Desiree Brown: 0:00

Hey there, welcome back to Conversations at the. Well, I'm Desiree and my husband Vernon is here, and we're excited about this episode because we're gonna continue on the conversation about comfort, but more along the lines of discomfort and like where does that come from? Is it something that we did or is it something that God is doing for us? So let's talk about it, let's get into it. What do you think?

Vernon Brown: 0:25

I think it's going to be a great conversation. I'm ready, let's go. Let's do it. Hey there, and welcome back to another conversation at the Well. My name is Vernon Brown. I'm here with my lovely wife.

Desiree Brown: 0:34

Hi, I'm Desiree Brown.

Vernon Brown: 0:45

And we have been talking over morning. We kind of thought about the idea of just because you're uncomfortable doesn't mean you're moving in the right direction.

Desiree Brown: 0:52

That's true and, speaking of comfort, I just want to like acknowledge something, because you might notice that we're in a different space.

Vernon Brown: 0:59

Yes, we are.

Desiree Brown: 1:00

And that is a little bit uncomfortable.

Vernon Brown: 1:02

That's true, Cause we've been shooting back there for quite a while and so we decided we actually have an event that we're hosting here later today. So the tables were all set up for that event and we were like, well, why don't we just shoot it here instead? It's a little bit different a little bit echo here, which I don't necessarily like because it's a much larger space, but I just kind of like how it feels. It feels like we're getting closer to the ultimate vision.

Desiree Brown: 1:25

I think so, but but for me, like you asked me like, do you want to do it? And my initial thought was like no, let's just do what we already do.

Vernon Brown: 1:32

That's true.

Desiree Brown: 1:33

And it's kind of just kind of um related to this conversation, because I am comfortable in the place that we've already established. And so, like doing something new is always uncomfortable for me, but he always challenges me to get out of my comfort zone, and this is just one way that we're doing it and I think it's going to turn out well.

Vernon Brown: 1:54

But let me tell you how crazy this concept is, cause I think it goes. I think it goes along with what you're saying. We're very much more comfortable in that space. But even that space is uncomfortable from a setup perspective. It's just more comfortable because we've made it our own, and what I mean by that is we've shot there multiple times and so because of that it's comfortable. But if you were to actually see how jacked up that set up is.

Vernon Brown: 2:21

I'll let you in on a little secret. So the table I bought for that setup isn't like a regular table height, it's like a counter height. But the chairs I bought on Facebook Marketplace are a regular height. So we actually have the chairs propped up on top of aerobic steps. So it's comfortable. Because we've gotten comfortable, quite frankly, in our own mess and because we've just been there so long, this is a standard chair on an actual floor. I actually have a clip I'm going to post one of these days of me falling off the aerobic step and like falling in slow motion. But it's really a testament to how your positioning and how long you spend there can really play a role in how comfortable you are, Even if that place isn't the ultimate destination or even if that place isn't even supposed to be comfortable. It's downright dangerous back there with how we've set things up, but just because we've done it for so long, you found comfort in it.

Desiree Brown: 3:17

Yeah absolutely.

Vernon Brown: 3:18

It's kind of weird right.

Desiree Brown: 3:19

Yeah, and so that kind of leads us into the conversation around discomfort and and comfort. Where have I don't? I don't want to put you on the spot. Maybe I'll put myself on the spot.

Vernon Brown: 3:36

I don't want to be put on the spot.

Desiree Brown: 3:37

Okay, where in your life have you become comfortable when you really should be uncomfortable?

Vernon Brown: 3:44

Nevermind, you can take it, Let me. Let me think. Um, I think that's a good, very um, easy and and comfortable example of how we've had things set up over there. But but I think, I think for me there's a lot of comfort in resting on your talent, and what I mean by that is there are a lot of things I can do and not to sound conceited, but there's a lot of things I believe that I can do better than a lot of people, just because I go out and learn it or I've been exposed to it as a child, and so the talent that God has given me gives me what I believe a leg up on some other people who haven't had the childhood or who haven't been exposed to what I've been exposed to. And I believe that in a lot of areas of my life, I have gotten comfortable in just resting upon what is average for me but remarkable to others, versus walking in the level of excellence that God has for me.

Vernon Brown: 4:46

That's good and I think that requires from the positions that I've been put into, that requires a much better level of leadership, if that makes sense.

Vernon Brown: 4:55

So to give you a real world example here at the Well, obviously we have employees, we have people who do an amazing job teaching our classes, working at the front desk, all of those things coming in and doing some work for us inside of the building Just a lot of amazing people who contribute to the vision that is the well, and so for me as a leader, comfort can sometimes be it's done, but uncomfortable is it's done. But I really need to have a difficult conversation with you about. This is not the expectation. The expectation is excellence, and it's not the person's fault because a lot of times they're more than willing to do what I ask of them, because they recognize okay, yeah, I could, I could certainly do that, and people are willing to do what you ask them for and what you compensate them for, quite frankly. But sometimes my avoiding discomfort is avoiding that difficult conversation which reduces the quality of the product to what a lot of people still think. Oh, this place is amazing, but if you saw the actual vision, this ain't nowhere close.

Vernon Brown: 6:01

And so I think I think, in challenging myself not just to be okay with what's seemingly better, but challenging myself to go after what God had in mind, is a way in which not just here but at work, but at church, but in our relationship, with how I approach my children as a father in all of those areas, um, not just being okay with what's good compared to others, but being okay with what's great compared to what God had in mind.

Desiree Brown: 6:29

Does that make sense? Yeah, it does. And because we talked about the standard and the standard is, I mean we set a standard, but God sets a even higher standard, Because God knows you and knows what you're capable of Exactly, and so you may look at me and be like, oh, that's a great job, and God's like man that's deep work right there, like I know what I put inside of you and I know how much time you invested or didn't invest.

Vernon Brown: 6:48

I know how much money you invested or squandered elsewhere.

Vernon Brown: 6:52

I know the thoughts that I have for you thoughts to prosper you and not to harm you, thoughts to give you hope in the future. And actually let me take a pause I know the thoughts that I have for you, declares the Lord. Thoughts to prosper you and not harm you, thoughts to give you a hope and a future. And so, with that in mind, god knows what he's created, and I think so often we judge ourselves based upon what others are doing versus what God created us to do, which can sometimes put us in that envious state when we look on social media, or can really make us feel better than we should, based upon a squandering everything that God's placed on it, on the inside of us.

Desiree Brown: 7:29

Right For me. Well, I agree with you there. There's definitely things that we can do here.

Vernon Brown: 7:37

I'm just average right now.

Desiree Brown: 7:39

No, I think, compared to others and kind of like the standard, that is acceptable. It's still above average, but it's still not where it's supposed to be from the standard that we know God has. So, there's that, but for me, I guess it shows up a little differently. For me, my comfort, the area that I am comfortable comfortable with but I should be uncomfortable with and, if I'm truthful, I actually am uncomfortable with, but I haven't done anything to change it complicated yeah you'll get it so it's just like the state of our home what does that mean?

Desiree Brown: 8:17

so sometimes it's just like a hot mess, like it's just and and it and I get it like it's okay. We live in our house, we have us in some of our bad habits that we just like leave shoes or clothes, whatever, um, but we also have children and we're kind of trying to cultivate their habits and whatnot dogs. It's a lot happening in our home, but I have become comfortable with the like we could live in the disarray for longer than I should become comfortable, than I should be comfortable with okay. And so there is, uh, I mean, sometimes I'm like you know what, just forget it and and I think there's a place for that. And so I'm not trying to, um, say that everything has to be perfection all the time, but there also is a standard that we should have and should set to keep things as close to acceptable or, dare I say, excellence than we have, than I've been allowing.

Vernon Brown: 9:22

I've been, I've been allowing things to just kind of fall apart and I think this goes back to our last episode, where I was talking about like noticing when it's falling off because, I think there are times when it's like, okay, the house is reset, we're good yeah and then we keep up with the habits, and then one thing is left out of place, or we go on a trip, and then, yeah, I think honestly, my suitcase is still packed from the last work trip that I took Two weeks ago Seriously like two weeks ago, and so one thing gets out of place, and then that becomes a new habit, because we didn't set in stone the first habit that we did, and then, before you know it, laundry everywhere and it kind of just spirals out of control.

Desiree Brown: 9:58

Yeah, and so that's a place for me where it I have become comfortable, where I should be uncomfortable, I should be like, no, this is not going to work, this is not how we want to keep our home. And I know I'm uncomfortable with it because we had some friends over yesterday and I was like, oh, we cannot have them come over when this is looking like this. So I'm like scrambling, trying to get everything together, just so it is more comfortable for them to come into our home, like I don't know, I just didn't want them to be amongst our laundry. So I'm like, okay, which?

Vernon Brown: 10:33

goes back to the wisdom of what you said last episode about integrity and integrity of others versus integrity to ourselves. I don't want y'all to be in my mess, but I'm okay with it I'm okay with my mess.

Desiree Brown: 10:46

I live amongst my squad, my squalor, but I don't want y'all in it. Yeah, but yeah, you're right, I don't, man, I didn't.

Desiree Brown: 10:54

Even so, now you brought up the I word yesterday, oh gosh yeah, so, um, you know we're so, but it does lead to the realization and the like in the assessment and in the reflection of how things have been. I'm realizing, girl, you need to get that together OK, because you can't, you shouldn't be used to just living like this and not just because, well, first of all, all, just because it's unacceptable, but also we are teaching children what is okay.

Vernon Brown: 11:30

And right now, teaching men what's okay, which already is a kind of losing battle. Yeah, you don't want to make it a losing.

Desiree Brown: 11:36

Losing battle because at the end of the day, that's somebody's husband.

Vernon Brown: 11:38

Yeah and and the and father and father and the shortcomings that we allow become the nagging or the issue or the problem of some woman somewhere that's going to love these guys will love the women, two women that are going to love these two men.

Desiree Brown: 11:55

Yeah.

Vernon Brown: 11:55

And so we want to make sure that we we set the example, not just in word but in experience, to where, if stuff is out of place, you should feel some kind of way because this is not normal for you.

Desiree Brown: 12:06

Right.

Vernon Brown: 12:07

But to go to the kind of back to the topic we were talking about, discomfort that we feel and judging whether that is because of our own decisions or because of what is happening from a God perspective or from whatever you believe perspective and I think the house is a really good example because we can feel anxiety, or we can feel discomfort, or we can feel stress about a change in our life which may be fully in and of and from God, but we may be feeling so much stress, or a lot of stress, not just because of the situation, but because of the decisions we've made about our environment, and so I think that's a.

Vernon Brown: 12:51

That's one example. It's probably a level one example, if you will, of how a decision that you can make can make your life even more uncomfortable. And God's like I didn't intend for you to be this uncomfortable, to be this cloudy in thought or this cloudy in understanding. That's because you haven't created a place where you can think clearly and I think it goes for a lot of people where, whether it's a, whether you're living out the consequences of your decisions, or whether the existence or how you've done life is now contributing to the anxiety that you feel about a particular situation in life.

Desiree Brown: 13:28

I don't feel like.

Vernon Brown: 13:29

I said that well at all.

Desiree Brown: 13:30

Help me out Well just to add to that and just match it up to the metaphor of the home, so like, let's think of your home as your, your life, right? And so if you have allowed um the habit of just like leaving your clothes on the floor or leaving your shoes just wherever you left them, or leaving the sink full of dirty dishes, how that equates to life relationships where perhaps there are um, perhaps there have been conversations that needed to be had, that were avoided because of the uncomfortability of conflict and men and actually addressing conflict. Or maybe it's um lack of um taking care of your finances and just like swipe.

Desiree Brown: 14:26

You know swipe that swipe it, whatever, or just you know.

Vernon Brown: 14:29

You know there are things that you need to take care of and you would rather just not look at it, not look it in the eye, versus dealing with it. Step right over it, like those clothes on the floor Right and it's like well, it's gotten so it's so overwhelming that I just I can't deal with it and you end up on that hoarder tv show because you've just been making these paths through your mess and through your junk and before you know it, your junk is overtaking your life.

Desiree Brown: 14:54

Yeah, your eating habits. You know like people literally avoid the mirror, people literally avoid the scale, because they're like I just don't even want to, I just don't yeah.

Desiree Brown: 15:03

But it's only when we like look it in the face, when we look ourselves in the mirror, when we step on the scale and we actually see where we are, that we can have a realistic viewpoint of what's happening and also what we need to do to address it or change it, if we find that we need to address or change it. And so it's related to what you said, because it's all about our choices, it's all about our decisions, where we are uncomfortable with facing the reality of what our habits and what our decisions have created. But on the other hand, you know, when we were in the conversations from the previous episode, it was kind of like God is leading me here or I'm being pushed and I feel uncomfortable, and so that's a that's a whole different thing.

Vernon Brown: 15:52

Well, let's talk about that Cause I think there's a question of all right. I've been living my life. How do I know whether this is a God thing or whether this is a me thing, or whether it's just indigestion from last night that I thought was a dream? How do you differentiate those?

Desiree Brown: 16:11

I think they kind of feel different. So one is just like the I don't know. You might be just going about your life and you're like, oh my gosh, this is a mess. Like you just kind of look around or there might be a situation that happens and you're like it. Just it just illuminates the fact that things are not in order. So that's the uncomfortable or that's the discomfort that I experience. I experience is how it comes for me when there are a series of choices that I've made that have led to where I find myself. So that's that I think.

Desiree Brown: 16:46

When God is pushing or pulling me into a situation, it feels different, because I'm like I'd rather just sit here, I'd rather just be in this place. But there might be a conversation that keeps coming up, with multiple people who don't, who are not aware of the other conversations, where it's like okay, maybe I need to pay attention because there's a message that's coming through, or maybe it's a sermon that keeps, you know, the same thing just keeps coming and I'm like maybe I need to pay attention, or maybe it's uh, by the way, I love your smile, I love that, um. And then there's how else does it come to me? I don't know it, just. It just is like the same message that keeps coming and I keep trying to dodge and get out of the way of it and it's like, no, I need you to hear this loud and clear. And it just keeps coming from different directions. And so for me, that's the way that I've experienced God, like all right, you need to pay attention. You're not paying attention. I'm telling you this, pay attention.

Desiree Brown: 17:58

And that's happened to me a few times throughout my life, and I think the most, the most recent one, I think we talked about the coffee shop is. You brought up a conversation about something completely different and somehow it led back to that. Or I was in my prayer time and I was like God, what, what is it that you want me to do that can help things move forward? And then that conversation happened. I was like, well, okay, all right, fine, I asked the question and now you're telling me the answer and I need to not ignore it. I've been ignoring it. It's come up in other conversations and I know that the the the reason that I haven't even begun moving forward, is because of my own fear.

Vernon Brown: 18:45

Got it, got it. I think. Um, when God is pushing you towards something uncomfortable, well, I think there are two places where discomfort exists. There is discomfort where you are and discomfort where you're going, and I think a lot of times, god pushes you towards something uncomfortable from a place of comfort yes Whereas our decisions are usually the place of discomfort that we attempt to make comfortable. Does that make sense? Yes, and so I'm not sure that, if we're talking about positivity and we're talking about self-improvement, that it even matters who it comes from, whether it's you looking around me like this place is filthy, or God saying, hey, you need to go and do something to push yourself out of your comfort zone. I don't think it matters which one it is, as long as we're progressing and moving forward.

Desiree Brown: 19:52

Does that make sense? It does.

Vernon Brown: 19:53

But. But I think if we're trying to figure out whether God has placed us here in this discomfort, or whether God or whether our decisions have led us to this uncomfortable place, it all has to do with what's in our rearview mirror and where we came from.

Vernon Brown: 20:10

If we found ourselves sitting still, here we go, here's my help. If we found ourselves sitting still and we're and we're uncomfortable, where we've been stagnant and sitting still, chances are that's a result of us refusing to move, that's a result of us refusing to do better. But if we find ourselves in a place where we're like, hey, I could do this, but God said no, no, no, I want something more for you, then we can think of that as being God leading, pushing, encouraging us to move forward.

Desiree Brown: 20:41

Yeah, and I think God also has a way of making the place where we are uncomfortable so that we'll get the place that we, that used to be comfortable for us. They may. It may like. All of a sudden it's like, or maybe gradually it becomes uncomfortable and now you're like I gotta get out of this. So like, for example, a real life example and there was a place I worked and I loved. It was.

Vernon Brown: 21:09

Jesus, you were there for like 30 years.

Desiree Brown: 21:11

I was there for a really long. I was there for 10 years, most of my adult life. I was there and I loved doing the work. It was exciting. It was all of these different things until it wasn't it was exciting, it was all of these different things until it. Until it wasn't. Until I was like there's, I was trying to create, recreate myself there, and I realized like I don't think there's anything left for me to do here.

Vernon Brown: 21:33

Yeah, you had done everything under the sun.

Desiree Brown: 21:35

I had done everything that I needed to do there and it was time for me to go, and that was uncomfortable because I'm like but what does this look like? I don't know what it looks like outside of this place, because most of my career has been here.

Vernon Brown: 21:48

Let's talk about that. I mean, I think there was a time where you started your career and then you grew and then you became really good at what you were doing and then, kind of slowly over time, the people who you had built really good relationships with had left and some of the parts of your job that you really had enjoyed just by virtue of COVID had left and people being out of the office that had left. And then it started to get like it kind of turned up gradually.

Desiree Brown: 22:17

Oh, the heat got, it got hot.

Desiree Brown: 22:19

It was like I got to get out of here and I was like, oh, hot in the kitchen and then she was like I got to get out of here and I was like, oh, I know what you're moving, you're, you're being, you're, you're getting out the nest. Yeah, it was a thing. And and every it seemed like everybody who was um in who intimately knew about the situation, even my coworkers, I feel like they all knew it was time for me to go, but I'm the only one still here like, oh, but it feels so good here house is on fire, I'm okay everything's okay.

Desiree Brown: 22:43

What do you mean? It's okay and and because? And it was interesting that when I did um get another position and I made, I announced that I was moving, the sentiment was like yes go, get out of here, get out the nest and I was like oh, y'all don't want me here, no more.

Desiree Brown: 23:00

But it wasn't that. It was just that everybody recognized you have exceeded this role. You can't there's. What else is there for you to do here in order for you to grow and to to uncomfortable in their job? Who says, oh well, maybe that's what's happening.

Vernon Brown: 23:14

No, no, no, you just don't do your job well, and so I think there are a couple of checks and balances in there too that you did your job well. You squeeze as much juice as you could out of the opportunity that you had. There was no juice and God had decided that it was time for you to move, and and everyone kind of confirmed that. But it wasn't just because your boss didn't like you, or because things got difficult, or because you didn't want to show up on time, or because you got tired of the work and didn't want to come in the office anymore. This was you doing the job to the best of your ability, continuing to show up, continuing to do what you had to do, and a force outside of yourself pushed you in a different direction. Would you agree with that?

Desiree Brown: 24:14

Um, if I'm honest in some ways. But I think that it became so comfortable that I began to relax where I shouldn't have. And so I think, yeah, I'm looking at. This is not I'm not looking at you, I'm just kind of thinking, um, I think it became, I think it was that until it wasn't.

Desiree Brown: 24:44

And when I started to feel like the I gotta go um, I started, started to become disheartened about the work that I was doing and I don't think that I was performing as well as I should have been performing. I kind of that's you shouldn't get. You shouldn't get to that place. No matter what, you should still be the integrity part. You should still be um, performing at the best of your ability, even if you become um, even if your feelings towards the activity have shifted.

Desiree Brown: 25:16

That lesson has come up again more recently. We won't talk about it, but I've experienced that in other ways Like it doesn't matter really how you feel, the standard is still the same, excellence is still expected, and so when you start, there are uncomfortable in the places that they are, where they don't necessarily. They're not necessarily being pushed out of the situation, but they're made to stay in the situation because there's something for them to learn and take from that particular encounter or those circumstances or those situations, and so for. For example, I have a friend who has just been seems to be going through it in their job and in their job, their job and in their job. It just there are some pluses to it, but there's also like, oh my gosh, how, what, what am I? What am I supposed to be learning here?

Desiree Brown: 26:32

And I think there's a. There's patience is supposed to be being learned there, and I think there's also. I think they're also being pushed into there. They can easily recognize all the things that are wrong. And when you're able, when you become uncomfortable with things that are happening and you know you can do a better job, that's oftentimes God saying yes, you need to be doing that particular thing. So I feel like I'm talking all over the place. I'm trying to make this more concrete. I feel like I'm talking all over the place. I'm trying to make this more concrete.

Desiree Brown: 27:05

Your interests, your passions, your skill set, your annoyances, your annoyances help to direct you towards your purpose and your gifting, especially if you haven't recognized what those things are, how it showed up in you. We, we've been um members at several churches, mostly in the atlanta area, but we'd be sitting in church and he'd be like I said, babe, you know what, what was, how was the service or whatever. You're like I mean it was all right, but they could have done blah or I wish they would do this and I'm like, okay, that was weird. I thought it was great, cool, but you would always see the things that that would annoy you or frustrate you and I didn't understand it. Now I understand it so much better. I didn't understand it then, but I understand it a lot better now.

Desiree Brown: 28:10

Your gifting is teaching, and so you would be so frustrated with things when the teaching wasn't right, or you would be so excited when the teaching was right and it makes sense now because it's like that's your thing. And organizationally, when things aren't quite right, you get so frustrated because that's your gifting. And so the discomfort bringing it back to the conversation about discomfort the discomfort that you were experiencing was foreshadowing. We didn't realize it at the time what your giftings were, and I'm sure it's shown up in me too, but I don't have an example right now to share. So, yeah, I hope I just went around the world and I said a whole lot of things, but I hope it makes sense.

Vernon Brown: 28:54

No, I think it makes perfect sense. The common thread through everything is one that your discomfort usually leads you towards your purpose is one that your discomfort usually leads you towards your purpose. Two, that we shouldn't misplace discomfort. Sometimes discomfort means you're supposed to be there and you're supposed to learn something. Sometimes, discomfort means your mission is done and it's our pursuit and the outcome of our relationship with God to understand which is which and to govern ourselves accordingly and to submit to what his will is Like. We would love to just be taken out of every uncomfortable situation, but by doing so, you probably wouldn't learn the things you need to learn in order to better it in the future.

Desiree Brown: 29:36

Yeah, I have a question for you. I have an answer. I may have an answer to this question too. Maybe I don't know, but how do you determine the difference? How do you determine when you're supposed to stay and learn versus when you're supposed to go?

Vernon Brown: 29:55

That's a good point. I think I would like to believe that I have a very sober view of myself in situations, and it's not to say I never miss, or not to say I'm never wrong, but when it comes to my actions and my output and what I invest in something, I can usually say no, I gave you, I gave you 25% on that one and I had what was coming to me. Or I get in trouble doing something and it's like, no, I really deserve that. I may never tell you, but I have a very clear view of my role in situations, at least in my mind. I may never say it, but yeah, I saw that coming or I deserve that one.

Vernon Brown: 30:41

And so when I'm going through uncomfortable situations, I have the benefit of being able to say was this my decision? Like, did my shortcomings or did my laziness or did my lack of respect for people lead me here, or is it something that happens outside of myself? And I think a lot of times we blame situations on outside forces where, if we're really, really honest and we're really, really truthful there was a lot of gray area that we lived in and we don't know whether it was us or whether it was God. And so for me, I think that's the first step to take a truthful look at your situation and say did I create this? Was it, did I create this, or was there a possibility of something that I did or decided to do to possibly create this? Or did I do everything that I could do to do things correctly? And this has to be an outside force. And I think it's very, very seldom that we can say I have nothing to do with this, because there's always an area that we could do better or something that we could take more responsibility for.

Vernon Brown: 31:48

So that's one I'm having a sober view to say is this of me or is this of something else? And then, once we've understood that I couldn't do anything better or anything different to make this happen, then you kind of have to look at is there a lesson in here for me, like, is there a shortcoming that I have that something within this could help support or change? And if that's the case, well then, even if the purpose is still for me to get out of it, I still got some work to do, some check boxes to get marked off. I don't know if any of you have ever played video games, but back in the day they had these video games where they were like three checkpoints where you had to do like you had to hit this button, like it feels like a game like Quake or something like a shoot them up game had to take care of this, had to do that, and if you only did two out of the three, the final gate wouldn't open and you had to go back and get what you missed.

Desiree Brown: 32:37

That's a whole yeah whole.

Vernon Brown: 32:39

Yeah, and sometimes in life, life will let you move forward without the lesson, but you're gonna get that lesson somewhere else you're gonna get the lesson.

Vernon Brown: 32:46

Other times you might have to back track to get it and other times the door stays locked and it's like you missed a piece. Yeah, go back and get it. And I think if we walk through life searching for lessons and not so much progression or giftings or blessings, yeah, then we would find ourselves getting to the ultimate destination faster. I was talking to my mom and there was a quote I had heard about we overestimate what we can do in a day, but underestimate what we can do in a decade, and what that means is so often we're looking for check marks and check points on a daily basis to say I look at all the stuff I did. But if you focus less on how many check boxes and check marks you can get on a daily basis and more so on how many lessons and things that you can areas of growth that you can accumulate over a longer period of time, your trajectory would move a whole lot faster than you saying, if your goal is to lose weight or your goal is to get healthy, well, I went on a 10 day water fast.

Vernon Brown: 33:48

It almost killed me, but I did it. But as soon as I got off of it, I gorged myself for the next three months on junk food. And a month from now, or a year from now, I'm two times heavier, although I did the one thing that one week and it's like if you take a step back and look at a larger picture. I may not have succeeded every day, but the sum of my days was a much larger success than for me to get this one success in a short amount of time and then relapse or do whatever else to put myself back in a position of failure right, so it's more of a journey, then, which ain't fun, yeah, like I like successes and I like check boxes and I like hey, I did this and I have this to show for it.

Vernon Brown: 34:30

But serving a god who stands outside of time means that all of your time bound things don't move him at all yeah, he can get less literally, yeah, literally he's like I could create more time, like there it is more time, more time.

Desiree Brown: 34:46

You need more time. There you go yeah it's amazing, yeah, where you really really think about that. Yeah, we overlay our our limitations on our.

Vernon Brown: 34:58

we overlay our limitations or look through the lens of our limitations conveniently when time doesn't have anything to do with. If you look at millionaires and billionaires, usually they get there in the latter parts of their life, but we want it at 20 or 30 or 35.

Desiree Brown: 35:13

Top 20 under 20,. Top 30 under 30.

Vernon Brown: 35:15

Before we even know what to do with whatever it is that we would have gotten or have the character or the integrity to manage it or to keep it.

Desiree Brown: 35:23

we would have gotten or have the character or the integrity to manage it or to keep it. Yeah, and I, I think, um, all of those things have happened to me, but that's a very logical approach and, you know, I kind of operate a little different. It's not that I don't have logic, but my logic it, it, it presents itself differently, um, because I'm more emotional yeah I definitely have more of a spiritual like guiding and all of that.

Vernon Brown: 35:45

So how do you get through it?

Desiree Brown: 35:46

Yeah, so for me, and this is why God knows how to deal with his children, by who the children are Right. So he deals with you differently than he does with me.

Vernon Brown: 35:57

So now shut up. We ain't done here, okay.

Desiree Brown: 36:00

But he can do that, but for me that probably wouldn't go over well. So he's like okay, daughter, this is what I need you to do. It's like more gentle, Um, and I think for me, one of the things I pray for often is wisdom and discernment, and God has asked me to pray for wisdom and discernment often, and I think that it's how do I explain this? I don't know how to articulate this very well, but I think for me I can assess the difference. More from that lens, more from a wisdom and discernment Kind of just Holy Spirit is telling me I don't know how to describe, other than it's a knowing.

Vernon Brown: 36:52

This is what you're looking at.

Desiree Brown: 36:53

Yes, from a from, I'm able to see it a little bit differently. I'm able to see it from more of a spiritual lens and the, the interactions of, like, the spiritual world in the natural world and like, sometimes, the things that are happening in the natural world are a direct influence on things happening in the spiritual world, and that's only through discernment that you're able to understand that. And so, actually this morning one of my prayers was like god, thank you for um gifting me to see the things that are imperceivable. Can't perceive it in the natural, but you can in the spiritual, and so, um, a lot of my direction comes from that. How do you develop that? I don't know, I think it's just been something over time and I've learned to. You know. You say this is it? People might understand this because it's kind of like what we say trust your gut. What does that mean?

Vernon Brown: 37:49

That is eat more chicken eat more chicken.

Desiree Brown: 37:52

It's not about eating more chicken, um, but it's like this, this intuition. We call it Um, but really, when we get down to it, the gut or the intuition, um is for believers, it is, it's the Holy Spirit, it's the Holy Spirit's guidance, of like kind of knowing that you might be in danger when there's no, you don't see anything dangerous around you, or that something's not right when you're like I just can't put my finger on it. But my gut says that gut is the Holy Spirit saying something's not quite right here.

Vernon Brown: 38:26

And I love that you've brought that up, because I think one of the things as a church not any specific church, but as the church or the body of believers universally that I think we do a poor job of. I think we do a really good job of having these colloquialisms or sayings or references, but I don't think we do a good enough job of describing them in the natural, like how do I do that, how do I get that? And when you talk about being led, or when you talk about you know I heard the voice of God, or when you talk about God directing me in some particular way, I think it's all about us really being able to hone in that spiritual ear, if that makes sense. But I think it's about honing in your spiritual ear and what that looks like. That's another phrase we use, like spiritual ear and all this other stuff. But I love how you connected that to just your gut and the Holy Spirit speaking through you is like that gut feeling that you have through you is like that gut feeling that you have and you exercise that muscle, if you will, by trying it out, doing what it says or not doing what it says and being like huh every time, I don't listen, it goes really bad Every time I

Vernon Brown: 39:48

listen, it goes really good. Let me listen for it more because I've gained a natural understanding, a natural trust and faith in it, so that now, when the voice comes, I know that's a good voice. The Bible says my sheep hear my voice, or my sheep know my voice, and so we have to. It's not just about us walking down the aisle and giving our life to Christ. That's super important and that's a certain step that we should take. But the journey begins thereafter to say let me learn more about and let me build this relationship with and from a natural sense. That goes through listening with your gut, that goes through asking for discernment and wisdom. That goes through living and walking through life with God and saying show me these things, help me understand these things. And then doing the real simple and physical exercise of when I listen, what happens when I don't listen? What happens when I listen to this one over here, it works out. When I listen to that one over there, it goes bad.

Vernon Brown: 40:51

Now I'm starting to train myself to understand the voice of God versus my own natural desires. And over time which is where you are that voice becomes recognizable when you're an infant laying down there on the bed and someone says something like you don't know that's your name, you just know it's a voice and you're looking for it. But as you grow more accustomed to hearing your mother or your father's voice, that now turns into not just noise, but it turns into something recognizable as oh, that's mommy, that means food. Or oh, that's daddy, that means hey, we're about to go somewhere. And then that's how we start to build language and communication and understanding with the God we can't see or readily connect with, if that makes sense, yeah.

Desiree Brown: 41:35

I really, I really love that example because it does sound like I would imagine as a baby. It just sounds like noise and you don't recognize that there are individual words or that some syllables aren't individual words. They're actually just one word, so it might be like a longer word, but you begin to understand those things better.

Vernon Brown: 41:56

When you do the exercise of stepping outside of what you think you know and understand. Us talking is us making random, incoherent sounds. But at some point someone said this sound sound means that and that sound means that, and the best way to experience this is to go somewhere where they speak a different language. It sounds like complete gibberish. You don't catch anything. You don't catch any inflections. You have no idea what any of these sounds mean until you spend enough time to say every time you make this sound, it's connected with that. Every time you make this sound, it's connected with that. Every time you make this sound, it's connected with that.

Vernon Brown: 42:37

And so, to bring that into ourselves, every time I hear my gut say something that, aligned with the word, something good happens. Well, that's just not the universe or intuition or karma. Maybe that's God and maybe that's the voice I need to be listening to. And maybe through exercising that and listening more for that, you go from it being an interruption to your everyday life to something that you seek out and search and say well, before I make this decision, where are you at? Because I need some guidance on this that comes from something that can see a lot more than just myself, from my own perspective.

Desiree Brown: 43:13

Right, and I'll tell you and you know this because of a conversation we had even yesterday I'm learning to trust it more. I'm learning and when I say it, I mean I can say gut, but the Holy Spirit more, because there have been situations, especially with our children, where I had a knowing but I didn't act on it and then there were consequences to that. Or when I've acted on it, it was like oh, it was confirmed, and I'm like OK, I don't know. I feel like I at some point I was distrusting of it for a number of different reasons, and so I'm really learning again how to trust it.

Desiree Brown: 44:04

And it's not logical. Sometimes it is complete, like in trying to explain to you what I'm experiencing, I'm like I don't. I don't know how to put my finger on it, I don't know how to explain it, but it's just like I just have a feeling. You're like feelings, you can go off feelings, so um, but I'm I'm learning like it's a gift, though, and I need to not just ignore it. I need to explore it and I need to take action, because last time I took action on it, it was right. This, the time where I didn't take action on it, I was still right, but I just didn't act accordingly.

Vernon Brown: 44:44

And I love this because this is the journey of marriage. Um, the journey of marriage is you're going through that by yourself, but I have a part in it and I have a responsibility in it, whereas you're learning to trust your gut. But if you didn't communicate that, you were going through a season of trusting your gut. When you come and say this doesn't feel right, you're like what?

Vernon Brown: 45:15

Okay, this one. And so the journey of marriage is to be able to walk through these two things together and for us to, with grace and with the understanding and the discernment that God gives us, to support each other through those things. Because you're working on trusting your gut more.

Vernon Brown: 45:32

I'm working on trusting myself less which sounds like the same thing, but it's the. It's almost like the opposite sides of the coin and it's like, where you are, I'm the opposite, which is why we complete one another. And so you're trusting your gut and we're using the gut as an example, or a natural example, of the Holy Spirit speaking to you, whereas I'm more so. I need to trust myself because, in being gifted and being having capabilities and having and being able to problem solve and having the tools to take care of things on your own, god has taken me through a season or where it's like, yeah, you got all the answers, yep, that would work, but nope, I'm off. I'm training you that you cannot sustain yourself on your own, although I've given you a lot and naturally that would work, but no, no, no, you need to. You need to harness yourself, to submit to what I'm doing, because what I'm doing isn't always going to make sense in the natural.

Desiree Brown: 46:38

It's re a lot. It's re recognizing where what's the source. So we talked about the vine and the branches and the previous episode, one of the previous episodes and when you're a branch but you think you're the vine, yeah, that's just not gonna work. Like you, I don't know, like when you get cut off, you realize, oh man, I'm really not things get brown, I'm not the branch.

Desiree Brown: 47:07

Okay, let me go back. Can I reattach myself to the branch? You know, like, um, so that's what you're experiencing and I think for me, I don't know how to, how would I articulate this? Maybe it's the same thing, maybe it's like remember that you're part of the branch, remember that the source is, is me and when you experienced me, trust that.

Vernon Brown: 47:37

Yeah, maybe it's your acknowledgement that he's given you everything you need, and for me it's the acknowledgement that everything that you need, that you have comes from, so it's the same thing, yeah a different focus based upon how we are different that's I don't know.

Desiree Brown: 48:01

I love this. This is crazy um. We haven't had this conversation, so this is, I'm definitely, understanding you've been starving me of my conversations, I'm understanding you better and I think you're also understanding me better.

Desiree Brown: 48:15

I just know you're crazy, call it what you may, but I'm right when it comes to following the Holy Spirit, like that's right, I know that's right. And I only know that's right because when I do it it's right. And and here's the other part with the trust, it's like, okay, it does feel illogical, like I don't know, like why are you making? Why do I feel like I need to make this change? Nothing like I, I can't see danger, I can't, I don't know. But I can feel like something's not right and I'm like, well, sometimes I'm like, should I just, should I ignore? Like should I just, should I ignore it? Like is it just me? Like is it indigestion, as you say?

Desiree Brown: 49:00

And I'm coming to the point where it's like you can stick around and find out, or you can just simply trust me that I'm telling you this because you need to know and I don't want you to be harmed. I don't want you to be harmed by the situation. So just go ahead, trust me. Maybe I'll reveal it to you later and maybe I won't. That's my prerogative. This is God talking, but, um, trusting that, whether he reveals it to me now, or whether he reveals it to me in time, or whether he never reveals it to me, just trusting that it was him saying move.

Vernon Brown: 49:41

The training ground of God is the progression of the importance and the disruption of each decision. So your first decision may be, hey, you need to go a different way to work. Or, um, spend a little bit more time with me in prayer, which results in you not being on the road when that accident happens. But then fast forward. It may be, hey, move from Atlanta to Canton. And that happened and we're still young in our life.

Vernon Brown: 50:14

So what does the future look like, like, and and how how much higher may the stakes be for you trusting the Holy spirit and and trusting that he's speaking through you, and for me to ignore what my senses and my knowledge says in favor of doing the unconventional things that God is directing me to do? So I think we you have the option of looking at life through two different lenses one in which God is a good father and there's purpose and there's a reason for everything, and he may use difficult and tough tools, but the purpose is to get you and prepare you for later. Or you also have the option of saying God, why me, why would you put me through this? This is a horrible situation and completely ignoring the training ground that he's trying to take you through, and I would hope that we would both make the decision for the first versus the second.

Desiree Brown: 51:12

Yeah, yeah, I think it's been a second. Yeah, yeah, I think it's been a good conversation.

Vernon Brown: 51:16

I think it's been a great conversation is there more?

Desiree Brown: 51:19

did we squeeze all the juice out of it?

Vernon Brown: 51:22

well, given that I forgot the topic, the topic.

Desiree Brown: 51:29

Okay, yeah, let's bring it back full circle yeah so the the topic was about discomfort, and the topic and it was discomfort when does it come as a result of our decisions versus when does it come from God, and I think we've touched on all of those different things. So I think I think we're good, Like it feels, like my gut says the Holy Spirit says we're good, We've said everything that we need to say on this episode, and so I hope you all got something out of it. I hope that this is. I love that we offer the two different maybe they're more perspectives, but we offer two different perspectives about how God speaks to us and how, um, we can discern what is our decisions versus what is God's leading or guidance into a different direction, and so, um, I don't know, I feel cool, I feel good. I hope y'all do too.

Desiree Brown: 52:31

So we want to thank you for joining us again for another conversation at the well. We hope to see you at our next episode and we would love to know what we want to know from them. We will certainly want them to like, subscribe and share our podcast. I always forget about that part. Yeah, Like, please do that, because we would love for this. This may help someone else too, so we would love for you to share these things and just help us to grow in this podcast, but I think I want to know more about like. How do you? How do you know like? Do you relate to the experiences that we've shared or does um, does discomfort? Are you able to differentiate between discomfort that perhaps your decisions have created versus discomfort that God has, um is leading you towards or through? So want to hear from you about that. Anything else you want to say?

Vernon Brown: 53:23

I'll let you cook, keep going.

Desiree Brown: 53:24

Okay, well, we thank you and we will see you next time at Conversations at the Well We'll see you there.