Testimony: Janet and Bruce Bledsoe

Hey, what's going on? Journey Principles. Nathan, Josh here. I'm actually sitting with Janet and Bruce Bledsoe from Conway, Arkansas. They blessed us. The long road trip was it 12, 12 and a half hours?

14.

14. Pretty close. 14 hours to come out here and experience the Journey Principles in the flesh. And what we're going to do today is just talk a little bit more about specifically what the Journey Principles book by Stephen Scoggins has done for them in their life. There's a lot of different things you can pull from this book, but we're going to drill down specifically of. Of how it's blessed them. So how you guys doing?

Just fine.

Thank you for having us.

Thanks for showing up. So, just an overarching question just about the book, the Journey Principles. It talks about your journey matched up with God's principles.

What's one or two things that really sticks out to you that you pull from the book and applied to turn your life in a more improved direction?

For me, the first chapter. You're a giver or you're a taker. You're a giver. If you follow God's principles, you're in his love and you give and you give.

Takers live in fear, they live in sorrow and the negative. And the more you live in that.

Principle, in that realm, you pull further and further away from people. You pull further and further away from God and you.

Actually start to push people away and you isolate yourself and you live more and more in the negativity.

To me, that was just like, wow.

I knew it. But applying it like that was different. Eye opening and came at a time when I really needed it.

That actually leads into another point of the book. There's another chapter in there that talks about isolation as a trap. She kind of walked you through a bit of a step by step process. What happens in your life, you're either a giver or you're taker. And if you choose the realm of taker versus giving to those around you, you end up finding yourself in a trap.

You trap yourself in isolation and it's harder and harder to come out of.

Yeah. Could you think that you could come out of that by yourself or.

Oh, Lord, no. I think it leads you down into depression and maybe even where people contemplate suicide and.

Very. And that's where the enemy takes a hold and he feeds you things that you're not strong enough to come out. You're not.

Good enough. You know, you know, nobody's going to care. Why should you try? Blah, blah, blah. And yeah. The only way you can come out of that is if a brother or sister leans down and gives you a hand up. And always the Lord. If you don't have the Lord as the center of your life, you're not going to get out of it. And I think that may be why we have more suicide today.

That's very true. So, Bruce, after reading the book and kind of studying it, you guys mentioned to me earlier that you kind of use it as a study guide. You read through it, and now you're kind of going through it as a study guide, which is great, especially since the Journey Principles is actually coming out with a study guide and a coaching system. What are some things that you pulled from it that's really helped you out?

Well, you know, like life is. We're on a journey, a journey for Christ. And right now it's coming a good time, you know, because of things that happen in our life. You know, death, you know, it's coming at a good time to help us through it. Life's gonna be a conflict. You're gonna have ups, you're gonna have downs.

Absolutely.

So I think that's what it's really meant a whole lot to me right now.

So it kind of helps you deal with some death and some sorrow. Right at the opportune moment is when this book was presented. There's actually a chapter in here. It's Journey Principle 6, Sorrow is an Illusion. Can you elaborate more on how that chapter specifically has helped the two of you?

Well, see where you really are at?

Christ is with you all the way through all those steps of sorrow.

You don't get marked down in the grief and the loss. You know they're in a better place. You know that you're going to see them again someday. And it helps you to see the. The positive side and the blessings of having had that person in your life. Not to be mired down in the sorrow and the grief and the pity.

Yeah, yeah. There's different levels of sorrow that you can step through, and everyone steps to them at different paces according to where they're at in life, their level of maturity. But what are some you specifically.

When the Journey Principles was introduced into your life.

How did you then apply it versus before? So picture going through that sorrow without the Journey Principles book. You already know how it did for you in your real life. Kind of compare the two for me and then for other folks out there who are going through or will go through in the future of losing someone or losing something to create sorrow.

My mom had Just passed. She had gone down the road of Alzheimer's, and it was very difficult to watch this woman who was very in control of her life go through the. She had the stages of anger and rebellion, childishness and all that sort of thing. So those are the kind of memories that were in my mind as we let her go.

And it was very difficult for me to work through all of that. Reading that book on how sorrow is an illusion, it helped me to. That's a part of grief. It's a part of what I needed to go through. I wasn't like, trapped in all of those thoughts. It was almost like a release and letting me say, okay, let go of this. The anxiety that you felt was.

An illusion. And that.

She'S a whole body now, she's a whole person in heaven with the Lord and she's happy. And I could rejoice in that and not hang on or be fogged up with all those memories of the really, really hard time that we had at the end.

You said during principal's book probably helped give you some guidelines for that.

It did. And it just so happened that we lost her at the end of December and you gave me that book for Christmas and that was the book that I started reading. So it was just God's hand right there for me. It was perfect. It helped me get through the grief a lot quicker and not be so confused.

Yeah. So really, for all of you guys out there in the Journey Principles Nation, this is just one small piece of what the book can offer not only you, but those around you as well. Everyone's going to go through something like this in their life, whether they have or they will go through losing someone or something that they hold very near and dear to their heart. But really, the overall theme of the book is overcoming obstacles. Every single one of us is going to have obstacles in life that hold us back from our true full potential of what we can be. And that's exactly what God wants us to do, is to reach our full potential. But it's almost like kicking water and treading water for so long? You're going to tire out eventually. Even some of the most powerful Olympian swimmers eventually have muscle fatigue and they tire out. So what happens when you start to tire out and you start to sink as you go closer and closer to drowning, really, the only way to get back up is to hold your hand out and have someone stronger than you at that point on more solid ground to pull you up. And that's exactly, really what the Journey Principles book does for you as the reader. Yes. It tells you a story of Steven's life and kind of how he went from homeless, from suicidal all the way to very successful business owner and now speaker and author. Really, it's not a book that just kind of makes you feel good.

It's not a book you're going to read one time, you're going to read it multiple times. I'm looking forward to that study.

And it's more of a. Here's how I overcame. Here's the principles that have been in the Bible for thousands of years. Here's how leaders of our country, leaders of our world have overcome. And this is really what I applied earlier to my life. And this is how you can apply it to your life.

You know, about serving others. That's. That's.

That's my goal, is to.

I'm sorry.

You're good.

Know what? I was gonna say that.

How Christ came to earth, you know, not to be. Sorry, Brian.

Not to.

Be served, but to serve. And I feel like that's what we should be doing, too, is to serve others. And that was in his chapter Principle Number eight, I think it was. Gils had a hold of us long enough.

But that's what I got out of that. Those steps. There was like four or five steps there, but serving was one of them. And like I said, you know, that's what I want to do, is to serve others. Yeah, I'm sorry about that.

No, it's good. This is really. This is where it actually grabs people and lets people know that. That it's real. That's when we can actually speak from the heart. And sometimes the heart makes our eyeballs swell a little bit.

That's a good book.

You're absolutely right.

Everybody should read it.

It kind of goes back to what you said about giving and taking. If you're a giver, then your life is fulfilled.

I spend too much time on the taker part when I really wanted to talk about the giver part, where.

You'Re so much more fulfilled, you're so much more happier, and it's a whole new journey just in giving and being able to help other people.

Absolutely. Yeah.

Make the world better.

It actually fulfills you a little bit more, too. It fills your cup whenever you're filling other cups.

It's a joy that you don't get any other way. And people miss out by not doing it. Yeah.

One of the most profound motivational speakers and authors that have really walked this earth, as Zig Ziglar said many years ago, that you can have anything that you want in life as long as you help those around you get exactly what they want.

Which is scriptural.

That is.

That is very scriptural. That's one thing I admired about Zig Ziglar is how close he aligned himself to Scripture and why I like this book. While he applies it to everyday life, you can tell this man's a really good Christian. He believes what he's saying and he lives what he talks and he walks it and he helps you apply it.

Absolutely.

Like his main theme, I guess. As iron sharpens iron, a man should sharpen your man. And that's the same way you should be to serve one another.

Yep.

The choice is yours. Do you want to live a life of victory or defeat?

Absolutely.

Yep.

So some more real, raw footage of what actually, the book can speak to you. You'll read this in your own private setting. It's your home. You'll think of people that are around you immediately. You'll think of maybe things that have happened in the past and things that have gone on. But the main thing to pull from it is that you can't really change that. The only thing you can do to make those things better is look for today and look for tomorrow, because you really can't change next week either. You can only look at what you're doing today. And how can you be a better version today than you were yesterday? And that's exactly what Steven talks about through every single one of these principles. He ends it with how to apply it and how to actually make yourself a better version today than you were yesterday. And I promise you that the better version that you are today will soon mask over anything that's happened to you in the past. So, again, check us out on Facebook at Journey Principles or check us out online@journeyprinciples.com we appreciate you coming out today. We'll see you real soon.