Join Barbara Carmack as she welcomes you to a heartfelt session on 'Call to Freedom.' The episode begins with light-hearted discussions about the chilly weather and the excitement it brings during the stock show season. As the show progresses, Barbara offers spiritual guidance through shared verses and personal insights. Learn how to stay grounded spiritually, even when chilled to the bone. The conversation deepens as Barbara reflects on the profound themes of freedom and selflessness. Drawing on the wisdom of Ecclesiastes and the down-to-earth Mission Possible devotional by Tim Tebow, Barbara covers how living a life of purpose—which doesn’t necessarily involve grand gestures or travels—begins right where you stand. Barbara further delves into the realities of devastation, drawing parallels with the present-day challenges facing Californians. Through tales of resilience and perseverance, she provides comfort and motivation to rise above with divine support and community involvement. Whether you are facing literal storms or metaphorical ones, find inspiration and hope in divine promises as you navigate your own life mission.
SPEAKER 02 :
Welcome to Call to Freedom with Barbara Carmack. This is Jimmy Lakey, and I'm delighted that you are joining us for this half hour. You can reach Call to Freedom at Box 370367, Denver, Colorado, 80237, or by going to the website at www.freedomstreet.org. If you want to leave a message or order a Word Power Daily Reading Bible Guide or a Freedom Street Express newsletter, you can call us toll free at 1-877-917-7256 and leave your name and address, including your zip code. If you want to talk to Barbara right now, she is expecting your call. You may call that same toll-free number, 1-877-917-7256 to speak to her. And now, let's join Barbara in the studio.
SPEAKER 04 :
Welcome to Call to Freedom. I blew in here. The wind, it's an Arctic freeze. It really is today, friends. And I hope you're warm and cozy and you've got a mug of hot cocoa or some coffee. We are in the middle. It seems like every year when the stock show is about to begin, I mean, we have got frozen chosen weather. That's amazing. But we made it in on this morning. Rachel and I were talking on the phone and she was saying, well, I'm going to try to make it to KLTT. And I said, well, if you don't, I'll stay home.
SPEAKER 01 :
And you made it, Rachel. I made it. I was thankful. I'm down near Castle Rock, and so it was kind of sketchy down there.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yes, yes. And that I-25 from Castle Rock into Denver can really be dangerous sometimes because people want to drive so fast.
SPEAKER 01 :
Yes.
SPEAKER 04 :
And I'm glad you got here.
SPEAKER 01 :
Me too. Praise God.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yes. And keep a precious little meadow caged or something because she'd blow away. She would. Yeah. She's only three pounds. I know. I know. Oh, thank you. Thank you for producing my show, Rachel. It's a joy. Well, the Lord bless you and keep you, friend. The Lord make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you. The Lord lift up his countenance, turn his face toward you and give you peace today. So important that we have the peace of God that passes all understanding. And you are blessed to dispense for in him you live and move and have your being. You can go to freedomstreet.org and listen to radio shows. You can go online with donations if you'd like to do that. We do have a meeting this Saturday. Now, if the weather is like this, no, you stay home nice and cozy. But January 11th, this Saturday, this Saturday, I'm looking forward to seeing you at my home. And I'm just, you know, this weather sometimes delays what we are hoping for. But I hope to see you on Saturday. We're going to have praise and worship and have a wonderful study about our Lord Jesus and what he did for us. If you'd like to stay for lunch, I'll be fixing a girl. It's just apropos for Saturday, stew. And it's really wonderful. It's so good for you. And if you'd like to bring a side dish and your name begins with A through M, bring a salad or a finger food. And if your name begins with N through Z, bring a dessert. God bless you, and I hope to see you Saturday. You can call me at 1-877-917-7256. And I was raised on a farm in northern Colorado, only about, oh, 50 miles from Cheyenne, Wyoming. So I've got that kind of strong, strong kind of being. I'm a strong woman, and so I don't stop much or postpone much. But if you feel like this weather is not for you, you just stay home. And in the Passion Translation, our verse for this week is Genesis 17, 1 and 2. And it's when Abraham was 99 years old, Yahweh appeared to him again and said, I am the God who is more than enough, El Shaddai. Live your life in my presence and be blameless. I will confirm my covenant between me and you, and I will greatly multiply your descendants. Now, Tim Tebow has a Mission Possible devotional here, and it's taken from Hebrews 13, verse 20 and 21. May the God of peace equip you in every good thing to do his will, working in us that which is pleasing in his sight through Jesus Christ. What a wonderful verse, Hebrews 13, verses 20 and 21. He says in his devotional, living a Mission Possible life, means carrying out the good works that God has already prepared for you. We are each on a mission to make a difference and ensure that our lives count, a mission to help the hurting and reach the lost and the last and the least of humanity. This looks different for everyone. It might take you into the darkness of a rescue mission for those who are being human trafficked. It might keep you in your own neighborhood, breathing life and spirit into your children or your neighbors. When you are mission driven, you use your ability together with God's empowerment to help, serve, guide, teach, pray, and lead others in innumerable ways, each as unique as a person's DNA. In fact, helping, serving, guiding, teaching, praying, and leading others are perfect examples of what Mission Possible looks like lived out. Here's a surprise for you. One's mission is not really as mysterious as it's made out to be. It's more available to you than you ever imagined. You don't have to go on a mission trip around the world or start a church. Has God ever pricked your heart to take a step in a particular direction to meet a need? Doing that is the essence of mission possible living. So keep taking steps to do good things for the kingdom. I've read three of Tim Tebow's books, and I know that he has a mission's heart. He was born in the Philippines to Baptist missionary parents, and he has a real calling on his heart for that area of missions. And he and his precious wife, they do all kinds of things for the disabled. And what about you? Do you have a heart to help others? It doesn't have to be something big to get you involved with going into all the world and preaching and reaching people for Jesus Christ. Taking a moment to write a note to someone whom you admire. Oh, and I love your notes. Friends, when you send your donations to Call to Freedom, it's not the check or the money order I look at first. I look at your remarks on the back of the insert card. I do. I love reading your remarks. And thank you so much for your edifying portions that you write for me. Call to Freedom, and for me and for Kimberly, who calls from Tulsa. And by the way, they got snow today. And she said, it's really coming down, Mom. We might have three or four inches. And I thought, in Tulsa, Oklahoma, that is rare. That truly is a rare occasion. You know, it might be just getting the focus off all the things that you personally have to attend to and begin to reach out. Getting rid of that. I call this a syndrome. The I, me, my syndrome. It's all about me. It's all about my stuff. It's all about... I don't have words to say. And becoming other-centered. And it took me a long time to get other-centered. And I know having children really helps getting you off of your me-I-my syndrome. But it's something that we need to really work at, getting other-centered. I was drawn to Ecclesiastes because of Tim's talking about being other-centered. And I realized that King Solomon was in the middle of an I, me, my syndrome in his life in Chapter 2. I'm just going to read a little bit. And then I'm going to talk about some other things here today. In Ecclesiastes 2, it says, I said to myself, and he's the king, and he's talking to himself here. Come on, let's try pleasure. Let's look for the good things in life. But what good does it do to seek pleasure? After much thought, I decided to cheer myself with wine. And while still seeking wisdom, I clutched at foolishness. Now, I want you to listen to me and write down or read Have it in your head every time he says I. Okay? Write it down. Every time he says I. I. I clutched at foolishness in this way. I tried to experience the only happiness most people find during this brief life in this world. I also tried to find meaning by building huge homes for myself and by planting beautiful vineyards. I made gardens and parks, filling them with all kinds of fruit trees, and I believe he also put peacocks in his gardens and many elaborate animals. I built reservoirs to collect the water to irrigate my many flourishing groves. I bought slaves, both men and women, and others were born into my household. I also owned large herds and flocks, more than any of the kings who had lived in Jerusalem before me. I collected great sums of silver and gold, the treasure of many kings and provinces. Are you taking it down? I hired wonderful singers, both men and women, and had many beautiful concubines. I had everything a man could desire. So I became greater than all who had lived in Jerusalem before me. And my wisdom never failed me. Anything I wanted, I would take. I denied myself no pleasure whatsoever. I even found great pleasure in hard work, a reward for all my labors. Hard work? I don't believe that man worked hard. Do you see a pattern here? He said 15 times he said I in this one brief passage. And he says, he goes on, I looked at everything I had worked so hard to accomplish. It was all so meaningless, like chasing the wind. There was nothing really worthwhile anywhere. So I decided to compare wisdom with foolishness and madness. For who can do this better than I, the king? Oh, in thinking about that, I'm saying so many people in this world have that me-my-I syndrome. They really do. They think about themselves from morning till night. They do the things that give them pleasure. And I thought about this devastation that has just destroyed the coast of California and gone inland. And I only lived there for four years. I didn't live there very, very long. But my husband, John, was a man who lived in Pasadena and in Los Angeles. And I think of all those precious people. They were totally devastated. As I'm reading Job now, I introduce Job right in the middle of Genesis. Why, you ask? Why? Because Abraham's brother had a child, and he called him Uz. Yeah, he called him U-Z-Uz. And that's in Genesis 22. So right away when I was reading Job, it begins with, there was a man in the land of Uz. And I thought, how many Uz's are there? Are there Uz's in that land? And the book of Job begins with a very prosperous, respectable, and good man who was devastated in just one day. Absolutely. The devil destroyed not only his home, but killed his children. He lost all his flocks. I mean, it says here in the very first part of Job, he had 3,000 camels, 500 yoke of oxen, 500 female donkeys, and very many servants. I look at this devastation in Los Angeles and I say, Father God, it's happening. And then I read 2 Timothy where Paul is talking about the last days when it's going to be absolutely destructive in every direction that we take. And the people I was. Yeah, I was glued to my TV last night and portions of this morning because the precious people are saying, why has this happened? It didn't need to happen. And it really didn't. It's because of all the regulations in all the home building. in everything that's taking place, and that's why a lot of insurance companies have dropped Californians as clients because of all the regulations going on. There was no water. Why is there no water? Well, because Gavin Newsom has taken out three reservoirs from California, northern California, and then he blames Trump. It's just amazing how we blame other people. And I believe Gavin Newsom and some of these left people have the I, me, my syndrome. And it's all about making them comfortable and everybody else suffers. I was listening to one man who had lost his pets in the home. And, oh, I'm thinking, oh, my goodness. I'm grateful that only five people have lost their lives. What a horrible way to lose your life. And it didn't have to be. And I remember I went to school in Pasadena, at Pasadena College. right up from Colorado Boulevard in Pasadena, up Hill Street, and it was right in the foothills of the San Gabriels, so it was real hilly. Altadena is right west of Pasadena. We had many friends, went over to their homes, enjoyed fellowship with them, a lot of time spent in the homes of people in Altadena and Pasadena, and I'm thinking, wow. What are they going through today? What are they going through? Losing everything. And here, Job lost everything. He was so depressed that when his friends saw him, his friends, Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar, And they saw him and they were so shocked. They saw him at a distance. They raised their voices and wept. Each of them tore his robe and they threw dust over their heads toward the sky. And I'm thinking, oh, I would probably be absolutely abject to what was going on. All these neighborhoods, people coming back to nothing. Even the high schools, the grocery stores, they can't even go to the grocery stores that they used to go to. So they're going to have to find places where they can live temporarily. And not all of them are millionaires. I know there were some homes. I know that one man paid $26 million for his home in Pacific Palisades. That's a lot of money. But other people are just middle class people like you and I are. and they lost everything, everything. And Job just sat there with them. They did not speak a word for seven days as they sat there with Job. And I'm thinking, oh, what would you do if your house was destroyed? What would you do if you came home after going to work and your house had been burned with fire, it had gone up in smoke, and you lost everything? If you have a comment, I'm in the studio at 1 o'clock here, and if you're listening at 1 o'clock, if you have a comment about what you would do if that happened to you, I'd like you to call in. I really would. It's a time when we can come together and say, wow, I really want to be your friend. I really want to be there for you if anything like this happened. And I know when we lost our home in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, and it burned, it was totally destroyed, and even the piano we had in the home was destroyed. And people around were so good about bringing clothes, about bringing dishes, about having us in a home, renting a home for a while, because our home was gone. Just like they were not nearly with the winds, the high winds, 90 and 100 mile per hour winds. And as I was coming into the studio today, it almost knocked me over. I'm so glad I found a parking spot close to the pavilion here, the high-rise pavilion. because the winds were so horribly hard and swift. And when I think of the people going back to their homes in the wind, still the embers flying through the air, they had to wear goggles to get into their neighborhoods. If you have a comment or anything you'd like to say about how God keeps us, doesn't he keep us? He really does. He promised that no harm would come to us. Even Jesus said, and it was Satan here in Job that did all these things to Job. God permitted it because he knew Job's heart. He knew that Job was a man of integrity. He was well respected. But it was Satan. And as we see here, the things that happened to us, the enemy is out to kill, steal and destroy. But we have that promise from Jesus in Luke 10, verse 19. Behold, I've given you authority over all the power of the enemy and nothing shall harm you. I believe that's why the fatalities have been low here, because God is watching. His mercy is watching. I believe there needs to be a real change in not only California, but all these other states that are left-wing states. Why did you vote for a left-wing mayor, chief of police, chief of firefighters? And Larry Elder, who was campaigning to be governor of California. Why did you choose... Why have you been a Democrat all these years when your city and state are being destroyed by Democrats? I know I'm on a political soapbox right now, but I really believe that there's going to be a change in the policy of the parties in the Californias and the Massachusetts and Washington, D.C. and New York because of the things that are happening here, folks. That there are things that need to be changed. And I'm praying that people that were so left and, you know, no, no Trumpers and they would never vote for Trump. I pray that their eyes would be open. I know that there's a scripture in Ephesians. I'm going to go there in Ephesians one. And Ephesians is about the church of Jesus Christ. And I didn't. I'm unclear away from my notes for today. I hope you don't mind. But when we pray for people that are so hoodwinked by a political party or by the ideology of people around them. Then we can pray this prayer. And this is from Paul in Ephesians 1, verse 17. And he says that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him. I pray that the eyes of your heart see the eye. Our heart has eyes and we may see things in the physical with our physical eyes. But God wants you to reach clear down there into your spirit eyes that they may be enlightened so that you may know what is the hope of his calling. He's got a hope for each and every one of you. He's got a hope for those people whose homes have been burned to the ground, everything destroyed, everything. And they showed some before and after of the Pacific Palisades and also Altadena. Their boulevards used to be so tree-lined and beautiful green trees. It was just black, just black with ashes. God is wanting you to fulfill your calling, my friend, and it doesn't have to be like Tim Tebow. but to become involved in maybe your neighborhood, even with your own family. Get to know your family members, your aunts and uncles, those people that may have been gone a long time. I know that I'd like to reach out to some of John's relatives. I'm going to call my cousin. Sandy, who lives in Chatsworth, who's just north of that area, and just see how they're doing today, because I do have them on my heart. But Paul is saying here that you would have hope in the calling that he's called you to, the riches of his glory, and you have been an inherited person. saint of his, why don't we look in 2025 at the things that could be possible with our relatives and our friends that they might come into the fold. They might know the Lord Jesus Christ. And then we wouldn't have to say, well, those dumb relatives. No, no longer say that. Oh, and what is the surpassing greatness of his power towards us, who believe these are in accordance with the working of the strength of his might. Oh, I pray for the strength of his might for you today, my friend. I have a song that Rachel is going to play, the song sung by John, Isaiah 55. Ho, everyone who is thirsty, come drink.
SPEAKER 03 :
Oh, everyone who is thirsty in spirit Oh, everyone who is weary and sad come to the fountain there's fullness in jesus all that you're longing for come and be glad i will pour water on him who is thirsty I will pour floods upon the dry ground.
SPEAKER 1 :
Open your heart for the gift I am bringing.
SPEAKER 03 :
While ye are seeking me, I will be found. I will pour water on him who is thirsty. I will pour floods upon the dry ground.
SPEAKER 04 :
Oh, I love that. God is saying, I will pour water upon the dry ground. I will pour water on the burned ground. I will pour water upon every destructive and desolate place on this earth. Oh, because he wants you to find him. Oh, I pray and I hope you will pray for the people of Los Angeles and Pacific Palisades and Altadena and Pasadena. They would come to know the Lord Jesus. Most of all, come to know him as as the word of God says, come to me and ask. I will answer you and show you many things that you don't even know about. Many times in the Old Testament he says, call to me, call to me and I will answer you. Well, friend, with you and me praying, we're going to see many people come to the Lord Jesus. And then we're going to see God performing great miracles like he did when our home burned. We didn't have insurance. We didn't have insurance. And God just provided the rentals that we needed, brought us back to Colorado from Coeur d'Alene, Idaho. And then we moved into a house that we could own, and we didn't have any down bones. provided a way. It's just he's such a miracle worker. And I pray today that you would absolutely see his ability in us and his capabilities of knowing all these people that have had destroyed homes in this area, that they would come close to him. And I know there are many Christians in that place. I do. I know that. And they're going to join hands with others in helping their brothers and sisters through this horrible, horrible time. Thank you for being with me today, for praying with me that they would find a way to Jesus' heart because he loves them so much. I love you. Remember the meeting. Call me at 1-877-917-7256. Oh, God bless you and take joy.
SPEAKER 02 :
Thank you for listening to Call to Freedom with Barbara Carmack. You may get in touch with Barbara at Call to Freedom, Box 370-367, Denver, Colorado, 80237. Or you may leave your message at 1-877-917-7256. Call to Freedom is a listener-supported radio ministry. Barbara and her power partners invite you to come on board with us and become a network of hands holding up Call to Freedom ministry. Power partners support Call to Freedom with prayer and monthly financial support. You will be blessed supernaturally. We invite you to visit Call to Freedom's website, www.freedomstreet.org, where you can hear Barbara's daily radio broadcast 24 hours a day or order materials. You may share your praise reports and heart cries by mailing them to Call to Freedom, Box 370-367, Denver, Colorado, 80237. Or you may email us at barbracarmack at freedomstreet.org. Until next time, remember, Jesus loves you, Barbara loves you, and take joy.
SPEAKER 1 :
Thank you.
Join us for an inspiring episode of Call to Freedom where spiritual and emotional wellness is at the forefront. Hosts Barbara Carmack and Darren dive into understanding how depression stems from deeper spiritual issues and share letters from listeners who offer testimonies of faith and resilience. The program sheds light on combating depression's root causes with spiritual introspection, prayer, and an unyielding trust in God's blessings. The episode offers steps to untangle the burdens that keep individuals from reaching their full spiritual potential. Through heartfelt conversation and prayer, listeners are encouraged to practice forgiveness and seek God's wisdom in navigating life's struggles. This episode is a reminder that spiritual freedom is attainable, and God's love is the key to unlocking it.
SPEAKER 01 :
Welcome to Call to Freedom with Barbara Carmack. This is Jimmy Lakey, and I'm delighted that you are joining us for this half hour. You can reach Call to Freedom at Box 370367, Denver, Colorado, 80237, or by going to the website at www.freedomstreet.org. If you want to leave a message or order a Word Power Daily Reading Bible Guide or a Freedom Street Express newsletter, you can call us toll free at 1-877-917-7256 and leave your name and address, including your zip code. If you want to talk to Barbara right now, she is expecting your call. You may call that same toll-free number, 1-877-917-7256 to speak to her. And now, let's join Barbara in the studio.
SPEAKER 02 :
After thanking children who are sending in offerings to give to the orphans with Home of Refuge, I read a letter written by a wife who is concerned because her husband is depressed about his job. But Darren brings up the fact that depression is only a symptom of a deeper spiritual root. We bring up the areas of fear and pride and unforgiveness which may indicate depression. that maybe things aren't working out according to your plans, and you're allowing anger, fear, or unforgiveness to take over. As we discuss unforgiveness, Darren gives a solution to bring freedom into your heart and life. God's will is to bless you, but it's important that you get rid of the junk that's clogging up the communication lines between you and your Heavenly Father. Now let's join the program.
SPEAKER 04 :
You have a wonderful letter there in your hand, don't you?
SPEAKER 03 :
Yes, and I forgot to bring the letters of the Yost family. The children all sent letters, and they sent their Christmas money that they'd gotten for Christmas for the home of refuge, for the orphanage, for the children, and I forgot that this morning.
SPEAKER 04 :
They're over in Nebraska, aren't they?
SPEAKER 03 :
Yes, and thank you so much. I remember three of the children's names, Caitlin, Logan, and Coda, but I don't remember the other little boys, and they're so precious. We'll call them number four. Forgive me. No, no, no, not number four. Okay. And so we have a letter here from Shelby, and it's, Dear Darren and Barbara, how are you? I am fine. I'm writing you to thank you for the VeggieTales. I really like it. Thanks for your newsletter. Tell Barbara hi. I enjoy your program very much. I'm sending you $5. And Shelby, we're going to apply this $5 with the other, I think we got $46 from the Yost children. God bless you. We're going to give it to the Home of Refuge, and it's going to bless them.
SPEAKER 04 :
Where's Shelby from?
SPEAKER 03 :
Lyman.
SPEAKER 04 :
Lyman, Colorado.
SPEAKER 03 :
It's a wonderful little letter. And we just appreciate the letters from the children. That's wonderful. Praise God.
SPEAKER 04 :
We have a letter here that's really, I'm going to say it's a treasured letter because this lady is so gifted in explaining what's going on. But she said, may I ask for prayer help? I've never asked this before. It's difficult and I'm not even sure why. Okay. Oh, I got a phone call coming in. So I'm going to hold this letter because I want to treat this right. It's a great letter and it will strike the chord with so many of you that are, you know, in an employment change transition. And, you know, you may be looking at the wrong thing or why you're having problems. I think we can help this lady. Well, let's talk to Sean. Hello, Sean.
SPEAKER 05 :
Hello, Darren, Barbara, this is Sean Anselmo. I don't know if you remember my father.
SPEAKER 03 :
Oh, my goodness, yes.
SPEAKER 05 :
Steve Anselmo.
SPEAKER 04 :
I was talking about your dad a couple of days ago. As a matter of fact, a lady came to our meeting, and she said she talked to somebody on the phone who received a marvelous healing, and I said to Barb, that person talked to Anselmo.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yes, to Steve. We were talking about your dad just the other day, and I remember having dinner with you, and you were really young. How old are you, Sean?
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, I'm 31 now. Oh, my goodness.
SPEAKER 03 :
Oh, my goodness.
SPEAKER 05 :
Tack that on.
SPEAKER 04 :
So how are you doing, Sean?
SPEAKER 05 :
I'm doing great. I just wanted to praise God for you. And welcome back to the airwaves. And it's great to hear your voice on the radio. It's only by chance that I even caught your program the other day. And I'm just praising God for your ministry. And I've entered the ministry myself.
SPEAKER 04 :
Praise God. Do you have a church?
SPEAKER 05 :
No, I just started a newsletter from our home, my family and I, and it's going to follow up with my dad's newsletter and his prison ministry.
SPEAKER 04 :
Good, good.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah, we're looking forward to seeing what God's got in store for us.
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, I'll tell you, your dad helped me out in Tulsa, Oklahoma one time, and I won't go into the whole story, but I'll tell you, he was there for me. And then he worked with me in Fort Collins for quite a while, and there's a wonderful anointing on your father and mother's lives.
SPEAKER 05 :
That's right. Amen. Praise God. I just want to thank you guys and encourage you. You're doing a great job, and I appreciate the words of God that he gives to you guys.
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, thank you, sir. Thank you, Sean. I hope you'll take time to give our office a call and leave your address.
SPEAKER 05 :
I would certainly do that.
SPEAKER 04 :
Okay, here's the number, Sean. Well, I guess if you can hang on, I'll just have our engineer take it. How would that be?
SPEAKER 05 :
Okay. Thank you very much.
SPEAKER 04 :
Sean, it's good to hear from you.
SPEAKER 05 :
Good to hear from you.
SPEAKER 04 :
You're married? You're married now?
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah, married and three children.
SPEAKER 04 :
What's your little wife's name?
SPEAKER 05 :
Patricia and Elmo.
SPEAKER 04 :
Patricia. Wonderful. Well, we just bless you, Sean.
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, thank you.
SPEAKER 04 :
I know there's a wonderful anointing being passed down from your father, and that's good. Next time you see your dad, have him give us a call.
SPEAKER 07 :
Okay. Praise God.
SPEAKER 04 :
I will. God bless. God bless you. Okay. Wow.
SPEAKER 03 :
Calls from out of the past. Yes. Amen. That's just really.
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, I tell you, I watched Steve and he was a wonderful man for us on the prayer lines.
SPEAKER 03 :
He was a man of prayer. That's right. He was. He was a man of prayer.
SPEAKER 04 :
This letter goes on to say, I've never asked for prayer help before. I've never asked anyone. I don't know why. Maybe it's fear. Maybe it's pride. And maybe we think it shows weakness, but we haven't asked before. It goes on to say, my husband had been trying to break into a certain business, and I won't name that business, for a whole year. He had to leave another type of business, which is much different by the letter here. but it was driving him to great depression. He loves doing what he's doing now, but it's 100% commission, and he just can't seem to make it work. We're almost out of money, and he's become so depressed and despondent, I'm fearful we're going to lose everything. Is that what's going to happen to us? Pray that we will find suitable work soon. My husband has even looked back to his past job, and we've fasted and we've prayed, and we'll continue. And I guess I struggle with knowing what the Lord's will is here. If Jesus prayed about his father's will being done, shouldn't we also pray that way? Could it be that his will that we go through losing all that we have? Now, I'm going to stop right there. I don't believe it's God's will that you lose all that you have. But I do believe this, that God is trying to get down to a root cause. And I don't believe the depression came on this husband just because of this new work or because of a lack of sales income, commission income. And I believe God allows us to go through these things for us to face ourselves and say, well... It wasn't the old job. It's not the new job. It must be something wrong inside of me. And I went through a period of time like that when I had to face myself. And I thought it was the circumstances around me, my family, my work, my profession, my whatever. And I made somewhat of a massive change. And that's when I hit the wall and it was the best thing that ever happened to me because I had to face some things down inside of Darren and cry out for help. And some people prayed for me. And because of their prayer, that's the basis of this ministry and that's setting people free.
SPEAKER 03 :
That's right.
SPEAKER 04 :
Showing them how to get set free.
SPEAKER 03 :
Life is hard on us, and so we start building walls and we start putting layer upon layer. And I feel like this precious lady is just crying out, and I feel so much for her. We weren't given very many... details and I wish she would have written a little bit more about her family if her husband is born again if they go to a spiritual church if they have had counseling because I believe there's a curse going on in his husband's life I believe that there has been depression in his life before and I believe that if he is a melancholy at all that means if he has mood swings And I'm very aware of that and familiar with that because my life has been my previous life was made up of much mood swings. If something didn't work, I'd get very depressed. And if something did work, I'd be flying high as a kite.
SPEAKER 04 :
But let me tell you, that's not just for a melancholic personality.
SPEAKER 03 :
I understand.
SPEAKER 04 :
I'm a choleric personality. I've had that same thing. And mine came from fear and from anger. When I get frustrated. then what happens a lot of times is the chemical go goofy inside your body, and then the result of that many times is a chemically induced depression.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yes, but you're not prone to giving up. And there are some personalities that are absolutely prone to giving up. They hide in a corner, they sit in a corner, and they say, well, this is it, I'm just going to face the consequences. And you get up, when you get depressed, you get up and you go in another direction. I mean, you begin to do something to take care of that. Well, there are...
SPEAKER 04 :
Let me tell you why, though, Barbara. I absolutely hate to be depressed. I hate to be depressed and I hate to be sick. And I'll fight that with everything that's in me.
SPEAKER 03 :
That's because you're not a melancholy.
SPEAKER 04 :
Because I know that it pays no dividends. That's right. And you get in that spiral. And that spiral accelerates, and you go down, down, down, down, down. It gets worse, worse, worse, worse. It's like a person said to me, I think it was this, I don't know, last two or three days. He said, you know, even, well, I know who it was. Even if it didn't work, I'd still want to be a Christian. I mean, this is better than what the alternative is. And not exactly what they said, but... They said, no, I know what she said. She said, giving up is worse than hanging in there because the alternatives for what's going on. And she was saying, our lives are really tough right now. She's talking about she and her husband and their business. Things are really tough right now, but it's not as bad as giving up.
SPEAKER 07 :
That's right.
SPEAKER 04 :
You know, if you give up, I mean, that's just a horrible way to go. That's an option that I personally will not take.
SPEAKER 03 :
And I would say this lady who wrote this letter, I don't have your phone number. If you would call our office number, we would really like to get a hold of you. And our office number is area code 303-689-0499. And again, our office number is area code 303-689-0499. We would really like to talk with you because this is a very serious situation. And I believe that God and us and you have the answer. I truly do. There's wisdom and counsel in numbers.
SPEAKER 04 :
When you think about losing everything, there's obviously fear. There's frustration. There's going to be some anger. Oh, it piles up. You have to fight those at the root level, the spirit level. You have to command that spirit of fear to get out of your life, out of your household. The fear of losing everything. The fear of failure. The husband here is obviously facing a fear of failure, a fear of rejection, a fear of being labeled a loser, and I don't think he's a loser.
SPEAKER 03 :
No, no, I do not.
SPEAKER 04 :
I mean, I don't think that.
SPEAKER 03 :
I do not feel like he has found his blueprint in life. That's right. I truly... And so we would really like to talk to you and... You know, so many people do not have the right identity. Like you have said so many times and taught so many times, Darren, they are carrying a false passport in their billfold, and they do not even realize.
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, you know, in the high seas, the ship registers in a certain country. So if it's registered U.S., it's going to fly a U.S. flag. If it's Panama, it's going to fly that and whatever. Well, in the high seas, many times, you know, one of the big crimes on the high sea is to fly the wrong type of flag. And that's been done for hundreds of years. I mean, they've been doing that. But, you know, people also, and I had some wonderful people about 20, a little over 20 years ago, say to me, you're carrying false paperwork. You believed a lie. You believed what the devil has said about yourself. No wonder you're depressed. No wonder you're confused. No wonder you're going in circles. And you know those loving people sat me down. They talked to me for about an hour. Then they lovingly laid hands on me and they cast out a spirit of fear, a spirit of anger and some other things. They just plain said it has to go in the name of Jesus. Well, we have that power as Christians.
SPEAKER 06 :
That's right.
SPEAKER 04 :
And sometimes we are so balled up with our problems and we're so weighed down. It's almost like. You see a picture of a kitten playing with a ball of string. Pretty soon that string's around the leg and around their tail and around their body, around their head, around their paws, and they're just a mess. And if something doesn't come along there, they're going to get in a bigger mess. They're going to be all balled up, as we say. There are some people, Barbara, that are all balled up with all the things that are going on. And then the work doesn't go well, and then the bills start potting up, and this thing starts spiraling into a real mess.
SPEAKER 03 :
That's right. And this precious lady, I'd like to say that your prayer and fasting are effective, but your husband who is the covering, if he is not in agreement with you, it's going to just stretch out into a longer and a longer period. dilemma here and you need to talk with your husband get counseling be in a situation where you and your husband I have everything out on the table really truly get gut level honest and sometimes that hurts and but be in agreement and I want to say Jesus will for us Darren is perfect it really is not to take everything away that's right and in the Lord's Prayer I would encourage you to say the Lord's Prayer thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. God's will for you and your family is perfect in heaven, and his will for you on earth is the very best. It's not God that's taken it away. It may be the enemy that you have opened a door to allow him to come in to take it away.
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, you talked about the Lord prayer in Matthew six and you ought to read Matthew six because it talks about food and arraignment and shelter and all those things and how the birds don't worry about those things. And yet God provides. But the key is in Matthew 633 to seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, meaning right standing before him. And all of these things previously listed will be added unto you. Now, let me let me talk about depression for just a minute. In our country, I don't know what the number is, but I'll bet you it's up in the billions of dollars a year spent with people trying to get rid of depression. If you try to take depression and treat it, you're missing the point because depression is a symptom of something deeper.
SPEAKER 03 :
That's right.
SPEAKER 04 :
We talked about some of those root causes being anger and fear and frustration. And, you know, sometimes when you get you want to run, you know, you get depressed. Maybe too many bills and the job isn't going right. Your career has come to an end and you're trying to change careers and locations and all this kind of stuff and you're not getting it figured out. And the bills keep piling up and the money, if you had any to start with, is quickly going out the door. Well, I'm telling you folks, unless you address the root cause, in other words, what caused the depression? Depression is not a root cause. It's a symptom of something deeper.
SPEAKER 03 :
That's right. Anger, jealousy, the frustration that we have at the very beginning that something isn't working out according to how we want it to work out. Sometimes frustration sets in, then jealousy because everybody else around us is doing so well and we're struggling.
SPEAKER 04 :
Or we think they're doing well.
SPEAKER 03 :
That's right. And then anger sets in. And then on top of the anger is unforgiveness. Unforgiveness comes in, Darren, and we get hateful. And we are unforgiving towards ourselves because we have messed up our life and our family is suffering. We have unforgiveness towards that person or that company that we're working for. And we have unforgiveness towards God. And Darren, some people say, how can you have unforgiveness against God because he didn't do anything? That's absolutely true. But sometimes we we make God unforgivable.
SPEAKER 04 :
the scapegoat and we say god you can change this god why aren't you changing this and we get angry with god and unforgiving well and we charge him wrongly we say you're the heavyweight here you're the reason i'm having all these problems but he's not no it's it's the enemy the devil now let us give you this triangle of forgiveness again all right number one let's say in the case of this gentleman here that's talked about in this letter this husband here probably he needs to forgive the old company he worked for because he got to where he couldn't stand it. So there must be some people there, some circumstances there that he needs to forgive. Some of you today have been listening to a lot of television. You're listening to Y2K. You're listening to the Senate hearings. You're on and on. You're saying, man, this thing's out of control. Well, you might need to forgive the president. You might need to forgive, you know, the people that are quote, unquote, in charge of the economy, you might need to forgive the Russian government for screwing up their economy or the Brazilians, which was on the air yesterday, and that's affecting us Americans here. What I'm getting at is whoever you resent out there, you need to forgive, number one, and number two, you need to release them totally. And you do that by saying, it's an act of my will, and God will help you do this. As an act of my will, I choose to forgive and release the president, the Congress, the Pentagon, whoever you're unhappy with, with the forgiveness of Jesus. Let that forgiveness of Jesus flow through your heart and through your mouth by an act of your will. Then number two, as you talked about a while ago, some of you say, you know, I am an absolute failure here. I'm just not a good person. I'm just unworthy. I'm just always messing up. I just didn't work hard enough. I didn't prepare well enough. Because of my failures, my family's in a mess.
SPEAKER 03 :
That's right.
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, you need to forgive yourself as an act of your will. You can say it like this. As an act of my will, I choose to forgive and release myself. With the forgiveness and release of Jesus Christ, you need to judge yourself innocent and stop putting yourself down. Number three, then you need to forgive and release God by an act of your will with forgiveness of Jesus. And we tell you, you learn to do that. That's such a wonderful thing that was given to me by those people that prayed for me.
SPEAKER 03 :
Praise the Lord.
SPEAKER 04 :
Praise God for that.
SPEAKER 03 :
And when we first do that sometimes, Darren, we do need a counselor who is giving us this prayer. Just a little while ago, we prayed with a man and he willingly forgave everyone that had hurt him. And Darren, as he lifted all that up and forgave and released and forgave and released, the very next day, an absolutely tremendous breakthrough came to him because he gave it up. He gave up all of that offense. And I'll tell you, that really hurts us when we are offended and we keep it inside and it becomes broiling and it's like a pressure cooker. We cannot handle that. And so that's why I'm saying if you, the one that we're talking about, you know who you are, if you would like to have prayer and have Darren pray for you, it's our office number. Get in touch with us at the office number if you can't call us here. And it's 689-0499, area code 303-689-0499.
SPEAKER 04 :
And now let me talk about this matter of this forgiveness thing. A lot of us look for a feeling. Well, I don't feel like forgiving them or I don't feel like forgiving myself or I'm not in the mood. Let me tell you, if you will do what we just suggested, do it mechanically, the feelings will come. But you've got to take care of the legal issues first and the vital issues, these conditions of the heart. You need to forgive as an act of your will. Got that? As an act of your will. I give this illustration all the time. We have light on here in the studio because I reached over the wall and by an act of my will, I mechanically turned the switch on. I flipped the switch up. Well, the will works the same way. You need to mechanically set your will and you set it with your mouth. And you say, when you say as an act of my will, I choose to forgive. I choose to release as an act of my will. I'm making a decision here. I want to change. I'm tired of going around in this circle of depression.
SPEAKER 06 :
That's right.
SPEAKER 04 :
And you can, you are responsible for your feelings. You're responsible for your life.
SPEAKER 03 :
I talk about Cain and Abel in Genesis 4 and how Abel brought a gift of his favorite lamb for an offering and God absolutely was delighted with that offering. And after a while, Cain came and brought some of his harvest, some of the crops that he had raised. And God was not pleased with that because Cain had waited and Cain had not brought his first fruits. He had not brought his best to the Lord. He brought probably blemished things. God was not delighted with Cain's offering, and Cain became jealous of his brother, and he became very angry, and he became depressed. It says in the fifth verse of the fourth chapter of Genesis, And the Lord said to Cain, Why are you angry? Why are you depressed? Or why has your countenance fallen? And if you do well, this is God's message to you today. If you do well, will not your depression be lifted? Will not your countenance be lifted up? If you do not do well, sin is crouching at your door and its desire is for you, but you can master it. The very next thing that Cain did, Darren, he went out to Abel. He didn't pray. He didn't seek God. God said, Cain, you can master this thing. You can handle it. You are in control and you can come and bring me a great offering and I will be pleased with you as I am with your brother Abel. What did Cain do? He did the very opposite. He went out to his brother Abel and he killed him. He murdered him. He didn't have that control of the spirit. And we're saying you can either go to God, run to God, who is the loving God, or you can run away from God. And I'll tell you, if you run away from God, only evil consequences are there to face you. I mean, there's nothing good that's going to happen to you if you run away from God. God is your source. God is your creator, and he's very loving.
SPEAKER 04 :
You know, there's a scripture going along with that in Hebrews 12, 15. It says, See to it that no one comes short of the grace of God, that no root of bitterness springing up causes trouble, and by it many be defiled. Sometimes we get resentful that we're in these situations. God, this is just too hard for me. Why are you letting this happen to me? Why are you dumping on me? Why are you shortchanging me? Why are you blessing everybody else? Look at that guy over there. He doesn't even go to church. It just seems like he's blessed. Sometimes it does. That's been a complaint of the righteous all through scripture. If you read the book of Job, you'll say, how come they're so blessed? And they don't even worship you, Father. Well, you have to make a decision that you're not going to get into a root of bitterness because of resentment.
SPEAKER 06 :
That's right.
SPEAKER 04 :
And you have to take that thing on and say, this monster is going to get me if I don't make a decision and take some action. That's why we put out the scripture cards called the Power Pack. If you don't have those, they're $5. They come out in a cassette case, and that'll tell you that it'll fit right in your pocket or in your purse or on the visor of your car. But you need to speak the word of God.
SPEAKER 03 :
Oh, we've gotten so many great letters, Darren, with people saying, hey, I carry my Power Pack with me, and it has changed my life in the last six months. Well... Praise the Lord. It's not the power pack. It's the word of God in that power pack. And it's you. It's you putting action to those words. You are part of that solution. That's what's so amazing. You read the word and your words become powerful in the midst of diversity, in the midst of adversity, in the midst of tribulation.
SPEAKER 04 :
Now, this new Rotherham translation I was given for Christmas. Here's what it says. And I'll quote, first of all, the new American standard.
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, it's not new Rotherham. Well, it's an old Rotherham. It really is old.
SPEAKER 04 :
But it's so accurate. And here's what it says. Cast not away your freedom of speech for it has a great reward. Now, why is that so special? And we were talking about this earlier this morning at our house and we were saying, you know, one thing television has done to us is it keeps us from reacting. We sit there and watch and we're watchers and we're not participators.
SPEAKER 06 :
That's right.
SPEAKER 04 :
We're spectators. If you're going to get involved here with God's word, you have to become a speaker of the word. Cast not away your privilege of speech. You need to know that that's a privilege of speech. or the freedom of speech i should say cast out away your freedom of speech for it has great recompense or it has great reward you need to be speaking the word of god and let me tell you there's nobody in our listening audience barbara that would fail if they speak the word of the lord nobody and you need to start speaking the right things and stop stirring around see i know how it works with many people that are depressed you're either going in the circle in your mind in your heart running all the scenarios that's right all the regrets all the remorse all the flashbacks you're replaying all of the failures all of the missed opportunities let me tell you that is a dead issue you need to have a funeral for that thing now i used to take people and i'd say i want you to write this all down on piece paper maybe they write down all their sins all their failures all their worries and i say right now we're going to burn that thing And we'd put a match to it and we'd burn it up right there in front of us. Burn the whole piece of paper.
SPEAKER 03 :
And don't mention it again. Don't mention it.
SPEAKER 04 :
This is your burial ceremony. You're going to get rid of this thing. Whatever you have to do, but you need to do something. You've got to make a move in the right direction, in a positive direction. Or it may be that you want to tear it up and then flush it down the toilet. I've had people do that also. Bury that thing. But you have to make a decision to stop talking about it and stop doing the loop. Or it's going to get worse and worse and worse. You need to get over to the Word of God. In fact, I would recommend this. Take Psalm 91 and all through Psalm 91, revive me, O Lord, according to your Word. Read that out loud. Read it again. Read it a third time. You can't read scripture without that word of God becoming alive to you and changing your life and your circumstances, changing your attitude about life. And some of you just have a dirty windshield. Let me say that again. Some of you are just looking through a dirty windshield. You need to clean that up with the word of God so that you can see your life accurately and begin to hear the word of God and his counsel for you. He did not send Jesus Christ to die on the cross so you could fail.
SPEAKER 07 :
That's right.
SPEAKER 04 :
He wants you to win. Another scripture I'd advise you to get and memorize is Joshua 1.8. It says if you meditate the word, in other words, if you speak and mumble the word day and night, you will be prosperous and successful. And that solves those things.
SPEAKER 03 :
How can you do that, Darren? You can't speak the word day and night.
SPEAKER 04 :
Oh, yes, you can.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yes, we have a spirit. And most of us, the spirit's the last one. We have the physical and the soul, and then the spirit comes in last, very last, third place in most of our lives. Well, the spirit should be in control. It should be number one. Our spirit should be fed all the time with the word of God and with good things and not evil and wicked things. We should have spirit, soul, and then body should be the third. But we got it all turned around. Well, in our spirit, we can meditate without even speaking. Darren, I know people at work that meditate during their work and they don't even talk, but they meditate continually in their spirit day and night.
SPEAKER 1 :
877-917-7256
SPEAKER 01 :
Call to Freedom is a listener-supported radio ministry. Barbara and her power partners invite you to come on board with us and become a network of hands holding up Call to Freedom ministry. Power partners support Call to Freedom with prayer and monthly financial support. you will be blessed supernaturally. We invite you to visit Call to Freedom's website, www.freedomstreet.org, where you can hear Barbara's daily radio broadcast 24 hours a day or order materials. You may share your praise reports and heart cries by mailing them to Call to Freedom, Box 370-367, Denver, Colorado, 80237. Or you may email us at barbracarmack at freedomstreet.org. Until next time, remember, Jesus loves you, Barbara loves you, and take joy.
SPEAKER 1 :
Thank you.
In today's soul-enriching episode, Barbara and Kimberly offer profound insights on encountering and overcoming life's trials with unwavering faith. With heartwarming anecdotes and biblical teachings, they emphasize the necessity of scripture in forging a resilient relationship with God. Celebrate the joy of reconnecting with family, understanding divine purpose, and choosing praise amidst adversity. This episode is a beacon for anyone yearning to discover the sustenance that faith offers in times of uncertainty.
SPEAKER 01 :
Welcome to Call to Freedom with Barbara Carmack. This is Jimmy Lakey, and I'm delighted that you are joining us for this half hour. You can reach Call to Freedom at Box 370367, Denver, Colorado, 80237, or by going to the website at www.freedomstreet.org. If you want to leave a message or order a Word Power Daily Reading Bible Guide or a Freedom Street Express newsletter, you can call us toll free at 1-877-917-7256 and leave your name and address, including your zip code. If you want to talk to Barbara right now, she is expecting your call. You may call that same toll-free number, 1-877-917-7256 to speak to her. And now, let's join Barbara in the studio.
SPEAKER 04 :
Welcome to Called Up Freedom. I'm so glad you joined me today. May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him so that you may overflow with hope by the power of Holy Spirit. Oh, hope is such a marvelous thing to have. You're hoping for God's perfect will in your life. It's as the Lord's Prayer says, Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. You're praising God. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. He wants you to enjoy that abundant life that Jesus promised to you. Oh, and may you be filled with all joy and peace so that you may overflow with hope by the power of Holy Spirit. See, God doesn't use wimps in his plan to conquer. No, he doesn't. And we're growing up. We're maturing. We're no longer on that baby bottle. And I want some of you who are still in that salvation mode. Come on. Come on with me. Read the word. Begin to get into the word and begin to be curious about the word. Examine the word and get knowledge in your heart and your soul from the word. That's the most important thing in the world for you is to learn the word of God so you can love him as Jesus loves him. Jesus, our Lord and Savior, you are blessed to dispense for in him you live and move and have your being. And if you'd like to listen to previous programs, I was listening to the program for tomorrow with Darren and me, and we're celebrating his birthday. I don't know what year it is. I'll have to look that up. But it is so much fun to talk about the year that he was born and celebrating the birthday with him. And he got great calls. And I think you'll really know. I believe you'll really enjoy the show tomorrow. And you go to Freedom Street dot org. Click on radio shows and you can listen. Also, you can hit that donate button if you're enjoying the the excitement and the fervor we have for Jesus Christ and the scripture that we're giving you every day. I want you to realize, friend, that's what we live on. We don't live on just the food that we put into our physical bodies. Man shall not live by bread alone. but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. And that's his word. That's his words, the word that many of you just put on a table for the week and then take it on Sunday to show yourself that you're holy. That's something we open every day of the week and read and underline and learn from. So I challenge you. I encourage you to get into the word of God today. If you need a Bible guide, you can call me after this program. at 1-877-917-7256 and ask for a Bible guide, and I will be happy to send you one to get into the Word of God for yourself. Praise the Lord. Well, Kimberly has chosen to join us again today, and I'm so glad because she had such a great teaching yesterday, and we're just going to continue that. And Kimberly, welcome. Thank you.
SPEAKER 05 :
Thank you. Wow, Mom, you just came out the gate shooting from the hip. Thank you. Just let's get in there and tell people what we're made for. Yes, we're made for the word of God. And we did. We looked at that yesterday, how Jesus told the enemy as he was being tempted that man does not live on bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.
SPEAKER 04 :
And who would... Now, what would the devil... tempt Jesus with and each one of us with, first of all, in those temptations found in Luke 4 and also in Matthew 4. Food. Yeah, food. Food.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yes, food. Yes, especially at the beginning of the year when you've made your New Year's resolutions. And then the temptations start coming, right?
SPEAKER 04 :
Yes, they do. Before we get into it, I would really like you to tell the audience about meeting some of your father's relatives and how it came about. Because I know that you have known Pam for a while now. No, I really haven't.
SPEAKER 05 :
I just met her about three weeks ago for the first time. We've texted with each other when she first moved here to Broken Arrow. It's already been two years ago. I just both of us just started doing life and and didn't remember to get back with each other but we met for the very first time just within this past month and it's it's amazing to me she's in her 70s and the other two her her sister and then her first cousin they all moved here from California And that's where dad's family is all from. They all settled out there. And daddy died 35 years ago. And we really have not stayed in touch with that side of the family at all. So 35 years of... And even before he passed away, We didn't have very much interaction with them. I don't ever remember meeting these people ever in my lifetime. But they knew that I was here.
SPEAKER 04 :
Now, how did they know?
SPEAKER 05 :
How did Pam text you a year ago? One of Dad's sister's. So, one of dad's sisters, one of my aunts, let them know, oh, you're moving to Broken Arrow.
SPEAKER 04 :
That's where Kimberly lives. I don't know how they knew, but I'm glad that they have kept track of where you were living. Oh, that's wonderful. Yeah.
SPEAKER 05 :
So I got to actually meet up with them, let's see, two of them last week. And one of them just four months ago, she lost her eyesight completely. Oh. And it wasn't even something gradual at all. It was very sudden. And she's having a hard time adjusting. So she's in an assisted living place now. And that assisted living place has two pianos. And so I went and I played the piano and sang with them. And it was the most beautiful thing to have harmonies singing together. It was as if we had been singing together all our lives.
SPEAKER 04 :
Oh, yes. It's really beautiful. Oh, that is wonderful. I am so happy. I know that the first few weeks when your dad and I were living in California before we flew and moved to Colorado, that I had probably met Pam because his whole family had gathered together for an afternoon of playing the organ and the piano and singing and having a great time. And I remember Darlene from a long time ago. But, yeah, that's been 50, 60 years. So, wow.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah. So the story that we're telling here really does apply to all of you listening because there are things that happen in life. For instance, Joseph. Joseph, he left his family. Well, he didn't leave Joseph. He was sold by his brothers into Egypt and he had to learn a whole new way of doing life. And that way might have been pretty challenging for someone, the way he was raised and his family and the promises of God that were given to his father, his grandfather, his great grandfather. And to know that you've got these promises from the Lord, and now you are in a completely different land. And this land does not acknowledge the same God.
SPEAKER 04 :
That's right.
SPEAKER 05 :
That would be really, very challenging, really tough. And we can all find ourselves in places in our life where it just feels very challenging, unfamiliar, uncomfortable, and really tough. what we were talking about yesterday how our Egypt, it could be the old way we grew up with our family. I look at Egypt as the thing that was left behind. Joseph left a family behind that was, I know it was a blessed family and God started all 12 tribes out of this family. The 12 tribes of Israel came from this family, but they were messed up. Let me just say that.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yes, they were.
SPEAKER 05 :
They did not know about harmony and unity. They did not get along very well. And to sell your brother out, to sell him into slavery, that's messed up.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yes, there was favoritism from the father who favored Joseph, and he made him a coat of wonderful colors. He didn't do that for the rest of the brothers. He did that for Joseph.
SPEAKER 05 :
And even besides that, some of those brothers, like one of them slept with his dad's maid, and then another couple of them, they were so angry that they went and slaughtered a whole city. I mean, there were some problems. So Joseph was leaving those problems behind, but it was also his familiar family. And whatever we get familiar with in life, when we have to leave it behind, that can be really tough. And we start looking back when we've left something, left a job, left a family, left left an area where you've lived for a long time, whatever it is that you've left behind, it can be so uncomfortable that you start looking back and thinking, well, maybe I should go back. And we all have that tendency to do that. What we need to remember is that our journey in this wilderness that feels uncomfortable is such a blessed journey. And Jesus himself showed us how to do this journey. In Hebrews 5, 8, we're told that Jesus learned obedience through suffering. And I think of wilderness as being a place where we have some suffering. It's uncomfortable, and that can feel like you're suffering. And there can be other ways to suffer too. But Jesus was made perfect through the suffering, and he was giving us that example. He became the source of eternal salvation by walking through that wilderness, going through that wilderness, and at every turn, defeating all of the temptations of the flesh. And just like we were talking about, the first one was food. He was hungry. And that temptation toward the hunger, there it was right in front of him. And he defeated that temptation by saying, no, no, I don't just live on food. I'm not going to be scared. I'm not going to have fear enter in and tell me that I'm going to starve to death. Because I won't starve to death. If my father wants me here, I will remain right here, not living on bread alone, but by living on every word that proceeds out of the mouth of the father.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yes.
SPEAKER 05 :
Praise God. He showed us how not to be in fear of these things that are coming at us and that feel uncomfortable and feel like suffering. Walking through the wilderness is just never comfortable. And trying to leave our old lifestyles, our old family, our old career, our old life behind, it is hard to break away from what was normal routine. Yes.
SPEAKER 04 :
At whatever normal is. That's right. If Joseph hadn't have been jerked out of that familiar thing, would he have ever left on his own? No, uh-uh. Probably not. He was jerked out of it. That's right. The Lord just jerked him out of it. And it seems really cruel what happened to him. But that was for God's ultimate good. God had this whole thing planned.
SPEAKER 05 :
That's right. So when we look at our situations and we don't know what lies ahead of us, that can be scary to us. And that's when we really need to know how good our Heavenly Father is. And we're going to find that out by being in His Word. Because our life and our joy and our true peace, it's not fragile joy. It's not fragile peace that can just break apart at one bit of news that comes your way. This is a really solid joy and a solid peace that's so much different than the world's happiness and the world's kind of peace and calm.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yes.
SPEAKER 05 :
This is different. It is so tangibly big, powerful in our lives. And we're not going to know it if we don't get into the word of God. Yesterday we were reading from Deuteronomy 8. And It's it's I love this whole passage here. It's talking about how the people of Israel were led out into the wilderness and the Lord humbled them and allowed them to hunger. And I like how in verse three, it says he fed you with manna, which you did not know, nor did your fathers know. None of them recognized the way they were going to be sustained. I love that because they repeat it. Deuteronomy 8, if you go down to verse 15, they say it again. Moses says it again as he's writing, or whoever wrote this out. He says, who led you through the great and terrible wilderness with its fiery serpents and scorpions and thirsty ground where there was no water, but who brought you forth water out of the flinty rock. and who, here it is, fed you in the wilderness with manna, which your fathers did not know. And here's the point. We don't want to miss this point. Just because you don't know You don't know what it is or how it happens. Just because you can't see how your circumstances are good. Don't let that stop you from praising the one who does know. He has a plan for everything. And he proves himself time and time again, over and over, that he is Redeemer. And he is in the restoration business. And he is constantly at work for us.
SPEAKER 1 :
Yes.
SPEAKER 05 :
And we don't want to forget that, that he is constantly at work for good for us to restore what just broke and to redeem what was just lost. That is who he is. His love is so great. And in Deuteronomy 8, it goes on to say that he might humble you. Now, the humbling is to recognize that our plan is not the best one. His is. Yes. And even when our plans shatter and our circumstances look totally lost, He has a great plan. to fix it, to redeem it. And His way of fixing it is better than ours. So this is how we are humbled. And we humble ourselves and say, not my will, but Yours be done, O Lord. And that is hard. You know, yesterday you mentioned my friend who had to release her husband last week to heaven's great cloud of witnesses. And her anger, it was threatening to take over. When you have a friend whose emotions are getting the best of them, that's a sure sign that they are drowning. That's a sure sign that they have been bit by a fiery serpent in the wilderness and it is painful. It stings. And a good friend will throw out a lifesaver to that one who is suffering. And a good friend can be understanding of the anger. But I just simply planted a seed with her. I just told her, don't give in to the temptation to feed that anger and keep feeding it and keep feeding it. Don't give in to that. I understand where you are, but your faith needs food right now. And if you're listening and you're in a hard circumstance, know that your faith needs food. And the way that we build up faith is to praise God in all circumstances. We praise him when we're doubting. We praise him when we're sure. We praise him in the valleys and on the mountaintops. And there's this wonderful song by Elevation, and it's featuring Brandon Lake. It's called Praise. Let's just listen to that right now.
SPEAKER 03 :
Let's go. of how we And I'll praise when I don't. I'll praise cause I know you're still in control. Cause my praise is a weapon. It's worth the sound. Oh, my praise is the shout that brings Jericho down. As long as I'm breathing, I've got a reason to praise the Lord, oh, my soul. Praise God. Praise God. Come on, come on!
SPEAKER 1 :
Thank you.
SPEAKER 05 :
Oh, such a good song. I had to stand up. I was standing up just pumping my fist to the air, you know, and it's not because I have the best circumstances in life right now. There are some sad things going on around me and there's some really broken things in my life. but I know my Redeemer lives.
SPEAKER 02 :
I know my Redeemer lives.
SPEAKER 05 :
I know how good he is. And I just want to bring up Numbers 21. And I didn't talk with you about this, Mom, but in Numbers 21, the Israelites defeated the Canaanites. They're in the wilderness. They are not trained for war. And God blessed them to go to war with some Canaanites. and defeat them, they utterly destroyed the cities and they named the place Horma. And Horma means utter holy destruction. They recognized it was a miracle. It was a holy destruction. And then the Israelites set out to go around the land of Edom and the people became impatient because of the journey. The people spoke against God and Moses. He said, why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water. And we loathe this miserable food. Oh, that brings you can hear the emotion in my voice. It brings me to tears every time I read that we loathe this miserable food. Jesus is the bread of heaven. He is the bread that has come down from heaven. And to say, I loathe what you are providing for me, Jesus. Ouch. And I think it really brings tears to my eyes because I realized those times in my life, those seasons where I would rather have my own idea of food and provision for this life rather than what God has gifted me with and what he paid for with his very own life. I recognize that I'd rather have Egypt's food and provision than to be okay with the unknown. See, the manna is the unknown. And the complaining and the grumbling went against the blueprints of the lives of those people. We were made to praise at all times. Praise. We were made to worship. And we were made to see God's goodness and have gratitude for all the ways that he restores and redeems all the brokenness. Yet, when we complain... that's when things break down even more because now we're functioning outside of our parameters and there are natural consequences that cause more brokenness so in this case with these people complaining it opened the door and attracted fiery serpents and many people died from those snake bites but look at god's gracious and merciful response He guides Moses to make a bronze serpent and set it on a standard. He was setting a standard. He was making a prophetic promise to send his only son and to lift him up on a cross that all who look to him would be saved. So complaining and grumbling, they go against our God-designed blueprints. But we know how to get back on track and be blessed. It's to look to Jesus, the one who gave his life for us to have salvation, to be healed, to live in joy, to live in peace. I don't know if I've even taken a breath today.
SPEAKER 02 :
But I'm pretty excited about that. So thank you for letting me share this excitement with you today.
SPEAKER 04 :
It's been wonderful. It's been wonderful. When the enemy comes in like a flood, the Lord lifts up a standard against him. And that's Isaiah 59, 19. We've got to. You're absolutely right, Kimberly. Be praising God in all things for this is God's vision for us to praise him. And boy, when he lives in our praises, he can do anything through us. God bless you, Kimberly. Oh, God bless you. It's been wonderful. Remember, tomorrow we're going to celebrate Darren's birthday on the Friday show. God bless you and keep you and take joy.
SPEAKER 1 :
877-917-7256
SPEAKER 01 :
Call to Freedom is a listener-supported radio ministry. Barbara and her power partners invite you to come on board with us and become a network of hands holding up Call to Freedom ministry. Power partners support Call to Freedom with prayer and monthly financial support. You will be blessed supernaturally. We invite you to visit Call to Freedom's website, www.freedomstreet.org, where you can hear Barbara's daily radio broadcast 24 hours a day or order materials. You may share your praise reports and heart cries by mailing them to Call to Freedom, Box 370-367, Denver, Colorado, 80237. Or you may email us at barbracarmack at freedomstreet.org. Until next time, remember, Jesus loves you, Barbara loves you, and take joy.
This enlightening episode of Call to Freedom takes listeners on a journey through the emotional struggles connected to depression from a spiritual perspective. Hosts Barbara Carmack and her guests delve into the letters from listeners, responding to their stories with empathy and wisdom rooted in spiritual teachings. The narrative intensifies with discussions about the emotional and spiritual turmoil that comes with life changes and job transitions. The conversation serves as a reminder of the power of forgiveness and how relinquishing past grievances can lead to spiritual freedom. Through personal anecdotes, the hosts demonstrate the power of community in overcoming personal battles. Listeners are invited to join the Call to Freedom community, where spiritual nourishment and guidance await. This compelling episode reminds all that through faith, prayer, and the spoken word, individual and collective healing is possible.
SPEAKER 01 :
Welcome to Call to Freedom with Barbara Carmack. This is Jimmy Lakey, and I'm delighted that you are joining us for this half hour. You can reach Call to Freedom at Box 370367, Denver, Colorado, 80237, or by going to the website at www.freedomstreet.org. If you want to leave a message or order a Word Power Daily Reading Bible Guide or a Freedom Street Express newsletter, you can call us toll free at 1-877-917-7256 and leave your name and address, including your zip code. If you want to talk to Barbara right now, she is expecting your call. You may call that same toll-free number, 1-877-917-7256 to speak to her. And now, let's join Barbara in the studio.
SPEAKER 02 :
After thanking children who are sending in offerings to give to the orphans with Home of Refuge, I read a letter written by a wife who is concerned because her husband is depressed about his job. But Darren brings up the fact that depression is only a symptom of a deeper spiritual root. We bring up the areas of fear and pride and unforgiveness which may indicate depression. that maybe things aren't working out according to your plans, and you're allowing anger, fear, or unforgiveness to take over. As we discuss unforgiveness, Darren gives a solution to bring freedom into your heart and life. God's will is to bless you, but it's important that you get rid of the junk that's clogging up the communication lines between you and your Heavenly Father. Now let's join the program.
SPEAKER 04 :
You have a wonderful letter there in your hand, don't you?
SPEAKER 03 :
Yes, and I forgot to bring the letters of the Yost family. The children all sent letters, and they sent their Christmas money that they'd gotten for Christmas for the home of refuge, for the orphanage, for the children, and I forgot that this morning.
SPEAKER 04 :
They're over in Nebraska, aren't they?
SPEAKER 03 :
Yes, and thank you so much. I remember three of the children's names, Caitlin, Logan, and Coda, but I don't remember the other little boys, and they're so precious. We'll call them number four. Forgive me. No, no, no, not number four. Okay. And so we have a letter here from Shelby, and it's, Dear Darren and Barbara, how are you? I am fine. I'm writing you to thank you for the VeggieTales. I really like it. Thanks for your newsletter. Tell Barbara hi. I enjoy your program very much. I'm sending you $5. And Shelby, we're going to apply this $5 with the other, I think we got $46 from the Yost children. God bless you. We're going to give it to the Home of Refuge, and it's going to bless them.
SPEAKER 04 :
Where's Shelby from?
SPEAKER 03 :
Lyman.
SPEAKER 04 :
Lyman, Colorado.
SPEAKER 03 :
It's a wonderful little letter. And we just appreciate the letters from the children. That's wonderful. Praise God.
SPEAKER 04 :
We have a letter here that's really, I'm going to say it's a treasured letter because this lady is so gifted in explaining what's going on. But she said, may I ask for prayer help? I've never asked this before. It's difficult and I'm not even sure why. Okay. Oh, I got a phone call coming in. So I'm going to hold this letter because I want to treat this right. It's a great letter and it will strike the chord with so many of you that are, you know, in an employment change transition. And, you know, you may be looking at the wrong thing or why you're having problems. I think we can help this lady. Well, let's talk to Sean. Hello, Sean.
SPEAKER 05 :
Hello, Darren, Barbara, this is Sean Anselmo. I don't know if you remember my father.
SPEAKER 03 :
Oh, my goodness, yes.
SPEAKER 05 :
Steve Anselmo.
SPEAKER 04 :
I was talking about your dad a couple of days ago. As a matter of fact, a lady came to our meeting, and she said she talked to somebody on the phone who received a marvelous healing, and I said to Barb, that person talked to Anselmo.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yes, to Steve. We were talking about your dad just the other day, and I remember having dinner with you, and you were really young. How old are you, Sean?
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, I'm 31 now. Oh, my goodness.
SPEAKER 03 :
Oh, my goodness.
SPEAKER 05 :
Tack that on.
SPEAKER 04 :
So how are you doing, Sean?
SPEAKER 05 :
I'm doing great. I just wanted to praise God for you. And welcome back to the airwaves. And it's great to hear your voice on the radio. It's only by chance that I even caught your program the other day. And I'm just praising God for your ministry. And I've entered the ministry myself.
SPEAKER 04 :
Praise God. Do you have a church?
SPEAKER 05 :
No, I just started a newsletter from our home, my family and I, and it's going to follow up with my dad's newsletter and his prison ministry.
SPEAKER 04 :
Good, good.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah, we're looking forward to seeing what God's got in store for us.
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, I'll tell you, your dad helped me out in Tulsa, Oklahoma one time, and I won't go into the whole story, but I'll tell you, he was there for me. And then he worked with me in Fort Collins for quite a while, and there's a wonderful anointing on your father and mother's lives.
SPEAKER 05 :
That's right. Amen. Praise God. I just want to thank you guys and encourage you. You're doing a great job, and I appreciate the words of God that he gives to you guys.
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, thank you, sir. Thank you, Sean. I hope you'll take time to give our office a call and leave your address.
SPEAKER 05 :
I would certainly do that.
SPEAKER 04 :
Okay, here's the number, Sean. Well, I guess if you can hang on, I'll just have our engineer take it. How would that be?
SPEAKER 05 :
Okay. Thank you very much.
SPEAKER 04 :
Sean, it's good to hear from you.
SPEAKER 05 :
Good to hear from you.
SPEAKER 04 :
You're married? You're married now?
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah, married and three children.
SPEAKER 04 :
What's your little wife's name?
SPEAKER 05 :
Patricia and Elmo.
SPEAKER 04 :
Patricia. Wonderful. Well, we just bless you, Sean.
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, thank you.
SPEAKER 04 :
I know there's a wonderful anointing being passed down from your father, and that's good. Next time you see your dad, have him give us a call.
SPEAKER 07 :
Okay. Praise God.
SPEAKER 04 :
I will. God bless. God bless you. Okay. Wow.
SPEAKER 03 :
Calls from out of the past. Yes. Amen. That's just really.
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, I tell you, I watched Steve and he was a wonderful man for us on the prayer lines.
SPEAKER 03 :
He was a man of prayer. That's right. He was. He was a man of prayer.
SPEAKER 04 :
This letter goes on to say, I've never asked for prayer help before. I've never asked anyone. I don't know why. Maybe it's fear. Maybe it's pride. And maybe we think it shows weakness, but we haven't asked before. It goes on to say, my husband had been trying to break into a certain business, and I won't name that business, for a whole year. He had to leave another type of business, which is much different by the letter here. but it was driving him to great depression. He loves doing what he's doing now, but it's 100% commission, and he just can't seem to make it work. We're almost out of money, and he's become so depressed and despondent, I'm fearful we're going to lose everything. Is that what's going to happen to us? Pray that we will find suitable work soon. My husband has even looked back to his past job, and we've fasted and we've prayed, and we'll continue. And I guess I struggle with knowing what the Lord's will is here. If Jesus prayed about his father's will being done, shouldn't we also pray that way? Could it be that his will that we go through losing all that we have? Now, I'm going to stop right there. I don't believe it's God's will that you lose all that you have. But I do believe this, that God is trying to get down to a root cause. And I don't believe the depression came on this husband just because of this new work or because of a lack of sales income, commission income. And I believe God allows us to go through these things for us to face ourselves and say, well... It wasn't the old job. It's not the new job. It must be something wrong inside of me. And I went through a period of time like that when I had to face myself. And I thought it was the circumstances around me, my family, my work, my profession, my whatever. And I made somewhat of a massive change. And that's when I hit the wall and it was the best thing that ever happened to me because I had to face some things down inside of Darren and cry out for help. And some people prayed for me. And because of their prayer, that's the basis of this ministry and that's setting people free.
SPEAKER 03 :
That's right.
SPEAKER 04 :
Showing them how to get set free.
SPEAKER 03 :
Life is hard on us, and so we start building walls and we start putting layer upon layer. And I feel like this precious lady is just crying out, and I feel so much for her. We weren't given very many... details and I wish she would have written a little bit more about her family if her husband is born again if they go to a spiritual church if they have had counseling because I believe there's a curse going on in his husband's life I believe that there has been depression in his life before and I believe that if he is a melancholy at all that means if he has mood swings And I'm very aware of that and familiar with that because my life has been my previous life was made up of much mood swings. If something didn't work, I'd get very depressed. And if something did work, I'd be flying high as a kite.
SPEAKER 04 :
But let me tell you, that's not just for a melancholic personality.
SPEAKER 03 :
I understand.
SPEAKER 04 :
I'm a choleric personality. I've had that same thing. And mine came from fear and from anger. When I get frustrated. then what happens a lot of times is the chemical go goofy inside your body, and then the result of that many times is a chemically induced depression.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yes, but you're not prone to giving up. And there are some personalities that are absolutely prone to giving up. They hide in a corner, they sit in a corner, and they say, well, this is it, I'm just going to face the consequences. And you get up, when you get depressed, you get up and you go in another direction. I mean, you begin to do something to take care of that. Well, there are...
SPEAKER 04 :
Let me tell you why, though, Barbara. I absolutely hate to be depressed. I hate to be depressed and I hate to be sick. And I'll fight that with everything that's in me.
SPEAKER 03 :
That's because you're not a melancholy.
SPEAKER 04 :
Because I know that it pays no dividends. That's right. And you get in that spiral. And that spiral accelerates, and you go down, down, down, down, down. It gets worse, worse, worse, worse. It's like a person said to me, I think it was this, I don't know, last two or three days. He said, you know, even, well, I know who it was. Even if it didn't work, I'd still want to be a Christian. I mean, this is better than what the alternative is. And not exactly what they said, but... They said, no, I know what she said. She said, giving up is worse than hanging in there because the alternatives for what's going on. And she was saying, our lives are really tough right now. She's talking about she and her husband and their business. Things are really tough right now, but it's not as bad as giving up.
SPEAKER 07 :
That's right.
SPEAKER 04 :
You know, if you give up, I mean, that's just a horrible way to go. That's an option that I personally will not take.
SPEAKER 03 :
And I would say this lady who wrote this letter, I don't have your phone number. If you would call our office number, we would really like to get a hold of you. And our office number is area code 303-689-0499. And again, our office number is area code 303-689-0499. We would really like to talk with you because this is a very serious situation. And I believe that God and us and you have the answer. I truly do. There's wisdom and counsel in numbers.
SPEAKER 04 :
When you think about losing everything, there's obviously fear. There's frustration. There's going to be some anger. Oh, it piles up. You have to fight those at the root level, the spirit level. You have to command that spirit of fear to get out of your life, out of your household. The fear of losing everything. The fear of failure. The husband here is obviously facing a fear of failure, a fear of rejection, a fear of being labeled a loser, and I don't think he's a loser.
SPEAKER 03 :
No, no, I do not.
SPEAKER 04 :
I mean, I don't think that.
SPEAKER 03 :
I do not feel like he has found his blueprint in life. That's right. I truly... And so we would really like to talk to you and... You know, so many people do not have the right identity. Like you have said so many times and taught so many times, Darren, they are carrying a false passport in their billfold, and they do not even realize.
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, you know, in the high seas, the ship registers in a certain country. So if it's registered U.S., it's going to fly a U.S. flag. If it's Panama, it's going to fly that and whatever. Well, in the high seas, many times, you know, one of the big crimes on the high sea is to fly the wrong type of flag. And that's been done for hundreds of years. I mean, they've been doing that. But, you know, people also, and I had some wonderful people about 20, a little over 20 years ago, say to me, you're carrying false paperwork. You believed a lie. You believed what the devil has said about yourself. No wonder you're depressed. No wonder you're confused. No wonder you're going in circles. And you know those loving people sat me down. They talked to me for about an hour. Then they lovingly laid hands on me and they cast out a spirit of fear, a spirit of anger and some other things. They just plain said it has to go in the name of Jesus. Well, we have that power as Christians.
SPEAKER 06 :
That's right.
SPEAKER 04 :
And sometimes we are so balled up with our problems and we're so weighed down. It's almost like. You see a picture of a kitten playing with a ball of string. Pretty soon that string's around the leg and around their tail and around their body, around their head, around their paws, and they're just a mess. And if something doesn't come along there, they're going to get in a bigger mess. They're going to be all balled up, as we say. There are some people, Barbara, that are all balled up with all the things that are going on. And then the work doesn't go well, and then the bills start potting up, and this thing starts spiraling into a real mess.
SPEAKER 03 :
That's right. And this precious lady, I'd like to say that your prayer and fasting are effective, but your husband who is the covering, if he is not in agreement with you, it's going to just stretch out into a longer and a longer period. dilemma here and you need to talk with your husband get counseling be in a situation where you and your husband I have everything out on the table really truly get gut level honest and sometimes that hurts and but be in agreement and I want to say Jesus will for us Darren is perfect it really is not to take everything away that's right and in the Lord's Prayer I would encourage you to say the Lord's Prayer thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. God's will for you and your family is perfect in heaven, and his will for you on earth is the very best. It's not God that's taken it away. It may be the enemy that you have opened a door to allow him to come in to take it away.
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, you talked about the Lord prayer in Matthew six and you ought to read Matthew six because it talks about food and arraignment and shelter and all those things and how the birds don't worry about those things. And yet God provides. But the key is in Matthew 633 to seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, meaning right standing before him. And all of these things previously listed will be added unto you. Now, let me let me talk about depression for just a minute. In our country, I don't know what the number is, but I'll bet you it's up in the billions of dollars a year spent with people trying to get rid of depression. If you try to take depression and treat it, you're missing the point because depression is a symptom of something deeper.
SPEAKER 03 :
That's right.
SPEAKER 04 :
We talked about some of those root causes being anger and fear and frustration. And, you know, sometimes when you get you want to run, you know, you get depressed. Maybe too many bills and the job isn't going right. Your career has come to an end and you're trying to change careers and locations and all this kind of stuff and you're not getting it figured out. And the bills keep piling up and the money, if you had any to start with, is quickly going out the door. Well, I'm telling you folks, unless you address the root cause, in other words, what caused the depression? Depression is not a root cause. It's a symptom of something deeper.
SPEAKER 03 :
That's right. Anger, jealousy, the frustration that we have at the very beginning that something isn't working out according to how we want it to work out. Sometimes frustration sets in, then jealousy because everybody else around us is doing so well and we're struggling.
SPEAKER 04 :
Or we think they're doing well.
SPEAKER 03 :
That's right. And then anger sets in. And then on top of the anger is unforgiveness. Unforgiveness comes in, Darren, and we get hateful. And we are unforgiving towards ourselves because we have messed up our life and our family is suffering. We have unforgiveness towards that person or that company that we're working for. And we have unforgiveness towards God. And Darren, some people say, how can you have unforgiveness against God because he didn't do anything? That's absolutely true. But sometimes we we make God unforgivable.
SPEAKER 04 :
the scapegoat and we say god you can change this god why aren't you changing this and we get angry with god and unforgiving well and we charge him wrongly we say you're the heavyweight here you're the reason i'm having all these problems but he's not no it's it's the enemy the devil now let us give you this triangle of forgiveness again all right number one let's say in the case of this gentleman here that's talked about in this letter this husband here probably he needs to forgive the old company he worked for because he got to where he couldn't stand it. So there must be some people there, some circumstances there that he needs to forgive. Some of you today have been listening to a lot of television. You're listening to Y2K. You're listening to the Senate hearings. You're on and on. You're saying, man, this thing's out of control. Well, you might need to forgive the president. You might need to forgive, you know, the people that are quote, unquote, in charge of the economy, you might need to forgive the Russian government for screwing up their economy or the Brazilians, which was on the air yesterday, and that's affecting us Americans here. What I'm getting at is whoever you resent out there, you need to forgive, number one, and number two, you need to release them totally. And you do that by saying, it's an act of my will, and God will help you do this. As an act of my will, I choose to forgive and release the president, the Congress, the Pentagon, whoever you're unhappy with, with the forgiveness of Jesus. Let that forgiveness of Jesus flow through your heart and through your mouth by an act of your will. Then number two, as you talked about a while ago, some of you say, you know, I am an absolute failure here. I'm just not a good person. I'm just unworthy. I'm just always messing up. I just didn't work hard enough. I didn't prepare well enough. Because of my failures, my family's in a mess.
SPEAKER 03 :
That's right.
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, you need to forgive yourself as an act of your will. You can say it like this. As an act of my will, I choose to forgive and release myself. With the forgiveness and release of Jesus Christ, you need to judge yourself innocent and stop putting yourself down. Number three, then you need to forgive and release God by an act of your will with forgiveness of Jesus. And we tell you, you learn to do that. That's such a wonderful thing that was given to me by those people that prayed for me.
SPEAKER 03 :
Praise the Lord.
SPEAKER 04 :
Praise God for that.
SPEAKER 03 :
And when we first do that sometimes, Darren, we do need a counselor who is giving us this prayer. Just a little while ago, we prayed with a man and he willingly forgave everyone that had hurt him. And Darren, as he lifted all that up and forgave and released and forgave and released, the very next day, an absolutely tremendous breakthrough came to him because he gave it up. He gave up all of that offense. And I'll tell you, that really hurts us when we are offended and we keep it inside and it becomes broiling and it's like a pressure cooker. We cannot handle that. And so that's why I'm saying if you, the one that we're talking about, you know who you are, if you would like to have prayer and have Darren pray for you, it's our office number. Get in touch with us at the office number if you can't call us here. And it's 689-0499, area code 303-689-0499.
SPEAKER 04 :
And now let me talk about this matter of this forgiveness thing. A lot of us look for a feeling. Well, I don't feel like forgiving them or I don't feel like forgiving myself or I'm not in the mood. Let me tell you, if you will do what we just suggested, do it mechanically, the feelings will come. But you've got to take care of the legal issues first and the vital issues, these conditions of the heart. You need to forgive as an act of your will. Got that? As an act of your will. I give this illustration all the time. We have light on here in the studio because I reached over the wall and by an act of my will, I mechanically turned the switch on. I flipped the switch up. Well, the will works the same way. You need to mechanically set your will and you set it with your mouth. And you say, when you say as an act of my will, I choose to forgive. I choose to release as an act of my will. I'm making a decision here. I want to change. I'm tired of going around in this circle of depression.
SPEAKER 06 :
That's right.
SPEAKER 04 :
And you can, you are responsible for your feelings. You're responsible for your life.
SPEAKER 03 :
I talk about Cain and Abel in Genesis 4 and how Abel brought a gift of his favorite lamb for an offering and God absolutely was delighted with that offering. And after a while, Cain came and brought some of his harvest, some of the crops that he had raised. And God was not pleased with that because Cain had waited and Cain had not brought his first fruits. He had not brought his best to the Lord. He brought probably blemished things. God was not delighted with Cain's offering, and Cain became jealous of his brother, and he became very angry, and he became depressed. It says in the fifth verse of the fourth chapter of Genesis, And the Lord said to Cain, Why are you angry? Why are you depressed? Or why has your countenance fallen? And if you do well, this is God's message to you today. If you do well, will not your depression be lifted? Will not your countenance be lifted up? If you do not do well, sin is crouching at your door and its desire is for you, but you can master it. The very next thing that Cain did, Darren, he went out to Abel. He didn't pray. He didn't seek God. God said, Cain, you can master this thing. You can handle it. You are in control and you can come and bring me a great offering and I will be pleased with you as I am with your brother Abel. What did Cain do? He did the very opposite. He went out to his brother Abel and he killed him. He murdered him. He didn't have that control of the spirit. And we're saying you can either go to God, run to God, who is the loving God, or you can run away from God. And I'll tell you, if you run away from God, only evil consequences are there to face you. I mean, there's nothing good that's going to happen to you if you run away from God. God is your source. God is your creator, and he's very loving.
SPEAKER 04 :
You know, there's a scripture going along with that in Hebrews 12, 15. It says, See to it that no one comes short of the grace of God, that no root of bitterness springing up causes trouble, and by it many be defiled. Sometimes we get resentful that we're in these situations. God, this is just too hard for me. Why are you letting this happen to me? Why are you dumping on me? Why are you shortchanging me? Why are you blessing everybody else? Look at that guy over there. He doesn't even go to church. It just seems like he's blessed. Sometimes it does. That's been a complaint of the righteous all through scripture. If you read the book of Job, you'll say, how come they're so blessed? And they don't even worship you, Father. Well, you have to make a decision that you're not going to get into a root of bitterness because of resentment.
SPEAKER 06 :
That's right.
SPEAKER 04 :
And you have to take that thing on and say, this monster is going to get me if I don't make a decision and take some action. That's why we put out the scripture cards called the Power Pack. If you don't have those, they're $5. They come out in a cassette case, and that'll tell you that it'll fit right in your pocket or in your purse or on the visor of your car. But you need to speak the word of God.
SPEAKER 03 :
Oh, we've gotten so many great letters, Darren, with people saying, hey, I carry my Power Pack with me, and it has changed my life in the last six months. Well... Praise the Lord. It's not the power pack. It's the word of God in that power pack. And it's you. It's you putting action to those words. You are part of that solution. That's what's so amazing. You read the word and your words become powerful in the midst of diversity, in the midst of adversity, in the midst of tribulation.
SPEAKER 04 :
Now, this new Rotherham translation I was given for Christmas. Here's what it says. And I'll quote, first of all, the new American standard.
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, it's not new Rotherham. Well, it's an old Rotherham. It really is old.
SPEAKER 04 :
But it's so accurate. And here's what it says. Cast not away your freedom of speech for it has a great reward. Now, why is that so special? And we were talking about this earlier this morning at our house and we were saying, you know, one thing television has done to us is it keeps us from reacting. We sit there and watch and we're watchers and we're not participators.
SPEAKER 06 :
That's right.
SPEAKER 04 :
We're spectators. If you're going to get involved here with God's word, you have to become a speaker of the word. Cast not away your privilege of speech. You need to know that that's a privilege of speech. or the freedom of speech i should say cast out away your freedom of speech for it has great recompense or it has great reward you need to be speaking the word of god and let me tell you there's nobody in our listening audience barbara that would fail if they speak the word of the lord nobody and you need to start speaking the right things and stop stirring around see i know how it works with many people that are depressed you're either going in the circle in your mind in your heart running all the scenarios that's right all the regrets all the remorse all the flashbacks you're replaying all of the failures all of the missed opportunities let me tell you that is a dead issue you need to have a funeral for that thing now i used to take people and i'd say i want you to write this all down on piece paper maybe they write down all their sins all their failures all their worries and i say right now we're going to burn that thing And we'd put a match to it and we'd burn it up right there in front of us. Burn the whole piece of paper.
SPEAKER 03 :
And don't mention it again. Don't mention it.
SPEAKER 04 :
This is your burial ceremony. You're going to get rid of this thing. Whatever you have to do, but you need to do something. You've got to make a move in the right direction, in a positive direction. Or it may be that you want to tear it up and then flush it down the toilet. I've had people do that also. Bury that thing. But you have to make a decision to stop talking about it and stop doing the loop. Or it's going to get worse and worse and worse. You need to get over to the Word of God. In fact, I would recommend this. Take Psalm 91 and all through Psalm 91, revive me, O Lord, according to your Word. Read that out loud. Read it again. Read it a third time. You can't read scripture without that word of God becoming alive to you and changing your life and your circumstances, changing your attitude about life. And some of you just have a dirty windshield. Let me say that again. Some of you are just looking through a dirty windshield. You need to clean that up with the word of God so that you can see your life accurately and begin to hear the word of God and his counsel for you. He did not send Jesus Christ to die on the cross so you could fail.
SPEAKER 07 :
That's right.
SPEAKER 04 :
He wants you to win. Another scripture I'd advise you to get and memorize is Joshua 1.8. It says if you meditate the word, in other words, if you speak and mumble the word day and night, you will be prosperous and successful. And that solves those things.
SPEAKER 03 :
How can you do that, Darren? You can't speak the word day and night.
SPEAKER 04 :
Oh, yes, you can.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yes, we have a spirit. And most of us, the spirit's the last one. We have the physical and the soul, and then the spirit comes in last, very last, third place in most of our lives. Well, the spirit should be in control. It should be number one. Our spirit should be fed all the time with the word of God and with good things and not evil and wicked things. We should have spirit, soul, and then body should be the third. But we got it all turned around. Well, in our spirit, we can meditate without even speaking. Darren, I know people at work that meditate during their work and they don't even talk, but they meditate continually in their spirit day and night.
SPEAKER 1 :
877-917-7256
SPEAKER 01 :
Call to Freedom is a listener-supported radio ministry. Barbara and her power partners invite you to come on board with us and become a network of hands holding up Call to Freedom ministry. Power partners support Call to Freedom with prayer and monthly financial support. you will be blessed supernaturally. We invite you to visit Call to Freedom's website, www.freedomstreet.org, where you can hear Barbara's daily radio broadcast 24 hours a day or order materials. You may share your praise reports and heart cries by mailing them to Call to Freedom, Box 370-367, Denver, Colorado, 80237. Or you may email us at barbracarmack at freedomstreet.org. Until next time, remember, Jesus loves you, Barbara loves you, and take joy.
SPEAKER 1 :
Thank you.
Join Barbara and Kimberly as they discuss the life-altering decisions we face and the inner strength required to lay our burdens on the altar. Through scriptures and poignant personal experiences, they highlight how true fulfillment and contentment arise from union with God. As they reflect on the complex dynamics of prayer and desire, listeners are encouraged to align their will with God's and navigate the challenging yet rewarding path of spiritual growth.
SPEAKER 04 :
Welcome to Call to Freedom with Barbara Carmack. This is Jimmy Lakey, and I'm delighted that you are joining us for this half hour. You can reach Call to Freedom at Box 370367, Denver, Colorado, 80237, or by going to the website at www.freedomstreet.org. If you want to leave a message or order a Word Power Daily Reading Bible Guide or a Freedom Street Express newsletter, you can call us toll free at 1-877-917-7256 and leave your name and address, including your zip code. If you want to talk to Barbara right now, she is expecting your call. You may call that same toll-free number, 1-877-917-7256 to speak to her. And now, let's join Barbara in the studio.
SPEAKER 01 :
Welcome to Call to Freedom. I'm so glad you joined us today. It's going to be a wonderful day. You know why? Because I had opposition all morning long. And I know when the enemy doesn't want you to do something, then you go full barrel through. You do. You stand strong in the Lord and in the power of his might, not the enemy's. And I'm so grateful. I am just so grateful. I've been listening a little bit to some of the people who are going to be heads of the departments today. that Trump has appointed. And it's really interesting. It's, you know, from one party to the next, they're asking deep, deep questions. Some of them questions that have nothing to do with the position the person's going to take, but they still ask anyway. And I'm so grateful. I listened a little bit to what Pam Bondi had to say. And she is going to make a terrific attorney general. And I'm so grateful for Trump's appointees. I am truly excited. And I know you know that I'm excited. So I'm excited to see the wonderful things that God has in store for his people through people that he's going to put in leadership. And that's what he does. He puts wonderful people in leadership. And then we take orders from those people in leadership. I'm so looking forward to it. is Inauguration Day. Oh, how long have we looked forward to that day? Oh, my friends, take courage. God is on the throne. He's not going to leave you or forsake you. Remember that. You are blessed to dispense for in him you live and move and have your being. And from Ephesians 3.20, he who is able to do immeasurably more than all All we ask or imagine according to his power that is at work within us, to him, to him, not to us. We don't get any of the credit. I don't want any of the glory. To him be glory forevermore. Amen. Praise the Lord. God never compromises on his promises. I want you to know that you can believe that promise, that he's going to keep that promise no matter what. Even though it looks dreary, it looks hopeless, God's going to keep that promise. So I want you to know that. As for me, I know that my Redeemer lives. And at the last, he will take his stand on the earth. And I'll be with him. I hope you'll be with him. I hope you will be one of the wonderful crowd of people that are going to be with God. Father God and our Savior and Lord Jesus Christ and us. Amen. Well, Kimberly has a great teaching today. We've had a little bit of problems with the transferring of voice prints and stuff, but we're going to do it. And Kimberly, I welcome you to the broadcast. Thank you so much.
SPEAKER 03 :
I had a little glitch with my Wi-Fi this morning, so if I drop out, you just be prepared to be reading scripture until I come back. Oh, wonderful. Okay. Yep, I do. I have the Bible. But you were expressing at the top of the hour here that you had opposition in your world this morning, and me, too. You know, and you said, when we stand strong in the Lord, that's how we confront opposition. Mm-hmm. And when there is a war, God does send out his worshipers in front. We choose to worship him. We choose to make him first, to make him our focus. And when we do that, he does take care of all the details. And he does unexpected things, very unexpected things. So I was reading in Psalm 84, and I just want to invite all of you to turn to Psalm 84 if you have the ability to do that right now. If you're driving, please don't do that. You can just listen. That's right. Psalm 84 starts out, And I just want to mention that So much of what we read in the Bible might not feel very tangible to us now. When we're talking about God's dwelling places and how the heart and the flesh are yearning for the courts of the Lord. Well, what does that look like? The courts of the Lord. And I know that for myself. I've had to imagine just being in His place and having His perspective, being able to know that He is God and He has limitless solutions to our problems. We get stuck on one idea of being a solution to our problem. And when we get stuck there and we're consumed with that one idea, then we cause stress. We cause anxiety. We start comparing to other people, comparing with our other family members or neighbors. We compare to even Bible stories. We'll pull out Bible stories and start comparing our lives to others. And then... We might even take a scripture and decide to stand on that scripture and believe that is going to be our answer.
SPEAKER 02 :
Yes.
SPEAKER 03 :
And I just wanted to take a few moments today to talk about the dangers of that. Because when we have it in our mind that it has to work one single way, then we're not really tapped into who our God is. He can do so many limitless ways of working things out and surprise us with it. That's where I'm talking about his dwelling places. How lovely are your dwelling places, O Lord. The Passion Translation of Psalm 84 says, God of heaven's armies, you find so much beauty in your people. They are like lovely sanctuaries of your presence. And when you stop to think about that, how many people that he has created. And so how many lovely sanctuaries does he have? There's so much beauty in 8 billion different ways of looking at a situation. That's who our God is. He is so vast and he has so many ways to work things out that he has given us a picture of 8 billion people on the planet. And all these different paths, all these different perspectives that we can rejoice in, that we can really be glad in. The scripture in Psalm 84 goes on to say in the Passion Translation, Deep within me are these lovesick longings and desires and daydreams of living in union with you. When I'm near you, my heart and my soul sing and worship with joyful songs of you, my true source and spring of life.
SPEAKER 01 :
Yes. Oh, praise God. That's one thing, Kimberly. that after your father died, God gave us, we still had the piano and organ store, you still had your students, and we just praised God through all that grief and loss. And we had friends who came alongside, like Roger, for instance, and Mike. And I praise God for those friends that stuck closer to us than even our relatives did. And then when Darren passed away, the only one I had was God. It really cuts into that. the things that you trust in. When he died, I thought, there's no one else. It's only you, God. You're the only one I have to lean on. And yeah, you're so right.
SPEAKER 03 :
And he became your true source, just like the scripture is saying. Your true source, your capital T, true, capital S, source, and has never let you down. No. And that's the kind of rest, the kind of stillness that we want to come to our physical bodies and to our minds that are so full of anxiety or fear or doubt or anger because it's not going the way we want it to go. The very next verse in this Psalm, Psalm 84, verse 3, starts talking about a bird. The bird also has found a house and the swallow a nest for herself where she may lay her young. Even your altars, O Lord, my rock, my king. Ah! Here's a bird that's in the house of the Lord, the smallest little creature. And this bird knows where to find rest on the altar, on the altar. Oh, my goodness. As I saw that, I realized that's how we have rest. We lay it down. We put it on the altar, so to speak. You know, we we give our idea and our plan on how to work this out. We give it over. Yes. And sometimes we're forced to, right? Like you were talking about, when there's a death, when there's an accident, when there are health issues, when there is the kind of disaster like the fires in California, we don't even have a choice. Here it comes. And then we're making the choices in our mind. Am I going to trust God or am I going to become bitter and angry? Yes.
SPEAKER 01 :
I know, Kimberly, that the altar here in the Old Testament was meant for the sacrifice. And so if we see ourselves submitting to God by laying our bodies and our souls and our spirits on the altar for him to do what he needs to do, then it's going to be much easier. But like you said, if we're angry, well, it's going to be hard.
SPEAKER 03 :
That's it, though. That's it. That's exactly it. We lay the anger down, even though we don't feel like it. You know, we lay down our idea and our anxiety and our doubts and our fears. We lay it down, even though we don't understand what might be happening and we can't even see how it's going to work out. That's what faith is. Yes. Faith. And faith, last week we started talking about building up a tolerance for... Yeah, now I don't remember the terms. And I didn't write it in my notes. I'm just pulling all of this up from my memory. But building up a tolerance for something that seems insecure, like it's not secured. We can't really understand what's coming next. But building up a tolerance for that. Yes. To... To not need the confidence of something we see and something we hear and something we touch. To not need the confidence of that, but to sit with it while it's still just kind of simmering and we don't know what's coming next.
SPEAKER 01 :
That's right. You were telling me, Kimberly, about Jonathan and how he was a groomsman for one of his friend's weddings. And he did not realize he was going to have all the duties that were required of him until he got into the ceremony. He was supposed to be the driver for the groom and the bride. and take them everywhere they needed to be and well he but he didn't you're right they didn't ever tell him that they just gave it to him at the last moment yeah that was hard for him i know and he he volunteered really he was willing he did not know the extent of the responsibility he had so he starts the wedding at you know one in the afternoon And by the time you got to the reception at night, he was exhausted. I mean, he was totally exhausted because he had willingly volunteered for a position that he did not know what it entailed. And sometimes we find ourselves in those same situations. Oh, for sure. Too much. Yeah. Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, we don't know what we're getting into, and it's uncertainty was the word I was looking for. We build up a tolerance for uncertainty. You can't be certain of the very next step that's coming. You can't be certain that you'll have enough strength for what's happening And God is our strength in the middle of it all. When we call out to him and we put our own ideas on the altar and say, Lord, this is where I'm at. This is where I find myself. And I'm exhausted. And I don't know how to go on, but you know how to give me your strength. So I'm calling out to you.
SPEAKER 01 :
Yes, right here. Yes. taking him home, taking him to his place. So we always have some. God provides. Kimberly, he's our provider in every situation we're in. He provides that wonderful rescue that we need sometimes in our lives.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, I did not feel drawn to go to that reception at all. I didn't want to go to the reception, but I knew the Holy Spirit had put it on my heart and I knew I was supposed to be there for Jonathan. And so when I showed up, I just told him, hey, I'm just here for moral support for you. And he didn't even want me to walk in to the reception. He wanted me to wait outside and wait for him. And I didn't know that they had asked him to be the chauffeur to this place. So he had no ride. He had no way to get out. He had no way out. No exit plan. He was stuck. He really was stuck. And so when I showed up, I was the wheels that could take him away from this place. Take me away, yes. But I didn't know that that's what the Lord wanted for Jonathan. Jonathan did not know. That's how God wanted to answer his desperate prayer for help. And we don't know. There are so many different ways that God can bring an answer. And we don't know. So building that tolerance for uncertainty. It happens in the middle of our anxiety, in the middle of the stress or in the middle of the anger. If we could just stop ourselves long enough to say, am I serving a God who is limited? Has he run out of ideas? Is he going to drop the ball? You know, we have to remember that he has been on the throne the whole time the world has been in existence. And he has lovingly and patiently seen us through looking at that bird, putting her nest on the altar. That's where she can raise her young. Yes. We can trust our young. We can trust our most precious and our most valuable people and things and dreams to the Lord. Um, I had a friend call me and, and just say that her husband went back into the hospital. And you might remember if you're listening of three years ago, many of you were praying for Holly, my friend and her husband, Gary, and he is now with the Lord just happened just, just in the last, well, 24 hours here. And, um, That is something that she was walking into with anger. She wanted a miracle again for him to come up and out of this. And there was a huge miracle last time, three years ago. and and so that's what she wanted again she wanted it again that's what we do we compare what we're going through to what we've seen before yes what we've experienced before what what might be happening to other people around us and when we start those comparisons we get these ideas in our head yes and we want it to go that way well as she's praying for that miracle I knew because of talking with her husband, Gary, I knew that he was not completely satisfied with his recovery from three years ago. He still felt weak, and he did not want to go through the rest of this life in a weakened state like that. And so, as I was praying, I could see how our Heavenly Father, who loves us all equally, that he was listening to two very conflicting prayers rising up to him. Gary's heart was so weak now after this heart attack this week, and Holly's prayer to revive him again, I know that Gary's prayer was, please just take me home now. That's right. Yes.
SPEAKER 01 :
I think of your father. He loved God so much that there was a point in his battle with cancer, especially after the coma, that his desire took precedence over our desires, and God took him home. And we need to recognize that, Kimberly, that the person that is going through it, what do they want? And sometimes the person who's praying for them, they don't even ask them, what do you want? And so many times they say, I want to be with God. And that's what your father so many times said. I'm going to be with God sooner in my life than I thought. So, yes. Yes, it's true.
SPEAKER 03 :
And, you know, what does our Heavenly Father want? I mean, he's working with us. We're working with him. Are we really including him? Right. In our prayers? Yeah, right, right. When we say, not my will, but thy will be done, Lord, when we say that, do we really mean it? Because often our prayers start sounding like, well, if it's your will, Lord, this is what I want. Don't they? We do that a lot. You know, if it's your will, we want you to heal this. We want you to supply that, provide this, lead us here, guide us there, if it's your will. And we didn't even stop long enough to actually find out what his will was. That's just how we started praying. This is my idea, and I want you to bless it, God.
SPEAKER 02 :
Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER 03 :
That's how we started praying. Well, the lovely dwelling place in Psalm 84 that's being talked about here, that lovely dwelling place that we're actually yearning for, that we are heartsick for, that we desire, that place is in union with him. That's where that place is. The place that we're longing for is in union with him. It's a place. Being in agreement with him and being in union with the Lord is a place. Yes. And it's beautiful. Yes. And it's better than anything we could ever imagine. So we don't have to have our own way and our own dream come true in order to experience fulfillment and deep satisfaction. In order to be blessed and to be favored and sustained, to be whole and content with And full of God's peace. For only God can bring all that to us. Yes. And there's not any amount of money. There's not any position. There's not any relationship or dwelling place on this planet that can bring us this fulfillment, this satisfaction, this assurance. It's only Him. And we find... we find this place of assurance and rest when we lay everything down on his altar. You know, I was writing out the word altar as I was just taking some notes, and I noticed if you write altar in all lowercase letters, A-L-T-A-R, T is in the middle, and that particular T in a lowercase is a cross. Yes, it's a cross. And when we choose to look to Jesus and how he did this, he was constantly laying all of his desires on the altar, so to speak. He was laying down his ideas. He was laying down his dreams and all the way to the cross. He did it so that we could learn how to do the same thing.
SPEAKER 01 :
Yeah, there's a scripture in the New Testament and reminds me probably most people, Kimberly, that I would ask, are you spiritually where God wants you to be? And they'd say, oh, yes. Oh, yes. I've gone through all kinds of stuff. I'm right where God wants me to be. When God is saying, no, I want you to come a little farther here into the deeper world. realm of my spirit. It's like the time when Jesus said, are you willing to take this cup? Are you ready to take this cup that you're saying you're going to go with me? Oh, yes, master. We're ready. We're willing to go with you wherever you go. And they all fled from him. So they weren't spiritually engaged. into the deeper parts of Holy Spirit that God wanted them to be until the baptism of Holy Spirit was upon them. So, Kimberly, a lot of people are saying, oh, yeah, I'm right where God wants me to be when they're not where God wants them to be.
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, you're bringing up something very interesting to me, because I get that, and I actually believe God really gets where we're at, and He has seasons for all of us. Oh, yes, I agree. Yes. There are some who are in just defiant, stubborn rebellion. And I've I've even been there, too, in my own life. And that's you know, that's between us and God when we get to those places. And he constantly woos us even in those stubborn, defiant, rebellious places. He is. is constantly wooing, and he has a plan for us to watch those who are stubbornly rebelling, who are angry and raging and spewing out horrible things. We watch these things and he lets us have that example in this life. It's these conflicting comparisons that we actually need so that we will keep making choices to grow closer and grow closer. Now, I personally find it, I guess it's a lot of pressure for me to be thinking, oh, I'm not where I need to be. And I'm not. where I need to be because I'm here on this planet. This is temporary. This is where I get to grow and learn.
SPEAKER 01 :
I don't think that most of us know that it's a conscious thing. It's it's an inner thing. Well, you know, I'm right where I need to be. And God is saying, I want you. I want to move you just a little bit farther here. See, God is at work in us both to will and to work for his good pleasure. And it's so important. Kimberly, we know that we deep down.
SPEAKER 03 :
We opened up. We opened up something really, really. It's going to take longer because we're out of time. I know.
SPEAKER 01 :
I wish you were here in the person, in the physical. But I think we're going to have to talk about this tomorrow because this is an area in which a lot of people think they're spiritually where they need to be when God is wanting to move them further and further. So it's been wonderful. Thank you. I'm enjoying this teaching so much and I love Psalm 83. It's just one of my favorites. So I guess I'm going to say to you, I'll see you tomorrow unless Jesus comes back in the interim. I would enjoy that. Thank you so much. We'll see you tomorrow. Okay. Well, God bless all of you that are listening today. We all need this spiritual information that Kimberly is giving to us. So I want to say goodbye for now. We're going to be back on tomorrow, the Lord willing, and take joy.
SPEAKER 1 :
877-917-7256
SPEAKER 04 :
Call to Freedom is a listener-supported radio ministry. Barbara and her power partners invite you to come on board with us and become a network of hands holding up Call to Freedom ministry. Power partners support Call to Freedom with prayer and monthly financial support. you will be blessed supernaturally. We invite you to visit Call to Freedom's website, www.freedomstreet.org, where you can hear Barbara's daily radio broadcast 24 hours a day or order materials. You may share your praise reports and heart cries by mailing them to Call to Freedom, Box 370-367, Denver, Colorado, 80237, or you may email us at barbracarmack at freedomstreet.org. Until next time, remember, Jesus loves you, Barbara loves you, and take joy.
SPEAKER 1 :
Thank you.
