Autoshop Ministries Episode 6: Psalm 23 for Shop Owners - God's Presence in Success and Suffering

What's up, family? This is Joe Adams with Adams Automotive, the number one shop in America. This is Master Tech to Millionaire presented by Autoshop Answers, where we talk about the transition from technician to business owner CEO. We are here on Sunday morning with Autoshop Ministries resident pastor, Devontae Tidwell. How are you doing, Devontae? Man, I'm doing great. It's good to see you. I feel good. I feel good on a Sunday, man. I'm excited. You know, I'm always fired up to talk to the people and talk to you, so let's go. Yeah, so what are we talking about today? let's get right into it. Yeah, man. I want to, I want to start off this one a little bit different because this is one of my favorite passages of scripture. And instead of maybe just doing one verse, I want to read the entire chapter. It's only six verses. So for everybody out there, that's like the whole chapter is like, no, don't get scared. Just stick with me.

It's not Psalm 119? It's not. No, no, no, no, no. 200 verses? Yeah. No, no, no, no, no. Leviticus? Yeah. We're not going to read 60 verses like in Acts number seven. So we're going do seven six verses so i want to read it slowly though because this one this one is one that you got to reflect on um the whole tone of this passage is really reflective it says this it says the lord is my shepherd, i shall not want, he makes me lie down in green pastures he leads me beside quiet waters, he restores my soul. He guides me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake. And even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil for you are with me. Your rod and your staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You've anointed my head with oil, my cup overflows. Surely goodness and loving kindness will follow me all the days of my life. And I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

Man, isn't that beautiful? It's poetic. What's cool about this passage, Joe, is I want to talk to people today about what happens when the terrain changes. And what I mean by terrain, in this passage, David is writing in Psalm 23 about how God is with him in every stage of life, in every place of life. He's like, I'm with you. God, you're with me in the green pastures, and you're with me in the valley of the shadow of death. Like these are two different things. One pasture is green and plush. Like I remember being a kid and laying down in green grass outside and just feeling like it's almost like a pillow. And then there's other ones that's like the valley of the shadow of death. There's bones, there's stuff that vultures are picking through and it's a low place and it feels dark. And it's saying that no matter what happens, God is with me and you're never leaving me. So what do you do when the terrain changes? What does that look like in our life?

What do you do when you're on the mountaintop, when you feel like you're batting a thousand, when every business idea feels like it's going to the moon? You know, what do you do when you're in a low place and you feel like, man, I've been I've been going through the ringer. I've been trudging along for six months. Like, I don't know what is going on. I feel like I'm losing at home. I feel like I'm losing at work. I feel like everybody's mad at me. I feel like I just can't get anything right. What do you do in the pasture or in the valley? They're different places, they're different terrains. But, you know, I think there's a reminder in here. Is knowing that you have to be reminded that God is with you. I think sometimes, Joe, that a lot of people think that God's only with them when things are going good. Or on the opposite side, they only lean on God when things are going bad. Like, I'm only gonna pray when I really need you.

You know, I only want Christ in a crisis. I only wanna, you know, pray when my money is funny And, you know, my bills are due and I don't know how I'm going to pay them or I need healing. And there's stuff going on in my body or my family. There's not typically a lot of people who realize that God wants to be with you in both. It's not, hey, hit me up when things are bad. Or it's not, hey, thank me when things are good. It's both. So what do we do when the terrain changes, Joe? What do we do when business feels like it's booming? What do we do when we feel like we're training so many people and we're onboarding all the right people and it feels like our last seven hires were all rock stars and we can see a bright future for all of them. And they can be in, you know, middle management in a few short years or whatever. But also what do we do when we're like, man, I'm showing up to work every day and man, my health is declining.

I'm showing up to work every day with a smile and they don't even know that like, I really have issues that I'm going home and I'm in pain. Like I'm, you know, I'm sitting in my office, closing the door, you know, taking pills or, you know, putting on heating pads because I got this issue in my back or whatever it may be. Right. What you do is in this space is you trust that God is with you in every single situation. Trust is hard though. If I'm being honest, Joe, trust is hard because I feel like it's easy to trust God when things are going great. You know, when again, when you're like, man, I feel like I'm batting a thousand. I feel like I'm the man and like, right God, like you made me the man, right? You did that. Like appreciate you God. You did that for real. And he's like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I know. I know. But then there's also times where it gets a little hard. Like God, where are you?

Like if you're here, if you're real, if you're with me, how is this happening to me? How am I struggling again? How are the people around me struggling or how, like what do I do with all that? What you do is you say, I have to be aware. And that's the word that I want people to hear today is I want to increase my awareness of just how close God truly is. Because that's what a good father does. He doesn't abandon you when things are bad. And he doesn't just only celebrate you when things are great. It's, Lord, I'm going to be with you at any time. I'm going to be with you when it's dark and I'm going to help you get out. And I'm going to be with you when things are great and I'm going to be your biggest cheerleader. And that's the kind of father that we have in heaven. When the terrain changes, his position with us doesn't. Does that make sense? Yeah, it's, you know, it does make sense. increasing awareness of your proximity

to Jesus, basically what you're saying. And what I'm reading in between, not in between the lines, but in Psalms is, I think a lot of people think about Christianity as a solution to all my problems and it's going to make my life better. And it does 100%. I would say it has for me, but that doesn't mean that you're not going to have suffering in your life. And I think that even I think David knew this he's like even when I'm walking through the valley of the shadow of death he's not like if I do walk through the valley of the shadow of death so it's like pretty. I don't know if we're going to be able to solve the questions of brown suffering in this podcast. But 100% it's like the terrain is going to change is pretty much what you're saying it's not like what if it happens we are guaranteed that it will happen, But he's overcome the world. Yes. And so here's what I, let me break down this one. I want to do this one

a little unique because we did read the whole chapter and here's why. I want to go through each terrain that's in this chapter so that people can see that David didn't focus on trying to change his environment. He was trying to change his heart. So look at look at line number one. So verse one says the Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want that sets the tone for everything. It's like, man, God, you're with me because he's seeing us as sheep and God is the shepherd. Right. Jesus, since you are the shepherd, we must be sheep. We must be in your care. And if you've ever seen a shepherd, they have these big fences and stuff around and they carry a staff and they try to direct the sheep to stay because sheep need guidance. So right after that, he said this. He makes me to lie down in green pastures. I talked about that already. He leaves me beside quiet waters, quiet waters. You're now you're imagine like

a screensaver, you know, you know, your screensaver where you see the still waters and it's like gorgeous that somebody took a photo of and it's peaceful. It's serene. Says that he restores my soul. That's where he does that. Peaceful, serene. He guides me in the paths of righteousness for his namesake. Even though I walked through the valley of the shadow of death, complete opposite of still waters, complete opposite of green pastures, complete opposite of the screensaver feel. Like, I don't know anybody that's putting the valley of the shadow of death on their back on their background on their computer. You know, won't be me. Like, I don't want to wake up and be that depressed. Like, ah, let me wake up, scroll, look at my phone, valley of the shadow of death. You know, like, I don't I don't want that as my screensaver. But it talks about what's there. It says, I will fear no evil. That's that's what's there in the valley of the shadow. I will fear no evil. But you are with me.

Your rod and your staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table for me in the presence of my enemies. Again, most people are not signing up To be at a table full of people who hate you But either way, David is saying, you're with me there too. If I had to be the only one at a table full of people that didn't like me, that hate me, that don't want me to succeed, that are competitors, that are people who are lying on me, talking bad about me, envying me, just straight up haters. Says, you still have anointed my head with oil. The terrain is going to change. And what happens is he says, surely goodness and loving kindness will follow me all the days of my life. And I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. Because David realizes that living in the house of God starts in here, in your heart. It starts on the inside. So he focused on the goodness and the mercy or the goodness and the love and kindness following him. He didn't say, surely one day my terrain is going to change.

He said, surely one day the valley of the shadow of death is going to be the valley of the light of life. He didn't say, surely the table of my enemies will be the table of my friends. He just said, I know that your goodness is going to follow me no matter where I end up. And Jesus is going to be with you. I love that we serve a Jesus who is a strong man, a serve of Jesus who's not afraid, who will go into the valley with us, or he'll sit at the table of our enemies with us, or he'll dance in the pastures with us, or he'll lead us beside still waters to reflect, to be quiet, to be at peace. And he's with us in every single situation. That's what David focused on. He did not focus on the environment changing. He did not focus on, man, God, you're going to be good when the bills subside. Man, God, you're going to be good when we finally get more employees and there are people that are working less overtime.

Man, God, you're going to really be good. And you're going to be there with me, man, when we get that second or third or fifth location. It was like, no, God, you're with me right here, right now, no matter the terrain. Isn't that beautiful, Joe? Yeah, and he's kind of, he's not like asking for it. He's kind of just declaring it over his life. He's like, it's almost like gratitude. He's like thanking God for it in advance. If I'm understanding it correctly, he's not like, yeah. Am I reading into that too much? No, no, you're absolutely right. He's not asking for God to show up and be good. He's not asking for Jesus to be present. He's reminding himself of what's already true. You know what I mean? Like he's not saying, all right, God, I hope you're going to be good. Like, when are you going to start being good? David is saying, no, I'm reminding myself right now because sometimes here's, and I'll preach a little bit to some people out there.

Sometimes you got to remind yourself because your feelings will lie to you. If you go based off your feelings, sometimes your feelings will make you neglect the facts. Like I feel down or I feel lonely. So I must be alone. It's like, no, feeling lonely does not mean that Jesus left you. Like you can feel lonely and not be alone. Just like you can feel like you're inferior and not be inferior. You can feel like you're not a success and still be the only one in your family that has charted this course. Like feelings will lie to you. And David's saying in this spot, Joe, like, I am not going to go off of my feelings. These are the facts. And I am going to, like you said, remind myself, remind my heart, remind my spirit declare it over myself that these are the facts god's not leaving me, these are the facts he's been there the whole time yeah and he's got conviction for sure man he's, uh like i mean this is king david he's probably like in his 30s or something

like he's killed goliath you know he like was uh serving in king saul's court trying to get you know king saul's trying to kill him. Um and he's been through the valley so i think he's kind of, he's also like just relying on his experience. He's like, you've literally done it for me before. Like I trust that you'll continue to do it for me. And yeah, he's, he's got conviction for sure that God's going to take care of him. Yeah. And I love it because he's, he's looking back at some of his, you know, like you mentioned some of his experiences, like at this point, David has killed a lion. He's killed a bear. He's killed Goliath. He could have killed Saul, you know, who was trying to kill him and didn't, you know, so just so you know, if you don't have any scriptural context for what this is. David basically is, if you've ever seen the movie 300, and you've seen Leonidas as a kid, that's David, right? Like he was the top

dog. He was the best of the best. You know, you go out there to the wolf and you put the skin on your back and come back from the forest. Like the perennial, you know, leader like that everybody knew was a leader from a young age. Like this is David. And this is him also staying like, man, as a man who's accomplished all of these things, who's seen all of these things, the one thing I know is that surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life. Not because I'm hoping that it will, because I've already seen that it has. It was with me in every single terrain. And the question for people today is, can you trust that God is with you anywhere? Can you trust that like he didn't leave you because of a decision you made? Can you trust that he's not writing you off because you wrote yourself off? I love this. I tell people this all the time. Like I am so glad that God's character doesn't change like ours does.

That's real. The Bible says that Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forevermore. So that means that if he was faithful in the past, he's going to be faithful today and he'll be faithful in the future. That means if he cared about you in the past, he cares about you today. And he's going to care about you in the future. If he is consistent in the past, he's going to be consistent today. He's going to be consistent in the future. That's the thing that I love about Jesus. Like we know what we're getting in a way from his character, right? Now we can't know it all because he's God and we're not on everything that he can do and what he has in store, but nothing's impossible. And if nothing was impossible in the past, nothing is impossible today and nothing will be impossible for him tomorrow. And that should be encouraging for some people out there, Joe, because life has a way of beating us down, man. Life has a way of making us feel the highest of highs.

You know, I can think of when I had my kids and being in that hospital and, you know, holding my kids for the first time and just being like, wow, this is a miracle. This is special. And I've seen the lowest of lows. Moments that I didn't know that I was going to make it out of or how I was going to make it out of or does anybody care? Is anybody listening? I have to be the only one dealing with this. And what I've known and what I've seen is that Jesus was there every single time. Jesus was faithful every single time. Jesus was present in the hospital room when I was happy and shedding a tear for having my kids. And Jesus was present when I felt like nobody was there. And he was like, no, no, no. Be reminded I'm here when you're alone and when you're crying for a different reason. Those aren't tears of joy and the tears of joy and the tears of sadness. He was with me. And I think that's what what people really, really need to to see today is what

I hope that they hear today. They have the awareness of God's presence. Like I, because I really think that this, Joe, and I'll say this, I'm sorry, I'm talking a lot before kicking it back, but I really am passionate about this. I think the awareness and the awe of just how good and how close God is, is the one thing we have that nobody else has. Every other thing, every other space, every other religion, what I would say, would be focused on how we can get up to God. What can we do? What can we check off? What boxes can we check? What what what behaviors can we have? And the whole essence of what we believe is that Jesus loved us so much that God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son so that whoever believes in him shall not perish, but have everlasting life. He literally came to us. God came to us. That's what's so special. He loves us so much that he says, I'm just going to close the distance between where you are and where you need to be.

I'll be the one to be the bridge. I'll make sure that you, you're not going to be able to get to me. I'm going to come to you. That's what makes this whole thing so special. What makes me so passionate about it. And maybe out there for some of you, you can relate. The thing that makes us follow him. It's like, God, you said that You looked at my deficiencies and you didn't write me off for him. You said i'm gonna come closer to you I'm gonna be because I want to show you how much I love you And that's what makes this special That's good stuff man. I um, you know, you're talking about increasing your awareness of your closeness to god and him being in your life um, I may have said this before but it's something I uh, I heard a sermon from Tim Keller. I don't know if you ever heard of Tim Keller. I probably mentioned this already, but he went over the Lord's Prayer. And for those of you that aren't familiar, it's like our Father who art in heaven,

you know. And there's this one part where he says, thy will be done. And then he says, give us this day our daily bread. And that's the part he harps on. He's like, most people just ask for things. They just like ask for their daily bread, basically. Like, hey, Lord, give me my daily bread. But he's like, that's not really how Jesus is telling us to pray. He's telling us to pray that his will is done in your life. And I think that's kind of what you're saying. Like you need to be just expressing gratitude of the awareness of God in your life. And it's not just like, hey, gimme, gimme, gimme. You know, like, hey, God, I'm back. Like money, please. Yeah, exactly. It's like, hey, you know, like your will be done in my life. And that's what I've been trying to pray recently. But it's kind of all the same idea. It's like, your goodness follows me all the days of my life. I need your will to be done in my life.

And then you go into like, this is what I'm asking for, Jesus. I don't know if any of that makes sense. No, it does. And let me break it down even further for some people too. When we have an awareness that we're, what I'm trying to get people to see is when we have an awareness of God that no matter our circumstance, I think it changes the way that we understand who he is because I think sometimes like we think church is just for the down and out, and it's like no Jesus is for the up and out too it's like people Jesus is for the people who have a lot and a lot of relationships and have a lot of acres and have a lot of cars and have a lot of money and success and he's like yeah I want to be with you too, it's like we're at a space where we say man God your will be done in my life I thank you for what you've given me I thank you for what's tangible. I thank you for what you blessed me with. But none of that matters more than being close to you.

None of that. All of it pales in comparison. The cars are going to go away. The cars are going to change. They're going to break down and they're going to come to Adams Automotive to get fixed. Preach. Preach. They're going to come to Adams Automotive to get fixed. But when you have an awareness and a closeness to God, that's where you go get fixed. That's where your heart gets adjusted. That's where you say, man, I'm heartbroken over this situation. I'm grieving this loss in my family. I just got back from a funeral and I'm broken. That's where you go. That's the difference. It's like, see the auto shop for your soul. You know what I mean? Like it's, and that's where you have the, that's the awareness. That's what that piece is. When you have the awareness, you get to say, look, Lord, hey, nothing's wrong. Just coming in for oil change. I'm just, cause I'm here with you. Or you say, you know what? Everything's wrong. God, I don't know what's going

on, but I'm making this noise in my life. It's making this, it's like, Or it's like anxiety, anxiety, anxiety or depression, depression, depression or, you know, pain, pain, pain or bad habit, bad habit, bad habit. There's something going on. I need you to I need you to help me. And either way, he doesn't turn us away. Because when you have that awareness, say, man, God, I'm so glad that you're so close that you're not looking to beat me up. You're not looking to condemn me. You're looking to just be close to me because you're my father. You are my dad and you love me. And there are going to be times that I need you, dad, when things aren't great, when I'm afraid, when there's evil around me, when I'm at a table and everybody at the table is my enemy, when I'm in the valley of the shadow of death, I need you. But I also need you and you're close to me when I'm in the green pasture, when I'm on the mountaintop, when I'm batting a thousand, when it feels like

everything I swing at is going over the fence. I need you then, too. And when you have that awareness, you never can say I'm alone again. You may feel lonely, but that does not mean that you are actually alone. Yeah, this may be kind of a hot take, and I'm not a pastor, so I'll defer to Devontae, your perspective here. But I think that one of the ways that I kind of carry my life is that I think suffering in some ways is, and I'm not talking about like, you know, tragedy or people getting cancer or stuff like that, but I just mean like suffering, like dying to yourself daily in your flesh is like kind of a, you know, what does Jesus say? it's. Easier for a camel to go to the eye of a needle than for a rich man to get into heaven. And I think it's like when you are batting a thousand and you got six cars underneath your house and like your life's super easy, I don't think you're, you know, in a sense suffering very much or maybe people don't think you are, maybe you are.

But I think if your life is super easy, you know, it's like there's less of a reason to need God. And, you know, I don't think money is. Something that you can't have to be a practicing Christian. I think God wants his children to be well-fed and taken care of so that we can be a blessing. But in other ways, I also think suffering is kind of a... It's like a guarantee in the life of a Christian it's going to happen. My sanctification process has been a constant stretching or refining process of like, man, dude, I didn't know I was going to have to deal with this. And you have to like rely on God even more. And then it's just like the next year, it's like just a little bit further. And so that may have been a little bit of word salad, but it's kind of like a, The quickest way to have an awareness of God in your life and how much you need him is when things are going maybe as well as you thought they would.

And you really have to put your hopes in him. So I guess I'll hand it back to you. No, that's so great, man. You're spot on. You know, there are a few things that are more sobering. And like you said, increase your awareness than when things start getting snatched away. You know, when things aren't in place. when, you know, you, it's almost like you don't realize how good you have something until you don't have it. You know, like you don't realize how much you love a good mattress until you sleep on a bad one. You know what I mean? You're like, you're like, man, I miss my bed. Like, I don't like, you know, this, like you don't realize, you know, just how good a meal is or a chef is until you go somewhere else. And then that's not available. Right. So sometimes like that very thing is the thing that increases, you know, that suffering. I love that you put it that way. I know some people would hear that and cringe,

but like, again, it could be anything. It could be like, man, like I can't shake this mental health thing. I can't shake, you know, this idea. I can't shake this, you know, struggle that I'm having or whatever it may be. But it's in those places, Joe, that you really look up and you say, man, but now I have an increased awareness because I didn't have anything to rely on, but Jesus, I couldn't use my vices. I couldn't use my coping mechanisms. I couldn't use the things that I would default to. I couldn't drown out the noise of this one. I couldn't gamble away the noise of this one. I couldn't drink away the noise of this one. I couldn't be in the gym for six hours to try to get my mind off of this one. I have to rely on Jesus for this. He has to be the only solution. And when you do it and you see just how good he is and how good at being solutions he always has been, then it just increases your awareness to say,

man, God, I'm so grateful that you didn't leave me. You didn't leave me in the valley. You didn't leave me in the pasture. You didn't leave me at the table. You didn't leave me in the up or the down, in the dark. You didn't leave me anywhere. And so sometimes when you have those things that are taken away, you know, I think that people will see just how good God is. And it changes the narrative from them seeing him as a taskmaster that's waiting to shame them and hit them with a stick to a loving, compassionate God that is inviting them into a relationship to say, hey, I've got more for you than that. You know, so one of the challenges I want to give people this week, you know, I know that we're getting close to wrapping. One of the challenges that I want to give to people this week is, you know, if you've got a journal, which I tell people on here almost every single week, if you've got a journal, I want you to write down,

some times, and it may be, this one may be heavy because you might have to write down some times where you felt like you didn't have anything, where you were in your valley seasons, put it like this, write down your valley seasons or write down your green pasture seasons, and then look at where God was with you in all of them. Literally like a, like a, uh, do a pros and cons list, but just say Valley pasture and just say all the good times. And like, man, I remember this. And I remember the birth of my kids. And I remember my first, you know, basketball game that I won. I remember winning this tournament and I remember becoming a scratch golfer. And I remember all of the, all of the accomplishments, but then the dark seasons, like, man, I remember that. I remember the COVID years. I remember the struggles. I remember wondering what was going to happen to the business and say, man, but we made it. And then at the bottom, you can see, man, I made it because God was with me.

And I think it'll just increase your awareness. And when you increase your awareness, man, it almost becomes addicting to just be like, God, how close are you? Can I read your word more? Can I pray with some people? Can I pray to you? All of these different things start to grow out of that, but the awareness is the baseline. So I hope that that challenge helps some people this week as they try to sort through what to do when the terrain changes. Because the answer is really simple. Trust that the God that's been with you the whole time is with you now and will be with you tomorrow. That's good stuff. Well, man, I think we're up on time. So that's awesome. Awesome word, Devante. Do you want to pray for us as we go into this week? Yeah, absolutely. Father, in the name of Jesus, thank you so much for this week. God, I thank you that we are aware that you were close. And God, if there is somebody out there that's not aware that you're close yet,

I pray, Lord, that you would just bring them closer to you so that they can sense your presence. Lord, if somebody's listening and they're still on the fence about following you, Jesus, I pray that you would make this an opportunity for them to rededicate their life. Lord, as they just take a moment and just acknowledge that they've gotten it wrong and they want to walk with you, pray that you would just show them in their heart that you've forgiven their sins. God, and they will be with you all the days of their life. Thank you that no matter what terrain we're on, no matter the good, the bad, the ugly, you will never leave us or forsake us as it says in your word. Jesus name, amen. Amen. Well, thank you all for listening once again to us on AutoShop Ministries. Happy Sunday. Let's all go have a great week. And as always, may the Lord bless you and keep you. May the Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious to you.

And may the Lord turn his face towards you and give you his peace. Let's make it a great week. Let's go. For more information, reach out to Todd Westerlin at 925-980-8012 or visit AutoShopAnswers.com. You can get more information about Key to Key to Callbacks, Courtside. We have a VIP Rack Attack Day where you spend an entire day in the trenches with our team, learning this perfected business model. We offer leadership classes. We have an AI academy. And also get more information about auto shop callbacks. We have auto tech training. We are literally your one-stop shop. Once again, that number for Todd Westerland is 925-980-8012.