Whatever it Takes

Taking a candid look at what can be done to avoid missing the blessing of a lifelong partner.

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SPEAKER_01 0:03

And to the stop provoking experience to explore how people view the topics of the world. We offer viewpoints and opinions all in good faith for the sake of the growth of one another. Dare to step out of the box and join me, Fleetwood, as your host, as we bend the needle to move the crowd.

SPEAKER_00 0:33

Hello, hello, hello, hello. Welcome back to another episode of Move the Crowd. So this is the fifth episode, and if you have taken part in listening and supporting the previous four episodes, thank you, thank you, thank you. We're going to entitle this one Whatever It Takes. So let's get right into it. You know, the world. The world is designed to be enjoyed by two people. Financially, biblically, actually, the world is designed. The world views most things in tubes. Most of the times when you see an annual household income, more times than not, they're talking about two incomes. When a lot of things happen biblically, you know, there's a lot of instructions in the Bible about husband and wife. I don't recall a lot of things in there about boyfriend, girlfriend, or my friend, or situationship, or I don't recall a lot of those things in the Bible. That would infer, in my opinion, that the Bible too speaks in twos. I'm not saying that everyone is required to be part of a team. However, life is designed to be enjoyed and to flourish with two people. Again, that doesn't mean that people who are in the singular don't have a life in which they enjoy, but I'm sure within that classification of single, there are then some people who would love to share their happiness or their success with someone, which lends back to what I'm saying. Life is to be enjoyed. And I don't I don't know if a lot of people understand or believe this and which I'm about to say. A husband and or a wife. Speaking two separate people, not speaking of a husband and a wife as a tandem, I'm saying of a female and a male. So a husband is always a husband, even before he's married. A wife is always a wife, even before she's married. What I mean by that is for a man or a woman to understand or to be in a receptive state of togetherness is not predicated on an engagement, a proposal, a ring, or a ceremony. A husband, more times than not, has always been a husband, and a wife, more times than not, have always been a wife. This is about a mindset of being open to join your life with someone. That means in your state of singlehood, you're working on yourself, you're staying receptive, you're doing your work, and you are open and you look for invitations to join your life with someone else. When somebody recognizes that you are the person for them, then you all in turn take the steps to become one. It's not the moment in which you are with someone and you say, Well, now I'm going to be a husband, or now I'm going to think like a wife. A lot of people may feel like that, and it's very difficult to do that. More times than not, people who already are open to join their lives, who already have kept their mind away from a singular mindset. They stay open. You say, you know, they'll say, well, hey, I just got this car, or I just got something, and I really would have or really would like to enjoy it with someone. You know, I've I've even heard of people saying, you know, I'm I'm I'm waiting patiently for my mate so that I can purchase my first home or a bigger home. You know, some people believe that major purchases are to be enjoyed with your forever. I can't argue with that, and I'm sure there are people who will go on both sides of that coin. Again, being in a mindset of togetherness, um, I hate to say submissive, but just being open to join your life with someone else where you don't have those rigid lines of protection of I'm not giving up this or I'm not giving up that, and I'm not changing, you don't have to. More times than that, you'll be alone. So, you know, so all of that, I'm just going back to my point. A husband is a husband before a proposal, and a wife is a wife before the same. The proposal is just somebody recognizing that you are someone that they would like to attempt a lifelong love with. You know, I I I just made mention of doing your work and making sure that you stay open for God to bless you. That in itself is a task. However, I feel like some of your work will require the support of your forever. I believe you get to a certain point of your work, and this is where you have to stand still. You have to trust the process that you've done your work and that what you've done and who you've become, and the things that you've learned will be recognized by a worthy mate. When that mate comes, there's another level of togetherness that the two of you will share with each other. This requires a different level of transparency, a different level of revealing yourself. You're going to be able to, you're going to have the comfort to be able to explain to them or tell them or reveal yourself to them like you've never revealed yourself to anybody else. That is where the support comes in because this person is your person. I can tell them things that I've never been able to tell anybody, which in turn frees a part of me that's never been free, which in turn creates a me that I've never known to be. That gives you a whole nother level of enjoyment and freedom and commitment to this person that you trust, and the two of you trust one another to a level that nobody else understands. It's a very freeing, freeing, freeing experience to pour into someone all of your things that you deem negative or judgmental or or you're being judged for, not your judge, but when if I tell you this, you may see me as X, Y, and Z. You have the comfort to tell this person anything, and they still see you the same way they did before you said it. That's an unmistakable, organic love that I wish and pray for everybody. Understand your assignment and the truth of what you need to be doing and what needs to be done requires you to stick to it. You have to trust your process beyond yourself and stick to it. Every time you come off of your curriculum to chase an emotion that may not be from God or part of your assignment, it's it deters you, it distracts you from your goal. And sometimes it may create a reset where now you have to go back and repair something that wasn't designed for you to be in your work. And here's the thing: look, sometimes when you do what you want to do outside of your assignment, the time it takes you, it pulls you off your course to go fix this. That may be the time your blessing is coming down your timeline. But because you're off of your timeline fixing something you weren't supposed to do, you missed your blessing. Let me say that again. Because you couldn't get out of your own way and you didn't trust what you're supposed to do and how to do it. You now have to go back in with the corrective action which takes you off of your course. This time away from your course can be when your blessing is coming through your course. What do they call that? Uh, two ships passing in the night. Man, look, the process, like any process, is very difficult to trust when you don't see anything coming from it. But God is different. He's never going to reveal himself to you until you meet what he's requiring of you. He's not going to bend to you. You have to, and you have to trust what he's saying. You have to exhibit a whole different level, amount of faith in this assignment. The the reward of your your stewardship, your your being steadfast. Your reward is him giving you something more than what you even thought you deserved. Man, look, this thing is so much bigger than what you think you know or what you can't control. God is working on so many different things in our lives, and all we have to do is just trust and do our work. It's not going to be easy. We might not like it. We don't, we're not rewarded when we think we should be rewarded. That doesn't change the fact that he's always on the throne. That's it. You have to understand that when you get to this point, you're not talking about an immediate gratification. We're talking about forever. We're talking about if I can just do my work, he will bless me possibly with forever. That's a reward in itself worth going for. Look, there's a lot of different ways that we can impede our own progress, and sometimes, in turn, we can impede other people because we get into conversations where sometimes we're giving each other bad advice. You have to learn and embrace thinking and a joint level and not a singular mindset. You have to embrace thinking we, we, when we, when we, and stop saying I, I, I. And I'm saying this because in preparation of being with someone, that's a very difficult mindset and habit to stop. When you always think about yourself, it's very difficult to stop because you only depend on yourself. Even when you're with yourself, you stay open. You can say, hey, you know, the best thing I think for for me in my future, or for the best thing for me as someone looking for something, or as someone who's remaining open, there's a lot of qualifiers you can use to offset the singular mindset. You you you receive things differently when it's when it's the thought process is to involve someone, or the thought process is to remain open enough to enjoy whatever this is with someone. It's it's like forward thinking. You know, it's one of those things that you you're gonna set your life up and your decisions based on the faith of knowing that you're gonna have someone to share these things with. You you have to believe that. And I'm not saying that you're gonna keep dragging the you're not gonna keep dragging the carrot down the track either. You're not gonna say, hey, I'm gonna get three cars because I'm gonna have somebody help me drive all three, and I'm gonna get two houses. No, I'm not saying that because that is that's not what I'm saying. You know, at some point, you have to stand still, regardless of what the spoils of yourself or what you think you can afford. You have to stand still. You have to stand still and get some work done. All your work doesn't require monetary things, a lot of it requires emotions, it requires selflessness, and it requires self-awareness, and you just have to do better. I mean, get into your community, get in the church, do some different challenges to work on your substance as a person. We are forever learning and growing. Invest in that. The outward things, you know, just like God says about fasting. He says, when you fast, the only person that needs to know you're fasting is me. When you tell people you're fasting or you look as if you're hungry, you already have your reward from man. That applies to so many other things. In the season like this, you're not looking for any kind of uh notoriety from man or any kind of empathy. All you're really concerned with is being a better person and trusting your processor forever. That's all. That's all. You cannot be the exact same person or do the exact same things single in a relationship or in a marriage. I've heard over my years, I've heard multiple people, men and women, say, I'm the same person I've always been, and I'm not going to change. Again, going back to the singular mindset versus an open mindset. There is no way that you can expect to be successful in a relationship if you are moving, thinking, and committing the exact same behaviors you did before you got somebody. That shows no respect to your relationship and it shows no respect to the person that's in a relationship with you. I've said before in another podcast, the person you're with should inspire you. If you are protecting your singular mindset and basically saying you're not going to change me, then why be in a relationship? Because you have some more work to do. I don't think anybody is going to try to come into any, I don't think anybody who thinks healthy is going to come into a relationship and try to change you. Now, there are definitely some situations where men and women both can require you to grow to get the most out of the relationship. Now, if somebody's asking you to do something and you don't feel like it's growth, then of course, then that stands reasoned. But a conversation needs to be had before you rely on your own to say, you're trying to change me. If they say something that that jogs you or makes you feel uneasy, I think that's a perfect segue for a conversation. Because perhaps what they're asking is something you've never seen. And you really don't know what they're asking or requiring. So before you rely on the same mindset that had you single, perhaps you should open your mind and open up a conversation to perhaps move into a different realm of thinking to enjoy this relationship. There's nothing hard about this. There's a lot of uncomfortability that comes with learning and embracing being with someone. It is, but it's also worth it when you do your work. You have to stop expecting. I've said it before, and this is a little different. You have to stop expecting what you've seen a marriage or a relationship to be. You we can't emulate our parents' marriage or or their relationships. I know we are absorbent as children and we're around them, so this is what we've seen to be. This is what we've seen or we know to be the precipice of a relationship. I'm saying to you that you have to know what works for you. You can't live your parents' relationship. You have a responsibility to learn your partner and create the relationship that works with the both of you. You cannot live your parents' relationship. If you're a woman, you're not dating or marrying your father. If you are a man, you are not dating or marrying your mother. Learn yourself and learn what your partner needs from you. Don't get stuck in the rut of sitting on your principles because that's how my dad did it. That's what he did. You're right. That's what he did. But you're not him. Learn to enjoy relationships, getting to know yourself and your partner. It opens up so many different opportunities to love one another and to learn valuable things for each of you to grow together and individually. Do not rob yourself of those beautiful moments. And if you have children, I just said this, you don't have the right to not give them the best. You, us, we as parents, as you possibly can. Come on, folks. Let's get in this game and let's win, you know? Let's get it, let's have some fun with loving ourselves, loving our partners, and loving the home that we're creating for our children. Come on, let's just enjoy this. It shouldn't be as difficult as some people make it seem, or some people do. Now, once you you you know you've done, you're getting into this thing and you're enjoying this relationship, you know. Here is where some the stumbling blocks come, I feel, myself included, you know. This is where you need to find a positive network that promotes growth in relationships and/or marriages. Time and time again, I hear, I've seen, I've read, where constantly are being told that married people, and let me put this qualifier out there. Marriage is not two people with two rings. That is not you, you have to really understand and learn what married people, and I hate to put this qualifier on it, but because everybody's not that way, but I'm gonna say happily married people or functionally happy married. I don't know what to put on it. It's it's too much, but everybody, but two people with two rings aren't always the poster for marriage, so that's that's you still have to do your due diligence, unfortunately, with married folks. You need to find a marriage that you and your partner you find a couple that you strive to be. I love what you all have, and and I mean, look, this couple is telling you the God's honest truth, they're not giving you all of the fluff and all of the good times. And you know, a couple of weeks ago, you know, my wife and I, we went to a 50th wedding anniversary. And when I tell you the amount of wisdom that was shared with the other couples and with that couple that we were celebrating, you know, for for the wife, you know, she said it wasn't always easy. You know, he's always been a good man, but it wasn't easy. You know, we've had our ups and we've had our downs, but we've always had each other's back. And when he spoke on it, he said, you know, the biggest thing I learned about how to lead my wife is how to follow God. Man, let me tell you. He said, I became the best husband ever when I learned to follow God. You you have no idea your calling or what you can do or reach if you aren't spiritually grounded. You we as men have the responsibility of the home. We are responsible for setting the example. We are responsible for creating a platform of comfort, of growth, of stability, of responsibility for our homes and our children and our lineage to move forward. God gave us a hefty responsibility, but He also gave us the guidance to do so. There are so many distractions in this world that take men off of their course. It's not easy being a husband. Wait a minute, let me take that back. It's not easy being a man. It's not, it's a constant challenge of what you see versus what you know versus what really is. You have to get a certain amount of confidence within your skin, within yourself, with balance. You have to be happy with your choices, and you have to accept the ones that you're not happy with. You can't be consumed with things you can't control. There are some things that you can reach back and repair, and you have to make that decision to do it. At some point, all our responsibilities are to lighten our load. When you get to a point where you know, look, we all know we have things in our past that bother us, whether it's toxicity, whether it's dysfunction, whether it's the family secret, whether it's your secret, I don't know. But you get to a point where those things are weighing you down. They're weighing you down. You have to make a commitment to yourself to forgive yourself, to forgive whomever you're talking about. Look, if they are still alive or whatever it is, have a conversation and put that weight in their lap to free you up. You can't keep carrying the weight around of the world your whole life. It stops you from living, it shortens your smiles. It's this cloud over you that you have to really get from under. Give yourself a chance. Give yourself an actual chance to love forever. Wow. I mean, just just choose you. You know, whatever it takes, whatever it takes. Um here's a big one. Whatever it takes, here's a big one. I got a few more. I got a few more, y'all. Just hanging there. I got a few more, and I will be out of your hair for this episode. And again, thank you guys for supporting me up to this episode five. I do believe this will be the last episode for the season. Uh, my first season 2022. I think this will be the last one, unless I have some inspiration to come back in. But I do believe this is my last one for this year. Whatever it takes. Again, thank you guys. Thank you, thank you for staying to this point. I'll be going to a couple more points, and we'll be done for the year this season. And I look forward to bigger and better things in 2023 with Move the Crowd. Also, stay tuned. I'm gonna finally get myself together and get an IG channel, IG, whatever, account, and I'm gonna, you know, work that as well. Uh, trying to get this platform opened up uh and get some other shows in. You know, I'm looking to have some guests on the show. I'm looking to do some different things where we can really touch on some topics that we can help grow our community and we can free some shackles and we can pick open some handcuffs. That's what this is about. This is about the growth of our community. We need a positive outlet that isn't driven by a trend or driven by an angle, and I don't have either. I just have a genuine love of family. I'm not pro-male, I'm not pro-female, I'm pro-family. The work needs to be done. I do hold men a little more accountable because that's the way this world is designed. We have that responsibility. That being said, let me get these other couple of things out and you know, uh, then we'll be done for this year. And again, thanks, guys. So the next thing I want to talk about is in your season of doing your work, your season has nothing to do with someone else. If you're doing your work and somebody gets your attention and you guys decide to date, that person has nothing to do with your assignment. Nothing. Your assignment is still your assignment. So when you start doing your assignment because maybe that person inspires you and you all have a falling out, and then you stop your work, that that person has nothing to do with you doing your work. God gives you assignments based on your season, not on who's in your season. How do you know that that person is not a sacrificial lamb of the season? That means if you and that person don't work out, then that means you didn't do your work. If that person had nothing to do with your season at all. If God is saying I'm sending you someone to show you how to be vulnerable, then that is your season and your work. You use that situation to open up your vulnerability. Now, if you and that person don't make it, that has nothing to do with that person. That just means that this season used that person, i.e., people say God will send people your way to bless you. That's what happens. He he sends us to each other's people's, he sends all of us to people's lives to give them something they need in that season. It doesn't mean we're supposed to stay. We accept our duties and we move on. So if that person was sent to you to help you with your vulnerability, then that's what you do. You don't try to be better for somebody. You grow because God is saying you need to. And if he sees fit and you do your work, he may bless you with that person. But you don't do work because you want something. That's not how God works. You do your work because it's required. You do your work because it's required, and if he sees fit, he'll bless you with that person. Or he may actually get you to do your work, use that person as a sacrificial lamb, and see how you respond to the loss of that person who you think was your blessing when he has someone better for you after you show him, show yourself approved. He can say, Okay, you did your work with the vulnerability. Now I'm going to put some kind of strife between you all and break you all up. And let me see you stand on what you just learned. Let me see you reveal yourself to someone and I take them away, and you still stand in faith and believe in me. When you show me that your work is genuinely done and had nothing to do with that person, I can send that person back to you, or I can send you an even better person to bless you. You never get to that point because you don't do the work. And for some people who want to make their growth about the person they're seeing, don't ever wonder why you haven't grown. Because every time somebody leaves, you start over. And then you start saying things like, Oh, every time I get with somebody, they do this. Every time I get with somebody, this happens because every time you gap with somebody, it was a season, and you were supposed to do some work and you didn't. And you didn't. And you're still by yourself, still complaining, and you're making it about everybody else who didn't give you what you needed. How are you going to complain about a person not giving you what you need when you're not giving God what he needs? You have to understand this is bigger than you. Who are we to complain about not having a life mate or somebody letting us down when we constantly let God down? It's amazing that we have the mortal gumption to complain to each other about, man, I can't believe they did, man, it didn't work out. You know, something, I can't believe they did this or they did that. And God is sent back and saying, I can't believe you didn't do what I asked you to do. Had you done what I asked you to do, you wouldn't be having this conversation to another person who didn't do what I asked them to do. Hence, misery loves company. Learn to do your work in silence. Stop looking for congratulations, stop looking for adoration, stop looking for to just do your work. The gratitude and acknowledgement, the acknowledgement that you require and you need, God will send it to you when you sit still and understand everything you do to grow because he asks is done in the faith of your season and your love of him and your respect and your obedience to him. Whatever it takes, you have so many opportunities to be great. You have so many things of this world that are at the reach of your hand. This world can be yours. It just takes a little bit of work from you. I don't think there's anybody within the sound of my voice that does not that does not want to be happy. Can you bear in mind this? If I ask five people, are they happy? I can bet you without fail, at least one of them doesn't know what happiness looks like. I bet you again, same thing. If I ask five people, have you been in love? I bet one of them doesn't know what love feels or looks like. This is where we're at, people. We can't assume that our community is thriving or doing anything when we have people, we have mothers and fathers and married couples who fit the criterion which I just spoke on. We have mothers who will admit to you they don't know what it feels like to be loved. We have fathers out here who can who can't even tell you what it feels like to be respected from a woman that he loves. We have to do better. We have to ask questions, we have to put our pride aside, and look, if you feel like you can't reveal yourself to somebody, you you would rather protect your feelings or protect who you are, then why are you spending time with this person? If you're with someone who does not provide you enough comfort to disrobe your hurt just to get some understanding and why are you with them? We we as the totality of people have to stop wasting our time with people who don't ingratiate our comfort, with people who do not allow us the comfort and the strength and the support to promote growth beyond our hurt. We have to stop occupying each other's space with needless emotions that does not solidify our forward thinking. We can't keep staying on this hamster wheel and being upset with not getting anywhere. I'm gonna say this and I'm gonna get out of here. In life, we're gonna be running. Life is about a light jog, and you have to make a decision. You wanna jog on the ground, or you want to jog on a treadmill. You have to understand both people jogging are doing the exact same thing, exerting the exact amount of energy, having the same sweat. The biggest difference is one of them is going nowhere. Nowhere at all. I pray that everything that I said on this podcast was received in love. I pray that you all know that nothing was said out of malice or to hurt anyone's feelings. This podcast is an extension of my love for my community. I am simply trying to share some of my feelings with some of my experiences and a lot of my opinions to possibly help one. I need people to understand that we all we have, and until we learn to love one another and promote each other to be better, challenge each other to be better. Don't be afraid of somebody being upset because of something you said, say it. If that person truly loves you, then they'll understand that what you said was not a malice, it's how you feel. And if it landed wrong, that should open up a conversation to be had. Because there's a thousand and one ways to say one thing. And if you chose the wrong way, pick the other thousand ways to figure out how to get your message to this person that you love. We simply can't continue to just exist. We have to do some work. To be stagnant and exist is a lonely place, and it hurts us all because none of us move. Thank you again for tuning in. I appreciate all of you all's time, and again, I pray that everything that was said reaches you in love and inspires you. My name is Fleetwood. Whatever it takes, and I will see you on the next episode of Move the Crowd.