Episode #023 Becoming Your True Self, with Jeremy Walker

Hey welcome back to another episode of the Truly Masterpiece Podcast. My name is Craig Walker. I am your host, and today I have the luxury of being here with one of my children, my son, my oldest son, and his name is Jeremy Walker. Jeremy, thank you for being with us today. You have some exciting things going on in your life. I'll let Jeremy tell you a little bit about himself, pretty much what he's doing right now. He was a worship leader when I was a pastor, when I was a church playing pastor for most of those years. He was the worship leader for our church, and we enjoyed him tremendously. Then he stepped away from leading worship, and today, Jeremy, you're doing something else. I'll let you tell people about that.

Transcript

Hey welcome back to another episode of the Trudy Masterpiece Podcast. My name is Craig Walker. I am your host and today I have the luxury of being here with one of my children, my son, my oldest son, and his name is Jeremy Walker. Jeremy, thank you for being with us today. You have some exciting things going on in your life. I'll let Jeremy tell you a little bit about himself, pretty much what he's doing right now. He was a worship leader when I was a pastor, when I was a church playing pastor for most of those years. He was the worship leader for our church and we enjoyed him tremendously and then he stepped away from leading worship and today Jeremy you're doing something else. I'll let you tell people about that. I'm a home builder and I love what I do. Ever since I was a little kid I've always enjoyed building things.(...) I think now my recollection as a small child is fuzzy some of this is because of stories that I've heard but I think I was probably five or six years old and I built my first boat.(...) Now this boat was used that term loosely because it was it consisted of some leftover blocking some guys had thrown away that was building a house next door to us. I gathered that two by six blocking and some piece of scrap plywood that I found and somehow I nailed them together probably with your help but that was my boat. The plan was is that I was going to hold on to a rope and you were going to pull me behind your boat so that when you went fishing I could be in my boat you could be in your boat and we could both have our own boats. Yeah well I think that one about as good as your next project fast forward now a few more years and you're a teenager and I had you build a shed for our church. This is when I was a brand new pastor and a church that didn't have money for anything yeah and so either I did it or my family and I did it and we built a shed. And so I got tasked with building a shed for the church but that was before I had learned to use all the tools. Like one particular one particular tool. A square.(...) Yeah a square. It was good with a tape measure. I was good with a saw. Hammer nails had that down. Hadn't mastered the square and the level part yet. I remember the door being a little bit of an issue. Well I did that building a custom door.

Okay fast forward from building that to okay what are you building out?(...) Now I'm working in downtown Dallas for local home builder luxury home builder. We just finished our first I guess commercial residential build which you guys got to walk through the other day. It's a spec home so it's not owned it's for sale.

But it was just written up in the last month or so by a few different people. Dallas Business Journal did a write-up on it. Another prominent realtor in the Dallas area just did a write-up on it but it's currently the most expensive high-rise apartment in the city of Dallas. Yep and when mom and I left first of all we were there just last week and we walked through it. We saw it early on when they started came during about the middle and now we came back when it's all finished. It's actually furnished it's staged I guess for people to walk through make it look like it's presentable for mine. And so we walked through it and I was pretty much at all. I was highly impressed. I know how far you've come I know how skilled you are at it and we met the realtor that's hired to manage this the sales project. We met her while we were there and she was lavishing praise on Jeremy for his building and the privilege she had to work with him to get it built and and then she reminded me that I should be proud of my son to which his mom and I both said on the way home she didn't need to tell us that we already were and because and I just looked at mom and I said do you realize Dallas is a big place and to be a builder and Dallas is kind of a big deal to build these and I said but do you realize I looked at her and I said do you realize that our son just built the most expensive high-rise is a condo whatever it is a residence apartment in all of Dallas Texas and she said yeah and then we both we kind of reveled in the moment and glory didn't be a good term. Well that's my son Jeremy he's married his three children and they are like my children they're just the apple of our eye. Well I'm privileged to have Jeremy with us today I want to talk about something today that it's it I wrote it out I've got my notes right here I just wrote it out it wasn't scripted at all because it's just an idea that I had that I thought this will be helpful for everyone to talk about and I just thought he would be great to be here for me to kind of reveal this this revelation and at the same time get his feedback and we'll tell stories and build on it and I think it's really gonna be helpful to you it'll be a good challenge to you as well.  What I want to tell you today this is this is just a thought that came to me I woke up 4 31 morning which I do that often with ideas and I get up and write them out so I got up and scratch this out but the idea that I have this is the challenge I have for you and that is to become fully you to become the person God created you to be the person that you enjoy more than anything else in the world being to do that you've got to do something scary and here it is you have to give up being who you're not and that's the crazy part to be who you truly are you've got to give up who you're not and and I say it's scary because when I first realized this it was it was because I was having to give up a version of me that that I don't particularly want to give up or I didn't want to give up initially and and here it is this is what I had to admit to myself and now tonight just before we started this recording I told my son I said I just want to tell you something that and I'm sure he already knew it that I'm not very mechanical and all my life I've been thought of is that guy that he can just do anything and in part of this part of my background I grew up with a father that could do anything he's literally like a genius at pretty much everything he put his hand to it was mechanical it was it was working with his hands and one I just I have so many memories of people come into our house as a kid growing up a car is broken down something they wanted to build and whatever and my dad would just do it in a few hours while they were there and and I've heard men grown men time and time again just tell me that look at me and smile and say you know your dad can do anything and I grew up saying yep I know he can he's one of those guys he can literally do anything once we were at my uncle's and this is a great story for me to tell when I was joy telling because it's one of those he can do anything kind of stories and my uncle just bought he was a farmer and he'd bought a two-ton bean truck and haul beans out of the field in and and my cousins had gone to Iowan picked it up brought it back to Mayfield Kentucky our hometown and when they brought it back they said and dad you should have got two gas tanks we only went about a hundred miles man pulling your gas and my dad was standing there and he said well let's just make another one for it and so they went to town and we're there visiting over a weekend the time we moved in Indiana we're there visiting for a few days weekend and my dad's was just making another one so they went and they bought the steel came back rolled the steel put ends on it a fill cap all the the fittings it takes to connect it to the engine the gas lines the vents the gas gauge everything he did he didn't make the gas case he bought that put it in it but it built that tank and then built the brackets hung it up underneath that truck in a weekend that looked like it was made for like it came out the factory and did that in a weekend rolled steel how would you do that in a barn and I just remember watching do it just marveling but when he finished my uncle looked at him and said well how much do how much gas do you think it'll hold and he just takes like a spiral-bound you know whatever notebook out of his pocket and starts scratching it out and tells him I had a hold about 40 gallons I don't remember exactly what he said but whatever it was my uncle sent my cousin to town filled the truck up brought it back and it held exactly what he said he would and my uncle just looked at me and said what everybody else always does you know I said yes I do here it is he can do anything and so I grew up having been exposed to that we had a welding shop in home I could play with a cutting torch a welder all the hand tools and I could just do that and my brother and I grew up working with all this stuff and and so I just had developed this title that you can do anything too because well I have been able to fix a lot of things because I've just seen it done and I've learned how to work with my hands and I learned that that if you think about it work at it hard enough you can figure it out but here's what I had to come to realize and had to come to admit is well that just didn't come natural to me that's not who I am naturally to be able to do all those things and I know Jeremy you grew up with me because we talked about it and especially when we lived in Mesquite and this is is that no you'd already built your boat we live in Brownsville Texas yeah yeah so we'd already moved to Mesquite and you're seeing me build stuff I was thinking we talked about being that having this church where I was the pastor and we roof that church my family now we wrote the church a couple of the guys Kevin quals and I don't know anybody else honestly that helped us and the two-story church and you and me and probably Mindy and got up on that thing and we roof that into our church ourselves and that was pretty amazing but we just we just did stuff like that there was a time when our house a neighbor was throwing away these French doors on the back of the house while our house didn't have any of those and they were throwing away to rotted wooded rotted and so they took them out took them out put them in the trash and I went over and said can I have those because they've been a few hundred dollars to buy it we couldn't buy that and they said yeah they're junk so they gave them to me I brought them home I cut the bottoms of the doors off milled some wood down and and really once they milled it down probably just using a table saw the cheap table saw and and milled them down drilled them put dowel pins in it and glued them up put it all back together put the glass back in it finished it out and cut the hole in the wall we put all that in and again I'm pretty not mechanical I'm just I could just figure it out I'll just make mistakes and don't worry about making mistakes I'll just fix those two and keep going so you grew up seeing me do all that stuff and and so you grew up with the idea with my dad's mechanical but somewhere along the way you figured out probably before I did that's not who you really are but that's not what you're best at I always thought you could fix things I just think there's no better

field of play to learn to be mechanical than when you're broke yeah because you either figure we're gonna do without or you get creative and you figure not just do without but you figure out yeah you just figure out out and that's something that you I think drove you probably more than a mechanical mind and curiosity for mechanical things it was the fact that we may not have the money that doesn't mean we have to do without these things we're just gonna figure out how to how to do it ourselves I just had this thought you know I've now built two houses yeah you helped me we built one in Colorado together and we did ourselves and then we moved back here and I kind of thought I was gonna have your help again I had been saving up kids do this parents will tell you something when you're a kid that's and you know when I'm going back to you know you're gonna tell the story but we bought a truck I bought me a truck and it was totally rebuilt it and I don't know much about it but you know and you were there the whole way teaching me how to do it replacing parts straightening this and whatnot and then we got it all finished and it was practically a brand new truck again and then six months later I totaled it mm-hmm and I was like well dad it's like we have to do it again he's patted me on the back that said well son I showed you how to do it the first time good luck it's yours so I think we're about 18 yeah it's about 18 years old I know I'm 48 years old I know where you're going with this I've been sitting on that so we built your first house come back to Texas I already knew where your mind was headed hey we did this once we're gonna do it again and I sat on it and you started getting all your stuff together and I sat on it still and we came over did one big work day and and I think one time it was like well can you come over and do this and I said well dad I showed you how to do it on the first one good luck and I did it and I let that go like I was swinging for the fences yeah and so we did it actually I do this house what we're setting out the books else and everything else you're looking at all by yourself I did you're right and it's one of those things where I really am not talented that that's not my guilt that's not my niche I'll never make a living being a home builder I'll go broke before I really figured out but it's just one of those things this is part of who I am I will figure it out and that is something I learned growing up and that's only gotten better as I realized who God made me to be that's that's become a stronger trait of mine as I've realized who God has made me to be and well that just just to say when you think about being a handyman that can do anything I just woke up and realized but that's not who I am that's not my gift I'm not really a mechanical minded really thinker like like a person that that's gonna be their niche or calling that's who they are that's not who I am you know when I really get stuck and I'm working on things and I can't fix it you know the first person I call is to get help it's my wife it's true my life is far more natural if figuring things out than I am and I can figure it out because I work hard and stay at it long enough she figures it out because it just comes natural to her that's more like who she is but I'm not that guy and I just I finally had to admit that and and to be honest with you Jeremy for me to admit that at 4 30 in the morning it was okay to do that in the privacy of my house but at the same time I gotta tell you I felt a little pull like I didn't want to let go of that piece of my quote identity I didn't want to let go of that and and I know I didn't want to let go of that and I'll say this I think there's two reasons we don't I thought about this see if you can identify with either the first is it's just who we've always wanted to be and so you've looked at someone else and and so you you love it about them so much and the accolades they get you want that for yourself and so I looked at my dad and my older brother and they just get all these accolades because they are that guy and and I really wanted to be that guy and I could try the rest of my life and I won't be the one that comes up with the best ideas I won't be the one that comes up with the fastest fix and because God did not make me that way but I really wanted to be that guy and so I hung on to it I've hung on to it for a long time in fact it was just about two weeks ago that I just humbly finally said but I'm not that's not who I am and and it was hard to let go of because I liked the idea of being that person I was thinking about this and I think that's one of the reasons we don't let go is because we just like it oh let me say this I want to forget this this is another good thought that you don't this is this makes it hard to find your true self finding your true self the person God created you to be isn't you don't not find that person because you don't like that person it's not because you really looked at your talents weighed them out and decided oh I don't like who I am no it's here's the problem is that you've looked at other people and said wow I want to be like that and so you pay so much attention to that and want to be that so much that it keeps you from really looking at yourself deep within and discovering who did God make me to be in order to become that person so we reject it's not let me say it again we don't reject who we really are we hang on to who we want to be and if we can ever let go of who we're not then we can become then we can start moving towards being that person that God made us to be does that make sense mm-hmm yeah no I was just gonna say you know talking about letting go of that I'm just not that mechanical person I think you know I'm sitting here asking myself am I that level of mechanical person then honestly yeah what I'm coming to is just I don't I don't know but I don't know that I care I don't know that it matters I don't know that it moves the needle one way or the other I'm mechanical enough for me I'm mechanical enough to enrich the lives of my wife and my kids I'm mechanical enough to do the things I need to do but I don't I don't know that I would how I would categorize myself mm-hmm and if I'm being real honest that's just not one of those things now there probably are things in my life that I am trying to identify as that I'm probably not but I know I'm mechanical enough for me yeah but it makes you satisfied your sense I'm satisfied with with that that part of me but as you're saying this I'm the question I'm really asking myself is what area that I am really trying to to be that I'm really not but I'm actually spending more energy trying to be that that's wasting time mm-hmm and I haven't identified that yet but I know I'm sure there is yeah everybody's trying to do that I just I haven't identified what that is for me yet yeah it's it's more about letting go of who you're not since you can become who you are and and I think this is worth pointing out too it's not a one-and-done process and I haven't done this one time my wife and like oh well not that then this is who I am it wasn't that at all in fact it's been a whole lot of letting go of who I'm not so I can become who I am let's see I work for General Motors and and I like that job I did and I'm actually I was pretty good at that one I did their paint department I took care of all the color matching for for cars for GM between some of the different plants to make the plastic parts match the other ones I did pretty good at that and I got a lot of accolades for that I liked it but it didn't it didn't totally fill my tank once I got saved it didn't fill my tank at all yeah and I just had to let go that's not who I was and I had to let go of that to become more of who I am what else have I done as a pastor I was a church planting pastor there was a time we planted Salina church in Salina a life-way church Salina and and this was my third church plant and each time we planted churches you know this your part of our family is every time we get one up or start to get it up then we hand it off and we move to a new location and start again we started BCF Church with Kenny and Mike and Mike Jones Kenny Lewis in Brownsville that church was healthy growing I stepped aside and we went to Indiana planted life-way church Indiana and that church really never became what I imagined it would and that was that's a whole nother story I thought never get over this one I felt like that was a failure it only got up to about 125 max and then we merged with another church so I handed that one off and then we started a life-way church in Salina and that church would blew up became big it had time where it got unhealthy but it got real healthy again and continued on and I told God I just want to stay here I'm tired of moving I'm tired of starting over and I said like God said you can it was like I'm not gonna beat you up for it you can't and then after a while I realized well I can I don't want to I don't like this anymore I don't want to be that passionate manages and grows in church I like starting stuff and so I did I handed off Josh Price now the church is doing great it's going on even better I started a new ministry I launched Craig Walker coaching and I was doing leadership coaching and helping people because I learned systems as a pastor I learned some leadership skills and I thought and a lot of people told me that's what you need to do invest in other leaders and and I and I was decent at it but boy it did not fill my cup I didn't find joy in that and I was like that's not who I am and somehow another I ended up coaching someone that there was a hard issue and I could tell their faith wasn't there and they weren't fully alive as a pastor when I began to help them win over what I then discovered was shame help them win that battle and those I began to see this is more as I'm letting go of going on it's more becoming who I am and Jeremy I think about you because I could do those things and some people had said you should do those things that was one things that made it hard to get rid of yeah I think about you as being the worship pastor you were extremely gifted as a worship pastor a lot of people came to our church it wasn't because they want to hear me pretty sick when they hear you leave worship and that's why they came and and you were very very good at it and but yet you were able to give that up to become who you are now(...) well I think going back I just had this thought as you were talking we had just moved to Brownsville I think I was just about to finish high school and and old evangelists from the area long since died now Sunner went came to Brownsville and he stayed with us why I don't remember if he stayed with us I remember he was eating dinner with us at the table and you know he looked across and asked me you know of course you know I'm about to get out of high school I'm around 18 years old and it's the same question every high school senior gets asked so what are you gonna do after high school I had rehearsed my answer I had it polished and I said I don't know I'm still thinking about it looking at a few things but I've made up a mind yet I've given that answer many many times and he pushed back with just a simple question and he said well I mean so matter of fact I remember this well what do you like doing like it's not that hard he just said well what do you like doing and nobody ever really asked me that not when it came to a career or you know the launch into adulthood you know nobody never asked me that and I said well I like building things I said I like working with my hands I think I kind of have a knack for it and I like doing it and probably between bites he just said well why don't you do that you know I remember that conversation I remember that the rest of my life you hadn't brought up this now that conversation has changed my life it really did and and there may or may not even I don't know how many people will watch this or who will watch it but there may even be some younger people from life way that have heard me ask them that very question because it was so impactful to me and it was so simple to me I had never thought you know when he asked me well what do you like and why don't you just do that you know my first answer was Cali this guy's you know a hundred years old and he doesn't know that you're not supposed to like your job you're supposed to hate your job and so but he went on he said you know in my experience which you know I say he was a hundred years old probably 70 years at the time but he looked ancient at a date to an 18 year old yeah but he said you know in my experience that if God hasn't told you something specific to do he said he created those desired those things that you like and the things that you don't like he said he gave you those he said they gave you those for a reason he said so he didn't give me anything specific to do then just do that and you'll be living out the way he made you that's great and that was it that was really it I appreciate you saying that that's probably advice I have ever gotten I think because and the reason I share that is now I'm 48 years old and I've had a plethora of jobs I mean a lot I was telling somebody else somebody the other day you know that I worked with now for the last couple years every now and then I'll say you know I used to do this and then one day I said you know I used to do hay in Colorado and they're like how many jobs have you had because I've done a lot of things and but I can go back now because chronologically I've got the data you know to to mark all this down and I can just see how God directed that so I was 18 he said well just do what you like doing I said well I'm building things so got some good advice and decided to go to school to college for construction so I did I did that I get out I got a job but beyond and we got married right after that we were living we had moved now from South Texas she and I had moved back to the Dallas area as I was working as a trim carter in the building industry and I did that for a year and that was right about time you and the family moved to Indiana to plant a church and I remember talking to you and just thinking you know I don't know what's gonna happen and you know you're such a vision caster I I saw myself in it for sure and so I remember telling you one night on the phone I think you'd already moved actually to Indiana you'd already come and you'd already moved up there and Deanna and I just had this conversation one night I said I just feel like that

God's gonna do something up there and if we don't go we're gonna miss it I said I don't want to miss it I don't know what he's gonna do but I feel like something if something's gonna happen I don't want to be on the sidelines I'm gonna be a part of it and so we did and so that moment right there is like Sumner said until God gives you something specific just do what he created you to enjoy and what you're good at and so that moment was when he said all right now I've got something specific for you and that was the beginning of my movement towards being a worship leader I had no idea how I played the guitar a little I'd never sang in front of anybody and you'll remember the very first Sunday I do Mina Kim not Kim anymore but Mina if you're watching this you'll remember this that first Sunday was a train wreck and a half I'm telling you I knew so little about it I didn't know that you should tune your guitar to the piano I tuned it off to the side to my ear and from the first room strum and she hit the chords I want oh no this isn't you're in trouble it was a train wreck it was horrible it worked out not that Sunday that Sunday just ended that we enjoy sorry about that Sunday but it just ended as a train wreck but it worked out but God specifically right at that moment said all right now I've got something specific for you mm-hmm I've given you all these tools I've given you these desires of giving you this brain that works a certain way go do that go make a living do what you got to do stay busy until I call on you you know it's like the pitcher in baseball you know go go warm up you know just stay ready when we need you stay ready yeah and I'll call you when I need you and so that's what I did I stayed working and building and construction and carpentry whatnot until God had something for me and then in 2000 we moved to Indiana and I started working towards learning how to be a worship leader because it was a calling at that point it's amazing how God has had both tracks running for you though while you were a worship leader for us we couldn't repay you much for anything I had a church plan I continued to construct it you did construction they just kind of all beside each other so that who knows what God will do in the future it's like me was a church planning pastor and now I'm a coach and author who would have thought that I never would have thought it but I've kept doing what I like to do mm-hmm and with a sense of calling this is what God made me for this is a good point to bring out scripture says it's for God is at work and you both to will and to work for his good pleasure that's called the grace of God he is at work and you both to will to give you the want to and the power the desire and the power to do what pleases him and so that's you get that desire and then you develop the skills and I say this a lot it's in my book as well just talking about David as a shepherd boy he had no idea that as he was perfecting his craft of slinging a stone to care for sheep that God was gonna make him a national hero with those skills that he was developing that day he had no idea he did he was just being faithful so I say give your skills or perfect your craft for God's glory give yourself to perfect your craft for God's glory one day you'll discover that God's already perfected the perfect opportunity if you'd glorify him he'll take what you've learned and leverage that for great for good and so and that's really all you've been doing and that's really all I've been doing for a lot of years and I just see how God is using that more and more of his kingdom by the way I want to say this because it's easy to get trapped in to doing what other people think you should do Jeremy was a worship leader and it would have been easy for him to get trapped in to always be a worship leader because there are people that would say well a worship leader is you're impacting people for the kingdom of God and that construction that's just building houses you want to build the kingdom it could have been that kind of logic and people do think that way but let me just tell you this if you're not called to do it then then you're not gonna glorify God and doing it that's just being who he didn't make you to be and so just keep being you keep showing up letting go of who you're not ever chance you get so that you can become more of who you are that's how you'll glorify God I think he's glorifying God by being a builder today just as much as he did when he was a worship leader so there's things we have to let go of in order to become something else I want to go back to one more thing and that is that this is hard it was hard for me to admit that's not who I am I just wanted to hang on to it I think a lot of times were like this king you know he's a little bit of kings only 12 inches tall okay 12 inches tall and he had this vision growing up that he would be this great king this handsome you know the handsome prince grow up and be the handsome king he has great vision to be that be that king but he's only 12 inches tall well he becomes a king one day and he inherits the throne and and he just always looked down himself I'll never be a great king I can't I'm only 12 inches tall always look down for himself and and then one day someone told him okay said you're a great ruler and he lived happily ever after okay that's a dumb damn joke I know it is but doesn't it make a great point honestly think about that and just who he wanted to be I'm hanging on this is idea who I want to be and but now I'm supposed to keep a straight face why you say that doesn't that make a good point though seriously there's I just want this life so much I want to be this I want to be that so much that you're not letting go to be who God really made you be and that just goes back to underscore point already made the hardest part about this thing is it's not that you don't like you this king he loved being a ruler 12 minutes long when he when he figured out to him it was great he looked happily ever after but he never could see it not because he didn't like that by himself because he never looked at that he was so busy looking at what he admired in everyone else it's the hardest thing so get good at letting go of who you're not get humble enough to let go of who you're not so that you can become who you really are probably scratched off some notes that I haven't hit on it'd be worth mentioning well while you're looking at that I'll just say you know can as I continue on in my time on looking back how God has said well just do this until I call on you and I would go back to construction until 2000 and it was well do construction to supplement make a living you know I was a husband at the time not yet a dad a father but supplemented with construction and then for the next 13 years it was 2013 when I left a life way in Salina so for the next 13 years I worked very hard at learning how to be a worship leader because I didn't know how you know there wasn't a seminary even I say back then it seemed like it was 25 years ago there wasn't seminaries for worship leaders I remember renting Chris Tomlin DVDs from the library and watching and just how do you you know I was just grasping at anything I surrounded myself with other people that were a lot better at it than I was and I tried to you know learn from them and mimic them really at first until I kind of learned some things but fast forward now all that all my time in ministry and the exposure to fantastic leadership training I mean some of the best anywhere you and I and the staff were constantly reading books leadership books training ourselves training each other we would go to conferences leadership conferences and training here being around other churches that were ahead of us and fast forward now you know when my my time with leading worship came to an end in 2013 and then I started moving back towards construction again and then now where I'm at today in the last couple of years part of it's just I think my age I'm not the young guy on the job site I'm not the kid on the job site anymore where everybody's trying to teach me teach me about life and teach me about women you know I'm that guy up here now you're teaching guys about women yeah you got five seconds I'll tell you everything I know but no I I've got I've got foreman crew foreman electricians framers sheet rockers I've got all these guys on my job site some are because of their scope of work they're on my job site for a long time months months at a time some come in for a week and then they're gone but I've got a core group of guys right now that have been on the my job site for better part of a year between a couple different builds that we're doing and I have made a relationship with all of them where probably half of the conversations that we have are they're not happy with where they are and they they don't know how to take the next step and I find myself being a leader not being a boss not being a manager not being a construction for a superintendent I find myself being a leader to them when they're in they encounter a situation they're talking about something with the people they answer to and I had a guy coming to me the other day he says I'm really going I don't know what it's gonna be like going to another when I leave this job site to go to the next one he said because I feel like I've learned so much on this job site not about my framing he said but just just getting to be around you and you know getting to see how you view things and so I look back and I would think you said it a minute ago about how none of that time is ever wasted yep now you know all my that leadership training that I got and how to really you know what's important to people and really how to help people get rid of what's not important view what is important live for what God said is important and now I've taken all of that training that I got there and I'm deploying it now in a construction field where it's I've completely flip-flopped before I did construction to supplement a ministry now I'm doing ministry while I'm doing construction and so it's the same it's it's nothing is lost nothing is wasted it was just even that time was preparing me for you know what I'm doing now just as though construction was preparing me for ministry and now it's just flip-flopped it that'd be a great place to transition what you just said I think it's good to point out one what we're talking about here is not your identity not yet it'd be easy to can conceive that what we're saying is is you are you are a contractor I am a writer I am a Christian coach identity I am this I am that that's not what I'm saying I said you've got core talents core things that makes up several things that makes up who you are and

I'm really trying to say is that that's your true self you just talking about you that's your true self things that you're really good at things that you're not really good at you're letting go of what you're not so you're focusing honing your skills and the things that you got really made you to do and you learn it by paying attention to yourself but we're not I don't want you to confuse this that we're talking about your identity this is not your idea your identity my identity is a servant of Jesus Christ I'm a child of God I'm born into the kingdom God I'm born into his kingdom for his purposes and so whether Jeremy your contractor I'm a Christian coach worship leader whatever it is that you are number one if you're a Christian you are a child of God that's your identity and so your true self fits underneath that identity because honestly there's a lot of times that that I have to live outside of myself what I'm good at what I'm not good at but I never have to live outside of that I'm a child of God and then I know that I'm loved by him I'm empowered by him so whatever it is he asked me to do I can do it I can do a purpose I can do a passion I can do it for his glory and so just understand we're not talking about a dinner here I just I just wanted to say I think the difference is is our identity is we're a child of God and that we live on mission our true self just determines how we go about doing that yeah that's it that's the niche that we fit in to be that person whether you're living on mission as a worship leader a coach a horse trainer a photographer whoever that's that's your true self but that's just how you go about living on mission yeah I couldn't I couldn't go about living on the mission as a child of God you know as a chef and that's just I don't know very long that flat thing I wouldn't I'd have no platform to speak up to speak from you know what I mean just kind of using the worship leader because they're on stages in a platform and I always equate that to saying it you know everybody has something to say but not many people have a platform to say off of I have to use construction right now is my platform to live on mission and to point people towards Christ I couldn't do that from somebody yeah yeah you know I get it so this is just my platform and I may not make sense to anybody else but that's how my brain works to me because everybody's brain is different that's how my brain works yeah well let me wrap it up by saying three things that I think you can do that will help you to discover your true self in your identity as a Christian number one you must be born again and you have to have the living Spirit of God inside of you he makes you into a new person the Holy Spirit's awakened in you and he begins to speak to you and tell you who you are what you should do and how you should live you just want to get you want to get very good at being surrendered to him and listen to him speaking into your life as he does that you also number two pay attention to how he made you remember God is at work and you both to will and to work for his good pleasure God gives us the desires of our heart sometimes we take that well I want to be a millionaire he's gonna make me a millionaire I want this house I want that car with this horse I can see that all these things I want so God's gonna give no God gives you the desires he gives you those desires so those desires drive you they give you your passion so you can begin to discover your true self under his identity to fulfill his purposes so pay attention to your passions the third thing I would say is is keep perfecting your skills take your craft give it to God and perfect yourself your skills for his glory and one day you really will see this happen in time you'll be so good at whatever it is you do people will pay a lot of money for you to do that and so just trust that when you do when you give yourself to perfect your craft for his glory you will discover he's already perfected the perfect opportunity or crafted the perfect opportunity for you to glorify him just it's built on trust everything you do built on trust and that's all I want to say about this podcast is I think it's been enjoyable I've had a lot of fun I enjoyed you being here with me and being a part of it just to wrap it up let go of who you're not so that you can become who you are and you're really gonna love the person that God created you to be trust me on that one God thank you you are his masterpiece till next time hey live the life God called you to live and we'll see you next time