Forming A Relationship With God: The Road To Fulfilment And Purpose With Essence Montgomery
Nowadays, we see unrealistic stuff in social media where people look more successful and happier than us. With that, we tend to feel like we’re stuck somewhere, or we’re not achieving anything great. But remember, in God’s eyes, you are a superstar. It is our relationship with Him that matters above all else. Join Chad Burmeister in this conversation with Essence Montgomery about embracing the ups and downs of life and daring to stand up and believe that God has His plan for us. We must look through the silver linings and enjoy life to the fullest. In this episode, Essence explores what true faith is and how we could form a great relationship with our creator.
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Forming A Relationship With God: The Road To Fulfilment And Purpose With Essence Montgomery
I'm with Essence Montgomery in Oklahoma by way of Kansas City. Essence, thank you for being here on the show.
Thank you for having me.
I'm excited to dig in because your background looks cool. Where I like to go first is rewind the tape because you look so smiley and happy. If you go back to when you're younger, I find that you haven't had the influence of the world yet. When you're 6 or 7, some of your first memories are those that can be so cool. What was your passion when you were very young? What were some of your first memories?
Honestly, I grew up rough. I grew up without parents. I grew up with grandparents and grew up with some tough conditions. Me growing up every day, surviving but one of the things that I look forward to, would be the freedom to be able to go outside. Let the wind blow like half gone with other kids because that was escape from regular life, honestly.
There's always something that gets us. For me, it's skiing. When I'm on the slope in Colorado and I'm going and I'm letting the wind blow. It's so free. You moved in with your grandparents. My mother had to do that for a bit. I think it's a more common thing than it should be these days but it also helps you grow. I'm curious about how that impacted you. If you think of those days, what do you think is the silver lining of, "That sucked then but now here's the blessing from it."
I would say it allowed me to be more self-sufficient a lot earlier. It matured me a lot and that's one of the blessings. I feel like I got to select when I was in my twenties. It's funny because when I was a kid, my nickname used to be Granny because I act like an old lady. I grew up around my great, great-grandmother, my great-grandfather, my grandma and I grew up with my mom's mom later on when I was like ten or so. It allowed me to be more matured. It also improved my music tastes.
I'm an '80s baby but growing up in the '90s. The music was different. It was good but I grew up on more old school like '60s, '70s music. I feel like it improved my music taste and I love music. All my family knows. I used to do sound engineering for church or something like that. It helped me appreciate history because when you're around older people, you get to learn more of the history or you get from more of a mature perspective at a younger age. That helped me a lot.
There are not many people that can say that they grew up with five generations. I'm blessed to ever say that I had that growing up. I still have four. My great-grandmother is still alive to this day. Not a lot of people stay that. To have generational history there, tough history but still just to say that you were able to be around those people, glean from them any little bit of information. It was a blessing.
My best friend was adopted. I met him when I was five and we'd been best friends ever since. When he turned eighteen, we always had this plan together, "Let's go meet the parents." As with you in Oklahoma, 18 became 25 and became 30. I think it was maybe right around the time he turned 40. He finally went out and said, "Kevin, go check this out." When he turned the chapter of that book, it was good that he got to figure it out. He looks at his adoptive parents as his "real mom and dad." If you think of your relationship with God, I've been thinking about this lately and it's like God is the person who created us. If our parents are there, I'm God's kid. It's interesting where you get placed in life. It's meant to be.
Relationship With God: We were separated from God because of his righteousness and saying they can't go together, but through his sacrifice, through Jesus Christ, we were adopted back into that family.
I think that's one thing when you said adoption, it reminds me of the scripture. I can't remember exactly what it is but that we're adopted into the family of God. At creation, the first sin, we were separated from God because of His righteousness and saying they can't go together. Through His sacrifice, through Jesus Christ, we were adopted back into that family. If you look at adoption legally and how it works, when you adopt a child, you cannot disown them. It takes a lot to be able to disown them.
To know that God said, "Not only did I create you but I also then chose you again even after your mistakes." That's what gives me hope every day. Even though my mom wasn't there, my biological dad, I don't know who that is. I dealt with tough circumstances with my grandparents. All these different things, tough circumstances in life that I dealt with, I realized God created me and yet He chose me and I get to be with Him forever.
Those are the things that give me hope, being more mature and in Christ now. Growing up in church, we were CEOs, Christmas and Easter Only. Honestly, it was only probably a few years where we were that. Other than that, we had no religious background or anything like that. When I became an adult and gave my life to Christ, those things were things that triggered me because I was like, "I didn't have a family but I do." Some of my church family is closer to me than my real family because of how God divinely placed them in our lives.
Even my kid's godparents, we met them at a church we attended. It's in our will that if we both died, me and my husband, they get our kids. We know that they would raise them the way that we would want them raised in that godly environment and be a solid family for them. That adoption and choosing were created but I still chose it even after.
We had a guy named Pastor Travis. He did a Bible study with the cofounders of Living a Better Story. He talked about embarking on the cycle of grace and embracing grace. He said, "Most of us are always chasing the next thing. Do we have the right card? Do we have the right phone?" He called it meritless. You don't have to do anything to get it. You're accepted. In the world nowadays, there's so much stuff in media, on Facebook, people shame you and whatnot. If you start from that and know in the eyes of the most important person in the world, the person who created you, you're a superstar. It's meritless. No matter what you do wrong, it doesn't matter. That's a powerful thing and it sounds like you're coming from the same place.
I'll tell you what, when I think about the grace of God on life, it reminds me of the time I was electrocuted. I was about twelve. I was electrocuted in my mouth. I remember seeing a white light and I heard a countdown. Have you ever heard the countdown like when they do the blast off for the rockets? I heard a countdown like that. All I saw was the white light. It was like when the countdown gets about four, I came to. I remember at that time, I was freaking out and all stuff to make sure I'm okay.
When I look back on it, that could have been the end of my life. I would never be where I'm at. I never would have known God as I knew Him, to be able to have a relationship with Him like I do now, to be able to have my family and to be able to have the fullness of life that I have now. The various things. I've had several near-death experiences and to know that God has brought me through all that. I'm grateful. God has seen me through so much trauma, abuse, near-death experiences and life but He still chooses to use me.
I think of the woman. I want to say Saint Luke's somewhere and Jesus was talking about. They were talking and the woman came and poured out her oil at his feet. He was like, "I have never seen so great a faith." That's true faith. I have so much faith in God. I don't help Him. When things are hard, I trust Him. It sucks. You're like, "What the heck, God?” I take it all to Him. That's where His grace in my life is something that I can't take for granted. I'm like, "Thank you for every day. I thank you, God, for the grace. Thank you that you chose me,” because if not for that, I'm nothing.
I think about that often, the chance of me being on planet earth, it's like one in a gazillion. The chance of you having your kids are one in a gazillion. When you think of it in those terms of awesomeness and you look at every single thing and every person you meet like, "You were created by the same guy that I was created by. High five. This is awesome." It is amazing. Have you ever been to Las Vegas to the show Cirque du Soleil, The O'Show?
It's so cool. I've been to it twelve times over the year. I used to live in Phoenix so it was a $29 buddy pass to get to Vegas. It's this kid, they pull them out of the audience but he's part of this crew but you don't know it. He's in plain clothes and they dress them up. Anyway, he goes and meets all these amazing people. Some of them are tall, have paintings on their face or swim in the water. They're all different shapes, sizes and backgrounds. To me, that's the wonder and beauty of life. It's like fish in the sea or birds. It's all amazing.
I was in a head-on collision in 2000 and it was terrible. My friend was in the front seat and it was a convertible. The car door folded over where he would have been sitting. Luckily, an angel lifted him out of the car, pulled him 20 feet. He ended up getting air backed out to Phoenix from Lake Havasu. He made it and he's okay. It was amazing. I thought he was gone.
Relationship With God: You cannot disown children when you adopt them, just like how God adopted us into His family. He will never disown us.
He finally twitched and he looked at me. His first question to me when I walked up to him, he goes, "Dude, how's my face?" I was like, "Brian's okay now," but he had an angel in the helicopter the whole way from the scene to Phoenix. He said, "Who was the woman in the back holding my hand the whole time?" They go, "There was no woman there." I went because I still had my wits about me even though it was totaled then there were four cars in the accident. It was a mess. I can still smell it and hear the airbag and everything.
I went around and I picked up some bolts that came off the car. One of which has a dent in it. I've since given away 3 or 4 of the bolts and I've asked these people, "This was from a very key day," where I was close like you were on the countdown. I said, "We're going to build a cool Living a Better Story Retreat in the mountains and we're going to change people's lives. When we build the physical infrastructure someday, I want you to bring back your bolt and we're going to put it on the fireplace mantle. We're going to change lives." I'm in there to follow God's footsteps. I love having people share their stories on the show. There are so much amazing stories out there. You had an interesting and tough upbringing. I'm curious, you don't know your dad but you know your mom. What happened there?
My mom dealt with addiction. I grew up with my great-grandfather and his wife for a time. Probably when I was about maybe ten or so, I moved with my mom's mom. I think almost maybe a couple of years later, my mom got clean but she still didn't have a stable place to live. I continued to live with my grandmother until right before high school in the eighth grade, I went to live with my mom and my stepdad. That was tough.
A good friend, who's also part of Living a Better Story, Robert White, adopted 4 or 5 children over his time. I think it's one of the children, the mother had an addiction. It's pretty serious drugs. The baby had some challenges. He's familiar with what you go through. It is a miracle to be talking to you to have gone through that. To your point, you get to witness to others and be like, "Look at me."
I don't look like what I've been through. That's only by the grace of God.
That's comforting, I think, for so many people to understand that we all face stuff and it feels like the hardest thing ever. When my son was in a burn accident, it was bad. It was third-degree burns but he was healed, by the grace God. He asked me the question, "Dad, on a scale of 1 to 10, what pain have you ever experienced?" Physical pain. I was like, "Probably a 7 or an 8, like a broken arm or something." I asked a friend who was in the Marines. I said, "Brian, what pain have you experienced?"
He goes, "I've been shot, stabbed and blown up. The worst experience, the worst pain I had was a kidney stone." I was like, "You have to think like a stab, maybe a bullet or all those things would be painful," but it's all relative. On a scale of 1 to 10, what is 10? Brendon was like, "Dad, I don't know what ten is. Maybe my pain's a three." His face is terrible and his hands are peeling off. They go, "We can't give you any of the medicine if it's a three." He's said, "It's then a seven because this hurts bad."
He's like, "It's a 3 to me but that's like a 7 in somebody else."
Sin is the same thing. Whether you do something that's a little stupid or do something that's stupid, that's the beauty of being adopted into this family. No matter what it is you do, it doesn't matter.
I already paid the price.
When you live from that place, it's like you want to lean into being a good person. You don't have to be a good person. You are like, "I was given the second chance,” and it's amazing.
I think the one thing for me, it was a devil of the sort going through all that. It was easy for me to accept Christ but then dealing with people was hard because there are people that hurt you, left you, abandoned you or didn't treat you right. The people you think are good, you think you have to please them and you go above and beyond to try to people please. That was something I struggled with for a long time because I was like, "These are good people. I need to prove to them that I'm good too." My value comes from God and He's been removing that from me.
It's like, "I don't have to please them for them to stay. If they don't want to stay, they're not supposed to be there. That's their loss." That's shifted the identity because when you deal with the tough stuff, regardless of how big or small, the enemy is out to steal our identity, which our identity is to be in Christ. The enemy doesn't want us to identify with Christ. That's the battle of our souls every day. Are you going to identify with your flesh and the world? Are you going to identify with Christ? This mess or this path for you is God's plan for you.
Sometimes you can walk a fine line because your heart's given to Christ but you still have a trauma brain. It's what my therapist calls it. What she said, "You have a logical brain and you have feelings. Your trauma is in your feelings but it wants to overtake your logical brain." What does logic look like? I know that this person loves me. They showed that they messed up. Now I'm ready to just be like, "You're the same as everybody else."
For you to think that level of analytical about it, that's what it takes. Doing it alone is sometimes not an awesome idea. You said you accepted Christ at what age? Twenty?
I want to say I was 26 when I truly gave my heart to Christ. I've gone to church at that time.
What led you to that moment at that time?
At the time, I was pregnant with my daughter. My husband and I weren't married or anything like that. I was like, "I want my daughter to grow up in church, to know God in a real way." We ended up going to this church that we were at ten years. The level of family orientation that I received there. I got to know God. I think it was probably like within that first year of the school year that I gave my heart to God and surrendered myself to him. I'm not trying to fix things myself. I still struggle with that sometimes because I'm a fixer. I'm a techie. I'm always trying to figure out the fix.
I would say it started with my daughter and God highlighted to me. It was like, "That was the basis of your faith at the time. Now it's time for your foundation to be solidified." I was like, "Lord, I've been sorry for ten years. What?" Do you remember we talked about grace? That was the grace that got me in. The grace that's going to sustain me is me resolidifying my foundation. Making my election and my calling sure and my foundation to be solid in Him.
Relationship With God: Faith is the epitome of everything. It's what keeps us tied down mentally because I have faith in God regardless of the negative thoughts that may come up.
In the opening, I said, "I want my daughter to grow up in church," and let me tell you, she loves God all on her own. She wants to get baptized. She's been trying to get baptized. I said, "You have to understand what it means." She's on fire for God. She goes to school and says, "Some of these kids don't believe in God. One boy said he doesn't believe." She put him on a prayer list and was praying for him. She loves the Lord and to see the fruition of my prayers back then, it was like, "God, you continue to do so much." God's like, "That was great. That was the grace that got you in. That was what drew you in." For some people, it's a youth camp. For some people, it's a meet-and-greet church. That's what pulled you in. "Now it's time for you to be solidified because I have greater things for you in the future."
I can feel it from our brief conversation. What does that look like for you? When you heard this, does it mean I need to read the Bible more? Do I need to go to a group?
We transitioned to a new church. It was tough leaving the church we were at for so long. It was a pinnacle in our life but we knew that it was time. When God shifted us, He placed me in a ministry where they have what they call a discipleship track. It's re-affirming and repairing the foundations of Christ, His principles, His word because He's like, "I believe. Thank you, Jesus. Pray. Hallelujah," and all of that.
When you don't understand the foundation of what the word is, the context in which the word is written, understanding the principles of God, the promises of God, they're in the word. Going through a lot of it because our old church did a lot of that too but re-going through that from a perspective of, "This is for Essence. Essence needs to get this, not Essence needs to model this." Do you get what I'm saying? It's different between getting it and modeling it. You get it and then you model it. I was modeling it but I didn't yet get it.
If it's modeling something that's close to what it's supposed to be then it's close. It's not perfect. God wants as perfect as we can get, at least. It's interesting because I'm launching an app. We've been working on it. It's called 77Pray. It helps you. In the morning when you wake up, it has a little reminder on your phone. You check the box. "Did I pray this morning?" I'd never done the morning prayer. I've only started that in the beta test of this app. You then read a Bible verse and it randomizes a verse. Getting that on your start to your day. Most people have 60,000 to 80,000 thoughts and for most people, half of them are negative. If you can ask God, "God, thanks for the day. It's going to be amazing." It's simple as that.
You read a quick Bible verse and you go, "That's interesting," and it pushes you on your day. At the halfway mark, it says it's noon, "Have you invited someone to this app?" You click a button and you share it either through a text or on LinkedIn, Facebook or Instagram. At the end of the day, you pray again. It's a simple four-step a couple of minutes a day. If you get into a situation where you need to pray for something, you can crowdsource prayer. You can say, "Everybody, can you pray for my friend Essence because she wants to have a tighter relationship with God?"
You'll see that 800 people prayed for you overnight. Here's the dilemma. It's a neat app. That builds the connection part to God. Now I'm thinking, "There's another half to the app that still needs to be developed that's more than a Bible verse every day." The last guest on the show came up with the idea. She was like, "What about the Bible? Think of Marvel, how they do the superheroes and they're all cool. How cool would it be to create a movie studio that builds all the characters in the Bible?" I was like, "That we got to go figure out how to do."
Have you watched The Bible Project?
I've heard about it and The Chosen is another one I've heard. I haven't seen it.
Don't expect it to be like every single word in the Bible. It's Bible-based. It's loosely based on the Bible, but it's a good series of something different to watch. The Bible Project, I like it because it outlines not just the characters but also the underlying themes and how all of it ties back to Christ. They're on YouTube. They do all videos. They do chapters of the Bible, things in the Bible, promises, people in the Bible. Depending on what they're talking about, the longest video I've seen was fifteen minutes. That was a whole book of the Bible.
That's good because, in our world nowadays, the attention span is so light.
I blame it on social media, honestly. It's tough. That's one thing, even for my kids. I'm like, 'We're not supposed to sit here and watch TVs and tablets and phones all summer long. We got to retrain our brain." Have you ever heard of Caroline Lee? She's a neurologist that's a Christian. She teaches about the brain and how you can retrain your brain, recreate habits but teaches it from a biblical basis. She talks about how God created our brain, how our brain can be retrained and how there are neurons and neuro paths that get created when you go through trauma or other things. How you can retrain them and build new branches and those kinds of things. I like a lot of her stuff. A lot of her older stuff is good. I haven't watched her newer shows but she still has some stuff she's doing.
Think about this question. If there's something that could change everything for you like you snapped your fingers and you had a skill or it doesn't matter. Anything you could come up with, what would change everything for Essence Montgomery?
Can I say to two? I'll just do two. One would be that I would overcome some of the negative thoughts that come with the trauma that I've experienced. That will be one thing that will truly transform. I know God is doing it and He's continued to work in me. The other thing is to be completely debt-free because of how I grew up financially. I had to go to a very expensive trade school. I incurred a lot of student loans. I had no financial health for my family other than I can live with them. That was cool but still going to school.
I didn't have time to work. The money I did make from working with very little so a lot of debt. Those would be the two things I feel would transform our families for us to be debt-free and for me to overcome the thoughts and negative things. Particularly pertaining to being a mother. I didn't have a mother growing up. I had a grandmother who took care of me. I won't go into all the details. It was tough sometimes. Not having that mother and not knowing what a mother looks like other than my friends, you have imposter syndrome. You're like, "I want to do it like them." There's nothing wrong with taking tips and things like that but when that's what you're trying to imitate then you're not being your true, authentic self. Those were the two things I feel like would change everything.
Have you ever seen The Matrix movie?
It's been so many years but yes.
Do you remember the scene where he's out on the patio? I think it may be her. I think it's her. She's like, "I need to learn how to fly a helicopter." It's either her or him. I can't remember. They go, "Zap it down," and within seconds, they're flying the helicopter. What that makes me think about is that in the history of time, to them they can snap their finger and they learn something. For us, it might take a year to do what you just said but in the history of time, it's a split second.
If you take time out of the equation and say, "That's an important thing to me that might feel like this is taking forever but there are pathways to it." I want to introduce you to this friend of mine, Darryll Stinson, who is in Atlanta. He wrote a book called Who Am I After Sports? He had a traumatic thing where he's like, "I was the greatest thing since sliced bread." He's a tall, big, amazing African American man. He's Christian and yet he got into drugs. He went down the wrong path for a little while because he was hurting from playing.
He thought he was going to play in the NFL. I read the book and it doesn't matter if it's life after sports or life after trauma. Fill in the blank. It's, "Who am I and how do I get over that stuff?" I'd love to introduce you to him because I think he and his wife are amazing people. They've got 2 or 3 amazing kids. He'd be a good voice in your ear to share some ideas.
Relationship With God: Faith is the evidence of things hoped for and unseen. You have to trust the process and explore the unknown. Have faith in the One who owns everything.
You have to email it to me or connect. We can do Zoom or whatever.
I'll do it. That'd be amazing. I think you'll like him. The last question and that is we've already talked about it but I still like to ask it anyway because we've covered a lot of grounds. What role does faith play in your journey?
Since I truly came to know God for myself, it's the epitome of every part of my journey. Without my faith, I would have no hope. Without my faith, I would see my circumstances or financial situation or growing pains as unbearable. With faith, I see it as the valley that He's walking me through like David said, "I walk through the valley of the shadow of death." It's ironic that stuff comforts me. I can see it as that versus, "It's the valley. I'm going through the worst time. It's my wilderness," but forgetting that God's there the whole time. That's my faith. It's the epitome of everything.
It's what is connecting me to Him. It's what keeps me tied down mentally because I have faith in God regardless of the negative thoughts that may come up or the trauma triggers that come up. I trust Him and He sees me through it. He allows my logical brain to start kicking in. It's like, "Hold on. Let's think right." My faith is everything. It's the substance of things hoped for. The evidence of things unseen.
Let me share a perspective with you. A friend of mine was an insurance broker. He opened his own business. In 2007 or 2008, he had a loan. In the bad market, AIG pulled the loan out and said, "Sorry, you're on your own." He's $500,000 upside down. He loses a legal battle and has some counts against him. That now gains 15% to 18% a year. It's up to well over $1 million. Everything that he makes goes to that. Sometimes when you put in perspective, just like my level of pain compared to what we talked about, it sometimes helps me. This is a good friend of mine. There are always different shades of gray and having the perspective. Another one, a successful person in my parents' neighborhood. My dad was a doctor when I was a kid in radiology. I got to go and see him at the hospital.
A guy in the neighborhood was crushing it. Real estate is worth $30 million and then the market falls out. He went upside down by $10 million. He lives through life and then now he's back. He bounced. To your point, knowing other people, even Uber successful, whatever that dude was in my dad's neighborhood, he's still okay and he's better for it. I'm optimistic for you.
I know God's going to see you through. Honestly, let me tell you, God has blessed us so tremendously and done mind-blowing things that have come. I trust Him that He's going to help me. He's going to either give me a strategy on how to pay these things and give the reason. I believe He's going to give me the resources we have to do it. I trust Him in everything. That's another part of faith. It's trust. Chad said I can do a podcast with him then I have faith that when that time comes, I'm going to be on the podcast with him.
Trust and faith go hand in hand, in my opinion. You can't have faith in something you don't trust. Faith is the evidence of things hoped for and unseen. You have to trust that what's hoped for and unseen is going to come through what you have faith in. I have faith in the one who owns everything. He's the creator of all things.
Essence, it's been marvelous getting to know you. Thank you for sharing your journey and your faith. It's such a pleasure. I think somebody reading whether it's 1 or 10, all that matters is if one person hears the message and we're able to reach through and touch their lives.
I feel led to pray for whoever that is if that's okay. Let's pray on here. Father God, we just thank you for this time. Thank you for your presence and all of this, Father. We bless your name and we lift you up, Father. I pray that every person that reads this, they can see hope, they can see faith, they can see joy, they can see trust and rest in you, Father God. I thank you for the opportunity for the platform here, for Living a Better Story, that we can live a better story in you, Father God.
Whoever this reaches, Father God, if they don't even know, you let them turn to you and say, "Who is this God that gives so much joy through pain?" Father, you give beauty for ashes and we are grateful, God, for who you are. Father, I bless Chad and his family, Father God, the company that they will continue to do your work and give you glory in everything that they do. We lift you up that everyone who reads this is blessed and let them be able to take something or at least share it with someone they believe that it would be able to touch. In Jesus' name. Amen.
That was super powerful. Thank you for closing us out.
Thank you, Chad. It's been awesome.
I'm going to make an introduction to Darryll and welcome to the family of Living a Better Story.
I had so much fun. Thank you for having me.
You too, Essence. Thanks for joining the show. We've been talking with Essence Montgomery. She is a Manager at a Customer Success Team in Telecommunications in Oklahoma. You can see why we need more people like Essence in the world. Essence, thanks for sharing your love with everybody.
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About Essence Montgomery
Experienced Chief Financial Officer with a demonstrated healthcare leadership track record of developing and executing successful hospital strategies to directly impact the bottom line. Skilled in Analytical Skills, Microsoft Word, Team Building, Management, and Financial Accounting. Strong finance professional and licensed Certified Public Accountant with a Master of Business Administration (MBA) focused in Accounting from Rockhurst University
