Transcript
Today's episode is titled, Nothing Wasted. It's going to discuss how God does not waste any of your experiences. Let's get started. While this podcast is generally aimed for the ministry, anyone can listen. And today's episode is especially open to the public. So I hope anyone who listens is encouraged and is helped by today's podcast.
Everyone has a desire to succeed. We all have a desire to do well. Some may crave it more than others. But no one actually aims to fail. Unless they have ulterior motives. And even that in itself is a goal they want to succeed at. Whether it's to succeed at raising kids. Or pastoring. Maybe it's youth ministry, your job, your school, your work.
Or just being a good person. We want to do well. The higher the stakes. The more anxiety over the possibility of failing, you start to wonder, or start to worry, what if I'm not a good parent? What if if you're trying to witness to somebody trying to be a minister, what if I don't know the answers to the Bible questions in all aspects?
What if I let someone down? Well, let me lead you to the inspiration for today's podcast. I saw something on Facebook, a gentleman, a gentleman I follow, name is Rudy Bailey. He is trying to. Post daily inspirational thoughts. He calls them inspirational thoughts for the day and thought number 10. He called reusable.
He said, nothing you go through is wasted. And I was chewing on that and it matched up some things I had to say. So that's where today's come from. So on the thought of what, if you let someone down, I'm telling you, nothing you go through is wasted. So what if, so what if you fail? Is God ruined because of it?
Is he less capable because you fail? Now, while there may be repercussions from your actions or lack of actions, and yes, while your parenting will definitely affect your kids one way or the other, you have to do something. You cannot be paralyzed with fear and you have to take comfort that God will not waste your experiences.
I'm not here today to tell you how to make the right decision. I'm here to tell you that God won't waste your bad decisions. Even in the worst case scenarios, He's still a miracle working God. He is still the potter and we are still the clay. He can still make something good out of your bad. God uses every experience.
You've heard it preached for years, don't rebuke the pit. It's talking about Joseph and the coat of many colors, how his brother sold him to the s To the slaves, but it started out with a pit and it went from the pit all the way up to the second in command, you know, don't rebuke the pit. Cause that's what it took to get there.
But what about Moses? When he killed that taskmaster, where did he go? Okay. He fled and he, and he went and married his wife and lived with Jethro. What did he do? He became a shepherd. God took his failure and he used it before he was ready to lead God's people. He learned how to be a shepherd. God took that experience and used it to qualify him for the next task.
Chapter in his life. I myself am bi vocational. What that means is while I pastor a church, it's not all that I do. I have to financially support myself with a secular job. And as I look back over my resume, every job has led me into the next one. And maybe yours does the same, but I know some people go lateral.
Some people take a break and they change careers. And I'm just marveled at how God has used my career path. Let me tell you how it started when I was in high school. We're not going to count Dale's grocery store. Sonic and McDonald's. Okay. I was just in high school. Those were not career jobs. My first career job was in the United States Navy.
I served seven years. The first command real command, not training command. The first real command was on board USS George Washington CVN 73. It doesn't matter what I did there, but. What I had to do was the ship experience. You know, it taught me a lot about managing people. It taught me a lot about how to get along with people in hard situations, stressful situations, hiring situations.
It taught me a lot about the Navy itself. But then as I got up in, in rank, I had supervisory duties. They made me what's called a work center supervisor. I was in charge of making sure that all of the damage control maintenance got done. All of the fire bottles were maintained. Every, all the, the doors were maintained and different things like that.
Make sure everything worked. So I was the one that was responsible for scheduling the maintenance on that. Make sure that our folks were trained on it and everything. I had to make sure that we had the equipment. I was the work center supervisor. Okay. That's important to know. I passed inspections flawlessly.
I was good at it. I went from that ship back to Pensacola, Florida training command. And there I served as a student manager. I would take these students coming out of bootcamp. Some of them just had one or two classes, but some of them, because of their training, they had seven classes, had to go one after another.
It just depended. And I was responsible for getting them there. God used my. Navy experience, so I could help them and mentor them and tell them what it's going to be like. But he used my work center supervisor experience to help manage this. It was just like making sure the maintenance got done, scheduling this and scheduling that I was not in over my head.
I was right where I'd always been. And then while at Corey station, I left that job and they let me serve as the assistant drug and alcohol program advisor. Now, while that did not parlay into my next job, surely you can see how that parlayed into the ministry, drug and alcohol program advisor, I helped coordinate the training and the, in the assistance, if someone had a drug and alcohol pro problem, I helped get them the assistance they needed.
I helped provide the training for those that needed training. Surely you can see how that was helpful and beneficial for the ministry. When I exited the Navy, I came home and then. Eventually I went to work with my dad at a new business, the, out of the ashes of an old business. It used to be called OMI, short for office machines incorporated.
This was a new business. Dad used to work there and the other partner used to work there and they called this one, OMI telecommunications. Now I took the experience from the work center supervisor and student manager, handling all these classes. And now I'm accounts payable, accounts receivables, and office manager.
It parlayed perfectly. All that admin experience was so beneficial. It just, God used it. I would not have been able to do it with just the ships experience. I needed that experience as student manager to help me with what I had to do at OMI. And then while I was at OMI, I started to help and supervise the computer guys a little bit.
You know, I was, Helping with them. And they taught me how to clean up computers and remove viruses. They taught me some things and they were the ones who gave me my first official training on how to fix computers. That that's where it started. I'd always played with computers, but that's where the formal training started.
And then from there, I started attending ITT technical Institute on the side, earning an associates in computer networking.
Well, the job at OMI, they went out of business. ITT had a career department. Their job was to get you a job. They had And inside loop with Verizon wireless, Verizon wireless looked at my resume. They saw ITT tech, and then they saw OMI telecommunications. Perfect fit. They loved it. Veteran. They got me in smooth and Verizon wireless was a good job.
I was happy to have it. The problem was. Everybody wanted to work there. So I was nights and weekends and it took me a year just to get Monday through Friday, but I was still nights. So I needed a different job that I could be with my family more again, ITT. I saw a flyer for Jefferson County Sheriff's office wanting to help with their.
Mobile app they were developing. I'm not an app developer, but I thought maybe if I get my foot in the door you know, maybe it leads to something. So I submitted a resume, like is that submit all resumes to so and so. So I did, I get a phone call from so and so. I just interviewed for department finance administration.
And as I sat in the car, just outside that interview that went really well, he calls me. And what had happened was the IT guy resigned unexpectedly as this person had my resume in his hand. The head IT guy puts his head in the door, says, so and so just quit. I need a new IT guy right now. So he hands them the resume, call this guy.
And that's how I got in the sheriff's office without knowing anybody and bypassing the, the good old boy system, the politics of it, God used that. They saw the ITT tech. They saw the Verizon tech. It worked out just fine. I served there eight years as technical services. I was their IT manager. I was their network systems administrator.
Good job. Wonderful people. I went from there to Job Corps, teaching kids how to fix computers. But there I had to build my own curriculum. Okay. I was building that class up from nowhere. I've never done that before. But using my experience at the sheriff's office, I was sharing that with these kids, teaching 'em how to build stuff.
It was fun. It was great. I needed a different position, so that's where I went to CJI. Do you know why I got hired at CJI? Because I learned how to build curriculum. At Cisco and now at CGI criminal justice institutes where I'm currently at. I know that was a long story, but my point was every job I've had had springboard into the other one.
God used every situation to provide for the next. Now, let me ask you, what is God getting ready to do for you next? What is that horrible, dark secret, or maybe it's not a secret. What is that blemish on your resume, personal resume, spiritual resume, church, whatever, what's that blemish that you're embarrassed about?
And God saying, if you would just let go of it and let me have it, I can make a miracle out of it.
But we were, we're too embarrassed to let God be God. Pastor David Poe used to preach about duct tape. You know, we use duct tape to tape everything except what it was made for because it was made to tape ducks, not ducks as in quack quack, but D U C T, but because it's too wet, it won't work. So it takes everything else, but that, and he preaches about how it's not made.
It doesn't do what it was made for. I was reminded of that when I saw a meme recently in the meme. I love memes, by the way, if you don't know. Hit me up on Facebook. If you want to see some, the only re what the meme says, the only reason the leaning tower of pizza is a success. It's because of its failure.
Yeah, that's awesome. The leaning Tarpiza. If it wasn't leaning, you would never heard of it, but because of its failure, it's a, it's a success. Alcatraz is known as the inescapable prison that someone escaped from. Antarctica is one of the most unlivable continents on the planet. But 11 babies have been born there and all have lived.
So the most unlivable continent on the planet has a 100 percent mortality rate. The great wall of China was built to keep foreigners out, but now it is one of the main attractions that brings foreigners in all these things. Are succeeding at the, or known or at something opposite than what it was expected.
How about you quit worrying about what happens if you fail? How about you quit worrying about if your world will end, if you don't get something, right? Nothing is wasted in the hands of the Potter.
I want you to ask yourself, what are you learning from this experience that God can use for the next one? Give God the glory. If you fail. Own it, repent, and give him the glory for whatever he's going to do with it, because nothing is wasted. Praise God. This is our 11th episode of beyond the mic with Mike.
I read that 80 percent of podcasters quit before their 10th episode. I can see why, but thank you for sticking with me. I appreciate you. I don't plan on quitting anytime soon. I still got a lot of notes left to share. But when and if the day comes for me to turn off Beyond the Mic with Mike, I cannot wait to see what God does with this experience.
I know it won't be wasted. God bless you.
