Mind Refresh | Brandy Williams and Angela Hurley-Smith | EP 121

where we talk about the impact of prayer in God's Word. Okay. So who in here has been having a day? Anyone? A week? A year? We've got some struggles, some things going on in life. There's times where it can feel a little overwhelming. You don't have to look too far on the internet or on the news to see something that's going to affect you, make you feel fearful or overwhelmed. But we've been talking, Brandy and I and the iRefresh ladies about the topic, which is a mind refresh and how We need to have our minds reset and refreshed and reframed according to what God wants for us. One of those things that I'm trying to do this year is build a garden, which is a little audacious for me because I had a tendency to just kill animals. Animals, not animals, plants. I don't kill animals. I don't know where that came from. How about you, Brandi? Do you garden? fake plant alive. My husband is the gardener. I admire people who garden and like to do that. I like the end result. I don't want to do the work. I just want to see them. They're pretty. Yeah, I grew up on a farm and my mom had this really big garden and I did not like to go pull weeds. So that was like not in the realm of anything I wanted to do. So I tended to stay away from it. But now I'm really excited about it. I want to grow my own fresh fruit. You know, you hear all the things are bad at the grocery store and I'm like, I can make some tomatoes. I can do my own herbs. So to do that, we want to liken the gardens that we're creating to the garden of our heart and what God's trying to bring forth in us. So this kind of is symbolic of that, you know, we're what vessels made of clay he talks about, molded, but that isn't supposed to be an empty vessel. We're supposed to fill it with something. So Matthew 13 talks about the parable of the seed and the sower. And the seed fell, some on stony ground, some weeds choked it out, and some was good ground. So we're going to kind of talk about that a little bit. What do you think some of those weeds would look like in someone's life? I love the parable of the sower because the sower represents your heart. And if you don't take care of it, it can get dry, it can get hard, and the weeds will choke. the fruit or the flower, but it's what's under the surface. Each one of those roots or weeds could represent anger, bitterness, past trauma, past hurt. And unrepented sin. I mean, it could represent anything for you. Each one's so different. Yeah, anything that's going to get in the way of you and what God's trying to do. Yeah. The stones and the weeds, things that we need to get out of the way to make it good soil. That's going to get in the way of what God's trying to bring forth in your life. It's the painful part. Yeah. Yeah. You know, that's the part you have to be honest with yourself. Okay, Lord, you know, what's under the surface that I need to bring to the surface, root out? And the Bible talked about that. Search me. Oh, God, see what's in me. You know, he wanted those things rooted out too. Yeah. That's a process. If you look at a field, something's going to grow in it, and it might not be what you want. So we have to be active and intentional in pulling the weeds out. And you talked about the roots. Those will take hold of the good thing, and you're not going to be able to bring forth what God wants to in your life because there's maybe bitterness. There's anger. Have you ever experienced that? I experienced when I was younger, in my early 20s, I was praying for my mother's healing. And I was truly believing and praying, and it didn't happen the way I wanted to in the natural. So afterwards, I spent years in bitterness, angry, and I carried that for a long time, and it hindered my walk. I decided to go the opposite way for a long time. So when I chose to come back, to Christ and rededicate my life, it was still a process for me, you know, a painful one. Cause you have to, like I said, you have to be honest with yourself. Um, so it's something that was hard for me to pray for someone else's healing because of that. So, but it took digging in the word, pressing in and letting him heal me from the inside out. Right. That's one of those roots that we didn't want to take place. We have some seeds up here, which, I mean, this is zucchini squash, but we're going to liken it to the Word of God, to planting it in our good soil, not in the package, because I'm going to save these. I'm actually going to plant these later. But that's what we're going to represent is the Word of God, planting the truth of the Word of God in our hearts today. because that's what's going to bring forth something. That's the good seed that's going to bring forth, because we know if it's from God, it's good. So that part of that is, you know, we have to tend to that seed. We have to take hold of His Word, and it's our job. You know, God does His part very well, but we have to do ours too. And we have to be active participants in this process. So that takes watering the seed, right? It takes watering. It takes even maybe getting the old soil out, the old junk in your life, whether it's maybe music you listen to or things you watch or friends, and then replacing it with fresh soil, watering it. It reminds me of John 7, 38. Anyone who believes in me may drink and waters of living water will flow through him. And so Jesus is our water source. You know, he's our daily bread and he's our source of, he's our son. Yeah. So. So we're supposed to be. Everything that. Feeding from him, right? Makes a plant grow. Yeah. There's a lot of things that can be distractions in our life that can kind of take away from what God's trying to do. You know, like there's so many times where I will go to. read the Bible on my phone and I'll see a notification. There's a little red flag next to that. I want to check Facebook or I've got an email or a text message or my teenagers are blowing me up with some shenanigans. And so I instantly, my mind goes to something else and it, it takes away my time with God. And so I have to be so intentional in that time, you know, taking even today, trying to really spend time with the Lord, making sure I go to my prayer closet and, really meet God because that's for me. That's going to benefit me so much more than anything I see on TV. If I'm getting it directly from the source, I'm going to grow and flourish. I'm going to build a relationship with God that can't be shaken. It says a tree planted by water, those roots are going to be strong. That's what we want. So what are some ways we can plant the word of God in us? Well, just going back to some distractions, that seems like a really big issue I see throughout this whole entire year. And even within some friends that I know, for myself, I've created a routine when my daughter's in school. I have my prayer time and I read the word. When she's at school, my husband's at work, it's just me, no distractions. So I get into that routine and it comes spring break or summer, I have to readjust it. And so sometimes I get off a little bit and like, oh, I'll just do it. I'll do it tomorrow. And the next thing you know, it's been several days and then it's like, oh, why am I feeling cruddy? And it's subtle, it creeps up on you. But I've learned to be intentional and I'm not going to skip this. You know, I can't, can't do this anymore. So I, I make it very intentional to get up early. Sometimes that's not, it's not easy. I'm not a morning person, but I do, I have to set my alarm. I, I set it in my phone and that's my time, you know? So sometimes you have to adjust different seasons. And so, yeah. Yeah. I mean, I know last year was a really tough year for me personally in so many different ways. So many things happened. But a major one for me was that I lost my father. And there was a lot of time spent in the hospital. There was a lot of time spent in situations where it was just fairly traumatic watching the person you love the most go through so much pain and ultimately passing away. But it was so interesting to me because those moments were where I felt the presence of the Lord so close and it didn't matter what was going on. There was always a time where I could meet with him, you know, with the Lord. And, That is just, God is so good, you know, that he can meet us in the middle of the biggest storms in life. And he wants to, you know, it says, if you draw near to me, he's going to draw near to you. Like he wants to meet with you. He wants to spend that time. Yeah. And looking when you're going through it, you know, you're relying on God, but you don't, sometimes you don't feel it, you know, because your, your feelings are, they come and go. But when you look back, when you've overcome and on the other side, you remember that sweet time, even though it was painful. You remember the sweetness of the presence of the Lord just in that moment. Yeah. I remember when my kids were really little. And I don't know. I thought things were frustrating back then. But talk about teenagers. So when they were little, though, I was a little frustrated because I wasn't finding that time with God. I was... I was elbows deep in laundry and trying to just survive. And then I remember I was crying. Or no, I was praying. I was like, God, I've got all this laundry to do. And I just want to go spend time with you. And I'm overwhelmed and I'm frustrated. And he met me there in the laundry. And I remember just crying all over it. And he was like, I can... I can meet you in the laundry. Like I can meet you wherever you're at. So it doesn't matter, you know, what we're going through. He can be right there in the midst of it. That's really good. Cause I remember when the boys were little, um, that was a dry season for me. My, my soil was dry. It was just like, didn't have the time. I didn't, you know, I hadn't cultivated that, um, habit yet when they were little. And so I look back and I realized how overwhelmed I felt at everything. And, you know, it's just, you go through these seasons, especially if you have little ones that take, take all of your time, you know, learning to just readjust. I wish I could go back what I know now. Yeah. I wish I knew what I knew now then saved me a lot of stuff. Well, what are some things that you do now that you didn't do back then? Well, now my time with the Lord is set. There's no ifs, ands, or buts anymore because I know what it's like to be without him. I know what that dry season's like, that empty feeling, the hopelessness. So I don't want that anymore. It's not worth it for me. So my daily reading in the Word, worship music, and just praying and just wanting more of Him. Yeah. Being hungry for God. I feel like when you do that, you get more hungry because you get so blessed that you want more. You want to spend more time. There's some resources we have, too. I know we talked about the ladies. We talked to all the iRefresh ladies and asked them, you know, what do you do to spend time with God? Like, what do you do to get the word in you so that you're looking at it on a regular basis? Yeah. Um, one of the ladies said that they write it on their mirror at home and so they can see it and it's, you know, a verse or something so that they can be encouraged. Yeah, that's good. I remember when, um, my son had broken his leg his junior year, I would write scriptures on the mirror as well. Um, I got that idea from other ladies and it's, you don't think about stuff like that in the moment until you hear someone else's little tips at work for them. And, um, Now, whether he read those or not, I don't know. I pray that he did and saw them. But another good one is just posting notes everywhere or, you know, go on. Like, irefresh.net has a lot of good resources and scriptures for every subject. And I've gone in there and printed those out. Yeah. You know, and I have them, you know, with me sometimes or in my Bible and I just refer to them. I actually have these note cards on my nightstand at home and I will read them. This says love notes from God. So it's verses and it's just nice. Sometimes when you're just sitting there, you're in a hurry or you don't have time to, you know, really read the word. You're just like, OK, I want to grab something today. So something quick. It's really nice to just have something sweet from God right there. Yeah. So these are available on the website, but that's one thing. There's so many resources on there too. She was talking about those prayer sheets. It's got verses that pertain to anxiety, that pertain to so many things that we deal with. We don't always like to talk about the stuff that we're dealing with. Sometimes it's hard or embarrassing. Mm-hmm. But thankfully, we have a community of women here in this group that want to pray through this. These are real women that have gone through these things. And it's been such a blessing in my life to surround myself with godly women because, man, life is tough. And you need somebody that can pray. You need someone that can speak into your life that's going to give you a word in season that's going to bless you, lift you up, right? So yeah, we have a good support system. So it makes a difference. when you're walking through something, you know, to have, you know, ladies on both sides, you know, to lift you up when you're down or what have you. Yeah, and if you think about like a branch of a tree, if it gets broken off, it's completely cut off from the source. So if you're cutting yourself off, breaking yourself off, separating out, you're not gonna get anything. You're not gonna get nourished. You're gonna kind of be cast away and you're gonna feel that spiritually too. So it's really important to surround yourself with the right things, the right environment for growth. And it's also really important to be, to be open and somewhat vulnerable, you know, and sometimes that's hard for people. I know that's hard sometimes for me to open up to somebody or just, you know, let them know that I am going through something because I've always been, oh, I can do this, you know. So being, letting that guard down and be vulnerable for somebody to speak into your life. Yeah. Another thing that we talked about was, the end result of what I picture in my head my garden's going to look like. So in my head, it looks like better homes and gardens. Like it's really pretty. Now we'll see what it ends up like. I've got some little sprouts at home right now that I have to water them every day. That takes a lot of work. But they're starting and it's really encouraging and exciting. And those seeds, like literally from a seed, I'm so proud of myself, they are sprouting up. Yeah. And I'm believing that they're going to produce something because the result is fruit. Like the result is that there's something comes from it, right? Otherwise, why do all the work? I want to eat that dill and I want to eat those tomatoes because I know where they came from. Like I took care of that. Yeah, I start out good with my garden, watering it, and then it gets to August. I'm like, oh, gosh. I'm like, it's too hot. I'm going in. So then you start seeing them wither. So, yeah. I'm going to do better this year though. Yeah, right? I know. We want to reap a harvest. So spiritually too, like we need to see what God's vision is for us. We need to see what his final product is because otherwise, you know, we don't have an example, but the word of God talks about that, you know, Jesus is our example, Ephesians 4.13, in the full measure and stature of Christ. So we're supposed to be growing into his likeness, and we can't do that if we're focused on our own self, if we're not seeing things the way God does. You know, we have to align ourselves with Christ, and that takes a mind reset. You know, we talked about putting on the helmet of salvation, right? Yeah, the full armor of God. Yeah. Yeah, it's – I love the full armor of God and the picture. And, but it's just, it's so important, you know, to understand the full armor of God. And even if you symbolically have to literally put it on every day, you know, as you start your day, um, I used to do that, you know, physically, like I would put it on. and I'm ready for my day, you know? Yeah. So it's, yes. And with that comes protection. You know, another really important thing is for me, when I was praying, I'm like, Lord, what do you want me to do? And clearly he said, study my word. So I'm like, study your word? I thought I was, you know? But if you're honest with yourself, I'm like, I really need to study my word because that's my sword. I'm going to be wielding and combating just like Jesus did in the wilderness. He combated with the word of God, you know, all three times, boom, boom, boom. And so that's what we have to do. We have to get the word in our heart, you know? And so I, I admire Rhonda, you know, cause she can just spat it off, you know? And so that's what I'm currently working on too, is, just getting it in me and being ready. And if it's not reading it, how can the Holy Spirit bring it to our remembrance when we need it in that moment? We're not gonna have anything to pull from. So we have to have something on board. That's why the Bible talks about the equipping of the saints. We're supposed to be producing fruit. We're supposed to have some Christ-likeness. And the whole idea of this growing up, we weren't, after our salvation, after we came to know Jesus, we weren't supposed to remain that little seed in there. We were supposed to grow. We're supposed to bring forth something in this earth, each one of us. We all have a purpose. God wants to use every single one of us. It takes a little cultivation. It takes us watering and watering. tending to the soil, tending to our hearts, because things are going to come up. You know, life has troubles, that's guaranteed. And we've all experienced that. I saw everybody's hands. It's been a tough day, tough year. You know, there's stuff that happens and we have to have something to pull from. But there's such good benefits on the other side. That's right. And so there's restoration. You know, that's a huge thing. Yeah. Have you, I mean, personally, right? You've seen restoration in your life. Yes. I've experienced restoration and the Lord promised to restore us, but it's a process and it takes patience. And so. Yeah, we have a part to play. Yes. It's sometimes not easy, but. It's worth it. Yeah. Just like you said earlier, sometimes we got to pull the roots out and it doesn't feel good. You know, it doesn't feel good for our pride to be exposed. It hurts. So we have to really be open to what God wants to do in our hearts and our lives, because everyone around us is going to reap that benefit too. There's people in your life that they need something from you. They need it from God, but he wants to use you. Um, and the good thing is that when we go to him in prayer, those are some of the benefits. That's the fruit of it. You know, that's what we receive. You know, if you need healing in your mind, your body, your soul, he's got it. And we have access through Jesus. So that's the best part is that we have access by faith to all of these things. Yeah. Yeah. And to be whole. for your family, for the generations to come, your kids, their kids. So it's not, it just doesn't affect you. It does affect others. Right. And being in the word, it produces faith. And then we get to see more of it and it builds fire folding and unfolding, right? Like we want to see these things develop in your life. We want good things to be produced because it glorifies God too, you know, and it is, that's what he wants for his children. These are heavenly benefits. So what you're believing for in your life, in your prayer time today, whatever it is, we want to agree with you. We want to build up your faith because we've seen so many miracles. I mean, I've seen things in my own family, but in my own life, too. God's moved. And, you know, I, it's powerful. Like God is alive and he is working and he wants to work in you. So we want to get this on board. We want to believe God for more because he's got more, right? Yes. All right. We want to encourage you that the seeds that you plant in your life, that they're going to bring forth good fruit, that you can access the Lord. And we are going to expect a miracle for your life too.