Join Barbara Carmack in an inspiring discussion on the power of faith and the profound significance of stillness. As the host of Call to Freedom, Barbara invites listeners to explore the depths of their spirituality by trusting in God’s promises and embracing a life of prayerful reflection. Through personal anecdotes and religious insights, this episode challenges conventional wisdom and encourages a journey of spiritual growth beyond understanding.
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 powered 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 04 :
Welcome to Calda Freedom. I’m glad that you joined me today. Kimberly is on the other line. And I just want to tell you, the Lord is faithful to all his promises and loving, loving toward all that he has made. And that includes you. It includes you. Every word of God that you pray to the Lord. Every word, every scripture, every verse that you put on your need, you take your need, you pray for a prayer to be answered. Then you take scripture to confirm that need or that prayer request. God is hearing you because he says my word does not return void. And I watch my word to perform it. So when Jeremiah said that in Jeremiah 1 verse 12, he meant that when you say the word of God in your mouth with your prayer request, God hears you. Oh, praise God. That is half the battle when you know that God hears and answers your prayers. Oh, you are blessed to dispense for in him you live and move and have your being. And I’m glad you got home safely, Kimberly.
SPEAKER 03 :
I am, too. Thank you. It’s hard for me to be here in Oklahoma because I miss my Colorado family when I’m gone. But, you know, it’s the same when I’m in Colorado. I miss my Oklahoma family, too.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yes, I heard that on your way back to Oklahoma, you climbed Gloss Mountain.
SPEAKER 03 :
I did. The Gloss Mountain National Park, State Park, I guess it’s a state park, is in Oklahoma. And it was such a beautiful day yesterday. I stopped in that little area and I climbed that mountain and spent some time hiking around. It’s a really beautiful plateau and someone took the time. It was actually a Boy Scout project, an Eagle Scout project, when they went ahead and put some stairs and handrails and made a way up the side of that plateau. It’s a beautiful, it’s really a beautiful view of the countryside when you get up there.
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, I’m glad you had a leisurely drive back to Broken Arrow, Oklahoma. It was a pleasure having you here for two, I think it was two weeks. And I know you will be back to Colorado. Yes, I do.
SPEAKER 03 :
Soon, hopefully the end of March, I’ll be back there if the weather will treat me well and let me get back there.
SPEAKER 04 :
If the leaves, the leaves will be on the trees probably. Well, or coming on the trees when you come back.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah. Beautiful.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yes. Well, this week we have been talking about Second Samuel 33. Excuse me, not 33, 22. 33 through 36. And I want to give this to you from the living. God is my strong fortress. Boy, he has to be today in the wind. It almost blew me over. And he makes my way perfect. He makes me as sure-footed as a deer, enabling me to stand on mountain heights. He trains my hands for battle. He strengthens my arm to draw a bronze bow. And you have given me your shield of victory. Your help has made me great. And Kimberly, when I think of you train my hands for battle, I think of your dad playing the piano and how his hands, his praise and worship defeated the enemy on many fronts.
SPEAKER 03 :
And I’m, yes, you know, that is, I kind of wanted to talk about that today because when we, when we really do press in to what God is asking of us and that is relationship with him. That’s waiting on him. That’s developing a communication system with him. It’s getting to know him. And daddy did that by playing the piano and spending time in worship. And when, when humans would say, no, that’s not what you need for your business. You need to advertise more. You need to go out there and make sure that the business is coming in and That would be stress. That’s one way to stress yourself out is to be looking for ways to get business. And constantly, I don’t know, constantly looking for more advertising now. It’s done digitally, you know, behind the scenes with a lot of ways that search engines being able to… I don’t even know all the right terms because it’s just not my area. But it would stress me out if I felt like I had to be constantly looking for more business.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yes.
SPEAKER 03 :
And… Ways to stay busy. But the Lord asks us to wait on him, to be still and know that he is God. The Lord has different ways for us. There are ways that don’t make sense to humans. How does it make sense that sitting in silence will be your answer? Especially when you have so many resources in this life, right? So sitting in silence does not make any sense to us.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yes. Or just waiting. Just waiting. You may not be in silence, but you may be going back and forth from one friend to another and asking for advice. And that’s not the resting that God wanted. It’s not the waiting on him that God wanted. And you’re right, Kimberly. Most of the time we sense God’s presence when we are alone and we are quiet. That’s right. Then he’s comfortable to come to us. Yes. Yes. You know, I wonder, does God get uncomfortable? I think sometimes he does with the way we don’t know about that.
SPEAKER 03 :
He is so willing to go to the darkest places, the lowest places. And he’s also willing to be in the places of great heights. And if that means that there’s pride involved, he is willing to be with us when we’re full of pride, even though it does say that the Bible in the Bible. It says that he resists the proud, but I don’t think he’s uncomfortable. Maybe he is, like you said, maybe he is when he’s around pride and that’s why he resists it. Yeah.
SPEAKER 1 :
Yeah.
SPEAKER 03 :
Interesting. But yeah, that is, that is an interesting question. And I think when we read what Jesus taught us when he was here on this planet, A lot of what he taught us does not make sense. I mean, just turning to Matthew chapter five, if I turn there and look at what he’s telling us. Wow. You know, you’ve heard that it was said, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. But verse 39 of Matthew 5 says, I say to you, do not resist the one who’s evil, but whoever slaps you on your right cheek, offer him the other cheek also. Well, that does not make sense to humans. You know, that really does not make sense to counselors and therapists of today that want you to put a boundary in place when somebody slaps you. You know?
SPEAKER 04 :
Yes.
SPEAKER 03 :
So that does not make sense. And if anyone sues you and takes your shirt, let him have your coat also. Yeah, that doesn’t make sense to the human being. But love… does not make sense. And dying for someone who is wicked and evil, that’s true love. That is what Jesus came and did. And that does not make sense. So he has got some answers for us. He has ways that are so far above our ways And these are the ways that I want to be looking for. These are the ways I want to tap. I want to tap into his ways because when I’m doing it the world’s way, I don’t feel like I’m really thriving. If I am pursuing what the world tells me to do, I don’t have the peace or the joy that I would really like to have in living this life. It becomes a heavy weight. It becomes a burden. It becomes stress to me when I’m doing it all the ways that the world tells me to do it.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yes.
SPEAKER 03 :
So I was reading Jeremiah 17, seven, and you may have read this yesterday, but I, I want to read that verse again from the message translation. Jeremiah 17, 7 says, but blessed is the man who trusts me, God, the woman who sticks with God. They are like trees replanted in Eden, the Garden of Eden, putting down roots near the rivers. Now, rivers represent life. Rivers represent refreshing, being rehydrated when you have been dried out and rooting ourselves in the tree of life. You know, we can go back to looking at the Garden of Eden. There was a tree of life in the Garden of Eden. There was also the tree of knowledge. And we have a choice constantly metaphorically here. We we are the garden and we have a choice of whether or not we’re going to look to the tree of life. That would be God’s ways or the tree of knowledge, which would be. what makes sense to us, to our senses. The tree of knowledge would include science, mathematics. The tree of knowledge is what we’ve gained in counseling and therapy. That’s knowledge. But God’s ways, His tree of life is different. It’s different than knowledge. Jeremiah 17 goes on to say in the message version, never a worry through the hottest of summers, never dropping a leaf, serene and calm through droughts, bearing fresh fruit in every season.
SPEAKER 04 :
It’s beautiful.
SPEAKER 03 :
That’s the kind of life I want to live. I want to bear fresh fruit in every season. If the season is dry and windy, I want to be bearing fruit. And being replanted in the Garden of Eden is where we were meant to thrive. We were meant to thrive in a different way of thinking, in a different way of connecting to God. And we do want to pursue this different way. Leaning on our own understanding, this is how we stray from the presence of the Lord. It’s how we separate ourselves from God, how we wander away from the rivers of life that he has blessed us with and the rain of his blessings and provision. So instead, we want to be leaning on the Lord, waiting on the Lord, being still and knowing that he is God. Well, how do you do that? It’s a journey for everybody, and it’s counterintuitive. That’s what I was going to say. It’s kind of counterintuitive because it’s so much easier for us to get the laundry done, to get the cleaning done, to go to the grocery store, to fulfill everything that’s on our list of things to do. That is really what we’ve been taught, and it’s what causes this world to continue changing. to revolve is all of us just doing what’s on our list to do. And every day that’s gathering food, it’s feeding ourselves, it’s feeding our business, making sure that everything is taken care of. And God says, be still and know that I am God. And God says that he would love for us to wait on the Lord, wait on him. Like Isaiah 40 tells us, He says that we will gain strength by waiting on him. And I think you might have read this also in Deuteronomy. chapter 33 verse 25 there’s a promise there and yes this promise was made to one of the tribes of Israel but I do believe that every promise God has made in his word if we want to claim that we can ask him for that and he says to the tribe of Asher in Deuteronomy 33 verse 25 that as your strength is Sorry, as your years are, so shall your strength be. This means that as you gain numbers of years in your life, you also gain strength. Your strength is growing as you are growing older. Well, that doesn’t make sense to us in our world. We’re constantly fighting the aging process and how we end up feeling weaker as we age.
SPEAKER 04 :
Excuse me for a moment while Travis tells us about Freedom Street.
SPEAKER 02 :
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SPEAKER 03 :
there we’re going to get back to you Kimberly in Deuteronomy 33 yes well this is what we want to learn to do is the thing that is counterintuitive the thing not leaning on our own understanding but leaning on the Lord and his understanding his ways so instead of wandering away from his rivers of life that he has for us we’re going to be like a tree the way that Jeremiah 177 talks about. Blessed is the one who trusts in the Lord and whose trust is the Lord. He shall be like a tree planted by rivers of water. That is our promise.
SPEAKER 04 :
That’s right. Some of the things the Lord asks us to do, they’re so strange, Kimberly. And even sometimes you think, wow, that’s crazy. That’s a crazy idea. And you brought up the fact in your notes of the, I believe it was Mary that brought the costly alabaster to Jesus and poured the whole thing on him, a year’s worth of oil. And those things, and when Jesus said, well, go out into the deep, Peter. And Peter says, we’ve been out there all night, but because it’s you, Lord. We will do it. And man, they caught the biggest catch ever. So some of those things seem so strange. But God is right on time. He really is. He knows what he’s doing.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yes, he does know what he’s doing. He’s not only right on time, he’s. He’s really kind and very merciful. He doesn’t show disappointment or anger with us when we decide that we want to try it our way. But our ways eventually end up just being absolutely futile. They leave us dry. They leave us wanting. And He celebrates the fact that we turn back toward Him and say, you know what? I do want to try it your way. wanting to spend time with the Lord and waiting on Him, that takes some intentionality. You’ve got to, you have to make space to be still. And do it on purpose. Do it on purpose. Make some time to just be still. The first few times that I started practicing this, I will admit to you that I would get so tired And because I pushed myself so hard, I would push, push, go, go. And when I would finally just let myself have time to be still, I would get really sleepy. I thought I had to be doing something in the stillness. You know, I thought I needed to be praying, speaking in tongues. I needed something. And I didn’t know how to just be still. I finally just gave in to the tiredness and said, okay, Lord, I’m trusting that you’re going to speak to me even in my tired place. And if I drift off. that you will somehow give me a dream, that you will refresh me, that you will cause me to wake up knowing you better because I had this time of stillness. Yes. And that’s how it started for me. I don’t know how it starts for everybody else, but that’s how it started for me. And, you know, over the years that I’ve been practicing being still, I just keep meeting him in this place of quiet. Now, Now I can tell you that I have a sense of confidence, a sense of assurance. I’m actually looking forward. I’m really anticipating and looking forward to that quiet time so much that I’ll make several times during my day now to just be still with him because the confidence does come. The assurance does come.
SPEAKER 04 :
Maybe that’s why Daniel did it three times a day, Kimberly, morning, noon, and night. He worshiped God. He prayed and worshiped God, got on his knees. And probably many other prophets who wrote the books of the Bible and women, they took those quiet times. And we don’t know all of them, but we do know that Daniel did that.
SPEAKER 03 :
That’s true. He did. And I know we can schedule it into our days. Daniel, he had a job before the king that required time of him. So many, many of us have jobs that it requires time from us. So yeah, setting an alarm. and scheduling that time, that’s a good place to start. That’s a really good place to start. But coming into that place of stillness or that place of waiting on the Lord without expectations, I think that’s what’s important. Because if you’re expecting yourself to be praying, if you’re expecting yourself to be studying, reading the Word, whatever your expectations are, Letting go of those to let God show you how much he loves you. Just being. Not trying to do more, but just being with him. Yes. That’s what’s really important is finding him in that stillness in a way that doesn’t have all the expectations attached to it.
SPEAKER 04 :
That’s right. So good.
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, you yeah, you were bringing up, you know, whether or not it makes sense to break an alabaster vial. Those are those were expensive. And the oil that was inside was even more expensive. But that was something that God really was. pleased in jesus was so pleased and i know our heavenly father was too because he ended up making sure it was mentioned in all four gospels and she was not forgotten you know we still remember this woman who decided to break this and pour that oil out on jesus
SPEAKER 04 :
Oh, and everybody was just spitting mad. You know, they thought, wow, what is this woman doing to our Savior? And they were against what she was doing. And Jesus had to talk to them and calm them down and make sure… Oh, that makes me sad.
SPEAKER 03 :
I have to just admit, you know, when I think of the way that the disciples and whoever was in the room was questioning her act.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yes.
SPEAKER 03 :
That makes me so sad because… She was pouring out something that was so precious to her on the Son of God. Yes. I actually believe that she had a hint, an inkling, an idea that he was going to die soon. And she wanted to do whatever she could before that happened in order to bless him, in order to prepare, in order to even be an encouragement of… I see this is coming for you and I don’t want it. Let me spill this out and pour this out on you while I have a chance.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yes. It might be a fulfillment of the prophecy in Psalm 23. Thou anointest my head with oil, my cup runneth over. And maybe that’s another fulfillment of prophecy that Jesus was going through.
SPEAKER 03 :
Right. Well, okay, if we’re going to talk about it that way, then… We don’t have to be afraid of any loss. You know, Jesus choosing to lay down his life, that was a huge loss. In this world, I have to imagine that he was enjoying his disciples. He was enjoying connection with people, that he enjoyed his family, his mother. I have to imagine that he enjoyed it here. He didn’t lay down his life because he was discouraged and he didn’t really want to live anymore. Yeah. He enjoyed it here and laying down your life. because you want to trust a higher way, this is what we’re asked to do. Lay down some time in your life every day because we’re asked to wait on the Lord. We are asked to be still and know that He is God. There are a lot of things that we are taught in the word of God that might not make sense, but it is God alone who is the one who fulfills every facet of our being and our purpose in this life. And he does it in the waiting, waiting on him. Silence might feel useless to us, but there is great purpose in our Lord’s request to have us wait on him. Learning to resist our logic and our common sense is that drives us to push harder and to keep going, to power through. It seems counterintuitive to us to lay all that down and to stay silent, to really be still and to wait on the Lord. You know, because what would that accomplish in the stillness, in the quiet? What does that accomplish? We can’t imagine it, but when you make time for it, really it accomplishes so much more than you could possibly imagine. And you do end up feeling like that tree that is planted by rivers of water. You feel like you are refreshed, revived, strong, bearing fruit in all seasons. And that is what we were made for. Yes.
SPEAKER 04 :
And doesn’t it remind you of John 7, Kimberly, when Jesus is telling them that when they are filled with Holy Spirit, out of their innermost being will come rivers of living water. And that’s a metaphor. But when we speak to people after we have experienced the wonderful salvation of Jesus, we know that people are going to receive our word from God.
SPEAKER 03 :
Wow, that’s really good. John 7, which verse is that?
SPEAKER 04 :
I was just looking for it.
SPEAKER 1 :
38.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yes.
SPEAKER 1 :
38.
SPEAKER 03 :
Oh, that’s really good. Yes, it does remind me of that. That he who believes in me, as the scripture said, from his innermost being shall flow rivers of living water. Yes. Yes. And this is what we experience when we really do wait on the Lord, when we make that time to be still. Yes. and wait you know he he says in isaiah 40. that’s another good one and it I think I briefly mentioned it earlier, but it doesn’t make sense to us that those who wait for the Lord will gain new strength.
SPEAKER 04 :
That’s right. Oh, your teaching today has been so good, Kimberly. And we’re going to take those scriptures and go over them and over them. God bless you, friends, for listening. God bless you and keep you and take joy.
SPEAKER 1 :
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SPEAKER 01 :
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