This Stuff Matters with Tom Gray

On the day before we get to hang out with UGA Bulldog legend Buck Belue at our next TSM Live Lunch (Nov. 9th), we pull from his life story, featured in his book “Inside the Hedges”. In every high-impact person’s life, there are seasons and stories of being refined through the fires of pressure and difficulty. Take great encouragement from our episode today, especially if you’re in the middle of a pressure cooker right now. The Bible reminds us repeatedly of the fundamental necessity of being refined by trials to become mature and complete souls equipped not only to persevere and triumph but also to influence others to the same end. Enjoy!

Hit me up with questions or thoughts – email me at [email protected] or text/voice message me at 678-453-6774.

You see defensive coordinators rotating their lines in and out in an attempt to keep them fresh and strong through the entire football game – especially against up-tempo offenses. Our lives are a battle too, and rest is a huge component of enduring and winning in life. As you consider intentionally choosing your beliefs, consider what Jesus offers His followers in a biblical belief system.

He says: “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.” Matthew 11:28,29

There is a depth of rest available to our souls when we walk in lockstep with Jesus that transcends all circumstances and challenges. It may be exactly what your soul has been crying out for.

Hit me up with questions or thoughts – email me at [email protected] or text/voice message me at 678-453-6774.

Secular Humanism says you and we are a coincidence. Judeo-Christian biblicalism says you and we are a creation. What we believe about God and therefore ourselves makes a fundamental and colossal difference in how we will live as individual souls and as a society. As you go about your day-to-day routines this week, engage your imagination by asking yourself as many times as you can remember: “How would a creation of God respond to this?” and “How would a random coincidence respond to this?”

Hit me up with questions or thoughts – email me at [email protected] or text/voice message me at 678-453-6774.

Well, if you’re ready to not just sit back and believe whatever the culture you live in feeds you by osmosis, and if you’re ready to take the reins of determining what you believe intentionally, here we go. At the center of any belief system, we need to ask four fundamental questions.

1. Where did I/we come from? The question of origin.

2. Why am I here? The question of purpose.

3. What should I do? The question of morality/justice.

4. Where am I going? The question of destiny.

As we seek the best answers to those questions, we can analyze the answers that different philosophies and/or religions offer by using two tests.

1. The correspondence test. Does the answer suggest correspond to the world as I can experience/observe it?

2 The coherence test. Do the collective answers give the form of a coherent whole across all four questions?

Hit me up with questions or thoughts – email me at [email protected] or text/voice message me at 678-453-6774.

We have been focusing on clarifying our identity – who are we? Recognizing that no one consistently performs in a manner inconsistent with how they see themselves, we need to make sure we turn to the right source to find the answer(s) to the questions(s) of who we are individually and as a society. As a continuation of the same theme, how we view everything, what we believe about everything, is central to every aspect of our lives. And, like our best source for clarifying our identity, God, I want to suggest/recommend considering belief in God as the starting point of what matters most across our entire approach to life and society. “What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us” – A.W. Tozer

Hit me up with questions or thoughts – email me at [email protected] or text/voice message me at 678-453-6774.

Our national motto since 1956 has been “In God We Trust”. Our money says it. Our presidents since Reagan have ended speeches saying “God bless America.” Our founding document (the Declaration of Independence) says our country and our rights as its citizens are built on and come from God our Creator. Every successful team and organization must clarify and commit to its collective identity. We as a country, if we’re going to turn our downturn into a resurgence must also start there. We need to decide going forward, will we or won’t be who we’ve been? Will we be One Nation Under God or not? It's time for us to make the same commitment President Lincoln called us to in the middle of the Civil War in his Gettysburg Address, “that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom.” The new birth of freedom we know we desperately need today must begin by clarifying our collective identity. Whether you personally believe in God or not, there are practical ways for all of us to affirm our collective commitment to this unifying identity. That is where our podcast begins to lead us today.

Hit me up with questions or thoughts – email me at [email protected] or text/voice message me at 678-453-6774.

The only fully satisfying and reliable source for answering life’s foundational question: “Who am I?”, is God. We cannot look inside ourselves for the answer, and we cannot look outside ourselves unless the look “out” is the look “up” to God. So I guess you could call this outsourcing, “up”sourcing.

Corrie ten Boom – holocaust survivor and major soul/society revolutionary – said, “If you look at the world, you’ll be distressed. If you look within, you’ll be depressed. But if you look at Christ, you’ll be at rest.”

Hit me up with questions or thoughts – email me at [email protected] or text/voice message me at 678-453-6774.

To realize the changes we desperately need, we must begin with clarifying our identity – we must know who we are – both within our individual souls and then ultimately as a society at large. “You cannot consistently perform in a manner which is inconsistent with the way you see yourself.” – Zig Ziglar

In today’s episode, Tom begins to help you clarify the all-important answer(s) to the question, “Who am I?”. Where do you look to help you answer that question? The opinion of others? Your job? A cause you’re connected to? Let’s make sure we’re anchoring to the right source of information when we’re clarifying who we are.

This episode is the third of a three-part interview with Ralph Stokes. This serves as a great wrap-up of our little portrait of a real-life change agent, aka revolutionary. If you want to see the whole interview with Ralph unedited, you can find it here on our YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CkvHgGMq-XM

Ralph is our featured guest at our Next TSM Live Lunch on September 14th. Get your ticket at the link below – and text me any questions you have for Ralph ahead of time to 678-453-6774.

This episode is the second of a three-part interview with Ralph Stokes. Pay attention to the lessons Ralph shares in this episode: notice that facing difficulty and challenge is not only inevitable in life, it is actually indispensable in developing the character of our kind of revolutionaries. There is a great paragraph in the Bible about how we should view our suffering, knowing that the right mindset toward life’s most painful moments is actually the key to complete and mature character. It’s James 1:1-3 if you want to explore it for yourself.