My Pastor Once Said

What follows is a transcript of Pastor Gina’s message from our Sunday morning gathering. We share these messages on our blog for those who appreciate the opportunity to read the sermon again—whether for deeper reflection, personal study, or a quieter moment of prayer and introspection. As you read, we invite you to linger with the words, notice what resonates, and remain open to how God may be speaking to you through them.

by Pastor Gina Johnson

So, as you see on the front of your bulletin, we all have a pop—no, it's not a pop quiz, Jenny. It's not, I promise. And then—and you're not supposed to fill this out with, you know, my pastor once said these things and she never took care of them.

That's not allowed either, or can you believe my pastor once said this? Those aren't allowed either this morning. As I was preparing for today—and actually this began once I kind of was in that, oh, seven Sundays to go. Oh, six Sundays to go.

And like everything else, I had a plan and that plan just continued to change directions beautifully. And so, as I was getting down to this Sunday, I thought, well, you know, I wonder. I wonder what's going to remain when I'm gone.

I wonder what they've learned. I wonder what you will remember. And not just about me and our time together, but what you will remember that is about you and about what God has revealed to you in this time we were together.

And, you know, throughout life, certain people have said something to us that just sticks with us. I mean, we have all those little sayings out there. And not too long ago, as we were doing our Wednesday evenings, we went through some of these interesting sayings, guessing whether they were biblical or not, but they were things you'd hear all the time.

Like, you know, everything happens for a reason. And, you know, God—it's in the Bible, so it's true, and things like that. But then there are these other sayings.

Perhaps it was your mom or your grandma or a friend or an old teacher, but you've heard them and they have just stuck with you. And as I had many things that I think I've repeated throughout my time of giving messages here, there were certain ones that I thought, you know, if I could make these seven stick just a little bit, if these seven have meant something to them, then that sounds good to me. Because as I reflected on those three and a half years together, I thought, you know, I hope that my time here has been instrumental in seeing you, hearing you, loving you, but most of all reminding you who you are.

And that's through all the noise and all the labels and all the experiences you've had in life that think define who you are, but who you really are in the eyes of God. And so I thought, let's go ahead and let's revisit them. So number one.

Now some of you knew this was coming. Grab your popcorn. You know, I used to say that all the time when I first got here.

Life is going to get dramatic. Grab your popcorn. When your family gets dramatic, grab your popcorn.

When work and your friendships get dramatic, grab your popcorn. And when church gets dramatic, grab your popcorn, right? Hasn't it been quite the show? I'll tell you, one of the things that I love about Jesus is how observant he was. While everyone else is rushing around and trying to determine what matters, Jesus was noticing things.

You know, he noticed a widow giving two mites. He noticed children while everyone else was looking beyond the children. He would notice the lilies of the field and the birds of the air.

He noticed the touch on the hem of his garment in a crowded street when he was being rushed, not that he was rushing, but he was being rushed to something that was dramatic and urgent and needed his attention. You know, he seemed to move through life paying attention in a way that I still haven't mastered. And perhaps that's where true wisdom begins, is in that observation.

Can you stop? Can you look? And can you listen? And can you recognize what's really going on in that moment without leaving the space, without getting too wrapped up in the emotions, and just staying present? Because at first, when we grab our popcorn, we're simply watching. You know, we're watching the plot unfold, or watching the characters come to life, or watching the story. But if we pay attention long enough, something even more interesting happens.

We start to recognize that we're in the story too. We start to recognize that perhaps not only are we one of the main characters, we are the main character in our story of life. And we are writing the story, we are directing the story, and we're the one acting in it.

What we are doing today is going to help determine how we respond tomorrow. And when we realize that, when we grab our popcorn in every situation, and just step back and watch this beautiful unfoldment of life, and say, how am I a part of this? And if I'm the one directing this, if I'm the one writing this, what am I going to make this story about today? So grab your popcorn, because in every moment there is something there where you're getting to choose, who am I in this epic show called life? And when you discover that, well, life becomes a number two: choose your own adventure.

Yeah, choosing your own adventure. Remember this, guys? These are those classic books. My brother actually was the one that used to read them to me.

And we'd get down to the bottom, and I'd say, you know, if you want this to happen, go to this page, and if you want this to happen, go to this page. And there was a thrill in not knowing which page to pick, and at the same time wanting to know, which one should I pick? Brian, will you tell me the option so I can choose the right one? You know, and it's interesting, because life tends to feel like that. And not because we control everything and everyone.

No, not at all. But we control ourselves. We control the choices we make.

We control how we respond to what's unfolding before us. We get to choose our adventure. We're the one that's writing the options at the bottom of the page.

You know, Viktor Frankl, who survived the concentration camps during World War II, he discovered something extraordinary, and this is what he said. He said, between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response.

So no matter what life hands us, think about that. There always remains a freedom where we get to choose. That's one of the beautiful things of free will.

You know, people still come to that place to say, gosh, why is God doing this to me? Why are you all doing this to me? Why is this happening? But in that moment, if you just pause, grab that popcorn, right? Remember what's going on and choose your adventure. Participate in that freedom. Ask yourself, am I going to become bitter here, or am I going to become wiser in this time? Am I going to close my heart here, or am I going to let it open and expand to new places? Am I going to be faithful in this moment, or am I going to be fearful? Those are the things we get to choose.

When life is giving us circumstances, we get to choose who we are going to become through them. And the great thing is, is at the core of who we are, we are the expression of God. There's no separation.

We are the emanation of the Christ. We are God incarnate in this experience. And so when life gives us circumstances, we can respond as that I am presence that we are, or we could try something else.

But I will tell you, if we continue to choose and we choose with that deep inner wisdom, then we start to find answers. You know, but it's interesting because a lot of times we are looking for answers everywhere else. We're looking for them in people.

We're looking for them in the situation. We're looking for them in our finances. We're looking for them in what we're seeing on social media.

But sooner or later, we have to, number three, turn inward. You know, the world teaches us to look outward. Hey guys, this just happened.

Who should we blame? Who should we get to fix this? Who are we going to call on to save us today? And we keep looking for those external things. But what did Jesus say? He said, the kingdom of God is neither here nor there. It's within.

Saint Augustine said, do not go outward. Return within yourself. Truth dwells within.

I like that. That resonates with me because how often have I spent time searching everywhere but right here for what's important, for what's true, for what matters. And when you take that time to really go inward, it changes how you see everything outside of you.

You know, we've had the classics, right? Looking for the keys that are, oh, in the pocket. Looking for the glasses that are, oh, on the head or on the shirt. You know, looking for things when they are right there.

And when we search for peace, when we search for peace outside of ourselves, when we search for peace in a particular accolade, or a circumstance, or a relationship, when we search for peace there, we'll never find where peace resides. We might find something temporary that maybe mimics it. But true peace is found within.

This morning as I was taking some time to study before getting ready for church, I was spending time watching some beautiful teachings that were talking about samadhi. And samadhi, the true meaning of that term, and to get into it too deep, is something not for right now. But the simple meaning behind it is it's to truly come to that place where you disassociate, you disconnect, where you as the observer are no longer looking separately at what you're observing or what's going on around you.

You're now just disconnected from everything because you are so deep inward that you realize there's no separation. There is nothing that is outside of you. Everything you're seeing, everyone you're experiencing is part of you.

I remember quite some time ago, I would say, you know, if you could see that everyone out there is just another version of you. There's just another piece of you there, there, there. And again, it goes back to that same thing of look around and what are you going to see? You're going to see God.

If all you look for is God, that's all you're going to see. But you have to start inward. You have to turn inward first.

Turning inward isn't escaping life. Turning inward is learning how to fully meet life in the silence, to truly allow who you are and what is taking place to be revealed to you. And when you go there with those things, you will receive the answers.

And as you start to receive those answers, be careful because sometimes as we're getting answers, we think now we have it figured out. Now we know what to do. We don't got to go in the silence anymore.

Everything's smooth and clear. She said go inward. I went inward, figured it out.

It's all good. Well, when we take on that mindset, we start to grow stagnant. The search stops because we've stopped looking.

And that's where I'm going to tell you to stay curious. Number four. One of the things that I have learned so much is that curiosity is one of the greatest gifts that we can cultivate because it just keeps on.

It keeps expanding. It keeps growing. It keeps giving.

And this isn't about getting smarter. This isn't about gathering more knowledge and more information. But curiosity keeps you awake.

I think lately in life, one of my greatest things for spiritual journey is recognizing how many times I myself and the people around me have fallen asleep. Fallen asleep to truth. Fallen asleep to seeing one another.

Fallen asleep to the presence of the divine Christ within them. But curiosity keeps us awake. You know, in history, some of the greatest discoveries came how? By asking questions.

Everyone else was overlooking something, but someone chose to stop. Look at Archimedes. Everyone else, they saw a bathtub.

But what did Archimedes say? He saw a mystery. The water that was spilling over the edge was something that people just ignored. But he became curious.

He asked the question. And through that question, he discovered something that had been there all along. This wasn't a new discovery.

It wasn't a new principle. This is how water had always behaved. But the difference that took place is somebody stopped, asked questions, and paid attention.

Isn't that the same thing with Isaac Newton? Do you think all of a sudden, one day, the first apple fell? It was like, oh my goodness. No. The apples were falling.

But nobody was asking questions. Nobody was wondering why, how, when, what. And when you do that, that's what starts to grow you.

That's what helps you to remember. That's what expands the horizon far more than you can see in one glance. And that's beautiful.

Because then you keep asking, what else is out there? What else is to come? It has nothing to do with your age. It has nothing to do with your status in life. It has to do with that inner child that stays curious.

You know, children, you remember this one, but why? Go to the, but why? Go to the, but why? And it's interesting because I really didn't have to experience that. But I remember hearing it over and over again. And it's like, yeah, that's why children and being childlike, as Jesus continues to remind us, is so beautiful.

Because the miracle isn't the event or the thing that's taking place. The miracle is the curiosity. The miracle is what comes from life when we look beyond what's right in front of us and ask the question.

Don't get stuck on the question, but remember that there are so many lessons hidden in ordinary life. There are so many things found in a conversation when you actually take the time to dive a little deeper into it. It's curiosity that not only keeps us awake and keeps us growing, but it keeps us humble.

It reminds us that there's so much more out there that we haven't remembered and experienced. It's so easy to think, oh yeah, I've figured it all out. It's easy to stop noticing and to stop growing.

It's easy to miss the extraordinary things because now everything's just ordinary and routine and day-to-day. But when you stay curious, you're going to start to recognize who you have truly been all along. The greatness, the perfection of you, the beauty of you, the mystery and the wonder that is answered when you stay curious.

Staying curious keeps the soul awake. And if you are truly following that curiosity, I guarantee you there will be another question just waiting around the corner. And it never hurts to ask these questions.

You know, I don't know if I agree whether there's no stupid questions saying or not, but I definitely agree that if you have the question, you should ask it. Because there's probably someone else in the room who is wondering the same thing. And your gift of curiosity could give birth and meaning to what they've been wondering too.

Stay curious. And as you stay curious and continue to ask those questions and continue to become more aware, remember there's something else you have to do. And that's pause.

Number five, the pause button is holy. The pause button. How many times have you all heard me say pause? Some of us forget about the pause button and we have a go button.

And how many people know how to hit that go button all day, every day? Bing, bing, bing, go, go, go, go. But the pause button is holy. When I talk about it being holy, and I'm not just talking about slamming on the brakes and saying, okay, I better stop before I do something wrong.

Or that moment that I experienced just the other week of, oh, I wouldn't pause, so life paused me. Isn't that fun? We all enjoy those times. I'm talking about something much deeper.

I'm talking about creating a space, a sanctuary, a monastery, a dark closet, a garden, a tree stand, whatever it is for you, creating a space where you can breathe, where you can listen, where you can remember, where you can remind yourself who you are beneath the noise. And I'll tell you, if you can't do that on your own, well, just go in there, turn inward, get quiet, set your popcorn beside you, and I promise you the Holy Spirit will remind you. I promise you the Holy Spirit is already there with you, and the Holy Spirit will remind you.

Teresa of Avila says, settle yourself in solitude and you will come upon him in yourself. Settle yourself in solitude and you will meet the great divine God that we say we love, and we worship, and adore, and we trust. Well, great.

Then create some spaces to meet the divine. Create some spaces to allow the divine to do the talking, or even better yet, just to hold you in the silence. It's amazing what it does for you.

You all have heard of desert fathers and mothers, you know, and in these ancient times, they escaped the cities all the time. Why did they do this? Not because they didn't like the people, but they entered into the silence because they needed an opportunity to remember, to be still. It wasn't about stopping life.

It was about finally being fully present to it, and if you can't find those moments in your movement day to day, you're going to miss the sunset. Hey, the other night, did anyone catch the lightning show? It was so beautiful. I went outside to go put something in my car, and I saw it, and it was kind of cool.

Hey, where's my baby this morning? So, my Dorothea, we're driving down the road, and she looks up, and she sees this formation in the clouds, and you know, unless you really know Dorothea, you might be a little, what does that mean? But she sees this formation in the clouds, and she says, guys, I didn't believe in God till now, but now I do, and she takes out her phone, and she takes a picture of the formation she sees in the clouds. Later that night, as I'm looking out, I even took a video of it. I'm seeing, I'm seeing the dancing, the dancing of lights, the dancing of the lightning, the dancing of the sky, and I'm like, yeah.

You know, I was even saying, oh, good job, Gina, you're doing good creating yourself this beautiful entertainment. I go in the house, and I'm like, Dorothea, baby, come here, come here. I said, you know, now that you're believing in God, I want to show you something, and so she comes out, and she looks, and she goes, thank you so much, mommy.

It was absolutely beautiful. It's so important. Guys, this is those extended conversations, right? Those longer hugs.

This is the enjoying a cup of coffee without taking your phone with you. You landscape your backyard, and it looks so beautiful, and you have hummingbird feeders, and you're out there, and what are you doing? Oh, yeah, that works, too. Sure.

Maybe if you're pulling up a song or a devotion, but otherwise, enjoy that pause, because when you take the time to just be still and listen and remember that it's not about stopping life. It's that space where you're going to meet life fully, and I tell you, the more and more you learn to pause and meet life fully, the more you can show your friends, and it's pretty cool. It's something you'll teach them that they will always be grateful for, and when you take the time to be in those forms of presence, that's how you keep your cup overflowing.

It's so important to keep your cup overflowing, not barely hanging on, not dragging yourself week to week, waiting for the test results, waiting for that phone call, checking all your boxes without the pauses. I've talked to you many times about Howard Thurman, and he says, don't ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive and go do it, because what the world needs is people who have come alive.

Keep your cup overflowing. There's a deeper meaning behind that quote. It's remembering the source of your life.

We do not need more exhausted people running around trying to build up other people. We don't need more exhausted people running around pretending they're fine. The world doesn't need more empty cups trying to fill other cups.

It doesn't work, and if you allow yourself to be that way in your home, you'll recognize how it affects everything around you. Keep your cup overflowing. Jesus understood this, because what did he do before the sun even came up? He went and found that pause.

He went and turned inward. He went and spent that time with the Father, with himself, with the silence. He rested, and he prayed, and he kept returning to the source, and this was not about weakness.

Jesus wasn't doing this because he was exhausted. He was doing this because he understood what's going to flow out is going to come from what flows in, or should we say what flows up within, because it's already there. You cannot continually pour from an empty vessel, and that one, guys, I can say it, and I can stamp it with approval a million times, because I am the queen of the empty vessel, because I forget what matters most, and I mean this with love, but it's spending that time with the divine, with myself, so then I can be for myself, for others, for the world, what I'm supposed to be.

If we don't stop, if we stop seeing what's happening to us, what's happening around us, then we lose those moments, and so all of this is to say, I'm sure you've heard me say this over and over again, we are all in that educational sandbox called life, life is a classroom, and it's one of the hardest lessons to learn is that you can only be where you're at. This is how you keep from dwelling in the past. This is how you keep from being anxious in the future.

You know, every moment we are sitting in, in the present moment, is a classroom of life, and the curriculum of moments is intentional. They're beautiful, and they're sacred. Sometimes the lessons are challenging, but you don't want to be that person who moves through life looking back, wondering, gosh, when are we going to get back there? How do I get back there? Why aren't we going back there? You guys remember when I used to say, if you drive into the future, looking in the rearview mirror, then the past is going to come crashing into the future.

You cannot spend your days wishing you were back there. I mean, memories are beautiful, right? Nostalgia, hearing that song, having a conversation. I love the stories I've heard from you about all the beautiful, great things that have happened here, and they've made us who we are, and they will continue to bear fruit, but life is a classroom in which we need to look at right where we are.

We need to be present to the lesson that's right in front of us. That's the other side of the coin. You can't spend all your time looking back, but don't spend all your time wishing you were way out there.

When you're driving your car, if you're looking way out at your destination, you're going to miss what's right in front of you. You know, when the Israelites were heading to the promised land, they kept looking back. When are we going back? You know, when we were back there, even though we were slaves, at least we had food to eat.

Really? Really. When are we going to get there? That's so far away. Come on, Moses, you promised us.

Let's get there. But they couldn't just be in the celebration of where they were. They couldn't just be in the celebration, and when you can't be right where you are in that present classroom of life, you're going to miss yourself.

You can only be where you're at. How do you honor God? How do you honor others? How do you honor yourself? By being present. The bell has rang, and class is in session, is your pencil in your hand, and you're ready to go.

Where you are standing, where you are sitting, is that classroom. And it's interesting because there's going to be lots of classrooms, and sometimes there's going to be two classrooms you can enter in at one time, and you have to ask yourself, do I want to go into this one, where I'm going to be miserable and upset, or do I want to go into this one, where I'm going to embrace these lessons, where I'm going to take notes from them, where I'm going to carry on the challenge you face as a classroom, the joy you experience as a classroom. Children, the greatest classroom.

Don't be a creeper, right? But on one of these nice days, if you ever, a place has a lot of children, just pause for a minute and look, or don't look, just just listen. Get still enough to listen, and wow, the lessons you will learn. It's funny, when I first came out here, I was showing Jenny how thick my message was, and I was like, oh no, no, I double spaced this time, I double spaced, it wasn't, and of course, I need to do it one more time, Kobe.

She says, well don't show it to Coby, and I'm like, Kobe, see the thickness of my message. As we as we come to to the end here, you know, I think the reason these reminders matters, because it's so easy to lose recognition of what's taking place. It's so easy to miss the the beauty of what we have, because we are in this experience called life, in this classroom called life.

You know, we grab our popcorn, because we're learning to observe. We choose our own adventure, because we're learning to respond. We turn inward, because we're finding true wisdom, true clarity, true peace is within, and we stay curious, because we are all students.

You can be the master teacher, and you're still a student. A true teacher always knows how to be a student, and eventually a true student is going to be a teacher. We hit the pause button, because it helps us hear the lesson, and we keep the cup overflowing, because then we learn what it really means to be nourished, and how to nourish others, and all of those reminders point us back to life is this beautiful, extraordinary classroom.

As this is my next to last Sunday, what has come to me most clearly is my job has not been to give you all all the answers, to tell you guys what to believe, and who you are, and this is how it goes, maybe not even what to think. I always say, you know, this is what I want to share to you. This is where I know truth to be.

I hope you hear that, but I hope that while I'm here, I've helped you to continue to write the story that you're writing, to discover the kingdom that has always been dwelling within you, to become aware of the beautiful classroom that you've always been sitting in, and what came to me the other day was alarm clocks, alarm clocks. If I could be a little mystical, spiritual alarm clock in your life, then mission accomplished, because the alarm clock doesn't create the sun. The alarm clock doesn't pull you out of bed.

It doesn't force you to wake up. It simply rings, and at the sound of it, you get to make a choice. Am I going to wake up, and am I going to face this beautiful day with joy, and gratitude, and love, or am I going to hit the snooze, and go back to bed, and stay asleep? So years from now, when you're facing a challenge, when you're celebrating a victory, when you're navigating uncertainty, when you're beginning a new chapter, and you hear this little voice, it can sound like this if you like, it's kind of cute, you know, and the voice says, grab your popcorn, choose your own adventure, turn inward, stay curious, hit the pause button, keep your cup overflowing.

Remember, life is always a classroom, and if you hear that voice, don't think about me, maybe for just a second, okay, but don't think about me. Think about that awareness that is waking up in you, that has been there all along, and if I have helped you resist hitting the snooze button at least once, then I am honored. Mission accomplished, Gina.

Let's pray. Our most gracious and loving God, we are so grateful to have each other, to have these moments in which through life, through people around us, through the beauty of creation, through your word, through the Holy Spirit, you remind us that you have given us the most glorious classroom, and you've given us all of these friends, and family, and extraordinary beings to surround us with love as we navigate through it, and so God, we say thank you, and as always, what is from you, may it stay with us, and may it reside deep, and may I continue to be a conduit of the truest expression of your love. Thank you.

It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen.