April 14, 2021 • 28 mins
In this episode, Matt takes a hard look at faith and how it can be our greatest asset but also our greatest enemy to a life well-lived.
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Things Discussed In Episode:
- Love and Responsibility by Karol Wojtyla
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Matt (00:00):
In my nearly 15 years of teaching.
There's one particular storythat I give as an illustration
to teach an important pointabout faith, the importance of
faith.
Now you may be thinking, wait,I'm not a spiritual person,
faith doesn't pertain to me.
Yes, it does.
Because whether you're a personof spirituality or not faith
imbues every part of our life.
(00:22):
And this is why it's animportant episode today, because
I've seen.
The vexes of faith and how hasdestroyed relationships and
destroyed individuals.
And I want to stop that fromhappening.
And my 15 years, I've noticed aparticular pattern with certain
types of faith that I see asinspiring and wonderful.
And there's other kinds of faiththat really draw me away.
(00:43):
And I want to talk about thisidea of faith and how we can
truly live a more faithful lifethat brings purpose mean and
fulfillment to our life.
So let's start with thisillustration, the story they
share with my students to conveya point about faith, the basic
elements of faith, say it is anice cold blizzardy night.
(01:05):
In Colorado.
And I am desiring a nice hot cupof hot chocolate.
I turned to my wife and I askedher, Hey, do we have any hot
chocolate in the kitchen?
She says, yes, absolutely.
It's in the cupboard left of thefridge.
So I go in open the cupboard,nothing there cupboard after
cupboard, after cupboard, I lookfor this hot chocolate,
desperate for a warm velvety cupof hot chocolate.
(01:25):
And there's nothing there.
I scour even the drawers.
I go back to my wife and say,look, there's no hot chocolate.
I don't know where it's at.
She tells me no, no, no.
There is.
I'll go get it.
She goes in the kitchen.
Handful of minutes later, shecomes back and there it is a hot
cup of hot chocolate.
Now what's my response response.
(01:46):
A Oh my gosh.
I couldn't find, I have no ideawhere it was.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you so much.
I'm so excited that response offaith.
B wait a minute.
How do I not know?
That you went in the kitchen sawfor yourself.
There was no hot chocolatetexted your best friend
immediately who lived nearby,who went to Starbucks, got hot
(02:08):
chocolate knocked on the windowin the kitchen.
Secretly gave you the hotchocolate.
You put it into a mug, broughtit to me as if we had hot
chocolate to prove a point thatyou were right.
And I was wrong.
Now the first option, we'llprobably at least keep my
relationship as status quo.
The second one, for sure.
That is not by faith, butbasically prove it to me is
(02:28):
going to be absolutely toxicdestructive and is true.
My live relationship, eitherlean towards divorce or at least
I'm no longer living there.
Same room with my wife.
That's the important faith.
And how it plays the part of ourlife now, because faith is such
a part of our life.
I also think is a very dangerousreality.
I don't want to talk about thetwo problems I have seen today
(02:49):
in today's episode about faithand how we can do six things to
help us live more faithful lifein the relationships around us,
to ourselves.
And if you do practice a form ofspirituality, even in the
context of God, so let's getgoing.
My name is Matt Boettger.
Welcome to living the real, Ihope this week.
Is the most real life possiblefor you yet?
Okay, let's get going.
(03:16):
Are you living the most reallife possible?
I ask myself this question allthe time.
Most of the time, the answer isI just don't know, but sometimes
the answer is definitely not.
This is why I have this podcast.
I'm Matt Boettger and welcome tothe show.
Two small things.
If you get a chance, pleaseleave a review like on Apple
podcasts and also check out mywebsite, live in the real.com
(03:40):
where I offer lots of resourceson how to live the most real
life possible now on with theshow.
So let's get right to it andtalk about what I see are the
two fundamental problems aboutfaith.
The first one I seen, and thisis a recent.
Discovery.
And that is that I see wherefaith is.
(04:02):
Everything to someone that's adanger.
Faith should never be everythingto someone.
Rather, I think the betterapproach of faith is this idea
by which we bring our faith toeverything big difference.
Let it not be that our faith iseverything, but rather we bring
(04:24):
our faith.
To everything.
We're an unpacked a little bit.
It was a big distinction.
When we make our faith,everything, our faith becomes
impermeable, this likeimpermeable bubble and it's can
become the disconnected fromlife.
If you know anything from livingthe realness podcast, it's all
about how do we live the mostreal life.
And it's through a lens ofdiscovery.
(04:45):
And when our faith becomeseverything, we create a
separation from our faith andthe world.
Within again, a world becomesour adversary.
And we'll talk about more aboutthis in just a few minutes.
And the second probably want tounpack today is this idea that
we think we're living a life offaith when we're really living a
life of belief.
(05:07):
Okay.
So what's the difference.
It's actually pretty big now, ofcourse, this is coming from the
English language where we canhave these different nouns and
we can use them differently.
Belief is about this idea bywhich the subject is me and
individual and the object isanother object.
I can believe that Tahiti existseither.
(05:30):
Been there.
I've seen pictures and it's waytoo.
Good to be true.
It's like a unicorn.
It's gorgeous.
I've never been there, but Ibelieve it exists because
there's been enough pictures andI've had friends who've
witnessed going there on theirhoneymoon and have come back
with pictures that are similarto the ones I see on Google.
So I believe that to Hedy existsfaith on the other hand is
(05:51):
different faith is this idea bywhich the faith that subject is
me again, but the object is aanother person, not a thing.
I have faith in my wife.
I believe she can do so manygreat things.
And I have faith in my wife andthe danger is that we think we
live a life of faith when reallyit is one of belief.
(06:16):
So what's a consequence ofliving a life of belief over
that of faith.
When you live a life of beliefwithin faith, when you believe,
and you think it's faith, thenyour belief is function or
performance base.
It's off the things that theydo, not in the actual person,
the consequence we engage ourideas about the person, rather
than the person itself, ourexpectations become the gold
(06:38):
standard and measure the qualityof the relationship versus the
actual person itself.
It becomes a quantifiablerelationship.
We think we have faith in Sambareacting, according to belief
and unpack this in a little bitmore, just in a few minutes for
faith.
When the OD is a person it's nowbased on trust, connection based
(07:03):
it's connection focused, and theconsequence we engage the person
itself, and our experiencebecomes the gold standard, not
our expectations.
At all.
It reminds me of a reallypowerful quote that I want to
share with you from thisincredible philosopher,
theologian, Carol I read thisbook, love and responsibility.
(07:23):
One of the most influentialbooks of my life, love and
responsibility.
Page one 35.
He says this in the context oflove, and it's a little meaty.
So hang on to this, but thisexplains what it looks like when
you have faith in someone overthat of belief.
Here's the quote.
We'd love the person completewith all his or her virtues and
(07:43):
faults and up to a pointindependently of those virtues.
And in spite of those faults,the strength of such a love
emerges most clearly when thebeloved person stumbles when his
or her weaknesses or even sinscome into the open.
One who truly loves to not thenwithdraw his love, but loves all
(08:04):
the more loves and fullconsciousness of the other
shortcomings and faults.
And without an Elise approvingof them.
Now here's the key line for thequote, listen to this for the
person as such, never loses itsessential value.
The emotion,
which
attaches itself to the value of the person remains
loyal to the human being.
(08:25):
Now that is me.
We could spend this whole hourunpacking this, but we're not
the gist of this is the ideathat faith is this idea that
surpasses the function of theperson and attaches it to the
person itself unconditionallyand that's faith.
And the danger I've seen is thatpeople think they live a life of
faith.
(08:46):
But as our belief, it'sfunctional.
It's duck trying not about thethings within the person.
And I want to talk about how wecan untwist this reality in live
a deep faithful life.
Whether it's spirituality oryour mother or father, or your
spouse, or your friends that youlive a life of faith in them,
(09:08):
rather than believe in thethings they do that they do.
And again, so many people I'veseen turned their faith into
belief and make it insular.
And so it begins to atrophy,deep personalizes and becomes
hard into the mystery of lifelove.
And even God.
Now I want to make this note ofclarification.
So you're probably thinking thenwhat's the difference between
(09:29):
faith trust?
It sounds similar.
And the, our trust is aboutcredibility.
It's about this idea of lookingat someone maybe from a neutral
lens or not a neutral lens andseeing what they do when they
become trustworthy.
And now you trust them.
But of course at any point intime, that trust can be revoked
very quickly by looking at whatthey do to measure whether
(09:51):
they're trustworthy, faith, nolonger seeks credibility and
begins to interpret life throughthe lens of the quote above this
idea that it sees the value ofthe person, whether they stumble
or fall or hurt you, they stillattach greatly to the value of
the person.
They don't just withdraw theirlove.
Then they lean in all the morethat's faith.
(10:13):
Each violation.
Each hurt is interpreted throughthe, to the Goodwill and remains
loyal to him or her.
Instead of responding throughsuspicion through a hurt, we
like, man, I was expecting thisfrom them.
They did this to me.
There's a difference betweenwhat I expected and what
happened.
And I feel that as you've heardin other episodes of that gap
(10:34):
with Goodwill, that's a life offaith in someone.
Because it remains loyal to theperson, your mom, her dad.
So trust is a raw material offaith, as it should never be
blind.
Now I'm not advocating faith tobe blind.
That leads to harmfulrelationships and religious
cults, right?
The opposite of faith is notdoubt, but rather suspicion.
(10:57):
And so we begin to cultivatetrust in someone and eventually
maybe they become sotrustworthy.
We begin to take to the nextlevel, which is now faith.
And in the same way, trust canbe revoked.
So can faith, but faith is assurrender to a person that you
trust.
We no longer examine what theydo in scrutinize it.
We actually fill it withGoodwill.
(11:20):
That's faith.
It's powerful.
But how many times do weexchange faith with belief?
And we're constantly examiningthem and judging them by their
acts.
See whether they're credible forour life.
I think a great example of this.
If you want, illustration isdating.
I work on a college campus and Iseen this all over the place
(11:42):
that when a guy and a gal gettogether and start dating,
they're the perfect example ofwhich faith becomes everything
to them.
I see this over and over wherethe two couple come together.
I've done it to my own life andit's really a terrible habit to
be in.
And your world becomes soimmeshed with the person that
you're just infatuated with the,you drop all of your hobbies.
(12:03):
All of your friends, maybe evenyour school, which is dangerous.
And you just immerse yourself inthat relationship that you just
discovered.
That is the best example I cangive of this idea when faith
becomes everything.
And so now you've revoked yourentire lifestyle, your habits of
life, and changed themdramatically.
(12:23):
Just spin with this personyou're infatuated with it is
such a dangerous road to go onfor tons of reasons.
Because now you're no longerallowing that person that you
really, really interested in tosee you in the context of your
life.
That's an important measurementto see, Oh, would I be
compatible with this person byincorporating their life into my
(12:46):
life?
But you don't.
You simply just immerse yourselfin revoke everything.
And then finally, when thingsget quote old, you now want to
go back to your normal habits,which actually can cause a rift
in the relationship because nowyou look like a different
person.
What you used to be is always atthe person's apartment, always
be with them.
Now you went out with yourbuddies while you went with your
buddies.
You're no longer like me.
You see all these problems beganto surface.
(13:09):
They don't get to see your lifeand see weather.
Oh my gosh.
I would love to be a part oftheir life.
I love their life or, you knowwhat, gosh, I, I'm not really a
big fan of their friends or whatthey do.
These are important things.
And that's like when you immerseyourself, when faith is
everything you revoke the worldand the world no longer becomes
an advocate to help you informyour faith and grow your faith.
(13:32):
So in the same way thatrelationships need to be tested,
how they're tested is byincorporating not only your life
with them, but your hobbies andyour friends and your career and
your education and your family,all of that is part of you that
needs to be used for discernmentand understanding and the same
thing for faith.
(13:52):
So the antidote to the abovestory is to practice bringing
our faith to everything.
And like in the same way that wewant to bring our girlfriend or
a friend, everything in ourlife, same thing we want to do
in a practice idea of bringingour faith to everything.
So what does that look like?
How does that differ?
We need to make a couple ofnotes that are important that
both faith and love overlaptremendously because both have
(14:15):
the person as an object.
A second really important noteabout faith is that there is no
such thing as absolute evil.
Or badness that doesn't exist.
Just like the same sense thatthere is no such thing as
darkness, not a substance.
It's an absence of light thatwhich is bad and evil and all
these things in the world is notsomething that's actually a
(14:36):
thing that exists.
It's a deprivation, a lackthereof, like a balloon not
filled up all the way.
And like the darkness is not asubstance.
It's just an absence of light.
So faith acts like thisspotlight on the world,
revealing meaning and purposelight, and the dark parts of
life and makes the bright spotsof life even brighter.
(14:56):
The purpose of faith is to lookand see life and bring into
life, to see the powerfulmeaning and purpose of life.
Allowing faith to interpret theworld around you through the
lens of faith.
It's the matrix, right?
All since seen the zeros and theones, and you see things
differently and it's a powerfulreality.
And it allows the world on theother side, the flip side to
(15:17):
inform, to correct, to untwist,to deepen and to mature our own
faith.
And we bring faith to the worldaround us.
We move from passive to activefaith.
Through that principle ofdiscovery.
We discover commonality betweenus and even the midst of
fundamentally different lensesof faith.
(15:39):
We discover our own shortcomingsin our faith life and presented
with an opportunity to deepen,grow mature, our faith, and it
fuels community-based faith.
It does.
What do I mean by this?
Because the opposite of this,when our faith becomes
everything, we live out of whatI call sympathetic faith.
Which basically means mutualexperience.
(16:00):
We have our own bubble.
We gather the people around uswho think and feel differently
and we keep everyone out and itbecomes this passive built
reality of nothing more thanshared experiences, which is
really just self absorption.
You just get other people aroundyou who share the same
experience of you.
It's a very passive reality.
It's not active.
Is this you both mutuallyexperienced the same kind of
(16:22):
feelings about certain things.
And we get upset with those whoexperiences do not align with
our faith life.
We simply just throw them out.
We get, we, we pushed them outof our life and it becomes very
narcissistic and turns into afight faith in ourselves.
So that sympathetic faith, thatmutual experience slowly moves.
What I believe in to tribalisticfaith, which is different from
(16:46):
community faith, which youmentioned above this idea that
we're all together in thismutual experience against the
world.
It's commonalities about mutualanger and frustration.
Have you seen this?
I've seen this all over theplace.
It's hard to witness becausepart of these people are part of
my faith community, but yet it'snot the way I want to live my
(17:06):
life.
So this idea that we need tobring our faith to the world,
because it expands our abilityto have a deeper faith life and
matures our faith and expandsour faith.
And deepens our faith.
And I'll give you a powerfulstory by which it did that to me
in my own life, a number ofyears ago.
(17:26):
And the second air is this ideathat when belief becomes the
priority over faith inrelationships, I think it's a
great metaphor.
Is this idea of connect thedots, drawing that I see my sons
doing every once in a while withconnect the dots, you have the
dots with the numbers and theboys have to then go and follow
the numbers through the dots tocreate this.
Portrait this image that you seeof an animal or a cartoon
(17:49):
character.
And when it comes to this ideaof belief, and faith beliefs are
like those little dots, thoselittle Dodges, little concrete
anchors that show concreteelements of this page, but it's
all it is.
They're points of reference andfaith are the lines that connect
the dots without faith.
(18:10):
The paper remains scattered dotsacross the page.
But we're phase reveals thebeauty, the image, the meaning,
the purpose, the person behindthe dots believe focuses on the
dots.
The things that people do, faithfocuses on a line between the
dots, which reveals the persontrust is grounded on a series of
(18:32):
beliefs, grounded in dotcredibility.
Faith is not even considereddots.
And places, the confidence inthe person for being that person
now, again, not at a blindfaith, but because you've
established a relationship, youdon't have faith in someone
you've never met before you meetthem.
You become acquaintances youincrease trust and maybe at some
(18:53):
time it becomes a person offaith.
You are faithful to them.
Go again, go back to Carol.
was quoted as mentioned fromlove and responsibility.
This idea that even the midst ofa heart.
Even the midst of a difficultsituation of a hurt of a
transgression of an offense.
We actually lean into therelationship because we're
faithful to it because theemotion, my desire remains
(19:17):
faithful to the value of theperson, not their production.
This is a life of faith.
It's hard to get there.
This is why many people considerthese supernatural virtue.
Now I understand that some ofyou may not have faith in
something beyond that, of thevisible and empirical world.
My invitation to you is simplydiscovering the indispensably of
(19:38):
faith for fulfillment ingeneral.
As I suggested earlier, withoutfaith, all relationships end
without faith, love dies.
Without faith discoveries areplaced with the term
determination and control andwithout faith suspicion becomes
the virtue of the day.
Because faith is seeking theperson for the person's sake.
(20:02):
Now, my hall of fame storyrevolves around my time at
Starbucks.
This was decades ago.
I maybe 15, 16, 17 years agowhen I worked at Starbucks, this
was an incredible moment for mebecause I was a person still in
a person of faith.
And the environment I worked inwas very diverse and people with
(20:23):
all different types of faith,life and beliefs.
And those are some of my bestdays by which I felt like I was
the most faithful to my ownspiritual practice and my
beliefs.
Why?
Because I brought my faith tothat world and they knew what I
stood for, what I believed inand I was true to it and they
(20:45):
were true to me and it reallydeepened my faith life and it
profoundly deepened myrelationships because they were
not shallow.
Cause in the midst of strongdisagreement, we still
profoundly appreciate each otherand love each other.
And in fact, this is hard for meto say, because this just shows,
it reveals a number of things,but I know to this day, if I
(21:06):
needed something.
From one of them, even though Ihaven't really talked to them in
over 15 years, Claire clean,Rissa Stephanie van, Kathy,
Diane, Spencer, Trevor, Heidi,Shannon, Kristen, the names go
on and on.
If I needed something today andI reached out to them, I know
that a doubt they'd be there tohelp me.
And I'm not sure I'm convincedthat's with all my people around
(21:29):
me today.
That's fascinating though.
We thought very differentlyabout issues.
We're still able to profoundlylove each other and appreciate
each other.
And man, my faith was big anddeep, then both in my
spirituality and in therelationships around me.
On the other side, I have anegative story and there were,
why was a time of when I wasreally zealous and faithful
(21:51):
about my relationship andspirituality.
And I went to my sister-in-lawat the time and talked to her
about it and how incredible itwas and how she was wrong.
And I was right.
And I remember by the time I wasdone that conversation, she told
me.
You're the single reason why Inever want to become what you
are, man, that hit hard.
And that's a person that is aperfect illustration of someone
(22:15):
who has their life and Liz bytheir faith life and it's
everything to them because theycouldn't even see the person
before me.
All I was trying to do is win aflipping argument and not be
expanded by her horizons andbuild a, see her own faith life
and how it's different frommine.
And if I went down thatdirection of discovery, how
(22:37):
different maybe thatconversation would have gone.
So I encourage you to look anddo some examination and see by
which is faith, everything, ordo you bring your faith to
everything?
And are you living a life offaith?
That's really just a belief oryou're really making that hard
struggle to live a life offaith.
(22:59):
Faithfulness to your mom or yourdad or spouse, or your
girlfriend, or a boyfriend,brother, your sister, or
whatever it may be.
And so I have six things I wantto share with you to help you
right now.
Be able to increase yourcapacity, to bring your faith to
the world and live more of alife of faith or than a life of
belief.
Number one, for talking aboutbringing your faith to the
(23:21):
world.
Is I really challenge you thatif you do live in a bubble to
experience someone who has avery different faith life than
you and discover still whatunites the both of you, what
brings things in common?
Number two, have oneconversation, a real
conversation with someone whohas a different set of beliefs
than you, and really lean intothe differences.
(23:44):
The first one is all aboutfinding commonality, even the
midst of difference.
The second one is leading inthis idea of difference in
leaning into it and allowing itto be unsettling, but still be
able to embrace the person.
The midst of the strongdifferences in belief do not
resort to unhelpful and areasonable statements like, ah,
(24:04):
love is love and no big deal,but really unpack the
differences between the two ofyou.
And at the end celebrate thefact that you're still wonderful
friends or acquaintances andenjoy life together.
Third one.
Become friends with people whobelieve, or have a faith
different from you.
This is not just a one-stopshop.
(24:25):
This is muni to find friends whohave a different outlook on the
way.
Life is different sets ofbelief, different faith life.
It's indispensable because weneed to live a faith seeking,
understanding, and notnarcissism on the context of
belief versus faith.
Striving to live a life of faithover that.
A belief.
(24:46):
Step one is to really, as Imentioned before, in previous
episodes to fill this gapbetween experience expectation
with Goodwill, when weexperienced something from
someone, a conflict with someonethat we don't go into, amazed
suspicion that we begin toapproach it through the benefit
of doubt.
It doesn't mean we still don'tconfront them.
(25:08):
Of course, we try to confrontthem and I struggle with this
confronting them.
But we do it in less criticalway.
And from the framework of givingthem the benefit of the doubt, I
know you never would have meantthis, but this is how it felt to
me.
What's going on, right?
The benefit of the doubt thatleaning into faith and not
belief in the context ofdisagreement.
(25:30):
If you have a tendency toretreat during times of
conflict, disagreement, rejectthe tendency and lean into the
relationship itself, understandwhy they believe what they
believe for the sake ofconnecting.
Th thank them for their courageto share what they shared,
because they probably, it wasprobably uncomfortable for them
and tell them you do disagreeand that doesn't change your
(25:51):
appreciation for sharing whatthey shared.
Don't just let it slide, butembrace disagreement and embrace
conflict.
And finally, the last one.
Participate in difference,enthusiastically participate in
a hobby, joy, or someone, whichyou may not like to participate
(26:11):
in.
This expands our capacity toreally live a life of
faithfulness, to someone, notjust engaging them for mutual
experience that we bought a guy,we would like this.
We both like Thien the Marvelmovies, but engaging them on a
level by which maybe you have nointerest.
But because it's an interest tothem again, then you want to
(26:35):
dissipate in it because youdon't, you care less about the
event, the hobby, theextracurricular activity, but
about them.
And so it brings them life.
And so it brings you life.
You see a distinction.
One is again, practicing a setof beliefs.
One is leaning into faith andbeing faithful to a friend.
(26:56):
And Dean fatal to a friend meansit means being part of their
life, even when it's not fun foryou.
So I hope this episode washelpful.
I hope it opened up your eyes tothe difference between faith and
belief in seeing a world bywhich we bring our faith to the
world and how expansive it isand how it can change our life
(27:16):
and bring greater fulfillment toit.
I hope you have a wonderful weekand I'll see you next episode,
take care and bye-bye thank you.
Listen to this episode of livingthe real.
If you want to check out moreinformation, go to living the
real.com and sign up for mynewsletter.
If you want to support thispodcast, you do that at
patrion.com/ltr as well as onetime.
(27:39):
Payments at Venmo and PayPal inthe show notes.
See you all next episode.
Take care.
Bye-bye.
In my nearly 15 years of teaching.
There's one particular storythat I give as an illustration
to teach an important pointabout faith, the importance of
faith.
Now you may be thinking, wait,I'm not a spiritual person,
faith doesn't pertain to me.
Yes, it does.
Because whether you're a personof spirituality or not faith
imbues every part of our life.
(00:22):
And this is why it's animportant episode today, because
I've seen.
The vexes of faith and how hasdestroyed relationships and
destroyed individuals.
And I want to stop that fromhappening.
And my 15 years, I've noticed aparticular pattern with certain
types of faith that I see asinspiring and wonderful.
And there's other kinds of faiththat really draw me away.
(00:43):
And I want to talk about thisidea of faith and how we can
truly live a more faithful lifethat brings purpose mean and
fulfillment to our life.
So let's start with thisillustration, the story they
share with my students to conveya point about faith, the basic
elements of faith, say it is anice cold blizzardy night.
(01:05):
In Colorado.
And I am desiring a nice hot cupof hot chocolate.
I turned to my wife and I askedher, Hey, do we have any hot
chocolate in the kitchen?
She says, yes, absolutely.
It's in the cupboard left of thefridge.
So I go in open the cupboard,nothing there cupboard after
cupboard, after cupboard, I lookfor this hot chocolate,
desperate for a warm velvety cupof hot chocolate.
(01:25):
And there's nothing there.
I scour even the drawers.
I go back to my wife and say,look, there's no hot chocolate.
I don't know where it's at.
She tells me no, no, no.
There is.
I'll go get it.
She goes in the kitchen.
Handful of minutes later, shecomes back and there it is a hot
cup of hot chocolate.
Now what's my response response.
(01:46):
A Oh my gosh.
I couldn't find, I have no ideawhere it was.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you so much.
I'm so excited that response offaith.
B wait a minute.
How do I not know?
That you went in the kitchen sawfor yourself.
There was no hot chocolatetexted your best friend
immediately who lived nearby,who went to Starbucks, got hot
(02:08):
chocolate knocked on the windowin the kitchen.
Secretly gave you the hotchocolate.
You put it into a mug, broughtit to me as if we had hot
chocolate to prove a point thatyou were right.
And I was wrong.
Now the first option, we'llprobably at least keep my
relationship as status quo.
The second one, for sure.
That is not by faith, butbasically prove it to me is
(02:28):
going to be absolutely toxicdestructive and is true.
My live relationship, eitherlean towards divorce or at least
I'm no longer living there.
Same room with my wife.
That's the important faith.
And how it plays the part of ourlife now, because faith is such
a part of our life.
I also think is a very dangerousreality.
I don't want to talk about thetwo problems I have seen today
(02:49):
in today's episode about faithand how we can do six things to
help us live more faithful lifein the relationships around us,
to ourselves.
And if you do practice a form ofspirituality, even in the
context of God, so let's getgoing.
My name is Matt Boettger.
Welcome to living the real, Ihope this week.
Is the most real life possiblefor you yet?
Okay, let's get going.
(03:16):
Are you living the most reallife possible?
I ask myself this question allthe time.
Most of the time, the answer isI just don't know, but sometimes
the answer is definitely not.
This is why I have this podcast.
I'm Matt Boettger and welcome tothe show.
Two small things.
If you get a chance, pleaseleave a review like on Apple
podcasts and also check out mywebsite, live in the real.com
(03:40):
where I offer lots of resourceson how to live the most real
life possible now on with theshow.
So let's get right to it andtalk about what I see are the
two fundamental problems aboutfaith.
The first one I seen, and thisis a recent.
Discovery.
And that is that I see wherefaith is.
(04:02):
Everything to someone that's adanger.
Faith should never be everythingto someone.
Rather, I think the betterapproach of faith is this idea
by which we bring our faith toeverything big difference.
Let it not be that our faith iseverything, but rather we bring
(04:24):
our faith.
To everything.
We're an unpacked a little bit.
It was a big distinction.
When we make our faith,everything, our faith becomes
impermeable, this likeimpermeable bubble and it's can
become the disconnected fromlife.
If you know anything from livingthe realness podcast, it's all
about how do we live the mostreal life.
And it's through a lens ofdiscovery.
(04:45):
And when our faith becomeseverything, we create a
separation from our faith andthe world.
Within again, a world becomesour adversary.
And we'll talk about more aboutthis in just a few minutes.
And the second probably want tounpack today is this idea that
we think we're living a life offaith when we're really living a
life of belief.
(05:07):
Okay.
So what's the difference.
It's actually pretty big now, ofcourse, this is coming from the
English language where we canhave these different nouns and
we can use them differently.
Belief is about this idea bywhich the subject is me and
individual and the object isanother object.
I can believe that Tahiti existseither.
(05:30):
Been there.
I've seen pictures and it's waytoo.
Good to be true.
It's like a unicorn.
It's gorgeous.
I've never been there, but Ibelieve it exists because
there's been enough pictures andI've had friends who've
witnessed going there on theirhoneymoon and have come back
with pictures that are similarto the ones I see on Google.
So I believe that to Hedy existsfaith on the other hand is
(05:51):
different faith is this idea bywhich the faith that subject is
me again, but the object is aanother person, not a thing.
I have faith in my wife.
I believe she can do so manygreat things.
And I have faith in my wife andthe danger is that we think we
live a life of faith when reallyit is one of belief.
(06:16):
So what's a consequence ofliving a life of belief over
that of faith.
When you live a life of beliefwithin faith, when you believe,
and you think it's faith, thenyour belief is function or
performance base.
It's off the things that theydo, not in the actual person,
the consequence we engage ourideas about the person, rather
than the person itself, ourexpectations become the gold
(06:38):
standard and measure the qualityof the relationship versus the
actual person itself.
It becomes a quantifiablerelationship.
We think we have faith in Sambareacting, according to belief
and unpack this in a little bitmore, just in a few minutes for
faith.
When the OD is a person it's nowbased on trust, connection based
(07:03):
it's connection focused, and theconsequence we engage the person
itself, and our experiencebecomes the gold standard, not
our expectations.
At all.
It reminds me of a reallypowerful quote that I want to
share with you from thisincredible philosopher,
theologian, Carol I read thisbook, love and responsibility.
(07:23):
One of the most influentialbooks of my life, love and
responsibility.
Page one 35.
He says this in the context oflove, and it's a little meaty.
So hang on to this, but thisexplains what it looks like when
you have faith in someone overthat of belief.
Here's the quote.
We'd love the person completewith all his or her virtues and
(07:43):
faults and up to a pointindependently of those virtues.
And in spite of those faults,the strength of such a love
emerges most clearly when thebeloved person stumbles when his
or her weaknesses or even sinscome into the open.
One who truly loves to not thenwithdraw his love, but loves all
(08:04):
the more loves and fullconsciousness of the other
shortcomings and faults.
And without an Elise approvingof them.
Now here's the key line for thequote, listen to this for the
person as such, never loses itsessential value.
The emotion,
which
attaches itself to the value of the person remains
loyal to the human being.
(08:25):
Now that is me.
We could spend this whole hourunpacking this, but we're not
the gist of this is the ideathat faith is this idea that
surpasses the function of theperson and attaches it to the
person itself unconditionallyand that's faith.
And the danger I've seen is thatpeople think they live a life of
faith.
(08:46):
But as our belief, it'sfunctional.
It's duck trying not about thethings within the person.
And I want to talk about how wecan untwist this reality in live
a deep faithful life.
Whether it's spirituality oryour mother or father, or your
spouse, or your friends that youlive a life of faith in them,
(09:08):
rather than believe in thethings they do that they do.
And again, so many people I'veseen turned their faith into
belief and make it insular.
And so it begins to atrophy,deep personalizes and becomes
hard into the mystery of lifelove.
And even God.
Now I want to make this note ofclarification.
So you're probably thinking thenwhat's the difference between
(09:29):
faith trust?
It sounds similar.
And the, our trust is aboutcredibility.
It's about this idea of lookingat someone maybe from a neutral
lens or not a neutral lens andseeing what they do when they
become trustworthy.
And now you trust them.
But of course at any point intime, that trust can be revoked
very quickly by looking at whatthey do to measure whether
(09:51):
they're trustworthy, faith, nolonger seeks credibility and
begins to interpret life throughthe lens of the quote above this
idea that it sees the value ofthe person, whether they stumble
or fall or hurt you, they stillattach greatly to the value of
the person.
They don't just withdraw theirlove.
Then they lean in all the morethat's faith.
(10:13):
Each violation.
Each hurt is interpreted throughthe, to the Goodwill and remains
loyal to him or her.
Instead of responding throughsuspicion through a hurt, we
like, man, I was expecting thisfrom them.
They did this to me.
There's a difference betweenwhat I expected and what
happened.
And I feel that as you've heardin other episodes of that gap
(10:34):
with Goodwill, that's a life offaith in someone.
Because it remains loyal to theperson, your mom, her dad.
So trust is a raw material offaith, as it should never be
blind.
Now I'm not advocating faith tobe blind.
That leads to harmfulrelationships and religious
cults, right?
The opposite of faith is notdoubt, but rather suspicion.
(10:57):
And so we begin to cultivatetrust in someone and eventually
maybe they become sotrustworthy.
We begin to take to the nextlevel, which is now faith.
And in the same way, trust canbe revoked.
So can faith, but faith is assurrender to a person that you
trust.
We no longer examine what theydo in scrutinize it.
We actually fill it withGoodwill.
(11:20):
That's faith.
It's powerful.
But how many times do weexchange faith with belief?
And we're constantly examiningthem and judging them by their
acts.
See whether they're credible forour life.
I think a great example of this.
If you want, illustration isdating.
I work on a college campus and Iseen this all over the place
(11:42):
that when a guy and a gal gettogether and start dating,
they're the perfect example ofwhich faith becomes everything
to them.
I see this over and over wherethe two couple come together.
I've done it to my own life andit's really a terrible habit to
be in.
And your world becomes soimmeshed with the person that
you're just infatuated with the,you drop all of your hobbies.
(12:03):
All of your friends, maybe evenyour school, which is dangerous.
And you just immerse yourself inthat relationship that you just
discovered.
That is the best example I cangive of this idea when faith
becomes everything.
And so now you've revoked yourentire lifestyle, your habits of
life, and changed themdramatically.
(12:23):
Just spin with this personyou're infatuated with it is
such a dangerous road to go onfor tons of reasons.
Because now you're no longerallowing that person that you
really, really interested in tosee you in the context of your
life.
That's an important measurementto see, Oh, would I be
compatible with this person byincorporating their life into my
(12:46):
life?
But you don't.
You simply just immerse yourselfin revoke everything.
And then finally, when thingsget quote old, you now want to
go back to your normal habits,which actually can cause a rift
in the relationship because nowyou look like a different
person.
What you used to be is always atthe person's apartment, always
be with them.
Now you went out with yourbuddies while you went with your
buddies.
You're no longer like me.
You see all these problems beganto surface.
(13:09):
They don't get to see your lifeand see weather.
Oh my gosh.
I would love to be a part oftheir life.
I love their life or, you knowwhat, gosh, I, I'm not really a
big fan of their friends or whatthey do.
These are important things.
And that's like when you immerseyourself, when faith is
everything you revoke the worldand the world no longer becomes
an advocate to help you informyour faith and grow your faith.
(13:32):
So in the same way thatrelationships need to be tested,
how they're tested is byincorporating not only your life
with them, but your hobbies andyour friends and your career and
your education and your family,all of that is part of you that
needs to be used for discernmentand understanding and the same
thing for faith.
(13:52):
So the antidote to the abovestory is to practice bringing
our faith to everything.
And like in the same way that wewant to bring our girlfriend or
a friend, everything in ourlife, same thing we want to do
in a practice idea of bringingour faith to everything.
So what does that look like?
How does that differ?
We need to make a couple ofnotes that are important that
both faith and love overlaptremendously because both have
(14:15):
the person as an object.
A second really important noteabout faith is that there is no
such thing as absolute evil.
Or badness that doesn't exist.
Just like the same sense thatthere is no such thing as
darkness, not a substance.
It's an absence of light thatwhich is bad and evil and all
these things in the world is notsomething that's actually a
(14:36):
thing that exists.
It's a deprivation, a lackthereof, like a balloon not
filled up all the way.
And like the darkness is not asubstance.
It's just an absence of light.
So faith acts like thisspotlight on the world,
revealing meaning and purposelight, and the dark parts of
life and makes the bright spotsof life even brighter.
(14:56):
The purpose of faith is to lookand see life and bring into
life, to see the powerfulmeaning and purpose of life.
Allowing faith to interpret theworld around you through the
lens of faith.
It's the matrix, right?
All since seen the zeros and theones, and you see things
differently and it's a powerfulreality.
And it allows the world on theother side, the flip side to
(15:17):
inform, to correct, to untwist,to deepen and to mature our own
faith.
And we bring faith to the worldaround us.
We move from passive to activefaith.
Through that principle ofdiscovery.
We discover commonality betweenus and even the midst of
fundamentally different lensesof faith.
(15:39):
We discover our own shortcomingsin our faith life and presented
with an opportunity to deepen,grow mature, our faith, and it
fuels community-based faith.
It does.
What do I mean by this?
Because the opposite of this,when our faith becomes
everything, we live out of whatI call sympathetic faith.
Which basically means mutualexperience.
(16:00):
We have our own bubble.
We gather the people around uswho think and feel differently
and we keep everyone out and itbecomes this passive built
reality of nothing more thanshared experiences, which is
really just self absorption.
You just get other people aroundyou who share the same
experience of you.
It's a very passive reality.
It's not active.
Is this you both mutuallyexperienced the same kind of
(16:22):
feelings about certain things.
And we get upset with those whoexperiences do not align with
our faith life.
We simply just throw them out.
We get, we, we pushed them outof our life and it becomes very
narcissistic and turns into afight faith in ourselves.
So that sympathetic faith, thatmutual experience slowly moves.
What I believe in to tribalisticfaith, which is different from
(16:46):
community faith, which youmentioned above this idea that
we're all together in thismutual experience against the
world.
It's commonalities about mutualanger and frustration.
Have you seen this?
I've seen this all over theplace.
It's hard to witness becausepart of these people are part of
my faith community, but yet it'snot the way I want to live my
(17:06):
life.
So this idea that we need tobring our faith to the world,
because it expands our abilityto have a deeper faith life and
matures our faith and expandsour faith.
And deepens our faith.
And I'll give you a powerfulstory by which it did that to me
in my own life, a number ofyears ago.
(17:26):
And the second air is this ideathat when belief becomes the
priority over faith inrelationships, I think it's a
great metaphor.
Is this idea of connect thedots, drawing that I see my sons
doing every once in a while withconnect the dots, you have the
dots with the numbers and theboys have to then go and follow
the numbers through the dots tocreate this.
Portrait this image that you seeof an animal or a cartoon
(17:49):
character.
And when it comes to this ideaof belief, and faith beliefs are
like those little dots, thoselittle Dodges, little concrete
anchors that show concreteelements of this page, but it's
all it is.
They're points of reference andfaith are the lines that connect
the dots without faith.
(18:10):
The paper remains scattered dotsacross the page.
But we're phase reveals thebeauty, the image, the meaning,
the purpose, the person behindthe dots believe focuses on the
dots.
The things that people do, faithfocuses on a line between the
dots, which reveals the persontrust is grounded on a series of
(18:32):
beliefs, grounded in dotcredibility.
Faith is not even considereddots.
And places, the confidence inthe person for being that person
now, again, not at a blindfaith, but because you've
established a relationship, youdon't have faith in someone
you've never met before you meetthem.
You become acquaintances youincrease trust and maybe at some
(18:53):
time it becomes a person offaith.
You are faithful to them.
Go again, go back to Carol.
was quoted as mentioned fromlove and responsibility.
This idea that even the midst ofa heart.
Even the midst of a difficultsituation of a hurt of a
transgression of an offense.
We actually lean into therelationship because we're
faithful to it because theemotion, my desire remains
(19:17):
faithful to the value of theperson, not their production.
This is a life of faith.
It's hard to get there.
This is why many people considerthese supernatural virtue.
Now I understand that some ofyou may not have faith in
something beyond that, of thevisible and empirical world.
My invitation to you is simplydiscovering the indispensably of
(19:38):
faith for fulfillment ingeneral.
As I suggested earlier, withoutfaith, all relationships end
without faith, love dies.
Without faith discoveries areplaced with the term
determination and control andwithout faith suspicion becomes
the virtue of the day.
Because faith is seeking theperson for the person's sake.
(20:02):
Now, my hall of fame storyrevolves around my time at
Starbucks.
This was decades ago.
I maybe 15, 16, 17 years agowhen I worked at Starbucks, this
was an incredible moment for mebecause I was a person still in
a person of faith.
And the environment I worked inwas very diverse and people with
(20:23):
all different types of faith,life and beliefs.
And those are some of my bestdays by which I felt like I was
the most faithful to my ownspiritual practice and my
beliefs.
Why?
Because I brought my faith tothat world and they knew what I
stood for, what I believed inand I was true to it and they
(20:45):
were true to me and it reallydeepened my faith life and it
profoundly deepened myrelationships because they were
not shallow.
Cause in the midst of strongdisagreement, we still
profoundly appreciate each otherand love each other.
And in fact, this is hard for meto say, because this just shows,
it reveals a number of things,but I know to this day, if I
(21:06):
needed something.
From one of them, even though Ihaven't really talked to them in
over 15 years, Claire clean,Rissa Stephanie van, Kathy,
Diane, Spencer, Trevor, Heidi,Shannon, Kristen, the names go
on and on.
If I needed something today andI reached out to them, I know
that a doubt they'd be there tohelp me.
And I'm not sure I'm convincedthat's with all my people around
(21:29):
me today.
That's fascinating though.
We thought very differentlyabout issues.
We're still able to profoundlylove each other and appreciate
each other.
And man, my faith was big anddeep, then both in my
spirituality and in therelationships around me.
On the other side, I have anegative story and there were,
why was a time of when I wasreally zealous and faithful
(21:51):
about my relationship andspirituality.
And I went to my sister-in-lawat the time and talked to her
about it and how incredible itwas and how she was wrong.
And I was right.
And I remember by the time I wasdone that conversation, she told
me.
You're the single reason why Inever want to become what you
are, man, that hit hard.
And that's a person that is aperfect illustration of someone
(22:15):
who has their life and Liz bytheir faith life and it's
everything to them because theycouldn't even see the person
before me.
All I was trying to do is win aflipping argument and not be
expanded by her horizons andbuild a, see her own faith life
and how it's different frommine.
And if I went down thatdirection of discovery, how
(22:37):
different maybe thatconversation would have gone.
So I encourage you to look anddo some examination and see by
which is faith, everything, ordo you bring your faith to
everything?
And are you living a life offaith?
That's really just a belief oryou're really making that hard
struggle to live a life offaith.
(22:59):
Faithfulness to your mom or yourdad or spouse, or your
girlfriend, or a boyfriend,brother, your sister, or
whatever it may be.
And so I have six things I wantto share with you to help you
right now.
Be able to increase yourcapacity, to bring your faith to
the world and live more of alife of faith or than a life of
belief.
Number one, for talking aboutbringing your faith to the
(23:21):
world.
Is I really challenge you thatif you do live in a bubble to
experience someone who has avery different faith life than
you and discover still whatunites the both of you, what
brings things in common?
Number two, have oneconversation, a real
conversation with someone whohas a different set of beliefs
than you, and really lean intothe differences.
(23:44):
The first one is all aboutfinding commonality, even the
midst of difference.
The second one is leading inthis idea of difference in
leaning into it and allowing itto be unsettling, but still be
able to embrace the person.
The midst of the strongdifferences in belief do not
resort to unhelpful and areasonable statements like, ah,
(24:04):
love is love and no big deal,but really unpack the
differences between the two ofyou.
And at the end celebrate thefact that you're still wonderful
friends or acquaintances andenjoy life together.
Third one.
Become friends with people whobelieve, or have a faith
different from you.
This is not just a one-stopshop.
(24:25):
This is muni to find friends whohave a different outlook on the
way.
Life is different sets ofbelief, different faith life.
It's indispensable because weneed to live a faith seeking,
understanding, and notnarcissism on the context of
belief versus faith.
Striving to live a life of faithover that.
A belief.
(24:46):
Step one is to really, as Imentioned before, in previous
episodes to fill this gapbetween experience expectation
with Goodwill, when weexperienced something from
someone, a conflict with someonethat we don't go into, amazed
suspicion that we begin toapproach it through the benefit
of doubt.
It doesn't mean we still don'tconfront them.
(25:08):
Of course, we try to confrontthem and I struggle with this
confronting them.
But we do it in less criticalway.
And from the framework of givingthem the benefit of the doubt, I
know you never would have meantthis, but this is how it felt to
me.
What's going on, right?
The benefit of the doubt thatleaning into faith and not
belief in the context ofdisagreement.
(25:30):
If you have a tendency toretreat during times of
conflict, disagreement, rejectthe tendency and lean into the
relationship itself, understandwhy they believe what they
believe for the sake ofconnecting.
Th thank them for their courageto share what they shared,
because they probably, it wasprobably uncomfortable for them
and tell them you do disagreeand that doesn't change your
(25:51):
appreciation for sharing whatthey shared.
Don't just let it slide, butembrace disagreement and embrace
conflict.
And finally, the last one.
Participate in difference,enthusiastically participate in
a hobby, joy, or someone, whichyou may not like to participate
(26:11):
in.
This expands our capacity toreally live a life of
faithfulness, to someone, notjust engaging them for mutual
experience that we bought a guy,we would like this.
We both like Thien the Marvelmovies, but engaging them on a
level by which maybe you have nointerest.
But because it's an interest tothem again, then you want to
(26:35):
dissipate in it because youdon't, you care less about the
event, the hobby, theextracurricular activity, but
about them.
And so it brings them life.
And so it brings you life.
You see a distinction.
One is again, practicing a setof beliefs.
One is leaning into faith andbeing faithful to a friend.
(26:56):
And Dean fatal to a friend meansit means being part of their
life, even when it's not fun foryou.
So I hope this episode washelpful.
I hope it opened up your eyes tothe difference between faith and
belief in seeing a world bywhich we bring our faith to the
world and how expansive it isand how it can change our life
(27:16):
and bring greater fulfillment toit.
I hope you have a wonderful weekand I'll see you next episode,
take care and bye-bye thank you.
Listen to this episode of livingthe real.
If you want to check out moreinformation, go to living the
real.com and sign up for mynewsletter.
If you want to support thispodcast, you do that at
patrion.com/ltr as well as onetime.
(27:39):
Payments at Venmo and PayPal inthe show notes.
See you all next episode.
Take care.
Bye-bye.
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