Interviewing Annie Mayfield - Part 5 - Using Your Awkwardness for GOD | John Giftah Podcast

0:01 Speaker 1: Like sometimes we just think that, oh, I'm not, I'm

0:04 Speaker 1: not I'm just a nobody, you know, stuff that are like,

0:07 Speaker 1: you're not a nobody, You're you're You're the one that

0:11 Speaker 1: God created as his own masterpiece.

0:14 Speaker 2: You know.

0:14 Speaker 1: Like for example, I don't know why I brought this,

0:17 Speaker 1: but I felt this was led by God. One of

0:19 Speaker 1: my Scoobyo collections. Again, this is you know, it's actually

0:22 Speaker 1: a limited edition piece of Barbie as Scooby Doo Daphne.

0:28 Speaker 1: So this was a limited edition in the fact that

0:30 Speaker 1: not only a novel Daphne, but this was from the

0:33 Speaker 1: two thousand and two Stimo Liang movie.

0:35 Speaker 2: So the fact that it's a limited edition adds more

0:39 Speaker 2: value to it because there's a very.

0:41 Speaker 1: Few in number, and this is something that you don't

0:44 Speaker 1: find very often and it was specially ordered. So if

0:48 Speaker 1: you say that there's very few in number, and it

0:50 Speaker 1: adds more value because it's limited edition, that you are

0:53 Speaker 1: just one of a kind in this world because God

0:56 Speaker 1: created you as one of his own masterpieces, then how

0:59 Speaker 1: much more valuable you and I are that He wants

1:02 Speaker 1: to go to any extent just for us.

1:04 Speaker 2: That's so true, that's so good, and that's the word

1:07 Speaker 2: and I want to share.

1:09 Speaker 1: And I feel that you have a very similar message

1:13 Speaker 1: on telling people that you know, your message is unique,

1:16 Speaker 1: your calling is unique. And I love many times when

1:18 Speaker 1: you talk about and I think even about your yes

1:21 Speaker 1: is God God's love even in your nose, I think, yes, yes,

1:26 Speaker 1: I saw that.

1:27 Speaker 2: That's so good. Guys, check out a YouTube channel by

1:30 Speaker 2: the way.

1:31 Speaker 1: And also you were talking about how even your awkwardness,

1:34 Speaker 1: even the things that are weird.

1:35 Speaker 2: About you, like the way no, no, you won't see.

1:38 Speaker 1: Any normal guy bringing a Barbie doll for.

1:43 Speaker 2: Message, But that's that's weird about me.

1:45 Speaker 1: But I believe that what's weird about me is what

1:48 Speaker 1: helps people to hear about him, you know. Like so likewise,

1:53 Speaker 1: what are some awkward or weird ways you feel that

1:56 Speaker 1: we can teach young people through the weirdness.

1:59 Speaker 2: The awkwardness is the uniqueness. What's your dick on that?

2:03 Speaker 1: Oh?

2:04 Speaker 3: I love man, I've never been asked that that's such

2:06 Speaker 3: a good question. What weirdness can we bring? I love that.

2:10 Speaker 3: I honestly think it's it's just whatever is yours. That's

2:14 Speaker 3: the first thing that came to me, like, whatever is

2:16 Speaker 3: your weirdness, whatever is your awkwardness. You know, for me,

2:23 Speaker 3: there's been so many times in my life that I'm like,

2:26 Speaker 3: this is going to be really weird. This is going

2:28 Speaker 3: to be really awkward. Things such as, you know, like

2:30 Speaker 3: I didn't grow up in a household that really prayed

2:33 Speaker 3: for one another. Like I had parents that believe, but

2:35 Speaker 3: like we weren't the kind that were like, hey, you're

2:37 Speaker 3: struggling with this, let me pray over you. I didn't

2:40 Speaker 3: really have anybody pray over me till I after college,

2:42 Speaker 3: and it was in the church and I and I

2:44 Speaker 3: remember like this was just a couple of months ago,

2:47 Speaker 3: And you know, I pray over people a lot, but

2:50 Speaker 3: I didn't pray over my family ever until like a

2:53 Speaker 3: couple months ago, because I was like, this will be

2:55 Speaker 3: so weird. This just isn't my family, and and I

2:58 Speaker 3: was like, oh, my siblings are gonna make fun of

3:00 Speaker 3: me all this stuff. But I really did, like I

3:02 Speaker 3: felt the conviction. And so to me, that's just an

3:04 Speaker 3: example of one of when the Spirit led me to

3:05 Speaker 3: this awkwardness. You also think too, Jesus like he lived

3:09 Speaker 3: in the awkwardness. Can you imagine when he said to

3:12 Speaker 3: the disciples, no, I'm going to wash your feet. Can

3:15 Speaker 3: you imagine how awkward that was? I mean, like, actually, picture, actually,

3:20 Speaker 3: picture if you work at like a company, or if

3:23 Speaker 3: you I don't know Taylor Swift, I'm thinking of someone

3:25 Speaker 3: who has a lot of notoriety. If she came in

3:29 Speaker 3: and you were like, oh my god, and then she

3:31 Speaker 3: was like, I'm going to wash your feet, you know

3:33 Speaker 3: you just it would be so weird. It would be

3:35 Speaker 3: so awkward. It was like your CEO of your fortune

3:38 Speaker 3: five hundred company coming in and saying I'm going to

3:41 Speaker 3: clean up your inbox for you and respond to your

3:43 Speaker 3: emails for you. You'd be like, stop, why are you

3:46 Speaker 3: doing that?

3:46 Speaker 2: That's so weird.

3:48 Speaker 3: But it's living in that awkwardness. And I think Jesus

3:50 Speaker 3: modeled to us by example. A lot of times the

3:52 Speaker 3: blessings come from our obedience to just sitting in that

3:56 Speaker 3: in between space where it's awkward, and that doesn't even

3:59 Speaker 3: have to be for other people. We internally always have

4:02 Speaker 3: so much awkwardness. Whether you're you're in between a diagnosis,

4:06 Speaker 3: like you know something hurts, but you don't know what

4:08 Speaker 3: it is yet. It's in between the healing of a relationship.

4:11 Speaker 3: You know your marriage isn't great, but you don't know

4:13 Speaker 3: what to do about it yet, you don't know what

4:15 Speaker 3: it's going to look like yet, a friendship or like

4:17 Speaker 3: whatever it is. You know you want to learn this thing,

4:21 Speaker 3: but you don't know how. You know you want to

4:23 Speaker 3: start a podcast, but you don't know how, you don't

4:25 Speaker 3: know what it's going to start. As we all live

4:29 Speaker 3: through awkwardness every single day, and I think, though, the

4:32 Speaker 3: power in living that out and embracing it. It's the

4:35 Speaker 3: same thing with vulnerability. I have a thing right above

4:39 Speaker 3: my desk that says like real not perfect, because for me,

4:43 Speaker 3: whenever I come on a podcast, the only thing that

4:46 Speaker 3: makes me less nervous is when I remind myself, wait,

4:49 Speaker 3: I don't have to be perfect. I just have to

4:52 Speaker 3: be honest. And when I'm honest, one, I never run

4:56 Speaker 3: out of things to say because there's always something going on.

5:00 Speaker 3: But two, it just loosens you up to know like,

5:03 Speaker 3: no one's perfect. When you feel like you have to

5:05 Speaker 3: be perfect, that's when you get so stiff and you

5:07 Speaker 3: feel like you can't do anything because you're afraid of

5:09 Speaker 3: doing the wrong thing. And so I think if we

5:11 Speaker 3: just live into our vulnerabilities, when you live into yours,

5:16 Speaker 3: you can help other people embrace theirs and then other

5:18 Speaker 3: people live out theirs. So back to your question about

5:21 Speaker 3: how do we inspire a generation coming up to like

5:24 Speaker 3: live into that weirdness, live into that awkwardness, live into

5:27 Speaker 3: that imperfection. It's by living out your own by example

5:32 Speaker 3: and being vulnerable and sharing that you know, I want

5:37 Speaker 3: to know because it's weird, but like for me, a

5:39 Speaker 3: massive insecurity of mine. I struggle with this thing called

5:42 Speaker 3: rosea Sha since I was a really little girl, like

5:44 Speaker 3: my face will just get really red. And I remember

5:49 Speaker 3: the first time on a podcast, I like took my

5:51 Speaker 3: makeup off and shared it and I showed it, and

5:56 Speaker 3: what's so cool is the responses I got. It was

5:59 Speaker 3: not from anyone that had roseatia, it wasn't from the

6:02 Speaker 3: thing that I had, But what it was was it

6:05 Speaker 3: let people say, I'm struggling with this thing and it's

6:07 Speaker 3: not that, but what you just did there helped me

6:10 Speaker 3: kind of like take the makeup off this thing I'm

6:13 Speaker 3: struggling with to know it's okay. And so that's what Like,

6:16 Speaker 3: I have another episode called like no Makeup Prayers, and

6:19 Speaker 3: I feel like that's just the way our life needs

6:21 Speaker 3: to be a prayer with no makeup on it. I'm

6:23 Speaker 3: not saying share everything you're going through with everybody. I'm

6:25 Speaker 3: not saying that even Jesus had like his three closest buds, right,

6:30 Speaker 3: But what I am saying is living your life in

6:32 Speaker 3: such a way that you're not making up your life

6:35 Speaker 3: to be somebody you're not by putting on it's about

6:38 Speaker 3: to be Halloween in the United States, by putting on

6:40 Speaker 3: costumes and personas and things that you never were to

6:43 Speaker 3: try to gain approval from people that will never really

6:46 Speaker 3: love the actual you because you're not letting them see you.

6:49 Speaker 1: Many places, what happens is I don't know, you feel

6:53 Speaker 1: hard about this, but there's a lot of this people

6:56 Speaker 1: of other faiths they have is feeling like all these

6:58 Speaker 1: Christmas are you only to come? You know, they have

7:02 Speaker 1: this anti conversion and all of these things against Christians

7:05 Speaker 1: because of that. And when I joined this new organization,

7:09 Speaker 1: no matter what I did, it always feel like they

7:12 Speaker 1: were trying to be Okay. No one let me keep

7:14 Speaker 1: film at a distance because they knew I was this

7:16 Speaker 1: preacher guy. So they thought in the back of their

7:18 Speaker 1: mind that I was only going to convert them.

7:20 Speaker 2: So but you know.

7:22 Speaker 1: So the real thing was being myself, like you said,

7:26 Speaker 1: being authentic, be sharing my feelings, sharing my emotions, and

7:30 Speaker 1: the best thing of you know, one of my gifts

7:32 Speaker 1: that I have is humor. People call them lame jokes,

7:36 Speaker 1: but I just say that jokes don't have legs, so

7:38 Speaker 1: they lame. But people call it dad jokes and all

7:43 Speaker 1: of this stuff.

7:43 Speaker 2: But hey, that's my gift.

7:47 Speaker 3: You know.

7:48 Speaker 1: That helped me break the ice with a lot of people,

7:51 Speaker 1: and about in a theme of twenty three people, at

7:54 Speaker 1: least eleven or twelve. I told me on my face

7:56 Speaker 1: that we thought you're here only to convert, but I

7:58 Speaker 1: realized that you are so genuine person and that helped

8:02 Speaker 1: me to you know, I'm not saying that I've preached

8:05 Speaker 1: the gospel to all of them or something like that,

8:07 Speaker 1: but that helped me to build the relationships. Like coming

8:11 Speaker 1: back to what you were talking about. By product, I

8:14 Speaker 1: was reminded of this how we talk about you know,

8:16 Speaker 1: Joseph reaching the throne, I mean not the throne, he

8:19 Speaker 1: reached the palace.

8:20 Speaker 2: Right.

8:20 Speaker 1: Everybody says I'm want to reach the palace, and like

8:22 Speaker 1: Joseph did. But that came as a byproduct of him

8:26 Speaker 1: investing in the cup Bearer's dream, right, it didn't come

8:29 Speaker 1: just randomly, And how did he invest in the cup

8:32 Speaker 1: bearers ream? If he just went to the cuppartit and

8:35 Speaker 1: say hey, tell me your dream, that cup Barra will

8:37 Speaker 1: give him a slap on his face. He'll be like, hey,

8:39 Speaker 1: you're not even talking to me. You're not even you know,

8:42 Speaker 1: have you're this super holy Joe, Why should I share

8:45 Speaker 1: my personal matters with you? So the fact that the

8:47 Speaker 1: cup Berea shared the dream with Joseph shows that Joseph

8:51 Speaker 1: had a good rapper with the Cambaro. That's so Christians

8:56 Speaker 1: need to understand that part of you know, like, because

8:59 Speaker 1: I've seen the other extreme where Christians are like this

9:01 Speaker 1: hyper spiritual folks.

9:03 Speaker 2: They're like, you know what, I'm so holy, I'm so holy.

9:07 Speaker 1: Kind of like that I'm slowly so so they're like,

9:11 Speaker 1: I'm so holy, holy holy. But but the truth is, yeah,

9:14 Speaker 1: we are set apart, but we need to also be

9:17 Speaker 1: in the world to you know, help people relate and understand.

9:21 Speaker 1: And that's how we are able to bring them to

9:25 Speaker 1: the table. That's how they pay attention to what they

9:27 Speaker 1: ought to say. My content even two days ago I

9:30 Speaker 1: did like a dance video, so people were like checking

9:33 Speaker 1: that out and it was stupid.

9:35 Speaker 2: It was kind of like mister Bean dancing though. But

9:38 Speaker 2: the next video.

9:39 Speaker 1: Was about how Jesus is the only way with their

9:43 Speaker 1: life to heaven. So unless they follow the dance, only

9:48 Speaker 1: then the neighborhood to see the other one.

9:50 Speaker 2: So that's the way we feel just going to be.

9:52 Speaker 1: Like back in the day, I was just you know,

9:54 Speaker 1: like the typical preacher style, you know, wearing a coat

9:57 Speaker 1: and coming in and you know with the say I

10:00 Speaker 1: still do those if I go and preach in the

10:03 Speaker 1: church or a crusade, that's a different setting.

10:05 Speaker 2: But on media, I'm a different being. You know.

10:08 Speaker 1: I use the comedy, these creativity and that that's how

10:12 Speaker 1: I'm able to break the ice being myself. So that

10:15 Speaker 1: is something I think is lacking among Christians. And that's

10:20 Speaker 1: how that's the challenge, like be the light, guys, don't

10:23 Speaker 1: be the team light.

10:25 Speaker 3: That's it's so well, it's so true and I think

10:27 Speaker 3: even you think about in the scripture, like the Pharisees,

10:29 Speaker 3: they knew every word of the law, but they didn't

10:31 Speaker 3: know why they completely missed the Son of God when

10:35 Speaker 3: he was in front of them, and I think that

10:37 Speaker 3: for me, when I think about my life, there's a

10:40 Speaker 3: quote that I love, which is let you're always or

10:44 Speaker 3: the best sermon you'll ever preach is the one that

10:46 Speaker 3: requires no words. It's just the way you live your life.

10:49 Speaker 3: And for me, like so often, it's like some of

10:53 Speaker 3: the best mena share ever done was in and my

10:55 Speaker 3: corporate job went in the lunch room when it's just

10:57 Speaker 3: like I was. It was a situation where everybody was

11:00 Speaker 3: so upset and I had this peace that people couldn't

11:02 Speaker 3: explain and they didn't understand why or for me, like

11:06 Speaker 3: my gift, I'm not I'm not funny like you, and

11:07 Speaker 3: I don't kick out the jokes, but I have a

11:09 Speaker 3: gift of encouragement, like I love encouraging people and whether

11:14 Speaker 3: they knew Jesus or not, like people needed a word

11:16 Speaker 3: of encouragement. And you even think what's so cool is

11:20 Speaker 3: like in scripture, Jesus tells you know, I can't I

11:25 Speaker 3: can't remember. Maybe it was Judah, I can't remember where,

11:27 Speaker 3: but he basically says, like a preacher greater than Jonah

11:30 Speaker 3: is here, and yet you do not hear. And I think,

11:33 Speaker 3: what's so powerful about that is wow. Like Jesus knew

11:36 Speaker 3: who he was in his father, so he did not

11:39 Speaker 3: base the ability or the amount of people's absorption of

11:45 Speaker 3: what he was saying on whether or not he was

11:47 Speaker 3: saying or doing it correctly. And I think so often

11:50 Speaker 3: we based like how great of Christians we are on

11:52 Speaker 3: how people we respawn to it. No, that's God's joke.

11:56 Speaker 3: Even in my family, my mom talks about this a lot.

11:58 Speaker 3: I'm one of four kids, and my parents grew up.

12:01 Speaker 3: You know, we went to church, Like my parents loved

12:03 Speaker 3: the Lord. Two of my siblings don't know God. They

12:06 Speaker 3: don't want to know God. And my parents talk about

12:09 Speaker 3: all the time. You know, as of parents, we did

12:11 Speaker 3: nothing different. Like two of our kids loved God and

12:14 Speaker 3: now we're so in love with him. One of them

12:16 Speaker 3: has writes the books about God. The other two don't

12:19 Speaker 3: even want to know God. And it's like at the

12:22 Speaker 3: end of the day, you plant seeds and then you

12:24 Speaker 3: have faith that God will water it. You know, you

12:27 Speaker 3: think about a farmer. All the farmer can do is

12:29 Speaker 3: plant the seed. He can't provide the sunshine, he can't

12:31 Speaker 3: provide the rain. Only the Lord can do that. And

12:34 Speaker 3: so like, are you faithful to showing up wherever God

12:37 Speaker 3: has you, planting seeds and letting God take care of

12:40 Speaker 3: the rest. Because the reality of it is John Us

12:43 Speaker 3: wanting that conversion metric. I led this person to Christ.

12:47 Speaker 3: I brought that's about us. That's about us saying I

12:51 Speaker 3: was the one that led the person to Christ. It

12:53 Speaker 3: has nothing to do with like glory to be to God.

12:56 Speaker 3: If it was really glory to be a God. It's like, hey,

12:57 Speaker 3: I planted that seed, but Lord, look at what you did,

13:00 Speaker 3: look at what you grew. And so it's like few

13:02 Speaker 3: of the faith to be a lie in the places

13:04 Speaker 3: that God called you to be and letting God take

13:06 Speaker 3: care of the rest, and trusting that any seeds you

13:08 Speaker 3: plant you might not see their fruit on this side

13:11 Speaker 3: of glory, but you planted a seed and we're faithful

13:14 Speaker 3: to that. And is that enough for you?

13:17 Speaker 1: Yeah, like you said, we just plant our seeds. Like

13:19 Speaker 1: for example, I when one of my books that I

13:22 Speaker 1: did was just a storybook, okay, which is just a

13:25 Speaker 1: fantasy story, but through that I bring in Christian principles.

13:30 Speaker 1: So even people of father faiths started checking it out.

13:33 Speaker 1: And that's how I hate hit number one and two categories.

13:36 Speaker 1: So here's the thing, right, Like if I go and

13:38 Speaker 1: say this is a Christian book, guys go and read it,

13:40 Speaker 1: they're not going to read it. So in a sense,

13:43 Speaker 1: what we need to do is we need to ask

13:45 Speaker 1: God for these unique ways of just say, God, how

13:48 Speaker 1: can I sow your word the seed in the unique

13:52 Speaker 1: way in a different way. And like you said, we

13:56 Speaker 1: do our part of sowing the seed, and it's God's

13:59 Speaker 1: job to do what me God kidd