Promised Freedom
About this Episode
Episode Summary
How would you define freedom? The Exodus journey in the Bible was a time where God physically freed people from slavery. Natasha Sistrunk Robinson wants to teach us how the Exodus journey shows that God wants us to live in freedom too. On this episode of God Hears Her, join Natasha and hosts Eryn Eddy and Elisa Morgan as they discuss the thoughts holding them captive and how we can live in true freedom.
This is the last episode of Season 7! Be sure to join us again on April 24th for the Season 8 Teaser. See ya then!
Episode Transcript
God Hears Her Podcast
Episode 122 – Promised Freedom with Natasha Sistrunk Robinson
Elisa Morgan & Eryn Eddy with Natasha Sistrunk Robinson
[Music]
Natasha: Really, the theological, biblical understanding of death is alienation from God, and so, what the… going back to your original question of what’s freedom, I think we don’t realize as humans living in a fallen world that we, apart from Jesus, we are enslaved to the bondage of sin and death, which are enemies to us. And what we get through Christ, and… and again, this is that… what we have to get not just in our head but in our heart, what we get through Christ is the freedom of choice, like, I expect sinners to sin, and I expect them to love it…
Eryn: Right. Right.
Natasha: Right? But for people who have been changed by Jesus, and for people who have been filled with the Holy Spirit, there’s a conviction to make different choices…
Eryn: Yeah.
Natasha: … and those choices don’t lead to death and destruction, they lead to life.
[Music]
Voice: You’re listening to God Hears Her, a podcast for women where we explore the stunning truth that God hears you, He sees you, and He loves you because you are His. Find out how these realities free you today on God Hears Her.
Eryn: Welcome to God Hears Her. I’m Eryn Eddy.
Elisa: And I’m Elisa Morgan. Today we are welcoming back our past guest Natasha Sistrunk Robinson. But this time we’ll be talking about freedom.
Eryn: Natasha has done a lot of studying on the book of Exodus and the message that God wants us to know about freedom in our day. The world has a tendency to oppress and depress, which can cause us to be in bondage of our own thoughts or situations.
Elisa: Join us for this conversation on God Hears Her with the starting question: how do we define freedom?
Natasha: I think it’s layers to it. I think, you know, personally, theologically, emotionally, relationally, but I think one thing I think about when I think about freedom is choice and lack of oppression.
Elisa: Right. Right.
Natasha: Right. I think that’s very important. And I think that kind of covers several of those layers that we are talking about. And if I think about it very fundamentally… freedom to me looks like living into the reality of what God intended from the very beginning. So even before the fall, before sin. And so, what we see in the very beginning is that God created humans in His image, and He created them to work, so work was always a part of what it meant to be human…
Elisa: To care for the earth.
Natasha: … and to… and… and to image God, absolutely, and to have that responsibility of being God’s agent, a witness on earth…like, we know, we call that the cultural mandate, like, exercise dominion…
Elisa: Yup.
Natasha: … leadership on earth. And that was for men and women to do…
Elisa: Right. Right.
Natasha: … before the fall. And so, to me, to be able to do that fully, you know… to understand your identity as the person God created you to be, to do that in partnership with other humans, to do that very intentionally towards a purpose of causing things to flourish, and to see more of God’s beauty and creativity on the earth. And to do that without the oppression of sin.
Eryn: Yeah.
Elisa: Yeah, I’m… I’m hearing this strong… freedom is being who God made us to be.
Eryn: Yeah.
Natasha: Absolutely.
Elisa: It’s fulfilling the intention of His creative power.
Eryn: Yeah.
Natasha: Yeah.
Elisa: Now, why aren’t we free? You know, what keeps us from experiencing this? You know, and Scripture’s pretty clear, you know, in the original world, the fallenness of choosing against God messed stuff up. But the restoration of Jesus is the restoration of us. I mean, the restoration that Jesus provides…
Eryn: Yeah.
Elisa: … is the restoration of us. And… and I love to think about this, and you started this phrase so thank you, Natasha…
Eryn: Yeah.
Elisa: … And it’s… it’s this becoming who we already are in Christ…
Eryn: Yes. When… I love what you said, living into the reality of what God intended. That’s so beautiful. I wanted to repeat that because I wanted to sit in that.
Elisa: I think that means different things for different people. Like, for example…
Natasha: Yeah.
Elisa: … your most shame-filled message that lives in you…
Eryn: Okay. Yeah.
Elisa: … all right? And… and if you’re dare repeat it out loud…
Natasha: Yeah.
Elisa: … I’ll start… I’m not enough. Or I’m too much. Both of those…
Eryn: Right. Yeah, both. Right. Right.
Elisa: … Both of those are… are my shame-filled messages. And if anybody knows that I’m not enough, that I’m gonna get disqualified, and if anybody really comes to know me, they’re going to decide, well, you’re actually too much, Elisa…
Natasha: Right.
Elisa: … And they’re going to leave me. So, there’s my most shame-filled message. And that keeps me hostage, oppressed…
Natasha: Yeah.
Elisa: … imprisoned, whatever opposite of freedom word you want to use there. That keeps me pinned down, and not able to absorb and live in this freedom we’re talking about, about who we already are in Christ.
Eryn: Can you identify where those messages were born out of?
Elisa: Yeah, I mean, I’m happy to do therapy on air, so… [laughter]
Eryn: We’ll just all go around, you know? Hey. [laughter]
Natasha: It’s… it’s… it’s free.
Eryn: Right! It’s free when you do that.
Elisa: It’s free… that’s right. And we’re all credentialed by the millions of years we’ve already had, but… yeah, I… I think it came from my father leaving when I was five…
Eryn: Yeah.
Elisa: … and… I thought, well, if I was enough…
Natasha: Yeah.
Elisa: … he would have stayed. And then it came from my mom struggling with alcohol, and I thought, well, if I was enough, she wouldn’t drink. But then that other side of the message, this is really hard, I remember when I was about sixteen my father saying, until you are financially independent of me, he didn’t have to pay child support anymore, I’m not going to be able to love you. Wow. Well, I could do nothing about that. So, the message I got there was you’re too much. You’re just too much. And I got that message in other places too, like, my personality’s… can be large. Some of the giftings God’s allowed in my life can be, I don’t know, platformed, if you say. So, those are some of the places those messages have appeared, and yet, God promises freedom in Christ. Freedom from these kinds of messages. And so, the work I’ve been having to do is that God makes me enough. He is enough. I don’t have to be enough. He can make me enough, I’m not too much. You know, He can handle all the parts of me. You know, those are some… They’re… just trite little sayings if I… throw them out like that, but their truth of these messages come from believing that I am who He always intended for… for me… to be.
Eryn: Yeah.
Elisa: That Jesus sees us. That God sees us through Jesus…
Natasha: Yeah.
Elisa: … and that makes us okay.
Natasha: For me, some of it is not Natasha as a individual, but I think about, you know, as a people group, as a collective, I think about that culturally, socially, historically, right? Like, this message that blackness is bad…
Eryn: Yeah. Right.
Natasha: Right? Right? And so, the unhealthy way I respond to that a lot of time, it’s like, one, I don’t believe that message, right? Like, I just don’t… never have. I think part of that was kind of reinforced in college where you go to a place… like the naval academy, people think they’re entitled to that place, and people like you are not entitled to that place…
Elisa: Oh, wow.
Natasha: … And they make it very clear that it’s not your place, it’s their school…
Eryn: Wow. Yeah.
Natasha: … and you got here for whatever reason, other than you earned it in the same way, and when those messages came about blackness not being good for this particular space, I just didn’t believe them because I had been taught differently. Like, I knew who I was when I went there…
Eryn: Yeah.
Natasha: … but I think the unhealthy way I respond to that as a professional, as an adult, is that I’ll show you. Right? Right? Like I don’t believe…
Elisa: You rise up.
Natasha: … blackness is bad, I believe blackness is good, and I’m going to show you, right?
Eryn: Yeah.
Natasha: And so, even that is bondage, though, because I’m still performing out of a social narrative that you created that I don’t believe. Freedom would be responding in life as if it were not a thing. As if it was not something that required a response from me, being in my black body.
Eryn: Yeah. Yeah.
Natasha: Right? That would be true freedom.
Elisa: So… in order to have freedom over that…
Natasha: Yeah.
Elisa: … what do you tell yourself?
Natasha: Well, I think it’s about the choices that we make, like, identifying who our people are…
Elisa: Okay.
Natasha: … identify where the psychologically safe places are, identifying where you gonna invest your time, talent, and treasure. I think all these things, and I can say that now at my age, because there’s sometimes, you know, we talk about freedom, there’s sometimes you do things just because it needs to be done.
Eryn: Yeah.
Natasha: And I want to say very clearly there’s honor in that. Like, if you’re going to work because your children need to eat, you might not feel empowered in that job, but you go and do a good job because it’s honorable…
Elisa: Yes. Yes.
Natasha: … to go and put food on the table for your family. Right?
Eryn: Yeah.
Natasha: At my age, though, and because I tell people I’m, especially my daughter, I have a lot of freedom at my age to say yes and no to things because I did a lot of hard things when I was very young. And saying yes to those hard things gave me freedom to say no to things in my forties.
Eryn: Yeah. Wow.
Natasha: For example, when I made the decision to get out of the military, I did that because it was the best choice for my family. I felt convicted theologically that’s what God wanted me to do.
Elisa: Interesting. Okay.
Natasha: And so, in saying yes to that, it was walking in obedience to God, but it was also saying no to a lot of things that really felt good to my flesh.
Elisa: Yup.
Natasha: I was very good at my job.
Eryn: Okay.
Natasha: So, you get the affirmation of being good at your job.
Eryn: Yeah.
Natasha: They were paying me very well in my twenties for someone who didn’t have a lot of financial freedom as a child, you get financial freedom. All of my friends were doing it, so I had a great tribe and community of people that were doing it. So, when I say yes to doing something else that was walking towards I’ve… I think where the Lord was taking me, I was also saying no to a lot of other things that felt really good.
Eryn: Yeah.
Elisa: There’s a price to pay for freedom.
Natasha: There’s always a price to pay for freedom.
Elisa: I mean, isn’t that interesting? Yes, there’s always a price to pay.
Eryn: Yeah.
Elisa: And we sometimes pay it, and we sometimes don’t pay it, huh?
Natasha: Yeah.
Elisa: I’m gonna… swoosh over to you, Eryn, and what are the messages that keep you from freedom?
Eryn: I’ll share what I still struggle with. Being divorced, I still struggle with if I don’t perform a certain way, I’m going to prove why my husband could not choose me…
Elisa: Wow.
Eryn: … and chose other things.
Elisa: At the core, there’s this voice whispering, you really did it wrong, or, no matter what you ever do right, everybody’s gonna look at you and think you did it wrong.
Eryn: And go… this is why he did those things.
Natasha: That’s also that not-enough message, is it not?
Eryn: It is.
Natasha: Right, like… I’ll be same here, right? So, like, your blackness means you’re not enough, cause you’re not white…
Elisa: Right. Right.
Natasha: Your shame means you’re not enough because if you were, then your parents would have responded differently. You know, your marriage says, you know, you’re not enough, because if you did your husband…
Eryn: Yeah.
Natasha: And so, I don’t know if that’s a gender thing? I hate to consider myself a victim, but I think there are ways where we are victimized in society sometimes, and we punish and penalize women for choices that are being made that are outside of their control.
Eryn: Right.
Natasha: When you’re in a… a situation where you already feel oppressed in some ways, and you’re wanting to be better, you’re wanting to show up in a different way, but part of the shame of taking on the responsibility of something you didn’t even do, or you didn’t have control over…
Eryn: Right.
Natasha: … or that wasn’t your fault, right? I think it goes back into what we see in Genesis 3, right, of the blaming for sin. But what the Bible tells us, like, everybody gotta give account for their own stuff.
Eryn: Right.
Elisa: I think it’s Sally Lloyd Jones who’s been our guest here before…
Eryn: Yeah.
Elisa: … in her Jesus Storybook Bible, the way she hones down and condenses the original sin…
Natasha: Yeah.
Elisa: … with Eve is, the serpent whispered to Eve, “Does God really love you?”
Natasha: Yes.
Eryn: Yeah.
Elisa: And Eve, all the sudden, these are Sally’s words, and “Suddenly she didn’t know anymore.” That is really the crux… the entry point, you know, the little tiny hole…
Eryn: Yeah.
Elisa: … that evil slithers through into our hearts, maybe God doesn’t love me. And then it takes up residence there.
Eryn: Yeah. Which is why I wanted to ask the question: where does the root come from? Cause I think when we can understand where… like, what the root is… for me, this is something that has happened half a decade ago, and I’ve sought therapy and talked to people about it, and I feel like, for the most part, I’m confident and I’ve overcome, and I’ve seen a lot of God’s redemption in my life. But I still can hear this whisper of I should perform or be a certain way. And what is the root? And the root is what I just shared. I’m fearful that I’m gonna confirm that I deserved the… hurtful things that I experienced that were out of my control. And, I mean, I surrender all the time, daily, hourly, to the Lord, of my thought life sometimes, because that’s all I know to do, to learn how to walk on the other side of freedom and embrace it. But I love what you said, Natasha, earlier when we were talking about the layers of freedom, you said choice is one of them. Like, I can get comfortable in the pain of my circumstance, and I don’t choose to claim the freedom that I actually also could be living in.
Elisa: And you might not necessarily be comfortable, but it might be so familiar…
Eryn: Familiar, not comfortable, cause it’s definitely not comfortable! Right. Yeah.
Elisa: … it’s all you can see. Yeah. But it’s all you can see, and it’s kind of like all you think you deserve, and it’s all the, you know, you can wear kind of thing.
Eryn: Yes.
Natasha: You know, there’s a challenge, too, of getting our heart and our minds aligned. I think there’re sometimes, you know, there’re things we know to be true, but in our hearts we don’t necessarily believe it.
Eryn: Yeah.
Natasha: I think that’s the challenge of culture, too. We talk about this a little bit, about, like, social media and those things, because… here’s the thing. Like, the Bible refers to our enemy in a lot of ways. One of them is the accuser of the brother and/or the sistering. And so… so this voice that you’re hearing, right? That we all hear at different points in our life…
Eryn: Yeah.
Natasha: … any voice that’s accusing, we know in our minds…
Eryn: Right.
Natasha: … it’s not of the Lord. But then our heart continues to still, and our ears to still listen…
Eryn: Yeah. Yeah.
Natasha: … to the voice, or voices that are not of the Lord.
Eryn: Yeah.
Elisa: We believe them. And… and you know, we have to say at some juncture here in our conversation, you know, I think we, all three of us, understand that freedom is essentially a spiritual reality.
Natasha: Absolutely.
Elisa: I mean, it… enslavement on this planet is horrific.
Natasha: Yup. Yup. Yup.
Elisa: And it is real, and it is physical. And all the kinds of bondages that come…
Eryn: Yeah.
Elisa: … from abuse, and oppression, and injustice, are real and they’re horrific. But they originate in the fact that evil…
Natasha: Yeah. It’s… absolutely.
Eryn: Yeah.
Elisa: … dawned. And it had its way. And everybody believed God did not love them, and everybody has turned. Freedom is a theological, spiritual possibility because of Jesus.
Natasha: Yeah. Absolutely.
Elisa: Even though we are who Jesus always intended for us to be…
Eryn: Yeah.
Elisa: … because of Him, because of His act on the cross, our understanding, and acceptance, and realization, and assimilation of that reality [pfft sound], that’s not going to be done until we’re dead.
Natasha: Yeah. And I think when you think about freedom in Christ, too, you know, when I was in seminary, one of my history professors, Dr. Donald Fairbairn, you know, he… he’s written about the Trinity quite a bit, and one of the things he says is that when we think about death a lot of times we think about physical death, and the Bible says, “The wages of sin is death.” So, because we don’t always die immediately when we sin…
Eryn: Yeah.
Natasha: … I think people incorrectly conclude that there’s no consequence for our choices, right?
Elisa: Oh, that is so good.
Eryn: Right.
Natasha: But what he says in his writing is, like, really the theological, biblical understanding of death is alienation from God. And so, one the… going back to your original question of what’s freedom, I think we don’t realize as humans living in a fallen world that we, apart from Jesus, we are enslaved to the bondage of sin and death, which are enemies to us. And what we get through Christ, and… and again, this is like what we have to get not just in our head but in our heart, what we get through Christ is the freedom of choice…
Eryn: Yeah. Yeah.
Natasha: … like, I expect sinners to sin, and I expect them to love it. Right?
Eryn: Right. Right.
Natasha: But for people who have been changed by Jesus, and for people who have been filled with the Holy Spirit, there’s a conviction to make different choices…
Eryn: Yeah.
Natasha: … and those choices don’t lead to death and destruction…
Eryn: Right.
Natasha: … they lead to life, and hope, and joy, and peace, all these fruit of the Spirit that we read about.
Elisa: I think you’re on to something, that beyond the physical death, there are mini, M-I-N-I, deaths that we experience…
Natasha: Absolutely.
Elisa: … in our soul, in our spirit, in our emotions, in our thinking…
Natasha: Yeah.
Elisa: … staying stuck in the shame trap, if I’m believing that. Well, that’s, “The wages of sin is death,” you know? I’m believing that. And, you know, it’s… just, those ongoing ways. And sometimes we can’t get out of them, we know we… we might need medicine, we might need therapy, we might need some kind of treatment, we might need to change our diet, you know, I don’t know. So… some… sometimes we need external help to help our internal process, but those mini-deaths, I think we don’t give them enough credit…
Natasha: Yeah.
Elisa: … for how they’re killing our freedom.
Eryn: What do you think the symptoms are of living in bondage as a believer?
Elisa: I flip from my shame-talk to self-sufficiency.
Eryn: Self-sufficiency, I think, denial…
Natasha: Absolutely.
Eryn: … I think denial, but I think you can be living in bondage thinking you are living in freedom.
Natasha: Absolutely. But one thing, I, you know, I think I want to share and add to the conversation, too, is I think the older we get, especially we’re not walking in freedom or we’re… not walking as heal and healthy and whole people, the temptation is to pick up more and more baggage. Like, you just pick up stuff and you carry it, and, you know, it can make you bitter, it can make you angry, or whatever, and so, I think one invitation we get from Jesus is, you know, Jesus talks us about us being children, and us coming to God. God the Father presents Himself to us as Father. And a Father who longs to give good gifts for His children, and so, I think about that in contrast to the devil’s desire to kill, steal, and destroy. And so, one of the things you were saying, Elisa, about what do we give up, but I think we give up the childlikeness…
Eryn: Yeah.
Natasha: … the childlike faith, I think we give up the… the invitation to play. I think the self-sufficiency won’t allow you to play, cause there’s no time for it. I think it… we give up the ability… so, if the enemy is trying to kill, steal, and destroy, that’s just not our bodies, it’s our dreams, it’s our hope…
Elisa: That’s right. Yeah.
Natasha: … it’s our future. And so, we’re not… I think freedom means dreaming again.
Elisa: Okay.
Natasha: I think freedom means, you know, all those things you would do as a innocent child that’s in a safe and loving, healthy…
Eryn: Yeah.
Natasha: … home. That’s what it looks like, even for adults, to walk in true freedom.
Eryn: I love that.
Elisa: So, a symptom that you’re in bondage is you aren’t free to play, you aren’t free to question…
Eryn: Dream…
Natasha: Free to dream. You’re not free to have hope, you’re not thinking about your future, right?
Elisa: Right. Or to be honest, or to be needy… Woof, woof, woof, you know, that’s a big one. What else has come to your mind since you asked that question, cause I bet some other things are rolling around now.
Eryn: Well, so we got self-sufficiency, denial…
Elisa: Well, if you aren’t able to play, if you aren’t able to be needy…
Eryn: Right.
Elisa: … If you aren’t able to be some of these… the negative side of it.
Eryn: I mean, I think… I love what you touched on with jadedness, I mean, like being burned out. I think about Matthew 11:28, where it talks about are you tired and burned out on religion, come away with me and live to learn freely and lightly. You’ll discover the unforced rhythms of God’s grace. So, I think burned out on religion, I think…
Natasha: Burned out period. On life. Work.
Eryn: Burned out period, but work, demands…
Natasha: Coulda shoulda’s, woulda’s…
Eryn: Yes. Yes. Resent… I think resentment towards maybe even your choice. I… I can reflect back on, I have resented some of my choices, but I blamed other people for them.
Elisa: That’s good.
Natasha: Ohhhh.
Eryn: So, I think that that, also, can keep us in bondage of learning how to live freely and lightly.
Elisa: Lack of forgiveness…
Eryn: Lack of forgiveness…
Elisa: Yeah. Yeah.
Natasha: That… that’s one.
Eryn: Because if we forgive…
Natasha: You’ll walk lighter.
Eryn: Yes! And what we think, we… we sabotage ourselves into believing that if we forgive, we’re saying what that person did, it was okay…
Elisa: Yeah.
Eryn: … and that’s not… That’s the enemy, keeping us from being able to forgive.
Elisa: I want to read this to you. And let’s respond to it, all of us, because we all are going to have a connection to it. These are Paul’s words from Galatians chapter 5, “It’s for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.” Okay, now, those words are powerfully imaged as we sit together at this table, black and white, together. What hits you there? “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.” Who would do that? Who would say, okay, come yoke me up. Come put shackles on my hands and feet. Come on, take me in. Who would do that? And yet, we kind of just went over this turf, didn’t we?
Eryn: Yeah.
Elisa: You know, what are the symptoms? Well, I have to be self-sufficient. Well, I have to deny that I have any needs, well I, you know… Those are ways we say, here, take me, put some manacles on me. Go ahead.
Eryn: Yeah.
Natasha: Yeah. Yeah.
Elisa: That’s what we’re doing, and Paul’s saying that’s ridiculous.
Natasha: You know, I love the Bible, and so, like, whenever we’re sharing these things, I’m going to think about how all of the Bible is coming together. And so, I think about the questions, you say, the whisper that Eve got in the garden, and it also made me think about, because it says, you know, not being burdened again. That means there’s a certain level of trust that we can have that God is going to be exactly who God says that God is. And so, you know, the… the image I got just listening to you read that passage was, you know, when Jesus feeding the five-thousand, right? So, people are there, they’re kind of destitute. Like, they’ve been following Him for three days, they’re hungry, they’re thirsty, there’s no food there, and we can all operate out of a place, a position, of scarcity.
Eryn: Yeah. Yeah.
Natasha: Like, we… we… we’re needy, but we don’t have what we need, and they don’t start trying to figure out how they’re going to feed themselves…
Eryn: Yeah.
Natasha: Right? You have Jesus says, you know, he’s trying to teach the disciples a lesson, too, but he takes a little that a child provides, right? And what I love about the passage is it says that He fed the five-thousand, that’s just counting the men, so, you know, you… triple that, you know, generally, for the women and children, and everyone ate until they were satisfied… And…
Elisa: Twelve basket full picked up…
Natasha: Right. So… So you go from a place of scarcity to a place of everyone being satisfied in abundance. There was so much left over that they gathered for… for later. And so, I… I just think that’s a beautiful picture of who God is for us, and what God does for us. And again, I think there’s freedom in that, too, because these people, their faith was, we’re gonna follow Jesus as He teaches us, and there’s just this very real reality of Jesus saying we’re not living “by bread alone, but every word that proceeds out the mouth of God.” So… God is really in that moment, that they’re leaning on the Word of God and they’re being with Emmanuel God, and they, you know, might not even be thinking about their physical food, but… but God knows that’s a need that you can’t just be out here for three days in the desert… you know, not eating… Not eating…
Eryn: Right, yeah.
Natasha: … and so He’s already thinking about what His people need and He provides it so generously. I just think that speaks to the freedom, too, but these are people that, again, were keeping the main thing the main thing, being present with God…
Eryn: Yeah.
Natasha: … And listening to His Word, you know.
Elisa: Taking this forward, you know, what will it mean for you to take a deeper step into the freedom that we have in Christ? To free yourself, to unshackle yourself, from where you’re still stuck in bondage, those messages that we all shared. You know, what would it take? And so, mine was… My yoke of slavery, which is figurative, I… I admit. Some people’s are not figurative. My yoke of slavery is that I’m not enough or I’m too much. To just step into that, I think I need to realize how I respond to those shameful messages with self-sufficiency instead of with God’s sufficiency. How I need to accept my neediness… Clearly, I miss some stuff…
Natasha: Yeah.
Elisa: … You know, I missed some stuff growing up. And so, therefore, I think I have to fix those things…
Natasha: Yeah. Yeah.
Elisa: … But really God… God wants to fix those things. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, God wants to fix those things. So… so let me own that, what I don’t have, and let me ask for that.
Natasha: Just personally, someone asked me a few weeks ago at a retreat, like, how do you see yourself? And it’s like, I’m the one that hold things together. And I think that speaks to that self-sufficiency, too, and so…
Elisa: So much responsibility.
Natasha: … I… So much responsibility. And, you know, being trained as… as someone who’s duty-bound and honor-bound and loyal, you know, loyal, I think all those things kind of have fed into how I have been formed as a leader. And so, I think with that, though, so, part of it is, again, going back to this whole childlikeness, seeing myself as the one who Jesus loves. Right.
Elisa: Yeah.
Natasha: And knowing that I have a good Father that I can trust longs to give good things to His children, and so, that is not a burden that I have to carry. And I… I think God has been trying to teach me, probably for much of my adult life, that I can trust Him.
Elisa: That’s a stand firm in freedom message for sure.
Eryn: I was… just about to say, trust, stand firm. When I hear stand firm I hear trust, not self-sufficiency, which is my tendency also. I think that that’s just… I don’t think that’s a gender thing, I don’t think that’s a… I think that’s everybody thing…
Elisa: It might be a survival thing, you know. Yeah.
Eryn: Maybe it’s a survival thing, because some of the things that I have chosen in the past did help me survive…
Elisa: Yeah.
Eryn: … some of the other things even. But for me, like, standing firm, when I hear that word, I do hear trust. And within trust I hear surrender the words that I… that I am holding closely to myself that are untrue and giving them to God. And so, I see there… there being trust, surrender, this is fresh for me, cause I literally was just doing this prayer and study this morning, I think it’s in 2 Corinthians that it talks about holding your thoughts captive? And so, I was praying that, Lord, You see them. I don’t even know… They feel so normal to me, that I don’t even…
Elisa: That’s good. Yup.
Eryn: … know how to truly surrender them, but I’m trying to give You the pieces that I’m starting to become aware of.
Natasha: I am curious, because that… It’s, like, not lost on me that we have, like, different generations at the table, too, like, it’s like, once something is important to me, I think about, like, mentoring people. And, like, when we think about freedom, like, what do you feel has been the message to the women of your generation that has not, or prevented them from walking in freedom?
Elisa: You can’t do that. No, you’re… you don’t belong there. No, you’re a woman, you can’t do that.
Natasha: Yeah. Yeah. And so, I think my generation coming up after was women empowerment. Like, you can do all the things…
Elisa: You can do that.
Natasha: … and you don’t need anybody else, you know, to do it.
Elisa: What do you think the message is to women your age and younger?
Eryn: You can’t feel that.
Elisa: Okay.
Eryn: Feelings is too much.
Elisa: Okay. These are good things to take away. And… if you talk to generations above me…
Natasha: Yeah?
Elisa: … you would get much more, not only can you not do that, but you better do this…
Natasha: Right.
Elisa: … you better stay in the home, you better… you know, etcetera, those little boxes we… [Music] So… this is not new. It’s not new for our gender, it’s not new for races, it’s not new for different socio-economic classes, it’s not new for every place you can touch, the issues of inequality, or distancing, or dis-inclusion, you know, it’s not new. But Jesus is the one who came to set us free from all of those things. And… and it is in… for freedom that Christ has set us free. So, stand firm, then, and do not yourself be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.
[Music]
Eryn: We are free in Christ. What a powerful mantra to remind ourselves when we feel like we are in bondage to the lies we tell ourselves.
Elisa: If you’re curious to learn what could be keeping you captive, check out Natasha’s study, Exodus: Journey to Freedom. You can find the link for this in our show notes.
Eryn: That and more is on our website at godhearsher.org. That’s godhearsher.org.
Elisa: That’s for joining us. And don’t forget. God hears you, He sees you, and He loves you because you are His.
Eryn: Today’s episode was engineered by Anne Stevens and produced by Jade Gustman and Mary Jo Clark. We also want to thank Brian and Jody for all of their help and support. Thanks everyone!
[Music]
Elisa: God Hears Her is a production of Our Daily Bread Ministries.
Show Notes
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“He makes me enough, and He can handle me if I think I’m too much.” —Elisa Morgan
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“There is always a price to pay for freedom.” —Natasha Sistrunk Robinson
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“Freedom is a theological, spiritual possibility because of Jesus.” —Elisa Morgan
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“You can be living in bondage but thinking you are living in freedom.” —Eryn Eddy
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“Freedom means dreaming again as a child does.” —Natasha Sistrunk Robinson
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“He [God] is already thinking about what His people need.” —Natasha Sistrunk Robinson
Links Mentioned
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God Hears Her website
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God Hears Her newsletter sign-up
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Share the love by giving this episode a 5-star episode on iTunes!
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Order God Sees Her: 365 Devotions for Women by Women on Amazon
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Elisa’s Instagram: elisamorganauthor
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Eryn’s Instagram: eryneddy
Verses Mentioned:
About the Guest(s)
Natasha Sistrunk Robinson
Natasha Sistrunk Robinson is the president of T3 Leadership Solutions, Inc, the author of A Sojourner’s Truth as well as other books, and the host of A Sojourner’s Truth: Conversations for a Changing Culture podcast. Natasha is also a doctorate student at North Park Theological Seminary, a graduate of Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, and the U.S. Naval Academy. Natasha has served her country as a Marine Corps officer and federal government employee at the Department of Homeland Security.
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My story is in Christ and drawing closer to him and knowing him better each moment. A God that Sacrificed His life that I live. The One who created me in my Beloved Mother’s womb. He saved me from a hopeless, meaningless life to freedom in Christ. And to serve ‘Our God living my life pleasing to him as I grow and learn his will be done.