Healing Secret Wounds and Embracing God's Love - Adam Mesa
[00:00:00] Steve Gatena: As humans, we will face hardship that sometimes leave painful, emotional, mental, and spiritual wounds. Some of these wounds may cause us to feel immense shame, immense guilt, and immense judgment. Often we mistakenly believe that we have to suffer in silence and that we must suffer alone because no one can understand what we've gone through.
[00:00:31] And sometimes we mistakenly believe that if someone did learn about what we endured, they wouldn't love us anymore, or maybe they'd look at us differently or treat us differently. But these are false stories that the enemy whispers to us to keep us from God, from His love and from His light, because God never wants us to suffer, especially in silence.
[00:00:59] It doesn't matter what we've endured, God is there to comfort us, to shelter us, and to love us through our wounds, and he often sends the right people to us. People who can help us heal our wounds, people who will support and love us, people who will be stable and trustworthy, and people who will create a safe and reliable place for us to start releasing our pain.
[00:01:30] God also invites us to make space, to reach out and to be available to help heal each other through prayer and being present, by loving on each other and listening with an open heart. God may work through us. Using us to answer someone else's prayer.
[00:01:53] This week on Relentless Hope, pastor Adam Mesa teaches us all about healing our secret wounds and silent cries. We learn that although we may have experienced hardships in our past, they don't have to define us, and our futures can always be different. We learn that we can change our futures, but changing our perspectives on what we've received, using even the most painful experiences as fuel, can fuel our future.
[00:02:31] Pastor Adam also shares what he says when someone tells him about a painful experience, which is "God loves us unconditionally and God has a future in store for us." We also hear about some of the greatest leadership lessons that Pastor Adam has received and how he tries to be a leader.
[00:02:54] As Pastor Adam teaches us, leadership is about sacrifice, about looking for people in pain and helping them to heal, about helping people reach their full potential. Making space for people to fail and choose to rise, and being available to someone.
[00:03:12] When it comes to leaving a legacy, pastor Adam explains that he hopes to heal the pain in this world, helping people to heal their secret wounds and silent cries. He encourages us to be like Jesus, caring for our neighbors, helping them heal and creating and being a part of a community of like-minded people who will support us and keep us accountable.
[00:03:40] It's okay to ask for healing from our secret wounds and silent cries. It's okay to release the painful experiences of our past, and it's more than okay to use your past as fuel for your future. You never have to do this alone, God is with you always.
[00:04:03] Today as we get started, I'm gonna read this quote from Martin Luther King Jr.
[00:04:11] "As my sufferings mounted, I soon realized that there were two ways in which I could respond to my situation, either to react with bitterness or seek to transform the suffering into a creative force. I decided to follow the latter course."
[00:04:34] After leading youth ministry for about four years, pastor Adam Mesa was presented with one of the hardest requests for help that he'd ever been asked for.
[00:04:47] Adam Mesa: To me, youth ministry is one of the hardest group of kids, uh, to speak to. Not because, not because they don't listen or not because they don't want to hear.
[00:04:56] I actually found them, they're kind of the most receptive people to wanna listen, but they are just going through so much, especially nowadays with the world that we live in today, you can physically feel the hurt that they have. I used to get really depressed because I would question really my own life.
[00:05:16] Because you, as you were communicating, you could, you could feel what these kids were going through. They were going through some were going through, I mean, just things that you could not even imagine. I remember one time as a youth pastor, there was a, a girl who came up to me who was a teenager and she said, pastor Adam, uh, I don't know what to do because I can't seem to get healing from some things, and I asked her, well, what are those things that you need help healing from? And she said, well, just a few years ago, I was raped by my father.
[00:05:53] Steve Gatena: On part one of this three part series, pastor Adam Mesa explains what it's like growing up with a father that's a pastor, how his parents influenced his life decisions and the importance of family.
[00:06:07] He became a driven individual because his parents taught him the significance of earning his place and how to stay consistently loving in order to live a better life.
[00:06:23] Adam Mesa: My name is Adam Mesa and I currently live in Rancho Cucamonga, California, an hour east of Los Angeles. And my current position is I am a pastor at Abundant Living Family Church. I serve under my dad, who is our senior pastor of Abundant Living Family Church. He's been our senior pastor for 24 years. He started the church and right now I'm in a season where I am being mentored by him to follow in his footsteps.
[00:06:52] And part of his legacy that he'll be leaving behind will be, uh, on top of my two other brothers in ministry as well, but specifically me, will be mentoring me in the process of learning what he does as a senior pastor in the future to be able to follow in his own footsteps at our church.
[00:07:10] And as I go back and I think about my life with my dad and how we've established our church and where we're at today in life was in 1994, I was four years old and God put it on his heart to actually start his own church. He had, uh, been let go from another church and he was a little hurt and he was a little tired and he didn't think he was gonna start a church again. But lo and behold, uh, people started sending him checks for the new church that they had hoped that he would start.
[00:07:42] And he thought to himself, I gotta do something about this, because if people are believing in what it is that we were doing and what God has placed on my heart, then let's go ahead and start a church. So it was 1994 in Southridge Fontana, and I was four years old, my oldest brother was nine years old, and my middle brother was six years old.
[00:08:03] And we all as a family, partnered together to start this church in my parents' living room, a thousand square foot house. And we would all do our part where we as the boys, we would clean up the toys, we would move all the little light things. And then my mom and dad would move the furniture out of the living room and they would set up chairs and children's ministry would be in my parents', uh, bedroom where my grandma would teach us on little old school felt boards, you know, I don't know if you remember those in any type of school setting, like a little Moses, a little lamb, and they, on these old school felt velcro boards that they would place and tell a story, no projectors and no whiteboard, anything like that.
[00:08:47] And, um, my grandma would teach us in children's church while my dad, uh, would teach in the living room. And 12 people started that church. And today, 24 years later, we have about 12,000 people in our church with a weekend attendance of about 7,000 people.
[00:09:06] And so in 24 years, I've seen my dad lead with an incredible amount of integrity. And as a boy growing up, there are things that stood out to me that my dad would do that has made me the man that I am today. I just recently had my own firstborn son as well, and there are a lot of things that my dad did when I was a child that I plan to replicate in my own son's life.
[00:09:34] And some of the biggest things was my dad has always been one of the greatest people of character and integrity. I have never met anyone more real and authentic in my life. He is who he is, he, he does what he says he does, and there's nothing phony about him. I think part of the reason why me and both of my brothers and all of our wives are still in church today, still following God, still serving God, all of us are in ministry, there's not a single one in our family who does not serve in the church. And I, I can't count that to any other respect than my mom and dad who have always been the most authentic people that I ever knew in my life.
[00:10:14] And they were so incredibly disciplined, uh, within us and their kids.
[00:10:19] Uh, they valued very much so what we listened, what we watched, to the things that we said, uh, we were corrected often on that level, and I'd always thank Susie and Sally and Joe and all these other people in school, they got to do this, they get to watch this, they got to say this, they get to go and do this, their family does this.
[00:10:39] And what I didn't realize was my dad was preparing me to be a man. Uh, he respected me in my childhood, but he put disciplines to say, I know that Adam isn't always gonna be a kid, so therefore I'm gonna hold him to a standard as a young man, uh, so that when he's a grown man, he can influence his community and he can make an impact on this world.
[00:11:00] And those are the things that have always stood out to me more particularly, I always remember, and I always tell this story with people, as I grew up every single morning, my dad would have a prayer life. Life. And he still has a prayer life every single morning, every morning that I could remember, ever since I was a young boy, my dad has this way of praying where he kind of, he prays really low under his lisp and you can kind of like, you hear almost like a whisper as he prays. And sometimes the s's almost whistle and stuff like that. And so you can, you can hear it as he's praying in the morning.
[00:11:38] And what I would often do in our house growing up, is when I'd get done getting ready or it was a weekend on the early morning, I would sit on the top of the stairs because my parents, they split our living room, um, and they made one half of the living room, his study, and they just added drywall and stuff like that. And then on the other side was the living room.
[00:11:58] And so in his office, there was a hole on the top of the ceiling because they couldn't enclose the entire room off, because it was kind of a makeshift room, and so you could actually hear any conversation that was going on in that room if you would just stand on the top of the stairs.
[00:12:15] And what I would often do is I would sit on the top of the stairs and I would hear my dad praying. And I think as a boy, you're pretty selfish because he would, I would always at some point hear him pray for me. And he'd always bring up my name, and I would wait on the top of the stairs and I would listen for him to say my name, and I just liked my dad talking about me.
[00:12:38] And so I would sit on the top of the stairs and I'd begin to hear him say, uh, you know, prayers of like, God, I just pray that his future wife, that he has, that he loves her and she loves him, and I pray that their love is real. Father God, and I pray You protect his wife. And I pray today, whatever she's doing, that You're looking after her.
[00:12:55] And I pray for his future kids, father God, that they're healthy and they're strong, all these other type of things that at at six and seven years old, you're not, they're, you're not even thinking about a wife or kids. But 20 years later, uh, I do have a wife and I do have a son. And I think that my life is where it's at today because of those top of the stair, top moments of hearing my dad pray for my life.
[00:13:24] And he'd also do really little things in life with as kids, where my parents never treated, uh, any of the desires in our life as necessary needs. And so if we wanted something like an Xbox or any or Game Cube back in the day, or a Nintendo, my parents would establish goals for us to meet in life that would garner the blessing of those type of things.
[00:13:49] And so my parents never just gave us whatever, what we wanted. My dad would say, hey, you want a Game Cube? Well, then what you're gonna do is you're gonna go to church on Tuesday nights and you're gonna join the puppet team and then the puppet team, if you serve faithfully in that for three months, at the end of that three months, I'll get you that Game Cube.
[00:14:07] And so what he was learning, or really what I was learning, he was teaching me, was that nothing in life is handed to you, is that if you want something in life, you gotta earn it and you have to meet some goals in your own life. And today, I think I've become such a driven, driven person in life because my parents taught me at a very young age that I need to drive in life.
[00:14:31] And my mom was the number one cheerleader in our life. And she's the, she's the right hand to my dad. She's been there from the beginning. And what my mom has always taught me was consistency. We used to, at one point in our church, have five to seven services on our weekend cuz we were growing so fast, and my mom would grab a fresh pair of notes, every single service, and she would write notes down during my dad's message as if it was the first time that she's heard it.
[00:15:02] And she has done that for 24 years.
[00:15:07] I love my dad, there are a lot of people in this life that I love, but I don't know that I can hear someone say the same thing over that many times and act like it's new every single time. But my mom is one of the most consistent, loving people that I've ever met, and it's developed me to be the person that I am today, to have a dad that has so much char character and integrity in his life.
[00:15:31] I never had a dad that when we would go out in public, he'd be one way, and then when we'd get home, he would talk down on my wife or on on his wife, or he would talk down to his kids or he would. I've never had that in my life from the example of my parents.
[00:15:46] Have I been talked down by other people? Have I been outcasted before?
[00:15:50] Yes, but has never come from my parents. In 2007, I actually was, uh, coming home from work and my brother Caleb, he was two years older than me, he had, I was really going through some things and you know, as a teenager things are much more serious in your mind than they probably are, uh, as you've gotten older.
[00:16:14] But, In my life as a 17 year old, I was broken. I had gone, uh, through some things with a girlfriend and all these other things, and I was like, you know what? I am gonna run away. I'm gonna leave this place behind because I'm so done with this. So I was actually heading to my bedroom, and I was gonna pack up and I was gonna leave for good because I just really wasn't living a, a very disciplined life.
[00:16:39] I was wild, I was reckless. And really, I felt like I was kind of an embarrassment to my parents and everything within me just thought, instead of just embarrassing your parents anymore, why don't you just leave? Because you can't seem to get things right in life. And I was committed to doing that. And I walked past my brother's room that was right next to me and he invited me into his bedroom and said, Hey, Adam, come on over here, uh, I want to talk to you about some things.
[00:17:06] And as I sat on his bed, he began to tell me, and this was from a bro like my brother, who, I mean we would play video games together and stuff, but we would never have intimate, deep conversations or anything like that at this time. And he begins to tell me how much God loves me and how much God has a plan for me.
[00:17:27] And then he tells me, you know, Adam, Jesus has died on the cross for you and for every decision that you make that God has in set for your life, you know what he did on that cross is kind of like a waste. You know that when he was on that cross, he was thinking about you. And so why do you go throughout your day not thinking about him? Because he really cares about you.
[00:17:50] And he begins to open up the Bible and show me some verses where it says how much God loves me. And there was something in my head at that moment that just totally clicked. It clicked that my life has had past purpose, that my future has a plan. And to this day, I credit my brother Caleb, for literally altering my life in that moment because it was almost like going into your house and flicking on a light switch.
[00:18:16] It's just everything completely made sense at that moment. And it was actually at that moment that the girlfriend that I had at the time, I called her and I said, you know what? Um, I love you. I hope the best for you, but I really feel like God is changing the path on my life.
[00:18:32] And it was that moment, really the next day that I went to my dad and I said, dad, uh, really, what do I have to do to become a pastor? I don't know what, I don't know how, I don't even think I'm really worthy to do it, but I feel like God has put a purpose on my life and I wanna help people like you did because that same moment that I had that previous night, I know that there was a lot of other people who needed those moments in their lives.
[00:18:56] And so that was the point where I committed a life altering promise to God that I would always serve Him. And actually, I just hit 10 years of, since I've made that decision, and it has been the best decision of my life, I have seen my life radically changed and my relationship with God, uh, so complete that I never could imagine I could have.
[00:19:19] So at that time I was 17 years old when I gave my life to Jesus. And it just so happened that I felt like I was called to help children, uh, to serve children, to teach children about Jesus and the Bible and how much God loves them. So I went to Bible school and at 19 it just so happened that the children's pastor that my dad had, had wanted to make a life change. They wanted to move somewhere else and pastor somewhere else.
[00:19:45] And so I had two more years left of college where I was gonna start interning as a children's pastor, and my dad kind of just told me: hey, Adam, this is your time. I'm gonna just start plugging you in right now.
[00:19:57] So here I find myself at 19 years old, I'm leading 1300 kids on a weekend, and we're making curriculum for them and we're teaching. And one of the things that I found when I first started to public speak, and I first started to bring things was that I wasn't always confident in myself. I always felt like that, I didn't really have anything special to say, I didn't really have anything unique to say. But what I, as I've gotten older and what I've realized I started to tell myself at that time is that we all have a unique voice in this life.
[00:20:34] We all have our own unique experiences that we all have gone through, and we can all relate to somebody in some sort of way, but the, but if we continue to remain silent, then that person that needs to hear our story, that person who needs to hear our unique voice, they won't hear it. They'll go without hearing your voice.
[00:20:54] And as I started to uncover that, that is what fueled, uh, my confidence was to say that, no, I do have something to share, I do have a voice, I do have something that God has placed on my heart, therefore, I'm gonna take confidence in that rather than in in myself.
[00:21:12] Because naturally I really didn't have anything to say naturally, I didn't really have any experience, I didn't have any wisdom, I didn't have any talents. But what I did have was I had my own story. I had my own voice. And as I stayed confident in that, I slowly started to see myself develop as a communicator and to where now where God has placed me in my life, where I'm constantly sharing and speaking to thousands of people is that God has shown me to not be confident in myself, but be confident in the purpose that he's placed in my life and be confident, just like he told Moses, he said, you may feel like you can't talk Moses. You may feel like you can't lead Israel, but I'll give you a rod and a staff and I'll give you someone to help you speak and you can do this.
[00:21:59] And I felt like with God, he told me, I know you're not always confident Adam, but I'm gonna give you a voice. I'm gonna give you wisdom. I'm gonna give you a purpose on this life, and why don't you just hold onto that and everything will be taken care of. And that's what I've continued to do. I've continued every time that I step in front of somebody that I feel supremely unqualified to talk to, I just remember that God has placed me in life where I'm at for a reason, and I'm here for such a time as this, and so I'm gonna stand boldly on that fact and not think of any of the other things that try to pull me down.
[00:22:34] There are times where I was speaking and for many years after I was a children's pastor, I went into being, uh, a youth pastor and I led youth ministry for about four years, and to me, youth ministry is one of the hardest group of kids, uh, to speak to. Not because, not because they don't listen or not because they don't want to hear. I actually found them, they're kind of the most receptive people to wanna listen, but they are just going through so much, especially nowadays with the world that we live in today, you can physically feel the hurt that they have while you're speaking and while you're communicating.
[00:23:14] I used to get really depressed, almost somewhat suicidal at times because I would question really my own life because you, as you were communicating, you could, you could feel what these kids were going through. They were going through, some were going through, I mean, just things that you could not even imagine.
[00:23:34] I remember one time as a youth pastor, there was a, a girl who came up to me who was a teenager and she said, pastor Adam, uh, I don't know what to do because I can't seem to get healing from some things. And I asked to her, well, what are those things that you need help healing from? And she said, well, just a few years ago, I was raped by my father, that my mother would know that he would constantly come home drunk and he would begin to molest me and rape me. And it just so happened one of the times I got pregnant by his, and had his child, was gonna have his child. And my mom, who knew what he was doing, she took me to the abortion clinic, and helped me get an abortion for my son that was also my brother. And I just have a lot of anger with that.
[00:24:25] I mean, what do you really say to somebody who experienced such hardship?
[00:24:33] The complication of, what words do you use? How can you help this person? What, what? Like, I can't even imagine what it is that she's going through. And so in that moment of fear, in that moment of, I don't know what to tell her, what I just began to do is just tell her how much God loves her. And what I began to do is show her how much God loved her.
[00:24:54] And what I began to do is began to be something that my dad was in my own life, but maybe she hadn't had in her dad in her life, was to be someone who's present, who's a staple, who encourages them, who wants the best for them, who knows that their past does not define where they're going in their future.
[00:25:12] And if they take their past and they use that as fuel to fire their future, then what you have is you have a force to be reckoned with. And I constantly would try to encourage her with that and how much God had a future for her life. And it's hard, it's hard walking with people who experience such hardship, especially stuff that you can never even relate to.
[00:25:34] But what's great is I'm not here to give my own wisdom. I'm not here to give my own expertise. What I am is I'm here to represent God and I'm here to show them how much He loves them. And it's through those moments that she became better than ever. She started to have smiles on her faces. She started to make friends.
[00:25:54] Uh, at the time she was, I think 12 years old. And when she was speaking to me, she was 16 at the time. And now there were smiles on her faces. She began to have joy. She began to, uh, get into poetry and she would write poetry about her experience to encourage other boys and girls who may have experienced the same things as her.
[00:26:14] And so what she did was she used her pain. As fuel for her future. And even in my own life when I would have fear, I would look at the stories of these young kids who would triumph over so much. And I would think, in my own life, what do I have to fear? When there are so many kids that are going through so much and they do so well, when they get past it, when they use it for their future, they can overcome anything.
[00:26:40] Within the youth ministry that I had at the time, about 55% of my kids came from single parent homes. A lot of them were not financially doing well. A lot of their parents, uh, were. Going through, they had, they were on welfare or they didn't make a lot, or they were part of broken homes. We would also have a lot, a lot of foster kids who would come and there'd be boys and girls homes that would actually send their kids as well.
[00:27:07] And sometimes we'd even have 30 to 50 kids that are part of boys and girls homes. And so every single week as a youth pastor, I would meet these kids who had totally different upbringings than what I had, but what I realized is I had something special, just as special as they were, I had something special to offer as well.
[00:27:28] I had some, a new future that I can share with them. I could share with them that not everyone is gonna do them. Like maybe they had been done before or nobody's going to hurt them like they had been hurt before. And so the example that my parents set in my life allowed me as a pastor to show these young kids that they can change their future.
[00:27:51] That though they may have experienced hardship as a young kid, that when they become adults, they can change their own future by changing their perspective, by changing the way that they've received things or taken things and using that as fuel for their future.
[00:28:04] So I was always very thankful in a lot of ways to say that I could not relate to them, but by not relating to them, I was able to give them something practical to change in their own future and share with them that in my own story, there is a future where someone can love you and care for you.
[00:28:20] There is a future where you can really do something and you can get out of the situation that you're in, and that would really encourage these young kids. I mean, we were having new kids every single week that just wanted to get in small groups, and that's one of the things we changed right away is we used to just share a message on stage, but when we saw that these kids just needed an environment where they can just share what they're going through, we totally switched the way that we did services and we only, we went from speaking for 40 minutes to speaking for 10 minutes and the rest of the time, we'd break the kids off in small groups and just let them talk about life.
[00:28:55] And then as they would talk about life, they would then begin to ask us, well, what do you think about that? Or How do you think I can get past this? And we'd be able to share the love of God with them during those moments.
[00:29:06] And so the same way goes that if I have such a loving earthly father, I can only imagine how much my Heavenly Father loves me and cares for me.
[00:29:15] And so that's ultimately what has developed me in my early life to have a passion to want to go into ministry and follow my dad's footsteps, because I just want to leave an impact like he has. I've grown up seeing the people that he prays for, the communities that he's blessed, the families that have gotten food and clothing, and the orphanages that our church has supported, and the missionaries and the water projects and the food projects that our church has done.
[00:29:41] I've seen people literally with friends growing up where their parents were on the brink of divorce and they started getting counseling through our church and they are still together to this day. And I looked at that as a young boy and I said, you know what? I wanna make an impact on this life just like my father has.
[00:30:01] And so in my early life, that is what led me to choose to want to become a pastor just like my dad, because of his integrity and because of the way that he leads and his authenticity.
[00:30:12] And that was my early life.
[00:30:18] Anybody in this life can be a hero. And it's really simple. All it takes is every single day when you wake up looking for opportunities to help others, saying, Hey, can I help you carry that? Or another person who's being talked down to by somebody else and stepping in and being a deflector for them who's being hurt.
[00:30:39] But heroism isn't something that's extravagant. It's not reserved just for people who are strong or powerful or or wealthy. But heroism is really somebody who says, I'm gonna look for people who are hurting, who are harmed, who are in pain, and I'm gonna do something about it in this world.
[00:31:03] Steve Gatena: On part two of this three part series, pastor Adam Mesa learns the necessary traits of leadership from his father. He discovers that to become a great leader, you must find the time to make yourself available to others. Adam defines leadership as the ability to let people take chances and fail, allowing them the opportunity to rise to the occasion for growth.
[00:31:33] Adam Mesa: I would define leadership in many cases as being really, if I could sum it up in one concise way, is being the first person to sacrifice for others. And I really have seen that a lot in my own life with the leaders that I've looked up to, is the best leaders that have led me, that have allowed me to be a leader myself are people who would go out of their way to sacrifice for me and the other people around them.
[00:32:00] They wouldn't be per a person who would shift blame on others. They wouldn't be a person who would put all these responsibility on other people while they just relaxed. But as hard as they wanted us to work, they would work alongside with us as well, you know?
[00:32:15] I'd often see, like my dad, he would come to the church. In our church campus, eventually, when we grew in size, we began to have a church campus that was 40 acres. And I remember when I was 18 years old, we had moved to our new campus. It was 40 acres. It was a large project. Our building, our church had grew to 12,000 members.
[00:32:36] And my dad would take me and my brother Caleb, and he would make us go pull weeds and plant plants around the church. I'm thinking to myself, this campus is huge. Like can't we find somebody who will plant these plants and pull these weeds? And what my dad would begin to tell me is he would tell me that the moment you have someone do something else for you when you should be doing it, begins to be the point where you stop caring about what it is that God has called you to care for.
[00:33:06] And I was shown that no matter what, you need to be the first person to sacrifice, the first person to pick up a chair, the first person to sweep something up. The first person. To this day, my dad still makes us go and walk around the church campus to pick up trash. And he tells us, if you ever see a bubblegum wrapper, it's nobody's job to pick it up but yourself.
[00:33:29] And it's in those little things that I said, man, this is what a great leader must look like. And then the other leadership aspects that he eventually showed me, but I learned around when I was 21 years old, was allow people to take chances and allow people to fail. Don't look for perfection in others, but rather give them opportunities to rise to the occasion.
[00:33:53] And I was about 21 years old and I had picked up photography and I was making videos and film, and I was in college and I needed money while I was in college just to live and, I met a through a friend, they introduced me to a, a jeweler who had a lot of jewelry stores. He was a very wealthy man. And in conversation, I don't know if you've ever been like me before, you've kind of hyped yourself up, uh, when you're really not as good at it as you're saying you are.
[00:34:18] And so I would, I'd begin to tell him, I'm a photographer, I do photography. And he begins to ask me, do you photograph jewelry? And in my head I go, yeah, of, of course I do. And that's what I respond to him. Yeah, of course I could do it. It's just like taking a regular person's picture, right?
[00:34:32] How hard can it be? And right when I walk away, he goes, well, I'm gonna hire you. He says, I'll pay you. He told me, I'll pay you $750 if you come and you photograph all my most expensive jewelry. I mean, his jewelry ranged from $10,000 to one piece was actually a million dollars. And he said, I want you to do photography for all of that, I wanna put it on my website. I'll pay you $750.
[00:34:55] At 21 years old, I was like, that's a lot of money. I want to do that. And so I begin to go to You on YouTube to figure out how do you take pictures of jewelry, and what I begin to realize it is really, really, really hard.
[00:35:08] So I go to his shop, I spend an entire day, I spend almost 12 hours taking pictures of all of his jewelry. I go home and I begin to edit it in Photoshop and I send it to him about a couple days later and he calls me. And he tells me, Adam, those are some of the worst pictures of jewelry that I have ever seen in my life. I can't use a single picture, but here's what I'm gonna do. I actually found instead I, I know I said that there's not a single picture, but he says, there is a picture that I can kind of use for something that's not too serious.
[00:35:46] So he goes, here's what I'm gonna do is all summer my shop is open to you. I can realize that you're not good at it. You can come in any day that you want and you can take pictures of my jewelry whenever you want. And for every good picture that you take that I decide to keep and use, I will pay you $75.
[00:36:08] And he says, the success is up to you. The success is will you come in the shop, will you be diligent? Will you take the pictures or will you just walk away from this and be discouraged? Cuz he goes, I have to tell you, you aren't good at what you're doing right now, but, with practice, you can figure anything out. And if this is what you want to do, my shop is open. That's my deal. It's open to you.
[00:36:31] I spent four days a week in that shop the entire summer, and I learned how to take pictures of jewelry and I ended up making over the whole summer what was supposed to make me one day. But what it did was it taught me, he gave me a chance when probably no one else would.
[00:36:48] He gave me an opportunity when I lied and I told him that I could do something that I couldn't. I took on something that I wasn't prepared for, but instead of him making, making me feel small, what he did was he spoke the truth to me, but then he gave me an opportunity for growth. And as I've gotten older and now I've gotten into ministry after that, I've seen my dad do the same thing in my own life.
[00:37:12] He has entrusted me with things and as I begin to learn under him, and he begins to mentor me in being a lead pastor is he gives me opportunities to lead things. He doesn't micromanage me. He doesn't always check up on me. He assigns me things. And also sometimes he doesn't assign me things and he just looks at me to see if that, I see the problem that maybe he sees.
[00:37:34] And it's in those moments that he has allowed me so many times to fail, to fall. But every single time he's been there to tell me and ask me, how did you feel? How do you, how would you do differently? What would you do next time? What would you do different, all those other type of things that today I'm now able to lead in his same way.
[00:37:56] So I now have people on my team, on my staff who are younger than me, who make a lot of mistakes, who don't always make the right decisions, but he has shown me that you have to leave room for people to fail so that in their failures, they can make the decision to rise to the occasion and succeed. And I have practiced that in my own life.
[00:38:19] So I haven't let failure be a discouragement. I've let failure be a fuel to be, to continue to stoke the fire that God has placed in my own life as a leader. And I just always encourage young people and their own leadership is let people fail, allow people room to make mistakes because we at one point have been given the same opportunity, and that is one of the biggest things that I've found in leadership.
[00:38:47] When it comes to leading people, I think that my greatest challenge and the greatest challenge that I've seen in other people is a person, an individual's own insecurities. I think insecurity is what draws people to make compromising decisions in life and insecurity that you're not capable to do what it is that you've been called to do. An insecurity that says you can't have what it is that you feel like you are supposed to have in life.
[00:39:18] I tell this all the time when I speak to, to single people. I tell them all the time. How many of you think that? As a single person, that you're a genuine catch towards someone else. And I first, really what I do is ask them who, who desires to date somebody?
[00:39:33] And they all unanimously always raise their hand. And then I say, how many of you think that you would be a genuine catch to someone else? And everybody raises their hand cuz I said, well, I mean, if you didn't feel like you were a genuine catch, you wouldn't really desire a relationship cuz you feel like you would ruin that relationship.
[00:39:51] So the majority of you think that you're a genuine catch, but I would tell you every single day you don't act like it. You don't act like you're a genuine catch. You think that you're not a good looking person. You think that you're not a strong person. You think that you're not smart. You think that you're not good looking.
[00:40:09] You think that you're not, you don't have a purpose in life, but in practicality, when you view yourself towards another person, you think, oh, that person, they would do well if they dated me, I would make them happy. I, I'd love on them my, this and that. And you think positive on yourself mentally, but in, in practicality you really don't, because you allow the insecurity of your life. You allow the mirror that you stare at every single day and you, you see yourself 24 hours a day and that person that you look up to, that you see through social media or you see through the workplace, you only see a little tidbit information about them.
[00:40:48] And that's what judges, that's what you compare with. You compare the you that you see in the mirror to the one that that person wants you to see. And then you begin to compare yourself, which ultimately leads you to be an insecure individual, but it's not necessary.
[00:41:02] That's what's so hard in leading people sometimes. It's helping them to realize that they have so many gifts, they have so much talent, they can go so far in life. Every desire that they have can be met. If they would wake up every day and just realize, That they don't have to compare themselves to anybody else. That they themselves are a perfect picture, a perfect painting that God has created.
[00:41:29] And if I can get them to realize that, then I mean, they're the greatest employee, they're the greatest volunteer, they're the greatest friend, they're the greatest spouse. Cuz ultimately everything somewhat derives from an insecurity.
[00:41:42] And so in my own marriage, me and my wife talk all the time about being secure people who trust one another, who never allows insecurity to drive our decisions in life.
[00:41:53] And as a pastor and as I lead people, I try to help them, get them to realize that man, they have so much more talent and gifts than they even realize. And I want them to see that. And sometimes I even have to poke them and prod them a little bit and make things a little bit hard for them, for them to realize and get them to stand and rise to the occasion to see their fullest potential.
[00:42:16] And within the context of getting them to realize that they're a perfect painting, that they're a perfect picture, is one of the greatest things, is giving them responsibilities. It's not just expecting them out of thin air to rise to the occasion of their fullest potential, but allowing them opportunities of responsibilities, letting them have ownership.
[00:42:38] And I think it goes back to, I get that from my childhood, where my dad would tell me, hey, I'm gonna get you whatever you want in life, but, you're gonna earn it. I'm gonna give you some goals. I'm gonna give you some responsibilities. If you do these things, then I'm gonna bless you with them because you're gonna rise to the occasion.
[00:42:55] And then if I didn't do it and I didn't had get what it was that I wanted, I had nobody to blame but myself. And so when I try to get people to realize their fullest potential and the painting that God has created in their own life, I try to give them opportunities of ownership to own le, to own leads of teams on trips, to own them, help them lead teams of small groups.
[00:43:18] I in their workplace. I challenge them. If they're really upset at their boss, I tell them, tomorrow what I want you to do is I want you to bring them a Starbucks. And I want you to say, I, today, I bought a Starbucks and I thought of you, and I just wanted to buy it for you, and tell me if their mannerism changes.
[00:43:39] Usually every person who's been having issues with that coworker or boss, when they go and do something like that, they're like, oh, pastor Adam, I, it is just a totally different person. I, I didn't even know they were so smiling kind the rest of the day. Even in our staff meeting, they referenced me and they pointed me at, I never thought, and then there are other people where I asked them the next day, hey, did you buy that Starbucks for your boss or your manager?
[00:44:01] And they go, oh, no, I'm, I'm still upset, or I'm this or that. And then kind of what I show them is, you're not rising to your fullest potential. Uh, you, you gotta, you gotta get past that and you gotta start loving on people if you wanna be loved on yourself. You gotta start encouraging others if you wanna be encouraged yourself.
[00:44:18] And so I kind of take more of the approach of being a little bit more like sandpaper with them, where when we get in contact, I'm, I'm, I'm not always the most like, joyful, smiley person. I kind of wanna rub you a little bit because with sandpaper, the only time it's being used is when you're trying to smooth the surface out.
[00:44:36] So when I'm trying to smooth someone's surface out, I have to be the sound sandpaper, I have to be the one that's challenging 'em. It's giving 'em opportunities of growth. And so it's just giving them those responsibilities to smooth their life out and make their life look so much better. A chair that's been polished by sandpaper to a chair that's rough and raw looks totally different.
[00:44:58] And I would choose to sit in a chair that's been smoothed rather than one that's still raw any day of the week. And so we gotta be smooth towards others.
[00:45:07] For those that desire themselves to be a leader and they say, you know what, what practical things can I do to really establish myself as a great leader?
[00:45:18] And, one of the greatest things that I can say is, is be available, be available to people. One of the most impactful moments I've ever had in my life was I was at a conference in a totally other state, and I passed by somebody. I was, I was at the conference to gain some type of information on a particular subject, and I felt like I didn't, I didn't receive the information that I came for, I was kind of a little discouraged because I was trying to meet people and talk to people and get help. And it didn't seem like anyone really wanted to talk about it or help me on a one-on-one. It was kind of like, oh, just pay for this conference and your questions will be answered. And I, they weren't, I, so I, I left and I thought, man, I paid for this flight and this hotel and I'm leaving here, and I, and I have nothing, uh, to go walk away with.
[00:46:06] And I passed by a guy, and his name is Scott Williams, and he commented on my shoes. He said, hey man, I really like your shoes. And I looked up and I said, thank you. And he said, what'd you come here for to this conference? And I said, you know, I came here for this information and that information and I feel like I didn't walk away with it.
[00:46:26] And he said, you know what? If you ever have any questions on that subject, because I kind of know a little bit about it, why don't you gimme a call? And he gives me his cell phone number and I walked away from there and I thought, There's no way this guy's gonna be answering my call. He, he, he must have did that cuz he was just being polite or he was just being nice.
[00:46:45] And it turns out over the next year, I would talk to him almost once a week on the subject. And every single time I would call him or text him, he would respond right away. He was available to me every time that I needed him. And there'd be times where he'd get back to me in a day or two, but he would never let time go without being available to help lead me.
[00:47:09] And today I'd say he's one of the greatest influences and impacts in my life. And really simply put, the only reason why he is the greatest impact on my life is because he was available to me when I needed help. And if someone's saying I'm looking to be a leader, I wanna make an impact, I would just encourage them and say, find people that you can be available to.
[00:47:31] And if there's anything that you can offer in their life, advice, an ear, a shoulder to cry on, a friend to talk to, someone to Skype with, someone to email with, then be available to that person. And you'll realize you start doing it to one person, that one person starts talking to you about another person.
[00:47:48] That other person starts talking to you about another person. Next thing you know, you're having a large group of people coming to you and saying, hey, can you help lead us? Why? Just because you were available. And I try to put that in my own life, and I try to be available to people at all times, myself.
[00:48:07] What I've done is not only wanting to have a glass half full mentality, but have a glass overflowing mentality, that even when, uh, unmet expectations happen with people, I'm just gonna assume that my glass is full and overflowing.
[00:48:21] It's when I do that, that that person doesn't have the power to discourage me and hurt me, and in other words, I also carry the power to encourage them that even though they may be upset, they may be hurt. I can use my optimism, I can use my positivity to help love on them, cuz clearly they're really having a tough time. So I've noticed with people, people sometimes say and do things out of their hurt that I really don't anymore try to hold them to it.
[00:48:47] I don't say, well it was that person's fault. I just really think there's a situation that they went through that was really tough and they didn't respond to it really well. But I'm not gonna blame the person. I'm gonna recognize that their situation drove them to their feelings and therefore just like that situation has passed and there's nothing we could do about the past, let's move forward in the future, Cuz I'm not gonna give that situation control over my happiness,
[00:49:14] Steve Gatena: On part three of this three part series, pastor Adam Mesa explains how he is consistently contributing to his community by mentoring younger generations and teaching them the power of technology and social media.
[00:49:30] His passion for media and awareness to a strong community is allowing him to help others by leaving a digital fingerprint on this world.
[00:49:43] Adam Mesa: If I had the power to heal one problem on this earth, it would probably be hurt. It'd be the forms of hurt that we experience our life. To me, hunger is a form of hurt, uh, needs and poverty is a form of hurt, but also for people nowadays depression is a hurt, uh, insecurities is a hurt, uh, pain itself. Physical pain is a hurt.
[00:50:07] And so if I could do my part at helping heal people, helping people heal those silent cries through their hurt, that's what I would do. And I feel like that's what I am doing. I know for me and myself and our church, we are probably some of the biggest fans of Pray.com because what it does is it gives us an avenue and a platform to allow everybody to be able to share the hurts that they're going through in life and ask for prayer.
[00:50:37] And as a community, I think we need more community in this world, and not so much in individuality and me, myself and I, but more of loving my neighbor like Jesus called me to do, is to care for my neighbor like Jesus called me to do like the Good Samaritan story, which that whole Good Samaritan, uh, a concept exists today because of the Bible Scripture of the Good Samaritan who saw a guy on the side of the road who had gotten robbed and beaten up and he welcomed him into his home to be healed.
[00:51:06] I think as good Samaritans, we have to do more of when people are on the side of the road hurting. Both physically and theoretically to be a person that invites them into their life to be there for them, and help them heal their secret rooms, uh, secret wounds and silent cries. So I would definitely, uh, try my best to leave a, an imprint on this earth that helps hurting people.
[00:51:30] I find that community really is the pillar of Christianity, and many people would know myself from a lot of my speaking is that my style tends to always point to community because even in the Bible, when you've seen people fail, they generally fail out of loneliness. You know, we know the famous story of David and Bathsheba.
[00:51:52] So the story of David Bathsheba is that he is, uh, his, his country, Israel is actually fighting a war, and Bathsheba happens to be a married woman and her husband is one of the generals in the, uh, Israel army, and David is actually sitting in, uh, his palace. And the way the palace was back in Israel, it was very open and the communities, the buildings were very small.
[00:52:18] And the Bible tells us that he looked down on his balcony and he saw a woman bathing. And cuz you would, you bathe outside cuz that's where the, the water and the rain would run. And so he said that he saw her bathing and she was pleasing to his eye. And so he invited her over and of course he's the king, so she said yes.
[00:52:39] And then he, uh, had an affair with her and he actually ended up getting her pregnant. So he tried to trick her husband by bringing him back from war, and he said, hey, relax a little bit. Go sleep with your wife, have some fun, and then we'll send you off back to war tomorrow. And, uh, her husband Uriah actually said, no, I, I won't have any enjoyment with my wife because I have fellow soldiers who are on the front line, so I will not have fun and relax until they do and this battle is done.
[00:53:08] So David, uh, he got scared and he actually sent a letter to some of his other generals and told them to put him Uriah, her husband on the front line of the war the next day, in which they did, and her husband passed away. And, uh, David had a baby with Bathsheba and he was mournful and repent for, she actually ended up having a miscarriage.
[00:53:32] And so he mourned. And he cried and he wept over it. And he asked God for forgiveness. And forgiveness is for anybody no matter what they've done. And the Bible tells us that God forgave him, saw favor on him. Uh, it wasn't short of a hard and difficult that he had, but nonetheless, God saw his heart that he genuinely was repentful and out of David and Bathsheba came came King Solomon, who has been said in the Bible to be the richest man who's ever lived, and also the wisest man who's ever lived.
[00:54:03] And that is the type of thing that the decision that David made in his loneliness. I mean, he went after Bathsheba because he was alone on his rooftop. He didn't have anyone there. If he had somebody there, he would not have gotten as far as he did with Bathsheba because he would've had an accountability, a community next to him.
[00:54:22] It's like, hey, David, watch it, man, don't do it.
[00:54:24] And you look at other verses in the Bible where when people are alone, sometimes it leads them to bad places.
[00:54:32] So to me, community is what helps you stay on a, on a path. It helps you stay on your course that God has laid out for you. So, many people know for myself that I always encourage people, if you want to grow in your life, find a relationship with God and grow in it.
[00:54:49] And secondly, get in some community with people who have a like mind as you.
[00:54:54] And that's what I found, that in life, very successful people tend, and I don't mean success financially or anything, I mean successful in, they have a happy life, a filled life, a joyful life is because I believe that they have people surrounding around them who are in their corner, who are encouraging them, who are doing life with them.
[00:55:16] And I know even in my own life when I don't have community around me, uh, life seems to be that much more harder. But when I do have people around me, cuz I'm my harshest critic at times, so there's times where I feel really, really low and I have some friends around me that they really build me up. But then there are other times where I have a really, really big ego and then I have friends who shrink that ego.
[00:55:40] And on top of friends I have my wife who shrinks my ego as well. So I have a lot of accountability and community around me. So I just think in this life, if we're not purposeful about who we surround ourselves with, uh, we'll kind of fall to, uh, many various things in life. But community helps you stay on the clear and right path.
[00:56:00] So there was a period in my life for a long time that I, that I would, I would get easily offended by people that I thought people were wanting to offend one another. And what I slowly realized was, is people really, they really have the best intentions. But part of our insecurities and part of our fears will sometimes drive, uh, hurting people.
[00:56:26] For example, I remember as a kid, and we all can relate to this, we would have siblings who, they would hit each other, but sometimes there was a sibling who hit a little bit too much hard and then they started crying, and the first thing the other sibling does that hit the brother or sister is they run to mom and dad.
[00:56:44] And they say oh, I hit so-and-so and I didn't mean to, I didn't think it was gonna be that hard. And I saw that it made them cry, so I don't want to get in trouble now. And they go and they correct it cuz they don't want to get in trouble now, and I've noticed often a lot of times with people they're, that they're that same way as adults is sometimes they say things that will hurt you. Sometimes they do things that will really, really, um, just make you feel horrible, but I really assume the best out of people now because I realize when they see that, that really hurt you, they're almost shocked. They're almost like, I, I didn't think that that would hurt you. And what they find is that, their words really carry a lot of weight.
[00:57:28] And so with people, what I've realized is words carry a lot of weight, and I just don't wanna be one of those people who uses my words to tear people down, who uses my words to be shocked that I hurt somebody or offended like, oh, I didn't know me saying that about you would make you feel bad.
[00:57:46] But instead, I want to be somebody that when you're around me, there's always gonna be positivity. There's always going to be a sense of encouragement, uh, coming from me. And, um, you know, Colin Powell, just kind of summarizing, it's kind of a, it's kind of a, a, a jaded paraphrase of what he would say, but he would say, you know, basically optimism will receive the greatest results in life. Is that if you walk out of the door and you're optimistic, you will see the most returns out of life.
[00:58:18] But if you're not optimistic, if you're a glass empty kind of person, then you're gonna see exactly what it is that you perceive life to be. You're gonna look at every situation as a glass half empty. So every relationship, every friendship, every job, it's gonna be a glass half empty. It's a negative, negative mindset to have.
[00:58:36] So what I've done is not only wanting to have a glass half full mentality, but have a glass overflowing mentality that even when unmet expectations happen with people. I'm just gonna assume that my glass is full and overflowing. It's when I do that, that that person doesn't have the power to discourage me and hurt me.
[00:58:55] And in other words, I also carry the power to encourage them that even though they may be upset, they may be hurt. I can use my optimism, I can use my positivity to help love on them, cuz clearly they're really having a tough time. So I've noticed with people, people sometimes say and do things out of their hurt that I really don't anymore try to hold them to it.
[00:59:16] I don't say, well, it was that person's fault. I just really think there's a situation that they went through that was really tough and they didn't respond to it really well. But I'm not gonna blame the person. I'm gonna recognize that their situation drove them to their feelings. And therefore I'm just like, that situation has passed and there's nothing we can do about the past. Let's move forward in the future cuz I'm not gonna give that situation control over my happiness.
[00:59:42] So it's looking at a glass overflowing mentality. So some of the things lately that I've been really busy and preoccupied with on top of, you know, I'm a pastor, I do a lot of counseling, a lot of mentorship, a lot of helping people through their, you know, kind of the things that they've gone through in life and help them look at areas of success that they can, they can see, but, on top of that, I have also skills and talents that I mentioned that earlier on when I mentioned that there was a guy who gave me an opportunity to become a better photographer and things like that.
[01:00:14] So over the years, uh, I create, I had my own company that now does digital marketing and advertising and social media and stuff like that. And so I've been able to go up and, you know, go fly up to Facebook and understand better how meeting with their staff better, how advertising and marketing and ads work with them.
[01:00:32] And obviously through Pray.com I've been exposed to a lot of other aspects of technology and digital media that they're, to me, some of the best people and smartest people on. And, um, we also do video making and website making. So on top of those things, I now have felt the conviction that there are a lot of young kids nowadays, you know, media, social media, digital technology, that is the future. That is where the future of, to me, job security lies. That's the future of where, um, purpose lies. That's where people find content nowadays. There's more kids ever.
[01:01:05] If you go see a little kid sitting with their parents at a restaurant, there's one of two things that they're doing. They're either throwing a fit or watching an iPad. There's nothing really in between. So you see nowadays that people don't really watch TV as much anymore. They're watching content and things like that. So that's something that I've been able to get, um, pretty good at. And I've been able to have some success in, so what I've done is there's been a lot of young kids now who are in high school, some are early on in college, and they've told me, hey, you know what, Adam, I think I want to do that for a living.
[01:01:36] I want to do, I want to go in the world of social media. I want to do digital technology. I want to do ads placements, and I want to do marketing and advertising through social media.
[01:01:45] Or they say, I wanna be an influencer on social media. And so they've asked me, can you help me get to that point? And part of leaving a legacy to me is, is finding what you're really good at and passing that on and duplicating.
[01:02:00] I think that's what Jesus talked about is when he would say, make disciples. So not only am I committed to make disciples of Jesus, I also want to duplicate myself the gifts that I have naturally to impart on people who are younger than me. So actually as of right now, I have about three kids right now who have talked to their parents and everything.
[01:02:21] I mean, this has been very, something very serious to them on what they want to pursue because there's no college of social media, there's no college of YouTube where they teach you how to make these type of things. So the only way you can really get good at it is by finding a mentor and learning from them.
[01:02:37] And so they've sat me down and they've said, hey, I've talked to my parents, uh, they're totally for me, kind of just going to community college for a little bit and trying to be mentored in this field it field if you would do it. And for me, I have no greater pleasure than seeing a young kid who was like me at one point who doesn't know anything about a field that I'm passionate about, and being given the opportunity to be trained and learned.
[01:03:03] I mean, I'm a pastor today because my father, he saw that there was a kid that knew nothing about being a pastor, and he imparted that into me. So I see so many kids that have so much growth and they have such a capacity. Man, these, these young kids, they know social media and other things so well, and to me, they're just so cool.
[01:03:24] And they, they, they're so happy about life and they have such a purpose that I would just love to not only show them that it's easy in life, and possible to love God, but you can also pursue your dreams and you can also be successful at pursuing your dreams. And life doesn't have to be as hard as we always make it.
[01:03:43] So I've just been lately having a lot of fun. Um, some of 'em are 16, some of 'em are 21, some are 19. And we're slowly giving 'em opportunities to edit videos and some will start editing our own podcast real soon. And we're just talking about what other elements. Um, we also just started our own Twitch account.
[01:04:01] So we'll start video game streaming where uh, one of our students will edit our streams and stuff like that. So just giving young people opportunities to learn in what they're passionate in today, because times are always changing and we can either say, hey, well no, we're not gonna get into that, that that's gonna be a fad. It's gonna burn out.
[01:04:19] But at the end of the day, that is what these kids are receiving as content. They're spending times on their phone. So, uh, let's figure out a way to use that to impact them and help leave a legacy.
[01:04:31] So we're doing a lot of things right now. We're doing podcasts every single week, both through our church, through myself. We're creating video content both through our Instagram and our YouTube and our Facebook.
[01:04:43] Really what we want to do is create a database of impactful moments that leave a legacy for people. Uh, today, most people, when they talk about their favorite show, it's generally on Netflix and they generally watch it within one or two days, they binge watch it.
[01:05:00] So what we wanna do is we want to create a library where people can binge, binge watch content that inspires them, that helps motivate them. To me, that to me, in this current day at the age that I am, I think the legacy that I will leave will be a digital fingerprint on this world.
[01:05:15] It may not even be physical.
[01:05:17] There may be a lot of people where in the d back in the day, used to be, oh, we have to go to this Billy Graham crusade at this Home Depot arena, or at this center, and we're all gonna watch it face to face, but, I think the future will be, we all watch this live and things like that. And finding the balance of where's the human touch, where's the digital fingerprint? And marrying those two together I think is the future of legacy building and always being available for people in their needs, in their hurts and giving them a platform to grow and heal.
[01:05:51] And to me, that's the type of legacy that I'm trying to leave right now. If there's an action step that someone could walk away from this talk from, one of the greatest things that I'd say that I've kind of mentioned at one point before also is finding people that you can always be available to and available for.
[01:06:09] Um, there's often things that are very inconvenient for me that I'm very tired, somebody today actually, wanted to call me at 5:00 AM and talk about some things. And I was tired. I really didn't wanna do make the phone call. But to me, I know that person needed that conversation and that phone call would mean a lot to them.
[01:06:29] And so I reached out and we had that phone conversation that early in the morning.
[01:06:34] So to me it's even when you don't feel like doing things, that's actually when you'll grow the most. That's actually where you'll triumph the most is when your mind is telling you don't do it. Relax, hang out. Don't, don't reach out to that person. Don't forgive that person. Don't love on that person.
[01:06:53] Do the opposite cuz that's actually when you see growth in your life. You don't see growth in your life when you feel like it. And most professional athletes will tell you that. The times they feel like practicing their sport, it does well, but the time that they actually begin to shine and grow are the times where they want to quit. The times where they want to give up, the times where they don't want to go into practice, and then when they make the decision to go into practice, that's when they are known as a great athlete.
[01:07:20] I think there are a lot of people out in the world who once played sports who could have been professional athletes, but the problem was is they just quit too early.
[01:07:29] And so the action step for you that I'd say is if you've quit, if you've given up, if you've given up on people, if you've given up on your passion and your purpose, I'd say pick that up right now. Revisit that. And also revisit loving on people. Think of some people right now that you could reach out to and you can become available to You could check up on 'em. Just tell 'em, hey, I was thinking about you today. How are you doing? And I guarantee you, you are going to light their day up. You cannot imagine how hard life is for some people, and it may be hard for you as well, but the best action when life is hard for you is to go brighten up someone else's day.
[01:08:07] I'll tell you, that's the greatest daily brightener you can have is seeing a smile on someone else's face that you caused will only lead a reactive way to you. You'll start to have a smile on your face also. So go find some people that you could be a blessing to, that you can help serve and love on, that you could help sacrifice for, and I think that's where you really start to see some practical application right away.
[01:08:34] Steve Gatena: Sometimes we experience such hardships in life that were left with secret wounds and silent tears, but God never wants us to suffer and it's never a punishment. And while God can never change what has happened to us, he gently asks us to trust him, to share our pain with him so he can comfort us. In the eyes of God, it doesn't matter what happened to us.
[01:09:04] He loves us just the same.
[01:09:07] He accepts and values us just as we are.
[01:09:10] He knows what happened to us, and he doesn't ask us to remain silent to bury our pain or to condone any sinful acts.
[01:09:22] And he is always available to us. We can always seek his wise counsel. He will lend us his courage. He will comfort and hold us. He will renew our minds and spirits, helping us to transform our thoughts and our perspectives. And he can help us to use our past wounds and our experiences as fuel for the future, a future that he has planned for us.
[01:09:53] And God wants us to know that we don't have to suffer alone. No one understands our emotional, mental, physical, and spiritual pain like God.
[01:10:05] And he too is there for us gently reminding us that he has already bore our pain, our fear, our doubt, and so much more on the cross for us, so we don't have to hold on to this any longer.
[01:10:22] This week on Relentless Hope, pastor Adam Mesa taught us about healing our secret wounds and silent tears. He shared how we can change our futures by changing our perspective on the past, and learning to use our painful experiences as fuel for the future.
[01:10:42] And when we do, we become a force to be reckoned with. Pastor Adam taught us some traits of a great leader, like being the first to sacrifice, being available to others, allowing our people to fail so that they have an opportunity to rise and succeed the next time.
[01:11:03] Pastor Adam also showed us some of the biggest leadership challenges in how to overcome them, such as battling your own insecurities. And we learned how Pastor Adam hopes to leave a legacy of healing pain, and people's secret wounds and silent tears. Pastor Adam shared with us a simple way to help heal our own pain. And Pastor Adam taught us when life is hard for us, the best action we can take is to brighten someone else's day.
[01:11:39] While we may never understand why God permitted some experiences and we have no control over whether God chooses to heal us, we can change our perspective on what happened to us. We can choose to turn to God to release our pain and suffering.
[01:11:59] We can choose to use our experiences as fuel for our future. We can choose to allow other people to help heal our wounds, and we can choose to help others on their healing journey too.
[01:12:16] Everything in our lives has a purpose and everything can be used for God's glory and as part of His divine plan. This life therefore is not righteousness, but growth in righteousness, not health, but healing. Not being, but becoming, not rest, but exercise.
[01:12:44] We are not yet what we shall be, but we are growing towards it. The process is not finished yet, but it is going on. This is not the end, but it is the road. All does not yet gleam in glory, but all is being purified.
[01:13:07] If you felt inspired by today's episode of Relentless Hope, be sure to share it with someone you love. You never know the impact you can have on someone's life by just giving hope a voice.
Healing Secret Wounds and Embracing God's Love - Adam Mesa
[00:00:00] Steve Gatena: As humans, we will face hardship that sometimes leave painful, emotional, mental, and spiritual wounds. Some of these wounds may cause us to feel immense shame, immense guilt, and immense judgment. Often we mistakenly believe that we have to suffer in silence and that we must suffer alone because no one can understand what we've gone through.
[00:00:31] And sometimes we mistakenly believe that if someone did learn about what we endured, they wouldn't love us anymore, or maybe they'd look at us differently or treat us differently. But these are false stories that the enemy whispers to us to keep us from God, from His love and from His light, because God never wants us to suffer, especially in silence.
[00:00:59] It doesn't matter what we've endured, God is there to comfort us, to shelter us, and to love us through our wounds, and he often sends the right people to us. People who can help us heal our wounds, people who will support and love us, people who will be stable and trustworthy, and people who will create a safe and reliable place for us to start releasing our pain.
[00:01:30] God also invites us to make space, to reach out and to be available to help heal each other through prayer and being present, by loving on each other and listening with an open heart. God may work through us. Using us to answer someone else's prayer.
[00:01:53] This week on Relentless Hope, pastor Adam Mesa teaches us all about healing our secret wounds and silent cries. We learn that although we may have experienced hardships in our past, they don't have to define us, and our futures can always be different. We learn that we can change our futures, but changing our perspectives on what we've received, using even the most painful experiences as fuel, can fuel our future.
[00:02:31] Pastor Adam also shares what he says when someone tells him about a painful experience, which is "God loves us unconditionally and God has a future in store for us." We also hear about some of the greatest leadership lessons that Pastor Adam has received and how he tries to be a leader.
[00:02:54] As Pastor Adam teaches us, leadership is about sacrifice, about looking for people in pain and helping them to heal, about helping people reach their full potential. Making space for people to fail and choose to rise, and being available to someone.
[00:03:12] When it comes to leaving a legacy, pastor Adam explains that he hopes to heal the pain in this world, helping people to heal their secret wounds and silent cries. He encourages us to be like Jesus, caring for our neighbors, helping them heal and creating and being a part of a community of like-minded people who will support us and keep us accountable.
[00:03:40] It's okay to ask for healing from our secret wounds and silent cries. It's okay to release the painful experiences of our past, and it's more than okay to use your past as fuel for your future. You never have to do this alone, God is with you always.
[00:04:03] Today as we get started, I'm gonna read this quote from Martin Luther King Jr.
[00:04:11] "As my sufferings mounted, I soon realized that there were two ways in which I could respond to my situation, either to react with bitterness or seek to transform the suffering into a creative force. I decided to follow the latter course."
[00:04:34] After leading youth ministry for about four years, pastor Adam Mesa was presented with one of the hardest requests for help that he'd ever been asked for.
[00:04:47] Adam Mesa: To me, youth ministry is one of the hardest group of kids, uh, to speak to. Not because, not because they don't listen or not because they don't want to hear.
[00:04:56] I actually found them, they're kind of the most receptive people to wanna listen, but they are just going through so much, especially nowadays with the world that we live in today, you can physically feel the hurt that they have. I used to get really depressed because I would question really my own life.
[00:05:16] Because you, as you were communicating, you could, you could feel what these kids were going through. They were going through some were going through, I mean, just things that you could not even imagine. I remember one time as a youth pastor, there was a, a girl who came up to me who was a teenager and she said, pastor Adam, uh, I don't know what to do because I can't seem to get healing from some things, and I asked her, well, what are those things that you need help healing from? And she said, well, just a few years ago, I was raped by my father.
[00:05:53] Steve Gatena: On part one of this three part series, pastor Adam Mesa explains what it's like growing up with a father that's a pastor, how his parents influenced his life decisions and the importance of family.
[00:06:07] He became a driven individual because his parents taught him the significance of earning his place and how to stay consistently loving in order to live a better life.
[00:06:23] Adam Mesa: My name is Adam Mesa and I currently live in Rancho Cucamonga, California, an hour east of Los Angeles. And my current position is I am a pastor at Abundant Living Family Church. I serve under my dad, who is our senior pastor of Abundant Living Family Church. He's been our senior pastor for 24 years. He started the church and right now I'm in a season where I am being mentored by him to follow in his footsteps.
[00:06:52] And part of his legacy that he'll be leaving behind will be, uh, on top of my two other brothers in ministry as well, but specifically me, will be mentoring me in the process of learning what he does as a senior pastor in the future to be able to follow in his own footsteps at our church.
[00:07:10] And as I go back and I think about my life with my dad and how we've established our church and where we're at today in life was in 1994, I was four years old and God put it on his heart to actually start his own church. He had, uh, been let go from another church and he was a little hurt and he was a little tired and he didn't think he was gonna start a church again. But lo and behold, uh, people started sending him checks for the new church that they had hoped that he would start.
[00:07:42] And he thought to himself, I gotta do something about this, because if people are believing in what it is that we were doing and what God has placed on my heart, then let's go ahead and start a church. So it was 1994 in Southridge Fontana, and I was four years old, my oldest brother was nine years old, and my middle brother was six years old.
[00:08:03] And we all as a family, partnered together to start this church in my parents' living room, a thousand square foot house. And we would all do our part where we as the boys, we would clean up the toys, we would move all the little light things. And then my mom and dad would move the furniture out of the living room and they would set up chairs and children's ministry would be in my parents', uh, bedroom where my grandma would teach us on little old school felt boards, you know, I don't know if you remember those in any type of school setting, like a little Moses, a little lamb, and they, on these old school felt velcro boards that they would place and tell a story, no projectors and no whiteboard, anything like that.
[00:08:47] And, um, my grandma would teach us in children's church while my dad, uh, would teach in the living room. And 12 people started that church. And today, 24 years later, we have about 12,000 people in our church with a weekend attendance of about 7,000 people.
[00:09:06] And so in 24 years, I've seen my dad lead with an incredible amount of integrity. And as a boy growing up, there are things that stood out to me that my dad would do that has made me the man that I am today. I just recently had my own firstborn son as well, and there are a lot of things that my dad did when I was a child that I plan to replicate in my own son's life.
[00:09:34] And some of the biggest things was my dad has always been one of the greatest people of character and integrity. I have never met anyone more real and authentic in my life. He is who he is, he, he does what he says he does, and there's nothing phony about him. I think part of the reason why me and both of my brothers and all of our wives are still in church today, still following God, still serving God, all of us are in ministry, there's not a single one in our family who does not serve in the church. And I, I can't count that to any other respect than my mom and dad who have always been the most authentic people that I ever knew in my life.
[00:10:14] And they were so incredibly disciplined, uh, within us and their kids.
[00:10:19] Uh, they valued very much so what we listened, what we watched, to the things that we said, uh, we were corrected often on that level, and I'd always thank Susie and Sally and Joe and all these other people in school, they got to do this, they get to watch this, they got to say this, they get to go and do this, their family does this.
[00:10:39] And what I didn't realize was my dad was preparing me to be a man. Uh, he respected me in my childhood, but he put disciplines to say, I know that Adam isn't always gonna be a kid, so therefore I'm gonna hold him to a standard as a young man, uh, so that when he's a grown man, he can influence his community and he can make an impact on this world.
[00:11:00] And those are the things that have always stood out to me more particularly, I always remember, and I always tell this story with people, as I grew up every single morning, my dad would have a prayer life. Life. And he still has a prayer life every single morning, every morning that I could remember, ever since I was a young boy, my dad has this way of praying where he kind of, he prays really low under his lisp and you can kind of like, you hear almost like a whisper as he prays. And sometimes the s's almost whistle and stuff like that. And so you can, you can hear it as he's praying in the morning.
[00:11:38] And what I would often do in our house growing up, is when I'd get done getting ready or it was a weekend on the early morning, I would sit on the top of the stairs because my parents, they split our living room, um, and they made one half of the living room, his study, and they just added drywall and stuff like that. And then on the other side was the living room.
[00:11:58] And so in his office, there was a hole on the top of the ceiling because they couldn't enclose the entire room off, because it was kind of a makeshift room, and so you could actually hear any conversation that was going on in that room if you would just stand on the top of the stairs.
[00:12:15] And what I would often do is I would sit on the top of the stairs and I would hear my dad praying. And I think as a boy, you're pretty selfish because he would, I would always at some point hear him pray for me. And he'd always bring up my name, and I would wait on the top of the stairs and I would listen for him to say my name, and I just liked my dad talking about me.
[00:12:38] And so I would sit on the top of the stairs and I'd begin to hear him say, uh, you know, prayers of like, God, I just pray that his future wife, that he has, that he loves her and she loves him, and I pray that their love is real. Father God, and I pray You protect his wife. And I pray today, whatever she's doing, that You're looking after her.
[00:12:55] And I pray for his future kids, father God, that they're healthy and they're strong, all these other type of things that at at six and seven years old, you're not, they're, you're not even thinking about a wife or kids. But 20 years later, uh, I do have a wife and I do have a son. And I think that my life is where it's at today because of those top of the stair, top moments of hearing my dad pray for my life.
[00:13:24] And he'd also do really little things in life with as kids, where my parents never treated, uh, any of the desires in our life as necessary needs. And so if we wanted something like an Xbox or any or Game Cube back in the day, or a Nintendo, my parents would establish goals for us to meet in life that would garner the blessing of those type of things.
[00:13:49] And so my parents never just gave us whatever, what we wanted. My dad would say, hey, you want a Game Cube? Well, then what you're gonna do is you're gonna go to church on Tuesday nights and you're gonna join the puppet team and then the puppet team, if you serve faithfully in that for three months, at the end of that three months, I'll get you that Game Cube.
[00:14:07] And so what he was learning, or really what I was learning, he was teaching me, was that nothing in life is handed to you, is that if you want something in life, you gotta earn it and you have to meet some goals in your own life. And today, I think I've become such a driven, driven person in life because my parents taught me at a very young age that I need to drive in life.
[00:14:31] And my mom was the number one cheerleader in our life. And she's the, she's the right hand to my dad. She's been there from the beginning. And what my mom has always taught me was consistency. We used to, at one point in our church, have five to seven services on our weekend cuz we were growing so fast, and my mom would grab a fresh pair of notes, every single service, and she would write notes down during my dad's message as if it was the first time that she's heard it.
[00:15:02] And she has done that for 24 years.
[00:15:07] I love my dad, there are a lot of people in this life that I love, but I don't know that I can hear someone say the same thing over that many times and act like it's new every single time. But my mom is one of the most consistent, loving people that I've ever met, and it's developed me to be the person that I am today, to have a dad that has so much char character and integrity in his life.
[00:15:31] I never had a dad that when we would go out in public, he'd be one way, and then when we'd get home, he would talk down on my wife or on on his wife, or he would talk down to his kids or he would. I've never had that in my life from the example of my parents.
[00:15:46] Have I been talked down by other people? Have I been outcasted before?
[00:15:50] Yes, but has never come from my parents. In 2007, I actually was, uh, coming home from work and my brother Caleb, he was two years older than me, he had, I was really going through some things and you know, as a teenager things are much more serious in your mind than they probably are, uh, as you've gotten older.
[00:16:14] But, In my life as a 17 year old, I was broken. I had gone, uh, through some things with a girlfriend and all these other things, and I was like, you know what? I am gonna run away. I'm gonna leave this place behind because I'm so done with this. So I was actually heading to my bedroom, and I was gonna pack up and I was gonna leave for good because I just really wasn't living a, a very disciplined life.
[00:16:39] I was wild, I was reckless. And really, I felt like I was kind of an embarrassment to my parents and everything within me just thought, instead of just embarrassing your parents anymore, why don't you just leave? Because you can't seem to get things right in life. And I was committed to doing that. And I walked past my brother's room that was right next to me and he invited me into his bedroom and said, Hey, Adam, come on over here, uh, I want to talk to you about some things.
[00:17:06] And as I sat on his bed, he began to tell me, and this was from a bro like my brother, who, I mean we would play video games together and stuff, but we would never have intimate, deep conversations or anything like that at this time. And he begins to tell me how much God loves me and how much God has a plan for me.
[00:17:27] And then he tells me, you know, Adam, Jesus has died on the cross for you and for every decision that you make that God has in set for your life, you know what he did on that cross is kind of like a waste. You know that when he was on that cross, he was thinking about you. And so why do you go throughout your day not thinking about him? Because he really cares about you.
[00:17:50] And he begins to open up the Bible and show me some verses where it says how much God loves me. And there was something in my head at that moment that just totally clicked. It clicked that my life has had past purpose, that my future has a plan. And to this day, I credit my brother Caleb, for literally altering my life in that moment because it was almost like going into your house and flicking on a light switch.
[00:18:16] It's just everything completely made sense at that moment. And it was actually at that moment that the girlfriend that I had at the time, I called her and I said, you know what? Um, I love you. I hope the best for you, but I really feel like God is changing the path on my life.
[00:18:32] And it was that moment, really the next day that I went to my dad and I said, dad, uh, really, what do I have to do to become a pastor? I don't know what, I don't know how, I don't even think I'm really worthy to do it, but I feel like God has put a purpose on my life and I wanna help people like you did because that same moment that I had that previous night, I know that there was a lot of other people who needed those moments in their lives.
[00:18:56] And so that was the point where I committed a life altering promise to God that I would always serve Him. And actually, I just hit 10 years of, since I've made that decision, and it has been the best decision of my life, I have seen my life radically changed and my relationship with God, uh, so complete that I never could imagine I could have.
[00:19:19] So at that time I was 17 years old when I gave my life to Jesus. And it just so happened that I felt like I was called to help children, uh, to serve children, to teach children about Jesus and the Bible and how much God loves them. So I went to Bible school and at 19 it just so happened that the children's pastor that my dad had, had wanted to make a life change. They wanted to move somewhere else and pastor somewhere else.
[00:19:45] And so I had two more years left of college where I was gonna start interning as a children's pastor, and my dad kind of just told me: hey, Adam, this is your time. I'm gonna just start plugging you in right now.
[00:19:57] So here I find myself at 19 years old, I'm leading 1300 kids on a weekend, and we're making curriculum for them and we're teaching. And one of the things that I found when I first started to public speak, and I first started to bring things was that I wasn't always confident in myself. I always felt like that, I didn't really have anything special to say, I didn't really have anything unique to say. But what I, as I've gotten older and what I've realized I started to tell myself at that time is that we all have a unique voice in this life.
[00:20:34] We all have our own unique experiences that we all have gone through, and we can all relate to somebody in some sort of way, but the, but if we continue to remain silent, then that person that needs to hear our story, that person who needs to hear our unique voice, they won't hear it. They'll go without hearing your voice.
[00:20:54] And as I started to uncover that, that is what fueled, uh, my confidence was to say that, no, I do have something to share, I do have a voice, I do have something that God has placed on my heart, therefore, I'm gonna take confidence in that rather than in in myself.
[00:21:12] Because naturally I really didn't have anything to say naturally, I didn't really have any experience, I didn't have any wisdom, I didn't have any talents. But what I did have was I had my own story. I had my own voice. And as I stayed confident in that, I slowly started to see myself develop as a communicator and to where now where God has placed me in my life, where I'm constantly sharing and speaking to thousands of people is that God has shown me to not be confident in myself, but be confident in the purpose that he's placed in my life and be confident, just like he told Moses, he said, you may feel like you can't talk Moses. You may feel like you can't lead Israel, but I'll give you a rod and a staff and I'll give you someone to help you speak and you can do this.
[00:21:59] And I felt like with God, he told me, I know you're not always confident Adam, but I'm gonna give you a voice. I'm gonna give you wisdom. I'm gonna give you a purpose on this life, and why don't you just hold onto that and everything will be taken care of. And that's what I've continued to do. I've continued every time that I step in front of somebody that I feel supremely unqualified to talk to, I just remember that God has placed me in life where I'm at for a reason, and I'm here for such a time as this, and so I'm gonna stand boldly on that fact and not think of any of the other things that try to pull me down.
[00:22:34] There are times where I was speaking and for many years after I was a children's pastor, I went into being, uh, a youth pastor and I led youth ministry for about four years, and to me, youth ministry is one of the hardest group of kids, uh, to speak to. Not because, not because they don't listen or not because they don't want to hear. I actually found them, they're kind of the most receptive people to wanna listen, but they are just going through so much, especially nowadays with the world that we live in today, you can physically feel the hurt that they have while you're speaking and while you're communicating.
[00:23:14] I used to get really depressed, almost somewhat suicidal at times because I would question really my own life because you, as you were communicating, you could, you could feel what these kids were going through. They were going through, some were going through, I mean, just things that you could not even imagine.
[00:23:34] I remember one time as a youth pastor, there was a, a girl who came up to me who was a teenager and she said, pastor Adam, uh, I don't know what to do because I can't seem to get healing from some things. And I asked to her, well, what are those things that you need help healing from? And she said, well, just a few years ago, I was raped by my father, that my mother would know that he would constantly come home drunk and he would begin to molest me and rape me. And it just so happened one of the times I got pregnant by his, and had his child, was gonna have his child. And my mom, who knew what he was doing, she took me to the abortion clinic, and helped me get an abortion for my son that was also my brother. And I just have a lot of anger with that.
[00:24:25] I mean, what do you really say to somebody who experienced such hardship?
[00:24:33] The complication of, what words do you use? How can you help this person? What, what? Like, I can't even imagine what it is that she's going through. And so in that moment of fear, in that moment of, I don't know what to tell her, what I just began to do is just tell her how much God loves her. And what I began to do is show her how much God loved her.
[00:24:54] And what I began to do is began to be something that my dad was in my own life, but maybe she hadn't had in her dad in her life, was to be someone who's present, who's a staple, who encourages them, who wants the best for them, who knows that their past does not define where they're going in their future.
[00:25:12] And if they take their past and they use that as fuel to fire their future, then what you have is you have a force to be reckoned with. And I constantly would try to encourage her with that and how much God had a future for her life. And it's hard, it's hard walking with people who experience such hardship, especially stuff that you can never even relate to.
[00:25:34] But what's great is I'm not here to give my own wisdom. I'm not here to give my own expertise. What I am is I'm here to represent God and I'm here to show them how much He loves them. And it's through those moments that she became better than ever. She started to have smiles on her faces. She started to make friends.
[00:25:54] Uh, at the time she was, I think 12 years old. And when she was speaking to me, she was 16 at the time. And now there were smiles on her faces. She began to have joy. She began to, uh, get into poetry and she would write poetry about her experience to encourage other boys and girls who may have experienced the same things as her.
[00:26:14] And so what she did was she used her pain. As fuel for her future. And even in my own life when I would have fear, I would look at the stories of these young kids who would triumph over so much. And I would think, in my own life, what do I have to fear? When there are so many kids that are going through so much and they do so well, when they get past it, when they use it for their future, they can overcome anything.
[00:26:40] Within the youth ministry that I had at the time, about 55% of my kids came from single parent homes. A lot of them were not financially doing well. A lot of their parents, uh, were. Going through, they had, they were on welfare or they didn't make a lot, or they were part of broken homes. We would also have a lot, a lot of foster kids who would come and there'd be boys and girls homes that would actually send their kids as well.
[00:27:07] And sometimes we'd even have 30 to 50 kids that are part of boys and girls homes. And so every single week as a youth pastor, I would meet these kids who had totally different upbringings than what I had, but what I realized is I had something special, just as special as they were, I had something special to offer as well.
[00:27:28] I had some, a new future that I can share with them. I could share with them that not everyone is gonna do them. Like maybe they had been done before or nobody's going to hurt them like they had been hurt before. And so the example that my parents set in my life allowed me as a pastor to show these young kids that they can change their future.
[00:27:51] That though they may have experienced hardship as a young kid, that when they become adults, they can change their own future by changing their perspective, by changing the way that they've received things or taken things and using that as fuel for their future.
[00:28:04] So I was always very thankful in a lot of ways to say that I could not relate to them, but by not relating to them, I was able to give them something practical to change in their own future and share with them that in my own story, there is a future where someone can love you and care for you.
[00:28:20] There is a future where you can really do something and you can get out of the situation that you're in, and that would really encourage these young kids. I mean, we were having new kids every single week that just wanted to get in small groups, and that's one of the things we changed right away is we used to just share a message on stage, but when we saw that these kids just needed an environment where they can just share what they're going through, we totally switched the way that we did services and we only, we went from speaking for 40 minutes to speaking for 10 minutes and the rest of the time, we'd break the kids off in small groups and just let them talk about life.
[00:28:55] And then as they would talk about life, they would then begin to ask us, well, what do you think about that? Or How do you think I can get past this? And we'd be able to share the love of God with them during those moments.
[00:29:06] And so the same way goes that if I have such a loving earthly father, I can only imagine how much my Heavenly Father loves me and cares for me.
[00:29:15] And so that's ultimately what has developed me in my early life to have a passion to want to go into ministry and follow my dad's footsteps, because I just want to leave an impact like he has. I've grown up seeing the people that he prays for, the communities that he's blessed, the families that have gotten food and clothing, and the orphanages that our church has supported, and the missionaries and the water projects and the food projects that our church has done.
[00:29:41] I've seen people literally with friends growing up where their parents were on the brink of divorce and they started getting counseling through our church and they are still together to this day. And I looked at that as a young boy and I said, you know what? I wanna make an impact on this life just like my father has.
[00:30:01] And so in my early life, that is what led me to choose to want to become a pastor just like my dad, because of his integrity and because of the way that he leads and his authenticity.
[00:30:12] And that was my early life.
[00:30:18] Anybody in this life can be a hero. And it's really simple. All it takes is every single day when you wake up looking for opportunities to help others, saying, Hey, can I help you carry that? Or another person who's being talked down to by somebody else and stepping in and being a deflector for them who's being hurt.
[00:30:39] But heroism isn't something that's extravagant. It's not reserved just for people who are strong or powerful or or wealthy. But heroism is really somebody who says, I'm gonna look for people who are hurting, who are harmed, who are in pain, and I'm gonna do something about it in this world.
[00:31:03] Steve Gatena: On part two of this three part series, pastor Adam Mesa learns the necessary traits of leadership from his father. He discovers that to become a great leader, you must find the time to make yourself available to others. Adam defines leadership as the ability to let people take chances and fail, allowing them the opportunity to rise to the occasion for growth.
[00:31:33] Adam Mesa: I would define leadership in many cases as being really, if I could sum it up in one concise way, is being the first person to sacrifice for others. And I really have seen that a lot in my own life with the leaders that I've looked up to, is the best leaders that have led me, that have allowed me to be a leader myself are people who would go out of their way to sacrifice for me and the other people around them.
[00:32:00] They wouldn't be per a person who would shift blame on others. They wouldn't be a person who would put all these responsibility on other people while they just relaxed. But as hard as they wanted us to work, they would work alongside with us as well, you know?
[00:32:15] I'd often see, like my dad, he would come to the church. In our church campus, eventually, when we grew in size, we began to have a church campus that was 40 acres. And I remember when I was 18 years old, we had moved to our new campus. It was 40 acres. It was a large project. Our building, our church had grew to 12,000 members.
[00:32:36] And my dad would take me and my brother Caleb, and he would make us go pull weeds and plant plants around the church. I'm thinking to myself, this campus is huge. Like can't we find somebody who will plant these plants and pull these weeds? And what my dad would begin to tell me is he would tell me that the moment you have someone do something else for you when you should be doing it, begins to be the point where you stop caring about what it is that God has called you to care for.
[00:33:06] And I was shown that no matter what, you need to be the first person to sacrifice, the first person to pick up a chair, the first person to sweep something up. The first person. To this day, my dad still makes us go and walk around the church campus to pick up trash. And he tells us, if you ever see a bubblegum wrapper, it's nobody's job to pick it up but yourself.
[00:33:29] And it's in those little things that I said, man, this is what a great leader must look like. And then the other leadership aspects that he eventually showed me, but I learned around when I was 21 years old, was allow people to take chances and allow people to fail. Don't look for perfection in others, but rather give them opportunities to rise to the occasion.
[00:33:53] And I was about 21 years old and I had picked up photography and I was making videos and film, and I was in college and I needed money while I was in college just to live and, I met a through a friend, they introduced me to a, a jeweler who had a lot of jewelry stores. He was a very wealthy man. And in conversation, I don't know if you've ever been like me before, you've kind of hyped yourself up, uh, when you're really not as good at it as you're saying you are.
[00:34:18] And so I would, I'd begin to tell him, I'm a photographer, I do photography. And he begins to ask me, do you photograph jewelry? And in my head I go, yeah, of, of course I do. And that's what I respond to him. Yeah, of course I could do it. It's just like taking a regular person's picture, right?
[00:34:32] How hard can it be? And right when I walk away, he goes, well, I'm gonna hire you. He says, I'll pay you. He told me, I'll pay you $750 if you come and you photograph all my most expensive jewelry. I mean, his jewelry ranged from $10,000 to one piece was actually a million dollars. And he said, I want you to do photography for all of that, I wanna put it on my website. I'll pay you $750.
[00:34:55] At 21 years old, I was like, that's a lot of money. I want to do that. And so I begin to go to You on YouTube to figure out how do you take pictures of jewelry, and what I begin to realize it is really, really, really hard.
[00:35:08] So I go to his shop, I spend an entire day, I spend almost 12 hours taking pictures of all of his jewelry. I go home and I begin to edit it in Photoshop and I send it to him about a couple days later and he calls me. And he tells me, Adam, those are some of the worst pictures of jewelry that I have ever seen in my life. I can't use a single picture, but here's what I'm gonna do. I actually found instead I, I know I said that there's not a single picture, but he says, there is a picture that I can kind of use for something that's not too serious.
[00:35:46] So he goes, here's what I'm gonna do is all summer my shop is open to you. I can realize that you're not good at it. You can come in any day that you want and you can take pictures of my jewelry whenever you want. And for every good picture that you take that I decide to keep and use, I will pay you $75.
[00:36:08] And he says, the success is up to you. The success is will you come in the shop, will you be diligent? Will you take the pictures or will you just walk away from this and be discouraged? Cuz he goes, I have to tell you, you aren't good at what you're doing right now, but, with practice, you can figure anything out. And if this is what you want to do, my shop is open. That's my deal. It's open to you.
[00:36:31] I spent four days a week in that shop the entire summer, and I learned how to take pictures of jewelry and I ended up making over the whole summer what was supposed to make me one day. But what it did was it taught me, he gave me a chance when probably no one else would.
[00:36:48] He gave me an opportunity when I lied and I told him that I could do something that I couldn't. I took on something that I wasn't prepared for, but instead of him making, making me feel small, what he did was he spoke the truth to me, but then he gave me an opportunity for growth. And as I've gotten older and now I've gotten into ministry after that, I've seen my dad do the same thing in my own life.
[00:37:12] He has entrusted me with things and as I begin to learn under him, and he begins to mentor me in being a lead pastor is he gives me opportunities to lead things. He doesn't micromanage me. He doesn't always check up on me. He assigns me things. And also sometimes he doesn't assign me things and he just looks at me to see if that, I see the problem that maybe he sees.
[00:37:34] And it's in those moments that he has allowed me so many times to fail, to fall. But every single time he's been there to tell me and ask me, how did you feel? How do you, how would you do differently? What would you do next time? What would you do different, all those other type of things that today I'm now able to lead in his same way.
[00:37:56] So I now have people on my team, on my staff who are younger than me, who make a lot of mistakes, who don't always make the right decisions, but he has shown me that you have to leave room for people to fail so that in their failures, they can make the decision to rise to the occasion and succeed. And I have practiced that in my own life.
[00:38:19] So I haven't let failure be a discouragement. I've let failure be a fuel to be, to continue to stoke the fire that God has placed in my own life as a leader. And I just always encourage young people and their own leadership is let people fail, allow people room to make mistakes because we at one point have been given the same opportunity, and that is one of the biggest things that I've found in leadership.
[00:38:47] When it comes to leading people, I think that my greatest challenge and the greatest challenge that I've seen in other people is a person, an individual's own insecurities. I think insecurity is what draws people to make compromising decisions in life and insecurity that you're not capable to do what it is that you've been called to do. An insecurity that says you can't have what it is that you feel like you are supposed to have in life.
[00:39:18] I tell this all the time when I speak to, to single people. I tell them all the time. How many of you think that? As a single person, that you're a genuine catch towards someone else. And I first, really what I do is ask them who, who desires to date somebody?
[00:39:33] And they all unanimously always raise their hand. And then I say, how many of you think that you would be a genuine catch to someone else? And everybody raises their hand cuz I said, well, I mean, if you didn't feel like you were a genuine catch, you wouldn't really desire a relationship cuz you feel like you would ruin that relationship.
[00:39:51] So the majority of you think that you're a genuine catch, but I would tell you every single day you don't act like it. You don't act like you're a genuine catch. You think that you're not a good looking person. You think that you're not a strong person. You think that you're not smart. You think that you're not good looking.
[00:40:09] You think that you're not, you don't have a purpose in life, but in practicality, when you view yourself towards another person, you think, oh, that person, they would do well if they dated me, I would make them happy. I, I'd love on them my, this and that. And you think positive on yourself mentally, but in, in practicality you really don't, because you allow the insecurity of your life. You allow the mirror that you stare at every single day and you, you see yourself 24 hours a day and that person that you look up to, that you see through social media or you see through the workplace, you only see a little tidbit information about them.
[00:40:48] And that's what judges, that's what you compare with. You compare the you that you see in the mirror to the one that that person wants you to see. And then you begin to compare yourself, which ultimately leads you to be an insecure individual, but it's not necessary.
[00:41:02] That's what's so hard in leading people sometimes. It's helping them to realize that they have so many gifts, they have so much talent, they can go so far in life. Every desire that they have can be met. If they would wake up every day and just realize, That they don't have to compare themselves to anybody else. That they themselves are a perfect picture, a perfect painting that God has created.
[00:41:29] And if I can get them to realize that, then I mean, they're the greatest employee, they're the greatest volunteer, they're the greatest friend, they're the greatest spouse. Cuz ultimately everything somewhat derives from an insecurity.
[00:41:42] And so in my own marriage, me and my wife talk all the time about being secure people who trust one another, who never allows insecurity to drive our decisions in life.
[00:41:53] And as a pastor and as I lead people, I try to help them, get them to realize that man, they have so much more talent and gifts than they even realize. And I want them to see that. And sometimes I even have to poke them and prod them a little bit and make things a little bit hard for them, for them to realize and get them to stand and rise to the occasion to see their fullest potential.
[00:42:16] And within the context of getting them to realize that they're a perfect painting, that they're a perfect picture, is one of the greatest things, is giving them responsibilities. It's not just expecting them out of thin air to rise to the occasion of their fullest potential, but allowing them opportunities of responsibilities, letting them have ownership.
[00:42:38] And I think it goes back to, I get that from my childhood, where my dad would tell me, hey, I'm gonna get you whatever you want in life, but, you're gonna earn it. I'm gonna give you some goals. I'm gonna give you some responsibilities. If you do these things, then I'm gonna bless you with them because you're gonna rise to the occasion.
[00:42:55] And then if I didn't do it and I didn't had get what it was that I wanted, I had nobody to blame but myself. And so when I try to get people to realize their fullest potential and the painting that God has created in their own life, I try to give them opportunities of ownership to own le, to own leads of teams on trips, to own them, help them lead teams of small groups.
[00:43:18] I in their workplace. I challenge them. If they're really upset at their boss, I tell them, tomorrow what I want you to do is I want you to bring them a Starbucks. And I want you to say, I, today, I bought a Starbucks and I thought of you, and I just wanted to buy it for you, and tell me if their mannerism changes.
[00:43:39] Usually every person who's been having issues with that coworker or boss, when they go and do something like that, they're like, oh, pastor Adam, I, it is just a totally different person. I, I didn't even know they were so smiling kind the rest of the day. Even in our staff meeting, they referenced me and they pointed me at, I never thought, and then there are other people where I asked them the next day, hey, did you buy that Starbucks for your boss or your manager?
[00:44:01] And they go, oh, no, I'm, I'm still upset, or I'm this or that. And then kind of what I show them is, you're not rising to your fullest potential. Uh, you, you gotta, you gotta get past that and you gotta start loving on people if you wanna be loved on yourself. You gotta start encouraging others if you wanna be encouraged yourself.
[00:44:18] And so I kind of take more of the approach of being a little bit more like sandpaper with them, where when we get in contact, I'm, I'm, I'm not always the most like, joyful, smiley person. I kind of wanna rub you a little bit because with sandpaper, the only time it's being used is when you're trying to smooth the surface out.
[00:44:36] So when I'm trying to smooth someone's surface out, I have to be the sound sandpaper, I have to be the one that's challenging 'em. It's giving 'em opportunities of growth. And so it's just giving them those responsibilities to smooth their life out and make their life look so much better. A chair that's been polished by sandpaper to a chair that's rough and raw looks totally different.
[00:44:58] And I would choose to sit in a chair that's been smoothed rather than one that's still raw any day of the week. And so we gotta be smooth towards others.
[00:45:07] For those that desire themselves to be a leader and they say, you know what, what practical things can I do to really establish myself as a great leader?
[00:45:18] And, one of the greatest things that I can say is, is be available, be available to people. One of the most impactful moments I've ever had in my life was I was at a conference in a totally other state, and I passed by somebody. I was, I was at the conference to gain some type of information on a particular subject, and I felt like I didn't, I didn't receive the information that I came for, I was kind of a little discouraged because I was trying to meet people and talk to people and get help. And it didn't seem like anyone really wanted to talk about it or help me on a one-on-one. It was kind of like, oh, just pay for this conference and your questions will be answered. And I, they weren't, I, so I, I left and I thought, man, I paid for this flight and this hotel and I'm leaving here, and I, and I have nothing, uh, to go walk away with.
[00:46:06] And I passed by a guy, and his name is Scott Williams, and he commented on my shoes. He said, hey man, I really like your shoes. And I looked up and I said, thank you. And he said, what'd you come here for to this conference? And I said, you know, I came here for this information and that information and I feel like I didn't walk away with it.
[00:46:26] And he said, you know what? If you ever have any questions on that subject, because I kind of know a little bit about it, why don't you gimme a call? And he gives me his cell phone number and I walked away from there and I thought, There's no way this guy's gonna be answering my call. He, he, he must have did that cuz he was just being polite or he was just being nice.
[00:46:45] And it turns out over the next year, I would talk to him almost once a week on the subject. And every single time I would call him or text him, he would respond right away. He was available to me every time that I needed him. And there'd be times where he'd get back to me in a day or two, but he would never let time go without being available to help lead me.
[00:47:09] And today I'd say he's one of the greatest influences and impacts in my life. And really simply put, the only reason why he is the greatest impact on my life is because he was available to me when I needed help. And if someone's saying I'm looking to be a leader, I wanna make an impact, I would just encourage them and say, find people that you can be available to.
[00:47:31] And if there's anything that you can offer in their life, advice, an ear, a shoulder to cry on, a friend to talk to, someone to Skype with, someone to email with, then be available to that person. And you'll realize you start doing it to one person, that one person starts talking to you about another person.
[00:47:48] That other person starts talking to you about another person. Next thing you know, you're having a large group of people coming to you and saying, hey, can you help lead us? Why? Just because you were available. And I try to put that in my own life, and I try to be available to people at all times, myself.
[00:48:07] What I've done is not only wanting to have a glass half full mentality, but have a glass overflowing mentality, that even when, uh, unmet expectations happen with people, I'm just gonna assume that my glass is full and overflowing.
[00:48:21] It's when I do that, that that person doesn't have the power to discourage me and hurt me, and in other words, I also carry the power to encourage them that even though they may be upset, they may be hurt. I can use my optimism, I can use my positivity to help love on them, cuz clearly they're really having a tough time. So I've noticed with people, people sometimes say and do things out of their hurt that I really don't anymore try to hold them to it.
[00:48:47] I don't say, well it was that person's fault. I just really think there's a situation that they went through that was really tough and they didn't respond to it really well. But I'm not gonna blame the person. I'm gonna recognize that their situation drove them to their feelings and therefore just like that situation has passed and there's nothing we could do about the past, let's move forward in the future, Cuz I'm not gonna give that situation control over my happiness,
[00:49:14] Steve Gatena: On part three of this three part series, pastor Adam Mesa explains how he is consistently contributing to his community by mentoring younger generations and teaching them the power of technology and social media.
[00:49:30] His passion for media and awareness to a strong community is allowing him to help others by leaving a digital fingerprint on this world.
[00:49:43] Adam Mesa: If I had the power to heal one problem on this earth, it would probably be hurt. It'd be the forms of hurt that we experience our life. To me, hunger is a form of hurt, uh, needs and poverty is a form of hurt, but also for people nowadays depression is a hurt, uh, insecurities is a hurt, uh, pain itself. Physical pain is a hurt.
[00:50:07] And so if I could do my part at helping heal people, helping people heal those silent cries through their hurt, that's what I would do. And I feel like that's what I am doing. I know for me and myself and our church, we are probably some of the biggest fans of Pray.com because what it does is it gives us an avenue and a platform to allow everybody to be able to share the hurts that they're going through in life and ask for prayer.
[00:50:37] And as a community, I think we need more community in this world, and not so much in individuality and me, myself and I, but more of loving my neighbor like Jesus called me to do, is to care for my neighbor like Jesus called me to do like the Good Samaritan story, which that whole Good Samaritan, uh, a concept exists today because of the Bible Scripture of the Good Samaritan who saw a guy on the side of the road who had gotten robbed and beaten up and he welcomed him into his home to be healed.
[00:51:06] I think as good Samaritans, we have to do more of when people are on the side of the road hurting. Both physically and theoretically to be a person that invites them into their life to be there for them, and help them heal their secret rooms, uh, secret wounds and silent cries. So I would definitely, uh, try my best to leave a, an imprint on this earth that helps hurting people.
[00:51:30] I find that community really is the pillar of Christianity, and many people would know myself from a lot of my speaking is that my style tends to always point to community because even in the Bible, when you've seen people fail, they generally fail out of loneliness. You know, we know the famous story of David and Bathsheba.
[00:51:52] So the story of David Bathsheba is that he is, uh, his, his country, Israel is actually fighting a war, and Bathsheba happens to be a married woman and her husband is one of the generals in the, uh, Israel army, and David is actually sitting in, uh, his palace. And the way the palace was back in Israel, it was very open and the communities, the buildings were very small.
[00:52:18] And the Bible tells us that he looked down on his balcony and he saw a woman bathing. And cuz you would, you bathe outside cuz that's where the, the water and the rain would run. And so he said that he saw her bathing and she was pleasing to his eye. And so he invited her over and of course he's the king, so she said yes.
[00:52:39] And then he, uh, had an affair with her and he actually ended up getting her pregnant. So he tried to trick her husband by bringing him back from war, and he said, hey, relax a little bit. Go sleep with your wife, have some fun, and then we'll send you off back to war tomorrow. And, uh, her husband Uriah actually said, no, I, I won't have any enjoyment with my wife because I have fellow soldiers who are on the front line, so I will not have fun and relax until they do and this battle is done.
[00:53:08] So David, uh, he got scared and he actually sent a letter to some of his other generals and told them to put him Uriah, her husband on the front line of the war the next day, in which they did, and her husband passed away. And, uh, David had a baby with Bathsheba and he was mournful and repent for, she actually ended up having a miscarriage.
[00:53:32] And so he mourned. And he cried and he wept over it. And he asked God for forgiveness. And forgiveness is for anybody no matter what they've done. And the Bible tells us that God forgave him, saw favor on him. Uh, it wasn't short of a hard and difficult that he had, but nonetheless, God saw his heart that he genuinely was repentful and out of David and Bathsheba came came King Solomon, who has been said in the Bible to be the richest man who's ever lived, and also the wisest man who's ever lived.
[00:54:03] And that is the type of thing that the decision that David made in his loneliness. I mean, he went after Bathsheba because he was alone on his rooftop. He didn't have anyone there. If he had somebody there, he would not have gotten as far as he did with Bathsheba because he would've had an accountability, a community next to him.
[00:54:22] It's like, hey, David, watch it, man, don't do it.
[00:54:24] And you look at other verses in the Bible where when people are alone, sometimes it leads them to bad places.
[00:54:32] So to me, community is what helps you stay on a, on a path. It helps you stay on your course that God has laid out for you. So, many people know for myself that I always encourage people, if you want to grow in your life, find a relationship with God and grow in it.
[00:54:49] And secondly, get in some community with people who have a like mind as you.
[00:54:54] And that's what I found, that in life, very successful people tend, and I don't mean success financially or anything, I mean successful in, they have a happy life, a filled life, a joyful life is because I believe that they have people surrounding around them who are in their corner, who are encouraging them, who are doing life with them.
[00:55:16] And I know even in my own life when I don't have community around me, uh, life seems to be that much more harder. But when I do have people around me, cuz I'm my harshest critic at times, so there's times where I feel really, really low and I have some friends around me that they really build me up. But then there are other times where I have a really, really big ego and then I have friends who shrink that ego.
[00:55:40] And on top of friends I have my wife who shrinks my ego as well. So I have a lot of accountability and community around me. So I just think in this life, if we're not purposeful about who we surround ourselves with, uh, we'll kind of fall to, uh, many various things in life. But community helps you stay on the clear and right path.
[00:56:00] So there was a period in my life for a long time that I, that I would, I would get easily offended by people that I thought people were wanting to offend one another. And what I slowly realized was, is people really, they really have the best intentions. But part of our insecurities and part of our fears will sometimes drive, uh, hurting people.
[00:56:26] For example, I remember as a kid, and we all can relate to this, we would have siblings who, they would hit each other, but sometimes there was a sibling who hit a little bit too much hard and then they started crying, and the first thing the other sibling does that hit the brother or sister is they run to mom and dad.
[00:56:44] And they say oh, I hit so-and-so and I didn't mean to, I didn't think it was gonna be that hard. And I saw that it made them cry, so I don't want to get in trouble now. And they go and they correct it cuz they don't want to get in trouble now, and I've noticed often a lot of times with people they're, that they're that same way as adults is sometimes they say things that will hurt you. Sometimes they do things that will really, really, um, just make you feel horrible, but I really assume the best out of people now because I realize when they see that, that really hurt you, they're almost shocked. They're almost like, I, I didn't think that that would hurt you. And what they find is that, their words really carry a lot of weight.
[00:57:28] And so with people, what I've realized is words carry a lot of weight, and I just don't wanna be one of those people who uses my words to tear people down, who uses my words to be shocked that I hurt somebody or offended like, oh, I didn't know me saying that about you would make you feel bad.
[00:57:46] But instead, I want to be somebody that when you're around me, there's always gonna be positivity. There's always going to be a sense of encouragement, uh, coming from me. And, um, you know, Colin Powell, just kind of summarizing, it's kind of a, it's kind of a, a, a jaded paraphrase of what he would say, but he would say, you know, basically optimism will receive the greatest results in life. Is that if you walk out of the door and you're optimistic, you will see the most returns out of life.
[00:58:18] But if you're not optimistic, if you're a glass empty kind of person, then you're gonna see exactly what it is that you perceive life to be. You're gonna look at every situation as a glass half empty. So every relationship, every friendship, every job, it's gonna be a glass half empty. It's a negative, negative mindset to have.
[00:58:36] So what I've done is not only wanting to have a glass half full mentality, but have a glass overflowing mentality that even when unmet expectations happen with people. I'm just gonna assume that my glass is full and overflowing. It's when I do that, that that person doesn't have the power to discourage me and hurt me.
[00:58:55] And in other words, I also carry the power to encourage them that even though they may be upset, they may be hurt. I can use my optimism, I can use my positivity to help love on them, cuz clearly they're really having a tough time. So I've noticed with people, people sometimes say and do things out of their hurt that I really don't anymore try to hold them to it.
[00:59:16] I don't say, well, it was that person's fault. I just really think there's a situation that they went through that was really tough and they didn't respond to it really well. But I'm not gonna blame the person. I'm gonna recognize that their situation drove them to their feelings. And therefore I'm just like, that situation has passed and there's nothing we can do about the past. Let's move forward in the future cuz I'm not gonna give that situation control over my happiness.
[00:59:42] So it's looking at a glass overflowing mentality. So some of the things lately that I've been really busy and preoccupied with on top of, you know, I'm a pastor, I do a lot of counseling, a lot of mentorship, a lot of helping people through their, you know, kind of the things that they've gone through in life and help them look at areas of success that they can, they can see, but, on top of that, I have also skills and talents that I mentioned that earlier on when I mentioned that there was a guy who gave me an opportunity to become a better photographer and things like that.
[01:00:14] So over the years, uh, I create, I had my own company that now does digital marketing and advertising and social media and stuff like that. And so I've been able to go up and, you know, go fly up to Facebook and understand better how meeting with their staff better, how advertising and marketing and ads work with them.
[01:00:32] And obviously through Pray.com I've been exposed to a lot of other aspects of technology and digital media that they're, to me, some of the best people and smartest people on. And, um, we also do video making and website making. So on top of those things, I now have felt the conviction that there are a lot of young kids nowadays, you know, media, social media, digital technology, that is the future. That is where the future of, to me, job security lies. That's the future of where, um, purpose lies. That's where people find content nowadays. There's more kids ever.
[01:01:05] If you go see a little kid sitting with their parents at a restaurant, there's one of two things that they're doing. They're either throwing a fit or watching an iPad. There's nothing really in between. So you see nowadays that people don't really watch TV as much anymore. They're watching content and things like that. So that's something that I've been able to get, um, pretty good at. And I've been able to have some success in, so what I've done is there's been a lot of young kids now who are in high school, some are early on in college, and they've told me, hey, you know what, Adam, I think I want to do that for a living.
[01:01:36] I want to do, I want to go in the world of social media. I want to do digital technology. I want to do ads placements, and I want to do marketing and advertising through social media.
[01:01:45] Or they say, I wanna be an influencer on social media. And so they've asked me, can you help me get to that point? And part of leaving a legacy to me is, is finding what you're really good at and passing that on and duplicating.
[01:02:00] I think that's what Jesus talked about is when he would say, make disciples. So not only am I committed to make disciples of Jesus, I also want to duplicate myself the gifts that I have naturally to impart on people who are younger than me. So actually as of right now, I have about three kids right now who have talked to their parents and everything.
[01:02:21] I mean, this has been very, something very serious to them on what they want to pursue because there's no college of social media, there's no college of YouTube where they teach you how to make these type of things. So the only way you can really get good at it is by finding a mentor and learning from them.
[01:02:37] And so they've sat me down and they've said, hey, I've talked to my parents, uh, they're totally for me, kind of just going to community college for a little bit and trying to be mentored in this field it field if you would do it. And for me, I have no greater pleasure than seeing a young kid who was like me at one point who doesn't know anything about a field that I'm passionate about, and being given the opportunity to be trained and learned.
[01:03:03] I mean, I'm a pastor today because my father, he saw that there was a kid that knew nothing about being a pastor, and he imparted that into me. So I see so many kids that have so much growth and they have such a capacity. Man, these, these young kids, they know social media and other things so well, and to me, they're just so cool.
[01:03:24] And they, they, they're so happy about life and they have such a purpose that I would just love to not only show them that it's easy in life, and possible to love God, but you can also pursue your dreams and you can also be successful at pursuing your dreams. And life doesn't have to be as hard as we always make it.
[01:03:43] So I've just been lately having a lot of fun. Um, some of 'em are 16, some of 'em are 21, some are 19. And we're slowly giving 'em opportunities to edit videos and some will start editing our own podcast real soon. And we're just talking about what other elements. Um, we also just started our own Twitch account.
[01:04:01] So we'll start video game streaming where uh, one of our students will edit our streams and stuff like that. So just giving young people opportunities to learn in what they're passionate in today, because times are always changing and we can either say, hey, well no, we're not gonna get into that, that that's gonna be a fad. It's gonna burn out.
[01:04:19] But at the end of the day, that is what these kids are receiving as content. They're spending times on their phone. So, uh, let's figure out a way to use that to impact them and help leave a legacy.
[01:04:31] So we're doing a lot of things right now. We're doing podcasts every single week, both through our church, through myself. We're creating video content both through our Instagram and our YouTube and our Facebook.
[01:04:43] Really what we want to do is create a database of impactful moments that leave a legacy for people. Uh, today, most people, when they talk about their favorite show, it's generally on Netflix and they generally watch it within one or two days, they binge watch it.
[01:05:00] So what we wanna do is we want to create a library where people can binge, binge watch content that inspires them, that helps motivate them. To me, that to me, in this current day at the age that I am, I think the legacy that I will leave will be a digital fingerprint on this world.
[01:05:15] It may not even be physical.
[01:05:17] There may be a lot of people where in the d back in the day, used to be, oh, we have to go to this Billy Graham crusade at this Home Depot arena, or at this center, and we're all gonna watch it face to face, but, I think the future will be, we all watch this live and things like that. And finding the balance of where's the human touch, where's the digital fingerprint? And marrying those two together I think is the future of legacy building and always being available for people in their needs, in their hurts and giving them a platform to grow and heal.
[01:05:51] And to me, that's the type of legacy that I'm trying to leave right now. If there's an action step that someone could walk away from this talk from, one of the greatest things that I'd say that I've kind of mentioned at one point before also is finding people that you can always be available to and available for.
[01:06:09] Um, there's often things that are very inconvenient for me that I'm very tired, somebody today actually, wanted to call me at 5:00 AM and talk about some things. And I was tired. I really didn't wanna do make the phone call. But to me, I know that person needed that conversation and that phone call would mean a lot to them.
[01:06:29] And so I reached out and we had that phone conversation that early in the morning.
[01:06:34] So to me it's even when you don't feel like doing things, that's actually when you'll grow the most. That's actually where you'll triumph the most is when your mind is telling you don't do it. Relax, hang out. Don't, don't reach out to that person. Don't forgive that person. Don't love on that person.
[01:06:53] Do the opposite cuz that's actually when you see growth in your life. You don't see growth in your life when you feel like it. And most professional athletes will tell you that. The times they feel like practicing their sport, it does well, but the time that they actually begin to shine and grow are the times where they want to quit. The times where they want to give up, the times where they don't want to go into practice, and then when they make the decision to go into practice, that's when they are known as a great athlete.
[01:07:20] I think there are a lot of people out in the world who once played sports who could have been professional athletes, but the problem was is they just quit too early.
[01:07:29] And so the action step for you that I'd say is if you've quit, if you've given up, if you've given up on people, if you've given up on your passion and your purpose, I'd say pick that up right now. Revisit that. And also revisit loving on people. Think of some people right now that you could reach out to and you can become available to You could check up on 'em. Just tell 'em, hey, I was thinking about you today. How are you doing? And I guarantee you, you are going to light their day up. You cannot imagine how hard life is for some people, and it may be hard for you as well, but the best action when life is hard for you is to go brighten up someone else's day.
[01:08:07] I'll tell you, that's the greatest daily brightener you can have is seeing a smile on someone else's face that you caused will only lead a reactive way to you. You'll start to have a smile on your face also. So go find some people that you could be a blessing to, that you can help serve and love on, that you could help sacrifice for, and I think that's where you really start to see some practical application right away.
[01:08:34] Steve Gatena: Sometimes we experience such hardships in life that were left with secret wounds and silent tears, but God never wants us to suffer and it's never a punishment. And while God can never change what has happened to us, he gently asks us to trust him, to share our pain with him so he can comfort us. In the eyes of God, it doesn't matter what happened to us.
[01:09:04] He loves us just the same.
[01:09:07] He accepts and values us just as we are.
[01:09:10] He knows what happened to us, and he doesn't ask us to remain silent to bury our pain or to condone any sinful acts.
[01:09:22] And he is always available to us. We can always seek his wise counsel. He will lend us his courage. He will comfort and hold us. He will renew our minds and spirits, helping us to transform our thoughts and our perspectives. And he can help us to use our past wounds and our experiences as fuel for the future, a future that he has planned for us.
[01:09:53] And God wants us to know that we don't have to suffer alone. No one understands our emotional, mental, physical, and spiritual pain like God.
[01:10:05] And he too is there for us gently reminding us that he has already bore our pain, our fear, our doubt, and so much more on the cross for us, so we don't have to hold on to this any longer.
[01:10:22] This week on Relentless Hope, pastor Adam Mesa taught us about healing our secret wounds and silent tears. He shared how we can change our futures by changing our perspective on the past, and learning to use our painful experiences as fuel for the future.
[01:10:42] And when we do, we become a force to be reckoned with. Pastor Adam taught us some traits of a great leader, like being the first to sacrifice, being available to others, allowing our people to fail so that they have an opportunity to rise and succeed the next time.
[01:11:03] Pastor Adam also showed us some of the biggest leadership challenges in how to overcome them, such as battling your own insecurities. And we learned how Pastor Adam hopes to leave a legacy of healing pain, and people's secret wounds and silent tears. Pastor Adam shared with us a simple way to help heal our own pain. And Pastor Adam taught us when life is hard for us, the best action we can take is to brighten someone else's day.
[01:11:39] While we may never understand why God permitted some experiences and we have no control over whether God chooses to heal us, we can change our perspective on what happened to us. We can choose to turn to God to release our pain and suffering.
[01:11:59] We can choose to use our experiences as fuel for our future. We can choose to allow other people to help heal our wounds, and we can choose to help others on their healing journey too.
[01:12:16] Everything in our lives has a purpose and everything can be used for God's glory and as part of His divine plan. This life therefore is not righteousness, but growth in righteousness, not health, but healing. Not being, but becoming, not rest, but exercise.
[01:12:44] We are not yet what we shall be, but we are growing towards it. The process is not finished yet, but it is going on. This is not the end, but it is the road. All does not yet gleam in glory, but all is being purified.
[01:13:07] If you felt inspired by today's episode of Relentless Hope, be sure to share it with someone you love. You never know the impact you can have on someone's life by just giving hope a voice.
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