May 18, 2026 • 33 mins
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What happens when the stories we tell ourselves end up becoming our reality?
In this episode, Jaime and Alana dive into the fascinating concept of self-fulfilling prophecies and how our internal narratives—whether positive or negative—can deeply impact our daily lives, our mindsets, and even our prayer habits. They discuss why anticipating failure often guarantees it, and how expecting God to move can open our eyes to His limitless possibilities.
Alana shares a hilarious and humbling story about mistaking the brain fog of a severe dairy intolerance for spiritual persecution while trying to memorize the Bible, reminding us of the dangers of confirmation bias and Christian superstition. Jaime shares an insightful story about her son's hockey practice, illustrating how breaking past mental limits can open the door to new achievements, and how she intentionally rewrote her own narrative about being "bad with names."
Along the way, they swap practical wisdom on the power of the words we speak over ourselves and others. From rethinking the unintentional "curses" we accidentally speak over our children at the playground to examining the widespread myth that praying for patience automatically invites tragedy, they offer a refreshing, grace-filled perspective on setting our expectations.
Whether you are battling a habit of negative self-talk, limiting God with small prayers, or simply need a gentle reminder to stop bracing for the worst, we hope this episode encourages you to rewrite your internal narratives, expect God's goodness, and boldly step into the calling He has for you.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Life Audio. Welcome to the Praying Christian Women Podcast. I
am Milana here with Jamie. How are you? I'm doing great?
Speaker 2 (00:12):
How about you?
Speaker 1 (00:13):
I'm okay. We were just talking off there how we
both are feeling tired and rusty. So I was going
to play a really mean joke on when me and
our listeners to give them an example of our topic
today and tell them we are both so tired and
Jamie's got a headache and I've been in bed for
fifteen hours straight. But we're going to pull through this.
(00:35):
But guys, just bear with us. And I was going
to use that as an example of if we start
an episode like that, that is the perfect epitome of
what we're talking about today. So can you introduce us
to our topic of the day. Someone knows what we're
talking about.
Speaker 3 (00:49):
Yes, our topic of the day is self fulfilling prophecies.
And I was actually thinking, because I just said, oh,
I'm doing great, even after I just told you, oh,
I'm kind of dragging.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
I'm not doing this great.
Speaker 3 (01:00):
My self fulfilling prophecy will be if I say it,
it will be. So, so I'm going to say I'm
doing awesome. This is going to be the best episode ever.
Speaker 1 (01:07):
It probably will be.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
It probably will be.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
Yeah, So I've been really excited to chat about this topic.
I want to piggyback this onto some of what we've
been talking about with Bible memorization, because I discovered that
some of my Bible memorizing blocks we're turning into self
fulfilling prophecies in a kind of humorous way. But before
(01:31):
I tell you that story, can you give us just
a definition so that we're all on the same page
it with what we're talking about here.
Speaker 3 (01:38):
Yes, the Britannica definition for self fulfilling prophecy is a
process through which an originally false expectation leads to its
own confirmation. In a self fulfilling prophecy, an individual's expectations
about another person or entity eventually result in the other
person or entity acting in ways that can firm the expectations.
(02:03):
So kind of in Layman's terms, it's like you believe
something and it comes true because you believe it, right.
Speaker 1 (02:14):
And I think that if we take the term like
prophecy with the big P like the Old Testament prophets
or Biblical prophecy out of it, and if we want
to think about it just in terms of common sense.
To me, this makes logical sense in the same way
that something like the placebo effect makes logical sense. It's
(02:36):
not going to happen every single time. It's not more
powerful than God. But it makes sense that if you
go to school every day and tell yourself that you're
terrible at math, that you are not going to get
as good of test scores in math. And so you
have basically taken this prophecy with a little p that
you're bad at math, and you have made it come true.
(03:00):
And sometimes the self fulfilling prophecies are things that we
say to ourselves. Sometimes they're negative, sometimes they're positive. Another
self fulfilling prophecy is when Jamie says I'm having I
feel great and we're going to have a great episode,
and that lifts up our energy. And let's say she
and I hadn't had this back and forth before we
got on the air, and I showed up sluggish, and
(03:23):
I'm thinking to myself, Oh, this is going to be
so hard to get through. And Jamie shows up and says,
this is gonna be a great episode. I'm so excited
to be doing this. That can become a self fulfilling prophecy,
because then I read into her excitement and buy into
her excitement, and so then I tell myself, even if
it's all on a subconscious level, oh, I better rise
(03:45):
up and match her positive energy. I don't want to
be the one to bring her down. Whereas if we
started the show off kind of like a jokingly, guys,
we are so exhausted. If we sound terrible, bear with us.
There's a lot of podcasts I listen to where they'll
start by saying, like, we're recording in a new spot,
the acoustics are going to be strange. You and I
(04:05):
have done it before when one of us has had
to record on the phone as a listener. I never
noticed until they bring it up. But yeah, if you
start by saying, you know, sorry, listeners, today's episode is
going to be really terrible. We're going to stumble over
our words all the time. Not only is it more
likely that you and I are going to stumble over
(04:27):
our words more than we otherwise might. Even if we
stumbled over our words the exact same number of times
that we do in a typical episode, listeners would be
more likely to recognize it, right because like, oh, they
warned us, Oh, Yep, there she goes again, you know,
forgetting the word that she was trying to think up.
(04:47):
And so my story of why I've been so excited,
I think I've kind of turned into a nag to you,
so I might need to offer you an apology. Let's
do self fulfilling prophecies, and then like two days later,
I can't wait, We're gonna do selff. Can we do
self fulfilling prophecy soon? I'd really like to do self
a feling prophecies.
Speaker 3 (05:05):
No, it's perfect because my mind is like a sieve
and I don't think so every time you said I
was like, Wow, what a great idea. This is all
of it a great concept, even after.
Speaker 1 (05:17):
I excited five times. So you and I were talking
about Bible memorization, and I loved that little mini series
that we did. By mini series, I mean two part episode.
But I got me thinking about some of my blocks,
and I share that historically I had noticed a correlation
(05:37):
between going into deep Bible memory work and going into
a pretty depressive funk, like as I was starting, and
for a long time I just told myself that that
was the activation energy required, and then it was like, okay,
this always happens when I start memorizing a big passage
(05:59):
and then it's going to get better, kind of like
I tell myself, the middle of a novel manuscript for me,
always feels kind of sluggish, and so I tell myself
it's like, Alana, you've been here before. You know it's
going to pick up again. It's gonna be fine, So
just get through this part that doesn't feel as good.
And so I started memorizing some from Romans eight the
(06:22):
very next day after, like I think you and I
both memoriz like a verse or two. Because we were
recording on short notice, it didn't have a ton of
time to work on a full passage. But like the
day after I started like a whole paragraph. I was
like in bed for a day and I'm like, okay,
here we go again. It was sort of like yep,
(06:44):
I called it. And so I did that thing I
do where I told myself, Okay, you know sometimes this happens.
It's going to be worth it. It's gonna be two
or three kind of mentally sluggish days, but want it
be nice to be back into regular Bible memory work again.
And I was even gonna text you and be like
it happened again. But of course when you're in that
kind of funk, you don't text anybody and tell them,
(07:06):
then you're in that kind of a funk. Okay, So
here's where self fulfilling prophecy comes in. And I am
like laughing hysterically on the inside, because this is not
a story of poor Alana who gets depressed but then
musters through it so she can memorize the Bible. By
day three, like everybody was noticing, I was going to
(07:27):
bed at like five or six at night. Finally Scott's like,
what's up. I'm like, I don't know. I didn't want
to bring up the Bible memory thing to him because
it just sounded silly. And then I went to the
fridge where I keep a little I think it's a pint.
I had a pint of dairy free sorbet, and that's
(07:47):
my treats to myself. I get it on the grocery orders.
When Scott goes into town, he brings me back like
a pint of dairy free ice cream. So I went,
I'm like, probably the sugar's not gonna help, but oh well,
I go to unscrew the lid. I realize this pint
of ice cream that i'd been just kind of, you know,
(08:08):
eating through for the last week. They hadn't given me
the dairy free version, and so like I've known for
over a year that dairy really messes up my brain
and my inflammation and my joints and my mood. And
so I just had to laugh, like I've been I
(08:28):
the moment I noticed that, Like, I didn't run up
the stairs because my joints were not at the ability
to run, but I had a lot more energy going
up the stairs than I had in days. To tell Scout,
like I figured it out, I'm not broken, I'm not dying.
I'm not being punished for memorizing the Bible. I ate,
(08:49):
I've been eating this dairy for like a week. And
so but here's the thing. If I hadn't a learned
how to muster through that of Okay, it's going to
be hard and then I'm going to get through it,
I would have just quit. I would have said, Yep,
Bible memory leads to depression. Depression is not worth it.
(09:10):
And if I had not been open to you know what,
because picture me at my pridefulest worst, could you picture
this tiny bit of like I'm so special that the
devil has to punish me when I try to memorize
the Bible, do you know what I mean?
Speaker 3 (09:28):
Like, oh, definitely, because there's I mean, there's just like
a whole theology, kind of sub theology I think in
Christian culture about well, if the devil's not persecuting you,
you're not doing it right, and exactly kind of a
pride in Oh, yeah, I'm suffering these attacks because I'm
doing this thing. And not to say that that doesn't
(09:49):
sometimes happen because it doesn't have to, but it doesn't have.
Speaker 2 (09:53):
To, right, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (10:06):
So I think this was a perfect example of a
self fulfilling prophecy that in my brain I was like, well,
obviously this has to be because I started memorizing the
Bible again, But it had nothing to do with that.
I had to deal with the fact that I was
eating like spoonfuls of dairied ice cream all week long.
And I think one of the most common self fulfilling
(10:30):
prophecies that Christians can fall into is this idea that
you just talked about. Before I do something big for God,
the Devil's gonna come after me. And yes, we should
always be aware that certain things will open us up
to spiritual attack. But there's a huge difference between that
(10:51):
and I think about Gideon. So here's the enemy army,
here's the Midianites. And they hear one of their men
talking about the stream he had where Gideon attacked and
destroyed all of them, and so they tell themselves, Oh,
this must mean that Gideon is going to attack and
(11:12):
destroy us all. So they're already getting into a superstitious funk.
And then they hear these trumpets that Gideon is blowing.
Gideon and his three hundred men, who without any type
of divine intervention and without this superstitious belief that the
midia Knites have bought into, have no means of defeating them,
(11:36):
but they're already primed to be prepared to be defeated
by Gideon. Did they kind of go crazy and turn
on themselves. I don't want that to detract from the
miraculous deliverance God view of the Israelites that day, But
I think that even somebody who didn't believe in God
(11:57):
but still believed in the historical events it's written in
judges could look at that and say that that was
a self fulfilling prophecy that the fact that the Midianites
were so terrified that they were going to be defeated
is what ultimately led to them being defeated. And I
think as Christians we do that to ourselves. And I
(12:18):
think it's also important to remember self fulfilling prophecies can
be for positive or negative things.
Speaker 3 (12:24):
I think, yeah, this is self fulfilling prophecy. So our
son was out shooting pucks and stop me if I've
shared this before, like recently, I feel like maybe I did.
Speaker 2 (12:33):
Have I shared it.
Speaker 1 (12:34):
I think you did, but I think it was on
True Crime Junkies because we recently talked about an episode
about like the power of positive.
Speaker 3 (12:42):
Indem Okay, yes, yes, So that's a different podcast, same story,
So go for it. If you're not a Christian True
Crime Junkies listener, this will be new. If you are,
then it won't. But that's okay. So he went out,
he was shooting pucks and at the net we have
in our backyard, and he has this little radar gun
that sort of like gauges the speed of the bucks.
(13:05):
So he was trying to make it over seventy miles
an hour, and he was getting.
Speaker 1 (13:10):
Like sixty eight sixty eight.
Speaker 3 (13:12):
Sixty eight was like the top, and he said, as
soon as I get to seventy, I'll be able to
do it a bunch, like because he knows, you know,
he kind of knows like once I because I'll know
it's possible. And so it's that's sort of a similar thing.
Like basically, so he finally he inched up sixty nine
(13:33):
and then seventy and then like he was able to
shoot a few more at seventy miles an hour because
he knew that was possible. And so I don't know,
that's kind of a self fulfilling prophecy might be having
the mindset there's no way I can get over seventy
sixty eight is kind of the max.
Speaker 1 (13:54):
Right, Okay, wait a minute. I am shocked right now
because you told this story. And I was like, okay,
that's a great example. And then I started to think,
seventy miles an hour, that's actually pretty fast, and then
I realized this is not on ice that we're talking about.
It's on fake ice.
Speaker 3 (14:12):
So we have little you know, like the preschool like
square mats that interlock with the little fingers that interlock together.
We have that, only it's fake ice. It's not Okay,
you can't skate on it. There's some that they make
you can, but this you can't skate on. But it's
just basically like a certain kind of plastic that mimics
(14:32):
the ice. So we have a big pad of that,
and so they'll stand there on the pad with the
pucks and shoot it and then it goes you know,
five feet, and then they lift the puck anyway, so
you know, it goes a little bit and then lifts
and so yeah, that's how he can get it going
(14:53):
faster because there's way less friction than like the concrete.
Speaker 1 (14:56):
Yeah, right, No, that's really cool. I mean even on
ice and ice equivalent seventy miles an hour. That is
really fast.
Speaker 2 (15:04):
He's got a pretty strong shot. That's cool.
Speaker 1 (15:07):
That is very cool. So yeah, when we talk about
self fulfilling prophecies, have you, like, I know, Christians don't
love the word jinx, and I don't either, because it
does bring superstition. But I think that sometimes the idea
maybe comes from the same root. It's this idea of okay,
if you believe something like That's why I'm not the
(15:30):
kind of person who believes in jinx. Is like there
are times where even with Christians, all say something like
it has been a great week, we haven't had any
days under thirty below, and they'll be like, don't say that,
don't talk like that, because that's gonna make it happen.
And I've I've just decided to adopt the mindset of
(15:54):
the more I call out wonderful things that happen in
my life, the more grateful I am. And that I mean,
that could be a period that could be enough right there,
But why in the world would that make God less
likely to want to keep on blessing me? Right? So,
can you think of any times in your life where
(16:15):
you've kind of fallen into traps like this, either with
like self fulfilling prophecies of your own or anything along
the lines of what we're talking about.
Speaker 3 (16:24):
Yes, One really interesting thing for me is I always
tell people that I'm really bad with names that I'll
remember face I can't. I'm good with voices, Like I'm
really good with voices, Like if I hear if I'm
watching a movie and I hear someone talking and like, oh,
that's so and so, but I don't remember their name,
(16:45):
Like I'll connect the dots and like what's that actor's name,
but I'll know that it's the same person. So anyway,
I've gotten into this habit of, say, of just being like,
I'm really bad with names. But I remember one time,
and it was in high school and I was at
a party and I decided, like I basically said, I'm
(17:05):
going to be good with names, and I focused on
the people and I even told it to someone. I'm like,
I'm going to be I'm going to remember everyone's name
like that I and.
Speaker 1 (17:16):
I actually was. It was weird.
Speaker 3 (17:19):
It was like, as soon as I like tell intention
for that to be a priority, I actually And so
I look back on that and I think, you know what,
if I could do that on command. Maybe in general,
I don't focus on names enough and I let them
go in when you're and out. The other kind of
like when I ask my kids what they want, you know,
(17:40):
for a snack, and I give them three options and
then I don't listen. I don't pay attention to what
they say. But it's like what you focus on can
particularly be done. So I've been, you know, I think
I've been trying to tell myself things like, cause I
tell stories about myself. My stories are I'm disorganized. It's
(18:02):
hard for me to keep my house clean. I am
never on time, you know, just name the things. And
I've created these stories about myself and I live up
to them unless I choose to say something different. And
this whole conversation is making me thinking that I would
(18:25):
like to not only say, oh, like this is going
to be the exception to the rule. I'm going to
just I'm going to overcome this one day by saying, oh,
I'm going to be organized today, but you know, just
create different narratives, like replace the old narratives. And I
know a lot of people have said that you need
to do this, but it's powerful for sure.
Speaker 1 (18:48):
Yeah, yeah, I know with names, because I've gotten to
where I can catch myself before I say something that
I think might be a self fulfilling prophecy.
Speaker 3 (19:11):
You're really good, by the way, at I noticed very
much like you're very particular about your word selection, and
I love that. And it has over the years, whether
I've said it or not, I've noticed it, and it
really has been a good example for me. Anything from
like there are certain words that you won't say, like
(19:33):
I'm trying to think of the ones.
Speaker 1 (19:35):
Like lazy, the biggest lazy procrastinate.
Speaker 3 (19:38):
Those are the two that I said something late about
lazy and like the look on your face, I was like,
I said something wrong, and that was like early on.
I think it's been years, but it was early on
in that hole and then you kind of explain. But anyway,
I didn't mean to interrupt, but I love that. I
really am the kind of person that interrupts a lot.
Speaker 1 (19:58):
No, you are the kind of person who has amazing
ideas and can't wait to them. And to be fair,
since I do a little bit more audio edits right now,
like I interrupt you all the time. So but I
learned about being particular with my language, especially when the
(20:19):
kids were little. And some of it was because we
were around so many medical specialists and I was every
time one of them would say something like, oh, well,
it doesn't matter because he's not going to ever do this,
like it was. It wasn't just a cringe, it was
I am going to take this curse that you are
throwing at my child, and I am going to be
(20:41):
the force field that is immediately going to surround our
entire family from those words. You know what I mean?
That is so good man? There was also a parenting philosophy.
I'm sure you came across it too. I think it
ties a tiny bit into maybe a little bit of
gen parenting, which I never got like super into. But
(21:04):
the idea is, if you're let's say you're four year
old at was it Valley of the Sun or Valley
of the Moon park and Anchorage val okay, and do
you remember how it had that super tall tower like
it looks like one hundred feet or higher and kids
would love to climb up it. And I would always
(21:24):
stop myself for our our oldest he was always our climber,
just climbing everything. And what I was taught by other
moms kind of by example. But I think even sometimes
like deliberately not to say was don't do that because
you'll fall, right, because the minute they hear in their brain, oh,
(21:45):
mom says I'm going to fall. Mom is an authority figure.
Does it mean a hundred percent of the time it
will make them fall? No? Does it mean that their
brains will be more likely for them to fall? I
think it absolutely does, especially since as the mom of
a young child, you are seeing as such an authority,
and so you could say something like don't run on
(22:06):
the ice because it's not safe. But you wouldn't under
this philosophy. You wouldn't say don't run in the ice
because you'll fall and break your arm. Right that is
because in a way, that's like a mini curse that's
telling them, if you do this thing, then you are
more likely to fall and break your arm. So I
(22:28):
definitely want to put limits around this because I think
that the philosophy gets very abused, and even in Christian circles,
and maybe even especially in Christian circles. I almost love
to think of this philosophy as connected to the Bible,
as staying hydrated for your health is connected to the Bible,
like I don't see them as enmeshed, and they're also
(22:51):
not contradictory. Where I see danger is when somebody says, oh,
if you tell your child don't jump on that rock,
or you'll fall and crack your head open, then God's
going to hear you, and he's going to make them
fall and crack their head open.
Speaker 3 (23:08):
Or the power of your words, apart from God, is
going to make that happen, because then that even puts
the power on you and your words in a.
Speaker 1 (23:19):
Kind of witchcraft.
Speaker 3 (23:20):
Sense as opposed to just in like the general biblical
or non biblical sense of keep it positive and it
will not be negative.
Speaker 2 (23:32):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (23:33):
And it can be abused in Christianity when you try
to use positive thinking to twist God's arm right, So
just affirmations, in my opinion, are great, but they can
go overboard if you're believing in the power of the
words that you're saying outside of God, or if you're
(23:55):
using them for just very selfish motivation. So well, that's
kind of the limits that I put on it. I
don't want to make it so that like God has decreed.
I just think that this is kind of general good
common sense, like don't swear at your kids and don't
(24:16):
tell them they're about at math. Like, to me, that's
as simple as it has to be or as complicated
as it has to be. But also be careful. You know,
if you wouldn't say it to your kid, don't say
it to yourself even internally. And the flip side, because
so many of us are raised to be so scared
(24:39):
of pride that we have the opposite. We would have
a hard time looking in the mirror and saying I
Jamie Hampton am organized and peaceful and great at podcasting
and a wonderful mom. Like we're afraid that by saying
those words we might fall into pride. And we have
(25:02):
this sense. And again I think this is where this
idea of Jingston comes in. We have the sense at
the minute we get prideful, God's gonna come and like
He's just waiting for us to show that tiny smidge
of pride so he can smack us down. And if
you think about like the way you think of your children,
there was never a moment where anything even remotely like
that feeling came into you. And so like, if we
(25:25):
being sinful parents don't think that about our kids, there's
no way God's thinking about that. And so the way
I see it, if you want to say, if it's
negative words that you would not tell your child, don't
tell it to yourself. Similarly, if it's positive words that
you think your children deserve to hear, tell it to yourself.
You know, I think there's a huge difference between pride
(25:48):
and pride and I wish we had better words. You know,
there is the difference of like, Jamie, I am proud
of you for doing all the podcasting stuff you do,
and I am so proudly arrogant because I'm the very
best podcast co host and Jamie chose me. Right. Those
are two different kinds of pride, but we don't have
(26:12):
two different words for them, the kind of paternal pride,
like you did something that bears acknowledgment, so let's acknowledge it.
I don't think that that. I think that is so
separate from what God is warning us against when he
tells us to remain humble, that it's like saying, you know,
(26:32):
it's the sin to wear blue, Like it's it's so
out of left field, like they're not even related to
each other.
Speaker 3 (26:39):
Yeah, no, that makes a lot of sense. And yeah,
I think it's one of those things where it is
hard for us sometimes to separate those two things, especially
as women. And yeah, yeah, but I think it's healthy
to think about it and try to practice it.
Speaker 1 (26:57):
Yeah, definitely. So in addition to being careful about the
words we say, how could we tie this into practical
takeaways for our prayer lives.
Speaker 2 (27:08):
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (27:08):
I think maybe as we not being afraid to pray big,
I feel like sometimes I limit God by the limitations
of either what has been done before what seems possible.
Going back to the seventy miles an hour thing. If
(27:30):
if I am basically thinking that I want to ask
God for something, let's say that I have limited God
based on what has happened before, what I expect as
the status quo, and I think by asking bigger, we
are doing the same thing as if we are you
(27:53):
know that seventy miles an hour being the limit. As
long as I believe that seventy miles an hour is
the limit, I'm never going to get pass it. So
if I ask above that, knowing that the sky is
the limit, and then you know, it gives God more
room to operate in ways or bigger.
Speaker 1 (28:11):
And I'm not.
Speaker 2 (28:12):
Talking specifically about prosperity.
Speaker 3 (28:14):
I'm talking about anything, whether it's you know, I prayed
for this person for ten years and they have not
come to Christ. Now I'm praying for this person and
I know, of course God's not going to really move
in their lives for a very very very long time,
but expecting more opening the doors maybe for good to move.
Speaker 1 (28:35):
I don't know, do you have any ideas we think
about this being used in if not, like in our prayers,
I could see it definitely be used in how we
think about ourselves as women who pray. So if you
always tell yourself I'm really disorganized in my prayers, or
the minute someone gives me a prayer request and mine
(28:56):
forget it. What I've trained myself to do with names
because I have a really hard I'm remembering people's names,
and if it's somebody that it's really important for me
to remember, when I'm introduced to them, i will look
them in the eye and I'll say, Megan, Okay, I'm
going to remember that. And so I'm basically making a
commitment to them that I'm going to remember their name.
(29:20):
And so if you tell yourself, yeah, this missionary is
going to come and I'm going to feel so inspired
to pray for them, and I'm never going to remember
it again. Okay, Instead tell yourself, I'm going to remember
to pray for this person, or go and tell them
I'm going to remember to pray for you. Sometimes I forget,
but right now with you, I'm standing here right now,
and I remember that I'm going to remember. And so
(29:44):
whatever blocks you have, whatever stories you tell yourself about
the kind of prayer woman you are, I would examine
and ask if there are limiting beliefs there, or if
those are turning into self fulfilling prophecies. Oh, whenever I
pray for this life gets worse. Whenever I pray for patients,
(30:07):
God sends something terrible to me. Is that true? No,
like that actually is a falsehood. I'm sorry to everybody
who has said it, either in seriousness or in jest.
That's just not true. And there is nothing that you
will show me in scripture that tells me that anybody
who prays for patients is going to experience tribulation, because
(30:30):
what the Bible says is the rainfalls on the just
and unjust, and so whatever it is. Sometimes, I know
you had a blog post that resonated with so many people,
and it was this idea of if I start really
praying for this person, I'm almost afraid that God's going
to make their life bad. Like let's say you're praying
for a prodigal, I don't want to pray for them
(30:52):
to come to Christ because I know they've got a
hit rock bottom before they come to Christ's night. I
just feel so bad having go through that. Does the
Bible say that every single prodigal must hit rock bottom
before they come to Christ. I don't see that anywhere,
And so we can re examine how the beliefs that
(31:15):
we have, or even the superstitions we have about prayer
or about the power of our prayers can be impacting
our beliefs.
Speaker 3 (31:25):
Yeah. Well, another kind of along those same lines is
this idea that if I start praying more, or if
I start doing this work of God, then I'm going
to become a target for the enemy. And that is
that is a superstitious belief that can kind of, you know,
sort of similar to the praying for someone that they're
(31:46):
going to go through hard times, but just kind of
being afraid to pray in general because you think that
you're going to become, you know, have a target on
your back. That can definitely be and it can be
self fulfilling prophecy, not because of necessarily attack, but just
confirmation bias. You just start to notice, you know, oh,
(32:07):
I stubbed my toe this morning, and then I lost
my toothbrush, and then I, you know, slam my finger
in the door on the way out.
Speaker 1 (32:15):
You know, so things it would have happened no matter what,
but since you're looking for them like oh this, you know,
like I would have had a terrible week after eating
dairy ice cream for a whole week. Like with my
body being the way it is, there is no way
short of a truly divine miracle that I wouldn't have
(32:35):
had all the symptoms that I had. But because I
was in my brain saying every time I go and
try to memorize the Bible, this happens, I'm I'm looking
out for it.
Speaker 2 (32:48):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (32:50):
Well, let's go ahead and close with our blessing and benediction.
May the Lord open the eyes of your heart and
fill you with wisdom in the inmost places. May the
Glorious Father grant you this spirit of wisdom and revelation,
so you may know Christ, who has become for us
wisdom from God. In the areas of your life in
need of guidance, May God grant you his wisdom and abundance,
(33:10):
so that you will not lean on your own insight,
but rely on the full ridges of complete understanding, which
are yours in abundance through Christ and her.
Speaker 3 (33:18):
Benediction comes from Psalm one thirty four, verse three. May
the Lord bless you from Zion, he who made heaven
and earth. Amen, we'd like to take just a quick
second to thank the team at life Audio for their
partnership with us on the podcast. If you go to
lifeaudio dot com you will find dozens of other faith
(33:40):
centered podcasts in their network.
Speaker 2 (33:41):
They've got shows about.
Speaker 3 (33:42):
Prayer, Bible study, parenting, and so much more. That's lifeaudio
dot com.
Life Audio. Welcome to the Praying Christian Women Podcast. I
am Milana here with Jamie. How are you? I'm doing great?
Speaker 2 (00:12):
How about you?
Speaker 1 (00:13):
I'm okay. We were just talking off there how we
both are feeling tired and rusty. So I was going
to play a really mean joke on when me and
our listeners to give them an example of our topic
today and tell them we are both so tired and
Jamie's got a headache and I've been in bed for
fifteen hours straight. But we're going to pull through this.
(00:35):
But guys, just bear with us. And I was going
to use that as an example of if we start
an episode like that, that is the perfect epitome of
what we're talking about today. So can you introduce us
to our topic of the day. Someone knows what we're
talking about.
Speaker 3 (00:49):
Yes, our topic of the day is self fulfilling prophecies.
And I was actually thinking, because I just said, oh,
I'm doing great, even after I just told you, oh,
I'm kind of dragging.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
I'm not doing this great.
Speaker 3 (01:00):
My self fulfilling prophecy will be if I say it,
it will be. So, so I'm going to say I'm
doing awesome. This is going to be the best episode ever.
Speaker 1 (01:07):
It probably will be.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
It probably will be.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
Yeah, So I've been really excited to chat about this topic.
I want to piggyback this onto some of what we've
been talking about with Bible memorization, because I discovered that
some of my Bible memorizing blocks we're turning into self
fulfilling prophecies in a kind of humorous way. But before
(01:31):
I tell you that story, can you give us just
a definition so that we're all on the same page
it with what we're talking about here.
Speaker 3 (01:38):
Yes, the Britannica definition for self fulfilling prophecy is a
process through which an originally false expectation leads to its
own confirmation. In a self fulfilling prophecy, an individual's expectations
about another person or entity eventually result in the other
person or entity acting in ways that can firm the expectations.
(02:03):
So kind of in Layman's terms, it's like you believe
something and it comes true because you believe it, right.
Speaker 1 (02:14):
And I think that if we take the term like
prophecy with the big P like the Old Testament prophets
or Biblical prophecy out of it, and if we want
to think about it just in terms of common sense.
To me, this makes logical sense in the same way
that something like the placebo effect makes logical sense. It's
(02:36):
not going to happen every single time. It's not more
powerful than God. But it makes sense that if you
go to school every day and tell yourself that you're
terrible at math, that you are not going to get
as good of test scores in math. And so you
have basically taken this prophecy with a little p that
you're bad at math, and you have made it come true.
(03:00):
And sometimes the self fulfilling prophecies are things that we
say to ourselves. Sometimes they're negative, sometimes they're positive. Another
self fulfilling prophecy is when Jamie says I'm having I
feel great and we're going to have a great episode,
and that lifts up our energy. And let's say she
and I hadn't had this back and forth before we
got on the air, and I showed up sluggish, and
(03:23):
I'm thinking to myself, Oh, this is going to be
so hard to get through. And Jamie shows up and says,
this is gonna be a great episode. I'm so excited
to be doing this. That can become a self fulfilling prophecy,
because then I read into her excitement and buy into
her excitement, and so then I tell myself, even if
it's all on a subconscious level, oh, I better rise
(03:45):
up and match her positive energy. I don't want to
be the one to bring her down. Whereas if we
started the show off kind of like a jokingly, guys,
we are so exhausted. If we sound terrible, bear with us.
There's a lot of podcasts I listen to where they'll
start by saying, like, we're recording in a new spot,
the acoustics are going to be strange. You and I
(04:05):
have done it before when one of us has had
to record on the phone as a listener. I never
noticed until they bring it up. But yeah, if you
start by saying, you know, sorry, listeners, today's episode is
going to be really terrible. We're going to stumble over
our words all the time. Not only is it more
likely that you and I are going to stumble over
(04:27):
our words more than we otherwise might. Even if we
stumbled over our words the exact same number of times
that we do in a typical episode, listeners would be
more likely to recognize it, right because like, oh, they
warned us, Oh, Yep, there she goes again, you know,
forgetting the word that she was trying to think up.
(04:47):
And so my story of why I've been so excited,
I think I've kind of turned into a nag to you,
so I might need to offer you an apology. Let's
do self fulfilling prophecies, and then like two days later,
I can't wait, We're gonna do selff. Can we do
self fulfilling prophecy soon? I'd really like to do self
a feling prophecies.
Speaker 3 (05:05):
No, it's perfect because my mind is like a sieve
and I don't think so every time you said I
was like, Wow, what a great idea. This is all
of it a great concept, even after.
Speaker 1 (05:17):
I excited five times. So you and I were talking
about Bible memorization, and I loved that little mini series
that we did. By mini series, I mean two part episode.
But I got me thinking about some of my blocks,
and I share that historically I had noticed a correlation
(05:37):
between going into deep Bible memory work and going into
a pretty depressive funk, like as I was starting, and
for a long time I just told myself that that
was the activation energy required, and then it was like, okay,
this always happens when I start memorizing a big passage
(05:59):
and then it's going to get better, kind of like
I tell myself, the middle of a novel manuscript for me,
always feels kind of sluggish, and so I tell myself
it's like, Alana, you've been here before. You know it's
going to pick up again. It's gonna be fine, So
just get through this part that doesn't feel as good.
And so I started memorizing some from Romans eight the
(06:22):
very next day after, like I think you and I
both memoriz like a verse or two. Because we were
recording on short notice, it didn't have a ton of
time to work on a full passage. But like the
day after I started like a whole paragraph. I was
like in bed for a day and I'm like, okay,
here we go again. It was sort of like yep,
(06:44):
I called it. And so I did that thing I
do where I told myself, Okay, you know sometimes this happens.
It's going to be worth it. It's gonna be two
or three kind of mentally sluggish days, but want it
be nice to be back into regular Bible memory work again.
And I was even gonna text you and be like
it happened again. But of course when you're in that
kind of funk, you don't text anybody and tell them,
(07:06):
then you're in that kind of a funk. Okay, So
here's where self fulfilling prophecy comes in. And I am
like laughing hysterically on the inside, because this is not
a story of poor Alana who gets depressed but then
musters through it so she can memorize the Bible. By
day three, like everybody was noticing, I was going to
(07:27):
bed at like five or six at night. Finally Scott's like,
what's up. I'm like, I don't know. I didn't want
to bring up the Bible memory thing to him because
it just sounded silly. And then I went to the
fridge where I keep a little I think it's a pint.
I had a pint of dairy free sorbet, and that's
(07:47):
my treats to myself. I get it on the grocery orders.
When Scott goes into town, he brings me back like
a pint of dairy free ice cream. So I went,
I'm like, probably the sugar's not gonna help, but oh well,
I go to unscrew the lid. I realize this pint
of ice cream that i'd been just kind of, you know,
(08:08):
eating through for the last week. They hadn't given me
the dairy free version, and so like I've known for
over a year that dairy really messes up my brain
and my inflammation and my joints and my mood. And
so I just had to laugh, like I've been I
(08:28):
the moment I noticed that, Like, I didn't run up
the stairs because my joints were not at the ability
to run, but I had a lot more energy going
up the stairs than I had in days. To tell Scout,
like I figured it out, I'm not broken, I'm not dying.
I'm not being punished for memorizing the Bible. I ate,
(08:49):
I've been eating this dairy for like a week. And
so but here's the thing. If I hadn't a learned
how to muster through that of Okay, it's going to
be hard and then I'm going to get through it,
I would have just quit. I would have said, Yep,
Bible memory leads to depression. Depression is not worth it.
(09:10):
And if I had not been open to you know what,
because picture me at my pridefulest worst, could you picture
this tiny bit of like I'm so special that the
devil has to punish me when I try to memorize
the Bible, do you know what I mean?
Speaker 3 (09:28):
Like, oh, definitely, because there's I mean, there's just like
a whole theology, kind of sub theology I think in
Christian culture about well, if the devil's not persecuting you,
you're not doing it right, and exactly kind of a
pride in Oh, yeah, I'm suffering these attacks because I'm
doing this thing. And not to say that that doesn't
(09:49):
sometimes happen because it doesn't have to, but it doesn't have.
Speaker 2 (09:53):
To, right, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (10:06):
So I think this was a perfect example of a
self fulfilling prophecy that in my brain I was like, well,
obviously this has to be because I started memorizing the
Bible again, But it had nothing to do with that.
I had to deal with the fact that I was
eating like spoonfuls of dairied ice cream all week long.
And I think one of the most common self fulfilling
(10:30):
prophecies that Christians can fall into is this idea that
you just talked about. Before I do something big for God,
the Devil's gonna come after me. And yes, we should
always be aware that certain things will open us up
to spiritual attack. But there's a huge difference between that
(10:51):
and I think about Gideon. So here's the enemy army,
here's the Midianites. And they hear one of their men
talking about the stream he had where Gideon attacked and
destroyed all of them, and so they tell themselves, Oh,
this must mean that Gideon is going to attack and
(11:12):
destroy us all. So they're already getting into a superstitious funk.
And then they hear these trumpets that Gideon is blowing.
Gideon and his three hundred men, who without any type
of divine intervention and without this superstitious belief that the
midia Knites have bought into, have no means of defeating them,
(11:36):
but they're already primed to be prepared to be defeated
by Gideon. Did they kind of go crazy and turn
on themselves. I don't want that to detract from the
miraculous deliverance God view of the Israelites that day, But
I think that even somebody who didn't believe in God
(11:57):
but still believed in the historical events it's written in
judges could look at that and say that that was
a self fulfilling prophecy that the fact that the Midianites
were so terrified that they were going to be defeated
is what ultimately led to them being defeated. And I
think as Christians we do that to ourselves. And I
(12:18):
think it's also important to remember self fulfilling prophecies can
be for positive or negative things.
Speaker 3 (12:24):
I think, yeah, this is self fulfilling prophecy. So our
son was out shooting pucks and stop me if I've
shared this before, like recently, I feel like maybe I did.
Speaker 2 (12:33):
Have I shared it.
Speaker 1 (12:34):
I think you did, but I think it was on
True Crime Junkies because we recently talked about an episode
about like the power of positive.
Speaker 3 (12:42):
Indem Okay, yes, yes, So that's a different podcast, same story,
So go for it. If you're not a Christian True
Crime Junkies listener, this will be new. If you are,
then it won't. But that's okay. So he went out,
he was shooting pucks and at the net we have
in our backyard, and he has this little radar gun
that sort of like gauges the speed of the bucks.
(13:05):
So he was trying to make it over seventy miles
an hour, and he was getting.
Speaker 1 (13:10):
Like sixty eight sixty eight.
Speaker 3 (13:12):
Sixty eight was like the top, and he said, as
soon as I get to seventy, I'll be able to
do it a bunch, like because he knows, you know,
he kind of knows like once I because I'll know
it's possible. And so it's that's sort of a similar thing.
Like basically, so he finally he inched up sixty nine
(13:33):
and then seventy and then like he was able to
shoot a few more at seventy miles an hour because
he knew that was possible. And so I don't know,
that's kind of a self fulfilling prophecy might be having
the mindset there's no way I can get over seventy
sixty eight is kind of the max.
Speaker 1 (13:54):
Right, Okay, wait a minute. I am shocked right now
because you told this story. And I was like, okay,
that's a great example. And then I started to think,
seventy miles an hour, that's actually pretty fast, and then
I realized this is not on ice that we're talking about.
It's on fake ice.
Speaker 3 (14:12):
So we have little you know, like the preschool like
square mats that interlock with the little fingers that interlock together.
We have that, only it's fake ice. It's not Okay,
you can't skate on it. There's some that they make
you can, but this you can't skate on. But it's
just basically like a certain kind of plastic that mimics
(14:32):
the ice. So we have a big pad of that,
and so they'll stand there on the pad with the
pucks and shoot it and then it goes you know,
five feet, and then they lift the puck anyway, so
you know, it goes a little bit and then lifts
and so yeah, that's how he can get it going
(14:53):
faster because there's way less friction than like the concrete.
Speaker 1 (14:56):
Yeah, right, No, that's really cool. I mean even on
ice and ice equivalent seventy miles an hour. That is
really fast.
Speaker 2 (15:04):
He's got a pretty strong shot. That's cool.
Speaker 1 (15:07):
That is very cool. So yeah, when we talk about
self fulfilling prophecies, have you, like, I know, Christians don't
love the word jinx, and I don't either, because it
does bring superstition. But I think that sometimes the idea
maybe comes from the same root. It's this idea of okay,
if you believe something like That's why I'm not the
(15:30):
kind of person who believes in jinx. Is like there
are times where even with Christians, all say something like
it has been a great week, we haven't had any
days under thirty below, and they'll be like, don't say that,
don't talk like that, because that's gonna make it happen.
And I've I've just decided to adopt the mindset of
(15:54):
the more I call out wonderful things that happen in
my life, the more grateful I am. And that I mean,
that could be a period that could be enough right there,
But why in the world would that make God less
likely to want to keep on blessing me? Right? So,
can you think of any times in your life where
(16:15):
you've kind of fallen into traps like this, either with
like self fulfilling prophecies of your own or anything along
the lines of what we're talking about.
Speaker 3 (16:24):
Yes, One really interesting thing for me is I always
tell people that I'm really bad with names that I'll
remember face I can't. I'm good with voices, Like I'm
really good with voices, Like if I hear if I'm
watching a movie and I hear someone talking and like, oh,
that's so and so, but I don't remember their name,
(16:45):
Like I'll connect the dots and like what's that actor's name,
but I'll know that it's the same person. So anyway,
I've gotten into this habit of, say, of just being like,
I'm really bad with names. But I remember one time,
and it was in high school and I was at
a party and I decided, like I basically said, I'm
(17:05):
going to be good with names, and I focused on
the people and I even told it to someone. I'm like,
I'm going to be I'm going to remember everyone's name
like that I and.
Speaker 1 (17:16):
I actually was. It was weird.
Speaker 3 (17:19):
It was like, as soon as I like tell intention
for that to be a priority, I actually And so
I look back on that and I think, you know what,
if I could do that on command. Maybe in general,
I don't focus on names enough and I let them
go in when you're and out. The other kind of
like when I ask my kids what they want, you know,
(17:40):
for a snack, and I give them three options and
then I don't listen. I don't pay attention to what
they say. But it's like what you focus on can
particularly be done. So I've been, you know, I think
I've been trying to tell myself things like, cause I
tell stories about myself. My stories are I'm disorganized. It's
(18:02):
hard for me to keep my house clean. I am
never on time, you know, just name the things. And
I've created these stories about myself and I live up
to them unless I choose to say something different. And
this whole conversation is making me thinking that I would
(18:25):
like to not only say, oh, like this is going
to be the exception to the rule. I'm going to
just I'm going to overcome this one day by saying, oh,
I'm going to be organized today, but you know, just
create different narratives, like replace the old narratives. And I
know a lot of people have said that you need
to do this, but it's powerful for sure.
Speaker 1 (18:48):
Yeah, yeah, I know with names, because I've gotten to
where I can catch myself before I say something that
I think might be a self fulfilling prophecy.
Speaker 3 (19:11):
You're really good, by the way, at I noticed very
much like you're very particular about your word selection, and
I love that. And it has over the years, whether
I've said it or not, I've noticed it, and it
really has been a good example for me. Anything from
like there are certain words that you won't say, like
(19:33):
I'm trying to think of the ones.
Speaker 1 (19:35):
Like lazy, the biggest lazy procrastinate.
Speaker 3 (19:38):
Those are the two that I said something late about
lazy and like the look on your face, I was like,
I said something wrong, and that was like early on.
I think it's been years, but it was early on
in that hole and then you kind of explain. But anyway,
I didn't mean to interrupt, but I love that. I
really am the kind of person that interrupts a lot.
Speaker 1 (19:58):
No, you are the kind of person who has amazing
ideas and can't wait to them. And to be fair,
since I do a little bit more audio edits right now,
like I interrupt you all the time. So but I
learned about being particular with my language, especially when the
(20:19):
kids were little. And some of it was because we
were around so many medical specialists and I was every
time one of them would say something like, oh, well,
it doesn't matter because he's not going to ever do this,
like it was. It wasn't just a cringe, it was
I am going to take this curse that you are
throwing at my child, and I am going to be
(20:41):
the force field that is immediately going to surround our
entire family from those words. You know what I mean?
That is so good man? There was also a parenting philosophy.
I'm sure you came across it too. I think it
ties a tiny bit into maybe a little bit of
gen parenting, which I never got like super into. But
(21:04):
the idea is, if you're let's say you're four year
old at was it Valley of the Sun or Valley
of the Moon park and Anchorage val okay, and do
you remember how it had that super tall tower like
it looks like one hundred feet or higher and kids
would love to climb up it. And I would always
(21:24):
stop myself for our our oldest he was always our climber,
just climbing everything. And what I was taught by other
moms kind of by example. But I think even sometimes
like deliberately not to say was don't do that because
you'll fall, right, because the minute they hear in their brain, oh,
(21:45):
mom says I'm going to fall. Mom is an authority figure.
Does it mean a hundred percent of the time it
will make them fall? No? Does it mean that their
brains will be more likely for them to fall? I
think it absolutely does, especially since as the mom of
a young child, you are seeing as such an authority,
and so you could say something like don't run on
(22:06):
the ice because it's not safe. But you wouldn't under
this philosophy. You wouldn't say don't run in the ice
because you'll fall and break your arm. Right that is
because in a way, that's like a mini curse that's
telling them, if you do this thing, then you are
more likely to fall and break your arm. So I
(22:28):
definitely want to put limits around this because I think
that the philosophy gets very abused, and even in Christian circles,
and maybe even especially in Christian circles. I almost love
to think of this philosophy as connected to the Bible,
as staying hydrated for your health is connected to the Bible,
like I don't see them as enmeshed, and they're also
(22:51):
not contradictory. Where I see danger is when somebody says, oh,
if you tell your child don't jump on that rock,
or you'll fall and crack your head open, then God's
going to hear you, and he's going to make them
fall and crack their head open.
Speaker 3 (23:08):
Or the power of your words, apart from God, is
going to make that happen, because then that even puts
the power on you and your words in a.
Speaker 1 (23:19):
Kind of witchcraft.
Speaker 3 (23:20):
Sense as opposed to just in like the general biblical
or non biblical sense of keep it positive and it
will not be negative.
Speaker 2 (23:32):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (23:33):
And it can be abused in Christianity when you try
to use positive thinking to twist God's arm right, So
just affirmations, in my opinion, are great, but they can
go overboard if you're believing in the power of the
words that you're saying outside of God, or if you're
(23:55):
using them for just very selfish motivation. So well, that's
kind of the limits that I put on it. I
don't want to make it so that like God has decreed.
I just think that this is kind of general good
common sense, like don't swear at your kids and don't
(24:16):
tell them they're about at math. Like, to me, that's
as simple as it has to be or as complicated
as it has to be. But also be careful. You know,
if you wouldn't say it to your kid, don't say
it to yourself even internally. And the flip side, because
so many of us are raised to be so scared
(24:39):
of pride that we have the opposite. We would have
a hard time looking in the mirror and saying I
Jamie Hampton am organized and peaceful and great at podcasting
and a wonderful mom. Like we're afraid that by saying
those words we might fall into pride. And we have
(25:02):
this sense. And again I think this is where this
idea of Jingston comes in. We have the sense at
the minute we get prideful, God's gonna come and like
He's just waiting for us to show that tiny smidge
of pride so he can smack us down. And if
you think about like the way you think of your children,
there was never a moment where anything even remotely like
that feeling came into you. And so like, if we
(25:25):
being sinful parents don't think that about our kids, there's
no way God's thinking about that. And so the way
I see it, if you want to say, if it's
negative words that you would not tell your child, don't
tell it to yourself. Similarly, if it's positive words that
you think your children deserve to hear, tell it to yourself.
You know, I think there's a huge difference between pride
(25:48):
and pride and I wish we had better words. You know,
there is the difference of like, Jamie, I am proud
of you for doing all the podcasting stuff you do,
and I am so proudly arrogant because I'm the very
best podcast co host and Jamie chose me. Right. Those
are two different kinds of pride, but we don't have
(26:12):
two different words for them, the kind of paternal pride,
like you did something that bears acknowledgment, so let's acknowledge it.
I don't think that that. I think that is so
separate from what God is warning us against when he
tells us to remain humble, that it's like saying, you know,
(26:32):
it's the sin to wear blue, Like it's it's so
out of left field, like they're not even related to
each other.
Speaker 3 (26:39):
Yeah, no, that makes a lot of sense. And yeah,
I think it's one of those things where it is
hard for us sometimes to separate those two things, especially
as women. And yeah, yeah, but I think it's healthy
to think about it and try to practice it.
Speaker 1 (26:57):
Yeah, definitely. So in addition to being careful about the
words we say, how could we tie this into practical
takeaways for our prayer lives.
Speaker 2 (27:08):
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (27:08):
I think maybe as we not being afraid to pray big,
I feel like sometimes I limit God by the limitations
of either what has been done before what seems possible.
Going back to the seventy miles an hour thing. If
(27:30):
if I am basically thinking that I want to ask
God for something, let's say that I have limited God
based on what has happened before, what I expect as
the status quo, and I think by asking bigger, we
are doing the same thing as if we are you
(27:53):
know that seventy miles an hour being the limit. As
long as I believe that seventy miles an hour is
the limit, I'm never going to get pass it. So
if I ask above that, knowing that the sky is
the limit, and then you know, it gives God more
room to operate in ways or bigger.
Speaker 1 (28:11):
And I'm not.
Speaker 2 (28:12):
Talking specifically about prosperity.
Speaker 3 (28:14):
I'm talking about anything, whether it's you know, I prayed
for this person for ten years and they have not
come to Christ. Now I'm praying for this person and
I know, of course God's not going to really move
in their lives for a very very very long time,
but expecting more opening the doors maybe for good to move.
Speaker 1 (28:35):
I don't know, do you have any ideas we think
about this being used in if not, like in our prayers,
I could see it definitely be used in how we
think about ourselves as women who pray. So if you
always tell yourself I'm really disorganized in my prayers, or
the minute someone gives me a prayer request and mine
(28:56):
forget it. What I've trained myself to do with names
because I have a really hard I'm remembering people's names,
and if it's somebody that it's really important for me
to remember, when I'm introduced to them, i will look
them in the eye and I'll say, Megan, Okay, I'm
going to remember that. And so I'm basically making a
commitment to them that I'm going to remember their name.
(29:20):
And so if you tell yourself, yeah, this missionary is
going to come and I'm going to feel so inspired
to pray for them, and I'm never going to remember
it again. Okay, Instead tell yourself, I'm going to remember
to pray for this person, or go and tell them
I'm going to remember to pray for you. Sometimes I forget,
but right now with you, I'm standing here right now,
and I remember that I'm going to remember. And so
(29:44):
whatever blocks you have, whatever stories you tell yourself about
the kind of prayer woman you are, I would examine
and ask if there are limiting beliefs there, or if
those are turning into self fulfilling prophecies. Oh, whenever I
pray for this life gets worse. Whenever I pray for patients,
(30:07):
God sends something terrible to me. Is that true? No,
like that actually is a falsehood. I'm sorry to everybody
who has said it, either in seriousness or in jest.
That's just not true. And there is nothing that you
will show me in scripture that tells me that anybody
who prays for patients is going to experience tribulation, because
(30:30):
what the Bible says is the rainfalls on the just
and unjust, and so whatever it is. Sometimes, I know
you had a blog post that resonated with so many people,
and it was this idea of if I start really
praying for this person, I'm almost afraid that God's going
to make their life bad. Like let's say you're praying
for a prodigal, I don't want to pray for them
(30:52):
to come to Christ because I know they've got a
hit rock bottom before they come to Christ's night. I
just feel so bad having go through that. Does the
Bible say that every single prodigal must hit rock bottom
before they come to Christ. I don't see that anywhere,
And so we can re examine how the beliefs that
(31:15):
we have, or even the superstitions we have about prayer
or about the power of our prayers can be impacting
our beliefs.
Speaker 3 (31:25):
Yeah. Well, another kind of along those same lines is
this idea that if I start praying more, or if
I start doing this work of God, then I'm going
to become a target for the enemy. And that is
that is a superstitious belief that can kind of, you know,
sort of similar to the praying for someone that they're
(31:46):
going to go through hard times, but just kind of
being afraid to pray in general because you think that
you're going to become, you know, have a target on
your back. That can definitely be and it can be
self fulfilling prophecy, not because of necessarily attack, but just
confirmation bias. You just start to notice, you know, oh,
(32:07):
I stubbed my toe this morning, and then I lost
my toothbrush, and then I, you know, slam my finger
in the door on the way out.
Speaker 1 (32:15):
You know, so things it would have happened no matter what,
but since you're looking for them like oh this, you know,
like I would have had a terrible week after eating
dairy ice cream for a whole week. Like with my
body being the way it is, there is no way
short of a truly divine miracle that I wouldn't have
(32:35):
had all the symptoms that I had. But because I
was in my brain saying every time I go and
try to memorize the Bible, this happens, I'm I'm looking
out for it.
Speaker 2 (32:48):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (32:50):
Well, let's go ahead and close with our blessing and benediction.
May the Lord open the eyes of your heart and
fill you with wisdom in the inmost places. May the
Glorious Father grant you this spirit of wisdom and revelation,
so you may know Christ, who has become for us
wisdom from God. In the areas of your life in
need of guidance, May God grant you his wisdom and abundance,
(33:10):
so that you will not lean on your own insight,
but rely on the full ridges of complete understanding, which
are yours in abundance through Christ and her.
Speaker 3 (33:18):
Benediction comes from Psalm one thirty four, verse three. May
the Lord bless you from Zion, he who made heaven
and earth. Amen, we'd like to take just a quick
second to thank the team at life Audio for their
partnership with us on the podcast. If you go to
lifeaudio dot com you will find dozens of other faith
(33:40):
centered podcasts in their network.
Speaker 2 (33:41):
They've got shows about.
Speaker 3 (33:42):
Prayer, Bible study, parenting, and so much more. That's lifeaudio
dot com.
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