December 5, 2025 • 11 mins
In this Friday Q&A, Granger tackles two thoughtful emails that deal with the power of language and the challenges of building a Christ-centered home.
First, he responds to a listener who struggles with Christians using phrases like “been through hell” and questions whether this language honors what Jesus actually endured. Granger unpacks why word choice matters, how our phrases reveal what we believe, and why Christians should be intentional with the way we speak.
The second email comes from a young wife and soon-to-be mom who did not grow up with biblical examples of marriage or parenting. She asks how to rewrite old patterns and understand God’s design for the family. Granger and the team offer practical counsel about discipleship, learning from older believers, embracing self-denial, and starting a new legacy rooted in Christ.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
Okay, on this show, we are going to answer some emails.
It could be about any typeic. We've been doing this
for a long time in different ways. If you want
your question answered, email podcast at grangersmith dot com, we
will put it, put it in the queue, and then
a man's got some from that email loaded up right here.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
You bet the Friday Q.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
And a Friday Q and a you ready, let's do
it first, one says, Hey Granger, my name is David
from Michigan.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
I was curious your thoughts on Christians using the phrase
been through Hell. I specifically have a hard time with
Brandon Lake's song hard Fought Hellelijah. This just doesn't seem
appropriate for me to me, for Christians to just be
comparing our earthly problems as if it were anything like
going through hell, when Jesus actually died for our sins
(00:51):
and suffered hell for us. Curious, curious on your thoughts.
Thanks for all you do. Blessings.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
Yeah, David Jones, Michigan's cold right now. Shout out to Michigan.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
I think it's chilly here, David.
Speaker 1 (01:06):
You're not alone in thinking things like this. I don't
think I've specifically thought about going through hell or been
through hell. But you're not alone in in thinking that
language matters. Semantics matter. The way that we word things
and the word choices communicate certain things about our belief system,
(01:30):
whether we know it or like it or not. Right.
We've talked some on this podcast about the soft curse words.
For example, Sure, I've written a significant bit about luck
because of what luck means to me, the idea of
(01:53):
good luck or karma's gotam or well what goes around around?
Speaker 2 (02:01):
Are proud, I'm proud of you?
Speaker 1 (02:02):
Yeah? Yeah, I've talked about I'm proud of you. There
was another one recently, We're oh, blessings, I'm blessed. What
does it mean to be blessed? So that using certain
words blessed, proud, karma, thinking about the root of what
those words mean is important and to throw them around
(02:26):
flippantly like hell, I've been through hell.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
You know.
Speaker 1 (02:32):
I I agree with David that I wouldn't say if
someone said, man, I have been through hell this week,
I wouldn't immediately be like, you're in sin right now
for saying that. That's not the first thing to come
to my mind. But what I think that might not
be the that might not be the choice of words
I would use that I don't think that's the best
(02:54):
thing to say, depending on how close to the guy,
I don't think I would say it. Let me put it,
let me let me this. Here's a real example. Yesterday
I prayed for a friend and I sent him a
text of a prayer that I'm praying for him. And
I told him a little bit about what I'm doing yesterday,
(03:15):
and he replied, well, good luck with that, and you know,
similar things. And he's a Christian this morning, and I
didn't say anything because I thought, like, that's I don't
want to be petty. I don't want to be like, hey,
watch what you say. You know, I'm not gonna be petty.
This morning, I sent him a prayer for him, and
I said a little bit of what I'm doing. He replied, well,
(03:37):
good luck with that. The same thing. He said it again,
Like okay, that's twice. I said. I said, well, you know, brother,
I put a smiley face, you know, smiley emoji that
I'm not looking down. You know, brother, we don't believe
in luck. And he goes, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
of course I know. And I know that he knows.
(04:00):
But words matter saying saying things like that communicates a
worldview of believing in chance, or I believe that the
stars align, this will work, or you know that when
the universe rewards me for what goes around comes around.
Even if you don't believe that, when you say it,
(04:21):
you're communicating that you have a lack of understanding of
where where sovereignty comes from. Sure where providence actually comes from?
Does it come from the stars aligning or from God?
So same thing, David, that's a long answer to say,
I don't like any of that song hard Fought Hallelujah.
(04:42):
So I just thought I'm not afraid to say that
that whole song just sounds I mean, even the title
hard fought Hallelujah. What are you fighting for here? You're
fighting hard for hallelujah? Like that that the gates What
that word even means. It's weird to me is that
(05:02):
I don't know if we talked about on this before,
but I don't like that song.
Speaker 2 (05:07):
No, we haven't talked about that.
Speaker 1 (05:08):
I don't know you don't like that.
Speaker 2 (05:09):
What I've noticed here is that your spirit is stirring
about something that the Lord has laid on your heart.
Pay attention to it. If it's you know, if it's
going through hell, you should pay attention to that. Yeah,
he's bringing out something that he's wanting to refine in
your language. Pay attention to that.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
Yeah, Yeah, there you go.
Speaker 2 (05:31):
Email number two, Hey Granger, I'm twenty six, married for
three years, and about to welcome our first baby boy
in December. My husband and I did not grow up
in a Christian household with any biblical morals or values,
and we definitely were not taught proper roles for husband
and wife and parenting. Speaking for myself, my father was
a tyrant, very authoritarian, emotionally toxic, overall bad example of
(05:56):
a father and a husband. This has led me to
one not know my biblical role as a wife or mother,
and number two know what my husband's should be. His
roles should be?
Speaker 1 (06:07):
Is what she's saying.
Speaker 2 (06:08):
I do have a strong personality and have always been
the initiator or taken control of things due to the
way that I was raised. As we ventured into our
new journey as Christians, it can be difficult to rewrite
bad habits and relearn what we should be doing. What
recommendations or advice do you have for our family and
things to display that I can continue praying and striving
(06:29):
for Thanks for any input, Brooke.
Speaker 1 (06:31):
Yeah, Brooks so common. This, this email is so common.
And I'm encouraged by your email and im and I'm
sorry at the same time for the tyrant, authoritarian, emotionally
toxic father you grew up with. That's that's so common
in our Christian life that we walk, all of us
(06:55):
have to lose our former identity, and that includes the
liturgy of the world, that that the world preached to
us since we were little. And we so we all
have that kind of baggage. And and Jesus says, if
anyone would come after me, let him deny himself, take
(07:16):
up his cross daily, Luke says, and follow me. So
there is a there is a self denial and a
and a daily need to follow Christ two to follow,
to follow his commandments, and to follow his example, as
(07:38):
he said, take my yoke upon you and learn from me. Recently,
Lincoln and I were at a place where we saw
a real yoke, two cows yoked together, and Lincoln hadn't
seen that before. Yeah, I was like that, come here,
come here, come here, look at this. You know what
this says? What that big wooden thing between the two cows.
You know what that is. It's a yoke. Oh like
(08:01):
the Bible. Yeah, So when Jesus says, take my yoke
upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle
and lowly in heart, and you'll find rest for your
souls from My yoke is easy and my burden is light.
So he's saying, you're under the yoke of the world.
It's hard. Come under my yoke. It's easy. Learn from me.
(08:26):
Follow me, learn from me, which is at some level
that's discipleship. Follow me, come and see what I.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
Do, and that yoke. If you're tied to the world,
you were directed to where the world goes because you're
being pulled in that same direction. If you're attached to
the Lord, you're going where he's leading you.
Speaker 1 (08:43):
That's right. So many times we think of discipleship as
like a program. I need a program. I need a
new discipleship program. You have a book, you have a checklist. Well,
it's like, hey, let's live life and follow me see
what I do. And it seems that's what's missing from
this email. Some older couples that say, hey, come, come
(09:03):
to dinner. You grew up this way I grew up
that way. We meet together as we're sisters in Christ.
Have you ever seen where the Bible says what a
biblical wife would be would be and what it looks like.
This is what was hard for me to realize. And
here's this this verse here. I've had to wrestle with
this over the few years. But this is what I've learned.
(09:25):
And hey, we should do this again. Sometimes bring your
family over and we'll help watch the kids. We miss
having kids in our house and we don't have grandkids,
you know anymore. They're gone. Like living life together sounds
like what's kind of missing. Sometimes we feel like we
need to figure things out all by ourselves quickly. Well
(09:45):
I'm a Christian now, so I need to figure this out.
Where in the Bible does it say it? And we
could show you. But also we don't just want to
point to the Bible. We want to say, here it
is in the Bible, and watch me, watch me live
this out, because it's not You're right, it's not easy,
but watch how we do it and watch the fruit
of it. Yeah, and so you could you could add
(10:09):
Brooks story, You could add any past and you could
say my father was this, or my mother was this,
or I didn't have a father at all, or you know,
you could add anything and it's the same, the same
remedy here. Yeah, I agree, discipleship, Bible reading, watching someone
live it out in the fruit of it. I would
recommend Paul David Trip marriage. I think it's called marriage,
(10:32):
Paul David Trip. It's a great book. He's a good brother,
and he speaks well about marriage.
Speaker 2 (10:40):
So if a little encouragement here too, is that you
you say neither one of you grew up in Christian
households anything like that. There's some excitement about you, guys
being the blank canvas and they start from the very beginning.
You can be the root of this, of this new
tree that the Lord has blessed your family with and
(11:04):
and be yeah. I mean that can feel like a
lot of pressure, or it can feel like a lot
of relief, going Okay, well it's his, This family is
the Lord's. We're different that we don't have. We're cutting
off from what are we grew up like and not
having you Lord in our in our life, and now
you are. We're brand new new creates as your new
(11:25):
creation in me. And you guys start from a just
a blank page and see what he does with that.
Speaker 1 (11:32):
Wonderful Yeah, Brook, you're gonna mess things up. Yeah, it's okay,
it's okay. Daily he's bigger than that mess up. Sure,
that's good. So y'all
Okay, on this show, we are going to answer some emails.
It could be about any typeic. We've been doing this
for a long time in different ways. If you want
your question answered, email podcast at grangersmith dot com, we
will put it, put it in the queue, and then
a man's got some from that email loaded up right here.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
You bet the Friday Q.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
And a Friday Q and a you ready, let's do
it first, one says, Hey Granger, my name is David
from Michigan.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
I was curious your thoughts on Christians using the phrase
been through Hell. I specifically have a hard time with
Brandon Lake's song hard Fought Hellelijah. This just doesn't seem
appropriate for me to me, for Christians to just be
comparing our earthly problems as if it were anything like
going through hell, when Jesus actually died for our sins
(00:51):
and suffered hell for us. Curious, curious on your thoughts.
Thanks for all you do. Blessings.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
Yeah, David Jones, Michigan's cold right now. Shout out to Michigan.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
I think it's chilly here, David.
Speaker 1 (01:06):
You're not alone in thinking things like this. I don't
think I've specifically thought about going through hell or been
through hell. But you're not alone in in thinking that
language matters. Semantics matter. The way that we word things
and the word choices communicate certain things about our belief system,
(01:30):
whether we know it or like it or not. Right.
We've talked some on this podcast about the soft curse words.
For example, Sure, I've written a significant bit about luck
because of what luck means to me, the idea of
(01:53):
good luck or karma's gotam or well what goes around around?
Speaker 2 (02:01):
Are proud, I'm proud of you?
Speaker 1 (02:02):
Yeah? Yeah, I've talked about I'm proud of you. There
was another one recently, We're oh, blessings, I'm blessed. What
does it mean to be blessed? So that using certain
words blessed, proud, karma, thinking about the root of what
those words mean is important and to throw them around
(02:26):
flippantly like hell, I've been through hell.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
You know.
Speaker 1 (02:32):
I I agree with David that I wouldn't say if
someone said, man, I have been through hell this week,
I wouldn't immediately be like, you're in sin right now
for saying that. That's not the first thing to come
to my mind. But what I think that might not
be the that might not be the choice of words
I would use that I don't think that's the best
(02:54):
thing to say, depending on how close to the guy,
I don't think I would say it. Let me put it,
let me let me this. Here's a real example. Yesterday
I prayed for a friend and I sent him a
text of a prayer that I'm praying for him. And
I told him a little bit about what I'm doing yesterday,
(03:15):
and he replied, well, good luck with that, and you know,
similar things. And he's a Christian this morning, and I
didn't say anything because I thought, like, that's I don't
want to be petty. I don't want to be like, hey,
watch what you say. You know, I'm not gonna be petty.
This morning, I sent him a prayer for him, and
I said a little bit of what I'm doing. He replied, well,
(03:37):
good luck with that. The same thing. He said it again,
Like okay, that's twice. I said. I said, well, you know, brother,
I put a smiley face, you know, smiley emoji that
I'm not looking down. You know, brother, we don't believe
in luck. And he goes, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
of course I know. And I know that he knows.
(04:00):
But words matter saying saying things like that communicates a
worldview of believing in chance, or I believe that the
stars align, this will work, or you know that when
the universe rewards me for what goes around comes around.
Even if you don't believe that, when you say it,
(04:21):
you're communicating that you have a lack of understanding of
where where sovereignty comes from. Sure where providence actually comes from?
Does it come from the stars aligning or from God?
So same thing, David, that's a long answer to say,
I don't like any of that song hard Fought Hallelujah.
(04:42):
So I just thought I'm not afraid to say that
that whole song just sounds I mean, even the title
hard fought Hallelujah. What are you fighting for here? You're
fighting hard for hallelujah? Like that that the gates What
that word even means. It's weird to me is that
(05:02):
I don't know if we talked about on this before,
but I don't like that song.
Speaker 2 (05:07):
No, we haven't talked about that.
Speaker 1 (05:08):
I don't know you don't like that.
Speaker 2 (05:09):
What I've noticed here is that your spirit is stirring
about something that the Lord has laid on your heart.
Pay attention to it. If it's you know, if it's
going through hell, you should pay attention to that. Yeah,
he's bringing out something that he's wanting to refine in
your language. Pay attention to that.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
Yeah, Yeah, there you go.
Speaker 2 (05:31):
Email number two, Hey Granger, I'm twenty six, married for
three years, and about to welcome our first baby boy
in December. My husband and I did not grow up
in a Christian household with any biblical morals or values,
and we definitely were not taught proper roles for husband
and wife and parenting. Speaking for myself, my father was
a tyrant, very authoritarian, emotionally toxic, overall bad example of
(05:56):
a father and a husband. This has led me to
one not know my biblical role as a wife or mother,
and number two know what my husband's should be. His
roles should be?
Speaker 1 (06:07):
Is what she's saying.
Speaker 2 (06:08):
I do have a strong personality and have always been
the initiator or taken control of things due to the
way that I was raised. As we ventured into our
new journey as Christians, it can be difficult to rewrite
bad habits and relearn what we should be doing. What
recommendations or advice do you have for our family and
things to display that I can continue praying and striving
(06:29):
for Thanks for any input, Brooke.
Speaker 1 (06:31):
Yeah, Brooks so common. This, this email is so common.
And I'm encouraged by your email and im and I'm
sorry at the same time for the tyrant, authoritarian, emotionally
toxic father you grew up with. That's that's so common
in our Christian life that we walk, all of us
(06:55):
have to lose our former identity, and that includes the
liturgy of the world, that that the world preached to
us since we were little. And we so we all
have that kind of baggage. And and Jesus says, if
anyone would come after me, let him deny himself, take
(07:16):
up his cross daily, Luke says, and follow me. So
there is a there is a self denial and a
and a daily need to follow Christ two to follow,
to follow his commandments, and to follow his example, as
(07:38):
he said, take my yoke upon you and learn from me. Recently,
Lincoln and I were at a place where we saw
a real yoke, two cows yoked together, and Lincoln hadn't
seen that before. Yeah, I was like that, come here,
come here, come here, look at this. You know what
this says? What that big wooden thing between the two cows.
You know what that is. It's a yoke. Oh like
(08:01):
the Bible. Yeah, So when Jesus says, take my yoke
upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle
and lowly in heart, and you'll find rest for your
souls from My yoke is easy and my burden is light.
So he's saying, you're under the yoke of the world.
It's hard. Come under my yoke. It's easy. Learn from me.
(08:26):
Follow me, learn from me, which is at some level
that's discipleship. Follow me, come and see what I.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
Do, and that yoke. If you're tied to the world,
you were directed to where the world goes because you're
being pulled in that same direction. If you're attached to
the Lord, you're going where he's leading you.
Speaker 1 (08:43):
That's right. So many times we think of discipleship as
like a program. I need a program. I need a
new discipleship program. You have a book, you have a checklist. Well,
it's like, hey, let's live life and follow me see
what I do. And it seems that's what's missing from
this email. Some older couples that say, hey, come, come
(09:03):
to dinner. You grew up this way I grew up
that way. We meet together as we're sisters in Christ.
Have you ever seen where the Bible says what a
biblical wife would be would be and what it looks like.
This is what was hard for me to realize. And
here's this this verse here. I've had to wrestle with
this over the few years. But this is what I've learned.
(09:25):
And hey, we should do this again. Sometimes bring your
family over and we'll help watch the kids. We miss
having kids in our house and we don't have grandkids,
you know anymore. They're gone. Like living life together sounds
like what's kind of missing. Sometimes we feel like we
need to figure things out all by ourselves quickly. Well
(09:45):
I'm a Christian now, so I need to figure this out.
Where in the Bible does it say it? And we
could show you. But also we don't just want to
point to the Bible. We want to say, here it
is in the Bible, and watch me, watch me live
this out, because it's not You're right, it's not easy,
but watch how we do it and watch the fruit
of it. Yeah, and so you could you could add
(10:09):
Brooks story, You could add any past and you could
say my father was this, or my mother was this,
or I didn't have a father at all, or you know,
you could add anything and it's the same, the same
remedy here. Yeah, I agree, discipleship, Bible reading, watching someone
live it out in the fruit of it. I would
recommend Paul David Trip marriage. I think it's called marriage,
(10:32):
Paul David Trip. It's a great book. He's a good brother,
and he speaks well about marriage.
Speaker 2 (10:40):
So if a little encouragement here too, is that you
you say neither one of you grew up in Christian
households anything like that. There's some excitement about you, guys
being the blank canvas and they start from the very beginning.
You can be the root of this, of this new
tree that the Lord has blessed your family with and
(11:04):
and be yeah. I mean that can feel like a
lot of pressure, or it can feel like a lot
of relief, going Okay, well it's his, This family is
the Lord's. We're different that we don't have. We're cutting
off from what are we grew up like and not
having you Lord in our in our life, and now
you are. We're brand new new creates as your new
(11:25):
creation in me. And you guys start from a just
a blank page and see what he does with that.
Speaker 1 (11:32):
Wonderful Yeah, Brook, you're gonna mess things up. Yeah, it's okay,
it's okay. Daily he's bigger than that mess up. Sure,
that's good. So y'all
Host
Granger Smith
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