What Matters Most | The Kittingers | EP 108

It's not about keeping a perfect heart, but it's about allowing the Lord to help us keep a clean heart. God didn't take stripes on his back just for physical healing. That's for emotional healing. Maybe the answers could be found just in being heard and being seen and finding someone else that understands. I was seeing God's hand in the prayers that I was praying for other people. When you are not focused on yourself, it frees you to actually be part of a miracle in somebody else's life. Welcome to iRefresh, where we talk about the power of prayer and God's Word. Welcome to another episode of the iRefresh podcast. It's what a delight to have Danny and Carrie Kittinger. Welcome. Thank you. Thanks for having us, Cheryl. Glad to be here. This is a fun journey for us because we got to go and be present when you wrote your book, What Matters Most. And it was so fun to see all familiar faces of friends over the years. And, you know, one of the things I thought would be great is I, if those are actually listening or watching, I have a lot of tabs on my book of the different topics. It was just every chapter is something profound that, Danny, that you were... willing to share and be vulnerable to share about really both of your lives, which obviously I'm thinking, Carrie, you had to say yes to that. Yes. I trusted him for sure. Yes. So I think in this time, I would love to actually just begin to share a little bit more about your journey of what caused you even to write about it. And then we're going to start hitting some of the amazing topics in your book. Okay. Sure. Carrie and I have been followers of Christ since we were kids. I accepted Jesus as a 10-year-old young man in the Jesus movement back in the 70s. Wonderful. You're giving your age. Seasoned. That's right. And Carrie accepted Jesus as a child, four or five. So we've been followers of Jesus for a long, long time. And I like to tell people that's really the most important thing about me is being a beloved son of God and and being in relationship with the Lord. Part of my spiritual journey, my intimacy with the Lord has been... kind of taking these retreats where I'll get away once or twice a year, go over to a place in Arkansas, cabin in the woods and, and, uh, take some food or go out to eat at nights and then come back to the cabin. There's a prayer path and it's just quiet. And, uh, so I'll get away for a weekend and I was on one. I've done it. I don't know, 15 times, 20 times through the years. Um, and, And on this particular retreat, I was asking the Lord about my future. Not that I didn't feel stuck in my career, but I was just saying, God, is there more for me? How should I be spending my life and time? And I really believe as humanity, we should always be asking that of our creator. God, do you have something for me? How can I best serve you in this time? And on this particular occasion, I don't even know where it came from. And I don't remember how he spoke it to me, but I felt this unction to write. Uh, and, and almost immediately I knew what I was going to write about. And it was this idea of, of worldview of what matters most of what are the important things because, um, gosh, I think the world is a really noisy place. I think it's a lot of screaming at us, uh, particularly in today's day and age of social media and. 24-7 news and phones on our... We're always getting stuff that it's a noisy place. And I don't think all the voices are helpful. And all that's being told us is true. And so I wrote the book for my kids, but anyone else who would take an interest, to just try to help and say... What are the important things in life? If we're going to boil life down to some areas, what do we think are the things that are most important? Like love and home and authenticity and simplicity. And there are some ones that I wasn't expecting when I started the journey. One on Celebration. That was profound. I really enjoyed that. Well, thank you. You know, and I would love for it. Let's just start, because I have my tabs here. Sure. So I would love for us to highlight, and let's talk into those areas, because I really felt like, wow, there's some good takeaways. One, I really did, I did appreciate that you were a list maker. It's... Probably your background, though, because your background is that you're on a normal basis. You're more of a CFO. My day job is the CFO of the company. So you're a numbers guy like my husband. Right. But the danger of list, Cheryl, and of being a list person is that you never get to the bottom because you're making lists all the time. And like every day I go to my office. I tell people my job never ends. There's always more work to do. And if I finish one task, immediately there's five more. And so it's the prioritizing again of what's the important thing for me to do today. and not get overwhelmed that I'm not going to get it all done today. Well, don't you think that every time we have a strength, it can also become a curse if we don't have that balance. And we have to always ask the Lord into that. When you look at your list, I agree. When I was reading that, I was like, you're right. But then also we have to be able to flow with what the Holy Spirit has for us. Amen. Always inviting him into that space. And from time to time, surrender our list completely. That's good. And lay it down before him and say, God, this is... You made me this way. I'm trying to be productive. I want to fulfill some things. I want to be faithful to my job. I want to be engaged in my marriage. I want to be there for the kids. And the list is too long. I cannot do all these things. I can't do all these successfully. And a lot of them, you know, the truth is most of them are very good things. Right. most of our list for, for, uh, and so we're cutting out some of the good for the better, uh, sometimes surrendering, uh, and that's hard letting go of some of those. Well, you know, that actually ties into the other, one of the other chapters on simplicity. So, you know, I think when you see, you know, there's a book about that too, about what's good to great, you know, there's a difference between what's great and what's good and what is God calling us into. Yeah. is something might be good for us, but is it God's best for us? If we don't ask the Holy Spirit to help us in prioritizing. I've actually given my list of my major priorities that I knew were like, And I would ask my husband or even my family, okay, what can I remove from this? Because I wanted to be present with them. Yeah. And I've asked them, okay, please help me to know what I can take off my list. Because if they're in agreement, that means something's going to suffer because they're not going to have that convenience of what a mom does or a wife does. Like, you remember, if I take that off the list, what you don't have. Right. But I would actually invite them into the conversation. So over the last years, though, too, it's... trying to simplify my life. And when I saw that you have a chapter on simplifying, like speak to even like Carrie, how do you even find how to create a space where your life is simple and not so, busy to where you feel like you missed what was priority with God. Well, it's interesting that you're bringing that up because right when you said that, I thought, speaking of lists, the Lord gave us a list, right? And with the Ten Commandments, but what Jesus spoke even more clearly were the two most important things were to love the Lord our God. with all of our heart, soul, and mind and strength, but also to love others. And so I think for me, just even this morning, I was thinking, Lord, the simplicity of that, but yet the simplicity of it, but yet it's not easy to do without Him, right? But just maybe when our list gets so long or the stresses get so long or the demands of life, to just bring it back, to go, Lord, what does matter most here? And what matters most is the Lord. And what matters most are the people that He puts in our area of influence, not for us to criticize or to judge or to even boss around, but to love. and to bring the best out of them when we can see them through the Lord's eyes. So I have to continually bring things back to that simplistic form of the gospel, of just Jesus laying his life down for us in love and him saying, Because now that I've shown you the way, do this as well. So simple, but not easy, right? That's so cute, right. Yeah. And you know, you're right. Because, you know, Dani, what you were talking about in your book, too, is because of the scheduling and what you had responsibility to do, that once, you know, you missed out on going to a Broadway show that you had intentionally had made plans for. but you know, life doesn't always allow us to do everything under the sun and learning. Then when we can't fulfill our obligation or our commitment, our word, like speak to that, Danny, like how is, as a man of God, of how do you choose to use your words carefully? Like I, to your kids, your family, of what you're going to say yes to. And then how do you change? Like when things happen that you can't plan for, how do you work with that? If we're not careful, we miss the importance of the people sitting right next to us and loving on those people and being attentive to what the Lord is doing in their lives. And she does that very well. And it's always a challenge to me. I watch her and she gives herself. And sometimes that infringes on my agenda because it takes time. On his list, yeah. It takes time to be loving and to care. But Cheryl, back to your question and see if I can answer it concerning... You know, gosh, we fail regularly. We've been following Jesus, and I can so relate to Paul that says, the very thing I want to do, I don't do. And all these things I strive to be, I'm not. I'm going to fail at it. But that doesn't. But we don't quit. We don't stop. And I think with raising kids, our kids are out of the house now, as yours are. But, my God, we messed up so often. And I think you have to say, if you're a follower of Jesus, and it's not about the product, if it's about the relationship with Jesus, you're going to be convicted if you spoke harshly to your kids, or if you overstepped in the punishment, or if you... Were angry or gosh, when we were building our house four or five years ago now, I guess. There was a lot of lists and a lot of things that didn't turn out quite like we were hoping. And, you know, it was an expensive project. And she cried a lot and I cussed a lot. And I'm not a cusser in my entire life. I've cleaned up my language. Carrie was trying to get you not to do that. I go out and shoot baskets. I'm like, God, I don't understand what this anger or this frustration. Well, and I think to speak to that, some of that is sometimes, and we're getting back to the list here, but even with the Lord saying, hey, these are the things you need to do is loving me and loving others. But what happens is, is there's also a time to work and a time to build and a time to be faithful to the things that the Lord has called us to. But there's this, this, it has to be a going back and forth. If we get stuck on our list and what we expect things to be, nothing is going to be perfect this side of heaven. So what happens is I think in your, in your list of really getting a job done well, you it wasn't perfect. And so that was aggravating. And I was trying to be like, okay, let's just keep the peace here. Everything's going to be okay. And so that was even learning for us how to give each other, I mean, not that we had to give each other the freedom to, but give each other the freedom to be, you are more of a list person and line upon line, the I's dotted, the T's crossed. And I'm more of like, it's all going to work out okay in the end. But thank God, because it helps to accomplish the things that you're I love that you guys have found that place where you can help recognize the strength of each other, but also when you help each other to kind of diffuse things to bring it into alignment. What is God wanting us to do in those spaces? Well, there's a verse in Acts, I believe it says, repent so that times of refreshing could come, you know. And so that's where and not that Danny needed to repent or whatever. But there are times when we go. I did. I did at that time. But I think with anything, what matters most at the end of the day is our heart attitude, you know, because really if there's. If there are things, whether it's perfectionism or offense, those things begin to bring a hardness to our heart. And we truly can't love others or love the Lord when we have a hard heart. And so just, I think really, Dani, for the chapters in your book, what matters most, it's all about the heart. You know, it's the condition of our heart at the end of the day that helps us to keep the perspective when our lists are too long or our perfectionism or our laziness or bad attitudes, whatever it would be at the end of the day. Lord, what matters most here? What do you want me attending to at this time? Yeah, that's really key that each chapter was showing us what God was revealing to you as God. really creating a place where we can, like celebration. Like I love that you wrote about celebrating. I marked that, I'm like, that is so good. I mean, I love some of your ideas about when you were talking about rocks. And I'm like, okay, this is not an invitation for people to go start sending Danny rocks. My kids do. Yeah, but I don't want to do that because that was like my mom used to collect bells, but they were very special bells. But people were sending her bells from everywhere. Every kind of bell under the sun. Right, right. There are certain ones. But, Danny, speak to that even and how you would use the rocks in your celebration. It's interesting. I don't even know how that started, Cheryl, but I do remember Carrie and I were both born in England, like we told you, and we went to our – her parents – were restationed in England when we got married. So they had to come over here for the wedding, and then they flew back to England. It was a busy time for them. But two Christmases before they left England, we got a chance to go and spend a Christmas in England, and it was a wonderful time. And during that break, we went to the area where we both were born. And we went to the beach in a little town called Aldborough by the sea. And the beaches there are rocky. It's not the sand like we're used to. And so I picked up a rock on that beach. It's kind of a smooth stone. And usually those are the rocks I lean towards. They're worn by the tide or the rivers or whatever. For some reason that stuck with me. And from that point on, whenever we go someplace special, I love nature and we love the national parks and we love the beach and the mountains. And so we're there often with our family. And I'm just drawn to the ground and I'll pick up a rock and find something beautiful in it. To me, it feels like permanence. It feels like it's not a it's not bought from a store. And it takes me to a place in Alaska where we ventured down deep in Denali. And it's about celebrating those times that we've had together as a family and celebrating a moment that was special between you and the Lord or between... I picked up one in the Valley of Elah when we went to Israel where David killed Goliath. But I imagine those rocks are dumped there by the local tourist bureau, you know. So that may not be as significant. Or it should have gone really low because I'm sure everybody's taking stones along with it. Why wouldn't you, right? Exactly. Five sweet ones, right. Yeah. No, but I think it's a great thing. You're stirring up to remembrance, which is right. We can see that in the Bible. Stones of remembrance. That's right, Cheryl. And I do remember those because I have them all over my house in certain places. And it'll make me think of, oh, Carrie picked this up for me in Nantucket or in Martha's Vineyard or the Cape where she was visiting her family one time. And my kids have done it. My son brought me back a rock from his honeymoon in Italy. Yeah. A beautiful stone. He just saw it and thought of me. And it's just to know that you're thought of it. So now I'm remembering the places and my kids are remembering me. A good friend of mine went to Peru on a missions trip and brought me back a stone from Machu Picchu. So... Those are special differently because they're thinking of me. And that's also a relationship oriented. You know, the very first chapter, Carrie mentioned heart. And when I decided to write, I knew that was... That was the first chapter, and that was the first one I started writing. And back to Jesus summarizing up the Ten Commandments with, Love the Lord your God with all your heart and love your neighbor. And I do think the heart is the most important thing about us. And it supersedes lists, and it supersedes production, and it supersedes I'm a CFO or how successful I can be, how much money I can make. how tremendous my family can be, how faithful I can, if my heart's off. That's right. And listen, our hearts can get pulled in a lot of different directions and distracted and can get off. And so nurturing and caring for that heart and shepherding the heart and taking that heart to Jesus and, and crying your heart out and cleansing your heart. Gosh, these are all such important things that, you know, and I think sometimes as adults, as we've been through, we've had a lot of life, your heart just gets hard. Well, and didn't David say in the Psalms, you know, created me a clean heart of God. I mean, he knew, and I feel like that's why David was in the midst of all the things And the problems that he had, the sins that he committed. Terrible sins. Right, that he could still, that God still called him a man after his heart. And I think it's because he did, when his heart was in the wrong place. You know, he listened to the words that the Lord brought to him. He listened to the prophet that came. And he did cleanse his heart before the Lord. And he did repent. And he laid it all out there. And so I think that's where it is. Whether it's not about keeping a perfect heart, but it's about allowing the Lord to help us keep a clean heart. Well, don't you think the significance on when we're talking about David's heart is it was willing to be humbled, Yes. To be corrected. To be quick to ask for forgiveness. And understand instead of living in shame and condemnation. he received the gift of the freedom of being forgiven. Yes. Which is somewhat amazing because he had really crossed a lot of lines. Right. I mean, murder of a dear, dear friend who was out there fighting on his behalf for the nation of Israel. Right. And here's this beautiful woman who belonged to that man. So you crossed a lot of lines. So, you know, I think of Judas and betraying Jesus. You know Judas had the remorse, right, because he threw the money back. Right. But he'd gone too far. I don't think he could have repented. I know Jesus would have forgiven him. We know he forgives. You just ask. But David, pre-Jesus, that David had the insight to know that that was how good God was. That really amazes me. And I think, boy, and I think that came, Cheryl, from spending a lot of time with God in the wilderness. Yes. In lonely desert. In the caves. In deserted places, running from. So he had a lot of adversity. A father who kind of rejected him. He wasn't brought in when the prophet came. Yeah. So his heart, he had presented it to the Lord many times in his past, and he was able to hold on to that and take it back in this critical moment that saved his life probably. That's so good. Those are so powerful. You know, I want to hit a couple more of these, though, too, because the other, I'm going to hit one. that talks about how Jesus was coaching and celebrating. Yeah, he would coach his team. He would talk about when he would coach the disciples to send them out in teams. And then he would celebrate them. Yeah. I'm like, oh, that's a great way. Of course, I think it's such a great way for a gentleman to consider that. I'm like, I don't think I would have thought of it from that standpoint. But to give direction, yeah. I'll have to give my pastor credit for that. Jamie Austin at Woodlake. He had a sermon one Sunday. He said he used the Oklahoma phrase. They were like, yippee. Jesus was saying, hooray, way to go, disciples, celebrating their victory because they came back astonished that the— People were being healed and demons were fleeing. And he saw such joy for them participating in the kingdom. So he gave me that idea on the sermon. And I... I thought I'd take it and use it. Yeah, but how do you apply that to even carry? How would you apply that in your life today of the same way of when you're, how Jesus was, you know, guiding people, but celebrating those people? I think of, I mean, of course it has to go back to, of course, I'm a mom. My kids are now grown, but you're always a mom no matter what. But I think about even my kids. It's like when you... when you're pouring into your kids and you're training your kids, and then it's time to release them, right? And, you know, they may not be doing it perfectly, but you're like, you've got this. I mean, now you're – we're in a stage now with our kids that we're not – We're not parenting them up close, but we're coaching and we're cheering them on. And so maybe, of course, we're not Jesus and they're not the disciples, but maybe that's a similar thing where Jesus was like, okay, I've trained you. I've given you the tools. Now go. And he wasn't there holding their hands. He trusted them. Now go. And so I think with our kids, there's been even that too, to just be able to be excited and, about some of the things that they've accomplished and us to go, hey, look at them. They're using that degree or they're loving on that missions trip or whatever it would be to be cheering our kids on as well. You know, I think with both of you, Danny and Carrie, you emulate that so well because that's not really easy. You have been so much a people of the word today. Because if you think about some people, parents will criticize because they aren't doing it in their mind's eye the way something should be done. You're not living the way that I trained you or I instructed you. What's wrong with you? Those little, and you refer to it too, is some of those little moments of words that really can pierce the heart and really shift and change the whole trajectory of a child. Mm-hmm. The positive or the negative, right? And like Danny said earlier, we certainly, this isn't a book on parenting, because we certainly didn't do parenting perfectly. But what we did do well was we loved them well. And we asked for forgiveness when we needed to with them. And we trained them in that same way. Hey, when you've wronged somebody, let's make it right. But yes, it is that thing of just going, all right, Lord, they're yours. And we trust you with him. And, you know, Jesus did that with he does that with us. We have a free will. Right. But his love is never taken from us. And he's all he's always cheering us on and leading us into those paths of righteousness. I think, you know, one of the other things, Cheryl, that we have to keep in mind is that that at our time, stage of life and the years of following Jesus and the years of maturity that we have, hopefully. When I look at our kids, they're not us. They don't have that journey. And I think sometimes we expect them to almost be us alone. At 55 and 60. Yeah, you know, at our ages, they should exhibit this kind of, and that's not where they're at in life. They are, we were much different when we were their age than we are today. We've grown and matured and things have evolved. And so to have a little bit more grace and more acceptance of, you know. The process and the journey. I think it's... Speaking to them. I think of God forming the world, creating Eden, putting Adam and Eve, knowing they were going to mess it up and allowing that to happen. We don't want to allow it to happen. We want to control everything, keep all the barriers, and God let it happen. And he knew that there was a path of redemption, even though that was a very painful process. To me, that helps me to... to think of that towards whether it's my kids or younger people and the day and age in which we live. Or even in our own lives because we don't have it perfect. So even modeling that when we've messed up. To be able to own that and to be able to just say, you know, wow, I didn't handle that the best way. And so just even modeling, not modeling perfection, because none of us are going to be perfect, only Jesus, right? But modeling a life of walking in forgiveness, walking in love, and picking back up again when we've fallen or when we've messed up to just not let that define us, but to say, Lord... You're taking care of this. This is covered under the blood of the lamb and moving forward with our heads held high. Carrie's dad passed recently last September and was a great man, great, great Air Force, you know, Colonel in the Air Force. He led another 20 years in ministry after that. just wonderful people, but he wasn't a perfect man. And he, he dealt with some anger issues and, you know, some things, but he was, he set a great example for me because he was always very quick to ask for forgiveness when he, he knew when he stepped over the line and he knew when his mouth got the best of him and when he let his anger go out and he would be quick to come back and say, I'm so sorry. And, Some of those patterns are ingrained pretty deeply in that in the behavior doesn't change very easily. But as long as you keep saying, I'm sorry and say, I want to do better to me, that's a great example that he set for for our family. Yeah. And really, just with you mentioning that. Back to what matters most, the very last words that my dad was able to speak, and really his last days to communicate were only by barely writing, illegibly. And he said to one of the grandkids, stay strong in the Lord. And so, you know, how powerful for those, for his very last words to be, stay strong in the Lord. And I think at the end of the day, you know, if today were my last day on this earth, what would be the most important thing for me to say to that next generation? It would be. Stay strong in the Lord. You know, you don't have to not go make a lot of money, go build this, go build that. I mean, yes, those things were in this world, and that's the way our world works. We do have to have a job to be able to pay for things. But it would be stay strong in the Lord. I mean, at the end of the day, truly. Absolutely. Without question. That's so good. Mm-hmm. Now, as we're closing, Danny, if you would just talk to our audience and just share with them, you know, based on your experiences even as you journey through writing this book, what would you want the audience to know of takeaways from your experience of the things that are significant that matter the most to prioritize in their life? Sure. That's a big question or a big thing to say, but I'll tell you that I hope if you read the book that you'll find Jesus on every page. And I had a friend that commented to me that they were surprised that Jesus was the last chapter. Jesus matters. And but for me, it seems at the right spot because I wanted him. I wanted you to find him on every page and and and be encouraged and fall more in love with him and and. look around the world and see him active, but I wanted him also to be the last thought in the crescendo. And because of all the things that matter, Jesus really matters the most. And if he is who he said he is, and Carrie and I have banked our life on it, and I know Cheryl has too, and Tim, that we believe he is God's only son and that he's the only way for salvation and that he makes sense of this whole world, And that truly is our heart, is that people consider Jesus and think of him. Because if you do, he'll reveal himself to you and you'll fall in love with him. And we certainly have. Amen. That's so good. So, Danny, so how would you tell people to get a copy? Yeah, so you can go to my website, dannykittinger.com, or Sons and Daughters, the ministry we have, sonsanddaughtersinternational.com. You can get it there. If you do there, I'll autograph it for you. Or you can find it any place that books are sold, online, Amazon, Barnes & Noble. You can get an e-book or buy a copy. Sounds good. Very powerful. So thank you. Thanks for having us, Cheryl. It's been great. Thank you.