Not Yet, Maybe Never with Monique Terez // S03E11

There are many verses we can point to that show God’s faithfulness to hear and answer a believer’s prayers. Yet, we often overlook that God is about giving us the best, even if the best is “no,” or “not yet.” This week, we talk faith and surrender in the midst of delayed (or rerouted) gratification with Christian singer/songwriter Monique Terez.

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Verses from Not Yet, Maybe Never with Monique Terez

Proverbs 3:5, Proverbs 3:6, Philippians 4:6-7, Mark 6:31, Psalm 27:14, 2 Peter 3:9, Micah 7:7

Quotes from Not Yet, Maybe Never with Monique Terez

If we look at the life of Joseph, it’s a great example of someone who received a clear dream from God early on in life. And he was certain of it. He had many obstacles, many ups and downs, and I’m certain that there were times when he even questioned the meaning of the dream that he had at the end of the day. God’s favor, still remained over Joseph’s life in every situation, but took about 22 years from the point when he told his brothers the dream. So 22 years, he waited, we can really look at how he dealt with that waiting period.

Monique Terez, The Pantry Podcast, Not Yet, Maybe Never

Annotated Transcript

Shea: Here we go. Hey!

Michelle: Hi man.

Shea: It’s awesome to be here.

Michelle: It always is.

Shea: Tonight we have a special guest, but our episode title is, Not Yet, Maybe Never. And when I started thinking about this title, it’s kinda one of those things where you start putting your trust in the Lord. It’s kind of like, yeah, I want to be somewhere. I want to do something. And, and, you know, we get a lot of these self thoughts, but at the end of the day, it’s about trusting him. And when I was thinking about this, it came, brought me to Proverbs 3:5:

“Trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding.”

Because that is where we need to live our lives. That’s where we need to be trusting in him, even in our, in our ups and our downs and our all arounds, right? We got to trust in him. We got to give it to him. So tonight we have Monique Terez.

Michelle: Monique Terez is a contemporary Christian music singer and songwriter from the beautiful islands of The Bahamas,

Shea: Man, I, I got to hear the other day and it, and I was just like blown. I was like, man, she’s gotta be on the show.

Michelle: We can vouch for it. Y’all not only does she sound amazing, but the lyrics are just so heartfelt. She’s also serving on the worship team at her local church and she has earned various nominations, looting the Caribbean Gospel Award and the Bahamian Cacique Award. We are just really excited to talk about her, her new debut, EP, Your Love, and we’re going to be linking to her, her Instagram, her music, all that awesome stuff at the end and in the show notes.

Shea: Welcome Monique. It’s nice to have you on.

Monique Terez: Thank you, God bless you. Thank you so much for having me on The Pantry Podcast. It’s great to be here. I’m excited. We’re excited. Yeah.

Shea: So this is, this is powerful. This is good lyrics and lit when people write it themselves, that usually means it’s coming from somewhere. When was music first introduced into your life?

Monique Terez: I’m from a, like a musical musical background. My father he’s a musician as well, and he plays the piano, he sayings. And so from a very young age, I was surrounded by music. He was always at home practicing and playing, you know, playing the piano and singing. So eventually I started singing in primary school and then high school and then in university. So, you know, music, it’s always been a part of, of, of who I am.

Shea: And where does it? Oh yeah. Awesome. Where does that bring you though? Like when you sing, what is the feeling that you get? You know, like when you’re just sitting there, like just writing these lyrics, what what’s going through your mind,

Monique Terez: The lyrics and the melodies. It comes from a place of intimacy with God and my quiet time, whenever I do write usually birth from those moments when I’m alone in prayer, in worship early in the morning, or whenever I have free time. And so, you know, there’s nothing like experiencing God’s presence during those moments. And I, I believe that when we can birth songs from those quiet moments and from those, those, those encounters that we have with God on an intimate level, on a one-to-one level, I believe that the ability to reach more persons and to touch more hearts and to allow persons to experience God’s presence as well. Yeah, it’s so cool. Given the topic of this whole season worship is my worship that you experienced this worship your whole life, and it cemented this love per praising. God, it reinforced what you were hearing at church and in your own quiet time with God.

Michelle: And, you know, I always see that as preventative medicine, where instead of waiting for things to get hard, to pull out all of the defenses, you have them and you’re strengthening them the whole time. And when Shea brought up the Proverbs 3:5, I like the verse right after that Proverbs 3:6 where it says seek his will in all you do. And he will show you which path to take. I believe that all of us have a purpose in life to fulfill on this earth. We only have a certain amount of time to do it. I heard Pastor B speak a few years ago. And he said that we have a timeframe where he calls, you know, a sacred moment where we have to fulfill our purpose while we have to get whatever it is that God has placed on the inside of us to burn out and to release.

Monique Terez: When I first thought about, you know, creating the EP, I knew within me that, you know, this is something that I have to do that I have to get out because, you know, I feel as if, you know, worship is a part of who I am, it’s my purpose. It’s what I been called to do within the church and the body of Christ. You know, when you wake up in the morning and the first thing that comes to mind is, okay, I have to get this done. I have to get this done. You know, I just went ahead and did it with, with the team that I had with me.

Shea: I love what you said. Everyone has a purpose. Everyone is a creative, they’ve, they’ve been created, they’ve been given a talent. My talent is different than Michelle’s as, as yours. And even in that comparison of like a podcast, right. When we started this, it was like, if we reach one person and I’m hearing that same thing, you know, you just wanted to put these lyrics out. So what does Monique do on those, those harder days? You know, those ones where you, you get up, you’re like, ah, it’s the struggle. Oh yeah. And I mean, we all think this let’s just be real. Is someone going to listen? Is, is someone going to get something out of it? How do you bring yourself back to being, you know, God focused,

Monique Terez: Definitely worship prayer. I’ll go to Philippians 4:6-7. It says:

“Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with Thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God and the peace. That’s a, passeth all understanding will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”

That verse has been the verse that I look to in times of trouble, the difficult times, because I know that if I offer up my prayers, I give everything to God at the end of the day, I believe, you know, I stand on that promise that he is going to, give me that peace. That’s going to, you know, block out all the anxiety. That’s going to block out the fare. That’s going to block out the worry and you know, it’s going to guard. It says that peace is going to guard our hearts and our minds. So that means, you know, we’re going to get that. We can’t understand how it’s possible in the midst of the hard times in the midst of the rough days, how, how we can have peace during those times. But, you know, I just trust God that he will work everything out for my good, those who love him and who are called according to his purpose. And he will come through in the end.

Michelle: Amen. You know, when we hear a lot of verses about prayer and trusting in the Lord, we end up expecting, okay. If I have enough faith, if a mustard seed of faith can move a mountain and I really want this, whatever it is to happen, it’s going to happen. God’s going to do it. And then when he doesn’t soon enough, fast enough for us, if it doesn’t end up looking the way we asked for it, at the other level, everybody experiences something where they feel like God has said, no, the answer is actually, no, it’s not that I’m not answering you. I’m telling you no frustrations. And that’s, that’s one of the reasons we put this episode in this season, because these are the things that come against you. When you start to pursue Christ, you’re a musician putting yourself out there where part of your continuance is based on do people like you do people want to, can you make money off it or do you have to do something else in addition? And so I love what you said about how you trust him with everything, because that mindset starts to teach us that his no is a good thing. It’s a comfort that he didn’t let us walk into what we wanted. He’s he’s, he’s trying to have us walk into what’s best for us.

Monique Terez: What came to mind is the story of Joseph, how he was sold as a slave, by his brothers. And at 17, he was given the dream. God placed his dream in his heart. And then he shared it with his brothers. And I believe that oftentimes we are impatient. We want the results. Now we want to see the product now. But I believe that God, he is a God that, he’s a God of process. And he places us in various situations in life to shape and to develop our character. And we know that our true character is exposed under pressure during difficult times. And so, yes, we can say that, you know, we trust God during good times, but when the hard times come, those are the moments, you know, for sure those are the true tasks as to how much you really trust him.If we look at the life of Joseph, it’s a great example of someone who received a clear dream from God early on in life. And he was certain of it. He had many obstacles, many ups and downs, and I’m certain that there were times when he even questioned the meaning of the dream that he had at the end of the day. God’s favor, still remained over Joseph’s life in every situation, but took about 22 years from the point when he told his brothers the dream. So 22 years, he waited, we can really look at how he dealt with that waiting period. I was able to capture about seven characteristics. I’m just going to piss them off. He was honest. He was humble, faithful. Every situation that he was placed in, he was faithful with whatever task he was given. He was merciful. He showed most mercy to his brothers.He was competent. He was wise. And he was a strategic planner. And if we are truly surrendered to him, to his, to his will and, and we trust him with our lives, then every outcome, if it’s a no, if it’s a not yet, then we should be at peace to know that, you know, he’s mighty God, he’s all knowing he can, he knows our beginning. He knows our end. He knows what’s happening now at the end of the day, I mean, why not put your trust in a God that can see further than you can? And that knows you better than you know yourself. Sometimes we ask for certain things, certain situations and oftentimes we are not prepared for it. We really, we really don’t know what we want. You know? So at the end of the day, there’s nothing like being able to trust him with your life. We all have a part to play in the body of Christ in your ministry, in your everyday life. If you feel as if you’re not where you need to be, or you could be doing more grow where you’re planted, be faithful, where you are be faithful with the little that you have. If you’re faithful with the little, then, you know, God can trust you with just trust him,

Shea: Man. That’s, that’s awesome. You know, I was listening to this and it takes me to Mark 6:31 and Jesus saying, as he says,
“He said, come aside by yourselves to a deserted place and rest awhile.”Cause cause when we look at the Greek in that, it’s, it’s really amazing. This desert, he’s talking about a desert come away to a desert, right? And when we look at this era, ramus is the Greek word for this solitary, lonely desolate, uninhabited used of places, right? I mean, it’s not like, Hey, step away to the beaches in The Bahamas. You know, it’s like come away to this lonely desolate place. Where do we usually meet him? We meet him. Like, you’ve been saying this whole time in that quiet time, it’s not flashy. It’s not grand, but you know, in, in vision or in, in the way we see it or, or as the human would see it. But when we bring ourselves away and we let ourselves be isolated, we let ourselves sit in this desert or in this desolate place, we see his glory because we’ve removed every expectation. And that’s kind of, you know, when you’re talking about Joseph, he just rolled. I mean, you know, he probably had like, what is going on? You know, that I went from pit to slave to prison, you know? Wow. But you know what, in those desolate places he trusted in God, he sat there and reverence of the Lord and trusted and you know what? He carried him. Like you said, that that was, I love that illustration. In fact, a next week you can teach Bible study for real. I just liked that.

Michelle: I love the story when it talks about trusting the Lord and not acting out in impatience. I think of the story of Joseph and I think of Saul not saw that became Paul, but saw in the book of David. Right? He was told by Samuel wait for me. And he just couldn’t. Even though the seven days were almost up, there was still time on the clock and he couldn’t wait. He did the sacrifice without Samuel. And it sealed the deal that he would not be the King of promise that would span the generations. But there’s three verses that when I put them together, it really speaks to what you were saying. So I’m going to cite them first. And then I’m just going to read them through like a statement. So it’s Psalm 27:14, 2 Peter 3:9 and Micah 7:7, right? That’s jumping all over the place, but it reinforces itself.

So this is what it says. It says,

“Wait, patiently for the Lord. Be brave and courageous. Yes. Wait patiently for the Lord. The Lord isn’t really being slow about his promise as some people think, no, he is being patient for your sake. He does not want anyone to be destroyed, but wants everyone to repent. As for me, I look to the Lord for help. I wait confidently for God to save me. And my God will certainly hear me.”

We have to think about him. Like, like when we’re children and we’re tugging on our mom’s shirt, when she’s like doing the dishes, right. We have the most pressing need in our reality is like, mommy, I want you to play with me. Or mommy opened this, but mommy’s doing dishes. Right? And sometimes she stops because she can and she helps. But then sometimes she doesn’t stop.

She says, you have to wait. And it’s because she understands everything. That’s going to happen that day. Not to the level of GABA. She knows the day’s plan better than you. And you’re a two three-year-old right. She knows how much time she’s got before the next big thing. She knows. If you can wait or not based on how pressing it is, you don’t, you have such a limited view compared to your mom and that’s us with God. He is taking into consideration, absolutely everything and absolutely every person. And he knows the perfect time to fulfill any prayer.

Shea: That’s nice. Y’all got Bible study next week, by the way. She does. I know. Um, you know, I was one of the questions I was going to ask is what would you tell the creatives? But I’ve sat here and listened to both of y’all. And like that question has been answered over and over and over again. And it’s, and it’s a four-letter word. Trust five letter word. Take that out. It’s a five letter word because a five letter word trust. I’m going to put you on the spot and I want you just to sing a verse of it and then just tell us why that verse so that we could, yeah, I know that. I’ll take you to a deep spot. I’ll tell you too. Bye man. Hey, Joe Rogan has nothing on me. No, put me on the spot there. Do you want me to start? No, you don’t.

Monique: Um, let’s see that to you. Oh, to you. I surrender all to you. Oh, I gave you. I gave you bye. Oh, I gave you, I gave you my Dara. I have to, nav to you, to Jesus, a nav to you, a nav to you, a nav to Jesus. I surrender

Michelle & Shea: Oh, Oh, wow. Yes.

Shea: I could feel the spirit in that. Um, Holy spirit, you could feel the presence, um, from Bahamas to here and, and man, thank you for that. Thank you.

Worship is our worship. And sometimes the answer is no, sometimes the answer is not yet. So that I sang that song because you know, that’s one of the first songs that I released as a single and it’s called, I surrender all that song. It was birthed out of the moment when I said, you know, God, I truly surrender to you. I trust you with my life. You know? No matter the outcome. Yes, I have these goals. I have these dreams, certain things that I would like to do to take place in my life. But if it doesn’t happen, then I trust you. I surrender everything. I surrender my voice to you. I surrender, you know, my life and you can just have your way in my life. I’m going to speak to the, to the creatives, trust the process and allow God to continue to develop your character.

Continue to remain faithful in the area that you are now and do the best with what you have. Our roles may, may have to be behind the scenes or in front of a smaller crowd. And oftentimes God has to shape our character and prepare us for larger audiences. If that’s his will. And at the end of the day, we have to believe that no matter the outcome, if we are truly surrounded to God, we will trust that he knows what is best for our lives. And we will continue to allow our worship to be our worship during the waiting period. The most important thing is God’s presence in your life. You know, I, I personally, I would rather have God’s presence to have the Holy spirit dwelling within me. The Psalm is David. He says, create in me a clean heart, renew a right spirit within me, cast me not away from your presence and do not take your Holy spirit away from me.

And I believe that should be our prayer, you know, believe in Christ. That should be our daily prayer. Okay. Yeah. I may be reaching a large audience. I may be singing to, you know, a concert, you know, a stadium full of people. But if God’s presence is in there, then there’s, what’s the point. Amen. You know, I would rather be in a small room with five, six, 10, 20 people. And God’s presence is in there and where lives are to be unchanged lives are being touched. Yeah. That’s, that’s basically it and yeah, that’s, that’s it.

Shea: I love that. Yeah. You know, it’s really easy when I’m, I’m sitting here looking at all our podcasting equipment and it’s like, you could up your podcast game a lot just by buying better equipment. Right. Um, getting better stuff, you know, doing better graphics, all that. But it’s what is coming out of you that can bring God glory, not how good your audio interfaces, not how high quality of Mike is not how good your CD cover is. It’s God. Like you said, God coming out of you, God bringing himself glory through you and reaching the unreached and reaching those who need to be uplifted in some way. And you being submitted to do it. And I think that this last thing you said is so important for people to hear because that not yet, sometimes the never we’re like, okay, cool. Moving on. But the not yet, we get impatient. No, we start buying the equipment too soon. We start by an ad space. you know, letting other people write our lyrics when maybe that’s not God’s will for us, whatever it is. We’re like, Oh no, but this is the key to success. These are the five steps to get there. But following God’s the key that’s that’s the encouragement is don’t get so impatient that you fall for the lie that you can do it better than God.

Shea: Amen. Amen. You guys had great word. Um, no, I’m, I’m telling you it’s just been an edifying time, you know, you saying for three and the spirit was in it and you know, it touches it. It’s one of those moments when, you know, we were closing our eyes or I was, and just listening to this, these lyrics, I surrender all and then you didn’t stop there though. I will follow you. You know, it’s like, I surrender all and now I’m going to follow you. I’m not going to take over, you know, the, the, the heart of man plans his path. Right. But the Lord establishes his steps. Um, thank you for being on really appreciate. I love the word. I mean, honestly, I, and it’s everything that I, you know, when a Holy spirit lay something on your heart and then it comes to fruition, right? It comes, it comes to, comes to pass and you sit there and you say, you know what? That’s why that’s why. And I believe that this is one of those that’s wise. And, uh, I really thank you for, for all your time.

Monique Terez: Thank you so much for having me and God bless you both.

Shea: God bless you too.

Michelle: This has been another awesome episode. That’s just, God’s faithfulness making every episode. Awesome. We want to hear from you guys, our listeners. We want to join you in prayer. You can do all that@thepantrypodcast.com as well as the pantry podcast on Facebook and Instagram. And you can reach Monique therese@moniquetheresemusic.com, M O N I Q U E T E R E Z. music.com as well as at Monique Therese on Instagram and on Facebook. So be sure to check the show notes so you can hear these beautiful songs on her EAP. Share us comments, subscribe, rate, all that stuff. Do that for Monique too. So until next time.

Shea: Bye.

Michelle: Bye.