“Epiphany 2023: Your Light Bulb ‘A-Ha’ Moment to Go Another Way” With Dr. Brad Miller

In this episode, Dr. Brad Miller talks about the epiphany of the “Aha” light bulb moment which will have a different approach to go 2023 Beyond Adversity Podcast.

He recently Interviewed Christine Malick in 2 episodes series where she told him some incredible stories which bring up related to this episode about an “Aha” moment in his life and talked about the seasons of light, epiphany, changes, and different paths toward life.

He shared stories about his life, from the time spent with his brother, happy, and sad moments, with his family, Christianity, and discovers the true meaning of these holiday seasons, Christmas, Three kings, Jesus, and many more.

Links to Episodes referred to in this podcast:

Christine Malik Episode 232 and Episode 233

Transcript

[00:00:00] Hello, good people and welcome to Beyond Adversity with Dr. Brad Miller. Joy, a privilege to have you here with me here in episode number 234 where I'm talking about epiphany your. Aha light bulb moment to go. A different pathway in 2023 beyond Adversity Podcast is available dr brad miller.com, where I have over 230 episodes of this podcast, which are here for you to serve you, to help you to get beyond adversity in your.

[00:00:40] And achieve your life of peace, prosperity, and purpose. This is episode number 234 and episodes 2 32 and 2 33. We had an inter interview series with a woman named Christine Malick, who gave an incredible story about how she had some transformation in her life. And we have [00:01:00] that interview there and we're gonna talk a little bit about that here today in reference to the things I wanna talk to you about, about this word epiphany.

[00:01:08] and this season of light and aha and changing your life. My brother and I are 16 years apart. We actually have the same birthday same birthday, but 16 years apart, July 19, and I'm 64, so you can figure out how old he is when he was in college. I was already out in my career doing things and his college job was to be a tour guide at a place called Squire Boone.

[00:01:39] Caverns. A cave, a cave where people would go on tours. And that was his job. One summer, which was a great job. He lived near nearby where my folks live. The cave was nearby where my folks lived, a bit of a tourist attraction, and that was his. So my wife and my young kids went to visit him and went to go on the tour.

[00:01:59] We [00:02:00] went to visit a home that summer and we went on the tour with him cuz he wanted us to. And it was a lot of fun. And you do what you do when you go to a cave, you're Ben to cave like mammoth cave or some of the big. Caves and out west and other places where you can tour cave, and he did what all tour guys of caves do.

[00:02:19] We went deep into the cave and all the lights were turned out. , all the, all the irregular artificial lights which illuminated the caverns. You can see the stag tights and the stag mites, and all the different rock formations and the water rushing and so on. Turn all the lights.

[00:02:35] And if you're inside a cave and they turn off the lights, guess what? It's dark. It's really dark. It's literally so dark. You cannot see your hand in front of your face. You ever see that kind of darkness? You do not see that kind of darkness in the general course of your life. In your home you have little the moonlight comes in and.

[00:02:55] and star light. And we have little, the bulbs and bells and things [00:03:00] that light up in our houses, the illumination things on our televisions and VCRs or VCRs on our things like that data myself right there by saying VCR tonight. But you know how to talk about the things that are lit up around your house.

[00:03:13] It's never truly dark, but in ca it's dark. And here's what Benjamin did that. Got my attention. One I talked about here today. He gave us a little talk about, about the cave and all the formations and so on. He turned the lights and we stood in the darkness and quiet for probably just a minute or so, but uncomfortably long time it seemed like with a group of a dozen or so of us, and people unable to see anything in front of them or.

[00:03:42] Family or friends or anybody else. And then he did something that was pretty, pretty cool, his watch. He said, watch, he just said, watch this. And then he touched the dial of his watch, which is one of the, the early models of luminescent [00:04:00] watches, where you just touched the bottle and the dial would light up.

[00:04:02] And that's what he did. He touch. Touched the button on his watch and that little watch lit up. And guess what? The tiniest little light from that watch lit up that entire cave. And we could literally see each other's faces and we could see each other rather clearly from the tiniest of lights there, from the tiniest of lights.

[00:04:32] it doesn't take much dark or it doesn't take much light to pierce through the darkness when there is total darkness. Now I mentioned that word epiphany, an epiphany in the Christian year. And I think most of you know that I'm a retired pastor, so I make my faith is Christianity and that's why I adhere to, and I'm gonna be teaching that from time to time in our discussions here and other faith-based things.

[00:04:56] And I will live up to that as we go along. So I want you to [00:05:00] bear with me and then to take, if you're not a faith-based person, please take at the heart and take the message here to heart and that it would. Because here's what I'll mention up to you the day of epiphany in the Christian year, and I'll define it here a moment is always June or is always January the sixth of that year, and that date to January 6th, it reminds you of something, doesn't it?

[00:05:21] We hear it a lot. We're hearing a lot in terms of what happened on January 6th, 2021. When the, and with the insurrection happened and people tried to, they attacked our gov, attacked United States government and tried to overthrow it. And insurrection happened. And for many people, that date triggers that.

[00:05:40] You hear, Jan, one, six or January 6th, you think about a dark time, a bad time, a time that makes you cook, queasy, un uneasy, and trigger something right trigger. . I want to give you an alternative to that, to what I think we can play talk about here today, [00:06:00] because June the sixth is also 12 days after Christmas, or the 12th, June 5th, and the June 6th is the 12th night.

[00:06:13] The 12 days of Christmas is actually from Christmas Day to June the sixth. and it's a time when the Christmas season was celebrated, the Birth of Christ, but has also indicated at that time that when the wi the, when the Bible says that the wise men or the magi came from the east to follow a star, to go to Bethlehem, where Jesus was.

[00:06:41] And the marvel at that. So that was that time period from the birth of Jesus to January 6th, those 12 days. That's, if you wanna talk about the 12 days of Christmas, that's really what that is all about. And it's a time of manifestation. [00:07:00] That's where the word epiphany means. It means manifestation or a celebration of God's manifestation in the baby Jesus being revealed into the world, and it's considered a holy day for Christians.

[00:07:15] It's also called the Three Kings Day, but it says an in the indicator of the. They went now. Interesting. Interestingly enough June the sixth of 2023, which is what we're talking about here today, not only is the season with the Magi, we're following the star, it's also in the calendar full moon. So let's think about this.

[00:07:38] So here's the image I want you to have. I want you to set aside all the ugliness of January 6th, 2021, and let's talk about the impact of January 6th, epiphany 2023 for you and me today to today, moving forward into this kind of a light moment, a light bulb moment, if you will, a time of change. In that epiphany moment, [00:08:00] it says that the Magi, the Wiseman, saw the star.

[00:08:05] Bright blazing star, and they followed it to the stable, and that's what they followed. And they went there so they could pay homage to Jesus. And it says in the Bible, in Matthew two nine, when they heard of the king, they mean otherwise been set out. And when they went to the star, when they saw it rising until it stopped to replace where the child was, where the baby, Jesus.

[00:08:30] And when they saw the star had stopped, they were overwhelmed with joy. It says in verse 10, and on entering the house, they saw a child with Mary's mother and they nailed Dun and paid homage to him. And they gave him, you know how this goes? They gave him the gold, the treasure chest, the gifts of gold and Franken.

[00:08:48] And so they saw the light. They followed the light, they were transformed by it. [00:09:00] And then they gave gifts of Golden Franken sense and meh and bad ho. And here's what's interesting. Here's what I want you hear today in Epiphany 2023 and having been warned in a dream not to return to hero, the heritage sent out there and the hero wanted to destroy the baby Jesus.

[00:09:19] It says the Magi, the wise man. In verse 12, Matthew two 12 says they left for their own country by another road. They. Another way. Interesting. They saw a light. They had their aha light bulb moment, if you will. They were changed by it. They paid homage to Jesus. Then they, and then they went back home.

[00:09:48] Another way. They changed. They changed Now. that the epiphany has this religious significance. It has this Christmastime significance, the 12 [00:10:00] days after Christmas. And it has religious significance of the wise men traveling to see Jesus and the aha moment that they had. But there's also this sense, and you've heard this word epiphany used in sentences before, and people say, man, I had an epiphany.

[00:10:18] And it's basically a literary device that people use in writing and in great literature and other processes and in language and phrase phrases. And it's a moment when someone is suddenly struck by a life-changing realization, which changes the story. It sends in another direction. And often it happens with a small moment, but sometimes it could be put something pretty profound and significant. There's, in, in, for instance, there's a, might be a situation where a, an argument with his wife, a man realizes that he's the one creating the arguments with his wife. And then in order to keep his marriage, he has this aha moment that he has to stop being [00:11:00] such an aggressive.

[00:11:03] Here's what I want you to try to understand here today and what I want you to get here. last couple episodes we've had, Christine Mallek talked to us about her, her aha or her epiphany moment. She was involved with a terrible brutality of abuse in her marriage and it involved beatings and hospitalizations, suicide attempts, alcoholism, drug abuse bad stuff was happening to her, all the way up to the time that her husband attempted to murder her and shot her in the.

[00:11:31] And she had her epiphany or her light moment by a visit from an angel as she shares her story. And I invite you to go back to episode 2 32 and thir 2 33 beyond adversity to check those out. She had her aha moment and you changed her. Now, here's the thing. Lots of people who are involved with bad things, Or suicide or alcoholism get stuck or they decline.[00:12:00]

[00:12:00] If they do not choose, after they have their aha, they get the bottom moment to change. If for Christine, she changed and she became a great advocate. For women suffering from abuse, and she is, she's a speaker and a writer and leader has courses and I invite you to check around. In fact, she talks about her whole deal now is to be an advocate to ruffle some feathers and blow some minds, and she's doing a great job with that.

[00:12:25] Yay, God. We wouldn't be hearing about her story in my podcast or anyplace else if she hadn't changed the way she did things. And it is the Bible says to go home, a different way to change here in 2023, we were all talking about. The phrase that Google has said that the search term for 2023 and 20 into 22 and 23 was, how can I change, how can I change?

[00:12:51] A lot of people are putting that in their Google searches. How can I change? And I would share with you not only how can I change[00:13:00] the nuts and bolts of it, which I can teach you and others can teach you. But why? Why do you wanna change what's in it for you to change? what's in it for me to change?

[00:13:14] For me, I had my kind of epiphany or my aha or the light bulb cons on moment not too long ago, the last couple weeks really within the last few weeks I was indicated that I had cancer and that I had heart problems. And it was confirmed just a couple weeks ago that I do have cancer and heart heart disease, and it has to be dealt with and I'm gonna have to have surgery it looks like, to deal with these issues.

[00:13:41] I don't like that. That was my aha. Hit me in the face moment. and I need to do something about it. If I do nothing about it, I was, that both the heart disease and the heart disease and the cancer will advance and it will probably [00:14:00] take my life eventually. And I don't want that.

[00:14:03] So I had this vision, this aha moment, and it was related to the emotion of seeing my two granddaughters age five and two over the holiday. and spending some time with them and realizing by, I was learning about this diagnosis, about that same time, realizing that, I can look at them and I want to see them grow up.

[00:14:22] There are five and two now. Delightful, great kids, love them. But I could see their faces, like I get a little bit of an image of what they're gonna be like when they're 18 and 19 and 20 and graduating from high school and going on to college or whatever would happen to him getting married maybe, or other things in life getting careers.

[00:14:39] And I wanna be a part of that. I just decided right then and there that I'm gonna be a part of that. In order to be a part of that, I cannot keep doing what I've been doing. I have to change and go about things in a different way. That's what the Bible said to the wise men. After they saw the baby Jesus, they went home [00:15:00] a different pathway of having been warmed in a dream.

[00:15:04] So I want to encourage you to change, but not just change because you think you. Argued, maybe if someone says you should, but to change because it's in your gut. You feel it, you gotta do it, and you gotta change. In order to change, you've got to literally go a different pathway in your life.

[00:15:30] Now that I can help you to do that in that process and the for me but it's gotta be an emotional thing. You gotta feel it in your. and then you gotta do something about it. You gotta be willing to pay the price. In my case, when I got that diagnosis of cancer and heart disease, I realized that for me, my way, my ways of eating pastries and chips and doing what I want when I want to.

[00:15:52] Is over with, and I have to change. It's gonna mean some diet changes. I'm gonna get really serious about intermittent fasting and keto diet and some other [00:16:00] things like that. And I'm going to get my spiritual life together, be even more focused on journaling and on Bible reading and all my studies and in sharing with you.

[00:16:09] What I learned in these areas. And then also to laugh a lot more, to spend some time with my grandchildren and others to laugh and giggle and to have some fun together. So I'm calling this year for me, and the goal here will be to live fully in my life until I die, and I hope it's after a hundred, and to really be there for my granddaughters and.

[00:16:33] adult moments in their life. So I cannot go the same pathway. I'm going, I have to go. I have to change and go a different way. So that would mean lifestyle changes in my diet, my exercise, my mentality, my spiritual life, all to serve this different pathway. But I have to ratchet up the why in. And so for me I'm calling this whole new process and I'm going through Drop Dead Alive, and [00:17:00] I'm probably gonna start a new podcast called Drop Dead Alive dot com.

[00:17:03] And the subheading of that is longevity, love, and laughter. I wanna live a long life, love people and be loved and to laugh and have some fun along the way, and I'm gonna do that. It's gonna be hard at times. They're gonna do that. I know for people like Christine Malick, it was very hard for her to do what she.

[00:17:20] But she broke out of it. I commend her for that. Here on the Beyond Adversity Podcast, we talked to a lot of people who've had made changes in their life and what we're all about here on the Beyond Adversity Podcast. TE is telling these stories, shine the light on them, and helping them be an inspiration for you to grow through whatever areas you go through and to come out your life.

[00:17:41] But you have to be the one to choose what is your thing. What is your why? What is your big why? not only want to change, but you need to change. You have to change to have that life. So seek that out, whatever it is. We like to say that there, there's the five D's of adversity and there are depression, mental [00:18:00] health related things, divorce, which is things related to relationships.

[00:18:04] Disease, health related things. Some of the things I'm going through debt, financial related things. And then death, the end of life or maybe. Suffering from the loss of another loved one. Those things change us or they impact us, but sometimes they don't change us. If we allow ourselves to sink down low and be lost, it does happen.

[00:18:25] There are people who do lose their lives to abuse. There are people who lose battles with alcoholism, who fall into depression. That'll get out of yet it happens all the time. Some of those people, maybe you, in the danger of being some of those people doesn't have to be that. . It doesn't have to be that way.

[00:18:39] I want to help. The Beyond Adversity podcast is gonna be about telling you stories and teaching lessons learned and teaching lessons and helping to get through things. So your homework assignment for the DE for today is to what? Is to identify your. pain point, whatever is your [00:19:00] aha moment, the illuminated moment.

[00:19:02] You know the wise men went to Jesus and they saw Jesus and they were changed. They've illuminated by the moment they saw him and they changed their life. They went back a different way. What your aha moment, your light bulb moment, your epiphany. That's what that word means. What do manifest made real in you?

[00:19:20] What is made real? What about your life is made real that you have to change? So identify it, write it down. I'm gonna keep working on this from time to time when we get together here on our teaching lessons, our spiritual moments here on the Beyond Adversity Podcast for Dr. Brad Miller. It's my pleasure and privilege to serve you outta my.

[00:19:37] I come to UF with 42 years of Christian ministry and a doctoral degree in transformational leadership and a lot of painful moments in my life to share and the love of other people to share their stories. To feed your life, you can always go to dr brad miller.com. We have over 230 episodes of this podcast designed to help you to navigate adversity and [00:20:00] achieve your life of.

[00:20:01] And prosperity and purpose, we're here for you. Go to dr. Dr brad miller.com. We love you. Take care. Have your epiphany moment, your aha moment, your light bulb moment, and now in 2023, leverage that pain to go home a different way next time. Good people. This is Dr. Brad Miller. Now go and do all the good that you can.