Question: why do you keep up with Tim's writing or serve God? If the honest answer to both is predominately "to escape the end," you are just like most readers, including one named Brenda, who have a major problem. In this podcast, Brenda tells the story of how a couple of my articles on the righteousness needed to reach or fit in at Judea spun her into depression because they exposed her wrong motivation for serving God (survival, not relationship) as a liability for end time survival. As Brenda's story shows, with the end times coming and the need to be both strong and righteous to have God's help (Lk 21:36), our normal tendency to be or feel unrighteous can be exceptionally scary and depressing. Are you ready to stop hiding from God and distracting yourself and to finally face your unrighteousness head on? You can overcome it starting now with the wisdom and successful strategies found in this podcast from Brenda, Katrina and Tim.
Most readers will want to consider the issue brought up in this podcast. I cannot count how many times supportive readers have let slip that their motivation for sticking close to my ministry for years was because:
- "You'll let us know when it's time flee"
- "I'm afraid of missing the call to flee if I don't keep reading your emails."
In the last months I've started to warn readers that if this motivation happens to be the same main motivation you have for seeking God, then you probably won't make it. These were the two articles along these lines:
- How God's End Time Protection Could Also Kill You
- Ten Reasons You Will Likely Reject God's End Time Escape
If you have not read them yet, I encourage you to check them out before listening to the podcast to understand the catalyst for Brenda's described melt-down for yourself. Try to take the articles' warnings about your righteousness to heart and search out prayerfully if you are on the narrow path of salvation with God (Mt 7:14) or on the wide path with the merely religious (Mt 7:13).
Outline of topics covered:
Click to expand outline- 0:00 — Tim and Katrina open by explaining pattern they have noticed with people in fellowship feeling down on themselves and withdrawing from God and fellowship over not being "righteous enough."
- 5:26 — For your family it is different as they can ride your coattails like Noah and Lot's families did.
- 6:44 — Brenda starts her testimony of how two of Tim's recent articles rocked her self-confidence in escaping the end sending her into depression and a "pity party" ( One. Two.)
- 9:19 — Brenda realized that she was only focused on escaping the end, not in a true relationship with God.
- 10:43 — Brenda on the necessity of running to God instead of running away from Him when you feel scared of not being righteous or faithful enough.
- 13:36 — Brenda's testimony of seeing God show up powerfully when she walked back to God after being afraid. He showed up big time on the bus she drives!
- 15:39 — Brenda shares what made her shut down in her relationship with God.
- 17:53 — Brenda shares her difficult experiences of starting out with a relationship with God and also difficulties with churches and church people.
- 19:09 — Brenda shares what made her go from loving the world to wanting to love God with her whole heart.
- 20:20 — Tim shares how dangerous it is to try and escape end time events but not really want to get a closer relationship with God.
- 22:27 — Tim and Katrina share new ideas of what to do when you feel like trash spiritually.
- 24:04 — Brenda encourages you to talk to God and not run away.
- 25:09 — Tim speaks on the dangers of comparing yourself to others. We are all just children making mistakes as we are learning. It's OK.
- 27:01 — Tim shares his own testimony of how he used to be down on himself.
- 28:08 — We talk about how we actually "bully ourselves." Not cool to do!
- 30:05 — God gets offended when we bully ourselves and not forgiving ourselves. Ask God to help you see yourself as He sees you. Rebellion better defined and how to get out of rebellion.
- 32:44 — Tim shares Isaiah 41:10 God will help you. Don't get scared. He will help you overcome on His strength, not on yours alone.
- 34:47 — We overcome by the Blood of the Lamb AND the word of our testimony.
- 35:12 — Steps on how to effectively get out of being shut down or stuck. You must complete the cycle of judgment, mercy, and faith and repeat over and over.
- 39:20 — Katrina shares about how we transpose our feelings and dynamics we had/have with our family on to our relationship with God the Father, and Yeshua our Brother.
- 40:18 — We go back to elaborating on the steps to freedom- judgment, mercy, and faith. Stay out of perfectionism.
- 41:30 — God will help you the way He knows you need help, not the way you think you need help.
- 42:53 — Parable of the talents and how it applies to you in your life. Do not run away from God or be terrified of Him!
- 46:49 — Tim and Katrina clarify that fellowship or church is not required to grow spiritually, but running away from it or from God because of feeling ashamed is the problem.
- 49:00 — Katrina explains how "we sew fig leaves together" like Adam and Eve did when they sinned and were scared of God
- 52:00 — Tim offers an analogy of how it would not work to handle engine warning lights in your car the way people handle bad feelings about themselves, which are also warnings of something wrong to get help with not run away from
- 53:40 — Tim shares on setting our self-expectations properly low. To help he offers another analogy of how our lowly life with embarrassments today preparing us for glorification in the kingdom is like the butterfly's first stage of life.
- 57:00 — Katrina wraps up by including the Bible citations she missed earlier and reviews the action steps to get out of your self-critical funk/pity party.
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Tim McHyde
Tim is the author of this site (since 1999) and the book Know the Future that explains Revelation literally at last--including the key event of Wormwood (Rev 6-8). To read more from Tim and not miss a single new article, sign up for his free newsletter above.
14comments
What a wonderful cleansing hour. Brenda, you are awesome. Tim & Katrina, your comments (especially at the end pulling it all together) are wonderful. Thank you all.
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Tim would not Islam be the great persecutor of Christians in the great tribulation is the false Messiah a Muslim? How has this religion rapidly grown in the world? as such a great religion would not have a final role in the prophecies, since they hate Christians so much?
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Thank you Brenda for sharing so openly. I went through the same thing recently. I would pray to walk in Christ’s love and then fail so miserably. I couldn’t even go an hour without judgemental thoughts or falling into self centeredness. I felt worthless like a piece of dirt. I was convinced I’d be one that Jesus would say Depart from me. I was terrified. Not of missing out on the escape but missing salvation. Then one day last week I was praying, crying, be pleading with Jesus. I was in soul wrenching repentance like the man in the temple…have mercy on me a sinner. After a few minutes I felt God’s presence and His overwhelming love for me and I heard ” you are worthy because I am worthy and you belong to me and I belong to God.”. It was so powerful. For the first time I truly understood grace. I also realized that when I talk down to myself and believe the lie that I’m worthless and will never be ready for the end what I’m really saying is that Christ died for nothing and His sacrifice was worthless.
I have found that since this breakthrough that I am more God conscience because I am no longer hiding from God. I’m also not watching and waiting to pounce on myself when I mess up. I can repent and move on, hopefully learning from my mistake.
Listening to your podcasts and reading your articles have given me an entirely new relationship with Christ which in turn has allowed me to see God as my ABBA. Also Ted Dekkers book The Forgotten Way also changed me. He starts off by showing God as a loving father. Then he turns to what walking out the commandment to love your neighbor as yourself just as y’all are teaching.
Thank you so much for what you do.
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I remember when I was 15 years old I read a book called “The Cross and the Switchblade” about what it would be like during the tribulation. I cried for hours after reading it because it broke my heart to think that even one soul would be lost. I also remember asking God to let me be there at the end times to fight on His side. Instead of getting a definite yes or no I felt that I was being told that everything would be alright. Now that I’m almost 70 and in poor health I realize that I may not survive until Jesus’ return. Not surviving doesn’t scare me half as much as having to suffer in the meantime.
I think when I was younger and in good health my reason for wanting to be a part of God’s kingdom was to work in harmony with others in a world filled with God’s love. Now that I’m older and in poor health my reasons have become more selfish — to have a “new” body without pain.
My life has been anything but a stellar example of good faith. There have also been fleeting moments when I felt like I was one with God. The love and joy is beyond description. Once you’ve felt it you don’t want anything else, but I think being “human” has prevailed most of my life. There are things I find hard to admit to myself, let alone ask for God’s forgiveness. I think I’ve been on the wide path most of my life. It seems almost hypocritical to think that God will forgive me now that my life is almost finished. For now I’m just taking it one day at a time.
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Dear Paulette,
I feel that you are such a lovely person who is SO special to God! You have been through a lot in your life and now long to have a new body, a body without pain; which you definitely will have during the millennium! Take courage knowing that there is nothing He would not forgive you, and each tear from your eyes he has caught in a bottle, keeping it safe in heaven…
Read Phil. 4:7 to 8 and repeat it to yourself often… it has helped me so much!
I feel love for your dear sister in Christ; I will pray for you; please do the same for me?
Love, Linda NZ
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Well thank you for wishing me a fatter more caterpillar existence. It is so liberating to be able to tell God I don’t want to talk to him, I’m down about so and so and how quickly he responds. To go from days of ignoring in shame to within moments being administered. Oh, the joy! Just because he allows me to acknowledge my guilt and give it to him, immediately – even when I don’t want to. My literal frequent prayer is, Father,I don’t want to talk to you about that, thank you. It’s almost laughable. It’s thrilling. He comes through every time. I’m so grateful.
Reply Brenda,
Thanks so much for sharing so openly what you have been through; I think you have spoken on my (and others!?) behalf too …. not all have the strength and the honesty to openly acknowledge their feelings of despair, of not being good enough, etc.
You are right, we should all follow Tim and Katrina’s ministry to us; the more I learn the more I am convinced that they are and will be very special instruments in God’s end-time plans.
I have been present at the last 3 or 4 fellowships; hope to meet you there eventually!
God’s blessings and love in Christ
Linda, NZ
Linda,
God convicted me and made clear I needed to talk about this. I can’t say no to God. At least not for long! 🙂 Believe me, it was only by His strength that I was able to share my testimony. And I’ve always been brutally honest with myself about my shortcomings. God knows them all and everyone else will know them all eventually too, so if it will help someone else in their journey, I will share joyfully! Ok, so there might have been a few tears the first time I shared. 🙂 I agree that Tim and Katrina are very special and we are fortunate, and should thank God everyday, that He lead us to them.
As for your feelings of inadequacy, take it to God, be honest with Him. Share your feelings and concerns in the fellowship group if you’re able. Ask God to search your heart in order to find the “Why”. Why do you have these feelings. What is it about Linda that she doesn’t feel good enough? (Katrina taught me that one! Thanks Katrina!) Trust me! If you ask with an open and honest heart, He WILL show you and work with you to resolve whatever the issue is.
May God bless you with His healing love and peace!
Brenda
Reply Thank you dear Brenda! Yes, now that you mention that strategy about asking God to search our hearts to show us exactly what is the “WHY” all about …. Katrina taught it to me as well years ago. And I am glad you bring it up again as I have forgotten to do it! And may God bless your honesty and great sharing too!
Love and prayers, Linda
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Yes the podcast did bless me and made it all the more clear that by working on the core issues that really interest Father like cutting out the verbal abuse, complaining and criticizing I have finally made some progress with the same issues Robert mentions like now He is helping me more with some frustrating but secondary issues after obeying on the primary ones first! Praise the power of His Word spoken out of the mouths of babes!
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Thank-You Brenda for sharing and Thank you Tim for writing your two articles. One of the Ten Reasons that you wrote about hit home with me and actually surprised me. It scared me and surprised me and convicted me that I needed to take it to my Father and talk to him about it. I decided that I wanted to reread the entire Bible again starting from the beginning and ask God to show me his heart so I could understand him better. What I struggled with was that ever since my mom read me the story of Uzzah when I was a little girl who was struck down by God for keeping the Ark from falling. I have had a part of me that was afraid of God and was angry. I did not understand how Jesus of the New Testament and the God of the Old Testament were the same and unchanging. Also, in the New Testament it said that the people were “afraid to join them” meaning Peter and others, although they respected them. It made me feel that everyone was unworthy and were afraid to be struck down. After I read Tim’s article I went through a good two weeks struggle. I could share a lot more but God brought me through and is still teaching me through this experience. I needed to know what was there in my heart and to be honest with God about it.
Julie from California
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Brenda – Thank you for sharing your story. I can relate so well…it could be my story. It seems like I’m always taking 2 steps forward and 3 steps back (falling into my old addictive habits.) However I continue to learn and be inspired through Tim and Katrina’s teaching and this podcast was so encouraging. I’ve heard many sermons on the parable of the talents and yet never had it explained with such clarity. I’ve struggled with feelings of inadequacy and isolating much of my Christian life but I’m finally beginning to see myself through God’s eyes and not worry so much about other people.
Bob in Colorado
Bob, I’m so glad God was able to encourage you through my testimony. Tim and Katrina have been such a blessing to me, as well. You might also find encouragement through Katrina’s YouTube vlogs. If you’re not already watching them look up Tim McHyde on YouTube. The series is called On the Narrow Path. Katrina shares much wisdom and insight through these videos. I also have isolated myself and have feelings of inadequacy. I’ve found it helpful to use a bible app called YouVersion. It’s available for both iOS and Android phones and tablets. There are daily plans you can work on for all kinds of issues you may be struggling with, with scripture to back it up. The last bit of encouragement I’d offer is to talk to God about everything. Just have a conversation with him on a daily basis about what’s going on in your life. He’s faithful and will listen and help you. He’ll always be there for you if you just ask. One more thing…..listen closely to Tim and Katrina’s teachings and implement the advice and direction they give. God has blessed them to minister to us. May God bless you with His healing love and peace!
Brenda