The Hidden Cost of Ambition: Balancing Faith, Family, and Personal Fulfillment

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welcome to the map.
Today we're diving into aconversation that will linger,
the kind that challenges us towrestle with who we are, why we
do what we do and how that allties into something greater than
just ourselves.
I'm joined by Ethan Bricker, aman who stepped away from the
stability of a sales career toembrace the unpredictable call
of full-time ministry theunpredictable call full-time

(00:22):
ministry.
Together, we peel back thelayers of identity, not just the
one that's stamped on yourbusiness card, but the one that
forced us to ask who are wereally meant to be?
We'll explore how choices echobeyond us, shaping not only our
lives but the generations tocome.
We'll unpack the healing powerof community, the tension

(00:42):
between technology as a pacifierand distraction, and the raw
courage it takes to confront ourfailures through confession and
repentance.
This isn't just a conversationabout faith.
It's about navigating life.
It's about stepping back fromthe noise to ask questions that
matter.
What do we inherit, what kindof legacy are we leaving, and

(01:03):
where do we find grace andforgiveness in a world that
seems to always ask for more?
So, whether you're here forstories or insights, or fresh
perspective, you're in the rightplace.
Grab a coffee, sell in and let'sget started let's go, that's

(01:28):
awesome yeah well, good morning,max for good morning on here
and we're both in here inmichigan.
Um, yes, you guys got hit withany snow, yep nope, no snow at
all.

Speaker 2 (01:44):
No, it's just, uh, just rainy and gray out right
now.
So nothing, nothing tooexciting over here right now,
yeah, other than the lionsabsolutely dominating the nfl.

Speaker 1 (01:55):
So that's that.
That's how you really know thatthe world is upside down.
I remember like being a kid andit was like our thanksgiving
ritual is to we go to mygrandparents and how we go,
women would get dropped offthere.
Then all the men would go out.
My grandpa had this 84 acrefarm.
We'd go, we'd kill a coupledeer, you know, bring them back,
we'd field dress them, we wouldleave them out to hang and we

(02:16):
would if we had time.
But then we would come in eatthanksgiving dinner and kind of
veg a little bit.
In the in the living room wewatched the detroit lions get uh
beat and that was like thething, yeah, that was like it's
giving, though when the lionsare like crushing it, we, we
know that, that the world hasshifted for sure.

Speaker 2 (02:36):
Yes, yes, the lord is here, he's coming and he has
come.

Speaker 1 (02:41):
I mean like detroit's kind of making a comeback.
I know like there was this huge, you know, economic downturn
and like a lot of industry left,but I know like a lot of or
this is what I've seen, at leastonline is that there are a lot
of tech startups and peoplecould buy like downtown property
, like commercial property inDetroit oh yeah, there's mass
migrations during the pandemicthese places where you know

(03:04):
people could move from somewherelike california and they sell
their little, their littlefortune there, their 1200 square
foot ranch that hasn't beenupdated since the 70s for 1.2
million, and then move acrossthe country and buy 100 and buy
a whole square block of detroitum, yeah, man, uh, I appreciate

(03:25):
you hopping on um.
Before we kind of pump it, put adescription out of kind of like
you and your background.
But if someone's like listeningto this and like who the heck
is ethan bricker, like, howwould you say that in a concise?

Speaker 2 (03:39):
yeah, yeah, I so.
Hi, I'm ethan berker.
I have four wonderful,beautiful little children, um.
My oldest is nine, um, his nameis grayson, uh.
My next is scarlet.
She's my only girl, she's theone that made me a girl dad and
she is seven.
She'll be eight next week, um,and then I have Knightley.

(04:02):
He's my third, he is six yearsold.
And then Revere is my fourthand he is four, turning five in
the next couple months.
So I've got my hands full, andthen I'm parenting these
beautiful children with mybeautiful wife, lydia, and Lydia
and I are the lead pastors ofour church here in Michigan.

(04:23):
It's called the Clearing andwe're in fort grash at michigan.
We just got a chick-fil-a, soeven more so.
The lord is here.
It's like right next, right byour church.
It's incredible.
I'm amped bro.
So, yeah, we have a, we have achurch, we have a church here.
We started about two and a halfyears ago and it is growing.
Sometimes I wonder if we havemore children in our building

(04:43):
than adults, um, which is abeautiful problem to have, uh,
because there's children are thenew life of the church, um, so
it's it's amazing to see, um,quite a quite, quite a lot of
young families, um, showing upto our church, especially
recently.
Um, and, uh, yeah, we, uh, weare very, very excited to see

(05:07):
what the Lord's doing here inMichigan.
Um, I am in the processcurrently, right now, of, um,
what I guess I could say isretiring from my current job at
the end of this year.
Um, and I will be startingfull-time at our church in
January.
So I've I've sales rep at CHGHealthcare Services for going on

(05:30):
11 years and, yeah, so that'sbeen really what I've been
spending the most of my timedoing.
So I've been in ministry, butreally in a voluntary kind of
role, in various churches anddenominations, but this finally
kind of jumped into the seniorleader role, which I never

(05:52):
wanted to do before.
And here we are.
I don't know how I got here,but I am yeah, well, that's
quite a shift.

Speaker 1 (05:59):
I mean, like I think you, you carry, like you know, a
similar toolbox in the sense of, like you, if you have to
preach the gospel, you kind ofhave to be good at sales to some
degree.

Speaker 2 (06:12):
Yeah, there's some realness to that, because you're
bringing something to somebodythat might not want it.

Speaker 1 (06:19):
Yeah, that's exactly it.
You have to create the pain andthen you have to be able to
quantify pain, and there's hellIsland and there's paradise
Island and we need to build thebridge.
Yeah, so, um, yeah, it's quitea shift.
So do you feel like pretty,like pumped, uh, you know,
making a transition fromsomething you've been doing for
over a decade to doing somethingthat it's not new, in the sense

(06:42):
of, like you're, you're jumpingin, like you know, blindly, but
, uh, yeah, like a lot of peaceabout that.

Speaker 2 (06:50):
Or you feel like, and like a little bit like not
unsure, but like butterflies,faith jump for sure, lots of
it's that, yeah, that riskfactor of, like you know, we, my
wife and I this year she wentbungee jumping, I did this crazy
rope swing in Mexico andthere's that drop feeling there
where the butterflies come, andit's just and it's risky, but

(07:12):
you're not really sure.
You know, you know what you'redoing, but at the same time it's
like there's a lot of fear ofthe unknown and, um, so there's
definitely that risk and thatfaith factor of just like
leaping out into the arms of Godand his people.
You know, and, yeah, so it's,it's uh, it's a big adjustment,
you know, especially going fromthe income we're going for,
we're moving from to a ministry,income is is very different, um

(07:35):
, but at the same time, I Ithink that, uh, the Lord uses
everything, um, he useseverything that we do,
everything that we workedtowards, um, and we're very kind
of privileged to say that, like, even though we weren't in
ministry, the Lord was using theministry of my full time
secular job to really pay offbills, get out of debt, do the

(07:57):
things that we needed to do tobe in a spot where we can make
much less you know, way lessmoney in a spot where we can
make much less you know, wayless money, but be in a spot
where we don't use the church asa career path and much more of
a like no, we're here to serve.
This isn't actually for acareer Cause that's what I think
I've seen ministry turned intoover the years is ministry being

(08:17):
a career and, um, which is finefor it to be.
You know, we need full-timeclergy, we need people who and
we also should be taking care ofour pastors enough to where
they can retire and not get donewith tiring and be like, oh
well, they were living aparsonage and now they have no
home anymore yeah you know, likeI'm all about all about that,
but I do think that there can bea weird attachment when you've

(08:38):
never worked in the secularworld before and and you're just
in ministry too long and youdon't know what the real world's
actually like.
Um, so you know, I think thatwe're kind of the opposite of
that, where it's we've been ableto be in the world, but not of
it.
But but use the benefits ofwhat the world had, you know, to
give us, to use it towards theministry, in other words,

(09:02):
building tents, like paul, sothat we can preach, you know, at
night.

Speaker 1 (09:05):
So yeah, I see like sometimes celebrity interviews
and you can tell that theyhaven't talked to real people
for like over a decade becauseof the way that yeah interview.
I think if people get like toolocked into um, you know, like
spheres of influence and uh,they don't really have any kind
of cross-pollination from anyother space of society.

(09:26):
Then it becomes, yeah, there'sa huge, huge disconnect.
I remember watching the thechosen, and it was at right
before, uh, the roman guy endedup killing rhema, but they were
like having this dispute.
Uh, the Pharisees on the templesteps not the temple steps, but

(09:47):
they were outside of thesynagogue or someplace there and
Jesus was just like kind oftuning them about.
You guys will like measure outlike dill and mustard seeds and
all these like fine things, butyou, you forget that this is
actually about people and aboutGod and like you're basically
you're missing the forest forthe trees and I think that, um,

(10:09):
anything it can be.
When that becomes your, yourentire identity gets wrapped up
in what you're doing.
Um, it's the to have adeparture point from like, for
example, if you've seen a proathlete and they like, since
they were like four years old,they just like dedicated six
days a week and like they becomereally refined, really refined
there's something beautifulabout that but then they get

(10:31):
into a car wreck or they blowtheir knee out or something and
then it's like who am I outsideof this?
And even people who are wildlysuccessful people talk about,
like in michael jordan's um itfrom being away from basketball
because that's what he was like.
He like he threw that into likeother avenues, like he tried to
like go do golf thing, he triedto do baseball, then he tried

(10:53):
to it with business, obviouslyhe's but um it to compete and
that need to uh be whatever.

Speaker 2 (11:01):
So that, yeah Well, and even in my job right right
now, like I'm working withsurgeons, so we see it all the
time with surgeons retire assoon as they're done and they're
not doing surgery anymore, likewe'll talk to them, but like
they're like.
For my whole life, from thetime I graduated high school,
it's all been on to becoming adoctor and doing surgery, and
now I'm done and I'm 70 and Idon't even know who I am and and

(11:24):
it.
That's that reality is real, nomatter what, what camp you're in
is like when your identity iscompletely wrapped up in what
you're doing.
It just gets really dangerous,cause as soon as that thing gets
pulled away, who are you Likewhen that rug gets pulled out
from underneath of you?
It's like what's going onactually underneath the hood and
um, and that's the.
I think that that is one thingI'm really happy about with this

(11:45):
transition, even for us is I'venever allowed myself to get my
identity caught up in.
Well, I'm a senior sales repand one of the most successful
reps at my company, and blah,blah, blah, blah, blah, because
at the end of the day, you canstrip all that away.
At the end of the day, I'm a son, I'm a son of of God, and
that's my identity.
And even before I'm a son, I'ma son of god, and that's my
identity.
And even before I'm a pastor,I'm a son.

(12:06):
Even before I'm a husband, I'ma son.
And if that, if that identityconstantly is anchored in the
right thing, it's a lot easierwhen life changes.
You know, because I neverthought I'd be a lead pastor.
I never.
I never wanted to be um, and Ialso never wanted to be in sales
but, here we are.
You know, it's like sometimesthe the lord, just he knows
exactly what you need and you,you make your um.

(12:28):
A man makes his way, but theLord knows what he needs, you
know yeah.
So yeah.

Speaker 1 (12:35):
I think people and we are kind of a collection of
things and those things can bepopping kind of in and out, but
to your point if there's nothingkind of anchoring you into
eternity?
Uh, because this the life iswhat there is, um postured
around a place of hey, ethan men, actually, what do you do?

(12:58):
Oh, I'm a plumber, I'm a, I'm adoctor, oh, and like.
So just think about that.
You know, I plumb or I helppeople in medicine it's like I
am a lawyer, I am a doctor, I amthis, um, yeah, so in free
trade, like we've kind ofnarrowed down on what's your
specialty, okay, you teach thekids so I can go farm to get
bread to feed you guys, and thatguy's going to build our houses

(13:20):
while we do those things.
So that's kind of like the cruxof it, to like expedite who's
who.

Speaker 2 (13:26):
Um but which is ultimately that's a lot of
pressure, you know, like,ultimately, like society, that's
adding a lot of pressure forsomeone to uh, live up to a
perception of what they'vewanted to become or do.
And if you're not doing thething that you want to be doing,
then now you're not living upto your full potential.

(13:48):
Is the lie, you know.
It's this idea of like, well,if I don't, if I'm not doing
exactly how the thing I wantedto do all along, then I'm not
truly living.
And I think that's the scariestthing that our culture teaches
is that like, well, you need tofollow your dreams.
Well, what happens if yourdream is what happened if, if,
if what you're living in rightnow is not necessarily what you

(14:09):
dreamed up, you know.
And then now all of life issubpar to this idea that you had
to begin with, and you can'tthrive in any season of life
because you're not doing exactlywhat you always wanted to do.

Speaker 1 (14:22):
Yeah, you know, I think that's applicable across
the board.
Even in, like you know, a lotof people have a perception of
what family and marriage isgoing to be like.
So part of that's like, how wasmy parents and how was my
experience there?
Or they're trying to like havethis polarized reaction of like
well, I went through this traumaand so I'm going to like,
prepare this for my kid,basically prepare a world for my

(14:43):
kids, and they're no, I don'tthink of them, but they, they
have an avatar of like who theirspouse is supposed to be, who
they're supposed to be, howlife's supposed to be.
And, you know, a lot ofdifferent things can happen
where that's just not going toplay out.
You can have a child who hasspecial needs, or you have
health issues, or you havefinancial issues or I don't know
.
Like, you kind of fill in theblank there and so when you're

(15:04):
in the midst of of crisis, um,oh, the reality that you have,
ahead with the reality that is,um, then you have, yep,
basically go through like somekind of uh, burning experience.
What you have in your head hasto get burned up and whatever's
like the remnants of that thatactually can integrate with

(15:25):
society or integrate withreality it's going to have to
happen.
That's a very painful, painfulexperience.
I think for our culture atlarge, there's an obsession with
avoiding pain.
I talked about this a littlebit, yeah, like with, you know,
narcotic pain medications, andthe way that those are
prescribed in the united statesis really unprecedented,
comparatively than anywhere else.
And so doctors, you know, um,oh, you shouldn't feel it.

(15:49):
It's just like I just, I justcut your leg open and replace
your knee or cut your back open.
You shouldn't feel any pain,though After the fact it's like
no, that that's part, that'spart of life and your body and
your body actually has naturalpainkillers in it.
Um, that can kick in.
Um that that has kind ofpolluted people's mind at large

(16:11):
with with any any aspect of life, is that I couldn't, I couldn't
, I shouldn't feel anydiscomfort.
Um, it shouldn't.
In pain, avoidance mode, you'rejust crippling yourself from
transcending in the situation.

Speaker 2 (16:25):
Um, yeah, there, but well it's which is really kind
of like.
It's the individualistic, likeresponse to life.
Um, like you brought up,relationships and marriage,
where sometimes we come intomarriage and I meet people all
the time where they walk intomarriage and we've I've even
seen friends of mine divorcedbecause they came into marriage
and they and they, well, this iswhat I wanted, or I didn't get

(16:47):
to do my career, or I didn't getto pursue my studies, and it's
really like relationships andindividualism.
Individualism is like anoxymoron when it's put in the
confines or within the contextof relationships or marriage,
because you step into arelationship which requires two
people and you're only thinkingabout my dreams, my hopes, my

(17:10):
future, and then you end upattacking the person next to you
because they're oppressing yourability to accomplish what
you've always wanted toaccomplish.
Um, and I think that like thatkind of comes into that whole,
like the society as a whole.
Like we struggle with this ideaof like being for uh, nt right

(17:32):
calls it like a cruciform livingwhich is just like a.
It's a servanthood unto otherpeople and it's not what's in it
for me and how can I get my mycut out, this deal, you know,
and just really walking intothat servanthood, low, humble,
meek mindset.

(17:53):
I think that's to me the dangerof, even when we come back to
church too, is it's like I feellike it's crept into church.
I think it's crept intomarriages and family and just
all throughout America, becausewe tend to think as individuals
and not as a tribe anymore or apeople.

Speaker 1 (18:13):
Yeah.
Well, I think like yeah, andpart of it is there's like these
micro, micro, rapid kind ofreinforces things.
So I'll just give you anexample Like if you sat down at,
let's say, you invite somebodyto a Bible study, people try to
water and dumb things down in asense where someone can
understand them.

(18:33):
And I remember who I wastalking to this about.
But they were looking atJapanese students and American
students and like there's astereotype that Asian people are
like super good at math and sothey started looking into that.
That and what they found is inthe math class with the Japanese
people there's like thisthreshold of where it's like
hard for you to understand.
They're forcing you to kind oflike transcend, like where

(18:53):
you're at.
They keep people at thatthreshold in Japan about 40% of
the time in the math class.
In America we do it 2% of thetime and these cultures are
starkly different in that injapan they're as quickly as
possible trying to integrate youinto the society as a whole,
like they'll let.
Like in daycares, the two andthree-year-olds have to clean
the daycare themselves, and I'veseen documentary where,

(19:15):
literally, they would send athree-year-old to the grocery
store and give them a list oflike three things or something
and the three-year-old will goand do it and then they won't
wear deodorants or perfumesbecause, like that you're
basically oppressing otherpeople with the smell.
So if you're in a subway,you've seen how their subways
are like super cramped.
You want to wear like neutralthings and you wouldn't eat

(19:36):
foods like garlic and things.
So anyway, that's the extreme,that's the far extreme of it.
Yeah, but my point anyways withlike the, the threshold of like
calling people to transcend, isif you go into a bible study,
oftentimes what I've heard indifferent denominations was like
okay, ethan, we're gonna readthrough like two verses or
something.
So we're not, we're not evengonna read the entire thought,
we're gonna read like if througha couple verses and I want you

(19:58):
to think about um, basically,it's like god saying something
to somebody else, but putyourself in the middle of that
and how is this speaking to you?
And it's like God sayingsomething to somebody else, but
put yourself in the middle ofthat.
And how is this speaking to you?
And it's like I understand thesentiment there, but it's like
it's not for you all the time.
Like this is actually likesomething very specific being
said to somebody very specificfor a specific reason.
It has nothing to do with me,so it's still true, but not

(20:21):
putting myself in the middle ofthat, that hyper individual of
like well, how does this affectme and how could I live this out
?
It's like no, you derive whatwas the spirit by which what was
being said being said, and outof that you can engage with like
what does that actually mean?
And like go on a journey tointegrate that into your life,
the concept, the principle,whatever it was, uh, versus like

(20:44):
I'm in the middle of it.
And so if you look through the,the, the whole corpus of the
bible, uh, all with people andgod and we, that's something
that we inherit, that thatdialogue.
But it's not, it's hard, isn'tthe dialogue that we're having?
We're we're having our own, uh,individual.

(21:06):
And something that gets reallyoveremphasized is like you know,
ethan, if you were the onlyperson in the world, jesus would
still die on the cross for you.
He would still do that in asense like special, but you're

(21:26):
not special, because jesus saidat the end of john, like father,
the love that you have for me,let that be in them and let them
feel it in their hearts.
So what he's saying is likebefore the universe existed, it
was me and the father, and therehe only had one son, so all the
love that he could give waslike pointed towards, uh, this
son.
And now I'm bringing you intothat.
Where you're going to feel thatkind of love.
I want you to actually tangiblyfeel that Great.

(21:46):
But that's as true for everybodyas the person on my right, my
left, okay, yeah, with that,you're part of a.
You have your own individualstory, but you're part of a
collective, and so, look at,like the genealogy of Christ,

(22:07):
for example, you could gothrough each of those
individuals and there's canderive from their story, but it
was all building towardssomething else.
So it was in video guns.
Jesus is the main character.
You are not the main character.
You are at maybe an npc, yeah,for sure, yeah, yeah, like the
main character.

Speaker 2 (22:20):
Say um, and and your side quest.
You know, really like, it'slike you're part of his side
quests.
You know and in, but his storyis the one being played out
which you bring up a good pointof like we, we lose.
And it's so funny you evenbrought this up because in 2025,
one of the first things I wastalking to my wife about, that I

(22:41):
want to speak, uh, to ourchurch about, is the biblical
narrative.
When you don't understand thatyou're part of a biblical
narrative, you end up making thestory about you and you lose
sight that you're actually partof this rich heritage of
believers.
But the climax is unto Jesus,it's unto this one man being

(23:03):
made known, this holy, divineman who came down incarnate in
flesh, who came down climactic,as Israel, who made himself king
in the earth, and that's untoyou understand that you're part
of this story of God coming andmaking himself king.
But when we don't understandthat, we take the bible and we

(23:25):
say, what is this about?
This is about me, and how howdoes this affect me as an
individual, and not realize,like this whole thing wasn't
unto you, just getting a newspirituality of like.
Oh well, there's, there's thisnew spiritual like.
I think that that that's theproblem in in christianity is, a
lot of times, when we givepeople the product like you

(23:47):
talked about, like sellingpeople jesus right at the
beginning, is like we sell themspirituality like here's a new
spirituality for you, and it'sit's not, it's here, here's a,
here's a new way of of livingthat requires you to understand
that there is a king who hasmade himself king in the earth
and and it's actually untoknowing him, him knowing you,

(24:08):
and then you being ruled over byhim, like that he is the king
of the earth, um, and thatthere's a, there's a submission
to it, um, but we don't likesubmission in our culture.
Um, but you brought I love likewhat you brought up too, about
Japan, though, cause that's anhonor shame culture, and when we

(24:30):
read the Bible as Americans, wedon't remember that this is an
honor shame culture.
All, from the beginning to theend of of the Bible, it's honor
shame culture.
And so there is this likereality of like what you do
affects your community, what youdon't do affects your community
, and so, as an individual, we,we read the Bible and we just go

(25:07):
oh well, my sin is my sin, itdoesn't affect anybody.
Well, just do what makes youhappy.
Do what makes you happy, it'sfine, you know, as long as it
doesn't hurt anybody.
That's our, that's our Americanindividualistic logic, where in
the Bible it was no, what youdo on your own affects everybody
.
The sin infiltrates the camp,you know, and there is just this
lack of understanding that,like you, are part of something
but at the same time you're notthe main character yeah you know
, I remember I read this book,uh, the crazy love book, and he
gave this funny littleillustration of it we just
talked about.

Speaker 1 (25:23):
You know, imagine if somebody made a movie about life
and about the end of eternityand there's, you know, the
creation, everything, and hesaid what would they be in that
that film?
He's like, in reality that filmis just running, and then for
like a tenth of a second in thatfilm the camera pans over seven
billion people and for thathalf a second it panned over the

(25:44):
back of your head.
And so you're in that film.
Yes, you're in that film andyour mom might get excited oh,
that's my baby, look, he's in amovie.
But is the film really aboutyou?
And it's not.
And I think when you think aboutthings in the context of
eternity and you think aboutcontext of the moment, uh, then

(26:05):
think because you're but like,really, morality, forgiveness,
love, all those things reallyfind their full context in
relationship if you're justmaking them abstract things that
they don't really find theirfull context, and so you can do
a lot of moral shuffling and tapdancing around uh, what's what?
And to your point, and hurtinganybody, um, but your thoughts

(26:26):
become habits, your habitsbecome, uh, rituals and your
ritual, the, the course of yourlifestyle and what you do or
don't do, is inherited.
Like the bible says, arighteous man leaves and
inherits children's children.
This isn't, you know, um,solely talking about wealth and
monetary gain.
I think that's a part of it.
There's a spiritual heritage.

(26:48):
You know, we're aware that if aparent is an alcoholic uh, one
parent the chance action goes up, I think 35 to 45 percent.
If both parents are alcoholics,then the chance of addiction, or
the susceptibility to addictiongoes up 85 percent so when you
say, um, that genetics I'll justkind of wrap this up with this

(27:11):
epigenetics has has taught usthat genes can be turned on and
turned off, and of the divine,like the miraculous, the mystery
of God that becomes manifest inour world, where the natural
order of things can beinterrupted, when God will
invade the natural order ofthings and do something

(27:33):
supernatural, he's doingsomething unordinary,
extraordinary in the situation.
That is a reality.
But at the same time, there'sthis natural order of things
that we have to acknowledge.
And so with epigenetics, thisnatural order of things that we
have to acknowledge, and so withepigenetics, one of the things
that we have is everybody isborn with a certain set of genes
that make you susceptible tocertain things.

(27:54):
So I just kind of walked youthrough addiction but I'm sure
that you're aware of.
So I grew up in a rural part ofWest Virginia, rural part of
west virginia, and one of thethings I would hear from my
grandparents or their generationwas like, oh, that boy gets his
temper from his dad, or thatboy gets his temper from his
mama, and so like that, why do Iget it from them?

(28:15):
And if I look in their familyline?
So I'm not saying per se.
This is a general like a, agenetics things per se, but you
can do some pretty interestingstudies, uh, or look into some
interest.
You can say what you want aboutstatistics, but just family
history petition and patternsthat happen in there.
Yes, so one of the one of theinteresting things that they

(28:35):
found eugenics was it wasthought that diseases are just
purely hereditary.
So if my dad has cancer and Iinherit the gene for cancer,
inevitably, inevitably, I willget cancer.
That's what people thoughtGenes were like fate.
But what they found in thestudy of epigenetics was that
true?
And so there was a study withidentical twins.
They did multiple sets ofidentical twins, one twin.

(28:57):
So clarify, identical twins.
Exact same age, exact samegenes.
So theoretically, if they weregoing to get a disease, they
would get it at the same time,around about the same time.
So they find these twins onewould be obese, one not one
would have diabetes.
One not one would have cancer.
One not one would have anautoimmune disease, one not.
They couldn't figure it out atfirst, and then the conclusion
that they came to was that theylived completely different lives

(29:20):
.
So even though they had theexact same genes, they something
in the environment.
Choices they made dictatedwhether a gene would turn on or
not.
So to replicate this study,they took rats and they got
identical twins and rats andthey started exposing rats.
Uh, in the study, one, healthy,normal life, good food, good

(29:41):
water.
The other one, they would tryto expose it to toxins, things
that are on a rabbit trail withthis, but anyways, they would
expose it to specific toxins,stuff that we find in our food
supply and our medicine, and allthat stuff.
America, let's go all roughhere.
They were that effect and thatwould then develop cancer, even
though it was identical twin,the other one would not.
What's my point?
My point is, when we talk aboutwhat you do in life echoes

(30:07):
through eternity.
The choices that you make aregoing to have an effect on
generations of people who you'llnever live to see.
And if you can turn genes on inyour body simply by the actions
that you're taking, right, yeah, right so so people, people try

(30:27):
to play that like, oh, thisdoesn't have an effect, but like
realist, uh, you know, in thatvein of thought, um, I will put
a strain if I turn on a gene,for this of a disease is
basically avoidable in thatsense, a chronic illness, that
is avoidable.
Um, forces and time and energy,whatever.

Speaker 2 (30:40):
So, um, have you ever read?
Uh, jk Smith's you Are what youLove.
It's a phenomenal, phenomenalbook.
We're reading it in seminaryright now or we read it my
semester's done.
But he says this phenomenalquote.
He says the things we do dosomething to us, and it's this

(31:04):
beautiful book about exactlywhat you said.
The language you were using waseven.
I was like, yeah, he's got tohave read this book because he's
talking about, like the thingswe do, our habits, our routines,
our rituals, our liturgies,like they are all unto worship.
And in a lot of people you hearworship.
You're like I don't worshipevery day.
It's like, no, you do, it'sjust.
Are you on your phone?

(31:25):
Are you eating more food thanyou should Like?
Are you shopping too much?
Like you are worshiping.
It's where you're putting yourheart's attention on and so I
mean Black Friday's right aroundthe corner, and you know some
people listening like it's likeeven myself.
It's like you go through Amazonand you begin to worship
because you're putting all yourattention, your focus, on what

(31:47):
best deal can I get next and itreally is.
But like those are such simplelittle things where we think
this isn't doing anything to me,but like hours and hours of
scrolling.
It is doing something to youand it's doing something to your
soul.
It's doing something to yourheart and it may not be as

(32:28):
extreme as alcoholism, but it isdoing something to you in a
sense that you're youice versusuh, pro-life like, and you get
this we versus them kind ofthing in you and then all of a
sudden you start acting out ofit and it's exactly what you
said, where it's like we don'ttake into account, because of
these individualistic ideas,that, like the way we are being
and the way that we are going,it is affecting the world around
us.
And I think that's the, that'sthe supporting role.

(32:51):
I think, like I love that thisexample of Jesus being the main
character, but the maincharacter always has to have
supporting roles around him andand I think that's what we are
as Christians is, we're thesupporting roles unto the star
of the show, where we're untohim, being made known, his grace
being made known, the love andkindness of Jesus being ushered

(33:12):
in throughout the whole worldthrough that cruciform identity
of I'm not here to get what'smine, I'm here to serve unto the
people around us so that Jesuswould be known, and I think
that's the, that's the gospelthat I think we need to have a
return to.
Is that that final, even thatfinal, kind of like what you

(33:34):
said, that the eternal, almostjudgment of it, where it's like
there's an there's an end tothis, there's a there's a final
consequence or there's a finaloutcome that's already been in
the works, like, uh, I heard itsaid, I read it this this week
aw tozer he said if, if, life.
He's kind of making the argumentbetween calvinism and
arminianism and he's like lifeis like god's got the boat, the

(33:58):
trajectory of the boat, thismassive freighter or cruise ship
, whatever it is, it's alreadyset, like the, the outcomes, the
end is already in play, likethe boat's headed to the dock,
but what goes on on the boat,that's up to us, and and so I I
look at it that way where it'slike the supporting role that I
have and as a christian in thisworld, is to serve the needs of

(34:19):
others, to love other people, toshow them the grace and
kindness of jesus, so that onthis boat, as we're all moving
towards this ultimate end orultimate beginning however you'd
want to say it, because I knowSt Augustine he says is it
really life?
We live and then we die, or isit really we die and then we
live, is kind of the question heproposes in his confessions.

(34:42):
But it's that it's like, aswe're on the ship, as we're part
of this biblical narrative,this thing that's headed
somewhere, the things we'redoing, they are doing something
on this ship, um, so what are wedoing?
And asking that question, um,and being honest and real with
ourselves, because that's thethe hardest part, is just being
honest with yourself, because welike to tell ourselves

(35:02):
everything I'm doing it's notactually doing anything to me,
it's not affecting my genes,it's not.
You know, I don't know anythingabout the genetic stuff that
you just laid out, but I lovethat you brought that up because
it is so true.
Like everything we're doing,it's not just a spiritual thing,
it gets down into our literalblood and genetics, you know
yeah, if you don't believe itand you know I love technology,

(35:25):
I think it's awesome.

Speaker 1 (35:26):
Like with anything, though, you know electricity is
great, but if you don't wireyour house right, you're gonna
burn your house down.
So you know we all likerefrigerators, we all like
lights.
But if you don't believe that,you know streaming and you know
using your phone or device as amental pacifier doesn't do
anything.
Watch little kids have a tabletfor a couple hours.
Then just take it away from themand and watch what yeah like

(35:48):
with our, with our kids, like,literally, we had to create this
entire system of commercearound tablet time, where it's
like, okay, you get 30 minutesif you clean up your room and if
you do that, like you have towork your way into it and
there's like a definitive time.
You have to set timers so thateven the content that they watch
you they're just like littleregurgitators, so they'll,

(36:08):
they'll take something in and itjust comes back out as they're
like working out, like gettingthe words in their mouth, but
also like what they don't evenknow, what they're saying in.
Whatever you are, like in whatyou, what you're giving your

(36:29):
time to, you're comingunderneath that.
And um to again to our pointearlier is is, with technology,
specifically entertainment, itis a, and I think if you talk to
them like they're kind of likeevening rituals is, they're like
kind of spent from the day.
They're, like you know, justworn down or worn out and they
like I want to turn my brain off.
I've definitely been therebefore.

(36:50):
There's been seasons where, man, I just like I'll just string
thing for like three hours orsomething like that, and then in
retrospect like what did this,what did this do for me and I
frustrated.
I've gotten frustrated as olderbecause I felt like was I just
dumb as a kid and I could justabsorb everything, like when I
was younger, or is it reallythat just movie quality and like
content quality just went likedown, or is it that it's just so

(37:13):
saturated, or did myexpectation, what is it?
But I feel like really Iremember like leaving movie
theaters before with my friendsbeing like whoa dude, like that
was like sickle For real.

Speaker 2 (37:28):
And now, like when I leave pretty much when I leave
the movie theater, uh, if I gosee a movie it's just like man,
that was all right, that wasgood, yeah, so I don't know if
it's for endgame, and endgamewas the only one where that was
the most recent one of like ohmy gosh, yeah, but other than
that it's like yeah, I, I'm, I'mthe same way.
I think it is.
It's a oversaturation.
I guess in my mind is you thinkabout like, like Lydia and I,

(37:51):
we put out music and we've donewhat we haven't put on music in
put it out, put it out, get itout, get as much out as you can.
It's the same for YouTube.
It's like you got to have avideo out every consistently.

(38:12):
If you look into any socialmedia like strategy, it's you
got to be consistent, you got tohave it coming out all the time
because that will get thealgorithm to get your attention.
And so if everybody's doingthat all at once and if creating
is easier than it ever has been, you know it's everybody's
doing it.
And so it is just thisoversaturation, like oh my gosh,

(38:32):
I can't handle any more.
And so I think that's whyputting limits on those things
of like no, these things aredoing something to me, even for
even like good things, like theeven the good things, where it's
like if we're oversaturatingourselves with the good things,
but then we have no mentalcapacity left for our families
to give our children and ourwives our best.
How is that helping?

(38:54):
Is it actually spiritually deep?
Is it actually growing you Ifyou've got nothing left in the
tank mentally to give to yourthe most meaningful people in
your lives?
You know, and that's the, it'salways that balance of like Lord
, what do you like?
What do you say about this?
Is this helpful for me?
Um, there was a season in mylife, after I went to school

(39:16):
ministry, where the like I feltlike God was like no, you're not
allowed to read theology rightnow.
And it was because it became.
It became like an idol for me,like it was, became something
where it was, because it became.
It became like an idol for me,like it was, became something
where it's like I'm trying tobuild an identity around, I know
things.
And it took me, I think, two tothree years of just not reading
theology and just be like I'monly going to read the bible,

(39:38):
I'm just going to spend timewith god, and eventually it just
kind of rooted that out of mewhere I was like you know what
I'm?
I do want to know these things.
It's good to know these things,it's not bad.
I mean, I'm going to seminaryright now to get a master's
degree in biblical andtheological studies, not because
it's bad, but because I want toknow God to a deeper level.
But if I shape my whole worldaround, I'm, or anchor my life

(40:02):
in, I know these things, I'm,I'm smart, I've have these
things, then or even justpulling in as much data as I can
into my mind because I'velistened to all these podcasts
and all these different studiesthat eventually it gets to the
point where it's like am I evenhuman anymore or am I just a
regurgitator of information?
I think it really does boil downto that.
Can I, can I give my family themost meaningful, present

(40:26):
version of myself?
At the end of the day, you know, and I would say most of the
time, social media and thethings that we're doing tend to
take us away from, move usfurther away from that goal.
At least I find in myself.
I know that's not the same foreverybody, but yeah, I would
agree.

Speaker 1 (40:43):
I think, um, what's hard is a that our school system
is structured is it's moreabout memorization than learning
.
So it's like scratching thatvery edge you're talking about,
like consuming information inbulk, regurgitating it out
through a test, and so you kindof create that neural pathway in
your mind and like that's evenwhat success is, because what,
what do you do in school?
You get rewarded on an a to fscale or one to six scale, if

(41:05):
you're in europe, of how, howyou regurgitate this information
and how I told you what, ohwell, can you say that back to
me?
And so, even within likeself-help space, like where
people write these kind of books, people will, people will like
any into like courses ormentorships or books, and
they'll learn the concepts, butthey don't actually go do the

(41:25):
concept.
So when jesus said, yeah, um,the truth, uh, what he was into
this, like we can notice, goingto know, but basically like
knowing the truth throughexperience is what sets you free
, meaning the only way you wouldknow truth through experience
is you actually have to go do it.
So if I set a workout plan foryou and you scroll on tiktok,
you didn't know the truth,you're not, but if you go and
actually do the sets and therepetitions, then you're going

(41:47):
to do it, and so I think the waythat my brain works is I'm
definitely guilty of that it'slike absorption, absorption,
absorption, synthesized, weededout, and then I kind of have my
little like all this stuff thatI've assimilated.
And I can serve people out ofthat.
But it really begs the questionof like I need to audit my life

(42:09):
, I need to take an account ofmy life and I need to look at
where, where am I at right now?
Like, where am I at in terms of, like, my role as a husband, my
role as a father?
Uh, within you know, finances,within my relationship, my
ministry to God, like to himdirectly, like where, where am I
at?
And if I had to quantify it,what would I say?
And then, obviously, you can'tdo that in the vacuum of

(42:31):
assessing yourself.
Like the reason why audits workis because a third party comes
and looks over your finances foryou.
Yeah for sure, obviously, likethe whole.

Speaker 2 (42:41):
But you can curate it though, right, it's.
It's kind of like it's like aSpotify playlist.
You can curate it though, right, it's.
It's kind of like it's like aspotify playlist, like you can
try to curate it, though whereyou say you know what this song?
It's not actually adding valueto my life.
It's actually helping me becomethe best husband, the best
christian, the best dad I wantto be.
So I'm going to remove it out,but I'll add this instead.

(43:01):
Or even john he says this.
He says like the to be an, anapprentice of Jesus, is actually
way more about subtraction thanaddition.
Like some people get sointimidated about coming to be
known as a Christian becausethey think I need to do more,
it's actually like, no, it'sreally just curating the
playlist and it's removing thesongs or the things that are
like really just not helpful ornot doing anything for you,

(43:28):
really just not helpful or notdoing anything for you.
And, uh, it it's aboutimplementing those things that
require less of you, not more ofyou.
Really, um, and it is that it's.
You can't have a third partyaudit unless it's the Holy
spirit, right, but, but there'sthat curation process of like
you get with the Holy spirit,you, you pray, and there's a
removal of those things.
And I, for my wife and I, thisyear it's been Sabbath.
We practice Sabbath every week.

(43:49):
Every Friday 5 pm, we Sabbath,and Sabbath is the.
It's the removal for us of it'snot us doing more, it's us
doing less for God.
And so we do no screen time.
As a family, we sit down and eatand when we eat, I bless every
single one of my children, likeI lay hands on them and I and I

(44:09):
pray for each one of my children.
We break bread together, weusually do communion and we say
the lord's prayer together, um,and we have an amazing high
calorie dinner on friday nightand then, for 24 hours, we do no
screen time, so that we're justtogether and it's and it's just
the way that we pray, weworship and and and love god and

(44:30):
love our each other everysingle week.
But it actually doesn't requiremore from us.
It actually it requires less ofus, because we have to say no
rather than just oh well, weneed to do more.
It's like no, just do less, butdo it with the people that you
love.
I think that's that curationthat you're talking about, or
that audit of removing thosethings that just aren't helpful.

Speaker 1 (44:52):
Yeah, I think what's what's difficult now culture is
like you have so muchinformation that could be
completely conflicting.
Uh of what I mentioned is likehey, I'm actually like a
workaholic or to like being adoer and executor, and so
someone could take that andthey're like, well, that's what
I need to do in my life.
So maybe someone you're conningbut maybe that person's

(45:16):
actually lazy.
Yeah, yeah, you have to haveself-awareness.
Hey, what, what is this?
And like, and that.
That becomes difficult because,again, like, if we do get into
group think, we're trying to toethe line of what the collective
, maybe there's a collectiveprepackaged idea of like, what,

(45:37):
what successes or what we shouldbe doing.
But again, like, again to yourpoint, like, if you don't have
any, any kind of guidance fromGod, cause, god knows um, you
know, it's our um, and I think,like one of the big references
to God, as as as a fire is, isis relevant of like, if you
stick something in a fire, it'sgoing to burn, obviously, and
there's certain things that justburn up completely.
Like, if I throw a wood log inthe fire, it's going to burn up
completely, but if I put certainkinds of metals in the fire,

(45:57):
there's certain stuff that'sgoing to burn off.
There's certain stuff that it'sgoing to separate things, so
there's going to be impuritiesand things that are going to
raise the surface and then youcan pull that.
That's what makes the metalprecious and is how much have
you been able to skim off thetop of this stuff?
And so that only really comesfrom being in the fire long
enough and that just never feels.

(46:18):
It never feels good to anybody.
I remember like when I was beingmentored in my early twenties
by a guy who I still havecontact with, I dearly love, uh,
jim kelly.
But I remember I went to himonce and kind of sheepishly
asked him hey, jim, like youknow me fairly well, like we
meet on a regular basis likewhere do you, where do you feel
like, uh, where do you feel likeI need to improve or what do

(46:40):
you think that my weaknesses are?
And he just kind of looked atme, kind of smiled then like,
took a long pause.
He's like he just said verygently at me, kind of smiled
then took a long pause.
He just said it very gently.
He's like well, humility is notyour strength and that's all he
said, I was like oh, that'spainful.
He's like am I like an egotistic, narcissical blah, blah, blah

(47:00):
off on that rant?
He just said, no, humility isnot your strong suit and I just
kind of laughed and laughed andso I had to go away and like,
take it, take an inventory ofthat.
But I think again, like we haveto live in a place where there
needs to be self-awareness.
So I'll just give this example.
Some people would say, even youneed to be around people who
love you and support you and youdon't want to be around toxic

(47:23):
people.
But like, when they say toxicpeople, they basically say
anybody who would give you anyopposition or any kind of like
criticism or anything like that.
So there's periods of lifewhere, like for me, like I, I
need encouragement, like I'm inthe trenches by myself, I'm, I
feel like, I feel like off inthe sense of, uh, I'm just, I'm
trying to be a good husband,trying to be a dad, but there's,
like all these like movingparts of life and I just feel I

(47:46):
just need somebody to tell methat I'm not sucking real bags.
It feels like it.
And then there's other times,uh, where I need people.
Hey, you're completely out ofline here, or I wouldn't really
do it like that, or, you know,we need some, some feedback.
So, to deal in absolutes, tonot have, uh, self-awareness
that's where the internetbecomes a dangerous thing is
like I can immediately plug into hear the thing I want and

(48:07):
people do want.
There is a power of agreementand people want agreement.
They want to feel validated inwhat they're feeling.
But what you're feeling couldactually be betraying you and
sending you in the oppositedirection of what's going to be
the absolute best for you.
And so you know, yeah, allpeople are good.
There's one gender that doesthis more than the other.
Uh, but but uh, you know no boyand say, uh, hey, what suzy did

(48:34):
?
Blah, blah, blah, blah.
Oh my gosh, I can't believesuzy, we're looking for that,
that validation of outrage orthat validation of offense,
versus just go talk to theperson, squash it right there,
move on, but it it feel, itfeels good, like no, you're
totally right, you should beupset about that, and and blah,
blah, blah.
So it just creates this likeintention.

(48:55):
It creates whatever um, butwell and it builds loyalty.

Speaker 2 (48:59):
It comes back to what you said like you're, you're
really looking for somebody tosay I love you, you're
meaningful to me.
You're building, you're tryingto like, stack the ranks, like,
oh, I'm most important for youin your life and and so you know
that hot gossip that's spillingthe tea or just building
loyalty with friends againsteach other.
It's so dysfunctional becauseyou're you're really.

(49:21):
What you're trying to do isyou're trying to add worth for
yourself.
It's what you said.
It it's like I just needencouragement.
Well then, just say you needencouragement.
You don't need to to create afire, create a problem in the
midst of it.
Um, yeah, it's so real.
You, you had mentioned, likeyou have having a friend to tell
you, to expose those things.
Like one one thing one of myfriends, uh, his name's Nate

(49:42):
Thompson.
He wrote a book called betweenSundays.
It's great.
He says in his book he's, he,he would, and I've implemented
this in my life, both in workand out of work.
Um, he said, go find a friendand ask this question what's it?
Well, I say it this way what'sit like being on the other side
of me?
Uh, he asked the question whatdo you know about me that I
don't know about me, and that issuch an important question for

(50:05):
us to ask the people that areour community and the people
around us.
What do you know about me thatI don't know about me?
Because they're experiencing us.
Whether we like it or not,they're experiencing a version
of us that we might not evenknow we're portraying, you know,
and until we get eyes on that,it's really hard to make those
curated adjustments to life.

(50:27):
You know, in the middle of itall, yeah, I remember.
I had a.

Speaker 1 (50:32):
I did a driver in Germany.
I had to do a driver's licensefor, like, hauling a trailer
because I was working on jobs.
So you had to specifically goand just get the license to the
trailer and, um, somebody in thecar, you know, obviously with
you and you do a theoreticaltest and then the driving test.
You have to parallel park withthe trailer, all this stuff.
But the guy like uh, windyroads and in west virginia and

(50:58):
stuff, and we just I don't knowlike I just look and I have
pretty good peripheral, but helike chewed me out hard about
he's thinking about failing mebecause we were on the highway
or somewhere and need to switchlanes.
And I'm like cool, so I'dswitched the lanes.
I looked in my mirror and thenjust through the corner of my
eye I just looked for motion.
I didn't see it, but I didn'tlook hard.

(51:18):
He was sitting in the back seatand so we stopped the car and
everything.
He's like I don't know if Icould pass her or not and like
this is this is typical german.
Like I was like what did I dowrong?
He's like you made one mistake.
You're gonna fail me on onemistake.
What did I do?
He said, you didn't look withyour eyes, you trusted the
mirror.
You didn't look fully with youreyes to see if somebody was
coming.
So when you merge over, it's ablind spot and you have to look

(51:42):
and see if someone's there.
So that's what we all have.
There's these blind spots thatwe inevitably develop because
we're having a human, subjectiveexperience and we're living
life through our lens, andpeople are completely
experiencing us different thanhow we're experiencing ourselves
, or they perceive it.
And our spouses are pretty goodlitmus tests.

(52:02):
Yeah, they're pretty brutallyhonest for the most part of of
letting us know, uh, that we'renot everything.
Potato chips, um, there and um,having you.
You have god there, but thenyou, you, there is a necessity
for other people to to be that,that person, that confidant, uh,
with you, and it works.

(52:23):
It's not a like.
Some people have misconceptionsabout christianity and and faith
, and, and they think that not alike.
Some people have misconceptionsabout christianity and and
faith, and, and they think thatthese are like superstitious or
archaic ideas that don't haveany merit to them.
But to to the point I made uh,what's, what's the purpose?
What's the purpose of a policeinvestigation?
What's the like?
This is, this could be applied.
What's the purpose of science?
An investigation of things andan account of things, and you

(52:44):
want to see what's actuallythere.
And if I actually want to knowwhat's there, I have to make
myself uh subjected then, or toother people around me, and that
individualization is a kind ofthing to aim at of like I'm not,
I, I define who I am.
No one else can define who I am.
We're absolutely terrified ofthe idea that something else

(53:05):
could define or someone elsecould define any aspect of of
who we are, and that is a stick,uh kind of uh pattern of
thinking.
But um, yeah yeah, that was.
That was one thing that we wewere toying with the idea of
talking about.
Was this, this idea of ofconfession and opening yourself

(53:25):
up to that, I guess, like fromfrom and like, because everybody
comes from their own kind ofstreams and like this.
You know you have to assimilatein different streams, so you
kind of bounce around, but whatdo you feel like your life
experience has been like apretty significant misconception
around the idea of confession.
How does that kind of expressitself?

(53:46):
And yeah, maybe even likepeople like coming in and like
looking at confession, like ohyeah, I'll just kind of let you
run with that.

Speaker 2 (53:55):
Well, I, yeah, I, um, when we started seminary, we we
started just kind of gettinginto church history, church
traditions and things like that.
And as an evangelicalProtestant, I'm I'm thinking man
.
I have never been in a churchculture that highly values
confession.
Why is that?
I don't understand.
Because in the charismaticPentecostal world there's

(54:15):
definitely this like, well, youneed to have a good reputation,
you know, it's all.
It's very image-based, which isvery individualistic, which is
honestly the devil, like it's ame, me, me, focus, not a we, we,
we focus.
And so in that pursuit I waslike man, I really want to look
into this.
How do we understand confessionas evangelicals?

(54:38):
Because if you have Catholiclisteners, they already have a
value for confession.
Or somebody who's more orthodox, they understand the value of
confession because there's a,this weight that gets brought
off of a, that gets broken offof a person, by just naming the
sin to a brother and or a sister, or to a priest or to a pastor,
and just bringing it before thelord.

(55:00):
I think a really good case studyin the bible is dav, when David
does what he does withBathsheba kills Uriah.
That is such a good case studybecause, as David starts to go
down this path of doing allthese terrible things from, you

(55:20):
know, sleeping with Bathsheba,finding out that she's pregnant,
and then he's like, oh, hey,uriah, you should sleep with her
to try to cover up his tracks.
Oh, I can't get him to do itbecause he's too loyal to me, to
God and his country, which is,honestly, that is a terrible,
terrible story, not just from astandpoint of, oh, david helps
murder Uriah, but David, beingking, basically steals.

(55:42):
It's one of the greatestinjustices of the bible, because
he is king and he goes into aman who basically has nothing
other than a wife in his homeand he goes to serve his country
.
This rich king who haseverything he needs, comes in
and steals the only thing uriahhas, and then you're, and then
he kills uriah and god knows,and what happens is Nathan comes

(56:06):
, the prophet, nathan comes inand convicts David.
But there's an important kindof thing there where it's like,
if God can't get David'sattention through conviction,
convicting his heart, throughgetting to his conscience and
saying, dude, this is wrong,shouldn't be doing this, this
isn't who you are, that I'vemade you King, what are you
doing?
You know that that was allhappening behind the scenes, in

(56:27):
David's heart because he has aconscience.
He knows that this isn't right.
If God can't get to you throughhimself, he'll get to you
through his people.
And that's where Nathan stepsin and operates.
One of the theologians I read.
He said God likes to operatevicariously through his people,

(56:48):
and when we confess to people,the person that we're confessing
to is vicariously partneringwith God to forgive your sins.
Um, it doesn't mean that theycarry the weight or the divinity
or ability you know necessarilyto say, oh yeah, you're washed
clean, that's only through theblood of Jesus.
But they are vicariouslypartnering with God and pointing

(57:09):
to the cross, saying, no,you're actually forgiven for
this.
And what we see in the accountof David is, as soon as David
has found out, he confesses hissin to Nathan and literally it
goes verse Nathan tells him.
And then in the next sentenceit's David was forgiven of all
of his sins that quickly.
And so I think in my experience,like we we often in the

(57:31):
evangelical circle we don't likeconfession, because we either
believe an individualistic ideaof the telos of our life, which
is the trajectory of well, thegood life, is everybody thinking
highly of me, the good life andthe best life that I can have
is people not knowing who I amreally underneath of it all.

(57:52):
But it's actually all a lie,because if if you know who I
really am and what's happeningunder the hood, then you know
all of who I am, which meansthat now you can love me for all
of who I am, not just thesurface version of what I'm
presenting to you and I thinkthat's the scary part of
confession is you have to bringyour darkest shadow side, the

(58:17):
evil in you, and bring it to thetable and offer it up.
We'll bring it back to the fireexample and throw it in the
fire so that it can burn.
But at the end of the day, theonly way you can throw it into
the fire of god's love or theheat of who he is, is it has to
get exposed in the process.
And the exposing is whateverybody wants to avoid.

(58:37):
Nobody wants to, nobody want toexperience that and but they?
The only reason that you don'twant to experience it is because
you don't know the healingpower of bringing it to a
brother or a sister.
And so at the clearing, likewhen I'm speaking this Sunday,
I'm speaking on confessionbecause I think it's important.

(58:58):
We're kind of a charismatic,non-denominational church, like
even us.
Talking about the practice orthe sacrament of confession is
not normal in our circle.
Like I've never heard anybodyin my, the stream that I call
the Christianity that I'm a partof, I've never heard anybody

(59:18):
talk about confession before,which is kind of crazy, because
confession is how we repent,it's literally step one to
repentance.
But I've literally never heardmost people I don't think I've
ever even heard a sermon taughton it until maybe the last like
six months.
So it's it's pretty bizarre.

Speaker 1 (59:35):
Yeah, well, I think there's this perpetuated idea
and I've heard people, even myfamily, say this and different
people like, um, I'm sure you'veheard this kind of thing, but
yeah, I'm a very spiritualperson, I have a relationship
with God and it's me and God andI pray by myself and blah, blah
, blah.
There's a lot of things you cando by yourself.
That's not wrong or bad.
Like I can go and I can.

(59:55):
I can, I can put on a YouTubevideo, start worshiping, I can
pray by myself, whatever, um,but you weren't in community by
yourself.
And one of the traps that youcan fall into is, if it's just
you and you, you at some point,if you stay in there long enough
this is an inevitability youwill create God in your image.

(01:00:16):
You will 100% create God inyour image.
You will 100% get the buffetline of what you can feel is
okay or not.
The reason why, when we havemultiple transcripts going on at
the same time of lettersthrough, like the church, you
could always compare and youokay, non-hearing emphasis, and
what's going on here in galatian, what's going here in corinth,

(01:00:38):
and so if you have a group ofpeople and one of the five does
something, totally just outthere.
It's like you have four otherpeople who have dude like what
are you, what are you doing?
And so we do have to questionourselves if we don't subject it
to other people.
In some sense we hiding, or whydon't we want to do that now?

(01:01:00):
Some people have experiencedtrauma.
Some people have experiencedlike tyrannical kind of
oppressive um parts spiritualabuse or even within their
family, like maybe their dad wasa bully and he was just like,
uh, bullying their, their momand and, and you know, bullying
the children.
And then they, they experiencedsomething in school or whatever
.
So I'm not invalidating that,that's a reality.

(01:01:21):
But when your trauma becomeslike the lens by which you're
going to view on how you need tooperate yourself, you are
you're like driving your car,always looking in the rearview
mirror, not looking at the roadthat you're going, and you're
you're trying to navigate whatto do in front of you by what's
in the rear view mirror.
And there is a utility to likepain and fear do kind of teach

(01:01:41):
us like of things to avoid, butwe move forward with courage and
not with naivety.
Obviously, well, that's nevergonna happen again, but you move
forward with courage to liketry, take an attempt.
Um at it again.
And that lewis said cs le Lewisand I wanted to kind of pull up
for you here.
He's talking about confessionin the terms of community.

(01:02:05):
He said a Christian communityin which we confess our sins to
one another and pray for oneanother is essential.
And he was sharing further onthat.
When we forgive, to be aChristian means to forgive
inexcusable, because God hasforgiven the inexcusable in you.

(01:02:26):
And so confession to anotherperson will create this cycle
that when we confess and we knowthat we're forgiven, we're
inspired to extend forgivenessto other people by spreading
grace there.
The other default to that is aneye for an eye and a tooth for
a tooth, which, as that oldrabbi said an eye for an eye and
a tooth for a tooth leaves theentire world blind, and we live

(01:02:50):
in a culture now that wants toeven retroactively, punish
people for things that they'vedone, in the sense of like
someone will post something onTwitter eight years ago or say
something eight years ago, andpeople want to dredge that up
and then define that person bythat thing.
So there is a valid concernabout confession of things like

(01:03:14):
that.

Speaker 2 (01:03:16):
Yeah, and people can use it against you in the future
.
That's, that's the heart.
That's the hardest part aboutit is, if you're confessing to
the wrong person, they will useit against you and that is
that's the hardest like.
I've had experiences withdifferent pastors that, like we,
we went through a seriousspiritual abuse situation, uh,

(01:03:38):
three to four years ago and Iremember, after walking through
it, going I'm so glad Iconfessed to this person and I
didn't confess to this personbecause this person would have
used any kind of way to say, ohI know, if you only knew the
things this person did or thethings this person thought of or
you know, I mean, like incertain people, can just they'll

(01:03:58):
take, can just they'll take itand they'll run with it.
And that's why there is such animportance of picking the
people that you know will loveyou through and through and
endlessly, really not justsomebody who's like a stand-in,
you know.

Speaker 1 (01:04:12):
And that I think that's the hardest part about
confession is navigating wellwho's safe and who's not safe,
because there's a real thatthere's people who are not safe
to confess to well again, likeand that kind of comes to the
self-awareness when you we talkabout like safe and who's the
right person, like there's atightrope walk of I need
somebody who loves to tell methe truth.
I need somebody who loves meenough not to try to control and

(01:04:33):
manipulate what I'm doing in mylife, and there's like really a
nice edge there and that's notcommon.
It's just not common.
But like, if it hurts badenough and you're in a place
where your life it's hurting badenough, the way to who you are

(01:04:54):
or who you need to be is throughthe person who you are and the
way the person who you need tobe is through truth.
And you have to.
You know that blind spot, kindof without um, an examinal
vision on how we think we needto fix things, but you have
somebody come in and give athird-party perspective and
assess the damage and you're intriage right now.
You think you're in third degreeburns, bro, you need to be.
This is what you actually needto be doing, versus the strategy
that would have bubbled up foryou of what you should be doing

(01:05:17):
or not doing.
Uh, in that sense and yeah,make somebody again, I can't
stress that enough that, um,they're not trying, they're not
trying to control you, they'renot trying to, you know, get
things twisted, because thatbecomes hard, because sometimes
that's somebody in our family,sometimes that's our pastor,
sometimes that's, um, some of aauthority or a position of like
close relationship that you haveto still coexist with that

(01:05:39):
person, but that's not going tobe your, your person yeah, this
yeah, uh, yeah so yeah, but theyeah.

Speaker 2 (01:05:47):
The beauty of it when it's done right, is all of that
guilt, all that shame, who youreally are underneath of it all
is all brought into the light.
And then, when it's broughtinto the light, it becomes light
itself.
You know it.
It brought into the light, itbecomes light itself.
You know it.
It really just.
It gets burned away in the heatof god's love and then also now
you can actually be free to bewho you really were meant to be.

(01:06:08):
But dallas ward in his bookrenovation of the heart
beautiful philosophical kind ofperspective of how do people
change what's going on in theinner workings of a person
Incredible book, highlyrecommend it.
But he says he says a lot oftimes people confess their sins
and we respond and we go well,that's just not who you are,
right, like I.

(01:06:28):
We both went to the sameministry school.
So it's like that was it.
It was like well, you confessyour sin If you said oh well, I
admit I really messed up thenatural responsibles, that's not
who you are, it's okay, that'snot who you are.
And the and he says he's likeno, it's actually the exact
opposite.
That is who you are, that's whoyou believe yourself to be true
, or that's there's something inthe inner workings of who you

(01:06:51):
are, or the genes or whatever,that is saying this is what we
believe to be true, or webelieve this to be the best
thing for us, and so the bestthing we can do is come to our
community and say this is who Iam, and I know it to be a
problem.
Help me to help me to navigateor to to know how to work

(01:07:13):
through this so that I don'tbecome this, because I don't
want this to be who I am.
And that's really difficultbecause there's the I grew up in
like this, the grace culture,where it's like you know, it's
you know hard, like a lot.
I love grace.
I'm not, I'm not opposed to it,but there there's there's kind
of a this like sector ofchristianity where it's like,

(01:07:34):
well, if you have to try to work, to do something or express any
kind of effort of like well,you know, try harder not to sin,
like obviously that doesn'twork, but this like well, effort
is wrong.
Um, and Dallas Willard in thatbook he said this this quote has
forever ruined me in the bestway.
Um, he said grace is notopposed to effort, grace is

(01:07:56):
opposed to earning to effort,grace is opposed to earning.
So we're not earningforgiveness in confession.
We're not earning uh rightstanding.
We're not earning anything fromgod, the catholics keep going
yeah, there we go.
Yeah, right, what what we'redoing is we're expressing, we're
now deciding to to put someeffort in right, and that's the
catholic version is you confessyour sin and then they give you

(01:08:18):
penance, right, and the penanceis go do this.
It's essentially, go put someeffort into the opposite of what
you've been doing so that youcan become this version.
I don't know that I necessarilyagree with it from the catholic
.
Well, no, I do know I don'tnecessarily agree how the
catholics do it, because if youdon't do the penance, then it
you're not considered forgiven,and there's some truth to that,

(01:08:39):
100% truth to that, but I thinkit can get taken too far.
But anyways, I think thatcoming to our community to say
this is who I've actually been,and then your community to say
you know what?
I don't think you should befollowing these people on
Instagram.
Or you know what?
I think you need to deletesocial media for a period of
time.

(01:09:04):
That requires effort, even if wedon't want to admit it.
Or I think you need to get astupid phone, not a smartphone.
You know where you.
You can't be on the internet.
Or I think you need to.
We'll hold you accountable tonot drinking anymore or to
whatever it is.
It requires effort, but inchristianity sometimes we can
turn it well.
Now you're trying to earn yoursalvation, you're trying to earn
righteousness or earn holiness.
It's like, no, it's not that atall.
It's I'm trying to put effortinto remaining in Christ and

(01:09:26):
being hidden in him and nothidden in sin over here.
You know that's.
You know that's.
I feel like what I'mdiscovering through this.

Speaker 1 (01:09:35):
Yeah, I think, like things can a lot of times people
want to deal in loots and thenthey kind of get things
misconstrued.
So I'd say, like when peoplesay, oh, that's not who you are,
that's not who you are, likeboth, uh, rich mullins he was a
worship leader back in the 1990sand was like, famously wrote
the 80s and 90s, famously writethe awesome god song, like
that's who wrote it.
But he once said you are notwhat believe you are.

(01:09:58):
What you believe is doing toyou, which Carl Jung said
basically the same thing.
He said that you know you'renot.
It's basically the same thing.
And so, look at you, know thiselement of confession.
Obviously there is an elementto your identity you need to
unburden, you need to take anaccount of.
This is actually who I am.
This is where I'm at.

(01:10:18):
I can't actually be the personwho I need to be in terms of
like.
My thoughts and my actions andmy words are not lining up with
who I am right now.
So I'm doing an audit of who Iam.
Does that make me farther awayfrom God in the sense of like
what I have access to, withrelationship to him?
From God's perspective, no, butfrom ourselves we can create
those kind of barriers wherewe're not going to engage an

(01:10:39):
interface, so it becomes aninterrupt, a disruptive thing
for intimate, oh true.
And so it's like yes, that'snot changing that.
I think like the phrase thatwe've both heard is like if
you're not good enough to earngrace, you can't be bad enough
to lose it, but will.
People will take that as a kindof uh, permission to ever, and
that's why paul says like shouldwe send so that grace will
abound?

(01:10:59):
And he's like hell no.
In the cotton patch bible, thebible version of why, we says
hell no.
So uh, all that being thisaccount, why?
Because they are.
We are called to relationship,but then we're also called to
purpose, and there is purposesthat god is calling us out to
different seasons and we're notmaking that singular like I'm
called to be a doctor.

(01:11:20):
There is purposes that God iscalling us out to different
seasons and we're not makingthat singular of like I'm called
to be a doctor.
There's just purposes indifferent seasons and you're not
going to be able to walk thatout through a misprioritization
of whatever you're givingyourself to.
And so it's about having thatunderstanding of like I
misprioritized here and I needto restructure and then I can
move forward.
Yes, and I know how tointegrate these things in an

(01:11:40):
honest way into my life, andthen how to to get rid of things
there.
And so I don't think like, andI'm going, I'm gonna guess to
you and then, why do you have a?
Like penance is like punishingyourself for past deeds, like,
but what?
if I'm if I'm I'm missing themark, it means I'm aiming at
something and hitting the wrongthing, or I'm aiming at the

(01:12:00):
wrong thing and hitting it, andso maybe that's towards God,
maybe that's towards myself,maybe that's towards other
people, but I need to correct.
So what's the point there?
The point is acknowledging nothitting the right thing.
I'm aiming at the wrong thing.
It's not okay, it's not good.
I don't want to do this anymore.
I want to be different.
You're acknowledging it.
I want to be different.

(01:12:20):
That's the starting point.
Then it's like, let's lay out aroadmap of, like, realistically
, how do I break this in my life?
And there could there might bea set of rituals that you have
to implement, like what you weresaying.
There might be some, somethings that you have to do to
set your up, to evencircumnavigate your own
willpower.
Like, if I'm gonna go up andrun in the morning, I have to
lay my shoes, my socks, theshorts, all theirs, that when my

(01:12:43):
feet hit the floor, it's allthere, because if I don't, I'm
gonna, I know myself, I'll findthe excuse of not to do it.

Speaker 2 (01:12:49):
Um, but yeah and you need to not eat a pizza, a large
pizza and two beers the nightbefore right, so so.

Speaker 1 (01:12:55):
So there's like some lead you to correct that thing.
That's there and that's thepurpose of like go and do the
Hail Marys, go and do the HolyVows.
It's getting your mind in a setof like there are little
rituals that I can do to getmyself set up.
I'm not Catholic, I don't likegribe to to.
You know the palpacy and someof those things, but I think
like if we miss the forest forthe trees on on sacraments and

(01:13:17):
why some of that stuff was wasleveraged, um, just by saying
like you throw the baby out withthe bath water, um, we, uh our
own kind of history and negateour own um measurably, uh,
change our life.

Speaker 2 (01:13:34):
Yeah, yeah, yep, yeah .
One of one of my favoriteprayers uh, I think it's from it
might be like the Episcopalliturgy prayers or something
like that.
I heard it and I wrote it downbecause I just loved it, but one
of it it's a prayer ofconfession, and the prayer of
confession it goes like thisit's basically I confess for the
things I have done and thethings I have left undone, and I

(01:13:56):
love that just dual, like it'snot just the things you have
done, it's also the things youfailed to do.
Um, and I think that's the like.
Sometimes we look at confessionlike it's gotta be these big,
dark, huge secrets, and maybeit's literally just I didn't do
the right thing when I needed tobecause I saw this person in

(01:14:16):
need and I I was greedy.
You know what I mean.
That's pure good confession.
I think that's the like it hasto be, this exchange of
reconciliation to each other,and that's why I love this whole
idea.
It's like when I confess to youas a brother in Christ, you get
to declare the reconciledreality that Jesus came and bore

(01:14:37):
my sin on the cross and thatI've been reconciled to God in
Christ and that his spirit livesin me and that there's a higher
degree of forgiveness andidentity that I'm not aware of.
But if I do that for you, as Ideclare the forgiveness of God
over you, what I'm actuallydoing is I'm forgiving the
forgiveness of God, I'mdeclaring the forgiveness of God

(01:14:57):
over myself and I'm remindingmyself of the salvation I've
experienced.
And so it's not even just asacrament that impacts just the
person confessing it.
It impacts the person who'sforgiving, who's declaring the
forgiveness of sins and theforgiveness of God over the
person.
Because in doing that, I get toparticipate in the

(01:15:20):
reconciliation of God and remindmyself oh my gosh, that was me
and I was forgiven of much andmy account was over-withdrawn
and the Lord deposited in meeverything I needed in Christ
Jesus and I've been made holy,I've been made righteous in
Jesus.
And so in me declaring to mybrother or sister no, you're

(01:15:42):
forgiven for that, and here'swhat you should do to move
forward from that, and here'ssome steps, the effort that you
might need to do.
But in doing that, I get toparticipate in the reminder of
oh my gosh, look at the gospel,look at all that God has done
for me.
And it's this beautiful backand forth between his people.

(01:16:03):
I think that's why Jesus saidhe's like, when you pray, pray
like this Lord, forgive me, as Iforgive those who have done
wrong to me.
And then, in the same sense,later.
He's like if you forgive,whatever you lose in heaven will
be loosed on earth.
If you forgive you, whateverforgiveness you you forgive,
it'll be a withheld or withhold,um.

(01:16:23):
But it's like, if you forgive,it's taken off of them, but if
you don't forgive, it's held onto them, um, and I don't.
I have not even gone into thedepths of that theology of just
like being able to walk throughthis, you know.
I mean, I do think there's areality of walking through the
earth and just like.
For me, this election cycle wasliterally just like Lord,
forgive them, for they don'tknow what they're doing.
Like Lord forgive them, likethis is crazy, what in the world

(01:16:47):
?
And just trying to forgive theother side of the aisle, in the
same sense that I probably needforgiveness on my side of the
aisle, because I'm thinking meversus them.
Yeah, and not just yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:16:58):
You know what I mean it's an absolute whether you
know on the political spectrumif you're like right or left,
anything in the extreme, journeyit and the susceptibility there
and both parties are.
Both sides are kind of aware ofthat.
But I was kind of laughing atyou, uh, because you said it
doesn't have to be this deep,dark thing.
I remember, like when I was inuniversity, there's this little,
little philip uh, he was puertorican kid, he was a wrestler,

(01:17:22):
um, and so always a jovial, likehappy guy, and I remember one
day he was like jose is his name, he's just really down and I
threw my arm around.
I'm like, man, like you'rereally down today.
What's going on?
He said to me.
He said, michael, to live isChrist and to die is gain.
I didn't live that today.
I didn't live that today.

(01:17:43):
I'm like I don't know what thatmeans.
Don't say it.
What?

Speaker 2 (01:17:46):
happened.

Speaker 1 (01:17:48):
He got some bump on himself there.
But to wrap up, that's actuallyone of the most terrifying
verses in the Bible that youaccount in the Lord's Prayer,
forgive me the way that Iforgive other people.
It's like the only place inscripture where you're actually
asking God to mimic yourbehavior, to mimic your ability
to do something Absolutelyterrifying, and it's like sheds

(01:18:10):
light on why it's so essentialin our culture.
And there's a you should gowatch.
But there's a guy named GaryRidgway.
He murdered like 40 women in thecourt trial.
He just faced the entire timeand on there so their relatives

(01:18:30):
and mothers of the women who hebrutally murdered, and they're
like you know, you know,understandably vehemently just
saying they were allowed to saywhatever they want.
And they're like I hate you, Ihope you die and go to hell.
I hope you burn in hell forever.
I hope, like you, live amiserable life in prison, just
person after person.
He just sat there like justkind of stone faced and this big
, big bellied, santa Clauslooking dude gets up with a he's
got a big white beard right,yeah, yeah rainbow suspenders.

(01:18:53):
And then he was like yes, oh mygosh a lot of people here hate
you, but I'm not one of them andyou've made it really to do
what I believe to do.
But Jesus tells me that I haveto forgive, so you're forgiven,
sir.
Yes, bro, when I watch that Istill cry like a little kid
every time when I watch that,because a parent to lose a child

(01:19:14):
is just so crushing I can'teven wrap my head around that is
just like so crushing to.
I can't even like wrap my headaround that.
But the just him, you know,owning it like this is like easy
.
For me, this is super hard, butthis is and most people you know
outside of like grace, likewe're not gonna understand how
to do that.
We just simply do not have thecapacity to do that.

(01:19:34):
What we uh like is like we likevengeance, we like we build
films around that, we buildnarratives around that.
What you want, they want theperson to get it in the end.
But in the end, like we'rethinking in the lines of
eternity and there is a judgmentand why.
Why people have really connectedto and that idea is even are

(01:19:54):
they may control people forgenerations, but at some point
you have to take an account ofwhat you do and and so, like
that's our, that's our role withforgiveness is we're not the
person who's going to execute uhvengeance, are going to on on
somebody really hard, because weneed to validate that justice
button inside of us.
We need to validate, uh, thatthat being taken advantage of

(01:20:16):
and we feel like we are weakeror or what transparently like I
I I don't know if that, untilI'm in these kind of situations,
I don't know how I would react.
I don't know, if somebody justharmed my kid, I don't know how
I would.
Uh, I mean, I'd probably justbeat the teeth out of their head
and then like forgive themlater.
It's kind of like the kid whosays I don't I for a bike, but

(01:20:39):
then I stole a bike and askedgod for forgiveness, even though
I know it's not, but yeah yeah,it's like, it's like the
classic republican, like I havealways had this, this idea.

Speaker 2 (01:20:49):
I'm like, uh, you know if what jesus?
Well, you shouldn't have gone,you shouldn't have guns, because
jesus said you know, if youlive by the sword, you'll die by
the sword.
And I'm like, okay, well, if I,if I live by my guns, I'll just
, I'm just prepared to die by agun I guess yeah, and and
there's, you know I mean, andthat it's that mindset of just
like, oh well, the loophole, um,even though it's exactly the
opposite.

(01:21:10):
Sure, you know, I mean of the Iown guns, but that's always been
my mind.
So I'm like, if you come intomy house and you attack my kids,
you're going to experience thewrath of Ethan and I might need
to ask for forgivenessafterwards and be prepared for
the consequences of my actions,but you're going to die if you
come after my kids and that's sohard.

(01:21:30):
But then you experience that'strue grace, right.
The other is just all justice,no love, no grace.
True justice is actuallyforgiveness of sins, is what the
Bible tells us and that's theonly part we get to share in
injustice from a theologicalperspective, is my understanding

(01:21:51):
.

Speaker 1 (01:21:52):
We're going to wrap up here in a second.
It's a good place to stop.
We'll pick this up and we'llpick it up on the on the lens of
this elite and like somepolitical conversations.
But there is a form of ungodlymercy that people have kind of
like to your point, like they'lltake a scripture, they'll deal
in an absolute, like oh, jesussaid you live by sword die.
So jesus also told people ifyou don't have a sword, sell
your cloak and carry a sword andluke.

(01:22:13):
So just pump the brakes likewe're.
We're all trying to deal inabsolutes here.
It's not like that.
So there is a form of ungodlymercy.
And if I was the mayor of a townand there's a serial killer in
the town, I have some optionEither put the guy in prison and
risk him breaking out and doingit.
I could ostracize him, risk himcoming back and missions of
moral authority, moresuperiority, I should say, and

(01:22:40):
then try to reverse engineerwhat people should do.
And he didn't tell the taxcollectors to stop being tax
collectors, he just said justdon't exploit people.
But it was still gross.
You're being oppressed by.
It was gross yeah.
You're being oppressed by aforce.
Oh, all, right, we'll wrap up.

Speaker 2 (01:23:02):
I wanted to meet him anyways, I just started
following him on Instagram, okay.

Speaker 1 (01:23:08):
I'll edit this part out, we'll chop this off the end
so we can't hear oh Okay, Istopped According.
We'll just talk then, and andwe're done.
I hope this conversation leftyou with something to think

(01:23:29):
about, whether that's a new idea, a fresh perspective, a little
inspiration to carry forwardwith you.
If you enjoyed the podcast, dome a favor, hit the like button,
leave a review on Spotify, onApple or wherever you consume
your podcasting habit and sharewith somebody who'd appreciate
it.
Your support helps us reachmore people, helps us keep this

(01:23:49):
conversation going, helps metrain the algorithm to get in
front of people who are mostlikely to listen.
So remember, the best journeysare shared, the best ideas are
wrestled with and the bestquestions rarely have simple
answers.
So until next time, may youfind joy in asking, the courage
in seeking and the grace ingrowing.
See you guys, then, bye.

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