Episode 164. 12 Books of Christmas Day 1: I AM with Christian Bevere

Unedited Transcript

Christian. I'm so thrilled to have you today. Thank you so much for joining us. It is absolutely an honor. I'm glad that Arden paved the way with you. And then now, you know, they say, first is the worst. Second is the best. We won't say worse, but maybe no, this is going to be, this is going to be so much fun.

Listen, I love anytime I get to spend with the veer. My love runs so deep for your family. I have goodness been reading. John and Lisa's books for the majority of my, I would say adult life, but I can remember reading some of Lisa's books when I was like in late middle school. And so she was really one of the first, I don't know, after probably Beth Moore women that really spoke into my life spiritually from a distance.

And it's so fun to be in this season now. And I'm on a totally different level. Get to connect with. Some peeps in your family. And so I'm so excited about your book that we get to talk to or talk about today. Um, but the, the real reason, the real real well, the real real is I'm excited about your book, but the real real is, uh, it's the 12 books of Christmas.

And I. So excited to have you be a part of the series that we're doing during the Christmas season, we choose, um, 12 books that we love that we think our people will love. And we do a giveaway of all 12 of them to one of our podcasts listeners, which is to. Just so much fun. So your new book, I am find your identity, claim, your freedom and embrace the adventure is one of those books, which I'm really excited about.

So before we get into all the Christmas things, Christian, I want you to share a little bit about you about like, who are you married to? What do you do with messenger or telephone? Well, first of all, I'm so involved with the idea that this is a full circle moment of what my mother-in-law Lisa has settled into your life.

And then now, honestly, the book, everything we're doing at messenger at all rides the coattails of honestly what they've pioneered. And to hear that from you, as we're talking about this new book from the books that she's put out there years and years ago, for me, it's just. It's a Jesus moment to think while we're continuing this message, we're continuing this work.

So thank you so much for what you shared around that. Yeah. For those that don't know Lisa or me or messenger. And you're thinking who are these people? Uh, my name's Christian , I'm part of a very big, uh, half Italian, some full Italian family. Um, we love, well, we love Jesus. We write a lot of books and we have a new book coming out called I am, which is actually been a family collaboration.

It's been a. Group collaboration with people listening, even people that got connected to us through podcasts. So if you were listening to this, I just want you to know you may be writing a book with us or someone else one day it's, it's really neat and how God works through things, right. Yeah, that's so fun.

I love that. I always love projects like this. It's so fun to see what God does when like his people gather around an idea. And I don't think any of us who write books create in a vacuum. We all certainly have a team. Behind us. And, um, whether that's that's an actual team or just a team of people that love us well, but this type of project is really special.

I think when, when that happens. So before we get super thick into the book, I just love talking Christmas. I love talking shop about Christmas. Um, I think it's fun for our people to get, to hear a little bit of your heart and what you love in terms of like traditions and things like that. So I want to hear.

Tell me about what Christmas looked like in your family when you were growing up? Um, Christmas has always been one of my favorite holidays, probably. The favorite holiday. And for me, we have a blended family, so it was a lot of people coming together. We grew up in Alabama, so eating a lot of Southern food, um, and just celebrating as a family, usually for about three days on end.

So Christmas has always been special to me for the, the symbolism of when Jesus did, when he came to earth and the impact it had. Like you're saying when we came together and we cellar celebrated around something bigger than us and just honestly, it just loved on each other. Well, for again, multiple days in a row, it was always, I think from a young age I realized something about that was special.

Yeah. That's so awesome. I didn't know you were an Alabama girl. Oh yeah. Okay, cool. Okay. So I, we don't live in Alabama. We live in south Mississippi, but I knew that. Zero of Alabama before I married my husband because I was a Tennessee girl. I lived just state north of Alabama in Knoxville for most of most of my adult life.

Um, and my husband's a senior pastor down here where we live in south Mississippi. So I, I frequent my way through Alabama on the way to see my family. So I've become much more familiar. Not, not the whole state, but like Birmingham. That's usually my, my good go-to to stop through. So I love that. Well, I'm intend to speak girl.

So you can teach me about Tennessee. I'll teach you about Alabama. Yes, exactly. So y'all are in Nashville. Okay. I thought so. Yeah, I, man, I love Nashville. I, um, it's been too long since I've been, so I need to visit soon. Um, okay. I love all that. I'm getting off track, but one of my favorite things to ask people about Christmas, because this is so.

So Tinder and sweet and it matters so much to me. And my family is just talking about favorite Christmas traditions. So is there something that y'all did as a family that you look back and you're like, man, that's really sweet and I want to carry that on. Or when I look back at that, like those are my favorite memories.

Um, you know, Rebecca, there was a place that my parents would take me. Without miss maybe once or twice, but without miss, almost every single year. Um, it's called Bellin graph gardens if you are in that area, but basically it's this huge garden that you walk through and there's lights. And when I tell you.

Magical doesn't even begin to describe it. I mean, especially as a young girl, you just see lights everywhere and flowers and, and people taking in all this beauty. I looked forward to that every single year. And now that we are in Tennessee thinking, man, I can, I can take my kids there one day. Whenever we have last year, I took art in there for the first time.

And. You know, it it's changed a little bit. The lights are smaller now that I've gotten bigger, the area seems smaller, but to walk him through something that was so special and is still so special, my life was a really beautiful Christmas memory for me. And that was always my favorite tradition, tradition, just going there with my family.

Seeing the same thing every year, but it never losing its splendor. I love that so much. That's beautiful. Okay. Do you have a favorite food item or dish or whatever it is that you feel like? If nothing else has to be on my dining room table at Christmas, this has gotta be there. I can't. I mean, we had almost every food that you can think of that we've had lasagna that's the best I think now, and going forward, it would be a breakfast casserole breakfast.

I eat all year, but it is one of the best. Yeah, we would oftentimes sort of alternate between like a sweetness savory some years we would do a casserole and some years we would do like cinnamon rolls and like banking up to the smell of that. Just like permeating through the house. It's the best. I love it.

Okay. Well, I love, I love talking about Christmas and what people love when they look back on their childhood. And, um, that's such a fun conversation, but I also want to talk about your book. So we said the name, I'm going to say it again for people who might not have caught it at the beginning, it's called, I am find your identity, claim your freedom and embrace the adventure.

I want to hear from you. You're one of many people, like we said, that are, we're a part of this project, but what makes you the most excited about this message? You know, I don't think I've ever seen a book that is written by multiple authors and not to harp on, Hey work. We're neat people pioneering this initiative, but it's exciting to me because it's a challenge.

Honestly, it was a challenge to get that many voices into one cohesive message, but also I do. I'm our sons and daughters creative director. And so when we're talking about how do we market this, how do we share this message and explain it, um, as you can imagine, it's a little bit of a stump. It's okay.

This is bias sons and daughters, four sons and daughters who are sons and daughters. What does this mean? And it's been exciting because the whole project has felt very reliant on, on God, honestly, to one. Put something together to, to unify these voices and this message to what he designed it to be, and then to even to carry it.

Cause I think sometimes we, we work hard for a project. We work hard for a God dream. And then we just say, okay, got it. It's yours. Take it and make it all, make it all good. Put a bow on it or, okay. This happened. And then I got it. I did this part of it. Look at me and it's been very humbling and exciting to see him do this in a new way that we haven't seen it before in our realm.

And to bring in so many different voices. Um, I mean, we have. Hundreds of ambassadors from, I think, over 40 different countries and the language barriers, the different ideas, the different revelations and ways we experience God. It's very off, inspiring to say the least. Yeah, that's awesome. I love that so much.

Okay. So a few of the things that really stood out to me that I know are people are going to want to hear about, um, one of them, it talks in the book a lot about some of the things that our calling is not, you know, I think sometimes we get so overwhelmed by like, oh, what is my purpose? What is my calling?

And that can feel super overwhelming. And so maybe some of those things that are calling is not might help people kind of frame. You know, how do I have that conversation in a way that doesn't feel overwhelming? So would you talk a little bit about some of those things that are calling is not? Yeah. I mean, the questions that you just said as a field, a lot or a theoretical, those were questions.

I asked myself in college, I went to, um, Auburn university. It's a four year school. Um, I went from a journalism degree. And at the same time, I got plugged into a really amazing church in the area. And so I was in that head space of I'm going to go to college, kind of like we all do. I got to graduate in four years.

I got to know my major. Um, go, go, go. And then at the same time, getting just wrecked by Jesus in the church and thinking, okay, do I want to do. This career path. Do I want to go this quote unquote secular route? Or do I want to jump into ministry? Um, kind of that moment of, okay. God, what is my calling? You need to figure it out.

I have a, I needed to figure this out yesterday. All of those thoughts that really aren't new. I don't think for anyone listening, um, I was in that place and felt like it was a constant tug of war of where do I go? And once I figured that out, I need to just hit the ground running. And that's of one of what I think our calling is not, it's not a secular versus sacred.

It's not a career path. It's not a job title. It's not an accomplishment. It is. Honestly, the gospel lived out in our life. And so when we simplify that to the most concrete form, it's just Jesus in our life. Now I believe that God will tell you specific things. He'll send you different places. He'll, he'll speak in that, those areas in those details, but that's not our calling our calling us so much.

Simpler and kind of an oxymoron bigger than any of that. Uh, any of those limitations that we can put on it? Yeah. That's so good. It's um, it's one of those things in life for me, at least that it's kind of a both hand thing. Like it is complex. Sure. And it can feel weighty. But it is simple, you know, I love what you said of, um, our calling at the end of the day is really just the gospel lived out.

Right? Like the message of the book that I'm working on is really helping women kind of connect, um, how to see our calling through like a gospel centered lens, because I think what happens is we look to the world for. How to figure out our calling and our purpose and things like that. Instead of looking at God's word and seeing what he's has to say about it.

And, um, I think all of the messages that the world shout so loud at us, um, we try to mesh those together. We try to blend biblical truth with. The way the world handles, um, careers and, and calling and all of that. And it just doesn't blend well, it doesn't all shake out well, when we, um, when we try to do that, and I think that's why we get so overwhelmed.

So you're right. It is, um, oftentimes not as tough as we, we try to make it out to be. So that's I hope and encouragement to listener today. And another piece that I think is really important in the book that you guys talk about is community and just the role that it plays in becoming who God made us to be.

And so I'd love for you to share a little bit about it. Yeah. Even piggy backing off of what you just said. When we think of the communal aspect of, um, the communal aspect of our colleague, it does often bleed into other areas. So I think the problem we encountered today is it is very me-focused right now.

Our generation is, is. Being told or being led to believe, like, what is your calling? What is your truth? What is your identity? And when that alienates from the body, when that alienates from, um, you know, sons and daughters, our brothers and sisters that can very easily. Be more and more skewed because it is looking at it through that one lens is okay, what does the world say?

I am? And it's very narrowing and we have our blinders on. But I think when there is a communal aspect, when then our calling within our identity within any problem we face or area we're going to grow into, we need to have the right community, but we need to have community that's going to. Sharpen S because we just came off of one of our biggest, well, not one of our biggest event we host all year and it's called messenger cup.

What I saw there was people coming together and imparting into each other, encouraging each other, doing goals in life together where naturally I'm an introvert. When I moved to Nashville, I came down and Arden had to stay in Colorado for a few weeks. And my mother-in-law would call me every day. And she's like, I'm just checking on you.

She's extroverted. She's like, are you okay? So sweet. So sweet. I was like, I'm, I'm doing good. Like I'm surviving out here. It's infancy two with my nature, but going from that, um, where things weren't good. I'm I know some people would differ of isolation and loneliness, but I went through something that was good going straight into this event where I was encouraged and around these other people.

And, um, It sharpens you in a way that you don't get on your own. And I think right now we need to be sharp and we need to come together. The things we're seeing and our realms right now in society and in the world and on media, they won't get better fighting it alone and it won't get better fighting at each other would need to come together.

And I know that's, that's a rabbit hole. That's a whole nother podcast community. We can't shy away from it. I'll just say that. Yeah, that's so good. It matters. So, so, so much. And one of the other things in the book that I think is really important to talk about is just some of the lies that the culture tells us about God, about who God is.

And so I would love. For you to just share with listeners today, kind of how do we clean onto truth as we try to combat, you know, the lies that the world tells us about God, um, you know, Rebecca, I don't know. I don't know how you're seeing. Those lies about God play out, um, in conversations you're having and what you're seeing around you.

But what I've seen has been not even so much anymore, I feel like maybe in the last 10 years, it was lies about God lies about what he desires for us. What I'm seeing now today, at least this year is more of lies. Who got his, um, what I mean by that is right now, we're saying your identity is your God.

Your sexuality is your God. Um, the media is a God in and of itself. And for me, I think that is both are equally dangerous. But what I hear for right now is if we don't get in that, right. Ultimately I know we're kind of bee bopping around a few different points, but if you're listening to this, um, we dive into all of these areas because we can chalk it up to be one thing, because it is all around, um, who God says that you are.

And I don't want to give away everything. I think you need to read the book in order to tie them all square. Yeah. What I love to do here is, is give people enough of a teaser to be like, oh, I have to get my hands on the book. So you're doing exactly what I wanted you to do, right. Amazing. Amazing. I understand some people were talking about, okay, calling now.

God, I can't, I don't see how this all connects. Trust me. It connects. But what I see right now is people making different things are gods specifically, identity is. We don't, it's a, it's a nuance, it's a lane that we are not able to see God correctly. And in turn, we're not able to see ourselves correctly.

And I love the way my mother-in-law says, says this. We were on the road one time and she said it of, um, so what could be true about me today? Can not be true about me tomorrow. She made the joke of, I have four grandkids right now, but in two years I'll have 10. I was like, whoa, Lisa, like, let's just slow down a little bit.

That's a lot, but that's so true. If we make ourselves our identity, our gods, what happens when we come up against a struggle? What happens when, what we think is. Something we identify as right now changes down the road. I, it is very condensed because we're not supposed to be able to hold all the answers to life.

We're not supposed to be the perfect ones that only comes. And that only is God himself. And so if you are someone and you maybe feel a little tug, and I hope this is encouraging, please hear my heart in this. But if you're someone and you think, yeah, Maybe I have made myself the center of attention.

Maybe I have tried to hold onto control or maybe I have been so focused on my career that I'm missing my calling. These are the pinpoints and the staples for God's saying, I want you to know who I say that you are. And essentially that's the message of, I am. Who am I? Who does God say that I am? And I promise it all connects.

And I promise the answer is so clear and so relevant for it. Area of your life. Yeah, that's so good. So good. I love the message of this book so much. And I want to say the name of it just a third time for people who might have not caught it, um, or want to write it down again, it's called, I am find your identity claim, your freedom embrace the adventure.

So I am just so beyond excited for you guys. As you release this into the world, it's been out for a few months by the time listeners will listen to this so they can go grab it anywhere. Books are sold. Christian before we jump over to our Patrion community to get to know you a little bit better, which I'm so excited about.

I want you to share with everybody, how can they connect with you? Follow you online? Where do you show up? Tell them. Okay. Well, as of right now, who knows what it'll be in a year from now, but maybe we'll have holograms. I don't know, but to connect with sons and daughters at sons and daughters, TV, or sons and daughters.tv, if you're on website, if you are one of the people that still go online and you're not just on your phone and to connect with me, I'm Christian berbere.

I believe it's Ms. Christian berbere because Christian, to be able to take it on Instagram. Awesome. Cool. Don't you hate it when that happens and they have like two photos not following anyone. I'm like, you're not even here. Yeah. And it's like a private account. So you can't message them and ask for it.

It's just the worst. I know that's happened to your brother, right? Exactly. Well, I have loved this conversation. I'm so excited about the book and for listeners to subscribe over on our Patrion community, make sure you go listen to our extra conversation with her there, but for now, Christian, I just want to say huge.

Thank you for your time. And that would be here with us today. Thank you.