Ep. 1 I Can't Feel My Legs!

It's finally here!! After a year of procrastinating... the first episode of the "Reality Check" podcast is up!! In this episode I will sharing on the importance of finishing what we start and sharing an inspirational story about a girl named Kayla Montgomery. You definitely don't want to miss out! Be sure to subscribe to the channel and share so others may have a chance to hear too. Love you all -Steven 

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:03

Hey everyone. This is Stephen Farmer and welcome to the weekly reality check podcast. Today's episode is titled aye.

Speaker 2: 0:09

Can't feel my legs. It's actually a message that I spoke at our church south end community church a few months ago. And I absolutely love this story. And this literally I had wrote this and kind of planned this out for the podcast. It was going to be my first episode and I was talking with my dad about it. And he said, you need to speak this at church. You needed to share this message. And I thought, oh man, well then everybody's going to hear it. And you know, I don't know a lot of people, so maybe they're going to hear it again on the podcast, but, you know, I figured I'm still gonna go with it because this applies so much so to the podcast. And I'm going to get to that in a few minutes. If you listen to the trailer, you know how reality check started, why I did it and how it was feeling at the time before I started it. But what you don't know is that it took me forever to actually do the podcast. When I got that feeling to do the podcast. And I felt I got to put it on my heart. That was a year ago. And it's now June 29th, 2021 that was in 2020, probably in March or may that I felt like God put it on my heart to do a podcast. So a year later here I am just now starting it. And the reason I'm saying all this is because I'm great at starting something, but I'm terrible about finishing. I'm always good at coming up with ideas. If you talk to my parents and my mom, for sure. Um, I'm a big video guy. I love to make videos. I love to do movies and stuff. And, and before I was called to ministry, um, I had a joy and a passion for film I still do, but I was actually going to go to the university of new Orleans to pursue a film degree. Um, I knew by my junior year, I would get to intern on major motion picture sets and be able to work with actors and different directors and stuff. I thought that's going to be so cool. Um, and, and I love to act and the whole deal, but of course, God called me to do face it. And then I had to drop the film thing. Um, but I absolutely love making videos. And so with that said, I'm always thinking of different videos to make. I can watch a movie and I'll be watching the movie and halfway through it. I'm thinking of my own movie. When I listened to songs, I come up with different videos in my head for that song. Um, you're just letting me listen to a song a few times and I'm not bragging. It's just who I am. I like doing that. I've met other people that are just like this. You know, you listen to a song and I can visualize what the song is saying and put it into a video and I want to make him. And so I'll go tell my parents and tell my mom, this is what I want to do. And I share the video idea, the concept and whatever, but then I never make it. You know what I mean? It's just an idea. And so that's the deal. Just a thought without any action. It's just an idea. It's just a, it's just, it's nothing. Right. And I'm great at that. And so I remember when I wanted to do the podcast, I had told my mom and on the road day, when I was telling her about doing reality check, she said, Steven, I love all this, but you're not going to do it. And she was right here. We are a year later and I still haven't done the podcast, but now I'm doing it now. So it's just really to prove her wrong. I'm just kidding. No. So with that said, I can't feel my legs, the whole title of this message, why I started it, why I wanted to do this, this, um, message to start off the podcast is because there's this girl named Kayla Montgomery, who back in 2009, she was at her high school. She was a freshman. She was playing soccer. She got hit, landed on her tailbone and it hurt. Of course, she got up finished. The game, went home, kind of felt bad. Went to sleep, woke up the next day and had no feeling from the waist down. She went to the doctor. The doctor diagnosed her with Ms. And for those of you that don't know what Ms is. I know the majority of you do, but Ms is multiple sclerosis. It affects your nervous system, your spinal cord. And it literally has a potential to leave you paralyzed. I mean, you could literally lose your legs or your limbs or whatever, to where you can't have any feeling in them anymore. And so the doctor told Kayla, basically that, you know, you can't play any more contact sports. You're going to have to drop all that. Um, and there's a likelihood that you might lose your legs, sweetie. And Kayla had a choice to make. She could either allow that to affect her in a negative way, or she could use it to fuel, you know, her to do something great. And she chose to let it fuel her to do something better with her life. You see Kayla said, okay, well, I can't play contact sports, but I can still run. Can I? And the doctor said, yeah, you can do track and cross country, but there's a chance that you might lose your legs. And Kayla said, well, I'm gonna run until I can't run anymore. And she hired herself, a coach, the coach told her that she's an average runner at Bessie. He could work with her, but it's going to take some work. And so she did six days a week, ran 65 miles every week. Um, and this girl worked her way up to varsity on the track team and the cross country team, um, and started to make a name for herself at her high school. And what makes Kayla Montgomery story so impactful? Isn't the fact that she just chose to run, even when she was told she might not be able to. That's cool. That's great. That right there is inspirational, but really it's, it's really about how she finishes her races. It's not really how she started her race. That's cool, but it's how she finishes each. And every one of a racist you see, because Kayla has Ms. It affects her nervous system and the whole deal she had gotten on medication to where her legs would work better. But every race about a mile in when you have an and you get overheated, your symptoms rise, and her symptoms would rise when she was about a mile in and the feeling in her legs would go away again, just like they did the first time. And it was so bad that at one point during the race, she loses all feeling in her legs. And all she can do is just keep running. She can't even stop herself because she can't feel her legs. So in order to stop herself at the end of a race, she has to have her coach stand at the finish line, waiting for her to cross the finish line and collapse in his arms to finish the race. I don't know about you, but that's how I want to be when it comes to serving Jesus, you see the Bible talks about it and Hebrews 12, 12 1 is, they said, we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, right? So let us run that race. It talks about. And, and, and we're told as Christians that we are running a race that God has for us and let us run with perseverance and, and throw off the sin that so easily entangles us. Right. And, and run the race that's marked out for us. We hear that. And that's great now, but let me ask you, number one, one, are you even in the race, some of you that are listening, what race are you running? Are you running a race that's marked out for God? Or are you running a race that's marked out for yourself? Are you about success? Are you about money? Are you about your business? Are you about your family? Are you about yourself or are you about Jesus? I mean, I'm just trying to be cool. I'm trying to have a reality check right now. I mean, really? What is the race that you're running? And if you're running for Jesus,

Speaker 3: 7:09

Are you really running or are you just going

Speaker 2: 7:11

Through the motions you see, because so many times in life, we can find ourselves going through the motions when it comes to serving Jesus. I know I can, I can get to points in my life where God's not really answering the prayers that I'm really wanting him to answer, and I'm going to him. And I'm being with him. I read my Bible, I worship and I'm praying to God, but he's not really answering what I think he should be answering. Right. And so I can then get disappointed and I could go through the motions. And now I'm just showing up to church on Sunday. Now I'm just listening to the worship music and yeah, I'll raise my hands here and there. And I worship, but the words don't mean nothing to me. And, and, and I'm just, I'm just there, right? And I'm just kinda going through the motions. Maybe you just go to work and you go to your nine to five, you go home, maybe a coach, a team or two. And you know, you have a few kids and, and life becomes busy. And if you blink all of a sudden, next thing you know, you haven't been to church in a few weeks and oh, a few months, a year, two years, you haven't been to church. And what, what is like, what, what are we doing? You know? And next thing you know, you realize me and my relationship with God, isn't where it used to be today. I want to give you a reality check that it's time to get back on the track. And it's time to run the race with intensity. It's not about how you start. It's about how you finish. I don't know about you, but I want to finish my race running after God. I want to run with intensity so much so that I'm like Kayla Montgomery. I want to cross the finish line and collapse in Jesus's arms. And I want the same for you. And what's crazy. And what's cool is that it's possible. We can do that. Now. You might say Steven will, oh, how do you, how do you, what do you mean? What, how, how do you do that? Well, it's getting in, it's getting into church. It's getting involved. It's serving. It's not just showing up and being a casual church goer, it's saying, Hey, let me get on the Greek team. Hey, let me serve in the nursery. Let me serve in, in the children's ministry. You know, let me serve on the media team. You know, maybe I have a, you have a musical talent. You might can get on the worship team or, or whatever you, maybe you want to do. The social media team. I'm telling you, churches would love to have somebody to do the social media page. It is a pain to do that. I hate doing it. Okay. But some people have an, uh, an act just for that. And

Speaker 3: 9:31

That could be where you fit in.

Speaker 2: 9:34

So my challenge to you today is to get plugged in and do something for God, do something and use your gifts to glorify God. You see, back when I was six years old, I had, uh, wanted to do karate. And I had started out strong. I thought, this is what I want to do. And I went and I was doing it, but all they did was do these little maneuvers, like blocking my face and you know, teaching me like little kick in maneuvers and stuff. But in my head at six years old, I had seen some Bruce Lee movies. I saw a Walker, Texas ranger from my grandfather. And so all I saw was like the, that, you know, chopping the wooden half stuff. And I was like, bring out the wood, bro. Like, I want to chop that in half. And if we ain't doing it, then I ain't learning karate. I want to fight people. I want to learn how to fight. I don't want to defend myself. I want to fight people. Not because I'm a fighter, but because if somebody is like, yo, give me your lunch money. I'd be like, oh yeah, watch this crane kick to the face, karate kid stuff. You know what I'm saying? But none of that happened. And I remember at six years old, I, I did a few weeks and I told mom and dad, I said, I, I quit this. I ain't gonna impress no girls. I watch this Betsy watch me defend myself with my little maneuvers that I learned. No, bro. I bring out the woodshop in half. So Betsy's like, wow. You know, Steven, you're cool, but that didn't happen. So I quit. And I remember today now I regret that I quit that because I quit something. And honestly, honestly, I didn't realize that they were, she man training me and getting me ready to be able to do the bigger and cooler things for karate, right? Teaching me how to fight. They were teaching me how to defend myself and teaching me how to hold my leg up. And I just didn't understand the process. And I think so many of us in our race towards Jesus, he's got us going through a process and sometimes we don't understand the process and we want the process to hurry up and we want to get to the goods, but we're not willing to go through the trenches and go through the process of learning and how to defend ourselves and how to, you know, get in the word and be ready to defend ourselves when the enemy comes. And so when he does come, we get discouraged because we didn't put the work in, you know what I'm saying? And we quit too easy and we don't. We miss out on the blessing that God has for us. And today I want to challenge you to run the race that God has marked out for you with intensity. It's not about how you start like, like listen, it starting is one thing. That's awesome. That's great. Don't don't, don't, you know, miss me when I'm saying that, I'm not saying that it's not important to start. That's very important, but it's more so important finishing. I don't want to serve Jesus only when I'm young. I want to serve Jesus. When I'm 60, I want to serve Jesus. When I'm 85, when I'm 90, when I'm on my death bed, I want to be serving Jesus, not just in my teens, not just in my, you know, in my, uh, young, early twenties and maybe my thirties, but me and I, when I'm 50 well that's for the young kids to do no, man. I want to serve Jesus with everything. I want to run with intensity. And I want the same for you just because you're 55 years old or 60 years old or 70 years old, 80 years old. Does it mean that you can't be used to win somebody to the Lord? It doesn't mean that God can't use you and your experience and what you've been through that God can't use that to maybe I don't know, inspire someone else that's maybe younger or maybe at the same age to do something with their life. That glorifies God, you never know. Who's watching for you. Older people. There's so many young people that look up to you just don't even realize it. There's people in my church that I look up to right now that I love dearly and that I can't wait to get. I'm not saying I'm rushing, but I can't wait to be their age and serving Jesus like they are. And I hope that I will be. And I pray. And I know that I will be in the name of Jesus, but you see when I was six, I had quit karate, but at six years old, I started one other thing at six. I said, that's the year that I gave my life to Christ. And as something that I started at six and I plan to finish when I'm dead, I plan to finish my relationship with Christ all the way across the finish line at heaven. Um, I'm looking forward to God saying, well done my good and faithful servant. But the Bible says that many, many keyword, many and quotations, okay, we'll say Lord, Lord, but they want into the kingdom of heaven.

Speaker 3: 13:58

I don't want to be one of the many. I want to be one of the few

Speaker 2: 14:02

That walks through the pearly gates and gets to see Jesus and gets to experience heaven because I want to run my race with intensity. And the thing is, is I want the same for you. I might've quit karate at six years old, but I also started something that was way more important. And that was my relationship with Christ at six years old. And I'm 26. Now I've been going 20 years strong serving Jesus and I plan to go for a lifetime serving them. And I plan the same for you. So I challenge you to run the race that God has marked out for you with intensity, the same way that Kayla Montgomery runs each and every one of her races. I challenge you to chase after God with so much intensity that you collapse across the finish and his arms never think that you don't have what it takes to tell somebody about Jesus. Your story is just as important as mine and anybody. Else's. Thank you so much for joining me today. I hope that you've gotten something out of this and I'll see you again next week for episode two of the reality

Speaker 1: 15:10

Check podcast. I'll see you there.