How to Have More Miracles in Your Life: Part 2 with Mark Batterson | Get Your Hopes Up #292
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Everyone, and welcome to get your hopes up. I'm Christy, right? And i'm so glad you're here.

Romance fifteen thirteen says made a got of hope feel you with all joy and peace as you trust in him so that you may overflow with hope by power of the holy spirit. Our god is the got of hope, and he wants you to overflow with hope. So let's start a week by getting our hopes up again.

Now i'm so excited about today because I am sitting down with one of my favorite authors ever, mark batterson. If you missed last week, you wants to go back and probably listens that first, because this conversation will make a lot more sense. Today, we are sitting down with mark, who again is a new york times best selling author and lead pastor of national community church.

We're talking about faith, hope and his new book, a million little miracles, which is out this week. We're going to talk about how to rediscover the god who is bigger than big, closer than close and good, Better than good. This conversation is so hopefully and IT will help you get your hopes up. Check out part two of my conversation with mark Peterson.

It's always the first step is the hardest st step. Uh, what i've learned to do is to take uh, one hundred dollar application fee steps of faith i've learned to to take A A phone call step fy. Um it's about this, uh, eclipse is elephant, uh, so your seed in the morning, uh, you know, cast your bread on the water is this idea of then giving god the opportunity to provide an open doors and uh, so I hope that's an encouragement for someone who's listening. And and Chris, can I flip IT when you hear some of what i'm sharing?

I mean, for you to go from such an amazing organization, you know I am guessed that and i'm just on the fly here but like you probably have health and you probably have other things that when you got on your own, like you you that is scary stuff um what what did you take away from that experience? Like is there one or two things that that would just resonate with what we're talking about? Or poor played a little bit of pink pong back and forth.

Yes, yes. I want to go back to what you said a minute ago because it's so relevant to what you're asking me here and it's so important for our listeners. So when you talk about taking the first step, you said, I I believe god and I, I, I have this holy confidence.

And you were talking about how what i've seen him perform so many miracles, and i've seen him come through so many times, is giving you that confidence to believe in for the next thing. Well, what what leaving my safe, secure, comfortable career of twelve years did for me was, I thought, I think to myself, truly, I think to myself, if I can survive that, I can survive anything. IT.

IT was a little bit of this, like, you know how an inscription? There are definitive moments. There's lots of stories, but there are definitive identity marking moments in scripture.

Israel, zed, I am the god. God reversions have. I am the god that rescued you from egyed. I am the god of braham eyes, egypt. He tells his children who he is by these identity king moment, the god that rescued noa, you know, someone.

So for me, for god to be faithful to me, in one of the scarious moments of my life, IT was an identity marking moment for me between me and the lord that actually had nothing to do with rain. The reason that I share this example somewhat frequently, as because so many listeners s have written in and told me they are going through a similar call of god that is terrifying, whether it's bigger, smaller or so on. But what Carry me through that can Carry me through the next thing.

So this confidence is forged in those really difficult decisions, in those steps of faith, whether there is one hundred dollar application fee or something that feels scary conversation or whatever, your confidence is built and it's not your confidence in yourself or your circumstances or your pay checking. Your held interest is actually undoing your reliance on your circumstances and forging this confidence in god, that if he's the god that Carried me through, that he'll Carried me through anything. So I just, I hope that encourages people listening, say, going, oh my god.

I have to just pull myself about ba bootstraps and get so confident, but I don't know. Look backwards. Look at what he has done for you before.

Look at what he has Carried through before. Look out he has been faithful before. I think it's so interesting how, in due, ronny IT says the word, remember, like a million times, yes, remember, remember, remember, remember.

And IT says this because I don't know, mark, we're prone to forget. Okay, we're prone to forget god rescues the israelites from egypt, then there in the wilderness cry. And poor us, we're GTA dig, send this back or not going to eat.

I mean, they just come. We forget. We're so prone to forget. And so I just want to curse people, look back, see we've got to them before and let that bolster your confidence in him for what this next thing that you're facing because if it's from him, he will Carry you through IT.

You know we we tend to um remember what we should forget and forget what we should remember. And you know I think part of IT is the negativity bias, which I think is part of the fall um you know losses way seven times more emotionally than Victories and and so somehow we have to flip the script. T um I I would say that a in terms of definitive moments, there are decades when nothing happens and there are days when decades happen.

And and so IT seems like what we're driving at today is that there are some people that need to take that first step and it's the scarious step and there aren't any guarantees for, say, but but at the end of our life, I do know the study after study has shown that our greatest regrets will not be action regrets, the things we did or the mistakes we made. It'll be the inaction regrets is the opportunities that we left on the table. And ah yeah you know I I think um yeah I just think that idea of, uh we got to remember the way that god wants us to remember.

Can I can I even side bar on that for one second? Yeah so I remember when the isle lights there, the exist out of egypt and and god is providing manner. So basically like breakfast and bed uh but actually is like door dash in the world like unbelievable.

And and what did they do cristy they start complaining like and they start remembering, hey, we ate fish for free in. And i'm thinking to myself, IT was free because you were, like, talk about a selected memory like you. You are remembering this wrong and and the whole moral.

The story is really fun at behind this book that think about IT matter was a miracle. They were complaining about a miracle and and is easy for us to then look at the israel lights and say, can you believe that they would complain about a miracle? Listen, take a look in the mirror.

I think a lot of us have a tendency to complain uh, about miracles as well. And so we just I think we have to be really, really careful that that we live in this this state of gratitude and wonder. H for the mystery and miracles of god are all around this all the time.

Well, and when you when you have this big view of god, and you have this wonder, like you're describing in your book, then IT helps making the steps of faith so much a little easier on you. Because you have such a big view of god and you talk about that, a lot of the problem is our small of you of god. And one of the things you do in every single book that you write is you just help open people's mind to the big ness of gotten.

And you say in different ways, but the bigness of god, the goodness of gotten so on. And so one of the things you talk about in this book, a million little miracles, which is your new book that's coming out this week, one of the things that you talk about is how we lose our wonder. So can you talk about how we lose that, mark, so we can be on guard against that? And then obviously, there's a domino fect once we have once we have our wonder back and we have this big view of god, that IT has real implications in our life like we've been talking about today. But I want to back up to and just .

understand how do we lose something can t against yeah well I would argue without going on a long uh theological diatribe in genesis one seven times, IT says and god saw that IT was good. The word good is the hever word tove. And it's not just good.

It's good or than good. It's as good as you get. It's too good to be true. But IT is and and it's it's what I would describe as original emotion. It's almost like to got the universe steps back at at the end of each creation day and says, wow, I I think I have did myself if that were possible like it's this this peer joy and delight and child like wonder for the creation that he had just spoken into existence.

So I would argue that at the end of the day we ought to feel that toes like the the objective is to live our lives in a state of child like wonder for god's creation and you know einstein said never lose a holy curiosity so that's one way to look at IT um and then and now he also said the only two ways to live your life one is as if nothing is a miracle and the other is as if everything is and so if I could just if I could teeth the book for just a second. Um one of things that point to is we're on a planet that spin at a thousand miles an hour and speeding through space at sixty seven thousand miles per hour. And so even on the day you didn't get much done, you did travel one point and through space.

So come on, give yourself a pat on the back, right? Like, I mean, pretty amazing. Now the, uh, I am guessing you like me like I don't neil down at the end of the day and say, lord, I I what is thank you for keeping us in orbit like I wasn't sure we are going to make the full rotation, but you did IT again like we don't play that way because god is so good at what god does, that we take the miracles for granted.

And so even though i'm a person that believes in miracles, that are the epiphany and the anomalies, I mean, the guide is talking right now, had several mm for forty years until july second, twenty sixteen, when god healed my lungs, and I have not touching inhaler from that data this day. So i've experiences those kinds of miracles. But this book is about the miracles that happen each and every day, that are like unending, that are just all around us through the god wings there, the the fingerprints that the, I would call them, the creation clues the god has left us. And I think deep down inside, uh, all of us long to get back to that genesis place of living in a in a place of wonder for the miracle that is life and and so that really is kind of the hope in heart and prayer uh behind the book and uh in part of the way that you do that, if you start deserting all of the the different miracles um that are all around this all all the time.

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I love this because IT gives you this appreciation for the everyday things that you see everyday, from fingerprints to your breath to the fact. So I was reading about your book, you know, in preparation for this interview, and you point out that laughter is unique to humans, and I never thought about that. I was like me, and I feel so sorry for every other species that doesn't get a because laughter, such an amazing gift.

Any of my audience listing right now that are their speakers or business owners, I also teach speaking and how to craft a message and craft to talk. I talk about the importance of humor in your message, but there's fascinating research on even the chemicals your brain is releasing when you laugh. That is such a joy and a gift in a delight that we get. What is only was a good that how cool is that?

And it's I really do think it's part of the imago day is part of the image of god and IT. It's a function of the media ventures, prefrontal core tex, which is the part of our neural anatomy that allows us to, jack, oppose two different things and find them funny, like I, I just, we are fearfully and wonderfully made.

There is a generation, Christine, that's being told that the cosmic accidents, that this is just by random chance or natural selection of contrary. No, no, no, no. This is intelligent design. This is a god who created us with unique medical native capacity to think about how we think, to imagine the future, to find things funny.

Um this is and and and so I just I I I think um what happens is this if if life turns into if you miss the miracle, life turns into just kind of a chore and a bar and and then you're just, I don't know, then you just go about your life and everything seems ordinary no, there there are no ordinary days. There are no ordinary things, there are no ordinary people um this come on, can we wake up to wonder? Can we Carry wonder and and did back to the place where we recognize that there is a god who crafted all of these things in a way believe IT or not for our enjoyment? So Chris, I one of the revelations are writing this book is just the fact. The news flash, god is in a good mood.

I we just, we just came over like exactly someone needed to hear that.

And and so I I think that I listen. I understand his heart breaks for things for a broken world um but joy, joy is so central to the the Christian experience. In fact, the first ten IT of the westminster catia m says that the chief and demand is to glory y got and enjoy him forever. And so I think sometimes we forget that actually enjoying god and enjoy god's creation is one of our highest collings. And part of that is just recognizing miracles for what they are.

You know what I love about use a writer, mark, and i'm so excited to read this in your new book. And is you you are able to communicate really complicated information, like how the earth orbits and spins, and our fingerprints and our breath and our brain, and are all this really technical information that the average reader like myself would never know. I'm not a doctor.

I'm not a scientist. I would not know this information that sure don't remember IT from from high school science class. But you communicate IT through story with such a purpose that points to the lord.

And that's what I love about this book because you're able to highlight all of these miracles that are all around you. It's it's not the it's not the exist moments. It's like the everyday stuff.

It's in creation. And so what you're doing is you're helping the reader, you're helping every single person start to see what's right in front of them. And I want I want to share fashion.

That's just such an example of this as we wrapped up today. I was on vacation, my husband, this was maybe like three, four years ago, and we have three little kids, mark out, nine, eight and four. Our hands are full.

If we get a vacation is like a tree like i'm at here, see later and and we were in florida and I was really stressing about the weather because the forecast was supose to rain the whole all day, every day. And we'd read convertible. We are going to for lottery o and I like these are our sacred three days are three days childcare.

All of the air traffic control logistics to make our life happened like I was so nervous. And so we get down there. I've been stressed.

And all we look at the weather, look at what get down there. And the weather forecast is still showing rain OK. It's not like eighty percent chance of rain thunderclouds whatever were driving down the coast in fort lotta.

We are on our first vacation. We are in a convertible with the top down and it's Sunny. And i'm staring at my phone, worried about the weather and I just felt the lord say, look up, look up, the weather is Sunny. I am in control the weather and you're missing living IT worrying about what could be that is not and I just your book is such a um a healing message for those of us that are worried by what is on our phone, what is in the news, what is happening on our to do this and you I just feel like you're saying look up.

look up by the then I have to share this because uh the the second chapter is about two foot field trips. There's this moment, genesis fifteen, where Abraham is inside his tent. And what is the lord say? He says, go outside, look up and count the stars now now we can rewrite over IT, but think about this as long as, as long as he was inside the ten, he was staring IT in eight foot ceiling.

And this is what happens. We put men made ceilings on god, but god then takes us on these two foot field trips, like, just get us outside our tent and and then then the sky, the limit. And so really, really I think this idea of looking up it's amazing. Um well I I was just reading uh in my bible story is Steven when he looks up about about to be modeled for his face but he looks up and he has a vision of jesus at the right hand of the father and so um maybe today this is what listeners needed to hear you you've been looking down long enough at your own feet. Ah you've been looking down, uh, at things that are discouraged or frustrating.

And I get IT I get IT I I mean I live in the same world you do but um look up fix your eyes on jesus, the author perfect tor of your fate and when we begin to look up, um I can't remember the exact number but we have the capacity. I mean, when we look at stars, we're looking 嗯， light years into the into the past. In fact, some of the stars don't even exist anymore.

But IT takes so long for light, even traveling at one hundred eighty six thousand miles per second to get here. Some of those stars don't even exist anymore but but it's god's way of saying and by the way, taken literally, this would be the hardest command in the bible count stars because now, uh, other physicists estimate a couple trillion galaxies, each with hundreds of billions of stars. So it's almost I got to saying, oh, abram, and you think I can give you a sun, you think I can't deliver on my promises, look at the universe i've created so I hope I take out, take faith um don't don't lose in the end of the story, the god still like if you're still breathing and god still writing a story and you and through you.

no, so good. I love that. I think I think everyone needs to take that away, a two foot field trip, whatever is going on in your world, in your house, in your eight fit ceiling, take a two foot field of walk outside and look up. And I just instantly shifts your perspective, which which everything else in their proper place. Mark, I cannot wait to dive in to this book. And because you've seen my stack of mark return books, you know i'm not just saying that you know I mean and want to read if our listers, a million little miracles, rediscover the god who is bigger than big, closer than close and good ter than good IT comes out tomorrow at the time of this airing, you can get IT am assuming where ever books are sold all the usual .

places absolutely.

And where can I follow you market and just keep up with everything you're doing on instagram, which your handle give them your .

website all like good yeah mark batters and that com uh you can even download of a sample chapter if you want to check IT out um and mark batterson on on all of the platforms from facebook to the instagram to x um and uh everything in between so thank you Christy. What a joy, what a what a fun conversation and a thank you for. The way that you infuse hope into people's hearts and let lets, lets keep dreaming those god's size dreams and go and aftertime.

I love you. Thank you for here, and congratulations on your next book I have so enjoy this, mark. Thank you.

Thank you.

All right, that's IT for this weeks episode of get your hopes up. I loving up with you every monday. Help you get to know god, get closer to him and get your hopes up again. Be sure to share this episode on instagram and facebooks of other people can get their hopes of as well, and be sure to grab a copy of mart matterson's new book, a million little miracles, where ever books are sold. Then i'll see you next monday for another new episode of get your hopes.

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