The Proverbs 31 Ministries Podcast

Meredith Brock:
Hello, friends. Thanks for tuning in to The Proverbs 31 Ministries Podcast, where we share biblical Truth for any girl in any season. I'm your host, Meredith Brock, and I am here with my co-host for today's show, Ms. Kaley Olson.

Kaley Olson:
Hi, Meredith.

Meredith Brock:
Hi.

Kaley Olson:
How you doing?

Meredith Brock:
Great.

Kaley Olson:
Great. Hey, listeners, it's the new year. It's 2024! In my mind it's 2014 because I can't do math anymore, and I will forever feel like we're still in the '10s, but it's fine. But this year, we celebrate six years of hosting The Proverbs 31 Ministries Podcast.

Meredith Brock:
Wow.

Kaley Olson:
Can you believe that? Man, we have a first-grader. It's amazing. We've been through so much on the show personally. I'm thankful for our listeners who've been on this journey with us, but you know what, Mere, it's been a minute since you and I have really shared who we are, what we do for Proverbs. So I thought we could take some time for a quick get-to-know-you session for our listeners. That way they're not just listening to this random Meredith and Kaley from Proverbs [31 Ministries].

Meredith Brock:
I'm into it. Let's do this.

Kaley Olson:
Who are these gals? So let's do this, but it's with a twist, OK?

Meredith Brock:
OK.

Kaley Olson:
I know you like twists. You and I have been working together for an entire decade now. So instead of just sharing about ourselves, we're going to answer these questions about each other.

Meredith Brock:
I love it. Let's do it.

Kaley Olson:
Are you ready?

Meredith Brock:
This could get weird.

Kaley Olson:
I know, I know. OK, I'll go first.

Meredith Brock:
OK.

Kaley Olson:
I feel like I'm really setting myself ... I don't know. Are you more ready for this?

Meredith Brock:
I feel ready.

Kaley Olson:
OK. You go first.

Meredith Brock:
OK. OK. The first question is, I need to describe what Kaley does at Proverbs 31 in three words. And here's what ... I don't know that this is fair.

Kaley Olson:
OK.

Meredith Brock:
It's going to be one word.

Kaley Olson:
OK.

Meredith Brock:
Glue.

Kaley Olson:
Oh, OK.

Meredith Brock:
Kaley is our glue.

Kaley Olson:
Glue is sticky.

Meredith Brock:
And she keeps everything together. Genuinely. She keeps projects going in the right direction. She keeps systems running the way that they're supposed to, so she's our glue.

Kaley Olson:
Wow. I'm flattered.

Meredith Brock:
You should be.

Kaley Olson:
Glue smells weird.

Meredith Brock:
No, you know what? I got Harvey, my oldest, glue sticks this year that smelled like Starburst.

Kaley Olson:
Oh.

Meredith Brock:
They make it, guys. They were in hot demand though, so you really had to look for the Starburst.

Kaley Olson:
You need to get the Starburst-smelling glue.

Meredith Brock:
Yeah. Yeah. OK. So the next question that I have to answer for you is, what's your family like? And ... Kaley is married. She has a little boy named Hughes —

Kaley Olson:
He's adorable.

Meredith Brock:
Who is so cute. And she has a little weenie dog named Penny.

Kaley Olson:
Yep, yep. I do.

Meredith Brock:
That's her family. And the last thing is, if I could get her a present, what would it be? And if I had endless cash ... if I had access to endless cash, here's what I would do for Kaley. I would give her two weeks’ vacation. I would book a trip for her and Jared and Hughes to go on, but I would book a babysitter to go with her.

Kaley Olson:
Oh, that would be nice. So I could have family time but also my own time.

Meredith Brock:
Yes.

Kaley Olson:
That's nice.

Meredith Brock:
And she would go to an all-inclusive resort in a really nice, warm place that had a really cool, delicious coffee shop attached to it.

Kaley Olson:
I love that.

Meredith Brock:
That's what I would do ... if I had endless [cash], that would be your present from me to you.

Kaley Olson:
Wow. I think I thought about this question, and mine is nothing in comparison, but I think that you would like it anyways. OK, so here's what Meredith does at Proverbs in three words, and I'm going to cheat a little bit on this one too: Chief Executive Officer.

Meredith Brock:
Fair.

Kaley Olson:
She is the chief. I joked about getting her a hat that said “Chief.”

Meredith Brock:
I like it.

Kaley Olson:
I think I should still do that. But she does all the things and leads all the people at Proverbs 31 executively and officially, and she does it well.

OK. Her family ... she has an adorable family. She's married to Mack, who serenades her every night.

Meredith Brock:
Every night.

Kaley Olson:
I'm pretty sure he does.

Meredith Brock:
He's — [Crosstalk.]

Kaley Olson:
And she has three kids, and they're all very different age ranges. And then you have a little zoo of animals. You have a puppy — which we'll talk about puppies later. And you have kitties and a lot of things happening and a lot of other people living with you. It's great.

Meredith Brock:
We love it.

Kaley Olson:
And if I were to get you a present ...

Meredith Brock:
I can't wait to hear this one.

Kaley Olson:
You know you joke about wearing my flexible pants all the time?

Meredith Brock:
Yes.

Kaley Olson:
I would get you a pair of flex pants that had flexible written on the end.

Meredith Brock:
On the rear end? Oh my gosh, that's a great ... Our listeners need to understand what this means.

Kaley Olson:
What flexible pants means?

Meredith Brock:
Guys, at one time when we were going on vacation with all of my children and it was just a lot, and you're like getting kids through an airport. I just on a whim said, "OK, everybody," speaking to my children, I said, "You're all going to need to get your flexible pants on because we just don't know what this day is going to hold." And y'all, the phrase has stuck, and I say it to everyone when I need people to be flexible. "We all need to be flexible, so come on; put your flexible pants on."

Kaley Olson:
I have joked about that.

Meredith Brock:
Everybody jokes about it.

Kaley Olson:
It really is a priceless gift.

Meredith Brock:
Yes.

Kaley Olson:
Compared to the endless-money vacations that you would plan for me. It's the thought that counts.

Meredith Brock:
I love it, Kaley. Well, this was fun. And speaking of get[ting] to know you is one of the things Proverbs 31 can help you do ... to take a serious turn here is really get to know God's Word better this year. And so, one way we can do that is by helping you understand not only what it says but how to actually apply it to your life. That's why we created a free resource called “How Do I Know Which of God's Promises Are for Me?” Because you need to know it, guys, and you need to know which ones are for you in the season that you're in right now and how to apply it. So this free resource is available using the link in our show notes, and we'll help you open God's Word with confidence this year, especially when you're confused about what you're reading and how to apply it.

Kaley Olson:
Yeah. Well, that ties very well into our show today. So we're going to have our friend, Alexandra Hoover, on the show today, and she's going to talk about growing our faith in God. And really, she talks a lot about God's promises and what they mean for us and how we can rely on them no matter what comes our way this year. It's a great teaching. You also might hear Meredith talk about her puppy at the very end. So stay tuned all the whole way through.

Meredith Brock:
Maybe the whole episode could be worth just that puppy story.

Kaley Olson:
Yes, absolutely. That's the value we bring to Proverbs. Anyways, friends, let's go hear from Alexandra.

Meredith Brock:
Well, we are so excited to welcome our friend to the show,
Alexandra Hoover.

Kaley Olson:
Hey, Alex.

Alexandra Hoover:
Hey, friends. It's so good to be with you guys today. How exciting. Ah!

Kaley Olson:
We're so excited. Well, I've known you for a few years now, and if there's one way that I could describe you, it would be this. You're a passionate person who's passionate about people. I don't know. Do you agree? I hope you agree because that's what I wrote in my notes, but here's how I know that. It all started —

Alexandra Hoover:
I love that. Please tell the story. Tell them.

Kaley Olson:
OK. It started with a sandwich at She Speaks in 2019. And Alex is so passionately passionate about people because she's an Enneagram 8. Meredith, I feel like you would know about this as well.

Meredith Brock:
Oh, I know.

Kaley Olson:
But when you care for your people, you care deeply. And Alex saw me running around She Speaks, which is our conference for writers, speakers and leaders where we have a thousand people in attendance, running like a chicken with my head cut off. Hadn't eaten in probably, I don't know, 48 hours. And she was like, "Can I bring you a sandwich?" And I said, "Yes." And I didn't really know her, but from that moment I was like, this girl really cares. And so thank you for that sandwich all those years ago. I'm excited that you're on the show today.

Alexandra Hoover:
Oh my gosh.

Kaley Olson:
But just a little bit more about you: Your passion comes out most in your love for God's Word and your heart to encourage women to keep their eyes focused on God so they can fulfill their unique purpose. And you do this on staff at Bright City Church in Charleston, South Carolina, but also through the words in your books and Bible studies. Guys, she's written her most recent study, titled Without Wavering, and it's about resilient faith built on the promises of God. And man, there are a lot of days I sure feel like I could use some reinforcements in my faith. And so today Alex is here to talk with us about how God's promises can impact our faith and should change the way we live and love. I can't wait to hear your message, so go ahead and take it away.

Alexandra Hoover:
Oh my gosh, thank you so much. And I'm so blessed that I was able to bring you that sandwich, which is a love offering. It's a love offering. Listen, guys, I love talking about faith, and it's not because I've always been a faith girl. So let me tell you that first. I didn't grow up really knowing God or having an experience of who God was. Most of my life was made up of knowing just enough about God where I came away with my own understanding and even honestly some really false beliefs about His character and who He was. I'd made some really ugly assumptions about God, but let's be real. They were based off of my life experiences; they were based off of the things that I'd seen happen to me and around me. And so of course, I would say to myself, "Listen, if God is real, then He's not good. And if He's good to others, He's not good to me, and He just can't be kind."

And so I always had sort of this posture of fussiness and really almost fearful posture toward God because I just didn't trust Him. I didn't trust God with my life or with my people. And so as I began my journey with Jesus ... like we all do, we sort of come to this point in our faith where we have to ask ourselves these questions: What do we believe about our faith? What do we believe about God? And what do we actually perceive about His character? And how does that inform the way that we live and the way that we love?

And so growing up, I met Jesus when I was 18 years old and really threw my life into the faith. I had a lot of undoing though that I had to walk through. I'll be honest, growing with God and spiritual disciplines was actually easiest for me. “Why?” you ask. Well, I'd love to tell you, friend, because I was able to control the way that I grew with God. I was able to control the way that I learned the Scriptures and the way that I attended church and my commitment to my growth. But I was in control of those things. I was in control of what I was putting in place to grow in my faith, to grow with God. And I left this sort of open ... I would even call it a wound in my heart, where I wouldn't allow God to get close enough in intimacy with me. I really just allowed Him to get close enough in pragmatic rhythms in my life. So if I read, if I attend church, if I am praying, then God will be good to me.

So really performative faith, right? Very performative. And if you're listening to this today and you're like, Listen, I get it; I've been there. Or maybe you're on the other end, you're like, "I actually don't really do performative faith. I've always been a faith girl." Bless you. We're so thankful for your life. But on both ends, there is the tendency to think that we have control of how much faith we have in God and what it is that we actually are growing in. And let me tell you, y'all, the Lord has in the last five years of my life really brought me in to learn what it means to have a faith that's without wavering in Him and not based off of our performance, not based off of what we're doing, and not based off of how we think we can get from point A to point B.

Now, you might be listening and you're like, Thank you so much for that. How does that help my faith today? Here's the thing about faith. Faith sometimes can feel so hard to understand because it feels ethereal. What is faith? What are the promises of God, and how do they help us live out what God's called us to? Faith is believing in the uncreated Creator and who He is. That's who our hope is in. And when we have that to stand on, we're reminded that our faith in God isn't based on human capacity but on God's limitless love and His faithfulness. I've experienced endless moments in my life, and I'm going to share two of them with you, where I've been left really brokenhearted and sort of empty, just looking for hope and looking for a way out of my misery and my sadness and my real hopelessness, honestly.

Unmet expectations, you guys, are a gift if we let them be. Unmet expectations can be a gift. And for me, I first experienced this wounding and this level of hurt through unmet expectations in my parents, in my mom and my dad. And this is going to be a little sensitive to talk through, and I'm always careful how I approach my relationship with my parents, but it's a real story in my life. And if I'm being honest about my journey with God, then I really have to dive in and look at, well, where did my belief and framework for who God is come from? And it really came from my parents. They were my first experience or really my first framework that I had of what love was supposed to be. And my mom and my dad ... they did the best that they could. And yet, y'all, there were times in my childhood where there were so many times that not only were promises broken but my trust was betrayed. The place that is supposed to be my home, my haven, my safety net, wasn't.

And that created for me a filter from which I began to see life. And I know this is resonating with at least one or two of you who are listening today. Our experiences really do frame the way that we see God, and they really do frame the way that we actually believe in His Word, which is why we have to take a moment and really take the time to ask ourselves, What are we believing about the character of God, and what are we believing about His promises?

A few years back, I was in a work environment that was pretty unhealthy, and there was this consistent undercurrent where the possibility of climbing the ladder would sort of be baited over you. It would be like bait. "If you X, Y and Z, then you'll have more opportunity and more growth." And I remember ... so you've got the context of my mom and my dad and some of my life where they weren't there for me the way that I know a mom and a dad are given to us. And so it created wounding, and it created a lot of distrust. And so going into the space that I was in a few years ago, I was looking for a way to not only earn love but really prove myself.

And so this was prime real estate for the enemy to come in and say, Listen, Alexandra. If you work hard enough, then you're going to see these promises in your life, the vision you feel like God has for you, come to fruition. You'll find comfort; you'll find healing. You'll find a life full of abundance if you just ... It sounds a lot like performative faith, doesn't it? There's not a lot of Jesus in that. There's not a lot of surrender or obedience. There's not a lot of looking to God and asking Him, Lord, what do You have for me in my life?

And so as I began to come out of these false beliefs — so there's always a false belief we're believing, and in that false belief, there's always an invitation to get to know God better, friends, always. And mine, in the season of my life where I was wrestling through, What does God actually say about me and about Him? I was tired of working for my faith to grow. I was tired of working to see the promises of God. [As a] matter of fact, I didn't really even understand what the promises of God were. We live in a culture where we dangle this language around the promises of God and the invitation for more and for success and what's attractive and possessions, and yet the upside-down Kingdom, the Kingdom of God, invites you and me in to a life of surrender, a life of delight and obedience and of joy and goodness. And His promises for us look a lot different than what you and I would expect, but we have to trust Him. And that's where having a faith that's without wavering comes into play.

See, when we build our lives on these sand castles, we're building our lives on hopes and unmet expectations from people; we're left empty and brokenhearted with unmet expectations every time. But what if I told you ... what if told you that the promises of God were actually true? What if I told you that what Hebrews 10:23 says — that He who promised is faithful — is our foundation and our anchor? What if we lived like we actually did have a God who is full of promises that our anchored in Christ Jesus? Friends, that's our reality today. That's our truth: that we get to live life full of hope in the midst of our chaos, in the midst of our pain, because of the work of Jesus on the cross.

See, we've got to understand that we must consider God's promise-keeping nature, and we cannot allow our pain to be the measure of God's faithfulness in His promises. I'm going to say that again because it's so important, friends. We cannot allow our pain to be the measure of God's faithfulness in His promises. We can't allow our unmet expectations and we can't allow our past, or even our present or future circumstances, to ever dictate God's faithfulness or to be the measure of God's goodness in who He is.

See, trusting in God's promises is what sustains you and me. They're our steadiness. They're the concrete we can anchor ourselves to. And I want you to picture that. Have y'all ever seen a construction crew pouring concrete? It's incredibly satisfying. It's very interesting how it all works, but I'm always reminded as they're pouring the concrete that if anything were to get in that concrete as it's coming out and it's being laid — a handprint, a bug, a shoelace, whatever it is — it's there forever, and there's a mark that's left.

Because the concrete of God's faithfulness in our lives and the concrete we're picturing right now is so, so steady, it's immovable. There's nothing that can change it once it's there ... that when we anchor ourselves to it, we're there for good. We're secure in it; we're safe in it, friends ... we're safe in it. He's the concrete that we anchor ourselves to. His promises actually never fail. They never fail. Even when we do, oh my gosh, even when we do.

A few years back, I began to say, I began to really tell myself, that people will let you down but Jesus won't. And it was this really easy thought that I began to journal, and then I shared it with some friends. It really took off because it was such a simple reminder that we do live in a fallen and broken world, and we will have promises that are broken, and yet, but God, and therefore there is a hope and a promise that is actually greater.

Hebrews 10:21-23 is really what my whole new study is anchored in, and it's beautiful. It says this, "And since we have a great High Priest who rules over God's house, let us go right into the presence of God with sincere hearts fully trusting him" (Hebrews 10:21-22a, NLT). There's nothing that we're holding back, fully trusting Him, for our guilty consciousness have been sprinkled with Christ's blood to make us clean. Oh, what good news! And our bodies have been washed with pure water, that living water that washes away all of our sin, all of our wounds, all of the blemishes that we've ever carried ... the fear and the shame, He washes it away. And then, oh my gosh, verse 23, you guys: "Let us hold tightly without wavering to the hope we affirm, for God can be trusted to keep his promise" (Hebrews 10:23, NLT). God can be trusted to keep His promises.

I want to walk us through three points here, or two points that I think are incredibly helpful and really hopeful for our faith as we grow in it. The first one is God's promises aren't circumstantial; they're providential. I love that. In Genesis 12:2-3, we see this invitation from God to see the very first promise He makes to His people. He blesses Abraham that through his descendants, the whole world would come through him. That's called the Abrahamic Covenant, and it pointed to the coming Messiah. And listen, if that doesn't say anything about our God, it says this: God's promises reach further than we'll ever understand. They're building something bigger than we'll ever even know. Our “yes” to God as we follow Him is building His church. It's building His family.

I also love that God's promises give us eternal perspective in a temporal world. God's promises give us eternal perspective in a temporal world. There's this long runway of hope in the faith with God. And when we're able to look upward and outward to God's landscape of our lives, there's so much hope there, you guys. When we're able to take our eyes off of our present circumstances, begin to remember like Roman 8:28 says that God is actually working out for our good and His glory a greater plan to redeem us, to reconcile, to restore us. There are many of you today who are listening who are maybe walking through just some of the greatest hurt of your life and maybe you need to be reminded that God is actually the God that restores, that His promises do all for you, a comfort in your present circumstance.

The beautiful thing about God is that He doesn't promise that we won't have trouble with anything. He says, "Listen, you will have trouble." But then He says this, you guys, "Take heart for I have overcome the world" (John 16:33). And you and I, friend, we are God's dwelling place, which means we also in Him overcome the world. And it may not feel like it. It may not feel like we are more than conquerors. It may not feel like we're victorious. It may not feel like we're actually even healing or restoring, but our feelings don't ever, ever dictate the truth and the character of God's faithfulness. He is working things out. He is restoring your heart and your mind. He is doing a new thing. When we truly believe that He who promised is faithful and that He is Jesus, then we can respond with a faith that is built up with resilience and perseverance, a faith that's without wavering because we know that God is going to finish His good work. It's Philippians 1:6.

Friend, my hope and prayer for you as you listen to this podcast episode or if you walk through my new study is that you walk away with key principles and truths and promises to help you form your faith. Form your faith bound in the promises of God to strengthen your relationship with Jesus so that when the storms do come, when you are tossed to and fro, when there's chaos and heartbreak, you're able to remember that God promises comfort (2 Corinthians 1:3-4), that God promises new life in Christ (2 Corinthians 5:17), that our salvation is the beginning of a brand-new existence with Jesus, that for those who seek peace in the midst of storms, God has promised us exactly that (Philippians 4:6-7).

Guys, there isn't anything empty here. It's full, and it's full of promises. Our faith might be failing us, but God's faithfulness never does. Our faith, what we try to do, will fail us, but our faith in Christ Jesus never will. God's faithfulness will never fail us. But we have to remember that it's not in our capacity. It's not in our ability but in who God is.

For my friends who are seeking rest today, and I think that's all of us one way or another, I think there's this beautiful correlation between our faith that's anchored in the promises of God and the way that we experience rest. And I wish we had more time to unpack this, but I love to always invite women in to see faith as an invitation to rest. And it really is an invitation to soul rest, to sit with God because rest is really trust. Trusting that He who promised is actually faithful.

So if your soul is looking for rest in the promises of God, if your soul is looking around wondering, Gosh, how am I going to get out of this, Lord? How am I going to ever trust again, or how will I ever love again? Or how will I walk alongside my kids in this season? Or how will I lead? All the hows in the world and all the whys in the world ... when we remember that we are found and safe in Christ Jesus, there's rest. There's abundance that overflows from that. And that's Matthew 6:33. He will give us rest. He supplies our needs. He is a father who meets them.

And before we end our time together, I want to say this to you: God's promises have never been about what we're getting but who we're becoming. His promises are our hope for an eternal home that brings us hope today. I want to say it again because that's so good, you guys. His promises are our hope for our eternal home that brings us hope today, like this very second. As you listen to this episode, you have hope today. You're not hopeless; you're not defeated. It's not too late. There's so much more hope with God and in His presence.

So as you wrap up this episode and as you're probably processing and maybe you're crying, I'm surprised I didn't cry. I'm usually a crier, but I held it together for really our sake here because this content was just so good and I wanted to walk through it, but I want to give you three practical takeaways. So how do we walk away, and how do we live life with a faith that's without wavering?

First one is we remain steadfast in discipline. Steadfast in discipline. Our spiritual rhythms are an invitation to be with God. And now when they become performative — we talked about that a little bit earlier for my girlies who love to do the things — this is not about doing the things; it's about cultivating our faith with God and disciplines. That word I think often carries a little bit of a negative connotation, but it's actually beautiful. It's rhythms. We are steadfast in the disciplines of rhythms with God to hear from Him, to be with Him.

Secondly, there's an invitation to be sensitive to the Spirit. As we remain women who are steadfast in our faith, remaining sensitive to the Spirit, [it] looks like walking with Him in His Word and paying attention to His voice in our lives, paying attention to the direction He's guiding us in and reminding ourselves with God that there is so much more hope. When our minds begin to lie to us, when the lies become so loud in the world, when we begin to live from a place of hopelessness, be sensitive to the Spirit and remember God's Word, that there is hope in God's faithfulness.

And lastly, we are secure in Christ. To remain without wavering, we must remember that we're secure in Christ. When we remember Hebrews 10:23, that He who promised is faithful to keep His promises, we are reminded that we are safe in that concrete, y'all. We're steady, we're anchored, [and] we're secure. God has us today. God has you because of Jesus. You can hold on to that hope. You can hold on to Jesus because He has always been holding on to you.

Meredith Brock:
Thank you so much for that message, Alex. I'm just sitting here ruminating on this thought about performative faith. And as you kind of unpacked it early in your teaching, you said it's this idea that if I do this, I'm going to get this. And that it is really like a way to control your faith.

But the line that really grabbed me as you were teaching was performative, or I'll call it formulaic faith, which is like A + B = C. I did A and B, and so God, You have to give me C is without surrender. And I loved that you said that. I've never thought about it that way, that performative or formulaic faith is without surrender. The reason that caught me so significantly is that truly faith or experiencing healing in our lives where we really need it, where we really, really need it ... There's these areas that we can control. I'm going to get better in my prayer life because if I get better in my prayer life, then God's going to give me these things that I've been struggling with, or whatever. That allows us to control it just like you were saying.

But the places where we really need healing and really need faith are usually blind spots. We don't even know that we need it, but our God is so gracious that He allows for circumstances, usually unwanted circumstances, and He allows, like you said, Alex, unmet expectations, which are unwanted circumstances or even outside pressure, whether that's a job situation or a child situation or a relationship situation. He allows these hard things in our lives to surface the places where we really need healing, not the places that maybe we would choose: I would really like to feel better about this in my life, so God help me feel better about that. He probably ... when He looks at His child, He says, I know you think you want this, but what you really need is to learn how to ... (fill-in-the-blank).

For me, it usually has something to do with control. I want to control my environment. I want to ensure that I always get the outcomes that I've worked really hard for. And so it's really by His grace, like you said, that unmet expectations can be a gift to us. And that God uses, whether it's unmet expectations or difficult circumstances or pressure being placed on you, God uses those to form us and to heal us and to establish our faith and trust in Him. And as I thought about that, Alex, I was like, faith is actually, yes, it's the belief in uncreated God, the ultimate being, I am who I am. But really, that it's faith in Him. But faith is equivalent to trust, y'all. It is trust in Him.
And so now I have a silly story. OK? This is silly.

Kaley Olson:
I'm here for it.

Alexandra Hoover:
I can't wait.

Meredith Brock:
So I don't know if you knew this ... I know Kaley knew this, but last Christmas, my husband surprised me with a puppy, and it blessed my soul.

Kaley Olson:
Gertie.

Meredith Brock:
It's a pug. It's a little pug. Her name is Gertie. And I'm a big lover of the pug breed. I had a pug before Gertie. Her name was Maybe, because maybe we were going to keep her ... maybe we weren't. I wasn't sure at the time.

Alexandra Hoover:
Oh my gosh. Stop.

Meredith Brock:
So this time I had high expectations because Maybe was my first —

Kaley Olson:
She was the best.

Meredith Brock:
She was my first child.

Kaley Olson:
She's got angel wings right now.

Meredith Brock:
I loved her so much.

Kaley Olson:
She does.

Alexandra Hoover:
That's hilarious.

Meredith Brock:
We had her for 13 years. I adored her. So I had high expectations. When Gertie rolled up, surprised, I was so happy I cried, which doesn't happen very often, y'all. I just was so happy. And so I was so excited to get this puppy, and I am not kidding you ... this puppy was so afraid of me, and it bummed me out so bad. I was like, "Man ..." Because Maybe was like my little buddy, and she never wanted to leave my side. And she was with me all the time.

And so over this last year, I told Mack, I was like, "I am going" ... Gertie was very just skittish. That's the right word. You'd lean down to pet her, and she would go backward and try to run away from you. You'd try to pick her up, and she would squirm and run away. And it was very annoying to me because that was not what I wanted my puppy to be. And so I told Mack, "I was like, OK, this dog doesn't trust me. For some reason, this dog does not trust me, and I've got to build trust with this dog."

And so over time, y'all, over this last year, I've slowly done all the cheesy things that you do. I even watched The Dog Whisperer ... Cesar Millan, I'm into it.

Alexandra Hoover:
Stop it.

Meredith Brock:
But I did ... I actually did.

Alexandra Hoover:
[Crosstalk.] My gosh.

Meredith Brock:
Because I was like, I want this dog to trust me, and she obviously doesn't. And so there was all these things that I did, giving her treats and letting her come to me and all this different stuff. And, y'all, wouldn't you believe in the last month, this little dog, when I walk in the house, runs straight to me. I sit on the couch; she jumps up into my lap.

Kaley Olson:
So cute.

Meredith Brock:
She's the sweetest little thing. But I had to, and like I said, this is cheesy, but as you were telling this story, Alex, it was real time for me because it locked into my —

Alexandra Hoover:
You're like, "Yes."

Meredith Brock:
I was like, aren't we like a puppy with God?

Alexandra Hoover:
We are.

Meredith Brock:
Aren't we? That skittish little puppy that's like, Ah, why should I trust you? Why should I trust you? I don't know you. And we run away from Him, and all He's doing is saying, No, no, no, no, no. Hey, I want to love you. I want you to sit in my lap, and I want to pet you, and I want to share life with you. And it's taken me a whole year for that little puppy to now be my little buddy. And she's still — and I just think it's somewhere in her DNA; everybody has different personalities including little dogs — but she's just a little bit more worried of an animal. And so there are still times when if I'm —

Alexandra Hoover:
I get it, girl.

Meredith Brock:
— in the kitchen cooking and I turn around, she'll jump backward, literally. And I didn't do anything. But isn't that like us?

Kaley Olson:
Yeah.

Alexandra Hoover:
Yes.

Meredith Brock:
Where it's like, a circumstance rolls into our life that we weren't expecting and we jump back from God because we're like, You did this to me. When it was like, "No, I didn't. I was just turning around to fill this pan up with water so that I could boil my macaroni."

And so as you were talking, Alex, I couldn't help but think: Our faith is so tightly tied up in our ability to trust God. And we have to put those three points that you put at the end, foster an environment to build trust with your Creator. And that takes time, you guys. And it takes weathering some hard roads —

Alexandra Hoover:
It does.

Meredith Brock:
— with your God in order to see He's trustworthy. He's not going to lean down and hit me. He's actually leaning down to pick me up and cradle me. Even though that scared me, I can trust His hand. So I just had that thought as you were teaching, Alex, and wanted to share it.

Alexandra Hoover:
I love that.

Kaley Olson:
Yeah, that's good. Well, Meredith, I think especially as we're turning the page into a new year, I mean you talked about ... I mean starting a new year is full of promise.

Meredith Brock:
Oh, yeah.

Kaley Olson:
It's full of a lot of hope. And what you and Alex just talked about with that situation of performative faith, there's all the things that we're hoping God will bring in the new year, or maybe there's this scarcity mindset of like, Oh no, what shoe is going to drop this year? How is God going to refine me this year? But I, as an Enneagram 1, come at this very differently than other people do because in the new year, it's kind of an opportunity for me to say, “OK, I want to do this, this or this.” And it's like a clean slate. It's almost mentally you turn the page and it's blank. And then I get to control what I put on the page. And I want everything to be good. I want everything to be up and to the right in my life with the things that I'm working on on myself.

And so it really has less to do with my expectations of others and the things that I say, "I don't want to do this this year. I want to be better at that. I don't want to get into a bad mood whenever this or this or this happens," but I do. And so I think also trusting God and His promises for us has to apply not only to A plus B doesn't always equal C in performative faith.

Meredith Brock:
It doesn't.

Kaley Olson:
But A minus B doesn't mean that you don't get C either. What I mean is, my sin has to still be brought to the feet of Jesus, but it doesn't disqualify the promise that God loves me as I am and will never leave and will never forsake me. My sin doesn't mean that God is going to punish me or not fulfill His promise to me because of what I did.

And I think as we're heading into this new year, I'm having to do so with a mindset of bringing all of myself to God and truly believing that if He is the God who can redeem, and He has in the Bible, then maybe the things and the sin that I fall into, am I really believing that He is that God? Do I really believe He is the God who says, "I AM"? And if He's the God of I AM, then He's greater than anything that I've fallen repeatedly into that I'm tired of. But He still promises that He will be with me. Even when I mess up, He still promises that He'll be with me. And I think that that's a truth our listeners need to hear today, especially as we march forward out of January and into February: When you mess up, God is still going to be with you, and He will never leave you.

And if you are struggling and into a repeated sin, let the promise that God won't ever leave you sink in, and then live out of that, and get better in who you are. Lean into the discipline in a healthy, whole way by trusting that the Holy Spirit is in you, and let Him have control over your life rather than always thinking that you have to be better, and don't let your sin keep you from coming to God.

Because like Gertie ... Gertie doesn't know when she's done bad. Maybe she does. Penny knows ... my dog knows when she's done something wrong and has chewed my socks, and she'll run and hide from me, but it doesn't mean I love her any less. It's a silly dog analogy, but just because you've done something wrong doesn't mean that you have to run and hide from God. He's still there.

Meredith Brock:
Or that He's going to reach down and hit you. No, He's not.

Alexandra Hoover:
No, He’s not!

Meredith Brock:
My little puppy has little accidents I’ my house, and, y'all, I'm not going to reach down and smack her. I pick her up; I put her outside. I show her where she's supposed to go, and then I bring her back inside. But I think that we as humans expect the OK, here comes the hand. It's coming down to hit me. And we run and hide.

Alexandra Hoover:
The thing about God's love that is so beautiful ... and that I love that we're talking about it from this angle too because it's so necessary. I just said this to a group of young women at Charleston College last night. God's grace is God's grace because we can't earn it, and we can't actually get less of it either. It just is. And the grace of God is an invitation to freedom from having to work for His love and promises. And when I talk about freedom in life, and I love this idea of walking in freedom with Christ, it does two things. It invites us into surrender, and it frees us up from having to work for anything ever again in God and with God.

And there's this holy exchange, like you were saying, Kaley, there is an expectation that I think we hold on to of, God, if I do this particular thing, if I sin, You might not come through. And yeah, God's like, No. That's when I will show you my abundance and grace. That's where you get to see that it's actually not up to you, that I still bring comfort and I still bring my faithfulness fully to you because of grace. That's it, y'all. That's the unlocking of finding ourselves so secure and trusting God that just like when there's a mom and a dad and they're looking at their baby or their child and they're saying, "Listen, it doesn't matter what you do; I'll be here forever." That's God for us. That's God's picture and how He sees us in His mind and what we get to see Him as too.

Kaley Olson:
Yeah. So good. Well, Alex, thank you so much for coming on the show today. I mean, this was such a great episode to start off our new year with. And I know for our listeners right now, you're listening to this conversation, you're like, OK, I know I'm going to start this year, and I'm going to believe God's promises for me, and I'm going to trust them. But you might be asking, "What exactly are those? Someone please tell me."

And so I want to let you know that Proverbs 31 Ministries has an exclusive resource that's absolutely free. It's called “How Do I Know Which of God's Promises Are for Me?” And you can download it in the link in the show notes. That, I feel like with this episode, will help you understand more of what Alex taught, and it's free from Proverbs 31 Ministries. You can download it in the show notes.

Meredith Brock:
Absolutely. And if this message is resonating with you today, don't let it stop here. We want to really encourage you to go grab Alex's Bible study Without Wavering. You can use the link in our show notes to grab a copy of that. And I'd also encourage you go connect with Alexandra on Instagram. Her Instagram handle is @AlexandraHoover ... super simple, just like it sounds. Go connect with her on Instagram because she has tons and tons of encouraging stuff over there.

Kaley Olson:
Yep. Well, friends, that's all for today at Proverbs 31 Ministries. We believe when you know the Truth and live the Truth, it changes everything.