43. The Sermon You Preach to Yourself

43. The Sermon You Preach to Yourself

Send us Fan Mail [https://www.buzzsprout.com/2520553/fan_mail/new] "Why am I so hard on myself?"  Have you ever wrestled with that question? If so, you've found just the right episode to help you understand it.  There's a voice that gets to you before you're even fully awake. It tells you you're behind, you're failing, you should've done more by now. And most of us never argue with it. We think it's just honesty. This episode is about the most important sermon you'll hear all week: the one you preach to yourself. Drawing on Psalm 42, where a man in the middle of a spiritual drought stops listening to his own despair and starts talking back to it, we look at the difference between honest lament and the quiet self-contempt so many believers have mistaken for humility. With help from Howard Thurman's idea of "the sound of the genuine" and the old pastoral wisdom of Martyn Lloyd-Jones, this is a conversation about taking back the pulpit in your own mind. This is for the believer who extends grace to everyone but themselves. For the one who'd never speak to their kids the way they speak to themselves. For anyone tired of waking up already accused. You are not the exception to grace. And the voice telling you otherwise is preaching a sermon the cross made illegal. Scripture: Psalm 42 and 43, Romans 8:1, 1 Samuel 30:6. If this episode meets you where you are, share it with someone who needs it, leave a review, and follow the show so you don't miss what's next. Connect with us via our Instagram: @faithformed_pod Email us any questions or comments to yourpursuitpodcast@gmail.com Order your copy of my latest book, "The Purpose in the Pause", here [https://www.amazon.com/Purpose-Pause-Trusting-When-Everything/dp/B0FR4M8GNP] Learn more about me at www.justindbelt.com

42. What to Do When Someone Tries to Talk You Out of Your Calling

Send us Fan Mail [https://www.buzzsprout.com/2520553/fan_mail/new] Not everyone who has an opinion about your vision has earned the right to speak into it. Knowing the difference might be the most important thing you do with what God gave you. Episode 42 closes the Formation Trilogy -- nine episodes on purpose, calling, and vision -- with the two questions this arc was always building toward. The first: what does God do with the person who is still standing after the vision was buried? The second: who gets access to what God gave you, and how do you guard it without becoming closed, defensive, or unteachable? In this episode, we walk through John 20, and the moment Jesus commissions the disciples while they are still afraid, still in a locked room, still carrying more questions than answers. The sending does not wait for readiness. It comes through the locked door. And then it goes straight into Nehemiah 2, where Nehemiah inspects the wall in the dark before anyone else gets a chance to speak into the vision -- because he understood that voices enter fast and change what you see. This episode names three specific voices that should not have access to a God-given vision: the voice of unexamined familiarity, the voice of institutional protection, and the voice of wounded wisdom. It gives you concrete language for how to tell the difference between someone who is refining your vision and someone who is replacing it. And it closes with the commissioning word that has been underneath this entire trilogy: you were not given a vision to hold forever in private. You were given a vision to be sent with. If you have been carrying something God gave you and you are not sure who to let in, this episode is for you. If you have been through a formation season and you are not sure what comes next, this episode is for you. If you are still standing after something that looked like the end, this episode is for you. In this episode: -- What it means to be sent before you feel ready (John 20:19-23) -- Why Nehemiah inspected the wall in the dark before he told anyone the vision -- The three voices that should not have access to a God-given vision -- How to tell the difference between correction and replacement -- What the word poiema (Ephesians 2:10) says about why your specific history matters -- The Joseph narrative: what God does with vision that was buried and survived -- Theological voices: Willie Jennings and N.T. Wright This episode is for you if you are asking: -- How do I know who to trust with my vision? -- What do I do when people mishandle what God gave me? -- How do I protect a God-given vision without becoming defensive? -- What does it mean to be sent by God when I don't feel ready? -- How do I know if I'm hearing from God or just from the loudest voice in the room? -- What comes after a season of waiting, formation, and loss? FaithFormed is a biblical discipleship podcast for people who are serious about building a faith that actually holds up. New episodes drop weekly. Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen. Connect with us via our Instagram: @faithformed_pod Email us any questions or comments to yourpursuitpodcast@gmail.com Order your copy of my latest book, "The Purpose in the Pause", here [https://www.amazon.com/Purpose-Pause-Trusting-When-Everything/dp/B0FR4M8GNP] Learn more about me at www.justindbelt.com

41. When God Buries the Vision

Send us Fan Mail [https://www.buzzsprout.com/2520553/fan_mail/new] What do you do when the thing God gave you goes into the ground? Not stalls. Not pauses. Collapses. When the vision you carried for years ends in a way you did not choose and cannot fully explain, and you are left holding the pieces trying to determine whether what you are standing at is a burial or a death. In this episode of FaithFormed, we walk through the full arc of Joseph's journey from the pit to the prison to Pharaoh's court, not as an inspirational overview, but as a serious theological and pastoral examination of what God is actually doing in the seasons where everything appears to be falling apart. This is not a pull-yourself-up episode. This is an episode for the person who did the right thing and still ended up in chains. For the person who has been faithful in the silence and is not sure what faithfulness is supposed to feel like this deep into the wait. For the person whose two years after the cupbearer forgot them has stretched into something much longer. In this episode: Why the pit is often the enemy's response to a calling, not God's correction of a mistake. What Joseph's posture in Potiphar's house teaches us about seasons we are tempted to treat as waiting rooms. The devastating pastoral truth that obedience sometimes produces the second pit, not protection. What Psalm 105:17-19 means when it says the word of the Lord tested Joseph, and why that reframes everything. Why Joseph asking two prisoners how they are doing is one of the most theologically significant moments in the entire narrative. What it means that God meant it for good when the brothers clearly meant it for evil, and why that is not a comfortable answer but an honest one. Theologians Referenced: Walter Brueggemann (Genesis: Interpretation Commentary), James H. Cone (God of the Oppressed), Oswald Chambers (My Utmost for His Highest) Scripture: Genesis 37, 39, 40, 41, 45, 50 | Psalm 105:17-19 FaithFormed is a biblical discipleship podcast for people building a faith that holds up. Not a faith for the highlight reel. A faith for the long middle. Subscribe wherever you listen. Leave a rating and review if this episode met you somewhere real. Find more at justindbelt.com Connect with us via our Instagram: @faithformed_pod Email us any questions or comments to yourpursuitpodcast@gmail.com Order your copy of my latest book, "The Purpose in the Pause", here [https://www.amazon.com/Purpose-Pause-Trusting-When-Everything/dp/B0FR4M8GNP] Learn more about me at www.justindbelt.com

40. What to Do With a Vision That Hasn’t Happened Yet

Send us Fan Mail [https://www.buzzsprout.com/2520553/fan_mail/new] You stopped saying it out loud. Not because you stopped believing it. Because you got tired of the look on people's faces when the evidence didn't match the declaration. In Episode 40,  we open the Vision Arc of the Formation Trilogy by naming one of the most disorienting experiences in a life of faith: carrying a God-given vision when the conditions for it have not yet arrived. Drawing from Habakkuk 2:2, 2 Corinthians 4, and theologians Howard Thurman, Esau McCaulley, and Justo Gonzalez, this episode confronts the slow, subtle habit of negotiating your calling downward until it fits inside what is currently visible, and offers three concrete postures for staying faithful to what God placed on you in the in-between. This episode is for the person who has been carrying something that has not landed yet and needs to hear that the waiting is not a mistake. It is where the formation happens. Scripture: Proverbs 29:18, Habakkuk 2:2, 2 Corinthians 4:8-9, Psalm 77 Voices: Esau McCaulley, Howard Thurman, Justo Gonzalez, Dallas Willard, Eugene Peterson If this episode meets you somewhere real, share it with someone who needs it. Subscribe to FaithFormed on Apple Podcasts or Spotify so you don't miss the rest of the Vision Arc. A review takes about a minute and helps other people find the show. Connect with us via our Instagram: @faithformed_pod Email us any questions or comments to yourpursuitpodcast@gmail.com Order your copy of my latest book, "The Purpose in the Pause", here [https://www.amazon.com/Purpose-Pause-Trusting-When-Everything/dp/B0FR4M8GNP] Learn more about me at www.justindbelt.com

39. How Do I Know What God Wants Me to Do? When Calling Is Clear But the Path Is Not

Send us Fan Mail [https://www.buzzsprout.com/2520553/fan_mail/new] You are not waiting for God to speak. You are waiting for God to be clearer. And if you have been treating those as the same problem, it may be the reason you have been standing still longer than you needed to. You have a sense of the direction. The calling is real. But the path is obscured and you have been telling yourself you cannot move responsibly until you can see further than you currently can. This episode closes The Calling Arc with the most practical question of the three: what do you actually do when you cannot see the assignment clearly? Drawing from the burning bush conversation between God and Moses, Peter walking on water, Abraham leaving Ur not knowing where he was going, and Peter being restored by the charcoal fire,  this episode makes the case that the fog is not a stop sign. It is the condition in which faith is formed. In this episode, we discuss: * The difference between genuine confusion and fear wearing the costume of confusion — and why one requires more information and the other requires obedience * The two wrong responses to fog: paralysis and presumption — and what Moses and Peter reveal about both * Why Moses's five objections at the burning bush were never really a clarity problem — they were a fear problem * What the Greek word distazō reveals about why Peter sank on the water * Hebrews 11:8 — Abraham went out not knowing where he was going — and why the not knowing was the condition of the obedience, not a problem he overcame first * Why Psalm 119:105 describes a lamp to your feet, not a floodlight to your future * Isaiah 30:21, Exodus 13:21, and 2 Corinthians 5:7 — three passages that reveal God's pattern of guidance as cloud-following, not map-reading * What obedience before clarity produces that clarity before obedience never can * A direct pastoral word for the person who took a step and it went sideways * The charcoal fire of John 21 — and what Jesus said to Peter in the exact atmosphere of his worst failure Key Scripture references: Hebrews 11:8, Psalm 119:105, Proverbs 3:5-6, Exodus 3-4, Matthew 14:28-31, John 21:9-19, Isaiah 30:21, Exodus 13:21, 2 Corinthians 5:7, Genesis 12:7 Perfect for: Christians who know their calling but cannot see the next step, believers paralyzed by fog who are waiting for certainty that isn't coming, people who took a step in faith and it went wrong, anyone asking how to know what God wants them to do, men and women ready to move but afraid to move without full clarity. Part of our series: The Calling Arc — Part 3 of The Formation Trilogy (Episodes 34-42) Conclusion of: Episode 37 "How Do I Know My Calling?" and Episode 38 "What Is God Doing While I Wait?" Next episode — Episode 40: "Write It Down: What Habakkuk 2 Says About Vision" Connect with us via our Instagram: @faithformed_pod Email us any questions or comments to yourpursuitpodcast@gmail.com Order your copy of my latest book, "The Purpose in the Pause", here [https://www.amazon.com/Purpose-Pause-Trusting-When-Everything/dp/B0FR4M8GNP] Learn more about me at www.justindbelt.com