Embracing Praise and Community: A Journey of Faith and Change

In a world that often feels overwhelming, finding ways to uplift ourselves and those around us is essential. This blog explores the themes of faith, community, and personal growth, as shared in a recent journal entry. Join us as we delve into the power of praise, the importance of connection, and the journey toward creating positive change in our society.

Praise Your Way Through Challenges

Life can throw unexpected challenges our way, leaving us feeling disheartened and lost. During these times, it is crucial to remember the power of praise. Praising in the midst of adversity can help lift our spirits and open our eyes to the wonders around us. As we shift our focus from our struggles to gratitude, we create space for healing and freedom.

Praise acts as a bridge, connecting us to the divine and reminding us of the miraculous possibilities that exist. It allows us to rise above our circumstances and gain a clearer perspective. The act of praising is not merely a response to good times but a proactive choice during difficult moments. By praising in advance for what is to come, we demonstrate our faith and trust in the greater plan.

The God of Miracles

In moments of despair, it is vital to remember that we serve a God of miracles. This faith can build a platform for the seemingly impossible to manifest in our lives. When we acknowledge the power of divine intervention, we position ourselves to experience triumph over our trials.

As we praise, we also invite others to witness our journey. Sharing our experiences can inspire and uplift those around us. It creates a ripple effect, encouraging others to join in the act of praise and gratitude. In doing so, we build a community rooted in faith and support.

Community and Connection

Life is a journey best traveled together. The connections we form within our communities play a significant role in our growth and resilience. Engaging with others at events such as the Life Surge event in Boise provides opportunities to share experiences and learn from one another.

At this event, individuals gather to celebrate their faith and learn how to make a positive impact in their communities. The atmosphere is filled with hope, inspiration, and a collective desire to support one another. By sharing our stories and testimonies, we create a sense of belonging and encouragement that resonates deeply.

Documenting Our Journey

One of the most impactful ways to reflect on our experiences is through documentation. By recording our daily lives, we create a personal history that can serve as a source of inspiration for ourselves and others. This idea is beautifully captured in the practice of journaling and blogging.

Documenting our journey allows us to look back on our growth, challenges, and victories. It serves as a reminder of where we started and how far we have come. Additionally, sharing these experiences with a wider audience can foster connections and inspire others to embark on their paths of growth.

Creating Change in Society

As we engage in personal growth and community building, we also have the opportunity to create change in society. This change starts with us—individually and collectively. By embracing the values of love, support, and understanding, we can begin to reshape the narrative around us.

Through initiatives such as America's Holding Company Inc., individuals are encouraged to take ownership of their financial futures and support one another in the process. This approach not only empowers individuals but also fosters a sense of community and shared purpose.

The Power of Choice

Every day, we are faced with choices that shape our lives. The decision to trust in God, to praise, and to engage with our communities is within our control. It is essential to recognize that how we show up in the world can have a profound impact not only on our lives but also on the lives of those around us.

By choosing to embrace praise and community, we align ourselves with a greater purpose. This journey is not just about individual success but about collective growth and support. Together, we can create a brighter future for ourselves and for generations to come.

Final Thoughts

As we reflect on the themes of praise, community, and change, let us remember the power of our choices. Each day presents an opportunity to uplift ourselves and those around us. Through praise, connection, and a commitment to creating change, we can navigate the journey of life with grace and purpose.

In closing, let us embark on this journey together, supporting one another as we work to build a better world for everyone. Remember, life is a team sport, and there is room for everyone on this journey.

Daily Podcast:

Daily Video Journal:

Daily Journal Transcript:

Good morning. Good morning. Good morning.

It is August 24, 2024. Today for our devotional. The title is praise your way through.

It's very ironic. After this, I'm going to the life surge, which is a christian business event here in Boise, which I'm hoping includes a lot of praise. So let's dive in.

Praise your way into faith. When you're falling apart and things look bleak. Praise your way out of the darkness.

Don't go deeper into your pain. Come up higher and praise your way into freedom. Praise will open your eyes to my wonders.

It will pull me into your situation in a special way. For I cannot. For I cannot resist your love and faith.

Praise me in advance for what I am about to do. For what I will do. For I will do the seemingly impossible.

Remember who I am. I am the God of miracles. And your praise will build a platform for the miraculous.

I am the God of triumph. I will give recompense. I will take what the enemy has done and turn it around.

I am the mighty one. And I alone am your vindicator. I will stand up for you.

Leave your cares in my hands and turn your eyes to me. Let your praise catapult you over the walls of fear, sorrow, confusion and disillusionment. Remember what I have done.

Praise your way through this, Lord. I will worship you with extended hands as my whole heart. With praise.

I will tell everyone everywhere about your wonderful works. And how your marvelous miracles exceed expectations. I will jump for joy and shout in triumph.

As I sing your song and make music for the most high God. For when you appear, I worship. While all of my enemies run in retreat.

They stumble and perish before your presence. Psalms nine, one, three. That is such a great reminder that it is not in our hands.

We can trust God or we cannot. Either way, life will move forward. And so I choose to trust God.

I choose to praise God. And I choose to believe in the future that could be in the future that I believe he is creating. And that it's all of our choice, how we show up each and every day.

So I am going to go praise God at the life surge event in Boise, Idaho. It should be a lot of fun. Uh, I'm taking my glasses, so hopefully I'll get to show you some behind the scenes.

I'm gonna be working the merchant booth or merchandise booth merchandising, however that looks. And we'll see what transpires. I hope y'all have a great day.

We'll talk to you soon. Life is a journey, and we are all in it. Together on this journey, our goal is to support and protect as many people as we can.

If you believe we can be the change that we need in society, I invite you to follow the life with Justin Stephens as we live life to do that change. I'm at the life surge event. We're at the stadium down here at BSU.

It's going to be a great day, man. Look at this. It's the stadium.

Have you been to many of the games here? I have, years ago, and unfortunately, the people were acting so rude. I've never been back. Oh, really? I was really kind of shocked.

That's a bummer. It was a bummer. My daughter went to college here.

She didn't have a great experience either, just as far as getting her credits and all that kind of stuff. Yeah, they switched her. Switched her.

She switched her major. Are you. Are you playing? Do you want these, too? There's the extra mile arena, which is where the event is held today.

Should be a lot of fun. I'm excited. I got my first assignment.

I am directing people where to go to sign in to be a part of our volunteer crew. And so I'm hanging out, waiting for people looking like they're trying to figure out where to go. Should be fun.

All right. All right. Hey, here's.

We're gonna make sure we give everybody who's still trying to sign up. We're gonna give you guys plenty of time. There's a couple things I want to make sure you guys know about.

We get to our lunch time here today. We have something in the building, I believe it's right back there in the first concourse. It is a testimonial booth, and so we would love to hear what God's doing in your life throughout the day.

So it's out of our lobby. So throughout the day, if you're walking by, you know you're out there for whatever, take a quick second, pop in, tell us your testimony, tell us what God's doing today, and we would love to hear that. Now, one of the things we're really excited about for everybody who signed up for the impact class, if you sign up for the impact class, can you do me a favor and raise your hand for me? I want to see.

So cool. Congratulations. We have something very special for you today.

When this entire event is done, we're going to be bringing out some of our speakers. You're going to have the opportunity to hear from them, talk to them, shake your hand, take a picture with them. It's just a special reception kind of help get things kicked off.

Get ready to go as you embark on this next step in your journey. All right, now, guys, we still have a second amazing half of this day. We got Bethany Hamilton coming up.

Willie Robertson's coming up. That dude is hilarious. And I hope you came ready because you might be your pants.

He is. So every time I sit down, I'm like, you are so funny. But anyway, it needs to be inspirational.

Filled with your holy spirit and God honoring. We love you, Jesus. Amen.

Amen. Let's grow. He'll be bringing you food here in a second.

Thanks, guys. That's gonna start casting as well. Yeah.

So let's drop a box. And if you want to go over here. Right here.

I got it. Okay. You'll go to that section right up there in that front.

Okay. Front left. Take one down.

Pass it. Okay. Could you pass that down? We need one more.

Thank you, brother. You're welcome. And let's go that way.

How we looking? I think we got one or two more, and that light's gonna blink. So I can see that light out of the corner of my eye to see if I'm recording or not. So what's the name of your podcast? It's called life with Justin Stevens.

So it is all designed around the true value of time. I don't think our society has ever captured the true value of time. I believe time is the only currency in the world.

Right. Everything's based on time. Like, if I gave you a dollar today, it's a only worth what I think it's worth and what you think it's worth at that moment in time, because $1 today is not the same dollar as 50 years ago.

Right. And so you can't go back in time. And that because of inflation and everything, I was around 50 years ago, so I bought a lot for a dollar right.

Now you can't buy anything for a dollar anymore. Not even at the dollar tree. Yeah.

It's crazy. And so that's this whole podcast. This whole idea is around how do we take care of each other better in society as a group, because we can, not because we have to, but because we choose to.

And so your website is justindcstevens.com. i'm here, right? So this. Yeah, if you push that up, and then there's an x there, so.

Oh, wow. That's my blog, and I do it every day, every single day. So click into one of them.

I'll do. And it is literally just the documentation of my life. So I record using these glasses.

And then I upload it to AI. And AI turns it into a blog. Harnessing the power of your words.

That's Brian. I wish we understood that. That's very good.

It keeps popping up, right? Letting go of control. Ooh, I like that. Understanding the power of community.

Finding peace and trust. This is very good. Embracing the journey together.

Impact with intentional action. This is amazing. I'm going to definitely check this out.

Thanks for sharing that. Yeah. Encouraging others.

Oh. Conclusion. Together we are stronger.

That's really cool. Isn't that true? So then if you keep scrolling down, that's the blog. Then I use the audio to create a podcast.

Podcast. And then this is the raw video. So if you click play.

Isn't that crazy? So this I shoot on my phone. It's my daily devotional of. I'm.

Every day I read a devotional and then I talk about what it means to me and what I'm thinking about it. And then throughout the day, I'll record clips using these glasses and I splice them all together. And I do it all.

Because at 75 years old, the only thing I'm gonna care about is how I lived my life. Like, the money I made is all irrelevant because it all comes and goes. So every time I record with my glasses, I look at it like a deposit in my memory bank.

So I can go back and relive today. I can relive. Oh, my gosh.

This is when I learned life surge. This is what I was doing. This is how I participated in it.

And we become our own competitive advantage, right? No one can be you. I'm still listening to you. No, you're good.

Oh, I didn't even realize you had your buds in. But we can be our own competitive advantage. And so that's.

I'm in sales and marketing, and this is everything I've learned over my entire career I implement into my blog. And then. Are you familiar with the concept of an ESOP, an employee stock ownership plan like Winco? So, my blog is designed to be an ESOP that every subscriber gets ownership in what I create.

So if you think about it, it's, how do we leverage? Because I believe we live in two worlds. The real world, we're in Boise, Idaho, and the virtual world, we're online. So by recording, I can take a real world conversation, put it online, and have a million people consume it.

If we weren't recording this, no one else would ever know what we said. But because it's being recorded now, I can share this one on one. Conversation with millions of people, and we're spreading the message that much faster.

And the message is, how do we love on each other better? Great message. Very needed these days. Right.

Especially after the whole shutdown thing. Oh, my gosh. Information about how to make money on the stock, how to protect money in your 401k.

We believe every bell's ringing that the market's going to correct. It has to. It's been going up too far, too long.

They're printing way too much money. We've got an election coming. We believe there's going to be a significant move down in the markets, what they call a sell off, a corrective move.

Some of you are going to sit and watch your account get crushed. We're going to walk you through how to manage risk in that account, how to protect against loss, how to be good stewards of that money, and how about even how to grow in the loss? Because let me tell you something, if the market goes down, if you lose money, it goes to somebody else. Who knows how to make money when the market goes down.

What if you learn how to make money when the market went down? We're going to spend time on that in this impact class. It's going to be a game changer. We're going to talk about option strategies, how to use options as part of your investing, and more importantly, cryptocurrency.

Let me tell you something about digital assets right now. Cryptocurrency. If you understand how to pick cryptocurrency, how to pick the right currency right now, in this day and age, that could build generational wealth for you.

I'm telling you, it could. And a lot of you don't understand crypto. We're going to spend a dive on crypto in this three day impact class.

It's going to be a game changer. Now, I talked this morning. My first class was $4,000 to a nick's, was three grand.

Standard tuition for this class, $997. However, I don't want you to think about tuition. Who would like it if we were able to give you the exact same opportunity that we just gave the single moms? And life surge allows you to attend the class and get access to the software for a full tuition scholarship.

Anybody like that? Yes. Well, that's not gonna happen. Too many of you.

The venues are much smaller, limited size. However, Joe Johnson, the founder of Life Search, who you're going to hear from later today on this stage, he said, we have to make this affordable to everybody if we want to make a kingdom impact. He said, we can't let cost of tuition be a barrier to entry from somebody participating.

So what life surge has done is put together a very special discounted tuition opportunity. However, in order for you to participate in it, you got to enroll right now when you need to enroll right now. So let me walk you through what they put together.

Before I do that, I want to kind of give you the amenities of the program because it's phenomenal. We're going to allow you to take the class and then decide. In other words, you go to the class if it doesn't fulfill your needs.

If you don't think it's a good value, we'll refund you 100%, no questions asked. The full money back guarantee. In addition to that, we're going to allow you to bring your spouse.

So your tuition includes you and your spouse. Now, if you don't have a spouse, get one today. Don't ask those single moms about that, though.

They might have a different opinion of that. Now, if you don't have a spouse, you can bring a significant other, a family member, a dependent child, a co worker, a neighbor, somebody you want to work with to learn these skills. Now, the spirit of the spouse policy isn't for you to meet somebody in the bathroom in 20 minutes and say, hey, I'm alone, you're alone.

Let's say we know each other, we'll go together, we'll split the tuition. That is not the spirit of the policy, okay? It's for you to work with somebody you care about. And I will tell you this, most relationships that start in a bathroom don't really work out long term anyway.

Now, in a couple of minutes, I'm going to direct you to the resource centers around the church, around the arena, rather. And what's going to happen is this, when you get down to the resource tables up in the hallway, if you head up that way, if you're in the sides, there's some right behind the main seating area here, there's some down the front here. What's going to happen is when you get down there to get yourself, take advantage of the opportunity that Joe's laid out for us in lifesurge, they're going to hand you a swag bag.

You guys hold up one of those swag bags. Hold them up for them. This is a swag bag.

Now, in that swag bag is some swag, some lifesurge swag. In addition, inside of that bag is a cardinal with a QR code on it. That QR code is going to give you a username and password to the website.

You're going to have access to that immediately. Now, listen, I did a video that you're also going to get emailed to you next week which explains exactly how to utilize that software product. It's a game changer.

It's really going to open up a lot of doors for you. Now, let me walk you through the discounted tuition opportunity that lifeserve put together. Here's how it works.

Software traditionally has a $59 a month data fee. You pay for real time data streaming data. We're going to waive the fee.

So for the first 30 days when you're in the learning curve, we're going to give you access to the software with no fee. In addition to that, we're going to give you access to a trading video library. Now, the trading video library is 8 hours of integrated content that's going to work with you to help you create a trading investing plan.

We're going to waive the fee for that and the actual class itself. Traditional tuition, 997. If you enroll today, we're going to lower that tuition for everybody to open the door.

This includes you and a guest. You can enroll for $97. Now, in a couple of seconds, I'm going to release you to the tables.

Now, I need you to listen. This is first come, first serve. So what I would recommend is that if you really want to get a spot, because we have limited seats, the venue size is limited, you're going to want to move quickly here.

So, ladies and gentlemen, time to move. Move to the tables. Take advantage of this.

I will tell you one other thing. For the first 20 of you that get to a table, we're going to do a Tim Tebow, Willie and Bethany Hamilton. So you might want to start moving now.

Take advantage of. Just fill it out. And once you fill it out, we'll run your card real quick and you'll be good to go.

We're gonna do a photo op, have some food, some drinks at the end of the day, and you're gonna be able to participate in that as well. Now, some of you are still sitting there looking at me like I'm a zoo animal. It's time to move.

It's dollar 97. Don't overthink this. It's you and a guesthouse with a full refund if you're not satisfied with the program.

And some of you, right, I'm like, what is that? Okay, so, um, yeah. Anybody want to guess where I'm from? Not. Oh, I already told you.

I shouldn't have told you. I should have let you guess. Okay.

I got something else you can guess. Maybe. Oh.

Oh. Because I haven't even told the 06:00 people this, I don't think. Did I? So I'm a independent contractor for life surge.

So this is like my side hustle. My side hustle. So I have a real job.

So who thinks they know what my real job is? Who can guess? A counselor, a comedian? I'm gonna go. I'm not saying yes or no yet, but. Okay, let me just.

Teacher. Teacher. That's it.

Nobody? No other guesses? Spokesperson mom. I wish I was just a stay at home mom. A model.

A model. Oops. She trying to get bound at once.

An attorney. Is that you work someplace in the church. Okay.

Church. Hr. Hr.

Hr. Motivational speaker. Any other guesses? Entrepreneurs? A bank? Any other guesses? A nurse? Radio.

I mean, maybe I'm not gonna have some new positions later in life. I'm gonna take all of these into consideration. So I'm gonna give you like, a snippet version of where I was and where I am, because some of you were right in certain areas of my life, just not currently.

Okay. So I. First of all, I was a teacher.

Elementary teacher. An elementary teacher for eight years. I taught fourth and fifth grade.

Fifth grade. Math and science was always my favorite grade to do teach. And then I was a math specialist where I trained math teachers in the school district that I worked for in Houston.

Actually one of the biggest school districts in the world. Houston Independent school district. So.

And as an inner city. And then after that, I did that for like, seven years. I'm about to tell my age.

I think I done added too much for y'all. Hold on. And then after that, I was an elementary principal for four years, maybe four and a half years.

And then somebody guessed it. I do work in a church. Currently, I've been working in a church for two years.

So now you get to guess what my position is in the church based off of all that information. Bookkeeping. Bookkeeping.

That would be fun. I would have to say you are working with the Sunday school or some other teaching job. Okay, that's funny.

Yes. Okay. Pastor.

Pastor. Children's pastor. So I'm the children's pastor at my church.

At new light church. You can actually look me up. We have dream kids.

NLC Dream kids is our YouTube, Instagram, and YouTube and Instagram page. Don't judge me. I'm a children's pastor.

I do things for children. So everything is very animated. Okay.

So. And I'm also the executive director of operations for my church, so I have a dual role. But my heart is being a children's pastor and working with children, so that's what I do.

And now I get to be here with y'all, too, so that's pretty exciting. Um, yes. Oh, man.

Am I on the interview? Sorry. Um. So I'm the first person in my family to go to college.

I went to college at the North Carolina A and T State University. It's in Greensboro, North Carolina, for those of you that are just wondering. And I received a bachelor's degree in elementary education with a minor in Spanish.

I do not speak Spanish. That's exactly what I did. Hey.

See? Hey, girl elementary ed. I'm a teacher. And Spanish, come on.

I speak no Spanish. Like. Nah.

I'm so sorry. Okay. So then after that, yeah, the student loans, they started telling me I had to pay them back, but if I went to.

We are off working the sales floor. How fun. I got you.

Thank you. And assume full liability and risk. Are you working September? Yes.

Trying to take me out. Thank you. Human trafficking.

Absolutely. That's our passion. Joyce Meyer has her mind girl organization.

We're going to put as much as we can into that cause, because you know what? That has to be eliminated. It's not acceptable in this day and age. Now all I saw.

No problem. That's where I thought you were gonna be. Gotcha.

Oh, yeah. At all. Okay.

All right. We're gonna have you go first. You'll go this way.

You just go right there to the security guard. Just wait there. Everyone follow line except for my last person.

Single file, I'm guessing. So here we go. Three green.

What do you want to do? How much emotionally patient should we do without now we bought. All right. What is it about the miracle? Yes.

You follow these 25 deals and show us proof that they didn't. So you're going to be learning from people that are doing this and can help you with very simple things. You know, like I said, maybe you're like, oh, I missed a boat on a 2% mortgage, and you're looking to buy a home.

I want to find out how to take advantage of that opportunity. I want to learn about how to self direct a retirement account and stop depending on, you know, the ups and downs of, you know, whatever's going on in there. I want to take control.

I want to learn higher level asset protections. All of our primary residents. I was looking through Boise, like, who owns properties and almost, like, 95% of the properties were owned by personal names.

We need to get our personal homes out of our personal names into revocable living, trust for proper assets, things like that, that are so important. We want to help you keep more of your money in your pocket. We're going to teach you a simple technique of simply opening and structuring an LLC in a specific way.

And even if you never buy a single property, you'll be able to run just some expenses that you spend every year and that will give you tax deductions that you currently don't have. So it's a lot of cool stuff that's going to happen there. You see too much to cover.

Let me see if there's anything else. I want to hear. Multiple streams of income, passive income.

And then also at the end of the class if you are interested. Like Joe said, we have advanced coaching and mentorship. If you feel like God's calling you into that, well, regardless of that, the three days is going to equip you and you're going to walk out of that class probably knowing more about 80%, knowing more than about 80% of real estate professionals in this market.

Just like trade surge, the opportunity to attend is only $97. So I hope I think you heard Joe's heart. His heart is to equip the saints.

We're not trying to get $97 from you. We're trying to get something to you that you could use to build God's kingdom and build your family. So it's $97 for you and a spouse or a business partner.

If you don't have a spouse or a business partner, do what my friend did and pray and say holy spirit, highlight a person I should give this extra ticket to and have them come and experience it. You also have a money back guarantee. So if you're like, jeff, you know, I just got nothing out of this class.

I didn't learn anything. You just email life search, they'll give you your money back. And I personally want to give you some personalized Joe, if I could give some personal things away to you.

There's three tools that are more important than any other in the business. One is a seller lead sheet, knowing how to have a conversation with the seller, knowing the questions to ask, knowing if you can help them or not. A deal analyzer tool, so you never overpay for a property.

And you know what the best exit strategy may be. And a repair estimator. Because in this business, you typically write about ten offers for every one you get accepted.

So if you're calling a contractor ten times to get a biddenness, and you're only giving them one job, they're gonna get sick of you pretty quick. So we need to know how to estimate repairs on our own. And that tool gives you the ability to do it in 15 minutes, whether you have any prior experience as a contractor or not.

So, in a moment, I'm gonna have you come up to the resource tables. We have them up here. We have two big ones there in the back.

If you're up here on the sides of the back, if you go straight up, they're out in the concourse area. But I have some really cool news. I want to say very quick.

This is going to get you excited. And I love this part because I just love Joe's heart about this is earlier, did anyone in here invest in the three day trade course, the three day stock course? By show of hand. All right.

If you did, you should have one of these. I want you to pull it out right now. You got it? You got it.

You got to pull it out. You don't want to miss this. Lift it.

Actually stand to your feet. If you invested in trade surge earlier today. All right, so check this out.

If you've invested in trade surge earlier today, you're going to have to come up to one of these tables here in the front or in the back, but you're going to come up and you're going to exchange this yellow piece of paper for another white one. And life surge is going to include real estate surge for no extra charge. So you're right.

Give it up for life. You can start coming up, fill that out, and then we switch it out for that one. So just fill this out, and then we're gonna switch it out with your purple.

Fill that out, fill this out, and then bring them both back to me. Then we switch them. It's $97 for three days at drink.

For three days at real estate surge, you can bring your business partner or your spouse. You get the deal analyzer, you get the receipt, fill it out, and then bring them back up. You have the money back guarantee.

And we have a student reception tonight for everybody that invests, so we can prepare you for the classes. God bless you. I'm gonna leave you with my favorite scripture, ephesians 320.

Now to him. So take this, fill it out, and then bring it back up, and we exchange it for that one. Looks like you need to.

You need three. There you go. Like you said, all you have to do is bring that yellow sheet down to one of the tables here in the front, down the back.

We have him in the concourse. For those of you sunny, it was very first time our team's gonna have clipboards. We even have some signs that you can say, first time, sign up for that clipboard.

So you fill this out and then bring it back, and then we switch it out for you. A few more minutes here before you guys get the opportunity to sign up, and then we'll be back with some fun and maybe start on duck dynasty. We'll see you guys here in a little bit.

Thanks. All right, so there is your new receipt. Would you like to keep this one as well? What a fun day.

That was a blast. So I met a lot of really cool people. I.

Yeah, I really enjoyed that. Now I think I'm going to drive Uber for a bit, so won't that be fun? Oh, I gotta unlock my car. There's our logo.

I don't talk about it much because it's not accepted the circles I run in yet. But someday. Someday.

I wonder how that got there. Anyways, have a great day. It was fun hanging out.

Thanks for watching today's journal entry. The best way to support my work is by following, liking, and sharing the content I created. Create on a regular basis.

I appreciate you being on this journey through time with me, and have a wonderful day.