Chris Grainger: 1:10

Welcome to the Lion Within Us, a podcast serving Christian men who are hungry to be the leaders God intends you to be. I'm your host, chris Granger. Let's jump in. All right, fellas fun Friday. Let's get right into it, okay?

Chris Grainger: 1:21

So the scripture of the week this week is actually in the book of 1 Thessalonians, chapter 5, verses 16 through 18, although it's not that long. It says Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus. Beautiful verses, guys. The trick is, if we were to think about it, applying it. And the lion it's all about simplifying and applying God's word into our life. It's really that simple. So if you missed the spiritual kickoff episode for this week, go back and listen to it. It really took some time to unpack that. To give you some practical ways, you can take these couple little verses, you know rejoicing, praying, giving thanks, all that and actually put that into practice in your life. That's what the Christian life is all about. That's what the discipleship journey is all about. That we talk about, okay. So hopefully you guys get a chance to listen to that one. And again, we do this every day, monday through Friday the spiritual kickoff in our community. So the line within that us gets started today. Go ahead and start it. See what it's all about. This is exclusive content directly for our community members. They love it. It's a great way to engage, to plug in, and the cool part is, even if you miss it, you still get access to it, because all the recordings are posted inside of our platform, of our network. Okay, all right guys.

Chris Grainger: 2:37

So look, our last episode was so much fun, with Richard Gamble talking about the eternal wall of prayer. What an incredible project. I don't know how much you learned or had you heard about that already. I'd love to get your feedback on that, but he's just love his energy from the UK, just a good conversation, lots and lots of God moments. Already, just to get up to the point where they're at right now, they have funding, they have the land, they're working through the last items so far as the regulations, and then they have to secure a little more funding for the parking and things like that. But the big blocks, the big things are really moving and he is uh, he's on fire. For it's a great opportunity for you too, if you have a God story or how he just uh items in your life, your testimony, how God has has shown up and moved in just mighty ways. What an incredible chance for you right now to share that in a meaningful way. What an incredible chance for you right now to share that in a meaningful way that's going to be able to be used for generations to come and to hear that Right. So, just a great opportunity for you. Go check out that episode, for sure, and just very thankful for Richard for sharing.

Chris Grainger: 3:43

Ok, all right, let's get into our fun Friday stuff, boys, all right. So every week we do a health, wealth and a self tip and we and those are the pillars of the line within us we talk about those things at length. Okay, health being how do we strengthen our mind and our bodies? Okay, not just physically strength, but strength of mind too. Wealth being stewardship it's all about stewardship over our careers and our finances. And self is how do we improve incrementally. As husbands and fathers, we're called to lead. We have to do this. We have to lean in. Okay, so for a health tip, this is something we're talking about.

Chris Grainger: 4:15

Prayer I just really thought about this. It's a common practice for me. If you come to me and say, chris, you know, will you pray over this situation? I won't ask for first names. I want to get super specific on prayer requests. Okay, and then. So, for instance, when I teach I teach Sunday school and I'm always very attuned to write down the prayer requests as the individuals are bringing them up in the class and then I'm writing the names out and that's what I want to pray about. You know, I don't want to pray about so-and-so's uncle. I want to talk about uncle Bob. You know I'm praying for Bob specifically. Talk about Uncle Bob. I'm praying for Bob specifically and I won't make that tie in that this is their uncle.

Chris Grainger: 4:54

I just think there's something beautiful in personalization. When we write the name down, we know the name and we're going for that prayer request specifically. It doesn't take away any of the power if you don't know the name. So don't hear me wrong here. I'm just saying it's just a great little practice. Hey, will you pray for my aunt? Okay, sure, what's her name? I'd love to pray for your aunt. Can you share her name and just add that personalization and then speak that name over? I write names down all the time on my notepads and I'm constantly just, hey, oh, yeah, I need to be praying for Tom. That's right, lord. I'm just going to lift him up during this situation. I have Tom literally right here on my notepad. I'm going to pray for him. I know he's in the hospital. He's been dealing with this. He got out of the hospital. He's still looking for wisdom in the sermon. See, it worked Just for me. There's something beautiful about it when you put the personalization connected with the prayer. Okay, all right, so that Now a wealth tip.

Chris Grainger: 5:51

I want to give you an idea of how you bring prayer into your career in a meaningful way. I want you to be praying anyway, at all times in your career, for sure. But I actually was able to start a prayer warrior group at an employer and it has been incredible and it took some navigating to get this stuff figured out, and for me, it started with a conversation with human resources Up here is what I'd like to do. I'd like to, during lunch break once a week, just pull people together in a virtual meeting and just pray together, and I was here to tell you, so I was able to get that buy-in. That is okay. We could do that, and that has been probably the most coveted meeting each week for so many people.

Chris Grainger: 6:39

It's just a way for us to get to know each other on a much more meaningful basis, more intimate. For sure, we're not knowing each other from just a quote, unquote work standpoint anymore. We're talking about kids, we're talking about, you know, health related issues and financial related issues and fears and uncertainties and anxieties and all the stuff that we deal with with our families and our friends and our churches, and we're not just people who just come to work and just work. No, it's so much more now. It took a lot of courage I'm going to be honest to even ask to start this group, but I am so just blessed and honored that they said yes, first and foremost. But now the people, just they see the value in it.

Chris Grainger: 7:29

You know, and if you're listening to the lion, you're a leader, or at least you're striving to be, and you're looking for areas to lead in your career. And I'm here to tell you what a great way for you to lean into what God's calling you to do, to be the catalyst that starts a prayer warrior call at your company, and it may start small. Right now we got our call up. Sometimes we have a dozen people on it or so, but it may just be you and one or two other people, and that's okay. Don't forsake the small beginnings, because the fact that you take the step of obedience if it's just you and one other person who started, take the step and then invite others and then just let God do what God does, don't worry about pushing the timing or your agenda. Just follow God. Just follow him all the way, take the step of obedience and just watch the blessings. So there you go Start your prayer group Self-tip.

Chris Grainger: 8:33

Now, another thing that we've done with my family I want to share Start a prayer journal as a family. So what we did, we've already talked. My family I want to share Start a prayer journal as a family. Okay, so what we did, we've already talked about in the past the most important hour in that process. So I took that process and we actually implemented that into our family. So now, when we do our Bible reading every day so we do usually five days a week we'll read a chapter of the Bible. When we finish, we open up this little journal and we reflect on what's the best thing that happened for the day. And everyone has to go around the table, even our littles, and it's usually always funny with them. We talk about something that's good, like where did God show up? Let's give God some praise right here.

Chris Grainger: 9:12

And then we move to our prayer requests. What do we need to be actively praying about? And that can vary a lot. You know, we have teenage daughters, we have us with our farm, the lion within us, all the different things happening within our lives. So the prayer requests definitely change. They're all over the place, but it's a beautiful way for our family, at least we recognize, for us to come together and get to know each other and what's on our heart in a more meaningful way. You know, because if our daughter talks about the struggle she's having with a friend, that opens up an opportunity for us to encourage her, to speak life into her, for us to be, most importantly, intentional about praying over that specifically.

Chris Grainger: 9:57

Okay, so we write these down and we leave that journal. Actually, this is a practice that we have on our kitchen table where we eat all our meals together, or dining room table rather, and that's where it stays. It's next to the Bible. So we read the Bible, we do the prayer journals and it's just a great way. Sometimes we even talk about things from the Bible study, the Bible scriptures we read. We even talk about things from the Bible study the Bible scriptures we read, we talk about that, and then that leads directly into prayer. It's just a. It has been for me and for our family. I'll just say this some of the most coveted time I have each and every day is just to have that time with them in intentional prayer and just in God's word. So there you go. That's a great way to lean in.

Chris Grainger: 10:41

Again, nothing fancy about it, nothing super hard about it either. But start that prayer journal, all right. So that's your three tips of health, wealth and self health. Is that? Ask for those first names when you're praying? Okay, get, get super intentional about that Wealth tip. Go ahead, start that prayer group. Work through it correctly. You don't want you to get in trouble about this, but find out what you would need to do to get a prayer group started inside your work. Ok, and then the well, the self-tip, rather, is the prayer journals for your family. Highly encourage you to get it, and it could literally be a notepad. It doesn't have to be any special journal, but just get it started.

Chris Grainger: 11:16

Ok, now the book of the week. I'm a pull this one up. Ok, this is Final Destiny the future reign of the Servant Kings by Joseph Diller. This is a great resource around end times. And what does that look like? You know we talk about the eternal wall of prayer. I just thought that was just a great time to pull this one up. I have never used pulled this one up and referenced for the line within us before and again. This is not easy reading this is over 11,000 pages or so but a great resource if you're interested in thinking about the things that are to come. It's definitely scriptural, it's definitely biblical. It could be a good resource for you and your library.

Chris Grainger: 11:51

Okay, all right, dad joke time, let's get into that. We've got two dad jokes. Both of them are submitted by Flying Within Us community members. Adam and Doug. You guys are awesome, right, you rock. We love you guys. So thank you so much. So the first one does come from Adam. It says why don't male ants sink? And it says, uh, what's easy, because they're buoyant. Okay, boy aunt, get it. No-transcript that. So let me know what one works for you. Number one, number two, and if you have a joke that we need to use that we haven't used on the line within us support at the line withinus. Send us your dad joke in. Even better, join a community at thelinewithhandus and let's share them. All the time Doug sends me dad jokes on a consistent basis. It's always a great way just to pick me up, just to encourage me. So it's a great way for you to jump into. And we also do polls on Fridays just to let the guys have a little fun and vote with those dad jokes together, all right.

Chris Grainger: 13:25

So the question of the week, guys, is how do you rejoice when life gets hard? And I get it. Rejoicing when life gets hard is not natural. It's not very easy. But you're not called easy. You're called to do what God's called you to do. And I just want to encourage you for that guy who's listening right now, who's going through a trial. I just want you to know I'm sorry, brother, I'm sorry you're going through it.

Chris Grainger: 13:46

I would just encourage you to also go back to God's word. It says rejoice, pray, give thanks. If you just follow that simple little framework, that simple little model, I'm hopeful that that is encouragement to you. It's going to give you hope. It's going to just give you that extra little push you need just to work through and also reach out. Just to work through and also reach out.

Chris Grainger: 14:10

We are here at the line within us to encourage you to, to equip you, but also just to hear you. You will be heard and I can promise you, if you reach out to the line within us, it's not falling in some vacuum with with some third party, whoever that doesn't know. We're going to respond directly because we care and you can't fake that. If you fake that, people recognize it and they go somewhere else. But if you need something to be prayed over intentionally, it would be an absolute honor to pray over it with you. So reach out to chris at the lion within, dot us. I would love to hear from you guys. Have a great weekend. Thank you so much for listening. Thank you so much for just all the support for listening to the show, for reading the Bible studies on the Bible app, for going to the website, for checking out our resources.

Chris Grainger: 15:02

Our weekly roar is really just a great way to connect. That's. You know thousands of guys that signed up for that. You get that email every Monday just give you encouragement. Each and every week we have our Christian Leader Assessment. It's just a great, fun, easy way for you to kind of just assess where you're at across the different pillars that we deem important at the Lion Within Us, and just lots of ways to connect, lean in and grow. But it's all found at thelionwithinus also. There you'll find our live events, where we have our, our reclaiming the wild, we have our uh, the iron and autumn. We have mission trips. Guys, we have lots of ways we're trying to grow, we're trying to encourage, we're trying to equip. All found at the lion withinus. All right. So have a great weekend, fellows, get after it. Thank you so much for hanging out today and just keep unleashing the lion with them.

Chris Grainger: 15:53

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