How to Trust God and Find Purpose in Everyday Life with Pastor Jason Laird

Hey.

Hey, beautiful friends.

And welcome back to Faithfield Living.

This is your host, Kristen.

Today I have a great guest interview for you.

We are going to dig into how can we actually live out our faith in all parts of our lives?

How can we bring those things together in a way that works, in a way that feels right, but also honors God?

We are going to dig into how do we still have hope regardless of what we're walking through?

How do we have the right framework, right including the right outlook to step into whatever comes our way.

We're going to talk about why our work matters and how it's actually worship, no matter how we are showing up in the world and no matter what job we have, how getting the right mindset and the right perspective on that makes all the difference and being that example in the hands and feet in the world.

We're going to talk about so much more, but I know this episode is going to be such a gift to you, so.

So I cannot wait to share my conversation with pastor and entrepreneur Jason Laird.

Welcome to Faith Fueled Living, the podcast that equips you to live well spiritually, emotionally, physically and purposefully.

Each week, we'll dive into conversations and biblical truths to help you strengthen your faith, pursue meaningful work, care for your whole self, and live in line with what matters most.

Hi.

Today on the podcast, I want to welcome our guest, Jason Laird.

He's a pastor, a church planner, public speaker, leader, and coach with dedication to building leaders that are building the local church.

I'm excited to talk to him today because he has over 21 years of experience in ministry and leadership experience at some of the premier churches across the country.

And he's helping build churches locally and globally.

And he's also founded Sidecar Leader, a coaching practice dedicated to putting leaders to go further faster with emphasis on people, culture, systems and strategy.

And he's just launched another business he'll probably tell us about Around Creative Labs.

And so I'm excited.

He's been married for 18 years, he has three kids and he is in Franklin, Tennessee.

But we're going to talk about how do we still have hope when.

When we're walking through hard things.

We're going to talk about how do we make sure we are maturing in our faith, in our lives.

We are having the impact in building legacy and that we're raising our families up and the people around us or the people we're leading in a way that is bettering us and it's bettering them.

And then we're going to talk about how do we better integrate our faith into all the parts of our lives?

Because sometimes it's hard to navigate that.

It's hard to know how to do that.

And so I'm excited to bring this conversation to you.

So, Jason, thank you so much for joining me today.

Oh, it's an honor.

Thank you for having me.

I'm excited about our conversation.

Yeah.

So I guess can you just start off with telling us a little bit about what life looks like for you these days and then just also just how you got into this in the first place and kind of what that looked like as well?

Yeah, absolutely.

I think we probably sent you the dated bio.

But I'll tell you a little bit about our family.

My wife and I, we met in high school, actually.

She was actually in junior high, and I was in high school.

So we've now been dating for almost 30 years, and we've been married for 21 years.

It'll be.

Or it will be 21 years this May.

May 21st.

And, you know, we grew up in South Louisiana and Baton Rouge area, and my wife didn't really have a church or a faith background.

I grew up a pastor's kid, a preacher's kid.

They always say PKs are the worst, right?

And so we started dating.

And I like to say this, that it was Jesus that saved my life, but it was the local church that God used to change my life, to transform my life.

And so we found a life giving church, began to grow in our faith there.

We have two boys.

Liam, he's 16.

He'll be 17 in November.

Varsity football player.

I'm so proud of him.

He was in a combine yesterday with a bunch of elite athletes, and he's a stud athlete.

And then we have our son, Nixon.

He's 13.

He'll be 14 this summer.

And he's our creative in the family.

My mom says he's just like me.

So then we have our little princes, Novi Sophia, she'll be seven years old this month.

So that's our family.

But we got radically saved when we were 18 years old, immediately began serving in the local church at a church called Healing Place Church.

And then we moved over to a church called Gateway Church in Dallas, Texas.

Served as executive pastors there, overseeing all of Next Generation.

And then the Lord just began to speak to our hearts about moving back closer to family.

And we moved to now Nashville, and that's where I now we're actually in Franklin, Tennessee, and in that whole journey started companies and all that stuff.

But as we got back to Nashville, God really began to just stir our hearts again for church planting.

And so we planted a church that just made two years old here in Franklin, Tennessee.

And we're loving it.

So leading the church, leading these companies, and just trying to be a great dad and a great husband and a great friend of people.

I love it.

Yeah.

So I guess one thing that was just kind of coming to me while you were saying that is I also remember listening part of a sermon you did.

It was probably 10 years ago, but you were talking about, like, you had this.

This God had put on your heart that you wanted a church plant, but that it took 16 years in and you were doing lots of ministry.

Right.

You were pastoring, but you.

You hadn't planted a church yet.

And so you've done lots of these things now, right?

You've started businesses.

And so I guess the two questions I have for you about that is one, what happens when we have a dream that hasn't happened yet?

It hasn't come to fruition.

It hasn't been.

It hasn't been revealed fully, even though we have this thing that God told us.

And then I guess the second part of that is sometimes people don't realize that the intersection of faith and business.

Right.

And that we can be called into that.

And that's very biblical.

And so I guess, what would you share with us about those things?

And most of those, if not all of those, they just took a lot of time to come to fruition.

And what really encouraged me was, I think it's in psalms, maybe Psalm 105, somewhere in there, it says, until the time came to fulfill Joseph's dreams, the Lord tested Joseph's character.

And I Think in hindsight, looking back, the delay in those dreams coming to fruition, really what the Lord was doing was refining my character.

I always had to say this, is that God, in that season of between the promise and the payoff, God is refining you, and he's preparing you for what he has prepared for you.

And so in that those times of delay, those times of like, is this ever going to happen?

You know, I just found, and I'm not saying it was easy, it was a lot of times I'm kicking and screaming and crying out to God, like, where are you?

Why didn't this happen yet?

But when I look back over those seasons, like, truly, the Lord was fortifying in me character, not just to start a church or to start a company, but to sustain that.

Because, you know, you get into.

If you're an entrepreneur, everyone that's listening to this, they know if you start a business, you start a company, it's a lot of stress.

It's, you know, you're dealing with finances, you're dealing with a lot of times scarcity, but you have all this vision, and it can be a lot of stress, a lot of pressure.

And what I found is if you haven't developed your character, if your character and your fortitude and all those things, resilience has not been developed, then weight of that will crush you, and it will permeate into all the other areas of your life.

And so for me, I feel like during those seasons, as I look back, the Lord was refining me.

He was sifting out of me selfish ambition.

He was sifting out of me a desire to be known or to be famous or to, you know, just to be successful.

Not that any of those things are necessarily inherently sinful or evil, but when they're the driving force, right?

When they're.

They become the ultimate thing, that's what.

And so I think in those seasons, the Lord really was.

Was refining that and preparing me so that I could hold the weight of pastoring a church, because it is weighty.

And so that I could hold the weight of leading a company and having staff that are on payroll and dealing with clients and all these things.

And so really, that was the big point, the character piece for me.

And I'm pretty sure I have a hunch that that's probably for everyone, you know, And I think that what's sad is that when someone has that seemingly overnight success with a company, with a church, with whatever it may be, a lot of times, if they aren't, if they haven't gone through the Fire, they haven't been refined, then the thing that they thought would be the gift in their life becomes the curse in their life.

And so, you know, I'm just very grateful, very, very thankful for those seasons of delay because they were, they were more than delayed.

They were development.

They got me to where, you know, I am today.

Not perfect.

I'm still, there's delays.

And here's the other thing is once you get your dream, I heard someone say one time, I don't remember if it was Pastor Chris Hodges or who said, once you, once you have realized your dream or as it's come to fruition, make sure you have another dream in front of you.

And dreams are what I think Pastor Chris, I even heard him say it last week.

The two things that kept him in ministry and in leadership was his friends, his relationships, life giving relationships, and always having a dream in front of him.

The dream kept him alive.

And so that's the thing is that you may be delayed, then you arrive at that dream and then you're probably, if you're a visionary, you're gonna have another dream.

And so it's going to be kind of starting that process again.

More refinement, more development.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I know you've talked about that one of your probably more than one time, but I'm just going to repeat it because it kind of speaks to what you just said, but also about just keeping, you know, having that hope.

But it says hope deferred makes the heart sick.

But a dream fulfilled is a tree of life, right?

And so I mean, that's the thing, right?

We have to have that hope, which we'll get into that in a little bit.

But also, like you said, we have to see, you know, know that dream and be moving towards it.

You know, whether it's a small one, right.

Or it's this much bigger one that's going to take a really long time.

And so, you know, I think that's just so important.

So good.

So let me ask you this.

One of the things, working with lots of people you, you mentioned, and I kind of alluded to it in the introduction though is how do we integrate our faith right into our lives?

And so I guess what I would ask you that is how can we better do it when we feel like, well, I work at a company and it's not a faith forward company or I don't know how to talk to my neighbors very easily about my faith.

So what would you just Share with us about how can we be encouraged in being more open and comfortable with making sure we're incorporating our faith into all aspects of life.

Yeah, I think at least for me and the churches that I grew up in, great churches, but oftentimes in the tradition that I grew up in, being a witness for Christ or integrating your faith in your work was reduced down to evangelism.

And it's not that it's.

That's not important.

That's a piece of it.

But I think work is.

You have to get to.

Like the Genesis account I did a lot of study on from Dorothy Sayers, from some of the.

I think some of the Lutheran tradition has some good takes on work.

Seeing your work as truly as worship unto God.

It doesn't matter what your space is that you're in, if you're an educator, if you're an artist, you know, if you're a web developer, if you're in construction, when you see your work, and I always say this, the way you see your work will always influence and affect how you do your work.

And so the first thing is, if you see your work as just labor and not worship, then it's going to be laborsome, it's just going to be toil.

But when you see your work, your work as actual worship unto the Lord, that you're giving God your very best, you're using the gifts, the talents, the skills, the abilities and the opportunity to be able to worship him and glorify him.

That in and of itself, even if you never lead one person to Christ, if you do like Colossians says, with all of your heart is unto the Lord, then man.

Now worship is your.

Your desk becomes an altar, right?

That.

That hammer becomes more than just a hammer.

It becomes a tool for worship, an instrument of worship.

And so I think that's one of the things I like to encourage, like specifically the men and women in our church that, you know, 99% of them will never work on staff at a church.

Right.

And so I try to encourage them, first and foremost, see your work as worship.

And I think the second thing is this, is that in some of the traditions that I grew up in, I think.

I think it was reduced down to.

I'm gonna see if I can pull this up really quick.

I think a lot of the.

A lot of times work was reduced down to either evangelism or just inviting someone to church and things like that.

And all those things are very important.

But I actually believe that whenever you create a beautiful piece of art, let's just use that as an example.

I think that that is cultivating beauty in the world, and it's actually showcasing the glory of God through an instrument, through a vessel that he's wanting.

Want to produce something beautiful.

I was listening to N.T.

Wright.

You know N.T.

Wright, he's the leading New Testament scholar in the world.

Had some time.

Had some time to spend with him.

Last year I studied at Oxford.

And one of the things that he said was when you look through the history of the church, there's three things that have always been kind of the pillars in the church over.

Over centuries.

He said.

The first one is.

Is evangelism and discipleship, which we know that is important.

That's a big part of the Great Commission.

Number two.

The second part is justice for the poor.

And this third one struck me, said it's beauty.

You look at the Sistine Chapel, you look at these beautiful cathedrals, you look at how art was integrated in church.

And one of the things he said is if we're in the world, in our workplace, creating beauty, doing beautiful work to the glory of God, we're essentially fulfilling the commission.

But you have.

The original commission was in the garden.

And the garden commission was to cultivate the land, to extend Eden.

It was to work, it was to be fruitful, it was to multiply, it was to create more beauty.

And so I think that the more that we can get into people and say, hey, what you're doing is beautiful work.

When you're teaching those third graders, that is beautiful work, and it's to the glory of God.

And you're just as much a minister as I am standing behind a pulpit on a stage.

You know, there was a quote I wanted to read to you, if you're okay with, was Here it is right here.

I read this when I was doing some study a while back.

It was, well, two quotes.

One, Kim Costa, he's a friend of mine.

This guy is, you know, he's a consultant in finance in the U.K. i mean, moving like billions and trillions of dollars, the guy.

But he's a man of faith and he works in finance.

And he said this.

If the Christian faith is not relevant in the workplace, it is not relevant at all.

That's a bold statement if you think about that.

And then the other statement I wanted to give to you was Dorothy Sayers statement.

I love this.

She said this.

She said, if nothing has the church so lost her hold on reality as her failure to understand and respect the secular vocation.

She has allowed work and religion to become separate departments and is astonished to find that as a result, the secular work of the world is turned to purely selfish and destructive ends.

And, you know, I think one of the big takes that I learned from Dorothy Sayers was that really there's no separation between minister and member.

Our members have.

If we just make ministry about Sunday morning, about church, when you're in the church, we're decommissioning ministers in the place that needs them the most, which is the workplace.

So I'm very passionate about that.

But I think it starts with the way that you see it.

You have to see it the way that God sees it.

You know, knowledge is information, wisdom is.

Wisdom is different.

Wisdom is seeing things rightly the way that God sees them.

So wisdom for your work is to see your work the way that God sees your work.

You're not stuck.

You're stationed there.

You're positioned there to be able to extend Eden or to, to make beautiful work, to do creative work, to inspire people to people.

And then what happens is your work then becomes witness and people will notice why?

What's different about you?

And then you're able to share your faith, then you're able to share the gospel, you know, so anyway, so that's my rant I'm passionate about, as you can tell.

I love that.

Actually, I will also link, since we got into that a little bit, you had a great message or sermon about, you know, work and you talked about that, right, like you're not stuck, you're actually stationed.

And it was a great episode.

And so I'll make sure to add that, you know, to the show notes.

One of the things, if I might add, one of the things that my wife taught me, and I'm so thankful for my wife.

She's much of who I am today is because of the kind but strong words that she's shared with me at times, helping me with my theology.

But she said, you know, she was, she was full time worker.

And then after our second child, she went full time mom.

And it was a real struggle for her.

You know, she said a lot of her identity was attached to her work and what she did in an unhealthy way.

And so she had to learn how to, to find working as a full time mom, how to see that the way that God sees it.

And the big shift for her was like, yeah, this is my assignment and this is the work that God's called me to.

And it is to Cultivate these children and to.

To raise them up, to partner with me and raising them up, but to do her part and raising them up.

And as she began to see motherhood differently, it changed the way she mothered.

And so I'm sure there's probably some moms that are out there today.

Is like, well, I don't work at a job.

Well, listen, you're on assignment.

If you're full time with your kids and you're more than just watching your kids or making sure they don't get hurt, you are sowing into them seeds that will be water them will come to life into fruition.

You have such powerful words to speak prophetically into your kids, to call, see something in them and to call that out of them.

That is beautiful work.

That's just as important as a pastor on a stage.

Yeah.

Oh, I love it.

Yeah.

I'm glad you added that.

Yeah.

I mean, I think that's really the key, right.

It's one is we have to have that posture.

We have to have the perception and go back, right to what scripture says to remind us that it's how we're showing up.

It's.

It's that we're putting our whole hot heart into doing that work.

Right.

The way that God's designed us.

Right.

With the Holy Spirit there.

And then it's also, like you said, it's.

I mean, I just released an interview with a woman, Jewish woman, who became a Christian.

And actually it was because of some different things that happened.

And her.

It wasn't the Christians at her school that tried to push that on her.

Right.

It wasn't any of that.

But they would quietly and not knowing, telling anybody, be praying over the school.

Right.

Walk the hallways.

And so these just different things happened over the course of this year or two where she started wanting to know more about Christ.

But the point is, is it's.

It's everything we do.

Right.

It's going and.

And being available to other people.

Like you said, it's being Christlike, like in all the places we go.

I like to say that it's ministry.

It's the ministry of you.

So everywhere you go, you're a representation and an extension.

Right.

Of Christ if you're actually showing up and being a Christian.

Right.

And doing that.

So regardless where we at.

So I love that.

It's so good.

Yeah, We.

I had some.

I had a guy that runs a construction company.

He asked me, he said, so how do I.

How do I, you know, handle my construction company without calling it a Christian Construction company.

How do I handle it as a Christian?

I said, well, you know those times when you're tempted to overcharge for.

For the, you know, for the materials because, you know there's a padded profit in there for you, but it actually is a breach of integrity.

I said, in those moments, you're given an opportunity and maybe the client will never know, but you can be a person of integrity in those moments.

It's leading your business meetings without duplicity, not fudging numbers whenever.

And I think all those things matter, and it's compounding interests or it's compounding fracture.

And the more that you do that, I do believe what I like to say is, as you are consistently, you know, doing the practical faith, you know, things we see in the Bible is you're consistently doing that in front of people over time.

Not overnight, but over time, it will eventually open spiritual doors because the way of the kingdom is different from the way of this world.

I mean, if you just do the Bible, just like apply your faith and do what the scriptures say, you will live so countercultural to the systems of this world, the kingdom of this world, people will eventually take notice, and your life will build credibility so that when the opportunity comes for you to speak, your words will have moral authority.

But if you have been around your employees and you've been fudging numbers, lying in this area, not having integrity here, cutting corners here, then when that moment comes for you to share the faith, share your faith to talk about Christ, you have no moral authority in your words.

So I think it's really important.

I think that's just some of the practical things I would say.

Yeah, I love that.

Okay, so, you know, one thing that I do want to get into is we.

We live.

I mean, this is probably all the time, but it does feel like for some.

Some many years, there's a lot of people feeling hopeful, hopeless, or they feel like, you know, there's despair.

Maybe they just feel like, I don't know what's going on.

You know, there's just a lot of stress, prices are going up.

And you obviously talk about.

I mean, obviously the Bible talks about it, you know, many times.

But how do we have hope when maybe we're going through a season or maybe we don't feel stationed at the moment in something that we're going through, or we really want that healing, whatever it might be.

But what would you just share with us about having hope in choosing hope?

Right.

Deciding to have hope?

Because it's not just about feeling hopeful.

Yeah.

It's a great question.

With hope, I think you have to go down to the genesis of this and the source of it.

Your hope.

Your.

Your hope is based off of something that you're believing for or believing in.

And so if your hope is based off of the circumstances that surround you, well, of course you're going to have diminished hope, which is eventually going to lead to despair and defeat in your life.

And so for me, what I've had to do is find that my hope is not in anything other than the person Jesus Christ.

That's it.

And if.

And I can hold on to that hope.

And here's the thing.

When you look at the Bible, I mean, look at Hebrews, and you get a chance.

It says in Hebrews 11, the whole hall of Faith, I think it's Hebrews 11 or 12.

He's in 11, where it says that all these people, they were hoping for something at the end of the chapter, but they never saw it happen.

And you think about that.

Well, they would be completely defeated and in complete despair if their hope was just in the thing that they were hoping for.

Their hope was rooted in Christ.

And that's why throughout scripture, it talks about our hope is in him.

It's not in the outcome.

Faith is about an outlook.

Hope is about an outlook, but outcomes are on God.

So if you're hoping to get pregnant and that never happens, the question is, can you still put your faith and trust and hope in a good God even if you never get pregnant, or even if you never get married, or even if you never get.

Get the job, or even if the church plant doesn't work out?

And if our hope is in anything other than Christ, then.

Then we're.

We're in a very shaky, unstable place of our life.

And we're constantly.

Our emotional health is going to be.

The equilibrium is going to be so off.

And so for me, I have to always bring it back to that.

My hope is in Jesus.

And any outcome that I'm hoping for in my life, I have to surrender that to his hands.

And that is the place of peace.

And when you don't have peace, man.

And when you're just hoping in things and they don't happen, and you're not anchored and rooted in Christ, you just live a very fragile life.

And I've been there before.

I've done that before.

You know, I think I had to get to the place.

I think it's over in Jeremiah where he says he talks about, you know, or in lamentations where it talks about, like, daring to hope.

And in there he says, but you, O Lord, are my inheritance.

And I studied all that because it really, it's.

It's echoing language from.

From when God spoke to the Levitical priest and when he was issuing out land as an inheritance to all the tribes of Israel.

When he gets to the Levites, he says, you don't get any land.

I am your inheritance.

And so I read that.

I read that in Lamentations, and I thought this, like, what if the thing I'm hoping for, what if I never get it?

Yeah.

Is he.

Is God enough?

Is he enough as my inheritance?

And sometimes he hasn't been.

But what I found is whenever he is my inheritance, regardless of the outcome, regardless of the promise, regardless of the thing I'm hoping for, when he is my inheritance, when I get solid in that place, it is well with my soul.

Yeah.

There's a sense of peace about it, you know?

Absolutely.

Yeah.

And so one of the things that, you know, I know you shared this in a scripture, but it's that when we remember, remember God's faithfulness.

Right.

So in other words.

And so what can you share with us about writing down prayers answered?

Right.

Or the things we're grateful for, how that action, how doing that as a practice can actually help us have that hope.

Right.

As we walk through other things.

Yeah.

I heard this pastor one time, and I don't know if this is accurate, but it sounds really cool.

He said he was talking about, he was in Israel and he saw a shepherd staff, and it had all these carvings on it.

And so he asked to purchase it, brought it back.

He had it in his study.

So I asked him about it, and he said, you know, David says, your rod and your staff, they comfort me.

Which.

Why would a rod and a staff comfort you?

And he said this.

This was his take on it.

He said the ancient shepherds in the east, the followers of Yahweh, they would.

When they would get a victory or they'd find a lost sheep or they would.

Whatever, something would happen where they knew Yahweh was faithful, they would carve in their staff like an icon that would remind them.

It was a reminder, almost like a sacrament.

It was a reminder of the faithfulness of God.

And anytime they were discouraged or they felt hopeless, they would rub their.

Their hand or their.

Their thumb across that icon, remembering and reciting and rehearsing the faithfulness of God, saying, if he's done it before, he can do it again.

And I think there's something practical I'M not saying anybody needs to go find a shepherd's staff and carve on it.

But what I like to do is I like to carve on a journal, and I'll write down, you know, my prayer requests, but then when God answers them, I'll write them down.

And I take a moment and I worship Praise the Lord and express gratitude for his faithfulness in that area.

And anytime I'm discouraged, I go back to those things.

You know, one of the things, my mom lives with me right now.

I'm in my son's bonus room because people are downstairs.

But my mom lives with me.

And she's a woman of faith, a woman of prayer.

She's.

She's amazing.

And if you were to open my mom's Bible that she's had for, like, 40 years, you would see prayers all throughout the pages of her Bible, and you would see dates with her writing.

He answered this prayer.

And what she told me, she goes.

She does this as a regular practice and discipline weekly.

And she'll just.

She'll go, and then she'll just let it move her to a place of gratitude.

And this is what she told me every single time.

That builds her faith.

So when she moves into a moment of prayer, she can declare the faithfulness of God, of whatever it is that she's praying for.

So I think it is very important for you to go back and just to see how God's brought you so far.

You know, this was a practice of Israel.

They would, you know, passing down theology was through narrative, through storytelling.

They would tell their kids and the generations, they would tell them the stories of the faithfulness of God, the strong right hand, the mighty of the mighty Lord.

And so I think it's good for us not just to pass that on to other people, but to sometimes to encourage our own soul.

David said that he, when he was facing Zik, like he encouraged himself in the Lord.

Well, how do you do that?

You encourage yourself by remembering the faithfulness of God.

So true.

Yeah.

I mean, I had a woman I interviewed, I think, last year, she'd written a book, and it was about healers who then.

I'm sorry, people that were healed by God and then became healers.

Right.

So it was kind of well known Stories, but she put it in the book.

But whenever I have read books by pastors, by people, or I've heard stories, write testimonies, it builds my faith.

Right.

Of course.

Going and looking at, like, when did God come through?

Right.

Like, when did he actually show me a promise, prayer answered?

But it's also reading and hearing and listening to other people's.

Right.

Stories.

And I think there's a lot of people, I feel like they don't seek out that kind of content.

Right.

Because there's a lot of other content competing for our time.

But I find that when I read or, like I said, listen to whatever these things, it builds my faith.

It makes me learn often more about the Bible and then makes me want to go and read more about that part of the Bible, you know, because if you just.

Just read the Bible, I'm not saying that's a bad thing.

I just meant sometimes it's hard.

Even if it's a study Bible or you're digging in further, you don't always get the same context or way to build your belief.

If it's not maybe a more current example or story how God's actually working today.

Yeah, I think it's really powerful.

One of the things I. I did a coaching session with a guy that trains people to do TED talks, and he's also a Christian, and so he also coaches pastors on public speaking, communicating, teaching, preaching.

And one of the things that struck me was he said that a lot of times, he said ineffective teachers just get up and they just think it's about getting through the text and the content.

He said the content is powerful, it's important, and you need the content.

But people need to hear personal stories so that they can see the truth, the timeless truth of the principle come to life, and it will actually build their faith and inspire them to apply that truth to their own life.

And what he was saying was in sermons, he likes to hear 10 to 12 little anecdotes or stories, personal, of how it's really.

It's your testimony of, here's what this looks like in real time, if this plays out.

I mean, I try to do it.

I. I try to.

The way I structure my sermons or, you know, proposition or point scripture, where it's rooted or anchored in scripture explanation or exposition, application, and then illustration.

And that illustration is to say, hey, let me testify to this.

And I think the more we hear that and the more that we share our testimony of the faithfulness of God, it builds faith.

It inspires faith.

Faith comes by Hearing the word of God.

But also the Bible says we're overcomers by the blood of the lamb and the word of our testimony.

There's something powerful about story that really builds faith and inspires people.

So I would encourage everybody, man, find a good podcast, a good book that tells stories of the faithfulness of God that is encouraging, that it's life giving and man, let it inspire your faith.

Let it build up your faith.

Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah.

So good.

Okay, I, I kind of thought there, but I, I lost it.

So that's okay.

What would you, I guess what would be another thing that you just find, you know, you said a lot of times people just want to know how can they better apply like things they're learning right through their faith or in the Bible to their lives.

What would you just say might be another one of those things that we didn't already cover, that you just encourage people, you know, as a parent, a spouse, whatever it might be.

You know, one of the things I'm encouraging our church right now, even we're studying through the book of James.

And I think it was last week or the week before I talked about faith in the Word.

James kind of breaks that down.

I think it's in chapter one, talking about the we are born, we have new, new birth, or we're born again through the implanted word of God.

So we, we hear the gospel, we hear the declaration, the proclamation of the personal work of Jesus and, and we receive it in faith and that's how we're saved.

But then he goes on and he says, but now let me show you what your relationship should be moving forward to the Word of God.

And he talks about it all throughout there.

And one of the words that he says in there is he talks about studying the word intently and that word intently there is such a powerful word because it kind of goes back to, you know, if you're interpreting scripture with scripture, that's what hermeneutics is really a really good hermeneutic.

If you go to look at when Peter goes into the tomb, it says he looked intently into the tomb and the word is this.

It wasn't a casual glance.

He's investigating what has just happened.

He's not like checking it out and then doom scrolling.

He's not checking out and going on to the next thing.

He is studying, he's investigating.

He's wondering what are the implications of this?

And that's what James says.

That's how we should look at the Word.

We should read the word intently like that.

Not Just thank God for little devotionals.

But we should study the Word, look intently in the Word.

And there's so many resources that are out there now.

Like even if you just, if you had chat or Claude and you trained it by saying, I want you to learn these commentaries, Matthew, Henry, William, Barclay, Augustine, you know, Origen, whoever it may be, you put them in there and say, and then you put a passenger scripture that you want to study and then say, take these commentaries only and do a deep dive study of this text.

What does it mean?

What was, what were the implications?

How do I apply that now?

And it's amazing how much richer your time in the Word will be.

And it doesn't have to be a long period of time.

It could be 15 minutes to 30 minutes.

But I think more than just skimming over the pages, we're to look intently in it and study it.

I think biblical illiteracy is at an all time high right now.

And if you don't have a strong foundation in the Word of God, man, you're going to find your identity, you're going to find your foundation in so many other things that are unstable, that are, that are, you know, you build your life on those things and they just, when the storms come, Jesus said, if it's not built on the rock, you're going to fall apart.

And so I would just say like practically, like just spending more time in the Word and studying.

You don't have to be a pastor.

You know, there's so many, as we said, there's so many resources that are out there.

You just have to be intentional with it and consistent with it.

And over time, not overnight, that consistent, that consistency in the Word, studying intently, it literally rewires your brain.

Neuroplasticity teaches that.

It rewires your brain and it stabilizes your emotions.

It helps you to be centered and it helps you to have a point of reference that is a biblical worldview, not a cultural worldview.

And you'll begin to see the things in our world through the lens of scripture.

And it's just, it's life changing.

You see your money differently, you see your marriage differently, you see your work differently, you see everything differently.

The more that you have that lens that you're looking through the world through.

Which should be the scriptures.

Yeah, absolutely.

Well, and here's the thing, right?

It's, it's, what can someone.

Well, first of all, sorry, if, if faith is a priority, right, we'll, we'll, we'll have, we will make a slot, we will make A time.

But for somebody that might be that it's once a week, they can devote, right.

That additional time to dig in deeper, right.

To what the word means, how they can apply it for someone else that might be more often.

Right.

But.

So we're not saying if you can't do it every day, then it's not worth it.

It's like you might only be able to do it once a month for right now, you know, but any of it is getting you, like you said, learning and digging deeper into it, the understanding behind it.

So a great resource I could tell people to use and I.

Our church goes through this.

It's an app you can download called Lectio365.

And it takes about 10 minutes.

They have a morning, midday and an evening.

And it is great.

It's.

It is this a time to pause and to be still, to be silent.

And a lot of people, a lot of Christians don't know how to.

They don't know precious gift of stillness and silence in the presence of God.

And it's uncomfortable when you first start to practice it.

But stillness, pausing just to be still, to be present with the Lord.

And then you move into a time of rejoicing.

It's really.

They use P R A Y pray and then are rejoicing, rejoicing and what the Lord's done and reflecting on Scripture.

They'll incorporate some scripture and guide you through it.

And then some time of contemplation to think about it.

And then a application.

It tells you, here's how you can apply this to your life.

And then why yield?

You yield to the Lord to what he wants to do.

So if you don't have time, everybody could carve out 10 minutes.

You know, I say that anybody can carve out 10 minutes if it's important.

And I think that's going back to James.

That's what James was saying, James 1.

He's saying, if you have been saved, born again, regenerated by the Word, that now you have this relationship with the Word of God.

The first thing is it humbles you.

That's the first thing it does.

It humbles you under the Word of God, saying, God, your Word is my standard.

Your Word is the authority of my life.

I'm not the authority of my life.

Culture is not the authority of my life.

Your Word is.

And then as it does, it shapes you.

It humbles you, it shapes you.

And then ultimately he calls it the.

The law of freedom.

It's.

It brings freedom, and everyone needs freedom.

Everyone wants freedom.

And liberty, and it's found in the Word of God.

And so I would just encourage every person.

I can't say it enough.

There's power in the Word of God.

It will show you who God is, and it will show you who you are.

And the more you.

Augustine said it's, the more you know God, the more you'll know yourself.

And the more you know yourself, the more you'll know God.

And I think scripture plays a huge part of that.

So.

Good.

Okay, so two things I want to get to while we're.

While we still have time.

One, what would you just.

We live in a culture, right, where it's so easy to stare at our phones constantly, watch Netflix every night, and look, I'm.

I'm with the best of them in that I had to remove social media off my phones because I wasn't going on a lot on most of them.

But I would.

Then I'd find stuff that was interesting to me and things that I actually wanted to learn about.

But I.

It was.

It was still becoming a time creep.

Right?

Like, it was taking up too much time.

But it's also.

So 1.

We can distract ourselves, but we can also escape things, avoid things, and we can numb out.

And what would you just share with us about how we can get our own schedules, how we're spending our time, and maybe make some changes or choices that can help us, you know, just walk with Christ and also just be a better.

That's going to help us be a better whatever it is, right?

Spouse, parent, person of faith or what?

I think one of the starting points is you have to be honest with yourself.

What are you going to in moments of pain?

What are you going to in moments of.

Of boredom?

What are you going to in moments where, you know, you don't have peace or whatever?

I think if we're honest with ourselves, we'll say, hey, I'm probably drinking more than what I should.

I'm probably going to scroll and just to check out, because I want to escape.

I think the starting point is, like, you just got to be honest with yourself.

You know, I. I have a. I have a small group of guys that I pastor.

I'm going to go see them in just a few hours.

And we always start with this.

This is a safe place to say dangerous things.

Yeah.

And this is.

And you cannot change without truth in the room.

And so we ask very honest questions.

And it's a space of vulnerability, and I'm trying to train them that that's what we have to do.

We have to be honest with ourselves, and we.

You'll know the truth, and the truth will set you free.

That's not just the truth of Scripture.

It's the truth of, like, this is where I'm at.

And you have to have courage to face current reality.

And if you don't have the courage to face current reality, you're never going to change the thing that you're tolerating.

And so I think that's the.

Probably the starting point is being honest with yourself and then also calling it what it is.

Scripture is very clear what that is.

That's actually an idol, that thing that we're going to rather than going to God, that is an idol.

And we have to confront that, and we have to surrender that to the Lord.

We have to yield that to the Lord.

I think there's.

With every person, it's a different situation, but you have to.

You have to build into your life some kind of way that.

How do I.

How can I have some safeguards and some boundaries in my life in this area?

You know, those are really important.

And then the final thing I would say, you know, obviously the answer is always Bible pray and Jesus.

But practically therapy changed my life because.

Because, you know, there was always such a stigma in the tradition that I grew up in.

If you went to counseling, then you were, you know, you were screwed up, you were messed up.

You know, if you had to take, you know, a medication for maybe, you know, depression or anxiety or something, you were screwed up.

And it was all taboo, and it was all, like, it was bad.

But the more I began to study mental health and emotional health, those things I began to realize, everybody's screwed up, everybody's broken.

All of us, we carry baggage.

And so let's just call it what it is and say, well, let's now deal with it.

And if it is a clinical thing, like I like to say, there's some things that are spiritual, some things that are practical, some things that are clinical.

The problem in many charismatic traditions, and that's the one I've grown up in, I have no problem with it.

I'm still charismatic.

I'm a charismatic contemplative.

I like to say.

But we like to blame everything on the devil, and we say everything's spiritual.

Well, there's some things that are.

That are spiritual.

We know that for God has not given us a spirit of fear.

There's a spirit of fear, there's a spirit of deception.

There's so many things that are spiritual, but there's some things that are practical, they're lifestyle related.

It's doom scrolling comparing our life to someone else's highlight reel.

All those things, it's what we eat, it's exercising, those things, they're lifestyle related.

And then there's some things that are clinical.

And thank God that he's given us medicine and clinicians that can support us and help us through those things.

And so I like to have a more holistic approach to say, let's let God do what only he can do, let us take responsibility for what only we can do, and let's let the doctors do what only they can do.

Right.

And so anyway, it's a long way to say this.

Going to therapy changed my life because I realized that, that there was trauma that I was carrying based on traumatic events from my family of origin.

And those things were what I developed early on was soothing mechanisms or survival mechanisms.

So when I came through moments of disintegration or pressure in my life or pain in my life or circumstances, I was going to these things for soothing, whatever that may be.

And so I had to deal with the root issue, which was the traumatic event that caused the trauma that I was carrying, find healing and freedom and then get the proper tools to be able to know when I'm in those moments of disintegration or when I'm in those moments of pressure or stress or whatever.

I know what my tendencies are.

And rather than going to those things and making them idols in my life, I go to God and I go to the healthy things he's put in my life.

And so I would just say that to people like, be honest with where you're at.

Be honest with the things that you have made pursuits and that you've made them into ultimate things.

But then, man, start some good therapy.

Have some great therapy, man.

It's amazing.

Counseling has changed my life.

Love it.

I'm glad that you shared that.

I did.

I've heard some of your sermons where you did share a little bit about that.

And so I'm glad that it came up today.

Okay, so I think the last thing that you.

That I want to maybe mention before we wrap up with maybe last question or so.

What would you just share with us about?

I'm.

You just started this new creative lab.

I'm somebody that's very passionate about creativity and wonder and things like that.

Because I think if we're missing out on that, I think God designed us to be creative.

He's obviously the biggest, most unique creator.

But I think a lot of us get so busy.

Right.

Providing or working, raising up our families, that sometimes we can stop creating or we can stop using our hands in some way or, you know, or just seeing wonder in the world.

It kind of goes back to where you're talking about beauty.

But what would you just share with us about that and how that is actually such a gift that God's given us.

Right.

And designed us with?

Yeah.

I think, you know, the starting point is.

Is like what you said.

We have to understand that we were made in the image of God and God is the greatest creator.

Wouldn't we all agree?

I mean, look at the world we live in.

He's creative genius, and we're made in his image.

So every single person has the DNA of creativity in them.

It doesn't matter who you are.

You may think you're the least creative person, but I think it's understand that there is a creative gene that is in us that God has placed there.

And we have to.

We have to create space to tap into that.

And that can look a lot, a lot of different ways, you know.

But I do want to say that for me, I've noticed the pattern with me at least, is if I'm busy, it's hard to hear from God and it's hard to dream and to visioneer and to create.

And so creating intentional space to be inspired is important.

So for me, I found that being in an urban city and just walking around an urban city, there's something about it.

It causes me to be intentional and to dream and to imagine, you know, creating through solving problems, the problems that people have.

You know, the other thing is, like, just doing creative things.

I like to get on my iPad and I'll sketch up stuff, you know, and it's like my wife's like, well, there's more important things to do than just that.

She's like.

She's like, we have things you can do around here.

Like you're not going to do anything with it.

I'm like, yeah, but it does something for me.

It's like, it's.

I'm exercising something, and so I think it's just finding it.

What is that thing for you?

They say a lot of people that work with their heads, they need to work with their hands to be recharged, to do something creatively.

Or people that work with their hands, they need to work with their head.

So maybe read a book that's maybe fictional or something like that.

That's inspiring.

So I think it's just creating space.

The best creatives that I Know, they have what I call white space.

They create space to dream and to think outside of what they're currently doing and to think big, to think how do I make things better?

And just, you know, and so just creating that space intentionally.

I like to take walks.

I take like a 45 minute walk every day.

And that's where I pray and that's where I get my best ideas.

And so I think just having that rhythm built into your life some kind of way where you can, you know, you can, you can just have fun with it, you know.

And I think a lot of, A lot of times people are missing out on such an incredible.

The joy of creating things.

There is such an incredible joy and creating something like that.

You have an idea or concept or, or problem, a unique problem you're trying to solve.

And when you, when you come up with something that addresses that or that makes something better, there is such an incredible joy that's found in that fulfillment.

And I think that's why God wired us like that.

Right?

Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah.

So good.

I love that.

Okay, so what would just be maybe a last word of encouragement you would just have for those that are listening to today's episode.

You know, I like.

This is a little framework I've carried with me for, for a while.

And it's.

This is that outlook is on us.

The outlook we have about our life, about the things that we're building, the things that we're doing, our work, pastoring church, planting, starting companies, raising kids.

The.

We should have an outlook of faith.

That's what scripture calls us to, to believe the best.

To have an optimism.

Not a naivety, but an optimism that God is good, I'm alive, that beats the alternatives.

And I want to have an outlook of faith.

Not pessimism, not cynicism, not doubt.

But dream big, you know, and have, have that outlook of faith.

Number two, I think obedience.

So outlook is on us.

Obedience is on us.

We are to, you know, success.

The way I define success is, is not in metrics and numbers.

Success is, is being obedient to who God's called me to be and doing what God's called me to do in his way and in his time.

That's success.

So outlook is on me.

Obedience is on me.

Output is on me.

That's my work ethic.

Like, have faith, take risks, dream big, work hard, and never quit.

Right?

So outlook is on me.

Obedience on me.

Output is on me, but outcome is on God.

Whatever the church becomes, whatever size it grows to, if the book ever sells or gets picked up by a publisher, how my kids turn out, that's a hard one.

All those outcomes, ultimately, if you are doing those first three things and you're trusting God with the outcome, and I think that's the sweet spot where we live and say, God, whatever the outcome may be, I know that I've done my part and I'm surrendered and trusting and yielding to you to do whatever it is that you wish to do with this particular thing.

And so for me, the more I live in that framework, it gives me such peace and like a non anxious presence.

Like I can be just like okay with whatever it may be, you know, whatever the outcome may be.

And I think that helps me to stay away from selfish ambition as well.

You know, that I'm, I'm, I am, I'm not driven by some outcome, but I'm, I'm, I'm being led by the Holy Spirit and obedience.

You don't want to be driven, you want to be led, led by God and be obedient to that.

So, yeah, absolutely.

That's a good, I like that, that framework of how you easily walked through that.

Okay, so this is my last question and then you can share with us how people can learn about, you know, how they can reach out or connect with you.

The last question I usually ask guests is just what is fueling you right now?

So it can be something of faith or something unrelated.

Yeah, I think what's fueling me right now, there's a couple of things.

One is I'm really excited about our creative agency from a work standpoint.

Sidecarcreative labs.com you can go to that.

We're doing branding and websites and scenic design and all things creative and God is just breathing on it.

You know, there's some things where you just feel the wind is at your back and you have momentum and God's really breathing on that, both in the church space, nonprofit space, and companies.

And I love it because I have a great team that we're working with and we get into the room with a visionary leader and we, we ask a series of questions and we go through constructs and then we're able to take their vision and put, you know, flesh it out and make it become a reality.

And to see the joy on their face when they see what they've been dreaming about come to life, it's just a really beautiful thing.

So I'm excited about that from a work standpoint.

Secondly, excited about my oldest son.

He's, he's just been working really hard for years at football.

And he just had a College.

He's 16.

He had a college reach out to him yesterday.

So he's just putting in the work.

And I'm watching this young man who has.

He has the outlook, he has the obedience, he has the out.

And.

But I'm seeing God honor his faithfulness.

Faithfulness honors God, and God honors faithfulness.

He's been faithful, he's been diligent, and he's been putting in the work.

And I'm seeing the confidence that is building in him.

So that's really inspiring to me as a dad, just watching my son grow into that.

And then I think the final thing would just be the Lord really spoke to me about health, My own personal health, emotional health, physical health, spiritual health, all those things.

And I'm just really working really hard on those things and believing that the investment in those things have a compounding effect and they'll affect everything else in my life.

And so I'm inspired right now.

So check with me in about two months to make sure I'm still working out every day and eating clean and all that stuff.

But just.

Just to say, God, I want to steward this well.

I want to steward my body well, steward my health well.

So those are the things that are really inspiring.

And then the last thing would be, my wife and I were coming up on our 21st anniversary, and we're going to London for the week, and we love London, and so we're excited about that.

Oh, great.

That's wonderful.

Okay.

So, Jason, where can people connect and learn more about all the things you're up to?

Yeah.

If you go on Instagram, you can follow me at Jason T. Laird.

You can follow me.

Then you can go to Sidecar Leader.

And then you can also go to Sidecarleader.com is a website.

And then Sidecarcreativelabs.com you can kind of check out all that.

And then our church, if you're in the area, if you're in the Franklin Area Citizens Church, and come check us out on Sunday, we'd love to host you and help you and serve you any way we can.

Thank you so much for joining us today.

And just thank you for all the work you're doing, both in your church and then just, you know, helping the leaders and churches and nonprofits, because, you know, it matters.

The work you're doing matters.

The messages you're sharing matter.

Much like we talked about the examples, the stories connecting scripture back to how we can actually apply it to our lives.

You have power, powerful messages I've listened to over the last handful of years.

And so thank you for the work you're doing and for coming and joining us.

Yeah.

Thank you so much.

It was an honor.

As we wrap up today's episode, I just want to highlight a few things that I talked to with Pastor Jason.

One is we need to remember what God's already done in our lives.

And we can do that by recording what prayers has God answered, what promises has he already provided us with, and also write down what we're grateful for.

So that's a great practice to start if you're not already doing it.

The next thing is he talked about his framework at the end of this episode.

Right.

That it comes down to our obedience and our outlook.

You know, he went through a couple other things, and then.

But the outcomes are up to God.

And when we keep our sights on the work we need to do, the way we need to be showing up in the world and the way we need to steward our days.

And we remember that God is in the business of outcomes, and it's not up to us.

Everything shifts in our lives.

The other thing, though, that I want to talk about is that our work is and can be worship to God.

The way we interact with people, the way that we keep our integrity, and the way that we show up for other people, our customers, our clients, our.

Whether we're a teacher or students in our homes, we're stewarding our children.

We're showing them examples.

And I have a couple quotes I wanted to share with you that kind of spoke to some of the things we talked about today.

The first one is from the book Let There Be Art by Rachel Marie Kang.

And remember, we talked both about beauty and the importance of noticing beauty, but also of creating beautiful things.

And then also why it's important to make space in our schedules for being creative.

That can be creative problem solving.

That could be that you love cooking and having time to, you know, just put a little different spin on a recipe.

It can be doodling.

It can be writing lyrics, strumming a guitar.

It can be taking a walk.

What I call in a creative detour, paying attention, noticing something, such as all the purple flowers that I noticed today on my walk or all the shapes of the leaves.

Right.

So there's so many ways to be creative.

And then another thing he talked about is you need to make space for silence and solitude.

Because so many times today, it's so easy to never be alone, at least alone in our thoughts, alone with God, because there's always Distraction, there's always a device potentially nearby.

And then remember, it's also important for us to dig deeper into the word of God and what that means and how can we actually apply it to our current day lives.

Okay, so let me get back to the first quote that I want to share with you.

Rachel says in our souls we look like the one who created us.

Therefore we can live like the one who created us.

In this, we've been made with a capacity to create not just works of art, but a world that reflects the very nature of God.

And I thought that really spoke so much to some of the things we shared today.

The next quote I wanted to share with you is from the book now and not yet by Ruth Chu and Simons.

She says it's hard to know that an experience, a set of circumstances or an investment of time you've made isn't wasted unless you choose to trust the work of transformation that you cannot see or control on your own.

When you trust that work is being done, you stop believing that your unwanted seasons are wasted seasons.

Right?

And she's speaking to God there, that, that God that we need to trust that God is working.

He's still working on whatever is going on.

We may or may not see it in this lifetime.

The thing we're praying for, the promise we're looking to God for, but we need to trust the work of transformation that's happening within us and around us.

And then she also goes on to say this.

We simply cannot measure the success of our right now season without taking into consideration the not yet fully revealed plans God has for us.

We can't undermine the growth that's happening.

And we don't see visible fruit in a world that platforms the inexperienced and seems to legitimize sensational overnight success stories.

We need to remember that despite how it might feel, slow growth is still growth.

And you know, I think the thing about that is, is even Jason talked about this.

We don't want to be focused on outcomes and we also don't want to be focused if we're trying to build something, trying to build a dream, we don't want to be focused on it being about us.

Right.

We want it to point to back to Christ.

We want to do it because it's solving a problem in the world or it's making something beautiful, it's making something needed, whatever the reason.

Okay, so the last thing that I want to share with you is actually about our work, our posture of work.

And it's from Jordan Raynor from the book the sacredness of secular work.

And Jordan says, how does it limit his work to the useful and functionality?

He doesn't spend his time only fixing what's broken in the world.

Sometimes he works just to bring himself glory and pleasure.

And in the Gospel of John, we see Jesus encouraging his followers to do the same.

And then in her book, she shares, and then she shares five reasons why our work matters.

And the first one she says, is your work matters for eternity because it is a vehicle for bringing God eternal pleasure.

And then she shares with us the definition of worship.

Right, because we've talked about that our work is worship.

And she says that Rick Warren defines worship as simply bringing pleasure to God.

And then she says, you may have heard your pastor say that all of life is worship or work is worship, and sat there scratching your head.

How in the world is sending an email, cleaning a pool, or writing a line of code worship?

But if we just define worship as bringing pleasure to God, it starts to make a whole lot more sense because scripture says we can bring pleasure pressure to God in nearly anything we do.

He delights in every detail of their lives.

And then she says, did you catch that?

God doesn't just delight in watching you give money to the poor, share the gospel, or fight for justice.

He also delights in watching you design a website, build a home, or close a deal.

He delights in every detail of the lives of the godly.

And she says, clearly, God doesn't need us to bring him pleasure, but in his graciousness.

He allows for every detail of our lives to be an ingredient to his happiness.

And his pleasure is eternal.

His favor is for life.

And then the last thing I want to share with you that she says, is obeying the Lord's commands, pursuing excellence in our work, doing work that brings us pleasure, working with God and not just for him, taking time to wonder at the Lord's work while we work.

All of these things bring pleasure to God, and so they are not in vain because God remembers them for eternity.

Her book and the words I shared from her book today are such a great reminder that we are called not just to share the gospel, but we are called to make beautiful things.

We're called to partner with God, we are called to do good in the world, and we're called to the light in the world.

We're called to be a delight to God, right?

And to delight the world with our integrity and our effort and everything we do as we step into our day, including our work.

All of it matters for the Kingdom of Heaven.

So until next time, I hope you have a great week.

And I did want to remind you, if you haven't already gone and signed up for my email newsletter, it comes out most Fridays called Faith Fridays.

That's where I encourage you beyond the podcast and if you go to my workbooks page@kristinfitch.com and go to Workbooks you can grab a workbook completely free.

One of my most popular is called Reignite youe Passion but it's a five day jumpstart to help you step into more of the things you love and that God created you uniquely to do in the world.

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