Women World Leaders' Podcast Julie T. Jenkins

Life sure seems hard sometimes.  Wouldn’t it be great if things came a little easier for us? They certainly did for Saul, Israel’s first king, but it didn’t work out as well as you might think. Join as host Julie Harwick takes you on a journey you won't want to miss!
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 Welcome to Women World Leaders podcast. I’m your host, Julie Harwick. Thank you for joining me today as we celebrate God’s grace in our lives, in this ministry and around the world.
My husband and I have had the opportunity to travel quite a bit in the last year – much more than usual.  I’ve enjoyed every bit of it, but it has brought an unwanted side effect – quite a few extra pounds.  As a petite woman of a certain age, I have to be pretty careful about how I eat if I don’t want to have to purchase a whole new wardrobe.  But when I’m on vacation, I throw caution to the wind and take a vacation from my normal diet.  It makes the vacations more fun, but reality hits quickly  when I return to a much higher number on the scale and increasingly tight-fitting clothes. It’s always so much easier and enjoyable to put it on than it is to take it off.  I was contemplating that reality recently and desperately wishing for a quick fix when I re-read the story of Saul, the first king of Israel. There’s a lot we can learn from him, but what stands out most is the dangers of leading a charmed life where everything just seems to fall into place.
Saul’s story begins in the book of 1st Samuel. For the first 400 years of Israel’s existence in the promised land, the people were governed by a series of judges.  You can read about it in the book of Judges.  During these four centuries Israel alternated between seeking to please God and walking away from Him depending on how things were going for them.  Their enemies would oppress them and they would cry out to God for help.  He’d send them a judge like Gideon or Deborah to lead them in victory over their enemies, and filled with gratitude, they would serve God… for a while.  As they drifted away from Him yet again, God would allow another enemy to oppress them until they turned back to Him in repentance.  The cycle repeated itself over and over with the recurring line repeated throughout the book, “in those days there was no king in Israel and every man did what was right in his own eyes.”
The people of Israel recognized that the situation wasn’t good and something needed to change.  But instead of considering that the problem could be that everyone doing what was right in their own eyes, rather than what was right in God’s eyes, they decided that it was the lack of a king creating this annoying cycle.  They noticed that all of the countries surrounding them were ruled by kings and like immature children, they went to their spiritual father, God’s anointed priest, Samuel, to demand a king.  Samuel was not impressed with the “everybody else is doing it” argument and pointed out the negatives associated with having a king.  He reminded them that a king would tax them heavily so that he could live in luxury.  He would conscript their sons into his armies and their daughters to make perfumes, cook and serve at the palace in other ways.  He would make unreasonable demands of them and they would have no choice but to comply. Like petulant children, they essentially responded with, “we don’t care – we want a king anyway.”  God reassured Samuel that he should do as they asked.  “They’re not rejecting your leadership, Samuel,” He explained.  “They are rejecting Mine.”
Here's the first lesson we can learn from the story of King Saul.  Be careful what you wish for -  God may give you what you demand – even if it’s not what’s best for you.  All of the warnings Samuel had given came to pass for the Israelites. Anytime we look to a king, or a president, or a governor or any dynamic leader to solve all our problems, instead of making

We all have experienced rejection that has caused deep wounds to the soul. Some have been paralyzed by the pain. Today's host, Tewannah Aman, understands. Her podcast will encourage you as she shares how God enabled her to break free of the bondage created by hurtful things that happened in her past. God wants to heal and restore your broken heart.
You no longer have to constantly be worried about what others think of you. We pray this message resonates and encourages you to meditate on His truths of who you are in Christ. Focus on His unconditional love for you and the promises of His Word. God is doing a new thing!! Breakthroughs are coming.

Trauma wounds from childhood through adulthood can be difficult to move beyond. But with God, all things are possible.
 
Please join us as Jaime Cowhick, founder of YANA Recovery Services joins us and shares her personal story. Jaime was orphaned at birth by two addicts and thrown into human trafficking and addiction, culminating in multiple suicide attempts. She now encourages others to live a life serving Jesus. 

In Julie Harwick's last podcast for Women World Leaders (Episode 551 - A Warning from the Ancients), she talked about the dangers of succumbing to false teaching because of the way culture so easily infiltrates the Church. Join her today as she looks more closely at how the modern Church came to be and begins to ask some hard questions, finding further confirmation that it’s very different from the Church described in the New Testament.
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Welcome to Women World Leaders podcast. I’m your host, Julie Harwick. Thank you for joining me today as we celebrate God’s grace in our lives, in this ministry and around the world.
In my very first podcast with Women World Leaders I shared how I came to faith. It’s not very glamorous or exciting, but it is kind of different and I’ll share some of it again because it’s relevant to our topic.  I grew up in a very devout Catholic home. My dad had attended Catholic school and mass on every Sunday of his life.  My mom converted in order to marry him and they made sure I was baptized in the Church before I was even a week old. He was so devout that even on vacation, we would seek out the nearest Catholic parish and make sure we went to mass either Saturday night or Sunday morning.  And of course, that meant I had to go to catechism for five long years.  But in spite of his unwavering commitment to the Catholic faith, my dad was a seeker.  He read the bible and many other Christian books and listened voraciously to a variety of Christian radio programs. He encouraged me to go to an after-school bible club when I learned about it in the fall of first grade.  At my very first visit to the Good News Club, I heard a clear presentation of the gospel and responded without hesitation.
  For the next six years, it was the highlight of my school week and I threw myself wholeheartedly into everything it had to offer:  bible stories, scripture memorization and songs.  So on Monday afternoons I got filled up on the bible and on Saturday mornings, I got filled up on Catholic teaching.  But the deeper I got into each one, the more discrepancies I discovered between them.   Full disclosure here: I wanted to go to Good News Club where I was rewarded for my efforts with lots of candy, interesting bible stories and a fun time with my friends.  I did not want to go to catechism which offered no candy and kept me from the finest tv viewing of the week – the one 4-hour block of programming designed just for me at a time when no one else in the household wanted to watch.  So, I may have been approaching catechism with a negative predisposition, but there was no denying the questions that began to pop up in my elementary school brain. Why do I have to memorize and repeat prayers?  I talk to God all the time about whatever pops into my head…in words that we both understand.  What in the world does “blessed is the fruit of thy womb” mean anyway? When I summoned the courage to ask a nun why I should pray to Mary, her answer mystified me.  “Mary will tell Jesus and Jesus will tell God,” she explained.  It immediately brought to mind the game of telephone that we often played when the class had to stay inside for recess.  Those messages always got completely messed up, so why wouldn’t I just tell God directly?  When a nun asked me whether I believed that the fancy box with curtains all around it on the altar actually held the body of Jesus, I knew how I was supposed to answer, but I just couldn’t.  First of all…gross.  Second of all, I knew there were Catholic churches in every city everywhere in the world, so how could there be enough of Jesus’ body for all of them? In Good News Club I had learned the story of the Last Supper and even my 8-year-old mind could grasp that Jesus was saying that the bread was meant to represent His body.
 I had many questions and I grew more and more skeptical of what I was learning on Saturday mornings.  I must’ve shared m

Doors are designed to keep some things in, some things out, or even just block things altogether in our lives. However, there are some doors we keep closed for far too long, missing out on an opportunity to experience the next phase of our lives. What might happen if you dare to open the door to the strange, the new, and the unexpected? What setup is lying behind The Open Door? Today's podcast host is Dr. Jia Conway. 
 

Join host Tewannah Aman for her podcast, "In Christ, I Can!"
How many of us struggle with feelings of insecurity and inadequacy? Philippians 4:13 is a verse that many know well,  “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” But how often do we freeze up? How many times have we not gone through a door? Or we haven’t taken advantage of an opportunity? Do I  hear a resounding yes and amen? I can relate.
We have had many who have criticized and condemned us, and that has created a fear of rejection and a fear of failure deep within us. Those times when someone made us feel so  insecure and inadequate, telling us things like:   “You aren’t good enough. You are a failure. Why even try? You are hopeless and helpless.”  And the list goes on.
When we accepted Jesus, we were adopted into His family. We are children of God and daughters of the King. But the tapes that have been playing in our heads don’t just disappear. Wouldn’t that be nice? We are now on a journey called the process of sanctification. That is when we seek God and His Word to renew our hearts and minds (Romans 12:1, 2). It is allowing His truths to transform us into the image of Christ.
Walk with me as I share how God has enabled me to work through and overcome those fearful times that still can come back to haunt me. And let’s look at Moses and how he struggled with deep feelings of fear and insecurity.  When God called him, he practically refused.   He tried to  convince God He had chosen the wrong person.  We are in good company.
God empowered Moses to deliver the Israelites. Even though he was scared, he went through the door anyway.  He trusted the Lord. And the Holy Spirit kicked in, and that is what He wants to do in each of our lives. He wants to reveal His power in and through us.
He wants to heal, redeem, and restore the brokenness from our past.  So that you can be used to achieve great and mighty things for His Kingdom. May You seek Him with your whole heart (Jeremiah 29:11-13). God has chosen you. He has a purpose and plan for your life. How exciting is that?!!
Now, go rock the world for Jesus.