 storms in life. Maybe you had a few storms this week and I know we sure did around here, but God is always with us through those storms. Welcome to hope today. I'm Tom. This is Amanda and that's Sydney and Sydney. Tell us about the storms of life today. Well, yeah, speaking of storms, did you know there's a lot of spiritual and scriptural connection between our journey of faith and nautical principles and coming up a moment on hope today, we're gonna set sail with Marv Nelson, a Pennsylvania based pastor to understand the connection between our Christian walk and nautical concepts so you can better navigate your life when you hit rough seas and get shipped wrecked or maybe you're smooth sailing in the season. No matter what it is, there's so much we can learn Amanda about this season when it comes to boats and sailing with our spiritual journey. I love the title anchored. You know, are you anchored to God? You know, I attended a women's meeting this past weekend and one of the words that we dived into was the parable of the 10 virgins and the only difference between the two, the wise and the foolish was the extra oil. And so the reality is where does this extra oil come from? How do you get it? And you can only get it by being with Jesus yourself. So we can't live on borrowed oil. You know, the foolish thought they could ask for borrowed oil. It wasn't coming their way. They had to go by their own and then Jesus said, I don't know you. Well, why didn't you know him? Because they weren't spending time with them. To me, that really ties into what we're going to talk about because it's about preparation. It's about, you know, obviously a sailor is prepared. Someone who's going to go out to the sea. They have to take everything with them when they go out there and they have to be prepared. You know, I was talking guys about the rough seas and high winds and we had some high winds in Pittsburgh this weekend. And when we drove up, everyone who drove up to the station, I wish I had a picture of it. There's a tree down. Boom. I mean, one of our big trees here fell over from the high winds and just missed the road. Actually, wasn't wasn't quite tall enough to hit the road. But that's the kind of thing we face. We face that in life, Sydney. It's a good metaphor. There are times you said it even in your intro. There's a shipwreck that happens. But God is there with us. Yeah, he's with us in the midst of it all. And you know, one thing just even when Tom was mentioned about storms that we do want to keep in prayer across the country, we know that there was like deadly tornadoes that broke out in the Midwest and the south. So definitely lifting those families up from prayer. I mean, we've been seeing extreme weather, extreme things just happening in this year in 2023. I mean, I think a lot of things are getting rocking the boat, you know, no pun intended. But I think that's what the show is going to be about today. It's just really looking at those concepts and how they apply in our Christian walk and our Christian journey. And Amanda, what you brought up about spending time in his presence with Jesus, I just want to bring this up about my weekend. I was part of a prayer retreat that like our my dear African brothers and sisters and the Lord, they held it at this hotel. And can I tell you, you know, there's something beautiful when, you know, you're around different cultures and just seeing how they worship the Lord and there's things that we can learn no matter, you know, like from everyone. And it was so powerful. Like, I mean, we spent like there was no agenda but prayer. And we were just laying on the like on the floor and this woman of God, she was she's from Canada speaks French. And so they had interpret like an interpreter. It was really powerful. We literally did repentance for an hour and just cried out to the Lord and just, you know, just went down deep. I don't think I've ever cried out that long and just it made me reflect on myself. I'm like, wow, you know, with my prayer life just being saturated in that moment. I mean, we're just praying over things with our minds. I mean, it was I can't even explain it. It was just so powerful. And that's our heart. And you know, our goal for it here on hope today is that you have a deeper encounter with Jesus that when we go off the airways that this is something that, you know, we take very seriously, Tom, because it is so important that we don't know the hour. We don't know the time when Jesus is coming. But how are we really laying down our lives and just saying, you know what, I'm going to pave away and make space for you, Jesus to come to experience you, Holy Spirit, but to do something deep in me. That's right. And that's our heart for you always in this program is that something in here will cause a spark inside that there'll be something you can grab on to. You know, maybe you need prayer today. We always have prayer partners available. That's another thing that we want to always remind you that prayer partners are there for prayer because you will go through those tough seasons. And if you're going through a tough season, why don't you get some prayer said? Yeah, we're always here for you 24 seven when it comes for prayer. You know, whether you're in a season of smooth sailing or experiencing stormy seers here on hope today, we're passionate about encouraging on your spiritual journey and joining us today to talk about how you can stay the course and batten down the hatches in your life. We have Marv Nelson. Marv is the lead pastor of Indiana Alliance Church in Pennsylvania and he's the co-author of the book, The Anchored Life, which takes an in depth look at the connection between our Christian walk and nautical concepts. Marv, we're so glad that you're joining us today. Yeah, thank you for having me. It's always a joy to talk about Jesus and how he does encourage and strengthen us in many different ways. So thank you again for having me on this wonderful show. Yeah, well, we're so glad you have you with us, Marvin. Before we dive into these nautical principles and how they connect to our Christian walk, can you tell us a little bit about yourself? You're a pastor in Indiana, Pennsylvania, and you have a connection here to Pittsburgh. So tell us a little bit about yourself and your family. Yeah, I'm a Pittsburgh boy, home and grown. My wife is also from Pittsburgh. We've been married for almost 18 years. We have three wonderful children. We're in the throes of teenager living, and, you know, we have just two kids that are in the throes of that. We have a seven year old who's in first grade. I'm in Indiana, Pennsylvania, which many people confuse with the state of Indiana, but it is in Pennsylvania only about an hour and 15 minutes away from Pittsburgh. I am a pastor, been a pastor again, like for a long time. I'm also an author. I have written several different books, but this one is definitely different than the other books I've written. So I'm excited to talk about it. Yeah, I'll go into this conversation. My first one to say, like I know my mom listening right now when you talk about teenagers, she's like, oh, let's stretch our hands forward towards Mark because it's very stormy. I don't think that's easy to live dealing with adolescence, but just thank you. We wanted to say we appreciate all that you're doing for the kingdom of God. And can you just talk to us? What inspired you to do the anchored life to dive into the connection between with boats and sailing and our Christian walk and to help Christians on their journey? Yeah, that's a, it is a funny story. I have a member at my church. His name is Tim Hibbsman. He's the co-author of the book. And one Sunday he knows I write books. He came up to me and he said, Hey, let's do this book together about nautical themes. And I said, Tim, I, I don't know much about sailing at all. And he said, that's all right. I'll teach you. We'll walk through this process. I really think that there are a ton of spiritual lessons that we can learn from nautical themes that are not just in scripture, but surrounding us that could be helpful for people to attach their spiritual life to this physical image that they can utilize. And he said, let's do it together. I prayed about it. I thought about it. And I began to look at what he had developed already. And I said, I'm in let's go ahead and get this done. It's a little bit different. I don't think I've ever seen a devotional or spiritual approach to nautical themes. But maybe that's a market that we really need to go after. And so that's what inspired the book. And I'm just passionate about the imagery that we can utilize to give spiritual growth. Yeah, I love like the imagery that is like, you know, portrayed and what you both like put forth because I think it is it does help make those connections towards our spiritual life and also with the things with the ships and boats. And I want to ask you, Marv, is just like starting off because even when I was going through, I was a little challenge. I'm like, okay, I'm studying. I don't I know what a ship looks like, but I don't know all the parts of a ship. So can you just like walk us through like breaks? Like maybe just start with this is what was the most surprising thing that God revealed through you about a ship and helped you with your spiritual walk? Yeah, I mean, you know, when you dig into scripture, you might even run into nautical themes that you didn't even know about. In the book of 1st Peter, it talks about how the Holy Spirit carried the authors of the Bible along. And that's actually a nautical theme where it is talking about the wind that fills the sails to push that boat forward. And so it gives this imagery that would have been understood in that culture that we don't necessarily understand. And so when you continue to read through scripture with the lens of nautical themes, you're surprised by how much it shows up. They were nautical people. They fished on boats. They had lakes and rivers and they utilized boats a lot in that day and age a lot more than we do. And so they would have understood what Paul was saying, where we have to kind of dig a little deeper. Like you said, Sydney. And let's like talk for a moment about the sails and the wind like of the Holy Spirit. So how do we allow the Holy Spirit to set sail in us? Can you give us some ways that we can practically do that in our lives? Yeah, a lot of the themes that we bring toward in the book is this idea of surrender. When you come to the Lord, you literally have empty hands. You have nothing to offer him because he's God and we're not. And when we come to that place where we realize that God desires to use me, God can fill me with the Holy Spirit to move along in my own life. I think it's it's all about that word surrender, just allowing ourselves to recognize that he is God and we are not and asking him to guide and direct us. I mean, Sydney, we have a God that speaks. Our God is not silent. And so if we take time to listen and we take time to hear his voice in our lives, we will be shocked and surprised at how well we can go with the guide. The Holy Spirit in our lives. The surrender aspect is so important in our daily walk. And another thing that I learned when you were talking about the hall and the connection to the soul, can you explain to our viewers, some of us who are not not a cold have no idea what a hall is and what that implication is when it comes to our soul? Yeah, when you think of the entire ship, the hall is the underneath kind of the casing the skeleton that floats on the water. And one of the things that we talk about in the book is that we have all these things that can slow us down or in nautical terms, cause drag to the boat. And we call them barnacles. And there's other things that that attach themselves to the boat that we need to allow the Holy Spirit to strip off of our lives so that when the Holy Spirit is pushing us forward, that we're not allowing sins or past unforgiveness or all kinds of different barnacles that we mentioned in the book, we need to allow the Holy Spirit to shave those off. And our hope is that this imagery will give a to your mind's eye what they really look like and how they actually affect the movement of your life. More of let me ask you about that about as I as I see that imagery of the sales and being led by the Holy Spirit is such a fantastic thing because that's how we want to live our life. But what happens if we get blown off course? Going with that nautical theme, what happens if we kind of catch the wrong wind or get into those stormy seas we get blown way off course spiritually speaking, how do we get ourselves back to where we should be? Yeah, I think generally in the book in the nautical in the nautical terms, you know, there's the wheel that that moves the rudder that goes left and right and helps you stay on course. And I found in my life that often the steering apparatus is what I take control of when I get off of course and I try to arrest control from the Lord. That's when I go off course. And so there's this sense of recognizing that I need to release all of that back to the Lord. And and honestly, we need to put our anchor in Christ, you know, where the title of the book is the anchored life. We have to anchor in Christ. And one of the things that we really try to approach in this devotional and there's also leadership principles that we can learn. We tried to not just give the what, right? It's easy to say, you need to hand over control, you need to allow the Lord to be your anchor. But how do we do that? And the book seeks to give the answer to how. And part of that is putting all of our certainty, Tom, in Jesus during COVID. I think we were exposed to a lot of things that we put our hope in. And it wasn't Jesus. And we saw depression and the loss of life at some points. And we saw this isolation, destroying us loss of money loss of job. And we began to lose who we were because we weren't anchored in the certainty of Jesus. And I hope that many who have gone off course because of those issues in their life can refocus back on Jesus and surrender to everything he has for them. You know, my everything that you're saying it's all of us can identify like we might be in the season right now or we've been through it. We're about to go in the season where we can feel like we're going off course. But I want you to like go back from it. You talked about a rudder and I know that's a really important part of the ship. Can you just talk about the rudder and how it deals with our lives and how that helps us to go back on course? Yeah, in the book of James, we see this imagery where he is talking about the tongue and James is encouraging the church to realize that what they say with their mouth reveals their heart and actually puts them on a certain course. If we are our course talking, if we are people who constantly put people down, if we're not taming our tongue and speaking the truth of the gospel with our mouths, that little small piece, it's only a small part of the body, but the rudder is small as well and just a little turn of the rudder will set the entire ship off course. It can be surprising how important the rudder is to a ship. And so he was utilizing this imagery to say, you have a tongue in your mouth that you don't think has a lot of power, but it really, really does. And so you need to surrender even the things that you say to the Lord so you can speak life over people. We look at this with our children, right? Are we speaking life over our children or are we speaking death? What words are coming out of our mouth when we talk to others? It's so vital. It is so important for us to pay attention to our own tongue. And that's what James was trying to get them to see by utilizing something they'd understand. You know, my words so true, it's like life and death is in the power of a tongue and what we say and we speak it forms and creates our worlds. And I just want to ask you know, from your own personal, you know, walk with the Lord and walk with God, can you just share like a story of where you saw that your ship was going off course and how the Holy Spirit brought you back on track? Yeah, there are a ton, you know, I think one of the things that's important as a pastor is to constantly talk about your areas of weakness where you're struggling and you need to correct your course as well. I found myself in COVID. It was a hard time for pastors. It was a hard time for educators. It was a hard time for those in the medical world. And I found myself falling into a small depression where I was just disappointed. I was frustrated. I was sad. Things weren't going the way that I hoped they would go. People were frustrated with some decisions that we as leaders were making, you know, all of those things. I don't have to rehash what they were because I'm sure you know the issues that were arising. But it was the Holy Spirit that spoke life into my heart and said, son, you're going the wrong way. It's not about your job. It's not about your status. It's not about whether people like the decisions that you're making or not. I've asked you to make certain decisions. And when I ask you to do something, I'm going to give you the ability to get through it. And so the Lord really met me in that space and I confess my own mess in that process. And I saw the Holy Spirit fill my sails again. And God is doing great things in and through our church and our church leaders. And it's just great to see that, you know, we can always surrender back to what the Lord is telling us to do to stay on track. And he really freed me from that mini-depression during COVID. Just love one God. He just like speaks those things and makes sure is that we get right back on the path that he is calling us to go and calling us to be in more. We just want you just for a moment just to take a moment and just to pray for someone who's out watching that. They do feel that they have navigated down the wrong road or feel like they're, you know, going through a stormy sea. Can you just take a moment and to pray for them? Yeah, Heavenly Father, we thank you that you love us that you are ever-present that you are not distant. And so I pray, Father, that those who are struggling through stormy seas, through the small depressions, through addictions, whatever that is coming against their boat in their life, I pray Holy Spirit of the living God that you will be ever-present with them. That right now, even as they are watching the show, that they will feel your presence surrounding them, that they will fall back into your arms, recognizing that when it comes to the ocean, there's nothing that they can do except lean into you. When Jesus was sleeping in the boat, they asked him to come up and he calmed the storm. Father, you're not shocked by storms. They don't surprise you. But for us, we need your presence and we need to surrender to you to give us the ability to get through those storms in life and to break the chains and the bondage of sin and the bondage of addiction. Only you can do that. And we ask for those watching today that are struggling in those ways that you will meet them and bring healing and bring your love and presence right now in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. And if you just said, like, if that really hit your spirit, we just want to encourage you to give us a call at our prayer line at 888-665-4483. Pastor Mark, thank you so much for just what you share and the wisdom that you poured out. The book is called The Anchored Life. Thank you so much for joining us today. Yeah, thank you so much for having me. It's a pleasure to be with you and a pleasure to talk about Jesus. Yeah, it's always a pleasure to talk about Jesus and we're going to talk more about Jesus and how our ships can float with him through the Word of God and encouraging message right after this. We'll be right back. Cornerstone Television has believed in the power of prayer. It sits in inception 44 years ago. We invest heavily in our prayer line to provide you with 24-7 personal prayer knowing it brings breakthrough, healing, and wisdom. Last year alone, we received over 65,000 prayer calls and if you had partnered with us, thank you so very much. And when you give this month, I am so excited to share with you my new book, Praying on Another Level. It's a 30-day journal to take your prayer life to a new dimension in God. You see prayer for us how we separate good ideas from God ideas. It's how we unlock the door to revelation and it's where we get our strength to build up our spirit man to hear from God throughout our day. All that and so much more. So call us now at 888-665-4483 or give at ctbn.org forward slash donate to request your copy. It is time to take your prayer life to another level. Wow, this has been just such a rich program. I loved even Pastor Jay's spot there. You know, taking prayer at another level. I encourage you if you don't have that devotion to invest in that. But you know, just talking about the seas and these ships, I'm like, and I know that Pastor Marv talked about that rudder and I'm like, oh, I get to read the scripture today because God wants me to talk about this. All right, let's go to James chapter three versus four and the beginning of five. It says, or take ships as an example. Although they are so large and are driven by strong winds, they are steered by a very small rudder whenever the pilot want wherever the pilot wants to go. Likewise, the tongue is a small part of the body but it makes great both. Wow. So this whole thing with the tongue is so important and literally just as he had spoken of life or death. You know, I'm one. I am generally an encourager but sometimes when you're squeezed and you're in the comfort of your own home, I'm like the tongue has been wild and so it's something that daily I have to make sure I'm thinking before I'm talking. And you know, when our guards down toward the people we most love and I just, I think of our children like the next generation and how important it is. I know that I want things done around the house when they were younger and so that's mainly what they were hearing from mom. You know, and God had to help me use my language differently to make sure that we're edifying and my own husband and I think it's so important for each of us to realize and when you think about wherever the pilot wants to go that rudder is going to steer. Do you know if you're one degree off and you have a destination, you're going to be hundreds of miles from where you wanted to be if you don't realign that. So today, I encourage you to realign that rudder, get that tongue in line with the word of God and empower the people that are around you with God's word. Look at you with the nautical knowledge there about being hundreds of miles off and one degree. But you know, I think that it's so true that we, you know, if you read the context here, the tongue setting the whole countryside on fire. You know, we have the ability and Amanda, you certainly are an encourager and we have the ability to encourage with our words. Okay. And we have the ability to destroy with our words to tear down to set things on fire. We have the ability to make peace with our words or we have the ability to accelerate a fire in our relationships with our words and to destroy things with our words. So what has God given us this for? It's to bless God, to bless our brothers and sisters, to share the gospel, to share love, but we can use it to bring out selfishness. It's amazing how much and you hear the analogy, there's strong winds moving this huge ship. This one little thing can wreck it all by going the wrong way. And guess what? We have a choice to enter into a wrong way direction or to enter in with blessing. You know, Amanda, what you're saying about that's just like when you said realign your rudder was just really convicting it. I feel like that's a word for today is that we need to realign our rudder personally and as the body of Christ. I mean, I think of so many things as like we are called as the Ecclesia. We are called as the body of Christ. What things have we spoken and we have allowed to permeate in our culture and to allow and that's why the state of our country looks the way that it is. And I think we have to take ownership. We have to take responsibility and we need to repent for the things that come out of our mouths. That's like one thing this weekend like I just had to like take time and just cleanse myself out. I'm like, what has come out of my mouth that it's filled and that is yucky and that is junk. All of us have fallen short. And so today we just want to like it's a course correction for the body of Christ. It's a course correction for you and me that this is a moment that thank God he gives us new mercies every day. Thank God that we were able to wake up and that we get a chance to do this again to just say Jesus forgive me for the ways that I have fallen short. Forgive me for the ways that I have talked, spoke ill of my brother, my sister, my husband, my wife, my children, whatever it may be that this is a day that we can again just come and just ask Jesus for forgiveness and just realize just clean up my mouth, clean up the yuck and let good things come forth out of it that are love and that are truth because this is serious y'all with our mouths. God really wants us to take a look at ourselves. We've so often I feel like we point at the world and be like, look what the world is doing. No, look what we're doing and look what we have spoken into existence and it's allowing to take place. So I think this is a day as it's holy week as Passover is coming on Wednesday that we need to take a moment to get before our Father and just sit and ask Him to convict us to show us where we've done wrong, show us where we've gone off course and ask the Holy Spirit can you blow me back to where you're calling me to be? Can you blow me back? Blow back my mouth everything to redirect it so I can set sail and be what you call me to be not just not for me but so I can go out and be love and light and share the truth with other people. So important. You know, I just keep seeing there's people in our life and when you speak life to them you might even feel frustrated. You might not even think God I can't even do this but yes, he will fill your mouth with his words but when you speak and declare those words of God over them children that we're serving in the key sport when we have that moment and we are speaking to them about who they are. You know, many times people don't know who they are. They're biding for attention from anyone that will see them. Do you see me? I encourage you to see the people around you and to use those words their powerful words to speak life into them so that way they can continue on a better path than they were the day before. That's right. And to bring all these nautical things together and I've really enjoyed this show and these analogies Pastor talked about barnacles. He talked about things that slow us down. Things that are clean to us. Things that are get on the side of the ship. The shipping industry spends millions of dollars cleaning these off of ships because they slow the ship down. What is slowing you down today? What thing has attached itself to you? Maybe it's complacency. Maybe it's an addiction. Maybe it's a sin. Maybe it's a bad relationship. What thing is there? You need to clean that off. You need to go to the Lord and say, God, I want to have a fresh clean haul that I can go right through the water where you're sending me. God's got that for you today. Go to Him and He'll bring healing. He'll bring change and He'll set you on the course for your life. It is going to reach the place that you are meant to be. Have a great day. Tomorrow on Hope Today impacting the globe through sports, medical care and humanitarian aid. Go Global Ministries founder and President Jeff Siegel shares his story of how he came to faith in Jesus and how his ministry is sharing the gospel. That's tomorrow on Hope Today. Cornerstone Television wishes to thank all our faithful viewers whose consistent prayers and financial support have made this program possible.