Join us in this enlightening episode of Call to Freedom as Barbara Carmack and her guest explore the profound impact of God’s word in our daily lives. With anecdotes about Isaiah 60 and insights into building spiritual resilience, this episode encourages listeners to use every opportunity to reflect and express God’s love in a world that dearly needs it. The conversation takes us through the importance of finding and securing spiritual friendships and the many standards God holds for each of us, ensuring we thrive amidst our unique life circumstances. Barbara’s thoughtful reflections are filled with compassionate wisdom that
Welcome to Call to Freedom with Barbara Carmack. This is Jimmy Lakey, and I’m delighted that you are joining us for this half hour. You can reach Call to Freedom at Box 370367, Denver, Colorado 80237, or by going to the website at www.freedomstreet.org. If you want to leave a message or order a Word Power Daily Reading Bible Guide or a Freedom Street Express newsletter, you can call us toll free at 1-877-917-7256 and leave your name and address, including your zip code. If you want to talk to Barbara right now, she is expecting your call. You may call that same toll-free number, 1-877-917-7256 to speak to her. And now, let’s join Barbara in the studio.
SPEAKER 05 :
ah welcome welcome to call to freedom i’m glad that you’ve joined us today and i hope that you will receive something very beneficial because we speak the word of god and the word never returns void or empty so when you take that word and then speak to another it just becomes a broadcasting opportunity for people to hear the word of god you are a priceless vessel of the love of god He wants you to know that you are the one who is the ministering person here on this earth. And I was just reading in Isaiah 60, the light has come and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you. Yes, upon you. So you are the priceless vessel of the love God wants the world to see. May you take every opportunity he gives you to express it. It’s just such an important part of who we are. Each member is part of the body of Christ. And when you decide that you don’t want to be part of that body, we ache and we hurt. That’s a good point. Yes, yes, we do. We miss you. So see if you can join a group or we have a meeting coming up on September the 9th. Is it 9th? 13th.
SPEAKER 1 :
I don’t know.
SPEAKER 05 :
It’s the second Saturday of every month. I will find a calendar for you. It was the 9th of August, I believe, so it’s the 13th of September. Oh, the months do go by, and all of a sudden, whoa, we’re into September here coming up. And you can join us in September. Call us at 1-877-917-7256. We’ll just get you hooked up with some people that you may start a relationship with someone in our meeting that can become a really great friendship. You are blessed to dispense for in him you live and move and have your being. Today I heard that James Dobson has… and, wow, brought back such memories. Your father traveled with his father, and he said he was the finest man. He was a professor of art at the school where John and I attended.
SPEAKER 04 :
Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER 05 :
I’m sure it’s now Point Loma University. I’m sure there’s going to be a service of celebration of his life because, wow. He had such an impact on America through his… For decades. James Dobson radio and television and all the books. Family, yes. The strong-willed child. And so many people have read about his books about how to raise children. And they’ve been a good addition to the family knowledge of raising your children because… We don’t know how to raise our children sometimes. You’ve had four of them, Kimberly, and they have all four. Each one has been so different, so different. You’ve got to treat them differently.
SPEAKER 04 :
You can’t have just one standard.
SPEAKER 05 :
Oh, no, you cannot.
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, and that’s a good, we’re just talking about the standard that the Lord raises up for us, right? It’s going to be different for every individual. That’s right. Because every individual has a unique heart and a unique way of looking at life and unique circumstances that they need to be rescued out of. When the weapon has been formed against you, the enemy comes in like a flood. He, our God, raises up a standard and the standards are different for every one of us.
SPEAKER 05 :
They are. And that’s why as we are in our situations, we’re going to get into first Peter four about the fiery trials. We’re going to see how God works in each individual to bring us to a place of clarity and a place of truth. That’s his goal. Peace and joy and truth. And Kimberly, we’re talking about rest, too. Resting in those situations that we find ourselves.
SPEAKER 04 :
That’s right.
SPEAKER 05 :
Boy, that is hard. But we know that God is able to get us individually to those places where we need to grow and learn more about him. So, yes, he has a standard set up for each and every one of us. Praise the Lord.
SPEAKER 04 :
We were talking about 2 Peter this week because it’s our memory verse. And I don’t have it in front of me, so you’re going to have to read it. Oh, okay. All right. I don’t know why I’m not prepared with the memory verse, but I’m not.
SPEAKER 05 :
So second Peter, and I’m going to read from the message. So don’t lose a minute in building on what you’ve been given. See, we were just talking about that building on what God has given you because he knows at what pace you can do it. at what timing you can do it, what character flaws you may have that he’s going to gently build up and establish. So don’t lose a minute in building on what you’ve been given, complementing your basic faith with good character, spiritual understanding, alert discipline, passionate patient. And you say wild passionate patient. a reverent wander of God, warm friendliness and generous love, each dimension fitting into and developing the others. With these qualities active and growing in your lives, no grass will grow under your feet. No day will pass without its reward as you mature in your experience. See, God is building strong character in you. He’s promised that you are enduring and praising him in the testing of your faith, which produces endurance. We don’t like that word endurance, but oh, it produces holiness. And that’s what I want. I want to be a person that God receives with such love. I know he’s receiving all of us with love.
SPEAKER 04 :
We are, right. And he sees that we are in a flawed world, in flawed bodies, with flawed minds. And so we can’t do all of this on our own. And he sees that and he knows that. And the standard that he has raised up is himself. He has done the work for us. He loves it when we make decisions that we want to join him in being holy and pure and friendly and right and having these virtues planted deep within us. He loves when we make that decision. Oh, he does. And even if we are more isolated and we’re not a part of a group that meets regularly regularly, Just having a heart that’s turned toward him, that is joining the body of Christ. It’s joining him in his plan. So have a heart that wants to join him. Have a good opinion of God. We want to have a good opinion of God because he has a good opinion of us. That’s right. That’s the truth. That’s the truth that we read about. So I was going to back up Peter one, three. We everything that we could possibly need. We need his help. And everything that we could ever need for this life has been planted in us. It’s in us already deposited by his divine power. That’s right. So that’s what we want to stay focused on. And when we think of weapons in this life, the weapon of dishonesty or betrayal, lies, conflict all around us, we need to see that God himself, like we were talking about in the previous program yesterday, In Isaiah 59, God himself wrote. He raised up a standard. That’s how I like to look at it. He himself put on the breastplate of righteousness and said, I don’t see anybody else that can fix this. I’m going to fix this. And when your own heart is broken and you feel like you can barely breathe. So we were watching a movie where there was a guy in the movie that could not catch his breath because of his great loss. And you and I both looked at each other and said, I’ve been there. Right. You know, when when you are hurting so badly, your heart is hurting so badly, you feel like you can’t take your breath. Yeah. Right. So that’s what the breastplate does. The breastplate of the Lord protects your heart and your lungs. Yes. Oh, praise God. God has a shield for your heart and your lungs. And guess what? He wore that first. He wore that breastplate first when he could hardly breathe because he was watching his beloved crumble. He rose up and said, I will, I will bring salvation. I will do it. I will be the one. Yes. You know, you’ve probably heard that riddle. How many pairs of animals did Moses receive onto the ark? Right. Okay. So the thing that makes it tricky is the emphasis on the word pairs. How many pairs of animals did Moses receive onto the ark? And when there’s an emphasis, the human ear is drawn to that emphasis and you can’t hear the details of the rest of the sentence, at least not real clearly. So when the enemy comes in like a flood, you get focused on the enemy, you get focused on the flood and you forget the rest that God will raise up a standard to protect you. Yeah, and you know that it wasn’t even Moses. Well, yeah, that’s the point, right? So how many pairs of animals did Moses… Yeah, it’s Noah that received those animals onto the ark.
SPEAKER 05 :
So you’re thinking about the pairs of animals when… See, the devil comes around so deceptively that you ignore that the name… has been misrepresented in your speaking.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, when the enemy comes in like a flood, we’ve got to remember he’s tiny. Yeah. He’s so small. He sure is. And that is not a problem for our God. Our God who can split an ocean, our God who can move mountains, our God who can provide manna in the wilderness and let it drop every day to feed you. Our God is so much greater than the enemy that we don’t want to be focused on what the enemy can do with his floodwaters. In fact, it’s just a little bathtub. You know, it really is not that much. But we get focused on it and we think it’s so bad. It’s so great. It’s rocking our boat. God is so much greater. And I like to ask, OK, the Lord comes in with a standard order. What is that standard? God is huge. He’s huge. He’s almighty. He’s omniscient. He’s omnipotent. He’s indescribable. We can’t put enough words on him. There are not enough big words to use. There are not enough small words. We’re just severely insufficient in describing God. Yes, we can’t do it on our own. We can’t. Period. No, not in this realm. We cannot describe him and maybe we’ll never be able to describe him for all eternity. So what kind of a standard does an indescribable, all powerful God put in place for us? Many of us lean on the word of God. And that is, for one, I’m one that cannot imagine a better standard. I love memorizing the word of God and knowing what his answers are when I am feeling overwhelmed. But we do know that there are some people in this world that have no access to his word. Um, I can’t imagine that our loving creator would leave them abandoned. So as, as many people as there are on this planet, I believe that’s how many standards there are for him to come in. When, when you look up, when you simply look up and say, I can’t do this life, I can’t breathe. And he will put a standard of comfort or if you need confidence in boldness or his peace that passes our human understanding. Philippians tells us that he is the God of peace. Peace is a part of his essence. And I think it’s beautiful to imagine him giving a piece of his essence and pouring his essence into us when we’re in need, that that is his standard that he will bring to us. Yesterday, we were talking about the standard, and that is how I like to view the standard in Isaiah 59, the rescue. We’ll call it a rescue in Isaiah 59, where God himself used his own arm. Mm-hmm. He flexed. When there was separation from his most beloved one, which is us, when there was confusion and mischief and iniquity, crooked paths, devastation and destruction, his beloved did not know peace. That’s what Isaiah 59, 8 says. And you might be somebody today that’s listening that just doesn’t know peace. Start asking, what standard do you have for me, God? Because he’s got a standard to raise up for you to bring you to a place where you will find rest.
SPEAKER 03 :
That’s right.
SPEAKER 04 :
I like picturing that his arms just flexed in that moment. It says his arm is not short. His hand is not short. And he flexed his arms that it says that in verse 16 of Isaiah 59, his own arm brought salvation. Yes.
SPEAKER 05 :
I believe some people, when they see something that they can’t understand, they do not know what to do, they just go into a mode of denying it. and they don’t receive maybe what God is trying to teach them. And it’s important, Kimberly, that we look with our eyes at a reality that God is trying to show us. We are so used to, oh, I’m just going to go into a fantasy mode. I’m going to go into a denial mode. And, you know, Darren said denial is not a river in Egypt. And so we know that we have to face some things face to face. And in that, asking God for his answers, for his power, for his grace and for his. God is the one who will answer you and he will answer you in many different ways. But you’ve got to have the faith to believe. to not give up no matter what. It’s amazing how God provides the answers for us. And we’re not even looking that way. We’re not even looking into his word. We’re not looking into a possibility of the supernatural happening in our lives. It’s important that we do. We look beyond the things that we can touch, feel, see, hear, all those things, and look beyond and into a heavenly place. Set your mind on things above and not on things on this earth. It’s so important.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yes, it is. There are so many circumstances in this life that can cause panic. We’ve talked about that panic. And it’s hard to overcome the panic, I think. It’s very hard because when your heart starts racing, your mind starts racing. Yes. And that little hamster wheel.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yes, it does.
SPEAKER 04 :
Starts going in your mind. Right. And it’s just running, running, running. And you’re starting to think, OK, who can I call? What can I do? What are my resources? What are my choices? And do I go to the government? Do I go to the doctor? Do I go to my parents? Do I go to my siblings? Do I go to my children? Do I go? Where do I go? Who do I turn to?
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, I choose, and I’ve gotten into this habit. When something happens, I take a deep breath. I step back. I even go overnight or even a couple days of just meditating on God’s ways and his word. And Kimberly, by the second or third day, I see an absolute answer to what I’m asking God for, and it comes so beautifully now where it used to just drive me crazy. It really did. I had panic attacks, and now God is just saying inside of me, and you’ll hear a voice inside of you, take a breath, rest, and lean on me. I’m taking care of you. Remember, I will never leave you or forsake you. I’m there for you today and tomorrow. So remember that. I am yours. You are mine. It’s Jesus. It’s our Lord Jesus saying those things. He’s been through every temptation we could possibly go through, Kimberly.
SPEAKER 04 :
He knows. And he didn’t rush into any answers. So what you’re describing is definitely a wild and passionate patience. Yes. That’s right. Wild and passionate patience. Yes. And when we practice patience, when we choose not to get all excited and try really hard to fix something quickly, but just sit with it and practice patience, that’s when we start discovering this list that you were talking about, that we have everything we could ever need for this life. Mm-hmm. And when we choose to add to what the Lord has given us, add to it by being patient, that’s where we do have a choice. Our free will and our free choice can go rushing in to find an answer, or we can take a breath. And let it be what it is for a day or two or longer. And let the Lord have it. Wait on the Lord. It’s a beautiful place to be when you’re waiting on the Lord.
SPEAKER 05 :
Psalm 46 starts out with, You are my refuge and fortress. You are my refuge and strength in time of trouble. And then the end about the 10th verse of that same chapter, God is saying to the prophet, to the psalmist, be still and know that I am God. So when this tempest comes in, when the storms come in, when trouble comes in, the enemies coming in like a flood, then what do I do? You just sit still. You get your, you quiet yourself, right? You don’t go use the phone. You go to the throne. As Darren used to say, you don’t go to the phone. You go to the throne and you just be still for a moment because that’s what God is telling us to do. Be still and know that I am God. So many times we just go running at the mouth and we may say things that does not please God. he’s not coming through with me oh i i don’t i can’t depend on you god i can’t depend on you anymore you never come through for me and god doesn’t want those words to come out of our mouth
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, and it all boils down to opinions. And that’s our own opinion that he’s not coming through in the timing that we want him to come through. We want, yes. Or the way that we want him to come through. And when we choose to be still and know that he is God, that’s another standard for That he can raise up. We’re actually working with him in partnership when we choose to be still and wait on him. That’s right. Then in partnership, we are at rest. We’re calm. We see him calm the storm for us. And it all works out. It really does. We have to have that kind of wild patience. And a confidence in the Lord to walk it out. And guess what? At the end of it, we have more trust. We have more faith. We have added to our faith because we have chosen patience and chosen to be still and know that he is God. That’s right.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yesterday, we were watching a movie. in which this young man he was he was born without a leg so he’s one-legged he decides to go into wrestling oh kimberly all during the night i was going through the scenarios of this great kid oh my goodness and he lost the first ncaa wrestling match to the champion he lost it and when his coach at the beginning of the next year when he got to the point where he had won every wrestling match and here they were going to wind up in Philadelphia for the NCAA, you know, wrestling championship. And his coach said, what has changed in you? And Anthony said, I was so angry. Yeah. I was angry. I used to be angry and I used that fuel out on the mat.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yes.
SPEAKER 05 :
And he said, now I’ve come to, to a place where I have peace and, I have the confidence and peace because I have been training and I know that I can. He said, I’m not angry anymore. That’s right. I’m not angry anymore. So friend, if you realize that you’ve got some anger in your life and it’s just been kind of broiling down deep inside and you may be angry at somebody, you may be angry at yourself because, oh, you’ve made so many mistakes. God doesn’t care about those mistakes. He really doesn’t. No. He just loves you. And you may be even charging God. Be angry with God because he didn’t come through in the way that you wanted him to.
SPEAKER 04 :
That’s right.
SPEAKER 05 :
And, oh, just say, Father, I don’t want this anger. Take this anger from me. I bind this anger. And, Father God, I’m asking you for a spirit of peace to envelop me. Well, he won the championship. Are you going back to the movie? Yeah. I was just thinking. He won the national championship.
SPEAKER 04 :
The beautiful thing is when we do let go of anger, and even if it is something that was fueling us in life, when we let go of that, we can find a greater rock to stand on.
SPEAKER 05 :
That’s right. It’s really interesting because when this young man decided that he wanted to be a wrestler and he wanted to wrestle for Arizona State University, And at the very beginning, these able-bodied guys, they were climbing the mountain. They were doing all these exercises that, you know, they were tired at the end of the climb up this mountain. But he had to climb up that mountain with his crutches. And they were really questioning whether he would be able to even go through the year. At the end of that year… When there was a development that came up, they said, we will not be a part of that program if you don’t include Anthony. I mean, they saw such a spark in him.
SPEAKER 04 :
It’s a true story. So if you want to look up Anthony Robles. Robles, I think I said that right.
SPEAKER 05 :
R-O-B-L-E-S.
SPEAKER 04 :
Robles. It’s just… Yeah, it’s a good story. And it’s very inspiring. It’s something that each one of us can learn from because whatever our crutches are, we can choose to be bitter and resentful about those or we can use them to become stronger. In 1 Peter 1, 6 through 8, it says, Oh, yes. Even though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been distressed by various trials so that the proof of your faith being more precious than gold, which is perishable, even though it’s tested by fire, it, your faith may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. So don’t be alarmed by the fiery trials. In this world. But I don’t want to go through trials.
SPEAKER 05 :
We’re like that. I want to be as comfortable as I can be in this world. And Kimberly, every believer, every born-again believer has those trials. That’s right. That is a guarantee. That’s right. But it’s how we go through it. Consider it all joy. My friend, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance and let endurance have its perfect, perfect way with you, making you perfect and lacking in nothing. Well, I want to be a person I don’t lack in anything.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, just at peace and calm.
SPEAKER 05 :
Boy, I’m going to go through that.
SPEAKER 04 :
That’s right. That’s from James 1. Yes. Yes. And 1 Peter 4. 1 Peter, not 2. 1 Peter 4. Verse 12 says, Beloved friends, if life gets extremely difficult with many tests… Don’t be bewildered as though something strange were overwhelming you. Instead, continue to rejoice for you in a measure have shared in the sufferings of Christ so that you can share in his glory.
SPEAKER 05 :
Oh, praise God. It’s like Irma Bombeck. You remember this beautiful writer Irma. In the early 80s and 90s, you said, if life gives you lemons, you make lemonade. And we love lemonade, don’t we, in the summertime when it’s this hot. But the seasons change because God wants us to fluctuate, kind of like a palm tree, Kimberly. Just when the winds come, we just flex with it. We go with him. And he’s just getting the root system down deeper and deeper so we can handle it.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yes.
SPEAKER 05 :
Praise the Lord. Well, God bless you and keep you, my friend. May this weekend be one of rejoicing and joy in Jesus name and take joy.
SPEAKER 1 :
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SPEAKER 01 :
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