Hayley Braun -- 2017 Fall Leaders Advance

[Applause] hello it is wonderful and terrifying in the best way to be with you all today it's it's like the fear of the Lord that comes over you when you just get such a privilege oh and I'm emotional because I'm hormonal but that's a lot I'm just emotional because yeah I watched Chris yesterday and he also he nearly started crying up here so I'm like okay that's permission it is just such a privilege it is such a privilege I came here nine years ago as a 22 year old little hair stylist who was hungry she's so hungry for the more of the Lord I I wasn't raised in a culture that believed in signs and wonders we fully believed in the amazing power of Jesus and that the Holy Spirit was alive but definitely was not raised to hear the voice of the Lord and I came here and got so much more than just signs and wonders I found an amazing God who loves me and who loves people and but I found myself in him and it was such my marriage the way I raise children everything has been shaped by the incredible gift that I've been given from being here gay Valenzuela is my boss when he says he helps run the second the environment really he is the boss of the second environment I I help run the second environment we call him el jefe and he's he's very right they hide me on when Gabe first talked to me about coming on as an our GP in second year the first thing that came out of my mouth was do you know how old I am and he was like yeah 24 25 on my 24 and I was waiting for him to like be shocked and tell me oh whoops I made a mistake and he did it you see the funny thing about being 24 is you're probably only about a year in of realizing you really have no clue about anything there's this like magical age between like 18 and about 22 where you literally think you know everything you think you got life down you think it's I feel like there's like four stages of adulthood there's like the first one which is like I know every and then the rude awakening of I know nothing and then like then you have kids that think they know everything and then both you and your kids realize you actually don't know everything and that's probably the most blissful time I'm like only in the second stage so and I've been there for seven years so it's not very long to feel like you don't know anything but the reason why I was so scared insecure was I only realized like for a year that I didn't know anything and I thought I was still supposed to figure it out and so um I tried to figure it out for a while and then just give up and realized you just don't know and Gabe walk me through that journey and he's just been such a gift I was thinking as Gabe was teaching I actually know what else was on Gabe's notes because we talked about it yesterday and I was actually thinking about as he was teaching what what makes feedback such a powerful tool and I just wanted to it actually lead them to what I wanted to speak in into but I was I was petrified the reason why I talked so much when I was insecure and the reason why I wasn't secure as I was petrified of failure I grew up in the church I had parents who were leaders in the church and I had done a lot of stuff so when when we were told to run a children's ministry even though I didn't know how to do it I was thrown up onstage all the time being a pastor's kid that I just knew how to fake it till I made it I just like my mom would be like hey Lee when I was like 15 you and you're 15 and you don't want anyone to look at you because your nose it's like bigger than the rest of your face and you're going through puberty and you just my mom would be like Hayley's gonna come up and do the actions for the kidsong but there were no actions for the kid son so I just used to make them up this one happened a lot in this one if all else fails you have to do actions this one and this one and pointing to the Lord just really and this is the sign language for Jesus so if you ever stuck so I used to I used to get thrown into the deep end all the time but what I never realized I never received any feedback so I never knew what success was and so I I just used to scramble all the time like my I just knew how to dive in and do it and I remember the like I used to just avoid feedback at all costs because I thought when you got feedback then you were gonna die that was the moment when you messed up that you were gonna lose position you were gonna lose any kind of opportunity to grow like the minute you messed up it just ended over there and I remember gave graciously sitting me down in the back of this room to tell me that when I get insecure I talk a lot which I actually knew because I used to walk out of meetings going hey T two sentences ago would have been a great time to keep your mouth shut and so I knew it I just thought no one else knew and I think everyone else just maybe just there I was just waiting for the moment and I remember Gabe sitting me down and telling me the thing that I always knew but I was running from and and he let me know that sometimes I I kind of would run over people in in this I just talked so much that no one else could have an opinion and I burst into tears and I was like that is not my heart I never want to run over people that would like that devastates me to think that I would and I remember I was starting to talk and gave grab my hand and it's like you think we're talking about your heart right now and I was like well what are we he's like hailey I know what's in your heart I'm telling you actions on lining up with your heart and um and in that moment I realized that is what fathering is that is what true feedback is feedback is I I put you here because I trust your heart but I have you here because I want I want the outward action of you to match the inward reflection of what's happening and so I'm gonna work through some of these things that make you panic so that you become the best version of yourself and so today um yes I'm from South Africa if I have an accent do I have an accent still yes do we have any South Africans here hello South Africans I'm from South Africa I was born in Port Elizabeth I lived there for 22 years and so I just I was like wait I have an accent probably still but I've been here for nine years so anyway I just wanted I I got this kind of weird slightly prophetic message I guess I was I was prob I was gonna go practical but I felt like the Lord just really I was like Haley I want you to speak about this and it's actually been something something that's been stirring in me for a while I feel like the Lord kind of has brought it to another level about a year or so ago I was standing in my closet and I was I was getting ready for the 1 p.m. service I was trying to figure I was gonna wear and as I'm looking in my closet the Lord goes hey Lee I don't I don't believe in divorce I'm like oh okay right I'm not thinking about that not you know I'm very happily married it's great he goes it's just not inside of me and I was like okay and I knew I knew God wasn't talking about marriage and I was like okay you don't it's not inside of you and so I um I was like that's that's an interesting thought you know in Malachi you know he says he hates divorce and I'm like it's not like a new concept to me but I knew he wasn't talking about marriage and so I I went to the service and I'm just pondering do any of those meant what God will say something but then he doesn't really like finish anything he just throws it out there and he's like you know it's like the glory of the glory of Kings to glory of God to conceal a matter glory of Kings to search it out it felt like that I felt like he was just like treasure hunt and uh now it's like right so I came to church and I'm standing in the service and as I'm worshiping the Lord starts to talk to me about his nature and covenant and he and he starts to talk to me and I think sometimes you know Gabe's talking about leading in the context of family that's leading in the context of covenant and God starts talking to me about he start saying he goes Haley I never separate myself from myself I was like okay he's like you know and we know he's three parties like I'm always one and he goes but my people they separate themselves from themselves when they become ashamed and he's like and I want you to tell them that I don't separate myself from them and it began this process in me to think and I was thinking about this I was thinking you know sometimes it's so obvious for us to think about the people that we've distanced ourselves from we can actually see where we fail people we can see where their failure makes us uncomfortable we can see where people who have hurt us and causes us to separate ourselves from them but I don't always know if we realize that sometimes in our discomfort with our humanity we begin to separate ourselves from our failure and so I began to dive into this with the Lord and speak to him in and just thought start dialoguing and there's a couple scriptures that I just some 89 verse 34 says that my covenant with you will not be broken as I of fifty fourteen says though the mountains may be removed and he speaks on his loving-kindness will not be broken but his covenant of peace will not be shaken and I just began to study about the Lord and who he is and there is no where there is nowhere in in the Word of God where we actually see that he separates himself from failure in fact when Jesus came Jesus came and he clothed himself in flesh he clothed himself in humanity he wasn't afraid of humanity he actually put it on and wore it and I think sometimes when I think of Jesus coming I think of God coming but what I don't realize was he actually submitted himself to limitation he submitted not just and not just a limitation but to temptation III I think of Adam and Eve in the God and in this moment you see I don't think that the temptation for people has ever changed Adam and Eve had this moment where they had full relationship with God but the temptation to be God the temptation to be righteousness the temptation to know good from evil was so present there that they sacrificed covenant with him to think like him and I'll stand and the Lord began to tell me he began to say Haley and and I'm a human being so this means Haley also thinks like this he just was talking to he's like Haley in in human nature were uncomfortable with myths were uncomfortable with not knowing and so he's like my people what they've started to do as I've started separating themselves miss and they've started trying to do self righteousness season the way that our self-righteousness are like filthy rags in this in this season of my life I'm 39 weeks pregnant I've been having prodromal labor as they call it for six days which is like early labor just that lasts forever and ever and ever and um and I've never been more weak I've never been more sensitive more soft and yet I've never wanted to run away from it more in my life you see there's something about about being strong that I'm attracted to there's something about having it together looking looking the part that I'm really attracted to little told me in the beginning of this season he said to me he said I want you to learn to be held by me I know I know I'm a girl I don't really like to be held I like to be held once my house is clean once my dishes are done once my laundry's packed away once my sermons been written once my child has gone to bed and once I've had all the necessary conversations with my husband then I'm like now we can sit down and you can hold me and the Lord and the Lord said to me Haley I want you to learn to be held by me you know what was was at hours I was fine with that thought when I had nothing to do but I remember him interjecting it was midnight or not I couldn't sleep it was it was April right at the end of our school ministry yet I was going through my head all the people that I hadn't met with that had wanted to meet with me that I felt like I was going to disappoint and I'm trying to figure out in my schedule how am I gonna make this work how am I gonna line this all up so that it works and the Lord goes hey Lee can I hold you and I know you can't hold me you can give me a solution to my problem you're the king of the universe he does not live in time and space so I'd like you to please just-just-just bless me with that gift for the next two weeks so I cannot live in time and space so I have no limitation so I've no cap on my head so I can meet with everyone and they never have to be disappointed with me and he said can I hold you I'm like no you cannot hold me why do you keep on e and it was like he didn't care what I said he just and I just remember after a dialogue back and forth any funny God is actually the king of the universe so he really doesn't feel like he has to answer to me although in the moment I really would like him to eventually he just kept asking me then I'm like I'm just gonna give up I'm just and I remember just relaxing into the arms of the Lord like and bruh grudgingly for the first 10 seconds you know you mean you like mean your kid when they mad at you and they're like stiffen up like that that's what I was like like hoping for the first you know 50 seconds hoping in that moment he was like gonna give me a solution to the problem because I was at least letting him do what he asked me to do you know if your child like letting you hug him hoping that the discipline is gonna go away and and I just realized oh it's not gonna change and I remember relaxing into the arms of the Lord but I remember realizing that wasn't gonna be the last time that I was gonna have to learn to submit in weakness to him and so I started this journey of allowing my weakness to be joined to me whereas before I think I tried to hold my weakness separate from me I tried to let my weakness be this thing that I kind of looked at sometimes and I tried to adjust my life so I didn't have to touch it and I started allowing my weakness my humanity the parts of me that didn't feel strong I started allowing them to actually be part of who I am and the crazy thing was that the father like the father began to hold me and begin to transform me you see because I had this mindset that that good responsibility that being a healthy leader was I got everything right but in fact God was wanting to change my mind and was wanting to communicate to me that success isn't perfection but success is growth and for growth to happen you have to be allowed to fail and so in school of ministry it was just the other day ours our we were doing this ministry time and um it was powerful God was doing it was like there was like a corporate kind of souls are happening and the Lord said to me Haley some of these children separate themselves from themselves some of these children the minute they failed the minute they feel like they weak the minute they they come face to face with their limitations what they do is they separate themselves and they join the side of the accuser and they begin to accuse their weakness and so I got up and I shared this little thing and I honestly expected probably about 20 people in the room to stand up and that day my heart was broken as I saw of his 70 percent of the room stand up and in the moment I didn't actually shake I was I was I didn't share this part because I was seeing this this picture and I was processing with the Lord afterwards and I was standing I was watching in this picture we're standing in the courtroom of heaven and I'm the weakness the frailty of these people was sitting in the seat you know and and the the enemy was accusing them and I saw them separate themselves from their weakness joining the side of the enemy and begin to throw accusations it was so familiar to me because I I know those moments I'm like like oh you just suck you know it's just as mom to it it kind of felt more comforting to me to almost hurl insult at myself like you just can't get anything right you should just give up now those kind of things hurling insulted myself I saw myself standing hurling insult and when I looked back at the picture when our standing the room school ministry I expected to see the father in the judges seat because the father makes the verdict but the father had moved from the judges seat and was now holding the brokenness and he was he was cradling the weakness of these people and I realized in that moment some of these people are craving to be held by the Lord but because they separate themselves from their weakness they've never experienced the embrace of the father self-sufficiency and self-righteousness can feel so noble it can feel so noble but it will be the very thing that will render you powerless it is pseudo power it feels it feels so bizarre to me I love the Scriptures they like the scriptures of our weakness in the moment but when I'm weak it feels so bizarre to me to believe them it it's like um second chronicles you know 215 Brits is that the battles not yours the battle belongs to the Lord where he speaks about in in Matthew five the Beatitudes where his feet like it says that blessed are the poor in spirit for they will inherit the kingdom the poor in spirit not the mighty blessed are the meek meekness does not always feel very powerful I don't think Isaac felt incredibly powerful in the moment when he lay on the altar but he was submitting to the god to his father to someone he trusted Psalm 34 verse 18 he is close to the brokenhearted 2 Corinthians 12:9 sorry 2nd Corinthians 4 Americans 12 9 His grace is sufficient and his power is made perfect in your weakness you see I think that the father is drawn to weakness I think it's sometimes the hardest thing for us to admit as leaders I was sitting with a a senior a senior pastor who had been a senior pastor for over 20 years you know I'm I'm 31 I'm not a I didn't go to seminary I went to hairdressing school that's that's very fascinating when he's sitting opposite a man that's later church for 20-something years and you're just like I know Jesus that's what I know and and um and I could be so intimidated but as I'm sitting I'm asking questions and I'm asking questions about his heart in him and I realized he's not offering ain't like he literally it's not because he doesn't want to he literally does not know how and I realized oh because for 22 years you had to be the pillar in your environment and weakness was scary you see I think for human beings I think we avoid weakness at and pain at all costs and I think the higher up we get in leadership the more opportunity we have to push it aside and I felt the Lord it feels so honestly it feels a little bit uncomfortable for me but I actually like I would have much preferred to teach tools today it would have been much more comfortable but I actually felt the Lord was telling me that some of you need the opportunity to reconcile yourself with your weakness and to reconcile yourself back to him in your weakness I felt like the tenderness of the Lord was actually drawing some of you some of you are tired some of you have felt overwhelmed some of you have this glaring thing in your life that you don't know how to deal with but you you've banished yourself and your whole insult at yourself every time you fall into that same place and I felt like the Lord was saying I want to join myself not just to the good part of you but to all of you you see cuz he's not just God at the victory he's not just God waiting at the finish line for you to figure it he is God in the battle and he says that if the battle belongs to him and I feel like the father is saying I'm actually waiting for you I'm waiting for some of you to invite me to fight this battle for you I have it a two and a half year old son his name's Aiden he's magnificent I didn't put a picture of him up there because I thought some of you would be jealous and I thought I would preserve that for your sake because he's literally the most beautiful human being you've ever seen in your whole life obviously according to me but I can see he's got such a soft heart he's like his dad and um oh it's just like his daddy and he's so tender and I'm for me to correct him sometimes I just go hey buddy cuz he really knows he's doing something wrong and I can see the look on his face as he wants to distance himself from me and I I look and sometimes I stop it hey buddy I don't even finish the sentence because I can tell you already got the message some of you're like I wish my child got the message that fast and I I realized when all these students stood up I saw Aiden's face and I saw the shame that can come over him at two and a half two and a half and I felt this feeling that I feel every time I see that look on his face and the feeling is I will stop at nothing to get to your heart the the thought of my son macing up so bad that he would want to distance himself from me breaks me inside the thought of my son being so afraid of my disappointment that he would separate himself and begin to condemn himself on my behalf breaks me inside and it makes me think of the father in the story of the prodigal son who didn't wait for his son to come home get a shower and get clean before he met him you see that father that son was so broken and so weak he was hoping he was just hoping to be a slave he was just hoping that there was enough forgiveness in his father that he could be a slave and that father instead of meeting him at the toll and wanting to hear his tense they plan on how he was weren't going to recover from the last however many years of squandering all of his inheritance the father didn't sit and interrogate him on his perfect plan to get whole the father met him while on the road and said today were throwing a party for you I don't I don't think that son sat at that party that day feeling very wonderful I think sometimes we think like oh yeah they threw a party put a robe around him put a ring on his finger it was a great day I think every time that kid looked at that ring he probably felt disgust he probably felt like he wanted to take it all for explain to the father why he didn't deserve it he probably wanted the robe the robe on his shoulders probably felt like such weight on him because forgiveness is incredibly weighty forgiveness is something it's when I realized the fullness of my humanity when I realized the fullness of my weakness and I come under his covering and I say even though I don't deserve it I'm gonna somehow try and receive it and I feel like I feel like the Lord is actually wanting to invite some of us out of a place where we sit we take the robe off we're like I want to make my self righteous and whole before I wear the robe in the ring because I want to feel like I deserve it but today I feel like the father is like no I want to meet you with a robe and a ring on the road in the midst of your weakness I want to meet your weakness I want to meet your frail tea I want to meet the things that you detest and that you separate yourself from and I want to close it with beauty and I want to tell you your mind see the beauty of the Lord his his drawn to weakness not because he's condescending but because he's a restorer you know sometimes as leaders sometimes we separate ourselves from people's weakness because we don't understand the power of his restoration in our own lives it's scary to sit face to face with someone that has made a blunder of their life if I don't understand the power of the Resurrection it's it's taken me to understand the magnitude of the father's love for me to truly truly love people and I feel like it's a daily journey where he meets means his Hayley can I hold you we can't lead in full strength or lean into people's potential if we cannot ourselves be known by him in our weakness we cannot lead in full strength or lean into people's potential if we cannot allow ourselves to be known by him in our weakness we're in a movement right now in the world where people are trying to figure out how to be vulnerable it is there is a movement happening just be yourself it's it's this reaction to so post-modernism was this black and this black and white we have this so the previous generation probably probably a lot of who are sitting there in my parents generation it kind of was the crux of it was it was black and white it was right and wrong was learned to do the right thing don't do the wrong thing a lot of church was based on on this very separate like like righteousness and then we've had this this generation that comes in that's like we want to talk about gray I want to talk about feelings I want to talk about and so what there's been this reaction to righteousness which gone just be whoever you are a being your tendency and and we're seeing this this this message being shouted of like vulnerability is your key to freedom and I actually agree that vulnerability is a massive step learning to be weak learning to admit our weakness letting to admit our pain our sin our frailty is is a mighty step in direction to freedom but what true freedom is is submitting that to the power of the cross you see I think we fall short saying that me being vulnerable is enough you being vulnerable is just showing yourself but you're being vulnerable before a king that can transform you will make you into his likeness he he picks crazy people like if we want to talk about God being drawn to weakness this book is full of God being drawn to weakness [Applause] Moses hiding in the desert just murdered a man scared for his life God say I'm gonna use you to deliver to 2 million people without a sound system from the greatest tyrant we know you I don't think he felt incredibly strong in that moment Samson Samson I think he was he for me it's like I'm like God I don't even know why you picked that one he confuses me God confuses me in Samson because he keeps telling the lot of stuff and it keeps happening I'm like didn't you realize the one person you told it keeps happening the thing you tell her keeps happening your hair ends up in a loom she was the only one you're told can you not tell she's a bad plan the king he was supposed to be in battles sitting watching a woman bathed ends up like ends up having an affair that is the man after my own heart it just God is not drawn to perfection he's drawn to those who are willing to be weak who are willing to say I submit myself to you and I say I need you declare dependence on you because my righteousness is not enough and I feel like I feel like there is a grace I feel like there's a grace today and it feels almost I feel a little nervous to even ask people to stand because I know sometimes that's the most vulnerable thing to do but I feel like God actually wants to meet some of you and I feel like he wanted to hold your weakness and I feel like he wants to talk to you about how much he loves you and how much you'd never stop running after you and chasing you even though you're afraid and and if if you feel like that's you today if you feel like man I am I am NOT kind to myself when I fail when I get behind closed doors man my mind races at me if that's you today I can I invite you to stand thank you thank you if you could just close your eyes and whether you want to put your hand on your heart or in front of you whatever makes you feel feel open and safe in this moment just with your eyes closed I just felt the father tell me he just hits me Haley they're so beautiful to me I just felt him just over you you are so beautiful in this moment that you said you have never been more beautiful to me so God we just invite you Holy Spirit we invite you to come we invite you to move just with your eyes closed I just heard the Lord say he doesn't want to use you he wants to colabor with you you're not at all on God's Shelf that he picks up when it's convenient for him he wants to dwell inside of you and you inside of him thank you God God we invite you to come and dwell not just in the pots that are beautiful not just in the pots that we understand all that we can wrap our heads around not just in the pot so we can control but God we invite you to come and dwell in the depths of us in those dark corners that we try and avoid God we invite your light to come in just see even some of you just seen the picture of the courtroom and you've been hurling accusations at yourself and I I just invite you to begin to walk over to the seat where God is holding your weakness and join join him in that place so god we invite your grace your grace that says that even though you're not able I am able your grace that even in this moment as some of you stand you're like how do I do this God we invite your grace to come in that enables us Sunday and I break off shame I break of condemnation and we invite your perfect love that costs out all fear just with even with your house close I just feel like I'm some of you like you can feel your you're open to him but there's part of you that's a little bit like shut off because you feel like you could actually really break down right now I just feel like the Lord's like that's okay there's this time like it's okay to open yourself up right now they're people that will totally come sit with you if that happens go we open ourselves up to you quarter by Shonda and we invite your forgiveness we invite the ring and the robe and the approval of the Father he's a good father God we I just pray for encounters with with you as a good father god I pray that this will be a night of encounters with your goodness that's not as they go to sleep they begin to encounter your goodness in their dreams that God they would have unusual unusual things happen in their week where they begin to encounter your love and your goodness on a new level and so god I just released a breakthrough and covering in Jesus name in Jesus name Amen I mean thank you so much for standing you may be seated bless you [Applause] amazing Haley thank you now you can have your baby no that was amazing thank you surgery it's beautiful thank you Wow for those you that came today you were smart I'll tell you that right now that was beautiful all right we're gonna break for dinner and I won't occurred everyone this dinner we have everyone eat together and so if you have planned to not eat with us cancel those plans because we want to eat together and because there's so many of us we are renting another facility the Civic Auditorium which is about ten minutes from here max and I'm the directions are in the booklet if you don't have a booklet look for one or just Google on Google Maps or whatever Civic Auditorium and the meal is paid for its part of part of the advance covered come it's a wonderful time we have a meal with 900 people around tables of eight and ten and so the doors open at 4 or 4:15 sorry 4:15 the buffet start to 4:15 and so we got a good amount of time to go get cleaned up and we'll see you down the typical tutorial please come we want to have dinner with everyone bless you have a good rest of your afternoon we'll see you down the road [Music] [Music] [Music]

Channel: Sean JohnBull

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Length: 38min 4sec (2284 seconds)

Published: Thu Dec 20 2018