Okay the first five minutes are going to be the hardest and then I'm going to get on a roll so I've got a lot of notes but the good news is is I printed it really big so I could see it with my glasses so it's really not as much as it looks like. So yeah spiritual disciplines in the context of marriage and motherhood so first of all we want to ask what are spiritual disciplines and so this is a very simple definition biblical practices that a believer does to grow spiritually in Christ and to build their relationship with Him. If you Google it you'll find all kinds of different lists of what should be included on that list and lots of people have written books about it and study guides and blogs and podcasts but I just decided I'll touch on these seven basics prayer Bible study and fasting are the pillars journaling worship memorization and discipleship I think are also really important but there's lots of other things that could be included these are just the ones that we women can really do you know like we're not in charge of our charitable giving usually or where we fellowship or things like that so much so these are the the ones that are under our control as wives and mothers and as women and in the context of marriage and motherhood was the assignment that was given to me if you will but I know that there's a lot of you here that aren't married and you're not mothers and that's fine I think a whole bunch of what I'll have to say will be very applicable to your life just exactly where you are but I'm going to be unapologetic about the fact that that is kind of the context in which we're talking so maybe you'll be married or maybe you'll be a mother someday or maybe you won't either way that's fine but that's kind of where I'm coming from so that'll be the context and then also you know we could have dropped the s on spiritual disciplines and just made this a talk on spiritual discipline because I'm going to touch a little bit on some practical things but I'm also just going to talk about the benefits of being spiritually disciplined and I've got a lot of material and I'm hoping we're going to get through it all and still leave time for us to hear from you but I don't want to overwhelm anyone I don't expect that all of this is going to apply to anyone person here I want you to kind of go through and pick up the nuggets that apply to you even if it's just a phrase or a single thought something that's going to bring you courage like next Monday or two weeks from now when something just hits you you know right in the face that you weren't expecting so that's the goal here alright I'm gonna start since nobody really knows me with a very brief bio the reason I have a picture of that sign there that's a was the ice cream sign that my husband and I might met under 38 years ago he owned an ice cream shop and I went to work for him and it was the ice cream shop closed went out of business and the sign was forgotten and number of years later we found it the back of his dad's barn and we hung it up in our house and it has been a reminder for me ever since that my primary role since I said I do is I am Mike's I'm Mike's wife the father of Mike's children and now as he ages I'm Mike's helper and so that's the context of my life and there's some pictures of my family I should just say very briefly that we both my husband and I were raised in non-Christian homes we were born again a year after we got married which is 32 years ago now after about 10 years of walking with the Lord and the Lord graciously discipling us we decided to move to North Carolina to a more conservative church that was our first introduction to anybody like you all and after being there for 17 years we moved to Ohio which is where we live now we go to a very small church called remnant Christian fellowship that's not affiliated with anybody in particular we're a pretty eclectic little group but we are happy there so that's our brief bio oh and I have 12 children most of them still live with me yeah one is about to be married one is married I will say this everyone in my household is potty trained they can all tie their shoes they can all read I'm down to home schooling only four students and many of my children do have a sincere and growing relationship with the Lord so from this stage of life I can look back and I am so humbled and you know when I look around at some of you young moms with your babies in arms and your toddlers and you're trying to get them to sit still through these sessions and everything I am just so glad that I'm through that stage and I made it some of you older women are like yes I know what you mean but I am so humbled that God carried me through and I am just so confident that he will carry you through too and that's kind of yeah limitations 320 says my soul half them in still in remembrance and is humbled in me and and it goes on in the next first to talk about hope when I recall these things it just gives me hope for the rest of you so yeah in regards to the spiritual disciplines most of us know what we're supposed to do but I think most of us would also agree that there's higher ground and the problem is not our good intentions the problem is summed up here in Psalm 73 26 my flesh and my heart faileth and the answer is this God is the strength of my heart so what does the Bible have to say about the spiritual disciplines I think I mentioned that there is no biblical list of what you're supposed to do to be a good Christian on a daily basis but it does say in 1st John 2 6 he that say if he abideth in him ought himself also so to walk even as he walked so how did Jesus walk out the disciplines what do we see from scripture I'm not going to do an extensive Bible study so you don't have to turn there but I'm just going to point out a few things in Luke 6 12 it says and it came to pass in those days that he went out into a mountain to pray and continued all night in prayer to God there's lots of verses that tell us that Jesus prioritized prayer even though he had a busy day of ministry he often went aside and prayed it also says in Luke 9 23 and he said to them this is Jesus talking if any man will come after me let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me so apparently Jesus really expected that this Christian life would require a daily denial of ourselves interesting that this was all said before the crucifixion and he said you need to take up your cross daily and follow me I'll touch on being a living sacrifice later but you know he wasn't talking about dying for Christ I hope we're all willing to do that but he's talking here about us being willing to just go through life carrying a cross and that's going to be probably more needful for all of us than just dying a martyr's death and sometimes a little harder and then in Matthew 22 29 it says Jesus answered and said unto them you you do air not knowing the scriptures nor the power of God in other words Jesus was implying that if you don't know the word of God and haven't tapped into God's power you're going to be an error you're going to wind up airing and then in Luke 10 41 and 42 Jesus seems to be specifically speaking to us mothers who are very busy and he says Martha Martha or Marielle Marielle thou art careful and troubled about many things but one thing is needful and Mary hath chosen that good part which shall not be taken away from her so what was that really good thing that Mary was doing that he commended she was sitting at Jesus's feet and Jesus is saying here that is the most important thing that you need to do and I know some of you are going I know and I'd love to and if I just had an hour a day to spend at his feet that would be great I get that and if it were really an either or thing like either I spend time devoted to God or I have a clean house or either I spend time devoted to God or I can homeschool my children or you know you put anything in there even if it was really that cut and dried it would be worth it according to Jesus Christ to spend time at his feet that's what it says and I have found that that's the way it is if I prioritize prayer if I prioritize spending time with God it actually goes better you know homeschooling it goes better doing the dishes it goes better discipling my teens it everything goes better so it's not an either or but even if it was it would still be a priority to spend time at Jesus's feet so here's a few Greek words just to make myself look really intellectual I I like these orthodoxy is the Greek word that that talks about what we believe orthopraxy is what we do it's our practice and so what we believe needs to turn into what we practice or what we do that's what the spiritual disciplines are going to do pistas means faith pistose means faithful pistas is a noun it's a person place thing or idea pistose is an adjective it modifies nouns right so what we have becomes what we are faith needs to become faithful so sanctification is the goal of spiritual disciplines and sanctification is a journey and sanctification is also something really kind of unique sometimes you'll hear the phrase progressive sanctification it's the only part of the Christian life that we partner with God in he does the saving we can't save ourselves and our works can't save us and he does the glorification he will justify us and translate us in the end but in between salvation and glorification is what we call progressive sanctification and we partner with God in that process and yeah we partner with God we can we can cooperate with him or we can slow him down it's not an event it doesn't happen at a particular day our salvation our progressive sanctification starts on a particular day and it's nice if you know what that date is but but sanctification is not an event and it's not a to-do list it's not like we can go okay sanctification check did that and it's also not a race we are not going to get anywhere if we're just looking around saying I think I'm doing better than her or I think I'm doing worse it's not a race what sanctification is is it's a walk and I just was struck with this realization of several weeks ago that when Jesus walked on the water that time when he came to his disciples and they were in the midst of the sea he had been on the mountain praying and I looked at a map and you know based on where he had been preaching and where he probably went into the wilderness or up into the mountains to pray and where the midst of the sea was it's probably several miles from the mountaintop to the midst of the sea so he after a very busy day of ministry and then an all night of prayer he stands up and he walks down the mountain and across the seashore gets to the water and he keeps walking on the water and that was an amazing miracle wasn't it but he walked he had to put in the effort and do the walking and I think that's exactly what it's like for us as sisters you know God is going to do the miracles he's gonna make the water hold us up but we have got to do the walking it's a walk and it's a walk along a very narrow way and there are ditches on both sides and I don't care what issue you want to look at you can fall off onto this ditch and you can fall off into that ditch and some of us are more prone to go down one ditch than the other but we are all vulnerable on all sides and when we're over correcting from falling on this ditch we're especially vulnerable to fall into that other ditch so it's a very narrow way and it can be very challenging I just think of the context of being a life and mother I mean we've got to eat but we need to not give in to gluttony we need to fast but we have to prepare food for our family we have to push ourselves to do our very best and yet we need to not become proud we have to endure suffering and yet not given to despair I mean we're just constantly walking that narrow way but God gives us the grace to do it all right I just want to very quickly go through those seven things I had on the board prayer and whatever on the slide this is not a how-to there are so many really really good resources and probably so much wisdom in this room if you're somebody who after I go through these next seven slides says I need more specifics go find an older sister and I'm sure there's lots of information they could give you but I'm just going to give a couple little pointers on some of these disciplines so prayer I find that the two major challenges in prayer is finding the time and being able to stay focused when it comes to time I think it's really important that we incorporate prayer into the rhythms of our life if you're not in a season where you can spend a lot of time set aside for prayer then pray for things as you're going through your day and it will disciple your children and be a blessing to all the people around you yeah when you hear of a need stop and pray for it don't just say oh I'll pray for you because the reality is is if you actually set a time aside in your prayer closet to pray for all the things you say to people oh yeah I'll pray for you there's no way you get anything done right and so just go ahead and say well can we pray for that right now and do it and and it's a great way also to deal with gossip when somebody comes to you and they're just going on and on and on about you know kind of tearing a situation or a person down you know listen compassionately for a little while and then say you know since you brought that up can we just stop and pray about that and it's amazing people who really didn't want to pray for the situation but just wanted to talk about it they don't come to you anymore and it's wonderful the other thing we can do is the Bible says to pray without ceasing so what does that look like well I realized just recently it's kind of embarrassing to say this is recent but I realized that I have this running conversation going on in my head all the time I'm constantly like rehearsing a conversation with I had with my husband or that I want to have with a sister or whatever and I was just like why don't I take those thoughts captive why don't I make that running conversation in my head a conversation with God and then it will be praying without ceasing and it's working it's amazing then there's also intentional prayer and my daughter Isabel pointed out that if we are faithful in the intentional times of prayer it makes the praying without ceasing a lot easier and I have found that definitely to be the case but there's no certain amount of time that you need to set aside for prayer yeah different seasons of life require different things and will allow you more time or less okay so then the second thing is focus here's just a little couple things that I find helpful I set a timer on my phone and I set it for one minute and I start praying for the first oldest member of my family and just about the time when I'm either starting to fall asleep or my mind is starting to wander my little timer goes off and I switch to the next person on my list and so that's very helpful you can also write out your prayers you can journal your prayers you can pray scripture the other thing that's helpful is if you take your your distracted thoughts captive by doing this and say to yourself okay this thought keeps coming into my prayer time take it captive don't just try and get rid of it take it captive and look at it and say is this something that God wants me to pray about or is this something I'm really concerned about is it something that's bothering my conscience what do I need to do with this distracted thought that keeps coming back and then lastly I'll just say this that the Bible does say a few things about the morning in Psalm 5 3 it says my voice shalt thou hear in the morning oh Lord in the morning will I direct my prayer into thee and will look up I know that some people are mourning people and some people are not and that's fine I'm a mourning person the way I prioritize my day is anything that's really important that has to be done it gets done before noon so I pray in the morning but even if you're not a mourning person and even if you can't do a whole bunch of prayer in the morning it is a great time for you to at least start your day thinking about God just swing your feet over the edge of the bed and say okay Lord how do you want me to do today just just start there start the conversation in the morning I really like this quote which isn't there it's a good reminder that you know intercessory prayers is another really important kind of prayer and we are our children's and our husband's primary intercessor and what intercessory prayer does is it it's penetrating the hearts we cannot open shielding those we cannot guard teaching where we cannot speak comforting where our words have no power to soothe no ministry is so like that of an angel is this silent invisible known but to God it's a very pure ministry there's no pride in it at all okay the Bible it's the very bedrock of our faith second Timothy 3 16 says that it's profitable for doctrine reproof correction and for instruction and righteousness so therefore I say we should study it zealously meditate on it deeply and communicate it accurately it's it's just really important and I could go on and on but I'm not going to for the sake of time fasting I think what regular fasting does is it helps us reset our priorities it helps us better appreciate the things that we easily take for granted and we usually associate that with food giving up food I don't know about any of you ladies but while I was in the childbearing years I was either pregnant or nursing most of the time and I don't think I ever went a single day where I fasted all day I just couldn't so I didn't but I found out there's lots of other ways you can fast you can give up snacks or desserts or sometimes our family would do like just a family rice fast where I wouldn't have to think about what to make because we just had three meals of rice and the children could have rice with milk for breakfast and we have rice with you know sprinkled cheese on it for lunch and for supper and they loved it and if anybody actually absolutely had to eat you can have your rice and other than that we're fasting you know and it's kind of simple but there's other things to fast from besides food I found through the busy years I fasted from books and magazines I just didn't have any time I felt like how could I possibly sit down and read this really good wholesome book or this great magazine you know that sisters would give me the free subscriptions too because they wanted to be helpful and talked all about wonderful homemade cough syrup how could I sit down and read that when I hadn't read my Bible and so if I didn't have much time for Bible reading I certainly was gonna fast from books and magazines as good as they are and when I need a cough drop or a cough syrup recipe I'll ask somebody specifically for it so I also found that I needed to fast from sleep I was really hard but being a mom it's really stretching isn't it like some nights you don't sleep much and there were times and I was just like Lord this is really tough and now you want me to wake up and spend some intentional time in prayer and Bible reading but it was like the Lord just said well how much do you love me do you love me more than your bed I had to say yes I do of course I do I mean I might not wake up an hour earlier than the children but I can at least you know get out of bed if I made a deal with the Lord often Lord if you wake me up before my alarm I'm gonna give you the that time you would be surprised how many times he took me up on that just 15 minutes extra and I'd wake up and just like boom my eyes were open and then I'd want to just roll over and go back to bed and he'd say whoop remember you told me you'd give me these extra 15 minutes let's have some time together okay I'll fast my sleep we'll talk more about social media and and our phones maybe that's something we could fast from to but we'll get to that topic also I want to say this sometimes I I got bitter at God like how do you expect me to fast especially food when you know I'm just surrounded by food all day I'm in the kitchen I'm trying to feed a family and it's just no fair if I could go off you know in a mountain somewhere then sure I could handle this and he just so graciously told me Mario when I was in the desert every single stone could have been a loaf of bread for me I know what you're going through it's okay do it anyway journaling I just want to mention it really quickly it's not for everyone for me it's really really important because for me I haven't really learned a lesson until I've written it down other people you know they don't really learn a lesson until they write a song about it or whatever but for me writing it down is really powerful we talked about writing prayers that can be helpful it's not only a place where we can talk to God or express our feelings but we can also start hearing from God I have often started journaling my thoughts and ended journaling God's thoughts and that's really special it's a it's a real good way to to know God to expose our hearts but also to be safe worship it's pretty broad term but specifically through song again this varying levels of importance to people but singing is something that you can just incorporate it into life as a mom so wonderfully you can do that with your children it can alter the whole mood in your home if you just start worshiping the Lord and singing also worship family worship if your husband is not making a priority of family worship and if you have the privilege of homeschooling which I did then you can make worship part of your school day and and it won't get undone left undone memorization I think we all know how important it is also this is something that you can incorporate into your school day you can do it with your children I've been appalled at how bad my memory has gotten even though I'm not all that old yet but yeah it's just important it's important to have God's word hidden in our heart so just do it and discipleship I mean by this the need we have to all of us have a Paul somebody who's a little further along that can disciple us you know younger sisters especially avail yourself of the wisdom of the older sisters there are so many women in our midst in your congregation who have things they could speak into your life but they are not going to volunteer it necessarily I have found that the older I get the less I want to volunteer because I'm starting to realize how much I don't know I didn't realize that when I was 25 and so the same thing probably goes for other older women but if you younger ladies draw them out ask them specific questions there's probably a wealth of information and wisdom there for you but you also should have a Timothy you should have somebody younger than you no matter what age you are that you are discipling that you are pouring into in for most of us that's our children and if that's all it is is your children then don't feel in the least bit apologetic that's enough if you are actually raising true disciples it is going to take just about all you've got to give it and especially if you have you know a bunch of children that they're all at different ages they all have different needs pouring into their lives if that's all you do for the next 20 years is a totally full-time job but if that's not a full-time job for you then purpose to go out and find somebody who needs to be discipled and that should be easy enough if you're part of a of a fellowship there's usually somebody who could use your input all right so I'm gonna switch gears now and I'm gonna talk about the next bunch of slides is just benefits or the rewards of practicing the spiritual disciplines if we do the spiritual disciplines we will learn to embrace an eternal perspective Jesus was in the Garden of Gethsemane and his soul was troubled just like ours are at times and he asked the Father to save him from this hour just like we often do we say oh Lord you know I can't face this whatever this is but then he did something that we can only accomplish if we are spending time at Jesus's feet and that is he acknowledged that his trial had a purpose that transcended his own concerns and he said but for this cause came I unto this hour Father glorify thy name if we're spending time in the spiritual disciplines we'll be able to say that too and and have an eternal perspective on it without an eternal perspective we will run from suffering and with it we embrace God's will regardless of the personal cost we will also learn how to evaluate our motives so the question here I had in mind was do I want to look spiritual or do I want to be spiritual what's good about the spiritual disciplines prayer and Bible study and memorization and fasting is it's basically hidden and so it guards our hearts against hypocrisy because nobody usually knows if we're really doing those things or not so you know we need to be painfully honest with ourselves with our motives and and ask ourselves am I am I more in in concerned about making good impressions or with pleasing the Lord I think I'll leave it at that spending time with the Lord in it helps us establish profitable habits we will be under pressure what we have rehearsed in our leisure I'm sure some of you have seen that come out if you're in the habit of running to the Lord on a normal day you will run to the Lord when the crisis happens but if you're not in that habit you won't you'll fall apart and this is really come to me as far as the habits part we had my mother stepmother-in-law living with us for five years until just recently and she has dementia and so I've done kind of a lot of study about dementia recently and when everything is stripped away from us including our minds the only thing that we have left is that which we have done repetitively it's our habits and those will still be there for us I'm just gonna read this quote it's from a doctor and a Christian who works a lot with Alzheimer's patients it says one woman I was testing to determine whether she had Alzheimer's disease asked to stop the testing she said to me my memory is just fine for what I need to do and I asked her a little bit more about her routine she lived in a nursing home and she would get up each day and walk to the chapel sit down and pray and read through scripture then she would walk back to her room she remembered the Lord even if sometimes walking back to her room she got confused so what she had made a habit for was still there for her my stepmother-in-law I mentioned already she had a habit of gratefulness and she has totally lost her mind she just doesn't remember most of her entire life but she is always grateful and she will tell you I know I've had a good life even though I can't remember it so she is so gracious that's a habit she made Hudson Taylor he made a habit of trusting God and what even when he was just facing extreme circumstances it was there for that him and it comes out in this quote I really like from him when I cannot read we've all been there it's like your brain is so fried you can't even read when I cannot think when I cannot even pray I can trust make it a habit if we learn to trust then we will also learn how to enter into rest rest and activity are both really equally important to God I like the the line of the song that says bless Trinity in whom alone all things created move or rest I'm just gonna give an example of why I feel like it's so important to learn to rest I probably about a year ago maybe two now I'm not sure had what I would consider a very close to burnout time the needs in my home were extreme I had two old people living there mother-in-law my stepmother-in-law and all the children and everything and my brain was just starting to tip and one particular day I had organized a homeschool event and there was just all sorts of ladies and their children all in my home and I was sitting at the table I was trying to be gracious I was trying to ask relevant questions and be engaged and my brain was just like done and it really scared me I just wanted to run and hide and cry because I thought I was losing my mind so I realized that my brain needed rest and everybody left the homeschool event and I knew I needed to rest my brain but I just didn't know how and so I would suggest that you all learn how to rest your brain it'll be different for each person I tried reading like Hudson Taylor it didn't work I tried praying I tried listening to the Bible I even tried listening to basic classical music it was all too intellectually stimulating I had to I finally stumbled across Dan Musselman is about later told me that Dan Musselman who just does like piano music no words he prays for the people who are listening to his music and I didn't know that at the time I didn't know who Dan Musselman was but my brain just started to be renewed as I just sat there and stared out the window so at that time the Lord directed me to a book it's called zeal without burnout seven keys to a lifelong ministry of sustainable sacrifice by Christopher Ash and I learned three things from that book there's a difference between burning out for Jesus and living sacrificially for the Lord the latter is sustainable we can live sacrificially for the Lord on a long term basis but burning out for Jesus is not sustainable and burnout looks heroic but it's very counterproductive and when you burn out everybody that was doing everything around you is gonna stop what they were doing so that they can prop you up it's not at all productive so it might look like oh what a hero you are but it's really not gonna help and it's probably fueled by your carnality and your pride so learn to rest and learn to say no and the other point that he made in that book is I'm dust I was made from dust and I'm going to return to dust and even though right now I have health and a mind that works I am still dust very vulnerable very close to disintegration at any moment and I need to just be reminded of that sometimes and I need a Sabbath rest sorry for things I learned and so I started taking a Sabbath rest that may not be Sundays for most of you moms it's not Sundays it that's not very relaxing especially if you happen to be like the pastor's wife or whatever so find other ways to have a Sabbath rest that might be nap time when your children go down make yourself not do the laundry take a Sabbath rest you know or maybe what I started doing was during that particular season I said to my family one night a week right after supper I'm not helping with any cleanup I'm not putting you all to bed I'm not getting up with grandma during the night I'm going to sleep in the cabin goodbye and I did that for a few months and it helped but yeah so we need to be be willing to do those things for the sake of everybody around us who are looking to us the other thing I'll just throw this in here is that I think sometimes we need to be okay with sitting before God in stunned silence I got that thought from Ezra where he he rent his garment he plucked out his hair he sat down a stonied the king James says and sometimes I felt like this and sometimes we think that's a sign of defeat or it's a sign of psychosis but I think it might be exactly where God wants us sometimes I think of the Queen of Sheba she was in the presence of Solomon and yeah she had no more spirit in her that's sometimes where God wants us to be just unable to rally and that's okay so we need to learn to rest we also need to learn to cultivate the secret place Psalm 91 1 says he that dwelleth in the secret place of the most high shall be shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty so what does that mean the secret place I think of it as being intimate with God we need to know God but we also need to be known by God and that can be scary you know maybe there's someone in this room who just that word to know the King James uses it to to talk of intimate relationships with a husband and wife you know it's the same word here but the Bible says that we're a daughter of the King we're a child of God we're a joint heir with Christ a sister of the Lord a bride of Christ these are really intimate family relationships that he's talking about so when we're spending time with God we need to be okay with cultivating that kind of an intimate relationship and I don't mean anything weird here I just mean that we need to be God needs to be the first place we run don't run to your girlfriends don't run to your children don't run to your husband don't you know when you're facing something get in the habit of running to God let him be your bestie the first one you go to with with your intimate concerns and cares I think if we if we cultivate that secret place if we learn how to run there then we can withstand the betrayals and the shortcomings of other people Jesus did this you know he longed for the companionship of men when he was here on earth and that's why when he was in the Garden of Gethsemane he he invited Peter and James and John to be with him in his hour of agony but they they let him down they fell asleep he was alone with God and we will be too and similarly when we are when things are going well we want to share that with other people but Jesus was our example in that too it says when men were approving of Jesus and you know saying Hosanna he did not commit himself unto them because he knew all men and needed not that any should testify of man so the only way that we'll be able to follow Jesus's example and not be swayed by people's betrayal or their praise is to be intimate with God and to cultivate that secret place so we also need to prepare to be a living sacrifice dying is an event like I mentioned earlier but living as a sacrifice takes discipline and it's a daily thing it needs to be maintained over time it takes kind of a different kind of grace than just dying once first Peter 412 says beloved think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you as though some strange thing happened unto you trials are not strange they're actually common place and we need to just be okay with that and that takes time in the spiritual disciplines we often feel like suffering is a test of God's faithfulness and we kind of you know Lord where are you and I need you but but suffering and trials they're they're a test of our faithfulness they're a test of our character yeah so we need to learn to be okay with that and I realize that I know I am a very pampered Christian compared to so many who have walked through so much so being a living sacrifice is just sometimes being really honest about how little it takes to make me irritable how very little it takes to ruin my day or you know yeah if I if I feel like it's not taking much to ruin my day it probably means that I need to be spending more time with the Lord and recommitting myself to being a living sacrifice so practicing the spiritual disciplines give us an opportunity to exercise our willpower good soil is a soil that possesses sufficient intelligence to recognize a wise choice that's important but also sufficient willpower to accomplish it and if we're not exercising willpower in our daily lives it's not going to be there for us when we really need it must is a really it's actually an easier task master then should and this is what I mean if you must do something if your child falls down and is hurt you run to them because you must you drop everything and you go if your church has certain standards and if you didn't do them you would be excommunicated then that's a must and you're going to make it a priority right but there's lots of things that falling into the should category and I think the spiritual disciplines are that nobody's going to enforce or or or even know if you spend any time this morning reading your Bible so it's a should and it's easy to put it on the back burner because it's a should it's not a must so what you need to do is rally your will and see the shoulds of life as an opportunity to exercise that willpower muscle there's a lot of examples in the Psalms of this Psalm 77 I'm not going to turn there right now but look at it later if you want to it's a really good example of the power of the will in a renewed spirit if you look at verses 1 through 9 I think it's David is the writer of that Psalm he's rehearsing the trouble the confusion the despair but then he he switches and in verses 10 through 12 he starts exercising his will and he says I will remember I will remember I will remember and then he goes on to say I will meditate I will talk of your doings he just starts exercising his will and then the rest of the Psalm just kind of ends on a much happier note with him being more positive also the thought why art thou cast down on my soul and why art thou disquieted within me hope in God for I shall yet praise him who is the health of my countenance and my God that's repeated a couple times in different places in the Psalms it's like the renewed spirit talking to the soul and saying come on you can do it exercising the will lastly for this section practicing the spiritual disciplines will help us to create a legacy I don't know if you can see that's kind of small if we did the best we could with what we had that fact will gradually become more and more apparent to our children as they become parents but if we consistently made soft decisions and selfish choices that too will become increasingly obvious to our children as they view their past through the lens of adulthood what is your legacy going to be are they going to look back and say well mom she met well but she made a lot of soft decisions they're going to see it once their adults what's your legacy going to be what are you going to inspire them to do I think the goal is to live without regret as I look back over the last 30 plus years I do see that there was higher ground there were things that I could have done and I didn't do and there's things that I did that I could have done a lot better but I think I can honestly say that I was walking in all the light that I had and that there was never a time when God prompted me to do something and I said no I think we can all have that kind of a testimony that when we get to the end of our child raising years or whatever we have in front of us that we can have no regrets and know that given what we had in the moment we didn't turn our backs on God and we did all that we could and yeah I think when we give God all that we've got he multiplies our efforts and I think when we do our very best he comes along and he perfects it and that is definitely been my testimony okay we're going to switch gears and talk about some of the possible hindrances or pitfalls things that can draw us away from being spiritually disciplined so the first one is ignorance I think is women we tend to feel limited by what we were taught or how we were raised but I think God wants to give us everything that we need he's not limited by what we were or weren't taught as a matter of fact Jeremiah 33 says call on to me and I will answer the we're all familiar with that part of the verse and then it goes on to say and show the great and mighty things which thou knowest not so when we call on him he's not going to tell us what we already know or what the good things we were raised in he's going to tell us the things we don't know and so that doesn't need to be an excuse what a blessing idle idealism I don't know about any of you but for me it's easy to say oh if I were a missionary to Timbuktu then I'd be faithful or if my husband was a pastor then I'd really press in and be faithful but that's all just idle idealism he wants us to be faithful right here like with the dishes and the children and the diapers and whatever right here right now where we are that's where we need to be faithful and if we really would be willing to go to Timbuktu and to die for Jesus Christ then why don't you just wake up early and pray and read your Bible it's really much easier and it will be productive for you so sometimes we need to be willing to go but sometimes we need to be willing to just stay and be faithful another really big stumbling block is disorganization has anyone seen my time I don't want to meddle here at all and I know people have different ways of organizing their time but I do want to just say a few things and that is that for some being good stewards of our time is easier for some people than it is for others but we can all learn how to be good stewards of our time and I have been really greatly served by being scheduled and organized when I'm exhausted my brain is foggy then my schedule tells me what to do next and when I was in the midst of morning sickness and I would open the refrigerator and nothing looked edible to me if I had a meal plan it told me what to make and when I feel stretched thin and pulled in all kinds of different directions it helps to have a regular place where the school books are kept and I can just go there and find them it's not that I'm an organized person because I am some superhuman I am an organized person because I am very weak and frail and my organization is my crutch and helps me get through my day so I think that's the purpose now there's a there's a need for balance there your schedule should never become your God it's it's not the end of the world if your schedule isn't followed there's a place for spontaneity and flexibility those are both very important things but if you don't have a routine from which you are flexing then you're not being flexible you're being undisciplined right and I think children do best with it with a schedule I mean children are going to be fussy sometimes but children that have a rhythm to their day they know when to get hungry and they know when to feel sleepy and it just makes them feel more peaceful so also the other thing about organizing our time is that those things that are limited are precious the reason gold is precious is because there's a limited supply when you know gas prices go up it's because something's happening in the Middle East and and gas is becoming precious and so anything that is limited is precious but we all have the same amount of time so how do we teach our children to steward their time and treat it like something precious none of us knows exactly when our time is going to run out so how do we teach that well I think the way we teach that is by organizing our time and I'll just give you an example the other day this just hit me I was about to jump in the shower it was something had come up and I hadn't been able to go through my morning routine the way I wanted to and I knew I was gonna be running late for 8 o'clock group time which is how we start our school day and so I just shouted out of the bathroom guys we're going to be a little bit late on on group time today a little bit of flexibility needed and the reason I did that is because I taught my children that I value your time otherwise they would have been all sitting there at 8 o'clock and I would have been running five minutes late even if it was just five minutes they're sitting there twiddling their thumbs waiting for mom I value their time and so I'm going to tell you ahead of time that we're going to have to flex a little bit and it also teaches them to do the same to value the time of others to treat it as something that needs to be stewarded all right enough of that got lots more notes on all these things social media in quotes because it's a buzzword social media is not the only distraction any kind of technology can be a major distraction but yeah there's a lot of different opinions on the use of technology I realize that probably a lot of them represented here I think all of us would agree that technology is not simply good or bad so I think what we would all agree on is that it does need to be managed and I use my phone a lot I have a smart phone it's my calendar it's my to-do list it's my calculator it's my Strong's Concordance it's my encyclopedia sometimes it's my shopping cart I use it a lot but what I don't want it to be is something that it's not my entertainer my escape I don't want it to be what I grab when I'm bored or I'm discouraged or I'm lonely I want my phone to stay a tool and not become my toy because if that phone is allowed to be my toy it may soon become my addiction and it's really just a matter of priorities there's plenty of good things you can do on your phone podcasts and blogs and people across the country that you can be in communication with it's just a question of can you afford this right now can you afford to stay in touch with the person across on the other side of the world have you talked to the people in your home yet have you talked to God yet today you know just prioritizing your time but smartphones are not the only distraction you know books could be a distraction magazines hobby sports your health all kinds of things can can take the preeminence in our lives so we just need to be careful of that doubt and disappointment so sometimes when we're practicing the spiritual disciplines I found this particularly the case when I'm fasting I lose my resolve because I'm not sure was this my idea or was this God's idea and I think of Peter when he was really eager to demonstrate faith and Jesus came walking on the water like we talked about earlier and Peter said Lord if it's you tell me to come walk to you on the water and so he jumped out of the boat and he started walking on the water why did he start to sink because he started to doubt and I do the same thing I jump out of the boat and I go whoa was this my idea or was this God's idea and in Peter's case it wasn't God's idea I mean it was his permissive will he said sure Peter come but Peter initiated that and and he jumped out of the boat so I just find that I need to be very careful not to add more to my list than God is adding to my list or my husband is adding to my list I I find it's really important to prioritize him H I am with a capital for God and him my husband and not they you know that elusive they will they say we should do this and they say we should do that you know just kind of silence the they sentences and and and ask what he wants and what he your husband or father or whoever your he is in your life is the other thing we need to look at when it comes to doubt is am I trying to prove something by doing the spiritual disciplines the spiritual disciplines are not a remedy for a guilty conscience if you're finding yourself you know like I got to pray more I got to spend more time in the word I've got to memorize more scriptures another chapter you know are you driven by a guilty conscience first John 1 9 tells us what to do with a guilty conscience confess and repent and allow God to forgive you and to cleanse you but the spiritual disciplines are not going to take care of your guilty conscience also disappointment I'm not going to have you turn to this but make a note of it second Corinthians chapter 4 I think is just a beautiful encouragement for especially those that are raising teenagers which is really a place where we start hitting disappointment head-on I think there's lots and lots of things that disappoint us but sometimes when you get to the place where your teens are starting to make choices for themselves it's just like oh Lord wow what happened what went wrong I tried to be so faithful and so intentional and did such a good job training them and now they're making bad choices and they're becoming their own people and what am I going to do you know and we can turn away from God and say well why should I bother you know spending time in prayer look you know what's happening so in chapter 4 there are second Corinthians in verse 1 it says as we have received mercy we faint not at those times we need to not faint verse 5 says for we preach not ourselves but Christ we need to not take it personally we just need to remember what isn't our idea we're preaching Christ and verse 7 says we have this treasure in earthen vessels that the excellency of the power maybe of God and not of us you know we're imperfect and our teenagers start to realize that and they sometimes pointed out to us and that's okay we're earthen vessels right and then it says in verse 12 so then death worketh in us but life in you that is death to the parent life to the teen and I find that that just helps with disappointment also acts 28 24 says and some believe the words which were spoken and some believed not that was Paul talking or it was just after he was preaching and in acts there it says that some believed the words that were spoken and some believed not and Paul's a better preacher than I am I'm sure of it and he had people that didn't believe and didn't follow and not only that but God is a much better parent than I am and God has had lots and lots of rebellious children all through the ages so yeah don't let that be a huge disappointment to the point where it keeps you from fellowship with God one last point on that I think as mothers as wives as women part of our calling is to just do the next thing Joseph of Arimathea was a very good example of that I think in John 19 we read about how after the crucifixion Joseph would have felt the same disappointment of that all of the disciples were feeling like we thought he was the Messiah and now he's dead talk about disillusionment and disappointment but he didn't just run away and hide and cry like a lot of the other disciples did he went he begged the body of Jesus he prepared it for burial he provided a place of burial and he took the body there he just kept going and did the next thing and I think is as women that's what we need to learn to do spiritual snobbery what I had in mind here is that God is not obligated to make us feel his presence all the time we don't we shouldn't be spiritual snobs to the point where it's just like well I'm not going to spend time in devotions because right now I'm just in such a dry season and I don't feel his presence anyway you need to do it anyway you just need to keep going there are times when I sit down with my Bible and it's just fresh and and I'm getting new insight and it's exciting and it's wonderful and that's great but I still need to open up my Bible and at least read one chapter when it's totally dry and God feels totally distant we just still need to keep going and trust the process go through the motions and trust the process I just want to touch I don't know if this is totally related but it seemed like a good time to put it in on the topic of emotions and how we feel I have found that sometimes I have just this underlying low-level anxiety now sometimes that's due to hormones but if you don't have a hormonal explanation for that and there's just like this low-level anxiety I found that it's usually that God is trying to get my attention in one of two areas either there's something God wants to change in me so I need to ask him Lord what are you putting your finger on what do I need to confess what I need to change what I you know what is it that you want to change in me or there's something that God wants to change in somebody else and he wants to do it through me and so he's giving me that little feeling of anxiety every time I think about my certain child and so I have to say okay Lord what are you trying to say what do you want me to do in regards to that situation or whatever so that you can either change something in me or change something through me and if we're quick to check our conscience and we're quick to do whatever the Lord tells us to do even if it's really small and simple or if it's big and hard then we don't really need to live with that low-level feeling of anxiety for very long we can clear that up all right old and gray we've come full circle so you've all probably heard of Corey 10 boom and she was just an amazing woman she preached the gospel encouraged others when she was in a Nazi concentration camp and then afterwards she traveled the world teaching others about the power of forgiveness and telling her story and it just hit me all the sudden once that she started all of that when she was over 50 but she didn't go to the concentration camp until she was in her 50s and then she had a 30 year ministry so it is never ever too late to start God can certainly take you from where you are and and move you forward yeah it may be that you look back on your life if you're old and gray and you say oh I've missed all my opportunities I just didn't do a very good job when I was a mom and I have so many regrets and and I understand I totally understand but you know you may be at the very beginning of your life's work what you will go down known for like Corey 10 boom may not have even started yet you know we often talk about giving God the best years of our life who are we to determine when those best years are it might be when you're in your 20s but it might be when you're in your 60s or 70s just determined to give God whatever you've got and you know sometimes as we age like I mentioned we tend to be very aware of what we don't know and so we're maybe a little bit more reluctant to open up our mouths and to teach and we become a little bit less dogmatic if you will because life is just softened us a little bit that's okay but do recognize older ladies sisters we are called we are mandated the Bible tells us to teach and so whether it's comfortable or not if you're an older woman here you're you're in a season where you are called to teach the younger ones and we need to show God's strength to this generation the generation that is surrounding us right now that was a lot so I want to just give you a couple pointers for going forward in faith first of all identify the biggest area of need if anything I've said today has raised a standard or brought to your mind things that you could be doing better in just identify what that biggest area of need would be and don't try and tackle it all at once yeah I've noticed that there were several things said already this weekend by different speakers that I think all of this ties into if you've heard the same thing in two or three of the sessions already maybe that's what the Holy Spirit is putting his finger on for you so just look at that one area set concrete and attainable goals you know if you're not spending any time on a consistent basis in intentional prayer do not start even with 15 minutes start with five and do it consistently and and just yeah be successful with five minutes before you try and bite off more than that focus on his sufficiency and not your inadequacy you know Moses he basically when he was given the assignment from God to lead his people out of Egypt he he said you know I can't do this I can't speak well and God basically said I know my major mouth and I know exactly all about you so just go doing anyway you know and don't look at your inadequacies look at my sufficiency really the the the easiest way to be successful in the Christian walk is to recognize that we're dead and that our life is hid with Christ in God and and our Heavenly Father is not in the least bit surprised by our inadequacies so if we just allow the Lord to change us and to use us then we can relax because we're just the channel right and he's the teacher all I need to do is sit in his presence and become a better Christian and then when I stand up to go do whatever life requires then the extra I've received from him is what's gonna splash out onto all the people around me I'm just the channel and I'm not responsible it takes all the pressure off and then lastly tell someone about it a quality decision usually starts with a willingness to talk about it and it's usually maintained by a willingness to be accountable to someone so if there is something that God is putting his finger on then be willing to talk about it tell someone lastly please please please please don't leave here overwhelmed please don't say well Marielle says that we are supposed to fill in the blank yeah there is no spiritual bar these spiritual disciplines they won't save you and I didn't come here today to place this heavy burden on you and have you go out feeling overwhelmed I wanted to lift up a vision and so yeah I hope that comes across it's a vision of leaning into him when the going gets tough we are going to fall somebody said this recently and I liked it when you fall just make sure you're falling towards Jesus not away from him you're gonna fall but fall towards him and yeah we're not going to get to heaven by accident Jesus called it a narrow way he said few there be that find it but we need to believe that he is and he's a rewarder of those that diligently seek him so the whole point of all of this of the spiritual disciplines of being spiritually disciplined is to be faithful that's the word that just keeps ringing in my mind is faithful faithful faithful I may not do anything great for God but I can be faithful different speakers already brought this out the the first evening is his name Kevin or Keith he brought out being mature brother Joel he brought out being an overcomer you know just now brother Philip he he brought out being a pillar in the church and he said brothers and sisters you can be pillars in the church you know we can be faithful we can do this but what does it look like what does faithful look like faithful is not complaining faithful is not fainting faithful is pressing a little bit past comfortable faithful is refusing to make soft decisions that pamper the flesh faithful is putting God first and others next faithful is serving our local congregation faithful is being a godly example to our families faithful is rising early to read the Bible faithful spending time in prayer faithful is fasting faithful is dying to myself and allowing Christ to live his life through me so may God grant that each one of us can be found faithful okay ladies we have just a few minutes here for questions comments input from you and I feel like my plate is really full of things to think about and digest from this and yeah there's so many things we could talk about but maybe I'll let you if you have something that you'd like to share here just raise your hand and I'll quickly bring the mic to you we'll just take a few minutes for this so something that I really struggle with you talked about getting having burnout and sometimes you just have to take like a Sabbath rest and I would love to have an older woman teach me because a lot of times I feel like and it could be the enemy but I feel like it's selfish to do that like I feel like when I feel at my wits and I really should be leaning to God and saying I can't do this today I can't I need to I need to and so it's I've really struggled with that like you know and I know sometimes it's guilt and I know Gill is not from God but even just taking time to say okay I just really need this I just I really deal with selfishness and thinking that that's selfish to do yeah that's a hard one and there's the narrow way again and if if you're not sure if you're falling into the selfish ditch or the trying to be heroic and never say no ditch if you have a husband ask him sometimes husbands can be a really marvelous resource that way God's ordained it that way also ask others around you other sisters in the Lord but ask the Lord to but but sometimes it's really helpful to ask other people you know have I been making a habit of of saying no I can't do this because that can become a ditch too but I know what you mean I you know sometimes you can get into the overachiever thing and you want so bad to to do the right thing that it feels selfish to give yourself any time and I'm not talking about me time and pampering yourself but you know sometimes just being really practical yeah you were saying how we should not let our guilty conscience be the driving force for thinking we need to pray so one thought I had on that was that we should cultivate a hunger if we don't have the hunger as God for the hunger and that's a journey I've been on years past where I just asked him for the hunger and that is the driving force that takes me to the Bible and into prayer and just seeking his heart that's good yeah to the hungry soul every bitter thing is sweet amen let's ask for the hunger and thirst after righteousness I'll just say one quick little thing that's helpful with journaling to is even when you write down your prayers it's helpful because you can go back and see where God answered it and then right in the answer and you might find it was three weeks later or three months later just a few days later and it's an encouragement that God really does answer those prayers I don't know if you can give some advice on this but one thing I really struggle with is I'm you know I have a chronic disability and you know finding finding the time and finding you know what happens when that schedule to gets disrupted not by my own wanting or or you know the children or anything like that but it's purely you know I end up in bed for a couple of days because my illness is taken over and then I often find myself you know then my my mind goes down that path of you know that guilt I don't want to say the guilty conscience but I get very overwhelmed you know the house isn't clean the children haven't had baths you know it all falls to my husband sometimes and and I don't know how to grapple with that and I don't know how to come to terms with this is my law in life and how do I how do I make use that for his glory that's a very good question and that sounds like a hard situation and yet I think the way you can make that a beautiful thing is by not giving into complaining or self-pity in the midst of it if you can say Lord the fact that I'm laying here in my bed for the last two days I am just gonna make it an act of worship and obedience to you because I didn't ask for this disability and it's not in my power to take it away and so do you just use it make it a beautiful thing with gratefulness I bless you in it


What's up guys we're back with another epic video and today is December 30th 2020 so one year ago today I had 1,000 subscribers and we posted the 1,000 subscriber special with what's up guys ruckson 34 back here with another video and today we have the 1,000 subscriber special was a Legend of Blue Eyes unlimited booster box which at the time was worth I think I paid $850 now they're worth a lot more than that but we open that up for the special we had 1,000 subscribers I figured it would be a lot of fun now we have almost 45,000 so what happened what changed how did we get to 45,000 in exactly one year pretty crazy because I never imagined that would happen I also want to show at the end of last year on that special someone commented I would probably hit three and a half thousand by the end of this year and I remember at the time I was thinking wow that would be really awesome enough 3,500 by the end of 2020 so we definitely got way past that which was insane I was not expecting it but how did it happen oh and the giveaway I meant to put this in earlier but we'll be giving away the inferno wing skyscraper and a blade edge all you got to do is like this video be subscribed let me know your favorite moment from the channel in 2020 I'm going to talk about how I think that this happened because it wasn't really in a plan for it to happen but it did in around September 2019 I started posting like four or five six times a week so almost every day and I decided I was just going to post a lot of content and try to grow the channel September through I think March we gained maybe like 800 subs a thousand subs so we were doing okay we weren't growing like we are now so I was up to in March 1,600 subscribers I think I decided one day that I wanted to open a first edition legend blue eyes visitor box and there's a couple reasons I wanted to do that number one I just wanted to do it because I'd seen a lot of people do it and I was like wow this would be awesome especially if you pulled a blue eyes white dragon it would be a lot of fun definitely the thrill is there because it was a super expensive box at the time not anything close to what it is now but it was still really expensive especially for what I usually paid for stuff so I asked around I found a guy selling one and I offered him I think 6,000 often like 6,700 I think he countered like 6,800 so it was like almost the exact same it wasn't much more and I was like you know what let's do it 6,800 was over double any Yu-Gi-Oh purchase I'd ever made at that point I had previously bought five first edition booster boxes for three thousand like one hundred or two hundred dollars and that was by far my biggest purchase before that this was six thousand eight hundred dollars it was over double that it was only one booster box and I was a little kind of freaking out because I told I told my family and they were like you spent six thousand eight hundred dollars on a box yep and so I gave them all the reasoning but they were like I don't know about this so I spent six thousand eight hundred dollars I didn't have six thousand eight hundred dollars I had to sell sealed pokemon blue version sealed pokemon yellow version ruby silver I think that was all of them so all my sealed games I sold all those I sold a ps8 10 ultimate rare elemental hero tempest which for 1700 dollars now it's worth way more than that so and all those games I sold for way cheaper than they're what they're worth now I sold three exodia pieces at two ps a nine first edition limbs and a ps8 exodia head sold those for way cheaper than what they're worth now just like you get the money for the 6800 dollars and not have to like you know dig out a loan or something and that was like a huge deal because it was a lot of money and so I put it into the box and I was thinking okay this is the best case scenario we pull blue eyes right dragon we probably won't probably pull two limbs you know you guys know what happened now you know the craziness you guys will see probably a clip over this but um I didn't know that was gonna happen so I I was like well I'm probably not gonna make my money back we're just gonna do this and I'm gonna try and post this on the channel to hopefully give my channel some sort of traction as well as the enjoyment of opening so it was like a two it was a win-win for me even though it's probably gonna be an L so it was like an L but I get it's a win-win good for the channel hopefully you know I was hoping it would be I bought it in January and I announced that I'd open it on the 18th anniversary in March I held out for a long time I posted that video it originally got I think like a thousand views in the first day which was the most I'd ever had on a card opening video I used to do dual links by the way guys if you didn't know that and I wasn't very big but I did get several thousand views on a few videos but when I moved to card openings I'd never hit a thousand views until that video so I hit a thousand views on that video and I was like wow this is pretty good but then it just kind of died and I was like oh man this kind of stinks so I'm gonna show you guys the graph of what kind of happened with this video so it had a thousand views and kind of grew by a couple hundred views for the first like I think I posted it on March 9th through March 15th it gained 600 more views so it was at 1644 views for six days and I was like things probably not gonna grow anymore I might as well change the title and mentioned what happened in the video which by the way you guys saw it the last pack of old red eyes black dragon so before it had been something like legend blue eyes first edition booster box opening I was like let's change it to include red eyes pull at the end which I know is a spoiler why do you guys hate that but when the video is no longer getting any views I figured how about I just put what it is so when people are searching red eyes first edition pull they'll be able to find this video so I changed it to that I was like yeah okay I didn't think about it at all anymore it was actually like the middle of the night when I did that I just I just thought you know what let's just change it to red eyes pull it's not really doing anything anymore I was kind of disappointed it's like 16 our views is a lot for me but I was hoping to get more because I spent $6,800 you know then a couple of days later I think I don't remember exactly when this was I noticed I was like where are all these comments coming from they're all in the LOB video why do I have so many comments so I'm back and check the video and the video was getting thousands of views per day and for the next like 11 days the video went from 1600 views to like 60,000 which as I mentioned before I never had 1,000 views on a video so 1,000 to 60,000 in 11 days I was like what is going on the title change it seems like reintroduced into the algorithm or something and people I were like watching this video like crazy so it ended up going up to 60,000 11 days and it eventually it kept growing I think now it has over 310,000 views now then the video pushed out a lot of my other videos and they kind of got a lot more views and I ended up growing several thousand subscribers just from that video so my subscriber count get went way up and basically boosted the channel so that LOB booster box that I invested $6,800 in and originally I lost money because my red eyes got a nine and every super rare got a nine I didn't get a secret rare only the monster reborn got a 10 and at the time the monster reborn was worth like 750 dollars worth more now but at the time was only worth 750 and PSA 10 so I had taken like probably lost a few thousand dollars on that I submitted all my comments but they took months to get back you guys saw that recently they finally came back but I lost a few thousand dollars on that purchase but the video ended up doing so good that it actually changed the channel completely which was totally worth the loss in my opinion and then later I actually did end up making my money back because the values went up and all my comments came back and stuff like that so I actually did make my money back technically I haven't sold all my hollows so I haven't actually made my money back but it was pretty cool that'll be video actually made a huge difference in my entire channel so now we have almost 45,000 subscribers we've opened a lot of crazy stuff we've done other crazy stuff like that since then like opening the blue eye shining dragon we got just lucky to pull it but we opened some crazy packs that video did really well helped gain a lot more subscribers so basically the investments in the huge sealed stuff actually really paid off for me and I think that the the dramatic effect of the LLB video not being able to scale and then end up pulling the red eyes on the last pack which I was completely shocked I was so nervous because I was like 6,800 dollars about to lose all of it basically because I've only pulled one ultra rare and then I pulled it and I was shocked and even though the video quality is terrible to be honest like the audio sucks my head is tiny I don't know why I made my head so small you can barely see it it made such a huge difference in the channel because of the dramatic effect all the money the risk I think is what made it enjoyable people are like oh my gosh this guy's what the losers had on this video you know I just thought it was interesting how that one moment changed my channel from thousand subscribers to now we're at 45,000 and it's not like 45,000 is like you know the biggest channel ever but it's still pretty awesome in my opinion and I hope you guys have enjoyed all the videos we've been able to do I hope we'll be able to do more epic videos and LLB be on the lookout maybe have to do another one you know let me know if you guys think we should do that that was pretty much the main thing I wanted to talk about for 2020 if you guys want me to talk about more things that happened in 2020 I'd be glad to do it but that was like the beginning of this channel growing like crazy and it maybe we could highlight a few other things but I think that's good for this video and I wanted to kind of talk about it on the one-year anniversary of hitting 1000 subscribers I thought that was pretty crazy that we're at 45,000 now we're almost we're probably really close to 45 right now hit the subscribe button also want to mention probably doing a live stream tomorrow maybe we'll make a run at 50,000 in one day is that even possible probably not but we're gonna be opening up some crazy stuff maybe do some giveaways so I hope you guys are there it's gonna be a lot of fun and I'll see you guys later peace


Hello and welcome to this presentation of the STM32-C0 The STM32-C0-PWR backup registers are intended to keep some key information about the application state during the low power modes and resume from it except shutdown. As there is no secondary power supply such as a battery, the PWR backup registers keep information as long as the main VDD voltage is present. The backup registers are organized in 4 16-bit registers stored in the APB memory space. They can store state information that's preserved when switching to standby power state. The backup registers are not reset when exiting standby mode as well as when the PWR RST control bit of the RCC APB RST R register is set. This PWR RST control bit is used to reset the PWR domain. In terms of weight states, access to backup registers require 3 extra APB clock cycles on write and 2 on read compared to standard APB access. The backup registers on STM32-C0-X is powered from the VDD domain as there's no VBAP domain implemented. In STM32-F0 and STM32-G0 series, the contents of backup registers may be preserved when the VDD power supply is switched off. In addition to this presentation, you may find the power control training module useful. Thank you for attending this presentation.


Alright, so this is part two three four I don't even know where we are anymore, but bow is gonna narrate the Fannie Mae trade at the most famous trade I think in all of Penny stocks everything OTCs anything so he got us. We're kind of ready to go so bow Perfect. Yeah. All right guys So I've never ever talked about this in detail like this.  I mean, that's a thing I mean if I mean take a look at that do you thought trading Fannie Mae with four accounts? I Wish I had more data than this But so these are the four accounts each one of them.    Yeah, make your own luck, right? So it's what it's opportunity and yeah, I'd work luck is when preparation meets opportunity and so People have lucky, you know, you make your own luck. So it just so happens that I just did it I don't know. I this is probably as one in a billion That if I can go back to that day that I could do this Because it's a combination of getting the feels I wanted to do exactly what I wanted to do, right? And so When people see this it's like I don't like really talk about this because it's not very realistic Yeah, this is just like the crowning achievement of my career up to that point, right? my basically the P&L I don't look at this as like, you know, this is basically like The my crowning achievement is helping people to be honest. Yeah. Yeah, so that's the thing So so I'm gonna narrate how they happen. So during the week you take a look at the stuff.  Where they're getting their insiders in and then the next that they blow it out, right? Yeah, and so you count the day so the day zero are 522 and 523 Yeah, I could tell yeah It's basically barely moved right like 20 cents. Yeah, just slowly creeps It's creasing two days 20 cents a day Which on a penny stock is nothing, right? Yeah, exactly. And then all of a sudden boom volume comes in on 524 Out of nowhere. So technically that is day You know, you could call that day day two or day one It's it's it's up to you to decide so that was the so so what happens on the three-day rule is this guy's The day zero if you're lucky to spot day zero Okay, sometimes they use a staker indexing tanks, right? So a lot of these people try to like anticipate when you die to so you can be size in so where I'm sizing in is on 524 So 524 happens on day training everything and the end of day. I'm like, this is still day one. Yeah Okay, day zero day one. So I am in master size over night. Maybe 40,000 shares For pain socks. That's a master size.   Yeah, I'm up by the day like I said I was making fifty hundred grand a day up leading to the big day, right? So and then on 528 I'm like, dude, this is scary. This is scary territory four dollars.  It's because it came from two dollars, bro And this is day two or day three, right depending on which way you look and I'm like the and so 528 I was actually trying to short some too. So midday you see like a lot of people try to short at four dollar line And then it held it right but but I knew I had a secret rule that told everybody These thoughts will not go down unless they want it to go down. Yeah, and it's usually triggered by the stock going Red on the day. Yeah, and that's how we get to the first red day rule that we use for for every stock Now, right doesn't matter if it's OTC small cap or large cap. Yeah a motor day runner So in MIT, we call the F all D first red day And this is where that comes from first red day.   They're looking at filings.     I gap much less. I Think I'm in 15 that 15,000 shares only something like that on on 528 overnight gapping And during pre-market, I was I thought that was the top of it.  Oh, and so I try to short some I'll actually lost. I was actually read at the start.  I'm so pissed I'm down like four thousand, but I was up like hundred grand a day before I'm so pissed, right? It doesn't matter, but um, and so I knew like okay pre-market So this thought used to be a New York Stock Exchange thought large cap. Yeah, these be $50. And so that's why it traded pre-market Pure OTCs don't usually trade free a pre-market. It's because there are algos Left over from New York Stock Exchange All the way up. They use me Citadel Arca showing size of a hundred thousand two hundred thousand three hundred thousand share bids and offer it Because it's still using the same algos from New York Stock Exchange and So pre-market I had to get up early and I was actually read and so when it opened up it started running I was like fuck. Yes. So remember I was in the tour of the big time long back there And so because and so I started piling in on this spot and I was in two hundred thousand shares long at the open Jesus right and so this is that four dollars and thirty eight whatever four dollars and whatever, right? So you can look at the time nine thirty nine thirty that was that was when OTC opens So there was no supposedly no pre-market. That's why this is a chart, right?   I was like trying to Fair step myself. I wanted to film more, but I couldn't after a certain point.  I'm not gonna feel yeah And and so but this is a genius part.     They feel me I was in my pants. They filled me in they filled me in like 10 seconds So remember this is running up, bro This is running up. So it's an order for me to exit I'll give you I'll give you the tip in order.     I did so we probably shorted eight or thousand shares of this four million dollars of this shit, right?   It's great. I'm up in a quarter bill That's two to fifty thousand one of us.     He's this Christ So that's what I said. So every painting on a 300,000 share is that it's three grand, right?  I waited.    I I almost made I was going for two million And so I just so what what happened was what happened was I saw I was I was up to like 1.8 mil bro Yeah, well once something like that 1.6 to 1.8 and so I there was a 50 cent slippage So if you take a look at so I sure had so I went along and I sort of four bucks, right? Yep, and then if you take a look at down so on the way down take a look at down.   I was used to me screaming cursing bro 50 sounds 300,000 shirts like You know, so After since that day, I'll tell you man Let me finish. Sorry.    Oh The same thing man, it's so what I so a lot of times like because this look at the time This thing was epic bro.  I'm posting this I'm always helping people call in the top of all the people think I don't pop stick bouncing I was the king of top thinking mom thinking and so So no one knew until it happened.  I didn't know what to say what to do. It was just a surreal It was basically a that was like I'm done now And so I'm like I'm gonna tell something man It went from the happiest day of my life to probably one of the saddest days of my life that was the day that I was like what now what now? I'm not happy. I thought that by doing this I would be the happiest motherfucker on earth. What happened was it changed the people around me. I Was like no longer the normal guy. I was making money before too They just it was they just didn't know it the moment they found out like okay They thought I was making money maybe ten thousand dollars, right? But when they saw a million in like four hours Yeah, I was never the same my friends were We're not never the same. I have to find new friends. You know like that.      They shut me down Friends kind of like treat me differently.   I'm the same motherfucker, right? Yeah. Yeah. So it was the highest high in terms of monetary But emotionally, you know probably on that started me on a spiral Suicide spiral down. I'm not joking. That was when I went offline for three to four years. He's going dark No one knew what I was doing I was sporadically trading once or twice a week. He ain't drunk the rest of the time Yeah, thank you. I didn't need to work anymore, right? So and then I met that's when I was training with Alex Alex was basically because after this I traded with this guy for maybe five years and he that day I made one for four.      It's like friendly competition. Yeah, man And you always have to have like you know something fun like friendly competition to keep motivating you The reason I made this much money and the reason I took the sizes.  Yeah, David Coaster. Yeah, the German guy that lives in the islands. Yeah Yeah, I met him from scratch and then then he left me How did you know how did you like come to even like get to MIC like were you at a point where like you were gonna was trading even great Like were you even happy with that or is it just like I need to start MIC without to like find a purpose?  So it goes back to Harry's question. How do you transition, right? So I was like, you know, man, I'm gonna go cool turkey and OTC I can still trade it and make a shitload of money on it But for me and they was never about the money anymore.  So in penny stocks, it was very difficult to get a fill so a lot of times Stop goes like you couldn't feel and so you just suffer what you got stuck with NAS that I could feel a limited amount of size within a second Yeah, and so so it got you have to get used to the fact that bro You can you can fill the million dollar position in like five seconds. You know, okay? Yeah So so that was getting something new and start and realizing it's a different type of manipulation that these down goes are doing You know And and the gas thing things didn't really work when these things open pre-market at 4 a.m And and you have huge wells in there or that are doing what I used to do the Fannie Mae Yeah, exactly. And so you have to develop Solid process But what translated well was the process?  Those lines are pivot lines Those 290 342 and look how awesome a lot of it matches It's amazing. It's amazing And you combine this with the normal support and resistance So the same process that that teach MIT how you start with the year remember I go to big charts and do the year Yeah, so let me repeat that. I'm going to tell you how you do it. So so this is why I taught Everybody the guy that made million bucks out to everybody. Okay, so you start with a year Because what happens like there's lines everywhere. There's lines everywhere You have to know which lines are used so I started with the the the widest which is a year But if you can't find it you go two years So go expand it until you see a line, right that's like a major major line and then I'll tell you the secret of top-ticket bump tickets.  So take a look at the bottom, man The 250 of 529 You draw line it's looking kind of matches 424 the beginning. Yeah, so so around 250 I knew was close. So then I then I focused when it got around you So it's like each major line that it broke. So every time it came to the area of interest I would focus And then when it broke under it, I could just kind of chill You know what I'm saying and so These guys keep staring at it all day long. They're gonna.  Exactly 100% Completely agree. That's a most asked question that we get in weekend mentoring every single You know me and tosh are just like they're like, oh, you know, you can predict a squeeze You can predict it whatever you can predict that it's like no, you know like Everyone is just people people want Uh, you know a whole the ground or a holy grail and they're like, oh, well, you know If I just watch the tape, you know all the time That's how I'm gonna that's how but it should line up with your plan. It should line up with your lines You know, it's a confirmation of what you're seeing on the chart. Yep.   I see and I make so many of those trading fish Accounting videos on it, right? You start with the the the line from the one year You zoom in to the areas of interest and that's exactly the same process. So yeah I look at a chart so so another skill we have and you can think of a chart and it kind of sets the trend Right, you know when the stock is changing trends and things like that So so those are the things I moved over to small caps very well and people small caps are using such such Advanced complicated bullshit But not I mean it would work for them.       I didn't even know what they were for all these years That's how it's a magical line support line But they turned out to be pivot lines That's why I thought you guys don't put it into your things as it's you know, it's an additional line Will it work all the time?  I mean more often than not the lines match up and they work I mean, it's more it's probability But again the probability says if you draw the correct line you learn the correct line Yeah, it's also self-fulfilling prophecy. If enough people trust the lines they'll be getting self-fulfilling prophecy Yeah, exactly So I guess I mean I I guess aren't kind of like our last question right would be like how did you guys even like How did you and Alex even start mic? Like you had this process at this point you like had this idea of lines and like Pivot points. So I'm gonna tell them that the reason the reason all these years were I did not want to teach people it's because I couldn't Get the exact process that teach a beginner The way I was trained before Was so complex it needed to have a systematic approach to day training And so until I figure out the secret sauce, okay, so I'll tell you what the secret sauce was So I I I I did the low hanging fruit strategy for so long.  I've taught this to Alex and then I met Tosh I met Tosh three years ago on my birthday.   That was when I knew it worked That was when so he was kind of like a test case You know say Yeah, so and so a year later.   That's one I discovered the the zombie rule during those years I discovered the zombie rule me and Alex we're together and we know is a pattern the zombie rules and all that shit so What was destroying the consistency from a small cap?  Yeah, then they run it out Yep, so we correlate all this together because you know, it doesn't you know So we correlate the low the the low float over rotation all that and so we that's why alex has a rule He just stops bro, and it works.  It's the problem the one time you lose it Teleport just like this today Yeah, so it's like a point two points.    I'm the best trader, but I I have no ego because I've been there these guys can keep bragging about their hundred thousand Dollar days.  That was like a my commission back then, right?   It'll be cool. Who's gonna help a guy that has That that has no experience. It's gonna ask you questions.  What's the chart? What what is pair blogs mean? What's SSR mean?  Harry, man I love you James.   If you didn't know how to you didn't know how to trade well back then it didn't matter to me I knew that you were humble hard working Yeah, that's that's the meaning That's to me. I'm telling everybody out there guys.  No one has ego like I did alex is one of the most like You'd think mean the kid that's like 25 or 26 or whatever he is now No, he's my age. He's my age. I think he's 25 I don't even know what I am. I think I'm 26 He no, he's 25 bro. I think he's 25 whatever. I just like to think that he's my age. I don't feel But it's I mean you've never met someone so like Humble and like and that's how m. I see works because people won't teach someone else who like has no experience If you're making a hundred thousand dollars in a day 10,000 five thousand you don't want to teach someone that's making you no money But m I see does like mine like that's what we teach is the new guys who have no shot yet Yeah That's the whole thing man and because I I told myself when I made a quote I mean, I really don't think I made it but you know saying like when when I get to a point where I could help someone That's why me might make it when you get to the point where you help someone help someone That's why when I saw you james and harry I was like fuck I wanted you guys to be a part of this because I know you guys are the same Spirit and harry's and helping people online, you know, I talked to harry all the time He broke down.  I have to tell you guys You guys want me to cry right now? I can I'm gonna make a mirror naked I cry every night brother That is the point of it It's like this podcast was made because we're all human like we all have like emotions like trading is like Yes, it's robotic. There's numbers on a screen like You have green days red days, whatever But we are all human we're all here and like that's why mic Is so I think successful like what it does because we all just are actual people. It's not some Some robotic pay me $500 a month.   I'm very proud to have a part in your your journey And that's what it is man. I love this man. I love that. I'm gonna get a modern rock tattooed right here with a little heart Okay, one last question though for real. Hey, you mentioned this you mentioned this this is a little weird question But it's something that you did mention today. Hey, so during the trade during the trading day Do you actually hide your p&l for the entire day?  Yeah, okay I was gonna say no, I was like People hide us, you know, I'm just gonna man.  I think I made this much.    I'm teaching guys that are starting off.   I think this was like the greatest. Yeah, that's definitely really good We all need to do this more often. We all need to get together even over zoom FaceTime whatever I have more awesome stories man. This is the beginning stuff. Hey, thanks guys for doing this All right. I'm glad that we finally got