It's Supernatural

DAWNA: It is. It can be beautiful. And I’m not talking about if someone’s being beaten by a spouse.

LAURA: No, I understand.

DAWNA: But there is something about obedience and a weapon of that that’s so cool. Yeah. I just actually – when I think of authority I think of power.  I think of being powerful.

LAURA: I actually wrote a book about submission one time.

DAWNA: Hah!

LAURA: And it was submission to authority.

DAWNA: Did it sell well? [laughs]

LAURA: NO! That’s why I’m not going to name the title!

DAWNA: No the people who got it –

LAURA: [laughing] It’s not your fault!

DAWNA: And then I met T.D. Jakes. He had written a book on authority and I thought why didn’t I just name it something on authority?

DAWNA: Yeah! Really! 

LAURA: Everybody would have loved it! But it is. It’s so true we have to be mindful and that’s important in our spirit work as well. [music begins] Okay! It’s just getting good so don’t go anywhere! We will be right back! More with Dawna De Silva on Something More!

LAURA: Welcome back everyone! I’m Laura Harris Smith. This is Something More !And we’re here today with author Dawna De Silva! And you know we’ve talked already about her gifting to help activate people and get them into the next place in their life! We talked about your personal life. How you can activate and get to that next place personally. We’ve talked about how to do it in your home. How to cleanse the home and make sure that you are in a place like under that blessful spout to where the Holy Spirit can really come in and clean house and give you a new purpose and a new hope. But Dawna, now I want to talk about how do we activate – you know maybe it’s an environment, a work environment where you don’t have total control over everybody, even in your church. We all walk in. We see things that need changing. How do you be the change and make that happen?

DAWNA: One of my favorite quotes comes from Danny Silk, who’s a pastor that I worked under and he said on a good day I can control myself.

LAURA: [laughs]

DAWNA: But that means basically I can’t control you so I have to work on me being the agent of change. And so really it’s how do you – how do you give off Christ in you and how do you not take on what’s coming at you? And really it’s pretty easy if you actually are aware of what’s going on around you. So for me if I’m working under someone that may be real aggressive and I’m really timid I can just say I don’t partner with this aggressive spirit! You know you have to understand that we fight not against flesh and blood but its powers, principalities and authorities. And so I’m not fighting my boss. I’m not fighting my grouchy co-worker.

LAURA: [laughs]

DAWNA: I’m not fighting my teenage children. You know I’m actually fighting against a spirit realm that is actually speaking broadcasts that they’re kind of partnering with. 

LAURA: Right. And I know a lot of times the way that I change the atmosphere is I just walk in the opposite spirit. 

DAWNA: Absolutely.

LAURA: If there’s someone that’s just angry I just try to be loving. Not a doormat.

DAWNA: Yeah.

JOHN: And then the other thing is that there were dark, dark areas in my life that I didn’t even know were there, Sid, until adversity hit. So in other words when I was a young man I was very sheltered and protected by my mom who loved me. I was my son, my son. And then I get married and I’m not my son, my son, my son. I am now having to live a real life with somebody who also has dreams and visions and passions and all of a sudden I realize oh my gosh, there’s some real ugly control problems. Anger problems. You know meanness that I didn’t even know was there. And I remember one day I said God, where is this coming from? I mean I was never this way at home with my mom and dad.

SID: [LAUGHS]

JOHN: And God said to me He said son, when you look at gold that’s 14 karat gold that looks pure but when you put it in a furnace of 7000 degrees what happens? I said the impurities come to the surface. He said they appear, right? And I said yeah. And He said so they were in there but you couldn’t see them. I said yeah. He said John, where is all this stuff coming from? It’s always been in you. He said what’s happened is the furnace has exposed what was in you. Now you can blame your wife and He said it’ll go right back down in you or you can cry out to me and I’ll take it out. And I –

SID: I’ll tell you what? Hold that thought. We’re running out of time right now but when we come back I want to find out such things as what is the difference between what Hollywood portrays as marriage and what God says marriage is supposed to be.

SID: Sid Roth back here with John and Lisa Bevere for Something More! And Lisa, I have to ask you what’s wrong with the picture of Hollywood because everyone thinks that’s the way marriage is supposed to be!

LISA: Well you know they really just focus in on being the perfect person. Getting that perfect person. You’re going to get married and have the perfect wedding. He’s going to have a perfect body. You’re going to have a perfect body and they focus everything in on the beginning. But the truth is and I’m going to put three things out there. Number One: You know it isn’t about finding the right person. It’s about being the right person. And most people aren’t doing the hard work they need to do in themselves as individuals so they actually are attracted to the right kind of people. They’re actually needy and they’re like I need somebody to complete me. Well Jesus needs to complete you and then you need to figure out who you can work with, who you can multiply with, who you can grow with. But you can’t have a person meet all of your needs. They’re going to fail you. And Number Two. You know a marriage doesn’t have to be perfect to be wonderful. And too many people because of Hollywood they compare this Hollywood thing and they think man, I have a stupid marriage. My marriage is so flawed it’s horrible and then it creates a comparison culture. And you know as Theodore Roosevelt said that Comparison is the thief of joy. So they are constantly seeing things that make them feel like they have something less than what they really want. And then also marriage isn’t about marrying the perfect person. It is about actually perfecting YOU.

JOHN: No, no, no. I am far from that. She’s being very sweet.

LISA: [LAUGHS] He’s being very sweet.

SID: But wait a second John. Since I know both of your pasts

LISA: [LAUGHS] Yeah, mine is way more colorful.

SID: both of you were as messed up as I was and most of the people we’re talking to. I mean give me a break. But actually I was, I was as messed up as Lisa because I came from a Jewish background. Lisa, you came from a heathen background.

LISA: Yes.

 SID: But mine could have been called that anyway. And I had, I didn’t have the Bible or anything. Just so those that, that for those that are watching right now for them to understand, give me a quick snapshot of your background Lisa.

LISA: Well my grandmother was married four times. My parents were married, divorced, remarried, divorced again. My father was an alcoholic. We had a lot of money, a lot of adultery, a lot of divorce and it was just crazy. And so at 21 years of age I had compromised every fiber of any kind of morality, any kind of virtue in my life and I just remembered thinking there has got to be something more. I am empty. I feel I’m surrounded at parties but I feel so empty and I feel so alone. And I was really was crying out for God because you know we had this country club life. My parents had everything. But none of it, it was just empty. And so that was where I was at when I met John. And you know I wanted to hear about Jesus. I had never heard about Jesus. And so basically when he started to tell me about the Gospel I was like I want to do this right now! But then I spent all of that night looking for the Book of Paul. Because he had said Paul said this

SID: The Book of Paul? (LAUGHING)

LISA: and Paul said. Yeah. I had no Christian frame of reference. This is how bad I was. My mother had become a Christian when I was a teenager but she didn’t even try to witness to me because I was just so bad that she came into the room one day and she said to my dad and I, she said I’m putting a book on this bookshelf. And she said it explains the Rapture. Joey and I will be going. You two will not be going. When we disappear you need to read this book. And I was like

SID: [LAUGHS]

 LISA: what in the world is she talking about? And so I pulled the book down when she wasn’t in the room and it’s all the Book of Revelation. And I was like God’s going to blow up the world! But I had absolutely no Christian frame of reference. And so you know started drinking when I was 14. Trying out for the sexual gymnastics team at the University of Arizona thinking all that wildness was right and good and healthy as long as you were responsible.

SID: John, we got a good picture of Lisa.

LISA: [LAUGHS]

SID: John, give me a snapshot of what baggage you were bringing into the marriage.