Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Foreign.
[00:00:06] Pastor Chuck Allen, here with another weekday podcast. And on this Thursday, I want to talk about the conversation that changes everything.
[00:00:15] I think we, most of us, at least, we all kind of have this time in which this. We have significant conversations, and some of them actually redirect our life.
[00:00:26] There's a. There's a moment that changed my life, and it almost didn't happen. It was back in high school for the Mighty, Mighty Comets of South Cornett High School, and I almost skipped practice that day. I think most of us can get a feel for the kind of season I was probably in. A little tired, a little discouraged, just off. But I went. After practice, Coach Strickland pulls me aside. He didn't give me some long speech and scream at me. You know, he doesn't bark at me. It's not even dramatic. It's probably just sentences. But he says something to me that just really shook me in such a cool way. He said he saw something in me that I didn't see in myself. And then he said, when you start living as you care about something other than you, you're going to be a great man. That's it. A few minutes. But I've carried those words for decades. And here's what gets me. He probably had no idea. He didn't go home thinking, wow, that changed everything. He probably never even thought about it. He just noticed something, and then he said something.
[00:01:32] Hear that again. He noticed something and he said something.
[00:01:37] And that's how the Kingdom of God works. Not through these big moments. I mean, I've heard some great people speak, but they didn't stir me like that. I've heard people that were more eloquent than Coach was, but, well, they didn't change me.
[00:01:55] It was always through the small, faithful conversations that had the biggest impact. A conversation at the right time, a sentence spoken with honesty. A moment of courage when it would have been easier to stay silent.
[00:02:10] There's probably a conversation in your life right now that you've been putting off. You might have been waiting for the right time, for the right words, for the right feeling. But here's the truth. You will never feel fully ready to have that conversation. But say it anyway. Because someone in your life is carrying something heavy.
[00:02:32] And your words, simple, honest and imperfect, might be the thing that shifts everything in their life and possibly in yours.
[00:02:41] You don't have to change their whole story.
[00:02:45] Just be faithful in the moment you're given.
[00:02:48] Because sometimes just a few minutes is all it takes. Imagine Jesus walking up to the sycamore tree and looking up at Zacchaeus and saying, come down and let's go to your house and have a party.
[00:03:02] Imagine Jesus as he walks up to Peter and says, do you love me? Do you love me? Do you love me? After Peter had denied him, denied him and denied him.
[00:03:13] Imagine Jesus as he walks in to see the disciples after he had risen from the dead and could have given them anything and said, I've come to give you peace.
[00:03:22] You just think about that. Imagine Mary as she arrives at the garden tomb to try and come care for the dead body of her savior, looking and seeing a man and thinking, he's the gardener. And Jesus looks back and he calls her by name.
[00:03:38] They're small things, but they're huge in the kingdom of God. So today, my encouragement to you would be have that conversation, be that light in someone's life, and be that kind of person that steps into the kingdom, no matter how messy and not some huge way, not even attempting to change somebody's life, just to be fully present, to be fully there and watch how God uses that moment.
[00:04:07] I was in a counseling appointment the other day, and I was in a quandary because I didn't really know exactly what to say.
[00:04:15] So in my mind, I'm just praying. I'm saying, lord, I just need to know what to do.
[00:04:21] And when I got done, the person that I was trying to serve, well, literally just busted out and said, thank you so much. You can't imagine how much you've helped.
[00:04:30] And in my mind, I thought, I honestly didn't do a blessed thing. I was just quiet enough and ready enough to say, God, I need words. Speak them through me. And he did. And by the way, he'll do that for you as well. God bless you, friend. Go have that conversation. And thanks for listening in to today's weekday podcast.
