SPEAKER 03 : 0:01

Welcome to The Good News with Angie Austin. Now, with The Good News, here’s Angie.

SPEAKER 05 : 0:09

Hey there, friends. Angie Austin here with The Good News. Thrilled to have Beatrice Bruno. Hello, Bea. Hey, good to be here. And Michelle Ron. Welcome, Michelle.

SPEAKER 06 : 0:19

Yay, it’s so good to be with you both. Thank you.

SPEAKER 05 : 0:22

All right, so every week, Michelle Rahn, a retired teacher and current speaker, she has a word of the week. And Beatrice Bruno, the drill sergeant of life, is rebooting her drill sergeant of life. So we kind of talk about life. And I just ran into another good news gal yesterday asking about both of you. I remember Cindy, and she was asking how both of you were doing. It’s like, what’s Beatrice doing back? I’m like, rebooting. She’s rebooting her combat boots.

SPEAKER 08 : 0:48

Amen. Amen. That’s exactly what I’m doing. And it’s quite a journey. It is quite a journey.

SPEAKER 06 : 0:54

Yes.

SPEAKER 05 : 0:55

I’ll bet it is. You’ve had quite a few wild years here the last few years. All right, Michelle, let’s start with you. We’ll just dive right into the word of the week.

SPEAKER 06 : 1:03

Okie doke. My word this week is pursue. P-U-R-S-U-E. Pursue. And what it means is to, one of the meanings is to seek to accomplish a goal over a period of time. So last week, we talked about a task with a purpose, a little bit each day to achieve a goal. We pursue something. So this week, we in Denver viewed the results of a sports team pursuing their end result of their season, even though they have five more games. But indeed, the Denver area is celebrating big time our Nuggets basketball team. And I have truly enjoyed watching the team members as well as Coach Malone When they’re interviewed, because they, I, well, I believe along with many people that they have been coached well, because each of them say, this is them, this one game is what we are pursuing. We’re not jumping ahead down the road. The now is important. And that’s our task, our purpose. And each one of us, each little step of the way, one foot ahead of the other, one idea at a time, and our eyes on our life source of Jesus. And LeBron James was interviewed after the game, and he was asked about Jokic. And I loved his comment because he said, he sees plays before they happen, he said. And that is what Jesus is telling us. Jesus knows our plays before they happen. And those of us with our eyes towards Jesus, we may question what in the world is going on. But it’s Christ who has developed a plan. He knew us before we were born. He has my name. He has your name. He has each of our names on the palm of his hand. And we need to pursue what God has placed for us to achieve the life journey that he’s given us. So you may think, as I surely did many times, Times along my life journey, I have no idea what I’m supposed to be pursuing. But I will tell you, God does. He knows. And we have a responsibility. We have a task. Because our responsibility is to ask him, to talk to him, to ask him to give us clarity of mind and wisdom to know and to pursue God. We surely will not have a response of those around us that the Nuggets have had on their journey. Oh, my goodness. But our audience is one, and it’s God himself. And there’s no other focus but to him and his kingdom for which we should aim to pursue. And I love that the Nuggets gave us a great example of that. Ta-da! There we go.

SPEAKER 05 : 3:56

I like that. I think that’s good for my little daughter. We both know she plays basketball. She’s pretty good, and she’s starting high school. She plays, and she was like five. So anyway, she’s worried more about bigger girls because she’s tiny and how they view her and comments they make about her. So we talked about it in depth. I always give her Philippians 4.13, all things are possible through Christ who strengthens me. And I basically said to her, like, what’s the worst? These kids don’t like you or they make a comment about you or, you know, you’re smaller than they are. So you get manhandled a little more like what’s the worst thing they could say about you? She’s like, well, I guess just that they didn’t like me. And then I was just kind of going through scenarios to try to, like, calm her anxiety about playing against people. If she weighs 90 pounds, some of these girls are like 160 pounds. So it’s a significant weight difference and height difference at this point in time. She’s 5 feet, and some of them are 6 feet or 5’10”. So their high school kids go in, and she’s 90 pounds. So high school kids are, some of them, full-grown, many of them, the women. So I just talked with her a lot about that God’s opinion matters and yours and all these other people. Even when Dad, when he makes the face, when you miss a free throw and you hear him say, Faith, what are you doing? Like, it doesn’t matter. I said, I’m sorry. It doesn’t matter what Dad thinks of you. It doesn’t matter what anybody in the crowd says or any of your teammates. You and God, you’re playing the game. That’s it. And it’s just the one game. I like that she watches all these basketball games. And so I like it that they talk about just pursuing that one game. I think that’s really beneficial info.

SPEAKER 06 : 5:33

Right. Right. Very much so. And they’re so humble. They are so humble.

SPEAKER 05 : 5:39

Well, they play like a team. We appreciate it. And you guys know it’s egos.

SPEAKER 06 : 5:43

Yes.

SPEAKER 05 : 5:44

It’s egos now in basketball. It’s names. It’s like, oh, three big names. No, they play like a team. They don’t play like three big names. And that’s been like the demise of basketball to some degree, in my opinion, that, you know, you have five big names and all these egos keep bumping into each other on the court and they can’t play like a team because they they’re so what do they be interested? My friend Monique, our friend Monique, she said her grandma used to say, they’re smelling themselves. They can smell themselves like they’re full of themselves.

SPEAKER 09 : 6:10

Cute. Absolutely.

SPEAKER 08 : 6:13

Good vision. You know, when Michelle brought up that word pursuit, it took me back to King David. Before he was king, he was living with the Malachites or the Philistines. And they were going to fight, and the people of the Philistines said, no, we don’t want David to fight with us because he might turn on us and might try to take us. And so they had to go back to where they were, which was Ziglag. And when they got back to Ziglag, David and his army found that the wives were gone, the women were gone, the children were gone. They had been taken. They had burned the city and everything. And David, as the leader— You know, they were threatening him, saying, look, our people are gone, our family is gone, and we’re going to kill you now. Because where is our family? And the people, the men were just sad about it. But David encouraged himself in the Lord. And he went and he got the ephod from the priest. And he said to the Lord, he said, shall I pursue you? In other words, shall I go after the people that took our wives and took our children and took all our stuff? And God said to him, he said, pursue, but thou shalt surely overtake them, and without fail, recover all. And I look at that from what Michelle was saying. See, we have to pursue stuff with all our hearts. We really do. Because God has already put something inside of us. Okay, look at the basketball players that you’re talking about right now. They have basketball down to their very core. Okay, look at Angie’s youngest daughter. She’s got basketball inside of her to her very core. And if you’ve never seen that child play basketball, she is a wonder. A little bitty something, okay? But I tell you what, when they put that basketball in that child’s hands, you would think she was about 6’5″. Okay. And like our other friend’s daughter that’s going. Oh, yeah, Michelle.

SPEAKER 05 : 8:16

Yeah, Michelle Betts’ girls. Yeah, two of them are playing. And they both, I think they, one just moved to a different.

SPEAKER 08 : 8:22

And her one daughter is 6’7″.

SPEAKER 05 : 8:24

Yeah, they’re top. I mean, they’re like, she was the top recruit a year or two ago. And her sister’s going to be the top recruit in the country as well. Yeah.

SPEAKER 08 : 8:33

Yes, and so see, these kids, these people are pursuing that basketball thing. What is it inside of you that you’re supposed to be pursuing right now? And I’m talking to the listeners. I’m talking to everybody. What is inside of you that you’re supposed to be pursuing right now? Because God has already put that thing down inside of you, and it’s time for you to pursue it like never before because you shall recover all, and you shall be at the top of your game when you get to it. I’m looking at myself. There are certain things that I have always wanted to pursue. Yesterday, I was over at Regis University. And when I drove up onto the campus, I felt like I was going home. And as I walked into the building that I was going into, I was a co-mediator for this mediation thing. And as I walked into the building, I just felt like, Lord, this is where I’m supposed to be. See, because I’ve always wanted a college degree, and I’ve got an associate’s degree, but that really isn’t where I want to stop at. I want a Ph.D., and I make people laugh when I say I want a Ph.D., and it can be an underwater basket weaving. I don’t care as long as it’s a Ph.D., and you get to call me Dr. Beatrice, okay? But I want a Ph.D., and when I went on that campus yesterday, something inside of me just lit up. And I said, uh-uh. I said, Lord, if this is for me, you’re going to have to show me how to get my stuff because I want my stuff. See, we in our society, we always look at our age and say, well, you know, you’re older, you’re more experienced, and it’s just time for you to stop doing that. The devil is a liar, okay? I’m going to get my stuff because I’m going to pursue it with all my might. And I’m going to get my stuff. And as I was walking this morning, I said, yeah, I want to be a professor of literature and fine writing. That’s exactly what I want because that’s who I am. That’s what’s inside of me. And I encourage your listeners today, Angie, think about what’s inside of you and pursue that thing with all your might. Because when you get to it, you’re going to feel so good about yourself, but even better about what you know that God has already put inside of you. And you pursued it, and you got that thing. That’s my take on it. That’s how I feel about it today.

SPEAKER 05 : 10:53

All right. When you talked about college, I thought about what a great teacher you’d be. And there’s a lot of help for people that want to become teachers, professors in a teaching community here in Colorado. They offer a lot of schooling for people that want to do that. And I think some of it’s even free. But my son has been taking… different you know a different route but he’s been taking free college courses and he’ll probably have two years of college credit by the time he graduates next year just being offered through the community colleges while he’s going to high school and so every other day he goes back and forth between this campus where he takes the classes And they’ve done a lot of things to make it – if you’re not bent on going to some school that’s extremely expensive and prestigious, some of these community colleges have made it really affordable. But there’s also a lot of help, Beatrice, for – you are a veteran. You’re an African-American woman. You’re of a certain age. I would think that there is money available to help you go to school. It just takes a little digging and pursuing these avenues. Yeah.

SPEAKER 09 : 12:00

Amen. And that’s what I’m going to do. Yeah. Yeah. I’m going to do it.

SPEAKER 05 : 12:05

So I totally see you as a professor. I am I I’m kind of in that point in my life where I’ve got four more years of being seriously busy with this kid. These kids, as I look at my schedule, you know, I’ve got my interviews lined up and that that, you know, is like my work part of my schedule. But then when I look in the evening, I’ve got one, two, three, four, five, six things tonight, including swim practice, basketball practice, an open gym at Grandview for my new basketball player, a parents meeting. So I’ve got all these things that we juggle because we now have three drivers. But I’m thinking about, so what’s next after this? What’s next? What do I want to start pursuing now that could lead to something in four years? I’m still fairly young now. in four years. And so would that be a second career? You know, what am I going to pursue next? So I really feel blessed that I’ve been able to continue the radio show and the good news with you two and some of my other regulars because, you know, I can work remotely now and, you know, and it’s a part-time job that gives me a lot of joy and it gives me a lot of inspiration to talk to the two of you every week. I look forward to Tuesdays very much.

SPEAKER 09 : 13:17

Amen. Well, me too. I look forward to it too.

SPEAKER 05 : 13:19

All right, Beatrice, give us your website for people to find you. You write, you speak. People can reach out to you very easily.

SPEAKER 08 : 13:25

Amen. DrillSergeantOfLife.com.

SPEAKER 05 : 13:28

And Michelle speaks a lot. Where can we reach you, Michelle?

SPEAKER 06 : 13:32

MichelleARon.com. That’s great. Thank you.

SPEAKER 05 : 13:35

And you can find me at AngieAustin.org. Again, that’s AngieAustin.org. Love you, ladies.

SPEAKER 06 : 13:41

Love you, too. Thank you. Make a good choice today. Bye-bye. Bye-bye.

SPEAKER 02 : 13:50

It’s that time of year to start cleaning out your closets, basement, and garage by donating to Arc Thrift. With 34 thrift stores and 15 donation centers across the Front Range, you have almost 50 different locations to donate your gently used clothing and items you don’t need anymore or are taking up space in your home. ARC will also take large furniture off your hands by scheduling a pickup through the ARC website. Any soft goods you choose to donate, you can just put in bags, while hard goods need to go into boxes. This helps ARC turn their 5,000 weekly donations per store into resellable items immediately. With spring around the corner, donate the spring and Easter clothing that is too small or just sitting in a closet to help out another family. And while you’re there, get your Easter decorations and clothing. To schedule your large furniture pickup or to find the nearest Arc Thrift Donation Center or store location near you, go to arcthrift.com.

SPEAKER 04 : 14:44

Erie, thanks for tuning in to KLTT, the Mighty 670.

SPEAKER 05 : 14:52

Hello there, friend. Angie Austin with the Good News. Well, we’ve enjoyed him so much. We’re bringing back J. Otis Ledbetter. He is the author of Set Free, Released from the Damage of Trauma. And today we’re talking about his soul hunger chart. I love that, Otis. Welcome back.

SPEAKER 07 : 15:07

Thank you for having me, Angie.

SPEAKER 05 : 15:09

So you were talking to me about, you know, our sins and how the fruits of the spirit can help fill the need, fill our heart. So explain this all to us before we kind of break it down.

SPEAKER 07 : 15:19

Well, it is. In the Bible, there are two lists that are side to side, and you find it in Galatians 5. One is the nine fruit of the Spirit. The other list is 17 works of the flesh or deeds of the flesh. And we are very familiar with the deeds of the flesh because that generally is our first choice to satisfy the nine human hungers that God gives us at birth because, you know, at birth, Each of us possess God-given hungers, and we spend our lives trying to satisfy and gratify those hungers. And God gives us that list of the fruit of the Spirit, and He calls it fruit. I mean, fruit. I’ve given you this fruit in order to satisfy those hungers that I’ve given you. Now, C.S. Lewis is right. God would never give us a desire or a hunger that He could not fulfill. So He fulfills it through the fruit of the Spirit. But Satan comes along, as he always does, and he says, well, I can satisfy that same hunger. And instead of one, I’ve got two for you, except one place on truth. He only has one for you there, but he’s got two for you, and he also always tells us, I can do it faster. My gratification, or I can assuage that hunger faster than the fruit of the Spirit, because it takes a while. So why don’t you come with me? And so we will tend to, the flesh is cheap imitation of the fruit of the Spirit. It’s a seductive siren song, especially for people who desire connection so strongly, Angie, that they will believe what they know to be a lie. And so that’s the list. So between that list, The Bible says the flesh wars against that fruit of the Spirit, or the Spirit, and the Spirit wars against the flesh. And you never go to war over something you don’t want. You never go to war over territory you don’t need. And so he says war, not battle, not a struggle. It’s war, and we know war is hell. Everybody that’s ever been to it knows it is. So that war goes on. So what are they warring over? Many times people say, well, they’re warring over your soul. No, my soul is with Jesus. It’s set. He has no power. The devil has no power over that. He’s not warring over my soul. What he’s warring over, he’s warring over those hungers, those nine hungers. That’s ground zero. That’s where the battle takes place. And so the more we know about that, the more we can say, okay, well, the right choice for me is the fruit of the Spirit and not the works of the flesh.

SPEAKER 05 : 18:14

OK, so when I look at, you know, you know, the actual chart itself and at first I was like, oh, gosh, this is confusing. But it’s not really under adultery. Then you have the fruit of the spirit love that would help us to not commit adultery, love, but not that kind of love. Idolatry, a piece would be the fruit of a spirit that would help us overcome that jealousy or anger. kindness is the fruit of the Spirit. I mean, this all makes sense to me. I mean, the Bible is really a lot more common sense, I think, than we give it credit for.

SPEAKER 07 : 18:47

It’s the best psychology book I’ve ever written.

SPEAKER 05 : 18:51

And you counsel a lot of people, don’t you?

SPEAKER 07 : 18:54

Oh, yes, I have for years and years. I was in the military. I was a counselor, chaplain, a counselor for the 144th Interceptor Wing. And they would send them to me. They sent them to me. They don’t have to go to the psychologist. And it’d be on their record. So, yes, I’ve been a college counselor. I’ve been a military counselor. I’m a pastor. I counsel people. For 54 years, I’ve counseled.

SPEAKER 05 : 19:16

And you still are. I still am. What do you love so much about that? I mean, obviously, you’re intermingling, you’re infusing the Bible into your counseling. Have you always done that?

SPEAKER 07 : 19:29

Yes, because I don’t believe there are any answers outside of Jesus Christ.

SPEAKER 05 : 19:34

That’s a good answer. I like that. I like that. We’ve talked about how you say you don’t stumble across a happy life. And that really stuck with me in terms of, you know, how you’re helping people to have that happy life, but to do the work necessary to get there.

SPEAKER 07 : 19:48

Yes, yes, to do the work necessary to get there. And this book, Angie, is a 13 year project. It wasn’t a book I decided to write and got a ghostwriter for and And then got it out for money. This is my experience in counseling over 54 years. And I put it on paper. And it just makes sense that everybody I talk to, when they go through it. Now, people are going to say, well, what’s my hunger? What do I deal with? There is a chart in the book. that you can answer 27 questions, and it will tell you what you’re struggling with right now. You answer those questions, I can tell you what your hunger is right now.

SPEAKER 10 : 20:38

Really?

SPEAKER 07 : 20:40

Yes, and if you go online to Hungertest.com.

SPEAKER 05 : 20:45

Hungertest.com, okay.

SPEAKER 07 : 20:48

Okay, it’s on social media. That 27 questions has been reduced to 9, 10 questions, and you’ll get the same results. And if you take this hunger test online, it will immediately send you an email, tell you what dominant hunger you have and what you’re struggling with right now.

SPEAKER 05 : 21:12

And will it tell you the fruit of the spirit that will help you?

SPEAKER 07 : 21:14

It gives you a synopsis of the chapter that deals with that fruit of the spirit and those works of the flesh.

SPEAKER 05 : 21:21

And again, if you’re just joining us, Jay Otis Ledbetter. Otis has been on the show several times in the last month. The book is Set Free, Released from the Damage of Trauma. And so are there common ones that you feel people, Hungertest.com, when you’re testing them, are there common ones that you come across that a lot of people are dealing with?

SPEAKER 07 : 21:43

Yes, the webmaster sends me the percentages overwhelmingly. overwhelmingly most are dealing with during this covid time intimacy and connection they feel so disconnected and so that went from about 43 percent what is normal before covid and it went up to 76 percent during covid oh my that’s that’s what people are dealing with also um i i have i have one if you if you let me share this sure someone that’s counseling um counseling now allows me to allows me to say this, they took the hunger test and this time and it said intimacy and they could not understand why it said intimacy because before when they took the evaluation it said achievement, they were in achievement. And so in the course of the therapy or in the course of the counseling, he wrote this for me. He said, I’m finding answers and more questions as it pertains to my life specifically. And this test has moved me in ways back to centering my true inner content I thought were long gone and replaced by drive and success and engulfing pursuit of achievement. I miss investing my life experiences and challenges, successes and failures in others as teaching and a learning tool that also fosters hope against the odds of circumstances. And what he’s doing now is he’s seeing that people – You see, people, Angie, have experiences that are rotting without redemption. They don’t know why they had that experience, and the life lessons or whatever over that experience are just rotting. They don’t know why they had that experience or that happened to them, and that’s what he’s saying here. And he hasn’t taken those experiences and redeemed them for wisdom so he could pass those to his children, his spouse, his friends. and he only in his achievement he only kept them for himself and so as a result he has isolated everybody else in his life he’s achieving so much no nothing or nobody means anything and now he finds himself isolated and he desires intimacy so what’s happening is to him now is When he takes the hunger test, the intimacy comes up because that’s what he’s craving right now. He needs to be careful because the steps down from intimacy lead to not good things.

SPEAKER 05 : 24:22

And when you’re talking about intimacy, it’s closeness, relationships, it’s connection. And I think you and I were talking about the Harvard study about happiness and that it all boiled down to decades and decades of a study. And I’m reading a book that basically has a lot of the interviews with the people over the years and explains what does bring true happiness or joy. And it is these relationships, these connections with other people and family, of course, but, you know, friendships and keeping in touch with, you know, just distant relatives, you know, older relatives that, you know, that connection may not fit into your lifestyle because you’re so busy. But making the effort to keep those connections, that’s what leads to true happiness. And you said during COVID, more and more people say they were lacking that closeness, those connections, the relationship, the intimacy.

SPEAKER 07 : 25:12

They absolutely were. And you talk about happiness or joy. If you look at the chart, the fruit of the Spirit, joy, it really serves to feed our hunger for happiness. We want happiness. You see, to get happiness, we typically will pursue gratifying circumstances. But to get joy, you have to pursue God. David said, ìThe joy of the Lord is my strength.î And so that joy that God gives you that serves to assuage the hunger for happiness is what you need. But we will tend, and the works of the flesh will come along and offer you cheap thrills. And you get joy for a little while, you know, and then you find out that wasn’t real joy. That just lasted a few years. moments or a day or whatever. True joy, true happiness is the pursuit of God.

SPEAKER 05 : 26:14

Yeah, true joy, true happiness is the pursuit of God. And that’s where you get the true joy. What has kept you happy and filled you with joy over your life?

SPEAKER 07 : 26:25

Well, my soul hunger has been from the very beginning, contentment. I love it. I’m an achiever. but my dominant hunger is contentment. And contentment is more about us than our circumstances. When motivated purely by discontentment, people end up, what they end up with is rarely what they hope to find. So if you’re discontented, And you’re trying to find contentment through that discontentment. You probably won’t find it because you’re looking into your circumstances and not about you and yourself. So God says the peace. And he told his disciples when they were so distressed. upset about him leaving. They hooked their wagon to him for three years, and now he’s in a room, and he just told them, I’m going to leave you, and where I’m going, you can’t go right now. And that created a storm in that room, a motion so thick you could cut it with a knife. And Thomas said, well, where are you going? And Jesus said, well, you know where I’m going. They said, no, we don’t know where you’re going. And so Jesus settled them. He said, there’s three things I want for you. I want you to be peaceful, I want you to be untroubled, and I want you to be unafraid. What more could we want than what he just told his disciples? I want you peaceful, untroubled, and unafraid. And contentment is synonymous with peace. And that’s what we want. We want our life to be peaceful. We live at a time when that is challenged, big time challenged. And so if you look around you… You may find unhappy people who are content.

SPEAKER 05 : 28:23

Oh, isn’t that interesting? Oh, Otis, we’re out of time. Make sure people know how to reach you and get in touch with you. And again, the hunger test is hungertest.com. And your website, Otis? It’s joledbetter.com. Love it. Thank you, friend. Thank you.

SPEAKER 03 : 28:40

Thank you for listening to The Good News with Angie Austin on AM670 KLTT.

SPEAKER 01 : 28:49

Military veterans and active duty service members. You could become a certified cyber warrior with just 12 weeks of training at My Computer Career. Cyber security specialists are in high demand. And IT pros with these skills often enjoy abundant opportunity and a great lifestyle. Protect our people, liberty, and treasured institutions from cyber threats. SkillBridge and other VA benefits are available to those who qualify. Learn more at MyComputerCareer.edu slash CWP. That’s MyComputerCareer.edu slash CWP.