At Thrive Ent, planning your finances is bigger than money. It's a way to support the people, causes, and community you love. Because helping you put your faith into action is at the heart of what we do. ThriveEnt, where money means more. Connect with us at ThriveEnt.com.
Life audio. Hi from the Salvation Army, and you're listening to Words of Life. These are the words, these are the words, these are the words of life. These are the words, these are the words, these are the words of life. Welcome back to Words of Life.
This is sadly our final episode with our guest, author and podcaster, Rachel Wojo. This has been a four-week series, so if you missed any episodes, scroll back to catch the one you missed. Rachel, it's been such an honor to have you on the show. Thank you for your time and your wisdom. Be sure to check out the show notes for links to Rachel's website and her resources.
At ThriveEnt, planning your finances is bigger than money. It's a way to support the people, causes, and community you love. Because helping you put your faith into action is at the heart of what we do. Thriveent, where money means more. Connect with us at ThriveEnt.com.
Trying to find a picture. Chris Benjamin, you were kind of alluding to this, but Willis Howell, our previous CEO or commissioner, he had a shirt that said, Everyone you meet is fighting a battle you know nothing about. True. Which is, you know, you just, we don't know. You know who does?
Gone through. He's not afraid of it. I heard a quote from a pastor where he said, you never know what hangs in the balance of your obedience. If we do feel the prompting of God's Spirit, You never know how that might impact somebody around you. What could potentially hang in the balance of me following God's prompting through those moments, you know?
We often wonder, though, When we first start to hear the Holy Spirit speaking to us, We wonder, is that me? Is that me? Am I just thinking of that on my own, or is God actually ministering to me? Is His Spirit speaking to my spirit? And so.
My my answer to that is So Maybe it is an idea that God gave you, and you're not necessarily really hearing His Spirit speak, but. What if you act on that idea? And then that develops your relationship to hear God more and to hear God more and to hear God more, and pretty soon. You have this clarity of knowing exactly when God is speaking to your heart.
So that's what I found to be true in my own life. I mean, the more we learn who he is, I want to be a man after God's own heart. And so, if I am just responding the way he would, just because I'm now. Tuned that way. Yes.
Did I necessarily hear an audible voice from God tell me to. do something for this other person? No. Right. That empathy is now with me because he put it in It's good.
You want to talk about empathy? Has anybody ever dropped an envelope with $5,000 into your backyard? Oh man, Rachel, tell our listeners story. My husband. Lived through the pandemic as many of us did with wondering.
Will we have a job? Will we continue to be able to provide for our family? And you know, we have five kids at home. I shared that with you earlier. They don't stop growing.
You can't just start watering them for a couple of days. It doesn't happen that way. And so, after the pandemic was over, my husband came home from work one day and said, I have to tell you something. I lost my job today. The weird thing is, I had a piece because I had been praying That there would be a change in Matt's work.
And so even though this wasn't the way that I would have preferred for it to change. I really knew that God was going to take care of us.
Now, it was a very long eight months. And there was a lot of up and down in my prayers with the Lord. But after eight months, finally, my husband landed a contract work job, and we were so grateful. And on the second day that he worked that job, I was standing in the kitchen. Washing dishes, and I received this text.
And I was just standing there literally when the text came across. And I was thinking, Lord, you know, we still have needs. Just because my husband has a job doesn't mean the last eight months have been erased away. I was standing at the kitchen sink, and this text comes across that says, Rachel, you don't know me. But a friend has left a gift for you.
Go outside and look at your back yard underneath. The green balance beam you'll find a yellow envelope. And to be honest, my first thought was maybe I should go get the pepper spray. Because, you know, I mean, the world we're living in, you're just like, what in the world? Why does somebody?
But. I thought, okay. This person has my phone number. I looked up their phone number and it was like, okay, this is not a spam number, this is legit. And so I thought, what could I hurt?
I slip on my shoes and I go out and sure enough, there is yellow envelope underneath the green balance beam. Inside were two envelopes. The first one had a letter. It was typed, so clearly, this person did not want to be known. It said Matt, Rachel, and family, Our Lord sees you.
Nothing escapes his notice. This is a reward for your faithfulness, an example of his faithfulness. And Specifically were the words, Our Lord sees you. Those words then were followed by a verse in Genesis 16:7. The angel of the Lord found you in the wilderness.
It was just such a personal. letter so poignant to our need, Unsigned. And I was just like, wow, God, you're amazing. I opened up the second envelope. And I had no idea what to expect.
But I pulled out it was a bank envelope. And I pulled out the stack of cash, and I'm sure I looked absolutely crazy with wide eyes and. My hands shaking. and I started to fan out the bills. The first five bills were $20 bills, and then every bill after that was a $100 bill.
Someone had left five thousand dollars in our backyard and I knew that that someone was God. Um I have to look back on that $5,000 in 2021 and remind myself, even today. Those who seek the Lord lack no good thing. Hudson Taylor said, God's work done in God's way will never lack God's supply. Rachel.
What are some moments for you that you felt God instructing you to reach out? to someone or pray for someone or help someone in need like Maybe leave an envelope full of cash in their backyard. Yeah. I would love to be that person who could do that, right? Isn't that just the coolest?
Wouldn't that be so fun? Sure. I remember. one day um not too long ago I was driving out of our neighborhood and I passed this house. And this house had all of these cars and all of these people.
It was very early in the morning, like 7:30. And I thought, what is happening at that house today? And I felt the Lord speaking to my heart, saying, they need you. And I was just, yeah.
Well, what does that mean? And so I drove on out of the neighborhood and I came back in. And again, past that house with all these cars. have felt the Holy Spirit saying, they need you. And so, literally, I'm such a hardhead, right?
It took like four trips past that house that day before. The end of the day came, and I said to my husband, Okay, you're going to think I'm crazy, but there's something happening at that house today, and I feel like I'm supposed to do something for them.
So Before we leave to go do XYZ, I need to stop at the store and get a card and a gift card. and take it. to them. And he was like, whatever. You know, by now he's learned to go along with me when I had these inklings, so to speak.
I stopped at that house. I took the card and I said, do you want to go with me to the door? He says, no. And so I knock on the door. Blank envelope because I have no idea who lives there.
And I said I'm not really sure what's happening, but I feel like I was supposed to leave this for someone here today.
So the person opened the door said, I'm not the person who lives here just one minute.
So she goes and gets the homeowner. The homeowner comes to the door. And I repeated my story. I'm not sure what's happening here today, but I felt like I was supposed to give you this. she immediately starts bawling.
And she says, You have no way to know. But I'm a teacher. And My friends, two friends who are teachers. lost their daughter to suicide last night. And we've sort of made it our home.
as a safe haven for everyone mourning this loss. And I was just thinking to myself, how am I going to feed everybody who's here? And so with this gift card, I'm going to be able to go get some trays of food. and just come back and feed everyone. Isn't God amazing?
When we surrender our little small to him, that was not $5,000, by the way, on that gift card. But just when we obey and surrender ourselves to him, we never know. how he wants to bless and use others. And you know, we were talking just before. this episode about how it can be just buying groceries.
for someone else in the store paying for them, paying it forward. It's such a cool way that we get to be hands and feet of Jesus. As we were kind of prepping for this episode, our engineer recalled a statement that he heard someone say that you just never know what lies in the balance of your OP. Mm. I'm sure that those people, we know that your neighbor was grateful for you just being obedient to the Lord's voice.
Doing something nice, and maybe that opens a door for a testimony. Maybe they see something in you that they want to know more about, and they see Jesus in that, or they come to know Jesus because of it. Or maybe they knew Jesus already and realized it. He was just showing up. That's cool.
Thanks for sharing that. At ThriveEnt, planning your finances is bigger than money. It's a way to support the people, causes, and community you love. Because helping you put your faith into action is at the heart of what we do. Thriveent, where money means more.
Connect with us at ThriveEnt.com. Rachel, thank you for joining us on this podcast for these few weeks together. I wish you could just stay, a permanent fixture. It has been so fun. You guys are awesome.
Thanks for having me. Good. Can you tell us what's next for your ministry? What's coming up? What it's A great question.
So, this summer, I have a beautiful prayer journal. I've never had a journal before to allow people to Really? Dive into prayer in a deeper way.
So, this beautiful journal releases the summer July/slash August timeframe. It's praying the promises of God.
So, what we have just talked about on some of these episodes, we're implementing into writing, and that's going to be exciting. And then, I have two more books that are slated to release in the next couple of years. Both of those are devotionals. One is 90-day, well, both of them are 90-day devotionals on prayer. And I'm not at liberty to say the titles, but let me just say you are going to miss them.
Those books. Awesome. Yeah. So, lots of exciting things. Thanks for asking.
Yeah. Well, you've touched our team here with Desperate Prayers, your recent book release. And I hope our listeners will. uh reach out to you and get you on the New York Times bestseller list or whatever we can do. To give Jesus glory for what he's doing in your life and in your ministry.
And if that's one way we can do it, you want to do that. The book is called Desperate Prayers. Rachel has a podcast called Untangling Prayer that you can check out wherever you. Consume podcasts. She has a website rachelwojo.com.
And there's a website that accompanies her book. Desperateprayers.com that has some free resources in it. We really are grateful to the Lord for bringing you into our ministry, to our lives, and to the lives of those who have ears to hear today. And we pray that He continues to bless you as people. Dive into a greater relationship with him through prayer.
Rachel, thank you so much. God bless you. Appreciate you, Bernie, and the entire team. God bless. The Salvation Army's mission, doing the most good, means helping people with material and spiritual needs.
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