Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Welcome to my millionth hotel room. The life of a Catholic rock star.
[00:00:06] Yeah, it's really not all that glorious, guys. I want to share with you personally.
[00:00:10] God has been bringing me to the end of my rope lately, really to the edge of my strength.
[00:00:16] I'm in over my head. I'm just full confession. The amount of things that he has me doing right now, and I really think all these things are from him.
[00:00:24] If you told me a year ago that I would have the level of output I have right now, I'd probably laugh at you and say, yeah, that's impossible.
[00:00:30] We have our Daily Anchor email. People ask me, are you writing that every day? Yeah, it's not my staff. It's not AI, by the way, if you're not getting that, you need to click below this video and get that. It's daily inspiration. I promise you. It's the thing that you're going to look forward to opening up in your inbox every day. People love this.
[00:00:45] No one who gets the Daily Anchor doesn't like it. So there's my guarantee. I just want to inspire you. It's free, but we're doing that every single day. There's a Sunday reflection. I travel the country and speak somewhere different every week.
[00:00:57] And that's a full time job right there. Oh, yeah. And then there's a confirmation program that we're writing right now, but it's got me to the place where I'm like, okay, Lord, I can't possibly muster that much inspiration from the head and heart of Chris Stefanik. How much juice can you squeeze out of one orange? It's just not in there. I'm at the end of my rope.
[00:01:19] I want to say yes to all these things, but I just don't have it in me.
[00:01:22] And then let's add a next level to that.
[00:01:25] He really brought me to the edge of the cliff last night. If I sound kind of nasally, it's because I got septoplasty. They straightened a deviated septum last week, which, by the way, septoplasty will save your marriage if you're a snorer. So you're welcome, Natalie. But if you're a doctor watching this, you're thinking, okay, eight days after septoplasty, why did you get in a plane and give a talk? To which I reply, I don't know, it may not have been a good idea, but here I am. And it went great. Thank you, God. But on top of the septoplasty and the healing from that, I started getting a nasal Infection from the surgery. And I'm about to speak last night and I feel this pressure all around my eye socket. And I'm taking steps and I feel like my teeth in the back are going to fall out. And I'm like, lord, I can't do this.
[00:02:12] I don't have it in me.
[00:02:14] And I can almost hear him reply, I know. I've been waiting for you to say that for 20 years, guys. You don't have it in you. And the good news of the gospel is you don't have to have it all in you.
[00:02:29] I got this beautiful vision of prayer. This in prayer this morning.
[00:02:33] And you know when I was thinking about like, I can't possibly muster all this for myself, Lord, I got this vision of not with my eyes, you know, like a whoa. Vision, but in my heart. And I think the Lord speaks through scripture when we're reading it in the things that we imagine. And that's the beautiful Ignatian style of prayer. But I was reading the scripture about how the one who preaches is supposed to do it and the one who serves is supposed to do it with the strength provided by God. So that in all of you, whatever you're doing, that Jesus Christ should be glorified. But I got this powerful image in my head of this Olympic sized pool over a teapot. And that was me.
[00:03:11] Yes, I am a little teapot, but I am not short and stout. But this Olympic sized pool was pouring into the teapot, which was then pouring into people's cups.
[00:03:22] And that Olympic sized pool is God. See, he's brought me to a place where I can't possibly try to muster all this from within myself. And I'm forced to say, okay, I don't have it in me, but God, you're the source of inspiration and you're infinite.
[00:03:39] And here's what, I'm gonna apply this to your life.
[00:03:42] Whether you're preaching or whether you're in finance or whatever the heck you're doing. I need you to hear this. We have something called fomo. Fear of Missing out. And as we get older, we start to develop something called foro. Fear of running out. I didn't make that up. That's from Steve Fertek. But it's so great, I had to steal it, that we come to grips with the fact that we're finite, that our stores are finite, that our warehouse is finite. And that might be if you're doing something like me. I can't possibly think of all these new ideas every week.
[00:04:10] Or maybe you're in. Well, everybody's in finance in some way. If you have a family you're providing for, if you're saving up for retirement, dude, you have a finite amount of money. Even if it's a lot, it's still finite.
[00:04:22] But we start fearing running out. And I gotta tell you, man, when I was in my twenties as a seriously broke youth minister in east la, I wasn't afraid of running out of money.
[00:04:31] Now I'm 50, I'm doing better than I've ever done.
[00:04:33] I mean, I'm not rich, but I'm doing fine. And now I have fear of running out because you start to see the finitude of life and the finitude of your limits and your own capacity and you start to see the edge of that and you develop this fear of running out.
[00:04:51] And the Lord is telling us when you see your own limits, you got three options, man. One is to burn out.
[00:05:00] The second is to stress out. The third is to really begin to trust God as the infinite source of all your store.
[00:05:08] Guys, if you fear running out of money, I gotta call you on something, Christian. Your provider is not your bank account.
[00:05:16] It's Jesus Christ. It's God. It's your heavenly Father who loves you. He's looking out for you. I'm not saying to be irresponsible. Look, I take time preparing for my talks and the stuff that I do for a living, I save money for retirement. But my trust, my peace comes from God as my father providing for me. When I don't get that straight, when I choose door number one or two and not door number three, which is to trust in God, you know what I do? I end up becoming a stressed out mess thinking I'm relying on myself and I have this stressed out spirit of self reliance and I become a jerk to my family and I just end up dumping it on them. You guys, when you live that way, you end up hurting people.
[00:05:58] God is calling us to go through life trusting that he's got us, that you're never gonna run out. When your source in your store is the Olympic sized swimming pool. It's Almighty God, he's got your back.
[00:06:09] And this is where the Beatitudes ties in.
[00:06:12] See the Beatitudes. I love the word used for blessed. And I shared this a few weeks ago in our Sunday reflection that the Greeks called their gods Makarios. It was a special word for blessedness and happiness that they only applied to their gods because they were beyond the reach of the world. That's the kind of happiness and blessedness that they had. They're makarios.
[00:06:31] They came to use that word to describe really blessed people. That guy is so rich. He's like a God. And we use this language today. Michael Jordan. He's not just a basketball player, he's a God on the courts. Which means no mortal basketball player, even a great one, can even remotely touch that guy, right?
[00:06:49] Jesus turns that word on its head and he says, blessed Makarios are the poor in spirit.
[00:06:57] What?
[00:06:59] Now, think about it.
[00:07:00] The goal of having lots of money is so that you don't stress about money. It's so that the concerns that other people mere mortals deal with when it comes to money can't even touch you because you got that many zeros in your bank account. I got news for you guys. I've met people with insane amounts of zeros in their bank accounts who are more stressed about money than the poor, who are less generous in giving than the poor.
[00:07:24] Are they the blessed ones?
[00:07:26] No, no, no. The poor in spirit, who are aware that their providence is an infinite storehouse. That's where you want to be, man. And if that's where all your work for money is trying to get you, why don't you cut to the chase and trust your heavenly father and go there right now and say, lord, I trust you. You're my infinite storehouse. I am Makarios, godlike in my blessedness. Tell me who's more blessed. The person who's got all the likes on Instagram. The influencer who everyone loves but who is stressed out every day that if he doesn't keep that going and keep the machine going and keep all the likes coming, that he can't provide for his family and he can't make a living. Or the person who says, I need one person to like me to hit the like button on my life. Blessed are the persecuted, those who renounce all the likes of the world for the love of God.
[00:08:15] That's the person who's beyond the reach, beyond the touch of the world, who's not dominated by furo fear of running out because he knows that his father is his infinite storehouse. Guys, whatever way God is bringing you to the brink, to the edge of your own strength, that's not your cue, Christian, to stress out. That's your cue to lean in to the source of your infinite warehouse and infinite store. Your heavenly father who loves you, who's got your back, who's providing for you so that no matter what kind of output you have, no matter what you're trying to save for no matter who you're trying to love and serve and maybe running out of your own steam a little bit. Time to just live in the moment and say, I can't possibly manage all this, Lord.
[00:08:58] Yeah, I'm running out of my own steam.
[00:09:00] Time for you to kick in.
[00:09:03] I'm going to live in the moment and know that you'll provide for me right now.
[00:09:07] Amen.
[00:09:09] Amen. I love you guys. God bless you.
