Episode 50: Live Fully Loved

[Music] you're listening to the beyond sunday's podcast season two. Each week, people just like you from all over the world are going to share stories of God's faithfulness because the God who did, still does. Y'all, he still does. This week, we're kicking off with an incredible conversation with Leif Hetland, author of "To Reign: Living and Loving from a Place of Rest." Jeffrey Turner, our weekend services pastor at Beltway Park, sits down with Leif in Atlanta, Georgia, to talk about what God is doing in the world. You do not want to miss the incredible testimonies. They also talk about how we both, you and I, can live fully loved. So, let's get to it.

Hey Beltway Park, welcome. We are so honored because today on our podcast, we have Leif Hetland. As we kick off our spiritual growth campaign as a church, we're calling it "The Restful Life." We are honored to be able to go through Leif's book, "To Reign," as a church, and it is going to be a powerful, powerful eight weeks. But before we kind of jump into, we're going to talk about the book, we're going to talk a little bit about why you wrote the book and some key things that you feel like we need as a culture within the book. Before we do all that, tell us a little bit about you. For anyone that doesn't know you, you've been around our church some, but tell us a little bit about you, your family, what you do now.

Sure. So, we've been married for 33 years. We have four grown children. Three of them now are married. The youngest one is not. Two of them live here in Atlanta, and two live in Norway. We actually just had a wedding in Norway. And in 1999, I started this mission organization called Global Mission Awareness. I had been a mission pastor in a mega church, Southern Baptist, and then God called us to start Global Mission Awareness. And right now, we are actually a kingdom family movement, meaning a family of families. Put it in a simple way, I'm actually fathering a group of different other ministry, mission organizations, and in 22 countries, we actually have a culture that is shaping the culture in those countries with a special focus on the areas in the world where the gospel has never been before. So, we're focusing on the darkest places in the world, and that's part of the reason I'm going into some of the Muslim world, Hindu world, and other places, especially some people call it a 10/40 window. So, I put it in a simple way, I'm in the light business. And wherever there is darkness, my stock goes up. So, we are making sure that we're turning on the light, and that light is greater than darkness, and love is greater than fear. And my simple life message, I want everyone in the world to know how good Papa God is, and I want everyone in the world to know how loved they are. I want them experiencing a God just like Jesus.

That's awesome. So, you said your name is Leif, not Leaf. When you go to somewhere to get coffee, how often do they spell your name right?

No, I would say never.

20 all the time. Mine's Jeffrey with a G, and I don't know if anyone's ever spelled my name right the first time. So, so I love, I, we've, we've been really blessed. You've come in and done Word, Spirit, and Power and some things for us, uh, with us as a church over the years, and we've really been blessed to see your heart for the lost. And for, you said you're in the, the light business, which I think is a beautiful way that's, we as believers should always be in the light business. Uh, what are, what are some other things? We, we know you love Papa God. We know you love telling people about Jesus. But what, what are some things that you just enjoy?

First of all, I got home late last night, and I got to hang around my little, she's not a puppy any longer, but so I love our dogs, of course. I love our family. But some people didn't know that I had a black belt in Taekwondo, and I had my own Taekwondo school back in the days. So, and so that's been also because of all the accidents I've had, part of it is connected to my calling. I'm not able to do some other things I used to do, but that's something also I enjoyed. So, to some degree, that even before God called me into some of those places, I learned to be a fighter. I learned to, yeah, using martial arts. So, that was one of the hobbies, fun things that probably most people didn't know about me because I'm so much known for being a lover. And on April 24th, and excuse me, November 24th last year, I received the International Peace Award by the President of Pakistan as an ambassador of love. And if you actually know my life and my life story, that is kind of ridiculous how the, the president of a Muslim country, Islamic Republic of Pakistan, will give a Norwegian like me the International Peace Award as an ambassador of love. If God can do that with my life, I mean, there's hope for everyone.

So, you kind of talked a little bit about, uh, just your life and and growing up and almost being surprised that you are where you're at. I mean, is this, when, when you were a teenager, even young adult, when you first met Jennifer, could you ever have imagined your life to look like it does today?

No, I, I don't. Because when I was about 12 years old, I came from a godly family, good family, but I ended up in rebellion. Part of it was just, somebody attacked me, and I couldn't talk about it. And as a result, I ended up as a prodigal son. So, I ended up with addiction, drug addiction, and a lot of other things. And I was 18 years old, a suicidal drug addict that got gloriously saved. And Jesus saved me. He healed me. He delivered me. I said, that's the good news. The bad news was, I went from rebellion to be religion. So, I went from being a prodigal son to become a prodigal brother. And now, because of what Jesus has done for me, I'm going to serve him. I'm going to give my life for him. And I didn't realize I was as much lost being out there working for him. And that's also connected to the book that people are going to read. It's my own journey of how painful it is from, I knew how it was to be a prodigal son, but the pain of being a prodigal brother, trying to do everything to please God, not realizing I'm actually pleasing to him. And then the radical change that took place when I met Papa God, when I experienced a baptism of love that actually brought me into the kingdom. And part of my whole journey is that I started then to learn a lot about the kingdom. But my experience was so different than the theology or what I was reading. And that tension between there, that's part of my journey is how to make that much smaller because there was such a gap between Jesus and myself. And no matter how hard I tried, it was never good enough. And then I realized, and actually, first of all, experiencing to live fully loved, experiencing the Father's love, the same love that Jesus experienced with his Father, got to know the Holy Spirit. I was never called to do this myself. And then I think, just in a very natural, supernatural way, just inviting the Holy Spirit to start to fill me, take control. And I started a lot of inner healing process, especially when you, you have been a little Pharisee a lot of your life. And when you start experiencing his love and how much he loves me and the goodness and kindness over my life, now the way I saw the world change. And that's, of course, so much connected to this book. It's my journey. It's my story, going from chair three, but then eventually being having a super-glued chair two, didn't even know chair one existed. So, a lot of the things that we're going to talk about is connected to my own journey and my story from being a prodigal son to be a prodigal brother and eventually finally coming home and living my life like I have a home, a place of security, place of love, place of value, place of purpose, and affirmation of the Father before I do anything, he's already well pleased with me.

So, you, you talked about the moving from the prodigal brother. How, what was, there was there this moment? There was there this one time the Lord really opened your eyes to kind of show you that you had settled for, you, you said being a Pharisee, kind of religion, and missing out on really what God had for you? Was it this general? Was it a process for you to have your eyes opened?

I would say it was both. I had an experience with the Father's love. I call it the baptism of love experience, meaning I was immersed in the Father's love, and his love went into the deepest areas in my life, my root area. So, this perfect love, the Bible says, casts out fear. So, I had an encounter with love. But then I went through a process because I'm so used to learning how to live for love instead of from love. So, that was a process to renew my mind, to start to see me the way that he was seeing me, because I believed in him, but I just didn't know he believed in me. So, the first was to learn how to receive his love. But the second part of that journey took about six years with Papa Jack Taylor, who many at Beltway know, Beltway Park family knows. But the next part of my journey was to learn how to love me the way that he loves me. And when that process was taking place, and he wanted me to look in the mirror to see me the way he sees, to love me the way that he loves, that was another part of that transformation. And I would say that I'm definitely in the process still. I definitely am not the right, because when I'm looking at Jesus, he lived fully loved. He didn't have to prove anything. He already had the approval of the Father. So, when I'm looking at him, I see that there's still room for more of the Holy Spirit in my life, which always creates honor, hunger, and humility, which is the three areas that I'm making sure how do I honor, honor him and honor people, and how do I go lower, not higher. Honor, and then continue to maintain hunger, having a table full of food, but how do I maintain hunger constantly? There's always more that I can get.

So, the book we're going to go through as a church, it's called "To Reign." What, what, why did you write it? I mean, what was the, when you sat down, how long ago did you write it? I don't even know when.

I mean, the book, probably about five years ago is when I wrote it. And to be honest with you, it's been, somebody asked me how long did it take us, at 20 years. But pretty much, what I mean with that process, this has been my life message. It was just a framework. And it started with a group of leaders asking me questions. And again, I realized I was thinking with these three chairs. And mainly the chair one and chair two.

So, explain that really quick, because we're going to talk about it a bunch over the next eight weeks. Explain for anyone that's never heard you talk about three chairs. Explain what each of the chairs are.

Yeah, I can give a little quickly the background how this came about. Right after I had a baptism of love experience, I went through a process. I didn't know on the inside, I had a lot of orphan tendency, orphan heart. And you said, what do you mean by that? Meaning there was areas in my life where I was not comfortable with love. I was not comfortable with the Father. So, I used to run to Jesus, and he kind of was between me and the Father. And Jesus was good, but I had a view of God that did not look like Jesus. So, I was speaking in this one church, and there was actually healings that took place. And right afterwards, I was like, wow, this was an amazing service. I loved it. And the presence lifted. And that night, there was big expectation. They went to institution. One of them had a Down syndrome son who's going to bring him to the meeting. But I realized I had nothing to bring. And I didn't know what happened. From one moment, you feel his presence, the next moment it was gone. And I suddenly see how big Goliath is, how big the giant is, because I couldn't see how big God was. And that's when I got the framework of these three chairs. Where chair number one, if you have three chairs in the front of you, chair number one is about the kingdom of God. Chair two about the kingdom of self. And chair three about the kingdom of the world. So, chair number one, I realized that most of my life, I live in chair number two. I visit chair number one, and I love when I am there because now people get to see a God that looks like Jesus through me. Yeah, but I don't know how to stay there. It's just like a visitation in a stadium or certain services. But then after the service is over, it seems like I get back into chair two. And that started my own process and said, how can I, instead of having a visitation of the presence or of the dove or the Holy Spirit, without having to live with pigeons the rest of the week? And pigeon religion is different. So, that started my process about these three chairs almost 22 years ago. And I started to develop a message to help myself to eventually live in my life in this resting place where the Holy Spirit could find the rest in place, the dove picture of the Holy Spirit resting upon Jesus, and then never left Jesus for the next three years. That's how I want to live and love. I want the world experiencing a God like Jesus. But it was such a gap between him and me. But now that provided language. And that's kind of the introduction of this book, how it came about. I, I went through this long process, and I'm still in a process. There's a lot of times I end up in chair two again. And sometimes it is these small little things that comes in, and in a moment, I go from being rooted and grounded in love to suddenly fear comes in or shame comes in. But now I know what it is, and I know instead of being condemned and you did it again, suddenly being invited to come home again, to experiencing to see his face and hear his voice again. And when there's sin in my life and issues comes in, knowing the Father didn't turn away from me, I'm the one that has turned away from him. Yeah, and learning to live a lifestyle of repentance, turn back again to my Father's love. So, this has been some 20-some years practicing. I'm still practicing it. There's not a day without me getting to practice the message. Am I in chair one or two? Is my marriage in chair one or two? How do I respond to circumstances? How do I look at finances? When there's loss, when there's betrayals, when I deal with different things, do I do this from a place of love, or does fear come in and have a place in my life?

That's awesome. So, we've been talking even before we were recording some videos earlier, and you talked about each of the sulfur chairs has four legs. Most chairs, at least, they function well have four legs. And within chair one, there's kind of four, each, each leg has this piece to it that for us to really be residing and staying and you super-glued in chair one, you, you need to have each of these pieces of the leg. So, can you talk us through a little bit about what each of those are, what they mean?

Sure. The first one is, I mean, as I'm dealing with four questions, who are you? Who are you? Identity, identity, identity. So, the first leg is rooted and grounded in love, having an identity as being a beloved son and daughter of a good, good Father, just like Jesus. He knew who he was, and who he was out of that identity. You move into the second leg. So, you have a little bit more solid life. That is the intimacy. Where are you? So, when he asks, where are you? It's not because he doesn't know where you are, but he wants you to see where you are in regard to your relationship to him. So, the intimacy part, because everything there flows from an intimacy with him. And then, what do you have? Meaning, everything that Jesus paid for, called inheritance. What do you have? What is available in your account on a daily basis? Is healing a problem or promise, depending on leg three? And then four, what are you called to do? What is your destiny? What is your purpose here in life? Why didn't Jesus just take you to heaven at the moment when you got saved? Why are you still here? And how do you become a difference maker because he has made a difference in your life? So, who are you? Where are you? What do you have? And what are you called to do? Identity, intimacy, inheritance, and destiny. That's the four legs and chair one. Why chair two is opposite that starts with what do you do? Meaning destiny. Yeah. And then out of the destiny, out of what you do, you try to say, what is available to do it, inheritance. And then you try to find the intimacy. And out of that, to find your identity. It's the orphan world with the orphan spirit. And today, we live in an orphaned world. Eight billion people in this world, and people are up praying with that orphan spirit because they don't have a home. So, chair one, you do have a home. Chair two, you maybe have a nice house, but you don't have the security, the love, and the value and the purpose of finding rest in the Father's presence, just like Jesus.

So, in one of this will be a spoiler for people that are, uh, that are listening to the podcast and then are going to be a part of some of our life groups. But we were recording a video earlier, and you were talking about the inheritance piece, and you said this one line that I think I'm going to stick in my brain since you said it. I'm going to think about it probably throughout this whole series. You said, why are we talking about that third piece, that inheritance? Why do I receive or see so little when what Jesus paid was so much? And I think that's just a beautiful thought of like, the, the price of the cross was expert, I mean, it was this enormous price that was paid for us to become sons and daughters and co-heirs with Jesus. And I just, that, that sentence, that line, is such a beautiful thought of how we can easily kind of shift into chair two and what we're not receiving and that feeling of lack at times, and really what we should have as sons and daughters and co-heirs with Jesus.

Yeah, because just even in chair two, it's like, you have a pizza, and you have eight slices, and he got a slice, and this person got a slice. What about me? While in chair two, you know, Papa God owns a bakery. So, it's a whole different operating system. Where in chair two, it's always measure and what I don't have, because we do not recognize. While in chair one, certainly we have unlimited access to the Father, and what is true of him is true of us. Everything that Jesus paid for is available for us on a daily basis. But he can often get to us as much as he can get through us.

So, you told us a story earlier about a, a, a time where you really noticed you had gone from chair one to chair two, and there was an Imam that you still have relationship with. He was actually texting you this morning. Uh, tell, can you, can you just tell us that story because it is a powerful, powerful story about how we pour out, pour out, pour out, and then kind of can get ourselves stuck and get ourselves stuck in chair two.

Yeah, I just realized the lessons started. I was heading to the Middle East, and I've been flying all night, and then you got a couple of delays and a lot of different curveballs happen, and you're not even aware that your emotional tank is down. And you maybe were prepared to face the giants that you're going to face. But in the next moment, by the time I arrived in Lahore, Pakistan, and it's early in the morning, I'm exhausted and tired, and all I am thinking about is I want to sleep. Jet lag, tired, beaten. And then in the next moment, I can't sleep. And then the mosque early in the morning, and that didn't help me. I didn't realize I am in chair two, and I have a super-glued chair two. And it is often the fatigue that led to fear. Then the enemy pushes the button of fear. Then I felt I failed, and now forsaken. I'm alone here in the room. And look around me, there's darkness everywhere. So, I decided to look on the television. As I turned on the television, it's like this one Imam after the other. This didn't help my face. Yeah. And then one of them, kind of, oh, this person, I thought looked a little scary. And if you would ask me, I was talking about, yeah, he doesn't, this, this is an evil man or darkness. He teaches. That's chair two way of looking. Make that story short, I felt the Holy Spirit as I want you to meet him. Like, I don't want to meet him. I want to sleep. So, I was kind of whining. That's what you're doing chair two, instead of shining chair one. There you go. So, anyway, I whined for a little while, played my violin early in the morning. But I knew I cannot sleep unless I'm obedient. So, I'm a good son. I was obedient. So, I called my coordinator, says, contact his headquarters and tell him that there's this person that wants to see him. And as I was doing that, contact his headquarters came back. He didn't want to see this infidel. Couldn't even get to his secretary because his assistant told, nope, the secretary is not interested. No way. Wow. And I was like, yeah, I was excited. Now I can sleep. And then eventually, the Holy Spirit whispered to me, as a slave, I didn't ask you to try to see him. I said, I want you to see him. Finally, I realized I don't know how to do this. I don't know how to do it. And then I remember my chairs. Get back into chair number one, because in chair number one, you don't see people based upon their history, but their destiny. You don't see the terrorist soul, but you see the Apostle Paul before they become it. So, I just was aware of my own message. So, at that moment, he said, turn on the TV. What do you see from chair two? I could describe it. What I was seeing, I would talk about how big the light is. But from chair one, I have to see what God sees. And then instead of seeing the terrorist assault, you see the Apostle Paul. I see a man of peace. I see peacemaker. I saw to speak to the television. And then I felt the Holy Spirit, says, just this little whisper, what are you going to do about it? And I got this one idea. I knew it was not chair two, because you're going to learn about chair two. In chair two, it is either the devil, the devil, or yourself. In chair one, you're hearing the Father's voice. That's a son and a daughter. My sheep hear my voice and follow them. So, at that moment, I got this glass sculpture. Give him the International Peace Award. So, I contacted my coordinator. I still remember dollars, and we made this in glass sculpture, which has the International Peace Award in this guy's honor. Before I even met him, before I knew who he, I mean, I didn't know anything. And I told, go to his headquarters and tell him that he has won the International Peace Award. And I told my coordinator, if he said no, he doesn't want to see this infidel, tell him he's won the International Peace Award, and he's going to get fired if he doesn't tell the leader. Yeah. And this is what happened. Make the story short, we did end up, he's like, wow, I didn't know I won the International Peace Award. Bring him and a room full of 400 Imams and women behind the burqa. We ended up at the headquarters, guns and machine guns. We went in there, got up on the stage, met him, and from that moment on, the atmosphere changed, the environment changed, and we connected heart to heart. I started to release him. I didn't use that language as a cultural robot. And later on, we talked about it. This is kind of interesting, seeing him the way Papa God was seeing him, love him the way that God loved him with God's love. The environment changed. And later on, we were in England, and I got a call, I want you to come home. And as I came home, President Obama was doing something called the Freedom Act, and these Muslim leaders and Hindu leaders, everyone was invited to Washington D.C. And I was invited to be with some of these Muslim leaders. And this same gentleman who was invited said, I want to come to your home. And right here in Peachtree City, right down the road here, in my old office, we were sitting there, and the presence of Jesus came in, filled us up with his presence. And then the next moment, I'm sitting in chair one, dressing, and the presence filled that place. And to make that story short, he had an encounter. He was healed from a stomach condition. This Imam who speaks to 60 million people on a daily basis and on TV, he has the media mountain. And from that moment, his environment also changed. And the next day, I thought, am I in trouble? Because I didn't know what happened to him. He just said, what is this? He felt this tingling going up and down. As, oh, it's just the presence of Jesus. I got to pray for him. And the next day, he had his laptop open. He says, I want you to give them what you gave me yesterday. And he has two wives and nine children, adults, two children. The presence of Jesus filled that room. Then later on, filled the mosque in a healing meeting in the mosque. And while we are at a distance, I realized chair number one, that all it takes is a regular son and daughter. That all creation is just mourning and groaning, just for ordinary people like us to come home and starts to do what we see our Father do and say what I hear our Father say. So, that was one of those life lessons. And the story didn't stop there. Today, we're in good relationship. He sent me a text this morning, and we continued to stay in touch. I was just at his headquarters just a couple of months ago, and Beltway Park family was part of sponsoring that. And just in a matter of a few days, with over 8,000 people that just received Jesus in this wondrous region, an area that had not heard the name of Jesus. But all it takes is just an ordinary people to show up and to show up with a dove, with the Holy Spirit, when we know who we are, where we are, what we have, and what we are called to do. It's just stepping out of the boat and take a step closer to Jesus. It's just a fun journey.

Wow. That, that time when you are like, you have that idea to give him the International Peace Award, and then, then the Holy Spirit opens the doors, and you, like, get to do it, and you stand on that stage to give him that award. Were you standing there just going, I, I cannot believe that this is, like, God, you're so good. You're opening doors in ways that only you can?

Definitely, definitely. And it's happened so many, many times. I mean, that would have been one out of at least a hundred different types of stories. So, I'm going in and out of these different chairs. But hopefully, this is going to make hope for somebody else in their daily life. It's just, I just want to encourage people to stop for a moment, get back where you belong, living fully loved. And when you cannot fail, when you cannot fail, it's something different in the way that we're waking up in the morning. That it is not about scoring or not scoring in life, or what if they don't get healed? My question is, what if they do get healed? Yeah. So, when we start to operate in faith, without faith, that is impossible to please God. So, I could spend all these times on my failures, when I missed it, when it was not him. So, I had quite a few of those stories. And I shared, even in this story, it was not because I was so faithful, but eventually, when push comes to shove, I ended up where I belong, and I was obedient. And the byproduct of that, he did get glory.

All right. So, I want to finish our conversation on this podcast with two questions that, that I will just be upfront with you, until you are unfair. So, you wrote this book that we're about to spend the next eight weeks in as a church, "To Reign." And you said earlier that it was about a 20-year process of discovery of what God's doing in you. And so, there's a lot going on in this book. But if you were going to, like, try to distill it down into just one thing that you wanted people to grab hold of after they read this book, and after they spend these eight weeks learning about what God has for them, if you were going to break that down into one idea, what would be the one thing you want people to know?

I would like each one that bought going through this journey, each one that is part of this support small group, for everyone that live fully loved. What does it look like if we lived fully loved, just as Jesus was loved by his Father? What if we loved the same way that Jesus loved, because we had received the same love? And what would it look like if you, Jeffrey, loved Jeffrey the way that Jesus loved Jeffrey? Jesus loved Jesus the way the Father loved Jesus. And then from that love, what would that look like to everyone that we're in contact with? Because that's how Abilene, that's how Texas, that's how the world is going to see who we are, by the way we love one another. But it starts with this one idea, to live fully loved. I'm challenging myself. I will challenge each one of us. What does that look like?

I, I love that you, I think I've heard you say, Jesus loved Jesus, like the Father loved Jesus. And that just changed the whole way I think about the way the Father loves me and how I, I should love myself. It feels weird to even say I should love myself. But because that was my first unfair question. Here's the second unfair question. You get to be a part of because of the ministry that you're a part of, which we'll put your kind of ministry info in our show notes, but, uh, you get to be a part of stuff that God is doing all over the world. So, you've, you've come to our church in little Abilene, Texas, and you've done stuff there. You go to Pakistan, you, you just got back from a trip in Europe. What are you seeing God do all over the world?

I'm so glad that you asked the question, what is God doing? Instead of what is the devil doing or what God is not doing. So, you didn't ask those two questions, which would have been chair two questions. But anyway, no, what I'm seeing God is doing, he's restoring his family. Papa God wants his family back. And I'm seeing that in a way I've never seen before, where you are seeing that God churches that has been orphanages for years, that has been trying to do evangelism and mission from an orphan heart, is certainly not being changed into becoming healthy family. And I still remember, it was actually the last time I saw Reina Bunk. I was doing this event in Nashville with Dr. Randy Clark called "The Voice of the Apostle" in Nashville. And I remember one night, I was wrestling and I couldn't sleep much that night. And I looked up because we've heard his prophecy, the one billion soul harvest. But I heard the whisper, Papa God says, Son, I don't want a billion orphans. I want a billion sons and daughters. So, I've realized the next move of God's spirit is that God is going to see over a billion new names added to the Lamb's Book of Life. From Abilene to Texas, all over, there's going to be something. How do I know that? Because I read a book of ending, the Book of Revelation. God is actually finishing well. He started with a family, and he ends with a family represented from every nation, tongue, tribe, and language. So, what I am seeing, what God is doing, is he's restoring a healthy family. So, imagine if you're four or five thousand people there, just as Beltway Park family, instead of having a billion orphans, imagine you have, excuse me, instead of having four thousand orphans, you have four thousand sons and daughters. That it's not just Abilene, not just Texas, not just America, but is waiting for the manifestation of those sons and daughters to be revealed. That's the cry of creation right now. So, if you talk about what the enemy is doing, he's an orphan, and he likes attention. And Lucifer is getting a lot of attention these days all over the world because he comes to kill, steal, and destroy, while the Father sent Jesus to give life and life more abundantly. So, that's why I think that good news will win in the end, because I've read a book of endings. God started well, and he ends well. He started with a family, and he ends with a family. I saw it in Europe just right now, and I almost got teared up, but I saw this shift taking place that I've not seen before in Europe, but I saw it in Southeast Asia, I saw it in the Middle East, including in Islam, that is primarily an orphan spirit. But what I'm seeing, what God is doing, including what we're seeing in America, chair two has been shook, chair three has been shocked, the whole world is underneath the shaking. And people are looking for something that is unshakable, that identity that is unshakable as beloved sons and daughters. But it was a family that is unshakeable that is going to be entrusted, that is going to look like the Father-Son Spirit is operating together, and that's going to create a tsunami wave of love throughout the world that's going to bring in this incredible harvest, because God is building healthy fireplaces, because the fire belongs to those fireplaces. Meaning that he does what people just get saved and one day get to heaven. He is actually going to bring his sons and daughters home into healthy family. And then from that very place, they're going to have such an impact in the community, into cities, and into nations until Jesus Christ comes back. And that's why I am an optimist. That's why I'm looking into the future, and I'm just so thrilled to be able to be a small little part of God's big picture.

That's amazing. Well, thank you. Thank you. From the people of Beltway Park, I just want to say thank you for all that, all that you've done in our body already. You've come and ministered there multiple times, and I, I know that this, this book, this season, these eight weeks are going to be important. Uh, we, we're going to talk about what it looks like to live a restful life, and that that life is only found in our identity as sons and daughters. And, and so, just thank you. Thank you for taking your time to do that. Thank you for the way you've loved on our body, and you love on the, the body of Christ as a whole. Thank you for taking the time to do this podcast. And also, thank you so much, Beltway Park family, for giving me a seat at your big family table, and me being part of your family. Thank you.

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Wow, what an incredible conversation. Ah, don't you just love hearing him talk? I mean, not only does he just exude love, joy, and peace, but I personally just really enjoy hearing him talk in general because he is so encouraging. Oh my goodness, you guys can find out more information about Leif, his books, and the Global Mission Awareness ministry that he runs in the show notes or at leifheadland.com. Also, just a quick reminder that we are kicking off a new series about a park, "The Restful Life." This week, you do not want to miss that either, because Jesus desires you to experience everything he has secured for you, and the Lord is calling you to the restful life. And it's in this place of resting in him where everything changes. So, head on over to the show notes for the service times that are listed there, or head on over to beltway.org/therestfullife. And if you live nowhere near the big country or the Abilene area, these messages will be available online through our online campus at live.beltway.org or on YouTube. Just subscribe to our channel at Beltway Park. And finally, you guys, make sure that you are subscribed to this podcast, Beyond Sundays, because you do not want to miss an episode. We drop a new episode every single Tuesday, and you'll get a notification when a new episode does drop so you don't miss it. Well, you guys have a great week. Let's live fully loved, and remember that God is moving, and he's moving in your life too. Beyond Sundays.