The Puzzle Is Real

Seek First

Matt & Melissa Pisani Season 1 Episode 35

On this "Faith" episode, Matt and Melissa discuss the importance of trusting God and dismissing  worry in our lives. Get ready to be blessed so you can be a blessing to someone today!

www.mattandmelissapisani.com

@puzzleisreal
@missjean21
@mateopisani

Speaker 1:

Welcome to the puzzle real podcast, where we will be discussing faith, family, and relationships hosted by Matt and Melissa Pisani. This is the puzzle real podcast. When you know, you know,

Speaker 2:

All right, welcome back to the puzzle. Real. This is our faith episode exciting, and I'm really believing that this was something that God put on our heart to share with you.

Speaker 3:

Yes,

Speaker 2:

Mama, Melissa, how you feeling?

Speaker 3:

I'm feeling good. I'm feeling excited. And I think that this is just amazing that we get to do this.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. And I just wanted to really zone in on just the, um, the fear and the worry that we all deal with in life. And mm-hmm<affirmative>. We just wanted to give you guys some, some testimonies, some ways that we've seen God move in our life and full disclosure. This is not a prosperity message episode where we're gonna say, after you listen to this, everything's gonna work after you, but we just want you to stand on some truths, some biblical promises that God has given us and that Jesus has spoken. So the main verse that I wanted to focus on, um, is in the book of Matthew and it is Matthew 6 34. So check this out. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble it's own. So how do I break and unpack this verse and how it's smacked me in the face recently? Well, mm-hmm,<affirmative> you guys know some of our story about who we are, and we're gonna reiterate that tonight for those that don't know who we are. And the biggest thing I wanted to tie in this verse was recently when we were thinking about moving to Charleston, South Carolina, we came down here in March of last year to look at property and look at homes. And I remember sitting in the car on the way home and saying to Melissa, I don't know how we're gonna do this. This doesn't even make sense. We're gonna leave everything that we know mm-hmm<affirmative> in New York and we're gonna move to down south to South Carolina where I know nothing.<laugh> I looked outside of the window there on the passenger side of the car. And literally there was a license plate that said, Matthew, 6 34. I looked it up and said, all right, Lord, you're doing something. And I trust you. So I just want everyone to take a deep breath and we're just gonna pray, Lord, we just pray that this would be an episode that just blesses our minds. Our spirit just clear us of any distraction. And we just invite holy spirit that you would just flow through this episode in Jesus name. Amen. Amen. So, so many moments where we have had our faith strengthened while the enemy, the liar, the devil will try to put seeds of doubt in our minds. Before I met Melissa, I had a lot of doubts that I would never meet my wife. So for everyone out there, that's single. I just want to encourage each of you that there's still opportunity. There's still hope for you. There's still still that person. And you just gotta keep pressing in. It was really interesting how Melissa and I met because I was on every different wavelength of dating from Christian website to trying to meet people and trying to force something that wasn't there. And, and in a, a godly way. This was after I came back to the Lord many years later, after a lot of time maturing in my faith. So I knew what I was looking for and it wasn't serial dating, but it kind of turned into that, you know, meeting someone in the Christian scene is probably almost as weird as this regular dating. And I remember when I finally gave that to God and said, all right, I'm done. I'm not gonna do this anymore. My friend prayed with me, my buddy, Dan rela. And I remember some other people prayed with me and just said, all right, like just give it to the Lord. And I literally left it at his feet within a month. I met Melissa.

Speaker 3:

Yeah. And I have a similar story on the other side where, you know, I was dating and trying to make the puzzle pieces fit. And you know, it was just me trying to control something because I thought that this is, you know, well, I wanna get married and I wanna have a family. And I was trying to like, make these relationships work into something that God did not want to work, cuz that's not who he had for me. And it wasn't until one night in my apartment. And I might have shared this before. I just remember getting on my knees and just weeping. And I just remember feeling the presence of God. And I just recommitted my life to him and said, I'm done trying to find the person that you have for me. I know that when you have him, you're gonna bring him to me. And I went out, I think that next week and I bought myself a promise ring and I was like, I am wearing this ring until my husband puts my engagement ring on. And I remember just being so steadfast and just knowing that I was gonna wait on him and I wasn't gonna compromise myself anymore. And it was literally within months that I met Matt<laugh>. So it just shows you that when you fully submit your life to him, and I actually was just sharing this with someone recently and they were like, oh my gosh, I just got chills. And it's just, it's an amazing testimony that when you fully submit your life and if there's one area in your life that you're still struggling with, maybe you haven't released that yet. Maybe you're still trying to control it. You're still trying to hold onto something. Thinking you can make that work the way that it's supposed to, but God has something so much greater. And once you realize that he's your creator, he's your father. He has your best interest. And his thoughts are so much greater than ours. When you put your trust in him, he will make all things work for good, for those who love him and who abide in him.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. And we just did that episode on details and God is all about details. Everything that we prayed for, for just our spouse, Melissa, me back and forth, the things that we wanted in a marriage, we have it. And it was all based on prayer. It wasn't just, oh yeah. And you know, I want this and that on a checklist. It was literally specific things that God showed us like, wow, like we really are each other's puzzle piece. The puzzle is real. And that's why we had started this podcast as an encouragement and as a tool and a resource, you know, in Matthew, this book is just filled with so many truths and so many promises in the same chapter, Matthew 6 25 at the beginning, right? It says, therefore this says at the beginning of do not worry. If you look in your Bibles or your Bible app, therefore I tell you do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink or about your body. What you wear is not life more important than food and the body more important than clothes. Look at the birds of the air. They do not sew or reap or store away in Barnes. And yet your heavenly father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they, who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life? So this is really important for those of us that might even be worrying about provisions, financial provisions, making ends meet so many times we thought, wow, we're not gonna be able to continue to do ministry. We're working full time. Mm-hmm<affirmative> how are we gonna sustain with clean slate living? Our, our nonprofit that you know, is secular that goes into, you know, secular places to talk about self-worth and identity and value. And there are times where literally people would just like sew in mm-hmm<affirmative> to the organization. Like we had somebody show up at our house with a thousand dollars. Yeah. And was like, this is for, you know, this is for clean slate. We had opportunities where just like grant money came in for us to do mm-hmm<affirmative> new productions, things that we would never have had a budget for. I can tie that into just the simplicity of when I was living with my best friend before I met Melissa and leading into meeting her. I remember barely making it with my rent mm-hmm<affirmative>. And one of my friends literally giving me what I needed for rent mm-hmm<affirmative> and walking in obedience. And, and we've just seen this happen. And we've been able to obviously pass through those same resources to other people. So I also wanna encourage people that are listening and saying, well, how are these things gonna happen? Continue to be diligent, continue to surrender it to God. Obviously we have to take action steps. This isn't, um, us saying, oh, well, I'm just gonna get my, my break or my hand out. I truly believe God wants us to keep moving forward by faith and stewarding everything that he entrusts us with. But don't worry about those moments. Don't try to figure out how it's gonna work out because that's a distraction from God using you in the moment. In other words, when you're worrying and you're constantly trying to calculate how things are gonna add up, let him do the math. He is the master of math,

Speaker 3:

Because let me tell you sometimes it won't make sense. It doesn't make sense. And when you try to figure it out, you're gonna literally make yourself just go crazy. Because I know we've shared this in the past, but when I quit my job, you know, that was a huge risk. And that was just a faith move that we did. And we said, Lord, we know you're gonna provide because you know what, what our children are. Number one. And we know that Matt is able to work and he's able to put more time and energy in it. Now that I'm not working, we don't have to juggle the kids. And the Lord just, he made it up. He made up the difference and like supernaturally. So because we trusted him. And when you trust him and you let go of that control and that parachute, and you say, all right, God, you're gonna carry me. I'm not gonna wait for the thing on my back to open up. That's when things move and we've seen miracles upon miracles, and I'm also saying, there's not gonna be, it's not like your life's gonna be perfect. You're gonna come up against trials. There's gonna be tribulation. There's gonna be things adversities that are gonna come against you. But if God brings you to it, he's gonna bring you through it. And that's something that I tell myself and others all the time and without a test, there's no testimony. So it's like, yes, these things might happen. But that doesn't mean God has left you or forsaken you. He is with you. He is holding you. That's when you draw closer to him to get through those things and to get to the, to the other side where you're like, wow, God, you were there. Even though you didn't feel him in that moment, he was there the whole time.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. And, and to sum it all up, because we look at this episode is even like a daily devotional episode. And we want to do more of these in the future for everyone. Cuz this is the holy spirit. Speaking through, this is a life giving episode. This is something that we hope that you can like really meditate and marinate on in Matthew chapter 6 33, right? Verse 33. This is the one that everyone knows. But it's the one that sometimes we forget, but seek first his kingdom and his righteousness and all these things will be given to you as well. That's that's it that's like the home run right there. Like when you seek first his kingdom mm-hmm<affirmative> when we were doing church on our front lawn during the pandemic, every week we were preaching the gospel out in the public, right on our front lawn, right. With our, just our little speaker system. And just a lot of people that love Jesus and love to serve others. We Seeked his kingdom and we allowed him to operate through those moments. And he did a miracle every weekend, every weekend, there was something miraculous about, oh yeah. And every week there would be a, a follow up testimony, the relationships that were built, the people that will never meet that heard the gospel that were driving by in their cars and their bicycles, walking, running, seek his kingdom. And he will reveal to you his deeper plan and purpose for your life. Everything else is icing on the cake.

Speaker 3:

Yeah. And that ties into the verse that we had on our wall, in our, our New York home with Psalms 37, 4, um, delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of his heart. So it it's just in line with that. But as you're in his presence, your heart's desires are going to come true because he is not only giving you those desires, cuz those are from God. It's not like this fleshly earthly thing. That's just fleeting. It's something eternal. So I think that that's just an encouragement for you guys and for you guys to know that you're not alone, we all face things. We all are going through challenges. But to know that when you're in the midst that you have to rest in him and rest in his word and his promises and his character and his truth. And to know that he is a good, good father. And um, yeah. We just wanna speak some life into you guys today.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. So encouragement, encouragement, open up the word of God today. Find a chapter, a verse somewhere in this Bible of this precious living word, the basic instructions before leaving earth. That's that acronym for the Bible that I always like to remind people mm-hmm<affirmative> this will fill you up. It'll refresh you. It'll speak to you. God speaks through his living word and let us know how it goes. We want to hear from you.

Speaker 3:

Yes, please do. We will see you guys soon.

Speaker 1:

Hey guys, thanks so much for listening to the puzzle, his real podcast. Please subscribe today and share with the friend. See you soon.