WHOA That's Good Podcast - How to Read the Bible & Fall in Love with Jesus | Sadie Robertson Huff & Tara-Leigh Cobble

Episode Date: June 12, 2024

Tara-Leigh Cobble is the host of the very popular "The Bible Recap" podcast, but she tells Sadie that her own reading through the Bible didn't start out as a great adventure and in fact, she felt more despair and had more questions than she'd ever had about God. Once a pastor friend encouraged her to try again and offered to answer any questions, her motivation FOR reading the Scriptures changed along with her strategy each day. Now she spends the majority of her time encouraging fellow believers as they start their own Bible reading journeys — and she couldn't be happier. Tara-Leigh says she just fell in love with the Lord, but it didn't happen until she shifted in the reason WHY she was reading the Bible and she challenges us all to start reading the Bible today - now! "Every day you're in God's Word you're right on time" so stop making excuses and get in the Word!  https://everylife.com — Get 10% off your first order when you use promo code WHOA at checkout! https://drinkag1.com/whoa — Get a FREE 1-year supply of Vitamin D3+K2 AND 5 free AG1 Travel Packs with your first subscription! https://www.hungryroot.com/whoa — Get 40% OFF your first delivery and FREE veggies for life! - Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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I hope you're having a great week, but if you saw the title of this podcast, then you know your week's about to get so much better because we have a very special guest on the podcast. We have the one and only Tara Lee Cabel, who, that's right, does the Bible Recap podcast, and I'm so excited to talk all things Bible with you. Welcome to the podcast.

Thank you so much, Sadie. It's so good to be here with you in our green. I know. Look, she just, she gets it, you know. First day in the studio, actually, I have green all around, so I'm like, I'm definitely wearing green, and then you show up in green, I'm like, look at this. Look at this. You know? That's perfect. You just get it. I love it. Well, we're so excited to have you on the podcast. I actually saw that you were coming to West Monroe, which did you, you came like a month ago or something?

Yeah, and we missed each other. I know. I was so sad. Well, I saw your name like on a sign at church and I was like, Tara Lee Cobble's coming to West Monroe. And I was like, we have to get her on the podcast, which it didn't work out, but I was like,

okay, regardless, we have to get her on the podcast. And so thanks for saying yes to coming on. I know so many people, I just, on behalf of all of our listeners, just want to say thank you for the work that you put in to getting the Bible into the hearts of people. Even today, I just looked because I wanted to make sure I was saying this accurately. Even today, the Bible Reccap was the number one podcast in spiritual and religious podcasts, which is the coolest thing.

Even as a podcaster, I'm so glad that I'm not that, because I want it to be The Bible Recap. And so thank you for what you do. It's amazing. Well, I love that we get to be on mission together. The fact that we want to point people toward the Lord, we want to put people toward the Word and see hearts and lives and families transformed as a result of it. So we're on the same team.

That's right, sister. I love it so much. Well, I got to ask you the question I ask every single guest that comes on the Well That's Good podcast, and it's a bit of a heavy one, but we'll just get it over with. What is the best piece of advice that you've ever been given? Well, this is not going to come to a surprise, come as a surprise to most people who've heard me say anything before. But it was, read your Bible.

Like truly, that advice. And I grew up in a home that valued the word of God. My family owns a Christian bookstore. My first job at age six was stamping names on Bibles. I grew up surrounded by the word of God and people encouraging me to read the Bible. And so I've been advised about that most of my life, had heard that, and every year tried to start out

and read the Bible in a year. Like, you know, I just would start out ambitious and give up by the time I hit Leviticus. But the first time I ever followed that very good advice, it changed my life. The first time I ever actually listened to that advice and read the whole Bible, all of it, every word, my pastor challenged me.

He said, you can read it in a year, in 12 minutes a day, let your eyes fall on every word, even the genealogies, even the boring parts, even the boils and sores in Leviticus. That's where you usually give up. Let your eyes fall on every word. And he told me when I was reading to look for God, to not look for myself, look for God. What does he love?

What does he hate? What motivates him to do what he does? And Sadie, it changed everything. It changed everything in my life. This person who grew up, I met Jesus when I was four years old. My brother led me to Christ while we were playing shoots and ladders. And spent my whole life surrounded by the Word of God and people who loved the Word of God. And it wasn't until I actually read the whole thing with my own two eyes that everything changed. So that was the best advice anyone's ever given me.

And I heard it so many times. And when I finally took it, there's no turning back for me. I want my eyes in the word every day until I'm in the ground. That is so cool. It's so good. And you know what I love about it is because I've heard you tell your story.

I've actually even preparing for you to be on this podcast, listened to you talk a lot. And one thing that I love about you and you sharing that story is you were so honest to say that whenever that person told you to read your Bible, you didn't want to. Like when he said to you, like, and that was so real because that's so just like honestly how so many of us feel where it's like I think people think some people just they're just like that and that's great for them and then they will do that and then I'll learn from them but it's so important that all of us do that and actually my dad I mentioned my dad was on the podcast earlier we just recorded his episode and he told the funniest story about this guy,

being in one of his classes one time, because he teaches a little class at church for a while. And he told my dad, well, it's just not my gifting to read my Bible. And my dad said, that's not a gifting, sir. That would be a discipline, right? It's not like a gifting some people have. It's more of a discipline.

But I love, because people would look at you who's done this Bible recap and think, oh, that's just her. She must love reading. That must come natural to her. But you're honest that didn't. So tell us a little bit about that. Oh my goodness. Well, first of all, nothing could be further from the truth. I do not love reading. And in fact, I'm an auditory learner. So it took me a while to figure out that that was one of the best ways for me to engage with scripture was to listen to it. Yeah. And not listen to it passively, like listen to it actively. But what's interesting about not wanting to read through the Bible the first time, that's a true story.

I also discovered on my first trip through scripture that even though I was engaging with it every day, I was developing that discipline, I had this thing in me, Sadie, where I was like I felt this pressing urgency to understand, to get every question answered, to understand everything. Like I could not leave any mystery. I could not leave room for future growth for me to understand something in the future. I needed to understand it now. And if we were to drill down on why for that, like why did I need to understand everything so desperately that first time is because I didn't ever want to have to read it again. Wow. Like I was just like, no, I need to fully grasp it all so that I can check this box and move on and be done with it. Yeah. And it was, it took a while of being in that discipline and any discipline that we have, whether it is, you know, going to

the gym, eating healthier, reading your Bible, whatever those those disciplines are, those things in your life, it takes a while for you to start to see the fruit of that. Yeah. It takes a while of you engaging in it regularly before you start to see the fruit of it. And, but boy did the harvest come in. I mean, just when the fruit came in from the time that I had spent reading scripture, the thing that most shocked me about the result of it was just this unshakable joy that I had in my circumstances, regardless what they were. I didn't expect that. I expected to know more about the Bible,

to have better theology, to be able to explain things more, to not feel confused when somebody dropped a reference. I didn't expect how my heart would just widen and deepen with a love for God and His word. Wow. And expect it. I didn't expect to come out on the other side loving it because of how I dreaded it on the

front end. Wow. That is honestly so encouraging. I know for a lot of people listening who have maybe been a little bit afraid or had a hard time doing that as a discipline because you think it's just a check a box or you think it's just to be more spiritual or answer the questions, but it's so much more than that. It's about a growing relationship and how the fruit of your life begins.

It's just overflow, everything changes and you start to understand what it really means for joy to be a strength and to have peace that surpasses understanding and to actually feel this overflow of this relationship that's taking root within you. And so that's so encouraging. One thing that I love too about how honest you are,

and this is something that honestly, I don't think I've ever heard anyone say as honest as you say it, is what you felt the first time after reading the Bible the whole way through. So let's just talk about that for a second because it's so important that you say this. What did you feel after the first time

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you would feel if you finished that task, right? Don't you think you would feel so accomplished and excited and like, I did it, like like this is so great like I can I can check this box off my to-do list and my bucket list whatever um I did not feel that I I felt a combination of um of despair and heartbreak um Because I read it and I knew it was true. I believed all that was true. And mind you, I was in full-time ministry and had never read the whole Bible. And when my pastor challenged me and I did it, I went to him. He had walked with me through the Bible.

He challenged me to read the Bible. He had agreed to answer my questions along the way. And he'd been answering my questions along the way and had been answering my questions along the way. And when I finished, I didn't like God. And that was really hard because it meant that everything I knew to be true in the world, I was separate from it. I knew I couldn't keep my job because I can't fake it. I can't go out in full-time ministry and pretend that I love this God that I've now. I now have no excuse. I've read it all.

I've seen him. He says he is and I don't like it. And so that was when my pastor gave me the advice that was adjacent to the best advice I've ever gotten. You know, so you heard me say earlier, not just read your Bible, but don't look for yourself, look for God. What does he love? What does he hate? What motivates him to do what he does? What aspects of his character are revealed in what you're reading each day?

So you're not reading to get your application points. You're not reading to get your to-do list. You're not reading it to find out how to be a better Christian or a better wife or girlfriend or mother. You're not reading it to find out how to make God happy with you and show you favor. You're reading it to get to know who God is. And it was my second trip through Scripture, as you mentioned, when I remember I was in the minor prophets I think and that was when I just fell in love I just Fell in love with him on my second first trip through did not like him Second and like my whole life's gonna change cuz what do I do now?

Like I'm not a Christian I guess even though I know it's true like consenting to it being true Doesn't make me a Christian Satan knows the Bible is true. Yeah, I guess, even though I know it's true. Like consenting to it being true doesn't make me a Christian. Satan knows the Bible is true. Yeah. You know? It's real. It is loving God that is the transformative piece. Yeah. And so I'm like, yeah, it's true.

I don't like him. And so that means I'm not a Christian was my deduction. And that's when my pastor pressed me to continue on. Second trip through, look for God. And the whole piece of that lens from, here's some big terminology that just, you know, this is for free for anybody who like me likes to learn. I learned that what happened to me was I had a low Christology and a high anthropology. So a low view of God and a high view of man. And so I read scripture to see what

I deserved, how to back out into a corner to make him give me what I wanted, because if I checked all the boxes, did my application points, all of my to-do lists, then God was gonna be proud of me, he was gonna show me favor and blessing, and I read scripture and I found out that's not how it works. This isn't transactional. And when scripture becomes about God and not about how I can get what I want, it switches those things to where I have a high Christology and a low anthropology, a low view of man and a high view of God. And that was the most freeing thing. Like you don't think that when you start to view God higher and like when you view things rightly

like that, that it's gonna be freeing, but the truth sets us free and it was so very freeing. And the ultimate point of that that was the most freeing of all was as a person who was reading Scripture, to be honest, reading it to find out how I could get what I wanted from God. It was so freeing to find out that that's not how it works. Actually, the story is way better than that. That's right. The story is, all the Father requires of me

has been accomplished by his son Jesus on the cross. The finished work of Jesus on the cross gets me every good thing that the Father has for me. Every good thing comes through Jesus' works, not mine. His finished work. So I'm free to just read Scripture to get to know Him. Not to earn His favor and blessing, but just to delight in Him and to love Him more. Yep. That is so great. Gosh, I love what you said so much that I'm like, this is the moment whenever I'm interviewing people that I'm like, this is the moment whenever I'm interviewing people

that I'm like mad that I'm the interviewer and I wish I was the listener, because I'm like, I just need to keep hearing what you're saying because I'm learning so much. And truly this is so good. This is so, so good. I'm so important for even kind of the journey that I've been on even this year.

So I kind of felt challenged in my own way this past year because leading up to Passion Conference, I was unsure what I was going to talk about, which is very unlike me because I like to be super prepared for things and I like to kind of know what I'm going to be talking about. And God's been really gracious in the years past to kind of give me that nudge before, two months before. But here I am in October and I still didn't feel, I say I didn't feel like I knew what I was gonna talk about. And that's not all the way true

because I kind of did feel like he gave me the nudge. I was just so ignoring it because it felt too big of a task. So I kept feeling like God was just nudging my heart to tell his story. Like go tell the story of the Bible to people of passion. And I'm like, how do you do that? Like, how do you tell the story of the Bible to people at Passion. And I'm like, how do you do that? Like, how do you tell the story of the Bible

in a 30 minute message to college students? When also I'm like, I'm the last person that should be telling this story because every other person on stage actually as a pastor went to seminary, like knows how to do that. I'm like the one person that would not know, I don't feel like I know how to do that. I'm like the one person that would not know, I don't feel like I know how to do that. And so I kept feeling that every time

I just kind of felt that nudge, I'd be like, no, like, give me something else. Like, what else should I talk about a passion? Like, okay, I'll incorporate that, you know, tell the gospel or else, you know, whatever. But I was like, what, what does that even mean? And I was honestly too intimidated by that nudge to even ask deeper questions. Like, how do I do that? Do you really want me to do it? I hadn't even engaged in the

conversation. And I love because I heard you say at one point that you didn't want to do that because you also kind of just wanted to stay comfortable. You didn't want the challenge. And it's so interesting that you say that because one time I asked on Instagram, it was just like a random question I had on a poll and I was like, when you hear a sermon, do you want to be challenged? And I figured, I honestly figured everyone would say yes. Like I thought yes, like isn't that why we listen to sermons? Isn't why we go to like hear a pastor's sermon, listen to a podcast about a sermon, about like we want to be challenged. And I was so surprised by how many people

said no. So then I said why? And it was all about comfort. It was, I need to be encouraged. I have too much going on in my life. I wanna just be uplifted. I wanna be encouraged. But I love how you said that's actually not, at the end, freeing. You know, that's really,

that might be like temporarily encouraging, but it's not freeing you. And you're gonna go back to the same promise, but don't you wanna actually know the truth so then it sets you free. So here I am. I'm like not even really wanting to take the challenge of doing this because I knew to do that, I'm gonna have to study so hard

because I don't think I even know the story well enough to get on stage and precisely like say it in that amount of time without, without dumbing down the power of what it is or without just trying to say what I've heard from someone else and it's not true to what I really know. And so I thought, how am I going to read the Bible in two months when also I don't read very well? Like I'm like you, I listen. And so I literally felt the Lord put on my heart to watch the Bible project videos from start to finish, like just watch all of them.

And so crazy enough, I have this thought, like I'm like, I think the Lord told me that. The next week I have John Mark Homer on the podcast. I'm talking to him. Randomly just happened to say to him, hey, if you were gonna like tell people the story of the Bible, like fast, I'm trying to just get him to tell me like,

what would you do? And he goes, yeah, I'm like, and you know, you went to school, what would you do? He said, have you ever heard of the Bible project? I about fell out of my chair. I said, yes, sir. He goes, well, if I were you, I would just watch those videos from start to finish.

And you know, just as much as if you went to school, I could not believe it. It was such confirmation. So at this point, I have about a month before passion. I, every morning I woke up, dove into watching those. And the truth is, I have about a month before passion. I every morning woke up, dove into watching those and the truth is I grew up in a Christian home. I went to a Christian school. Do I know the Bible? Yes. Before feeling this prompting in my heart, I would have said to you, I know the story.

But then it was just this, it was kind of like him saying, have you read the whole Bible? Do you really know it for yourself? That I go, I don't know if I do. So this two-month expedited process of getting to know God by literally just watching these stories every single day and learning about the Bible, I took so many notes, just dove into it. I fell so in love with who God is because I saw it from this overview picture of what He had planned from the beginning and the beautiful story. And it made me see my like my own life so differently. So then when I was able to preach this message, and I really did it from the kind of viewpoint of like Josiah kind of finding the scripture again as a young person and just repenting and pure like we got to get right before the Lord.

We got to find the scripture. So I just encouraged like we got to find the scripture. And I just start getting so emotional on stage. It was the most honest moment I've had in a state, like one of the most honest moments in a stage moments, because you know those moments can be intimidating. You have so many people watching you. It was like no one was there. It was like I'm just talking about how much I love God. And I want you to know how good He is because it was just so real in that moment. And so even when you get emotional sharing like your feelings and your thoughts,

like I can resonate with that so much because I just dove into my own things. And if you were to stop too soon and not get the whole story, you might stop and be frustrated and be like, there's a process along the way that you go, what does this mean or what does that mean? But when you get to the end, might stop and be frustrated and be like, there's a process along the way that you go, what does this mean or what does that mean? But when you get to the end, and I love how even you did get to the end and you were like,

I'm still not there yet and you had to read it again. But if you keep, if you keep seeking, if you keep seeking, it's amazing what relationship comes out of that. And so having you on the podcast at this time is really cool for me too, because I'm kind of experiencing that first time through. I've known the Bible my whole life. I know the Lord. I love the Lord, but really like diving in for myself.

And one of the reasons I wanted to have you on the podcast is because since I've gone through that, so many people are asking me questions like, how do I get started? So many people have started watching the Bible Project videos. I know people listen to your podcast. Just for just quick advice, you know, people who are going, I want to know the Bible project videos. I know people listen to your podcast. Just for just quick advice, you know, people who are going, I want to know the Bible. I've been a Christian my whole life. How do I know it like you guys are talking about where it becomes so real? What kind of advice do you give them? Taking care of your health isn't always easy, but it should at least be simple.

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And so I just kept a list of them and would have a conversation once a week where we would answer my journals pages full of questions. And then I walked one friend through the Bible herself. She had the same story as me. Like I've tried to do this a million times. I'm basically a Genesis scholar because I've read Genesis 50 times and nothing else. And so she was like,

you said that the only reason you made it through was because Lee answered your questions along the way. So will you answer my questions now that you've read it a dozen times? And I was like, sure, sounds great. And then she made it through. And then I was like, sounds great and then she made it through and then I was like I think this is the key yeah I think this is having somebody hold your hand along the way yeah because otherwise Sadie all I was doing

was accumulating confusion I was making up ideas of what I thought the answers might be I was sort of inventing what I think the storyline is here and I didn't have a trusted guide who had been through it multiple times to tell me like, no, no, what you're not taking into account is this verse that you're not going to read for nine more months. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So for someone to have read the whole meta narrative of scripture, the whole overarching storyline in chronological order, which I didn't know. I thought front to back was chronological.. That's not. It's laid out like a library, not like a timeline. And so reading it in chronological order and having a trusted guide who'd walked that path many times before, hold my hand every single day to

answer my questions, was helpful to me and I wanted to do it to help other people. So when I walked my friend through by answering her questions, immediately, the idea came to mind from the Lord, I believe, um, how can I do this for as many people as possible? How can I help other people like me who've tried and failed, who only accumulate confusion instead of accumulating understanding? Um, how can I help them not give up? And I, you know, you articulated something I think really important when you were talking about your story with passion. And it is you were pointing to the difference between reading the Bible and studying the Bible. Reading the whole thing and getting the

whole overall meta-narrative is wildly important. Otherwise, if we just dive in and study one of those books, we have no idea the framework that it's sitting in. And so I really, I make two distinctions, reading the Bible and studying the Bible. And I am, I read through the Bible chronologically every year. Sometimes I change the version that I read it in, but I read through it every year. I also, meanwhile, am doing studies of individual books of the Bible to dive deeper into those. But Bible reading and Bible study are two different things. And I think the thing that I would encourage

for the person who is at the beginning of that journey is read through the Bible. And I would love, I think we have two great starting points with the Bible Recap, which are, and by the way, the Bible Recap is, it's a daily thing, it's free daily thing that's a, it's free. So there's a podcast that's eight minutes or a YouTube that's eight minutes. Or if you want to spend some money and buy the book, it's two pages of reading a day. It's like

a big thick book, but don't let it intimidate you. Two pages of reading a day. Um, so you sort of choose your own adventure with how you go through the Bible with us. But what I do is I give a brief summary of where we are in the overall metanarrative. I try to reconcile those places in scripture that seem like they might be contradictory. For instance, the part where Jesus is like, I do not come to bring peace but a sword. And it's like, well a few chapters ago you said blessed are the peacemakers, so do you want to bring peace or do you want to bring a sword? Like which is it? You know? I try to discuss those things and reconcile those. I give biblical and historical context.

I just cheer you on along the way. I'm like, hey, today was hard, wasn't it? Wasn't that kind of boring? A bunch of genealogies. But remember, we're not here to be entertained. Scripture isn't here to entertain us. Scripture is here to reveal God. So where in today's reading did we see God's character show up?

What did we learn about him? By what he told us in his about him? It's great. By what he told us in his word today. It's great. And so every day I'm pointing to that. We call it the God shot, your snapshot of God and his character. So basically it is a Bible reading training program with a coach and a cheerleader all rolled into one for the person who does it with us.

Where I'm walking you through, I'm explaining things, I'm encouraging you. When you don't do it one day, I'm like, I'm not gonna yell at you, just pick it up again tomorrow. Like, you miss one day, like show up tomorrow. Every day that you're in God's Word, you're right on time. It's great. And so we have two primary easy on-ramps for people. And the first is the one year through the whole Bible Old Testament New Testament. Start with day one. The other is the New Testament three month plan and we think that's a great on-ramp for people who maybe feel intimidated by doing the whole Bible and what we found is that those people come back and do the whole thing after they finish the New Testament. They have they have like gotten the rhythm of it. They're

falling in love. They're learning and they're like okay I think I can tackle the Old Testament. It's great. And then the other cool thing that we've seen is this is our sixth year doing it and we have people who've done it with us six years in a row. Wow. Because people, they fall in love and they're like, I want to stay in the word every day and this is a great accountability program. So we learn new stuff every time is man the first year those really hard parts you're gonna hit Job it's gonna be hard you're gonna hit Leviticus that's gonna be hard like oils and sores and laws you're gonna hit some stuff in the

prophets that's hard and you're gonna want to give up in those spaces but if you power through and you make it through the second year it's not it's not that bad. That's like I just was talking last week, I think we have a mutual friend, Candice Cameron-Barre, and she and I were talking, she's on our second year through with the Bible Recap, and she was like, man, last year this part was so hard for me, and this year it's kind of a breeze. It's like I know what to expect now. That's so cool.

That's awesome. We just want to cheer people on and encourage people day by day. That's so cool. And walk them through it day by day. And so my advice for them would be give it a shot. It's free. Why not? It's, you know, 12 minutes of reading and eight minutes of me listening to you, listening

to eight minutes of listening to me tell you what you just read. Yeah. So 20 minutes a day. It's so doable. It really day. It's so doable. It really is. It's so doable. And I love just like you act as a friend and just sit there and, you know, just say the honest truth of, okay, that was a little hard today, but it's so fun.

It really is so fun when you go from reading to studying. And last week I was at a Women a Joy event and I was kind of just, I went through so much scripture. They asked me if I wanted to put scripture on the board. I said, don't even put it up there because we're going through so many different scriptures. And I kind of got lost in just reading the scripture that I ended up reading more than I was even going to. And we just started studying the Bible.

So I said, are y'all good if we just have a Bible study? And everyone was like, yeah, because I mean, this is a group of women. So we just like straight up had a Bible study. And it was so fun because we were reading, well, it was kind of really a hard part of scripture, but it was Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, and I was, you know, just read that he's literally praying that God would take away, like if this cup can pass for me, Lord,

would it pass? You know, but if not, would your will be done? And then, you know, he goes and can pass for me, Lord, would it pass? But if not, would your will be done? And then he goes and he's telling Peter, why aren't y'all praying? Can y'all not just stay awake? And then he goes back and he does it again. And then here they are asleep. And he's like, what's wrong with y'all?

Can you not just, of course I'm paraphrasing, but he's like, can you not just pray? And then he goes back and asks the Lord again. And then we keep reading. And again, I wasn't planning on reading this whole thing, but we just keep reading. And then we go into, you know, how Judas shows up and he's like, then kind of like everything changes because now Peter's ready to fight. So Peter is like sleeping and he's not praying, but then he's ready to fight and he has a sword. And then Jesus is now saying, like, put put away your sword like for the hour's coming. And then Jesus says, do you not know if I asked my father,

you know, he would send 12 legions of angels to come. But if he did that, then how would, then I wouldn't, you know, do what scripture says to do. And so I'm reading this and I go, what? Like literally I'm like, this is crazy because literally in the same exact chapter, he's asking God to take it. But he's also saying like,

but if this is your will, let it be done. And in the same chapter, God doesn't take it. Judas shows up, his friend betrays him. And here he is telling Peter like, don't fight it. And he's saying, if I asked my father, then he was in 12 legions. But I'm like, didn't he just ask his father? Then we dive into how he really was asking God not to take it away, but he was asking God that his will would be done. And it was almost like in this moment,

he surrendered. He said, okay, this is what I'm here for. If I didn't do this moment, then the scripture would not be fulfilled. Then all those prophecies and the plan would not happen. This is why I came. And it was so fun to study that on stage. And I have been studying it, but it just was even more fun in that moment with all of us together, kind of coming to this realization of Jesus being fully man, you know, and struggling with that, but then also fully God.

And you know, I have to say it's a little bit intimidating even talking about the Bible to you because I'm like, you probably know this so much better than me. But I say that to say like, it's just so fun to study the Bible. And you know, when you when you go from just read to really stopping going, wait, what like, didn't he just say this, then what does this mean? And diving into it and what God's doing. And then you see this bigger picture and you're like, wow, how beautiful.

Because then, you know, we're sitting here talking about, well, that's what John 3.16 is. For God's love of the world, he sent his only son. Like, this is what he's saying. This is why I'm here. This is what I came for. So anyways, studying is so fun. I gotta ask you, as you study and you continue to read,

do you still get surprised by things? Y'all, sometimes they're just not feel like there's enough time in a day. 24 hours somehow just flies by, and y'all know life can just get hectic. It just feels that way sometimes. And one thing I don't have to worry about though, and something I'm grateful for is running out of groceries because I get mine delivered with hungry root.

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The first time we tried Hungry Root, we actually did the quiz and let them just pick for us, which was really cool because we found so many things that we probably wouldn't have picked that we ended up loving and now have become staples. We honestly love all their little snacks because I'm terrible at buying snacks. I never know where to start with snacks.

And so to have all these fun, different, healthy snacks and even little desserts has been a great addition to our refrigerator. We love Hungry Root. All the things that they've sent have been super great. So right now, Hungry Root is offering Woe That's Good podcast listeners 40% off your first delivery

and get this free veggies for life. Y'all, that is like the best deal ever so just go to hungryroot.com slash woe to get 40% off your first delivery and you get your free veggies that's hungryroot.com slash woe and don't forget to use our link so that they know that we sent you there. Totally Sadie a couple of this is like humbling and so exciting for me. Learning is super exciting for me. Like I am... there's a book called Sacred Pathways by Gary Thomas and it talks about the different, the nine different ways that people connect with God.

And some of them are like music or being in nature or the contemplatives. And I am what's called the intellectual, which is funny because you and I share this in common, neither of us have been to seminary, like right? Yeah, yeah. And so it's very intimidating, I really resonated with what you're sharing, like who am I to be on stage sharing this stuff when all these guys are like way more educated? Yeah. And I'm like okay well God uses the weak and the foolish so that includes me. Amen. But I get surprised by stuff all the time. And I was in San Diego a couple of weekends ago for a wedding. And they had a wedding event on Sunday morning.

And so we found a church to attend that evening. And it was just the church that happened to be behind my friend's Airbnb. And we go in, it's like this church that seats like 100 people. It's these folding chairs. It's this, I mean, I didn't know the pastor's name. It was not a flashy situation. And I sat on the third row and he was teaching from John and I was like, man, I just finished writing a Bible, studying the book of John, so maybe this is going to be boring.

I don't know. Like, you know, I've spent a lot of time digging into John. Yeah. And it was so humbling and so exciting that this man taught me stuff about the the Gospel of John that I had not seen even though I had just had my face in the Gospel of John. Yeah. You know, for days on end. And it was so... I love it. Like I just, and you told a story about like the passion, this overarching meta-narrative and like how reading, getting the whole overview lens

and you got so excited telling that story. And then you told the story about teaching at this women's conference where you come alive just diving into the Garden of Gethsemane thing and like articulating the difference between reading and study and coming alive and all those things like I think you might be an intellectual on that in that sacred pathways book too I don't know but like learning about God thrills me yeah and it's a couple cool things about it

I want to be reading the Bible like I said earlier every day until I'm in the ground yeah and I don't like to be reading the Bible, like I said earlier, every day until I'm in the ground. And I don't like to be bored. I don't like it. I like to have a good time. And if I already know it all, there's not a whole lot that's, you know, that might be boring, you know? But the repetition in those spaces, a couple cool things happen as we keep reading the

Bible is I'm a different person every year when I show up in the Word. I'm a different person than when I met you. I remember some of the stuff I was going through and I'm like, I'm a different person than I was then. Yeah. And praise God, you know? Yeah. And so that was just a couple of years ago, but I'm a different person.

And so I'm bringing a different me to the Bible every year. But then also the Bible never changes, God never changes, but because His Word is living and active, then the Holy Spirit who wrote those words of Scripture and the Holy Spirit who lives in me, same person, engages in that space and illuminates new parts of the text for me to understand. And so, yes, absolutely, I learn new stuff all the time. And because the Bible Recap is this, you know, program that we do every year, I like go in and I record edits to the podcast to like insert the new stuff I've learned and the new exciting things that

I've discovered. Yeah. And we'll go in and we'll like add that stuff in. And it, my friends that I spend a lot of time with are like, oh, here she goes telling this story. Like I get so excited. I just can't stop talking about it. And they're like, oh, it's the story about the pastor and what she learned from John. I'm like, yep, it's me. I'm excited to share.

You know, so. That is very relatable. I'm the same exact way. Especially, especially my husband because he hears me talk about all the time. He's like, and here we go. Cause he knows like even he'll like know before I say it based off what the person said.

He's like, she's about to tell the story. This is what she's going to say. He's like, let me tell it for you, honey. I got it from this point. Yeah. It's so true, though. It really is so exciting. And it's funny you say that about the intellectual,

because I actually, it's funny I would say that I am. And I'm glad that you said that about you not going to seminary, too, because I think that is such a lie that people believe, like, oh, well, I didn't go to seminary, so I'm glad that you said that about you not going to seminary too, because I think that is such a, that's such a lie that people believe like, oh, well, I didn't go to seminary, so I'm not qualified or I won't know it in that way. But honestly, I mean, the Bible is the Bible, it's there for everyone. But also there is so much, so many resources out there to learn and to grow even without going to seminary. And actually, this is crazy, but years before I started speaking, preaching, I was 16 years old whenever I met Jenny Allen for the first time.

And Jenny said, you're gonna teach the Bible to your generation. And I was like, I think you're wrong. I think that you're really sweet and that would be cool, but I think you missed it. And honestly did not see that in myself, which is funny to say, because honestly, if you look back, I mean, I was five years old on the coffee table preaching to my parents the Bible.

And I looked back and I listened to that video and I'm like, wow, that was not me. I mean, that was God in me. Because how at five years old could I say those things? And I was always asking my parents like super deep questions that was a little bit different for a kid to be asking about the Bible, about God. So I say, I didn't see that in myself.

I can now looking back, but at 16, I was going through the insecurity of being 16 and the emotions of high school. And Jenny says this to me and I'm like, I'm not really seeing that. And it's so cool. But when she said that, she not only said that, she went ahead and bought me like three different seminary

books that she read, Deary Seminary, and held onto them until I came back to her at 19 and had already preached, I think, maybe my first sermon. And she said, you remember when I said that to you at 16, she said, I still have the books I bought you. And if you're ready for them, I wanna give them to you. She sent them to my house and I started diving in and learning and growing.

So I say it to say, you can learn without, not that that's a great path if you're in the place in life to be able to do that, but if not, you really can learn. And it's funny because, you know, I love to learn new things. And I listen to a lot of podcasts that are a lot smarter than me. So like, for instance, this morning,

I listened to Backport theology, Lisa Harper. I love that podcast. She's wonderful. She's so great. And she just teaches in such a way where she is also so relatable and so human, but like so wise. And like normally with her podcast,

she does such a good job with explaining things really well. And I'm always like hanging and I'm like, okay, this is really good. This morning's podcast, I did not understand like probably 50% of what they were saying. What was the topic? Okay, you know, this is the thing I need to like listen, but this is what I say this, to say, I loved it,

I loved it, but I go, I'm not understanding this. And so I said to myself, I'm gonna have to listen to it again, because I wanna understand it, because it was just going over my head a little bit, because they had a guest on who was a doctor and he's very smart, and they were trying to break it down, but it was a little bit still over my head, but I thought, I wanna know this, like I wanna know this,

so I'm gonna go back and listen again. And then I also listen to people like Jordan B. Peterson often. And literally half the words he says, I don't understand. But then the other half that I get, I'm like, okay, that was actually really helpful and brought me to a new level. So then I listen again.

And so that's kind of the same thing with the Bible. It's like, if you want to understand, you might read through it the first time you don't understand, but then you go back and you study it and you get to this greater understanding. And it's such a beautiful, fun thing. And it's funny just with a full Lisa Harper circle moment, after Passion, she came up to me and she said, you need to teach a class. And she said this word and I didn't even understand the word.

And I'm like, that proves I don't need to teach that class. I say that to say, like, I know people, all the people that listen to this podcast, like, y'all hear me talk about the Bible all the time. I clearly teach the Bible. I love the Bible. I love the Word. I'm not insecure about the knowledge I have in the Word.

I'm not insecure about not going to seminary school. I feel like, I feel like God loves me. I love God. Like, that's fine. So I'm not saying this out of, you know, insecurity. I'm saying this out of relatability to let you know, I feel those things too. You know, I feel the overwhelming sense of,

wow, there's so much I don't know. There's so much I don't understand. Every time I go on stage, what's I think funny is a lot of people might think it takes like confidence to get on stage. For me, I think it takes a lot of humility to go like, I know I don't know it all, and I know most of these people

are so much smarter than me in this room, but I gotta bring what God gave me, and that's just gonna be exactly what God needs me to do in this moment. And so there's just such a freedom in it being a relationship and learning it because you love Him, and gosh, it's so good. So I love the way you teach.

I love what you do. I wanna ask you just on a personal note too, because I think that's so important to connect our faith to our personal stories. I know that you have had different things in your life, but one thing that's been a hard thing to overcome is two open heart surgeries, if I believe. And so talk a little bit about just like the struggles

and the hardships of your life and how your faith and reading the Bible has actually applied to getting you through just areas that are tough. Yeah, so I was born with several birth defects and a lot of them in my heart. So I knew at some point I would have to have open heart surgery and it just so happened that the first open heart surgery fell. The time that my heart needed to be operated on was six months after my sister died of brain cancer. And so imagine what that's like mostly for my parents, right?

You know, to have one daughter that they've lost her brain cancer. And now six months later, their other daughter is going to have to have open heart surgery. And then in the prep for that open heart surgery, they find out I need a have open heart surgery. And then in the prep for that open heart surgery, they find out I need a second open heart surgery. And then just this whole other,

like in the second open heart surgery, I was accidentally electrocuted. And like there was just all of it, it was a horrible, horrible year where it just felt like every single thing went sideways. Oh, not one open heart surgery, but two? Oh, you're gonna be electrocuted? Like, these, these things that we can't plan for. Yeah. You know? And I've heard it said that when a glass is tipped over, the only thing that can

come out of it is what's in it. And so if, if my life gets side turned sideways and the things that come out of my heart and my mouth and my response in those scenarios, that was in me. Those circumstances didn't cause me to respond and react that way. They revealed that that was inside of me. And so I say all that to say because not through anything that Tara Lee Cobble did, but because of the person of God, the Spirit of God dwelling in me, the finished work of Jesus on the cross, the Father adopting me to be his child, because of his work in my life and engaging in a relationship with him, I had spent several years filling that cup with the knowledge of God. That cup, by that point, was filled with six years of being the Bible every day. And in Matthew 7 24 through 27, when Jesus is at the end

of the Sermon on the Mount, his most famous sermon, he tells them, he basically talks about, he's walked them through what it looks like to engage with the kingdom of God. Like what does it look like to be part of the kingdom? It's this sort of kind of like a dissertation on kingdom life for disciples. Pursuit of righteousness and holiness and demonstrating God to the world around us and he's like there are two ways you can build your life. You can build your life on the sand, you can build your life on the rock.

And he talks about the guy who builds his life on the sand, it gets washed away when the storm comes. The guy who builds his life on the rock, it survives the storm. What both of those guys have in common is that the storm comes for both of them. You don't avoid the storm by being wise. Now, some storms you can avoid through wisdom, but the storm comes for both of them. You don't avoid the storm by being wise. Now, some storms you can avoid through wisdom, but the storm comes for both people. And they've also, both

people have spent a lot of time investing in building something. They've both built these houses. Now, I've never built a house, but it took me two years to choose a couch. So I can imagine how long, how much time investing to build a house and so What I want to be doing with my days and my hours and my years is filling that cup or Building that house on the rock. I want to fill that cup with who God is I want to build that house on who God is because the storm is coming and the best time to prepare for the storm is before the storm is coming. And the best time to prepare for the storm is before the storm hits. And so by the grace of God, I look back on my two open heart surgeries with, I have oddly

fond memories. Like we tell fun stories about my time in the hospital, you know? Like it's crazy. Yeah. I was, I just just I trusted the Lord and And and trusted him whether I live or whether I die. I'm not trusting him like that. I'm gonna live I trust him like whatever happens. You are good and the same thing with my sister my sister came out of her second brain surgery and

We would ask her questions now She got brain surgery had brain surgery three years apart when When she had it the first time, the Lord miraculously healed her. When she had it the second time, she passed away shortly after that. If you had met her before her first surgery, she would have talked to you about one of two things. She would have talked to you about guns or the government. Those were her two passion projects that she loved to talk about. And if you'd met her between surgery number one and surgery number two, she would have talked to you about the Lord. The storm came and she was like, we need to relocate. I have a house on sand. I need a house on rock. And so I tell people,

it's never too late to relocate. If you found you built your house on sand, it's never too late to relocate. You can move to the rock. Today can be the day that you begin reading the Bible every day for the rest of your life, filling your heart and your mind and your life with the character and the person of God and falling more in love with him. Because he's like, I end every day with the Bible recap saying he's where the joy is. Like it's just David said, in presence there is fullness of joy and I found that to be true in the midst of heart surgery in the

midst of losing my sister. So two years later three years later when she had her second brain surgery and she came out and we asked her questions like how are you doing Gina? How are you feeling? She would only answer with scripture she had memorized. That was her response. She would say, God has not given us a spirit of fear but of power and of love and of sound mind. And that's how she would respond to questions.

And it was this beautiful thing to see that she had built her house on the rock. She had spent time filling that cup with the things of God. The storm comes for us all. And if you want joy in and during and after the storm, He's where the joy is. So that is what carried me through was the person of God. That is so beautiful.

It's so good. I remember last year I was at speak conference and Priscilla Shire preached this message and she showed this picture at the end of the message and it was from when a hurricane went through this community and there was only one house that stood. Literally you can look this up and I wish I remember will probably have to just put it in the show notes or something, or tell people my story after it, because I can't remember the exact place. But anyways, if you look at probably the hurricane in one house standing, I mean, literally,

the entire place was wiped, and there was one house, and it was standing. And so they found the person who owns the house, and it turns out he actually did intentionally put things in place for when the storm came for it to stand. And it did. And you know, that was just like a perfect picture of what you just described that it's true.

Like the storm came in that community for every single house on the block, but there was one house that built the house different for it to stand and withstand within the storm. And spiritually, we all go through that same thing. It actually inspired us because we built a house. And yes, the process is very long, but we did build intentional rooms to last longer

in case of storm for where we will go and shelter. And like just did things a little bit more intentionally knowing that physically the foundation of a home and the way that you build things truly have to withstand actual storms and your own life. Jesus literally gave us that analogy, you know, to look at in our own life and see in question where we're at. And so that is such a beautiful thing. You know, I don't know if I've ever heard it said so just I love how you said the storm comes for everyone.

I've never even thought about it. It came for the person in the right and it also came for the person. And then I thought about that analogy that Priscilla said. And it's amazing how even when you dive into the Bible so many times, you hear different sermons, how you take this, what that person said and what this person said, and then it forms this beautiful thing. Right. It makes you understand even more, you know. It's happening even for me right now. And so thank you for sharing your own story and showing just how important it is to build your house on the rock.

Thank you for then also inspiring others to build, but not just inspiring, but helping them do that. So to everyone listening, I don't know what you're doing if you're not going to the Bible recap after this. I don't know what you're doing if you're not getting out your Bible. But Terri, thank you so much for being on this podcast and for just doing all the work that you do

to get the gospel, the Bible out and helping us understand it more deeply. I can't wait to dive in even more deeply myself and I'm so grateful for this conversation. Thanks for having me, Sadie. It's been great to talk to you. you