Join Barbara Carmack and Kimberly as they explore the intersection of faith and daily challenges. From ancient biblical paths to modern struggles in the workplace, the discussion underscores the importance of looking beyond immediate reactions and relying on spiritual guidance. This heartfelt dialogue inspires listeners to embrace God’s peace, encouraging a deep trust in divine guidance even when faced with adversity.
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 :
Welcome to Called Up Freedom. Oh, every moment of every day, we praise God because he gets us here. He gets us here in great time. I don’t think, wow, have I ever been late? I don’t think so. I don’t think there’s been a traffic jam or something that has kept me from getting to this studio. And that’s God. That is truly God that has done that. And I remember even when Darren and I, for 14 years, we came in, sometimes at the very last minute. And he loved the idea when he was the host of Darren’s Coffee Shop, just to come running in at the last minute, put his Bible and his yellow pad on the desk and watch Monty. Monty was the producer at that time, his son. And watch Monty just roll his eyes because his dad had just come in the last second. So we have such wonderful times here. We really do. And I praise God. I kind of got swept in by the wind. The wind is really raising all kinds. I opened the door to my car to get out and paper flew into the car. So I’ll have to just get it out the vehicle because it is just very windy today. But when we ask God for strength, he gives us strength, even though our bodies seem to be floating in the air. Praise the Lord forever. Oh, and friend, you are blessed by the Lord moment by moment. For every breath, you have an opportunity to praise him, serve him, and love him. Oh, that’s so wonderful. We have that wonderful privilege to love him for who he is and what he has done for us. Really, we don’t have to do a thing. We just sit back, relax, rest, because it is finished. The last words that Jesus said, it is finished on the cross. And that’s what he has done. He’s finished his work for us. What a wonderful, wonderful realization of that. You are blessed to dispense for in him you live and move and have your being. And today we’re going to hear a wonderful message from Kimberly. I wish this sometimes I wish this broadcast was an hour long, but I am grateful for the half hour we do have every day. and you can listen to the shows on freedomstreet.org. You can go to Radio Show and listen to shows. I usually try to put them on that afternoon. Rachel gets them on the website, and I put them on so that you can listen to them when you go to freedomstreet.org and listen to radio shows. Or you can download an app, a KLTT app, and it’s wonderful to know that you can go through all these different media things and get information. a show that you can really enjoy and grow and mature in. That’s what I love. I used to listen to so many teachers that I gained a lot of perspective and wisdom and insight about my own life from their teachings. So I hope you are gaining some insight in your own life. Well, welcome to Call to Freedom, Kimberly.
SPEAKER 03 :
Thank you. Yes, I still listen to many different teachers. You know that I have a lot of Hebrew teachers right now, too, that I listen to. And we do. We gain so much knowledge. But hopefully that knowledge is leading us to relationship, right? We want relationship with the Lord. And last week we were talking about God’s ancient paths. We were using the scripture from Jeremiah 6, 16. Thus says the Lord, stand by the crossroads and look. we do some searching and some seeking when we look. Stand by those crossroads and look and ask for the ancient paths. Ask where the good way is and walk in it and find rest for your souls. That’s what we’re going to find. We’re going to find rest for our souls. But our natural inclination, our natural instincts will say, no, that’s not the road we want. And we need to be able to pick up on that. And when we were talking about those ancient paths, it reminded me of pathways in our brain, those default ways of thinking that cause angst, they cause anxiety, they cause stress, they cause frustration. For instance, I have a piano student who just cannot be patient with herself. And what causes that? Why can she not be patient? She gives up so easily and then won’t touch the piano for a long time because she’s so frustrated with herself. Well, it’s an old pathway in her brain, and it’s telling her that she needs to do it better, that she’s not good enough, that she needs to get faster. Whatever that pathway is that caused her to think that she thinks it every time. And it’s so normal for her that she doesn’t even recognize that’s what she’s thinking. So trying to stop yourself from going down that old path. It takes some intentional, very purposeful stopping, looking, searching for the ancient paths, the other paths that the Holy Spirit would lead you on. And those are the fruits of the Spirit. The path that we’re looking for is made up of the fruits of the Spirit, like patience. This piano student needs patience and kindness and goodness and peace. That’s what she needs.
SPEAKER 02 :
Oh, she does. Yes. Yes.
SPEAKER 03 :
as what we all need. And the difficult part is catching those default thoughts. And I call those little foxes. I refer to Song of Solomon 2, 14, that asks us to catch the little foxes that are ruining the vineyard. Well, those little foxes are little thoughts and we wanna catch them. and stand still, be still, and know that He is God. Be still and know His pathway of the fruits of the Spirit. But what’s hard about that, and it takes effort on our part, is it’s just so normal that we don’t give it any thought. We start to feel the impatience or the anxiety or the frustration. And we think, well, everybody feels this way. That’s just normal. That’s what we think. Well, you know, maybe it is normal for those who are not a new creation, but those of us who proclaim that I no longer live, it is Christ that lives his life through me. You know, if we’re really proclaiming that, then we have a new normal. And we must decrease. He must increase. Our flesh nature has to keep being diminished while he increases his life and his fruits in us. We do that by standing in these crossroads. And instead of having a knee jerk reaction and a feeling that just takes us straight to impatience or straight to anxiety and stress, we stand, we take a deep breath and we look. And not only do we look, we ask for the ancient path. We ask where the good passageway is. and then he you brought up the scripture and it’s really perfect for right here he leads us in paths of righteousness for his name’s sake he leads us to those green pastures and to the still waters okay maybe some of you don’t want green pastures and don’t want still waters you just want your co-workers to be better people. Well, those are still waters that you’re looking for. The coworkers that seem to just be bent on making your life more difficult, they’re stirring up waters, aren’t they? They’re just stirring it up, stirring up the muck. And we all long for rest and still waters. Well, that’s where the Lord’s pathways are going to lead us.
SPEAKER 02 :
That’s right.
SPEAKER 03 :
Lead us to places of rest.
SPEAKER 02 :
Yes. Today I saw on the news, and it was so sad, these four servicemen, U.S. servicemen in Lithuania, they got on the wrong path. They got off the road and hit a bog. And I’m sure that they’re not used to that in the United States and in training. And all four of them died. And they had to search for them because a bog is like kind of quicksand. And they had to search for them to get down so that they could find the vehicle and the four. And Kimberly, that’s what happens when we get on the wrong pathway. And sometimes destruction and all kinds of things are waiting for us. We’ve got to stay on that path of righteousness for God’s name’s sake. Yes, we do.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yes. Well, and also he wants us to be led to that place of rest. You know, what you were just talking about reminds me of Proverbs 14, 12, that there is a path that appears to be right. They must have thought they were on the right path. Yeah. there is a path that appears to be right but in the end it leads to death yes oh so sad we do we do just pray right now for the families and the loved ones the the friends of those who have had that loss believing lord that you will bring comfort in such a way that it leads Everyone who’s involved in that situation that it leads them to better pathways You think leads all of us to better pathways in you? I just like to take moments like that to just call out to the name of the Lord because we do want to find rest for our souls in this lifetime and And when we are confronted with a great loss like that or an accident or a circumstance that is really frustrating, it’s hard to find the rest. But this is where we want to look for the fruits of the spirit. Those are the paving stones of the path that God wants us on. So above all, have fervent and unfailing love for one another because love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, these fruits of the spirit, the love covers a multitude of sins. It finds its way above that path that would lead us to frustration, that would lead us to impatience. And so we want to seek those ancient paths that the Lord put us on. That scripture that I was quoting was from 1 Peter 4, 8. I want to make sure that I give references to some of these verses that pop up in my heart. This is a thing, though, trying to find… a pathway at the crossroads, those crossroads that we talked about last week. It’s a journey and it’s a process to be able to stand, to calm yourself down long enough to just stand and look instead of having an immediate reaction to stand and look. And one encounter after another in this life will give us the practice. We really will have practice of just finding those situations where we would normally react very quickly, but just take a deep breath, look and ask for a new path, ask for a new way.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yes.
SPEAKER 03 :
I’ve heard from a number of people this week about situations at work or in their family, even someone at church. that they were telling me they’re being confronted by those who do not like them, and they’re making it very plain. And each person used that term, hate. They just hate. They feel like there’s a big club out there. And you know what? The I hate Kimberly club is real. There are people out there who really don’t like me. It does exist. And I’m aware that my natural instinct is to want to win those people over. In the natural, I would want to go to them, talk to them, try and build a bridge. I love to build bridges. And that’s the path that I would choose in the natural over and over. And the Bible admonishes us not to seek the attention of men. John 12, 42 and 43 tells us that there were many who believed in Jesus at the time, but they remained silent for fear that they would lose their positions for they loved the approval of men rather than the approval of God. And only God can help us turn from that desire to have approval of man. That’s something that we have to ask for. Lord, will you turn me away from wanting their approval and just turn me to you? And Jesus tells us that it’s impossible for us to do it. But with God, all things are possible. That’s in Mark 10, 26 and 27. And that applies to even trying to change our mind about something. Our ways and our pathways, those passageways in our brain, make it impossible to find rest. We stay impatient. We are anxious. We’re stressed out when people don’t like us.
SPEAKER 02 :
Are you there? It’s really confusing, and I’m wondering if it’s the weather, if it’s the wind at all. All right. We are experiencing maybe things that would confuse people, that would make them stall, stall in the midway in their sentences and not knowing what to do. And then she gave us this wonderful scripture. You will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand. In your presence is fullness of joy. And at your right hand, there are pleasures forevermore. When we go into the pathway of God, knowing that he’s going to take care of us, that pathway becomes light. In fact, in Job 22, verse 28, he is saying, you shall decree a thing. See, it’s up to you to speak those words of life to yourself even. And he declare a thing and it shall be established for you. And light shall shine on your pathway, on the pathway that you are going. When you speak words that are positive, that are life-giving, you are going to walk in light. Praise the Lord. That’s wonderful. Are we going to hear Kimberly anymore, Rachel? No? Okay. All right, so I don’t know what’s happening, but our paths are often confusing, leading us in circles, around and around in our wildernesses, but we need to depend on God, who is all-knowing, always there. ever present. I remember at the end, I don’t know if you watched the movie Castaway, but at the end of this movie, after he had realized that the love of his life, who he had loved even the five years that he was gone on that desert island, she had married while he was gone, thinking that he was dead. And when he realized at the very end of the movie that He had four ways, four directions in which to go, four pathways in which to go. But he felt the freedom of being able to choose where he wanted to go. And so that’s how the castaway ended, that he knew exactly where he wanted to go. And it was not back to where he had been. No, it was chasing a new rainbow, getting into a new journey. Oh, it’s good to have you back, Kimberly. Thank you. I don’t know.
SPEAKER 03 :
What kicked me off, but thank you for just taking that and going with a new pathway right there. You were just looking at the crossroads right there.
SPEAKER 02 :
That’s right. Absolutely. So I’m glad you got back. I know there was some static. And I’ll tell you, the wind is so bad today. It can maybe do things at the towers and that kind of thing. Yeah. Good to have you back.
SPEAKER 03 :
I don’t know where I cut out there, but so often we are looking for our outcome of a situation or people who don’t like us. So then we’re praying that God will change their hearts. or that he will take us out of the situation. And we don’t realize there’s another prayer we can be praying. We can be praying that he will remove our need for others to like us, change our hearts and let us find a different pathway in our brain.
SPEAKER 02 :
Change our hearts, yes.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, that can sound like an impossible request because we have a natural instinct to want peace in our workplace, peace in our families, peace at church. And that’s just a natural inclination to want that. So we don’t even think, well, change my heart so that it won’t bother me anymore.
SPEAKER 02 :
That’s right. Because we will always have people that don’t agree. And we just cannot let that direct our lives. Right. Take us in a direction that God doesn’t want us to go. Yeah. That’s so good.
SPEAKER 03 :
And it’s really paying attention to whether or not God is with us. People have this idea of saying, well, God is with us, so he’s going to make it all better. But are we with God? When you turn it like that and say, yes, God is with us, we know that. Now can we be with him in the way he thinks of this situation? I was looking at Jesus. And I’m skipping in my notes, Mom, that I gave you, but we’re coming up on this season of Good Friday and Resurrection Sunday and all the things that took place between Palm Sunday and Resurrection Sunday. what happened in the garden when one of Jesus’ disciples got real defensive because a mob came up to Jesus in the garden. And that’s where Peter drew out his sword and struck the slave of the high priest and cut off his ear. And Jesus said to him, put your sword back in its place. See that natural instinct, is to defend when when you see somebody coming at you to do harm the natural instinct is to defend and i know there’s a lot of you know defense classes out there and and different ways of putting boundaries in with people and i’m not saying that those are all bad but look at what jesus did here he told him to put his sword back And then he heals the ear. Yeah, he puts it back on the man’s head. That is so cool. And a sword is something that humans use to protect themselves and defend themselves. Jesus was basically raising a question here.
SPEAKER 02 :
Okay, we’ve got another little interruption here. And it’s okay, because we know that God is trying to teach us. And even as you listen to us on the air, you know that Holy Spirit is teaching each and every one of us to go on the right path. That’s what I love about Psalms 23. He leads me. He leads me. He leads me in the paths of righteousness. I don’t normally go there. And like Kimberly saying, my inclination is not to go into righteousness. My inclination is to get even. It’s like Darren said, do unto others and then run. Okay. If you want to do that, but you’re actually going to make more enemies by doing that, by kind of having that mindset of I’m going to get even, then to turn it around and say, okay, thank you, Father. You are the God of love and joy and peace. and patience and kindness and goodness and gentleness and faithfulness and self-control. And thank you, Lord, that you’re pouring that into me right now. So I have a feeling here that we’re going to have to ask Kimberly on for tomorrow because we haven’t heard her a couple of times this half hour. So maybe tomorrow will be calmer. Have you ever noticed in the spirit you felt kind of agitation in your own spirit? And it’s because the enemies of the enemy armies are at work trying to dissuade you, trying to confuse you, trying to leave you in the dark. And God is saying, I’ve got a light. I’m going to flash my light for you. I am going to make sure that your paths are full of my light. Like Psalm 119, 105 says, thy word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path. Isn’t that beautiful? His wonderful word is a light to where you need to go. And that’s what I tell him every morning. Lord, you’ve got to lead me today because I don’t know what’s going to happen. And that happens like that. Is Kimberly not? Oh, she’s gone. All right. So we know that even when John the Baptist announced Jesus coming, he said, prepare the way, prepare the pathway, prepare the passage for the Lord. There’s a voice of one crying in the wilderness saying, They’re crying in the wilderness, lots of thoughts going through their minds, like going through your mind right now. And it says, prepare the way of the Lord. Make straight paths for him. Make your path today for the Lord. Make sure that you’re doing things in obedience to him. I know it’s difficult. I know it’s a challenge. It’s a challenge for me every day also. But I know that once we begin to get the word of God down in our hearts, Then when a challenging situation comes along, we we ask Holy Spirit and boom, immediately, like Kimberly was saying, a couple of the scriptures that came right to her mind, to her heart were scriptures that Holy Spirit gave to her. So I just want you to know it is not an impossible thing. to not memorize scripture. And I hope that you’re saying that it is easy to memorize scripture and to learn the address of that scripture. Because once your mind opens to the realization that you can memorize and learn God’s word, ah, it’s going to be wonderful. It’s going to be like a vacation, a vacation through the Bible. It has been for me. And as I get older, I realize how wonderful it is that God is opening my mind to memorize more and more than I ever did before. It’s a wonderful thing to know that he’s doing those things and making it available for us to learn those scriptures. Praise God. It’s like the scripture that Annie gave me on Saturday. And it’s, let’s see, it’s Psalm 56, verse 3 and 4. I was afraid I will put my trust in thee, in God whose word I praise. In God I have put my trust. It’s wonderful to know that behold, God’s trust is truth in our hearts. When we trust God, that truth comes into each and everyone’s hearts. Well, God bless you. It’s been kind of different today, and I hope you’re understanding in everything that happens here. Technology sometimes doesn’t go through with us, and I know if you have any kind of phone or TV or those kind of things, you’re going to find that every once in a while there’s an interruption. So God bless you and keep you. Remember that Jesus loves you. Oh, I love you. And I hope the very best for you, not only today, tonight, but for the rest of your life here on earth. God bless you and take joy.
SPEAKER 01 :
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.org. Or you may email us at barbracarmack at freedomstreet.org. Until next time, remember, Jesus loves you, Barbara loves you, and take joy.
