How “discernment alarms” can alert you to the work beneath your work
How “discernment alarms” can alert you to the work beneath your work, how Stefanie has seen simple vulnerable storytelling lead to opportunities to share the gospel, and why dissenting from the Kingdom of Noise is so critical to your work.
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[00:00:05] JR: Hey, friend. Welcome to the Mere Christians Podcast. I’m Jordan Raynor. How does the gospel influence the work of mere Christians? Those of us who aren’t pastors, or religious professionals, but who work as writers, and cabinet makers, and scientist. That's the question we explore every week. Today, I'm posing it to Stefanie Gass. She's a talented corporate executive, turned successful entrepreneur.
We recently sat down to talk about how discernment alarms can alert you to the work beneath your work. We talked about how Stefanie has seen very simple, but vulnerable storytelling, lead to opportunities to share the gospel, and why dissenting from the kingdom of noise is so critical to seeing what God's doing around you. I think you guys are going to love this episode with my friend, Stefanie Gass.
[INTERVIEW]
[00:01:05] JR: Stefanie, welcome to the podcast.
[00:01:07] SG: Hey, Jordan. I'm so excited to be here.
[00:01:10] JR: Hey, so you got a wild story. By the age of 26, you were the youngest financial controller at this big global company. Fast forward a couple years, 2015, you're in the top 1% of this network marketing business. I was reading your bio, and I love this quote. You said, “Little did I know how much success was stealing from me.” Around this time, what are you talking about there? What did you mean by that?
[00:01:33] SG: Yes. At that time, I was saved. I was saved at nine. But I had really fallen away from a relationship with Christ throughout my teenage years and throughout my early 20s. I think like so many of us, I was searching to fill that void, that discontentment. That feeling of like, is there more? Is there something I'm missing? So, I found that in success.
[00:01:59] JR: It's one of the greatest narcotics in the world.
[00:02:02] SG: Exactly. I've been a leader since I was a kid. I'd be the kid on the stage, like bossing everyone else around. I'm like, “John, you're the tree, stop talking.” I'm like seven years old, just a leader. So, through that gifting, the enemy can use that for what he wants to do with it, and then the Lord can use it. For me, I was leaning into all the worldly principles of leadership, right? I'm going to lead this big team because I need to find success, I need to find fulfilment, and I had grown first through corporate America, ended up getting laid off through that job and started in entrepreneurship. And I started working in a network marketing company and realized, bless the industry, but they really play on the emotional side of like, “Oh, look, you're so successful. You can be on the stage next, and you can win a free car.” I've full out was sold out to all that stuff.
Four years of that, Jordan, I mean, I made every excuse in the world about why I should be up at five o'clock in the morning, working till 10 at night, taking every phone call. I lived my life with an earpiece attached to my face. As I'm raising my first son, I'm just like, I have to be available for this company, for this business. When I get to this level, this is going to make sense, right? This level of work, and effort, and success, and recognition, and the money, it's all going to mean something. So, I just went after it with everything that I had, including putting my marriage second, my motherhood second, my health second.
I think what's so interesting is I didn't see the signs that this success was stealing from me. I didn't notice, “Oh, I'm drinking a lot.” I didn't notice that my anxiety was at an all-time high. I noticed, but I wasn't putting the pieces together. I call them discernment alarms. I wasn't putting any of these pieces together and I was far from my faith. I was a Christian, but I was not asking God if I was doing anything out of alignment.
So, what happened that really made this super obvious to me, the day, “I made it”, and I get to walk the stage in front of 20,000 people at the big conference. I got the $60,000 bonus check in my hands. I'm well over six figures in the company. I'm in the top 1% and it's it and I'm like, “This is it. This is this moment that makes all of this worth it.” I walk across the stage and I get off the stage and I remember feeling something. It was the emotion of nothingness. This is it. I'm not different. I'm not filled. I'm not whole. What now? It was it was almost terrifying, because I was expecting the yearning and the hole that I was trying to fill to be gone. And in that moment, everything should have changed. I should have been like, “Well, this doesn't seem to be working. Let me turn to the Lord. But I didn't. Because I'm stubborn and I definitely didn't want to look at the possibility that I had been making the wrong choices for four and a half years.”
I was like, “I can't even look at that.” So, I went harder, Jordan. I went harder. I got to this place of - I would wake up with these anxiety attacks multiple times a week to the point of physical illness, and just the work, and the stress, and the alcohol, and the things that I was turning to. I started to pray again, like, “Lord, help take these anxiety attacks away.” That's really what I started asking God for help with.
[00:05:54] JR: Yes, fix the symptoms.
[00:05:55] SG: Fix the symptoms, right? That don't we so often look to God when we have a problem to fix, so I would lay in bed and just pray like, “Lord, take this away. Take this away.” As I started to pray, some things are to shift inside my heart, and I think that it was the invitation God was waiting for to begin the work that was about to happen. So, what happened next is really, really interesting. I went from the top, the pinnacle, the top 1%. Within one year, Jordan, everything fell apart, internally, externally, in the business. It was like, all the way burned down, to the ashes. My team kind of dispersed. I had, I don't know, 1,000 to 2,000 people underneath me. They all went to the newest company, because of course, they wanted the success that I had, and our income was cut. I was making like 17, 25k months, it was just gone, seemingly overnight. We had been living this lifestyle. I had a newborn at this time, and my two-and-a-half-year-old, so I'm struggling with identity in the first place.
I’m really overweight, not doing well with my food, and all my issues. I remember this moment, I came to my computer and I sat down and I opened the bank account. I looked and realized we didn't have enough money to pay the mortgage. There wasn't any money in there. My husband had a stable job. But again, the lifestyle we had been leading, there's no cash flow. I walked out to him in the living room, and I said, “We can't pay the bills. This isn't like my – I didn't make any money this month.”
The Lord must have taken over his body because he's like, “It's okay. We'll borrow money from Miles”, who was our older son. His savings account. We’ll pay the mortgage, and I'll sell my Harley, it's all good. Without a beat, he was just so grace fueled, and God had to be moving in that moment, because I was already at my absolute rock bottom.
I walked to the bathroom and I just remember staring at this woman in the mirror, and wondering, “Who are you? What was this for? Why did you work so hard and go to all these things and take calls on these family vacations, and hustle? If it didn't work financially, what was it for? And who are you now?” That's what I mean, when I say success stole from me, because it was – it ultimately became something that was – it slipped through my fingers and it showed me all of the ways in which I had turned to worldly success and still been left with that full emptiness.
[00:08:34] JR: Yes. I've been thinking a lot over the last year or so about this phrase that Tim Keller once wrote about the work beneath our work. I think he got it from somebody else. I can't remember who originally cited this. But all of us as believers, I think have some God honoring modus for the ambition for our work, because what we talked about a lot in this podcast, we should be ambitious for the good works God prepared in advance for us to do.
But there's that evil Dr. Jekyll, Mr. Hyde thing going on with the less than God honoring ambition. The work beneath our work. That really is the thing that leads us to overwork, because the Holy Spirit isn't going to lead us to burnout, right? That's something else. Because you look back and you were asking yourself those questions in that mirror of like, “Why did I do this? Why did I work myself so hard?” In other words, what was the work beneath your work? What were you trying to get from your work that God never designed your work to give you, Stefanie?
[00:09:25] SG: That's such a good question. For me, I think it was fulfillment. I was thinking that – and everything goes back to our childhood, right? At least in part. So, for me it was when I am recognized, that's when I matter. When I am recognized when I do something of achievement, it equals love. That belief carried through in some form or another, all the way through until this very breaking moment. For me, it was like when I achieve, when I am recognized, it's a form of love in a way. That's what I thought and that's the lie that the enemy kept feeding into. It was like, “Oh, look, now you matter. Now people think you're important. Now people are talking to you. You're so special. You're so loved.”
It's grabbing onto this perception, or this worldly identity of yourself that you put in something, and that something looks different for everybody.
[00:10:30] JR: It's the work of performance, right? That's for me, that's the work beneath my work. I think about my fans are so sick of me quoting Taylor Swift lyrics. I think about this Taylor lyric all the time, all the time to mastermind, where she says – I would argue it's the most autobiographical line she's ever written. It's, “No one wanted to play with me as a little kid. So, I've been scheming like a criminal ever since to make them love me and make it feel effortless.” Right? It's working performance, right? It's what we all want. And the gospel frees us from that, because it reminds us that we already have the applause before the performance. But in my experience, that actually has led me to be more ambitious for the work, not less, right? Because this makes sense to you, preach this for a minute.
[00:11:22] SG: Yes. Oh, my gosh, I love this so much. So, what happened next in that story, and that'll kind of lead us into this topic is, I sat down with a notebook, and I started journaling with Holy Spirit and God. I said, “Lord, I don't know who I am. I need your help. I need this vision of what I can do now. I don't know the next step.” Holy Spirit, literally, I started just flowing, journaling, and there were all these things on this paper, Jordan, like, “You're sober. You're a daughter of the king. You lead a kingdom business. You're a presents mom, present wife.” All of these things were on this paper, and I had no idea what any of it meant, because I had no idea how to even begin.
[00:12:05] JR: Journaling is a pretty good place to begin when you’re not sure where to begin, P.S.
[00:12:08] SG: So good. I didn't even know what Kingdom meant, at the time. It's like I knew that God was in that conversation with me, which is so cool to know. He loves me enough to show up when I have “ruined everything” and God says, “Perfect, that's exactly where I needed you. You're completely broken down and you're ready to be rebuilt.”
What happened over the next few years. It was about a three-year journey of just prayer, and understanding scripture, and starting to read the Bible, and fumbling my way through, and being really rebuilt from a holy spirit forward instead of flesh forward positioning. So, God took care of my health first, and then my marriage, and my parenting. Then finally, as it pertained to business, I just started asking God, like, “How do I” – I know, I'm supposed to be an entrepreneur. I know I'm supposed – like I have these huge dreams and these huge visions, but now I'm scared. I'm afraid to become that former version of myself.
But because I was partnered with Him, what was so interesting is as I took each little step, and I would pray over it, and not in a frayed way. I'll always give God my yes. But I was just discerning through different things I was doing and working with God and trusting Him. What happened, is God would just open a door. People would just say, “Do you coach?” I'm like, “I think so. God, do we coach? Okay, I coach. Let's go.” I started coaching. Then, Lord, how am I going to grow a bigger audience? I'm struggling, I had a dream, start a podcast.
God was leading the way, and what's crazy about this, I am more on fire for work and income, serious income for the Kingdom of God. I'm like, “God, I'm here. I want to make a difference for kids, and I want to make a difference for animals and for the place that I live, and for homelessness in a meaningful way, and salvation, and I want to do these incredible things that take real true income.” I'm unafraid, and unapologetic about, “success now”, in such a bigger, more meaningful way than I ever was when it was about me. God shifted my –
[00:14:06] JR: Well, because when it's about you, you have more to lose.
[00:14:08] SG: Yes, that's so true.
[00:14:11] JR: Right? If I'm using my work as a means of securing my identity, then if I fail, I no longer have a self. But when we are beloved children of God, and whom He is well pleased, before we go on to the stage, I have nothing to losem and it makes me ambitious, and it drives me to do the good works God prepared in advance for me to do, Ephesians 2:10, but in a God honoring way that values rest in a sane pace that allows me to keep up with my soul, with the Holy Spirit in this, and the Spirit's prompting to my life. Is that right?
[00:14:52] SG: Oh, 100%. I mean, the way that God has perfectly balanced out my life, I’m able to stop working at three. I don't work on the weekends. I have a team now. I have an internship program, like, what? When it was all about me it was hard and terrifying and full of striving and hustle. Like you said, the fear and the anxiety around, “I'm carrying everything on my shoulders.” Now, it's a complete, complete 180. You would have no idea I'm the same person, let alone the same business owner, what? Six, seven short years later. It's God just moving and allowing me to be a vessel, instead of having me carry all that weight. I'm just showing up today to do the work, and then, I know He's going to take care of tomorrow, and it's been such a cool way to fall into that trusting place. But also, that will be, I think, when you partner obedience and trust in your business, that's when that favor really starts to happen and appear and the blessings go in all areas of your life because of it.
[00:15:54] JR: I want to talk about an area of obedience that from what I can read from the outside looking in, looks to be specific to you, right? So, you eventually start this new business. You're helping educate other women on how to replicate your success and learn from your mistakes. But you talk in your bio about the pressure you felt to always be on social media to make the business work, and you feel pretty strongly that God was calling you to a different way. And it sounds like, when I'm reading your story, that was an issue of obedience for you. Park there for a minute. Take us inside of that struggle and what you felt the Lord leading you to at that moment in your business?
[00:16:34] SGL Yes. When I started rebuilding the business, the answer was social media, right? I've got to build an account on Instagram, and I've got to build a Facebook account. That's how I'm going to grow. That's really what I thought. I looked around, saw everybody doing that, and figured that's going to be the way.
I started really intentionally working to grow Instagram. I would take photos of my kids to resonate, and then I would look for opportunity, create content, doing all these things. Really, being brutally honest, was spending about five to six hours a day on the platform at that point, and it had grown pretty tremendously, 40,000 followers, 750 likes per post, had 500, 600, 700 people watching the stories and it's cool. Okay, this must be the way. But my heart, I started to feel this dis-rest and this discomfort around constantly having my phone in my hand, number one.
Number two, I felt like I was capitalizing on my kids. At this point, I was yoked up with God. I was really growing spiritually and I started praying. Lord, I don't understand how I'm supposed to keep growing and getting coaching clients if I don't use social media. God, I kind of started feeling the whispers. I’d feel the discernment alarms again. But I'm stubborn again. So, I go on vacation, but I had been praying and you know how God is, He'll answer your prayer, and sometimes the way that you don't expect. We go on vacation, and Jordan, my phone breaks. Real weird kind of break. Just goes black, won't turn on. We're in a rural part of Minnesota and I can't get a new phone, figure anything out. I tell my husband, I'm like, “I need to use your phone to grow my Instagram.” He’s like, “Do you realize that you want to use my phone on vacation? Let it go.”
[00:18:23] JR: Let it go, addict.
[00:18:22] SG: I was like, “Okay, you're right. You're right. I'm going to let it go.” We got four days left. I can do this. Well, I'm like itching. It's brill apparent. Okay, maybe I'm addicted again to this app? What's happening here? I'm not feeling, and so I just kept pushing through – about 24 hours in Jordan, something started to happen to me. I felt this peace drop in, and I felt like I could just play without having the filter of should I capture this right now? I was just fully present. It had been years since I felt like I could just be fully present, and I had thought I was doing this in alignment with God. But what God was revealing to me is that there was still a little bit of me in there, and he was asking me to take a break from it.
So, what I started to do is I started deleting the apps on the weekends, I would delete Facebook, I would delete Instagram, and I would tell my audience about it. I think I had started a podcast at this point already. So, I'm telling the audience like, “Okay, I'm getting off this weekend. This is how I feel, you guys, when I'm doing it. It's crazy.” Well people started to do it with me, and I started to get this feedback. Well, this went on for like a year and a half, and I was a huge advocate. Just delete the apps on the weekend. Watch your life transform. It's crazy.
About a year and a half in, I was praying about maybe doing a fast, couldn't figure out what to fast over and the Lord clearly said social media. I'm like, but I'm already doing the weekends, God. I'm still scared to fully step in. So, I did a month and I told my audience on my podcast, I said, I'm going to do a month. We're going to see what happens. Does everything fall apart? What does God do?
I do this month. I come back, first of all, how I felt internally is indescribable. The time I got back, oh, my gosh, five hours a day. I had time, I had peace. I loved it. I didn't want to go back. I look at the numbers. Podcast is up, revenue is up. God had brought in a new team member that I had been praying for. There was favor on this obedience. I said, “I'm doing six months. Let's see what happens.” The email list explodes, the podcast explodes, everything is growing. And I had the time and the bandwidth to then do another podcast a week, which ultimately, really for me, is how I teach people to grow a business is to use podcasting.
I get into Instagram, here's the kicker, it was eight months later, we're like, “Okay, let's see what happened.” Zero engagement. Zero — the stories were completely gone. Tried posting a few things, nothing. For me, that was the bow on the gift, because it was like, “I'm not sad about this. It's confirming.” It confirms to me that five hours a day to build this thing for years results and it is gone overnight. Why am I here? Then, that just had me asking questions of myself and my audience of, if you're doing what you're doing, why? Are you doing it, because you're making money, making an impact, making a difference? Are you doing it because you think you have to?
So, that opened the door to this whole movement, this whole thing. I'm still off of Instagram. We don't have any of the new fancy socials. I don't post on Twitter. Nothing for my business and I'm a seven-figure business owner. It's crazy.
[00:21:38] JR: Yes. Here's a little bit of your story, though, right? I've heard you tell people. You're not saying social media is evil. You're not saying it's wrong for everyone. You're saying God convicted you and it was wrong for you. Right? I think this is the broader principle for our listeners, whether it's social media or any other tool. I think a lot of our listeners feel like, there are certain things I have to do to be successful at work as an entrepreneur, or barista, whatever it is they do. But a lot of times that conflicts with scripture overtly, or the Holy Spirit's promptings, and specific convictions for them. What advice would you give to that listener?
[00:22:21] SG: Yes. How it started for me was really – I think, when we're so busy, we're missing all of the clues of what God's trying to say. I had to create the space, right? Let's get off on weekends, off this thing in my life that I think God is asking me to take some space from, whatever that might be. I need breathing room so I can hear from God. So, create the breathing room number one, and whatever it is, that thing might be.
The second thing is, I think God is so good. He took me in baby steps. Because it was really terrifying to think I'm just not going to use social media in my business. That was a really big crazy – maybe like, “Oh, I’m going to be sober.” Maybe that's not something that's possible for you right now. Okay, what's step one? I took baby steps in that process, and every time I would hear God in the next step, I didn't allow myself to overthink it, or to minimize it, or to validate why I shouldn't. I just said, “Okay.” I took quick action. If you take quick action, it keeps you from overthinking and stop and not taking action at all.
Those are my tips on that. Then, the last thing is knowing that every single time God has you go against something of the world, or go against something that you think you must do or need to do, or can't stop because you're willing to show yourself that you will trust God's way more than the world's way. There is fruit and favor and blessing every single time on that outcome. So, it's worth it.
[00:23:49] JR: That second piece of taking quick action, think about this Randy Alcorn quote all the time, “Nothing is more fleeting than the moment of conviction.” I think there's listeners right now who are like, “Man, I'm convicted. I need to give up that sales tactic.” Or, “I need to give up my phone.” Or, “I need to give up social.” Or, “I need to give up whatever it is that is distracted me from the Lord or tempting me in the work.” Nothing's more fleeting than the moment of conviction. Take quick action. Take quick action.
Hey, so today you describe your calling is helping others do business with God and for God. What is the “with” piece look like for you personally?
[00:24:31] SG: Yes. So, I used to think that having a relationship with God meant I had to sit down and have my morning routine and get in Scripture, and it is still that. Then, I would at night, get back in the zone. I’m like, “Let me get back with you God.” As our relationship evolved, and journaling was such a powerful way for me to start opening those doors to recognize, “Oh, God’s – Holy Spirit's right here with me, working through this issue.” I started to remove any of the barriers or the beliefs that I have around what it should look like. I just started talking to God all day. The moment that I feel myself in my humaneness, “Oh, that makes me feel jealous.” Or, “Well, she shouldn't have that.” I'm like, “Lord, let's pray for that person.” Maybe I'm frustrated with something going on in my personal life. I'll just cry into the dishes and talk to God about it. There's no moment that He is unavailable for me now, and I've just recognized that the more I just allowed it to be part of every minute of my life.
First, it started as an intention, and then it became routine for me, and now it's a desire of my heart, because of the way it's changed me so much. That's what I mean by with God. It's like an actual interactive, partnering with Him, and the decisions, and the prayer life, and every waking moment. First thing I think of when I wake up is the Lord. Really, truly, and I'm not just saying that, and it's become just inherently a piece of who I am.
[00:26:07] JR: How do you think you've formed that habit of thinking first of the Lord, when you get out of bed in the moment?
[00:26:12] SG: Yes. What I would do is, again, when we think of the all or none principle, we fail every time. I want that. I want to do that. But tomorrow, you wake up and forget about God, and you failed, right? So, what we have to do is, we have to have it stack, and what I mean by that is, what can I do this week, that's one step to this big picture vision of who I want to be. That woman on the paper that I now I am her, it took me six years of intentional habit stacking to become her. So, I would focus one week on, I'm just going to get up at six. Here's how it started and spent 15 minutes with God today. That's the first thing I ever did.
Then, the next week, it was okay, 20 minutes, 30 minutes. Oh, now I'm going to set a timer three times a day to pray. It wasn't natural, right? It took me making a decision to grow in my relation. God was always there ready and excited about it. But I had to sometimes take that step, in order to craft and create the habit that then became natural for me. Does that make sense?
[00:27:19] JR: Yes. Totally, 100%. I mentioned this to you before we start recording. I record this podcast one day a month, we do four to five episodes. I do a back to back, 30-minute break in between. And almost always, there is a theme throughout those episodes that was not planned or expected. It wasn't brought about by a question that I planted in all four interviews. Here's what it is today. I was just talking with Anne Beiler, founder of Auntie Anne's Pretzels, right before I got on the phone with you. She was talking about overcomplicating the presence of God. And it's what you're talking about.
So, you're talking about setting up habits, and that can be complicated, whatever. But what I love about what you're saying is, with God is not necessarily, is not confined to your quiet times in the morning. It is an all day, everyday thing, and that doesn't cheapen the presence of God. It doesn't diminish the presence of God. In fact, it magnifies that He is everywhere all the time, with us wherever we go, see Joshua 1:9, and that just makes the with God piece of our work feel so much more accessible, right?
I don't want the listeners to miss that theme that's coming up in these episodes. All right, let's go to the other piece of this though. You're encouraging women to do business with God and for God, and take off your entrepreneur hat for a second. Go back into corporate America, pretend you are back working as a controller at this big company you are at. What would it look like in that role to work for God instead of for – Stefanie, beyond sharing the gospel with your co-workers, that one's fairly obvious. Beyond that, how can you do that work for God?
[00:29:01] SG: This makes me think of a situation where recently and this translates into our work too, where as Christians, I personally felt like I was awful at evangelism. I would say, “I am awful at evangelism. I can't get any – man, I can't do it.” I got this influx of emails, Jordan, from people who said I was an atheist and because you said blank thing. Or I didn't know what I believed, and then you talked randomly about this story when you did this thing. I was like, “Oh, my gosh. This is not about me being an overt Christian in all the things that I do as a controller in a solar company, or as a teacher, or whatever it is that we do in our daily life.” This is about me, dropping into vulnerability, and being willing to just share all the trials and tribulations, and the things I've walked through with an undertone of God helped me through that.
That storytelling allows people to see themselves in you, in me. So, if I was back in corporate America, in the mindset and the heart space that I am now, of course, I'm going to be the salt and the light. But what does that actually mean? To me, it would mean, I'm going to befriend people, no matter who they are, no matter what they do, no matter what their issues, their personality, their political affiliation. It doesn't matter. I'm going to befriend you and be kind to you, be a listening ear to you, have the heart for you.
If you ask me a question about something I've walked through, or an experience that I've had, I'm just going to, in my mind, go Holy Spirit, go. Holy Spirit, go. And share and allow that story to be whatever it needs to be to the person that God's so divinely placed in front of me in my work, or in the drop off line at school, or at the soccer practice. That's what it means to be the salt in the light. Again, it's not overcomplicating the conversation.
[00:31:08] JR: What keeps us from being vulnerable like that at work?
[00:31:11] SG: It's about us again. Same thing you said earlier, Jordan. When we make it about us, like, “Oh, they're going to think bad of me.” If somebody hears me say, “I used to drink too much. They're going to think bad of me.” No, no, it's not about me at all. It's about the fact that God freed me from thinking I had to drink alcohol to have fun. That's what it's about. For some reason, God wants me to say that right now. Let's go. This isn't about me. So, it's that mindset shift in the perspective to you feel the prompting. You know what I'm talking about. It's like the words are bubbling, open your mouth, and He shall fill it, right? You feel it, and you're like, “I can't say that. Because it's vulnerable. Because someone will judge me. Because they'll think poorly of me.” But the reality is, that's Holy Spirit using a story and a thing that you've walked through, to potentially start freeing someone else.
Having that, grab that, and I just go, “You open my mouth and fill it, Lord and know that” – what’s funny, just to give this some proof. The second I started opening up, I opened up first on my podcast, started talking about stuff, personal things I had gone through, the alcohol and failing at a business, and all these things that I would be open about. That's when I felt complete peace. I finally felt full out peace. There was no secrets to who I was. There was no secrets to things I had failed at. I didn't care. I'm like, “Let my mother-in-law listen.” Whatever, “Maybe it'll bless her.” I just removed any thoughts or feelings around the fear of man. I just had to push through it.
Because I was afraid. Do not – I was afraid of the fear of man. But once I did it, and I ripped off the band aid, and I took that action with the courage of the Lord. When I got to the other side, I felt absolute complete peace drop in and I knew it was right. Now, I look for opportunity to be vulnerable.
[00:33:09] JR: Yes, it's so good. You mentioned this phrase a couple times, that I love, ‘discernment alarms’. We're here in present day, you've traveled this road of the Lord freeing you from the work beneath your work. That never goes away completely. There's always a temptation to perform, right? What are the discernment alarms? What does that sound like? What does it look like? How do you spot the work beneath your work before, yet again, becomes the soul crushing problem?
[00:33:41] SG: Yes. I'm so glad you asked this. It's really the fruit. So, when you look at the fruit that you're producing, this comes in many forms. For me, it might be an emotional - I'm noticing that I'm negatively competitive, or I notice jealous tendency, or I notice that I'm frustrated that my family is interrupting my work. It's these emotional little sirens, if you will, that are not from God and you know those. I think a lot of times we minimize it. But for me, I go, “Oh, hold on, what is that?” I'm like, immediately, “Let me look at that. Let me lay that at the feet of Jesus real quick.” Because it will escalate, it will continue to snowball. That's one thing.
On the other side, we have the actual physical, tangible fruit. I noticed that something is just not working. It's not, no matter how hard I try, it's just not working. If I rewind back a minute, did I pray over this action that I took? Did I pray over saying yes to this investment before I did it? “Oh, no wonder that investment failed.” I didn't actually partner with God and making that decision. So, those alarms are things you can feel they're emotional, and they're also often physical fruit, and nothing's wrong with any of it. It's simply just for me, I believe, Holy Spirit showing me that we just need to make a very small tweak, a small adjustment so that I can be on that clear path that God already set. Because it's easy for us to pop off the path. The enemy wants to derail us. The world is falling. Life, we're humans.
But I don't want to get too far off the path. I'm okay with falling off. But I'm like, “Lord, I want to remedy this as quickly as possible. So, thank you for that alarm. Let's get back on the path.”
[00:35:32] JR: Yes. That’s good. You mentioned one of those alarms is an unhealthy sense of comparison or competition. I just wrote a devotional series on this a few weeks ago on ways to escape the comparison trap. How do you escape this? What Biblical truths are you preaching to yourself that free you from an unhealthy level of competition and comparison?
[00:35:52] SG: Yes. I have to remind myself that, Romans 12, “Go ahead and be who we were made to be without enviously or pridefully comparing ourselves to each other or trying to be something we aren't.” It's about remembering that I am created to help this perfect, predetermined, incredible group of people that God has called me to, and that's all I need to worry about. If I start looking at somebody else's journey, or calling, or success, that's an enemy tactic to distract you from the people that are already there praying for you. So, that’s like the bigger worldview or biblical concept. But tactically, I capture it super-fast, and I pray. I'm like, “Lord, I don't want to feel this way. Actually, Lord, I pray for more favor on that person's life.” Sometimes it's through gritted teeth.
We don't want it, but as I'm praying it, my heart shifts, my heart posture changes. It's push through and be okay with, “Okay, I feel jealous. I feel competitive right now.” So, a little bit of that, I think it's okay. It's good to push you. But when you find yourself obsessively looking at it, or it's making you feel bad inside, praying, surrendering it, and then pray for the person to have even more knowing there is infinitely enough of God's blessing for everyone, and it's always his timing, and it's always his vision. That surrendering into God has you where you are on purpose.
I'll say this last piece on this part. If I had had the success today, six years ago, I wasn't prepared for it. I wasn't right in my mindset, my heart, my marriage wasn't. Now, we're so – my parenting. God knew and went before me enough to realize that I needed to grow as a person in my spiritual walk with him, before I was able to shepherd and steward what he has for me now. Also, the trust of His timing is so key.
[00:37:58] JR: Yes. That can be a part of the story that we share with others. Hey, I thank God for this failure. That'll raise eyebrows. What are you talking about? No, I thank God for this because it helped me recognize that nothing but Christ will ever satisfy me, right? Praise God, then that's winsome in a world that is starving, hungering for something to fill the God shaped void inside of their hearts.
Stef, three questions we wrap up every conversation with. Number one, which books do you find yourself recommending or gifting most frequently to others? If I looked at your Amazon order history, what keeps popping up over and over again?
[00:38:40] SG: Yes. Well, the first one, hands down, is Sacred Marriage. This book if you are married, or want to get married in the future, this book blessed my marriage so much. It really is such a beautiful book that helps us recognize that marriage isn't meant to be easy. Marriage is meant for us to become holy. That's really what the message is. It's so tactical. Anyway, that one –
[00:39:08] JR: That's Gary Thomas, right?
[00:39:08] SG: Yes. Gary Thomas. Any book by Bob Gough, I just love. I think Bob Gough is such a great book for people who aren't sure if they believe, who aren't sure what they think about – they’ve religious trauma. A bob Gough book is going to just bless people. So, love that.
Then, the third one that we get all the time as a company is the NIV, or the NLT version of the Bible, especially to new people who are just growing in their faith. Scripture is really overwhelming. They have no idea where to start, what book to get. What I do is we buy people NLT versions, which are super easy to understand, and we put a sticky tab in the New Testament and it says, “Start here.”
[00:39:48] JR: Yes, that's good. That's good. Hey, who do you want to hear on this podcast talking about how the gospel shaped the work they do?
[00:39:54] SG: I really thought about this question and prayed about this question. No one name came to mind, but I really felt a conviction around teachers right now. I'm just looking at people I know, and school systems, and the news, and all these things. I know that teachers are falling away super-fast from public school system.
I would love, love - maybe you have this already, but especially now with what we're facing, to hear from teachers and people that are in the space of serving kids, or parents who aren't believers, and struggling, how are they staying in it? How are they not giving up? How are they not running from this thing that they're called to do even though everything seems to be against them? I just felt in my heart like there was – if you’re listening and that's you, reach out to Jordan's team, because I feel like that's such – I would love to hear that message, and for you to be an encouragement to other people that are in that position.
[00:40:49] JR: For sure. Well, I got an episode for you. I'm going to send it to you. One of my best friends. Her name is Christy Adams. You guys can search back through the podcast archive to find it. She’s a middle school teacher and we talked exactly about that. For the first time in her career, has been thinking about, “Oh, man, this is hard. I don't know if I want to do this anymore.” But she's staying for all the right reasons. It's one of my favorite episodes we've ever done. We're 200-ish episodes deep into this thing, and it's one of the best ones we've ever done.
Hey, what's one thing from our conversation, Stefanie, that you want to reiterate to our listeners before we sign off?
[00:41:24] SG: Well, one you said, is that we don't need to overcomplicate the presence of God in our work and all the things that we do. But the other one I feel really convicted about, especially now more than ever, is that the enemy is constantly working through busyness, and distraction, to steal from you. I want you to recognize that we are not blind, unless we're choosing to be blind. And taking off, I always say like, “Open my spiritual eyes Lord, let me see the places that I am being deceived, that I am being distracted that I am – that the enemy is working against the calling over my life.” You have full authority, and the power of Jesus Christ to take back control, to inventory your idols, to diminish addiction, and not to minimize that, but to at least have God an invitation into that battle into the emotional discernment alarms that we talked about today.
Clues are everywhere. So, we have to inventory those clues. We have to then – go read Psalms chapter 18. There are seven steps in that chapter to tell you how to battle this thing. But it's we inventory it, we call God into it, God weakens our enemies, we get equipped, and we go to battle, we fight, we win victoriously. So it's, don't allow the blindness to keep you in a position of feeling stuck or empty. It's time for you to see and rise up into that authority and take that back.
[00:42:54] JR: Yes. It's really hard to do that when we are drowning in the kingdom of noise. I talk a lot about this in Redeeming Your Time. I mean, there's a reason why on almost every single page of the Gospels, we see Jesus withdrawing to a lonely or a solitary place, given the finite amount of time on earth. It is staggering. How much time Jesus spent in quiet solitude. And He just stands in stark contrast to the way that so many of us live our lives.
By God's grace, I put a lot of practices in place where that's not a huge problem for me, but I still see it in my friends and it pains me. Yes, we're not blind unless we choose to be blind and noise is blinding us from the things that God is doing oftentimes, in and around our work.
Hey, Stefanie, I want to commend you for listening well, to the Holy Spirit. For doing excellent work every day for the glory of God and the good of others. For reminding us that God's ways are not always the world's ways, and for reminding us that our worth is in Christ alone.
Guys, you can learn more about Stefanie Gass. Check out her podcast, The Stephanie Gass Show. We did an episode on your podcast a while back which was super fun.
[00:44:07] GS: Yes, so good.
[00:44:09] JR: Just search Stefanie Gass and Jordan Raynor. You can find it. Hey, Stefanie, thanks for hanging out with us today.
[00:44:13] SG: Thank you for having me, Jordan.
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[00:44:14] JR: Hey, if you're enjoying the Mere Christians podcast, do me a favor. Take 30 seconds right now, to go leave a review of the show on Apple Podcasts, on Spotify wherever you listen to the show. Thank you guys so much for tuning in. I'll see you next week.
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