Introduction (00:00)
Hi. I’m Kayla Wilder, and you’re listening to Love, Faith & the Miles in Between. This podcast is about the amazing ways that God shapes us and the exciting moments on the journey. If your heart is ready for renewal and discovery, this space is for you.
Hi! Hello! Welcome in! Uh, welcome to Episode 4. Um, I’m excited. I’m excited about this one.
I wanted to talk a little bit about what it means to have a heart like Jesus, but not necessarily in the way that we think that we’re supposed to get it, if that makes sense. Like not not going out and doing all of the things that the Bible says that we’re supposed to do, which we are supposed to do, not saying don’t.
Um, this episode is more about the things that God has shown me that just happened because that was how He formed things. And the way that it makes us more like Christ as we just live through our our daily lives. So yeah, let’s, let’s jump into it.
What it Means (1:18)
There was a part of me where when I prayed to have a heart like Jesus, I didn’t realize at the time, but it meant that when we ask God for that, He actually has us live like Christ to become like Him. And what do we know about Jesus’s life? Right?
He was born in Bethlehem. He and His family lived down in Egypt for a while. He, they came back to Israel and He grew up in a family with brothers and sisters. He became a carpenter. And then He started His ministry, right? Which included Him traveling around, um, going from, you know, house to house, living in the wilderness and preaching to the masses that the Kingdom of Heaven was at hand.
So I think for a lot of us, like we say, we want to have a heart like Christ, and I don’t think any of us ever really know what, what that actually entails, like what that process looks like. Um, and when we finally figure it out, it’s so different between everybody.
So whatever your process was, however God got you from where you were to where you are now, please let me know in the comments. Or if you want to share your testimony, then email us at info@amourabroad.com. Um, let me, let me know. Let us know how how you came to be this way. Um, I think it’s I think it’s important that we share as much wisdom as we can and, uh, let people know how fun it is because that was what I found.
I found that becoming like Jesus is a lot of fun! For me, the biggest thing was traveling. So Jesus, right? He lived in Egypt as He was a boy, and He traveled with the disciples throughout His ministry. Right? And so the way that I learned to see it was that people have so many ways to love and so many ways to live. And part of Jesus’s travel demonstrates that it’s a good thing to go out there and to see it.
His time with the Samaritans was a big deal, right? Because Samaritans and Jews didn’t get along at the time. His time with Gentiles was a huge deal. It’s like taking yourself out of your bubble, which, you know, we all we all know pretty much. But taking yourself out of your bubble and putting yourself in a situation, in an environment in a country or a town where they live differently from what you’re used to.
It’s not just it’s not just for you to go out there and tell people about the Kingdom of God. It’s for you to show them through your actions and also to receive what they know about the Kingdom from their actions, which is such a pleasure. It’s, it’s such a great thing. Um. No, I think I’m going to sit with that for a second.
It really is a pleasure and a great thing because I wonder how many people actually like, realize it. Like how many people know, you know what I mean? Like, this is what I found while I was living in Spain. Is that like the way that United States culture, for me, how it shows up in the United States is very Ecclesiastes 9:10, which says, “Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might…” and that’s really, really our bread and butter.
That’s, that’s how we do what we do, right? We, we’re supposed to be efficient people. We’re supposed to get up and grab the day by the horns and go out there and strive and achieve and, you know, and, and do your best in everything. And I like it. It’s a good thing. It’s a, it’s a it’s a good way to live. We’re a very diligent people.
However, say you’re over in in Europe, in a Mediterranean country like Spain, over there, it’s more—and this this verse, it just came to me like a week ago. I’d never seen this one before. I started thinking about this, but it’s Proverbs 14:30, “A heart at peace gives life to the body.” And you know how it is over there in the Mediterranean, right? They have such a long span of life. Everybody’s just like, you know, they live into their old age and the generations all live in the same household together.
And they, they live, they live well, everything is “la dolce vita.” Or it’s, you know, it’s slow and you take your time with every little thing. And people put a lot of emphasis on love. And that was really one of the biggest things that I learned when you think about the Fruits of the Spirit. They show up and in different ways.
The Spanish way is, you know, siestas and the deadlines aren’t strict. You know, if you see a family member or a friend while you’re on the way to an appointment, you stop and you have a moment to chat with them and then you go on your way. There’s, there’s not so much of a rushing thing. And it’s, it’s, it’s not just liberating as a, as a, as a culture for you to engage in, but it’s also liberating to receive as a Fruit of the Spirit, which for me was patience. But it’s also love. It’s also joy. It’s also peace. It’s, it’s all of them. So yeah.
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Uh, travel. You know what I mean? Very, very on brand for for our travel magazine. But yeah, it’s it’s people just, God has, He’s put His essence into so many little things and it takes, it takes really going in with not even with like a lack of judgment. Don’t judge lest ye be judged. But you know, if you’re from a place that’s very different, you won’t be able to help it. Right?
What I found is that even if you do feel like you, you’re not the biggest fan of it. Just giving it a try, giving, giving somebody else’s way of life a try is, is really all you need. It makes me wonder what Jesus was doing while He was living in Egypt, like how He and His family lived. I wonder like how much of the culture rubbed off on Him.
I wonder how, like the Israelites received Him and His family when they finally came home. I wonder if His habits were different. I have so many questions for Him. Um, yeah, that’s I think that’s really cool. That’s one of my favorite things.
My point. Um, my point about that was that, um, when it comes to having a heart like Jesus, it wasn’t just taking on their culture. Um, it was about like sitting in it and letting, letting a different culture wash over you. You know what I mean? Let it, let it change you, let it hone you. There’s something, there’s something about being where you are. And no matter what it does to you, just living and breathing within it and trusting. Trusting God’s plan. It creates surrender in you as well.
Time with God (10:22)
So that leads me into the other, the second thing that I noticed, which was time alone with God. So Luke 5:16 tells us that Jesus went to pray alone often. And I talked about this a little bit in the last episode. Uh, you know, solo travel, self-care, being on your own, you know, solo dates, all of that stuff. Like it’s, it’s super important and it’s super impactful.
And I know for me, it felt like iffy the first time I was like, am I, am I actually going to do this? But I quickly found out that all of the excitement is actually happening where God tells you to be. I don’t know, I feel like there’s not much more to be said about that. Like I want to talk about, I wanted to bring up like FOMO and, you know, I don’t know, like doing, you know, the, the things that are expected of you at, at this stage in your life and all of that.
But I don’t know, like it kind of feels like we can just leave it there, right? A lot of… 9 times out of no, it’s God. So it’s 10 times out of 10. Um, all of the excitement is happening where He tells you to be and it’s perfect and it’s right. There’s so much beauty that awaits in Him. That’s the key is like, God is everything. He is the Creator and everything is His design.
So it’s almost like you could it’s like, you know what I think? I think it’s like when a parent gives their kid like two options. We can either like do our chores or we can, I don’t know, do something else. And what the kid doesn’t know is that if you do the chores, then y’all are going to Six Flags afterwards or something. Um, yeah, I, I mean, I hope I don’t have kids, but I, I hope that’s about it.
That’s, that’s how I felt with God was like, “Oh, like, I don’t know if I want to go out today and be by myself like, does this look weird? Does it like, like, do I look like I don’t have any friends?” Like it’s like, it looks weird or it looked weird to me, but, um, so much, so much wisdom was waiting for me. And sometimes it’s purely just about like, not having somebody to talk to.
And so you’re alone, you’re quiet. And then all you hear is the Lord. You hear His wisdom. You feel it, uh, this Heavenly perspective, it moves with the Holy Spirit and it, it fills you up. And you have these, uh, revelations looking at just like the most, the most normal things, the flowers on, on the streets or the birds.
Oh my gosh, the birds. Let me not get into that. I, I haven’t, I have a newfound love for parakeets. I don’t think I’ll ever stop talking about them. The Lord just plopped them in front of me one day, these little green birds that basically blended in with the palm trees. And I was like, “Oh, look at them. They don’t even know how cute they are.” I don’t know, and I think that took me somewhere.
It’s just, it’s just it’s its own kind of perfect. And it gives you a different perspective of, excuse me, it gives you a different perspective. It gives you a different perspective about the world too, because Jesus tells us that this world is not it’s not really for us. You know what I mean? Like the world doesn’t really want, um, the world doesn’t have our best interests at heart, but God does.
And I don’t know, it just makes you think like, how do you not fall into the traps of the world when it seems like the world is the only thing that exists? But the answer is that if you leave it and just spend time with God. And I don’t mean that to be like, I don’t know. I don’t I don’t mean that to be like a like a metaphor.
I literally mean like putting the money down, putting the phone down, putting the, um, I don’t know, X, Y, and Z circumstance down. And, you know, you take your Bible or I don’t know, for me a lot of times I didn’t have I didn’t have my Bible, I didn’t have anything. I just went outside and that was enough.
Going out there with Him and, uh, and just being quiet in His Presence. That’s good. It makes you quiet like Jesus. I think because I think Jesus was quiet. I think He was quiet. I don’t know. That’s that’s my that’s my perspective. And definitely like slow to anger. Slow to speech. Appreciative of everything, especially your loved ones, and grateful in a new way for every day that God gives you.
Speaking of gratitude, the third thing. Right? How long have I been recording? We’ve been here for almost 20 minutes. Okay.
Humble Experiences (16:13)
Third thing, last thing. Humble experiences. So. It hasn’t been necessarily yachts and 5 star hotels. You get what I’m saying? Like the travel has not been super luxurious as of late, like here and there. But for the most part, it’s been affordable experiences.
It’s been Airbnb’s, you know, things that things that don’t break the bank. What I’ve found is that. First, that intimate settings make for better memories. It makes for feeling closer and more connected to people because that’s what Jesus did, right? He. And this is the thing that, like, the more that I think about it, the more it blows my mind when I think about His love.
We’re talking about we’re talking about someone who could multiply loaves and fish from enough to feed like maybe 2 or 3 people to feeding thousands. If Jesus wanted to, like, snap His fingers and make a bunch of money appear out of thin air, He could have done it. Like I, I know we, I know we talk about this just like, you know, here and there, but like, when you really sit and think about it, when you really sit and like stare at your bank account and think like Jesus could put like 3 extra commas in here… or 5.
When I think about it like that, when when I think about it like that, it just makes it more amazing to me that that His, His desire was to love us and to be connected to us. And that’s why He went from house to house.
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And I felt that I felt that I felt that while I was living in an Airbnb or staying in Airbnb’s, I felt that while I was staying in these in these smaller accommodations, it was like, you know, I, it was like I felt more present with people versus when I think about like, I don’t know, the last time that I had stayed at a, at a nice hotel, right?
You get to, you get to be there with the people. The, the person who’s working at the front desk isn’t just a person. They’re somebody who lives there in the place that you’re visiting and they have a they have a story. They have there’s purpose in the work that they do, and you get to make a connection with them. It’s, it, it gives you a, an anchor to the place that you’ve been in.
And it’s the same for the other people who are visiting, especially if the people that you’ve met are from your home country. Even if you’re over, even if your overlap is literally like 6 hours, just that little piece of home and that feeling. That feeling of connection is it’s stabilizing. It’s stabilizing in the most like solid. It’s, it’s, it’s stabilizing. And you feel it right in your heart.
And the other thing is that, you know, where you’re at now, what you have access to is perfect, right? You don’t need all the extra flashy stuff. You don’t need like, you know, you don’t need I don’t know, I don’t know, I wouldn’t know what. You don’t need all of the extra stuff. You have what God has set before you. This thing that He says is good. It’s perfect.
And you get to, like, sit there in that and and ask Him how, “How God is this thing perfect? How God is this thing right for me? How how does this work? What is it in my heart that needs this kind of experience?” And He shows you. There’s no there’s no disappointment with Him. You see the way that He loves us fully and truly.
Heart Talk (21:07)
What am I thinking? Romans 12:2, “Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—His good, pleasing, and perfect will.”
Because it’s it’s reasonable to wonder, like what was so good and pleasing and perfect about Jesus’s situation. Like what? What did He have going on there that filled Him up and fed Him the way that it did? It’s just a little bit of curiosity, you ask, and God shows you and and new life becomes.
“I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” John 14:6. To have a heart like Jesus, we have to be like Jesus, not just in our actions, but in our lifestyle, the way that we live, the way that we spend each day. And it isn’t up to us to make life like Jesus any more than it was up to Jesus. It’s God’s will. It’s God’s will. It’s His hand.
So when we follow His hand and we accept the circumstances that He blesses us with, we just grow in Him. He’s humble. He doesn’t have great requirements of us. All we have to do is love Him and trust Him, and that’s all He needs to deliver us the love, the joy, and the peace that we desire.
So that’s what I wanted to talk about for this episode. Thank you for joining.
And yeah, like I said at the beginning, tell us about what your tell us about your journey. Tell us about what you’ve experienced. Um, if things you, if you were expecting for life to go one way and if it took a little bit of a turn or if it went more or less as expected with like, I don’t know, little side quests here and there that like makes it crazy, whatever it is.
Like, however, Jesus has shown you who He is and, and made you more like Him, please share your testimony with us. Um, it’s, it’s exciting. And we need to, we need to tell people, you know, the world needs to know. You can email us at info@amourabroad.com.
Prayer (24:14)
And yeah, wherever you are, unless you’re driving, go ahead and bow your head, close your eyes, and we will end this episode with a prayer. God, thank You for guiding us. Thank You for sending Jesus, our Wonderful Counselor, to show us the way.
Give us the courage to follow grace, to listen and eyes to see the beauty of your wisdom everywhere we go. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
Outro (24:44)
Thank you for joining me on this episode of Love, Faith & the Miles in Between. If you enjoyed today’s topic, please share it with a friend, and remember to subscribe to the newsletter for more travel, faith, and love stories.
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