Ron + Hope: Unfiltered - How to Maintain Your Passion

Hello, guys. Welcome to Ron and Hope. Unfiltered, real raw and relevant.

You've got it down pat, Ronald. You've got it down path.

I added that one with Ronald. Ronaldo.

Like your hair today.

You do?

Yep. Is that a style or is that. I didn't want to wash it.

Well, my assistant Jaslyn says this is a style, but I shouldn't say it, so.

No, I couldn't help you.

My earrings aren't big enough for it to be the style, so.

So if you have slick hair, you're supposed to have big earrings. Mm. Well, I'm sure we'll get you some. Won't we? Get you some earrings.

Yeah.

I want to talk to everybody, by the way. It's real raw and relevant.

Yes. With Ronaldo.

Yeah. But I want to talk. I don't like the Ronaldo part, but anyway, we got the other three R's.

I love it.

I want to talk about something a little bit unusual. Next podcast is going to be right around Valentine Day. So we're going to save some of the ooey gooey stuff for that. Yeah, we're going to save some really gooey stuff for that. And the last one we talked about was arguing, wasn't it? How to fight? That was when we talked about how to fight.

We talk about a lot.

I know we do. And I'm talking so much in so many different times, I'm trying to make sure I keep it right. But we talked about how to fight and how to argue and we reach resolution and all those things. So we wanted to give the marriage stuff a break, because it's not technically a marriage podcast, but we're going to talk a lot about it. But I want to talk about something today that everybody struggles with and has experienced at some time or another, even young people. Even constipation. Yeah. No, not constipation. That's just for older people.

No, babies get that.

True. All right, let's stay focused right here, baby darling. Stay focused. What we got to talk about is how to maintain your passion in life, period. Yes, period.

That's tough.

What are the contributors to people losing their passion? And I always start out, whenever I talk about this, I start out by saying, I use a sports analogy. The ultimate goal for any athlete will be a Hall of Fame. To have a Hall of Fame career, that would be the ultimate goal. And that's a minute number of athletes that ever reached that. A Hall of Fame athlete is one. Not that hit a home run one time, baby doll, but they found a Way to hit a home run consistently for many, many years. And that consistency place them in the hall of Fame. Same with a touchdown. It's not that you were able to score one one time, but it's over a long period of time. And when you can do something at a high level over a long period of time, that puts you in a very rare category. I know in pastor they say the burnout rate is every seven years. So, you know, you got people that go to Bible school, Bible college, seminary, master's doctorate, whatever, and get in this thing seven years and they say I'm done. I'm done. I don't have any more left in me. So I don't want this to be a teaching time where I preach. But I got so much I could say about it. I want you to add some practical aspects of it there. Maybe as a parent, how it's hard to keep it. Maybe as a minister, how it's hard to keep it in life, how it's hard to keep it. We can even sneak over into marriage how maybe sometimes it's hard to keep it. But I don't think you'll do anything well that you're not passionate about. That's so true to me. To me and people ask us all.

The time, like, how do I find or figure out what God has for me in life? How do I know what the plan of God is for my life? And we always tell people, what are your passions? Identify your passions because you have to study them. Yeah. When you figure out what you're passionate about, it's no longer going to work. You're enjoying what you do if you're passionate about it. You know, it's not a dread.

I preached when it paid nothing.

Right.

I mean, I would drive two hours on my tank of gas.

Volunteer.

Yes. Would you have me come preach for you? In other words, I had found that place of my passion. And if you can, you know, one day that becomes a revenue stream, you're all the more fortunate. Some people, I've said, their job is their passion. Some people, their job funds their passion.

Right.

So, you know, sometimes the thing you're passionate about, it doesn't pay and there is no income stream attached to it.

Yeah. Like mine, like shopping.

There is an income stream attached to that. But it's going out. Yep, it's going out. It ain't coming in. There's a streaming out of my life, not streaming in.

You're good at it, though.

You're the great liquidator.

Yes.

Excuse me. So anyway, you want to chime in first about. I want to engage some of where the people are. You wanted kids terribly and now you're sitting here and you got a two year old and you got a four year old and there's Beefaroni everywhere. I mean, you know, how do you maintain your passion?

We've even talked about this with our own children. Our kids.

Excuse me, I got a call. Go ahead.

Goodness. Ronald. Ronaldo. Our, our children have small children now and you know, they'll call us and you know, well, the kids are this. And I've got all these projects and I got all these mounds of laundry and I just get so overwhelmed. And you know, after we've been through it, it seems so easy to us. But it's, it's setting goals. You have to have a plan. And that's what we tell our kids. You know, you can't just, you know, wish the laundry fairies would come and do the laundry. It has to be something that's a plan. It's something you stick to. It's something that's maintained.

We think strategy, a lot of time has to do with a business model or retirement program or get rich. A strategy has to do with everything that's going to have success. She's got it on her shirt and it's her amazing name. I love the name. But hope is not a strategy.

Right.

Hoping it'll change, hoping it'll get better, hoping that one day. That is not a strategy. Hope is a great thing to have. The Bible says hope anchors the soul. It keeps you from going crazy. But at the same time, it's not a strategy in place for you to arrive at the place you want to arrive. Yeah.

Setting goals you have to have. I like to write mine down. Everybody's different, but that's biblical.

Habakkuk2 says write it down.

Yeah. Make it plain. But I like to keep a daytimer. I like to keep that. I keep that in my phone now in a task and a to do list and tackle the big things first. For me, that's easier for me if I'll tackle the big things. That's even in problem solving.

There's a business book called who Stole My Cheese? Which got very, very popular about 10 years ago. And basically it is a book that talks about give your most energy to your biggest tasks first. Yep. So in other words, in the morning I always tell when I start a meeting, when I say give me the hardest first.

Yeah.

The longest conversation, give me first. Because I don't want to hit this when I'm already wore out. So we're talking about the fact that in life, you know, life itself can deplete you. And we're talking about what are some answers to it. I'm going to get to how. How to maintain your passion. I got four principles I want to teach you that I will before this is over. But goal setting. Goal setting and then writing the vision down. Let me go to the third thing then. Making the goal where you can chew it in bite sized pieces, attainable. I remember you told somebody who was on staff here who's a single and has a lot of responsibilities and a lot of travel and they were just talking about little something like their laundry. They say they go home and look at it.

Looking at it doesn't get it done.

And this person literally said, not to belittle the experience, but look at that. It said it's so overwhelming because I just got home, I got to take off, I got a suitcase and I get there and the last four trips I hadn't been able to wash my laundry and it's piled up. And I remember you began to give her bite sized pieces. We didn't have laundry day. No, the washing machine was going every day.

It was laundry day.

Yeah, the washing machine was going every day. I always remember the washing machine going. And we always would chip away at things that never been. We didn't let the house get ransacked. I remember singing that dumb Barney song, clean up. So my kids knew they had their area, they could mess up their area. They weren't allowed to mess up the whole house. They were allowed to ransack their area. And then about an hour before bedtime, we come in singing that Barney song. And they had a toy box, right? And every piece comes up and it goes back into that toy box. And so I remember out of all the chaos, we did some things right. There's some things that we did right in there. Yeah, we did do a few things right. Our kids might not agree, but I think we did. When I say attainable goals, God didn't create everything in one day.

No, he didn't.

God created the heavens and the earth and he said it is good. Was he finished? No, no. But he looked at it and said, what I have done up to this point is good. So a lot of times we think that faith and attainable goals are mutually exclusive. I have what I'm believing for, but then I chop it up into bite sized pieces. And as long as I see progress, I have satisfaction and contentment in a week.

But you can Lose five pounds.

You can lose five pounds. And like I've said in the pulpit, with ingest, I said, and don't go celebrate getting cheesecake, you know, after you do that. But you know, how do I lose? You're obese and you got health problems and doctor says you got to drop £100. You can't get frustrated in two weeks if you hadn't dropped £100. It's doing a little bit over a long period of time that will change your life. On the second day, God created. And on the third day, God created. And then he looked at all of it and said, it is very good. So you got to understand that bite sized pieces, even God did one thing at a time in creation.

That's so good.

And another time we talk about Jesus feeding the 5,000. Go read it. Jesus had them said, tell the disciples, have them sit in groups of 50. And then Jesus did not feed 5,000. Jesus fed 12.

Yeah.

And the 12 turned around and fed groups of 50. So what did Jesus do? Huge hungry crowd, but break it down into bite sized pieces. And then everybody kind of got to share in the miracle.

Right?

Because as they gave out the bread and the fish, it multiplied. So Jesus let them share in the miracle. I think so many times, baby, we become overwhelmed and we lose our passion because we don't chip away at it every day.

Yeah. We take on too much.

And you go up and what we talk about in golf, you go up and you try to hit the long ball. You know, instead of taking three shots to get there, you are trying to do it in one. And I think that's overwhelming to anybody.

It's that Superman complex, maybe.

So I am. How do you maintain your passion as a parent?

Well, you can't kill them. You can't give them away. I do believe you have to know what works for you. You got to hit your sweet spot. And what works for you as parents may not work the same for other parents. You know, I don't think there is a. Everybody has to do it the same way. Ron and I always. You always helped. You know, I think, guys, I think you do need to help. I think, yeah. Let me back up and say everybody needs to do it this way because you both made them, so you both need to. You both need to raise them.

Yeah. I'm not down with the guy who just expects mama to do everything. I don't care if you do work, she works too. And so, you know, that whole mindset's got to change because marriage is a partnership. So is child rearing.

It is.

It's a partnership.

So you always helped.

I think I said this last week. It was whoever got there first.

Yeah.

I only have one thing that I really detest, and that's dishes.

Dishes. I knew you were going to say that.

And here's the crazy thing. Our agreement is hope cooks. I clean, but I hate dishes. I despise them.

For years, Ron, I'm going to tell on you. For years, Ron would say, I did the dishes and I would go in there and look, and they were all in the sink. He just moved them from the table.

I gathered them.

He gathered them and put them into the sink. I'm like, dude, you didn't do the dishes.

But I got them off the table.

You just moved them.

I got them off the high chair.

Just as easy as it was to take it and pick it up from there, put it in the sink. You could pick it up and put it in the dishwasher.

It just seemed like so much more work.

Oh, did it?

Yeah. But I'm better than that. Am I better?

You are better.

I'm better. I've grown in that area. But I. We always. I think our success when they were little, I think teenage years and adolescent years are a whole different animal.

It's all hands on deck when they're.

Little, it's a whole different beast altogether. But we did what was necessary to make a very hectic life. People don't understand. We had young kids. We also had a young church.

Yeah. And it's easy to get worn out with young kids. You talk about maintaining passion. You know, a lot of people just throw their hands up and just, you know, hate their life. But you were always so helpful. You would always say, okay, Hope, you've been with them all day long. I'm going to take them out for an hour to go play at the playground.

I would. That was actually quite regular for me, too. As soon as I got home. Just load them up.

Yeah, just load them up.

Give you a minute. Just give you a minute.

Right. And even at night, too, like, we would both get the kids ready or in the tub or whatever. But then you would say, okay, Hope, go run you a bath and go relax for an hour. I'll.

I remember sometimes telling you, just go to Target.

Yeah.

Because you would look at me and say, let me go walk around Target an hour. You know, because you had been mommaing that thing all day. And plus you had your duties at church that you did, and it was just hectic because our kids were Kind of boom, boom, boom. I don't know how you did that to me. How I did that to you. You know, were they a year and a half apart, all three of them?

Yes. Every time ours had a one year old birthday, I somehow ended up pregnant.

It's beyond me. I know, but that's the way, that's the way it fell. And may I get a little bit more technical?

Yes.

This is not original with me. I don't know who started it. I've seen it on Instagram posts. I've seen it. And leadership stuff. I've heard people talk about it before. But I want to talk about your four forms of energy.

Oh, okay.

When this comes to maintaining passion, this is very important and I'm about to tell you very important. You have mental energy, you have emotional energy, you have physical energy and you have spiritual energy. Those are your four streams of energy. Now let me tell you something. I'm going to go slow because I want you to get it. If any of them are ignored, so true, problems are coming. Now let me tell you where we in the church are weak. We were never taught to pay any other, any of the others besides spiritual, any mind. I was not taught my emotional health. I was not taught mental health.

Nobody talked about that.

And of course, you know, preachers were the most unhealthy people on the face of the planet. Certainly wasn't any talk about physical help. But you know, spiritually, we knew how to cast out devils, we knew how to pray, we knew how to shout.

And then we went to the buffet.

We did. And so we ignored all those other three. So you got mightily anointed men dying in their 50s, you know, 40s, 50 years old, heart attacks and disease. Why? Because we ignored every other part. Or you got them halfway through life and the marriage falls apart and, and divorce happens and this and that. So what happened? What happened that makes somebody look one day and say, I have no more to give to this. I have no more to give to church. I don't want to run this business anymore. I have no more to give to this marriage. I have no what makes people. That didn't happen in a day.

We ignored something.

Something has been ignored up until that point. And what you've got to understand is if you are depleted emotionally, if you are depleted mentally, if you're depleted physically, you're tired, if you're depleted spiritually, that is not a sentence. It's not a terminal disease.

Right?

Okay.

It feels like it.

Yeah, it does. But you've got to Understand, all of those are renewable resources, all of them. So here's the difficult part that you and I waited far too long to discover. Far too long. I think we've just now hit our stride in this area. I've got to track what is it that depletes me. And then I've got to also find what is it that replenishes me. And there has to be an equality between the two, because if not, it's like going to the ATM machine and just pulling out 100, but you're only depositing 10, right? Well, sooner or later, what's it going to say? Account empty. Well, what's happening to you emotionally is whatever is getting that whatever you're pouring into, it's not being reciprocated back. And so you're going to go one day and it's going to say, account empty your body. I saw my dad work himself into the mud like a dog. I saw my dad take no days off. I saw my dad work 16 hour days, no sleep. I saw him get no pay. I saw him take no vacations. His sleep habits were terrible. We ate cheap food. And when my daddy got sick, I watched him. His body could not fight it, right? He could not fight it. He was depleted on about every level of his life just as long as he stayed strong spiritually.

So sad.

And he left early. He left years on the table, I believe, because of these very important things that people don't talk about. Am I talking too much? I feel like I'm dominating the conversation.

No, I see.

But I'm in my passion. Yeah, I'm in my passion. So, for instance, mentally, meetings deplete me. What have you seen me do today? All day long, meetings. Okay? Then finally I'll get up from one chair and move to another chair. And then finally you'll see me. Because I love to preach, but you have to do things that you hate to get to do the things you love. You don't just get to do everything you love. There are things. You know those guys on the NFL, wow, they get to play in front of 80,000 fans and all over the TV and they get to wear their Gucci suits out of the locker room and they leave. But you don't see what they did that week.

Right. And the toll it took on their body.

The toll on their body. You don't see them in the whirlpool, you don't see them at the chiropractor. You don't see them getting MRIs and getting X rays because their body Is taking a pounding. You just see they get to do what they love. I promise you, they do a lot of things they hate to get to do the thing they love. It's that way in everything of life. So when I'm with my cfo, we're going through the accountings, and we're going through the audits and the P and L statements, and then we're looking at feasibility studies, Then we're trying to switch banks, and then we come in and look at our organizational flowchart, and we. Who's part of that?

You're making me tired.

Yeah. When you sell that. And then by the end of the day, I am mentally depleted. Okay. Okay. I got to do something.

So you usually go to the gym.

Got to go do something. Yeah, that's exactly what I do. People ask me why I work out. I don't work out for muscles. I'm kind of past that stage.

I'm glad you did that.

I work out. I don't have many of them anymore. Yes, I do. I work out because I tell people it's the first time all day. I don't have to think.

Right.

I love you don't have to make a decision. Being a barbell guy, I don't have to think. I don't think about anything. And so I look forward between leaving here and getting home to you of having that space of time where I can replenish myself. Because in an odd way, it releases endorphins.

Yeah, it does.

In a way. It clears my mind. And I don't take all the conversations I've had that day right into the dinner table with you.

That's right.

Because I've had a space to replenish myself. So do you even know what depletes you mentally?

Make an inventory.

When you do this. I just. I'm telling you my mind. Yes. What drains you mentally? And then.

And don't say your husband or your wife.

You gotta quit making me laugh.

Don't say your kids can't get rid of them.

No, but they do.

Yes, they do. Kids will drain you. Your husband might drain you. Your wife might. So therefore, you got to have some time to yourself.

You know what people don't understand hope, is a lot of times people think their gift strengthens them. Your gift depletes you.

Yes, it does.

Your gift doesn't strengthen you. Your gift depletes you. Okay. This is real, raw and relevant. My most vulnerable time of the week as far as the infrastructure of a man and value and person.

Did I do okay?

Yeah.

Sunday afternoon.

Sunday afternoon?

Yeah.

On Sunday afternoon, I keep her near me. I don't want her to go far. Sunday afternoon. She don't usually plan anything. If she goes out with the girls or with some ladies or something, she does it another night. She don't do it on Sunday. Why? Because I am so depleted and I am so empty from what I did that those. See, when you get empty, that's when you get vulnerable because you start longing to be full again.

That's when you need your feet massage.

Yep. That's when I just.

In a good meal.

But be honest with you. You know how I am. I just need you there.

You do?

I just need you there. So do you track it emotionally? What. What depletes you emotionally? Do you even know? See, you're sitting there saying, I'm tired, man. I don't feel like doing nothing. I feel stuck, and I don't have no energy. Well, how did you get there? You got to track all that stuff. Let me go back to mental. My assistant, I gave her five meals I like to eat. Now, some of y', all, this seems like, man, that's horribly boring. But I don't want to give my mind to that.

Right?

I'm like, these are the five things I eat. I don't care which one of them you get. I don't care what day they arrive.

You don't want to have to take your time.

No, I don't want to think.

I don't want to think about what should I eat.

I don't want to think about my menu.

Right?

Okay. An idea. It goes into my phone. I need to call somebody, you know, blah, blah, Siri, whatever. Remind me such and such a time I need to call so and so. Mike Murdoch taught me that years ago. He said that was when everybody had little voice recorders. They didn't have these phones. He said, take it. Take a voice recorder with you everywhere you go. And he said, ideas you have and things you need to be reminded of, put in the voice recorder. And he said, it frees your mind to go on to the next idea. He says, you can't have ideas while you're trying to remember.

That's so good.

So what I do used to be post it notes all over my office. Now it's this right here. And I have reminders pop up every day. Everything from don't forget your vitamins to, you said you'd call so and so Thursday.

Right? So bottom line, it's organization.

Hadn't thought about it that way. Yeah, but it is. It's knowing yourself.

Yeah.

Because the same thing that depletes me may not deplete you.

Discipline and organization.

Let me tell you what depletes me emotionally. Drama.

Yeah, I don't like that either.

Drama. When I am drawn into the middle, whether it's our kids, whether it's family stuff, whether it's. If I'm drawn into conflict resolution, actually I'm good at it. But after it's over me out just wears me up.

It confuses about this long after it's over.

Yes. And I'm probably not real pleasant to be around. If I've had a day of having to fix people's problems.

Grown adults.

Yeah. That really depletes me on a high level. And so if I'm emotionally depleted, what do I have to do? I will tell you something, not just trying to get some points right here toward Thanksgiving, but Thanksgiving. I mean, Valentine's Day. Thanksgiving. Valentine's Day. Help me, Jesus. Quality time with hope. What about that replenishes me emotionally? Quality time with hope. That's when you look at me and say, we're going so and so Thursday night, I'm getting you out of here. This. And we don't even really have to do anything if I have a dinner. And of course, we live almost on the coastline now, so a lot of times we just go somewhere on the coast and I know me and, you know, we'll sit on a porch and watch the beach. And you know what? I'm a quick. I have a quick recovery. I snap back. You give me a day or two or something like that, I snap back right back.

Just get us out of the county line.

The problem with us in our 30s, we didn't do it.

We didn't do it well. We were so overwhelmed with our kids, with school projects, with sports. The church was growing like crazy. We were so sick.

And then we ultimately bottomed out and.

We had the Superman complex. We wanted to do it all ourselves.

Everybody's lost. And I gotta say.

Yeah.

And so physic. Physical depletion. You know what physically depletes you. Would you be sure?

I have to Ron Shopping. That energizes me. But honestly, our sleep habits are different. And if I don't get the right.

Amount of sleep, it takes a toll on you.

It takes a huge toll on me. If I get four, five hours of sleep, I am miserable the next day. I mean, I'll end up sick with a sinus infection. I have to have eight, at least eight hours of sleep really, to Be at my peak. I always tell Ron, it's kind of a joke now. I said I'm good from 10 to 10, 10am to 10pm before that or after that?

Don't mess with me.

Don't mess with me.

And.

And you have to know it real.

Raw and relevant point of contention early in our marriage.

Yeah.

When I was in college, I don't know that I ever one time in four years went to bed for two. I mean, I lived in just an animal house. Our dorm was an animal house. It was just a place full of gorillas. We were wild. Yeah, the Christian college. It was absolutely nuts in that door. Music blaring, craziness going on all during the night. And it was four years. I was used to getting next to no sleep because I had an 8 o' clock class every day for four years.

You lived on Mountain Dew?

I did. And so when we got married, right out of school, I mean like two weeks out of school. And the fact is. So now I'm sitting in our apartment and we're married. She's over here and her eyes are watering at 10 o' clock and you know, it's 1:30 and I'm like, where's the pizza?

And he's still jacked up on Mountain Dew.

Yeah. So that was a point of contention early on. Why? Because if I was up, I wanted to be with me. She don't do 1:30 in the morning ever. She don't do that. So that was a point of contention. Physically, you know, things that deplete me are probably would be the same as like the church services. It's amazing how much I put into it and then the way I feel when it's over. I don't know if people see me in the groomer. I literally just kind of go sit down and stare at the wall. And even if there's somebody that I'm supposed to see after service, I'll tell the guys. Remy, give me a minute. Just give me a minute. Give me a minute. Let me have a little swig of Coca Cola right here and then I'll talk in a minute. Last thing. What spiritually depletes you? What spiritually depletes you? And how do you get replenished? Now I'm going to tell you, I could start meddling right here because you and I talked this morning over coffee, which we do every morning. You know, there's a lot of spiritual apathy right now.

It is.

This Covid thing has probably ceased to be a reason.

Oh yeah.

Now become an Excuse.

Yes.

And I know when all the flights were being canceled because we were traveling around Christmas time to go see our family. And one of the people that worked for airline told us, said, well, everybody's calling in because of COVID He said, they don't all have Covid, but it has become an excuse to miss work.

It's legitimate now, people.

Excuse to miss work. And so now anybody in the business of assembling people. This is not a good marriage, you know, trying to recover from a pandemic and assembling people, although assembling for football games don't seem to be bothering anybody.

They don't mind it.

And I've noticed that people that have sent me pictures, concerts. The concerts are packed. But when you talk to people about church. So let me ask you this. If you're depleted spiritually, is it because of the apathy toward doing things to keep you full preach, preacher? Well, you know, I just don't feel the presence of God anymore. You know, where is your personal devotion? Like, where is that? Where is your time in the Word? And don't tell me that you can get watching from your phone what you can get in that room under a corporate anointing.

That's right.

With your kids running around behind you screaming, I want to waffle. And you're trying to look at your phone and you're pausing it. You're not having the same experience. You're not. We do the best we can with the technicians and technology we have to bring you the experience we're having in the building, but it is not the same. I have never felt, looking at a computer, never what I feel in that room with God's people when Jesus is being lifted up.

No. And I think when the word of God was written, I think that, you know, Covid, they knew about COVID when they said, forsake. Not the assembling together, which you are in. The what?

Which you're in the habit of doing.

In the habit of doing.

So spiritual depletion comes from very simply not doing the things that keep your spiritual life fresh. Yeah. I mean, if I turn the word off and I turn my prayer off and I turn the worship off. Yeah.

You're going to shrivel up and down.

Yeah. What's going to happen to you? So we got a lot of people that are depleted spiritually. And you know what Jesus said to Laodicea? You can be depleted spiritually and you don't know it. You think you're full. You think you've got everything, but you're really poor, Wretched, naked, you know. In other words, he said miserable and blind. Yeah. He said, you think you're okay?

Yeah.

But when is the last time you ever pressed for an experience with God? We don't even want to be inconvenienced enough to go to church.

Yeah. And so then don't let it last longer than 55 minutes. Please and thank you.

So God has to be salt.

Yes, he does. He says, seek me while I can be found.

While I can be found. He said, seek and you will find. Ask and it will be answered. Knock and the door will be opened. God has to be salt. Seek ye first the kingdom of God. His kingdom has to be salt.

Those who hunger and thirst, thirst after righteousness.

They will be filled. So sometime when we say, you know, I'm just spiritually empty, I don't know that we can point at everybody else for that.

That's not an outside problem.

Every time Ron's been spiritually empty, it was pretty much Ron's fault. I don't mean that there were not times in our life that pulled on me more spiritually than others, but if I allowed myself to get empty, God's given me all the resources to fill my well. He leads me beside still waters and he restores my soul. I don't care how depleted I am. God will restore me if I'll stop.

Yeah. Sometimes you just need a break. Sometimes we just need a break, right? Just a timeout. When our kids are acting crazy, when toddlers are showing out, sometimes you have to just go put them in their crib and shut the door and just give them a time by themselves. Sometimes adults, we need a timeout. Wouldn't that be nice? You need a break.

There's some natural things you can do to help maintain passion. One of the things you can do naturally is environment and atmosphere. There are times, there's certain times we're hoping I want to hear certain sounds. And like, we get up in the morning, usually put on the soaking worship.

Yep. Every morning we get up and make coffee, go sit down on the couch or the recliner.

We have our first talk of the.

Day, put on YouTube, soaking worship. And we just let that go all over our home because it creates an.

Atmosphere and it's replenishing.

Yes, it is.

So I've just got my physical rest, but now I've got something spiritually that's replenishing my soul just hearing those sounds. And I do know that you have always tried to make an environment that is warm. You've always Tried to take a house and create a warm environment. I do know that I try to keep a work atmosphere that motivates me.

Right.

So a lot of these things are not. Why do so many stores work on atmosphere? Why does Burger King? Why is it yellow and orange? Because they want you to get in and they want you to get out. It's called fast food. We went to a place last night, a new Asian restaurant where they wanted you to stay all night.

Oh, yeah. And we almost did.

We were there like two and a half hours, but the place was so pleasant.

It was.

I looked at you and said, that music is amazing. I looked at you and said, look at the lighting in this place.

And when we got our bill, we said, and we helped pay for this.

Place and we helped build this place. I think. Yes. And so. And we were sitting there realizing how the environment was affecting us. Right. And we were talking about. We had been pretty much going all day yesterday, even though it was some time off. And we just looked at you and said, man, we needed this, you know? But they created an environment that I wanted to be in. Others know what they're doing. You go to a high end fashion store, what do they do? They've got the light set in such a way. You go in the jewelry store, they got the light. They're creating environment. They're bringing you something to drink, something to eat. Exactly. Right.

So that you're comfortable in.

You want some water? Because if you stay here and start drinking water or you want some coffee, you'll likely spend some more money. There is a method behind all of this. So what atmospheres do you create? Sometimes you're going to be in charge of your own atmosphere.

That's right. The woman David said he had to encourage himself.

Exactly. The woman with the alabaster box walked into a room with 12 guys. She walked into a boys locker room. Those 12 guys were so familiar with Jesus that the normal traditional Hebrew greeting that a normal person would get, he's the son of God. And he didn't even get it. He didn't get his feet washed, which is Hebrew custom. He didn't get greeted with a kiss. Hebrew custom. None of the basic Hebrew customs of a commoner that he received because they had gotten so familiar with him. And the Bible says she went in the room, broke her box and the aroma filled the room. She went in that room and did not accept the atmosphere that was there. She created her own. Yes, she created her own atmosphere. So I've talked a lot, probably a lot more in hope on this. But I've hit a point where I really want to help leaders. I want to help people understand that being depleted on any level is not a terminal illness. Yeah.

I don't think anybody listening wants to go through life and be married and raise kids and work a job 9 to 5, 60 hours a week and not love it. And you know what Jesus even said? He said, I came. This is why I came. He said that you might have life and that you might have it more abundantly full of passion. Jesus wants you to have a life that you love. And so we're just trying to give you some things today that'll help you try to find your passion and maintain your passion.

That's the key. Finding it. Maintaining it. Yeah, finding it and maintaining it. I can't wait to preach Sunday and hope. I've been preaching a long time now, 150 to 250 times a year, since 91, I preach 156 times a year if I don't travel anywhere.

And you're my favorite preacher.

Okay. You got paid to say that, didn't you?

No. You are.

But you know what? I love it.

I'm pouring into you right now.

You are.

I'm helping you. Make me replenish your passion.

Help me replenish. Replenish, baby. So that's why the Bible says, let him who is taught share in all good things with him who teaches. Because you know something, your spiritual leaders, this is something people don't talk about a lot. They get depleted. And there needs to be things if their teachings have altered your life in a positive way, let those who have been taught turn back around and share in all good things. So in whatever way your life has been positively altered, turn back around and share that with me. You won't believe what a message. You won't believe what an email, what a text. You won't believe what a note does for me. You can have a thousand people comment negatively about you, but have that one person say, man, this right here changed my life. That's right. It keeps you going. Oh, my gosh. Oh, my gosh. So what happened? I taught something. It altered their life in a positive way, and they turned back around and said, I, I had to tell you the testimony of what this did in my life. What did you just do? You blessed the thing that blessed you. That's what tithe and offering is. Bless the thing that blesses you. Give to the thing that's given to you. Keep the thing strong that keeps you strong. So I'M about to go over my time here. Any last thing you want to say? Because I over talked you on this one. I know I did.

I want you to let us know if this has been a blessing to you, this has helped you in any way. Go follow us. We're on Riff. Ron does ask me anything.

Every Tuesday night. Every Tuesday night, 6:00 clock Pacific, 9 Eastern.

Yeah.

And it I'm going to tell you, we just did the first one and I thought it was awesome.

It was awesome. It was incredible.

Because honestly, I think that's my best stuff is when people ask me questions.

Go follow us on Riff. I do Wednesday morning, nine o' clock prayer power.

I need to be specific. Nine Pacific. Nine Pacific.

Yep. So powerful time on Wednesday morning.

So if you run out into the break room, put your ear pods in, eat your sandwich while you're in the break room and listen to the prayer time and get involved in that on the East Coast. You're on the East Coast. If you're in the morning, you might still have your second or third cup of coffee with it.

That's right.

So we got Ask Me anything. And in hopes prayer time is certainly right here. We want to see you also on.

YouTube, if you don't have a home church, you're just finding us. Come to redemption. We got ichurch.

Oh my gosh.

We got, we have a total virtual experience for you.

Go to the website. We got our church, our kids, our youth, our groups. We got our everything.

We just want to minister to you, want to do life with you. We love you. So until next time. It's rotten, hope unfiltered, real raw and relevant.

You did it again by y' all.