Episode Details

You’re facing a situation you think is terrible, but sister, what if it’s not really what you think. You’re stepping into this assuming one thing, but what if God wants to reveal to you another. God is asking you to stop fighting this and trust him here. Trust this isn’t what you’ve built it up to be in your head. Trust it’s more than it appears on the surface. Trust that maybe this is FOR you, not against you.

What if life isn’t happening to you, but it’s happening FOR you. What if God really is in the details and the very thing you’re resisting is God’s good plans for you unfolding in mysterious and unexpected ways.

10 years ago I pulled off an epic stunt at a retreat. I still love to talk about the epicness of this hilarious switch-aroo today. In 2015, I hosted a ranch retreat in Texas with over 100 women. There, I partnered up the participants into pairs for retreat “imitations”. The moment I said initiations, each mind began painting their own picture of the challenge that was about to happen. But, what if the picture they were painting in their own mind was wrong -what if this really wasn’t hard at all. What if their negative assumptions were responsible for everything they were about to feel?

On a tray I had a clear glass fishbowl full of goldfish. Not crackers, real fish. They could see them swimming and they watched me reach my hand into the water, grab the fish one by one and put each one into a red solo cup. Exactly enough cups for each partnered pair, each with a live fish. Then I announced one person would be the feeder and the other would be the eater. Choose their positions now and blindfold each other.

As the blindfold was put on their eyes, they could still see me scooping out the fish into the cups to be distributed. As you can imagine, they are panicking. They are questioning my choices as a leader. They are wanting to escape the situation, but here they are on a stage, preparing to be the person to either feed someone a live goldfish, or worse, be on the receiving end of the transaction.

After they are securely blindfolded, I reveal a hidden can of peaches in heavy syrup. Peaches perfectly cut to the size of a goldfish, as well as perfectly slimy in their syrup, just as you would imagine a slimy fish. The cups are switched and the peaches are distributed in place of the real fish.

What follows is complete pandemonium. Grown women are squealing and squirming reaching into a cup they cannot see, to grab a live goldfish … or so they thought. All while the other blindfolded part of the duo is shivering with her mouth open, awaiting the fish. I’m screaming over a microphone, “Don’t chew, eat it whole. You’ll be fine. This is completely safe! They’re organic!!!”

There’s such chaos and panic during the exchange, no one ever stops to realize, wait … this isn’t what I think it is. The feeder is convinced the fish is squirming in their hands, and the eater is absolutely certain they are indeed swallowing a live goldfish whole. There’s gagging and crying as they hype themselves up to complete the challenge. And they did it! One person peed a little, but the challenge was completed.

As they remove their blindfolds they see me holding the cans of peaches, and then they realize they were just freaking out over absolutely nothing. Nothing. All along it was a peach.

But sis, when you think it’s a live goldfish, it feels like a live goldfish. It tastes like a live goldfish.

Maybe, just maybe, you’re THINKING about things wrong. Maybe you’ve assumed this is going to be way worse than it is. Maybe you’re stuck on what you see before and it’s warping what you’re experiencing now. Maybe things have changed since you first started and those things are no longer the same.

Perhaps there’s something in your life right now you’re stressing and fretting over that really isn’t a threat at all. You’ve just assumed it’s a threat because of what you’ve seen b