Transform Your Life Through Relationships
In the first episode of 2024, Daron explores the theme “Life is Relationships.” He emphasizes that relationships are the key to finding joy, purpose, and love in the new year.
Daron discusses how God is a relationship and how we are created for relationships with God, others, and ourselves. He encourages listeners to prioritize relationships over things and places, as they are the foundation of a fulfilling life.
This thought-provoking episode sets the stage for a series focused on the importance of relationships in our lives.
Key Takeaways:
⚡️The essence of our existence is framed by the relationships we foster with God, ourselves, and with others.
⚡️Life’s overarching goal should center on relationships that echo the character of God.
⚡️Misplaced expectations in people, places, or things inevitably lead to disappointment and fear.
Quotes:
• “The momentum is created with three things, new, improved, and improving.”
• “Life is relationships. Everything else is just the details.”
• “The answer to all these questions is one word. The one-word answer to where you’re going to find the life, the joy, the opportunities, the purpose, the love. Relationships.”
• “Life is relationships because God is a relationship.” “We are always competing with a relationship with a noun.”
• “When you expect people, places, and things to fulfill your wants, you will be disappointed.”
• “The purpose of your life is relationships because God is a relationship.”
• “The goal of 2024 needs to be relationships. Relationships that reflect the design and the character of God.”
• “You were created for relationships by a relationship.”
Connect with Daron on Social Media:
Episode Player
Links to the Daron Earlewine Podcast
YouTube | Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Libsyn
VIDEO TRANSCRIPT
Man, if I could just get this thing in 2024, best year ever. That new job, that new car, that new house, that new wife, that new this, that new that. I need some things, right? If I could get. Just get a new tv and that thing and the thing for my car and this other thing, maybe get a plane, maybe I could get this is if I could get more things or this. There’s just some specific things that I know that these. These things.
If I had these things, I’d have the year that I’ve been dreaming about in 2024, created on purpose and for purpose. Happy New Year. Welcome back to the Daron Earlewine Podcast, first episode of 2024. So glad you’ve joined us in this new year. And think about this. It’s 2024, which I don’t know, when I was a kid, what I thought about, how old I would be or what, I don’t know if anything you’ve thought about 2024 what that is. But here’s what I have noticed.
If you are close to my age, which this is really unfortunate, it’s a year older than the last time we sat down together because I had my birthday on December 29. I want to thank you guys all for the gifts, the flowers, the cash that you sent, that new ferrari that the guy in Florida that you sent me. I’m just kidding. No one sent me any birthday presents. But anyway, I didn’t need presents. All I’m saying is I’m a year older. Here’s what always trips me out is, you know, when you ever on your phone, like doing like, an app deal, like registering for something, and you have to put your date of birth in there, and it’s like the first one, you only have twelve options, right? You pick the date, the month, and then you only have, like, 31 options to figure out with finding the date.
But what’s really getting annoying to me is you open it, right? And if you open your phone on some app right now, it’s going to start on 2024. The amount of thumb flips I have to do to get to my actual year, I feel like I’m literally going to the depths of the ocean to continue to go back through the many decades. It makes me feel sold. I don’t enjoy it. But anyway, so maybe if you’re not anywhere close to as old as I am, you don’t know that yet. But hey, when you’re 46, come back and say, hey, I understand.
I feel your pain. But anyway, it is a new year and we’ve got a great series least I’m feeling great about it. I hope it hits home with you. And we’re going to just talk about what is life, right? If we were to be like, hey, life is this, what is that? We’re going to talk about it for three straight weeks now to try to get our year started off right. Because here’s what I have experienced in my own life, is the new year always gives me an opportunity to reset. It gives me a new opportunity to refocus and to find momentum. And if you remember, sometime last year, I think it was, we did a series about momentum in life and said that the momentum is created with three things, new, improved and improving.
And so one of the great things about a new year is that it gives you a target, right, to say, okay, there’s something new. I don’t have to do anything for it. Like, I went to bed last night, I woke up, and I have a new year, an opportunity to create some momentum in my life. That’s a positive. Here’s a negative is often we say things with good intentions, like, hey, this is a new year. It’s going to be a new me.
In fact, I think we’ve even done some marketing around spiritual dna and used that phrase, listen, new year, new you. And here’s what I thought about as I was prepping for this is for one, that’s just not true. Buzzkill. Okay, spoiler alert. It’s not true. You’re the same you that you were in 2023. In fact, think about this. 2023 became 2024 in 1 second. Like one singular second, it was 2023, and then 1 second later, it became 2024.
That’s how quickly a new year happens. The transformation that you are looking for in your life, the changes you’re looking for in your life, your relationships, your career, your purpose, all the different things, all the things that I’m looking for, none of them happen in a singular second. And if you come up with some magic pill that you can take that just makes all life change and transformation happen in a second, sign me up, send me a bucket of it. But I don’t think you’re going to find that, because the truth about life is it doesn’t happen in seconds. It happens over time.
And so as we’re moving into 2024, we got to be able to narrow the focus down and not leave being able to live the best life possible for us to chance, to a wish, to a hope. We’ve got to find a way to actually boil it down to, okay, what is the thing that I can actually do focus on that would define redefine and transform my life. Because my guess is you’re looking at this next year. You’re thinking like I am.
I want my life to be better. Okay, so what’s going to do that? I really want more joy. I want more joy in 2024. Okay, where am I going to find that joy? I need more opportunities. I just don’t feel like in 2023 I had the kind of opportunities that I really feel like I need, that I want. Where am I going to find the opportunities that I feel like I really need in 2024? What about purpose? Aaron, listen to the Podcast, right? Because you always tell me I’m created on purpose and for purpose. So I’m looking for great purpose in 2024. Where do I find that?
What about love? Right? Faith, hope, love. The greatest of these is love. Where am I going to find the love that I need? Daron, for 2024, it’s new year. I want new opportunities and love and purpose. All of these things. Where do I find these? Here’s the good news. The answer to all these questions is one word. The one word answer to where you’re going to find the life, the joy, the opportunities, the purpose, the love.
Everything that you want to see come into your life in 2024. One word answer to all those questions. Relationships. Relationships. This is where you’re going to find the love, the joy, the hope, the peace, the opportunities, the purpose. All of it is going to be found in relationships. So as we’re going into 2024, I haven’t completely locked in my word for the year, which probably could have, should have, maybe, because it’s now 2024. But sometimes I like to narrow it down to like two or three words for the year, then kind of marinate on it, right? Let New Year’s get passed, kind of stretch my legs a little bit in 2024 and then boom, lock into the word. So I’m getting close.
But in the top three right now, for me, word of the year for 2024 is relationships. And I’d be open to letting you borrow this one. And even if it doesn’t become like your word for the year, I really do feel like I’m confident of this, that if we’re looking for a focus for 2024 and beyond, we could boil down our focus of our life is this. Relationships. I’ve said this quote a gazillion Times on the podcast, and if I actually do lock in that the 2024 word for the year is relationships, I’m going to so overuse it this year you’re going to want to throw up, and I will not apologize for it. But it’s the quote from Gary Smalley that I say all the time. If you watch or listen to the podcast often, you can probably say it with me, right? Life is relationships.
Everything else is just the details. And that is the theme for this three part series. We’re kicking off the year with life is relationships. Everything else is just the details. And I kind of wish it was another answer. I kind of wish that wasn’t true because relationships are really hard, really difficult. Probably the most difficult thing we do in life, but they’re also the most fulfilling and they are what we are created for. We’re going to unpack that over the next three episodes. Okay?
Gary goes a little bit deeper into this quote. He says this we’re made for three great relationships with God, with others, and with ourselves. And all relationships involve choice. We’re made for three great relationships with God, others and ourselves. And every one of these involves choice. And that is so true. That’s where we’re going to go. And I can’t wait to get into content. And I pray and have been praying for you as we’re prepping and putting everything together for this series, that what we learn together and what God teaches us in this series will set you up for the greatest year of your life.
And the evidence of that is going to be found in your relationships. Speaking of that, I want to take a quick commercial break before we jump into the content because we have created a new resource that I want to let you know about. That could be maybe just a little help, a little bump, right? To see growth in your relationship. So take a listen. We’ll be back after this. Commercial break hey, I got a quote for you.
Shared joy is a doubled joy. Shared sorrow is a half sorrow. When I heard that quote, I knew I had lived it right when I was going through the death of my dream, the living part of it, when it was being created, I did it with other people and it was amazing. It doubled the joy. But when it died and I tried, had to figure out what do I do with my life? I was so glad to have people walk that journey with me. They really did help half the sorrow.
I know you’ve probably experienced the death of a dream as well. And here’s the good news. God wants to resurrect a new purpose in your life and you can’t walk that journey alone. That’s why I’m so excited to announce the release of the Death of a Dream Small Group Curriculum. This curriculum is video based. You’re going to get together with a group of people, watch videos where I’m teaching concepts through each chapter, as well as powerful insights that didn’t make it in the book.
They’re going to help you walk together through the process of discovering God’s call in your life. Seeing God resurrect a sense of purpose and hope, it’s going to be amazing. There’s also a great journal that goes along with it. It’s going to help you have a process and a guide to observe, reflect, discuss, and open up the insights that are going to lead you into what God wants to do in your future. So listen, here’s your quick action steps. Get a group together. Invite some friends to join you. Go to daronearlewine.com/the-death-of-a-dream. Buy the curriculum, schedule a time, get together, and begin the process of walking together towards the resurrection of your purpose. Once again, it’s at daronearlewine.com/the-death-of-a-dream. Thanks.
All right, and we’re back. All right, we’re back and we’re talking about life is relationships. And here is the title for this series. Okay.
Life is relationships because God is a relationship. Let’s unpack it. Okay. I was having a conversation back in December with my friend Aaron Stanton and my new friend, Jamar Wright. And Aaron runs an organization here, locally called Synergize Indianapolis. And their theme, their whole slogan at synergize is relationships over everything. I love Aaron. We’ve had him on the podcast before, sharing his story.
And their whole deal, synergize, they have these meetups, right? People come together, and it’s like a networking kind of deal. But a lot of the networking things that are maybe in your town or our town, the whole thing is, let’s get together and let’s basically try to close some deals, right? Let’s network for my professional goals, see if we can’t come alongside each other. And this relationship can produce more marketing, more sales, more progress in my career and what Aaron says in their events. He says, listen, I don’t care to hear your sales pitch.
I want to hear your story, because relationships over everything. So Aaron reached out and said, hey, would you come together with Jamar? Could we do a conversation? They’re launching a new podcast called Between Two Hugs is actually what the podcast is called. And go check it out. I think here this month, they’re releasing the episode with Jamar and myself. But we sat down and we’re talking about relationships. And right off the bat, Jamar says this quote. He said this, we are always competing with a relationship with a noun.
And he said that. And I went to college, graduated. Sometimes the difference between nouns and verbs and adjectives, it gets a little jumbled, right? English language is difficult for me. And so he says it, we’re always competing with a relationship with the noun. And I was like, verbs, I was like, oh, nouns, person, place, or thing. Oh, that’s really good, Jamar. And I thought it was so good, I texted him before we recorded this episode and said, hey, could you send me the quote again so I don’t misquote you? And he said, listen, it’s not me. The Holy Spirit gave me that one. So we’re going to quote it to the Holy Spirit through Jamar. How about that?
But think about that in your life over this next year, in 2024, you will be continually competing in your life with a noun, with a relationship, with a noun, with either a person, a place, or a thing. And only one of those are you designed to have in first place in your life. Okay? Gary Smiley, talking about this, talks about how often misplaced expectations screw everything up in our relationships and often can turn our life upside down. And I don’t want you that. I don’t want that for you in 2024. Okay? Gary says this.
When you expect people, places, and things to fulfill your wants, you will be disappointed. And anytime you put your expectations for help in the wrong place, the result is fear. Person, place, or thing. When we place unnecessary or misplaced expectations upon them, we’re setting ourselves up for failure, disappointment, and fear. And so we come back to that. We say, okay, well, then, which one is right?
What is my right relationship with a noun, person, place, or thing? And you probably get it because you listen to the podcast, you know what I’m all about. You know, I’m going to say that the core of your life has to be a relationship with a person. That person needs to be God. And as we were talking in this podcast, a thought came to me that I’d had before. Theologically, I get it, but I don’t totally get it.
But for whatever reason, as recording that podcast, it hit me a lot, with a lot more force than I’d really thought about it recently. And this is the thought I had, right? Is that what the crazy thing is? That life is relationships? Because God is a relationship? Like we believe in the Trinity. Three and one, right? One and three. Father, son, the Holy Spirit. They’re all God, and they’re all unique beings of God, but yet still the same God. And we’re not here to debate the Trinity and help me theologically explain it to you because I’m not smart enough to do it, and I don’t know that anybody is. It’s the wonder and it’s the mystery of God. And I think that’s beautiful because there is always wonder and mystery in relationships.
But you were created for relationships by a relationship. You got to let that soak in for a minute. We’re going to have about a 20 minutes conversation here, but take some time afterwards and maybe just let that marinate over the next week or so is like I was created for relationships by a relationship. And in the relationship God, there’s this beautiful, non hierarchical, no competition, interdependent, selfless, servant hearted, whole holy relationship between the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.
We get a little insight in this. In John, chapter one, as he starts his gospel, he says this. In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God. It’s talking about Jesus. The word logos here he’s using in the Greek is speaking to the divine mind, right? In this, he’s using this word to describe Jesus in the beginning, before God made the heavens and the earth, before he created anything, the word was there in the beginning and the word was God. And the word was with God.
He was with God in the beginning, and through him all things were made, and without him, nothing was made that has been made, right? So you are made through him who is God and was with God in the beginning. You’re created for relationships because you were created by relationship. In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it.
The purpose of your life is relationships because God is a relationship. God’s design and his desire is relationship. That is what your life is. It’s not places, it’s not things. People specifically. The core number one relationship is your relationship with the God who created you, who is a relationship. In learning, how do we learn to love like he loves within himself? Which is, to me, it’s kind of a mind blowing thought.
And I think one of the reasons you see people, well, I don’t know that God’s all about relationship, isn’t he? About rules, right? Any about all the stuff we shouldn’t do. And you just take a look at it. Like, let’s take a look at the seven deadly sins. Seven deadly sins are this pride, greed, wrath, envy, lust, gluttony, and sloth. Why are these called the seven deadly sins? And why would God care about these things in our life? Like, why does God even have this concept of sin? Well, it’s because if you think about pride, greed, wrath, envy, lust, gluttony, and sloth, what do they do?
They’re dead. They’re the seven deadly sins, because they kill relationships. Think about whatever issue you’ve caused in someone else’s life or people have caused in your life that have damaged and broken relationships. They find their root, the actions find their root in one of those seven deadly sins. So why does God care about sin? Because God cares about relationships. He’s in all that, been out of shape about what you’re doing wrong. He’s more been out of shape about what it’s doing to you and to your relationships.
And I think when you can start understanding the why behind the heart of God, for me, at least, it’s helped actually lean closer to who he is and what he wants to do in my life. The truth about God, right, is that he has been. Everything he’s been doing since the fall of humanity has been a pursuit of redeemed and restored relationships with us. And how do we know? How do we know that God is a relationship? Well, what we just read there in John, and then God actually tells us that he’s a relationship right off the bat in Genesis, chapter one, Genesis one, starting with verse 26, then God said, let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, right off the bat.
I think we skim over that sometimes. We’re like, yeah, God made us. Like, he was like, God was like, hey, let’s make mankind. I’m made in the image of God, but I don’t have a ton of conversations with people that really stop and soak in the US, our part of that. Let us, the relationship, the Trinity, the flow of God’s love, Father, son, Holy Spirit, who interact with each other in a mysterious way that you don’t need to completely comprehend to know that it’s happening.
Neither do I. But they came together in their relationship. And so, you know what? Let’s make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so they may rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the sky, over the livestock and the wild animals, and over the creatures that move along the ground. So God created mankind in his own image. In the image of God. He created them. Male and female. He created them and he blessed them.
If you don’t know what your essence is, you’re moving into 2024. What is going to give me the greatest life possible? It’s going to be a life that reflects your divine design. It’s going to be found in relationships, relationships with God, relationships with yourself, relationship with others. And we’re going to dig into this in the next couple of episodes. But one of the ways I think you can set up 2024 to sabotage the purpose God has for you is if you place things or places as the top priority of your year.
And, man, that’s easy to do. So easy to do, right? Man, if I could just get this thing in 2024, best year ever. That new job, that new car, that new house, that new wife, that new this, that new that. I need some things, right? If I could just get that new tv and that thing and the thing for my car and this other thing, maybe get a plane, maybe I could get this, is if I could get more things. Or there’s just some specific things that I know that these things.
If I had these things, I’d have the year that I’ve been dreaming about in 2024. And you know as well as I do, right, you’ve gotten new things, right? You guys say, man, you know what I just got to have amazing sports car, that awesome suv. So I look like all the other moms driving around my city, right? And then you get that car, and you realize if it’s driving just like the last car you had. And after the first few days, it was awesome. It smelled great. You were like, yeah, I got a new car. And then about four or five days in, you are looking through a windshield, holding a steering wheel, driving a vehicle to the same place as you were driving the other car. And then you dawns on you, oh, this is just a car that drives me places, I guess.
I’m still me. My life still has struggles. This thing didn’t actually give me what I thought it would. Or there’s a place, this place, I got to go to this place, if I could just be there. That state, that new job, that new house, that place, that neighborhood. If I could get to this place, this place is going to give me exactly what I need. And you’ve gotten to a place, and it’s been fun to be there for a minute. And then you know what you realize?
You realize that. You know who else is in that new place? You and the people you were in relationship before you got to that place. This is where things can be sabotaged before they even start. So let me save you and myself some struggle with 2024. The goal of 2024 needs to be relationships. Relationships that reflect the design, right. And the character of God, that my life would reflect, that I’ve been created in his image for his purposes, and his purposes are relationships.
Maybe it’s super basic for you. Maybe you’re upset. You’re like, man, Daron, but you’re going to hit us something good here in 2024, and you’re talking about relationships. That may be all we talk about in 2024, because it is life. Your life is your relationships. And everything else is just the details. Some thoughts to think about until we come back for a next episode. Next week is, if you look at those three episodes, episodes, those three categories that Gary Smalley talked about, relationship with God, relationship with ourself, and a relationship with others, which one of these do you feel like? You would say, this is number one in my life right now.
That’s your to do, I guess, is to take a look at it before you come back to the next episode and go, you know, what’s number one for me? Would I say that my relationship with God is the number one thing in my life? That’s the purpose of where I’m going. Would you say no? Actually, Daron, I’m more about myself right now and what I need and where I’m at. Or would you say no, I’ve spent most of my time, or at least try to, that I’m focused on others love for you to come back for the next episode and have some insights, maybe take some time to journal.
If you don’t have a journal, we’ve got some cool journals that we sold last year that came out with my book. They say creating the future on them. Send me an email and you can buy one. I’ll send you one. Or just go buy a journal on Amazon. Doesn’t matter. You don’t have to have mine. But somewhere where you can begin to put some of these thoughts down on paper to get anxiety, thoughts, concerns, dreams, whatever they could be, get them out of your brain. Get them down on some ink and some paper so you can look at them, so you can think about them, so you can kind of marinate on that and say, God, what do I need to know about this situation? I’d love for you to come back with? What do you feel like is number one?
Is it a relationship with God, with yourself or with others? You might even throw a little bonus in there. Or would you say, if I’m honest, Aaron, I’m in competition with the other nouns for me. It’s places and things, and I got to recalibrate a little bit. All right, that’s where we’ll pick up our conversation next week, right here on the Daron Earlewine Podcast. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much for downloading this episode. Please, like comment share this episode subscribe to the channel so we can let more people know about life and the fact that it is relationships. Listen till we talk. Next time, say it with me. God is for you, not against you. He is near you, not far away, and God has created you on purpose and for purpose. Happy New Year, and thanks for listening to this episode of the Daron Earlewine podcast.