In episode 285 of the "No Doubt, No Fear, Only Believe" podcast, host Greg Ryan explores a new goal‑setting framework that blends biblical vision with modern personal development tools. He begins by stressing the necessity of commitment for both spiritual growth and business success, urging listeners to revisit earlier episodes on the topic. Ryan then introduces the prophetic image from Ezekiel 1 – four living creatures and a "wheel within a wheel" – and explains how he visualizes this as a metaphor for balanced, Spirit‑led living. Drawing on Zig Ziglar’s classic "Wheel of Life," Ryan describes the original seven‑spoke model (spiritual, financial, career, family, health, mental, etc.) and argues that the spiritual spoke should be placed at the center, creating a "wheel in the middle of the wheel" that represents the Holy Spirit’s guiding role. He shares that he has commissioned a 3‑D interactive version of this wheel, which will expand or contract based on a quiz, allowing users to plot their scores on each spoke. Throughout, Ryan interweaves personal testimony, biblical exegesis, and practical advice, concluding with a prayer asking the Holy Spirit to illuminate the vision. The episode serves both as a theological reflection on Ezekiel’s vision and a practical guide for Christians seeking balanced, Spirit‑centered goal setting.
Chapters
Welcome to episode 285.
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God, and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. Spending time in the Word of God is the best way to spend time with God. Welcome to No Doubt, No Fear, Only Believe podcast, where we will encourage, inspire, and empower you to live your best life in Christ. Here's Greg.
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Well, I want to continue to talk about the one thing that I think we need. We've talked about commitment. If you do not have commitment, I want you to commit to going back to the last few episodes where we talk about and we kind of unpack what commitment means. And if you don't have commitment, and one of the things that I've talked about over and over again is that commitment is key to just about anything in life, and it's important also in the Word of God. Because if you don't commit to following after Jesus, if you can't go all in on following after, then we start getting wishy-washy. We start being like that ship being tossed to and fro in an open sea. There's a lot of analogies, there's a lot of things in the Bible that talks about this. A double-minded man shouldn't expect to receive anything from the Lord. This is one of those things that we have to commit to, and it's one of the things— and I've told you this a few times, but very rarely do I ever say, hey, I believe God showed me this specifically, or I believe God told me this. God did not tell me this. Let me go right on the record. This is not something that God spoke to me, but I believe through his word and through his pastors and through the teachers that I listen to and that I follow, I believe that God through the Holy Spirit has helped me understand one of the areas that every businessman, Christian businessman, I think has gotten off. And I can't tell you why, because I followed after the same people, the same motivational speakers. I used to, because I was in sales, I always went and saw Zig Ziglar every time he got anywhere near to our town. And I loved Zig Ziglar. I love Brian Buffini. He's a real estate coach, and he does an excellent job at coaching and motivating, and he is a speaker. And in fact, I think he toured with Zig. So he talks about this also. And what I specifically want to talk about is goals, how we set our goals, and how we as an individual, we as Christians— and one of the reasons I believe that the church is kind of just looking real similar to the world is because I believe that we are doing exactly what the world is doing. And if we don't change how we do things, then we're not going to get any different results. I think it was Albert Einstein that said, the definition of insanity is to continue to do the same things over and over again and expect different results. And I believe God has watched this as long as he can watch this I believe that he has me in this specific spot for a specific reason and for a specific season. And I just threw that in there because I wanted to rhyme. I want to show you this wheel in the middle of the wheel, and I want you to be able to picture this when you get off this podcast. And I understand that it's going to be hard to picture, and that is why I've spent multiple dollars. I don't want to tell you how much, I'm a little bit embarrassed, But I spent a bunch of money to get this wheel designed, and it's going to be a 3D rendering, and it's going to be a wheel in the middle of the wheel. It's going to expand and contract based on your answers to this little quiz that I'm putting together. I know, I know, I'm a fanatic, but I've got to see it before I can truly understand it. And I've taken a lot of things that people have taught me over the years, and I'm trying to combine this with the word of God. And that's what we do here. We take a spiritual truth and we bring it into the physical realm and we try to apply it to our physical lives. And I believe this is incredible what God has showed me. I may be the only one that sees this, but I believe that this one thing that we can do— and Paul talks about this one thing I do, forgetting those things that are behind me and I press forward. And I want to forget all the mistakes that I've made. God doesn't even remember. He throws it in the sea of forgetfulness. So God's not nowhere near upset about me messing up as much as I am. And so what I want to do is I want to encourage you to just, while you're listening to this, I'm going to read Ezekiel 1, and I'm gonna— I know I have superior reading skills, so I know you're gonna love it. But I'm gonna read this, and I want you to picture this wheel in the middle of the wheel and this living creature, these four living creatures. And I've talked about this before on previous episodes, but I'm going to try to put all this together because I've been milling this thing around. I've been praying about it. I've been seeking God. I've been asking the Holy Spirit for clarity, for wisdom and knowledge. I've been doing all the things I'm supposed to do, and I am ready to reveal this to you. And let's go real quick. It's in Ezekiel 1. I'm going to read probably 4 or 5 verses, then I'm going to skip But I just want you to follow along as I read.
This is in Ezekiel 1:5. Also from within it came the likeness of four living creatures, and this was their appearance: they had the likeness of a man. Each had four faces and each had four wings. Their legs were straight and the soles of their feet were like the soles of calves' feet. They sparkled like the color of burnished bronze. The hands of a man were under their four wings and their four sides And each of the four had faces and wings; their wings touched one another.
The creatures did not turn when they went, but each one went straight forward.
4 And for the likeness of their faces, each had the face of a man. 5 Each of the four had the face of a lion on the right side, each of the four had the face of an ox on the left side, and each of the four had the face of an eagle. Thus were their faces. Their wings stretched upward; two wings of each one touched one another, and two covered their bodies. And each one went straight forward and went wherever the Spirit wanted to go, and they did not turn when they went. All right, and I want to skip down to 15. Now as I looked at the living creatures, behold, a wheel was on the earth beside each living creature with its 4 faces. The appearance of the wheels and their workings was like the color of beryl, and all 4 had the same likeness.
The appearance of their workings was as it were a wheel in the middle of a wheel. And I want to stop there because I just want you to, as you were listening to that, I wanted you to picture these 4 living creatures. And we've talked about these 4 living creatures before. And again, if you want to read that out of your own Bible, that is in Ezekiel 1 5 through 12, and then Ezekiel 15 and 16. And in the next episode, I'm going to talk more about the Spirit and how the Spirit moves this wheel.
But I just want us to get a picture of this wheel in the middle of the wheel.
And now let me try to put all this together real quick. I'm trying to help you just get one little thought, one little nugget, and then move on with your day so you can kind of chew on this until we get to the next lesson. We've got a picture, we've got four living creatures and we've got wheels, and the wheel is in the middle of the wheel, and the spirit moves the creatures. And I just want you to kind of picture what's going on here. Now, this is in the— this is a spiritual being. These are spiritual creatures. I believe these are real live creatures. I believe when we get to heaven, we'll get to see these living creatures. So these are real beings. God created these beings. And there's 4 of them in this chapter. And so all 4 of these are connected and they all are touching each other. I kind of want to get you to picture that. What I want you to see are there 4 faces, and I believe those 4 faces represent the 4 pillars or 4 foundations or 4 truths or 4 types of people. We're going to get more deep into this,. But I just need you to picture this wheel right now because I need you to think about all these other wheels. And I, maybe I'll have a picture of Zig Ziglar's wheel. And this is what gave me my inspiration. And I just want to thank God for Zig Ziglar. I just got to go on record to say, I love that man. He has gone to be with Jesus and his company is still going strong. I hope I've heard his son on a few podcasts. He's writing books. And I pray that he has the most success that he could possibly have. I love the Zigglers. I love their family. I love what they stand for. But I just want to tweak Zig's wheel just a little bit because he had, I don't know what he called it, but I think you could probably go to his website. I don't know if he still has it, but I still have copies of it because this is how I base my goal setting is on Zig's wheel. There's 7 different spokes on Zig's wheel. And each one of these spokes is scaled from 1 to 10. And I just wanna quickly go over this because this is the key. I believe if you get this, you'll get the wheel in the middle of the wheel and what God showed me. But Zig's wheel has 7 different areas of your life. One of 'em is spiritual, one of 'em's financial. I believe one of 'em's your career. Then you have family, and then you have health, and you have mental, I mean, there's 7 different areas. I'm not going to go over all 7, but there are 7. If you can picture 7 spokes going from this wheel and there's a centerpiece that all these spokes come out of, but the 7 different spokes all have a number. The length is 1 to 10. If you go to 10, that's the end of the spoke. It's the tire, if you will, of the wheel. Zig's point was that if you had a 3 in every area of your life, on all 7 areas that you're— even though you were just rating yourself as a 3 on the Wheel of Life in every area of your life, your ride through life as the wheel is rotating in your life, as you go from family, as you go from social, as you go from business, finance, you've got a pretty smooth ride. And that's why he said that some people that don't seem like they've got it all together, but they seem to have a pretty balanced life. And he said that that's because all their areas were similar. But he said, if your spiritual life was a 10 and your family life is a 2 and your business is a 3 and your health is a 10, then if you can picture marking those little spots on the spokes and then drawing that wheel out of those 7 little spokes, when you rotate that tire around, it is clunky. And it goes from 10 to 2 to 3 to 10. And if you can kind of picture it going around, it is a bad ride. And so he said that it's better to be balanced in every area. So the things that you're bad on or the things that you're low on, try to work up. And even if you're a 10 spiritually, it may be better for you to maybe dial that down a little bit because you can't bring a 2 to a 10 immediately. So he, he said, let one of these things rest because you can't do one or two things at a time. His point was you've got to try to get your life a little more balanced. And I thought it was a wonderful deal. It was a wonderful lesson. The whole point of that is to say that I agree with all of that with this one exception. And that one exception is that the spiritual spoke— if you can picture the spiritual spoke on this wheel, I have pulled that spoke out of this wheel. So now instead of having 7 spokes, I've got 6 spokes. And I don't know if my spokes are named the same as his, and I, I mean, I'm not trying to copy, I'm just trying to give him credit for giving me the idea. But the spiritual spoke I have put in the center, and I have—
that is the wheel in the middle of the wheel.
And when you say, hey, I give— I put God first, I give God all the glory, and it's God first, my family second, and then me third. All of those different things that I hear people say all the time, but do you really do it? Are you really putting God first in your life? Are you really getting after this spiritual thing more than the physical thing? In the next episode, I'm looking up— it's getting a little bit long, but I just want you to picture this, that the only real change that I've made to this wheel is I've made it a wheel in the middle of a wheel.
And the wheel in the middle of the wheel is the spirit realm.
And we're gonna get into that in the next episode, but I just need you to picture this wheel in the middle of the wheel. And I've got my 3D developer working on this as we speak, and we're gonna be able to plot little figures in here. We're gonna be able to plot a 1 or a 7 or a 10 on this wheel., and then you're gonna get to see your wheel in the middle of the wheel, and then you're gonna get to know what it represents. I am fired up about it. I don't know about you, but if, if I can help you kind of get a handle on this by seeing it, because it helps me, and I think if it helps me, it's gonna help you. And I want you to see this wheel in the middle of the wheel. We're gonna talk about the 4 living creatures because they have a huge part in this too. But I just want you to kind of get a handle of this. I'm fired up about this. I know you can probably tell.. But I have been working on this for a long time. If you're a frequent flyer, if you're a fanatic, you know that I've been struggling with this. You know that I'm ready, fire, aim, and I've already tried to put it out in the world and it didn't work. But we are going to get after this thing and I am going to get on this like a dog on a bone, like a chicken on a June bug. I am going to get after this thing and we are going to get after it together if you keep going with me. And I just want to thank you for being a part of this. Let's pray real quick because we do that at the end of every episode. We say a quick prayer and we just ask the Holy Spirit kind of get our thoughts right on this. God, we thank you so much for your word. We thank you for the vision that you gave Ezekiel, and we thank you that you have given your Holy Spirit so that we can look at this and you can kind of guide us into what it is you want us to see and do. God, we know that you are wisdom. We know that you are all knowledge, and we know that we have the mind of Christ. God, help us to understand what it is you want us to know about this wheel in the middle of the wheel and how we can apply it to our lives. God, we thank you, we love you, we ask it all in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, thank you for being a part of this, and I look forward to visiting with you in the next episode.
Thanks for listening to the No Doubt, No Fear, Only Believe podcast at www.nodoubtonlybelieve.com.
