 because there is so much good stuff packed into today's 30 minutes so we're so glad that you're with us. I'm Anna and I'm here with Sydney and Tom. We've got big announcements. We've got a great guest. So Tom, tell us about our guest. It is a jam-packed show, isn't it? I can't wait for some of the things coming up. Well, one of the things coming up, Noah Herron will be with us. Now, look, we all make New Year's resolutions in about a month, right? We're going to make these resolutions. We're going to, you know, pray seven hours a day, read a Bible 10 hours a day. Well, you know what? That's probably not going to happen, but we can have Holy Habits right now. He's going to talk to us about Holy Habits and he's going to share some of the 10 Holy Habits with us to show how to make a huge impact on our spiritual lives not in a month, but right today. You can start today. I love this guys. This is, I love foundations. I love things that we can do in just one day after another to draw closer to Jesus. It's going to be great. I love when we talk about Holy Habits because, you know, a discipline determines our destiny. And, you know, coming up later on Hope Today, you want to stick around because I have a very big announcement I'm excited to share with you. So stay tuned. You'll have to wait. That's right. There's other big announcements in the air around here, isn't there? Yes, I get to share the other big announcement and it's with so much excitement that I get to say that I got engaged over this past weekend to just a most wonderful man. Perfect for me. His name is Dennis Schmidt. So I'm going to be Anna Schmidt soon. My name is going to be changing. And yeah, he just has loved me so well, just like Jesus has called a man to love me and just excited to share some of these pictures of the beautiful proposal evening that he planned along with our two kids. And hopefully you saw the picture of our kids with us and they were just an integral part for the past couple of months of helping to bring it alive with all the decorating and getting the lights and finding the gazebo. And it was so magical, like right out of a homework movie and to have our kids with us meant everything. Yeah, let's see the rock. I know it's so, it's so pretty. Super happy. Super happy. So it's like, I know we're just so excited. Like, just with Anna, just like, I'm so, so happy because knowing her story journey, Dennis, we love you. Super excited. I got, got yesterday when we were actually at light, light of life, like having the world vision at light of life, like packing boxes and she sent the text and I was like with like our supervisor, I was like showing people and there's other people to know you. I was like super super, super happy. Yes, I have to get to share our story on the show sometime because it truly just speaks to God, his redemption, his bringing beauty from ashes or like, look at what the Lord has done. So Dennis, love you so excited to be Anna Schmidt. And we are excited for you. We are thrilled for you. That's wonderful, Anna. Well, hey, as Christians, we know one of the many things we strive for as a close personal relationship with God. That's what we all want, right? And in order to grow in our faith, something we can always do is improve our daily habits. You may not think about that, but Noah Heron, he's a pastor and he's an author. He's going to share his new book called Holy Habits, 10 Small Decisions That Lead to a Big Life. He joins us now to share how these 10 small choices can lead to very big changes. Noah, welcome to Hope today. Hey, so honored to be with you guys, Tom, Anna, Sidney and congratulations, Anna. So pumped for you. Thank you. Well, let me ask you about these habits. How can like these small habits, what can it really do to provide a spark to our spiritual life? Yeah, I think everybody is born looking kind of like your parents, but I think everybody dies looking kind of like your habits. And so the way you spend your time matters. And if we could create habits that make us more in the image of Jesus, I think that that's huge. And that's all of what we're called the duty of others in Jesus. Yeah, you know, it's some of these things are so simple. We're going to dive into a few of them in just a minute here. But let me ask you, you had an illustration I thought was really good. Your dad was a scuba diver and you have, I've never done that myself. I've snorkeled, not scuba diving, but tell me about the analogy of descending as a scuba diver. Yeah, so one of the things that I learned from my dad is that you can't just dive to the bottom of the ocean. If I had gone scuba diving, I would have just assumed, let's go straight to the bottom. But he explained to me that the pressure would actually be too much for a human being if you were to go too quickly, too fast down. And so you have to go just kind of little by little and adjust to the level that you're at in order to get to the bottom. It's a slow process. And I know for me, following Jesus in the beginning was a very frustrating process because I had all of these bad habits that I couldn't get out of my life. And I spent my head up against a wall. And I think for a lot of people, they feel and sense that same frustration when they don't see immediate change in their life as they follow Jesus. And so I started with that encouragement to just say, hey, these habits, they may take you a little bit of time. It may take some consistent and intentional diving into the depths of your relationship with Jesus. But over time, you're going to look up and you're going to realize you're a long way from the surface and where you started. And so it's worth the journey. Well, let me ask you, if someone's watching and they say, hey, I want to know Jesus better, I want to have holy habits, where would you tell them to start? My favorite place to start is with what I call in the book, the one minute prayer. And basically it's this habit that I formed because I was terrified of the verse that says, pray without ceasing. That verse was the scariest verse in the Bible to me. I remember one time I tried to pray without ceasing and I started my stopwatch to see how long I could pray for it. And after I called down heaven in my living room, as long as I could, I looked at that stopwatch and it was 92 seconds later. And so I was struggling to develop a prayer life. And so I just tried to sing where I decided, okay, instead of trying to pray for an hour straight, I'm just going to take 60 seconds after every single thing that I have today and just talk to God for 60 seconds. And so this morning when I woke up, I went and got ready. And then before I walked out of my hotel room, I just took 60 seconds and said, God, I hope that you'll just be with us this morning in this interview with Tom and Anna and Sydney. I pray you to bless our words. Just be with us today. Thank you so much for allowing me this opportunity. And then went for it. And when I get off this call, before I go to the next thing that I got today, I'm just going to take 60 seconds and talk to the Lord. And that habit, it seems so insignificant, but it has absolutely changed the way that I interact with God. I went from praying when I could think about it to just throughout the day, including God, and what is happening in my day. I'd say it's the easiest to implement and I think anybody could do it. Yeah, I love that. I love that. I mean, that's really praying without ceasing, right? All day long, you're just going before the Lord. So, you know, let's talk about another, we're going to talk about some in just a minute about interactions with other people. But let's talk again about just our time with the Lord. Tell me about the most basic thing we always say, reading the Bible. Can you just comment on that habit? How can we develop a strong habit there? Yeah, man, Bible reading has been such a game changer in my life with Jesus. I get to work with a lot of young people. Our church is 10 weeks old and we have a lot of college students who come to our church. And anytime somebody says, I just haven't heard from the Lord. The first thing that I do is I just say, well, are you reading your Bible? Because that is the Word of the Lord. And so when we read the Bible, we're hearing from the Lord. I'm a firm believer that an encounter with Jesus will set you free, but your habits with Jesus are what keep you free. And I don't know that there is a habit that keeps you more free than being in the true Word of God. And so I think that's another habit that sometimes can be a little daunting. I would encourage anybody who is watching us today. If you're not in the habit of regularly reading your Bible, I think a great place to start is the book of John and the book of Proverbs. I think if you just read one chapter a day out of those two books, you would be on your way. And I think you'd really fall in love with God's Word. But it's been a game changer in my life. No, another one of the habits that you talk about that I absolutely love and believe in is the habit of rest. And you are in such a busy season of life with planting a church, two little kids. We live in such a rush culture. So how do you encourage someone to rest? Yeah, well, my wife and I's favorite habit is the habit of Sabbath, which is a weekly rhythm in our life. And it's basically a 24 hour period where we do nothing that does not fit under the category of either rest or worship or pleasure. And so this is the day that we cleared the calendars. There's no work. It's just how can we make today the best day ever? That's our phrase. It's going to be the best day ever. And so this normally happens on Fridays for us. And we just fill it with all of the things that we love. Normally, we wake up, we drink a good cup of pour over coffee, we spend time in the word, we get our kids up, we go for a family walk. This is when we eat sushi and we eat good food. This is when we have date night. We often get a babysitter on Friday nights and we go out on a date and just get to enjoy each other's company. The goal of a Sabbath is that it refreshes your soul. I think some people approach Sabbath the wrong way. They think this is something that I have to do and it feels like some sort of requirement. But the Bible is pretty clear that God did not make the Sabbath for him. He made it for us. He made it as a boost in our walk with the Lord. It's supposed to be something we look forward to. And I'm just going to tell you right now, I look forward to our Sabbath. It has been such a breath of fresh air in my life. Now, I'm like such a proponent of taking a rest in Sabbath as well because it really does change your daily life. And I know Tom wants to get more into more holy habits, but just curious a little bit about your story. You know, just talking about, you talked a little bit earlier about, you know, just the importance of developing these habits so you stay free. So can you tell us a little bit about maybe some of the bondages, maybe some of the things that you walk through to make you, you know, realize I have to have a more disciplined life so I can see Jesus just manifested. And so I can love others well and share the light of Jesus. Absolutely. So I actually gave my life to Jesus when I was 21. I was in college and I was really struggling with a few different addictions in my life at that time. And just was feeling broken and just worn down, a lot of shame. And I found Jesus through a YouTube video actually that someone sent me a sermon on YouTube. So I'm a big fan of media. And I was so excited and believing that man, this man in Jesus is going to change my life. He's going to provide freedom in these areas that I don't have freedom in. And he did for about three days. And then I went right back to the alcohol and I went right back to the other stuff that I was struggling with. And it was a really, really exhausting for six months following Jesus, where I would feel close to God on the days that I didn't fall. And I would feel far from God on the days that I did fall. And I remember about six months into the journey, having this really real moment with God, where I just said, okay, God, either you're not real or I'm not doing this right. And it caused me to go all in and to read my Bible and to try to figure out like what am I missing on this journey with Jesus. And my big takeaway was that if you have an encounter with Jesus, but it doesn't change how you spend time with Jesus, it doesn't change your calendar. It doesn't change your rhythms. You're kind of hoping to grow in the direction of Jesus with the blindfold on. I like to use the illustration that if you try to have a relationship with no effort, it's not going to end as a really good relationship. I remember when my wife and I first got married, I did not help her a lot around the house. And we got into a big argument because she said I never folded clothes. And so one day she was at work. I folded every piece of clothes in our bedroom, even the stuff that was already folded and clean. I just put it out on the bed and folded it. And she came home from work that day more happy with me than I had ever seen her in my life. She started trying to kiss me. I was like, what do you need vacuum? I was like, you want me to vacuum something? I can do this all day. But what I learned in that moment is that relationships require effort if you want them to get better. And so these habits, there's no power in the habit themselves. The power comes from being in the presence of God. It comes from who you're meeting with through the habit. But man, I've just found when you put a little effort into your relationship with God, God puts a ton of life into your soul. And I'm just, I'm so thankful that my relationship with him has grown these last eight years. No, I can't believe you didn't fold the clothes ever, you sinner. Every man who's listening to us right now is like, oh, I've committed that sin. Certainly at every wife is like shaking their head. Yes, but you know, I do want to talk and I don't know if we're going to have a chance to talk about community and the importance of a church because I want to also talk about you have one habit is to celebrate everything. And you say your wife is especially good at this. You call it throwing confetti. She can throw confetti in any situation. So positive for us. Could you just explain that? Yeah, so celebrating confetti is my life coins. Just to say, let's practice gratitude. Let's be grateful. Let's look at things from the glass half full perspective. And so we just want to be really good at celebrating things that maybe we would normally overlook. And what we found is that the more we celebrate, the more we actually see good. And the more we celebrate, the more other people want to seek it. We've all been in places before. Maybe we've been those people before that are more on the negative side and, you know, seeing the things that are going wrong. That doesn't inspire people towards Jesus. It doesn't inspire us to have a good day or to be moved more towards Jesus. But whenever I'm around somebody who is full of life and excited and grateful for the little things, it just makes me happier. It makes me more full of joy. And so God's been so good to us. And we just want to acknowledge all the things that he has done in our lives because he's worthy of that of that gratitude. Absolutely. Well, let's let's close on the whole idea of church. We know it's so important. In fact, maybe I'll use the term community, spiritual community, flesh and blood community. If someone's out there and they're trying to pick out a church, how do you do that? You have a few tips and principles related to that. Totally. I think the first thing is, do they preach the Bible? That's a non-negotiable. Do they preach scripture? Is their talk rooted in the Bible or is it rooted in something else? I would start there. I think is it a community that you want to be a part of? If you're not excited to be with the people, you're probably not going to go. And so that's a really practical one. Do you like the people that you're with on a Sunday morning? I think a big one is, is there a mission to be a part of? Is it a church that faces outwardly or is everything that's happening there kind of face inwardly? I know I want to be a part of something that makes an impact. And so I want to be a part of a church that makes an impact too. I think those three things, a focus on Jesus and His Word, a focus on community and a focus on mission, that checks all three of those boxes. I would encourage you to go all in, serve, be deeply a part of the community for yourself. No, I think you said so much when you said we're born looking like our parents, but we die looking like our habits. And I think that is a key thing. I can't more highly recommend a book than Holy Habits 10 Small Decisions that lead to a big life. Noah Herron, thank you so much for being with us today. Thank you guys so much. It was an honor. It's great. We're super excited, so excited to hear what Noah shared. And I was just thinking when he said about the confetti, Larry, can we throw a little confetti? We have a little confetti. Yeah, Noah, that's the confetti when you're saying that the whole time. I was like, we have to sprinkle joy, sprinkle the confetti. Well, we're just coming right up after the break. I have a big announcement. I'm super excited to share with you. So stay tuned. You don't In this month of Thanksgiving, we're excited to send you the special daily gratitude journal with your best gift. This easy to use journal will encourage you to bookend each day with short personal reflections that bring insight and intentionality to your busy and always changing life. How can six simple questions help you better navigate life's uncertainty? Bestselling author Tish Oxenwriter invites you to lean into the rhythms that each morning and evening offers with a twice daily thought exercise focusing on gratitude, truth, grace, and more. As you reflect on three key questions near the beginning and end of your day, you will be more poised and prepared for whatever God has for you in the hours between. Request your gratitude journal today when you give. Call 888-665-4483 or donate online at ctvn.org slash donate. Thank you for giving to Cornerstone Television. Well, we are so glad that you are joining us today. We had such a wonderful conversation with Noah and just also want to say a big thank you to all of you who support Cornerstone Television Network because it makes hope today possible. Well, this is the moment I've been waiting to share with you all. So I've been with hope today since the beginning and I was part of the team to launch, you know, when we had coronavirus hope for today, which eventually became the program which you are watching now hope today. It has truly been an honor and a joy to come into your living rooms every day and to shine the light of Jesus to bring you hope, wisdom, revelation, and of course, lots of laughs. And I am super excited to announce I will be an embarking on a new venture. God has opened a door for a wonderful opportunity for me to pioneer, produce and launch a new show exclusive to Cornerstone Television Network. It's called The Glory Hour with Sydney Goldman. It's going to be an inspirational podcast featuring culturally relevant conversations from a spiritual perspective. So stay tuned. More details are to come on how to watch, where to watch, when to watch, and just really appreciate prayers and all support. And I just want to announce that my last day on hope today will be December 1st. So I am pioneering, I'm doing something new, but I'm really excited and just grateful for the support of this team. And so yeah, that's my, that's my big, exciting news. I know we're super excited. It is so exciting because so I had the privilege of having an office right across the hallway from Sydney and to hear her excitement and her passion. And I have known for a long time her specific passion and interest in being culturally relevant, being with current events, coming at it from a Christian perspective, and knowing that that has incredible value for you as the viewer as part of our Cornerstone Television family. And so to see this dream of hers becoming a reality is truly Sydney, something that I celebrate for you. I'm just so super excited. Thank you. Thank you. Well, I agree 100% to know that your passion and your desire to just, you know, love people through the media of things that God has given us. You're going to do so fantastic on this, you know, we're excited for you. In fact, I just, I want to, I want to launch, I want to pray for you. Can we pray for you? Yeah, prayers are always welcome. Yeah, we're passing a holy habit here of praying right away. So Lord, we just thank you for what Sydney is being launched into. Lord, we know it is going to be impactful for your kingdom and to bring you glory. I pray Lord God that she will just receive the downloads from your spirit Lord, that she needs to touch lives out there to make a difference in the, in the homes, the churches, the people, the organizations that will listen in Father. And we pray you draw many to her podcast and touch many lives through what you are calling her to. We know it is anointed and an appointed of you. Bless the glory hour when it starts, Lord, in just a little bit here. We ask it in Jesus name. Amen. Thank you guys so much for praying. So yes, the glory hour with Sydney Goldman. It's coming soon. So we'll have more details and my last day will be next Friday. So just like real, I'm really excited, but I know I'm super excited for all that God is doing through quarter. So Intelligent Networks to stay tuned. We have super exciting things that are happening here on the network. I mean, and I mean, there's so much. This has been like big news day. It's a great that's right. I mean, God is always at work. He is in the details. He is doing something new. And I think that is an encouraging message for those of you who are watching today to where maybe you've had a dream in your heart for years and years and you, you know without a doubt that it is something that God has planted in you, but it is in his perfect time and his perfect way that he will bring it to life. And we don't want to rush God's timing. And so it's, uh, yeah, it takes us back to just that that those habits and being steady, being patient, being just hopeful and waiting on the Lord. I think the habits are so important. You don't get called into something. Well, you get called all the time and the things you're not prepared for, but you've got to have that foundation, just the foundation of relationship with God. When you have that, then you have what you need to stand firm as he takes you into new levels and new places, because it's going to be a challenge. It's going to be exciting, but it'll be a challenge. It'll be a time of prayer, a time of reaching out, whatever he brings you into. Sydney, as you go into this new thing, you're going to have challenges. You're going to be like getting ahold of God and grabbing the horns of the altar and saying, I need you, Lord. Yeah. You know, just as you were talking, Tom, what God just dropped in my spirit about the story of Abraham has just been so apropos in my life in this season is that God gave Abraham this promise, right? This impossible thing is like, okay, my wife is old and all these different things. And he went through these different challenges. And the one scripture, the one place in scripture that I've really been meditating and reading on is the place where it talks about Abraham had he had to give up the promise of his son and he had to sacrifice them. And I think a lot of times in our lives, we have these promises, we have these things we're waiting on. And then God's like, lay it all down for me. But you know, it's so beautiful that when you lay it down and you give it to God, because it wasn't for Sars anyways, that he breathes his life on it, that he resurrects it, that he makes it more powerful and beyond anything that we can ask, think or imagine. So we just want to encourage you today that maybe you're in a season where there's this promise and maybe there's been a lot of challenges and there's certain things you're like, God, I don't know how this is going to happen. But when I'm telling you when you lay it down on the altar, I'm telling you when you just give it all to God and you worship him because he is good, because he loves you. You give him all the praise, the honor and the glory. It's amazing the things that will happen. It's beautiful to see God in his, all his goodness be doing just the absolute most wonderful spectacular things that we can ask beyond what we can ask, think or imagine. And the other scripture that God has really been putting on my spirit. And I want to speak over you is that the spirit of prophecy is the testimony of Jesus, the promises that God has spoken over your life, the things that he says over you. You know what it's not about? It's not about our glory. It's not about our light. It's for Jesus. People will know Jesus through our stories. I think about Anna in which, and Dennis and what they're walking through, that's a testimony of Jesus. It's the promise that is fulfilled. So we want to encourage you with that today. Whatever the promises, whatever he's spoken over you, know that Jesus, he's writing your story. He's working in the details because he loves you. But most importantly, your story, your light is to draw others to Jesus and Christ because that's the greatest hope we have. Have a great day. On tomorrow's hope today, bringing hope and the sound of freedom to others. Acclaimed singer-songwriter Justin Gambino shares his faith journey and how he's blessing those around the globe with his hope filled anthems. Don't miss tomorrow's hope today. Cornerstone Television wishes to thank all our faithful viewers, whose consistent prayers and financial support have made this program possible.