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Testing and Trusting God - Balance, Boundaries, Blessings
August 18, 2026 · 44 min
An honest exploration of the tug'of'war of emotions: trusting God's provision while testing feelings and dreams by the Word.
Series Russell Gray's Morning Muse August 18, 2026 · 44 min · Russell Gray's Morning Muse
An honest exploration of the tug'of'war of emotions: trusting God's provision while testing feelings and dreams by the Word. ...more Show the full description Show less An honest exploration of the tug'of'war of emotions: trusting God's provision while testing feelings and dreams by the Word.
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Paradox of Joy and Doubt in God's Calling 0:03 Welcome to the Morning Muse. I'm Russell Gray and I am here sitting in my thinking chair as I often do and I'm thinking about God, I'm thinking about my life, I'm thinking about where I'm at, I'm thinking about where0:15 I'm going and I'm thinking about you. And the reason I share these things is because I think that there are many lessons that each of us learn that as we go through our life and we go0:27 through our struggles and we lean on God and we seek wisdom in the word and by God's Holy Spirit. We ask for discernment. We have people speak into our lives. There's a lot of different inputs. God speaks0:38 in a lot of different ways. And besides the Holy Spirit, besides the word, I do believe that in dreams sometimes or in circumstances or in nature,0:51 there are many many lessons. And I always have to weigh what I get outside of scripture against scripture just to make sure that I'm not being deceived. And even then, it's difficult. We1:03 know from the temptations of Christ in the wilderness that the devil is very clever even at using scripture to deceive. He did it with Eve, I believe. Although there wasn't scripture, but he1:15 questioned God's word. And so we always have to be mindful of that. With that said, I'm going to share some things that not everybody's gonna agree with and that's okay. I'm not here to tell you1:26 thus saith the Lord. I'm not a prophet of God. I'm not here to say I have exclusive or somehow supernatural understanding of what God is doing. I'm just sharing what I'm learning as I'm going1:38 through. And so what I'm thinking about today is this concept of balance. I think any entrepreneur, any ambitious person, anybody who is attempting to take on1:50 a lot of challenges, solve a lot of problems, handle a lot of responsibility, and anybody that's capable in society often gets called upon by a lot of other people to2:02 do more. And so it's not just the balance that we are at risk of losing, and I think balance is something God wants us to have and I'm gonna make that case in just a2:14 minute. But the other question is how do we maintain our balance in a world with those kind of demands on us? And I struggle with this all the time, and I reflect on this quite a bit. So2:26 I have a habit. I get up in the morning and I sit and I journal. And I encourage you to try it. I I find I get a lot of value out of it and I don't really have2:37 much of an agenda, but I do try to tune in to how I'm feeling. Psalm 37 4 and 5, which I quote all the time says meditate in the Lord or delight yourself in the Lord,2:49 and he will give you or assign to you or write upon your heart or implant into you the desires of your heart. In other words, I don't think that God's a magic genie that3:01 does whatever we ask him to do just because we want him to. I think anybody that's ever prayed for things and hasn't had those prayers answered as requested knows that that's true. So if God3:13 does answer prayer, we have to pray according to his will and it begs a question, how do we know what his will is? Well, obviously, we read his word but then how do we apply that to our own life? And I3:25 do think passion or desire or the things that we want factor in. Now that needs to be bridled by the word, by principles, by things we know to be right and wrong, and passions that lead us into a wrong3:37 place can be problematic. And I think that a lot of times our passion, our ambition, our desire to do something, to do a good work for the Lord, to serve our family, to be a good steward, to love3:49 our neighbor by making a contribution in some way shape or form. All of these things tempt us if you will. Those desires tempt us to fall out of balance and I am4:00 gonna again attempt to make an argument that balance is something that god desires for us and something that we should monitor very carefully. So coming back to this idea4:12 of journaling, I get up in the morning and I write down how I'm feeling. And I'll just say as I'm recording this today, I woke up and I noticed I had this weird kinda eerie uneasiness4:24 and I explored that. I'm like, what am I actually feeling? What am I feeling right now? And I realized I had this weird paradox going on inside of me, this tug of war. I was, you know, this morning, both4:36 happy and excited. I feel like I've been given a very clear mission by God. I've been given a very clear plan by God. I go out in the marketplace and providentially, God moves, brings me4:48 people, opens doors. When I face a problem, I get a divine piece of wisdom or somebody comes into my life that is able to help me. And I've seen God's faithful provision5:01 over and over and over again. And you would think with all of that, I would have 0 reason to feel anything but exhilaration. But yet, I find myself at the5:13 same time, I'm both happy and excited. I'm sad and discouraged. And I thought that is so weird. Maybe I'm the only 1. Maybe that's never happened to you, but it's happening to me. And so I'm5:25 trying to understand it. So I asked the question, how can that be? What causes it? I love my mission. I'm excited about the plan, the business model, the timing. But at the same time, and I'm just literally5:36 reading what I wrote, I'm feeling doubt. Can I do it? Do I have the time? What if it demands too much of me? And when I wrote that line, what if it demands too much of me? And sometimes, like, you know, you're doing you5:48 you're like your own therapist. You're writing. You don't know what's gonna come out. You're just in the moment and you're writing and this came out. So what if it demands too much of me? And I thought, why is that5:59 troubling me? And I said, you know, once again, I find myself in need of extreme encouragement from the Lord. I'll be the 1st person to confess to you. I wake up every day asking for God to give me courage and to give6:11 me encouragement. I feel like I need that and even though I have a fair degree of confidence in my skills, my abilities, I've been around a long time. I have a lot to6:23 work with. I don't have any reason in the natural common sense to say, oh, I'm in way over my head, yet I constantly feel like I am. And, you know, part of6:34 that is the scope of what I believe god has called me to do. And then I look at it like there's no way that I can do this. And he constantly reminds me that's because you don't have to. I'm going to do it through6:46 you. So I think of Moses, the burning bush, and ultimately being told, hey. You need to lead the people out of Egypt and lead them into the promised land. And Moses is like, well, I'm old and I can't talk6:58 and who am I? I have so much empathy for that moment in Moses's life. And so often, I feel that same way. Not that I'm, you know, Moses. But sometimes I I just feel that I needLessons from Young Fatherhood and Past Imbalance 7:10 a lot of help from the Lord. So if you're in that place, I just want to encourage you. So I know some people look at me externally and look at some of the things I've done or some of the people I hang with and some of7:20 the things that I do and they think, well, you know, he's very confident. Well, I I think everybody. I interviewed Ken McElroy. I don't know if you know Ken is. Ken is a very, very, very successful real estate7:32 investor. He is been Robert Kiyosaki's Rich Dad advisor for a long, long time. They've been friends. We've all been friends for, you know, many, many years. And Kenny and I are partners in a mastermind group. Robert7:43 Kiyosaki and other very successful people are members of this group. They pay to be in the group. So it's it's a very elite group. It's an honor, a privilege, and quite humbling to be in this group. But, you know,7:55 you're listening to the morning muse and, of course, I have my Christian capitalist show, but I also have a show called Main Street capitalist and that's on YouTube. And I interviewed Ken. I had Ken come into studio, and8:06 Ken is a guy that's written books and he has his own show and he's got hundreds of thousands of followers and he sold probably, I don't know how many books, hundreds of thousands for sure, maybe millions. But he's he a8:18 lot of people have heard from Ken. They know who he is. They know what he thinks. And there's always people that haven't. So in case you haven't, now you know a little bit about Ken. But what I tried to do in the8:28 interview was draw out from Ken parts of Ken that people don't always see or hear about. And 1 of the things that came up that really surprised me was here is this very very8:40 very successful man and admits struggling with impostor syndrome. And if you're not familiar with impostor syndrome, basically, it's like everybody thinks I'm this person. I look8:51 at myself and I I'm not that person. I am somebody else and so I am pretending to be bigger and better than I really am. I don't belong in this room. I don't belong in9:03 this position. I don't deserve these blessings. So I just want you to know if you ever feel like that and I think this is very common with people. You're not broken and you're certainly not disqualified9:16 from having success. I think that that's how Moses felt. I'm not qualified. I don't know if he ever had imposter syndrome. He just he did what God told him to do to the best of his ability.9:27 Perfect? No. Not perfect. In fact, he lost his temper once and it cost him the opportunity to enter in to the promised land. But despite that, he basically accomplished what god intended him to accomplish9:39 and I think that that's the lesson is if god intends you to accomplish something, it's gonna get accomplished. Now, Moses also struggled with balance. I talk about this also all the time. Sorry if you're getting bored of9:50 hearing it but it's such a powerful lesson for business people and entrepreneurs because he's standing there day in and day out, morning till night judging the people because there's no systems, there's no procedures,10:02 there's no leadership. It it was just the wild wild west. He's out there in the wilderness after having come out of Egypt with all of their structure and hierarchies and roles and responsibilities, and it's like10:14 starting your own business. You're floating in outer space. I've talked about that before, but what Moses had to do is figure out how to balance himself. So his father-in-law Jethro came and said, hey. You need to10:24 establish leaders. You need to write down the policies and procedures. I don't think Jethro said that, but Moses figured it out. If you look at the life of Moses as an entrepreneur, look at him through an entrepreneur's10:34 eyes, there's a lot of entrepreneurial lessons there. So back to me. So I wake up this morning. I'm happy. I'm excited. I'm sad and discouraged at the same time. Why? I am excited about what I'm doing, excited about the10:46 plan, excited about the model, excited about the timing, excited about people that God's bringing into my life, the doors that are opening, how I'm being received in the marketplace. All of those things are very very10:56 very very encouraging. I should be walking on cloud 9. But at the same time, I'm feeling all this doubt. Can I do it? Do I have what it takes? Do I have the time? Am I gonna live long enough? Will I keep11:08 my health? What if it demands too much of me? And that what if it demands too much of me is really what hit me. And so I wrote here it's almost as though the devil is saying to me,11:20 did God really say or really call you? Did he really call you? Is this really his plan or is it yours? And I think you have to ask yourself those11:32 questions. Right? Am I just in my own head? Am I thinking more highly of myself than I ought? Am I having delusions of grandeur? Did God really call me? You know, I I guess I maybe won't11:44 know until I'm all the way done, but I I I I look at the sincerity in my heart. I look at the time I have spent seeking him. I look at the way he has answered and interacted with11:56 me. Another case for journaling is I have all of this documented because I write it all down and I I gotta believe that, you know, given like a midpoint of of12:08 50 50. 50 percent it's me, 50 percent it's him. I I think it's more him than me. I I honestly believe that and of course that's what's causing me to act. I'm believing that God's calling me to act. It kinda12:19 reminds me of Satan's temptation of Eve in the garden, you know. Did God really say that? I mean, I maybe he didn't mean that. Maybe he meant something else. Maybe he's trying to keep you12:31 from something or leading you into something, you know, questioning God's motives. And so I'm like, okay. Well, I don't wanna listen to that. I don't wanna listen to that. And and so then I'm asking myself, what is it?12:43 Is it is it that I don't trust God? And, I think what it is is I don't trust myself. And I think that anybody is always wondering if they're12:55 honest, you know, do I really have what it takes? I guess there's some people out there who are in their heart of hearts are really they just believe they can do anything and they never fail and they're shocked when bad13:06 stuff happens. Maybe I'm just a weirdo. But for me, I I always wonder, you know. I mean, I've I've been on TV, been on stages. I've been obviously on microphones. I've been on camera.13:18 And when those things happen, every time I'm a little bit nervous. I'm like, am I gonna be good enough? Am I gonna do a good job? Are they gonna like me? So I'm just confessing. I I have that. So if if those13:30 fears are keeping you from sharing the wisdom that God's given you, blessing other people with the wisdom that God's given you, I'm gonna encourage you. Take advantage of this technology that we have, this era that we13:40 live in, and think that, you know, what God might give you something really good that you can share with people and not just the people around you. If you can bless a person in a 1 on 113:52 conversation, you can bless thousands of people by sharing the things that are on your heart. Just willing to put your mouth on a microphone like I do. And I mean, I I know not everybody is called to do that, but I think14:03 a lot more people could be a lot more effective. And so I'm a big advocate for that. I created a media company to inspire people, to train people to do that. I think I can have a bigger impact on the world by magnifying14:15 other people than just going out there and trying to do it myself. And even though the space is very crowded from a faith perspective, I think the more Main Street people we have talking14:27 honestly about what they are going through as they're living their Main Street life and finding answers in the word and in prayer and in the way God is speaking to them. I think it can14:39 really inspire a lot of people. We're living in an age where people are using AI to create perfect content, perfectly scripted, perfectly psychologically structured to hit14:51 all the buttons, the hook, the problem, the disturb, you know. And and I understand a professional communication. There's patterns and principles and if you wanna be an effective communicator, you gotta follow that. But15:02 I do think there's a huge opportunity right now for people who are just raw, who are real, who are willing to talk improvisationally about what's on their heart, and share people and and and connect with15:14 humans at a heart level. And I think there's a huge opportunity for Christians to do that and share practical biblical wisdom and show people how they're applying it to their own life so15:26 that other people will be inspired to see God and apply his wisdom to their life. And so that's why I do what I do. So if I sound a little discombobulated sometimes when I talk, that's because I'm doing my best just to15:36 be raw and real. Right? I I organize my thoughts but then I just turn the microphone on and I talk. And of course, I have a super editor who cleans out all the stammering and sometimes when I lose my thought and I have15:48 to come back and he saves me. So remember that when you hear the finished product, it's not exactly the way it came out. So if you're putting your mouth on a microphone and and and struggling a little bit, 1st of all,15:58 I'll tell you from experience, right, I've been doing this 20 years, you do get better. You get better. And then if you're journaling, you learn how to, you know, think in complete sentences and so that really helps. And16:09 then beyond that, you've got technology that can kinda clean it up a little bit so you don't have to put anything out there that doesn't just come out right where you don't feel good about it. Anyway, but that's not what16:18 I came to talk about. What I came to talk about is this idea of how I feel and what I'm looking at and what I think God taught me as I wrestled through that in this morning's journaling session which has16:30 become this muse. So I put here that I still feel like a young father. Now some of you haven't experienced being a young father yet so you don't know what that's like. Some of you have. Maybe some of you young mother. I16:41 don't know. But the breadwinner, the person who's responsible. And I suppose that even if you're not quote unquote the breadwinner, that's still a huge responsibility to raise a little child. So when I became a father,16:53 and I just took my oldest daughter out to dinner a couple nights ago, and she's older than I'd care to admit and probably more than she would ask me to share. But I was a young father a very, very long time ago. This wasPractical Balance: Boundaries and the 8 B's 17:05 my my very 1st child. And when I held her and I thought about, I've got to support this child. I've got to provide for this child. I've got to make money. I've17:16 got to be consistent. I gotta maintain a home. I have to have a car and health insurance, and how am I gonna get her educated? And there was so much. And of course later, we had another child and another child and17:27 another child and another child. And you grow into it. But when I 1st started, did I feel confident? No. I was scared. Did I think I was up to the job?17:38 I didn't know. I hoped I was. I kept encouraging myself. So, you know, there's a lot of people out there maybe not as hardworking or as smart as me. There's a whole bunch that are harder working and smarter than me, but17:49 it seems like most people figure it out. So I'm gonna believe that I can figure it out too. And that's how I would encourage myself. And, of course, I was a brand new Christian so I was leaning on God and I was trusting18:00 God and God took care of me. And I raised those kids and I made it. And so I I'm looking at what I'm doing now in that same light even though I'm an older man and even though this is not18:12 about raising children, I'm giving birth to a business, a movement if you will. And there's a lot of responsibility when I think about the totality of it, the bigness of it, it's a little overwhelming. Then I18:24 remind myself what I did when I was a young father. I just gotta take it 1 day at a time. And as I think back on being a young father, I think about the things I got right. But you know what? I got some things wrong. And18:35 in that dinner with my daughter the other night, I had to apologize all these decades later for some of the things that I got wrong. And 1 of the big areas I got wrong was balance,18:47 and I think that's very very common for a lot of people, but especially entrepreneurs. And so as a young father, I felt like I've got this giant mountain to climb but failure is not an option.18:58 I used to have a picture of my baby girl sitting on my dashboard in my car. I was a salesperson in Silicon Valley. I had to go out there. I had to face rejection. I had to deal with problems,19:10 but failure wasn't an option. And anytime I thought I wanted to quit and I wanted to get a simple job where I had a guaranteed paycheck and I didn't have to think. I didn't have to solve problems. I just had to, you19:21 know, process work. I wanted to go from being, kind of an opportunity or work creator or a proactive worker to somebody, you know, somebody that made things happen to becoming somebody that just19:33 reacted to other people and kinda live my life with puppet strings, if you will. And I'm not putting anybody down that's in that place. World takes all. But for me, my ambition was pushing me. And again, this is,19:45 you know, my show is really talking to people that are entrepreneurial. So I think you know what I'm talking about. I'm willing to take on more responsibility because I want more opportunity. I want more freedom. But the19:55 flip side of that is is that I have more responsibility and if I fail, I suffer those consequences more directly. That's what owning a business, living on the bottom line, living on commission if you will, living on20:06 results that that all means that. And so this is what gives you the stress that makes you just feel like you gotta go all the time. So I thought you think about how the people who are depending upon me, even20:18 today, need me to step up. And I want to do it, but I wanna do it without losing my balance. Because when you lose your balance, that's when you fall. And I20:30 don't know that I and certainly a number of the people that I interact with really understand the importance of balance and the consequences of losing it is20:41 actually metaphorically a fall. You fall apart. Your marriage falls apart. Your relationships fall apart. Your health falls apart. Your finances fall apart. There's a lot of things that fall apart20:53 when you get out of balance. How do you get out of balance? You get over committed to certain areas of your life to the neglect of other areas of your life. Well, why do we do that?21:05 We do that because the world really values and praises as encourages people to go all in, to do whatever it takes, to leave it all on the field. Well,21:17 those attitudes are very motivating. I've heard all the motivational speeches. I've been in I I don't know if my share I've been I've been in a few locker rooms and my my short athletic career and there's21:29 a lot of talk about that all in all sacrifice, give it everything it takes, leave it all on the field. But if you really drill down, that really puts the focus and the glory on the individual.21:41 And even if you fail, if you say, well, hey, I gave it my all, it's still really putting the emphasis on the individual. And so I know I'm probably rubbing some people the wrong way right now and there was a time in my21:53 life where I'd listen to something like this and I'd feel the same way. I'd like, you know what? I don't agree with that. Maybe you don't. That's okay. Feedback at russell gray dot com. Let me know. Happy to have that22:03 conversation. But where I'm at my life today, maintaining my balance is very very important because I understand very strongly the consequences of failing to keep your balance.22:15 I've watched my children grow up. I can see the effect that my being out of balance during their formative years had on them. I know the full scope of what22:27 happens in a business and in your personal finances when there is neglect because you don't have the time to take care of things you should take care of because you're busy doing other things.22:39 Fortunately, I think I did a decent job taking care of my body. I could have done better, but I think I did a decent job. So I'll give myself credit there, but I look around at a lot of other people, my peers,22:52 who have not. Why? Because the business, their commitments, their willingness to put it all out there, to leave it all on the field, to work the all nighters, to eat23:03 whatever was convenient, to skip the gym, to do all the things that people do constantly and they ended up losing their health. And so I've seen that firsthand and I23:15 think probably the most profound poignant experience I had was when my late wife was dying in my arms after 41 years of marriage. I realized23:27 all the missed anniversaries, missed birthdays, blown off vacations, times that I was physically present but not emotionally or mentally present. The times I was not emotionally available. I didn't save23:39 anything from my business. In other words, I gave it all when I worked and when I came home, when I was done, when I was with her, when I was with the kids. I'm exhausted. I'm mentally drained.23:51 I'm physically drained. I don't have energy. And many of the things that I thought, well, someday, I'm doing it for my family. Someday, someday, I'll make it up. Someday, I'll do this project. Someday, we'll have the24:02 dream house. Someday, we'll take the vacation. And then she's there at 59 years old dying in my arms and I don't have any more somedays. I had that day and that was the only day24:14 and there was a big big big long list of things that I was never ever gonna be able to do. Unkept promises, unfulfilled dreams. I meant well, but you know what they say about the road to24:26 hell, it's lined with good intentions. Good intentions weren't good enough. I lost my balance and because of that, I lost a lot of other things. And so I just wanna encourage you that balance is important.24:38 Just being an older guy looking back on a long life in business, raising a family, If I had to do it all over again, I would do it the way I'm doing it now, which is to24:50 maintain balance to the best of my ability. Is it easy? No. If you've ever watched these gymnasts or acrobats that have incredible balance, the25:01 reason they have incredible balance, I know because this daughter actually that I went out to dinner with the other day when she was a young girl, she was a a national champion acrobat. And I watched25:13 her develop the physique that allowed her to do that and the incredible balance she had to have. And it took a lot of work. It took a lot of times where she was stressing her25:25 body in order to grow strong to be able to hold herself very very tightly. Gymnasts have incredible internal strength, core strength, and all the25:37 little balancing muscles that people like bodybuilders, you know, ignore cause it's not that important in in what they do. But if you're gonna be an athlete whose success really depends upon your25:48 ability to balance, especially like an acrobat, then there's a certain kind of work you have to do. So if you're gonna pursue balance in life, it's gonna be hard work. I just want26:00 you to know that. It's balance is not about, hey, I'm gonna take it easy. I'm not gonna give it my all. You're giving your all. It's just applied in different areas of your life. You don't give it all in 126:12 area. So you're still a very intense person. You're still a very busy person. You're still putting out a lot of energy, and at the end of the day, when you put your head on the pillow, you're still tired. And so I'm not26:24 suggesting that being balanced is a life of ease. In fact, quite the opposite. But I am saying that it's very very easy not to do it. And so then I started thinking about that. Well, how do you26:35 actually achieve that from a practical sense? And so there's the idea of balance or the ideal of balance. And how do you do it? You do it through boundaries, and you have boundaries.26:47 I use time blocks. There. I I will I will use the time because I have another daughter who brilliantly says if it's not on the calendar, it doesn't exist. And so if you say, hey, this26:59 is important to me and it's not on your calendar, guess what? Not that important to you. Sorry. You see, well, I intend to do this but you don't schedule to do it. It's not gonna happen. So you can intend to do it but27:10 intentions don't get things done. Things on your calendar and focused effort inside that time block, that's what gets something done. And the old adage it says, hey. And I think I talked about this in the last27:22 muse too. So this is just what's on my mind and in the season I'm in right now, but the idea is that, you know, you'll say, hey. This is what's important to me. These are my priorities. These are my goals. And I'll say,27:33 well, yeah. Show me your checkbook and show me your calendar and I'll tell you exactly what your priorities are. So there's a there's a inner part of us. There's a psychology. There's a a part of us that rules our27:45 behavior that sometimes is in tune with our intellect. Our mind wants to do something, but our subconscious mind wants to do something else. Our heart isn't in it, if you will. And so getting27:57 those 2 reconciled, there's that's a lot of work. You can have big muscles going back to the gymnast analogy and you're able to lift weights and do certain things, but you're not able to really strike that balance28:07 because you haven't done the work on all the little balancing muscles and the little the little stressors that you have to have in order to do that. So I'm just gonna come back and say that, you know, from a practical28:18 standpoint is understanding that you have clear goals in each area of your life and then you establish the boundaries on your calendar. But you also have to put the boundaries in other areas of your life.28:30 Boundaries are, you know, what you're gonna put your money into. The boundaries are things that you're gonna say yes to. Steve Jobs famously talked about his greatest skill was his ability to say no because there were so28:42 many demands put on him and he would say no and he would focus on what he wanted to focus on. Now I'm not holding him up as a, as an example of great balance. I think, at the end, I think he felt like he28:54 hadn't maybe a little bit. I don't know. Didn't know him. Had a chance to get on this airplane once, which was super cool. A friend of mine was his mechanic. And, I went to visit him at his job, and he goes, hey, comeShow more In this video 0:00 Paradox of Joy and Doubt in God's Calling7:00 Lessons from Young Fatherhood and Past Imbalance17:00 Practical Balance: Boundaries and the 8 B's29:00 Tithing as Balance: Test God and Trust42:00 The 8 B's of Balance: A Framework for Life
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