Welcome to Buoy, a Life in Deeper Water podcast. Episode 13. My Witness Resolution – Say His Name
(click here to listen)
Hello human.
Today is about my witness resolution. In the last episode I spoke of my college life, age 20. But it is a panoramic view of my career path that illuminates my motivation to be a transparent witness of my faith.
I was a dancer, choreographer, and dance teacher for about 14 years. It took that long to pull away from my love for what happens in a studio with dancers who are sharing a passion for movement. It gave my heart a mirrored home.
When I began my nonprofit career, I worked for the Girls Scouts of the USA as a communications director at the statewide Utah Girl Scout Council, promoting the benefits of an all-girl educational environment for developing leadership. This was during the leadership of CEO Frances Hesselbein (RIP at 107 years old), the woman who gave the corporate world the phrase, “managing for the mission.” I then went on to work for Robert Redford at the Sundance Institute. Bob taught me how to take care of someone else’s vision (his) by bringing my best creative game—the intensity and focus needed to stay on the vision path. I will return to this experience in a future episode.
When we moved to New York City, I worked for the Robinson family who founded Scholastic, Inc, raising money for the Alliance for Artists & Writers, the nonprofit arm of Scholastic. Imagine education without Scholastic. Then I worked for the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s mid-century modern historic site, the Philip Johnson Glass House in New Canaan, Connecticut. Then Lenox Hill Hospital, a world-renown hospital on E. 76th St. in Manhattan, followed by Boys and Girls Harbor, serving kids in Spanish Harlem, founded by Tony Duke of the Duke family.
With our move to Los Angeles, I worked for Inner City Arts, founded by Bob Bates on a beautiful award-winning campus in the heart of LA’s skid row, bringing creative resources to inner-city kids from LA’s deepest urban roots. And finally, Orange Lutheran High School, a private Christian high school where the students “walked the talk” of following Christ.
Mission-driven cultures, led by visionaries who saw a need and created a community of support for it. What came with this was an engaging, inspired community of colleagues, donors, constituents. People I came to know very well, working through deadlines and stressful scenarios with high profile folks, long, long days, and a shared 24/7 commitment to a mission, to a leader, and relationships with artists, donors, urban kids, architects, doctors. Campaigns, programs, projects, events—caring for a culture defined by a vision that took the courage of all of us to bring services to help others reach their potential.
The One Thing I Did Not Do
Through it all I knew Jesus. I counted on Him to guide my professional behavior. I counted on Him to help me lead with integrity, to be a servant-leader, to nurture the potential in others.
I praised Him for helping me meet my work goals, to help others. He did it beyond measure.
I leaned on Him to control my addiction. I was a workaholic. He put me on a nonprofit career path.
Imagine, otherwise.
I strayed from His voice when I thought someone else’s opinion mattered more.
But the one thing I did not do is share Him with others. I did not share my witness of His presence in my life.
And I had been given “many bags of silver” to do so. But not unlike the servant who was given one bag of silver, and buried it in the ground, hiding it for the Master, I did not say His name.
Recently my pastor did an entire message on the power of saying His name. See, I am not alone in my journey. God has put a select few spiritual leaders in my life to help anchor my course, because that is one way God divinely persuades me. I am so grateful. It is through my pastor’s message that I gained humbling clarity on what I had not done throughout my career.
I thought it was enough to be spiritually ethical, that others would see, and ask.
People don’t ask. Not even when they know. People mentally justify the difference with separation, then inclusivity. It goes like this: “That’s not my path, but it’s yours, and I am ok with that.”
And no words are spoken.
A Hallelujah Thump and a Beautifully Transparent God
So, I have carried this overstuffed backpack of unspoken witnessing around with me for decades. Guilt is a very heavy burden.
Yet, I know my spiritual gift is exhortation. What does God want me to do? I prayed, I mentally muddled over this for several years. I was writing, but a little lost at sea, singing a lone sea shanty on the barest of boats.
And then this podcast came to my heart. A God installation.
I shared this with my oldest son in a random conversation one day. He said, “Mom, your voice. That’s it.” And we know, wherever two or more… my resolve happened in that moment.
Yet I wanted to know how this would help me grow spiritually. What would motivate each episode? Who would care? Who would need to know my journey?
I was reading in Hebrews and came upon the definition of faith for a believer: that it is a gift from God, and it is, for the believer, God’s divine persuasion in my life.
Then I knew. I will share my witness. And it was as if that backpack slid of my shoulders to the ground with a hallelujah thump, and I could now unpack it.
At that moment I thought: Mine is a beautifully transparent God with a simple, powerful purpose for me.
For some reason this made me remember the first time I crossed the Chesapeake Bay Bridge and Tunnel. It’s 17.6 miles long from shore to shore and it takes a real commitment to cross that bridge. The depth of water along the way is 25 ft to 100 ft. I had never crossed a bridge that long, with two underwater tunnels. We were headed back to NYC from OBX. It was a new route that we had been told was shorter. Mentally getting to the other side of it was a real wonder.
That’s how I was thinking about BUOY. What if I get to the middle of it, no land in sight and I don’t know what to do? My faith grew in the middle of that bridge.
Trust the Power of Transcendence through Prayer and God’s Word
When I started my cerebral simmer in October about a resolution, prayer and honoring God’s word were two separate resolutions from my witness resolution. But they are not. Prayer and God’s Word spiritually prepare me for my witness.
Remember my prayer for how I will love?
Ephesians 1:16-17
16 I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers. 17 I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. Ephesians 1:16-17
Giving thanks for you, and everyone God surrounds me with, will deepen my prayer life, and prepare my heart to bear witness.
And my mindset for God’s Word is to be present, to think scripturally, as Paul claims it in Romans 12:2, by a “renewing of my mind.” I return to every scripture brought to my attention to reflect. Simply, during the week I read and pray over the pastor’s message, because all of God’s power lives in every scripture. I return to all my scripture readings to reflect in that week. Reflecting is honoring the power of His Word. I accept that I will not fully understand the divine power of God’s Word in this life, that when I honor every reading with returning to reflect, I transcend.
Psalm 119:11
I have stored up your word in my heart, that I might not sin against you.
And I am sure of this, though I do not quite know how yet: sharing my witness requires transcendence, to let the power of His name take the conversation beyond reason, beyond difference, beyond my own capability to knock. Jesus knocks.
The prophet Isaiah said in chapter 55:8-9
8 “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the LORD. 9 “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.
My Witness Resolution
I have one resolution: to witness. My resolution needs a home port. The foundation of my witness resolution is my weekly podcast. It has long since been recognized that public speaking solicits fear in many people. Not for me. And in the Christian culture, witnessing to others acores about the same as public speaking. Not for me, anymore.
BUOY | faith that rocks is sharing my witness of God’s divine persuasion in my life 99 times. Why 99? Because Jesus will leave the 99 to come find me. Luke 15:4.
4 “Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Doesn’t he leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it?
BUOY is not a one-take testimony, a dramatic life story with a beginning, middle and an end; but rather, a sharing of my relationship with God as it evolves. And continuing to leave the 99 (the fold) and go out and find “the one.”
Because bearing witness to others may begin with sharing how you came to hear the knock and open the door to bringing Jesus into your heart, but that can be so much—so emotionally, so intimately BIG—that you never find the moment in the conversation, or the time. Yet, God tugs at our hearts and minds in ways we should share, and give those who know nothing about Him, or those who need encouragement, or those who think they know everything about Him and have turned away, an opportunity to join the journey, for however long.
BUOY is an invitation to fall in step with my spiritual stride for a while. This year, it is solo. We will see how God leads year 2. What I can claim right now is that every episode is like releasing doves in my heart. Such peace. It is a great example of one of my Philippians 4:7 personal life moments:
7 And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
I am at peace. Transcended. Because I am saying His name.
BUOY is two fish.
Here are the five loaves.
BUOY is a foundation for:
- Making myself available to others through my website email: deeperwater@kathrynbise.com.
- Personal outreach to a hundred+ people I have worked with or know:to connect, to tell them how they have made me a more introspective human, how our time together stands stronger than any ideology that separates us. How much God loves them.
- Identifying a social media strategy that is simple to capture those that want to make the 99journey with me by sharing their witness alongside me.
- Speaking to live and online groups: A 30-minute message I can bring to groups about being a witness of God’s divine persuasion and encouraging others to be a witness.
- Developing longer-form work that comes out of BUOY, keeping a digital witness journal that chronicles my outreach and conversations, and a memoir in the inspirational nonfiction genre.
- Developing an interactive group experience that helps some hear, others strengthen their witness.
Help BUOY Grow by Doing What You Do
Help BUOY Grow by Doing What You Do:
- Follow me on your distribution channel and give me feedback.
- Use BUOY to witness to others; for example, some listeners have shared that they are using my journey to bridge their conversation with others. Yes, please!
- Share the networks you belong to so I can become an active participant (Facebook groups, Instagram groups you belong to, other social media platforms) – email recommendations to deeperwater@kathrynbise.com
Can I Help You with Your Spiritual Resolution for 2023?
I just laid out my spiritual resolution: I am a witness of God’s divine persuasion in my life.
Do not be afraid of what you will find in the middle of your spiritual bridge, that you see no land from either direction, because it is a beautiful moment for your faith, and God’s assurance that He is with you. What I know from my resolution is that God loves me beyond it ever being too late to grow, to deepen understanding, and to share His love for me with others.
How can I help you make your spiritual resolution one that has you all-in? That has heft. It is more important that you land on the right resolution, whether you know it by Sunday, January 1, or you take January to discover it, pray over it, land on it.
I’m with Paul.
In Philippians 1:9-11 he says:
9 And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, 10 so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, 11 filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ—to the glory and praise of God.
I am ready to support your spiritual growth in 2023.
Happy New Year, human.
His grace. My gratitude.
See ya on the Buoy.
I encourage you to speak up human. If Buoy brings value to you take a moment to share it with someone. Write a quick review so we reach more seekers. Comment, ask questions.
You can find me at kathrynbise.com and @buoykathrynb on Instagram.
Buoy is a Life in Deeper Water podcast.