Choose Joy
Welcome to Choose Joy with Dr. Rhonda Littleton! This podcast is designed to be a pick-me-up for parents & kids each week to motivate you to choose joy, love others, and do good. Join us each Tuesday for a new episode-now on Season 3! Contact Rhonda at rlittleton@summervillebaptist.org or learn more about the church at www.SummervilleBaptist.org
Choose Joy
Summer Adventures, Faith, and Following Jesus: A Chat with Natasha
Summer has arrived, and we're excited to share our favorite activities with our special guest, Natasha! She opens up about her birthday celebrations, beach adventures, and quality time spent with her siblings. As we discuss the upcoming Vacation Bible School (VBS), we'll be exploring the life of Peter from the Bible. Which story from the Bible is Natasha's favorite? Listen to find out!
Join us as Natasha shares her heartwarming baptism experience and her decision to follow Jesus. We touch on being missionaries and witnesses for Christ, helping others with our resources, and sharing our faith. Get inspired to do good, love others, and choose joy in today’s episode.
Want to learn more about us? Visit www.SummervilleBaptist.org
Hey, hey, welcome to the Choose Joy podcast, and so I'm excited that we are talking about our favorite things of the summer And I have one of my favorite people on talking about her favorite things in the summer, and so you're going to get to meet her just in a minute. Hey, natasha, how are you doing? Are you glad to be solo on this podcast? Yes, yes, so we're talking about favorite things of the summer, right? So what is some of your favorite things?
Speaker 2:The first one is my birthday. Oh, when's your?
Speaker 1:birthday August 30th. Oh yeah, kind of at the end of the summer, right, but still like good summertime, that's a good summertime birthday, yep.
Speaker 2:And my second favorite is going to the beach.
Speaker 1:Oh, you like to go to the beach. Yeah, you swim in the ocean, yes. Do you build sand castles? Yes. What's your favorite thing to do at the beach?
Speaker 2:Play with my little sister and siblings.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, you got a little sister and a little brother and a big brother Right, and so play with them at the beach. That's a fun time, yeah, so we got something exciting coming. I mean, i think it would be. Maybe just like, by the time this airs, we're going to be like right on it, vbs, right, vbs. Yeah, we love VBS. What's your favorite thing about VBS?
Speaker 2:I think it's singing.
Speaker 1:Oh, the music, yeah, yeah, i love the music, so we're going to do a little. Maybe some you get to be up to do the motions and do the. You're in that little praise group sometimes, right, yeah, for VBS, that's a fun time. So this year VBS is talking about we're studying a man named Peter. Have you ever heard of him from the Bible? Yes, yeah, so you know anything about Peter. Can you remember one thing? He got crucifix upside down. Oh, very good, natasha, right, was that before Jesus or after? It's after Jesus? Yeah, yeah, very good, very good, you're a great listener. So Peter was one of the disciples, right, yes, and that is how he died, right? He said that he wasn't worthy to be crucified, the same as Christ, right, and so to be crucified upside down, right, yeah, way to go. Way to go, natasha. What's your favorite Bible story? You have one.
Speaker 2:Yeah, i have it's Noah's.
Speaker 1:Ark. Oh yeah, what's your favorite thing about Noah's Ark?
Speaker 2:Whenever the rainbow appeared and God said I will never do this flood again.
Speaker 1:Right, they would never destroy the earth again by a flood. Right, by rain and a flood. And so he sent his promise They would never destroy the whole earth again by sending a flood, and that promise was a rainbow. Right, it's a beautiful promise that God made to us, and so in Vacation Bible School we're going to learn about the life of Peter.
Speaker 1:There's lots and lots of promises in God's Word. Right, that he is always good, even when we don't think he's good. Right, god, we always can see the good right And God's faithfulness. So sometimes is it always easy, like you have an older brother and a younger sister and a younger brother, and so is it always easy to see the good in your home? No, no, but there's always good right. So even if we can't see the good that, we know that it's good. Right, and so with God, right, because we have lots of times that we don't always agree with people, right, but we know that God has placed us in our families for good and that he loves us, and even if we don't always agree, we still love our families very much. Right? Yeah, good deal, good deal, all right. Anything else you want to say?
Speaker 2:I've been baptized.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so why were you baptized? What does that mean for people who are listening, who might not know what that means? Ready.
Speaker 2:And you know that everybody doesn't, even might not, know you, but you still have God in your heart and you can still tell them to people that you don't know Right, very, very good, like right now.
Speaker 1:Natasha, so you've said the reason you were baptized is because you ask Jesus to come into your life. So why do we have to do that? Why do we have to have Jesus? Why do we have to ask Jesus to come into our life? So we can be saved, yep, and so what does that mean? Why do we have to be saved? To go in heaven? Yep, and we want to go to heaven So we're not separated from God, right, and so that we can spend eternity with God in heaven. Very, very good. And so that's really good. And this is super exciting, because if we ask Jesus to come into our life and we want to spend eternity with him in heaven, we have to understand something. We have to understand that we are all, that we all do what we all.
Speaker 2:We all follow Jesus?
Speaker 1:Yep, we all follow Jesus, but we also. The reason, the only way that we know how to follow Jesus is because we're separated from him, like Adam and Eve. When Adam and Eve disobeyed, right, and so Adam and Eve. That's when sin came into the world. So, in order for us to follow Jesus, we have to admit that we're sinners, right, yeah, we have to admit that we're gonna do our. We wanna do what? not what we wanna do, but what God wants us to do. And so when we sin, we're doing what we wanna do and not what God wants us to do, right. And then we have to believe that Jesus died on the cross. Did he stay dead? No, nope, here, rose, again, right.
Speaker 1:And then we have to confess that we need Jesus as Lord, like you're doing right here on this podcast by saying that you were baptized and that you wanted other people to know that you have asked Jesus to come into your life and that you are gonna follow him all of your life. Right Cause, you've asked Jesus because you admitted you're a sinner, you believe Jesus died and he didn't stay dead and you're committing your life to him, right? Yep, way to go, way to go. You know what. That's the best decision you'll ever make, right, more important than anything? Did you know that? And so you know what a missionary. You know what that means. Yes, yeah, what does that?
Speaker 2:mean You take missions and tell about God and you, you do. You help other people that are homeless, have lots of power outs and get better homes.
Speaker 1:Yep, yep. So you help people, you're being missionary and you help people with the resources that you have. You give those resources to others, right, very good, and your missionary are a good witness when you tell people what Jesus has done for you, right, and so you have done that. Today, natasha, on this podcast, there's gonna be a lot of people that hear that, hear your story, and that's being a really really good witness, right? So way to go, way to go. I said it's a big woohoo, right? So as we end the podcast, we always say that we are going to, that we're gonna do good, right, and love others and choose joy, right, can you say that with me, we're gonna do good love others and choose joy.
Speaker 1:Way to go, natasha. See you next time. Bye, bye, Fish determinants.