't want to hold people back you do you have your checks and balances so you you go through your checklist okay uh do i think this is the lord am i going to check it with a couple of people that i really trust so you do that that's like your basic 101 once if you haven't done that i would say start there but if you once you've done that and you're still like, I'm just not sure, I'm like, have a go.

And you'll quickly know

if it's the Lord or not.

Right.

And so I, and I think if people are following you, they obviously want the real deal Christianity.

So they're probably going to err too much on the side of holding back.

So I'm like, have a go.

I really want to encourage people to have a go.

How would you describe like

grace like when when God has graced you to do something and there's grace on something versus when there's not because I think what I've run into is like

I never want to confuse something being difficult or hard for there not being grace on it.

Totally.

And that's a great question because,

you know, the divine enablement, grace is not just forgiveness of sin, but it's a supernatural divine enablement to do what you otherwise could not do.

So you have to understand our calling.

So this is how I know I'm called, okay, so to do what I'm doing.

I can't do it myself.

And number one, even physically, I'm 59 years old.

I'm going to be, please send presents, you know, I'm going to be 59.

Me to be able to do, to be on the road in as many countries in a year with a fresh word, with, you know, fire, helping to run a global anti-trafficking organization,

doing the things that I do.

There's not a natural, naturally, it doesn't really matter how gifted or talented I am.

to do what I do, I actually need God.

I need the Holy Spirit to do what I do.

And that's what true calling is.

God has made woven into our calling is our inability to do our calling without him.

So it doesn't matter how gifted you are, how talented you are, how much money you've got, how connected you are.

If you're really in the God zone,

you haven't got enough to do what you're doing.

So this is why I laugh.

And I go to people, I know I shouldn't be doing it.

You don't have to tell me I shouldn't be doing this.

I know I'm not gifted enough, talented enough,

resourced enough.

I know I'm not.

That's why people will look at my life and go, only God.

I know that because that's how God gets the glory, that there is a life and how I'm graced is God didn't call me to do this and for my marriage to be a mess, for my daughters to be a mess.

So if you know you're out of rhythm and you're pushing in your flesh, when you're like, so for me, the fact that by God's grace, not perfect, but awesome is 29 years of marriage.

My daughters, not perfect, but fantastic, are my best buddies in the world.

And they love the Lord and they love us and they want to be around us and the things of god um you know to me that's all a really good sign that there's a grace that i was a grace to to be a wife and to be a mother um you know the fact that by and large we've got a healthy team and staff and it's it's large so of course there's always issues but by and large you go okay there's a grace on it where there's a grace on us doing and then you see the results in like you know there are seasons man you got to double down and dig in there's no doubt about it

but at the end of the day you just know there's this I call it like a divine enablement an oil the oil of the Holy Spirit which to me is very important because often people say how do you do your life you know the big question marriage motherhood ministry you know

and I'm like to me my life is it's not like these compartments it's like a wheel and so you have a wheel and every wheel's got a lot of spokes if you think of a bike wheel you know it's got a lot of spokes

and then it's got a hub so my life's really not complicated.

I get up every day and I aim for the hub.

The hub is Jesus.

But for that hub and that wheel to spin, it needs oil.

So while the oil of the Holy Spirit's keeping that thing spinning, do you not think then in my quiet time, as I'm reflecting now when I drive home for an hour and a half, and me and the Lord, I'm in the car, that he's not going to say, you know, Chris, one of your kids needs this attention.

One of your officers needs this thing.

So it's like that oil.

As long as I'm aiming for Jesus and I've got that oil daily saturating my life, the thing spins.

And I will know, you know what?

I need a little bit of attention here.

I need to put a bit more attention here.

This is a little bit out of whack here, but it's that divine enablement.

I don't know.

You can't do this without the Holy Spirit.

There's a reason why before Jesus sent, birthed the church and sent us out.

into the world.

So you better wait because you're going to need to be dosed in the Holy Ghost big time before you go out and do it.

That's good.

That's good.

It's really good.

That's good.

How would you tell people right now who are watching how to get filled with the Holy Spirit?

Yeah, I mean, I love that question.

Here is the biggest, the best, I think, thing to say in this moment is

why don't you, for anyone watching this has not even thought about this, start in the most simple of ways, and then you can do a whole episode on all of this, but of asking God for the desire to want more.

Because some people even hear this Holy Spirit or they've heard the term Holy Ghost, they're freaking out because they're thinking of Casper the ghost.

So they're like, oh my gosh, I don't want a ghost.

I don't want a ghost.

But we serve a triune God, Father, Son, Spirit, one God, three parts, you know, the Father God.

And a lot of us are okay, Father God, okay.

Jesus, the Son.

But then we get to the Holy Spirit.

We're like, I don't really know what.

It's like Caspar the Ghost.

Is this like a spirit?

And, you know, like, we're in Hollywood.

So what kind of spirit are we talking about?

And so people like are thinking crystals meditate.

Okay.

So I'm going to start with

understand that we have one God.

He's a triune God, Father, Son, and Spirit.

And when the church was birthed and the Holy Spirit came,

and then we are to be filled, and Ephesians says, be being filled every day with the Spirit of God.

I want people to know why there's this languishing,

for want of a better phrase.

We're not well oiled.

We have forgotten this one part of the Trinity because we're a bit scared.

We don't understand.

And especially if you come from traditional church, you kind of think it's the doxology in the name of the Father, Son, Spirit.

You know,

that's it.

It's like this thing you add on to the end.

But he is a person.

He is my best friend.

He's like, you're seeing the glint in my eye because now it's like, you know, when you're like, let's talk about him.

You know, I wake up in in my morning with good morning holy spirit he's like my and so i as a start to your viewers is saying okay well you're not casper the ghost and you're not this freak out okay

help me want more of you i think that's the start i started with you know 1990 with the phrase and you know we talk about um Michael and Jess Kuleanis's and Jess's dad wrote a book, Good Morning, Holy Spirit.

And it was the start for me with good morning, Holy Spirit.

And it was the beginning of a relationship that here I am 30 something years later with my best friend the Holy Spirit of God and my divine enablement and everything from I love you Holy Spirit to help me Holy Spirit I need you Holy Spirit it's it's my first thing

yeah

the Holy Spirit is

I yeah I grew up in like a Catholic both of us grew up in a Catholic kind of upbringing and I didn't know who the Holy Spirit was whatsoever my mom and I I got sober when I was 23 and my mom has always loved Jesus and my mom found herself like she would just meet people and go to meetings and I'd go with her and we'd go to these like African prophet meetings, these like Pakistani prophet meetings like we're Catholic, like we don't know what you grew up from.

So I'm Albanian.

Okay.

Yeah, my mom.

India and Greece.

No, we're the same.

You have to come because Thessaloniki is where we started age 21.

And we have so many Albanian girls.

Anyway, I want to go so badly.

You know, I know.

Mother Trina was Albanian.

I know she was.

Sorry, everyone.

We're having a moment.

I didn't know.

Yeah, so I grew up.

So

my mentor, his name is Socrates.

He's a Greek man.

He's Greek Orthodox.

You have to meet him.

He like changed my life.

He discipled me and led me to Jesus.

prayed for me to get sober all these months like crazy story um where was i oh yeah so my mom and i like we'd literally get like we'd watch people like get slain in the spirit layout we had no idea what we were speaking what happened at mass on sunday

We loved it.

And we were like so open to it.

And we were never afraid.

Like, and so, yeah, we're just, we love, like, my spiritual formation was this, like, just seeing powerful moves of God and just seeing the Holy Spirit disrupt a room.

And like, it looks kind of weird sometimes and it doesn't make any sense.

And yeah, I think we try so hard to let people know the Holy Spirit is a person who speaks.

And the whole point is that we talk to him all day long, literally all day long.

That's what relationship with Jesus is.

It's communing, fellowship with with the Holy Spirit

all day I what has changed my life is like literally just asking the Holy Spirit questions and he'll respond somehow he probably drops it into my spirit he at some point he's gonna give me the answer but I'll just ask him questions all day and we always try to tell people the Holy Spirit loves to talk about Jesus yes he does ask him questions about Jesus totally he'll answer ask him when it's often so hard to understand this book so ask him say

holy before I prepare any sermon and read it i'm like holy spirit you got to help me yeah to understand what is it that you're saying he he guides us into all truth he shows us all things he's our comforter he's our helper i mean there once once you meet holy spirit so great that's it yes i love it i just love you you're amazing you know i just want to say today that um the same jesus that stepped into the life of this unnamed, unwanted, abused, adopted girl from the back of Sydney, Australia, that same Jesus is right here right now.

And he is able to give you forgiveness for all of your past, a brand new life today, and a hope for the future.

You know, maybe you just tuned in, you were looking for something else and you accidentally tuned in.

You're not here by accident.

You're here in the divine timing, plan, and purpose of God.

He drew you to this program because he loves you.

You were created by God for a relationship with God.

And it's Jesus that connects us to God.

And it's Jesus that connects us to the grace of God.

Maybe you once walked with God.

But if you're honest today you've been away from him cold in your heart maybe even backslidden today.

I want to encourage you to stop running from him.

Come home to him.

Make your peace with him and put Jesus Christ first in your life.

I'm going to pray a prayer and if you if you want to say these words after me to receive Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior I just want you to say them dear Jesus I'm sorry that I've been living my life my own way and ignoring you.

I'm sorry that I've sinned against you.

And I ask today

that you would forgive me for all of my sins, that you would give me a fresh start today

and a hope for the future.

I want to be a Christian, a follower of Jesus Christ every single day for the rest of my life.

Jesus, I receive your forgiveness.

I receive your love.

I receive your grace.

Thank you.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Thank you, Jesus.

If you just gave your life to Jesus for the very first time, we want to say congratulations.

We love you and we're so happy that you're here.

Thank you, Christine.

I love you, girls.

Thank you so much.

Seriously, I'm not even joking.

That was awesome.

Thank you.

What a beautiful, beautiful episode.

All right, guys.

May the Lord bless you and keep you.

May he make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you.

May he turn his face towards you and give you peace.

Shalom.

Shalom, shalom.

Amen and amen.

Amen and amen.

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