What it looks like to zoom in on scripture, healing and our healthy relationships. There is true freedom in detaching from our idols and clinging to the hope of Jesus.
Tribe, A Jesus Revival
S5 E2: Level of Zoom.
Hey everyone, it's Britt Vega, host of the Tribe podcast. Here at Tribe, we believe that we are all called to live, love, and pursue our God-given purpose within the context of a tribe. Not only were we created by a God that is community, love is our identity and calling. It's literally in our DNA. If you want to hear real stories about God's great love and faithfulness, you're in the right place. Let's get a new our message for today. Hey y'all! Welcome back to the Tribe podcast. I am so excited that you are here. Today, I want to talk about our level of Zoom, because it is such a good follow-up to last week's episode about choosing to trust God and not be afraid or fearful. And if y'all have not listened to that episode, I would pause this and go back and listen to it, because there was so much truth and encouragement tucked into that message. When I say level of Zoom, what I'm really talking about is what we notice when we pay attention to two different things. So we're paying attention to Scripture, and then we're paying attention to the people in our lives, which we know are gifts that God has given us. So let's start at the beginning. When we Zoom out, the big picture, and what Scripture tells us is what we're reminded of when we read Jeremiah, it's that God fights for us, and he is for us. With him, no one can come against us, and it's a reminder that God brought us up out of our wilderness, whatever that means or looks like in our own lives. And God is just such a God of details, and Scripture is such a beautiful story. So high level, I know that God is for me, he is holding me in his hand, that he is walking and leading me into a future that he has already paved a way for, and spoiler alert, y'all the same is true for you. God tells us that he's got us and that he's not going anywhere. It's his character, truly, like it's just who he is. So that's the big picture when we Zoom out, and it's the foundation of what this next part of the message is going to get into, but we can trust God's great love for us. So just make sure you're centered there. Now, in regards to Zooming in on Scripture, I'm talking about rereading so that we can really see the repetition and the patterns and the double callings. Also our ability to understand the climate and the culture of the time period, listen, I know it's easy to open the Bible and to read the words and then try to copy and paste that part of Scripture or those words or that encouragement for our current lives. Like trying to fit the Bible in our lives in a way that makes sense or is pretty. And honestly, I've read the Bible like this before. In fact, I've lived many seasons of reading the Bible in this way. But when we do it like this, what happens is we're missing out because we aren't zoomed in on all the details of who God is and the message that he's trying to send us. For me, honing in or zooming in on Scripture and really adjusting my lens usually means reaching out to the senior pastor at our church. Sometimes it is chatting in the lobby when I have a question, but oftentimes and don't miss this, it's a simple text message with something that maybe I'm confused about or an area of Scripture where for whatever reason I just need clarity or I'm just not really understanding the climate or the culture. So shout out to pastor Ken Murphy who literally always responds to me with answers and guidance to the thoughts and the questions that I have. He has been such an encourager to me on this journey of tribe. And listen, y'all, we need these people and these resources that we can tap into in our process of discovery and zooming in on Scripture. Okay, so what happens when we take our time and we adjust our focus or our lens is that there is intentionality at every level of our Bible reading. God is the creator and I don't want to miss out on all the good things that he's called into being. Like he literally created, he called, he named and he spoke everything into being. So why wouldn't we want to slow down and adjust our focus or our level of zoom and really take our time with Scripture? It's an opportunity and it's a privilege to be able to read the Bible in this way. Now in our process of zooming in on people. Okay, sometimes this can be harder than zooming in on Scripture because when we choose to zoom in, what we're really choosing is to face reality at all costs. And we start to really see and name the things that we are or we are not comfortable with because our relationship with Jesus is growing and it can be painful to zoom in on people because let's be honest. It's so much easier to just go with the flow and not rock the boat and go to the lunch or the dinner or the get together and choose to be okay and just comfortable with everyone. But please let me remind you that Jesus had his 12, his three and his one. Okay, Jackie help Harry, who is someone that I follow in many ways. Her ministry and her podcast and social media and just really she's someone I would consider to be a hero of the faith. She is so bold in the way that she stands up and she speaks the truth of Scripture. She says that there are three categories of people that we kind of find ourselves doing life with. She calls it meals ministry and misery. Jesus loved and he ate and he broke bread with everyone. He did ministry with only 12. He did misery, so his times of heartache and sorrow with three. So as we are in this process of zooming in on our people, I think it's important to use this as a template. And if we are sold out for Jesus and that means we are trying to live our life the way that he does. I'm not saying that you have to name your 12 and your three and your one and then call or text those people and let them know where they fit into your life. But what I do mean is recognizing that we aren't called to go deep with everyone. We just aren't. But when we take the time to zoom in on our 12 and our three, something really powerful happens. And I've seen this play out time and time again in my life. We narrow our focus and we start pouring into and checking in and praying for those people. Y'all, we fill our calendars with these friends and we lock arms in community with these treasured people because we trust that if God wanted us to do our life with anyone else in the current season that we are in, he would bring those people into our lives. As believers, we believe that there are no coincidences and that nothing is done by accident and nothing is wasted by God. And listen, I have had many seasons of many different types of friends, which is what makes me so grateful for the ones that I have now. They love the Lord first and foremost. And then second to that, I know that they are for me. They show up for me. They pour into me. They encourage me both in my seasons when I'm deep, deep in my valleys and I'm mourning and I'm just walking in the night through some really hard stuff. And then also on the best days of my life or the highest peaks or mountain tops. I know that the advice that they offer me is going to be biblical and it's not going to be feelings based and I appreciate that so much because I have zoomed in on these special friendships and I thank God for them. And to be honest, it looks different than any other season of friendships or life. Now, I want to mention neuroscience for a second, which I know is not something that I normally do, but I bring it up because what I've learned is that we only see a fraction of what our eyes take in. Like that is so fascinating to me. So while this is happening and our eyes are taking in just a little bit, our brains are making executive decisions about what we see, which essentially creates our reality for us. So listen, do you see where this could become a problem? Because if we are not facing reality at all costs and we have not taken the time to do the work, we are going to have a distorted view. And when I've read those words, like our brains are making executive decisions. I don't know, like that word executive just feels so big and so powerful and so crucial. So if we have never processed or healed from our past or from the trauma that we have incurred, y'all, our view of reality is not going to be a healthy one. There are neuroscientists, people way, way smarter than me that literally study how our nervous system develops and works. And then they're able to look at its impact on our behavior. It's what they've committed their lives to and science is being proven by the work that they're doing. So if we are living within an illusion, instead of reality, y'all, our view is hazy. I recently read a book all about illusions and facing reality as we walk through our seasons in the dark or our seasons in the valley. And the book is called The Night is Normal. And I have an entire notebook worth of thoughts and notes that really impacted me reading this book in the current season of my life that I'm walking through. And here's one of my main takeaways from the book. These are not her words. This is just my my interpretation. When we lose false illusions, whether that is about ourself or others or God, we gain a sense of reality. So facing reality at all costs, the good, the bad, the ugly, when we do that, it creates an honest opportunity for healthy growth and for spiritual maturity. Yes, it will hurt. Yes, it will be hard. And yes, there will be growing pains. But ultimately, we are growing in maturity and in love and in faith in Jesus Christ. And when I'm reading a book, I don't know about y'all. Like, if you just read it and highlight and take some notes or what, I have like questions that I need to answer. You know, I'm jotting down questions in my notebook. And one of the questions that I worked so hard to answer and uncover while I was reading this book was, okay, if this is true, like, if we know this, okay, that when we lose false illusions and we gain a sense of reality, it creates an honest opportunity for growth and spiritual maturity and all of that. Why is reality so hard? Or why is it so unsettling to people? And listen, I am not an expert in this area. I'm not the author of this book. I don't have a degree that backs up what I'm getting ready to say. But after reading this and doing research and pouring in to trying to understand this, I believe that the reality is so unsettling because it breaks the illusion of what people see. Y'all, it requires us to give up control and to stand up and to face the things that we have gotten so accustomed to denying and avoiding and pretending about, uh, I mean, I get it. Like, I have lived in this facing reality, what we are trying to get healthy, it feels like a chink in the armor. But the reality of it is that we cannot even focus our lens and zoom in on the people that God has given us or the depth of scripture and God's great love for us if we aren't willing to face reality in our own lives. Y'all, when we choose to do it, it is a process. It is not instant gratification like the world tells us. It's messy and it hurts and it requires us to be vulnerable with other people that love the Lord and that we trust, but it's also liberating as we detach from our idols and our attachments to this world and just the messiness and the unhealthy habits that we've gotten so accustomed to believing or living in. And then what happens is we become free in Jesus. We build confidence in who God says we are. We build resiliency as we see the reality of our shortcomings and the illusions that we've been living in and we start to name the lies and we stand up and we say, I want to be different. Whew. Okay. So like, let me not get too far off the path. But the point that I'm making is that the neuroscience part of this conversation cannot be ignored. It's important because if our brains make executive decisions about what we see when we have a broken lens, y'all, it could be detrimental in our level of zoom with scripture and with other people. And until we do the work, we are going to have a distorted view. We have to make the choice to commit to shedding illusion so that our view is clear and healthy and so that we can see the friends that God has entrusted to us and the Bible that he has given us as true gifts. You know, at the end of the day, the things that I'm talking about are not easy. They are not for the faint of heart. Most of you know that I'm a mom and that I love my kids and the fact that they've been entrusted to me. But what some of you might not know is that I am also a plant mom and I know that sounds funny and I know that sounds simple. But I love my house plants. When I started this process a few years ago of buying and growing indoor plants, y'all, I'm going to be honest, I was so intimidated and I had a lot of little funerals. Like there were some beautiful plants that just did not make it. They just didn't. So I mourned and I kept going and I kept growing these plants. And y'all, I literally have 11 healthy thriving house plants right now. Some of these plants have grown so much over the last couple years that they have gotten too big for their pot. So I have replanted and I have built new homes and I have put them in new places in different seasons of light. They outgrew their containers. So I created new healthy living environments for them. And listen, our level of zoom, it is a lot like my house plants. Because when we choose to get healthy, we are going to outgrow our current environments. Our love for Jesus is going to be too big for some of the people that we are doing life with. So we're going to have to build in new things. We're going to have to build in new habits and new mindsets and new levels of zoom so that we can keep growing and thriving and living healthy. So as you continue to settle into this new season of fall, my prayer is that you adjust your level of zoom and you keep growing towards Jesus. Let's make heaven crowded. I'm praying for y'all and I'll see you next week.