In this episode of The Good News, Angie Austin welcomes Grace Fox to discuss her book, Fresh Hope for Today, and the role of spiritual gifts in nurturing a fulfilling life. Discover how understanding and using your innate gifts can not only serve the greater good but also enrich your own soul. Alongside this, Angie and Jim Stovall explore themes of gratitude, happiness, and resilience, offering a thoughtful perspective on perseverance and maintaining a forward-looking attitude in life.
00:15:19 Conversation with Grace Fox on Spiritual Gifts
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SPEAKER 02 :
welcome to the good news with angie austin now with the good news here’s angie
SPEAKER 04 :
Hey there, Angie Austin and Jim Stovall here with the good news. We’re talking about Jim’s winner’s wisdom column. This week is windshield and rearview mirrors. Winner’s wisdom, windshields and rearview mirrors. I got it, Jim. Welcome.
SPEAKER 06 :
Hey, I just thought I would do that to kind of trip you up and see what I could get a tongue twister in there. But no, this week, you know, I use my automobile analogy because I don’t get to use it as a blind guy. I… a motorist will be happy to know that I don’t drive a car except in the movies. I’ve done it in five movies now and, uh, No one’s been seriously injured in any of that.
SPEAKER 04 :
No, wait. As a blind person, in your movies, you’re a chauffeur, but you don’t actually drive?
SPEAKER 06 :
Yeah, I’m a limo driver in the movies, but I don’t drive other than that. That’s hilarious. And no one’s been permanently injured in any of those. It was interesting, though, in getting ready for those parts. You know, I asked people, I said, okay, you drive every day. Take me through the process, and what do you do? And they said, well, you get in the car, and you back out, and then you put it in drive and drive. And I said, no, I mean, you’ve got to get in, and you put the key in, and then you do the seat. I mean, give me the whole deal, you know. And it’s so automatic for people. They don’t even realize what all they do, which I think is amazing. But I think what we learn is that, you know – The windshield is big. It’s out there in front of us, and we should be looking ahead. And the rearview mirror is a little tiny thing. It’s good to check periodically, but if you drive looking at your rearview mirror, you’re going to get in trouble. And the windshield allows you to look way in front. And if you look too far ahead, just as in life, you’re going to miss the moment. You’re going to miss where we are right now. And I think one of the things we… miss in Western culture is we miss the moment. We’re not in the moment. We don’t take advantage of that very special thing that’s going on right here and now. And we can get all guilty about what happened in the past. And the past is only good for learning a lesson. If you learn a lesson from it, great. Otherwise, leave it in the past. The future is great for setting goals and where do you want to be and projecting. But what really matters is what are we doing right now today. And, you know, we should be enjoying every minute of that and spending it wisely and, you know, avoid the past and the future as much as you can and focus on today. Because in the final analysis, that’s all that matters. And I’ve written well over 1,000 of these columns for 25 years. And no matter what the message is or the lesson we’re learning today, The end is always the same. It ends with the phrase, today’s the day. Because it doesn’t matter what you learn or know or thought about or anything else. If you don’t do something with it today, it’s pretty useless.
SPEAKER 04 :
Now, when we talk about looking back, you said look back if we can learn a lesson from it. And I also like looking back just for the good feelings of the memories like that I created with my family. And they pop up. like almost daily trips we’ve taken, things we’ve done together. And it’s like pictures where you used to flip through a picture book, but now they just pop up on my phone. And so every day I can kind of reminisce a little. And those kind of make me happy, because usually when you take pictures on a trip or whatever, they’re happy moments. So those kind of make me happy and grateful for all the experiences they’ve had. Now, I find people dwell on the past for too long. big reasons um one is kind of to brag you know like well back when i was in high school and i was the quarterback i never would have done something like that you know where we won state you know two years in a row or whatever and you know he’s in a lazy boy and he weighs 320 pounds and He hasn’t hit the gym since he left high school, since he left the football team. So there’s that, you know, looking back. And I had a friend that did that about he didn’t have work anymore, but he used to work for Disney and was very successful. So he talked a lot about that, I think, because he was so insecure about really not living in an RV now and not really being able to find steady work. And then the other reason is. I find people look back and I know I talk about my mom a fair amount, but I brought up something to her the other day that Mark and I had helped her with. It was kind of a big chore for Mark and like a big favor to her. And she didn’t remember it. And I said, that’s so odd that you can’t remember that. Like it was a big deal. Mark and I remember it very well because it took a whole weekend to do this task for her. And she didn’t remember it at all. But she can remember things from when she was six that are horrible. All kinds of horrible things from her childhood, from her marriage, from living with her sister, to the way her mom treated her. All of these are vivid memories like they happened yesterday. But not… Not the good stuff, per se. It’s just weird to me to look back and then just be able to dwell on the bad things. And I’ve really tried to analyze it over the years because it’s such a habit of hers. And I’ve asked her why she does it. Because she’s not like a bad person or a mean person. She’ll do anything for you. And she giggles a lot, you know, but then you get in a conversation and boy, it wraps right around to some horrible story. You know, about my dad or whatever. And it’s just like, oh, I don’t I don’t like complaining and I don’t like negativity. And I’ll just say, OK, I’ll listen to your complaints for like a minute or two. But, you know, that’s it. Then let’s move on. And she doesn’t know why she does it. But I think it’s become her identity that she’s become like a professional victim. And I’m not trying to be mean because I do love my mom. And to be honest with you, she’s been back with us for six months and she’s been so much better. And I’ve even said like, wow, you’re so much better than you used to be. You don’t complain as much. I mean, you hardly complain at all. It’s so great. You know what I mean? That’s how blunt we are with each other. But yeah, I think it just kind of became her identity, like who she was. And same thing with the football player looking back on and bragging about the past, that they’re trying to look back for some identity that they don’t feel now or that they’re not satisfied with themselves like right now. I don’t know. I’m not a psychologist, but it’s perplexing to me.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yeah, I think, you know, Angie, my late great father for many, many years ran a retirement community. And I ask him, what kind of people live longest? And he said, well, the people with the best attitudes live the longest. But, you know, one of the things he said that I thought was amazing, the people that are healthiest, the people that do the best, still assume there are good things ahead of them. They still are looking forward to something. Even if they’re 97 years old, they’re looking forward to something. And do you have something in the future? And the other people, the people that are unhappy mentally, they’re not healthy. You know, everything was in their past. Everything good is already over and nothing, you know, and I think that’s why we have to keep the best things ahead of us. We have to assume there’s something in the future, you know, cause you and I’ve talked about it, Angie, to be happy, you got to have something to do, someone to love and something to look forward to. And if you’ve got those things, you can, you can be happy, but, uh, you know, you’ve got to have something you look forward to. And, uh, but you can’t just have, you know, someday I’ll do this and someday I’ll do that and everything will be great when I get in that super relationship or I get that great job or whatever. No, you still got to enjoy today. Today’s all we have. And so I think it’s important, you know, and as you pointed out, you know, if you’re going to dredge stuff up from the past, it needs to either be a lesson attached to it or what I call my scrapbook where, you know, when I’ve had success in the past, I revisit it sometimes because, you know, sometimes I think, okay, a guy that can do that can do other things. My coach left me with that. The last time we competed as Olympic weightlifter, he said, wow, he said, I don’t know what you’re going to do the rest of your life, but remember, a guy that can do that can do anything. And I stole his line and put it in the ultimate gift when this young boy builds a fence, has to do manual labor, and then Brian Denny, the old ranchers dropping him off at the airport. And he said, don’t ever forget, a guy that can build a good fence can do anything. And it’s just nice to know and, you know, to remind your kids and your family around you, yeah, I know you’re feeling a little insecure now or you’re having doubts now, but remember when you did that thing. And, wow, you can go back and revisit that and say, yeah, you know, I can do stuff. I am good. I can do these things.
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I was going to ask you about that. Will you repeat again about the things that you need to be happy?
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You have to have something to do, you have to have someone to love, and you have to have something to look forward to. People that have nothing to do is a tragedy, unless you’re on vacation. But vacations and weekends, those are to recreate, to rebuild, to get ready for the next week. But you’ve got to have something to do. You’ve got to have someone to love in your life. And you’ve got to have something to look forward to. If you’ve got those three things, you can be happy.
SPEAKER 04 :
I like that. I like that a lot. All right, so let’s talk a little bit about your dad. You mentioned him, and we were talking a little bit about kids and sports and quitting, and we’re pretty tough on our kids, I think, in this day and age, per se. I don’t know that we’d be tough on our kids for a 50s and 60s era, but comparatively speaking to the rules other kids have. But we were talking about quitting, and what did your dad say about anything that you wanted to try?
SPEAKER 06 :
Yeah, we had a rule. I mean, if you want to try a sport or a musical instrument or join a club or scouts or whatever, you can join, but you have to stay the whole year. You have to be there throughout the process. You don’t get to quit early. You don’t get to leave. And it was just part of the thing because, you know, things we do become habits. And, boy, the last habit you want to form is when things get tougher, I’m not happy about it, I quit. And I think that’s one of the ways I think they’re ruining sports right now, college sports, is that kids can just get mad one day, jump in the portal, and switch schools. And, you know, I don’t mind them having a choice, but they ought to have to wait until the end of the season and then go somewhere else. Because, you know, just when you get in that habit of quitting… When things get tough or uncomfortable, wow, it just gets so much easier the next time, the next time, the next time. People that have been through multiple divorces are much more likely to have multiple divorces in the future because it’s just a habit. It’s just, oh, when it gets to this point, you just get out.
SPEAKER 04 :
Mm-hmm. Yeah, I can’t even tell you. I think, let’s see, one, two, three, four. Four girls quit the team. And I always wonder at the beginning of the season why a volleyball team has 12 players. Because, really, they only need 10. And, you know, it’s a lot of sitting on the sideline. And so parents are irritated at the beginning of the season. But I think we ended up with seven, was it six, eight girls. By the time we were leaving, one was injured. My daughter was a replacement. They moved her up from a younger age group and moved her up to the ones team on the 17 age group. Yeah, I couldn’t believe how many kids quit early in the season. I can see later in the season. I think it’s a, I mean, you know, like if you just like went, you know, I took on too much, but even then, you know, like we, our kids have never quit a sport during the midst of a sport. My son was a really good swimmer and he might’ve quit swimming eventually, but yeah. he never quit like a team or missed like a big game. That’s another thing, missing practices or missing games. I remember one mom, she would let her son get out of practice and get out of the pool if it was too cold.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yeah, you know, Angie, I think if you’re a teacher, you’re a coach, you’re a manager, if you lead people, there are going to be days where your people don’t like you and want to quit. I think part of the… the generation where everybody gets a participation ribbon, is a lot of leaders who are afraid to deal with it. They’re afraid that, well, somebody may not like me or whatever. You know, the reality is that people are going to go through those feelings. It’s natural, it’s normal, and you’ve just got to persevere and push on. And, you know, that’s not a bad feeling. It’s a feeling that you have to deal with. And discomfort, you know, anguish, you know, those kind of things are things we all have to deal with. And life’s not about do you get in that place. Life’s about what do you do when you get there.
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And I think the phones are the things that help them deal with their anxiety and discomfort that’s an escape and feels exciting like gambling. So it’s so fun to see all the likes pop up and comments and, oh, you look so great there or whatever. That helps them deal with the discomfort and avoid the things they don’t want to do. All right, jimstovall.com, always a pleasure, my friend. Thank you.
SPEAKER 06 :
Thank you, Andrea.
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Sedalia is listening to KLTT, the mighty 670. Hello there, friend. Angie Austin and Grace Fox here on The Good News with Angie Austin talking about her book, Fresh Hope for Today, Devotions for Joy on the Journey. I like how that rolls off your tongue. So welcome to you, Grace Fox.
SPEAKER 05 :
Thanks for having me again, Angie.
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All right, I picked this week’s because it just stood out to me. And there really isn’t a bad page in this book, but it is use your gifts. Because I think so many of us wait for our calling and want God to, you know, text us or knock on the door, come down the chimney with our calling as we sit in our lazy boy of life and just like, well, I’ve been waiting for God to give me my calling. But I think we all kind of know we have gifts, and there are easy tests, aptitude tests you can take, or to find out what your gifts are, like as a Christian, you can take these things, you can find them online. I think many of us kind of know that we have certain gifts, right? Did you know what your gifts were when you were raising your kids or when you were growing up?
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I remember taking a test like you’re talking about. When I was a mom already, I had three small kids. And I took a test like that in an adult Sunday school class that we had at our church, and that was quite enlightening because I wasn’t sure what those gifts really were. So it was good. It was good to find out from Scripture what the spiritual gifts are and what they look like, you know, the pros and the negatives that come with these gifts.
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And what were some of your gifts, and did it surprise you, any of them?
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It didn’t really surprise me. One of them is the gift of exhortation, and that means the gift of encouraging other people. You want them to flourish. You want them to do well. And so that’s worked its way out in my writing and in my teaching. So I see that very clearly that God has given me that gift. Another one is a gift of prophecy, and I always thought that was, oh, you don’t tell in the future like the prophets in the Old Testament did, and that kind of sounded a little wonky to me, but I… But I discovered that that’s not what that means in the spiritual sense, the biblical sense. What it means if you have the gift of prophecy is that you declare the truth. You’re not afraid to back down, right? So it’s either, here’s the thing. If you have the gift of prophecy, you see things in black and white. There’s no gray. And so that can be positive, but that can be negative because, you know, life’s not always like that. Not that you want to compromise. But what I’m saying is you can be so stubborn in your thinking that there’s no give. That would be a negative side of having that gift of prophecy. And so I have to temper that with compassion as well.
SPEAKER 04 :
I think about one of our managers at the station, Rachel, and she definitely has to give to prophecy. I always admired her when we were in the TV news business. And she just very plainly, not blunt, not harsh, she’ll just state the truth about something that a lot of people don’t have the courage to say. And she just says it like, well, it’s the truth. Like, what’s the big deal, you know? And so… I love that about her. And I think I might have exhortation as well. I’ve always really liked encouraging people and hearing their stories. And I saw administration and I knew that wasn’t mine. And I love hospitality, my friends that have that. One of my best friends is my neighbor, and any get-together we have is at her house. I mean, she does have a pool and the big living room with the giant TV and the big L couch that you can all flop on with. I bring my dog. She’s got her three dogs. We’ve got six dogs, and everybody’s on top of each other, and we’re watching a Nuggets game or whatever. But it’s never at our house. And I think to myself… My husband and I, we’re not entertainers. It’s funny, too, because I’ll bring all the food to her house, but we are not comfortable in our own skin having people over, and we have never really made our house conducive to entertaining, per se. There’s no TV in the living room if we did want to watch a game, you know. And, you know, we don’t have the couches that you would all plop on. You know, they’re like velvet or something, you know. I don’t know. I just, we’ve never been good at entertaining family. That’s different when you have like grandma and grandpa come and stuff like that. But it is interesting. And people can look up the list of spiritual gifts. I just Googled it to see what some of them are. I’m hoping service will be one that I can do a little more of as I get past the raising of the kids. I think I told you I have five trips this month. I already did Orlando, but I’m traveling all over doing college visits. And so I think I’ll be in, oh gosh, maybe six states or seven states in this month. And summer flights, one’s a long drive to see five schools in Portland, Orlando, Cincinnati. You know, it’s all over the place. So when I’m done with all that, I would love to be a lot more involved. Maybe what we do right now is service, Grace, because you help with your kids, your grandkids, and I help with my kids.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah, it is. Exactly. And so, you know, a lot of people will have not just one gift, but they’ll have maybe one that’s very strong or even two that are strong. And then they lean towards others as well. And I think that when we are raising our children, definitely we are exercising that gift of service because getting up in the middle of the night to tend to a crying baby, that’s service, you know, like fixing meals, packing lunches, doing all this stuff is serving. And some people might just do it joyfully. Other people might not do it as joyfully, but you know, it’s still a gift and we can ask the Lord to help us develop that well. And You know, you mentioned hospitality. I think that probably falls under the gift of service because your friend is opening your home. That’s service. But you’re bringing food. That’s service. And so you’re all practicing that. I’ve heard studies done that say that the most common spiritual gift among believers is compassion. And they say that, yeah, I thought that was interesting. And they say the reason perhaps that’s the case is because we live in a very hurting world. There are so many hurting people, and God knows that, and so he reaches out to people through his children, and so he gifts them with compassion to reach out and help those who are hurting. Isn’t that interesting?
SPEAKER 04 :
That is interesting. So we’re talking to Grace Fox about her book, Fresh Hope, for today, and right now we’re talking about the devotion, Use Your Gifts. So tell us about this as we’ve discussed gifts here. It’s interesting.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah, the devotion in regards to that would be… how God has created every one of us with a gift. And we can tend to compare ourselves to other people and say, oh, I wish I had her gift. I wish I could be as organized as she is and do an administration as well as she does. And then we can get ourselves right into a little bit of a pit in that type of thinking. But to be able to appreciate the way God has woven each of us together in a unique way, to identify those gifts through, like you mentioned, taking some of these tests we can take online about developing our spiritual gifts. So discover them and develop them. The more we explore by being involved in life around us, that helps us figure out our gifts as well and hone them too. And so we don’t want to isolate ourselves and not use our gifts because that means something’s missing. God has made each of us, it’s like a, think of a 2,000-piece puzzle. And if one of us doesn’t use our gifts, one of those pieces is missing. The picture isn’t complete. It’s important for us to use those gifts.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, and as I’ve said before on the show, I think it was Michael Jr., a comedian, talking about doing comedy at homeless shelters and other places where comedians wouldn’t normally go, and just the amazing experiences he had doing that. And he said, it’s not a gift unless you give it away. Like, what’s the use of the gift of comedy if you’re home, you know, cracking yourself up or making posts, you know, on social media, but you’re not out there really like making the crowds laugh or using your gift for some great, you know, good cause. And so I think so many of us have these gifts and either don’t know about them or like you mentioned, don’t develop them. And it takes effort to use our gifts, but I think that there’s an obligation for us to use them if God’s blessed us with them.
SPEAKER 05 :
I think so, too. There’s a quote that I put in here by David Jeremiah, and it said, You have inside you the capacity to invest your mental, emotional, and spiritual gifts in a way that glorifies God, impacts the world, and satisfies your own soul. I believe that, and I want you to believe it, too. Because when we’re using our gifts, there is joy, right? There is joy that we experience as well when we get out there and we start serving in the way that God designed us to operate.
SPEAKER 04 :
I love that. Yeah, I think that there’s also fear, though, that so many of us come across that some of these gifts, you know, ask us to step out of our comfort zone or maybe using them makes us uncomfortable. If it’s a gift where, you know, maybe we’re good at giving advice or wisdom or encouragement, but we’re called maybe to speak in front of others or whatever it may be, but that we’re uncomfortable using the gift, even though we know that we have it.
SPEAKER 05 :
I think you’re right. Fear is a big deal. And it would be that fear of appearing inadequate or the fear of failure, the fear of, oh, no, if I just sort of maintain myself, be that little wallflower, nobody’s going to know if I have flaws because those flaws aren’t going to show. But the minute I put myself out there, I’m going to make a mistake and I’m going to appear imperfect. And what will people think of me? And so fear is a big deal. But to trust. that God is the one who’s woven us together, and every part of his body, the body of Christ, is important, just like every part of our physical body makes a difference in our overall health. So the body of Christ is, if we’re going to be functioning in a healthy way, every part needs to do its part.
SPEAKER 04 :
And I think too, at least I see this with young people, with teenagers, you know, not wanting people to think they’re full of themselves or like diminishing like their looks or their talents or their abilities or making jokes about how bad they are at school or that they’re a bad driver or that my kids went line dancing last night and they’re, you know, they have two left feet or whatever. Like, I feel like they feel like they have to diminish themselves to not seem like they’re bragging about themselves. And I think that sometimes using your gifts, you think that you might seem kind of arrogant. Like, well, you know, I have the gift of administration and I really need to take on more responsibility at the church. Or I have the gift of exhortation and I really need to be given more opportunities to get up and lead and speak at church and teach or whatever. And so I think sometimes that… There is that fear by some of us, maybe more so women and as I’m seeing teenagers, fearing that we’re going to look like, well, we think we’re so great, you know.
SPEAKER 05 :
I hear what you’re saying. And there is that sense of or that there could be that sense of pride or arrogance or. you know, a little bit of haughtiness of, yeah, I’ve got this gift and I developed it and I’m just a notch higher than you. But that’s not what humility is all about, right?
SPEAKER 04 :
Right, right.
SPEAKER 05 :
And so at the same time as we use our gifts, we’re to practice humility. It’s like looking at the Bible as the whole big picture, not just one little piece at a time, but the whole picture. So use the gifts, but be humble about it. And encourage, here’s one way to be humble about it, is to cheer other people on when they use their gifts. And maybe they’ve got the same gift as you and they have an opportunity that you wish you had, but it came their way instead. And that’s where we like to just, you know, we fall into the comparison trap or maybe we just don’t want to give them the pat on the back because it doesn’t make us feel good. So, you know, it’s like get over yourself and encourage other people to use their gifts and commend them, bless them. You know, if they need help, come alongside and give them that help. All of those things will help us with practicing humility when we use our gifts.
SPEAKER 04 :
And I think that humility doesn’t have to mean diminishing yourself or cutting yourself down. Humility. I see Caitlin Clark, the WNBA player that’s getting so much attention. She just got the first, she was the first rookie, like earliest to get a triple-double. And she just put it all on her team, you know, very humble. She doesn’t try to make it of herself. She’s almost embarrassed that she’s getting, you know, so much attention. And so humility doesn’t mean diminishing yourself. It can mean building up others as well, like you mentioned. GraceFox.com. The book is Fresh Hope for today. Thank you, Grace. You bet. Have a great day.
SPEAKER 02 :
You too. Thank you for listening to The Good News with Angie Austin on AM670 KLTT.
