03.12.2023 2 Corinthians 5.7 Faith
Faith, to the outside world, seems uneducated and foolish. To the secular, Christians seem to believe in fairy tales. Our doctrine is called out for being inaccurate due to the inaccuracies of transcription over such a vast period of time; yet, the secular teachings from thousands of years ago remain valid.
“For we walk by faith, not by sight” (ESV Bible, 2001, 2 Corinthians 5:7).
Our daughter’s birth has reminded us that God is good. A famous Christian film casts a pair of men who, throughout four movies, continually state “God is good all the time” and “all the time, God is good”. Our feelings could not possibly agree more emphatically.
We pray that our message today has encouraged you and that you will seek the Bible more fervently than ever. Blessing to you our brothers and sisters.
Stress is not the goal, be well.
— Daniel Miller, Ed.S., C.S.C.S.
Transcript
Discipleship Conditioning
.:March 12, 2023
Transcript
::Welcome.
::Thank you for joining the discipleship conditioning.
::We like to start off each.
::Show with prayer requests and the e-mail remains the same prayer at error at physiology.com today is March 12th, 2023.
::It's actually my first late podcast.
::I did record on the 9th and so three days later is today.
::But after this weekend I had it in my head that I was supposed to record tomorrow, Monday the 13th.
::And as I was working on some other things this afternoon, I realized.
::I think I forgot the podcast, so here we are recording and I'm thankful that we're able to record given the events of the.
::Last two days.
::We'll talk more about it as it applies to two Corinthians 5-7, but we'd like to announce the birth of our second daughter, Jordan.
::Our mission for who we serve is men who have ever felt persecuted over their God-given qualities. The what, who we aim to do is through our anecdotal experience in the scholastic truth of the Bible, we teach how God's word impacts every facet.
::Of our lives.
::And the why we do.
::It as we are faced with the problem of societal influence.
::Outweighing biblical influence, which leads to our succumbing of evil tactics intended.
::To destroy us.
::Good point in time to give credit to where credit is due and provide a plug non advertising plug. I'm not sponsored by these individuals but to appreciate what they're doing. We've started a streaming service earlier this year called minnow MINNO.
::That offers Christian faith-based shows for children.
::And uh.
::I may have mentioned this on the previous episode.
::But we're.
::We're tired of what should be child friendly. That's not child friendly and so my daughter's watching.
::With my wife, Amanda, she's watching a show called allegories and they have a number of shows on their armor of God is good and another one is see kids.
::All good stuff.
::Feel confident in her being able to watch those.
::And I said she was watching with my wife.
::Amanda, Amanda, and I all sit down and watch them sometimes, too.
::They're good, good stuff.
::So if you're looking for something that you can trust, something that is entertaining and fruitful for your kids and you are struggling like we are battling this societal influence outweighing biblical influence.
::One of the.
::Main ways that it gets through to us is through our televisions, and so we would highly recommend that you check out Minow.
::There are other good programs out there, other applications out there.
::But we recommend minnow.
::That's what we're using right now and we thoroughly enjoy it.
::The answer that we feel that we have, even though we're not counselors, we're not therapists, we're not lawyers, we're not doctors, we're not accountants.
::We still feel like we have an answer in our story.
::Through our story, we aim to serve brothers and sisters with authenticity in the midst of change, through Our Calling in ministry as teachers, today's.
::Anecdotal experience.
::Today's story, if you will, as it applies to two Corinthians 5.
::Seven is going to hit this nail on the head that we are in the midst of change that we are on this journey with you.
::We don't claim to be ahead of you in this journey.
::We claim to be with you in this journey, I think.
::A big part about.
::Christianity that a lot of people miss is that it is our job as disciples, as Christians to meet people where they're at and that's what we serve and strive to do is to meet you where you're at and to be on that journey with you.
::We are self sponsored Air Rep physiology.com.
::If you go to the website, you'll see blog style articles which for the most part pair with these podcasts.
::But otherwise our blog style articles for.
::The areas of strength and conditioning anatomy and Physiology.
::Discipleship, conditioning, etc.
::We write nonfiction books.
::Book we're working on right now is called the year without TV.
::The section on our website that has non fiction books is actually where we would like to direct you if you feel called to donate to what we're doing.
::A strange place to to.
::Send someone for it.
::But we don't have just a donations page.
::We could easily make when we don't, we want to give you some bit of vote or value back with your donation if you choose to make one.
::So if you go on to air@physiology.com/books, you'll find our list of book ideas.
::And the only one of those that we're actively working on right now is called the year without television.
::If there's any of the other titles that you're interested in, or you want to support the creation of a year without television, or you just want to support us in general.
::You can use any of.
::Those book titles as a CART item to check out for a donation amount.
::What that also does, in addition to provide the donation or an Ave.
::for the donation, is it then provides a vote for that book.
::So when we're done with the year without television, we'll look at that list on which book we're going to begin creating at that point, and whichever 1.
::Has a sufficient amount or the most votes financially.
::Is will be the book that we?
::Will begin at that point.
::We also offer strength and conditioning programs.
::I mentioned in the previous two shows that we're working on a lacrosse and soccer program.
::Those will be coming shortly.
::We have two courses that are linked through Udemy right now.
::Working on two other courses that are going to be hosted on the website.
::I mentioned last time that we had been looking at 2 learning management system softwares we have selected which one we're going to go with barring anything unforeseen.
::And we are going to learn as much as we can about that system and at some point we will be porting our website over from we believe to this new platform.
::So there's a bunch of work to be done there. In addition, again, I mentioned before with this faith-based podcast that we're working on transcripts.
::And that is a process, a timely process and.
::You're listening to discipleship conditioning.
::We also have discipleship conditioning with our coaching service that we offer.
::Offer something else.
::I was going to mention forgive that pause there.
::I'll think of it in a moment.
::OK?
::We also have a summer camp.
::That is for people.
::In the local area, unless you are.
::Willing to come from out of town that's going to be held in Greenleaf, Idaho, which is about 45 minutes West of Boise ID.
::And it's an area to small private Christian School where we.
::Can pray.
::And we can get better with our athletic performance.
::So details on that is also included on the website.
::On any of this, if you'd like to inquire further, of course you can visit the website or you could send an e-mail to hello@errettphysiology.com.
::Excited to share our story with you?
::This is the quickest that I've made it to what really matters.
::And that is the Bible.
::And I think it's because of how excited I am to share how God has recently worked in our lives.
::And so today's Bible verses, 2 Corinthians.
::57 It is nice and short, short and sweet, says for we walk by faith, not by sight.
::And boy, do we have a story for you over the last few days that has just kind of rocked our world and exemplifies this walking by faith.
::The 9th, which would have been Thursday, I recorded a podcast, went on normal business for Thursday.
::And went to bed that night, planning on waking up early, taking my daughter to school and having a fairly typical Friday.
::At 4:22 AM, I was woken up by my beautiful wife.
::Who said something to the effect of?
::I'm sorry, I know you're trying to sleep, but I think my water just broke, which is totally hurt.
::So I jolted out of bed as any husband.
::Any father to be would would.
::And uh, I was just kind of rolling my eyes at how she approached it.
::I think that if I was, if I.
::Was in her.
::Shoes. I probably would.
::Have grabbed the other person and started shaking them.
::Wake up.
::We got to go.
::Assess the situation. Felt confident that that is, that is what happened, she said. It happened about 418 just a few minutes before she woke me up.
::And so I started getting all the pre packed items and the non packed items and throwing them in the car and getting everything together as much as we we could.
::We have a Saint Bernard Duke, so we had to put him out and his dog running back and prepare food and water for him.
::My daughter was with us and she's in her room, sleepiness and a 5 1/2 year old.
::Would be at 4:30 in the morning.
::And so she was the last thing that I attended to.
::So I wanted her to get as much sleep as possible.
::And so I literally grabbed her out of her bed and held her like she was a newborn and walked out to a car that had been running for probably 20 minutes and was nice.
::Hostie and got her in there and explained the situation and kind of let her wake up.
::We got her car and we drove down to the local hospital, which for us is about 15 minutes away.
::And went through the whole process of checking in. I cannot believe when someone's in labor, how much paperwork you have to go through. I don't know if any of you have.
::Experienced this but.
::I wonder what they do in in situations where babies coming now.
::You know.
::Luckily for us it wasn't the case.
::And so we mind our P's and Q's and we sat through the paperwork and went into one room and had an ultrasound done and.
::Baby position and confirmed that her water had broke and she was entering labor.
::And so they moved us to a different room and we got set up to do have her do some exercises and things like that to get the birthing process going.
::And both those exercises worked to really started getting some vigorous, vigorous contractions.
::And we we're kind of rushed into this.
::Zero to 10.
::You know where we thought.
::Baby would be.
::Born probably late that evening to all of a sudden, OK, we've progressed quickly.
::Baby's going to come within the next few hours.
::Perhaps at this point in time, this is probably.
::Oh gosh.
::Probably noon or so.
::Daughter was amazing, she.
::Loved the experience she was watching.
::Everything and it just worked out fantastic.
::The the policy that allows kids into the room during labor had changed two days prior to us arriving, which is just another example of God at work and just amazing something.
::Unbeknownst to us, we didn't plan on that.
::I planned going in arguing with a number of nurses and managers and letting them know that my daughter was going to be.
::There and then, thankfully, God took that away.
::I didn't have to.
::Go through that.
::Hadn't planned on any family being at the hospital, but my dad said he wouldn't miss it for the world and so he headed from about an hour hour to hour and 15 minutes out of town in.
::And what a blessing that was, because as the story continues to unfold, there was a point where baby's heart rate was dropping during contractions.
::And at the time, we didn't know why, but later on we found out that the umbilical cord was wrapped around her neck.
::And so as her head was being pushed down the birthing canal, the cord was constricting around her neck and pulling them and.
::So things got dire quickly.
::We had requested an all female staff.
::We felt convicted in that.
::And they apologized to us at that time because they said our our doctor that's on call, we were working with a midwife at that point in time.
::Our doctor that's on call is male, but we want to get him in here to check the situation and to advise because this isn't going the way that we wanted to.
::And so he came in and credit to him within about 30, maybe 40 seconds.
::He said let's get her.
::Let's go.
::Let's get prepped.
::Let's go.
::So all of a sudden, the cesarean section was a reality.
::And thankfully my father had arrived about 30 minutes prior to that otherwise.
::I would have had to wait in the waiting room with my daughter.
::My daughter calls my dad poppy, and so she was able to spend some really wonderful quality time with him for about an hour out in the waiting room, and we're thankful for that.
::She's very shy.
::She's very much a mama's girl.
::She's very much a daddy's girl.
::And so I was a little.
::Anxious to find out what they talked about and how.
::How much that they shared in common and how much they had to talk about?
::She's very well behaved. Child couldn't ask for a better 5 1/2 year old. She loves her puppy dearly, but she's in that stage right now, one of many stages that kids go through where she definitely has a preference list and mom and dad are at the top of that list and takes sometimes a little bit of coaching.
::To get her to spend some time.
::With somebody else but happy to report that it all worked out fine and actually way better than fine worked out fantastic from that regard.
::They spent some quality time about an hour together, quality time, really good time talked about some great things and it was just.
::Really necessary for their relationship, for them to spend some one-on-one time together. That opportunity doesn't come a ton because we live so far apart and.
::We are very overprotective parents and frankly we don't go out very much.
::So anyways, getting outside the point it's about this point in the show that I get outside the point, so that's at least that's consistent.
::But the point in the main part of the story is the labor and delivery.
::And so after I got Olivia situated.
::And she was happy.
::Be there walked into the area that I was supposed to be.
::I think there was a nurse waiting for me to to direct me and had to get into this attire to go into the surgery room, which I was thankful that they allowed that.
::And also thankful that they don't allow children in the surgery room and more than that, thankful that poppy was there.
::As I mentioned earlier.
::I was comfortable with our daughter being present for a natural delivery, but a surgery not not quite as much.
::Maybe she's a little bit older, but anyways, so I entered the area just outside the surgery room and they're getting her prepared and all that and emotions.
::Hitting me.
::I'm in tears and I'm just trying to you.
::Think the best thoughts and.
::And everything else and around that time I started to enter prayer.
::We prayed as a family hours before and around that time, just wanted things to be OK.
::I was trying to keep a number of family members in contact and so I was sending text messages out and I'm have no doubt in my mind that there were prayers on the other end of these text messages that as soon as they they knew that a caesarean section was probably most likely that.
::That they would be praying for it, and apologies to those individuals that I texted in that moment of.
::Time because they.
::Think I recall texting.
::One word cesarean to a number of people and.
::Anyways, heat of the moment so they let me into the room and around that time.
::Baby's heart rate comes back.
::And is stable doing well, and the doctor again, to his credit, says, let's let's hold off.
::Let's stop where we're at.
::Let's hold off and let's kind of analyze the situation.
::Let's try a few round of pushes for normal birth and we'll go from there and.
::So we did. We wound about 5 rounds of pushing about 310 second push.
::And the doctor came over to us and said, yeah, you know, I think that we need to do one or two things.
::We need to either need to go ahead with Caesarian, or we need to use a vacuum.
::And the reason why they recommended a caesarean is because, again, during contractions heart rate was decreasing.
::It was, it was coming back up, but it was decreasing during contractions.
::And so we needed to get baby out.
::And Doctor said that he just didn't think that she was going to be able to do this within a timely fashion.
::It was going to be multiple hours of pushing if we were to live it.
::Limit this to natural.
::So of course is is.
::Very Cognizant parents, we went over the risks of everything and prayed right then about it, on what we should do and didn't have a clear vision on what we should do.
::And so I had to put my faith in God.
::We had to put our faith in God, put my trust, put our trust in the expertise of the doctor, and trust that he knew what he was doing.
::And so we agreed to see if we could use a vacuum to help the process.
::And it did 4 pushes later. Maybe Jordan came out about 2:50 PM that day and just a flood of emotions, as you would expect.
::And just a whirlwind of a weekend, it has been for context.
::Jordan was expected on the 19th of March.
::She came on the 10th of March, so when my wife said sorry to wake you but my waters broke, I was very surprised.
::And certainly did not anticipate having that sort of Friday and then a 24 hour stay thereafter till midday Thursday or midday Saturday. Excuse me.
::As I look back on it now for we walk by faith, not by sight.
::God's amazing and how he changed the course of events on how he worked through things.
::The doctor had even mentioned that even if I use the vacuum.
::We'll try like.
::Maybe three to five rounds of this, but.
::There is the possibility that we end up doing a cesarean anyways, which led to length and conversation on our part on.
::If this fails and we have to do cesarean anyway, should we just do the Cesarean and his recommendation was for the vacuum, not the cesarean, even though it may not work?
::And instead of three to five rounds of pushing, it was four pushes and she was with us.
::And I have no doubt in my mind that prayers were answered.
::I have no doubt in my mind that God was at work in that point in time.
::Shortly after her birth, as we both were able to hold Jordan for a little while.
::I was able to exit and go back out to my daughter and father and try to get out.
::The good news as much as I could through the tears.
::Everybody in the family was shocked that it didn't end up being a caesarean because of the text message I'd sent out and.
::What I told my father and those sorts of things.
::And thankfully, you know we.
::Both were able to be there.
::And witnessed the birth and Amanda was able to go back to the room directly there afterwards. She didn't have to go through surgery and those sorts of things, and so very immediately we were just blessed and able to spend time with Jordan, one-on-one and and just get into some wonderful things.
::My dad and a little later, my sister were able to come in and and be there for this magical moment and magical.
::First hours of life and pictures galore.
::Picture Picture pictures finally got to the point where I could update some family, do some facetimes those sorts of things.
::Went home, took care of some business, came back about an hour later, spent the night in the hospital.
::Some of you know what that's like, probably for most of us, worst night sleep that we've ever received.
::Got through the night.
::I probably slept about 3 hours that first night my wife slept about 3 as well.
::We both woke up at the same time and doctors were coming in to check as nurses were coming in to check us and.
::Took care of.
::Jordan did what?
::We needed to do, but couldn't believe that it was like 2 something in the morning and.
::That we'd slept for three hours.
::For a moment I was convinced it was Saturday.
::My days were thrown off for a moment.
::I said, oh, actually it was only two.
::Hours because daylight savings.
::Here in Idaho, we recognize daylight savings, although I think I heard that next year either.
::Maybe it's Idaho or maybe it's nationwide that we're not going to have daylight savings anymore, which I personally in a I'm a fan of getting rid of daylight savings.
::But nevertheless the nurse reminded me that it was Saturday and not Sunday.
::And so daylight savings was later the next.
::Day and so we've got 3 hours and got some coffee.
::Felt pretty good.
::Wife was very tired.
::She took care of what she needed to do, but after an hour or two I told her just, you know, go to sleep.
::I'll take care of.
::Everything. And so uhm.
::Did that very anxious to get out of the hospital later that day, as most of us are 24 hours after birth.
::And uh.
::Although overnight thankfully went fairly quickly, those last probably 3 or 4 hours in the hospital seemed to feel like 40 hours.
::But made it out of the hospital, made it home and happy family, happy, Blessed family together Saturday night and now Sunday.
::So blessed and distracted and happy that I forgot to record this podcast this morning, so here I am in the afternoon.
::But we have a valid excuse for forgetting which.
::Day it is.
::And we're so thankful to announce Jordan's birth and so thankful that God just handled this in an amazing way in a way that we could have never fathomed in a way that the doctors and nurses couldn't have fathomed. Everybody talked about how.
::They expect things to go this way under this circumstance and how amazing it was that four pushes later Jordan came into this world.
::And so just so thankful, so thankful and and this verse came to mind this afternoon fairly quickly and reflection of what we've been through.
::Corinthians 2 Corinthians 5 seven for we walk by faith, not by sight.
::The latter part of that not by sight, is is really an opportunity for me to highlight that I'm in the midst of change myself and almost ask myself and us a question.
::But how can I decrease my reliance on vision?
::Were brought up in a society that.
::There's so much value tied to seeing is believing.
::When we are first grade 2nd grade, we were the dinosaurs came 65 million years ago. And so right there we're being taught that this earth hasn't been around for the amount of years that the Bible says what man knows is greater than what God.
::Those, but we've studied in the dirt, dirt, we know it's 65 million years old. There's no possibility that we could have made an error.
::We understand everything.
::It's always about this pursuit of perfection, this pursuit, to understand all things.
::In a sense, we're trying to be God ourselves and that conditioning.
::Their children happens at a young age, happened for me in public schools in the late 80s, early 90s.
::You just accept it when you're that age. You just say, OK, dinosaurs came 65 million years ago, and I can't believe this unless I see it. You learn about a rainbow.
::And you believe it because you've seen it before or you don't believe it because you have.
::You've never seen it before, but.
::Then when you.
::See it you are kind of converted in that instance on this is a reality.
::You hear about the Aurora borealis for the first time and you see pictures on the Internet, but you don't believe it.
::You have to go up north to actually see it for yourself to to believe it.
::We have people on this earth called Flat Earthers that believe that the earth is flat and that everything related to space is a conspiracy.
::So much reliance on vision.
::On scene as a means of proof, how can I decrease that?
::How can I hold my greatest faith?
::And things that cannot be seen.
::Although I don't have the perfect answer for you as I'm in the midst of my change as well.
::And I will learn more on this answer day by day for the rest of my life, because faith is an active work.
::Every single day of our lives.
::I can speak on the experience that I've had these last few days.
::And tell you adamantly.
::That God is at work and he's.
::Doing wonderful things.
::And if we just have the faith here requires.
::It's amazing what things can come through.
::I'll tell you this.
::I was at the point.
::During the beginning of the preparation for caesarean section.
::That had I not been religious, I would have prayed and I would have said God, if you can do this for me, I'll never falter from you.
::I will believe in you, and I will never falter now.
::Thankfully, I wasn't in that position.
::Devout Christian prior and my prayers were centered around God's will be done.
::With certainly my selfish preference on a specific route that takes place.
::And I'm lucky in this instance that what I sought for the most part came to be.
::Even if professional doctors nurses.
::Predicted something else.
::So I can speak based on my recent experience and a number of experiences in my life that God is alive.
::God is working.
::And he recognized his faith.
::To let us put our faith in him.
::Let us move forward.
::And let us not be subject to believing is seen and let us not be subject to.
::The what have you done for me lately?
::Because I know in my secular days I made similar prayers and.
::The way I wanted things to be came to be true and came to be how it actually unfolded.
::But then I didn't hold my end to the bargain and turn myself over to Jesus.
::I didn't hold my into the bargain and keep that faith that I so desperately.
::Prayed for in that moment in time.
::Thankfully, the last five years of my.
::Life have been quite different.
::I often wonder how I could be so lucky to have God's grace.
::You may feel the same.
::But regardless of how lucky I am, I'm thankful that my life has turned out the way that it has.
::Specific and more particularly.
::These last five years.
::What a wonderful story to share.
::I'm happy that I was able to spend some time with you today.
::I hope that you're doing well.
::And I hope that you will reach out to us so that we can be of.
::Service to you.
::In conclusion, when there is a decision to be made.
::I seek prayer, scripture wise counsel, in that order.
::And I think in the first episode, I gave credit.
::If I didn't, I apologize, but I didn't come up with that.
::A dear friend in men's group actually discipled me and recommended that I take that approach.
::And ever since he told me that I've had a note written in my phone that I've applied it over and over and over.
::That whenever a decision is to be made, seek prayer, scripture and wise counsel in that order.
::So again, if you need prayer, please reach out at prayer@airatphysiology.com.
::If you need wise counsel or if you want to inquire or simply say hello, reach out at hello at errettphysiology.com. Let's end with the Lord's Prayer.
::Pray, then, like this.
::Our father in heaven.
::How will be your name?
::Your Kingdom come.
::Your will be done on Earth as it is in heaven.
::Give us this day Our Daily Bread and forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
