Path to Prosperity: Stephen De Silva on Overcoming a Poverty Mindset

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Stephen De Silva: Purpose is not the top floor or the key to a life well

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lived There's one layer above it.

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And that's identity.

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We need to know who we are.

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And there's only two choices.

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You're either.

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adopted or you're orphaned.

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You're either comfortable in your own skin or you're not.

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You either belong or you don't.

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And once we fundamentally understand that in context of God, then our

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purpose, vision, and strategies and tactics flow from that.

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In a world where financial challenges often lead to spiritual

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and emotional strain, how can we navigate our finances in a way that

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aligns with both our values And our aspirations today on seat, go create.

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We're diving deep into the intersection of faith and finances with Steven

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De Silva, the visionary founder of Prosperous Soul with a rich background

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in accounting and a transformative career shift from traditional CPA.

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To the chief financial officer at Bethel in Redding, California,

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Stephen has experienced firsthand the dynamics between spontaneous

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fate and practical financial demands.

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We'll probably have fun with those conversations.

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Stephen's journey has led him to create prosperous soul ministries.

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A unique financial program inspired by biblical principles aimed

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at eradicating poverty, greed, confusion, and fear surrounding money.

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Through tools like Financial Sozo, Purpose Train, and Prosper Soul, he empowers

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individuals, families, and organizations to transition from financial disease to

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health, ensuring their monetary decisions enhance their spiritual well being.

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Stephen, welcome to SeatGoCreate.

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Stephen De Silva: Thank you so much for having me, Tim.

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It's great to be here.

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I'm

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I'm glad you're here, and this is a bit of a reconnection for us

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because we have spoken before, and I've been through one of your Zozo sessions.

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We'll talk about that later, but let's do this first.

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If someone just meets you, you're on a plane or something, and they ask you

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what you do, what do you tell them?

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Stephen De Silva: Well, in my mind, I tell them I try to do as little as

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possible, but on the outside, I tell them I am a recovering accountant who

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helps people heal their financial wounds.

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Why would a count it need to recover?

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What would a count it need to recover from?

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Stephen De Silva: Well, I I often went to training.

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It's funny.

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I get this picture of walking into some, you know, income tax training

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or some auditing training event.

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And there's two or 300 people like me in there.

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And I realized, Oh, my gosh, this is not my tribe.

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I'm surrounded by accounting nerds.

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And although I was one, I think it was an adapted lifestyle.

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I picked up, I picked up this career to make ends meet and I, I enjoy it, enjoyed

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accounting and being an accountant and a CPA, but, I'm a much more creative

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individual, so accountants tend not to be creative or have much of a personality.

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So I like to tease that that part of my brain had to grow back after the career.

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So then, so, so, so this is the curiosity in me that

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I'm always fascinated by, why did you go into it in the first place?

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Was it, that's where you thought some money was, this is going

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to, this is probably going to get our money conversation started.

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Did you think

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that's what you needed to do to bring in money into the account?

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Did, did, were you groomed to be an accountant?

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Why, why did you become an accountant in the first place?

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Stephen De Silva: Oh, that, wow.

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That's a great question.

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I.

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I can remember I was, actually I was on a, mechanic track in those days.

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So I was probably, I worked in a Honda motorcycle shop from

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maybe age 15 until probably 17.

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And I planned to go on with my career in mechanics.

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And, what happened is I met this beautiful woman who I'm still married to.

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And she was on a education path.

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She's brilliant.

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I'm not sure how she succumbed to marry me, but I'm so glad that happened.

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And, she was on her way to college.

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So I thought, well, I guess I could try college.

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So to my surprise in the basic classes, I took a basic accounting

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class and I really liked it.

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I thought.

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Oh, my gosh.

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I didn't think I had enough brains to do this.

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And, it was so exciting for me to realize I might actually be able to be

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a professional more than, a blue collar.

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Maybe I could be a an expert in something.

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Anyway, I was so, I had a real poverty mindset in those days.

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Just, I could never imagine being anything more than a mechanic.

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And so this was a real journey that stretched me and that's how I ended

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up in accounting and I went on and.

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Kept taking classes and kept doing well.

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And, the rest is history.

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Yeah.

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It's interesting.

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There's so many great stories that start with something like, I met a

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girl, there was this woman and, and you know, especially people in the

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spiritual arena where we like to say, Oh God did this and all that.

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I'm pretty sure, gosh, I hope this isn't blasphemous, pretty sure

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God says, all right, for Steven and Tim and probably, you know,

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80 percent of the guys out there.

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I am going to send a woman into his path to get him going where he needs to go.

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Is that, I don't know, we're not gonna make a doctrine out of

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that, but does that make sense?

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Stephen De Silva: Oh, it totally does.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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I, I, ended up realizing later I married a really powerful

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woman and, that called me up.

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I, I, I spoke a message years ago.

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I don't remember the title exactly, but it was about being married

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to a woman who is like a kite.

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And I'm holding the string, and she's burning my hands.

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The string whipping through my fingers is burning my hands, and I'm

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asking God, Do I let go or do I hold?

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And his answer was, you need to grow.

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Oh, I can't hold her back.

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So, you know, I have, I, I have many positive things I would say about my wife.

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She's, she's obviously not perfect, but she is perfect for me.

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And I give great gratitude to God for that.

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It's, it is a gift in our lives.

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Our wives.

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Yeah.

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Yeah, I I totally agree.

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And, you brought up that you.

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Had a poverty mindset, which leads into really our big topic.

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We've got some big topics and then I've got some more micro topics

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that I want us to discuss today.

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If we are able to stay on track and, you know, let the Holy Spirit take us all over

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the place, which we're open to that truth truthfully, by the way, but I believe,

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I believe, we're going to be guided.

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And you mentioned poverty mindset and you know, I do want to say

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that being a mechanic, you know, my, my grandfather was a mechanic.

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My dad was a mechanic.

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I didn't get that type skill, but I, I've always considered there to

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be an art and a creativeness to that ability, but our culture and our society

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doesn't really put them in high regard.

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I just, I think I saw a headline recently where plumbers are like the

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new, you know, Wealth creation because we're in such shortage of people that

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are doing things with their hands.

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But back up

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and tell me about how in this, I don't think this will be like a, you know,

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bash our parents or anything like that.

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But how, how did you develop the poverty mindset?

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Where were you at spiritually and all that kind of stuff?

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Maybe when you got to that collegiate level and the Lord started working with

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you on things, because I, you and I were talking right before we hit, Hit

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record about just people now and some of the struggles they may be going

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through just with practical finance.

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Just the Babylonian go ahead and throw it out here.

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You know, the Babylonian system financial structure is really challenged right now.

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So.

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Anyway, that's a big question, but go back and tell me what was going

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on with that poverty mindset with Stephen, you know, back the early years.

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Stephen De Silva: Wow.

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Well, I, I have to say the mechanics is an art.

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So my, my context was.

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Growing up on as a boy on a ranch, and I worked with my uncle who ran the ranch.

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And when you're an independent rancher, you have to solve every problem possible.

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I remember as I got old enough to realize how brilliant my uncle was

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from how much seed to sow in the ground to what's wrong with this garden.

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You know, this cow and what vaccination to use and how to administer it.

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I mean, it was staggering to me to realize how much he knew.

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And, the, to the, to the poverty question.

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In that environment, there was constant limitations.

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So I grew up in an environment of the answer was likely no.

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There was never, you know, if, if positive things happened, praise

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the Lord, an accident just happened.

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You know, our beef prices were good the day we went to auction or, the

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rains didn't come when we had the tractor in the field or, you know,

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whatever the circumstance, it was, accidental if something good happened.

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So my, my paradigm, and I don't need to put my family under the,

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under the bus for this because it, it really wasn't their fault.

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I took ideas, and I think we all do this.

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We, we experience the world and we sort.

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I've decided it's the soul part of us.

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body, soul, spirit.

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It's the soul's function to sort through all the noise coming at us constantly,

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especially when we're tiny and young, sort through and find something

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that's true and, and place that in our heart as a treasure item for us

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to hold onto because those treasures are how we make sense of the world.

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And when you're constantly facing now, this is back to me as a child, when it's

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constantly, it's basically no, you know, is there, you know, can I go to town?

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No.

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Can I have that comic book?

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No.

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can I, you know, whatever.

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with limitations, my answers was, were no.

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So my truth became, let's not disappoint myself.

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Let's just expect lack.

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and so that, that was a idea that landed, that I planted in my heart.

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I believed it to be true, and it actually helped me.

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It protected me from something, disappointment.

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Of course, the nature of that idea operates like a seed and

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grows, and then you later see Oh, that was a thorn bush I planted.

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I thought this idea was good and rich and going to protect me.

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It turned out to be actually a very prickly problem.

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And that's, that's where some of my other tools come in is sorting what

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we believe between what's really true.

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I call it capital T truth.

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And what's experiential and sometimes just not sufficient to carry responsibility

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or burden or wealth or dreams or, you know, all the things that we carry

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as adults, they have a burden or a weight and little t truths like my

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idea I just gave is it's insufficient to carry the burden of responsibility.

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So how does that impact your relationship with

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God, with your heavenly father?

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If you are constantly, if if there's lack, if, if you're avoiding disappointment, my

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wife and I've had this discussion recently and we realized she probably was raised

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because of some things in her family.

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She had a sibling that died when she was eight.

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She had her family divorce and, and, and we've kind of discussed this.

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We've been together 35 years and she still somewhat works with this aspect of

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She's afraid she may be disappointed and she's realizing that has relationship

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with her heavenly father's relationship.

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How did, how did

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that manifest or what, what did that do for you?

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Stephen De Silva: wow.

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I, I think the answer probably is best explained.

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I had a, an old version and a newer version.

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my older version, my first version was, a, a paradigm about God.

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Now, when I was a child, I wasn't raised.

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with any theology or, or reference to God, except, Oh God help.

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Or, you know, some certain phrase I would not want to repeat here, but it wasn't,

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I wasn't in a Christian environment or any faith environment at all.

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and so as I later became, I became a Christian when I was 16

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because of a crisis in my life.

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And so I worked through that scenario.

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and began a life of faith as a young adult.

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And until that time, and probably into my, to be honest, I'd say probably into

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my thirties, maybe my early thirties.

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I, my reference from that lack is I, I protected myself from disappointment.

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I look back now and I realized there was a gap.

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I perceived a gap between myself, And God, I could worship God.

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I could understand that God is, is good and is love.

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And I can, you know, intellectually agree to all of those things.

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But he wasn't safe.

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There was, there was this gap of like a bumper of protection.

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And so to your question, that's one of the outcomes of my little tea

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truth is I assembled a theology that just isn't biblically accurate, but

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it was functionally powerful for me.

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It kept me safe.

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And, of course there are some problems when you have that gap that

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we can talk about if you care to.

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But.

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I, I would say that's when I learned the transition.

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I realized, Oh, that is actually not working for me.

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And that's when I began to understand more about adoption and identity and purpose

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and some of the things that we may get to,

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Yeah, absolutely.

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Is it, is, is what happened at 16 something you can share?

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We don't, we, we, we, we go deep here pretty quickly.

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Is it something that's shareable or, or what happened at 16?

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Stephen De Silva: you know, I can share.

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Um, so I was the, I was with some boys we were, so I was not a bad kid, but I was.

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a bit wild.

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Um, and, and consequently me and some friends were out just

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being friends and goofing off.

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And I was, 16 at the time, a late 15, late age 15.

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And, we, we were goofing around and I ended up finding a handgun

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and showing off with the handgun.

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And I ended up shooting one of the two boys.

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So, the boy that was shot was a beautiful person.

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Just, you know, just thinking it recently, I've been thinking about him.

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I really regret now in my lifetime.

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Of course, then it was an absolute terrible crisis, the worst hell I've ever

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gone through because that boy perished.

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He died from that.

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And, I was responsible, you know, there's, I mean, I didn't, obviously it

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was an accident, a gross, gross error.

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And I, I have a lot of stories about how God, I didn't even know God at the time,

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but he walked me through that horror.

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And I believe and pray that God walked the family through the horror.

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So that's, that was the terror.

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I, went through this by the time I was, had had my birthday and was early age 16.

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I, learned that the boy that was killed.

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Had just given his heart to Christ and I was like, what what is that?

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What does that mean?

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The person that told me her name's Patty.

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She's a to this day.

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It's just a dear dear friend of mine and Childhood friend and so yeah, she

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she taught me about the gospel in I'm sure her young And in my crisis, I

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gobbled that up with the hope that I get to see this friend again in heaven.

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so that there's a Psalm of David, I think it's Psalm 32 where he, he says that

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a contrite heart God will not despise.

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And.

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Unfortunately, I learned the lessons of a contrite heart early in my life.

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I guess It was good for me.

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It was terrible in circumstances, you know, I

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Yeah,

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those are, those are the situations I appreciate you sharing that.

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And, and I, I think, We become a product.

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I think it impacts our soul.

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I mean, something you just brought up, you know, we're talking

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about the prosperous soul here.

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And, and I'm sure that's something that was damaging to your soul in many

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ways, but yet it also was part of the.

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The process that we're going through.

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I mean, and, and so your, your, your process continued on.

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And so if I'm understanding correctly, so from there you decided later to, you

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know, not become a mechanic, you went to accounting and you went into what

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many would Say, I guess, traditional accounting world after that it, and here's

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what I'd love for you to, if you want to say anything about that, but at some

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point, Steven ended up in the spiritual environment that is, that is Bethel.

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Which is supernatural.

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It's kind of the opposite of mechanics and, and accounting.

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See you.

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And so I don't want to spend a lot of time on it because, but I think this

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might be part of the prosperous soul, because that does not sound like someone

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who's going to teach on the prosperous soul at age 16 or even early on.

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So how, what, what happened along the way that you ended up moving

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from regular accounting to.

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In the Bethel world of supernatural, that's, you know, signs and miracles,

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which is not really where an accountant would typically end up.

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Stephen De Silva: Well, yeah, that's, that's, you're spanning a lot of years

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there, coming out of that tragedy.

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my spirit was broken.

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I think that would probably be the soul damage that you're referring to.

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My spirit was broken and I had to learn, relearn myself.

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What is it like to live as a broken spirit?

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out of that, obviously my life changed.

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I was still in high school.

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I navigated those last few years and I graduated from high school thinking,

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okay, I'm just going to go be a mechanic, go quietly, do what I can naturally do.

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I did think, you know, I'm grateful to God.

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I did have a, a aptitude for that.

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but I thought I'll just kind of disappear into that space.

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Around that time, I met, my wife and, she was college bound and

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she had some, academic ambitions.

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And so I, I thought, well, that's interesting.

Tim Winders: 00:20:57

And that part I told you about in the beginning.

Tim Winders: 00:21:00

So I started through the, through the education process ended up.

Tim Winders: 00:21:05

I remember I was working for an accountant.

Tim Winders: 00:21:07

As a bookkeeper.

Tim Winders: 00:21:08

So funny.

Tim Winders: 00:21:09

I was in, it was in college and this, this accountant hired me just as a clerk.

Tim Winders: 00:21:15

And so I'm in there clerking.

Tim Winders: 00:21:18

And he asked me one day, he was an older man at the time.

Tim Winders: 00:21:21

He was probably in his, probably late fifties is a beautiful guy named Jim.

Tim Winders: 00:21:26

He asked me, so what do you want to do in your life?

Tim Winders: 00:21:31

And I responded, it's so funny.

Tim Winders: 00:21:36

I said, I want to be a para accountant, a para accountant.

Tim Winders: 00:21:42

He said, what is a para accountant?

Tim Winders: 00:21:45

And, what I was.

Tim Winders: 00:21:47

Assembling was these, was this through the lens of this broken spirit, this,

Tim Winders: 00:21:52

this poverty mindset, those things that we were talking about, best thing

Tim Winders: 00:21:56

I could dream of was like, you've heard of a, what do they call it?

Tim Winders: 00:22:00

An attorney, a legal, like a paralegal.

Tim Winders: 00:22:03

Okay.

Tim Winders: 00:22:04

So I come up with, I could never aspire to be an accountant.

Tim Winders: 00:22:09

Like you, Jim, I'll be a para accountant.

Tim Winders: 00:22:12

He looks at me like, he didn't say it, but I'm sure he thought, That's gotta

Tim Winders: 00:22:16

be the dumbest thing I've ever heard.

Tim Winders: 00:22:18

It reminds me of like, I don't want to be a full accountant.

Tim Winders: 00:22:22

I want to be almost an accountant.

Tim Winders: 00:22:23

Or

Tim Winders: 00:22:24

I

Tim Winders: 00:22:25

Stephen De Silva: I want to be a half.

Tim Winders: 00:22:26

I think the all Austin powers thing is like, you know, it's,

Tim Winders: 00:22:29

you're going to be the diet Coke of accounting, you know, just one calorie.

Tim Winders: 00:22:32

I'm not, not quite an accountant

Tim Winders: 00:22:36

Stephen De Silva: That's perfect.

Tim Winders: 00:22:37

Yeah.

Tim Winders: 00:22:38

I just want to be the one calorie version, you know?

Tim Winders: 00:22:41

Oh

Tim Winders: 00:22:42

aspire to the full accountant.

Tim Winders: 00:22:44

I just want to be a mini accountant, you know, mini me.

Tim Winders: 00:22:47

Stephen De Silva: no, no, that's outrageous.

Tim Winders: 00:22:49

I would never risk my heart to go do that.

Tim Winders: 00:22:53

So, yeah.

Tim Winders: 00:22:54

Well, What he did is he, gently said, I think you should be a CPA.

Tim Winders: 00:22:59

I think you should go for the test.

Tim Winders: 00:23:01

I think, okay, so I, I did that.

Tim Winders: 00:23:03

I, went through the academics and I finished my exam and I worked very

Tim Winders: 00:23:09

hard because remember my, my, fear of success was terrifying to me.

Tim Winders: 00:23:15

And, so my study habits were ferocious.

Tim Winders: 00:23:19

I remember I, well, I won't tell the story, but I just studied.

Tim Winders: 00:23:22

I, I'm sure people have studied harder, but I studied hours and

Tim Winders: 00:23:28

hours and days and weeks for this test and went in and just nailed it.

Tim Winders: 00:23:32

So now what do I do?

Tim Winders: 00:23:34

Well, I guess I'll go apply for a job.

Tim Winders: 00:23:35

So I ended up with a job.

Tim Winders: 00:23:37

In accounting and of course, you're just a mill coming out of the

Tim Winders: 00:23:41

university system as a CPA, candidate.

Tim Winders: 00:23:44

And so I went in and they, they ground me up and I, I, I survived it and

Tim Winders: 00:23:49

there's a lot of funny stories there.

Tim Winders: 00:23:51

But when I got through that, I, during that time, my wife and I had

Tim Winders: 00:23:54

our first son and, we were in a city.

Tim Winders: 00:23:57

I won't name that was just not, it was not.

Tim Winders: 00:24:01

Working for us.

Tim Winders: 00:24:02

It felt scary and there was some dangers around that we thought

Tim Winders: 00:24:05

we're going to get out of here.

Tim Winders: 00:24:06

So we moved back to our hometown to a different accounting firm, which

Tim Winders: 00:24:11

I, you know, I love this little firm.

Tim Winders: 00:24:13

But I began to, I was, I was growing in dissatisfaction because the

Tim Winders: 00:24:18

thing about accounting, is it's all.

Tim Winders: 00:24:22

it's all rear view mirror view.

Tim Winders: 00:24:24

You know, you're always fixing last year's, you're auditing last

Tim Winders: 00:24:28

year, you're preparing a taxes from what has happened behind us.

Tim Winders: 00:24:31

And I thought, gosh, I'd really like to be involved in the

Tim Winders: 00:24:35

steering of an organization.

Tim Winders: 00:24:37

And that, that idea, I'm not sure where it came from.

Tim Winders: 00:24:40

I hope it was the Holy spirit, but it grew in me to the point

Tim Winders: 00:24:44

where I was really dissatisfied.

Tim Winders: 00:24:46

not, not in circumstances.

Tim Winders: 00:24:48

I had a beautiful job, great people I worked with.

Tim Winders: 00:24:51

And, I was succeeding.

Tim Winders: 00:24:53

I was, I was climbing up the corporate ladder, so to speak, but

Tim Winders: 00:24:57

there was this dissatisfaction.

Tim Winders: 00:24:58

A job opened and a friend called me and another accountant said, Hey, I think

Tim Winders: 00:25:04

you'd be perfect for this job because you're a really, you're a strange

Tim Winders: 00:25:08

version of Christian that I've ever met.

Tim Winders: 00:25:11

And there's this.

Tim Winders: 00:25:13

Equally strange church.

Tim Winders: 00:25:14

I think you ought to go check it out And they're looking for an a

Tim Winders: 00:25:18

and a comp troller was the title.

Tim Winders: 00:25:20

They were looking for a their lead accountant So I thought I

Tim Winders: 00:25:23

remember my reaction was no way no way am I going to ever take that?

Tim Winders: 00:25:28

That would be career suicide and during the night I feel this This is metaphor a

Tim Winders: 00:25:35

tap on my shoulder from the holy spirit.

Tim Winders: 00:25:37

Hey, that's what you've been praying for to silva Open your

Tim Winders: 00:25:41

eyes and go check that out.

Tim Winders: 00:25:43

It was so, Oh, Oh yeah.

Tim Winders: 00:25:45

So I, I went and applied and a lot of fun little stories.

Tim Winders: 00:25:49

I'll lead out, leave out here.

Tim Winders: 00:25:50

But yeah, I ended up accepting that job.

Tim Winders: 00:25:54

And within two weeks of taking the job, the church leader leaves and

Tim Winders: 00:26:00

the whole church goes into a crisis.

Tim Winders: 00:26:02

And I find myself untrained, no lead, no guidelines in a position as the

Tim Winders: 00:26:09

lead accountant in a church that was struggling with no leadership.

Tim Winders: 00:26:13

This was 1996, 1995, and it was the most fun I'd ever had as an accountant

Tim Winders: 00:26:21

because I got my, my wish came true.

Tim Winders: 00:26:24

I wasn't the lead, of course, but in the accounting space, I got to steer and

Tim Winders: 00:26:28

it was hairy, man, and I just loved it.

Tim Winders: 00:26:31

I thought it's like a ship on fire and I'm the fireman on board and I love this.

Tim Winders: 00:26:36

So I found a part of myself that I, You know, didn't know existed.

Tim Winders: 00:26:41

That was my, my beginning.

Tim Winders: 00:26:43

I was there for 21 years as their CFO, and it was a wonderful season of my life.

Tim Winders: 00:26:48

Well, the, the cool thing is, is that.

Tim Winders: 00:26:50

You know, the mechanic goes in and diagnoses the problem and does all

Tim Winders: 00:26:55

the, now they've got computers that do it, but you know, we're of the

Tim Winders: 00:26:58

age where we remember where you just have to listen and hear and

Tim Winders: 00:27:01

use intuition and things like that.

Tim Winders: 00:27:04

It sounds like, especially early on, and I'm guessing the nature, I'm going

Tim Winders: 00:27:08

to ask a couple of questions maybe about being in that role in a ministry.

Tim Winders: 00:27:14

situation because we have a lot of ministers and people

Tim Winders: 00:27:16

that are leaders in ministries.

Tim Winders: 00:27:18

I'm on the few boards of ministries.

Tim Winders: 00:27:20

We have a nonprofit and things like that.

Tim Winders: 00:27:21

I know you do also that, You know, sometimes they don't even think about

Tim Winders: 00:27:27

any control, you know, comptroller or anything over the money.

Tim Winders: 00:27:30

I don't think that's good But then there's some and we know how this

Tim Winders: 00:27:34

works and i'll maybe even pose this as a question that that money leads

Tim Winders: 00:27:38

and controls in the situation.

Tim Winders: 00:27:42

And, and listen, for, for those that do not know, most people do, I think at this

Tim Winders: 00:27:50

point, because of the music and, and, you know, all the cool things and, you know,

Tim Winders: 00:27:55

all the stuff that's come out of, out of Bethel, give everybody just, I hate

Tim Winders: 00:27:59

to say a brief description of Bethel.

Tim Winders: 00:28:02

You know, every, every time I hear the word, I think of music and supernatural.

Tim Winders: 00:28:06

That's what, that's what comes to

Tim Winders: 00:28:07

my mind, but anything else that would characterize that for someone who's maybe

Tim Winders: 00:28:12

even not in spiritual circles, but even the spiritual circles, but aren't familiar

Tim Winders: 00:28:16

with Bethel to just kind of help frame the next question or two, I might ask.

Tim Winders: 00:28:22

Stephen De Silva: Yeah.

Tim Winders: 00:28:23

so through my lens, Bethel was a established church.

Tim Winders: 00:28:29

it was an assemblies of God church, which is just a huge denomination

Tim Winders: 00:28:33

with very, very formal church.

Tim Winders: 00:28:35

and, in 1995, it represented one of the larger, I think one of the two largest

Tim Winders: 00:28:43

churches in the city there that, that it is in Reading and, the other was a

Tim Winders: 00:28:48

Baptist, a beautiful Baptist church.

Tim Winders: 00:28:51

I was not a church goer in those days.

Tim Winders: 00:28:53

My church experience was, the small home group, worship with a guitar, intimacy,

Tim Winders: 00:29:01

you know, worship and intimacy, loving God and just not structured religion.

Tim Winders: 00:29:07

So, what happened is Bethel, as I said, their, their senior leader,

Tim Winders: 00:29:12

who was a terrific man, he, retired and moved off to a different career.

Tim Winders: 00:29:16

If I believe is where he went and, the leadership in this church, this was

Tim Winders: 00:29:21

right around the time that I was hired.

Tim Winders: 00:29:24

And so I feel like a fish out of water in this environment that's

Tim Winders: 00:29:27

structured, but they're, they're, they're looking for, what do we do next?

Tim Winders: 00:29:31

Wow.

Tim Winders: 00:29:31

Our senior leader's gone, people have followed and left.

Tim Winders: 00:29:34

And so the church was kind of.

Tim Winders: 00:29:37

I imagine a lot of the members were really scrambling and really trying to find out

Tim Winders: 00:29:42

who are we and what are we going to do?

Tim Winders: 00:29:45

Well, what happened is, We began to accumulate a bunch of hungry people for

Tim Winders: 00:29:50

authentic, authentic connection to God.

Tim Winders: 00:29:54

It wasn't a religious hunger, like, liturgy.

Tim Winders: 00:29:57

It wasn't, you know, let's, let's go find, a structure that we can live inside

Tim Winders: 00:30:02

that is, religious frame, framework.

Tim Winders: 00:30:05

It was, we really want to find God.

Tim Winders: 00:30:08

We have needs in school.

Tim Winders: 00:30:09

Things that scare us in our lives and we think God can help.

Tim Winders: 00:30:12

How do we find him authentically?

Tim Winders: 00:30:14

So what happened?

Tim Winders: 00:30:16

This is 1995 is, the nucleus began to accumulate of people who really were

Tim Winders: 00:30:23

just not interested in pretending.

Tim Winders: 00:30:27

my wife said it best.

Tim Winders: 00:30:29

She said, I'm so dried out inside.

Tim Winders: 00:30:34

She said, if, if, if God isn't real, let's, let's, Forget this God thing.

Tim Winders: 00:30:39

Let's just, let's not do it.

Tim Winders: 00:30:41

You know, we're not looking for structure and rules.

Tim Winders: 00:30:45

We we're looking for, we need, we need to meet this person.

Tim Winders: 00:30:49

If this person exists, well, that represented this core nucleus,

Tim Winders: 00:30:53

this core nucleus, grew slowly.

Tim Winders: 00:30:57

And I have to say from my perspective, from 1995, where I first engaged

Tim Winders: 00:31:02

this up until, I don't know, mid, mid, 2020, somewhere in there,

Tim Winders: 00:31:07

2010, 2005, somewhere in there, the organization was naive and beautiful.

Tim Winders: 00:31:17

It was just innocent.

Tim Winders: 00:31:19

You know, we, we were messy.

Tim Winders: 00:31:21

We, we made mistakes.

Tim Winders: 00:31:23

We would admit that we're not, we're not, you know, the smartest

Tim Winders: 00:31:29

people, the sharpest tools in the shed, so to speak, but, but we loved

Tim Winders: 00:31:32

God and God started showing up.

Tim Winders: 00:31:34

And what happened is, God showing up looked like people changing.

Tim Winders: 00:31:39

I remember this one board member, I, of course, she's a

Tim Winders: 00:31:43

beautiful, beautiful person.

Tim Winders: 00:31:45

I would never mean disrespect, but she was a grouchy, grouchy person.

Tim Winders: 00:31:50

And, throughout this process, we watched this person's heart turn and soften.

Tim Winders: 00:31:55

And she just became so different.

Tim Winders: 00:31:58

It's just one of those things.

Tim Winders: 00:31:59

Literally thousands of examples of, of what appeared to be miracles

Tim Winders: 00:32:04

around us, people's hearts changing, people's diseases shifting and healing

Tim Winders: 00:32:11

and, prayers asked and answered.

Tim Winders: 00:32:14

It was, it was incredible.

Tim Winders: 00:32:15

So what happened is people, outsiders began to hear this

Tim Winders: 00:32:18

and accumulate and visit.

Tim Winders: 00:32:20

And those were the years that I was the accountant.

Tim Winders: 00:32:23

So my, my job on the wall, I'm, I'm not a teacher or a preacher at all.

Tim Winders: 00:32:28

I'm the accountant in the back office, just trying to manage the growth

Tim Winders: 00:32:35

in the, in the organization grew about 20 to 25 percent every year.

Tim Winders: 00:32:41

So if you figure that, Oh, that sounds nice until you do that for.

Tim Winders: 00:32:46

You know, 20 years straight and you've gotten, you've gotten an

Tim Winders: 00:32:50

organization that's, you know, four or five times as size, it's staggering.

Tim Winders: 00:32:56

There was, this is one of the beautiful parts.

Tim Winders: 00:32:58

Like you said, the mechanical part for me was how do I solve this problem?

Tim Winders: 00:33:03

and not, to your point, not kill the movement.

Tim Winders: 00:33:07

How do you do that?

Tim Winders: 00:33:08

And so I can talk about that if you care, but I do think there is a, an

Tim Winders: 00:33:14

important role of administration.

Tim Winders: 00:33:17

It's a gift, a biblical gift of administration.

Tim Winders: 00:33:20

It's like the bottom scissor of a pair of scissors.

Tim Winders: 00:33:25

You know, the top part is the devotion and spontaneity and the And, and

Tim Winders: 00:33:32

really spirituality of an organization.

Tim Winders: 00:33:37

And the bottom is the, the clean lines, the, the systemization,

Tim Winders: 00:33:43

the integrity, the character, and my job was the bottom scissor.

Tim Winders: 00:33:49

and the, you know, the leaders of the church were the top scissor.

Tim Winders: 00:33:53

And for any pastors who are listening, I think the key is to

Tim Winders: 00:33:57

not get the scissors upside down.

Tim Winders: 00:33:59

They both cut.

Tim Winders: 00:34:01

And even with the scissors upside down, the system will work.

Tim Winders: 00:34:04

In other words, if administration is the leading controlling decision

Tim Winders: 00:34:09

maker, that will cut for a while, but that's, it's upside down.

Tim Winders: 00:34:14

You need it the other way to keep that.

Tim Winders: 00:34:15

that devotion and that naivete, that beautiful innocence in an organization.

Tim Winders: 00:34:22

Otherwise it gets, it chokes off.

Tim Winders: 00:34:24

It calcifies.

Tim Winders: 00:34:26

Yeah, so what?

Tim Winders: 00:34:30

It's interesting the thing that came to me, Stephen, while you were saying

Tim Winders: 00:34:35

that when you mentioned 20 to 25 percent growth kind of year over year,

Tim Winders: 00:34:39

which for anyone who's a leader of an organization listening in for anyone who

Tim Winders: 00:34:43

heads ministry and or business, which we've got both here, you know, most

Tim Winders: 00:34:47

people would almost said kill for that.

Tim Winders: 00:34:51

Some people would, that's unfortunate that I thought that, but that's obviously

Tim Winders: 00:34:56

there was the God's hand was in that.

Tim Winders: 00:34:59

But I, the curiosity that I had was what did that do for Steven's lack

Tim Winders: 00:35:08

mindset that he had growing up and that disappointment that kind of came

Tim Winders: 00:35:15

along with that, because I know that Prosperous Soul was birthed sometime.

Tim Winders: 00:35:21

During that, you know, it's like, I think you just celebrated your 25th anniversary.

Tim Winders: 00:35:24

So if I'm doing the math, right, it was late nineties and all that.

Tim Winders: 00:35:27

But what was, what did that do for your, your lack that, you know, that

Tim Winders: 00:35:32

sort of baked in that, that we're all working through the things from our

Tim Winders: 00:35:36

younger days, what did it do for that lack mindset that you said you had?

Tim Winders: 00:35:41

Stephen De Silva: Wow.

Tim Winders: 00:35:42

Yeah.

Tim Winders: 00:35:43

I,

Tim Winders: 00:35:43

Cause you saw the numbers,

Tim Winders: 00:35:45

you were

Tim Winders: 00:35:45

dealing with numbers,

Tim Winders: 00:35:46

Stephen De Silva: I

Tim Winders: 00:35:47

You weren't, you

Tim Winders: 00:35:48

weren't necessarily

Tim Winders: 00:35:49

looking at the ministry.

Tim Winders: 00:35:52

I'm sure you were, but you had spreadsheets.

Tim Winders: 00:35:56

Stephen De Silva: right.

Tim Winders: 00:35:57

I had spreadsheets.

Tim Winders: 00:35:58

I had my Excel formulas running and my software.

Tim Winders: 00:36:02

And, you know, I, I was the one who had to put the two ends of the hose together.

Tim Winders: 00:36:07

One is this practical, we need to pay bills.

Tim Winders: 00:36:11

The other is, well, what's God saying?

Tim Winders: 00:36:13

Give away our offering from this Sunday.

Tim Winders: 00:36:15

You know, just all this crazy spontaneity.

Tim Winders: 00:36:17

I'm trying to get these two ends every week to cover our bills.

Tim Winders: 00:36:21

It was, really, really stressful and a funny story.

Tim Winders: 00:36:26

Maybe this relates.

Tim Winders: 00:36:28

I was, stressing out.

Tim Winders: 00:36:30

You'll notice most of my hair is gone, and this was where it went

Tim Winders: 00:36:34

was during this season, trying to figure out how does this work?

Tim Winders: 00:36:38

How do I make this work every single week?

Tim Winders: 00:36:42

And, one time I heard the leader of the church.

Tim Winders: 00:36:45

He said someone asked him, How do you handle the stress of this growth?

Tim Winders: 00:36:49

And his answer was, I don't really feel any of it.

Tim Winders: 00:36:52

I'm sitting in the room thinking, Oh, my gosh, no wonder I'm over

Tim Winders: 00:36:56

here doing all the scary stuff.

Tim Winders: 00:36:58

That's your, that's your job, Steven.

Tim Winders: 00:37:00

Stephen De Silva: but that was my

Tim Winders: 00:37:01

your job, Steven.

Tim Winders: 00:37:02

You deal.

Tim Winders: 00:37:03

Stephen De Silva: Yeah.

Tim Winders: 00:37:04

your job is to, no, well, that was my orphan paradigm.

Tim Winders: 00:37:07

My, my poverty mindset is I have to make this work.

Tim Winders: 00:37:12

And when this leader said that, I realized, oh, and I think again,

Tim Winders: 00:37:16

the Holy Spirit tap on the shoulder.

Tim Winders: 00:37:19

I heard, you know, the idea, well, who asked you to do that?

Tim Winders: 00:37:22

That isn't your job.

Tim Winders: 00:37:23

You're making that up.

Tim Winders: 00:37:24

And I went, oh no.

Tim Winders: 00:37:26

So I began to understand as a survival technique, the difference

Tim Winders: 00:37:30

between responsibility and authority.

Tim Winders: 00:37:32

the leader had the authority.

Tim Winders: 00:37:35

But I had taken his responsibility and without the authority

Tim Winders: 00:37:39

and it was just killing me.

Tim Winders: 00:37:40

So I ended up, in a very tear filled moment in the chapel many, many times.

Tim Winders: 00:37:45

We have a little room there we call the chapel and, on campus.

Tim Winders: 00:37:49

And, I was in there processing with God.

Tim Winders: 00:37:52

What do I do?

Tim Winders: 00:37:53

Why do I feel so?

Tim Winders: 00:37:55

Empty inside, I'm surrounded.

Tim Winders: 00:37:57

If we give context of 25 percent growth, 20 to 25, not to

Tim Winders: 00:38:01

exaggerate, but every year, it's just everything people are coming.

Tim Winders: 00:38:05

And it's, it is just the craziest external favor on us.

Tim Winders: 00:38:12

And I like to think of.

Tim Winders: 00:38:13

In spite of our best efforts, we were growing, you know, we, we didn't know

Tim Winders: 00:38:17

what we were doing, whatever it looks like or whatever people think or intuit.

Tim Winders: 00:38:22

No, it was a, it was a mess.

Tim Winders: 00:38:24

And we were just doing our best to hang on from my perspective.

Tim Winders: 00:38:27

That's mine.

Tim Winders: 00:38:28

And, And, so there was growth, I had influence, I had favor, I had

Tim Winders: 00:38:33

friendships, I had income, I had position, I had all these things externally.

Tim Winders: 00:38:37

My family was doing well, my kids loved me, my wife and I were in love, you

Tim Winders: 00:38:41

know, it was just, it was all good.

Tim Winders: 00:38:43

And still I felt empty.

Tim Winders: 00:38:44

And I'm like, what in the world is going on, God, that,

Tim Winders: 00:38:48

that doesn't even make sense.

Tim Winders: 00:38:50

And referencing verses like John 10, verse 10, chapter 10, verse 10, just,

Tim Winders: 00:38:54

just referencing some of these contexts.

Tim Winders: 00:38:56

I'm like, what is going on?

Tim Winders: 00:38:58

And God showed me that.

Tim Winders: 00:39:00

I was an orphan.

Tim Winders: 00:39:03

I understood God at a distance.

Tim Winders: 00:39:07

Even though I was, I believed in God, I worshiped God, I still do.

Tim Winders: 00:39:13

I, I, Because of my tragedy, I can go back to a story from earlier, and my broken

Tim Winders: 00:39:21

spirit, I related to Jesus who forgave me and rescued me, and I related to the Holy

Tim Winders: 00:39:27

Spirit who comforted me and educated me.

Tim Winders: 00:39:30

He trained me, Holy Spirit.

Tim Winders: 00:39:31

So, I was like, You're mine.

Tim Winders: 00:39:34

You know, I embraced them.

Tim Winders: 00:39:36

But Father God, I understood as the judge and, I'm scared of father God.

Tim Winders: 00:39:43

So I've built my doctrinal understanding around that.

Tim Winders: 00:39:45

I'm just going to hide in Christ, right?

Tim Winders: 00:39:48

I'm going to take my cardboard cut out of Jesus and just stand behind it.

Tim Winders: 00:39:52

Whenever God, when I perceive God, the father is around.

Tim Winders: 00:39:56

Well, that just was an invitation and without sharing the details.

Tim Winders: 00:40:02

I had a picture, this was a true vision, of Father God sitting on this massive

Tim Winders: 00:40:09

throne in the middle of this room all by himself, and I am standing in the

Tim Winders: 00:40:14

hallway that leads to this room, but I am scared to walk in, and Father God

Tim Winders: 00:40:18

doesn't speak, he just goes like this with his finger, he says, come here, with

Tim Winders: 00:40:22

his finger, and there was no way I was going to go near God, because of fear.

Tim Winders: 00:40:26

You know, my, my poverty mindset, this persisted and finally, and I'm

Tim Winders: 00:40:33

now crossing days and days and days.

Tim Winders: 00:40:35

And I finally began to approach God and I went and sat behind this throne.

Tim Winders: 00:40:42

I was so scared to be seen because of my mistakes.

Tim Winders: 00:40:46

And you, you know, we've talked about those and what I began

Tim Winders: 00:40:51

to learn over this experience.

Tim Winders: 00:40:54

Now this vision happened day after day after day for, it feels like two years.

Tim Winders: 00:41:00

I don't know, but it's just every single day I would practice

Tim Winders: 00:41:04

being seen by Father God.

Tim Winders: 00:41:06

I was in a school learning the difference between doing and being,

Tim Winders: 00:41:13

which is the distinction between an orphan mindset and an adoption mindset.

Tim Winders: 00:41:20

And so whether we're in a secular environment or a spiritual environment,

Tim Winders: 00:41:24

whatever, wherever we are, this is the principle, there is such

Tim Winders: 00:41:30

a profound need on the planet.

Tim Winders: 00:41:33

for adoption.

Tim Winders: 00:41:34

The need is so deep in humanity, the only solution was Jesus

Tim Winders: 00:41:40

had to come and die to fix it.

Tim Winders: 00:41:43

So the, I believe the essence of the gospel message is Jesus had to come and

Tim Winders: 00:41:50

interrupt this fact that we are separated.

Tim Winders: 00:41:53

And he's the only one who can close it.

Tim Winders: 00:41:57

Jesus did accomplish that.

Tim Winders: 00:41:58

Of course on the cross is finished, but we still live with gaps out

Tim Winders: 00:42:04

of cultural information and belief structures and the little T's and all

Tim Winders: 00:42:09

this stuff, our part, we need to learn how to close the gap and press in.

Tim Winders: 00:42:16

to father God.

Tim Winders: 00:42:17

And so that is the, profound moment in my life where I began to learn about,

Tim Winders: 00:42:26

about identity and being with God.

Tim Winders: 00:42:29

And, we could talk on and on.

Tim Winders: 00:42:31

That's where my purpose train tool begins to emerge and you know,

Tim Winders: 00:42:35

where it all flows out of that.

Tim Winders: 00:42:37

I begin to understand purpose is not the The top floor or the

Tim Winders: 00:42:45

the key to a life well lived it.

Tim Winders: 00:42:50

There's a layer one layer above it.

Tim Winders: 00:42:51

And that's identity.

Tim Winders: 00:42:53

We need to know who we are.

Tim Winders: 00:42:54

And there's only two choices.

Tim Winders: 00:42:56

You're either.

Tim Winders: 00:42:57

adopted or you're orphaned.

Tim Winders: 00:42:59

You're either comfortable in your own skin or you're not.

Tim Winders: 00:43:01

You either belong or you don't.

Tim Winders: 00:43:03

And once we fundamentally understand that in context of God, then our

Tim Winders: 00:43:09

purpose, vision, and strategies and tactics flow from that.

Tim Winders: 00:43:14

Great thing about that, Steven, is that's one of

Tim Winders: 00:43:16

the things when you and I had, you know, we spoke for an hour or so,

Tim Winders: 00:43:19

about a year, year and a half ago.

Tim Winders: 00:43:21

That is one of the things that still rings in my head.

Tim Winders: 00:43:24

Is that piece.

Tim Winders: 00:43:26

And I have even shared that because it's, I think And we're, we're

Tim Winders: 00:43:31

talking about people, probably many people listening that they have,

Tim Winders: 00:43:37

this is going to sound a little bit cynical, but I think you get it.

Tim Winders: 00:43:40

They've checked the salvation box.

Tim Winders: 00:43:44

They have said, I accept Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior.

Tim Winders: 00:43:47

Yeah, exactly.

Tim Winders: 00:43:49

But yet you, do not, you haven't approached.

Tim Winders: 00:43:55

See my, my personality, this is kind of a good contrast here.

Tim Winders: 00:43:59

My personality was.

Tim Winders: 00:44:03

The opposite arrogance.

Tim Winders: 00:44:04

I walk in a room and I think I own the place I've got issues there too.

Tim Winders: 00:44:09

But so when I stepped into the kingdom of God, when I was invited

Tim Winders: 00:44:14

in, accepted Jesus, I automatically said, I'm going to the throne.

Tim Winders: 00:44:18

I'm going to walk right in and converse.

Tim Winders: 00:44:20

We got, where's my wife and others like you're talking about that

Tim Winders: 00:44:24

have experienced disappointment and all that you're standing way back.

Tim Winders: 00:44:27

And so, so it is so fascinating.

Tim Winders: 00:44:30

I think this is a, such a root.

Tim Winders: 00:44:33

root conversation.

Tim Winders: 00:44:34

Is this what birthed your prosperous soul?

Tim Winders: 00:44:38

I guess ministry message, things that led to books, et cetera.

Tim Winders: 00:44:43

Is that kind of, is that when that began ish?

Tim Winders: 00:44:48

Stephen De Silva: I, I, I have to be honest, I, I began wrestling

Tim Winders: 00:44:54

with poverty and greed or mammon.

Tim Winders: 00:44:57

I began that and wrote the book with some awareness of this idea.

Tim Winders: 00:45:01

It was later when I understood there's a layer above it.

Tim Winders: 00:45:05

One of my chapters in the book talks about the four floors of purpose,

Tim Winders: 00:45:10

vision, strategies and tactics and the importance of living on the top floor.

Tim Winders: 00:45:15

Well it was after this experience, so after the book was published,

Tim Winders: 00:45:18

that I realized there's actually a layer on top of that and that's.

Tim Winders: 00:45:22

identity.

Tim Winders: 00:45:23

So I was still in the process of healing.

Tim Winders: 00:45:26

You see, I think at the top floor, the idea of identity has

Tim Winders: 00:45:32

two choices, orphan or adoption.

Tim Winders: 00:45:35

Orphan, the orphan identity, is the source of problems with money.

Tim Winders: 00:45:41

That's the cause.

Tim Winders: 00:45:42

And that's really what I want to do is heal that orphan wound, close the

Tim Winders: 00:45:48

wound, and from that begin to build real capacity with wealth, with increase.

Tim Winders: 00:45:54

And do, obviously, Christ.

Tim Winders: 00:45:58

I mean, it's, I probably need to say that for listeners.

Tim Winders: 00:46:00

It's not about having a Rolex and driving a Maserati or whatever people drive.

Tim Winders: 00:46:05

I don't even know, but it's about using my money on purpose for

Tim Winders: 00:46:12

a cause greater than ourselves.

Tim Winders: 00:46:13

So, I think that when I wrote the book, I was wrestling poverty

Tim Winders: 00:46:20

and its mindset and hating it.

Tim Winders: 00:46:22

But I didn't know what to do about it.

Tim Winders: 00:46:25

So I began to learn about the fingerprints and the mindset and

Tim Winders: 00:46:28

there's scriptures, you know, there's good teachers that talk about this.

Tim Winders: 00:46:31

And so I was learning these things and applying them to my life.

Tim Winders: 00:46:36

I later learned that poverty and mammon are like puppet twins.

Tim Winders: 00:46:42

Two sides of the same coin.

Tim Winders: 00:46:45

They seem opposite, you know, excess and lack villain and victim.

Tim Winders: 00:46:51

Those seem like opposites, but they're actually a family.

Tim Winders: 00:46:56

There are two sides of one coin and the coin is.

Tim Winders: 00:47:00

orphan.

Tim Winders: 00:47:02

That's our identity.

Tim Winders: 00:47:03

And that's why I think it's the highest level.

Tim Winders: 00:47:05

You have to solve this puzzle and then your purpose, vision, strategies, the

Tim Winders: 00:47:15

floors below begin to straighten out.

Tim Winders: 00:47:17

It's like orphanism distorts or twists our purpose in life

Tim Winders: 00:47:21

and our vision and everything.

Tim Winders: 00:47:24

If from an orphan orientation, it just twists all of that.

Tim Winders: 00:47:27

Yeah.

Tim Winders: 00:47:28

So when I wrote the book, I found a lot of secrets.

Tim Winders: 00:47:31

But I realize now, I still use those tools very much.

Tim Winders: 00:47:35

I have courses on them and whatnot, and, they're powerful and effective,

Tim Winders: 00:47:41

but to actually heal financial disease, to move from disease to

Tim Winders: 00:47:48

past healing into health, financial health is different than healing.

Tim Winders: 00:47:54

if you, to, in order to get to health, and I like to think of it

Tim Winders: 00:47:57

as a slide, we have to defy gravity.

Tim Winders: 00:48:01

And get to a new stable, a new stable place, this health.

Tim Winders: 00:48:05

In order to do that, you have to, begin with identity.

Tim Winders: 00:48:09

You have to cut the strings of the puppet master, which is orphan ism,

Tim Winders: 00:48:15

the mindset of orphan there, you know.

Tim Winders: 00:48:18

I'm no theologian, but I do think there is one orphan, a

Tim Winders: 00:48:23

real one, and that's the devil.

Tim Winders: 00:48:25

And he's trying to father people because he wants to be like God.

Tim Winders: 00:48:29

And because he's trying to father people, he's recreating orphans.

Tim Winders: 00:48:34

And unfortunately, many people Outside of Christianity, inside Christianity,

Tim Winders: 00:48:41

we are reinforced with orphan ideas.

Tim Winders: 00:48:44

We kind of, we, it, it suits us because orphanism gives us so many excuses.

Tim Winders: 00:48:52

You know, we can hide and blame others and we can vilify and do

Tim Winders: 00:48:57

things to others and justify it.

Tim Winders: 00:48:59

It's just a, it's, it's an ugly place, but it's also epidemic.

Tim Winders: 00:49:04

there's a few things there.

Tim Winders: 00:49:07

Obviously you went through quite the journey to arrive at that.

Tim Winders: 00:49:12

And, and, and I also want to say this, that just to say you're either an

Tim Winders: 00:49:20

orphan or you're adopted is one thing to accept and believe that side that you.

Tim Winders: 00:49:27

Should accept is another thing that a lot of people have to go through.

Tim Winders: 00:49:30

Like you mentioned that healing process, I don't, I don't know why, but the

Tim Winders: 00:49:34

scripture in Matthew six, you know, you can't serve two masters, you can't serve

Tim Winders: 00:49:39

God and Mammon kind of popped in my mind.

Tim Winders: 00:49:42

I recognize that I was attempting to serve both and you can't, I think it's

Tim Winders: 00:49:49

like you mentioned, it's that coin.

Tim Winders: 00:49:50

I think there's, you know, the kingdom of God, you know, God's

Tim Winders: 00:49:53

system, God's side, whatever.

Tim Winders: 00:49:56

And then there's.

Tim Winders: 00:49:58

The enemy the enemy of god, which is you know, satan satan all of all

Tim Winders: 00:50:03

of that There's a lot more to that.

Tim Winders: 00:50:04

I call it babylon at times just to say it's babylon or the

Tim Winders: 00:50:07

kingdom of god Yeah, just to do it.

Tim Winders: 00:50:09

But

Tim Winders: 00:50:10

one thing I do want to ask this question because I think it's sort of

Tim Winders: 00:50:13

foundational it's amazing to me that many translations and scriptures will

Tim Winders: 00:50:19

Replace that word mammon You know, you can't serve God in mammon with money.

Tim Winders: 00:50:26

but could you just briefly define mammon?

Tim Winders: 00:50:32

Because I think

Tim Winders: 00:50:33

it's a word that we throw out at times in our And you can't serve both.

Tim Winders: 00:50:37

I want to, that's my foundation of it.

Tim Winders: 00:50:39

But a lot of people don't know mammon might be.

Tim Winders: 00:50:43

They go, it's money.

Tim Winders: 00:50:44

I don't serve money.

Tim Winders: 00:50:45

Yeah, whatever.

Tim Winders: 00:50:46

Okay.

Tim Winders: 00:50:47

What's mammon?

Tim Winders: 00:50:48

Stephen De Silva: Yeah, wow.

Tim Winders: 00:50:49

Yeah, so Mammon is an ancient word that we don't relate to today because it's

Tim Winders: 00:50:55

not like an common English language word.

Tim Winders: 00:50:59

It's Chaldean, so that takes us literally back to Babylon.

Tim Winders: 00:51:03

So, it's funny that you call that system Babylonian, that is completely accurate.

Tim Winders: 00:51:08

So, the Babylonian system is summed up best in, I forget the chapter in

Tim Winders: 00:51:13

Revelation, but it talks about, You know, they're mourning the fall of Babylon.

Tim Winders: 00:51:19

And, if you realize, if you read that passage, you see what Babylon

Tim Winders: 00:51:23

offered and it was riches and purple and, you know, wealth, it was, it

Tim Winders: 00:51:28

was all of these comforts and things, but that passage is keep reading.

Tim Winders: 00:51:32

It's fascinating because it ends with slaves and human lives.

Tim Winders: 00:51:37

It is a system designed.

Tim Winders: 00:51:39

to enslave us.

Tim Winders: 00:51:42

So that's the Babylonian concept that the world was mourning in and is going

Tim Winders: 00:51:47

to mourn in the Book of Revelation.

Tim Winders: 00:51:48

Well, that culture labeled or gave a name to the The, the heart condition that

Tim Winders: 00:51:58

is necessary and that is called mammon.

Tim Winders: 00:52:02

It's the actual word is momonas.

Tim Winders: 00:52:05

And it, what it means is it does not mean money.

Tim Winders: 00:52:09

it does not mean wealth.

Tim Winders: 00:52:11

Now, there are English translations, NIV, NASB, I think the new King

Tim Winders: 00:52:15

James, the original King James, the one that used the word mammon,

Tim Winders: 00:52:19

that is the actual right word.

Tim Winders: 00:52:21

But mammon means wealth deified.

Tim Winders: 00:52:25

So it's different than, wealth.

Tim Winders: 00:52:28

It's wealth that has been, something has been done to it.

Tim Winders: 00:52:31

We have made it our source or point of worship.

Tim Winders: 00:52:36

Another way to look at mammon is money.

Tim Winders: 00:52:39

personified.

Tim Winders: 00:52:41

So it's a, it's a pretty hideous idea if you think about it, where we are willing

Tim Winders: 00:52:46

to in worship to this thing of wealth, this idea in that worship, we're willing

Tim Winders: 00:52:54

to sacrifice ourselves and others.

Tim Winders: 00:52:57

That's the worship component.

Tim Winders: 00:53:00

And, it's, it's an embezzling idea.

Tim Winders: 00:53:02

It, it steals from us.

Tim Winders: 00:53:04

It's a pretty gross thing when we actually look at it.

Tim Winders: 00:53:09

And, this is why you can't serve God and mammon because we are designed to

Tim Winders: 00:53:18

worship something greater than ourselves.

Tim Winders: 00:53:21

And even if we, you know, maybe a atheist would say, well, I'm not what

Tim Winders: 00:53:27

they're doing is worshiping Humanity.

Tim Winders: 00:53:30

That's what humanism is, right?

Tim Winders: 00:53:31

So we all worship something and, money is very common, for us to gravitate

Tim Winders: 00:53:40

to in the absence of Christ, because money is a spiritual power that

Tim Winders: 00:53:45

exaggerates whatever it touches.

Tim Winders: 00:53:47

It makes things bigger.

Tim Winders: 00:53:48

So if you worship it, guess what?

Tim Winders: 00:53:50

In exchange, you get power.

Tim Winders: 00:53:52

That's the mechanics behind Mammon, but, Mammon itself will Eat you.

Tim Winders: 00:53:59

It will eat you alive.

Tim Winders: 00:54:00

It will destroy you, your family, all the things that we care about,

Tim Winders: 00:54:04

our identity, our core values, our dreams, all of those things will be

Tim Winders: 00:54:10

sacrificed to this, this, mindset.

Tim Winders: 00:54:13

So some people have taught Mammon to be a demon.

Tim Winders: 00:54:18

I don't believe that I could be wrong.

Tim Winders: 00:54:20

I just see Mammon as a mindset.

Tim Winders: 00:54:23

a paradigm of worship.

Tim Winders: 00:54:26

And that's why I think mammon is not a demon.

Tim Winders: 00:54:30

That's why you can't cast it out.

Tim Winders: 00:54:32

You know, just like poverty is not a demon.

Tim Winders: 00:54:35

There are demons around these things, like flies around

Tim Winders: 00:54:38

manure, but you don't cast out.

Tim Winders: 00:54:43

You have to, you have to supplant those things.

Tim Winders: 00:54:46

I don't think they're demons.

Tim Winders: 00:54:48

I think they are mindsets, but there is a demon involved.

Tim Winders: 00:54:52

And that is the great orphan.

Tim Winders: 00:54:54

That's the orphan

Tim Winders: 00:54:55

Yeah.

Tim Winders: 00:54:55

And I, and I definitely think for me, I know that what I did, because

Tim Winders: 00:54:59

I was attempting at times to serve two masters, that, that serving that

Tim Winders: 00:55:07

Spirit of Mammon, Mammon, you know, serving that opens up the doors for

Tim Winders: 00:55:12

a lot of demons to mess with you.

Tim Winders: 00:55:15

You know, it, it, it,

Tim Winders: 00:55:16

it can definitely weaken you.

Tim Winders: 00:55:19

You're not, you're not in that adopted, fully adopted state,

Tim Winders: 00:55:23

if that even makes sense.

Tim Winders: 00:55:25

orphan and adopted.

Tim Winders: 00:55:26

I think that's foundational.

Tim Winders: 00:55:28

I love that.

Tim Winders: 00:55:28

And I do, I've got a, I got a copy of the book here, money in the prosperous soul.

Tim Winders: 00:55:33

And, and, and I've highlighted, and I think I'm going to ask you something

Tim Winders: 00:55:38

to do something here that's probably going to be difficult for you.

Tim Winders: 00:55:43

I would love it if you could talk about and maybe just hit it at an

Tim Winders: 00:55:48

extremely high level and quickly.

Tim Winders: 00:55:52

That's why I think it's going to be tough for you.

Tim Winders: 00:55:54

The tactic, strategy, vision, and purpose, the four levels, because I think when you

Tim Winders: 00:55:59

tie that with the identity and I, and I want to tell this to the listener, you're

Tim Winders: 00:56:04

not going to get enough From this, I just want you to be exposed to it and hear it.

Tim Winders: 00:56:11

And then Steven, in a little while, we'll talk about more resources where you

Tim Winders: 00:56:14

could go either in the book, or I know you've got a lot of resources like that.

Tim Winders: 00:56:17

So could you just briefly talk about that?

Tim Winders: 00:56:21

That's the purpose train, talk about that and tie it

Tim Winders: 00:56:24

in with identity in our last few minutes here.

Tim Winders: 00:56:26

Then I've got a question or two, and then we are going to jump off, but that's

Tim Winders: 00:56:30

how, how's that for a tough task for you?

Tim Winders: 00:56:34

Stephen De Silva: I can do that.

Tim Winders: 00:56:35

I appreciate you asking.

Tim Winders: 00:56:36

That's great.

Tim Winders: 00:56:37

I'm going to go to the top floor, which is purpose.

Tim Winders: 00:56:40

So I'm referring to floors is what's in the book.

Tim Winders: 00:56:43

The top floor is purpose.

Tim Winders: 00:56:45

like I said, there's another layer I've learned it's identity.

Tim Winders: 00:56:48

So let me go to an imaginary top floor, the fifth level,

Tim Winders: 00:56:53

which is identity is where.

Tim Winders: 00:56:56

It answers the question, who?

Tim Winders: 00:56:58

It's not who God is.

Tim Winders: 00:56:59

It's who am I?

Tim Winders: 00:57:01

And so the, the question is identity.

Tim Winders: 00:57:04

The answer is who?

Tim Winders: 00:57:06

And the reward or the outcome is value.

Tim Winders: 00:57:09

That's where worth and value are received.

Tim Winders: 00:57:14

They are given to you.

Tim Winders: 00:57:15

That's how you get it, is identity adopted.

Tim Winders: 00:57:20

the second, the next level down is purpose.

Tim Winders: 00:57:23

So the question is, what is your purpose?

Tim Winders: 00:57:25

Thanks.

Tim Winders: 00:57:25

The answer is, why am I alive, and the thing that is received,

Tim Winders: 00:57:31

or the reward, is meaning in life.

Tim Winders: 00:57:33

That's where meaning comes in.

Tim Winders: 00:57:35

is absorbed or received.

Tim Winders: 00:57:37

That's where it comes from.

Tim Winders: 00:57:39

Below that is vision is the question, and the answer is what.

Tim Winders: 00:57:45

What do you see in the future based on a top down perspective?

Tim Winders: 00:57:51

And the thing that is received in vision is hope, and hope is what the world

Tim Winders: 00:58:00

Especially our gens, gen z's and etc.

Tim Winders: 00:58:04

You know, they need hope.

Tim Winders: 00:58:05

Well, that's where you get it, but you don't work from the bottom up.

Tim Winders: 00:58:08

You always work from the top down.

Tim Winders: 00:58:10

Don't build vision without first figuring out who am I and why am I.

Tim Winders: 00:58:15

Below that is strategy.

Tim Winders: 00:58:17

The question is, what is, what is my strategy?

Tim Winders: 00:58:20

The answer is how I'm going to get there.

Tim Winders: 00:58:23

Whatever this pull system is engineering.

Tim Winders: 00:58:26

And the thing that is given or the reward of that is assignment.

Tim Winders: 00:58:33

It's your, it's your action steps to take, whether it's in

Tim Winders: 00:58:37

home or business or whatever.

Tim Winders: 00:58:38

That's where we actually do.

Tim Winders: 00:58:41

That's where we become a human doing.

Tim Winders: 00:58:44

And then finally at the bottom are tactics.

Tim Winders: 00:58:46

The question is.

Tim Winders: 00:58:47

What are my decisions?

Tim Winders: 00:58:50

And the answer becomes either yes or no.

Tim Winders: 00:58:55

Very simple.

Tim Winders: 00:58:56

If it's a pull system that is connected to this decision, if this

Tim Winders: 00:59:00

decision is on my purpose train, then the answer will clearly come out.

Tim Winders: 00:59:06

Yes or no.

Tim Winders: 00:59:08

If it's an orphan idea, then you, you can, you can identify those.

Tim Winders: 00:59:14

The thing that you gain the reward from tactics and the yes or no is clarity

Tim Winders: 00:59:20

and simplicity, quietness of mind and heart that sleep, sweet, sweet sleep.

Tim Winders: 00:59:25

What we long for.

Tim Winders: 00:59:27

That's where that comes from.

Tim Winders: 00:59:29

So there's my summary.

Tim Winders: 00:59:30

Yeah, and the great thing about that is that I, I

Tim Winders: 00:59:33

consider that a kingdom of God model.

Tim Winders: 00:59:38

And as you were bringing that up, I saw Maslow's hierarchy of

Tim Winders: 00:59:42

needs rising to self, it flips it.

Tim Winders: 00:59:46

You talked about the cascade.

Tim Winders: 00:59:48

I don't know if you've ever put thought into this, but it really is what most

Tim Winders: 00:59:52

people are attempting to get to that self.

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Actualization and they're building from the ground up and

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you started from the top down.

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That to me was the contrast I saw.

Tim Winders: 01:00:01

You're nodding for those that, you know, I'm not messing up your model.

Tim Winders: 01:00:05

I don't think I'm, I'm contextualizing or putting in perspective.

Tim Winders: 01:00:09

And, and I do want to say, Steven, you know, you and I had a sozo session.

Tim Winders: 01:00:13

I'll, we'll mention in just a moment how people can connect with you and find out.

Tim Winders: 01:00:17

And you brought this up and I find myself, you know, we're all a

Tim Winders: 01:00:20

product of the things that have come into our, our, Mind and spirit and

Tim Winders: 01:00:24

all over the course of our lives.

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I find myself using almost that model with organizations also, you

Tim Winders: 01:00:34

know, this is an individual thing.

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But, you know, organizations need to understand their identity, their purpose,

Tim Winders: 01:00:41

and, and, and all the way down to tactics.

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And, you know, I actually emailed you probably about a year ago.

Tim Winders: 01:00:46

I said, Hey, listen, I don't want to be swiping anything, but I'm kind

Tim Winders: 01:00:49

of using this some, is that okay?

Tim Winders: 01:00:52

And I can't remember what you said.

Tim Winders: 01:00:54

We'll have our lawyers get involved.

Tim Winders: 01:00:55

No, I'm just kidding.

Tim Winders: 01:00:58

But anyway, no, I mean, I, so I see so much value from that, Stephen.

Tim Winders: 01:01:04

So we we've, we've got a minute here.

Tim Winders: 01:01:09

Is there anything else before I kind of start wrapping up that you might want to

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say anything that the spirit is leading you or, or something that might be

Tim Winders: 01:01:17

unsaid, knowing that we've really just touched the surface and exposed some

Tim Winders: 01:01:23

people to a lot of really cool stuff.

Tim Winders: 01:01:27

Stephen De Silva: Yeah, I thank you for asking that.

Tim Winders: 01:01:29

I think I would encourage people if, if, if someone is inspired or

Tim Winders: 01:01:34

wondering, how do I start with this?

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What I would do is, give yourself permission to spend a little bit of time

Tim Winders: 01:01:41

every single day exercising this muscle.

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That is being and not doing, you know, I think we have big muscles developed,

Tim Winders: 01:01:53

especially if we're in the business or ministry area, if we're any kind

Tim Winders: 01:01:56

of a leader, we are buffed on doers, but being is a different tiny muscle.

Tim Winders: 01:02:02

It can build and it needs to build.

Tim Winders: 01:02:04

So that's what I would do is give yourself permission, listener, to sit.

Tim Winders: 01:02:09

10 minutes a day, you know, for me, it's first thing in the morning

Tim Winders: 01:02:13

and just be with Father God.

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My example of him on the throne where I just came and sat with him and he

Tim Winders: 01:02:21

looked at me and I had to bear that.

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Go do that for a while.

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Let Father God look at you in all of your ugliness and your nakedness.

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Just let him be there.

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He loves you and just experience that and let that change your paradigm.

Tim Winders: 01:02:38

It's very healing.

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to hang out with Father God.

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It is the reason Christ came, was to show us the Father.

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And I think that will be transformational for people.

Tim Winders: 01:02:50

Yeah, that's so good, Steven.

Tim Winders: 01:02:51

I appreciate that.

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If someone wants to connect with you or get some of your resources or something,

Tim Winders: 01:03:00

where, where do you want to send people?

Tim Winders: 01:03:02

We'll include it down in notes and all that, but where, where

Tim Winders: 01:03:04

do you want someone to go?

Tim Winders: 01:03:05

I mean, I'm, I'm expecting some people to say, I want some more,

Tim Winders: 01:03:08

but, where do you want them to go?

Tim Winders: 01:03:10

How can they connect?

Tim Winders: 01:03:12

Stephen De Silva: Well, the, the, if, if you're a shopper and you

Tim Winders: 01:03:15

just kind of like to window shop, I'd point you to my website.

Tim Winders: 01:03:18

I've got tons of resources in there.

Tim Winders: 01:03:21

Courses, the website is prosperous soul.

Tim Winders: 01:03:24

com all one word.

Tim Winders: 01:03:27

but if you're wanting, if a listener wants to talk to me more, About any

Tim Winders: 01:03:31

element that we've touched on, I will give a link to you for the notes that

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lets them schedule a zoom meeting privately with me a short one, maybe

Tim Winders: 01:03:40

15 to 20 minutes and they get to meet.

Tim Winders: 01:03:44

We get to talk and they can ask, what is the question?

Tim Winders: 01:03:47

And then I could say, Oh, here's your next best step.

Tim Winders: 01:03:49

And it was just save them a lot of time and accelerate

Tim Winders: 01:03:53

whatever it is they're after.

Tim Winders: 01:03:54

Excellent.

Tim Winders: 01:03:55

I appreciate that.

Tim Winders: 01:03:56

And, like I said, I, as a coach have even talked to Steven in what we call

Tim Winders: 01:04:02

a Zozo session and it was powerful and I've been wanting to get back on the

Tim Winders: 01:04:07

line and allow me to ask the questions.

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And so I'm excited that we've been able to do that.

Tim Winders: 01:04:13

Steven, we are seek, go create those three words.

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I'm either going to allow or force you to choose one of those.

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Don't ever think it either, by the way, seek.

Tim Winders: 01:04:24

Go or create, which do you choose?

Tim Winders: 01:04:27

And why is my final question.

Tim Winders: 01:04:29

Stephen De Silva: I love that you asked that.

Tim Winders: 01:04:31

And I, I have thought about this for quite a few weeks.

Tim Winders: 01:04:36

I follow your podcast.

Tim Winders: 01:04:37

I've decided it's Seek.

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And for me, Seek, the reason is It is the closest word for the position of

Tim Winders: 01:04:48

sitting with Father God and listening.

Tim Winders: 01:04:51

I think the secrets of Solomon hide in seek.

Tim Winders: 01:04:55

The Bible says nothing was hidden from Solomon.

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It doesn't say he knew everything.

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It says nothing was hidden from Solomon.

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I believe Solomon knew how to seek and listen.

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And that, that's the word I choose.

Tim Winders: 01:05:06

I love that.

Tim Winders: 01:05:07

Awesome.

Tim Winders: 01:05:08

Stephen, I've enjoyed the conversation.

Tim Winders: 01:05:10

I highly recommend that you get money and the prosperous soul.

Tim Winders: 01:05:16

I've got a hard copy that is signed by Stephen that you sent me a while back.

Tim Winders: 01:05:21

And then I also have it on my Kindle.

Tim Winders: 01:05:23

So I've got two copies of it and I appreciate that.

Tim Winders: 01:05:26

Make sure you pick up a copy of that and just connect with Stephen.

Tim Winders: 01:05:28

This has been such a rich conversation.

Tim Winders: 01:05:30

Conversation.

Tim Winders: 01:05:30

We are seek, go create.

Tim Winders: 01:05:32

We release new episodes every Monday and we also appreciate all of you

Tim Winders: 01:05:37

that support us, that you, you comment, you follow, you subscribe.

Tim Winders: 01:05:42

And we now also have it where you can give us some support financially

Tim Winders: 01:05:46

if you like what we're doing here.

Tim Winders: 01:05:48

And we appreciate that.

Tim Winders: 01:05:49

You can tip me, buy me a coffee, offer financial support.

Tim Winders: 01:05:52

All you have to do is go to seek, go create.

Tim Winders: 01:05:55

com.

Tim Winders: 01:05:56

Forward slash support seek, go create.

Tim Winders: 01:05:59

com forward slash support.

Tim Winders: 01:06:01

Go there.

Tim Winders: 01:06:01

You can leave as little as a dollar, as much as, as much as you want to

Tim Winders: 01:06:06

and choose, we would accept that.

Tim Winders: 01:06:08

And you can also leave some comments.

Tim Winders: 01:06:10

We, we love to get those comments.

Tim Winders: 01:06:12

So go visit that site and check that out.

Tim Winders: 01:06:14

I appreciate you being here until next time, continue being

Tim Winders: 01:06:19

all that you were created to be.