Awesome to have Brandon Goss join us this week. This was a lot of fun and we hope he'll come back whenever he can. (And the Monster diet does seem to work, by the way.)

How much fear, worry, and doubt to we carry around with us? These aren't fun, and they aren't what God intends or wants for our life. He wants us to trust in Him completely.

When we follow Him with our whole heart, there's nothing to fear, because we know He is with us. There is nothing to worry about, because we know He holds the future. And there's nothing to doubt, because we know He is faithful.

It's simple math: fear, worry and doubt show us the part of our heart the Lord doesn't have.

• (00:00:02) - How to Lose Weight on a Challenge
• (00:02:54) - Softball Coach
• (00:04:57) - Fat Kenny on 'This Morning'
• (00:07:36) - Brandon on The Fishing Podcast
• (00:08:46) - Kenny on Cutting My Grass
• (00:11:36) - How Real Is Podcast Analytics?
• (00:14:35) - Gardener Takes Over the Yard
• (00:15:55) - Eminem's "Use This Gospel"
• (00:20:16) - DJ Khaled on Eminem's 'All In'
• (00:23:56) - Josh Hamilton
• (00:30:10) - Josh Hamilton on Social Media and His Christian Calling
• (00:34:42) - Pastor: Do We Judge Others?
• (00:40:32) - Kenny on Judgeing People
• (00:42:26) - Another example of this is with Gabe
• (00:45:26) - Does God Allow His Anger to Last?
• (00:48:35) - Daniel the Book of Suffering
• (00:52:55) - When You Can't Get Down on Your Kids
• (00:53:25) - North Carolina drivers on the road: Too judgmental
• (00:57:32) - The Best Places to Live in North Carolina
• (01:01:13) - Malcolm Phelps on His Training
• (01:04:14) - Bob Phelps swims for fun
• (01:05:56) - Getting the Numbers this Week
• (01:06:24) - Joshua and Caleb: What Set Them Apart?
• (01:10:18) - Outcasts in Society
• (01:13:53) - How To Survive In the Heat

God desires truth in our inner most parts. That sure is inconvenient isn't it? None of us want to admit our struggles, maybe even to ourselves.

Kenny said people might be shocked to know who I really am, and you might be. So, brace yourself...

I cuss a lot. Not as much as I used to, and I'm working on it. But I say a lot of things I'm glad y'all don't hear. I also like Miller Lite more than I probably should. And I'm about two cute blondes in yoga pants away from actually gouging my eyes out. And the pride, oh, the pride.

To be fair, I don't say the Lord's name in vain, I'm rarely actually intoxicated, and I've never committed adultery. I mean, technically, according to Romans, well and Matthew....look, I've never cheated, alright?!

This leaves me just enough wiggle room to also struggle with self-righteousness. I'm basically the worst parts of the Old Testament masked as a Pharisee.

Why admit this? Because in the hidden parts, God shows us wisdom. It's only by admitting the truth that we allow God to start changing it.

I've had a lot of opportunities on this podcast to say some things I'd later regret. But of all of them, I think the line I regret the most came from the very first episode. I said "As long as I know I'm where God wants me, I don't care what the purpose of that is."

I don't regret it because it was wrong. Honestly, it sounds pretty righteous to me. I regret it because it turns out it was a lie. To my pastor. In chruch. God reminds me of this pretty much every time I question Him.

Sometimes we feel like we're running on a treadmill. No matter how hard we try, nothing we do seems to move us where we are trying to go. Other times, we feel like dust in the wind, blown all over the place with no control at all over where we are heading.

But sometimes God wants us to stay put for a while, so He sends us a treadmill to keep us busy. Other times, He knows that we can't get where He wants us on our own, so He sends a gust of wind to help us get there.

There's a lot of peace to be found in what I said in the first episode. If you mean it.

Sometimes life happens. This episode was recorded just before Christmas. Also 2 days before my computer crashed taking all of my files down with it.

Fortunately, the recording was already uploaded to YouTube, so I was able to get my hands back on it. It comes in handy to have some extra episodes laying around when vacations and life keeps us from recording as often. I hope you enjoy the irony, considering we’re about as far away on the calendar from Christmas as we could possibly be. But Jesus is the gift that keeps on giving the whole year!

There’s a great quote from one of my favorite movies: “Good judgement is the result of experience, and a lot of experience comes from bad judgement.”

Certainly, God wants us to develop good judgement. But we get frustrated that He allows us to have bad judgement along the way. Free will isn’t always convenient, but it is part of His plan. When we make mistakes, or things just don’t work out the way we hoped, we have a choice in how we can handle it.

It’s so easy to fall into blame, regret, and guilt. But when we remember God’s patience, grace, mercy and faithfulness, we can find joy and gratitude in how God will use them for growth.

Jesus bought our freedom with His blood. Before the Cross, we were bound by our sin, but now we have a choice. But it still our choice. We decide how to use this freedom. Unfortunately, part of having freedom is being free to make the wrong choices, too.

But we are not free from the earthly consequences of sin. And freedom shouldn’t be mistaken for God's apathy toward our sins. He will still love us, but He will hate our decisions. And out of His love for us, don't be surprised if He goes out of His way to redirect and correct them if they become habits in our lives.

When we see our kids in danger, we tend to throw tactful out the window. Sometimes God has to do the same with us. But as His children, we shouldn’t lose sight of the love that He is showing us, even in the harsh corrections.

One of the threats to our walk with God is becoming so hard-headed and rigid that we forget there are two sides of every coin. Work needs to be done, but we also need rest. We show patience and grace to others, but there’s a time for discipline and hard truth. The joy of God’s love should never leave us, but neither should the fear and awe of His power.

Sometimes we try so hard to figure out God’s magic formula for our lives that we forget He created all of these concepts and intended for us to have a healthy blend of them. It’s Ecclesiastes 3 in motion. But how do we decide where the line is and exactly how much of each we need, and when? Simple, we don’t.

The solution to the magical God formula comes from accepting that He is the only One who knows it. Being humble enough to submit to His will when you don’t know what His will is, that’s peace. Because He doesn’t usually give us the answers the way we want them. He tells us it’s time to rest by taking away our job unexpectedly. He tells us we need to be more patient by sending us people to test it. And if He decides you need a little more humility, well, I’ll be praying for you.

But the only way He can truly teach us how to stop leaning on our own understanding is to send us situations beyond our comprehension. That’s how He develops the one thing we can never have too much of: Trust in Him.