I was pretty happy till I became a Christian and then the religion, the duty, because I was always a failure at it. I'm like, but do my emotions have to believe it, too? And he said, that's how you'll know you believe it.

The difference between religion and having a relationship is religion only celebrates perfection. Families celebrate progress. The "your truth" thing is probably one of the most effective demonic agendas in the West because Jesus didn't die so we could die. He died so we could live. Yes, death is the way to life. But the whole Christian life, it's not about learning to die. It's about learning how to live a resurrected life, aware of the spirit realm, living as a spirit.

And he said, "If an apple tree dies before it has had apples, what do you call it?" "Is an apple tree." And he goes, "I want you to start declaring you're an author." And I argued. It was like, "No, in the dictionary, an author is someone who's written a book. I am declaring what I want to do." And he said, "I want you to declare what you are." And he said, "If you die before you write a book in heaven, you'll be known as an author that didn't produce what you were created to do."

Hey, 30 seconds before you get into this. We have a guest, Wendy Backland, in town with us today. She's crazy. She changed my life, I'm telling you. Um, if you get this book, it's called Victorious Emotions. I've read this one six times. I've read this one twice. Living in the Unseen. And, uh, these books, you'll hear me talk about it at the beginning. The material I've gotten from her, she's one of my favorite people to learn from. You know me, I don't say this lightly. I don't learn from like five people in America, uh, mostly just African preachers, but Wendy is up there on the list. And in this episode, we talk about the secrets to controlling and governing the way God built the minds. She goes into stories around how does thoughts, belief systems, there's a bit of neurochemistry. And this is a episode that would supercharge um not only your faith, but your ability to hang on to it. Sometimes we can get faith from something and lose it tomorrow. Um, in the way that she processes and thinks is a brilliant example of how the Bible instructs us to live. I'm going to warn you ahead of time is a very Christian episode. Not that the other episodes aren't, but um we spend most of our time is talking about Jesus and how God built everything. So, if you're a fan of the show, but you you're not quite there, then just listen to it with an open mind. We talk a lot about kingdom principles. U but I expect you to be blown away as I was. It was an honor to have her in person. Let us know what you think.

Everyone wants to get to the high places, but if you want to go high, you first have to go deep. I was reading your book, Victorious Emotions. This was 2022. And I just have to tell you this before we start the the interview. Because there have only been maybe three times in my life where someone has, I would say, saved my life.

And I don't I don't mean that just like made me think a different way. I was going through a season of my life where I was either going to go with God or I was going to defect completely. And the story is long. I'll spare you the details, but I was I was on a walk around my house and there was a quote in Victorious Emotions and you were talking about God correcting you. And this is one of the first times that I had read someone's story about God correcting them, but it wasn't punishment.

I never I didn't grow up with that. I grew up with correction as like you did something wrong. And you said he interrupted my complaints with a correction. And he said, Wendy, what you were doing is not draining you. What you believe while you were doing it is what drains you.

In other words, the actions did not drain me, but the fear of failure and the stress of not measuring up or disappointing someone was the reason that I felt drained. And then you said this and I came back home and I rethought my entire life. You wrote, "Whatever belief you defend is a stronghold in your life. Everything since 2022 can point back to that moment of me realizing that God had not abandoned me. I was not being punished. But I had a belief system that had corrupted my entire life." And I don't geek out most of the times when people are with us. And it probably doesn't seem like it, but I'm a little geeked out that you're here because when someone changes your life that much, being able to meet them, it's insane.

Um, but first and foremost, thank you so much for writing this book, cuz if you didn't, I probably would not be saved.

Wow. That's an answer to prayer.

Cuz that's why I wrote the book.

Yeah. The the book is not like a an expository on like salvation, but I would not be saved. I would have just gone the other other direction.

I've tried to get him to read this book like 20 times. Now, after that, that was a good sales pitch. Well done.

He's probably going to read it.

Yeah.

So, what I'm really excited about is going through uh whenever somebody writes a book like this. I know because you don't just come up with this. Y you live it. You suffer. You have to learn about yourself and about God. So I just want to talk about how did you how did how did you do this like the the stuff that you wrote in this book? Um it clearly came from from having failure, believing the wrong things, doing the wrong things. So when when did you even figure out that your belief system was the culprit for you not having power in your relationship with God?

Well, it's been a journey, but in the 1990s, Steve and I read a book by Francis Fran Japan, and I think it was called The Three Battlegrounds. And I only remember one phrase from the whole book, but it said, "Any area of your life that doesn't glisten with hope means you're believing a lie, and that area is as a stronghold of the enemy in your life." And it was like it was the first time I really stopped to think about my thoughts as separate from myself. I don't know if that makes sense.

Totally. I thought I was my brain. I thought I was my thoughts. And he took me on this journey of no, your brain is like a computer and you're living off old software. And it was like it was the most hopefilled thing I could do to realize, oh, I'm not stuck in my life. All I have to do is change what I believe. And then I remember hearing someone say, "If you want a different feeling, you need a different thought."

And it was like everything became, okay, what do I need to believe to have hope for that? And I started questioning every thought, every belief. But then what really took it deeper was I thought I believed the Bible. I mean, I'd been a Christian for if at least 15 years at this point. And if somebody would have said, "Do you believe the Bible?" I'm like, "Oh, yeah. I'm a Christian." And then one day, God said, "Do you believe I'm going to meet all your needs?" And I'm like, "Oh, yeah." I quoted scripture at him. You know, the whole deal. And he goes, "Then why are you worried?" And I'm like, "But do my emotions have to believe it, too?" And he said, "That's how you'll know you believe it."

Wow.

And that was the whole journey of okay, there's a conscious belief system. It's what I want to believe. And there's a subconscious system. And so it just was a journey of questioning everything. And because I knew most of it was subconscious, I began to question every time I had an emotion, every time I responded a certain way. And he was so gentle cuz even I remember I was going to have a meeting with a lady who was just, you know, I needed to confront her about some things she was doing in the church. And I'm not a confront. I'm an introvert. I'm like, just get along. You know,

It's like a anagram nine.

Yeah. And so I'm like dreading this confrontation with this lady. I'm And I remember the exact moment. I'm two hours away from the meeting. I'm vacuuming and I have this thought. I wish I could be sick so I don't have to go to this meeting.

I mean, literally being sick sounded more fun. And he said, "Why don't you want to go to why are you dreading this meeting?" And I'm like, "Well, you know how she's what she's like. She's argumentative. She's defensive. She's angry and bitter. you know, I just don't want to do it." And he goes, well, if that's your belief for the meeting, I don't want you to go. And I immediately realized, okay, he's not giving me permission to cancel. He's telling me I need a different belief. And so my belief, it was like, well, these are the facts. She's an angry, bitter woman. What other fact is there? And he said, 'Well, right now you have more faith in what she carries than in what you carry.

You think the spirit that she's carrying is what will drive the meeting instead of the spirit that you're carrying?

And I'm like, oh, so what my what should my faith be in? And he said, you carry a spirit of love and nourishing. You need to believe that your spirit will ride on your words. And it it shifted everything. I mean, the meeting went fine. It was like just this wakeup call about everything that I thought were facts were really just conclusions. And I was focusing on circumstances rather than on the the spirit behind it all.

But wow, that was a long-winded answer.

I feel called out right now.

Telling you, there's going to be a lot of oneliners in this one.

So, did you do the meeting?

I did.

Was it bad or was it good?

It was good. I mean, it it didn't fix everything. She ended up leaving anyway.

Yeah.

Which was kind of a relief, but um

Yeah. I mean, it didn't go as bad at all like I was thinking.

Yeah. just but I use that all the time now for stop being so conscious of the spirit in that room and be conscious of the spirit you're bringing.

Yes.

Yes. So the I I took something that I've tracked back to you. I've taught probably conservatively 100,000 150,000 people this in like courses. Um, and I say it a little bit differently than you do, but you're going to know exactly what I'm talking about when we do a lot of teaching on beliefs and feelings.

Um, and the neurotransmitters and the neurochemistry of belief and feeling. And, um, what's interesting is a thought and feeling are inseparable in like neurochemistry. You can't actually define this is a thought versus a feeling because they they just link together. But I've said that your feelings are fruit. That's all a feeling is. And you have this in your book. You said emotions do not validate truth. They validate what we believe.

Which is kind of that same statement of like what you believe is is actually seen through what you feel.

Yeah.

And the fruit. I was doing a word study on the fruit of the spirit one time and I was like this sounds like a lot of emotions.

It is. we have a problem because like

I've meditated on that because it is.

Yeah. Yeah. And then people get so mad. They're like the fruit of the spirit is not emotions. I'm like no it's it's the it's the it's fruit of thought is the seed and the feeling is the fruit. This is this is how it works.

Yeah. And that's why a lot of people can't produce the fruits of the spirit because they're trying to do something without changing what they believe.

Yeah. And it just becomes work and you can't consistently do it.

Yeah. Yeah. Wait, can you say that one more time?

Good luck, J.

That's why people have trouble producing the fruits of the spirit.

Yeah.

Because they're trying to they're trying to produce it just by doing. I you know, they're they're trying to work up an emotion.

Mhm.

And you can't work up emotion. Emotion has to be a fruit of a belief system. It's it's kind of like when God started talking to me about joy and I'm like, "Oh, great. Now I have to be happy, too." I mean, we were pastoring. I at that point I was tired all the time because it's like 247 giving out to people. And he starts talking about joy and how important it is. And I'm like, I I can't work up joy. I mean, I already know that this is impossible. I can do it, you know, on a good day. And he said, I don't want you to work it up. I want you to understand that joy is a fruit of good beliefs.

Yes.

So all the fruits of the spirit, you can't work them up. You can't even work up self-discipline. You have to have a belief system to produce self-discipline if that makes sense.

Okay, this is making a lot of sense because there are things in my life that I've only changed because of beliefs, things that I've tried to force like fitness, health literally hasn't changed until the belief shifted. What does that look like for someone with joy? What did that look like for you? And by the way, it's funny that you said joy because that was the exact one I was going to ask you about. Anyway, Very funny.

Yeah. It first started with him showing me that I never laughed out loud. I'm a very self-contained introvert type person. So if somebody gave a joke, I would laugh on the inside. That's funny, you know.

Yeah. And uh so in the n mid 1990s is when the joy broke out and Steve and I went to Toronto and nothing happened to me. Everybody else is falling on the floor laughing and nothing for Steve either. But we came away with this understanding of how God values joy. And he said, "The reason so many ministers are burning out in ministry is because they don't have the oil of joy." And in the unseen realm, joy is literally the oil for the engine. And if you don't have oil in an engine, it seizes up and it literally burns out. And so he just began to talk to me about how important it was. And the first thing he said is, "I want you to start laughing out loud." And he even during devotions, he would say, "Go read jokes and laugh out loud." And at first, I'm like, "I don't like laughing out loud. It feels so fake. It didn't sound right." And he said, "It's not fake. It's rusty. It's been so long since I had laughed out loud." And so he he had me read jokes. He had he would gently remind me when I was laughing on the inside to laugh out loud. And it was like I it was almost like a muscle I had to redo. But I also had to change some beliefs that was preventing my joy. And like I talk in the book, one of the biggest things is I felt like I didn't have permission to be joyful until I was perfect. You know the difference between religion and having a relationship is religion only celebrates perfection and families celebrate progress.

So any religious church there's not going to be any joy because everybody's waiting for everybody to get it right. You know when my spouse gets it right I'll be joyful. When I get it right I'll be joyful. And instead he began to say,"I want you to actually celebrate all the little good things you've done." And literally like some mornings he would have me jump up and down just as a discipline of Yes, I got up on time this morning. I, you know, I celebrated the little things and celebration helps shift your your mindsets. Y

but I think that was the biggest thing for me was recognizing what lies are stealing my joy and perfection was number one

of doing it correctly. Um, fear the weird thing is is I was pretty happy till I became a Christian and then the religion the duty because I was always a failure at it. Yeah. The law.

Uhhuh.

Yep.

But ask what's stealing the joy. That's And the other thing was pitifulness. Um I was raised in a church that the the women's intercessory circle was so pitiful. It was like the more pitiful you sounded to God, the more likely he was to answer. And so unconsciously I developed a pitiful persona.

What did that sound like?

Oh, just always, oh God, I need you. Life is so hard. You know, I'm in pain. It was almost like,

Yeah,

I don't. It was like, I don't want to be happy because you'll think I'm okay. You know, I need help, so I can't look like I'm having a good time.

Geez. And I remember listening to Joyce Meyers and God said to her one day,"Joyce, you can either be pitiful or powerful, but you can't be both." And when she said that, I realized it's a choice. I can either be pitiful or powerful. And God, he reminded me, said, "Did you raise your children to be pitiful or powerful?" I was like, "I don't want pitiful children. I want children who are powerful and they know how to go after what they want."

And it it shifted and that brought some of the joy back, too. It was like, oh, I can be happy and I still know you're going to meet my needs. It's

Yeah.

Pitifulness is for babies.

So, last night at dinner, you know, you were asking the question, do you ever ask God or pray about something and he doesn't respond?

Mhm. Um, there there are only two circumstances in my experience where God has not responded to me and I know that he hasn't responded to me because Holy Spirit will tell me why he's not responding to me.

So it's not like he just goes dark.

Yeah. And I he never says anything but one time I was asking him for direction on something. This was probably a year and a half ago and uh it got nothing. But I was testing it. So I would ask him about my wife. would ask him, "What do you think about this?" And I would get immediate response. They'd be like, "All right, what do you want me to do with it?" It was the house essentially. There was some things that I wanted to do with it. Um, and dark. So, I was like, "I've got you. I'm experimenting. You're answering me here. You're not answering me here." But how many times have we done this? Like, everyone's done this where you're like, "I can hear for other people. I can't hear for me."

And the Holy Spirit said, "I already answered you and I'm not going to answer you again." So this is the first category of like he's not responding to me about this because me continuing to pray about it is is a delay tactic. So that's the first thing. The second one was crazy and this was more recent. This was four four maybe three months ago and it was about a business. I'm praying about the business I needed to work like and it's not working. I'm like when are you going to bless this blah blah blah but he wasn't responding and Holy Spirit said I don't respond to pity. stop asking me out of pity.

Yeah.

And I was like, okay, these are here are two categories where God is not going to respond. He's doesn't respond. He doesn't like the pity when we're showing up with a woe is me. I've been a victim.

That's right.

Uh people are hurting me like and he don't do that for a new Christian.

Yeah.

But he doesn't want you to stay there.

Does not want you to stay there. Um, but I thought that was interesting because you were asking that question and in my life it's like pity is a big one that I'm having to like just get it out of my belief system and out of my thoughts because how easy is it to just like our instinct is to blame.

It's not our fault. Can't be.

Yeah,

definitely not. That's not in the Bible. It's somebody else's fault. You know, Isaac's name means laughter. He will laugh. you look at when like

when you see God doing things

like the lack of gratitude before a miracle will block the natural gratitude you'll have after the miracle and so you just won't get a miracle.

Yeah.

Is and so this is why it's weird but even new age people are starting to figure this out like practice gratitude before it happens.

Yeah. It's called manifestation. in so many things. They're far and above us and

Yeah. I'm like, "Oh, that's that's in the Bible."

It is.

We should probably do that.

Yeah.

Cuz you took that from the Bible, you know. Um

It's the same with fear, too, cuz I remember Well, when our oldest son was a teenager, he was making some scary decisions and had even gotten arrested. And I mean, I was walking the floor at night in anxiety and fear of God, you got to do something. You got to do something. And I'm like, I need peace because I can't sleep.

And he said, I'd love to give you peace if you would just receive it.

I thought he would zap me with it. And then he began to teach me, don't come to me in fear. Deal with the fear and then come to me.

Wow. And the way you deal with fear is you remind yourself how big God is. And you remind yourself of the testimonies and how it is all going to be okay. And you come to him with a with a faith instead of fear. So those are the two things that I've always had to it's like I want to come to him as an adult Christian.

Yeah.

Who knows who they're talking to.

Yeah. On that note, that's before and then I'll turn it over to you. This was Saturday night. Um, this kind of plays in. I We were in California. My wife was going through a certification. And there was there was something that I knew that I was obsessed with that I shouldn't be obsessed with. And it was like I I was asking God to to deal with it sooner. Trying to speed his timelines up a little bit,

which I'm very careful to do. But in this case,

I was like, it would help if you would speed up. I've already thought through the ramifications. So, let's let's speed this up a little bit. And um the Holy Spirit said, "Why are you having such a difficult time waiting on my timelines for this?" And I said, "Because it's painful. It's difficult and I want to quit." I was totally honest. But I've learned that the more honest you are with God,

the faster you'll make it. Like,

he knows that that I'm impatient, so I might as well not pretend.

Yeah. And uh God, the Holy Spirit said, "Who you believe is coming to save you determines how long you will wait for them to show up." And you need to remind yourself who's coming because you're getting lost in in fear and doubt in the middle. And the reason is because you're you're waiting for a man, but I'm not a man. So, you can wait a little bit longer.

Yeah.

I was like, "Okay, fine." You know, I wait a little bit longer. What was what were you going to say?

Wow. I was just going to add on to what you guys were saying because I I just felt in my head there was probably some people that went like they heard you talk about new age people think think have gratitude before it happens and I was like where's that in the Bible? Uh Jesus literally did this. Do you know when he did this in the Bible?

Uh I think it's a few times but which one specifically?

So he thanks him. He thanks God before Lazarus. He goes before Lazarus even comes up. He goes, "Father, I thank you that you've heard me. I know that you always hear me." This is John 11:41-42. And then he raises Lazarus from the dead afterwards.

Yeah.

So, people get freaked out by this whole like word of they call it word of faith. And I I know there's nuance to it, and we're not going to go into that, but it's interesting. Uh Jesus says the same thing at the uh feeding the 5,000. John 6:11. Jesus then took the loaves and then he gave thanks to God before the miracle happens and then he distributed everything and it all multiplied after that. It's like a It's actually not more of a oh, we should do this. It's actually It seems like it's more formulaic of like this is the command, thank God for it first, then do it. Cuz it's disrespectful to be like,

Jesus, you could like it'd be so weird in my head thinking through this. Like, it'd be so weird if Jesus went, "God, I know you can raise Lazarus from the dead. Hopefully, he comes out."

Yeah.

That'd be a weird example to have to follow, man.

Pity.

Well, this is Philippians 4:6.

That's weird. I but I've done that too. So I'm I'm I'm no better. But man, that's interesting.

You know, I used to think that it's because God has this formula and he wants thankful children. But I think in the unseen realm because I really believe what we think of as emotions or words actually have spiritual substance in the realm of the kingdom that is here that not everybody can see. And I think that gratitude actually shifts the frequency of what we're about to pray for, which adds some of the power to it because it it does it has a frequency. They've proven our thoughts and our feelings have frequencies. And so it's it's so much bigger and expansive than just, oh, thank you. I don't want to just say thank you for this. I want to feel it till I'm resonating with gratitude. I think it's important to, you know, like some people, they know here that God loves them, but when was the last time did they feel loved? Because the love will actually shift things in your whole life. I had an encounter with Jesus's love where this was many years ago that I had a vision. I was dancing with him and I knew he wanted me to look into his eyes, but I was so, you know, my self-esteem was so low. I never looked in people's eyes. It was like I just couldn't. And I did. And I saw two things. And one was that I could tell he knew everything about me. I mean, good, bad, ugly. It was like just a knowing looking in his eyes. And the other was unconditional love. But it wasn't just what I thought of as God's love. It was like he was in love with me.

Almost like a a husband and wife fascination in love with me. And my whole life changed from that point on. I mean, I've never been the same again. In fact, it was almost like I was given a a substance of love because not long after that, we were pastoring in Nevada and this teenage girl that I knew cuz my sons were teenagers at the time, walked into the church, I mean, just kind of angry looking and she had never stepped foot in our church before. And I'm like, that's odd. What is she doing here? her parents didn't come here and I heard God say go give her a hug and I'm like um you know I'm pretty sensitive and she has no trespassing written all over her face and you know we'd been trained you just don't give people hugs they could be offended you know whatever so I didn't obey but during worship he just kept saying go give her a hug and finally just to get him off my back I I was sitting in the front seat seat, went all the way to the back of the church and just ambushed her, grabbed her, didn't say a word, and I hugged her. And literally, I could feel God's love just fall on both of us. And she just began to weep and cry. And she wouldn't let go of me. I mean, for a long time, it was almost like this is getting awkward now, but she's like hanging on to me for dear life.

Mhm. And something shifted. I mean, I told that story in Germany once and the pastor interrupted my sermon. He goes, "We're a fatherless people. We need that love." He said, "Everybody who needs the love she's talking about, come up to the front." And I'm like, "Oh, okay. We're going to do, you know, a prayer time." Well, in their mind, they're like, they want to be hugged. And I spent the next 20 or 30 minutes hugging Germans. But I mean literally there was a substance to it.

It was like and people would say I feel so loved by you. And I remember thinking why I haven't done anything.

And that's when I realized oh it's not just about performance. There is a substance you can feel. And so that that frequency of love is like what if our devotions we we spent time feeling love, feeling powerful, feeling the light until we actually vibrate with it. And how would that change things? But

Yeah, that's amazing.

Yeah. One of the me and Lindsay have been doing in the morning, we'll try to give each other a hug that's at least 30 seconds.

Like with the oxytocin that comes through just from a hug.

Yep. If you haven't been hugged in a long time, you'll probably cry. It's the we and you can't control it.

Like, so the the body, soul, and spirit are seamlessly woven together.

Yes.

And it's that's actually incredible.

Y just like give her a hug because she probably doesn't have any oxytocin or anything in her brain. Like she she hasn't experienced love in forever. A hug is an easy way to do that.

And for people out there who if you don't have somebody to hug, hug a dog. I mean, it still works because dogs actually give off that same love.

Yeah. Okay. I love I love you so much because you first said no.

Wait, what?

When God said, "Do this." And you're like, "No."

Oh.

Uh cuz that's something so funny between me and Jake. Like we talked about this. Jake's like first time obeyer. Like God says this, he does it. Borderline obsessive. And when um God tells me to do something, I'm like, "That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard."

Yeah.

So, how about not? I didn't even hear that. I pretend I didn't even didn't hear it. But then I've also gotten in the same place where I'm like,

I just need him to stop telling me to do this.

Think you said to get him off my back, I'll just go do it.

Mhm.

All the time. All the time.

Yeah.

Where I'm like, I can't keep hearing the same thing. Like, I need to get answers about other things, but all I'm getting is this. So, I'm just going to do it.

Yep. so we can move on. You make me feel so seen right now. Like I can actually get to heaven. Everything's going to be okay.

Oh my.

You know, I feel like he's the one who made us.

Yeah.

And it's just part of who we are. And I think after a while, we get quicker, but there's still a part of me that I feel like I have permission to talk to him about, well, you know, I don't think that'll work. And I mean he always wins but

I enjoy the discussion.

Yes. So I was on a call um I was set up my next like question where I want to take us. I was on a call a couple days ago with a with a client on the business side. And I don't always I try to keep the business stuff separate and the spiritual stuff separate to the best of my ability out of respect but sometimes Holy Spirit has a different agenda and he'll just be like this is what's going on. this is what you need to say, etc. So, we're on this business call and this person out of the out of their mouth, they're word cursing themselves over and over. It's like, I should have done this. I'm I'm not I'm a little too crazy here. I'm like, blah, blah, blah. And it's it's 10 minutes in or so and and it's becoming more amplified where Holy Spirit's like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. So, I just say, hold on.

And I was like, the the Holy Spirit's telling me things about you. Can I tell you what he's saying? Um, and they were like, sure. So God says that you're wild and it's okay to be wild and he likes it that you're wild. But there was a glitch. And so this is I'm setting this up. This is a big question for you. It wasn't that she couldn't believe something that was true about now. It's because she it's be she believed something bad about herself from 10 years ago that was causing her to kind of selfmart out of it. And you have a quote in the book where you said, "My hopelessness about a problem is bigger than the problem." And for this for this client, the hopelessness was coming from she had made a mistake long time ago.

And that mistake was overriding her ability to believe not something good about God, but something good about herself. Yeah. And she had gotten twisted. How have you worked through hopelessness when there is something maybe you contributed to the problem and you have to come out of alignment with an old belief but you know the facts you could have prevented it something's wrong with you. Do you have you ever felt crazy or have you ever felt like you're the problem and had to work through this belief system that's really entrenched and it's a self identity issue?

Yeah. I think one of the things that helped me was God said, "Wendy, your past is not going to prevent you from your destiny, but the conclusions you made about yourself when it happened will prevent you." But what I focused on when he said that was the word conclusions. We don't realize how often we make conclusions about ourselves or other people when things happen and we think they're facts and they're not facts. They're just conclusions. And there's a big giant difference.

Mhm. It's kind of like when the the spies went into the promised land and 10 of the spies came back with the facts that they're giant. I mean, well, all of them came back with the facts. They all admitted there's giants.

Different conclusions.

Yeah. But two different conclusions. One is that we can take them. One is that we're grasshoppers. And I think questioning our conclusions and God's ability to work within our mistakes. Um, I mean, I had because of my failures, I was never very self-disciplined and I was always comparing myself to Steve, but I was always afraid of making a mistake, which means that you don't do anything. I mean, when your goal is never to have made a mistake, it means you're not going to do anything in life.

And finally, he said, "Why don't you make your why don't you make me bigger than your mistakes?" I mean, that was so freeing because all of a sudden, a mistake was okay.

Mhm. It's like it the when you make a wrong turn, your GPS doesn't go, "Ooh, this trip is over. I can't get you there from here. You know, it's not like get out of the car. You you're not a good driver."

Doesn't turn off.

Yeah,

that is so true.

And when I saw God was more like the GPS of oh wow, you know, either you made the wrong turn, but I still can get you from here to there, or somebody was in your way and made you do a detour. I can still get you to there. And once I realized the real lie is, can God use me even though I did this? I was like, yeah, the trip isn't over, it can still get you to where he wants you to be.

That's a crazy analogy. The GPS thing.

Yeah,

I've never thought about that before, but that's great. The wrong turn just makes it take longer sometimes. Sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes it's a simple U-turn. I mean, it just depends on

to me it it's how long it it takes us to come into mental unity with he can still get me there.

To me, it's all about our belief system because I don't think there's a punishment for having made the wrong turn. It's just how quickly can I come into inner unity with it.

Yeah.

Because I'm really big on inner unity. I I can't remember if I shared it in the book, but when Bill Johnson in the 1990s came out to our church once a year for 10 years and he was just so full of um wisdom and he would share things and then he would leave and people would come up and go, "Did you hear him when he said this? It rocked my world." Then he quoted that scripture and inside I'm thinking, "We said that? how come it didn't rock your world when we said it?" And years later, he said, "The reason it didn't rock their world when you said it is because the more inner unity you have with the truth, the more power and anointing it carries when you speak it."

Wow.

And but it also speeds things up. the quicker I can come into complete inner unity where my body, soul, spirit, emotions, everything believes this is true and that I'm going there. It's like it's the fast track cuz I'm not doing all the mental mind games and questioning and it expecting um, you know, I used to have faith for consequences of my negative stuff and I realized I brought a lot of negative consequences because of my belief. I mean, there's enough worry in life without having faith for bad consequences. I know that it's a little out there, but

not for this audience there. No, I'm like when I got this revelation, my whole my whole life started to tilt.

I was like, fear is faith.

Yes.

It's just I'm more confident in a negative outcome than I am in what the Bible says.

Yeah.

This is the problem with like a lie never feels like a lie, does it?

No. Mm-m. This if if a lie if you knew that a lie was a lie based on how you felt about it, it'd be so easy.

Yeah.

But a lie always feels like the truth. We only have one compass. That's all we have is scripture. It's the word of God.

The Bible doesn't say it. I was reading a book by Charles Cap one time. Have you read any of his stuff?

Yeah.

And he was talking about how he was praying to God and God said, 'What are you doing? And he said, "Well, I'm praying." He said, 'N no, you're not. You're complaining.

Can you please not rehearse Satan's words to me in your prayers?

Oh my gosh. Yes.

I was like, I'm like,

I've never prayed in my life.

All I've done is complain and then reinforced God didn't say it.

Something else said it. So, one of the things that God will ask me all the time is, "Who told you that?"

Yes.

Which I which I recognized from Genesis.

Yep.

That was his question.

That's one of my husband's favorite phrase.

Yeah.

Yep. Y

who told you that this wasn't going to Who told you that you are going to fail?

God didn't say it.

Yeah.

So I'm like, well, I don't know. I think maybe I said it or maybe my mom said it or But we can track down the root of where did this come from and then replace it.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, that's the whole thing about deception is you don't know you're deceived. But I think a lot of times the reason the Bible gets so misinterpreted is because what we feel is true feels so true. even though it's deception that we can't receive what the Bible is saying.

Mhm. Surely that, you know, that doesn't feel true that God loves us that much or that he's that good or healings for everybody or whatsoever a man saith, he shall have. I mean, it's like what?

Yeah. Yeah. But I'm going to get us in trouble. going to move on from there. I I constantly get myself in trouble. So,

yeah, I'm like if if I were if I'm not going to say it, I'm moving on.

Let me ask something really quick before we move on. You said inner unity. I think some people hear that and be like, "Okay, that sounds like a cool term." How would you uh how would you simply codify or quantify like what that is?

It's [Music] when I believe it so much that even when everything in the outer world is saying it's not true, I don't even have an emotional movement.

No instinct.

It's just it's just it's not going to change what I believe. I know it that fully.

Mhm.

Have you ever done a worse study on um with the mustard seed? Jesus said faith the size of a mustard seed or the kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed.

Only because I listened to one of your podcasts on it.

Really? Okay. So, you heard the the idea?

Yes. It fascinated me.

Mind-blowing.

Yes.

Okay. So, for people who haven't watched that episode, I don't even know what it was in.

I think it was probably prayer. I think it probably it might have been the either the mechanics or the power structure of prayer.

Okay, so when I'll just give a real real quick when Jesus was talking about if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, no one would plant a mustard seed in their garden. No one. So this is why Jesus would show up, say things that made no sense, then leave. And I'm like, that's a good model. Let's follow that model. Churches don't tend to follow this model, but I'm like, I'll use it. They would say these things that you would not do. You wouldn't plant a mustard seed. The mustard seed was a like was a pervasive invasive species of weed. It was a weed.

And when you think when you study the mind, you realize that thoughts are kind of like seeds. And so it kind of all makes sense. But this is I think what you're talking about with inner alignment where it's like you're you have inner alignment when everything that's not the truth will get killed off by the belief in the truth. So your your brain doesn't even have any inner resourcing to support these things. And this is the faith that the kind of faith that's like a mustard seed. How do you know you have it? It'll just kill anything else you try to plant in it in the garden. So any any fact or data that doesn't align with what scripture says, it can't get the nutrients to survive is it's aggressive and it kills it off. So Jesus was literally being like you you have to have a psycho level of of faith. Like you have to have a level of faith where circa fast forward 2025 they're like that person's crazy. Complete disconnect from reality. Don't listen to that person. Then they get everything they ask for.

Yeah.

And I think for me I had to actually intentionally get into unity with different truths. Before that, it was like a general I just believe God. And then he said every single promise in the Bible, you have to take that city and come into inner unity with it. And the first thing he dealt with me on was my own self-image because I had such a poor self-image.

And so, I mean, I and maybe I went overboard, but this was back in the days when all

You had was cassette tapes. And I started hearing about, you know, making declarations. And then I started doing brain studies about how can I get this from what I want to believe to the inner unity of what my subconscious believes. So I I put it to music. I listened to it as I slept all night. I thought about it, dreamt about it.

And and the biggest thing though was I stopped focusing on what I thought I was, 'cause God was telling me one thing and I was like Moses with, "No, you know, you're telling me I'm a teacher. I'm powerful and I just need you to know that I can't speak well in front of the other people. I'm inadequate. I am shy." And he said, "No, Wendy, that's not what you are. That's just what you've become."

M. >> And it was like this light bulb went off that who we think we are is not really who we are. It's kind of like the apple tree isn't an apple tree because it has apples. It's an apple tree because it was created to have apples. And he said, "If an apple tree dies before it has had apples, what do you call it?" It's like, "It's an apple tree." And he goes, "Right. So if I say you're powerful, if you've never done acts of power, does that mean you're not powerful?"

>> Oh my gosh. >> And he began to because that's what helped me to begin to believe was to realize, oh, I need to get my identity from what I was created to be, not from what I've become. It just set me free, Tim.

>> All right, I'm reading the book. >> Told you, bro. I told you a year ago. Now you finally did it. >> Are you good on that? >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm good.

>> That's actually how I wrote my first book because I've been I had four years of getting prophetic words that I was supposed to write a book >> and I'm like, I can't write a book. I've never done that before. And he's like, well, that's where everybody starts. I mean, that was like, whoa. I never realized people who were authors at one point had never written a book.

>> Yeah. >> Isn't that weird? >> But I was making declarations. I I write books. I write books. And still couple years went by and he said, "I want you to change that." And I'm like, "What do you mean?" And he goes, "I want you to start declaring you're an author." And I argued. It was like no in the dictionary an author is someone who's written a book. I am declaring what I want to do. And he said I want you to declare what you are. And he said if you die before you write a book in heaven you'll be known as an author.

>> That didn't produce what you were created to do. >> Oh shoot. >> And something happened. It was like, how hard can it be to write a book if I was created to write a book? It shifted my thinking.

>> That's so cool. >> We got him. That's so cool. >> Are you having fun, Wendy? >> Oh, yeah. >> Okay, good. >> I'm passionate about this stuff. I mean, it changed my life. Y >> I'm like, I've got to tell other people this.

>> Yeah. Yeah. Okay, I'm moving us. I'm moving us along. Um, I started studying altars and strongholds like a year and a half, maybe a year and two months ago >> because I had this intuitive sense that something was wrong, but it wasn't what I was doing now.

>> Started going into studying this. I I I've read I've read Victorious Emotions five or six times, so I it's I know it. But I didn't catch this the first time and I did catch it the second time. You wrote, "If you want to discover what your negative emotional strongholds are, then take note of what you are always trying to prove." So I sat with that and I started hunting down strongholds >> based on what did I feel like I needed to prove to everyone. And um I was praying through it one time and the the response that I got was your prison can be found in your hyper performance. You can find where your prison is built based on what you were striving in. It's not something that you can hunt down just through asking yourself questions of like what what did I do in the past? And so I found a lot. I found a lot and I started repenting for them and coming out of agreement with them.

>> But how did you figure that out? Because when you say if you want to know your strongholds, take note of what you're trying to prove. That's a sentence that you have to live 10 lifetimes to come up with. So what happens there? Like how did you figure that out?

>> Um I think it was it's such a process. It's little things God begins to share with you and also because I was a counselor watching other people prove things or trying to prove things. But it's like what I shared last night during dinner when I was first married. I didn't because I didn't feel like I was lovable. It was like I feel like people can love me on a surface but as soon as they really get to know me, >> you know, then it's all over. So once Steve and I got married, I didn't realize it, but my brain was always trying to look for proof that he didn't love me because I didn't think he could. It's like, he's got to be faking it. He's such a good Christian. He's just, you know, loving me anyway. And then I realized, yeah, every time it was like I would interpret things like he would do dishes for me. I would interpret that as, "Yep, he thinks I'm inadequate. I'm a horrible wife. How could he love me?" And then we read the five love language books book and it was like, "Oh, his love language is acts of service." And I realized every time he was trying to say, "I love you," I was interpreting it as you're not enough. And I would interpret things to prove my stronghold of I wasn't lovable.

M >> and then I've seen people who have like this one woman always was talking about how you know in the workplace, you know, women are so disrespected and they're doing this and they she was always turning the men in. And I'm like, I know these men. This is really weird. Why is she having a different experience than me? But her brain was highlighting anything that could prove her belief system that men didn't respect women.

>> Mhm. >> And it all just started coming together that whatever our belief is, our brain looks for proof. And that's what a stronghold is. A stronghold is a place that's been taken and then it's trying to defend its right to be there. Yeah.

>> So, whatever your belief system is is, you're always looking for proof for its right. This is why I have a right to be bitter. This is why I have a right not to trust men or authority because they do this. And you you're highlighting things. And I discovered that when you get a different belief, your brain will highlight something else. like when he told me one of my big strongholds was inadequacy and I would go to bed at night and I would rehearse all the proof of the day that I was inadequate. I should have said this. I shouldn't have said that. Blah blah. And then God said, "From now on, when you go to bed at night, I want you to write down three proofs that you're more than enough. And I had to train my brain to look for something different. And the weird thing is is there was just as much much proof of adequacy as there was of inadequacy.

>> It's all what you're highlighting and looking for. And at first it was hard, but then you you know to me if you want to get out of the emotional stuff we're in, it's just decide what do I need to believe to change this emotion and then you actually have to retrain your brain until it slips from here to here.

>> Yeah. and be okay with, you know, have a bad week, falling back in, just getting back up. And God said, you know, every time you fail for a week or two, you don't have to start from scratch, you actually still get to hold on to the months that you were doing it right and just go back to there and start over. But when you get into condemnation and regret, that spirit actually messes with the whole process. And it's like, you don't have time for regret. Regret and the guilt actually prolong the process. And he said, "Guilt is not your friend. It's your enemy." And I'm like, "If I get rid of guilt, who's going to control me? Who knows what I might do?" And he said, You can either have guilt to change or you can have grace. And he said, 'But I won't work with guilt because I do not want guilt to get the glory for what Jesus did.

>> And if guilt could change you, Jesus didn't need to die.

>> Wow. >> It was like, ah. But I mean that's scary for people to let go of guilt because they think it's what keeps me in line and it's not doing you any favors.

>> Yeah. Well, it keeps some people it keeps them in line and some people it is um satiating a self-concept delta >> where like if they if they believe that they deserve the guilt. So remember we did this we did this event called sacred timelines and we're doing another one a slightly different next week where it's basically Holy Spirit taught me how the mind works and he did it so that he could get me out of the last season. And so I started implementing these things just like what you're talking about >> and it worked. worked. And then I was like, I have to figure out why this worked cuz I don't accept that it's just like, sure, God can tell me how something works, but there's going to be scientific literature to support it.

>> There is, too, >> because God built it. Yeah.

>> So, I started finding it, >> proving it, >> and then we'll teach it. And one of the things that I came to the conclusion of and the God was teaching me is you don't attract what you want. You attract what you feel safe or worthy to keep. Mhm.

>> So when we're trying to create an outcome in our life >> that we don't feel worthy of keeping, guilt's the only answer we have to prevent us from getting it >> cuz we're going to we don't want to run into a situation that we just then have to >> let go of.

>> Can you give an Sorry, I'm trying to wrap my mind around this as best I can. Can you give like a practical example of what this would look like in someone's life? Even mine >> with with money, relationship, whatever.

>> That'd be great. Let's do it. >> Yeah. If if you know that you do not know how to drive an airplane >> Mhm. >> given the opportunity to drive the airplane, you'll never do it because in you know in your brain you don't have the qualifications for it, >> right? >> You don't have the the ability to stay keep it in the air. There's not a lot of difference between that scenario having a million dollars. It feels just about the same thing to your nervous system >> because you are not you don't feel worthy or qualified to keep it. And when somebody hasn't fixed a selfworth issue, they can grind and hunt and work and do all of these things. And what'll happen is instead of walking into the promised land, they'll constantly touch it and pull back out.

>> Yeah. >> Touch it and pull back out because they don't want to die. It's self-preservation.

>> It's in our It's It's dude It's in our nervous system. M >> you can't overwhelm that without fixing the identity issue. It'll never work. So when people have like they have a breakthrough in business, then they undo it the next year. They have a breakthrough, then they undo it.

>> Yeah. >> I'm like, >> same with relationships.

>> 100%. This is an identity self-concept issue. >> And until you fix that, guilt is a lot safer because it'll protect you. It'll protect you from going into something and then losing it. Gotcha.

>> And then these belief systems also work into your body.

>> So can't tell. You've probably experienced this one. I'm like >> as soon as your limiting beliefs are threatened, >> your body will try to eject you from the situation. >> You'll get shaky, nervous, you'll get sick. You passed out at the last one.

>> Uh seriously, you passed out. >> Yep. >> I was exhausted before I got there.

>> No, it doesn't matter. Being exhausted doesn't make you pass out. is proof of the concept of like your body knows that you have been protected for so long by this limiting belief as soon as it's threatened >> if your body will try to get you out of the situation.

>> And it happens over and over. >> I was a horrible public speaker. My one and only first time when I first got saved to speak was a small church of like 25 people invited me to come give my testimony. And literally I fasted all day, prayed. It was like this big deal. And I get there and I stand up >> and I just start crying and sat down and I declared I will never speak in public again.

>> And so that drove me. I mean that was my conclusion is I'm not a public speaker.

>> And one of the things that helped is that it's not just knowing. I mean because I got prophetic words. I was a teacher, which I'm like, well, that involves public speaking.

>> That's not going to happen. I don't even want that word.

>> But finding things that help us get over that. Like for me, he said, Wendy, how did he put it? He said, I want you to believe that even if you say it wrong, they'll hear it right. He said, "I don't want your faith to be in your ability to speak. I want your faith to be in my ability to anoint what you say."

>> Yes. >> And as soon as the pressure was off me and was back on, you know, he's the one who does it. And this happened because Bill Johnson before I mean, he pastors at Bethl, but this was before he pastored at Bethl, he would dream. And he said one day, he's up there kind of with a far away look in his eye and he goes, "There's coming a day where the anointing will be so strong that all you have to do is say peanut butter and people will cry out, what must we do to be saved?"

>> And when he said that, God just it was like my whole body shook with this thing of I can say peanut butter. It was like this shift of Is that all it takes? I can have faith in an anointing that can take what I say. And and then the other thing is that God said, I want you to believe that I one of our declarations used to be we find favor with both God and man. And then one day as we're Steve and I were doing declarations together, I said that and before I could think it, this these words came out of my mouth and I said, "We have so much favor. Even if we tried to get people to dislike us, we couldn't."

>> Wow. >> And it came out of my mouth and I'm like, "Is that even legal? What what was that?" And he said, "I put that in your mouth because I wanted you to know that favor isn't just from performance. is also a spirit.

>> And he reminded me of the times that I knew I had rejected people, not because of what they were doing, but because there was a spirit on them that I didn't like. And he said, "I want you to believe that if they're important to your future, they will like you. You don't have to perform for it." And so years ago in the '90s, there was a couple that were really big in the prophetic movement and they were like giants of the faith in my eyes. And years later, we were invited to preach at their church. And I'm like, "Oh, wow." You know, we're going to so and so's church and we get to preach and I'm like so hyped until that Sunday. I'm sitting in the church next to them and I go, I have to preach in front of them. Yep.

>> And that old spirit of intimidation and performance tried to get on me and all of a sudden I remembered that declaration. Huh. Even if I tried to get them to dislike me, I couldn't.

>> It was like it it just came over me. It was like that's when I knew that declaration. I had come into inner unity because every bit of intimidation left. It was like all I have to do is be me and trust in the anointing. And so finding those those truths that set you free, you know, what's the lie and what's the truth that resonates with something in your spirit?

>> Does that help?

>> Mhm. Quick note on declarations. We'll move on because not everybody knows maybe what a declaration is or maybe they think they're affirmations and all of this stuff, but >> uh a declaration I think the way you're defining it is something God has said that you're speaking out of your mouth.

>> Would that be basic basic?

>> Yeah. And saying it over and over because faith comes by hearing.

>> I don't say it to convince other people. I just am trying to retrain my brain with a new thought.

>> And so I'll say it every day. Um, but I've discovered that saying it religiously and by rote doesn't do much because you can say something and there's a part in you that will just keep resisting it. So, I like to imag God's trying to train my brain in, I will first imagine life as if it's true. So that when I say the declaration, there's an emotion attached to it.

>> Yeah. >> There's a memory attached to it. Because faith isn't blind. It's visionary. And I don't know why we think we can get faith for something without seeing something. We, you know, the reason the two spies could say we can take them is because they saw something nobody else saw. And so for me, a declaration has to have a picture of something that we've become attached to. It's like if we're offended, what do we do? We sit and reimagine it until the emotion comes up and it reprograms us to this new belief that so and so hates me or yep I'm a failure and you remember it until that gush of chemicals gets released in your body again. So when I want to change a belief I want a rush of chemicals to solidify the new belief in my brain.

>> if that makes sense.

>> Yep. 100%. Uh, practically speaking, it it might I think for me, it usually takes around 60 days of being consistent on this. So, be careful that you're not like, "Well, I watched the Wendy Backland episode.

>> I I declared it for two days and nothing changed."

>> Yeah. >> Um, your brain will probably take 60 days for plasticity to lock in.

>> Yeah. >> On this. And the intensity of You're talking about chemicals. So, the the intensity of an experience can speed it up.

>> Yeah. But then so you have to the best the best thing you could ever learn to do is to learn to ask God what to say and then say whatever he asks you to say.

>> Yes. >> Cuz there have been times when I've asked God, what do you want me to know about this? What do you want me to do?

>> And he's told me the the most ridiculous things. Say this while you're running.

>> Yeah. >> And I'm like, there's no point in doing that. I'm I'm not a runner. We talked about this last night. But the intensity of a of a chemical release is all of it together. So if you're going through autophagy and you're dying and you're saying something, it's a different predictive coding in the brain. It bypasses things. So, but I don't know this from reading books. I know this cuz God told me to do it one time.

>> And then you just do it and it and it works. So I think declarations are incredible because your your um there's a great book on this. Have you read psychocybernetics by Dr. Maxwell Maltz?

>> I haven't.

>> You would love it. It was one of the first I think um scientifically substantiated self-help books.

>> Has he written other books?

>> I don't I think that was maybe one of his only ones. He's he's passed away since this is a long time ago. But um

>> He's not the plastic surgeon, is he?

>> Yeah, that's him. He was a plastic surgeon.

>> Cuz I've read a book by him.

>> Changed my life.

>> Maybe he did have other books. Can you see if Dr. Maxwell Maltz has other books?

>> Um but he talks he talks a little bit about this in that the brain doesn't differentiate very well between what somebody else says and what we say. So the auditory cortex doesn't.

>> Yeah. Yeah. So it it predicts, but when you say something about yourself, it has a way bigger punching power than what someone else when someone else says something about you.

>> And how much emotion you use in your voice.

>> Yes. Yeah. >> Yeah.

>> The thing that changed my life in that book, if that's the author I'm thinking about, he said that when the will and the imagination are at odds, the imagination will always win.

>> Yeah. And I remember thinking I had a friend who wanted to quit smoking and she just wasn't able to. She had become a Christian. And other people would say, "Oh, well, when she really wants to, she will." And I'm like, "No, I know her. She really wants to quit."

>> And it I realized, "Oh, her will is to quit, but she can't imagine herself free."

>> And it was like a lot of times we're trying to do something that we can't imagine it. I mean, when I put on weight, I I was doing everything in my willpower to lose weight. And God said, "Why are you trying to do something that you don't believe you can do?" So, I was opposing myself. I couldn't imagine myself free of food, but I was trying to get free.

>> Wow, that's great. That was a cybernetics quote. Yeah. is so you you probably read the psychosex that was the quote that you pulled from. Yeah.

>> Wow. >> So look a it's a great book. I recommend it as well. It's not a it doesn't come from the spiritual Christian side as much but I think he was probably one of the first to figure some of this stuff out with modern science or modern science.

>> Um

>> oh maybe that the magic power of self-image psychology.

>> Yeah. I don't I I guess it's just been so many years the title is not familiar to me.

>> You just read so many books and you know.

>> I do read a lot.

>> Yeah. It's one of the things I love about you. Uh I'm going to keep going. You good?

>> Good. >> You having fun? You still want to go?

>> Oh, yeah. >> Okay. I've lost track of time, so I'm just going to keep going. How how important is it for you to when you when you get into a declaration mode? Have you noticed that it seems to be like when you decide to believe something, you'll get a lot of data all of the sudden that that declaration is.

>> False. False. Does this is this connected spiritually? Like cuz with me when I decide this is what God said, I'm going to go for it. I find all of a sudden like that area that I'm trying to believe gets worse. I almost am like, well, yeah, there's no way that this declaration is. A month ago, I could have believed it, but now I'm like, there's no way.

>> Yeah. I think, you know, for a long time I thought, oh, the enemy is trying to fight me. And I'm not sure. I mean, it could still be that, but I think too it's our brain is trying to fight us.

>> So, it's highlighting. So it may may be you know giving this last thing of no look this this and then it builds on that um I don't you know I can't explain it but it is true and you have to warn people you know it may look even less true.

>> Yeah. But to me it it nobody can convince me that this doesn't work because my life has been so radically changed by it. I mean when I wrote my first book, Living from the Unseen, my husband wrote the forward to it and I didn't know what he had written till the book came out. And in it he said, "My wife is the most transformed person I've ever met." And that's why you can't convince me that making those declarations to change my inner beliefs don't work.

>> It's just every area of our life has been touched.

>> Yeah. Okay. One of the quotes you put in the book speaks to this a little bit. I've experienced this and it's about vigilance. So basically learning how to guard the gates. He wrote, "Radical mind renewers are very vigilant in not receiving the messages our experiences, feelings, limitations or circumstances are trying to tell us." And so this is something I've had to learn honestly the hard way. I wish I would have read this from you and just accepted it. Uh but instead I got to experience it in real time. And one of the things I've noticed I'm curious about your stories around this is it almost feels like I'm at certain times in my life I've had to bury my head in the sand because I know what's true but I'm a data person. I run businesses so I can't just be like oh yeah the economy is great. You know everything's so it feels like I'm doing the wrong thing. It's very.

>> touchy. Do you know what I'm talking about? Y

>> I'm almost ignoring a subset of data.

>> for this. And what I've what I found is like it the the data always ended up being irrelevant, >> but in the moment you really feel like you're about to get burned by not acknowledging the risk.

>> Yeah. >> What like I need to hedge this, I need to fix this issue. Have you ever had a like a really brutal time with this where you're like, I have to hang on to the truth, but this is a difficult fight for me to reject conflicting messages. I mean, all the time I'm trying to think of a specific um but it's not coming to me.

>> But it happens.

>> Oh, constantly. Because what sticks more in my mind is the self-doubt of am I being responsible? Um I've even had people accuse me of living in windy world and it's like I so my my way of fighting it is it does it didn't help me to dwell on what was wrong anyway. And I've learned the power of focus. It's like I will admit there's a problem. I'm just not going to focus on it.

>> Mhm. >> Because my focus is, you know, it has to be on the solution, not on the problem. Even though a part of me is saying, you're not, you need to admit, you know, and look at this. And it's like, yeah, but in the past that didn't change it. Yeah.

>> it's just it's it's kind of like the what's the phrase Stephen I use of it it may be true for you. It's kind of I I think what there was a time when I felt like every time I moved forward in God, it seemed like the rug was pulled out. It was almost like this fear of moving forward because every time I tried to get really close to God, bad things happened and so I'm just going to not go after God.

>> and he challenged me and he said,"Wh are you always talking about the attack of the enemy instead of my protection?" And I'm like, "Well, because I seem to have more attacks than protection." And he said, "Well, that may be true for you, but it's not the truth." And it's because you focus on the attacks. You highlight them. You blow them out. And he said, "Most of my acts of protection, you've hardly noticed. You haven't highlighted them. You haven't, you know, had gratitude over them. It's like you just, oh, thank you, God." And went on. But when there's attack, you spend weeks on it. You tell everybody about it. You get emotionally involved with it. and he said, "Why don't you start getting em emotionally in evol involved with my protection that so that that's kind of my go-to now instead of fighting the am I just being unrealistic?" Nope. I I know it's there. I know that that's happening, but there's a higher truth. There's a Holy Spirit fact that overrides that.

>> Yeah. Yeah. Well, the that the your truth thing is probably one of the most effective demonic agendas in the west because what happens to a person when they have Stockholm syndrome and they all of a sudden begin to believe that they are protected by the thing that hurt them and then the ne the next step of that is is believing that it is the preferred alternative. And that's when I hear people are talking about well that's your truth. I'm like, "No, you're there's that doesn't that's not how this works.

>> You get to you get to live in the reality that you accept."

>> And so even when you're saying like, "Is that unrealistic?" Yeah, maybe.

>> But you get to either have what's realistic and average or you get to have a superior experience.

>> Yeah. >> And that that requires us to disconnect from the chassis of what might be acceptable or normal to other people, but it's not acceptable for you. It all goes back to the same Joshua and Caleb. In fact, I believe that um there was a time in the Old Testament when the Israelites were seeing something differently than how God saw it and he called it evil.

>> Yeah. >> So, he called it evil.

>> Mhm. >> And when you people love to talk about sin, they're obsessed with it. They just love talking about sin. It's their favorite thing in the world to talk about because how else would we know that you're a Christian unless you're calling out other Christians. But I get it.

>> Don't get me started. God brought God brought the bar so low for sin.

>> You're like looking at something the wrong way.

>> Evil abomination. And we don't think about that. We're like, I'm looking at this real estate situation and it looks really bad and I begin to believe that this isn't going to work out. Well, you have you put yourself back up on the same playing field as the lying, murdering thief. it you're breaking covenant because you won't see something the way God's instructed you to see it. And it's that's like a punishment frame. And so I don't want to stay there, but there's a lot of progress and growth and abundance if you can just constantly rehearse what God has said about something and eventually you'll start to believe it. And if you believe it, eventually you'll start to feel it. And every choice inside the human species comes from a feeling.

>> Yep. >> Every single choice.

>> Yep. So we think that we can use willpower and discipline. You can't. That's not how it works.

>> I tried that. It's a lot of work and >> and then you break anyways.

>> Yeah. >> Yeah.

>> And in every area of my life, whether it was my identity, finances, it all came to believing something different even when it looked ridiculous.

>> Yeah. I mean, our first place that we pastored was in the center of Nevada, which was just wilderness in a 50-mi radius. There was maybe 2500 people. One little grocery store, no banks, no fast food, and God told us to start declaring that we influence nations. was like, you know, we're barely influencing the sage brush flowing through the desert.

>> And it it seemed impossible and we were embarrassed to even tell people that that's what he told us to begin to declare. But, you know, these last 10, 20 years, we've been in so many nations influencing them. It's ridiculous. And I sit and think, what would happen if we hadn't decided to believe what God said? You know, we were just little nobodies, no finances, living in a little single wide trailer home called a parsonage, no finances, barely making it. And we have to, you know, believe if you you're not going to get out of the circumstance you're in believing the same way you're believing now, you know, and God actually told us, he brought to mind, you know, Romans 12:1 where it says, um, bring yourself as a living sacrifice, you know, and so we'd learned all about sacrificing time, money, you know, we need to do that. But then he moved us on to Romans 12:2 that says, "Be transformed by the renewing of your mind." And what we discovered it, it was harder to sacrifice our beliefs than it was our time and money.

>> Because he started saying, "Wendy, will you sacrifice your belief that you're inadequate?" Like, that's a sacrifice. It it was because it felt true. But when I began to look at it that way, sacrifice every belief that doesn't line up with the word of God and it's and it feels like a sacrifice. It's hard.

>> Yeah. You people could ask God to give them uh like what you're what you're talking about. What would have happened if I didn't do this? If you go back retrospect, people could get a lot if they ask God to just show them pictures of what it looks like if you do because that's the moment of decision.

>> That's right. >> Um, and I I feel like I hit this moment of decision frequently where I know that God is is instructing me to do something. I want the instruction of God. I want God to tell me his instruction more than I want him to give me gifts. That I've gotten my heart into that position, but then sometimes I still don't want to do the instruction. So, I'll have conversations with God. And I've learned that he loves it. He like loves the reasoning process.

>> He does >> with us. And it's not >> come let us reason together.

>> Yes. It's not disrespectful. It's the greatest sign of trust that he has with us is >> I will explain this to you. I'll listen to you. We can >> go back and forth. God's much more interested in how we feel than we think >> and why we feel that way. And this is a goes back to the very beginning. God's looking for Adam. Who told you that? Why are you doing that?

>> Yeah. >> Um my my first experience when I'm out of alignment is not God being upset with me. It's him wanting to know why. Why do you >> why do you think that?

>> Mhm. >> Why do you not want to do this?

>> Yeah. >> Um and God's so respectful that there are people who can know that they're called for something, but they don't want it. And God will still come and ask you why.

>> Yeah. >> And eventually he'll let you go. And that's terrifying.

>> Yeah. >> Uh I'm more afraid of God's sometimes I'm more afraid of God's patience than I am his judgment.

>> Yeah. >> Because there have been seasons where he's like, "Okay, if you don't want to do it, you don't you don't have to do it." I think the thing to remember I just finished a book that's being edited on prayer and I related it to a marriage or a friendship.

>> It's the reasoning together. It's telling them, okay, this is why I'm afraid of doing this. What do you think?

>> Yes. >> It's that kind of to me that's what prayer.

>> It It's I kind of feel like if we never want to pray, it's probably because we're doing it wrong.

>> Yeah. Or we don't know what it is.

>> Yeah. >> Yeah.

>> And we have this thing of, you know, God just tells me what to do and that's not a relationship.

>> Yeah. >> And so that's why I'm perfectly fine with saying, you know, you know, I fear of that and I don't really want to do that and talking it through. And then the first step is to give him permission to you know help me see it in a way something to believe that will remove the fear because that's I found what really helps me is if I can grab hold of a truth that gives me power to do what I didn't want to do.

>> Yeah. Okay. So on prayer since you just wrote the book um prayer done the right way is extremely addictive. Yes, >> chemically addictive, like legitimately >> addictive neurochemistry.

>> Um, so there was this experiment they did one time with monkeys and dopamine where um every randomly like they would come in and give the the monkey food, but not every time. And they were tracking dopamine increases. This is how we found out about the reward prediction error in uh neurotransmitters. And then they would do another experiment where every time they came into the to the monkey, they would give give the monkey food. You can look this up. I don't know. I don't I didn't prepare for this, so I don't know where it's at.

>> And the dopamine increase was significantly higher when it was randomized. And so they started studying the reward prediction era of the brain, which is >> we swing and we miss, >> then we swing and we connect. >> Huge dopamine on the experience. And so sometimes I I connected this to prayer was like sometimes I pray and nothing happens >> or it feels like nothing happens.

>> Feels like nothing happens. And then sometimes I pray and everything happens. And I was like, "Oh my gosh, we are customcoded for God."

>> So true. >> It's not like he responds a certain way because he wants to hack us. We were built because this is how God does things. We were built to be addicted to God.

>> Yeah. like our entire genome is built for it. Like a literal addiction to the presence of God. So, let's talk about prayer for a second since you're like fresh off the presses. Tell us everything about prayer.

>> I didn't do that.

>> Um, >> I think we need to recognize that a lot of the way we pray is the traditions of men. We've only done what we've seen other people do. Um I in my book I kind of relate it to a baby when it first is born all it has to do is cry and its needs get met >> and then it learns how to articulate and the parent will say use your words >> and then there's this process of until you have an adult they don't interact the same with their parent and I I call it a Christian has different phases. One is is just I need my needs met as and you're the one who does it. So all I do in prayer is ask.

>> And then as an adult it's I don't love my parents because now they meet my needs. It's not a needbased relationship. It's a honor and lovebased relationship. And I don't come to them because they're going to meet my needs. I come to them because I I know they have wisdom and I just honor them.

>> And so I learning the different stages of prayer and realizing we're not built to stay in the same level. it. We're supposed to grow in prayer. Do something different. Um I love my prayer times right now because I've really let go of what I think it's going to look like. It's like what are we going to do today? You know, and sometimes I literally I'm not saying this just because you're you. He'll say, "Why don't you listen to Taylor Welch's podcast this morning with me >> and we'll listen to it together?" And I'm talking to him about it with and a lot of people don't think that's prayer.

>> No, you're doing something with him. >> It's like when my husband and I for devotions, we'll read a book together. Let's read a a chapter together and then discuss it.

>> That's what relationship is. And when we start looking at it that way instead of and then the other part of it is is we tend to think of prayer according to pre-resurrection. And so we pray with our brain instead of our bornagain spirit. If we're looking at prayer in the Old Testament, they weren't born again spirits. They were relating as a man to God. And technically, we're not supposed to relate to God as a man. We're supposed to relate to him as a spirit. I'm more spirit than flesh. The real me is my spirit man.

>> And I've learned to discern when I've come and he's even challenged me. I mean, sometimes he goes, "Why are you bringing your dead self in here?"

>> Whoa. you know, you're a spirit man and you live in heavenly places. And so, a lot of my prayer time is learning to define myself as a spirit. So, I'm relating to God as a spirit. And I don't know, have you ever been in prayer groups? And it it's okay. Everybody's, you know, praying for a nation or whatever and it's blah blah blah. And then somebody begins to pray and the room shifts.

>> Yep. >> What has happened is somebody stepped out of praying with their mind to praying from their spirit.

>> It's not just motivated, you know, okay, my spirit told my brain to pray about this. No, their spirit man has actually risen up and it is speaking truth and everybody shifts to it and it's it's like I love that. I'm addicted to that. I want my private prayer time to be that.

>> So before I pray now I I get into a place where I'm no longer a human praying. I am spirit to spirit because it says we have to worship God spirit to spirit because the mind the body can't receive the things of the fl the spirit. So, and to me, that's part of the reason we can't receive a lot of the prayers we're asking for is we're trying to obtain them as a human. And you, you know, the spirit, we have authority on earth because we're a human, but we can only access the spirit because we're a spirit. M

>> because that you know I I get frustrated when people say you know you get me born again of the spirit and then you tell me to stay out of the spirit like what did I need a spirit for >> talk about it.

>> So there's just this understanding of what we Jesus didn't die so we could die. He died so we could live. Yes, death is the the way to life, but the the whole Christian life, it's not about learning to die. It's about learning how to live a resurrected life, aware of the spirit realm, living as a spirit. You know, if we're seated in heavenly places, what are we doing about that?

>> Wh why are we there? It's not just a theology. Our spirit man isn't confined to our body. It's made in the image of God. You know, Genesis talks about, you know, everything he created, he created it after its kind. And then when he created Adam and Eve, he said, "Let's make man after our image." The thing is is when they died, their physical bodies didn't die. What died was their spirit, the part of them that knew how to connect to the other realm that they were living in. And heaven's not somewhere out there. It's here. We're living in it. We just can't see it because we're unaware of it. And what really got me on this whole journey about the spirit is in the 1990s, I I've always been an intercessor. And I had gotten up in the middle of the night, like 3:00 a.m. And usually if he wakes me up, it's like he has something for me to pray. So I'm sitting there waiting and all he does is he goes, he reminds me of the scripture when Jesus had been crucified, the disciples were in that locked room and he just appears. And so I'm waiting on God and Jesus just goes, "Hey Wendy, do you know how I got into the locked room?" And I'm like, well, I've seen ghost movies. You had died, so you were a spirit, and spirits don't have any substance, so you could walk through walls. I mean, that's how all the ghost movies make it look. And he goes, "No, I'm more real than the wall." And I'm like, "Huh?" And he goes, "Yeah, the creation cannot have more substance than the creator." In other words, spirit created this realm. Therefore, spirit actually has to have more.

substance in this realm.

And what that did for me was because I, it was hard to have faith in a realm that didn't have substance. It was like, "Yeah, but this problem is so real. I mean, there's this physical stuff going on." And he's like, "Yeah, but the spirit realm created that and it has more. It's sub—it has substance." It just shifted my prayer life and my belief in what God could do when I realized His realm has substance. It moves things. It changes people.

We tend to have more faith in the substance of darkness than light. It's like, "Woo, did you feel that spirit of perversion? Oh, you know, don't go into that place because something will jump on you." But we never think, "Oh, don't go into that church because Holy Spirit might jump on you. You might get influenced." You know, we think about all the negatives. But we don't realize light is more powerful than darkness. Why aren't we believing that when we walk into a room, demons flee? It's because we have more faith that darkness has more substance than light does. So in prayer, that makes all the difference.

When you move into, "I'm a spirit being. You know, I'll meditate on things like, you know, I'm in Him and He's in me. I am a spirit." And I'll just because I'm trying to rearrange how I define myself and I feel better about myself and I know I can do things that my flesh can't do because my spirit actually has substance and it can actually go into a room and shift how people are are feeling. I can go into a room and if I'm—I no longer focus on the heaviness. I focus on the lightness of God's grace and joy. And I believe that my spirit has more authority than the spirit that they're carrying.

Even for getting people saved, it's like we think, "Oh, you know, you want to get them saved, but you can't cross their will." But do they really have a free will if they can't see? It's like, you know, "Let's make a deal. There's three doors up on stage. Which one do you want?" You have free will, but you don't know what's behind the three doors. Our job to get people saved isn't to, you know, change their will. Our job is to be light, to rip off the veil of darkness. And we can do that because we're light. We were created for this. Just step into the room believing that their confusion can't stay. Therefore, when I talk to them, they understand the gospel.

Yeah. Yeah. Not not to mention that it's like, not really our job to save people anyways.

I don't know where we got confused on that.

Like we're the Holy Spirit.

Yeah. Yeah.

Don't do that. Don't do that.

Yeah. Yeah. Something that came to mind as you were speaking was, uh, we are so quick to associate like, "Oh, don't go to Vegas because, you know, you don't want something bad to get get on you while you're there."

Yeah. What did that person say in the comments that one time?

What you screenshotted?

Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So we had an episode and I was like, "I just got back from Vegas." But I didn't tell them why, nor do I owe anybody.

No.

Why I was where I'm at. And somebody in the comments was so heated. They were like, "You say you're a Christian, but you go party on the weekends. You're in Sin City."

I was speaking at a conference, but I was like, "You are exactly why we do the show."

Like, cuz—

You—

I don't even know why you were there and where you were the whole time, but I was thinking about that. Um, but then you said something that I haven't really considered, but you've talked about in the Joseph anointing in terms of positioning, but you said, "What if we ever thought about like, 'Oh, don't maybe don't go to that church because the Holy Spirit's going to get on you.'" When I can't think of one time in my life I've ever gone, "Yeah, I need to go there because, like, oh, that's just going to get on me from going there or being in that area for too long." Like,

Yeah.

I have. Okay. Can y'all go a little bit deeper on that? Like, what the effects of that are like in terms of positioning, what that does in the spirit? Like, if that works that way in Vegas and the the kingdom of life is so much more powerful, what does that look like?

I think this truth really hit home to me one day. I I had been in intercession for San Francisco and because of my mindset, it was like, "Oh, there's so many strongholds of perversion and, you know, because of what they've done and, you know, what's going on." And I'd been in deep intercession for a couple weeks over it. And then in church one Sunday morning, we're taking communion. And God said, "Do you know that every time you take communion, you're building a stronghold?" And I'm like, "Oh, right. If we can build negative strongholds by consistent evil and consistent evil thoughts, why don't we believe that we as Christians are building strongholds every time we worship, every time we take communion, every time we do a kind act, every time we pray?" It's like we don't have faith in its power and so we're not seeing the effects of it.

And I really believe that the more, you know, my first experience was I had a lady in one of our churches that was—now I see she probably was demon-possessed—but she could shift the atmosphere in her room so negatively so quickly. And one Saturday morning we were having a women's brunch and I walked into the room and there she was with her arm crossed and just radiating bitterness and I just turned around and walked away because it was like, "I haven't even had coffee. I can't deal with this. It's just, you know—"

Yeah. The reality of the situation.

And I I actually, you know, I'll admit it. I I lied and said I forgot something at the house and turned around and we lived next door to the church and I started to open the door to my house and God said, "Wendy, the spirit that is in you is greater than the spirit that's in the world that she's carrying." And it hit me. It was like, "You mean that literally?" And I was like, "Oh, I just have more faith in her negativity than I do in my positivity." And so I just realized, okay, I carry the light and joy of God. And I, you know, I just reminded myself of it until I could feel that joy welling up. And then I walked in carrying what I had. And I shifted the room. And I was like, "I can shift a room." And it it's it's been a journey since then. But He did tell me, "You have to learn how to shift your own atmosphere if you want to shift other people's atmospheres."

I don't know about you guys, but I used to go into prayer and sometimes felt it was like so overwhelmed. And so my prayers were about being overwhelmed. I'd put on depressing Christian music. You know—

Depressing. Yeah.

Christian music.

Oh, it's sound like an oxymoron.

You can get it.

Uhhuh.

It's just that stuff of, "Oh, I'm so weak," and, you know, it just reinforces what you're feeling. Yeah.

And He said, "You're just reinforcing an atmosphere that you're under. So, put on the exact opposite of what you're feeling. If you feel like giving up, put on warfare. If you feel like, you know, God's not there and you're weak, then put on the worship of power." And once I learned how to shift my atmosphere, I could begin to shift small groups and then even whole church buildings. Cuz I used to think I was a victim to the spirit of heaviness on Sunday. I was like, "Oh, shoot. I thought we were going to have a great service, but no. Everybody came in with this heaviness."

Wow. And He said, "Shift it." And that's when I began to realize it just takes one or two people to shift. I'll never forget one Sunday everything was going wrong and our worship leader was playing the guitar and one of his strings broke and he tried to, you know, just kind of play without that one string, which I didn't even know was possible. And he's still trying to lead worship. Nothing's happening in in the atmosphere. And then a second string breaks and our worship leader walks off stage and leaves the sanctuary.

What?

And we're like, you know, everybody is like, "What? What do we do?" And Steve gets up and he goes on stage and he says, "Start playing that song again." And you have to know my husband. He's not—he's he really identifies with his Scandinavian roots. You know, they're called the frozen chosen. You know, he's very controlled, disciplined. And he gets up there and he begins to dance in the spirit. I'm not kidding. The room exploded with the presence. It was like everything shifted. It was one of the greatest worship times ever simply because he decided and he actually said he said, "You only build muscle through resistance." And something got up in him and he said, "I'm going to build muscle today."

This is my resistance to push against, and it was so powerful.

Yeah. What was the question again? I was talking about if people are afraid of a place that has like, say, spirit of perversion or something can get good on you,

how much more should we be reverent of a place that has the spirit of God in it? Like, what's going to happen to you when you go into a place that has the presence of God in it?

Got it. Like, what do you—what do you see the effects on people's life when they go into that?

Did she answer it or do you want me to tackle that?

I'd love to hear your side as well. Is there a practical side of this question of where where is there like, is traveling really a real thing for people in terms of how it changes their life? Like when you go to a place, does it change you? Is it because of the place? Is it only because of the people? Is it because of everything? How does it work?

I can I can talk about that. It's a bit of a can of worms though.

I know. Are you comfortable going there?

Oh, sure.

Okay. Because we're talking about truths and beliefs and then sometimes you're like, "Hey, I want to get rid of this." But sometimes it starts with an encounter.

There was a time a couple years ago where I had—I think I remember calling you about this. I had zero interest in going to conferences. I do not enjoy conferences. Not fun. But then everything happened in a six-hour period the day before this conference happens or two days before and I'm like, "I have to go to this conference in Orlando that I have no interest in going to." And I called you and I had to cancel plans. I had to cancel our shoot, whatever, and I went to this conference and what happened in that city, in that church, changed me and changed the trajectory of the next year of my life because I went to a place—

But do I have understanding around how that worked and, uh, what are some of the ramifications in a much higher level? No, I just know that I went and changed. But I would I would love to get the opportunity to understand like how your brain works on like, what's happening.

Yeah. I mean, there's there's energy and frequencies in cities.

So every city has a different energy signature.

And that energy usually comes from what happened in that city, what's going on in that city.

So if you go to New Zealand, Denver, New York City, Nashville, they all clock differently.

Yeah.

And so our, um, our spirit will will profile this, our souls profile it differently. So what I mean by that is like, our our bodies and our souls are interpreting energy signals from the location and it's a relationship between what the signal is and what our experience with that signal is. They're both, they both matter. So like, if I if I come to you and I'm like, "You did a horrible job," and then I talk to Heather and I'm like, "You did a horrible job." My signal is the same. It affects your bodies differently.

Because you have different experiences with that signal. Does this make sense so far?

So if if someone goes back home, that signal affects them differently than if I visit that city, cuz they have a backlog of relationship with that signal.

Mhm. This is like, we're now way out of bounds, but we're in like energetics and bioenergetics. Bioenergetics is the study of like, how all this works through the meridians. So it's a really real thing. It's a significant thing.

Yes.

What we need to fix though is our relationship with the signal more than we need to try to change the signal.

Does that make sense?

Which is perfectly about what you talk about because it's not necessarily the circumstances or the data. It's what do we believe the data is saying about us.

Yeah. And when that gets perverted, um, we can be called with a a positional level of authority in a city and we can't step into that level because it is corroding us. It's making us retreat. It's making us feel insecure. We're picking up threats from it. The threat doesn't exist.

Yeah. It's why the devil loves to get in or the kingdom of darkness loves to get in when you're two years old. Starts really early because if if the enemy has an assignment against Wendy and he can use some predictive analysis to know this is what this person's gifts are in the spirit. This is her lineage. So her grandmother had this. She's probably going to get a bit of that. He doesn't know the future, but he's predicting based on history. I need to create a relationship between her and validation as a two-year-old. And then all of a sudden, she grows up believing that I am praised when I conform and I'm punished when I deviate, knowing that she has a a mantle on her life that's going to require deviation. She self-sabotages when she's 40 because she has a relationship with the signals coming from experiences that invalidate her. Does that make sense?

Mhm. So, this happens in Vegas. It happens in Nashville. It happens in Denver. It happens at churches.

So, for a long time in my life,

I don't—I'm trying—I'm trying not to talk too much, but—

You're good. Zone-wise. Like, I feel like I've I've locked this down. I would avoid church because I didn't want my brain changed. Go. Oh, yeah. Like, I wouldn't go to church on Sunday. Lindsay would go without me. She'd take Kate. I was in a good flow. I didn't want my brain changed. Back to what it was when I worked at church. And so it was a—it was a—it was a real thing. But my relationship with the presence of God was corroded and corrupted. So I literally wouldn't go to church. If I was cruising, I don't want to sit at church, somebody switch my paradigm, and then all of a sudden I only care about God's stuff and then my companies go broke. Like, business owners, you relate with this where it's like, "I don't want to go to church." When you feel the presence of God, you don't care about anything else.

Yeah. Nothing.

That's a threat. That I was picking it up. My reticular activity says like, "That's a threat."

Because the last time this happened, you didn't care about anything, so you had no drive.

So I would just avoid the the signature. I would avoid the frequency. And it got—it was like that for years.

Then what did you do? Because I—I can't tell you the time that happened to me. What do you do?

I got sued by the FTC.

Okay.

And I had to go to church because I would have—I didn't have anywhere else to go. Like, nothing else was really—

One day, one day I went to church and, um, I got a prophetic word from from Alex from the stage.

Taylor Welch, I believe that God is saying you're—this is the the work that He's begun in you is not finished yet. And it's like the last nail in the coffin for what He's actually wanting to do in you. I feel like there's been ebbs and flows. Ebbs and flows. But God is actually wanting to build a foundation that is so deep, a hundred stories down so that He can build a skyscraper upon your life. But the enemy has got you ebbing and flowing, ebbing and flowing. And right now, I break the shackles of what is coming against you. And I declare that God would give you the strategy of what you need. And I break every assignment that has come over to your life to bring you into oppression. I break its power. I break its authority over your life. Because actually, Taylor, what God is doing in you is greater. It's greater. It's greater. And you can't see this right now as failure. You've got to see this as an assignment that is going to actually test, prove, and grow you to the greatness that you have been given on the inside of you. He's not finished yet, but this is the last nail in the coffin. But He's wanting to teach you something very, very, very important. He says, "Don't miss it, son. Don't miss it. Don't—don't go from the left to the right. The left to the right. It is time for the sake of generations. It's the sake of generations. The enemy has lied to you. The enemy has literally wanted to put you under. And I'm telling you, Taylor, don't let him win." But He's saying, "Son, pray. Pray. Pray. It's different prayers that's going to come out of you. It is an intercessory prayer. It is a warfare prayer. It is a prayer that's going to cost you. But I'm telling you, the reward on the other side of that prayer is going to shift this demonic assignment in the name of Jesus."

And it like broke me so much. And for the—it was one of the first times that I could remember feeling like even if my life fell apart, I would be okay.

Mhm.

And God reprinted my old relationship with church with that moment.

Yes.

Now it became a—it became a place where like I can go to remind myself that I'm going to be okay rather than going and getting my neuro—neuropsychology all bent out of shape. So sometimes this is where I got the the IP of like, "Ask God for a new reprinting experience."

Yeah.

Because you can't talk yourself out of an old experience. You need a new experience so that God can re—wipe, reprint it. And then that fixes some of your relationship.

The cities that have a lot of bloodshed, a lot of racism, a lot of injustice, the intensity of those of those frequencies are off the charts.

Yeah.

So, like, you can feel Memphis 60 miles away. You can feel Vegas just thinking about going there. Uh, in parts of Africa where that, you know, like the the bloodshed is still going on, that drives up the signature of that of it's easier to feel it. This is why some of the most powerful worship songs in history were written—

Uh, by slaves.

Yeah.

Because they were being abused and they still wrote a worship song. It was "Amazing Grace" was written after he lost somebody so important to him. These these things that stand the test of the of time. Like, it's it's a dangerous prayer to be like, "God, use me to change the world." He'll protect you in it. But the payment for those things still exists in some of the most powerful cities in the world with the strongest energies are places where there has has been horrible things that have happened and that sits into the ground and it kind of creates a structure around that city.

Yeah. Another thing I like to do and and I love the word rep, you know, making that imprint on us is really big, but we can also do that just by ourselves with Him. You know, having an experience of something that so that when we go to that place that used to, you know, tweak us, we are so strong. But I I'm on this thing with frequencies and stuff because I I want to resonate with the very heartbeat of God. I mean, if we have a frequency, how much more does He?

Yeah.

And we know that, you know, like frequencies get influenced by the stronger, whatever's got the strongest beat to it is going to change the atmosphere. And so part of my devotion is learning the frequency of God and feeling my whole being resonating with Him so that when I walk into a place with an off frequency, I don't even have to acknowledge it. I'm just going to focus on my frequency, confident that it will change its frequency.

Yeah. Um, because a lot of times I think we do needless battle when it's really just a thing of, "Know who and what you are."

Yes.

"Step into the room carrying it."

Yes.

And, you know, like one of the things I, because I'm a prophetic feeler. Yeah. I was constantly up and down emotionally. I thought I was, you know, crazy. You know, you go into a hotel room excited about your vacation and it's all of a sudden you're depressed. You're having weird dreams. And it was just like, "I don't even want this gift." And He said, "That's because you don't understand what the gift is for. The gift isn't to feel the negative. The gift is to realize that whoever is resonating at the highest frequency will have the room."

Mhm. And so it's, uh, I my gift is to bring a different frequency and to know what I have and practice it. Like peace is big to me. So I started practicing peace. I mean, the worst time to try to find peace is when you're in chaos. And if you don't know what peace feels like, how will you know when you lost it? And how will you know how to find it? So I, you know, if I will meditate on, "He is the Prince of Peace. He is in me. I am peace. I am peace." You know, that's meditating in the word.

Mhm. I'm using the word to define myself. Not what I just experience, but what I am. I mean, it's in my DNA is peace. And I'm going to rest there. And I carry it with me. And I know how to get it back. I recognize when I'm not in it. I mean, sometimes a little slower depending on, you know, how tired I am or whatever. But I don't think we practice being as much as we should.

We think more in terms of, "What do you want me to do?" instead of, "What do you want me to be? What am I?" Because you can't consistently do what you don't believe you are.

Yes. So what she's talking about peace, meditating on peace is forcing her meridians up, like her energy up to 350.

We've talked about this.

Levels of consciousness.

Yeah. Yeah. So acceptance is it's going to 350 and beyond. So when you have real peace about something, you're able to say, um, when you have real peace, you're you're brave enough to feel whatever you feel instead of fighting with the feeling. So like, real emotional maturity is just being willing to feel whatever you're feeling. Doesn't mean you always agree with the conclusions.

But how many people do you know that they've gotten so twisted because they weren't willing to feel disappointment for a moment, so they never—they never could come out of agreement with it because they didn't feel it. So now, okay, disappointment is hiding in your kidneys.

Y—hiding there. You're going to have kidney failure.

Until you feel it and release it. Mh.

Uh, but 350 is like, "I'm feeling pain," and you say, "God, thank you for this experience."

And discuss it with them.

Talk about it.

Yeah. Bring it out.

Yeah. Instead of talking about it with your click, your crew. But people are addicted to talking about their drama.

And if you talk to God about it, is the cool thing happens. He changes the conversation with you. And you find out it's not evil. I mean, that's why sometimes we stuff it is because we think, "Well, that's not Christian to feel that way."

Our definitions are so messed up.

Wow. Well, does that answer your question?

Yeah, that's great. It's really helpful.

Who are you studying? What are you studying on frequencies? Because the only place I can go to find the frequency stuff is like straight New Age stuff.

I'll admit it. That's—

Yeah.

Probably where I'm getting.

I mean, they're the only people who have studied it. That's right. I mean, that's what really bugs me is we are supposed to be the most spiritual beings on the planet, but yet we're afraid to really investigate the spirit.

Yeah. I mean, every other religion, they actually teach their people how to calm the mind and the body down so that they get a connection.

Yeah. And yet we expect people to learn how to pray without any connection.

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So when I said, "You've got to read Dr. Hawkins," you said, "No, I don't." Is that correct?

No, I said I haven't read it.

Oh, okay. I was ready for a correction.

Oh, no, no, no, no.

I will receive the correction.

Oh, no. No. I'm open to anything. There's been very few books, but there have been one or two that I've grabbed and Holy Spirit has said, "No."

Yeah. Um,

Can you tell us what they are or?

Um, I don't know what the name of it was, but it was a—it was it was one of the ones about chakras and stuff like that, which I've read some about that. No problem.

Yeah.

But this one carried something. I'm a feeler. I'm a knower. It was like—

They imparted something on this.

Yeah.

And I know about that because when I wrote my first book, I put an impartation in it. I actually—

How did you do that?

I felt like because I felt so inadequate in writing on living from the unseen that I felt that the purpose of the book was to get people to be interested enough to go after the unseen realm. And so I actually laid hands on the first copy that came and I said, "In the name of Jesus, I just impart a questing heart and the spirit of wisdom." And I can't remember what all I prayed, but there was a specific prayer for the book that it would open people's eyes and lead them on a journey.

Yeah. So—

Awesome. That's the—when when you're like, "I'm not going to read this book." That's happened twice to me in history. One of them I ignored it and read it anyways. No.

Um, that was rough. And the second one, because I had read the first one and then seven or eight months later, it used to sit on my shelf because I was like, "I'm just going to read this."

Yeah.

What was it?

Uh, it was a really deep like dissertation on, um, Kabbalism.

Yeah. So like, I went—I studied—I've studied all like everything Kabbalah, a lot of Buddhism,

all the New Age stuff. Yep.

And I was like, a couple years ago, probably four years ago, I was probably like, I was literally a New Ager who grew up Christian.

Yeah.

And so some people will still comment. They're like, "Is this dude Christian or New Age?" I'm like, "No, totally Jesus all the way."

Um, but they stole a lot of stuff from us. Yes.

I'd like to get it back.

Y—

And teach how to use it because they literally, they would be—they would be sued for copyright infringement if Peter was alive.

That's right. That's right. Um, Paul would be like, "I mean, you're not supposed to sue people, but he'd be like, 'Hey, what are you doing? This is—you're stealing.'" Yeah.

It's intellectual property theft.

But listen, it says, "The thief comes not, the thief—they if you don't go through the gate but go over the walls, you're a thief and a robber." And that's exactly what they're doing.

They're doing it because—

We're not doing it. And that's what bothers me about it.

Where it's almost like a—if there's a—if there's a vacuum, it's sucking people in because there's no power. And, you know, we I think about the verse in Timothy where he's like, "The life of a of the believer is a life of power."

Yeah.

So if you don't—if you don't have the power, the world just sees a big vacuum.

Yeah.

You know, Christians complain all the time, but they never do anything.

Yeah. And the—there are spiritual laws, just they're principles that work whether you're a Christian or not. I mean, you don't have to believe in gravity for it to work for you,

right?

And so they're using things that are real spiritual laws, but they went over the wall to get it. And so they're using God's principles illegally.

Yeah. Yes. You want to go there deeper a little bit?

Sure. I'm up for anything.

Okay. So, are you good?

Are you interested?

Yeah. If I'm quiet, it means I just want to shut up and listen. So, okay. That is true. Undeniably, it's true. I think God's given me a lot of compassion recently, like the last 12 months, because, um, at the end of the day, you have to have Jesus or you—nothing else is going to work. But there's this middle ground that I think people get stuck to and I really want to help those people because you don't use gravity, you obey it.

Yeah. So there's—I think the Holy Spirit is teaching me that there's a distinction between people who don't know any better, they're just obeying a principle.

Like, I—I'm of the belief that if we truly lived the way that scripture instructs us to live, we'd have very few prayer requests.

Yes.

We wouldn't have a lot of them.

Because we would be in a system that creates the things that we're praying desperately for. And so when I look at the New Age religion, which is what it's become, some of them are predatory and they are using it for self. I'm thinking of like James 4 where he talks about like, you're praying for things with bad motives. Not God's not a genie in a bottle. So their motives are corrupt and they're going around it.

But the majority of people that come to our events, they're—they're kind of well-versed in the New Age thing. Once they see a better way,

Yeah. Every person is born an unbeliever. It's where we all started.

Yeah.

And we're looking for Jesus in manifestation, psychedelics, alcohol.

When I—my experience is when a—when a business owner or a New Age person realizes that what I've been searching for my whole life has a name, they want it.

Yeah.

There's very little conversion process for that.

Yeah. And so the majority, I think, of New Age, they're just like obeying a principle and they don't know that it's—corrupted. So I like love these people. They're like some of my—I would rather hang out with a lot of New Agers.

I know.

Than most Christians.

Because—

I agree.

They're they're intelligent. They're smart. It's not that I hate Christians. I used to hate Christians, but it's because their hearts are not all messed up. Like—

They want—they want the real deal. They want the real thing. And they know there is something else.

They're convinced of it.

Yep.

They have so much faith.

Yeah. They're willing to try.

Yep. Yep. And Jesus talks to them so, so like, He'll talk to a Buddhist sometimes faster than a Christian will pick up on it.

Yeah.

Immediately.

Yeah. So you are going to—for all of us.

Oh, yeah. I—

I'm with you. I just—we have to get rid of the fear of New Age, whatever it is. It's—

Yeah.

I—I probably learn more from them over the years than a lot of the Bible studies I've been to.

Yeah.

But then the only caveat I would put to this is know your word first before you start exploring what they're doing.

Agreed 100%.

If you're a brand new Christian and you don't know the word of God,

Because I'm reading these New Age books through the veil of the word.

Yeah.

And thinking, "Yes, that's from the word. That's a principle that God set into motion."

Yeah.

And so it's like, it's being restored to the church because we were afraid to listen.

Yep. This ties in perfectly. I'm going to read this quote and then we could probably land the plane here if you're good with that. Um, you said, "The enemy is always trying to get you to focus on the wrong battlefield instead of aiming your energy at the real problem. If you have an ongoing battle that never seems to have peace or resolution, then perhaps you need to ask Holy Spirit if you're fighting the right battle. Maybe you have some faulty beliefs or you've incorrectly diagnosed the problem. Refuse to fight battles that are not led by Jesus." So, this idea of if I was—if I was trying to do a hostile takeover of a of a company or do some political war game or something, if I could convince the opposing side to start swinging at shadows, I would win. Uh, I was in California last week. I was doing some Brazilian jiu-jitsu with one of my buddies. I don't—I don't do Brazilian jiu-jitsu. It was awful. It was humiliating, but it was good for me because I'm expending all my energy on the wrong thing. And he's just sitting there and at the end, every single time I'm tapped out because I'm out of energy. He conserved his energy. He knows the pressure points. And I thought about the body of Christ, how we exhaust ourselves, swinging at shadows,

fighting the wrong battles,

and then by the time we get to the place where it would have been time for deliverance or breakthrough or whatever, we're so exhausted, we just want to sleep.

Right. That's right.

And I think about this in relationship to what you're talking about with New Age or just being so obsessed with really things that are like, maybe we're expending our effort on the wrong things. We're trying to fix a situation without letting God fix our character. We're trying to fix somebody else's sin without realizing that God's trying to change our own sin. Our optics are broken and we're wasting our time.

Do you want to expound on this? Because the idea of like, if something's not moving, you might be fighting the wrong battle is was a standout for me. I think the church Steve and I were raised in, probably the holy grail of Christianity was faithfulness, which I, you know, I love being faithful. But sometimes we are faithfully guarding something that we shouldn't even be in. It's like we're fighting this battle. We're exhausted, but I'm faithful. I am going to win this battle. And you just—you're so focused on it. But now I just have a different mindset. It's like, "All right, this, you know," and different—it'll go on for different times. You know, how long before all of a sudden I'll think, "Is this the right battle? Does He have me focused on this when it's really something over here?"

Um, kind of like when a year and a half ago, I just came down with this weird symptom where all along my sinuses began to ache. And so it was like having two earaches and every one of my bottom teeth was like toothaches. I mean, so painful I couldn't even lay my head on the bed because it would—just extreme. Doctors couldn't figure anything out. Case scan, you know, sinuses are clear. We went through rounds and rounds of antibiotics. And after it was over, I actually looked up the symptoms and it's called the suicide disease because it's so painful people would commit suicide over it. So, I'm in this place trying to fight, you know, for healing and nothing's budging. It's like, "God." And then I went into the whole pity thing of, "God's not moving and I don't know what's going on." And and all of a sudden it was like He took my spirit out and I saw myself, you know, pitifully before God. "Why aren't you answering prayer?" And I saw myself as this pitiful thing. And I realized, "That's not the battlefield. It's not even about healing." And so I couldn't sleep at night anyway. I mean, I was sleep-deprived for like three months, maybe hour snatch here and there because I had to sleep sitting up. And so I moved into one of our spare bedrooms and brought a TV in there and I just watched videos of faith preachers. And then when the pain would get too intense, I would walk the floor and speak in tongues. And God said, "The battle is for building up your spirit. The enemy wants to weaken you and make you feel pitiful again, but you're not going to fight the sickness. You're going to fight the real battle is who are you in Christ?" And so, it was like this resistance thing of, "You're going to make me in pain. I'm going to pray in tongues. I am going to make declarations." So, all night long, I would be doing that. And then it just slowly got better and disappeared with no medication. It just—it was gone. But right after that, I began the most intense, wonderful prayer time I've ever had with God. I mean, literally, an angel started coming between 4 and 4:30 every single morning and waking me up to go sit in my prayer chair and just have a time with God. And he would wake me up at weird times, all with fours, like 4:14, 4:44, 4:34. And, um, there was this one morning, I mean, it was—he—he introduced himself. He said, "I'm the angel Awake." And I'm like, "Okay, that's interesting."

I'm awake now, too.

So—

Yeah.

And he goes, "You've heard of the movement woke, right?" And I'm like, "Yeah." And he goes, "Well, I'm the real thing." And I'm like, "Okay, that's interesting." And he said, "I'm not here just to wake you up physically. I'm here to wake up the body of Christ to the spirit realm." And so one morning, this might—you may want to cut this. It is a little weird, but—

We've had probably weirder.

I—I'm like, really tired. I can't remember what we'd done the day before, but he wakes me up at 4:00 and I'm like, "I'm just exhausted. Can you come back and wake me up at 4:30?" And I go into this really deep sleep because I am exhausted. And he'd used other things in the past. I mean, somehow he trained one of our dogs to come wake me up at 4:30 if I hadn't woken up. But this time I'm in a deep sleep. So what does he do? He turns on our smoke alarm. And I—I jump up and I look at the clock and sure enough, it's exactly 4:30. And my poor husband is like, "What's going on?"

Oh my god.

And we're like checking the house. There's no smoke in the house. There's nothing going on. And it's like, "Okay, you're—that was unnecessary, maybe." But ever since that battle, it wasn't about healing. It was about, "Get ready, build up your spirit for what I'm about to do."

So, I don't know if that's an example, but sometimes we get so locked into what we think it is.

Yep.

And he was just trying to motivate me to to do something different than what I was doing before.

And now it's like, even though it was a painful time in life, I wouldn't trade it for anything because what I'm having right now in the mornings is way too special.

That's awesome. Yeah. The the plug from that for me is be careful when you think that you are doing warfare and you're just medicating symptoms.

Yeah.

All you pray about is that some symptom would go away.

You're fighting the wrong fight, fighting the wrong battle. Why are you looking at me like that?

Symptom like what?

Symptom like—

The pain.

Being poor.

A relationship not working out.

Yeah.

Jake, do you need a snack?

No.

Yeah.

No. I—I went back to something that you had said, um, a couple—my brain had an association from an episode you talked about a couple, uh, I forget how long ago it was. You were like, "We ask God to remove fear, but He's not going to remove fear."

He's got to work on your brain chemistry over time.

Yeah. Just like He doesn't tend to zap you with new emotions.

He doesn't. It's all a process and we have to be happy with process and celebrate the progress in the process.

Yes.

Otherwise, the enemy is trying to remind you, "You still don't—you're still not there. You're still not there." But when you think about, "Oh, but I have grown in that area. I—I'm not as quick." You know, when Stephen and I talk about joy, we say we're not joyful 24/7. Our goal is is that we don't go as low in depression as we used to, and we don't stay there as long.

M—

That's the goal. Constant little improvements.

Yeah.

And begin to notice, "Oh, normally if something would have hit us with that, we would have been in a tailspin for weeks. Now it was only three days."

Yeah.

And so we celebrate our growth. But most people don't look at their life in terms of growth. They look in terms of where I'm not.

Yeah. At least I'm not like this person.

Yeah. One of my one of my good friends who's a seer and there's has been this angel with him for quite a while. And he's been really working through like fear of man and fear in general. And so he was like, "Well, I'm going to—" he went to a meeting and this angel was following him around and he was—he was like, he didn't look mad. It just kind of looked a bit bored and frustrated. And usually it's this one's more animated. So he's like, "Maybe maybe he's upset with with me." But they don't really get upset with us like so he's like trying to rationalize through it. So he's like, "Hey, I don't have a lot of fear. Can you just take it from me?" And it said, "I'm not allowed to do that. It's yours. You have to let it go yourself." And I was like, "Ah, that makes sense." Because there's this level where you would see Jesus heal people from like physical symptoms, but He didn't just remove fear from—He didn't—like their character was so messed up that He—they had to grow their character over time.

And it was taking dominion over your mind. And very rare, I've never experienced really. I've—I've had one moment where God gave me the joy of the Lord just to show me what it felt like. But very rarely has He been like, "Here's an emotion. Enjoy it."

Yeah. Yep. It's usually been like, "No, you have to—you have to build this structure yourself."

Yeah. And the key is for me is He said, "I don't want you to fight fear. I want you to build peace."

You know, it's hard to fight an emotion. It's easier to build something else that takes its place.

Yeah. And so that's a lot of, you know, like even now with allergies and stuff, He's been telling me, "I don't want you to fight the warfare against allergies. I want you to fight from a place of health. You know, see yourself healthy." Because I've noticed if I'm focused on fighting the sickness, I'm focused on the sickness. And whatever you're focused on, you empower.

Yeah. So, I have to turn it to—and I've even gone so far because I really believe because faith is visionary. I have a picture that I pulled off of the internet of a woman who is limber and free and jumping on the beach and she epitomizes to me, you know, the being limber, no arthritis, none of that stuff. She's free and healthy. And so I superimpose myself on that picture and that's what I want to focus on. I don't want to f—focus on myself as sick and with arthritis. And I mean, it's just amazing because like the—I've got arthritis from allergies and cuz I know when I eat certain things,

my joints hurt.

And so I've been focusing on not only just eating right, but also believing that my body knows how to process these foods. And one of my goals was to be able to wear this ring I'd boughten a long time ago, but I couldn't get it over the knuckle because it had been so swollen for years. I mean, I couldn't wear it. And I actually said, "By August, I want to be able to wear that." So, I'd been focusing on that freedom thing of, "I am limber. I am, you know, there's freedom in my joints and in every part of my body." And then about four days ago, I thought, "I'm gonna try that on." And sure enough, got my ring on.

Nice.

Wow. Nice. Super cool. Anything else, bro?

Mm-m.

All right. Thanks for coming out here. I know it was a hype.

It was fun. I love listening to you. So—

Oh, that's crazy. It's like an honor to meet you in person.

Oh, I feel honored.

Next. Well, send me your next book just before it's ready so I can use it before the regular people can and we'll go from there.

All right. Guys, we love you. Thank you for being here. See you next week.

Get Our Mobile App

Beliefs of Spiritual Death (emotions, false conclusions, & instincts) w/Wendy Backlund

Transcription